Christian Catholic Hermit Mystic: Pathos of the Sin of Judging Others

There are valid points for all humans, including hermit humans, to not place ourselves as judges of others, and to strive in living our lives not based on disagreeing or living to expound upon others' lives.  

That is, we may be influenced by others' lives, or interested in others' lives, such as I am grateful to have had the blessing of a collection of books of arcane mystics, hermits, "saints", writings of spiritual directors of saints, Scriptural commentaries, and of Catholic poets and literary talents.  These topics and talented souls are intriguing!  I personally am interested in the spiritual life, in the soul's progression.  I want to lift my mind, heart, and soul to positivity, as a goal.  The mystical and temporal have always been of interest as well as a topic of which I've written since high school days. I also wrote of man's inhumanity to man to a point that an English teacher commented on an essay that it gave her chills--the depth to which I wrote.  I think it was of some theme in one of Dante's Trilogy.  

I'm old and weary now, so I can't evoke chills, but I obviously cause reaction--but really only from this one person and her blog comrades.  It is always negative reaction, which is a so what, but no kindly.  We all have our minds and thoughts, and yet I'm not really a blog-reader myself, but a blog writer.  So I'm not interested in writing based on what another blogger writes or thinks--unless that person attacks me personally, as in detraction and wrong judgment. I recognize that there are Christians from the time of Christ, including Christ, who spoke and wrote what stirred others to a full spectrum of emotions, from anger to hatred, from disagreeing to detracting, from misunderstanding to outright misconstruing, from disliking to sinful judging. 

Some detractors became so incensed by what others spoke and wrote that they went from words to actions.  That is how Christ was crucified and numerous persons over the centuries were run out of towns, dropped into cisterns, sold into slavery, thrown off cliffs, fed to lions, stoned to death, beheaded, burned at the stake, drawn and quartered, shot, guillotined.   

When someone--another hermit--cannot seem to cope with a fellow hermit's also writing a blog, discussing the personal, spiritual, daily journey and who then detracts, stalks, and diminishes a fellow hermit in ugly and untruthful terms, there is grave sin involved.  The main concerns in such an unthinkable yet ongoing situation are the obsession, the seeming envy and resentment, the anger and frustration that the detracting hermit cannot seem to keep in check, as well as the online stalking (penal code infraction in most states). A call to the hermit's diocese might remind the infracting hermit to reign in the impulsive behavior; but what if that hermit's diocese does not want anything to do with their diocese hermit? What if they deny having responsibility for the perniciously maligning hermit?  Spiritual counseling might remind such a person to keep pride in check, for no one person, least of all a hermit, is the divine or otherwise appointed authority or guardian of hermits or of the hermit vocation.  

Hermits are not in competition with one another.  This is a simple statement that if repeated enough, along with "Thou Shalt Not Judge" might help quell  judging another hermit to even such a wrong as judge and write publicly inferring that I'm not a Christian and that I'm not a Catholic.  The seriousness and ungodliness of such a judgment against another cannot be emphasized enough.  The very timing of a publicly written statement in itself is not of God.  

The hurtfulness and the pathos of judging and of stating such ugliness does nothing but to damage and imperil the very soul of a person who persists in it.  A diocese hermit who demeans, detracts, and viciously and wrongly judges another person is in grave, moral standing within the Church as well as with God.  For one thing, people--another hermit-- is a person who like other people is loved by Jesus and is one who God values very much, and for whom God has chosen the hermit life. 

A basic step for any individual who experiences such a painful and hurtful situation, is to offer prayer for this offending person (even if sadly a hermit perpetuating such ugliness), and pray also for any others, such as the offender's friends, who have been involved in the detraction and ill-will toward the person being attacked.  Let these situations and suggestions of how to deal with them be a reminder for any one: find other topics than target another person, and above all, stop judging in such rashness and of that which there is no factual proof.

Judging and deciding who is not a Christian, a not a Catholic, and leaving enough identifying information in a public blog is going too far across the line of what Jesus teaches. Surely no member of church clergy would condone derision or libel, slander or even veiled hints of tearing down another person--hermit or otherwise--in any manner.  

As for writing on the topic of legalism and increasing temporal aspects of churches (Catholic or other denominations, and of any world religions and sects in our time) Jesus was certainly well aware of these aspects in the Jewish temple of His time.  He was quite frank and honest in his speaking of these realities which had those stuck in the temporal aspects of religion and even of spiritual life--to the point of losing His life for what He said and taught.  

There are many canonized Catholic saints and mystics who endured terrible persecution, and worse, at the hands of such persons who were and are stuck in and attached to temporal views and opinions.  These persons "stuck" did verbally and at times physically attacked those who saw through to the spiritual, the numinous, the love of God and of God's Law of Love above all things temporal.  St. John Chrysostom is one who spoke and wrote of truth and beauty over the corruptions and wrongs of his time; and he was exiled and eventually killed for his words.  

Let us hold forth and foremost (and this is for all hermits and humans) of all vocations, Catholic or not, that the hermit and most vocations we live:  A vocation is not a competition. Furthermore, there is no hierarchy among hermits nor in most vocations--no designations such as of Royalty,  There is no Queen of Hermits, no King of Hermits, no Lead Hermit, no Head hermit, no Legal or Illegal Hermit--at least not in God's purview of hermits who are mere humble followers of Jesus and adherents of the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  We are Christ's, God's, and the Holy Spirit's Hermits! 

Furthermore, we are all human--we hermits. We are all human no matter what vocation God has given us and of which we have accepted God's call. No vocation is more important nor more authentic than the other! We Christians are all in process, all learning to follow, to serve, to love, to obey God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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

Christian Cathlic Hermit Mystic: God's Law of Love Supersedes and Excels Over Laws and Love Created By and of Humankind

There may be not only an obsession with temporal laws, but also an obsession with some intent on twisting what I write.  Promoting temporal church laws (created by humankind), is in truth, not the best path to promote or to take in making a stand for oneself or in any one's personal, spiritual growth.

The reality remains that God's Law of Love is the Law  excels and exceeds over any other law, according to Jesus Christ.  In my preceding post, this point is made, but it is best to simply read the Scriptures and learn what Jesus and the apostles have to say about Loving God Above All Things, and loving others as one's self (or, as Bernard of Clairvaux explains, the love of God is the supernal love, and by loving God, learning to love in God and as God loves, one thus does begin to love in God's Love.  This means that one loves others (and self) as God loves others and ourselves. We become lovers in God's way of love, and through God's love, we thus learn to love, and we then do love--as God loves.

This way of loving as God loves is a grace.  But we must be giving up our way of love in order to even begin to approach being open to receiving such a grace.  To learn to love and to love in in the way of God's love, to love according to God's Law of Love which the Apostle Paul and the other apostles, and Jesus Himself explains is the law above all other laws, is well worth the humbling of ourselves to see and embrace the truth of this reality.

A person who thinks he or she is that entrusted by God to be the one to make the laws or who cannot grasp that such as a recent canon or church law made up by human beings is equivalent to or is necessary to commit to or embrace will miss out on the grace that is free to every human soul, and that is the grace to learn to love as God loves, and to love then, in God's love, as a participant in God's love, and to love thusly as God loves.

I hightly recommend those who take issue with what I write--or anyone--to read for themselves Bernard of Clairvaux's  On Loving God.  Also, read and re-read the Scriptures in which Jesus speaks of the greatest commandment, and also those Scriptures in which the Apostle Paul writes of the love of God, of God's Law of Love.  A full and solid grasp of God's Law of Love is necessary for the spiritual development and progression of all Christians, as well as is basic to anyone who aspires to be or has avowed him- or herself to the hermit vocation within the Catholic Church--or for anyone who is embracing and living the hermit vocation who may not be Catholic but are aspiring Christians and lovers of God--who have given themselves in full commitment and avowal to God as one living the eremitic life.

I also can recommend reading and getting to know the various Christian Catholic hermits over the centuries, all of whom are not hermits per a canon law created by humankind be it a bishop or promoter of creating a type of hermit dedicated to a canon law and approved by a cleric, but rather are avowed to and consecrted by God, and called by God to their eremitic vocation. Some of these hermits have been of the highest order of love of God and love of others such as St. Xenia of Petersburg, as to have given up the temporal to the point that they are referred to as "Fools of God" or "Fools of Christ" or in Bl. Ramon Lull's case referred to as "A Fool of Love."  This "Love" is that of God Is Love--a life avowed and consecrated to giving oneself fully away from the temporal and offering onself totus tuus to God and living fully God's Law of Love.

As for books, try to access out of print and older books.  Reading of, for example, St. Bruno and of Carthusian history from books closer or to the original time period provides accurate information of Bruno, such as why he left Cologne and removed himself to the French Alps.  Gain accuate information, not that of what some online invent or interpret inaccurately.   Go back in history, including with rare and old books written as primary source research, otherwise will not have accuracy.

Of course, any and all Christians are invited in by Christ to "remain" in His Love.  And all Christians and indeed all human beings with souls--are invited into embracing and learning to live by God's Law of Love--the only law necessary in reality and truth, to love as God loves, and thus to love others as God loves, including the love of self, as God loves the self.  By grace we may enter into God's love and thus learn to love as God loves.  All temporal civil and temporal church laws, then, are rendered moot if one truly lives God's Law of Love, of one truly remains in Christ's Love.

Pray and think about it.  Test it by considering the supremacy of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit compared to that of humankind's capacity to love or even create laws that can reach any depth or height of God's Law of Love--that of coming to being able to love in God's Love, to love as God Loves.  Open not only the strictures of the human way of thinking, but open the heart to Christ's Word and His Reality in what is His Love.

I'm striving to adapt to and accept further calling from His Real Presence, and this calls me all the farther from the temporalized and more recent developments of humankind, for whatever the motivations and intentions.  I all the more follow God's Law in something the Lord has asked of me which is beautiful challenge in holy perspective and spiritual death and rebirth, as well asl in far greater suffering of all levels and types.  Am finding the Lord's guidance in beautiful ways, in tangible yet spiritual as well as in mystical insights and loving interactions.  

My prayer is that the ladies who write about and who enjoy hermit life as diocese and canon law hermits come to a peace about their decisions and way of living their vocations.  We have differed for at least 16 years in our paths as hermits, both paths  in keeping with the Church and our respective bishops.  May God help them accept the realities of the allowed differences, and proceed in what they find fulfilling in their vocational choices.  

We each may write of our spiritual journeys, and it is hopefully a positive means of providing each of our readership with  considerations and suggestions that help them, along with their own thoughts and ways of living their hermit lives or in determining their vocational paths.  What I do find discouraging and "old" is the ladies' bitterness toward my writings, ask if my voice and lived, consecrated, avowed, God and Church approved eremitic vocation is somehow "wrong" and should not be allowed and valid, or given considerate respect of expression as a Christian Catholic Hermit Mystic and viable member of the Body of Christ--and of the Roman Catholic Church--in these present times.

I wrote of the Love of God and the Law of God, the Law of Love, the greatest commandment, as being the way forward, in essence, for anyone's spiritual progression and eventual union with God, in Love.  I don't need my readership to grow exponentially, which is what happens when the one lady has a comrade write her a "question" regarding what I wrote, quoting something I wrote, but most often taken out of context or clipped.  Or, my content is not quoted but is misconstrued to fit the one lady's agenda of seemingly needing to "win."  The consecrated life of hermits in the Catholic Church is not meant by God to be a competition.  We consecrated Catholic hermits each simply have valid yet different, approved, ways and means of living our eremitic vocations.

The value of sharing one's spiritual journey with others is to do just that.  Of course, despite the ladies' resentment that I write and share to an audience of readers who choose to read what I have to share now and then, I will continue to do so, but my content will vary from the other blogger and her following because our writing styles and content will always vary.  That's the spice and beauty of the spiritual journey and the love and consideration of the Living Word of God, for one...with many other and varied aspects to share with others, as well,

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

Christian Catholic Hermit Mystic: On Love of God over Obsession with Temporal

 

Paul the Apostle repeats the impact of God's Law, the Law of Love.  Jesus so teaches this law, that it is hard to fathom how we can so easily draw away and become confused in the temporal aspects of the temporal human's existence.  One must constantly pray to live God's Law of Love with every moment of thought, emotion, spirit and soul--in some ways leaving the temporal body behind while learning to love others as God loves, yet while asking of our bodies to heed that of God's law of love.

If we read something  that is confused in length and purpose, the intent becomes that of twisting threads of temporal mind and emotions into knots of more temporally created confusion.  Then that which we read (or attempted to read) is not of God's love, but rather that of the temporal love of self, that of creating yet more temporal confusion of laws created by humankind to further elevate the self.

If when trying to exist in other than Christ's simple teachings--and this ca be of those who twist God's law of love into laws of temporally confused words of more power, prestige, privilege, possession and politicization of self, including trying to garner more like-selves as followers of such human-made laws, the simplicity of God Is Love is lost to that person or of what comes out of such a person's temporalized view of the numinous love of God.

To love others as oneself presupposes one's self is in Christ, in God, in the Holy Spirit.  This is the every-moment assessment of self that is so necessary.  To love as God loves, one must be in God.  To love as Christ loves, one must be in Christ.  To love as the Holy Spirit loves, one must be a vessel of the Holy Spirit.  To be consumed with the temporal world--even the temporal world of humankind's temporalization of the Church by the human-created laws which involve yet more temporalization of one's existence in what is a temporalized church--then God's Law of Love is lost to those temporal humans.  

This includes the path of life upon which God sets each of us, in whatever format that may be expressed in words.  Those who are so temporal as to not be able to envision a life lived in the Love of the Holy Trinity are not of those of temporal nor spiritual association.  The temporalization of Christ's Church, including the living according to laws created by humankind even if thinking is for Christ's Church, is to have lost the only "law" necessary, and that is that of the love of God and love of others as God loves.

A vocation is not a temporal law.  A vocation of God's calling, ordaining, and consecrating has to do with God and the soul of the person to whom God calls, ordains, and consecrates to Himself in His "law" of Love of God, and love of others through, with, and in God's Love.

Thus, this is all rather simple, is it not?  Christ built His Church upon the law of God's love.  Love God above all else, love others as God loves, which is loving through, with, and in God's Love.  The primary initial and eternal task is to love, to love to learn to love God.  Be draw into His Real Presence in love, not be drawn into temporalized laws of humankind's temporal creation.

A former priest, now an eremite, has asked regarding his leaving the one call to enter into another.  It is simply a matter of God's Law of Love.  God led him out of the one vocation and into the other, despite initial despair of wondering if he had too hastily left the one of which increasingly are temporal laws involving protocols to take leave and then more temporal laws in order to return if even feasible. Then God gave to the man priest, God's way of Love, and of love of the poor and hungry, and love of the God-created earth and seeds.  Then came from God to the man, also the eremitic path, free of temporal laws; for if one is led by God to follow His simple love call to the desert, this may be the desert of the poor whose need is that of food to sustain them. 

The God-called soul thus entered into God's call of a vocation into the desert of God's leading and providing.  God called, God consecrated this former priest as one of His hermits.  The man in God's love has since helped the poor and hungry in a land of which the poor are being taught to sustain the earth and grow their own food which is good for their bodies--but which also is very good for the renewability of the beloved soil of the earth that God created.  

All is well now with that soul, now a priest forever, more of the Order of Melchizedek than of temporal church laws, and an eremite in the desert of life, yet in the fullness of love of God and love of others as God loves.  He exists in the depths of the Law of Love Is God without temporal-created-by-humankind- laws of temporal words which create more temporal questions needing more temporal unraveling, than ever does require of God's Law of Love.

Be at peace within and without, in God's Law.  The Law of God Is Love.  Ponder, embrace, think, feel, and live in the Trinity of God's Love.  It is quite simple.  Breath by breath, consider what is God's love in each action, thought, feeling, and of what one's soul and spirit contains.  Obsession with the laws of humankind's temporally constructed laws of the temporal (even of the temporalized church), or freedom in the simplicity and eternal fecundity of God's Law of Love.  Love God above all else and love others as God loves--even more so than one can love oneself (for love of self is rooted in God's love of each of us).

This is truly simple, is it not? 

Reference, Letter to the Romans 13: 8;  

"Brothers and sisters:  Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."

[Attempted to read some lengthy, online writings of obsessions with the temporal.  I was left needing relief for the eyes and stomach, the mind, heart, and soul.  I write the above as a reminder to self and any others.  Obsesssion with the temporal laws created by humankind (including for the church) is not in kind with God's law of Love.  Pray God, keep us on the path of God's Law of Love.  There is the Law of Love in Christ with Christ as Head of His Church; there is the Law of Love for those who are in Christ, in God, and in the Holy Spirit who comprise the Body of Christ: the Church.  Temporal laws created by temporalized humankind are not God's Law of Love.  Temporalized laws create more questions, problems, divisions, and chaos--not peace nor love of God above all things, not love of others as God loves, not as love of the self as loved by God.  Stay clear of such; protect my soul.]

Christian. Catholic Mystic Hermit: Jesus Is Truth and Ever So Brilliant

Recently the Living Word selections for daily Mass have dealt with temporal (church/temple and even civil) laws and God's Law, the Law of Love.  As to love, I love this selection from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans (4:13, 16-18, 22).

"Brothers and sisters: It was not through the law that the promise was made to Abraham and his descendants that he would inherit the world, but through the righteousness that comes from faith.

"For this reason, it depends on faith, so that it may be a gift, and the promise may be guaranteed to all his descendants, not to those who only adhere to the law but to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us, as it is written, 'I have made you father of many nations.'  He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into being what does not exist.

"He believed, hoping against hope, that he would become 'the father of many nations,' according to what was said, 'Thus your descendants be.'

"That is why 'it was credited to him as righteousness."

Then there were the words of Jesus in yesterday's Gospel of Matthew 5:17-19 in which Jesus teaches the following (famously, to many over the centuries).

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.

"Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.

"Therefore, whoever breaks on of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.  But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven"

What I find both thrilling and fascinating is that Jesus, while speaking to His disciples in this instance, circumvents riling the Jewish high priests, scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees who sought any reason in action or word from Jesus to arrest him, to kill him.  Jesus tamed the reality of what He was to say next by telling them to not think He came to abolish the law or the prophets.  He then said, as a repeat plus an "instead", that He came not to abolish but to fulfill.of Heaven.  By saying not even the least letter of the law will be removed while the temporal exists (and this, of course, will affect those while on earth who think in terms of temporal), Jesus is reassuring that which is known and secure in the habits and ways of humankind.  

But Jesus goes on to abjure us through what He says to His disciples, that He is speaking of God's law, and of the Ten Commandments as well as what Jesus has been teaching of which all comes under the umbrella of God's Law of Love.  God's greatest commandment which fulfills all others: Love God above all else and love others as God loves [love as God loves all of us--ourselves and others].

While Jesus speaks in terms that the temporal mind finds reassuring, His meaning is of the spiritual realm, of God, of the Holy Spirit, of Himself the Christ, Messiah, Son of God, God made Man.  God Is Love fulfills the law.  When in faith we grasp we are in His Real Presence and He in us, we participate in the fulfillment of the law. When we think, speak, and act in love as God loves--love of souls, a real and active spiritual love--that in Him we enact in and upon the temporal as well as the spiritual of God's creation, we participate in Christ's fulfillment of the law of God which then supersedes the Ten Commandments and more so the temporal laws made by humankind.

 Consider what it is to "fulfill."  When one fulfills such as a temporal law of any kind, or to fulfill a rule, that law or rule is made void, in essence.  Already fulfilled makes that law or rule unnecessary.  Jesus reduces any potential misunderstanding or tension by saying He has not come to abolish.  That puts all at ease who are used to so many laws and rules that we humans create for this, that, and all else, including for religious beliefs and behaviors.  Jesus says He has not come to abolish  the laws that humans depend upon due to being tangible and temporal--comfortable to temporal perceptions and mindsets.  Yet Jesus is speaking of much more, of God's Law of Love and of the specific commandments given to us, as well. 

But to fulfill is to bring to completion, to carry out and achieve what is expected or pledge, or required.

Jesus as Son of God, One in Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, is focused on the spiritual, the holy, the law of God, His Law of Love and of the prophet, that of the Ten Commandments.  While Jesus is in temporal body and amidst the temporal world, He is of the Kingdom

But in simpler expression, even if we consider aspiring to, practicing living God's Law of Love in practical ways in everyday temporal life, we are showing and teaching others this Law of Love.  But when we get in the way of God's Law of Love, or busy ourselves with laws that are not His, or cause others to not realize or grasp God's Law of Love, Jesus makes clear that we will be least and last in God's Kingdom, His spiritual kingdom.  And in practical sense, we cause hardships, hindrance, and harm to God's Creation in the world and all in it.  We undermine the spiritual of others; we hinder their progression in temporal and spiritual good, in holiness.

I've noticed in myself many ways in which I frustrate or go against Christ having fulfilled the law.  Besides temptation to distract myself with laws and rules of humankind, if I'd achieve embracing and living God's Law of Love, I can be in union with Christ's fulfilling the law. God's Law of Love truly does negate the need for our various humankind created laws of this or that.  Not that I would stop cooperating, but from actually being in and living God's Law of Love, all else will be accomplished with ease--even in figuring and paying the federal and state taxes!  When one loves God above all else and loves one another as God loves, we find cooperating on earth a righteous. act, a spiritual good, a praise of God's glory.

I'm really giving this more attention, noticing in what way Jesus fulfilled and thus did not need to abolish.  I'm putting into thought and action, striving to cooperate with His Real Presence in loving, in learning to love as God loves, which with people very much is to begin by loving their souls, for God loves all souls, and then to desire with all my mind, heart, and soul that their (and my) souls are His now and for all eternity.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Love in His Love!

Christian Catholic Hermit Mystic: How Sick Can a Hermit Be and Still Keep Going?

  

I'm wondering this very question, as am so very ill with not only pain but some kind of illness that I think is sinus infection but I suppose could be Covid if the long-form test comes back positive.  But it seems most likely is a sinus infection--the first one I've had since the pump surgery over a year ago that caused the Arachnoiditis to worsen the pain but also provided a rare but Arachnoiditis symptom of gastroparesis and nearly constant nausea.

The sickness is making the nausea worse, but I should be getting better before too long as got a zpack last evening after getting in to a doctor's appointment that they at first told me no opening until next Wednesday.  That was when I said I was fairly sure I had as sinus infection.  But then someone mentioned to me that Covid is mimicking sinus infections in some people, so I decided to call back and mention Covid potential, as that got more action.  Suddenly they had an opening the very next day.

With a sinus infection already taken root for two full days at that time, I'd be in very bad shape by next Wednesday.  I'm currently marveling at how I'm managing now, really not knowing how I was able to drive late yesterday to the doctor's office, be taken up a back way so climbing steps as they have Covid precaution, waiting for two separate Covid tests to be taken, waiting for the results of short form to show no Covid before the doctor would see me.  I had implored just please call in a script for Azythromycin, what always has helped these annual sinus infections.  When I've not gotten the z-pack soon enough, I'd end up in ER and then ill for a good five weeks and have it morph into strep throat, vertigo, or pneumonia or combination thereof.

So I feel quite blessed indeed to have the medication, unsure how I managed to also drive to the pharmacy and get myself back to my hermitage home abode.  His Real Presence and my Guardian Angel, Beth.  Now I am relying on HRP and the wonderful angel to help me endure plus help keep my pup Mercy reassured, for it's all I've been able to do to take her outside now and then to relieve herself.  She is not used to no exercise or play time, no walks.  But she's been allowed on the bed to play with pull toy; but this evening I am as my late dad used to say, "sicker'n a dog."

How does a hermit manage when very ill, and trying to keep going, too nauseated to eat but no appetite anyway, trying to help God's little creature, the little pup, get through this different type of situation for its first time?  The hermit relies on God fully, and lets go of all else, relinquishes the body to God, die to self more than ever before in the hermit's life.  Put the pup in the crate because the pup is not handling being taken out but upon return to house, going to the bathroom which has become a signal for the separation anxiety that can occur when there is but one person for the dog, such as is the case with a hermit having a pup.

The situation is not as direct when the hermit is able to take the pup for walks, play fetch, run errands which are necessary and the dog loves.  This is the first time to be ill on top of the serious back pain, so the hermit perseveres in prayer, patience, love, and yet crating the pup now when otherwise would not need to.  We all must adapt to the situations as they unfold.  

I'm becoming suspicious that this might be Covid as previously with a sinus infection, I feel better within 24 hours, but if anything I'm as bad if not worse. Yet, the doctor did note that the nasal passages are extremely inflamed and at times bleeding.  All I know is if I'd had to wait nearly a week more, my situation would be an unknown if could manage temporally alone and tend Mercy's few needs, also. But for now, being forced up to fill her water and food bowl, to take her outside on occasion, to let her up on the bed--to in this awful suffering be thinking of other than self--has been a positive.  

The pup is not suffering any wants other than would like, of course, more of my one one one attention.  I suppose I have spoiled her some with her exercise needs a priority, as when not so sick, I would yet force myself to take her on walks.  If she were not here, I'd otherwise just stay in bed far more, succumb to the pain situation, the increasing neuropathy of the Arachnoiditis, the nausea always and now for 17 months post pump surgery.

How sick can a hermit be and still keep going, here in the hermitage, alone with God and a four-and-half-month-old pup?  I suppose only God knows the answer.  I keep going in prayer and hanging on to His Real Presence, having long since learned to let the temporal drop by the wayside when the going gets rough.  One really only needs His Real Presence and the Spiritual and Mystical realities, even regarding a little creature of God such as Mercy the pup.  His Real Presence and my angel are looking over each of us, and the pup being in her crate a couple or three hours more than she's used to is not even close to dogs who are crated daily while their owners are away at work or out socializing.   It is said that dogs do not have awareness of time, thus those who crate their dogs are not causing harm to the pet.

I've considered how it would affect little Mercy should something happen to me more permanently. Would she be all right with someone else?  Would she grieve or develop behavioral problems (more than the touch of separation anxiety which I was prepared for, and could be far worse given the one owner here all the time, with the one dog)?  Thus I've been praying about a brother for Mercy, sometime in the future after she is more solid in her training, secure in her place here. I have read that of anyone, dogs most miss other dogs.  Being pack animals, another dog is more pro than con.  Especially with but one human, two dogs will exercise one another automatically, and will break up separation anxiety if that was a problem in the first dog.  However, two dogs need individual time with the human and both need their walks, and while the older dog will help train the younger or newer dog, the two of the can get themselves into mischief--double-trouble if not supervised adequately.  If something happens to the human, the two have each other, but of course that can complicate matters if someone adopting wants only one, not both.

Regardless, I like thinking about what is best for God's creatures, and not so much focusing on even my suffering and sickness such as now.  Mercy has added a most positive dimension to the hermit vocation rather than been an intrusion or distraction.  All the more I am intent on love of God above all else and love of others as God loves, when prior to getting the pup I had been concerned I might develop attachment and be distracted from my focus on His Real Presence and His Living Word, and God's Law of Love.  Rather, my days and nights have taken on a balance such as morning puppy nap time if the pain not too fatiguing, to do some manual labor, and the afternoon puppy naptime a time of the hermit's bodily rest and prayer.  Before Mercy, I'd keep working and praying with the manual labor, continuing on with the day's project.

Praying to keep going this evening, in the night, tomorrow morning.  Relying on His Real Presence to help me get up from bed and to not falter when walking, and then get Mercy situated in her crate and me back to bed.  That's the goal for the night, and thus far she seems settled down to our atypical horarium compared to life in the hermitage and with the hermit prior to the hermit becoming so ill with whatever it is.  I know it seems peevish, but now ailments all the more settle also into the body's weak areas, for me being the spine--neck down and radiating out where the damaged nerves yet travel with their confused signals of burning pain and odd synapses.  More pain right now than I've had of this type; nausea worse than ever before. All is magnified.

Why?  I consider the spiritual view, His Real Presence's perspective and my  body being utilized as a victim soul, my sufferings for years having been bound with Christ's sufferings: making reparation for the human ills that have evolved in Holy Mother Church over the centuries.  This is simple cause and effect, plus direct correlation in a physical plane and pain reality of tremendous mystical proportions and mystical reality.  Both temporal and mystical made one for God's purposes and His will and desire.

It's the type of supernatural reality that most people would have difficult fathoming, let alone accepting as quite real, as real as how sick I am with pain this very moment, and knowing His Real Presence is right here with me, in me, through me, handling all however He wills, for however long, including whatever outcomes He chooses.  My job is to pray and die to self, and do my best to try, to simply try to get up now and then and take Mercy outside, or as I did a bit ago, pick up the accident she had in the bathroom.  Its as if I'm a ghost functioning without my own awareness or drive, all is autonomic movement from beyond temporal self while at the same time so very, very sick with pain and nausea, the head feeling as if out of body other than the spine radiating pain to remind me my body is yet attached by threads of raw pain.

I appreciate your prayers for patient endurance, faith, and selfless love in suffering.  Thank you.

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

Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit: An Irony

Sharing some correspondence pertinent to considerations of what God wills and what man wants and has wrought over the centuries including currently.

Dear C,

It is ironic that you mention the woman who is a "canonical virgin" and her associations with the diocese, and that you and many others there are aware of her status in the church as a second-only "consecrated virgin."  Here again we have a situation of something that Jesus would find hypocritical in the pride that goes with being known and noted for her choosing to live. life celibate and dedicated to God, as well as "approved by the 'Church'" in religious ceremony in the Mass.

For it is God who consecrates, not the church nor a bishop.  Jesus never spoke of nor taught of having bishops nor of humans consecrating people.  Furthermore, He treasured hiddenness and personal relationships with God, such as His example of going off alone to pray to the Father--and such as women and men who would give themselves over to God alone and offer their total lives including choosing to not marry and not have sexual relations, as a private matter between the person and God.  

I have written in the past in my blog about Who it is Who consecrates, and the One is God alone.  That is why the recent canon laws for hermits and virgins and widows are antithetical and disturbing.  The advertising of persons' (known, not anonymous) decisions made with God to live their lives for Him in certain ways instead of remaining preciously private between God and the soul, has led to pride and self-promotion as well as tempts more to the temporal church than the holiness of His real Presence in humble, hidden service--depending upon the private decisions made--that since earliest times were between the person and God and lived without note.

There were widows and virgins in the early Church--but not consecrated by titled humans (of which often noblemen were given title of Bishop based on birthright nobility, wealth, or inherited.   Nor were there ritualistic services or Masses, no canon law, no regulations nor stipulations to supposedly make valid what is up to God alone to determine and consecrate.  Additionally, God is the One Who involves Himself and meets with the person in the quiet and privacy of their abiding, God in the mind, heart, and soul, and the celibate, widow/widower, or hermit abiding in His Real Presence-- then to live out his or her life accordingly, without fanfare and reporting to His Real Presence Who also is the person's teacher most often in the Third Person of the Trinity.  

This is yet another example and reason why I have rejected the temporal Catholic Church's handling of such matters and those in the Body making up increasing amounts of regulations and detritus in details actually beyond any legalisms that Christ Himself railed against when the Man God on earth.  The situation of persons giving over themselves in deep and meaningful ways to God and foremost accepting a direct call from Almighty God to such ways of living their lives ought never to be thus antithetical to Christ's teachings and His Church as Christ taught and initially instituted.  (I had to learn this reality through my being misled by that woman (someone who initiated contact with me saying she could help when in fact the only help ended up being my seeing how off-kilter all that she purports, as prior I knew nothing of (nor did Fr. F.) of any canon laws and the ensuing pleonasms regarding living one's life for God focused within a God-designated life (widow, virgin, widower, hermit) simple and known as far back as those lived and described in the Old Testament.

Just recently we have read in 1 Samuel how people were not satisfied with God being their Leader, Teacher, Ruler--their ALL.  They wanted to organize and create stipulations and rules and rituals that a king/ruler would bring with his position.  Samuel tried to warn them what would happen, but the people would not believe Samuel.  So God allowed them what became an extremely flawed human due to the temptations that befall humans who take on what is God's.  

Many people in the early church that Christ instituted lost its way, as well.  Dissatisfied they became, as time passed, with the Holy Trinity as Teacher and Comforter, with weakening faith that Christ (Second Person specifically) as Head and Shepherd of the Body, and God the Father as Creator to anoint and consecrate and Be over All.  They were not content with the design of apostles, with one being the leader (Peter), and others participating and going out to the whole world spreading the Good News of Christ the Son of God and Savior of us all and sharing His Teachings. 

So in little time having passed, they organized, regulated, made up law after law with specifications and rituals, created positions with titles--so many that few if any of us could list out who all they are in what they built and called The Vatican and in what they called dioceses and then also archdioceses, and parishes, including, in time, a bevy of such made up positions called "canon lawyers" with the also-made-up 1752 canon laws and more in the queue.  This and so much more under the umbrella of the Catholic Church, and depth of God's Law of Love nor absorb and embrace Christ's teachings--including that we are in Him and He is in us.  We didn't just "do this in remembrance of Me" [Christ], we built and gilded and made bigger and more costly the grandiose places to gather to worship with one portion being the sharing of His Real Presence in the breaking of the bread (His Body) and drinking of the wine (His Blood).

So much more could be expressed and described, examples given.  Would today's temporal Catholic Church exceed the Temples of Our Lord's time on earth?  Do the positions fill and exceed those of the Scribes (canon lawyers), Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priests?  Would Jesus be pleased, or would He drive out the bingo nights in which it is not just fun for little old ladies winning a candy bar but big money involved and breeding grounds for gambling addictions?  Would He find pleasing those spending their lives adjudicating made-up laws, or those creating more regulations and stipulations for the silent, simple, slow, hidden life of a solitary who's calling is prayer and praise with and of His Real Presence:  the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit?

I realize that the woman now working for the diocese as a canon lawyer who recently was "consecrated" in a highly publicized "worship service" by a bishop to be a "consecrated virgin" by virtue of a fairly recent canon law--and most Catholics--cannot grasp this mess.  Nor do they want to live a simple Christian life according to following Jesus and His teachings, and know in faith that HIs real Presence abides in them and us in His real Presence.  Nor do most of us recognize that Jesus abhorred all the rules and laws and rituals that the Israelites had developed over the years, including their wanting a King to govern them.  

And still they could not spiritually progress--many or most of them. So Jesus came to earth to teach a new way, a better way, to get the people back on track with God over all, Christ as Head, and those who follow Christ as the Body with Him as Head.  The only new ritual or commemoration Jesus enacted written in scripture is that of breaking bread and sharing the cup of wine "in remembrance of Me," said Jesus.  He gave us the Holy Spirit to teach us and speak to us and be with us on earth, yet people are not content and want to make their own laws and rituals and parish councils and build immense and costly buildings or renovate and decorate at great expense the ones they have.  

They twist Scriptures to create more rules and traditions and guidelines, and to impart the notion that a thing called a bishop is the only one who consecrates, and that private vocations are no longer that but must be approved by those things called bishops or even cardinals in some cases.  And the lead apostle became very powerful, unlike Peter, and lives in a huge palace called The Vatican and is called a pope in a "state" with various legal rights and its own government and laws.  

All of that made up by humans and blindly followed by humans.  Very sad and shameful when we lay it out in raw truth  A "Mass" for the virgin, to boot, a huge reception, in the newspapers and on television, video on Youtube,  "approved of" and "consecrated" by a human--and what is the point then?  How far from the widow Anna in the temple day and night praying quietly, no fanfare--only humility and holiness of GOD ALMIGHTY.

Is God saying, "Let them learn the hard way?"  We have taken that route as did the people in Samuel's time, and from then on until Jesus came to try to straighten them out.  For those who see, see, and those who can hear will hear.  But woe to many who do neither see nor hear, not with outer senses, nor inner.  Jesus lays out what the Father desires; Jesus came and lived and died for our sins and to gain our salvation.  His Living Word is available to read and ponder, to learn and live.  The Living Word is given us in truth and faith, to not deviate from nor twist nor to add. The Holy Spirit is with us; angels surround us.  We are in His Real Presence--the Holy Trinity--and His Real Presence is in us.

I will say per the selection from Isaiah and in another part, I came upon it after my husband had left me and our three little children.  I was so upset and stunned, in shock and in pain emotionally--and of course physically with my back injury freshly meted out upon me, I knew deep within that the Holy Spirit led me to that Scripture; and God was telling me HE is my Husband, and He is the Father of my children.  I let the children know that God would always help them as He is their father and my Husband--our Maker.  And for me, my Maker is my Spouse, the Lord Jesus Christ.  It was real because it is real.  I like the reading from Corinthians and think of the list of gifts, that of wisdom and of faith seem the most treasured of all to have.  They seem the highest spiritually and temporally, and of course, love; but often people would choose, if it was up to them, the more showy gifts like healing or prophecy. WE people simply cannot get away from ourselves enough to love and trust and depend upon God Alone--the Holy Trinity in the Three Persons.

Truly, my Builder has already married me; the consummation is yet to be.  I must wait and be strong while waiting, which I have not done such a good job of that.  But I'm coming to a greater faith and the beginnings of wisdom in that faith, and eschew the temporal church in the aspects of which it ought be eschewed for it has stymied much and embraced the temporal and human-made everything. (I've many times over written of the costly and excessive "saint" canonization process with all its levels and employment and categories, all made up by humankind.)  

What remains of and in His Church? God and Christ and the Spirit are portions of the Mass and what love, faith, and hope in God some hold along with striving to live God's Law of Love.  The Head and the Body?  What type and quality are we, those of us in His Body--or those in the temporal aspects of temporal church?  Where are we going, those seeking the Head and a Body His and All His?  All else of the Trinity and His Church one must seek and find on the climb up the Holy Mountain:  the Stairway to Heaven, with striving and pondering in His Living Word and us in His Real Presence--with angels assisting in our arduous ascent and those who have arrived beckoning, welcoming, cheering us on.

God He Is Who approves and consecrates and none other. Who do we think we are?  What have we become in what dares call itself His Church?

I suppose through the reading I've done of the various mystics in the Church's centuries, including those now, it is the mystics who understand the seriousness of all that has transpired.  For this reason and myriad true-to-life examples shown me in various ways, as the Angel of God reminded me in a particularly difficult suffering, "You agreed to this."  Yes, I had; I had heart-felt and full-intentioned offered myself as a holocaust of love in reparation for the temporal church's trajectory. I offered because the Lord had asked me in several ways over time.  "Mortification," "be an immolation," and in intimate visions too much to relate.  

I was birthed into the mystical Church by way of the temporal Church even though I, being temporal yet continuously desiring His Real presence and striving in spiritual life, am slip-sliding along, as the temporal song goes....   I am not alone in this progression, not for centuries.  My purpose is to love--to love to learn to love!  To live the Law of God, the Law of Love.  How simply and beautifully challenging is that?

Love in His Love, and God Bless His Real Presence in us!

I continue on; God help me in my striving in His Real Presence, in His Love.

Catholic Hermit: Humor is Gift

I know I should not find humor in certain situations, but I do. Humor is a gift from God, but humor of human foibles, I'm not so sure.  Yet I am having quite a chuckle over a situation in which the seeming reality defies the odds; and in fact, the seeming reality is not fact, not reality.  Rather the situation is simply bizarre, and in that fact of bizarre, the humor is in seeing through the human foibles.  Notably, I suspect the foibles are fueled by narcissism and pride that belies a hidden or deep insecurity.

My confessor asked me to try to figure out what it is that exacerbates a situation--a bizarre situation, at that: bizarre agreed upon by many.  I think it has to do with narcissism and pride, and that I have been a stimulus to causing another or others to feel a type of threat to their status and threat to their sense of importance.  But what I'm fascinated by, is that I bother with it.  Praying is the best resolve.

Yet, is absolutely and humorously amazing--but foolish waste of my giving it time of day--that what I happen to write, the other always seems to have "supposed" people writing in, asking questions of this other person.  The questions are so detailed and specially worded as if coached on what to ask in order to for the one being asked (as if a temporal Church authority) to expound upon--again, amazingly--in lengthy dissections (always refuting) of what I've written.

Yes, it is rather miraculous; and I and others who've bothered to read what the person writes, tend to see right through it.  And that makes me chuckle, until then I feel rather sad.  Maybe I feel even guilty, although it is certainly not my intention of causing the person/s to get embroiled in what might be considered their weakness for argumentation.  Nonetheless, it does seem that most of what I've written over the years has in some point or other, caused the person (and also amazingly--maybe one or two of the person's friends or such if at all--to feel threatened by what I write; or perhaps its been something about me otherwise, that threatens the person's or others' status and sensibilities.

So while some of their tactics are humorous to myself and others who are aware of this, the situation itself is rather sad from a soulful and Christian perspective.  I'm not sure what is the solution, other than to pray.  Also, I must look to myself to not get sucked into the vortex of what it is that underlies another's psyche and causes obsessive behavior, and takes focus off a consecrated Catholic hermit's purpose and point:  imitation of Christ to a deeper degree that befits our being in the consecrated state of life of the Church.  Live out what the Church states in §920, §921 of The Catechism.  Reflect on and of my hermit vocation, what the popes and the holy hermits, saints, and mystics of the Church have written!

Perhaps if I write of what my mind, heart, and soul most desire--and of what sets me afire with love of God in Himself and love of others as God loves, I will be a far better impetus for others who read what I write.   Perhaps, but unlikely, I could also help change the course (for the better) for the one or two or three who read my writing for the purpose of trying to find any tiny tidbit that can be twisted or refuted or a springboard for obsessing further on the temporal aspects, which then fuel more of less spiritual and more into-the-weeds mindsets.  But all this is up to others' bishops or designated spiritual fathers to determine and guide.

As for myself, my human foible needs to hunker down into the humus, into the soil of my consecrated hermit vocation.  Progress made, for at some point in not-too-distant future, I will have concrete answers from my diocese superior, my Bishop, as to the more temporal-type questions I've posed (but temporal always interrelates with and is affected by the spiritual-mystical Church).

Onward, though, for this as-for-now-yet-still consecrated Catholic hermit:  I must keep pointing the way to God's law, not man's law: God's Law of Love!  What the Lord desires me to write is of other than getting into the weeds of what matters not other than what one's Bishop determines, anyway, relative to hermit designation, who is or is not in the consecrated life of the Church, and what the bishop desires for hermits within the diocese of which He is Shepherd.  Not for some other diocese's hermit to fret over; but I hope in God to share what I find out, since my writing is of my ongoing spiritual journey in temporal life, a consecrated, privately professed, Catholic hermit (might add "traditional" to the hermit descriptor).  Or, perhaps it won't be necessary to share, if nothing needs changing.  I realize the only person ( with perhaps a couple of that person's friends) have any interest or axe to grind.

Worth a try.  I ought to be writing about what my heart desires, regardless.  At some point, I will receive definitive answers from Church hierarchy, for the answer to but one point that I personally am interested in, that also might be of interest to other consecrated Catholic hermits living our vocations along the paths of the traditional, historical, solitary, first hermits of the Church.

Yesterday as I read a meditation of Bl. Charles de Foucauld, and was reminded of his Prayer of Abandonment, my mind took a stroll down memory lane.  My heart began to sing within, and my soul uplifted with added joy, remembering the deep stirrings that truly blessed, spiritual, and love-inflamed souls of the hermit life as well as any of the saints and mystics--how they uplift, teach, guide, inspire in us consecrated Catholic hermits today!

The Lord in the night took me through a type of sample "life review" of my final judgment, and I was allowed to feel deeply how my long-ago and forgotten mistakes and weaknesses with someone most dear to me, felt and perhaps still carries some feelings of great hurt.  I literally felt what this person felt, and the person in the strange spiritual experience in the night faced me and told me, with much emotion, how I hurt the person in person's youth.  At one point, I wanted to defend myself, explain from my perspective, as I was much older than the person with the yet-hurt memories.  But rather, something held me back; and I accepted what was being said so emotively and even somewhat angrily from the pain of the hurt they felt I caused.

And indeed, I did cause that hurt!  At some level, it is true, for how others perceive is very real to them.  Just as, to us, how we perceive is very real to us.  The Lord allowed me to simply take what I was being told, and to feel the person's hurt from memories of the past, who were still very real from that person's injured and wounded perspective and reality.  And I could feel them with all the pain and horror, and I sobbed in a way of deep remorse and sorrow at how this beloved person recalled and felt from early on.  And somewhere inside me, I knew that it was true, that this person's perspective was real and had hurt, and that I would never be able to have a do-over.

I suspect this is part of our review of life format, when we die, and it was fair and even loving, and it was quite merciful.  This morning I have prayed that what I experienced in the night, and the remorse such as I could not feel so deeply in the temporal realm, would be in part effective for the other person, now years later, and that today somehow that person is feeling lighter in spirit, and that the pain is relieved or at least lessened, and the person more freed from past hurts that became wounds unhealed.  I pray that my--really was not of this world, so deep, so visceral into my very soul--remorse is in some way a remittance of my even a small portion of my sins.

The whole spiritual-mystical aspect of the night experience, seems as if the Lord allowed me, truly, a portion in this life, of what will be numerous such reviews when I enter into my final judgment with Jesus, going through no doubt many such life situations and my part and role in them.  Some, and many no doubt, will be ones that at the time I did not even realize how I was affecting others, causing them hurt and distress.  Some, and quite a few at that, will be ones I will recognize immediately, but I pray that confession in this life, and sacramental absolution, and penance plus trying to make amends, or the suffering of living with consequences, will mitigate many of these known-to-me sins and woundings of others.

But as for humor in situations, and humor at our human foibles--humor is a gift from God.  We do need humor, and to not take ourselves or others so seriously.  Humor allows us to step back, to see through situations for what they are in a light-hearted way, and to ask the Lord what it is He wants of us for and in His Divine Will.

All the more we can laugh at ourselves and at situations that the devil so cleverly (yet laughably) tries to get us sucked into, and down the rabbit hole we go in ridiculous situations and encounters that ultimately we realize are frivolous.  It is like playing ping-pong but finding ourselves not even hitting the ball on the table, but rather having moved off-course and hitting the ball back and forth in thin air.  When we realize how silly, we stop playing the game and have a good laugh.  I absolutely delight in when the laugh is on me; for so often the Lord will show me my foibles!  Praise Him!  Love Him!

Life goes on.  And now I must see if the body will want to continue in some manual labor after praying the Divine Office.  I may be able to sit on the tall, wood chair at counter-height table, to pray the Prayers of the Church (Divine Office, on this Feast of St. Agatha), or if the body needs to remain in bed.  I did a bit much manual labor yesterday, so a very slow morning, physically, is not unexpected.  And I rejoice that I'm not complaining of pain!  Rather, I'm praising God for the gift of humor!

Catholic Hermit: Confirmation Saint; Soul School

Yesterday, off and on, amidst the on-going higher level of suffering, I considered with great gratitude and love, the brief life of Sr. Josefa Menendez.  She died nearly 100 years ago in a convent in France where she had been sent from a brief stay at a convent in Spain, her native country.  

Not knowing French, she was otherwise cordoned off, regardless, for she was a mystic and victim soul, as well.  Jesus visited her regularly in her cell, set off from others by a superior who feared the disruption Josefa's mysticism and victim soul sufferings would create with the other sisters in the convent.  

While some might find it quite difficult to fathom how a Catholic religious, let alone a superior of a convent, be so cruel and have perhaps her own envy of Josefa's spiritual gifts and the especial love of Jesus for her, such ignorant and negative, fearful attitudes toward mystics and victim souls persist today, as they have for centuries.  

We human beings can be quite nasty and cruel, even those who profess to be in the consecrated life of the Church, even if claiming some legal status or position, or even some ordained in holy orders.  Mercy, Lord, have mercy on us pathetic creatures when status and legalism, when ignorance of God's law of love and the viciousness of pride and envy bite our very souls themselves, to a point we can no longer see our own hypocrisies.

When it came time for me to be confirmed a Catholic, I had quite the inner debate as to whom to ask to be my confirmation patron saint.  I greatly love and admire Teresa of Avila, for she appeared to me in a vision in broad daylight, in a classroom of adults in our doctoral clinical psychology program of studies.  I had done a rare thing--volunteered for a demonstration by the professor of a technique for use with patients, when instead, this old house appeared, and I was beckoned forth, to enter inside.  

Within, I was drawn to a room in the back right of the dwelling, where sat on a wood stool at a slant-top, old writing table, a woman clothed in dark, simple garment--to me like a robe-like covering, with what I later would be able to label as a religious habit, with veil or covering over her head and across forehead, but her face bespectacled, rimless.  She was an old woman, and she was writing on parchment, a quill ink pen in hand which she'd dip into a container of ink.

She indicated to me she wished to speak.  I relayed this to the professor sitting beside me in front of the roomful of adults in full and astonished silence as I had been describing what I was experiencing in real time, and the professor asking questions and suggesting questions to ask this unexpected person whom I could see clearly, but no others could see or, soon enough, hear her speaking.

So at first, when the woman began to speak, I would repeat as the professor suggested I do so--share what this woman who I could identify as seemingly from the Middle Ages, was saying to me.  But at some point early on, the woman's voice was able to use my throat and voice box, as far more efficient way of communicating her messages which soon enough were clearly great wisdoms and insights.  

Her messages were tremendous helps to me personally, and at first seemed directed to what the others did not know had occurred with me the day prior.  I had been told by a second-opinion spine specialist at Scripps Medical Center, LaJolla, CA, that my then-recent spine surgery and the emergency spine surgery after I'd died in recovery, had caused what the specialists said, would be a life of pain of which I'd have to learn to live a life I never dreamed I'd have to live.

But the old woman's insights eclipsed my personal needs and began to encompass wisdoms of spiritual dimensions beyond normal considerations.  She spoke of suffering in terms sublime and supernatural, and of suffering in conjunction with love, and into Christ's love and light, and of unconditional love, also, as means of union with Christ and of superseding physical pain.

She also, then, at the same time, seem to know the thoughts of others in the room.  She knew one woman in particular was antagonistic to what the woman was sharing, using my voice to do so.  (That in itself was a profoundly strange and unique experience for me: practical, functional, yet surreal!)  Regardless, the woman spoke out and said there is one who wishes to ask me questions, and directed this to the student in the room who had firm new age ideologies, and who was not liking one bit this woman's definite religious and Christian, holy wisdom and insights.

I will say the old woman who sat at her desk, visibly before me, and at the same time speaking through me in her stilted voice, an unfamiliar-to-me accent, but speaking in English, most definitely held her own with the new age woman.  I guess we'd say the old woman "shut her down" by wisdom and logic, if not also with a firmness of authority that astounded me--and I think others in the room, as well.  The professor was certainly speechless with this profound authority of messages elevated and as coming from beyond this world, this life.

No one else, after the new age woman's attempt to disagree with what the old woman had shared, and without a chance of coming close to succeeding against supernal truths, had more to ask.  The woman I could see and who was using my voice, finished, dissipated from view and corporeal presence.  The professor called for a class break; the adults erupted in exclamations and amazement.

So while I had no idea who was the woman in the vision and who spoke profoundly in specific ways to help me (and as it turned out, anyone) deal with suffering, understand suffering as God's perfect purpose and part of His plan, and how suffering teaches, and suffering is as God's love, and to embrace and suffer in His love--I will never forget her.  

About that time I came to encounter some Catholic writings; one such was that of Teresa of Avila's autobiography.  Still, I did not connect her as one and the same woman who appeared and spoke in what remains a first and only public, verbal encounter witnessed by a group.  I would not recognize her until I was given a holy card with a replica time-period, painting of the saint on the card.

Thus when I was deciding upon which of two persons who I wanted to give thanks and ask their patronage in my Catholic confirmation (private instruction, private confirmation), it was between Teresa of Avila and Sr. Josefa Menendez, the mystic and suffering victim soul and relatively little known woman, one of three daughters of a widowed mother who did not want her daughter to leave for the convent, until finally she relented--neither mother or daughter knowing the nuns would send her immediately to one of their convents in Poitier, France, far from her family, never to see them again.

But I had not yet made the Teresa of Avila direct connection from the prayer card image; it had not been given me yet; and I asked Teresa of Avila whose writings I so admired and felt integral connection, to help me decide.  I realized Teresa as Doctor of the Church and canonized saint, a foundress and reformer of the discalced Carmelites, was a powerfully endowed soul, indeed!  

Yet I thought of Teresa's strength of humility, and of her writings so practical and spiritually endowed, both--and figured she'd be pleased if I would take the patronage of this persecuted, misunderstood, victim soul and mystic who died young, just as in many ways my life was truncated when relatively young, my earthly crucifixion from normal life having come at age 33.  I figured Teresa to be pleased I'd befriend the little-known sister whose writings I'd just recently been given to read by the priest who the Lord had directed me to contact in another odd set of circumstances which included a locution telling me "and this is the priest to whom you are to go!"  

Sister Josefa Menendez it is!  When I finally saw a photo of her face, she looked like a dear and lovely young woman who had so willingly helped me and my three young children, following the spine surgeries and after my parents returned to their home in another state, after taking care of us for three months following the surgeries in 1987.  

How amazing is our Lord God, Creator of heaven and earth and of all life, our Teacher, our Savior, our Redeemer, our Love!

While I've shared more about my encountering so personally, Teresa of Avila, I've not shared much of Sr. Josefa Menendez other than she is my confirmation saint, and her death day ad commemoration day, thus, in my heart and mind and soul, is December 29.  I'm not sure where is her process of canonization other than perhaps in the early phase of Servant of God, if that.  It does not matter, not to her, I'm sure, in her tremendous humility and her place in heaven for eternity.  

But what does matter to me is that I have not re-read her diary (The Way of Divine Love) in a long time, and I do not think of her nearly as would be delightful to her and to Christ, and helpful to my mind, heart, and spirit.  And of my spirit--admittedly it is struggling currently in ways difficult to describe--and truly not defensible for someone who is a consecrated Catholic hermit for two decades and a bit more from the first recognition of God's calling me to this vocation.  

Even my excuses of the added abdominal suffering to the spine and tooth pain, and of the specific, strangely sensing of my unknowings in passing over into another phase--these excuses are simply as worn out as is my temporal body!  Not going to cut it in the abundance of spiritual life of faith, hope, and love in God--these excuses!

And yes, it is allowable for one to have a technically non-canonized "saint" to be a confirmation saint, for any who are into legalisms, of which law and order do have their places in our temporal lives as well as the life and structure of the temporal Catholic world, to a certain degree if not ever overshadowing God's supreme Law of Love.

My life increasingly has evolved and been enhanced so much further and beyond the fussings or claims of ones who clasp at authority in some temporal or assumed legalism, fashioned or formed.  There is a blessing in gift of enough suffering to propel one through and onto other, into supernatural realities that pare the mind, heart and soul to a nib of what one has been  (yes, a true has-been) or thought to have been--and still remain quite imperfect yet not imprisoned in ego, or delusion of position or grandeur.  

May God be praised in His gift to us of His suffering, and when we are asked to share in His sufferings of many-facets.  May we persevere in suffering, learning from Him and of His love.  Love to suffer, and suffer to love.  Some learn well in suffering; some such as myself, struggle but yet learn:  Thanks be to God. 

Pain and suffering after a certain extent of its pummeling good, is quite effective in humbling to even the humility of exhaustion.  There seems nothing remaining but God alone.  And this is only the beginning of what is positive potential of God's All, all the more to our increased and ever more increasing nothingness.

When others do not understand this, and when those without knowledge or coursework or hypocritically claim authenticity, or as if promulgating: who is this or not that, legal or not legal, authorized or not, it is only that their paths of learning in soul school differ or are in other-pace and trajectory, or that they have not yet come to grasp some part of all the lessons of mind, heart, and spirit our souls are here on earth to learn.  We are all in soul school here, learning in varying earth-timeliness and modalities.

And not to worry, if souls do not learn what it is we are to learn on earth--particularly learn to love and the various virtues such as graciousness, kindness, and humility.  Our souls will and must, simply yet incontestably, continue to learn what is not learned here.  When we pass over from temporal life to fully spiritual life, we continue our unique yet also universal soul-learning in what some have termed as "purgatory"--as a phase in eternal life of which we are purged of that which hindered us here and we did not learn to overcome or to embrace of what is necessary for great purity and light, to unite with God fully, as One.

I consider Sr. Josefa in her little cell, sewing clothing for children the convent sisters were helping, and while sewing in the solitary confinement, she suffered as Jesus' beloved victim soul, and she was far from alone despite the misguided intentions of her Mother Superior.  Her seeming isolation, yes, caused intrigue and gossip among the other sisters, but Sr. Josefa prepared by the guidance of Jesus and Mary, in her various passings, until her physical passing over once and for all from this earth, no longer relegated to a physical body or a physical cell in a distant corner of a convent in France.

She's rather ideal for this consecrated Catholic hermit, with the added sufferings physical and whatever otherwise, and in this phase of added unknowings of passings over.  God bless Josefa Menendez!  God thank her for her life and humble example of hidden nothingness and bearing suffering and misguidedly, misunderstood persecutions of all types!  God bless Josefa's human imperfections of which she was the first to note, as well!

And God bless His Real Presence in us here and beyond here, in the there that is eternal light and bliss!

Catholic Hermit: Knowing Jesus

Still considering how it is that there is divergence in Christianity and why some depart.  Or, also, why some are prone to legalism, to laws of minds, functional as they may seem--I wonder.  

I appreciate what The Catechism explains of the "old law" being a first stage of revealed law, of moral prescriptions, and why the law of Moses was necessary.  It does make sense of matters even in the early church when some (personality tendency?) even then remained occupied with needing externals to form or uphold their ability to have faith.

"1980 The Old Law is the first stage of revealed law.  Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments."

"1981 The Law of Moses contains many truths naturally accessible to reason.  God has revealed them because men did not read them in their hearts."

If we do not have truths--Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life--in our hearts, we may then turn to or actually need a first stage, such as the old law, moral prescriptions or externals such as what food to eat or not eat, or what various laws of minds are then created to give security to some or many.

In our lives and moral and spiritual development, we do seem to progress through phases.  As St. Paul put it, we needed milk when young but later ought to live on pure spiritual food.

Perhaps, I do think, the divergences come when some progress to knowing Jesus, of having God's law of love and the ability to "read" the law of love in our hearts.  Or, there are those who have not progressed to knowing either the Father or Jesus, who have not God's law, the greatest commandment, nor ability to read God's law of love in our hearts.

It thus seems crucial that we desire and pray to know Jesus and the Father or either One, and to be open and accepting to the Holy Spirit in our hearts, our inner sanctum of our souls.  It is crucial to grasp with great faith, hope, and love, that we are within the Trinity and the Trinity is within us, always and everywhere.

Jesus gives us the prescription of spiritual life, as quoted in the Gospel of John.

"I have told you this so that you may not fall away.
They will expel you from the synagogues;
In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me."

So today, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit and child of God, lover of Christ my Spouse, will ask anew that I know deeply and truly, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I pray to love God with all my body, mind, heart, and spirit.  I pray to love God in Himself, above all things, and to love others as God loves.  

To know Jesus, to truly know Him, is to know the Father.  To have love of Jesus in the depths of our beings, to know with assurance that He is in us and we are in Him--this is truth and eternal life.  

I wonder if I know Jesus to the degree that I desire, or if I desire to know Jesus in the fullness of love of God in Himself?  I suppose I would not know, nor is it necessary to know.  What is needful is to simply keep loving, keep asking to love Him more and more, and to desire with fullness of body, mind, and heart, that His love will infuse love all the more in my soul.

This will be my hope, in faith, of holy charity, while I get up on the ladder that I will pull up onto the scaffolding, while I paint the stairwell trim, way up high, for the final effort before installing the stairs.  Yes, in many ways literal and spiritual, the result may then be the stairway to heavenly love. 
  

Catholic Hermit Sets Sights on Sermon on the Mount

Since reading in The Catechism that the Sermon on the Mount is a living and perfect rendition of living the Gospel law, the divine law--the Law of Love--I am focusing my sights on it for the day.  And, I hope, my body, mind, heart and spirit continue on with the teachings of Jesus firmly implanted in my interior by the workings of the Holy Spirit!

I was going to try to get the pained body out to the vegetable garden area by 10 a.m., but we see how a disciplined horarium or hourly schedule for this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is simply not so feasible in sensory or practical, human ways.  The bodily pain rules the temporal roost!  Yet the mind, heart and spirit can be open to whatever "schedule" of the spiritual the Holy Spirit wishes to lay out in every present moment.

Yes, my own choices do affect whether or not I acquiesce to the Holy Spirit's non-temporal-time "horarium."  God is timeless, and in Him there is no earthly time other than a season and time for everything under heaven.  That is, all that God wills for us in our earthly lives--and this is key for grasping why circumstances are not all that firmly rooted, or ought not be considered so.

I could choose to ignore the inner nudge to write out the Beatitudes, at this point in temporal time, but rather to force the pained body up and out sooner.  Yet, for this present moment, perhaps there is an open-willingness to the wisdom the Holy Spirit also tries to impart within us!  

Thus, I am going to delay the weeding (and hopefully planting some veggie seeds and starts) in order to at least read and write the Beatitudes this morning.  In this selection, the Gospel Rule of Life as the perfection of the divine law is exemplified in how Jesus taught to live out charity.

So here are the Beatitudes.  I think it is worth delaying my temporal work in order to have these teachings implanted in my brain and hopefully also heart and soul, for the earth-time I will then be out working the soil, plucking unwanted weeds, and maybe getting to the planting.

From Matthew 5:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, 
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,
   for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,
   for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
   for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,
   for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart,
   for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
   for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake 
of righteousness,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you 
   and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] 
   because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.
   Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.