Welcome to Gaia! ::

All right, I am not sure if this will spark a debate. It just might. We have been a little quite the last few weeks. I began thinking say you are ill, should you go to church, or should you stay home? (A bit of note, I am not saying a tummy ache, like the Flu, or something on that level.)

I think the subject is really too broad to give a good answer to.

I mean, being "ill" really just means being in poor health. There's a lot that goes into being healthy, so it really depends on what kind of health we're talking about here.

There are, however, some situations that I feel it is absolutely fine (necessary, even) to miss Church for.

3 examples:

1. Swine flu! My university had a HUGE swine flu outbreak last fall, and I was lucky enough to come down with it. Really, swine flu usually isn't much worse than the regular flu. However, it is more contagious and it can be very dangerous to young children and infants. In light of that, I would think the best thing to do for your community would be to stay home for a week.

2. Vertigo! The reason I'm sitting here typing this right now instead of sitting in class taking notes is because I happen to be so dizzy that even tilting my head the slightest bit gives me a terrible case of vertigo and I feel like I'm going to pass out (which has actually happened to me twice before because of this). If today was Sunday, I probably would not be attending mass. Why? Because it's very likely I would be unconscious either before I got there or some point in between. (all that standing, sitting, and kneeling is not so fun for someone with positional vertigo)

3. Bad joints. I have a friend who has a genetic collagen mutation. That comes with a truckload of bad symptoms, one of which is osteoarthritis that's worse than that of an 80 year old woman. There are days she can't even walk because the pain is so intense, so sitting on a hard wooden pew for an hour is pretty much out of the question for her, unless she was doped up on even more pain pills than she already takes (which would actually start to get a bit dangerous).



So, my general thoughts on the whole thing:

If you're feeling bad, but are highly contagious, it's up to you if you want to go to mass, but just cover your mouth when you cough, don't hold people's hands, and don't drink from the cup if you do decide to go. Personally, I wouldn't hold it against someone if they didn't go.

If your illness is physically debilitating (like the last two I mentioned) then do what you can, but obviously if you can't make it to mass, you can't make it and that's that. There are a lot of elderly people that this is the case for. In both my hometown and where I'm living now, priests go out to elderly homes to do communion services for that very reason. It would be great if they could offer those for other people who can't make it to mass for whatever reason, but of course, logistically, that would be incredibly difficult.

Anyway . . . . . yeah . . . .

I don't know if that answered the question you were asking, but here it is anyway. lol

All right I figure as much, also I will say it again. I was speaking on something of the level of the Flu, so can't stand, might become physically ill.