…accept the poverty of the forty days (by Jesus) spent in the wilderness. Let us try to approach them in a spirit of humility, not so as to enrich our feelings or increase our store of images, but to accept the truth of the word of God as it is revealed by the Holy Spirit.

We are told almost nothing of what happened during Jesus’ long retreat, as he was led by the spirit of God. Yet, at the same time, we are told by that same spirit: draw from this source the living water which you need to become faithful dwellers in the desert. We must not allow ourselves to be frightened by the spiritual desert which the Holy Spirit thus calls us, for a desert is indeed what it is. Going into the desert is not simply a matter of giving up frequent human contact; it also means adopting an attitude in which the inner dialog is less and less concerned with new and attractive ideas but rather tends to concentrate on one person. Our abiding in the desert is justified for only one reason: we are there for Jesus.

Many of us realize that we have a natural attraction for solitude and aptitudes for a life with little human contact, drawn as we try by silence and a certain restfulness of our entire being. These natural attributes are very real; we need not disown them, and, in certain cases, there might even be the possibility of developing them in such a way that a sufficiently stable and harmonious solitary life could be built on them alone. But such a balance would know nothing of Jesus and would give rise to the suspicion that these words of our Lord might apply: ‘He who is not with me is against me’. (Matthew 12:30)  –‘The Wound of Love’ A. Carthusian