Being truly human, Jesus was worn out after a day of preaching and healing, so he needed to refresh himself with time alone with the Father.

Wednesday, 1/15/13

In today’s Gospel Mark piled up more evidence to convince us that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Like, Mark wrote of how Our Lord’s mere touch cured Simon’s mother-in-law. He went on to describe how Jesus cured all who came to him, driving  out devils who recognized him as God’s holy one.

In those ways he demonstrated that he was truly the special Son of God. But following on that, he went on to demonstrate that he was also truly human. He had depleted his spiritual strength. That left him with the need to refresh himself by spending the early hours in earnest prayer with the Father.

We too face similar depletions of spiritual strength. We too would benefit greatly from it if we have permanently scheduled ten to twenty minutes mornings and evenings for being alone with the Father.

Mark had been able to bring us along into the synagogue and into Simon’s house, but he could not bring us into the secret prayer Jesus spent with the Father. We must have awful respect for Our Lord’s privacy.