#MastersofSocialIsolation #6. Blessed Sibyllina Pavia, 14th-cen anchoress. At 12 she went blind, but found a Dominican community that took her in. She delighted in her new life but prayed to St Dominic to recover her sight. One night she had a dream: St D took her hand...
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...and led her thru a dark passage to a field of sunshine. “In eternity, dear child,” he said. “Here, you must suffer darkness so that you may one day behold eternal light.” Waking, she discerned she was not meant to recover her sight, but that her life was no less meaningful...
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...for her disability. She asked to be enclosed as an anchoress in a cell attached to the church in Pavia to devote herself to prayer. Thus, at 15 she entered the cell where she would remain alone for the next 65 yrs. In electing solitude she didn’t turn her back on humanity.
Figures like Sibyllina or Julian of Norwich believed they played a vital social role thru their prayers and witness. So in our case, isolation needn’t feel like useless idleness if we consider that we are serving the common good. Remaining in our homes we may be saving lives.
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