A Word of Advice from the Confessor

The confessor told the nothing Catholic hermit that he
felt the nothing had a tendency to stay in a bit too much
and ought to now and then get out--that it would do
nothing good to be out and about people in a social
way from time to time.

The nothing really did not want to go to a cousins
reunion, as it does not like to be away from Mass on
Saturday evening, and does not like to sit to drive, sit to
eat, sit to chat. Yet it will go, as he said it doesn't need
to stay for hours and hours. Nothing loves its cousins,
but there are these other factors, other factors....

Later, after confession, nothing told the confessor that perhaps the reason it does not get out quite so much is that, well, it is truly a HERMIT! The confessor smiled. Yes, it
is so. However, he still said he thought now and then nothing could be out and intermingle a a bit. Nothing then mentioned it really has very little to offer other people, but yes, it will go to those functions that are very important to other people, for it to attend. After all, there are few actual necessary functions that mean that much to people. We just tell ourselves we must go and do, here and there, this and that.

Nothing will do exactly as the confessor advises. Even if it reminded the confessor that it has many encounters daily of a silent nature, yet of words, and also some of a non-temporal nature, and on occasion some of living encounters (am going soon to get the final rose of this season and will find out how the nursery-man's girlfriend did in her surgery this afternoon)--the nothing probably should have kept its mouth shut and simply agreed.

Seems all right to have gotten a clarification, however. Now and then, on occasion. Tonight it goes to the Patriotic Concert at the Cathedral.

See? Even the robin got out a bit after the rains, and perched--intermingled--with the leaves on Young's Weeping Birch.

Yes, it will get out a bit more now and then, a bit now and then, for the love of obedience to its confessor, for the love of others, and for the love of God. If one's confessor notices something, then who (or what) is a nothing to suggest otherwise?

"Silence and penance!" as Padre Pio commanded.