When a Hermit Is Ill

Doctor says it is pneumonia.  Wanted to take x-rays to find out which kind, but due to financial considerations, nothing Catholic hermit kindly declined.  Got the antibiotic and promised to return in several days if not the type of pneumonia the antibiotics will help.  

Don't really care what type of pneumonia, and sense it is similar to what the Catholic hermit had suffered (pneumonia) several years ago. This particular antibiotic helped then and most likely will do well now.  Just takes time--do the harsher illnesses.  Exhausting, the deep coughing and high fevers.

When a hermit is ill--at least a solitary hermit, not a monk-type hermit living near or with others--the guardian angel and His Real Presence and the Blessed Mother are its comfort and assistance.

Over the past many years of suffering, going back thirty years of much physical suffering, this Catholic hermit has noticed that in times of greater pain and illness, its prayers seem more potent.  Perhaps that is because His Real Presence seems closer:  in the pain and discomfort, the fever, the recovery from surgery, or whatever other ailments.  

One notices more the answers to prayer, notices the details. When ill, a hermit takes more account of the stillness, greatly enforced due to incapacity and at times, clinging to His Real Presence, or Mary, or its angel.

Suffering is also humbling.  One is dependent.  Life seems more fragile than when one is up and about, distracted by tasks or reading or more active praying, or going on occasional errands.  When ill, the hermit is alone with God Alone.  The hermit is too ill or feverish to read other than Scriptures--and not many or much, at that.  Very tired!

Yet, the hermit prays--and prays in perhaps a purer state or sense, all else cleared to the nub by suffering.  The hermit is reminded all the more that it is the Order of the Present Moment that matters.  There is little view of what is next because enduring what is, is challenge enough.

Then the Catholic hermit realizes nuances and facets of its prayer life--unnoticed, perhaps, when well and physically functioning.  Thus enters into the sickroom, a reminder to pray in LOVE.  No matter the persons or issues, the ones His Real Presence brings to mind, are to be prayed with much LOVE.  And, dear readers--loved ones, each of you!--praying in and with LOVE makes such a difference not only in the outcomes, but most importantly in the process.  

Praying with LOVE praises His Real Presence while at the same time expresses silent love for the persons and situations of the praying.

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Raphael did stop by this morning to give an idea of how much it will cost to help this nothing Catholic hermit finish some framing tasks in here plus hang too-heavy sheets of drywall.  Nothing has far more work it ought to do, before Raphael and his crew arrive in a couple of weeks.  

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But, for now, the hermit is quite ill, and rests and prays in and with LOVE.  Yes, prayers for each of you issue forth often enough without words.  Just pray love!

It has come to the conscious mind from His Real Presence, dwelling within His abode, tucked down into the feverish body and the crackling lungs and all about the weary heart, that life and all its peoples and situations and creation are but prayer!  And it does not mean to diminish such a grand created by His Real Presence existence--life--by qualifying it as "just" or "but" prayer.  

But yes, all of life is a prayer.   And love being the purpose for life--to love, to learn to love--brings praying in LOVE to a height of supernal existence:  our lives!

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us LOVE one another!  Love to suffer and suffer to love.  Pray in love, for life becomes a ceaseless prayer even into eternity. God Is Love!