Catholic Commentary
Jesus Dismisses the Crowds and Prays Alone
22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.23After he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into the mountain by himself to pray. When evening had come, he was there alone.
Matthew 14:22–23 describes Jesus compelling his disciples into a boat to separate them from a crowd intoxicated by messianic fervor and determined to make him king by force, while he withdraws to a mountain to pray alone through the night. The passage reveals the structure of Christ's ministry: action flows from contemplation, and his power emerges from prayer in communion with the Father.
Jesus fed five thousand people, then sent everyone home and prayed alone all night—because power without prayer is just performance.
Matthew 14:22 — "Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat"
The adverb "immediately" (Greek: eutheos) is characteristic of urgent, purposeful action in the Gospels and signals that this withdrawal is no afterthought — it is as deliberate as the miracle that preceded it. Jesus compels (Greek: ēnagkasen, "constrained" or "forced") his disciples to depart. The force of the verb is striking: the disciples do not go willingly on their own initiative, and John's parallel account (John 6:15) tells us why. The crowd, electrified by the feeding miracle, intended to seize Jesus and make him king by force. The disciples, saturated in Jewish messianic expectation, may have been susceptible to this popular enthusiasm. Jesus must protect them from a misunderstanding of his mission — a royal triumph achieved by political and popular acclaim rather than by the Cross. He sends them ahead to "the other side," toward Bethsaida (cf. Mark 6:45), separating them from the volatile crowd before it can draw them in.
"While he sent the multitudes away"
This act of dismissal is a pastoral one. Jesus does not abandon the crowd harshly; he apolyō — releases, dismisses — them in an orderly way. The Good Shepherd who fed them now returns them safely to their homes before dark. In the sequence of events, this reflects Christ's authority over every situation: he alone decides when the gathering ends, when the disciples depart, and when he himself withdraws.
Matthew 14:23 — "He went up into the mountain by himself to pray"
The mountain in Matthew's Gospel is never incidental. It is the place of revelation (the Sermon on the Mount, 5:1), of temptation (4:8), of transfiguration (17:1), and here, of prayer. The ascent recalls Moses going up Sinai to commune with God (Exodus 24:18), but with a critical difference: Moses ascended to receive the word of God from without; Jesus ascends to commune with the Father in a relationship of eternal, interior union. He is not receiving instruction — he is resting in the love that is proper to the Son.
Matthew specifies that Jesus prays alone (kata monon) — a detail of immense importance. Though Jesus is the eternal Word through whom all things were made (John 1:3), and though his human will is perfectly united to the divine will, he nevertheless prays — and prays alone, in the silence of the mountain. This is not performance. It is not instruction for the crowds. It is communion. The Son speaks to the Father in the privacy of that relationship which is the innermost life of the Trinity.
"When evening had come, he was there alone"
The note about evening deepens the scene. The disciples are on the water in darkness; the crowds have scattered to their villages; and Jesus remains alone on the mountain through the night. When he descends to his disciples, it is in the "fourth watch of the night" (v. 25) — between 3 and 6 a.m. — meaning he spent the better part of the night in prayer. This vigil on the mountain, preceding the miracle of walking on water, reveals the structure of Christ's messianic activity: action flows from contemplation; power flows from prayer.
Typological and Spiritual Senses
In the allegorical sense, the boat carrying the disciples through the dark, stormy sea without Jesus is a classical image of the Church navigating history — battered by waves, seemingly abandoned, until the Lord comes to her across the waters. The Church Fathers (Origen, Hilary of Poitiers, Augustine) consistently read the boat as navis Ecclesiae, the ship of the Church. The temporary absence of Christ is not abandonment but the condition that teaches the disciples — and the Church — to cry out in faith.
In the moral (tropological) sense, Jesus models the rhythm that every Christian life requires: active ministry followed by contemplative withdrawal. He does not allow even the greatest success (the feeding of thousands) to displace the priority of prayer.
Catholic tradition reads these two verses as a luminous disclosure of both the nature of Christ and the nature of Christian prayer.
On the Prayer of Christ: The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus "learned to pray in his human heart" (CCC 2599) and that his prayer — uniquely filial, arising from his human nature perfectly united to his divine Person — is the source and model of all Christian prayer. CCC 2602 notes specifically that Luke and Matthew record Jesus withdrawing to pray alone before or after decisive moments of his mission, and that "these pray-ers of solitude and silence... are a contemplative prayer." The mountain vigil of Matthew 14:23 is explicitly cited as one of these privileged moments.
On the Two Natures: The Church Fathers saw in Christ's solitary prayer a safeguard against both Arianism and Nestorianism. St. Hilary of Poitiers (De Trinitate, X.23) insisted that when Jesus prays, he does so according to his human nature, not out of any need or subordination in his divine nature — refuting Arian readings that used Christ's prayers as evidence that the Son was less than the Father. The Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.), defining Christ as one Person in two natures, is the doctrinal key: the one who prays on the mountain is truly God and truly man.
On Solitary Prayer as Norm: St. John Chrysostom (Homily on Matthew, 50) draws a direct practical lesson: "When you pray, seek a place apart and secluded — Jesus teaches this not because God is not everywhere, but because the soul needs to be collected." Pope Benedict XVI in Jesus of Nazareth (Vol. I, ch. 5) meditates at length on Jesus's nights in prayer as the "hidden ground" of his public ministry, arguing that only by entering into Jesus's prayer can we understand who he is.
On the Mountain as Sacred Space: St. John Paul II's Novo Millennio Ineunte (§33) calls all Catholics to "a high standard of ordinary Christian living" expressed precisely in contemplation — in learning to "stay with" Jesus as he stays alone with the Father.
Contemporary Catholic life is relentlessly horizontal — defined by activity, community, service, and noise. Matthew 14:22–23 delivers a counter-cultural correction directly from the Lord himself. Jesus has just fed thousands of people; by any modern metric, it is a moment to capitalize on — to build momentum, organize a following, schedule the next event. Instead, he sends everyone away, including his closest friends, and spends the night alone in prayer. The passage challenges Catholics to ask honestly: Do I protect time for solitary prayer, or does busyness — even holy busyness — fill every space?
Practically, Jesus's example suggests several things. First, significant transitions deserve prayer: he prays between two miracles, not instead of them. Second, solitude is not selfishness; it is the precondition of effective service. Third, "evening" and "night" — times most Catholics give to screens or sleep — are the hours Jesus chose. Consider whether a weekly holy hour, an evening examination of conscience, or even ten minutes of silent prayer before dawn might restore the contemplative root that Matthew 14:23 says Christ himself could not do without.
Commentary