We all have our own weakness and difficulties. One of mine is loneliness.
My past days, or probably these days as well, were the battlefields where I have been fighting against my own loneliness. I can tell it was really really difficult and painful.
As I have begun my spiritual journey, I found that my weakness and difficulties somehow help me to build my own version of the translation of the Gospel. I am not talking about making a new heresy. I am talking about my own discovery of Gospel living inside of me.
So when I read Gospel I tend to focus on the emotion of the people in the bible, especially on loneliness. During meditating today's Gospel, I have imagined how lonely life John the Baptist had lived. Certainly, he has many students and followers. But I could see how lonely he was. I guess me and, I dare say, you sisters as well, have felt loneliness in the community life.
We all know that this kind of ontologistic loneliness will be never gone away until we meet God in Heaven. When it comes to Jesus, I can say, It is crystal clear that he had lived a lonely life, too. None of his disciples who he had spent his last years with on earth did not understand him.
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At the time we feel loneliness, what makes the striation worse is that it seems there is no other option to me. That means I have to keep going this lonely way without any hope of any changes.
I see this from the life of Jesus and John the baptist.
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Jesus had lived as the prophecy of the Old testament. He had to, whether he wanted or not. We can see his agony when he prayed at the Gethsemane. It was the most lonely moment of his life, I think. John the Baptist also had to live as the prophecy of the Angel, and Old testament too. The last two sentences of The Old Testament which is Malarky is the prophecy about him.
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"Lo, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, Before the day of the LORD comes, the great and terrible day, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the land with doom."(Mal 3,23~24)
Even His name, John, is decided by God, which means "the grace of God". Have you imagine what kind of life it would be If your name is "the grace of God". You can never drink as you want at the pub. If so, people might shout at you " Hey, "the grace of God" stop drinking and shut your mouth up! To a person like me, It would be a nightmare every day.⠀
In my past days, my loneliness was just painful to me.
But something has been changed in me during my journey as s religious. I don't see clearly what it is yet, but something surely had been changed. I feel it.
Now when I suffer from my loneliness, I can see that it helps me to have more understanding of the life of Jesus and John the Baptist and gives me more courage and will to follow the lonely life of John the Baptist and Jesus, despite "my-still-sometime-horrible-loneliness."
With their weakness and difficulties, Jesus and John the Baptist showed their stories, a wonderful story, the story of love.
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At the end of my meditation, on his way to heaven from the cross, I saw Jesus turn back to me and said, 'I have shown you my story and going back to the Father. Son, it is your turn now.’
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I don’t know how I can be sure, but now I believe that, with my loneliness and difficulties, I can do something as well. Following Jesus and John the Baptist, I can make a wonderful story, the story of love!
- Homily at the mass for the sisters in Xavier international Highschool.