Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

We'd rather celebrate than commiserate. That's almost too obvious. People find it easy to rejoice with you on your recovery from an illness or accident. It is always more difficult to take the time to commiserate with you when you're laid up or sick. We're not only afraid of sickness in general; we're afraid of anyone's sickness, not just our own. We act as if a broken leg or a hip replacement were contagious. People are often left alone in their most desperate moments. The psalmist must have been in some similar situation when writing the desperate and chilling lines in Psalm 88: “Friend and neighbor have you have taken away; my one companion is darkness.”

If our complaint that we don't know what to say is genuine -- and not simply a cover for our unwillingness -- then we need to realize that no one knows what to say. The point is not so much to say something as to be with someone in their difficult, painful, isolating moments. A hand on the shoulder or around the shoulders is often enough. We find it so much easier, though we may never have visited the sick person, to congratulate him or her on a return to the living. With some courage from the Lord we can learn to visit the sick, the suffering, and be present to them.

Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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