Every time I visit Holycross Abbey, Ballycahill, Co. Tipperary, it lifts my heart. The parish priest, Fr Celsus Tierney, is a wonderful host. Founded as a Cistercian Abbey in 1182 AD by Dónal Mór Ó Briain, King of Thomond, it became an important medieval pilgrimage site because it housed a relic of the True Cross. By 1869, it was a ruin, used from then on only for burials. 100 years later, in 1969, an ambitious locally-funded restoration project began, at a time when there was little money in Ireland. Today, it is a thriving parish church and once again, a site of pilgrimage.
The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for”
I was delighted to be invited to speak at the Holycross annual novena, not least because the last time I spoke there, the novena was entirely online due to the pandemic. It was an eerie experience to speak to a webcam in an empty church.
It was so satisfying this time to see the Abbey packed with people of all ages for all four sessions, from 7am to 7.30pm.
My talk was called ‘the poverty of loneliness’, which comes from St Teresa of Calcutta’s book, A Simple Path.
Mother Teresa wrote: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
Loneliness
Loneliness comes from a painful mismatch between what a person needs from relationships and what they actually receive. Researchers tell us that chronic loneliness is as damaging to our health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Sadly, for the first time, an October 2025 OECD report confirmed that young adults aged 16 to 24 in Ireland are the most likely to report feeling lonely “most or all of the time.”
{{She was just echoing what the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, tells us: ‘It is not good for human beings to be alone’”
In his short time as Pope, Pope Leo has written extensively about loneliness. For example, in an address for the World Day for Grandparents and older people, he defines loneliness as “the painful feeling of being forgotten”—a state of social oblivion or anonymity where an individual’s life is treated as being of no interest to anyone.
The desire to be connected to people is part of our nature. I told one of my favourite stories about a little girl endlessly asking for “one more story” at bedtime and trying every possible delaying tactic to keep her mother with her.
Her mother eventually said that there was no reason to worry, that God was with her, and the child innocently replied, “I know God is with me but I want someone with skin on their face.”
She was just echoing what the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, tells us: “It is not good for human beings to be alone.”
Different
Still, it is important to distinguish between solitude and loneliness. Fr Joseph M Esper, who wrote the book How the Saints Endured Loneliness, says that while being alone or silent can seem to be a fate to avoid, it can become like a garden, tilled, weeded and fruitful, where silence allows God to transform us.
So many of us fill every moment of loneliness with endless scrolling that leaves us even more restless. Sometimes it is easier than dealing with the messy challenges of interacting with real people. Conversely, it can also be challenging to accept that loneliness is part of the human condition and just sit with it.
There are countless reasons for loneliness. Some of the attendees shared their own poignant stories, including a woman called Kathy, who has early onset Alzheimers. She feels passionately that loneliness is forced on those with this condition. Socialising is vital for people with Alzheimers, yet people’s awkwardness around the condition deprives them of it. She finds it particularly hard when people say things like they would prefer to remember the person as they were, rather than interact now. The person is still there, just with a memory problem.
The cup of tea after the Holycross Novena and the regular Tuesday coffee morning are both essential ways to build community”
Another woman, Joan, had been widowed since the late 1970s. I was in awe of the courage and resilience of both these women.
The Church is uniquely placed to combat loneliness. The cup of tea after the Holycross Novena and the regular Tuesday coffee morning are both essential ways to build community.
Some loneliness is inevitable, but so much unnecessary loneliness could be avoided if people were willing to be the person with ‘skin on their face’.
The poverty of loneliness and how the Church can combat it
Every time I visit Holycross Abbey, Ballycahill, Co. Tipperary, it lifts my heart. The parish priest, Fr Celsus Tierney, is a wonderful host. Founded as a Cistercian Abbey in 1182 AD by Dónal Mór Ó Briain, King of Thomond, it became an important medieval pilgrimage site because it housed a relic of the True Cross. By 1869, it was a ruin, used from then on only for burials. 100 years later, in 1969, an ambitious locally-funded restoration project began, at a time when there was little money in Ireland. Today, it is a thriving parish church and once again, a site of pilgrimage.
I was delighted to be invited to speak at the Holycross annual novena, not least because the last time I spoke there, the novena was entirely online due to the pandemic. It was an eerie experience to speak to a webcam in an empty church.
It was so satisfying this time to see the Abbey packed with people of all ages for all four sessions, from 7am to 7.30pm.
My talk was called ‘the poverty of loneliness’, which comes from St Teresa of Calcutta’s book, A Simple Path.
Mother Teresa wrote: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
Loneliness
Loneliness comes from a painful mismatch between what a person needs from relationships and what they actually receive. Researchers tell us that chronic loneliness is as damaging to our health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Sadly, for the first time, an October 2025 OECD report confirmed that young adults aged 16 to 24 in Ireland are the most likely to report feeling lonely “most or all of the time.”
{{She was just echoing what the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, tells us: ‘It is not good for human beings to be alone’”
In his short time as Pope, Pope Leo has written extensively about loneliness. For example, in an address for the World Day for Grandparents and older people, he defines loneliness as “the painful feeling of being forgotten”—a state of social oblivion or anonymity where an individual’s life is treated as being of no interest to anyone.
The desire to be connected to people is part of our nature. I told one of my favourite stories about a little girl endlessly asking for “one more story” at bedtime and trying every possible delaying tactic to keep her mother with her.
Her mother eventually said that there was no reason to worry, that God was with her, and the child innocently replied, “I know God is with me but I want someone with skin on their face.”
She was just echoing what the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, tells us: “It is not good for human beings to be alone.”
Different
Still, it is important to distinguish between solitude and loneliness. Fr Joseph M Esper, who wrote the book How the Saints Endured Loneliness, says that while being alone or silent can seem to be a fate to avoid, it can become like a garden, tilled, weeded and fruitful, where silence allows God to transform us.
So many of us fill every moment of loneliness with endless scrolling that leaves us even more restless. Sometimes it is easier than dealing with the messy challenges of interacting with real people. Conversely, it can also be challenging to accept that loneliness is part of the human condition and just sit with it.
There are countless reasons for loneliness. Some of the attendees shared their own poignant stories, including a woman called Kathy, who has early onset Alzheimers. She feels passionately that loneliness is forced on those with this condition. Socialising is vital for people with Alzheimers, yet people’s awkwardness around the condition deprives them of it. She finds it particularly hard when people say things like they would prefer to remember the person as they were, rather than interact now. The person is still there, just with a memory problem.
Another woman, Joan, had been widowed since the late 1970s. I was in awe of the courage and resilience of both these women.
The Church is uniquely placed to combat loneliness. The cup of tea after the Holycross Novena and the regular Tuesday coffee morning are both essential ways to build community.
Some loneliness is inevitable, but so much unnecessary loneliness could be avoided if people were willing to be the person with ‘skin on their face’.
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