Every first Friday at my office there is a holy hour at the end of the day. I rarely get the opportunity to go to adoration, so this is a time of great grace for me when I am able to attend.

When I entered the chapel last Friday I saw something that made me feel sorrow for the Heart of Jesus. I was one of three people who came to adore him that afternoon. I didn’t feel any sort of judgment for those who could not make this prayer time, but the Lord revealed to me the loneliness of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

How many times have I rushed past the Chapel thinking of the next thing, or how many excuses have I made for not spending just a moment in prayer?

How many times have I felt the great pain of loneliness and have forgotten what the Lord felt in his Agony, his Passion and his Death?

“In order to be like You, who are always alone in the Blessed Sacrament, I shall love solitude and try to converse with You as much as possible.”

These are the words of Saint Margaret Mary Alocoque who understood well the sorrowful Heart of Jesus that knows abandonment and rejection.

But what are we to offer to the Lord? I feel I am unable to do anything without adding to the sorrows of Jesus, seeing my sinfulness and many weaknesses. But discouragement and any thoughts contrary to those that draw us to the Feet of Jesus are not of God. Hiding in shame and self-punishment are never what God asks, but rather repentence and returning to the Lord, even (and especially) if we come with our own sorrows and hurts.

This is what we are to offer Him, our own hearts that he desires to place within his heart–in order to heal and redeem the parts that we thought hopeless or unworthy of Him.

This kind of prayer, this being alone with the one who is alone is incredibly freeing, even if it is painful. It means acknowledging our lowliness, our inability to be “great” in any worldly sense, and admitting that all of our efforts in this life would be meaningless…except that He dwells in them and makes this life worth living through the redemption He offers.

We can only have hope in this life with him because without Him there would be no point to everything we do. Our faith tells us that not only is there hope and meaning to life, but even joy in suffering and death. In them we are reborn into Eternal Life with our God, the life in which we are invited to participate at Baptism, a reality which comes most alive in the union we call prayer.

When you feel alone, let it become an opportunity to open the door to the Heart of Christ rather than to dispair or discouragement. He is always alone with you.