The 29th of December has two-fold meaning for this nothing Catholic hermit.
It is the date of death for Sr. Josefa Menendez, a victim soul who is dear to this hermit's heart and an inspiration in various aspects of suffering.
It is the date of this hermit's vows as a consecrated religious of the eremitic vocation.
Yes, 14 years ago this nothing Catholic hermit, after many months of postulancy and then novitiate, guided by its holy, priestly spiritual director of advanced years, the vows for the hermit life were offered and accepted by His Real Presence but with the venerable priest as witness and celebrant of a most beautiful, intimate, and private ceremony.
Each year, the nothing Catholic hermit repeats the vows, and in past did so before a Tabernacle in a church, with a priest present. But the past two years, the vows have been repeated within, deeply within, in wordless praise, prayer, and acceptance of the eremitic life that His Real Presence has increasingly guided into experiences of faith and spiritual growth, beyond what the hermit would have ever anticipated.
Somehow, the increased simplicity and the adjoining increased faith in the loving purity of His Real Presence's rich and viable interaction in this soul's temporal and spiritual existence, has precluded the previous years of thinking too much, of trying to figure out and do, and be concerned if it was a hermit as a hermit ought to be, by whoever's standards, such as those hermits before or what others now think hermits are to be or act or appear in this or that way.
His Real Presence guides with a precision that does not require the mind to seek out what it or others may think or dictate. His Real Presence carries the hermit in His Heart--the heart of the Father for His child, the heart of the Son for His bride, the heart of the Spirit for His wee one's soul.
The consecration of this nothing Catholic hermit in religious life flows throughout all avenues of His Real Presence, of His Head and of His Body, and of His Sacred and Mystical Heart. He knows. He consecrates. He accepts. He loves.
Who knows where He will guide and lead henceforth? The nothing Catholic hermit awaits and adores, prays and praises (and suffers physically).
God bless His Real Presence!
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