At the beginning of today’s Gospel, St Matthew tells us that Jesus went up into the hills by himself to pray. He had just finished a very long day teaching the crowds, healing the sick, and performing the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves. At the beginning of that day, he had received the news about John the Baptist’s death. At the time, he had wanted to go off alone to reflect, pray, and mourn the loss of that great prophet, who was also Christ’s cousin. But the crowds wouldn’t let him. But now we see that although he delayed his time of prayer out of compassion for the crowds, he didn’t skip it altogether, even though he Now as the sun sets, he climbs up the mountain to pray. And he doesn’t appear again until about 3 o’clock in the morning – six hours later. We know from other Gospel passages that Jesus frequently went off alone to pray. Isn’t that kind of strange? Jesus was God, true God from true God, as we profess in the Creed. So why would he have to dedicate large chunks of time to pray? Because he was also true man, the Word made flesh, born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus had two natures, divine and human. And because he was human, he needed pray. Human nature is not meant to go alone. As the Catechism tells us, “Man was created to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness.” And no one can have communion with God without a life of prayer. Today Jesus is teaching us to keep first things first; if he who is the Son of God needed time alone in prayer, only an arrogant fool would claim not to need some.