It's as if Catherine wrote this to me specifically, for this very day. A lot to explain, but I've had yet more reality check by a long time friend, a secular humanist but bright, good, active, social, volunteer, kind, but told me her thoughts on my family situation, and was blunt as she said she'd thought about it for years but now was the time to tell me how embarrassed she'd been to be my friend and struggled with being my friend, and felt sorry for my children (two out of college, married, and one 19 and graduating from high school).
Had to do with my hermit vocation, and nearly 23 years ago when I was in a community of hermits, the premise of our living in our own abodes, having our training via mail from prioress, writing, reading, praying, assignments, and sticking to an horarium, of which in my case was told to at 4 p.m. or when son came home from last months in high school, to cease and be a parent for the evening or free to read when he did his homework or off to evening job as a lifeguard at the local YMCA
It was this that she figured with each of my adult children of why my painful chain situation has persisted for some time, 10 years, 20 years: now fulminating in my being chained to rejection, striving and trying and reaching in, to not much avail. It must stop. Even the clinical psychologist long-time friend suggested I be receptive, just wait, do not reach out further, not in email, text or my gifting nature, not in offers to help with ideas or fixing this or that in manual labor. They seem totally done, burned out, not wanting much of anything in contact. I figured it was also the on-going suffering, of three young children left by their dad to mostly be responsible for themselves (one a baby) when I was at first trying to keep it all together, working, finishing doctorate, while also many times in bed with what I know now to be the intractable pain of Adhesive Arachnoiditis.
But the years have passed, and what the long-time "friend" has really not much in common with me as her life has been different from mine, yet the conversations had been lively, and she is a most compassionate (and passionate person, and very blunt which I appreciate). She has on other occasions admitted she does not understand the mystical aspects.
The assessment in reality may have to do with my spiritual life, my mystical being, along with so much pain of various types. So at this point, being freed from the Chains of Rejection in various forms and over many years, I must focus on being God's agent now, and I am praying to dare to dream again of what God might want of me, His mystic, His child, His poor gray dove, His Sr. Pio of the Wounded Heart, His co-sufferer living in this temporal realm but not belonging to it. What will it be? There is hope and faith in the very question.
The long time "friend" as well as my next elder sister (recently) separately, spontaneously commented that I must be lonely, the friend saying that I am very lonely. This is a typical view of those who are not wed with Christ; but there is certainly that element of ontological aloneness and a suffering in waiting for Jesus to return for me, to take me with Him, to consummate our marriage. But no, the current fulmination is not being lonely; I know fully His Real Presence in me and me in Him.
Rather, it is the unfulfilled agony of being chained to rejection, lacking courage to accept and admit that there is nothing to do now but break the chains, for the others will not want to say their grievances and desire to be free themselves; they do it with rejection and frustration with me.
I am not lonely; but I am not otherwise, not fulfilling what God may want of me, dreams for me and I could dream for my existence in Him, that could be successful; wherein the other, the beloved temporal ones, has, as my dad said clearly in a locution to me one morning three years ago when matters were dire where I was staying with unreciprocated loved ones. "Too much water over the dam," Dad said, his unmistakable voice breaking clearly, through the dim of dawn.
Dad always in life had a succinct way of assessing situations with nail-on-the-head aphorisms.
Back to the present moment: Here is what Catherine wrote, technically some 750 years ago. Yet I am convinced she wrote the letter to me, for this very day, this night, this hour. I take it to heart. And it is a writing of Catherine of Siena that most temporal, active life others of my ken would not grasp or live deeply in its reality. The content is nothing my friend afar or my sister would be open to unless a religious conversion and gust of mystic-blowing-breath infused them by the Holy Spirit of God; but it seems meant for me, and I'm grateful! Praise God! Please give me strength, Lord! Have mercy on us all!
Rejoice and Persevere to the End!
(Letter written by Catherine of Siena, 1347-1380, lay Dominican tertiary, Doctor of the Church, co-patron of Europe--titles given her of which she'd humbly eschew)
Rejoice and be happy! Persevere to the end and prefer to die rather than abandon the post to which God has called you.
"But embrace the Cross with patience and hide in God's breast with your troubles; fix your eyes on the Lamb immolated for your sake and always be content with what God gives you and destines for you. We must act like this because we are sure that God is calling us and has chosen us for what will make us the most pleasing in His sight.
"Thus you will go from light to light and the pains endured for the sake of Jesus crucified will be delightful to you, whereas the pleasures and consolations of the world will become bitter. You will begin to taste, even in this life, a foretaste of eternal life, for the principal beatitude of the soul in heaven is to be confirmed for ever in the will of the Father. Thus it tastes of the divine sweetness. But it will never taste it in heaven if not clothed with it on earth where we are pilgrims and travelers.
"When it is clothed with it, it tastes God by grace in its troubles; its memory will be full of the blood of the Lamb without blemish; its mind will be opened and contemplate the ineffable love that /god has made known in the wisdom of his Son, and the love it finds in the Holy spirit's goodness casts out self-love and love for created things to love only God.
"So do not be afraid...but suffer with joy so as to conform yourself to the will of God."
Thank you, His Real Presence, for this reminder from Catherine of Siena! I so needed this letter to break through the well-intended and loving assessments from those around me, but those who do not grasp my mystic self, my spiritual betrothal, and my mystical wedding with Christ now nearly 10 years ago--and the reality of what is truth in this beautiful life and world in which our bodies exist but our minds, hearts, and souls are called to His Real Presence even now, in this moment. And for this, some more than others, grasp and accept, and free themselves from chains of misunderstanding that seems perhaps to each of them in different ways: rejection.
God bless His Real Presence in us! Love in His Love!
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