Loneliness presents to us a crisis. In Chinese the word crisis is formed out of two characters: one signifies danger, and the other opportunity. In loneliness a choice is presented to us: either to be crushed by it or else to flourish in our pain.

Loneliness can be a powerful motivator towards greater commitment and creativity. We realise that outside of us there is a world out there ready to benefit from our contribution. Loneliness can spur us to put pen to paper and express our feelings into the nicest piece of poetry or the most intriguing story.

In loneliness we initiate a process of opening ourselves up to be in the other person’s shoes. In this arid and uncomfortable place, we hear and learn about other people’s cries and needs. The pains of the world become our own.

Loneliness is the price that is paid for a self-sacrificial love. In the New Testament’s perspective, love is synonymous with struggle, sacrifice, bleeding and crying. Genuine love is hard to achieve and nurture. Loneliness is a privileged place where we experience an exodus from ourselves to others. In our loneliness, the harsher the thirst we have for love, the stronger we are invited for communication and communion.

Loneliness is God’s own way of reminding us why he created us, namely to be intimately connected with him and other people. Community is what our loneliness cries for. The more we experience God’s love for us as connected individuals, the more we long to find it in God and in each other. By God’s grace we shall be able to see that God is the “fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1, 23).

Loneliness helps us understand that in this world we are pilgrims and strangers.

The restlessness and discontentment that accompany us in our lives reveal to us that our complete joy is not in this world of space and time. Furthermore, this awareness of being on an insecure constant earthly pilgrimage brings pain and liberation into our hearts. We start taking a healthy yet connecting distance from others and in that way we start really loving them.

Loneliness deeply anchors us into the reality of life by making us companions with the lonely Jesus. Like and with him we feel sadness, weep, sweat tears of blood, struggle against the powers of evil and cry out in distress at a silent God.

When we feel lonely let us recall with great hope what Dag Hammarskjold said: “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for”. May our loneliness help us to hope against hope.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap

San Gwann