Hajja Salesjana

manageable than facing the challenge to see others, greet others, listen to others and relate with others on a one to one level. Admittedly, I also see this quite regularly on our streets too. A couple of years ago, we all realised the beauty and the wonder of relationships and how we are all socially linked to one another when Covid-19 ravaged our normalcy to tatters. One would have thought that we would have learnt our lesson in more ways than one, but one sheer glance at our world today and we will have to admit, that alas it seems that all learnt lessons from those dire, terror-stricken years have been forgotten and thrown out of the proverbial window! Evidently, an aspect where we seem to have completely placed aside the lessons learnt at that bitter moment in humanity’s history which will surely be etched in our collective memory is the beauty of contact, the wonder of communication, the gift of genuine listening to another and the realisation that we can make a positive difference in one another’s life even by just a smile or by offering some of our precious time to others to make them aware that they are not alone as they journey through life’s meandering labyrinth. We all know how difficult life can get at times! Hence as we begin a new year, let us try to push ourselves to place the mobile aside and be more aware of who and what is around us before life passes us by and we realise that we would have missed all EDITORIAL Fr. Sandro Camilleri sdb Have the courage to be really and truly human! As we commence a new year, full of hope and full of questions as to what lies ahead in the misty future, I would like to share with you two matters which struck me during these past few days while I went on, like many of you, with my daily chores, juggling responsibilities and wading forward through life’s challenges. I am a member of a pastoral team which is at the service of others in an institution which offers tertiary education to hundreds of students. As I mill around the campus and as I strive to make meaningful connections and wholesome encounters with the students and staff alike, I am very often struck by how many of the young people on campus are totally engrossed in their mobile phones, sometimes even wearing small headphones in their ears and thus completely oblivious of who is around them, who is walking beside them and what is taking place around them. This makes it harder for all who wish to strike a conversation with them or to make polite eye contact with them to salute them as they move from one lecture to another. It’s almost like they find solace in their hand- held technological mini world which is more Photo by Jessica Hearn - Unsplash.com Photo by Johannes Plenio - Unsplash.com 3 Jannar-Marzu 2025 hajja