Catholic Hermit: Loving Mercy!

The Lord has been so very good to this old, nothing, consecrated Catholic hermit!  However, after a work-mode bonanza of some needed energy and bits of hermitage progress, the body is feeling increase of pain and depletion.

The Lord remains so loving and merciful, with perks along the way, though.  Yesterday had to drive to civilization for way-past-due truck (named Precious Blood) lube and tune and oil change, and in the wait room was a man who struck up conversation.  He noticed my crucifix and sure enough is Catholic.  Great conversation with a good soul of which he certainly is.  God provides!

Am today just now dressed and trying to get the pained body up and off this mattress to head out to the back side of hermitage to continue caulking up under an overhang.  My angel is with me, and I've had inspiration as to how to rig a scaffold-type effect on some steps so that a ladder can be placed under a section of overhang on each side of a deck, so that the old hermit can reach up to do necessary caulking and eventual trim painting.

Ladder to heaven?  Well, that is a good thought while working today, as best as the body can be pushed to work despite radiating pain causing loads of nausea as well as pain going down legs and into feet.  Ah, it all could be so much worse.

On another loving and merciful note, after Mass on Saturday evening last, some women conversed kindly, and long-story-short, called over a man who right then and there said he'd come help this hermit install the microwave above a range.  When he arrived, he seriously asked if I am trying to live in here as it is.  My, I laughed and said this is on the upswing, for sure!  Yes, am living in here, as is.

While the man did not install the microwave, he will come back to lift it onto a mounting plate once the hermit here gets that work done.  The wonderfully competent and kindly young countertop template man came on Monday morning, and he explained to me how to mount the microwave mounting metal strip, to add some toggle bolts for strength, and noted that part of the support will come from bolting down into the microwave from cabinet above.

Such helpfulness not only from the women and man from the parish as well as the countertop template man--well, it is all very encouraging to the heart, mind, and soul.

Let us all remember just how much a bit of kindness, thoughtfulness, and encouragement can accomplish in those who we encounter either in person or in our thoughts of them.  It takes faith in the latter concept, to consider how kindly thoughts can affect souls all over the world and in the great beyond, of souls continuing on in eternity.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another as Jesus loves us!

Now, to get the body up and out, into physical motion, with the mind and heart and spirit praying love and mercy for all.

Catherine of Siena to the Rescue

The elderly friend across the miles, is joining me in reading more of St. Catherine of Siena.  She is reading the biography by Catherine's spiritual father; I dug around in a book box in the pole barn and chose an out-of-print find located in a bookstore in England (via internet order).  The author is Norwegian who wrote this biography while living in Siena and retracing Catherine's steps, staying in a house 200 paces from Catherine's family domicile.

Already the reading is helping in my strength and resolve.  Was it coincidence that the author, in the preface, mentioned that Catherine died at age 33--brought down by the heavy burden of the Church which she carried.  Ah, immediately I thought of the stones--the many cold stones that overwhelmed me yesterday morning, and from which I departed.  But their effect did not leave me these two days, so what good was it to flee other than to bear the weight of the stones all the more in my mind and heart and suffering body?

In the first 32 pages of this biography, Catherine has reminded me through some of her actions, events and visions, of passages in my own life I had forgotten--vivid images in dreams and visions, in which suffering was offered me by Jesus, or by an angel, or by Mary--and I each time accepted.  Then there was the vision dream I had totally forgotten, of being prepared in a bridal gown by Mary.  This was within the first two years of my being a Catholic.

The past 19 years now are not seeming so horrible, although suffering and pain riddle them and me.  But I am being reminded of the offering and of my acceptance and return offering, many times over.  Jesus tends to appeal in ways that one cannot refuse--or is unlikely to--and the suffering at the time of His appearance and beckoning, seems not so daunting.  In reality of it, later, however, the suffering is immense; the soul is brought down, the mind befuddled by pain.  The visions and dreams and locutions are crushed from immediate recall, but His Real Presence and His angels and His saints come through with any small gesture in His direction.

For me, this afternoon, it was finally walking to the pole barn and moving windows and wood to get to the book boxes, and finding in the third box opened, a selection of Catherine of Siena biographies from which to choose.  I at least had enough presence to know to pray and let the Spirit guide the choice, and thus this particular, old volume of which the first section is titled "Solitude."  That seemed the hook, the appeal, the answer to what some of my current weariness incurs. 

Much solitude--even and maybe especially upon the attempt to return to Mass, for there is no such solitude quite like being amidst other Catholics in Church, inches from them, passing them to and from the chapel, their greeting warmly one another but stoning me with cold isolation.  (I had first written stoning me to death, but I am not dead.  No, they shall not stone me to death.  This is another test, and whether or not I am to be an immolation in their midst or be an immolation in solitude here at the hermitage, such as it is, I will be an immolation and bear the weight of the stones, either way.)

I had forgotten about Catherine's little cell at home, 15x10 feet, a little larger than this room, and with no more furniture than in this room here at Te Deum, where is the twin bed--the only place in the house to sit or recline, at least thus far.  The descriptions help.  I feel Catherine's strength of purpose and determination entering my heart, mind and soul.  I am reminded of purpose and of trusting in what I have been shown mystically. 

Also, her state during Mass was described, as well as the state St. Brigid of Sweden experienced (which is more like the one I experience).  Catherine's included body rigidity, but Brigid's and what I experience share the total cessation of bodily function; the soul is lifted away other than when drawn back by some temporal intrusion. 

Another statement the author includes in this biography has to do with what Catherine endured when speaking out the truth of what she was shown of some wrongs.  Yes, I am thankful that in what seemed my final hours of faith and endurance, I was given the impetus to dig out the book and then to begin reading.  I have my elderly friend to thank, via her email letting me know she had started reading her volume on Catherine's life.

Help has arrived.  The stones seem not so cold and hard, or at least are as they are with no power over me.  I must not let them weigh upon me or get me down.  They are only hardened by fear and cold by choice.  But I will continue seeking His will as to what immolation He desires, there, or here--solitude either way.

God bless His Real Presence in us; and, little children, let us love one another. Honestly, I have always had a great fondness for stones.  They attract me.  I love to dig them from the ground and have piles of them around the grounds here, hoping to make a cobblestone pathway at some point.

Another Hymn for the Day

On Sunday a 91-year-old aunt telephoned.  A few weeks prior she had reminded me of a hymn sung by the congregation at her church.  Prior to the service, a woman said something very upsetting and rude to her.  She was shaken.  

The offending woman sat two pews ahead of her throughout the service, but another woman who my aunt has mentioned as a great prayer warrior, sat in the pew between them.  I commented that the woman of prayer was God's way of reminding my aunt of the power of His grace and those He places in our lives as buffers in the storms that sometimes others precipitate.

When the final hymn, "How Firm a Foundation" was sung, my aunt was deeply moved by the last couple of lines.  She could not recall exactly but said it was something like:  those that are shaken, will not be forsaken.  She felt God was reminding her He was with her despite the nastiness of the one woman.  My aunt gave the title of the hymn as "The Church's One Foundation".  I said I would look it up, for it seemed a line very good for me, too.  But the line she mentioned was not in that particular hymn.

So with joy we discussed, this past Sunday, the correct title of the particular hymn and the final verse, as my aunt had asked her minister who said it was in a hymn that included "foundation" in the title.  Praise God for "Google."  We found the hymn, "How Firm a Foundation," the verses and the final lines that spoke to my aunt powerfully that Sunday morning several weeks ago.  The hymn is indeed empowering and uplifting.  

I suggested to my aunt she may like to pray for God to give her a hymn each day.  I have done so, and daily I receive a hymn or a song that has words (even if a secular song) from God, that can be Jesus singing to me or me singing to Jesus:  words of love or encouragement.

In fact, my aunt's mentioning again the hymn that meant so much to her that one Sunday in her church, became obvious as the hymn God wished for me this past Sunday.  God does provide in various means and ways.  The lyrics were penned in 1787 by a man thought to be a Mr. John Keith, or Keene. 

No one knows for  sure, now, the man's exact identity--but this hymn was a favorite of Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and sung at their funerals. General Robert E. Lee called for it to be sung to him on his deathbed and was also used at his funeral.  Deborah (Rachel) Jackson, wife of Andrew Jackson, also loved this hymn, and it was sung at her husband's funeral, as well.  In the Spanish American War of 1898, an entire corps of the U.S. Army took up this words and tune on a hill overlooking Havana, Cuba, on Christmas Eve.

I will embolden the final lines of the last verse, sharing now with you.  (They hymn is in several versions on YouTube, including the tune--written by Joseph Funk.)

[Today's hymn came through early on:  Let There Be Peace on Earth...and let it begin with me.... The tune flows in the mind, heart and soul; the first line of words repeat.  I have, as many of us, been praying for the on-going and uncivilized conflict in Ferguson, MO.]

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word!
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
You, who unto Jesus for refuge have fled?
 
In every condition, in sickness, in health; 
In poverty’s vale, or abounding in wealth;
At home and abroad, on the land, on the sea,
As thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be.
 
Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid;
I’ll strengthen and help thee, and cause thee to stand
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
 
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
 
When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;
The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
 
Even down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne.
 
The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;  
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.

...God bless His Real Presence in us!