Be like Francisco of Fatima who had a love of solitude

Spirituality

“Another characteristic of the saints that Francisco began to manifest after the apparition of the Lady (1917) was the love of solitude.  One May morning he left the two girls (Jacinta and Lucia) with the sheep, and climbed to the top of a high rock.  ‘You can’t come up here!’ he called down.  ‘Leave me alone!’… Lucia and Jacinta began to run after butterflies.  By the time they wearied of this they had forgotten all about Francisco, and they thought no more of him until they realized that they were hungry, and that it must be long past the time for their meal.  There Francisco was, still lying motionless on the top of the rock…. ‘What have you been doing all this time?’ ‘I have been thinking of God, who is so sad because of so many sins,’ the boy answered seriously.  ‘If I could only give Him joy!’” (William Thomas Walsh, Our Lady of Fatima, pp. 61-62)