Catholic Hermit Ponders God's Will

During Lent the elements lift one's heart and mind and soul to reflection.  For those of us who desire to be more through, with, and in Christ, we tend to sense the Holy Spirit working in us especially in this liturgical season.  We recall what Jesus said to St. Catherine of Siena:  You are nothing;  I Am All.

Here, in the quiet of this unfinished hermitage, I ponder God's will in my life.  I pray for God's will often--to listen to His will, to hear His will, to discern in all that is about me temporally and spiritually of guidance from His will, and to be in His will.  I consider the Words of Jesus as perhaps the most pure means of being in His will: Remain in My Love.

My own Lenten illness remains a challenge, mostly in just feeling strong enough to get up and begin some manual labor.  I had hoped this week, but the ascent from my cozy sleeping bag will be gradual; perhaps today I can sand, prime, and paint some trim.  Perhaps I can paint a final coat on some door trim upstairs.  It depends upon my body's resilience from what continues of slowly improving sinus infection; and I know the strep infection within this Lenten suffering was wearing.

Then there has been the increase in phone calls with the aunt and the cousin, regarding the struggle-to-live of the young family member whose flu turned into undetected pneumonia into sepsis into septic shock.  She made it through a thoracic-cardio surgery Friday night; the infection needed to be removed from around her heart, lungs, and her chest cavity cleaned out from it so it would not return.

Saturday her condition improved; breathing tube removed, all was trending in the right direction, her organs gaining a must-needed rest from the dialysis taking over for her kidneys.  We were uplifted and had a chance to praise God without it being a more willed praising.  Then Sunday came the update that overnight her white cell count had doubled, the doctors were worried, Infectious Disease Team being called.  So back to the more full-press praying, and I was texting, emailing, and posting this update on social media.

And I had to call my aunt to try to explain to her, and to help her sift through the wordage as she calls her church's prayer chain leader with the updated prayer needs.  People inquire; they want to know the teen's progress and what next in prayer needs.  I also called later to reassure of what the doctor thought, that the teen's body could work through this hurdle; and she is monitored carefully, of course.  

Later in the night--too late to call the aunt--my cousin called and had much to discuss.  She just needed to talk and hear my voice, she said.  It was all very positive, again; and it does seem the lead doctor's assessment to let the teen's body have more time to work through the white cell spike to improve.  Yet the cousin wanted my advice on something to do with finances and asking for money; my advice ended up being much wasted word and energy.

Amidst the increased activity of interacting with many friends, family--the various personalities played out in the situation.  This includes the woman who receives the prayer updates to pass onto their prayer chain of the church to which the family is affiliated.  Even her personality traits, her idiosyncrasies and need to be in charge, the top dog, erupted as I had been texting immediately the prayer update to another person who would send email to the prayer chain leader.  Then I realized my aunt was trying to call in the update to the prayer chain leader, even if the aunt was tiring.  Yet she wants to do this, insists; and I know it is therapeutic for her.

Mercy!  All situations help in grasping more God's will for us in the present moment.  We also can fit the pieces of His lessons in us in order to grasp God's will in the forward progression of our lives.

I've been discerning with the help of someone as far away physically as Fr. V in Nigeria. With a contemporary Catholic hermit's "window to the world" in a laptop, the direction can come easily.  Or in a letter from my spiritual father, he helps shed "light".  It is all good, all lovely, all being sifted and sorted and flowing in a God-willed direction.

For me, this Lent I've needed many lesson-examples in the tangible and temporal as well as in the spiritual or through mystical means.  They all do flow one from into another.  The temporal in which our lives seem steeped, flows also very much so in the spiritual.  And all the while the spiritual is in and around us if we can be in the mode of pondering God's will, in awareness that His will is ever washing through us and pressing us from moment to moment, giving us guidance, leading us.

I'm yet sorting through the thought that had I not said not a word to my cousin of what the Lord had shown me from the get-go regarding her granddaughter, had I not kept trying to break through to her with the reality of severity of the infection, and to make sure an early suggestion that the teen had beginning of pneumonia and to get her to the renowned hospital for children where specialists can test for all strains of pneumonia--yes, this situation would have been handled sooner than later.

However, all that I tried in communicating and urging, and of how in what I was told many, many years ago is the gift of "inner sight", and all my heightened sensitivity which makes me all the more intent, really did not affect the outcome.  It was when the teen's kidneys and liver began to fail and the one doctor who finally caved late at night (perhaps finally facing what he could have in the morning when he discovered her septic shock and kidney issues)--only then was the girl lift-flighted to where I'd been beseeching from the get-go before she was in dire condition.

And I've been reflecting upon the saints and mystics, and of how some or many came to a level of prayer of faith, and would not have details pouring into them from others.  And this would be for hermits, as well--the traditional hermits which include the prophets and visionaries of the Old Testament and of such as John the Baptist in the New Testament.  

They did not have phone or internet, and not even that many people around them--but one or two if that, for the more ascetic hermits--and their prayer was informed by God through the Holy Spirit.  They had such a level of prayer that I can only consider it to be more of the unitive way, of union, or at other times of affection and the transitioning degrees of contemplation.  And their prayers were so efficacious!  An image might come to their inner senses, or a message, or in a dream--or nothing at all but an infusion deep in their souls; yet they prayed and God's will prevailed as it always does.

It is not that they did not need to pray; they prayed as St. Paul advises, pray without ceasing.  And that portion of Scripture in which we are told that the Holy Spirit prays for us when our words limit or are not even possible--our sighs, our groanings: the Holy Spirit is praying for us.

I suppose my present moment summation for what God wills of me is to desire that quiet and peaceful prayer that is affective prayer to prayer of quiet to prayer of union with God in which I am in Him, my self nothing, and God Is All.  But I must wait for Him to do as He wills in regard to what He wills in how I pray.  In this situation, I have verbal tasks and coordinating skills.  Call, text, email.  Another text came from my cousin, asking me more about the personality of someone there with them in the hospital who keeps creating difficulties.  

So I wrote back some suggestions and gave the names of a couple of personality disorders.  If they can learn more the symptoms and underlying causes--just as the doctors needed to find the source of their teen's sepsis in order to treat it--they will better be able to turn frustration and anger into compassion. But also they can learn some strategies to put into place so that they are not in knee-jerk reaction to the person's varying manipulations and behaviors.  That effort in providing answer to her inquiry ended up as a murdered carcass dumped out of a car which then speeds off. It is how the Lord is teaching me repeatedly to sort and sift various aspects of interactions.

Perhaps the Lord is willing that I--yes--live in the present moment with whatever way He wishes me to pray, for in this particular situation, it was not charitable to not respond to my cousin's first text of urgency and need of prayers, nor the updates and the added duty in love to call the elderly aunt.  For now I must discern the level and degree what of God's will for my involvement in others' crises and requests for prayer:  one situation at a time. 

And there is a choice to be made, for me in my responses to extraneous requests for advice on this or that.  I can kindly but firmly mention that I know the person can pray and listen and be guided in what to do.  That will not be difficult for two reasons.  The person is not used to my responding that way, and sometimes I do (believe it or not) have experience and insights that are tested, true, as we learn much from our journeys through with, and in Christ. 

It is so true that in this situation as well as others recently, I learn much; for I am not much evolved as a soul as well as God wills of each person what He wills.  Not to each and all does He will the same, by any means.  We see this in the variety of hermits in history and even contemporaneously.  Not any of us are on the same "page" at the same time, nor are we given the same set of circumstances in the living out of our hermit vocations, and the variety of inner-vocational constructs seem endless the more we examine the lives of holy hermits.

In other words, do as Jesus asks us:  Remain in My Love.  We children of God are in process, always (hopefully) learning. Knowledge leads us to better understanding, and when we understand and strive to remain in His Love, we gain wisdom.  

All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are in different levels of temporal and spiritual.  We do best to progress through all levels of which we can view as two parallel paths, with our temporal situations benefitting from the gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us, and also to be in Christ on the spiritual path, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are beneficial all the more in that trajectory. 

We can image one path, the spiritual, on higher ground than the temporal path of our situations and ways of thinking and being.  Yet the gifts of the Holy Spirit are in each pathway, assisting our beings in our earthly situations that are also essentially spiritual situations, thus.  The spiritual pathway remains eternally, though, as being in essence and substance, higher and predominant.

When we do die, it is well to remember that we will not be functioning in the temporal in any temporal capacity.  That path will be no more for us to tred. All will be of the spiritual--our thoughts, feelings, senses, means of communicating and movement.  The trajectory is always toward God in His Love and Light.  

That is why even in the most anchored of temporal situations, to remain in Christ's Love is profoundly best.  And while very difficult for us to perceive "how" to do this--how we can remain in His Love--we can simply ask to remain in His Love, desire it with sincerity, and God will do all necessary.  We will be in His Love.  

Remain in His Love in His Real Presence. God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit Considers Obedience, Righteousness

In the on-going reflection (inspired by His Living Word this week!), this hermit received a phone call late yesterday while taping off another section of siding trim, readying to paint.

A daughter called and shared the debate she is having with her young son who persists in wanting material things.  He is at an age of being influenced and tempted by neighborhood boys whose parents have varying notions and practices of what matters.  (The topic is providential!)

At one point in what was a long day of explaining to and battling the lad--and holding firm--about what are priorities, what are prudent uses of money and what tend to be wasteful outcomes, the child declared he wanted a $100 pumpkin (huge one, obviously) like the neighbor boys were given by their parents.

What?  This all-ears Catholic hermit remained calm despite how shocking the notion of a pumpkin costing $100, no matter how immense.  The boy's mother explained that a large pumpkin will rot out the same as a small one.  What remains, then, of any enjoyment or use?  Then she had the insight to ask him to consider how many people he could help, with $100.  He replied he could help many, many people with that much money.

I asked the daughter to ask the grandson to make a list of what he thinks matters to God.  I shared the on-going reflection as to what matters to God and of first examining what are possessions--keeping in mind that possessions can vary and the bulk aren't even tangibles.  And to qualify as a possession they also tend to be those things, ideas, persons, or aspects that possess us, as well.

Who knows if the daughter will remember to ask him.  They are busy with schooling and various activities that lend to a balanced life for a child existing in our society today.  But she already had perched upon a branch of Jesus' teachings, and the boy was being challenged to consider what matters.

Now, what matters to us can diverge from what matters to God.  We need to merge into awareness and choices in what matters to God if we desire to be in union with His Real Presence.  Then, for sure, what the neighbor kids want and have won't be a priority unless they have attained spiritual union with God already.

Today's Scripture from Romans 6 presents pertinent fodder for growing and storing knowledge, understanding, and wisdom in spiritual progress and attaining union with His Real Presence.  It is all a process.  In considering what types of possessions matter to God as opposed to what we desire to possess or are possessed by, St. Paul uses the example of obedient slaves.

We can be slaves who obey or who disobey.  Obedience is key to being a good slave.  Slaves who disobey don't fare well.  Then, we can be slaves of someone or something or some thought that is either good or not good--and that can be according to what is good or not good in the world or what is good or not good according to God.  And sometimes what is good according to God tends also to be good in the world, although not always.  But what is good according to God is always good for us, regardless.

Then St. Paul weaves in a type of obedience that perhaps we've never considered, at least not consciously. This is obedience from the heart.  We can be obedient from our bodies and minds according to laws, according to what others ask of us, according to what others have or do, and according to our own desires--for good or ill.

But to be obedient from the heart inspires an obedience that comes from faith, hope, love.  It is an obedience that transcends temporal or natural or societal or cultural or even ecclesial laws in the sense that obedience from the heart suggests obedience from love and of the soul.  Obedience of the heart requires the gifts of the Holy Spirit and also a submission of our souls to God's laws, obeyed in love and for the sake of His love.

Obeying from the heart often times results in good when applied to laws of the temporal order and of categories mentioned above.  Yet in all of these considerations, heart-full obedience to God's laws and especially His law of love, will lead us to righteousness.  Obedience from the heart as to what matters to God is righteous obedience, righteous slavery.  We are led from "death" to righteous life.

"Do you not know that if you present yourselves
to someone as obedient slaves,
you are slaves of the one you obey,
either of sin, which leads to death,
or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
But thanks be to God that, although you were once slaves of sin,
you have become obedient from the heart
to the pattern of teaching to which you were entrusted.
Freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

Although quite aching with pain and weary from painting hermitage exterior (right arm numb in the night!), I will continue praying for understanding, knowledge, and wisdom as to how to actually obey from the heart.  Yes, I will ask for this grace.  Obeying from my heart, God's laws, will mean being a slave of righteousness: a veritable, loving, obedient slave of His Real Presence!  

Is it so, then, that when we obey from the heart God's laws, then obedience from the heart to laws of the land, the Church, of workplaces and society, will become subsistent and accomplished simply, mindlessly, for God's law and being a slave to righteousness transcends the others?  Seems so!  God's laws sift and sort all other laws, so that those who obey from the heart His laws, the other laws become (to use a colloquial term) "grandfathered in."

Obedience from the heart and being a slave to righteousness places us in holy, loving servitude to God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.  We remain in His Love!  Surely this is what matters to God?

Dear His Real Presence, please give me the grace today and every day to be obedient from my heart and a slave to Your Righteousness!  Thank You, in faith, hope, and love!

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit's Spiritual Father Weighs In

Finally was able to reach the spiritual father.  Reported what occurred at this past Mass.  He said to not at all go back.  He said to not try to talk to or help the priest, for he said it will do not good.  He said to not try to talk to the vicar general at the diocese, for a couple others of which the hermit is aware have approached to no avail.

The plan was for the hermit to go to a parish in which the priest is solid and healthy and able to function well with parishioners and to celebrate holy Mass unimpeded.  The hermit checked the map, and the drive is too far; the hermit's back cannot take that.  For awhile now, the left hip becomes extremely painful and remains so for days after driving an hour.  To have to go nearly two hours each way and also sit during Mass, is too much, physically.

So, the Lord will be this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit's "portion and cup."  Solus Deus.  This is how it must be for now.  Exile.  It is all right.

Awoke the other night quite ill.  Sickness had come to this body; and the body felt it, the mind knew it.  Mostly these illnesses go into the lungs sooner or later and require antibiotics.  But, the hermit is trying over the counter remedies on hand and drinking lots of hot tea.  God provides.

With whatever energy can be mustered, the exterior painting continues.  Yesterday, the hermit finished caulking around a section of porch siding.  There are always obstacles.  Had to stop many times to rest the body, of course, and then also had to remedy some glitches such as an opening under the eaves in which birds could get in the space between porch ceiling and roof.  In another spot, a small piece of wood needed to be sawed and fitted to cover over where there was a small opening of weakened, old, wood facia.

There is no sense in just waiting for the illness to worse but rather to remain positive and do even an hour of some sort of labor while praying, and to pray while laboring.  Prayers for the priest seem to take priority ever since Sunday morning Mass.  This illness is offered for him, and in some ways, the horror of what others evidently could not sense, depleted this body's reserves and resilience.   The body is a sacrifice of praise for the priest.

For now and into whatever days and weeks and months the Lord allows energy and improved health, the hermit will continue to try to finish this hermitage, get it salable, and then move on wherever the Lord has a place for the hermit to come to roost.  Hopefully, there will be a holy monastery nearby, or a small parish with a priest after the Lord's own heart, where the hermit can come and go anonymously, as much as feasible, and be subsumed into the Mass.  

If that is not in this consecrated Catholic hermit's future, the hermit will accept in faith and trust and love.  It all--all aspects of our life both temporal and spiritual--have to be in the Lord's will and choosing.  Over time, the discernment process sorts what is His will and what is not.

While it would be quite easy to judge the current situation by those who do not experience--and difficult enough for this hermit to describe it.  The time alone with His Real Presence and the spiritual communions, the heartfelt acts of contrition, the prayers for forgiveness such as offered the other afternoon while crunched up under an eave, trying to paint and also keep from sliding off the steep porch roof--it is blessed time spent solus Deus.

One can only do what one can do, follow the guidance of one's spiritual father, yield to physical obstacles that are not prudent to breach, and simply trust in the Lord even when situations seem not as one would think in temporal Catholic world considerations.  In such circumstances, we have to go on faith, on hope that is unseen, praying for the gifts of knowledge, counsel, understanding, and wisdom--four of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and also considered to be the intellectual gifts.

"Here I am, Lord, I have come to do Your will."  What better prayer at a time like this?

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit Recovering

Such horrific experiences of clarity of the holiness of a Mass that is disrupted by unholiness or even what is not that which is in union with a priest at the portal, pointing the way from the temporal to the spiritual realm, takes a bit of recovery time.

By late yesterday when up on the roof painting siding, the inner peace returned.  Yet this morning, awoke asking the Lord if this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit has any responsibility beyond praying for the priest and for the parishioners.  Don't yet know the answer.

Could do a bit of casting of the nets to discern.  Could call a priest who is solid in his vocation and who is aware of the parish priest and his issues, and seek his counsel.  However, am not convinced ought to even do that much.  Prayer is quite powerful as is suffering.  And this hermit has suffered greatly with a growing compassion for the parish priest who is not able to fulfill totally a vocation that requires death to self and teaching and preaching and leading people through, with, and in Christ Jesus.

To have a disorder that precludes being comfortable or willing to be around people personally, is not helpful for a priestly vocation.  To have one's heart in poetry and theatre and in personal performance is not helpful.  So there are some hurdles that would need to be leapt, and it may not be in the personality or desire to do so.

This Catholic hermit very much empathizes!  It tried and tried, years ago, to please the parents as well as to try a vocation as a classroom teacher. But something deep within knew it was not its true calling.  Yet, the practical aspects for a classroom teacher are quite clear-cut, and the hermit's mother was a very successful classroom teacher, as was it's husband, years and years ago. It all made practical sense--all the reasons to be a classroom teacher, and the hermit could do all that was required.  However, if it is not one's true vocation, there is not the innate quality and success, the heart is not filled with the quench of natural contentment even if the externals are accomplished.

So the Lord plucked the hermit out of the classroom when it did not have the courage or wherewithal to do so.  And the Lord made more clear the hermit's vocation. Yes, it is to teach--but to teach men and women how to stabilize their emotions through spirituality.

And to this, the Catholic hermit must review and refine it's own part in this calling.  Writing is mostly the means of this teaching, and prayer; and the hermit must pray more about fulfilling the calling.  Distractions pull the hermit off-course.

Today's Gift of the Holy Spirit as spiritual gift for the hermit's friend, is the gift of "knowledge."  The Catechism of the Catholic Church clarifies this on knowledge:  with the gift of knowledge, we understand the meaning of God.  The gift of knowledge is more than an accumulation of facts; it also helps us to choose the right path through life.

Somehow, with the horror of what occurred in the bastardization of a Mass, the hermit lost over a day of its life and got confused on what chapters to read with what intentions in the spiritual gift.  So today the hermit is reading/praying Chapters 9 and 10 in The Letter to the Hebrews.  Chapter 10 is particularly rich, deep, and moves the soul.  It relates meaningfully with the gift of knowledge.

The Catholic hermit needs to rise from the mattress. The pain level is quite high this morning, but it will rise, dress, and continue caulking the trim on the porch area as well as re-do the window trim and flashing, as the hermit got the flashing in the wrong place.  All must be done omnia pro Deo: all for God!  To do something wrong and to leave it not right, is not the best one can do for God...or anyone.  But doing our best and giving our all for God is our primary duty and ought to be our main desire, as well.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit Forges Forward

The body is quite tired as painting above the head and scrunched under eaves, trying to remain on steeply slanted porch roof, rather exacts all the energy physically.  All the while, the mind prays and the heart grieves.  The soul is in and out and all about, and in that soul is His Real Presence, making His abode.

Yesterday afternoon the prayers turned to some levity, as the term "human Mass-o-meter" came to mind.  It is actually a painful experience when the needle shoots to "horrific" and then "hell."  But the experience hits the gong of "bliss" when all is well and nothing untoward going on.

Alas, the advice given is this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit must not at all return to that parish for Mass.  The blessing is that the body and voice did not call out or scream; the voice is always one of the last of physical faculties to be returned.  That is something for which this hermit yesterday was quite grateful.

In reflection this morning, the grieving for the parish and parishioners and even the priest, needs to turn to an appreciation and gratefulness that they are content in their fish tank parish.  They swim about in lovely surroundings and are well used to one another and how it is in the tank--all things kept at an equilibrium of basic survival.  There are no waves, no temperature shifts, no challenges.  They all are cohesive, and what they do not sense or realize helps them not know what they are missing or what could be for their spiritual lives and their souls.

Most of all, though, they do not realize just how very rich is the Mass in the spiritual realm, and that all care must be taken to please Jesus and to follow Him intimately, through and through.

And, this brings this hermit to today's thoughts that it does not follow Jesus intimately at times, and more and more times, as surely as well as it ought and should and could.  So the eremitic vocation comes to mind, and when the hermit must get its painful body up and dressed and atop the porch roof, back to its painting of tedious little siding shingles, it will pray and ponder and ask Jesus some questions regarding its own living out of the hermit vocation to which this soul was and is called.

And, today's intention for the spiritual friend far away bodily, is that of the Gift of the Holy Spirit: Fortitude.  From The Catechism of the Catholic Church comes this definition:

• Fortitude (courage): with the gift of fortitude/courage, we overcome our fear and are willing to take risks as a follower of Jesus Christ. A person with courage is willing to stand up for what is right in the sight of God, even if it means accepting rejection, verbal abuse, or physical harm. The gift of courage allows people the firmness of mind that is required both in doing good and in enduring evil;

God bless His Real Presence in us!  May we accept the Gifts of the Holy Spirit as well as any spiritual gifts that come our way, and appreciate them even if painful in some instances, and blissful in others.

Catholic Hermit: To Attempt or Not

Am praying up to the last possible moment before needing to rise from mattress, dress, and drive the distance to Mass, then face sitting another hour or more.  And, this is after a particularly grueling pain siege lasting a couple or more days.  This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is yet a bit too pained but pushed itself yesterday to do a bit more exterior painting.

This morning's chapter of Hebrews is 7, and this for the friend who recently turned 88.  The hermit is daily offering reading and praying the Letter to the Hebrews, the Living Word of God, with also a daily prayer intention for the friend:  a spiritual gift.  Yes, the spiritual gift is being offered; but the friend is a spiritual gift to the hermit, as well.  Today's intention is the Holy Spirit's gift of counsel.

Counsel, as the gift of the Spirit, is that of making right judgments, right decisions, within the will of God and pertaining to all of the soul's existence in body, mind, and heart--relating to life in this temporal world as well as life in His Real Presence.  Counsel has to do with right decisions regarding all that one does, says, thinks and prays.

This morning the hermit does not want to go to Mass.  Why?  The answer has sifted down to these two points:  physical pain will increase as a result of driving and then added sitting during Mass; and the horror that can be and is likely, to be trapped in a type of hell when in ecstasy but the priest's tendency to intrude into the glory of the Mass with unhealthy or disturbing aspects.

Rather than go into the latter, in depth, the hermit understands the various facets of how this occurs, when it occurs, during Mass.  It takes a great submission and dying to self to endure when there are aspects of the beauty of Mass so tainted and disturbed.  The hermit's spiritual father in the past has said to try to allow oneself to be crucified, for the Lord certainly is when such intrusions occur within the Mass, especially caused by a priest or allowed by a priest, at the altar or lectern.

But the hermit wonders if the Lord also asks this hermit to voluntarily do that which is going to cause more physical pain later, from the driving and sitting, particularly when still recovering from a physical crucifixion-type pain siege?

Perhaps it is best to find out.  After all, this consecrated Catholic Hermit has tended to cast the nets int he water, time and again, to discern God's will.  Either the nets will come up empty, partly full, or full. Perhaps, also, this is how we Christians learn to cooperate with the gift of counsel, of trying to learn right judgment and to find out what the Lord wills for each of us, individually and as His Body.

The hermit certainly needs much grace in every present moment.  That is for sure.

God bless His Real Presence in us!