The Leprosy of Isolation

“...the greatest torture(leprosy) you can put upon a person is isolation...”-Pastor Our Lady of Lourdes Bethesda MD

God wants community for us as He is a community of persons.

The “greatest torture” a person can endure I seek out for myself. I fear intimacy with other people because it causes me pain so I isolate, which is a much deeper pain at least that is what I am told which is where the problem lies for me.

Human relationships have been the cause of a lot of intense pain in my life especially with those closest to me. While I do believe in the wisdom of the Church regrding the value of community and the destruction that isolation brings to the individual and the community he or she is missing from I do not have a lot of personal experience of this goodness. So, I isolate, which keeps me from knowing the goodness, so I isolate, which keeps me from the goodness. Rinse...repeat.

God can heal us if we believe He can and allow it. Will I allow this healing? Will I allow community?

Be not afraid.

Written 2/14/21 AD

Human-written, AI-spell-checked

"Urban Isolation" painting by Ken Figurski at Pixels.com