Sermon by St. John Chrystostom (c.345-407, priest, bishop, Doctor of Church)
A problem is increasingly bothersome with the neighbor man who moved in with a wife. The man, in his 60's, continues to try to engage me and manipulate into conversations so that I often cannot but step out into my back yard with the pup and the man is right there, walking over to his fence, calling out, asking questions rather silly or dumb as he asks as a means of engaging people. Twice I've given the couple a note, each note explaining I am not able to nor interested in socializing given the pain situation. The man persists, as if wanting me to be his "project" or "challenge" to manipulate conversation and time away from the peace and quiet I appreciate in my yard. I am concerned what will be come warmer weather.
Twice he's come knocking on my door when it is dark, the front door; only the first time did I open. He had a piece of mail that evidently had accidentally gone into his box. First ever such incident here in three years. Why come at night when my lights are out, obviously am in bed? When I am out in my backyard he tends to sit on his back deck and in the cold. is on his phone. When he hears or sees me, he raises his voice on phone, wanting me to hear, I suppose? Or to be shocked by his repeating to someone on the other end, his vulgar email address, his laughter at his cleverness ringing out through the otherwise quiet, disrupting the calm of the view God is providing of His nature.
Obviously, the Lord brought this man and second or third wife to live here, as they have no one to pray for them. He evidently views his wife as a teen does his mom, telling me at one such interruption that she him on a leash. He's tried to get me to take the leash off my pup, but that is likely due to his having his large German Shepherd off leash despite our home owner association rules saying all dogs must be on a leash if outside their yard, not to run loose. He was trying to put fear into his reasoning, saying he knew of a dog that got hanged to death on his fence because the owner had a leash on him. I did not bother pointing out that I have no fence; in two months will have the invisible fence that operates using sonar.
I know this is a particular soul assignment from other tricky situations in the two months or so they've been next door. The woman, also, did a couple or three rude and unkind stunts, I guess I'd call them. So I'm praying. I'm loving their souls because I know God loves their souls; God wants all our souls saved, and these two are no exception to God's great salvation desire and love! Thus, this is how I pray for them, in God's love.
Yet is there something more? I read with interest St. John Chrysostom's sermon (below), and it inspires me to persist in prayer, but I suppose I do not seem like much of a Christian when I refuse to get ensnared in the man's manipulative questions and loquacity of little to no consequence.
Must I mention that I am a religious person who is prayerful and appreciates quiet. I am not fair game for manipulative engagement and silly chatter? Another neighbor who was manipulated by the man next door, let flow out what guns, each one, and what type, he has in his home. The one spilling his private business and gun accumulation is elderly and evidently feels vulnerable even though the area thus far is quite safe.
I later mentioned to the well-meaning, elderly man that he should realize that no one really has business knowing about his guns, types, and number. The elderly man realized even if did not want to admit he'd been "robbed" in a sense, but besides being bothered by the man's slovenly appearance, dirty, long, unkempt hair, unshaven face, pants hanging down--not the usual for a former law school grad.
However, when the elderly man said he just wanted to be a good neighbor--I pondered that thought. How to be a good neighbor to a pest? How to be a Christian example to a man in his 60's who keeps trying to engage me when I'm outside and evidently kind of likes to intimidate, as coming to my front door when it's pitch black and my house lights off seems creepy? And no, he does not have Alzheimers if that's what you may be wondering. How do I exemplify Christ to this couple?
I've had to be assertive with difficult persons in the past; and I can say it has not gone well for me. What if I explain that I am more a religious solitary type--not mention Catholic hermit as it is no one's business in the neighborhood or anywhere--and is too easily misconstrued negatively or as odd. (I know this from lived experience.) Well, I have a week or so, and I know my Spouse, His Majesty, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, could work it out for me so that I need not have to try yet again to explain that I am not their challenge, project, or in need of socializing; but if they'd like to convert and discuss Christianity--?
For now, I'm praying and pondering. And John Chrysostom's sermon gives so much good to consider. I will definitely persevere in my prayers, and I will be assertive as Jesus and firm in my "hello" responses and heading back into my hermitage with my pup Mercy, and merely take her to the front yard instead if matters get complicated. Or with myself, I can repeat whatever statement the Holy Spirit will suggest to me or perhaps already has.
It is interesting, though, from the standpoint of being a contemporary Catholic hermit and the situations one may or will encounter in staying true to the vocation, hidden from the eyes of men, in the silence of solitude, not standing out nor displaying oneself as anything other than a person of His Real Presence--yet there's the rub--how to be as Christ to a crude and persistent pest?
By the way, I notice that John Chrysostom mentions the term "bishop"--including suggesting that a bishop would do anything at all to save our souls. This is simply not the case in our time period with many bishops, as they most often do not even know the names or the backgrounds of the individual sheep in the flock. In fact, I've had occasions in which bishops could not at all cope with a mystic as to prefer the mystic not go to church and not even be registered in the diocese. But I'd like to think that any fellow Christian would do all to save a soul. I did look up the term "bishop", and it came into use in the second century and was synonymous in meaning and function with the term "priest." I looked further, curious as to when "pope" came into use, and that is much later--mid-10th century. Most interesting, is it not?
All the more I am concerned with keeping clear just what IS the Church and what is not, and my being one in the Body of Christ as a believer in Christ as Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity and of His Real Presence, abiding in me as I abide in Him, with Christ as Head of His Church--I take quite seriously my role as a Christian, as an apostle, a follower of Christ, and in being in His Living Word to understand and live out His will and teachings. All the more I desire to live out my vocation that God called me to as a Catholic Christian Hermit, consecrated as a Catholic hermit by God Himself along with His wounding and consecrating my heart. Now what am I to do about my life in His Real Presence and in this world of which I yet am living? How am I to be Christ to this now-problematic man and his wife?
From Now on It Is Men You Will Catch (from St. John Chrysostom's homily on the Canaanite woman)
"Today I haven't persuaded the person listening to me but maybe I'll do so tomorrow, perhaps in three or four days or a little while. The fisherman who threw his nets the whole day long to no avail sometimes takes a catch in the evening, just as he was about to leave, of the fish he had been unable to catch during the day. The laborer does not cease to cultivate his land even though he had not had a good harvest for several yers; and in the end a single year often makes up abundantly for all the previous losses. God does not ask us to succeed but to work; now our work will not be any less the rewarded because no one will have listened to us.
"More: will the devil cease to tempt each of the faithful because he foresees that many of them will be saved? See with what care, what infernal perseverance, what detestable solicitude he pursues the soul until they have rendered their last sigh; until then he doesn't despair, and don't you believe that your bishop will do to save your soul what the devil does to pay it back? Christ well knew that Judas would not convert, and yet, until the end, He wanted to attempt his conversion, reproaching him for his fault in the most touching terms: 'Friend, why have you come?' (Mt 26:50). Now, if Christ, the model of pastors, worked until the end for the conversion of desperate man, what should we not do for those with regard to whom it is granted to us to hope?"
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