Is it true that human beings, today, are lonelier than in the past? Igino Giordani (1994-1980), now on the road to beatification and sanctity, was a prodigious Italian Catholic author / writer, a man I was privileged to meet on more than one occasion and whose thought and culture, for me, was and still is fascinating: he still reminds me so very much of my father, Henry Cotton, though Igino was a man of far wider experience and culture than my Dad. The similarities arise from his simple, yet profound, love of God and neighbour, together with his fatherliness!

In his diary for the 23rd January 1948, when he was then an MP in the Italian parliament, Igino wrote:

“The loneliness of fear is not that of the hermit, but that of the people of the streets and of the (political) assembly ….when you are misrepresented, misunderstood and oppressed, as though you are not really fit to live in the space you occupy”.

This phrase “loneliness of fear” gives a ‘bump-start’ to a train of thought … .. when we simply do not communicate with our fellow ‘men’ – when we are so preoccupied with our own affairs – when through our lack of neighbourliness we often ignore others and don’t even see them, then at times, seeds of the “loneliness of fear” can spread in oneself and on to others.  This feeling can be all the more pronounced in times of trouble, when our isolation takes over – when, say, the computer breaks down – what a disaster, in itself – when we are alone in our motor car and a break-down occurs – and real fear creeps in … … I could go on, but you will know what I mean.

People say that the ‘quality’ of neighbourliness is growing less: Lancashire folk were well known for their neighbourliness and friendliness, (nothing to do with being a ‘nosy parker’) yet today in Lancashire there are people who do not know, nor particularly want to know, their neighbours. To be fair, there are others who enjoy neighbourliness; they are themselves – and have – great neighbours … .. often amongst the older folk, mark you! But, social structures are constantly changing, and evidence from our worries, i.e. some events such as the break up of families, family tragedies – even concerning the children, the difficulties of staff at school faced with the bad behaviour of pupils, today’s much publicised anti-social behaviour – and probably, many other things that readers may be able to add – all suggest family life and social structures are fragile. Let’s face it – the Church is fragile; human beings – like us – are fragile!

‘Hope’, for me, is the same as that provided by Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter, known best by the first three words of its Latin title: “Novo Millennio Ineunte – At the beginning of the New Millennium”. The whole letter is well worth reading, but let us pause on Section IV, “Witnesses to Love”. Pope John Paul II put all his thoughts into the context of the ‘amazing experience’ of the Jubilee Year, the year, 2000, manifest in Rome, as he considered renewal of the Church. One of the best experiences were the days in Rome covering ‘World Youth Day’ with 3 to 4 million young people in the city, and no riots, no bad behaviour, but rather joy, hope, singing and happiness, as young people from all over the world, flocked together. His words are inspired by the Gospels and he points out that pastoral planning –  for any kind of renewal – must be inspired by the New Commandment.

Now this corresponds exactly with experience – my experience. At a meeting in Middleton, Manchester in 1972, 500 or so quite ordinary people demonstrated something quite extraordinary – and all because their focus was the living of the New Commandment – a life-changing experience for me. Above all, I saw that to live the New Commandment was not a dream, but a possibility: it is a fact that many people desperately wish to live their lives focussing on this Word of the Gospel always, and ever since then, I have counted myself one of them. And the occasion? That was my first ‘Mariapolis’.

The words of the Pope fell on “rich soil” when I read them. He, himself, did not pluck the ideas out of thin air: they come from his experience. He quotes St. Therese of Lisieux, proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, because she was an expert in “the knowledge of love”:

“I understood that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was aflame with Love. I understood that Love alone stirred the members of the Church to act…I understood that Love encompassed all vocations, that Love was everything” (St. Therese).

Section 43, of Novo Millennio Ineunte, is headed: ‘A Spirituality of Communion’. The Pope begins:

“To make the Church the home and the school of communion: that is the great challenge facing us in the millennium which is beginning”.

He goes on to write about the practical meaning of this. He says it must be promoted by teaching people about it. But note the word “home“. Do we not all long to feel at home with ourselves and others? Herein lies a clue to our understanding and to our learning.

I, too, have spent time specifically learning about this; in fact for two months – December 1982 to January 1983 – I had permission to attend a ‘school’ for men in religious life, to learn about communion or unity. In total, we were a group of about 12 men at ‘Castelgandolfo’, situated in the Alban Hills, just outside Rome, with a ‘Cappuchin’ as our ‘centre of communion’, and with Spaniards, Columbians, Ugandans, French, Italian, and English among the group. It came as a ‘cultural shock’ to live closely with people of other countries, but with a ‘built-in’ greater shock to discover that one of the Spaniards resented all British people, because of our occupation of Gibraltar! The dispute concerning Gibraltar had never crossed my mind as being of any great importance! In the end, we became the best of friends, after he told me he had never ‘loved’ an Englishman more than me because, having offered, he did in fact, darn a big hole in one of my socks. After that we laughed a lot! At the end of the two months or so, I asked my Ugandan companion what he thought of the Cappuchin, Fr. Bonaventura, who was so wise, so good at gathering us all together, so good at affirming each one personally and so understanding. He replied, “Fr. Bonaventura is not just a father to me, he is also a kind of mother”, and I could not help but agree. The learning process for me goes on with the living experience of life, right up to today!

The fact is that we have all been brought up – in the Church, and in society – not to be men and women of ‘communion’ but rather ‘fulfilled individuals’ who achieve fulfilment by promoting our own talents together with the attitude, ‘the devil take the hindmost’. But, this way of life is diametrically opposed to the way of ‘communion’. In fact, the great challenge all of us face is to discover how we can live as unique persons – responsible for our own decisions – but in the knowledge that, at the same time, we will only discover the person we are, by taking into account our relationships with others. A fine priest, responsible for all the diocesan priests who wished to live this life of communion and now deceased and who was known to me, put it like this:

“I am fully a person when freely and consciously I affirm the other, even if it costs my life: this approach, Jesus explains in these words: ‘No one has a greater love that the one who gives their life’ for the other. In other words: nobody is more themselves, more a person than the one who safeguards the transcendence of the other by transcending themselves in denying themselves. This is the law of divine society as it was revealed and lived by Jesus; and it could not but be also the law of human society and of every kind of human living. Jesus himself helps us to understand it. The grain of wheat is not itself unless it becomes a shoot; but it becomes a shoot only by passing through a kind of dying. He also said: ‘the one who wishes to save his own life will lose it while the one who loses it, who is ready to sacrifice it, will find it’. (Fr. Silvano Cola)

Yes, there is a lot to learn – something closely connected with humility – that helps a person to realise that they cannot hope to face the challenges of life, on their own – without the help of others. It is not an easy lesson to learn, especially when we are invited by the world, and even by the Church sometimes, to be independent, self assertive, develop our talents, to be self-motivated and to be proud of ourselves. In business, in politics – even in our own neighbourhoods and possibly in the Church – this can mean putting the other person ‘down’ who thinks differently, or who has a different culture, or is just ‘in the way’. Of course, we need our self-esteem; we need to have a legitimate pride in self, but – careful now – a pride that comes from the knowledge that any gifts and talents we have are from God, and that without God, we can so easily turn in, on self, and apply the glory to self. This, in the end, leads to disaster. Furthermore, these gifts and talents should be used to affirm and not suppress others, for if we suppress others, we will only create enemies, and become people who failed to give, of self, for the sake of the other.  Ultimately, we would become self-centred, rather ‘twisted’ individuals, failing to develop into the person that God intends us to be – a person ‘in communion’ with others.

A word of caution! There is so much more to this whole question of ‘Spirituality of Communion’ –  much more than can be found written here, but the most important conclusion is that, in any event, it is not so much something to write, as something to experience. It does bring hope to those who think and live in this way – hope that will help to overcome that ‘loneliness of fear’ identified by Igino Giordani in his writings of 1948, now well over sixty years ago. His words were meaningful then!  I believe they still are!