Loneliness is real and loneliness is really difficult.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascentra Presents.

Here's something that can be kind of tough to talk about.

Loneliness, especially as part of the Christian life.

Maybe as Christians would say, no, no, no, but you're never alone.

God's always there.

And that's true.

But the experience of loneliness can be so profound and it can be so overwhelming that sometimes

it just helps to hear someone say, oh, this is real and this is really difficult.

So here you are.

Like I've been trying to cry out to God.

I've been trying to find people in my life.

And I haven't been able to. I'm just lonely. Or maybe I'm surrounded by people and I'm still lonely.

You know, this is one of the markers of our culture. One of the markers of our lives today in the 21st century is a crisis, epidemic even, of loneliness. One source is the fact that what we expect people to do when

they become adults is leave home, leave your family, leave your friends, and start a life somewhere

else. That was never the case in the history of humanity. It was always, in the town you grew up,

with the people you grew up with, the people who raised you and cared for you, hopefully loved

you very, very well, with their faults and stuff, but you make a life with them. And so the people that knew you still know you, and

the people you get to know, you get to know them in a context where there's kind of a mutual

understanding. No, that's not to say that family is the answer, because you can be in your

family and still be lonely. Your family can be dysfunctional. Well, actually, sorry.

Unless you're the Holy Family, your family is dysfunctional.

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