Sickness

To visit the sick is a work of mercy. Does that ever strike you as strange, that it isn't to heal the sick, or care for the sick? The other works tend to seek the end of a particular evil, this one does not. This one does something very different - though a corporal work, it treats a spiritual ill.  Loneliness. We all know that sickness is very lonely, particularly in our times.  The sick are often at home alone while friends and family work.  Or they are in hospitals which are not even homely, but sterile and a constant reminder of the business their disease has become.  The sick suffer, and they suffer singly, very rarely are they in a whole community of sickness, and their suffering shrinks their world, narrows it down until the suffering is all they see.

And most importantly, they are lonely because of the fear.  Those who are sick are afraid to infect others.  Those who are not sick are afraid to be infected.  To visit the sick is a corporal work of mercy because it challenges this fear through the Incarnation.  It says to sickness, my God became flesh, endured sickness, knew its loneliness, because we were sick in our flesh.  It says to the sick, as He loved me, so I shall love you.  I will not be afraid.  I will be yours.  This is the only cure for loneliness, the gift of the self from another.  Thank you to the Saint who taught me this yesterday.  Thanks be to God for making me sick.