When the Homily is about Immunology

Separation Anxiety as a living hell

Every child, at some point, will experience it to varying degrees. It seems that in my experience that it is usually Mom who cannot be done without and Dad is often a sort of substitute sweetener. One of my daughters has recently developed a form of this in which she simply does not like to be along at all – especially in her room with the lights off. Normal I am sure and we are inclined to draw innumerable analogies about our need for social interaction and such.

Is hell a form of separation anxiety? How often have we been told that hell is being thrown into the utter absence of God? “Depart from me, ye accursed!”

Now since all of you are far more illumined, purified, and deified than yours truly, let me try and shed some experiential light on something we miserable sinners sometimes experience. Once in a while I will get so angry with my wife, so upset (almost always wrongfully so) that I can be sitting right next to her and yet be utterly alone. More than that, her very presence near me can become a thorn in my side…a constant source of irritation from which I cannot escape. Thankfully, such times are rare and short-lived, but I can certainly recall and imagine them. Bitterness is the root from which that ugly fruit springs and I am beginning to see how that same root if allowed to flourish will lead us into a permanent state of self-indulgent isolation. We learn to loath the other and the supreme “otherness” is of course God Himself who calls us into communion with Him (hence transcending that “otherness”.)

God’s presence can become to us a bitter thorn in our side…and there will be no escape. He is, after all, omnipresent! Perhaps this post, indeed this thinking, would have been better suited for The Sunday of the Last Judgment. But alas, Lent is here and may we use this time to soften our hearts and to move closer to that grand “otherness” so that when we stand in His unadulterated glory we may on some level relish it and not cower from it.