The finale of Advent, the passing of Christmas Day, the passing of St. John the Apostle's special feast day--and this consecrated Catholic hermit has not written a word on this blog of inspiration or otherwise.
This current stretch of a couple or three months has been grueling in a way I never expected. The holy and truthful words of St. John of the Cross ring a solid bell-tone within my body, mind, heart and spirit: Nada, nada, nada.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
I am nothing. One would need to ponder this and perhaps read why St. John of the Cross wrote these words to express a phase in his life--body, mind, heart, and spirit.
We are nothing. God is All. It is another way of grasping the truth of our being nada. The "You are nothing; I am All" comes from what Jesus told St. Catherine of Siena when she inquired. So we have the conceptual reality from at least two saints, and I'm sure there are others. I've read it in other writings of mystic saints, but my current phase of grasping my nothingness precludes pinpointing who else experienced the truth of our nothingness (in the shadow of Christ's great Light--or however else to fathom it).
For anyone who thinks it easy for a hermit to live with others, even loved ones (or I suppose can be difficult if not a hermit but especially so with God's calling to a life of hiddenness and the silence of solitude in prayer and praise)--you may be assured it is not at all easy.
This time period has been one of abject negation. My God, my God, why hast Thou abandoned me?
These words of Jesus to His Heavenly Father come to me. The other morning, my own God-given statement from several years ago were on my lips upon waking...flowing forth from the depths of my wounded heart: My Love, my Love, my only Love! The cross, the cross, and only the cross!
The tension is thick; the wounding is sharp and deep; the feeling of "stuckness" suffocates.
A priest in a most-brief confession advised me thus: "Never, never, never EVER let anyone be rude or disrespect you!"
Well, it is not so simple, that. What seems to be the best recourse is removal. I remove myself when being treated rudely. I become silent since trying to reason and point out some truth is met with yet more rudeness. I remove myself to this room--a cell of sorts--or when able I remove myself to going out amidst the sojourners of "the world."
I walk in a large discount store where there has been Christmas music and festive, fellow pilgrims strolling about behind carts, appreciating the free food samples vendors offer, loading their carts with food and gifts for the great Solemnity of the Birth of Jesus Christ.
In my mode as a hospitable Catholic hermit, my antique crucifix silently blessing me and others, I smile and do all to uplift those I encounter--the vendors appreciating gratitude expressed and on occasion a shopper enjoying a brief interchange of encouragement and conversation. Uplift! And I absorb the ambiance of people not judging, not criticizing, smiling and speaking kindly.
The pilgrimages--as I dare call them for the good they do to me and hopefully others from my prayerful, love-of-God soul--have made me laugh within, when laughter other than within has been dissected into little shards in the space and among those with whom I'm a guest. It has been increasingly difficult to know what to say, if anything much. It seems to be best to say nada.
However, I'm sure we all here are praying in our separate ways. And there are people praying for me, not knowing exactly why, but they pray all the same. I'm so grateful, so thankful. I take it a day at a time, and removing myself as much as possible seems good so that the others can have their space back to themselves. It is a tricky situation, and the only spiritual understanding that comes to me is that this time period is what the Lord desires for me to experience negation in a deep and most profound, sufferingly experience that helps me grasp nada, nada, nada more than ever before.
I've tried to leave, to escape so to speak which to me seems a kindness to these my temporary hosts. Yet the Lord has prohibited through too much back pain, to be able to travel. At least that has been the situation when I was all set to depart and give the hosts another respite from my being in this small room where I have been beset by severe physical pain as well as the great and perhaps more agonizing pain of negation. Perhaps this type of negation, to be at its deepest human reality, must come from the negation by those closest to us.
And, I figure that the greatest negation of all, of course, comes in those times--hopefully not often--in which we feel the deepest suffering of spiritual negation. Perhaps the human and spiritual negations intertwine; perhaps that is what Jesus felt when on the cross, with but three humans at the foot of his suffering and a seemingly negation from God, above.
I suppose it is best to try to remain in the present moment. I've cast a net by calling someone whose name and number was given me. Perhaps this person will know of someone willing to rent a room temporarily. It is a person who would me more like-minded: a Catholic who is in a group of Carmelite tertiaries. We will see if she returns the call; at minimum, if she does, I will request prayers for strength for me as well as for a softening in this situation.
Yet I guess my wanting a softening in the situation is in essence my not wanting this human and spiritual negation! But the human and spiritual negation is in some levels and dimensions--a gift! It is a necessary aspect of being brought to eventual union with God. I must not fight against this but let the Lord do as He wills with me, and for me to remain as nothing, to go along with being treated as nothing, disrespected, disregarded, criticized, blamed, whatever else comes. The Lord is granting me my own little respites--when the body is not in a pain siege and is able to take mini-escapes out into the temporal world.
Today a door-tender at the large discount store smiled and said, "See you tomorrow!" I laughed and responded, "I will be back to appreciate your wonderful smile!" Yes, his smile was as if Jesus smiling at me, lifting the spirits in the present moment from nothingness and into the something-full of His Light and Love.
And anytime here that I can take whatever comes my way in order to pray all the more and to accept whatever abnegation of self by others, all the better in being reminded that Jesus, from the moment of his birth on earth, was subjected to suffering of all types, showing us how to be nothing so that some day we can be in His All.
God bless His Real Presence within us!
"Beloved,
This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christ
and proclaim to you:
God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." ~ 1 John 1: 5-6
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