Lent JourneySample

DAY 23
Loneliness in solitude

I cannot merely romanticise silence. To withdraw and isolate myself is not all good. There certainly are ways of being silent that help me when I retreat to relax or when I take a peaceful walk in nature in order to appreciate its beauty.

However, silence when I retreat is different. It requires spiritual discipline and at times it can be very difficult to achieve this silence.

The challenge to withdraw in this way is huge. Intense feelings of loneliness are brought about in me by this silence − to be cut off from people. At times I even feel separated from God. Something of what Jesus called out on the cross resonates with me – a Godforsaken place.

I see how Jesus prepares Peter for this when He invites Peter to follow Him. Peter would be taken to places where he did not necessarily want to go. In a way Jesus’ words, in those moments, were an indication of the death that Peter would die later (John 21:18, 19).

But loneliness means more than just a physical death. There is a loneliness in the silence of retreat where my self-centeredness, illusions, fantasies, arrogance and myths that I live with, are exposed and I am invited to lay these down, to die in myself.

God found me and in Christ I found God, but like Peter I sometimes am in that undesirable place. Like Jesus now, here on the cross, I too sometimes experience that intense loneliness – the times that I withdraw, retreat into silence.

EXERCISE
• During your prayer become aware how you experience being silent.
• What are you confronted with in the silence?
• What is God’s invitation to you in this silence?
• Sit with Him in silence for a few minutes, and then talk to Him about your experience in the silence.