In this time of waiting on the Lord, waiting for what is next, for any message or signal, or not, or not yet, I was going to attempt reading the pile of letters I've saved over the years, from my dearest Spiritual Da.
I wonder if I will ever be able to read through one without weeping, or make through two (and am just at the last note card sent and a short sheet of aged handwriting on his trademark, yellow, legal notebook-size ledger paper. (He always wrote out his homilies: fresh. He was an "Order of the Present Moment" priest. Lived in the present moment. He studied Scripture anew with each day, formulating by the grace of the Holy Spirit, his homilies--not lengthy but short, pithy, inspired by God and the angels and saints.
The sisters at the dying out convent (many had lost their founder's charism before he arrived: August, 1991--a last chaplain for them because he was wise as a serpent and quiet as a dove) would doze or hold in priest-envy and resentment; their leadership team and others led other-lives of joining in league with other angry religious sisters, convinced they'd be priestesses and change the Church for the better.
But the Spiritual Da would endure, non-phased, wistfully comment on rare occasion that he wondered why it was that more and more were dying off and no one joining. He gave them the benefit of the doubt--explaining to me that in some ways, their angry feminism and new age-ideologies were not all their fault because they were told by various priests at the time of Vatican II, that the Church was going to allow them all to become priestesses, and radical changes would transpire. So they had their hopes up, and what they hoped for did not occur. They found their purpose after they came back to the motherhouse in retirement, in doing as many older people do in retirement: try to find relevance in the world.
Of course, we may wonder why religious sisters would not seek relevance as always, in Christ. But we may not have been promised things that one wonders why they so desired, anyway. As I used to consider even prior to my conversion to Catholicism--what more power could a person want than to emulate the Virgin Mary! Who can deny that Mary, the Mother of God and Mother of the Church, does not show us not only to her son, but to all the graces and power that love in her Son, Jesus Christ bestows on those who grasp Mary's blessedness.
Well, I can't begin to write of all the aspects of which the Spiritual Da lived, taught, loved, preached, and provided all the Sacraments that a holy priest in Holy Orders is imbued to bestow upon the faithful! And consider a saintly priest--the glory is compounded exponentially like the multitudinous stars in the universe.
As to how I was so blessed to meet the Spiritual Da, and he become my dearest Spiritual Da--too much for me to relate at this point. There were marvelous and holy sisters at that convent--a faction of them praying for the others, with the Da being there for those who grasped their innate purpose and the power of Mary entrusting them with her dispensing of spiritual graces. Yes, many a saintly sister buried in that convent cemetery, along with an archbishop and priest-founder. The best of times, until the end times for that community. The Spiritual Da remained steadfast there for the last 28 years of his life, passing at 99 years. 3 months, 11 days.
He'd not at all like me to mention what befell many of the sisters in the community's later years. Yes, there were those holy sisters there who are saints in heaven, without doubt. I recall several, and the others I know had their own life and spiritual and inner reasons for straying from the narrow path. The jury is yet out on me, that is for sure.
Well, I'm obviously not ready to read through the pile of letters from my Spiritual Da. I have no idea what happened to the lengthy letters I'd type out or write long-hand. He always wrote long-hand; and just his handwriting causes tears to threaten once more. But I said aloud after I started to look at a third note, that I know he wants me to be happy, to not grieve.
I apologized yet again for not having written in one of the last months of his life. I had not been given the two he sent me; and I'd had to up and leave where I was staying and take a long drive to go elsewhere, and wait there while yet trying to find a place for relocating, for procuring a dwelling place, to begin again, in what now is Solus Deus Hermitage. But no excuses! I said that aloud to the Dearest Spiritual Da! I recognize I was trying to detach, to let go, for the last time I saw him was painful, and difficult. I did not do as I wished, not said as I wished; so tonight I apologized again for all that! Time and distance of the temporal certainly informs perspective, improving it; and if fortunate, reality and honesty will shine through and not a perspective tainted with self-deception.
This was the final note. Perhaps writing it, sharing it in my anonymous blog (the Lord knows I intended it to be anonymous, but the devil does tend to disrupt our intentions), will help me see them as not still full of his DNA and of how he is with God, and I remain here--with God, yes, but we all know what I mean. I miss him very much, yet I knew it was time for him to leave me to it in this life. He had hung on longer than he'd have liked, and was weary. I do feel as if I abandoned him--a silly thought, I suppose, and nothing he'd want me to be sad about, for he'd not want to return from his blessedness in Heaven. I'd not want him to leave that for anything, for there is nothing here necessary. What a victory, the Spiritual Da has won--hard-earned and long-deserved.
Dear [N--I will use here "nothing", one of my favorite appellations],
Happy New Year. I pray that the coming year will bring you good health and the right medicine.
I am comfortable and doing fairly well. I spend most of the day in bed except to go to Mass in a wheelchair. I don't write much and don't read except the newspaper.
N: I wonder what are your plans for the future. I hope you find a few good books and keep in touch with the supernatural.
I find it hard to pray. I tire so easily.
God love you, [N].
Really, you belong to God.
You are a saint.
~Father
So simple, so sweet, so the last note ever from my Dearest Spiritual Da.
Dearest Da,
I'm struggling with the book-reading. I have unpacked nearly all the marvelous, rare, exceptional, Catholic book collection and have three on the bed beside me: Garrigou-Lagrange's Three Ages of the Interior Life, Bruno de Jesus Maria's Life of San Juan de la Cruz, and Three Mystics, edited by Bruno de JM, as well. I see I have two others on the bed with me: Merton's The Last of the Fathers (about St. Bernard), and St. Bernard's Sermon of the Song of Songs, Vol 1.
No, I've not finished any of them, but I've begun yet another book sent me by the John of the Cross scholar and renowned expert, the prof I had for the course in Avila, Spain. I know you remember all the escapades I was so blessed to experience after my mother passed--even if my pain disrupted some.
I've not done much--in bed most of the time here, too. I am fatigued much from pain, but did start to prime a room upstairs that is dedicated to the saints: The Saints' Room. Your and all the priests' room I finished last spring prior to the spine surgery. I also finished the Angels' Room nearly a year ago. Still have to get closet doors fitted and hung, and the entry doors to the room cut and hinged and so forth. You know all this, here in spirit.
So you also know the reason I decided to try to read your letters tonight--and that I cannot manage to get through them due to emotions I was not expecting. Still grieving--but not maybe that so much as missing your talking with me, the laughs, the incredible spiritual conversations as well as our talk of the Church and all her fluctuations but ever flowing until the end of time on earth, then Christ's Church forever in heaven.
I need you to give me some indication of my dilemma, the crossroads or choice I sense the Lord is asking of me. I know on earth what you advised and would yet, no doubt; but now you see from the fullness of Christ's Light. You know more the "lay of the land," and can guide me if God allows and wills, from your perch. I'm asking John of the Cross, too, for somehow he seems to be the focus of the books I'm actually reading. Yes, I have a few good books to read! Slow, but reading a little!
God Bless His Real Presence in you, dearest Spiritual Da.
Love in His Love,
[Nothing]
P. S. Looking forward to being there with you. Thanks, BTW, for arranging for Fr. M at the parish accepting the mystical ecstasy (that I figure you fully understand now so any help with that--please!), and thanks for arranging for the hermit-priest director, who I think is trying to come up for air as I've come to this crossroads type decision to make, a choice, I suppose which includes, of course, a non-decision. He's not used to me. Ha ha! Help him out, if God wills! Had to laugh, when I met him and after a short while, he said as you used to say: "I've never met anyone like you! Different, but in a very good way!" I even told him how you used to say that and similar. I did not go into the bulk of the mystical stuff. No need to, or so I feel. Just too much, it is. People can't deal with it.
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