Another correspondence to someone in attempt to explain pitfalls of not to become ensnared nor to remain ensnared in the temporal nets that can occur in various aspects of life, including the temporal and man-created, man-developed aspects of church, including the temporal aspects of the Catholic Church.
The Lord has been progressing me, working on me, expanding me for what is next. I have been opened up to think and feel and "be" in terms of "Christian". I have prayed as to why He brought me into the Catholic Church, and there are several reasons. And now He has taken me through the portal, through the other, yet not without great effect and linkage, but out the temporal attachments and emphases.
I'm praying about what I'm to be "being" next, or even beginning it now. I'm fairly sure I'm to share the many experiences of God I've had in my life, from way back, as a soul who loves God and Christ and the Holy Spirit. There must be some reason for all the visions and locutions, the death experience, and various unusual phenomenon and occurrences, and I think it is to help others maybe realize how very real is God in our lives, in our midsts, as our Creator and All. I'm thinking in terms of video or documentary style sharing rather than in writing.
But I'll continue to pray what is His will and desire, and why and what He wants me to do with it all, if anything. But I know it could inspire or help others--not particularly Catholics--but for those mostly who are not Catholic, the Gentiles, so to speak, of which I've always felt I was a Gentile Christian and now transitioning through the temporal church, temporal aspects of Catholic church now, As it turns out. I'm more deeply Christian, though, and the spiritual of Catholicism provides treasure, and the writings left from the early centuries and those who grasped the spiritual over the centuries are guides; yet the temporalized aspects of Catholicism have been a warning to not get caught in those entangling nets.
I appreciate the Christian mystics and any holy and good persons, of course! I appreciate all those associated with Christ when on earth, and prior and after, including those around me who are holy and good souls--such as friends and some priests over the years who are very much, holy souls, lovers of God, believers in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit!
I don't need persons or protocol to tell me who is holy and who is not; God lets us know in various ways, who are holy and good souls even if they are in process, for all are in process, even the canonized saints were in process. That is why it is nice to point out and award people with honors for doing well and being great examples of following Christ, but it is not necessary for all the emphasis put on it. Some put much focus on some of these aspects such as saints, rather than on Christ, and the people who have been made into saints through process and ceremonies and label themselves do not want it, any more than Christ wanted the people to make him into their king.
Why not look to the "real deal" as the example, and allow the Holy Spirit to be as Jesus said--our Paraclete? However, it is natural to look to other people and to appreciate the ones who stand out as particularly Christian and as close to Christ as is humanly possible. These are in all religions and faiths and creeds--godly people. God is removing me from my narrow limitations that I took on in my desire to fit in, and is helping me to see the "saints" canonized as having themselves flown free of all that, themselves. They eschewed it.
But I also accept we people including within various Christian churches including within the Catholic church and also of varying religions are all in different places, as the vision given me years ago of what are souls, showed me. We are all in sameness in form but in various positions in the spectrum of progression toward the Light, and there is no essence of rushing or of judgment; all were progressing and all will come into the Light who are in the universe and that vast trajectory of convoluting, involuting, as if semi-transparent, living rubber cones-- our souls constantly moving within themselves, convoluting while yet constantly progressing toward the Light.
I wish I could paint the various visions with motion added. It would be breathtaking and explain so much. But that was one of the more vast and esoteric of visions, the vision of what is the soul and all our souls in relationship to one another and to God. The other visions were more concrete, images more of temporal earth and personages I'd recognize. Or such as Mary who appeared and announced herself as Merari, and was of the image and likeness of people of Sumatra. Mary is universal Theotokos.
I consider a "canonically approved hermit" who continues bleating about canon law 603 and of canonically approved hermits and about every aspect imaginable of canon law 603 and this and that persons in whatever judgment makes of their being true to CL603 or not, or who is or is not to be a Catholic hermit approved or not by the one's estimation. On occasion this "canonical hermit" gets onto temporal societal topics, and from personal, temporal viewpoint opines upon what in self opinion is right or wrong and broaching into what self deems spiritual immorality and sin, degrading those who fall into the sin category and heralding those who are in agreement with how this person views matters.
I had been months away but took a look at what the one writes as an "approved by a bishop," canonical Catholic hermit, wearing religious garment of some past century's conception--similar to what Francis of Assisi wore, perhaps. I was able to see that nothing had changed except I was not the targeted obsession any longer. I had stopped writing labeled as a "Catholic hermit" (of which I am if dwelling in the temporal protocols historically established traditionally by the Catholic Church centuries ago as a result of those in the Church who lived the hermit life and identified then if by anything, as "Christians." They were "Catholics" in that there was no Protestant reformation. There have been hermits in other world religions, of course, before there were Christian hermits and before the Catholic hermit designation or the distinguishing of "Catholic" became pronounced due to development of Protestantism.
But I asked myself again, after seeing that even though I was no longer the target, the topics remain focused on a canon law and whatever born out of that or from being "approved" thereof: Is that the fruit of years of being a Catholic, the fruit of Catholic faith, of having Catholic approval to a label of a way of life that is but one of many forms of vocation?
We are not God, and temporal Catholic regimen is such a temptation to certain personality types, and feeds on those who love external locus of control, and any one of us can become stuck, ensnared in the temporal Catholic nets. And I have been tempted to be stuck, myself, and enmeshed myself in much of the temporal regimen in order to fulfill my human and pathetic need to be accepted, to fit in, and desire for something to fulfill an ideal. But the Catholic church is not God. It is made up of the Body of Christ and Christ as the Head. It is also a means on earth, a help, a process to help us learn much, be as supporters of one another, to come closer to God. The church helps progress us and provides the penultimate gathering of two or more together in prayer and worship. That is, if we do not get caught, or at least not caught for long, in the temporal entanglements of the regimen that humans created, but the bulk of which Christ did not create nor seem to intend if one studies His Living Word.
I find that the earliest centuries of Christianity and the early Church are very helpful in reading what the holy Christian "catholic" people wrote, the Christians of the one Church despite how humans quite soon began to re-interpret and create other than what Jesus taught and lived. The great writings of holy people of the early Church is one reason God brought me into the contemporary Catholic church--to learn! As a Protestant, so much was never broached.
I also feel that God wanted me to get to know the Christian mystics, for they are all but missing in the Protestant churches. I had no conscious clue of them, prior. When I read the first book written about seven of them--not calling them by "saint" but as women who had lived their mystical lives, they included Simone Weil [did not become member of Catholic church] and Rose Ferron, and of course Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and two others--for the first time I found people I could relate with, people like me. Catholicism opened up so many, long before Protestant Reformation, who I could read about, get to know as if personal friends-- read their own words in writings extant. But I also read how they were mistreated, many of them, and used for the purposes the temporal church and people not behaving so well as Christians, seemed to want.
These mystics did much good, of course, as they were good and holy humans, touched by the Holy Spirit. They had a mission and purpose such as we all have, but they found theirs in clear and defined ways and fulfilled them as best they could or knew how, regardless if Catholic or not. It is said Simone Weil was close to being Catholic but did not out of deference to her Jewish roots. The women in the first book I read, not yet a Catholic myself, really did more outside the grasp of the temporal Catholic church, yet the Church claimed them and promoted, such as Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Siena, who belonged more to God than to church. But it was through her being allowed to found the Discalced Carmelites, that Teresa had the freedom to be more on her own path and of helping others into the spiritual life, rather than the temporal legalisms and orientation, such as the one I mention above and many others in the temporal aspects of Church continue with and in.
It is a good example of how I became caught up or even thought perhaps God wanted to use me to try to break through to the person via my blog posts which responded and reacted to this person's temporal emphasis on requirements and regulations--while I was trying to shine light on the spiritual and mystical realities. I was so foolish to get caught in that snare of a debate. It is as old as he devil.
Writing of God, JesusChrist, the Holy Spirit and how our lives daily and nightly are guided and led as we are in Him and He is in us, maybe seems not as easy as writing about people who have lived and died and of which much is written. That is why I find His Living Word and God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit so fascinating and REAL, as they are REAL and inside us, and we are inside God.
What is love, and where does love reside in us? Where does love reside in God? Is it love that motivates, such as my apologizing to neighbor man for my tenseness, when God needed me to also face his weakness and temporal greed. None of that incident matters now, for God moved me on from seeing the weasel-type behavior. We are all animals, of sorts, if we stay in that aspect, but we are created by God to rise beyond through, with, and in Christ, with the empowering love of the Holy Spirit, as God wants of us all. It's all a marvel, really, the reality of God in us and us In God.
I'm pondering Heaven today, and the Gospel gives Jesus' parables of what is Heaven. And I'm pondering, also, why He spoke in parables, for spiritual reality can be too much for most humans to grasp. That is why dreams and visions are often metaphoric and images that represent or explain are clues, so to speak, to the truth and reality. Probably the closest to actual image of the soul was a vision I was given years ago, of what is and are our souls and how our souls progress. The vision was quite simple but in vast expanse, out in the universe, and each soul shown as a cone-shaped unit which involuted over and over while at the same time steadily progressing toward an immense, centrifugal light.
All these cone-shaped, viscous-type, alive yet all the same visually, rubbery-like and nebulous--souls--kept turning inside out repeatedly while at the same time,concurrently, moving forward, advancing silently--millions of them all individual in their position of progression but all the same in appearance and this involuting motion, advancing simultaneously toward the center of the universe of all universes, from which came the immense and drawing-to-Itself Light.
I was told without words, this is how our souls grow and progress, never static, never standing still, none in the exact same spot or location in the progression, but always processing in multitudinous soul-procession, toward the great Light. And all around as if in the cosmos, all these cone-shaped, viable, rubbery, nebulous souls are in the billions, involuting while at the same time progressing all toward a center point in the toward the great Light. (I realize I'm repeating the description that is not easy to describe, and wish I had the skills to create a moving visual using internet technology to demonstrate the incredible, awe-some sight of souls in process of living and growing and progressing toward God, never ceasing, always going forward to the center of God the Creator and Source of All Energy and Beingness and Love.)
I notice that Jesus accomplished what the prophets before Him tried to teach and explain, to show glimpses of what they were shown and were told. God needed to have Himself come as one of us, as His Son to be among us and teach and show and try to explain and exemplify what the prophets could not fully do. So in part, Jesus through use of parables was teaching and announcing what had lain hidden--the spiritual, mystical realities as well as practical and perfect instruction on how we are to live and love among one another. He also taught and exemplified to us how we are in God and God is in us, and of the importance of living God's law of love, the greatest of all laws and commandments. Love God above all things and love others and ourselves as God loves, as we are in God and He is in us. Jesus was announcing, living, teaching, exemplifying these truths that have been from the beginning of creation. Our souls are spiritual. Love transcends the temporal.
Here's the Gospel of Mathew, 13: 31-35, in which Jesus teaches and speaks of the kingdom of heaven, and all spoken to the crowds in parables:
"Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds. 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of the seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. it becomes a large bush, and the birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'
"He spoke to them another parable. 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch was leavened.'
"All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables. He spoke to them only in parables to fulfill what had been said through the prophet: 'I will open my mouth in parables, I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation of the world.'"
Love in His Love, and God bless His Real Presence in you!
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