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In The Mystery of Christ, Thomas Keating enters imaginatively into today’s Gospel. He envisions Peter urging Jesus to stay in his hometown, to set up some kind of Healing Center where they could help people and make money at the same time. But Jesus had been praying in the silence of “a deserted place.” Not ensnared by drives and desires; Jesus follows his calling, a calling not to personal advancement, but to service to the human family.
Martin Laird points out, “The attraction to solitude and movement into solitude is the outstanding feature of Jesus’ own prayer life. In the Gospels, Jesus is routinely going off to some deserted place in order to commune with the Father…In the Christian tradition, the authentic attraction to solitude is understood as a call, a way of responding to the attraction to God.” In silence, when we detach from the incessant noise in our minds, we can hear with what the Benedictine tradition calls “the ears of our heart.” We become receptive to the presence and action of God’s Spirit within us. This is the path to transformation.
In his imagination, Keating returns to the ending of today’s Gospel. Jesus does not remain in solitude, rather he invites Peter to go with him to other towns, to leave the security of Peter’s hometown and any lucrative plans in order to preach about the reign of God. We too are invited to journey with Jesus. It is a journey that will require time in solitude and time in service to others. The personal transformation that takes place in the silence leads to a commitment to the transformation of the whole human family. The path we walk with Christ leads into our own hearts, into God’s heart and into the heart of all creation. “Let us go…”