Catholic Mystic, Hermit, Victim Soul: I have died for the Lord!

"For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's."  ~ Romans 14:8

The above truth, spoken by St. Paul, is the summation of my life at this point.  

Had a horrific spinal headache a week ago Thursday.  Also, I noticed an infection I'm blessed to now have had until this time.  It took until Sunday morning to get to urgent care, and a kindly, young nurse practitioner (NP) prescribed an antibiotic based on test result showed a type of infection.

By the next Thursday I was not better.  Called the doctor and was blessed to be allowed a virtual appointment--too sick to do that effort plus drive to pharmacy as I knew I'd need another antibiotic. Turns out the NP had it wrong--wrong antibiotic prescribed. Have been on the better antibiotic now into the fifth and last day.  Still have symptoms and feel "punk".  

Today I called the doctor's office, and while that doctor was off today,  But his nurse aide or such received back instructions to come in and be seen by those at the clinic or go to urgent care.  The latter is out of the question given this was the fourth time of not good experience there, and it is a dozen or more times of bad experience with NP's and PA's.  There is no comparison of a doctor's years of study and practicum in internship and residency years compared to someone with essentially a master's degree or less.  

Only an NP and a PA were available today.  I will see a doctor tomorrow at an opening with an MD.  Such is the on-going life of suffering here--and one must laugh, really, at the unfortunate situations to which I seem to be prone.  By now, the proper antibiotic is making me ill with side effects, but I have an arsenal of medications here, including anti-nausea prescription med and of course, pain meds.

I want to feel better, Lord, if and when you are ready for me to feel better.

I've considered why God allows this situation?  What will it take in antibiotics to improve?  A lot of these days and weeks are a blur anyway! What more? 

So I've considered that God wants deeper conversion of me. I feel guilt for distracting myself with online distractions of news and sometimes an Amazon Prime video.  Of the former, I have more than enough details of situations and persons for which to pray.  Of the latter, since I select videos that often take me far away to another country with beautiful scenery and lilting accents of the actors' voices, I praise God for being able to be far from my room, my bed, my added suffering with the infection on top of all the Adhesive Arachnoiditis pain.

Had to cancel the pain doctor appointment yet again.  I did not think I'd be up for getting to that appointment tomorrow early morn, driving through heavier traffic, plus to go to the Internal Medicine doctor and likely to the pharmacy for more antibiotics.

As to my deeper conversion, I'm participating in an online 54-day rosary being prayed by a priest somewhere.  I missed the first four days of it; God understands my pain status and fog.  Maybe He is laughing along with me because Saturday morning I tried to register to vote online.  It kept coming up as not showing my registration after; so I tried again, and then again, thinking I needed to include my middle initial or middle name.  Than scouring over what I could have possibly done wrong, I notice the small print:  May take up to 24 hours for the registration to be reflected.

This morning in addition to the doctors' (and NP's and PA's mostly) clinic, I called the state election office phone number.  The person found my three attempts and readily accepted my reason for the three.  I was not committing voter fraud, in other words.  No arrest and no $5,000 fine.  I told the person on the phone that I should not try to register online when in so much pain and suffering!  It will now take another three days, as my three attempts must be sent on to another office for someone to clean up the mess.

My deeper conversion is rooted in the recognition, more deeply, that I have died. Again, "For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's (Rm 14:8).  I am bodily alive, and that body lives for God.  I have died for the Lord, and I am the Lord's.

The isolation becomes more so in any type of personal effect.  One person emails a short summation of a saint, or such as today, a paragraph or so about the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.  I respond and add in a little personal; I am still a person here on earth even if but marginally and hidden away all the more.  Another person emails every four days or so and gives short summary of that person's few days "doings."  A third person emails about once a week with a concise summary of a few of that person's activities.

I've had to accept that there is "too much water of the dam" for now, with one family member; another has been remote for a long time.  Another texts now and then, once a week or less, but it is at least a connection with someone known.  Otherwise, my connectivity is through this little laptop window to the world, of which some readers and one yesterday left comments suggesting that somehow my writing has some worth to their own experiences--in suffering or in mystical experiences and my example of the progression of mystical spiritual life as well as thoughts on how can evolve.  How it might evolve.

This morning and yesterday I was thinking of the parish priest.  I wanted to email just a couple lines, include the words above of St. Paul.  There is another Scripture the apostle wrote that so applies to what I know of myself on this side of the mystic portal--no longer in the temporal other than bodily.

"For through the law I died to the law, that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given Himself up for me"  ~ Galations 2:19-20.

These words, this thought, is so real and true and is my reality now, that a separate post will better describe what is this actual, living death.

Yes, I wanted to email the priest of the parish of which I was on their membership rolls until I made the stamp of acceptance to Jesus that I finally grasp that I needed to literally take all his message to me 8 years ago.  Even though it does seem to go against common sense and human laws--I see here that I have died to the law that I might live for God.  I have died to the 1752 canon laws that were created by well-intentioned people, and these laws provide structure for the Church and the Body of Christ.  

But they are not those of Christ the Head but rather are for the temporal Body.  What is occurring with me is natural and for everyone at some point in the infinity of our minds', hearts', and souls' existence. From the point of God imparting the spark of Himself as our soul implanted in us in our mother's wombs, we begin the process of infinite existence traversing through the temporal world and on into the mystical of all eternity.

Dying to this temporal world is not by our own choosing any more than we do not choose to be mystics,, choose to be victim souls, or choose to be hermits.  Despite my wanting to tell the priest that my emails were my frustrated agonies of the death throes, of wanting him to hear my voice.  I have watched and listened to his video chats to the parishioners in which he mentions talking on the phone with his friends--talking of cul-de-sac get togethers with neighborhood to social distance and talk with others as a social event so good for people's emotional health and support--to have some fun.  I have heard him mention other interactions with friends, including a podcast he and a parishioner friend are doing I think daily.

In that, I somehow thought he might want to read some of what I was sharing that was not all frustration but were thoughts, my voice in email of insights, even, that I hoped he might "hear."  But I realized he was not reading before his secretary let me know he does not read them. And this reality is why I likely will not even email either of the Scriptures above, short as they are.  

The point is, I have truly died to the law of parishes and dioceses; I have died by crucifixion with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ in me.  I no longer live, not I; I have died for the Lord and live as dead, but for the Lord.  And this truth is a temporal reality, an every day and every night reality now!  Living as dead, my life on earth is more dead than alive, more alive in God and for God.  Temporally dead to this world in more than contacts; it is dead in desire and wanting anything of the temporal.  My appetite for temporal life has died; my hunger for God has come all the more alive.

So I remain strong.  I wait.  I pay no attention to what parishioners and priests of this world represent--not depreciating the vast good they have done and do and will do in the world amidst the wondrous flocks and ordained religious shepherds.  I am to have nothing to do with them despite their good, active, and spiritually striving lives in the temporal realm; am to ignore them, and to, again, remain strong until Jesus returns to take me fully with Him.

I have died.  And I'm sifting through what is that "I" who died but without dwelling over much about that I who died.  I can do all things of mind, heart, and soul just as I was able to in the death experience or in the mystical ecstasies in Mass, His Real Presence in proximity to my body, mind, heart, and soul.  I wonder if there will come a time here in my room and on my bed, that God will take me into Himself in that type of phenomenon while watching Mass online?  Or is that not necessary now that I have passed through the mystic portal?

And who is the only one who really wants to hear my voice?  God alone!  His Real Presence in me:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of whom I am in the Trinity.  God knows my voice. He knows the thoughts and insights for the Holy Spirit implants them.  Jesus hears his Beloved child, my every thought, feeling, emotion, desire, sorrow.  He knows the love I have thought is mine to give is His to give, for I have died and it is not me who lives but I in Christ.  It is God's love in Himself that is in me if I but accept and release, embrace and let it flow.

God bless His Real Presence in us, in all of us who are yet alive in the temporal and those of us who have died--died to the world even if at times visible, but remain mostly unseen and unheard to others who cannot hear the dead ones' voices.

I have died for the Lord!  I'm in the Lord!