Song of Songs where Jesus, the Bridegroom, offers a biblical warrant for this practice
of solitude or removing one’s self from the busyness of daily life. In a fascinating
comment on Ambrose’s teaching on meditation he stresses that the minister’s time is
not his own and he needs to use it for the benefit of his people. He continues by
saying, “I hear them (i.e. the congregation) crying after me, To your closet, and there
pray for us that we perish not; study for us, that we may learn of you how to walk in
his paths: for if we perish, and you will not give warning, then must our blood be
required at your hands.”^61 That awareness and responsibility is a strong motivation
for a minister to take annual retreats. But to comprehend the full reason for
Ambrose’s understanding regarding his annual retreats one additional insight needs to
be grasped.
Ambrose was not naïve and recognized that inherent within his practice of an
annual retreat was also the danger of greater temptation. He cites Jesus’ wilderness
experience facing the devil’s temptation and continues by saying wilderness places
are no freer from temptations, than they that are more publike; Satan hath his
temptations of another sort, and especially his most hideous and horrible
injections in such places more then publike. And this more resolves me than
all the arguments that ever I read, of the errour of those Eremites and Votaries
of old, who, to free themselves from Satans malice, and for more holiness,
voluntarily forsook the societies of men, and lived by themselves in woods,
and wildernesses; And yet is there no mean betwixt these two extremes? is not society good? and is not solitariness good in their times and season? I
dare not for a world deny either, and I think he is no Christian that makes not
use of both.^62
Those are strong words. Ambrose realizes the tension between being submerged in
the busyness of daily activities as well as the freedom of solitude for prolonged
meditation and prayer. While this tension exists he leaves no doubt that solitude
61
62 Ambrose, Ambrose, MediaWar with Devils (1657), 220, cf. 218 on the importance of solitary places., 171-2.