Encouraging Message to Catholic Hermit

Recently someone sent an email message meant to encourage. It did do so, although what was pointed out does not make the every day reality of this hermit's earth life all that easier to plow.

But it made sense.

I had mentioned that seeing through the sledge of so much that goes on in life, having insights and dreams that depict the raw realities of self as well as of, sometimes, others--it is, as I explained, "an affliction."

This is how the person responded.  Perhaps if you tend to see through sledge and pray and ponder what is seen, and eventually speak or write truthfully the reality of what is seen which reaps the backlash, the following words will be of encouragement to you, as well.

"The affliction is a scandal because you and all the mystics are a slap in the face; a wake-up call to repent, change, and grow spiritually and people don't like that. Leaders (priest and parents like my mom) especially don't like that because they are forced to see the reality that we are all called to holiness. They are not ultimately in charge and those who used to look to them for guidance are now seeing that holiness is not only achievable but is their duty here on earth. We are less inclined to be blindly led when we have truth before us. And that is a mystic's greatest gift to the humanity. You reveal truth."

God bless His Real Presence in us! Little children, let us love God above all things and love others as ourselves.  And love of others includes loving to a point of toughness, that is, if we desire to be perfected by tough love, ourselves.  I tend to desire that love that will make me be as true a being as God wills me.

Hermit Reflects on Letter to the Hebrews

The Book of Hebrews

Reflections written as tribute to a consistently scepter-holding priest ~ by this joyful hermit....

Christmas 2015

Chapter 1

After Jesus’ earthly sin bearing, dying death, He exists as all-sustaining Word as one with God.  In these days, our present moments now, God is speaking to us.  He speaks through Jesus, the Word, the Living Word.  God created the universe and all aspects of existence through Jesus Whom He calls His Son and Heir of all fathomable and unfathomable things. 

The Living Word, the Word made flesh—Jesus—sustains all by His Word.  This is love of God in Himself and God Is Love.  The Word who sustains all, accomplished purification from sins by the Word-made-flesh bearing all sin and being crucified with all sin expiated, once, for all.

After Jesus’ earthly sin bearing, dying death, He exists as all-sustaining Word as One with Love Is God. The Word is filled with and reflecting His Glory: light reflecting refulgent light reflecting refulgent light infinitely, forever and ever. He is in His Glory, the Word inheriting a name that is perfection, more excellent than beings of light named angels.

Higher than the angels, God placed the Word and called Him “Son.”  He asked all the angels to worship Him.  He gave the angels their purpose: be winds and fiery flames of ministry.  Of His Son, the Living Word, God gave Him the scepter of righteousness in God’s Kingdom, for the Son loves justice and hates wickedness.  God anointed His Son with oil of joy above all lesser joys.

All that God creates—of heaven and earth—are perishable.  People, things, earth, wind, rain, fire—all age in time, dissipate, depart.  God takes all tangible creation and changes all tangible creation, no matter what it is, who it is, where it is.  But God-Is-Love and His Living Word never change and exist forever.

All things temporal change.  Bodies, circumstances, places, thoughts, emotions, attitudes, actions change.  Even vocations change.  And souls change.  Yet of all things and aspects in time and temporal  that change, only living souls and angels created by God exist eternally.  They exist and continue to be influenced, reformed, commissioned by the Living Word-God-Love—infinitely, in God, without end.

Do the souls that sin has deadened, exist infinitely dead? It seems so, for even a soul that is deadened with sin exists dead, is nothing.

God speaks to souls in these days, now, and anoints souls with oil of joy.  He calls them Sons, and gives them scepters of righteousness in His kingdom on earth—that kingdom of proclaiming God’s righteousness, of loving justice, of hating evil.  They are a little lower than the angels, these anointed souls, made to be ministers of the Living Word’s Words.  

These Sons are to think, speak, live Truth, Beauty, Goodness; the Way and the Life; to be a reflection of the refulgence of Light; to accept the scepter of righteousness and stand in life on earth to the right of the Word at the right of God in heaven.

These earthly Sons who are anointed with all celebrated joy of oil of gladness who accept the righteous scepter and who live and think and speak and do as the Living Word, exist in God.  Their souls change as does reflected light, increasing intensity, reflecting and refracting, metamorphosing truth and goodness and love, beautifully, sincerely, as generous as is justice pure and love perfect. Their souls exist infinitely as light and love, worshiping as voice of God speaking to us through His Son, as His Living Word.

These are the earthly priests of God, created a little less than the angels—yet whom He calls as ministers of reflections of the refulgence of His glory.  They are His Sons, and of them God is father, and they are called sons.  Their earthly presence will perish, but if their souls (as all souls) carry to the earthly end the scepter of righteousness in His truth, beauty, goodness, light, and love—they will remain, and they will be the same in God, the lights of many souls fed by these priests redounding in the splendor of His mighty word, vivified in the refulgence of His glory, forever and ever.

For those anointed with the joyful oil of gladness, yet weaken in hatred of evil, who lose grip on the scepter of righteousness, who trade justice for temporal prestige, power, position—what is their fate as earthly priests of God?  When the bodies decay and the soul yet exists, is the existence death, that of nothingness?  Do souls that are deadened by sins on earth, exist as dead nothings infinitely, or is there merely nothing, and thus no existence, ever more?

We wonder that surely the angels and all ministering spirits sent to serve, are to do and have done so “for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.”  And surely, those of earth who ask for and accept in joyful celebrations the anointing of the oil of gladness, will be as ministering spirits even if for a portion of their time that has end, lesser beings than the angels but with souls.  Even if they have not grown old with the scepter of righteousness yet clasped in their hands, surely there will be some light remaining to carry their souls into infinite momentum, of inherited salvation, some taste of His portion and cup.

And for all souls wearing the garments of genders on this earth, may we all be open to whatever anointing of oil of gladness that has been given us, that we strive to hold with these ministering priests of earth, the scepter of righteousness. May we help them hold onto love of justice and hatred of evil, as all our souls are vulnerable to weakness.  When it is time for each of our bodies to perish, may our souls be sifted and become magnifying light, changed and luminous, all existing infinitely together, light within Light.

God gift eternal love.

Catholic Hermit: Loves Points Macarius Makes

Not reading quickly these days. The more spiritually profound the writing, the more the body, mind, heart, and spirit desire to dwell upon what is read--and more so be taken to the heart of God within the insights written.  This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is still dwelling on Pseudo-Macarius' first homily!

Love this point:

"If, therefore, you have become a throne of God and the Heavenly Charioteer has mounted you and your whole soul is a spiritual eye and has become totally light, and if you have been nourished with that heavenly food of the spirit and you have drunk from the water of life and you have put on the raiment of ineffable light, if finally your interior man has experienced all these and has been rooted in the abundance of faith, then, behold, you already live the eternal life, indeed, with your soul resting with the Lord."

Truly, from time to time this nothing has experienced each of these mentioned, but this interior man has not been so rooted in the abundance of faith.  No, this nothing, this human hermit is yet distracted by the temporal detritus that plays with the mind and emotions (heart), and up-ends the spirit, far too often.  However, His Real Presence has been showing the nothing Catholic hermit the strident differences between things that are below and things that are above, of God.

And there are things of the temporal of God's created, that can very much in faith lead to the things of God above.  But there are things of the temporal that tend to lead downward or to interfere with faith, or simply to distract and keep the interior man from the abundance of faith that allows it to live the eternal life here and now, with the soul resting with the Lord.

So we see what are the differences between the two, and we also see a means of entering into God and spiraling with Him from the beauty, truth, and goodness of His Created and Creation, upward in faith, hope, and love.  But we still have the snares of the temporal that do not easily or at all merge us with His spiraling movement to that which is above.  Macarius provides a reason for the hindrance: settling for the poverty of sin.

"Look, you have received these things truly from the Lord so that you may live the true life.  If, however, you are not conscious of having experienced any of these things, weep, mourn and groan because you have not yet been made a participator of the eternal and spiritual riches and you have not yet received true life.  Therefore, be worried at your poverty, beseeching the Lord night and day because you have settled for the serious poverty of sin."

It does seem to this hermit, that it has not settled for the serious poverty of sin, either.  Thus the reason why there are at times and points, some part of the soul a spiritual eye--or that eye closed at times and open at others; and there is thus some light and some not light.  The hermit prays that the spiritual eye remain increasingly open--that it is more like the unconscious blinking of the human eyelid, and that the blinking become briefer and eventually cease, so that the soul is a spiritual eye filled with God's ineffable Light.

It is also interesting to note that when the physical body dies, the human eyelids are closed, or if not, another closes them, and there they remain closed to this world.  But then the spiritual eye is opened and remains open--either for an eternal view of God (even a distant view), or for an eternal view of not God, which we may term "hell."

Today the hermit's prayer is to be a throne of God, to be that chariot of which He mounts and guides in all directions at once, nourished by food of the Spirit and water of Life, clothed in His light, and rooted in an abundance of faith--thus for this soul to rest with the Lord.

It is this hermit's prayer for each of you, as well.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another and remain in His Love. Let us pray for our spiritual eyes to be opened and remain filled with light and faith, and to lessen our distracted sightings of that which causes our bodies, minds, hearts, or souls to blink too often or be drawn closed.

A Woman Named Rita

I awoke quite early this morning, and rested in His Real Presence.  In the early hours, upon awakening, one can be quite aware of His Real Presence in the silence and freshness of having been for a few earth-hours, out of most conscious awareness and into that deep, still well of God-in-us.

A woman named Rita came to mind.  She is known more familiarly to some as Rita of Cascia, Italy.
She lived a few centuries ago, and I assume the Lord wanted me to remember her, as I read a book about her life several years ago.  The more I thought about Rita, I realized a week or so ago a friend had called and mentioned her name.  I had not pondered her situation, then; thus the reminder now.

Rita's husband was murdered, and their two sons attempted to avenge their father's death, against Rita's wishes.  She feared they would be killed, also, and that they were.  Rita's entire life as she knew it was stripped from her.  Eventually she was accepted into a religious order.  (I am shortening the story of her life, but I highly recommend her biography.)

When in the convent, at some point when Rita was praying, the Lord gave her a thorn in the middle of her forehead.  She could see it, and others could see the blood and also smell a horrible stench that came from this thorn He asked her to bear.  It marked her, and while in those times of no social media or technology, some people were aware, but not many, outside the convent.

However, among her religious sisters and the superior, the wound was obvious, even at a distance, due to the horrific odor that emanated from it.  Having an open, bleeding hole in one's forehead would present challenges in keeping it clean and dealing with blood flow. But there was nothing Rita could do about the stench.

As a result, none of the sisters nor her superior wanted to be near her.  She was ostracized, in a way, and isolated.  They were not intentionally being mean.  It was not that they disliked her, but it was human instinct to not want to be around someone who had an undeniable stench emanating from a bloody thorn-hole in her forehead.

Some of the sisters were going on a pilgrimage, and Rita wanted to go with them.  She asked her superior for permission, and the superior told her she could not go due to the horrible stench of the thorn wound.  The others could not tolerate that smell, and it would be all the worse for anyone else in the public who would smell it, in addition to seeing the bloody thorn mark.

So Rita begged God to remove the effects of this mystical phenomenon. She knew He knew why she asked.  He did remove it, and Rita was able to join her sisters and make the pilgrimage.  As far as she and others assumed, the phenomenon was gone for good.

However, on their way back from the pilgrimage, as they approached the convent, the thorn wound and the stench returned.  God had only removed it for the time period of the pilgrimage, granting her wish so the superior would allow her the pilgrimage.  Once back in the convent, her shunning began anew.  The sickening stench God allowed with the thorn in her forehead was just too much for others to endure.  Rita had to endure it, though.  There was no escaping it.

I forget if at her death, the odor became that of perfumed roses.  I know that some people who experienced the phenomenon known as stigmata (any one or several of the wounds of Christ imparted to their physical bodies either in visible or invisible form) had a perfumed odor emanate from their wound or wounds.  Only God knows why He chose perfume for some and stench for Rita.  For her, what one would consider a gift from God became that which isolated.  It certainly would be difficult for others to see any good fruit of this experience.  It was hard to believe that something so nasty and unedifying on the face of it, so to speak, as coming from God.

Such matters remain a mystery.  God only knows, and sometimes the person thus marked or afflicted with mystical phenomena have an idea as to His plan and purpose.  Such matters always affect various levels of meaning, significance, and outcome.  His will always includes the soul's progression, and the suffering required includes the soul's conformity to Jesus Christ.  The soul must undergo whatever necessary to prepare it for union with His Real Presence.

God bless His Real Presence in us and us in Him!