Food for Thought

Feb 19, 2016

In an article about the corporal works of mercy, Robert Stackpole, director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, gave an interesting perspective on comforting the sick.

Some are sick "not from physical illness but from social isolation," Stackpole wrote. "One thinks especially of the elderly in our communities who, whether at home or in long-term care facilities, live in geographical isolation from their loved ones."

In our time, he said, the call to visit the sick "can mean reaching out to the friendless in our local nursing homes: those who are 'sick at heart' from being lonely and forgotten and who are regularly deprived of the basic human need called 'friendship.'"

Though it may not always feel comfortable, he encouraged visits to the housebound and the chronically and terminally ill.

"Our mere presence, as someone willing to be a friend and a listening ear, can mean much more to them than we can imagine," he wrote. "And along the way they will be giving a precious gift to us as well: the gift of growth in the virtue of compassion."