“It is not very easy to stay in solitude. In our solitude we hear so many voices and not only the voice of love. You hear voices that say, 'Do this,' or 'Go there.' 'You forgot this. You forgot that.' Sometimes in our solitude, we are so overwhelmed by those voices.”
“But if we dare to stay and persevere in our solitude, we will gradually hear more and more that voice of love underneath all our restlessness. As we listen to that voice that says to us, 'I love you,' we discover that it is the same voice, saying the same thing to all people.”
“In solitude, we discover a space that is so wide that there is enough room for everyone. Solitude becomes the place from which we can go to our friends and our brothers and sisters and greet them. Not out of loneliness, but out of solitude.”
“We can start forming community, because community means solitude greeting solitude. My solitude, in which I have discovered how much I am loved, greets your solitude in which you have discovered how much you are loved. When we come together as solitude greeting solitude, we form a new home, a new house. No longer are we living in the house of fear, but in the house of love. In that house, there is space to welcome others. There is space for the stranger to walk in and feel welcome. There is space for the poor and the broken to receive hospitality.”
