Catholic Hermit: Consecration That Matters

Have been pondering being "consecrated" in and by Jesus Christ and also in the life of His Church.  What Jesus says about consecration is of interest, thus.  Also, an experience 20 years ago the 19th of June, came to mind a few days ago, on that date.  Consecration that matters, matters to this human, this Christian, this Catholic Christian, this hermit, this soul, this child of God.

Jesus said, as written in the Living Word of God, cited in John 17:

"Consecrate them in the truth.  
Your word is truth.
As you sent me into the world,
so I sent them into the world.
And I consecrate myself for them,
so that they also may be consecrated in truth."

Perhaps, later, will share of the experience in which Jesus consecrated this hermit years ago, consecrated its heart.  Recently, though, have not been writing as much on these posts, and wonder if what is shared, if of help to others.  Maybe, maybe not--but will try to write out what occurred when Jesus consecrated this hermit's heart.  It takes a certain energy to write it out, to share it, and sharing may or may not uplift or increase others' faith.

Regardless, dear readers and spiritual brothers and sisters:  God bless His Real Presence in us!

God's Gift to Jesus

"Father, they are your gift to me"  (from John 17).

This line intrigues.  The sentiment amazes.  How can Jesus, knowing He is going to suffer and die a horrible death, plus having suffered people misunderstanding Him and persecuting--how can He consider us as gifts to Him from God the Father?

How are we "gifts"?  What are we to Jesus that He can possibly consider us as a gift to Him?

This hermit wonders.  It awoke early this morning, tired per usual, reaching for and chewing up an extra strength Excedrin, chewing a half a pain med, swallowing a prescription anti-inflammatory, rising to use the chamber pot and filling a glass with a vegetable and fruit pureed drink and water. Painful body and painful thoughts broke through, per usual, and the hermit considered that its life has been filled with suffering.  

Yet, the hermit offered a thought of praise to God and considered that even if not here, in over its head with heavy labor that it cannot do physically alone, what would be much different elsewhere? The life of suffering would remain; and would the hermit serve the Lord any better?

Well, perhaps.  This place--the temporal aspects of it--has been a demoralizing strain and a tremendous spiritual challenge, both.  Again, though, what would this body, mind, heart, and spirit be doing any differently in a clean and functional abode?  True, the body and mind would have more comforts and organization.  The mind would be free to be more creative artistically, perhaps, and to hopefully lift up others--have the energy to do so--in more tangible ways.

But what difference?  Even the desire to "do something" with one's life, to "do something" for God with one's life, oozes of attachments to temporal loves--temporal love of perceived success and purpose.  When, in reality, the body would yet require silence and solitude, and it would be constantly managing the physical suffering which affects the thoughts and emotions.

That is this hermit's doing something with its life and doing something for God.  As for "being," the temporal circumstances should not affect "being."  The mind and heart and spirit--the soul with its intellect and will--manage the "being" part of life.  And in this, the hermit figures it can be a gift, a more pleasant and delightful and worthwhile gift for His Real Presence--even though Jesus has not put any stipulations on His "gifts".

He tells the Father in the prayer, as written in John 17, that we are the Father's gift to Him.  My, oh my, what an uplifting and humbling consideration--that we are the Father's gift to Jesus, and Jesus views and accepts us as such.

Jesus did not say we are gifts to Him if we are pleasant or doing great things with our lives, or if we manage our temporal pain and suffering well.  He accepts us as we are.  Perhaps it is this tremendous, unconditional love of Jesus for us and His magnanimous consideration of us as "gifts" given Him by God the Father, that causes us, at least some of us, to want to be as good of gifts as humanly possible.

And that broaches the problem we face as humans.  We cannot be marvelous gifts by our own doing and efforts.  We seem only to become better the more we become dependent to the tiniest of details, upon His Real Presence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, as gifts, He wants us to accept His love and His gift--bequeathed to us by Him--of peace.  He wants us to love Him and to be assured that He and the Father are One, and the Father loves us, and that He has sent the Holy Spirit to be with us ever since His Ascension, following our misunderstanding, persecuting, and killing Him.

Yes, it is all quite a lot to absorb...Jesus acknowledging to the Father that we are God's gift to Him.

The reality of what Jesus says and how He views us as gifts, changes temporal suffering, insecurities, and stresses to try to do this or that in order to please others and to please Him, into a peacefulness that approaches sweet death and release.   The push and the concerns are on hold, if not off the list. This present moment, this day, this hermit will bask in Jesus's considering it as God's gift to Him.  

Catholic Hermit: On Not Belonging to the World

The Word of the Living Word of God: this from John 17.  Makes sense, deeply, to this soul, this morning and for a few prior....

"I gave them your word, and the world hated them,
because they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world."


So it is that this hermit, this soul, ponders on not belonging to the world, yet of not yet being taken out of this world.

What does it mean?  The wondering and pondering brings forth the knowing of His Real Presence, and in knowing Him, one senses the meaning of His Words.  We are here in the temporal, yet we are not at all belonging to it.  We do not belong here--not in the temporal of all that does not lift us upward, spiraling through, with, and in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Yet we are here and by that of the temporal that can assist in our transitioning, in our spiraling upward in His Real Presence, to know Him, to love Him--we can utilize the temporal of the world. But never of evil--never of that which hinders and is an obstacle.  What is evil?  It is some degree of lacking in good.  So we learn by His grace and love, in the spiraling upward out of this temporal into His commandment of eternity, how to step upon the temporal treads and rise--climb the stairway to heaven.

In that way we transcend, and we overcome, bit by bit, any lack in good and are kept thus--removed by degrees commensurate with the lack of good replaced with good--from evil.  All movement from lack to increase of good, is the movement to the reality of not belonging to the world.  Then, we belong to heaven.  We are taken out of this world and into His Love.

This hermit has been suffering much additional pain in a new area of the temporal body.  How it adapts and views this suffering, whether as a tread and riser on a stairway to heaven or as a limitation and hindrance of the temporal world, makes all the difference between knowing Him and spiraling in His love, or belonging to the world and held by "evil", or a lack of good in perspective and reality of what is actually, of this world an unreality.

The one reality is not belonging to this world but of belonging in His Real Presence.  That belonging--His Real Presence and Perfect Love--is the real world, the one true reality.

Does this make sense?  Can we bring it into practical application in our daily lives, of the temporal that is always passing away and becoming out of this temporal world and into heaven?

Let us pray so!  Lord, please keep removing us from attachments to temporal loves and attach us in Your Perfect Love eternally, here and now.  We do not belong to this world--to any degree of lack of good, and You are the All Good.  Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for our belonging to Your World, now and forever.