Are you lonely?

Are you lonely?

We had meeting yesterday as a community of Scholastics to answer reflective questions as regards the situation we are in, that is the Pandemic. This is to process the feelings of everyone in the community and to be given the chance to be heard. One Seminarian expressed the feeling of fear, another of sadness, and another of anxiety and a feeling of insecurity.

True enough, this is the feeling of every human being in planet earth today. Because of the deprivation of freedom to roam around, the prevention to see people significant to us, and of the painful transition from the normal life we all had into the lockdown itself, we have all felt loneliness and anxiety on top of one over the other. Loneliness had haunted us because suddenly we have many needs, and suddenly we have many unaddressed longings. Among many other things, I believe this Pandemic has revealed many characteristics of people unknown previously to them as everything in our way of life as we know it is reduced to the essentials.

This Pandemic has provided us time and may be space to confront our innermost needs, physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs and many more. It has shut us to the corners of our houses and is stirring in us an enormous unrest and inner disturbance.

People in the US prefer to die of Corona Virus than being exiled in their homes. They are out the streets despite the rising number of deaths and new cases each day to fight for freedom on the levels of their first Amendment Rights, and on the level of Democratic identity of their nation.

I don’t personally see brave hearts in them. Instead all I see is loneliness everywhere. These people who fighting for freedom and entertainment are people who are lonely. Boredom is a face of this deep-seated loneliness. In the spiritual parlance, people who do are not at home with silence are people who are not willing to listen to the promptings of the Spirit and to the stirrings of our hearts.

Loneliness is real and it comes as a result of one particularly deep need we all have. This need must be known to others because along with this need is the need to be known and understood.  We need people who will listen to us, care, understand and love us at our deepest core. Loneliness invites us towards inward for it is the cry of our conscience.

Our Gospel for today reechoes the reality of being given with assurances and belongingness. God has given us assurance in Christ as the promise of eternal happiness and the Spirit as the agent and giver of joy and peace. This eternal happiness is accessed not only in the afterlife but in a deep relationship with the Lord in midst of sadness in this world. This happiness is accessed when we believe and accept his testimony of the truthfulness of God. The Good News does not intend to make us lonely but to make us glad and happy.

The Gospel reechoes also the the sense of belongingness. Christ belongs to the Father and so are we. Our experience of being home-quarantined; of being exiled to our homes, being unable to see and embrace friends and loved ones, being unable to go to places we want did not only reduce everything to the essentials but it all tells us that this life is not our home, and we are not of this world. St. Augustine puts it very romantically beautiful: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

---

First Reading

First Reading: Acts 5:27-33

We are witnesses of these words, as is the Holy Spirit. When the court officers had brought the Apostles in           and made them stand before the Sanhedrin,           the high priest questioned them,           “We gave you strict orders did we not,           to stop teaching in that name. Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching           and want to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,           “We must obey God rather than men.  The God of our ancestors raised Jesus,           though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior           to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins. We are witnesses of these things,           as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” When they heard this,           they became infuriated and wanted to put them to death.

Responsorial Psalm

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 34:2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20 R./ The Lord hears the cry of the poor.   or: Alleluia. I will bless the Lord at all times;           his praise shall be ever in my mouth. Taste and see how good the Lord is;           blessed the man who takes refuge in him. R./ The Lord hears the cry of the poor.   or: Alleluia. The Lord confronts the evildoers,           to destroy remembrance of them from the earth. When the just cry out, the Lord hears them,           and from all their distress he rescues them. R./ The Lord hears the cry of the poor.   or: Alleluia. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;           and those who are crushed in spirit he saves. Many are the troubles of the just man,           but out of them all the Lord delivers him. R./ The Lord hears the cry of the poor.   or: Alleluia. 

Holy Gospel

Gospel Reading: John   3:31-36 The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things. But the one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard,           but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever does accept his testimony certifies that God is trustworthy. For the one whom God sent speaks the words of God. He does not ration his gift of the Spirit. The Father loves the Son and has given everything over to him. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life,           but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,           but the wrath of God remains upon him.