The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God.” Lk. 5:1
Listening.
A New York Times column invites us to play a game:
“The next time you’re sitting among a group of friends or out on a date, measure how much time passes before someone grabs their phone to look at it. How long can you last?”
As an addiction specialist, I was intrigued by the author’s contention that:
“No matter who you are it can be near impossible to pry anyone away now from their mobile playthings.” Looking incessantly at our mobile devices, the author insists, has become a “social and physiological addiction.”
But more than the health issues this addiction can cause, there is the further problem of our “communication skills and manners” being seriously affected as well. It’s even being described by some experts as “antisocial.”
Added to this, according to the National Safety Council, is the danger created by this addiction: cellphone use makes driver more accident prone than drunk driving, causing 1.6 million crashes annually, mostly involving young people ages 18 to 20. One out of four accidents in the United States is caused by texting.
What kind of remedy would help correct this problem?
I suggest the one today’s Gospel offers:
“… listening to the word of God.”
This is precisely what Jesus did.
He consistently encouraged his disciples to become people who “listen to the word of God,” by going “off to a deserted place” to pray. This advice of prayerfully listening made a lasting impression on Jesus’ disciples.
After all, this was a totally different way of praying than the ordinary Jew of Jesus’ time was accustomed to, since their prayer life tended to be more public, more segmented.
That is why, in another Gospel passage, the disciples came to Jesus after one of his nights spent in continual prayer and said: “Lord, teach us to pray.”
They evidently saw the value of this kind of prayer reflected in what they saw happen in Jesus’ life: his ability to be involved in intense daily activity; his ability to heal the sick and relentlessly preach the Good News of God’s love for all; his ability to deal with the constant pressure of so many people seeking to touch him, plead with him, hear him.
What Jesus’ prayer life made clear is that he needed to be alone and in frequent, regular contact with his/our Father.
Without that supremely important contact, Jesus’ fear was that he wouldn’t be able to resist having all the attention he was getting go to his head. He didn’t want to be sidetracked.
Instead, Jesus always wanted to do only one thing: the will of Abba his, and our, Father. To do that, Jesus knew that he needed constant contact with God through silence and solitude.
We need the same.
And with the multitude of distractions multiplied by our social media devices, this need has never been more obvious.
Fr. Jose Pagola, a Spanish scripture scholar, reminds us that “one of the most positive features of contemporary Christianity is the awakening of the need to foster communion with God through silence and meditation. The most enlightened and responsible Christians want to lead the church today toward a more contemplative way of living.”
What is crystal clear is that we all need more time to be alone – alone to allow our inner spirit to be refreshed and reinvigorated. We need to be in a place of silence – away from all the constant busyness and unrelenting distractions that have become a hallmark of our lifestyle.
We need to enter into a retreat atmosphere on a regular basis so we can find the spiritual strength to do the healing and the helping that reflects a lifestyle dedicated to making Jesus’ Gospel message central to our life.
Jesus offers each of us an option in today’s Gospel: prayer; quiet prayer; solitary prayer; refreshing prayer. The kind that helps us truly listen amid so much noise in our lives.
“Rising very early before dawn, Jesus left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
