When two people have become present to each other, the waiting of one must be able to cross the narrow line between the living or dying of the other.

Who can save a child from a burning house without taking the risk of being hurt by the flames? Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: "Who can take away suffering without entering it?

Compassion is born when we discover in the center of our own existence not only that God is God and man is man, but also that our neighbor is really our fellow man.

Every Christian is constantly invited to overcome his neighbor's fear by entering into it with him, and to find in the fellowship of suffering the way to freedom.

Those who do not run away from our pains but touch them with compassion bring healing and new strength. The paradox indeed is that the beginning of healing is in the solidarity with the pain.

To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, "You are not alone, I am with you."

I realized that healing begins with our taking our pain out of its diabolic isolation and seeing that whatever we suffer, we suffer it in communion with all of humanity, and yes, all of creation. In so doing, we become participants in the great battle against the powers of darkness. Our little lives participate in something larger.

When we lift the cup of our life and share with one another our sufferings and joys in mutual vulnerability, the new covenant can become visible among us. The surprise of it all is that it is often the least among us who reveal to us that our cup is a cup of blessings.

Real loneliness comes when we have lost all sense of having things in common. When

We resist getting near the suffering of another partly out of our unwillingness to suffer ourselves.

detach ourselves from making our individual experience the criterion for our approach to others

As long as our loneliness brings us together with the hope that together we no longer will be alone, we castigate each other with our unfulfilled and unrealistic desires for oneness, inner tranquility and the uninterrupted experience of communion.