Christian Cathoilc Mystic Hermit: Living the Hermit Vocation Authentically in His Real Presence

 Just want to check in and say all is going well with this consecrated Catholic hermit--Christian foremost, Catholic and mystic living the hermit vocation as set forth by His Real Presence and in the ancient, traditional, hermit Christian tradition of centuries of men and women hermits in the Church.  I include in my inspirations of the Christian Catholic hermit vocation the prophet hermits and, of course, John the Baptist, and the hermits following of both Eastern and Western hermit traditions following the Great Schism circa 11th c.

However, my main point is that of living a life devoted to His Real Presence:  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  To have and hold the faith within of being in His Real Presence and His Real Presence being within us, all the time and in all places and dimensions of space and time known and unknown to the human being.   To live and love in His Living Word as the on-going challenge, and to follow Christ in today's world, temporally and mystically, and doing so until we are called out of this life and into eternal life, with our no longer being personages on this earth.  

The implications of such a life as a hermit in today's society and in today's Church bring with it challenges to adapt logically, spiritually, practicably, and humanly with enduring mercy, faith...and very much so, living in and with God's Law of Love.

I no longer think about the hermit vocation as such, and not as anything set forth recently in hierarchical or temporal organizational terms.  I do not engage in other than the living of His Living Word and pondering the wonders therein, as far as anything temporal or tactical in what some may find worthwhile conversation of "hermit vocation".  The Lord has brought me beyond the ensnaring nets of the temporal in those controversies, and I realize the space of mind and thought wasted in the past, with so much benefit in grasping the holy ones who lived lives as religious solitaries yet among their fellow humans, but with a God alone reality that transcends the muck of temporal degradation of mind, heart, and soul.  All for God, omnia pro Deo, allows me to listen and obey as best a human can and may, the calling and teaching of His Real Presence, to allow oneself in faith to obey and be directed by God Himself, is the challenge and beauty of my life of increasing suffering.

Understanding with greater awareness that my sufferings and the sufferings of Holy Mother Church are made one and were made one years ago and forever in my life on earth, has brought meaning and love in the sufferings, despite the sufferings diminishing and demeaning my mortal body and ego.  This diminishment and demeaning of my body and my very "self" in temporal existence has been beautiful and positive; I know God has me in His Real Presence fully and forevermore.

What is difficult is in the faith required, but then to grasp that all the faith necessary is given by the Holy Trinity, His Real Presence.

So awaken, rise physically or only mentally and always spiritually each morning, and live out each day in His Real Presence, enjoying the pups Mercy and Love, enjoying whatever my body and mind and emotions are able to enjoy, and let the soul grow in whatever ways His Real Presence desires!  Today I pray to plant a tree or transplant some Echinacea flower starts to create a row of blooms along the driveway of Solus Deus Hermitage.  Or, to shovel sand off the truck bed and into some trash containers for use when my helper Sean returns on Monday to help dig out and level the small courtyard area outside the hermitage entrance.  

Whatever today of physical efforts, I know that His Real Presence is forming my mind, heart, and spirit in His likeness and image.  Only "myself" when the pain becomes too temporal, gets in the way of all the graces that His Real Presence is constantly bequeathing upon me.  

Thus, perhaps, my dear readers, you can understand why the temporal, hierarchical, humankind laws and applications created have little to do with the progression occurring within and without this body, mind, heart, and soul who is existing as a child of His Real Presence, a consecrated hermit in His Holy Church Eternal, more mystical than temporal, and more so "of the ages."  God has me directly now because I finally accept His will in this regard, and let go, simply let go of other.  Simply keep going in faith, in love, following His Real Presence where I know not, but He does.

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

Catholic Hermit: God's Blessings Upon Us!

What an amazing day in the Lord!  

From the early morning text from my new spiritual father, priest-hermit, to some discernment humor involving someone I was asked to drive to an college class, to having to face that the Lord chose not to have what I thought would be a special occasion to celebrate with a loved one, only to later on the Lord choosing to have a rare and surprise, most loving and uplifting phone call from a beloved niece.

I had not realized until getting into the pick-up truck, that it had been 9 days since I'd been out and about on errands or appointments.  Between spiritual reading, writing, Scriptures, and I think 5 phone calls in that time period, at most, the time passes silently and if slowly, the slowness is not a conscious awareness and thus not a concern.  All seems to flow in the grace and goodness of God!

This afternoon there was the remarkable interaction with a stranger in an aisle at Lowe's, where I was checking on supplies for some patching needed in the St. John the Baptist Bathroom here at Solus Deus Hermitage.  It was immediately after what had been the reality-check regarding what the Lord chose not for me, regarding the special occasion.  God kept inserting into the unexpected encounters, what He did want, did choose to remind me He is in charge; He has the every present moments willed for us.

Then, needing to go to Home Depot for a separate supply item, the employee in plumbing seemed eager to share some very helpful tips plus encouragements.  The young man in the check-out line insisted on calling someone to load the supply into Precious Blood (pick up truck), and the young man who did so also wanted to share a bit of his job, and in most positive manner. On to the grocery for some produce and buttermilk, and yet another kindly encounter with the self-checker clerk who did not even need to be waved over; she noticed the computerized system had a kink going on.  So pleasant, so delightful, so helpful.

Arriving back at Solus Deus, God had the neighbor boy shooting baskets in the darkness on a cold evening--the only light from their home's opened garage door with lights on.  He immediately came over to carry in the heavy supply for me; I had just figured I'd need to wait until morning and leverage it out from the passenger side, slide it, let it drop on its own, then try to shove the dolly under it to get the heavy supply into the garage.

Again, the Lord made it clear to me that HE is the One Who guides this nothing maybe-or-maybe -not consecrated Catholic hermit's life.  God provides not waht we think we want, but what we need.  I'm sharing a portion of what St. Gertrude of Helfta (the Great) wrote circa latter years of 13th century, of the generous goodness of God. 

"Reflecting, one day, on the various graces she had received from the generous goodness of God, Gertrude considered herself to be miserable and unworthy of any favors since, up to that point, she had wasted so many of the gifts received from God through negligence that she could not see she had drawn the least fruit from them either for herself, by profiting or giving thanks for them, nor for others who, by taking note of them, might have found in them cause for edification and progress in their knowledge of God.

"This light comforted her:  that sometimes the Lord does not lavish graces on his saints to make them each give suitable fruit back to him since human weakness often puts difficulty in the way.  But because God's goodness and overflowing generosity know no measure, even though he knows we cannot bring them all to fruition, he does not nevertheless strive less to accumulate graces so as at least to assure us of an accumulation of eternal beatitude.

"Just as, in the case of earthly things, it usually happens that people sometimes give something to a small child who does not know the usefulness he can expect from it so that later on, once he is an adult, he might be laden with good things, so the Lord, when he bestows grace on his elect in this life, prepares them and assures them of the good things for which eternal delight will make them happy in heaven."

God bless His Real Presence in us! Little children, let us love one another as God is love and loves each of us so very much!

Catholic Hermit: St. Servulus, Inspiring, Suffering, Victim Soul

I've found some information on St. Servulus, and this saint seems a much-needed friend and mentor currently.  I'm praying to have this man's strength of praising God and singing hymns of glory to God in my mind and heart of love.  The suffering of increased pain at increased levels is yet difficult for me to manage even with meds, so I look to St. Servulus to be here with me, inviting him to guide and inspire.  

While I know it takes time to adapt to increasing suffering, my desire as a hermit is to be of the law of God--the law of His Love--and simply, sincerely genuine.  This is definitely a phase in my spiritual life and as a consecrated Catholic hermit, as a friend, parent of adult children, and as a soul honed by years of pain yet still with plenty of sins and imperfections to be sanded and prayerfully, hopefully in God, polished smooth with the glow of my soul's finished product, all of God's grace and doing.

I know I have a way to go, that is for certain.  Yet each step, each day, each phase reflects the actualities of melding the challenges of personal temporal and spiritual life within the vehicle of my hermit vocation until that moment in which the Lord calls me from the temporal to be fully with Him in heaven. Servulus has a challenge in me, should he accept my invitation to dwell in whatever essence God allows, in Solus Deus Hermitage and in my heart.  Plenty of room for the angels and saints--and that includes my saintly ancestors and friends now on the other side!  Welcome here!

 Servulus was a beggar, and had been so afflicted with palsy from his infancy that he was never able to stand, sit upright, lift his hand to his mouth, or turn himself from one side to another. His mother and brother carried him into the porch of St. Clement's Church at Rome, where he lived on the alms of those that passed by.

        He used to entreat devout persons to read the Holy Scriptures to him, which he heard with such attention as to learn them by heart. His time he consecrated by assiduously singing hymns of praise and thanksgiving to God.

        

After several years thus spent, his distemper having seized his vitals, he felt his end was drawing nigh. In his last moments he desired the poor and pilgrims, who had often shared in his charity, to sing sacred hymns and psalms for him. While he joined his voice with theirs, he on a sudden cried out: "Silence! do you not hear the sweet melody and praise which resound in the heavens?" Soon after he spoke these words he expired, and his soul was carried by angels into everlasting bliss, about the year 590.

And this I found, also:

Saint Servulus of Rome

Invalid and Beggar
(† 670)

Saint Servulus of Rome

Saint Servulus was a perfect model of submission to the divine Will; it would be difficult to offer a more consoling example to persons afflicted by poverty, illnesses and the other miseries of life. It is Saint Gregory the Great who narrates for us his edifying story:

We have seen under the portico of the Church of Saint Clement, a poor man named Servulus, who is known to all the people of Rome as to Us. He was deprived of all the goods of this world; a long illness had reduced him to a pitiful state. From his youth he was paralyzed in all his members. Not only could he not stand up, but he was unable to rise from his bed; he could neither sit down nor turn himself from one side to the other, nor bring his hand to his mouth. Nothing in him was sound except his eyes, ears, tongue, stomach and entrails.

This unfortunate man, who had learned the mysteries of religion, meditated unceasingly on the sufferings of the Saviour, and never did he complain. He was surrounded by the loving care of his mother and brother. Neither the mother nor the children had ever studied, yet the paralytic had pious books bought for himself, in particular the Psalms and the Holy Gospels, and he would ask the religious who came to visit him on his cot to read from them to him. In this way he learned these books by heart; he spent days and part of the nights in singing or reciting them, and meditating them, and he constantly thanked the Lord for having taken him to be a victim associated with the pains and sufferings of Jesus Christ.

Many alms came to the little house of the paralytic, to such an extent that he became rich in his poverty. After having taken from these what was necessary for his subsistence and that of his mother, he gave the rest to the indigent, who often assembled around him to be edified by his words and his virtues. His bed of pain was a pulpit of preaching, from which he converted souls.

When the time came which was decreed by God to reward his patience and put an end to his painful life, Servulus felt the paralysis spreading to the vital parts of his body, and he prepared for death. At the final moment, he asked those in attendance to recite Psalms with him. Suddenly he cried out: Ah! Don't you hear that melody resounding in heaven?' At that moment his soul escaped from his body, which until his burial gave forth a marvelous fragrance.

Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, by Abbé L. Jaud (Mame: Tours, 1950).

Shared from this site:  https://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_servulus_of_rome.html

God bless His Real Presence in us, this Christmas Eve, 2019!

Catholic Hermit: Moved Into Hermitage

It's been an exhausting several days.  After four and a half months of staying with two sets of relatives, this tired and pained consecrated Catholic hermit is finally in a new-to-me hermitage.

Solus Deus:  God alone.

A week ago yesterday the Lord took the wheel of my pickup truck, Precious Blood, and helped me endure 15 hours of interstate-mostly driving through parts of four states and the entire length of yet one more state.  At one point, exhausted, I took an exit by error, although someone had said to get from one interstate to another in a certain town.  So I took the exit that stated the town's name.

Well, I took the instructions too literally.  I was to stay on the one interstate until it intersected the other interstate near that town.  However, an hour and a half later, having seen some side-road vistas and having met six kindly town-persons who kindly gave instructions as to how to get out of the town and find the interstate needed to get to the intersection that would take me yonder in correct direction to my final destination, the man at the post office proved to have the right way.

I spent two nights in an Airbnb (a room to rent via internet reservation but breakfast is generally not included, thus actually an Airb...) whose lovely owner had a floor bed ready for me as I arrived rather late in the evening.  She also, the next morning, gave me strong, hot coffee and made a healthy bowl of oatmeal and allowed me to unwind, for I was in no physical shape to even attempt driving nearby for breakfast out.  I gave her some added money for her kindness--of which she did not want to accept but finally agreed to take what I offered, for Airbnb hosts really do not make a lot of money on their reasonable offerings, and this woman in particular is between phases in her life and has needs.

She was reared Catholic but has lapsed as have so many I encounter, here and there.  She is a gentle, peaceful, and most beautiful soul who tended her parents' in their passing two weeks apart from one another and within two weeks of her brother (their son) passing unexpectedly.  About the same time, her husband of 20 years called her to say he did not want to be married anymore.  This was a couple or more years ago, but still, the impact of the suffering she has borne was not lost on me, one bit.

She also has suffered recently from a torn shoulder and hopes to avoid surgery to repair it.  I'm praying she can have some miraculous healing.  But from my two-shoulder surgery experience, of which the first surgeon missed a major tear and dismissed my concerns for a year saying I was a malingerer and nothing wrong--I hope if no miraculous healing, that she will endure the quite painful surgery but which can fix the problem as she has a lot of life yet to live.  She's in my prayers and in my heart of gratitude, both.

So the house closing appointment came and went.  Both the bank mortgage man and my real estate agent came, as we'd been together in the house-hunting process for the four and a half months.  Each of these men are outstanding, kindly, honest, efficient, and professionals.  What a difference it makes in life when we are assisted in the temporal aspects we all must face and endure, when we have good people with whom we interact and make needful transactions.

Then I got a couple recommendations from the storage facility employees as to local movers, as well as some tips from my real estate agent and online research--and the next afternoon the remains of my earthly possessions were loaded onto trucks by four men.  Within 3.6 hours, the menagerie of mostly religious books and artwork, a few old pieces of furniture, and boxes of pots, pans, dishes, bedding and other temporal detritus of life were unloaded into the garage of Solus Deus, and only the few piece of furniture not requiring repair and refinishing, into the hermitage itself.

I asked them to put the boxspring and mattress of the bed I'd had way back in my Agnus Dei hermitage, six years ago, on the floor as I wanted to see if that then-firm bed my back could tolerate.  It is not bad; I slept on it most of three nights until the pain too much to deal with.  Back to the floor this hermit went; and on the floor for a bed this hermit shall for sleeping and pain sieges, remain.  

(At some point, I will try a piece of 3/8" subflooring on the mattress set and see if the pained back can cope with that added firmness.  Otherwise, I will build a platform with a plywood base, but up high enough so I can see out the windows to a lovely, natural, scenic view, when needing to recline for sleep or pain siege recovery.  I was "sold" on this hermitage--rather unnecessarily large but I have ideas for that aspect--due to the view onto nature and the peace and quiet of the area.  So be it and thanks be to God for the seller having dropped the price dramatically, at which point my agent and I pounced on it.  All went so smoothly and rapidly; the bank lender and agent opined when we were chatting at closing, that they'd never quite had one go so well and so fast.  God chose this one for me!  I'm so grateful to His Real Presence.)

I had the third MRI the pain doctor set up; this one is of the thoracic spine.  At some point sooner than later, he will get the results, go over them with me (and I will ask for a recap of the lumbar and neck MRI's as I was too pained and also stunned by his saying I need surgery), and we will discuss his referral to surgeon.  I will research in advance, being new to this area; and I also will ask for second opinion surgeons.  However, I've come to accept that if more surgery to clear up bone spurs, spinal stenosis, and more bulging discs and compressed discs that have come over the years after the major surgery back in 1987 following 1984 life-altering car accident, then I of course would love to feel any bit better.  That is all the pain doctor has to offer given how bad the MRI results, other than trying another medication he hopes will help any small amount during pain sieges.

So consecrated Catholic hermits or any hermit, still have to deal very much with the temporal, with people and professionals, with having a place to live and all that goes with life and living in this 21st century.  I have to wash out cupboards, wait until Friday for a Shop Vac to arrive, sweep out lower cabinets and closet, unpack dishes and pots and pans, hang up a few clothes, put away bathroom items.  

And soon, I hope and pray, I will unpack the marvelous library of rare and otherwise spiritual books on and by saints, mystics, hermits, spiritual masters and directors, religious order founders, and Scripture scholars.  My library collection has been boxed for nearly six years due to the previous hermitage, Te Deum, being what I later learned a cosmetically covered "tear down" dwelling.  Took five and a half years to gut and renovate, run out of money, and sell just in the nick of time.  Praise His Real Presence for all providence and love!

This hermitage, Solus Deus, has a lovely bonus room upstairs that will be the chapel and place of prayer as well as artistic and creative endeavor.  More on that another time.

For now, I share the following Scriptures read at Masses around the globe, a few days ago.  These I will separate from the aspect of what not to be, to the aspect of how to be in God's sight, in His footsteps, in His love.  So much is ours to choose, after all, which path, which attitude, which perspective, which way to live and be.  God is Love, and turning to and trusting in God is that of LOVE.

I pray you can apply these somewhat hard truths of the two aspects and ways of choosing, in your own circumstances and life.  This selection has been quite meaningful to me as of late.

Jeremiah 17:5-8

Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is in the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream;
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love God above all things and others as ourselves!