Be an Altruistic Person

I shouted  my Facebook account last December 26, 2010 that “I felt alone.” After welcoming the long awaited season of joy and peace, after my whole family celebrated together at the table with Noche Buena. Here I was, left in the midst of the desert. I was feeling lonely despite in the midst of the crowd. It seems that no one can hear me shouting. While serving the Masses in ourParish, I was able to ask myself: “Was the heart of Christ lonely?” The four Gospels gave us common pictures of Jesus that He always slipped off by himself into the hills to pray. There He could hear the sounds of life coming up from the small towns and villages, so like His own Nazareth. Did the sounds make Him lonely?    There are few sounds in our human experience more evocative, more mood-creating that the sounds of loneliness. According to Joan Kavanaugh, a doctor of ministry and director of the Riverside Church pastoral counseling center, she gives us the common descriptions and effects of loneliness. It is a sleepless night that never ends, spent in front of the telephone that never rings, waiting for a Sun that never comes up. It can leave us drained, defeated, weary, and depressed.

Moreover, loneliness is a cry. Loneliness is the testing ground for the spirit. Loneliness is a desert that has to be crossed. It has its risks and terrors, but it also provides us with an open horizon in which we can discover the shape and direction of our personal pilgrimage. Out of loneliness can come growth and depressed sensitivity to life.

Despite that the world may have become a global village because of the Internet and mobile phones, but many still deals with loneliness and emotional distress that may worsen of someone’s life. The research, suggests that chronic loneliness belong among health risk factors such as smoking, obesity or lack of exercise.

Now, once we understand this, once we understand what causes of loneliness, we can take steps to find our way out.  Loneliness, above all, reveals the transcendent mystery at the heart of our lives, an infinite longing for a final reunion.  As St. Augustine found out, “My heart is restless ‘till it rest in Him.” Loneliness teach us that this kind of restlessness, this insatiable emptiness, this infinite need that no human love can satisfy, can only be filled by an infinite, loving God.

After meditation on loneliness before the Blessed Sacrament, I would like to share with you this learning that God allows us to go through loneliness because it teaches us how much we need Him. So, when the time you feel alone. You should be grateful because loneliness are an opportunity for us to go deeper into ourselves through prayer. It may draw us closer to God.