Catholic Hermit: Decision of the Heart

Ah, dear Lord--so loving, so helpful, so present, always.  

This morning's first glimpse into Scriptures and other spiritual reading cheered me all the more with what popped up in The Catechism selection.

2848 "Lead us not into temptation' implies a decision of the heart:  'For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also....  No one can serve two masters.'  'If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.'  In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength.  'No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.'"

Nearly six hours of sleep last night, of which I'm most grateful.  Still way too much pain makes it most difficult to get up from the icy pad on the bed to attempt much other than got a mug of hot green tea, then back down.

I was going to walk to the mailbox, but the tiny bottle of eye drops had fallen off nightstand and verily flew under the bed.  I tried what the physical therapist had demonstrated to me as a means to get down, when I might need to in future.  That future seemed now.  I managed it all right, in the doing of that present moment.  I was able to keep back straight once I had both knees on floor.  Then I could better see where the eye drop bottle was located and used the long reacher-grabber tool to pluck it out from mid-way under bed.

Getting back up seemed not terribly painful, as I did as the therapist had demonstrated.  However, once up, the pain flared.  Obviously, I have not done any damage as far as the instrumentation goes, or so I'd think not.  But to have the pain leap to extreme so rapidly, tells me I was quite premature to attempt such a feat.

In a simplistic way, I made a decision of the heart.  I decided to attempt a physical movement; I realize this example is weak!  Yet, I wanted to try it, for my motivation factor is in need of some type of success, of a show that I am not giving up, not giving in to pain and the invalidism with which pain has shackled my body.

Of course, the above commentary from The Catechism has more pertinent implications in our spiritual lives, in our relationship with the Holy Spirit and in our desire and decision of the heart to seek God above all things.  However, there is much relevance in our daily temptations that are ever so human and involve tangible aspects of being human and living among humans on this temporal earth.

I've always wondered about that statement, meant to reassure, that God will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength.  As an adult who has lived going on seven decades, I have life examples of people who obviously were tempted beyond their strength.  Their temptation led to a means of escape so they could endure, true enough; but it was an escape that removed them from what ended up being too difficult for them to endure.  They escaped, though, yes, through choosing to escape life by taking their temporal lives.

The key, however, is the fact that God is faithful.  If we live by the Spirit we will walk by the Spirit; this, too, is key.  And also, the reality that we cannot serve two masters is a key to reminding us of that most crucial decision of the heart.  We must choose to serve His Real Presence:  God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit.  Choosing God, we will turn to Him when making the decision of the heart, for He is in our hearts and we are in His.  

This is our faith, our faith in God.  In this assent--in this going to God, choosing God, in the moments in which we are tempted seemingly beyond what we can endure, God reaches in and gives us His strength.  Yet why do some people who love God very much, still end up on the wrong side of temptation--yielding to a temptation to end their own earthly existence?

Perhaps it has to do with making the decision of the heart.  Making a decision involves thought and time to think.  Making a decision of the heart involves including God in our decision, for a believer in Christ has a heart in which He abides and remains.  I'm thinking that making a decision of the heart involves waiting.  We must wait for our assent to the Holy Spirit and wait for God to give us His strength, wait while pondering His faithfulness, and wait for His faithfulness to provide God's way of our escape.  

Wait for God's way of escaping not only the temptation such as to despair, but also wait for Him to provide the way of escaping the trial, the time of testing.  There we have it again:  the time of testing.  Time is involved, and it takes time to wait.  

We must learn and resolve not only to make decisions always of the heart when faced with testing that temptation always brings, but to wait and take the time necessary in all that matters when making a decision of the heart.  Wait.  Wait for God's strength, wait for God's illumination as to the why and how and the what of the testing we must endure as well as to discern trial from temptation.

God strengthens us in the tiniest of details that perhaps take being slowed down, laid up, debilitated while int he silence of solitude to take note of His details.  Right after I made the decision of heart (and really, all decisions ought be made of the heart; is a worthy practice), I stood by nightstand and cleared away a few papers which had been on the far side of stand since before the surgery.  They had been covered over by medical items.  Amidst the papers were two small notecards sent by a friend back in mid-June, I think.  I offered a prayer, for I'm finding with this on-going level of more pain I often need tactile reminders for whom and what to pray.  

Then I headed out to the kitchen to get the mug of tea, the sharper pain from my knees-on-floor trial move causing me to forego trying to finish a wedding note I had started writing, with my standing at kitchen counter to do so.

The phone rang.  It was this friend with whom I'd not spoken in nearly a year!  I told her how amazing is the Holy Spirit--first words from my mouth. Then I told her not three minutes prior I'd uncovered her note cards from under papers on my nightstand--notes she'd written and sent in early summer.  She'd forgotten, but we each exclaimed the glory of the Holy Spirit in the spontaneity of her calling me just then.  That "God is great" seems a lack luster statement, but there are no words beyond great other than various synonyms of "great", to adequately express His greatness!  

Just writing about the invaluable help to my mind, heart, and soul that the above selection form The Catechism--this writing aloud type silent conversation with God and with you, dear readers, is an escape the Lord is giving me from the temptation to feel inept in this ongoing physical trial of pain and no usual means of distracting from it.  Just this morning I had asked the Lord to help me have some other means of distracting than through physical means, for being up which is healthy for the body, also increases the pain.

Writing about Scripture or any spiritual and holy thoughts, writing about the marvelous touch of grace the Holy Spirit provided in the synchronicity of the thoughts of two friends and the unusual timeliness of a spontaneous phone call--my pain has floated away as if on the wings of the Dove!  The Lord is showing me a means of escape at least part of the time, in writing about Him in whatever of His infinite facets.  

Perhaps, also, I can find relief and uplift, a way of escape so that I can endure it, by not only writing about Him but also in waiting and thinking of Him in the simply lengthy waiting that pain provides.

God bless His Real Presence in us--here, there, across the miles, through the veil, and everywhere!

Catholic Hermit Delights in "Live by the Spirit"

From today's second Scripture reading from Mass, we have this truth:

"I say, then: live by the Spirit
and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.
For the flesh has desires against the Spirit,
and the Spirit against the flesh;
these are opposed to each other, 
so that you may not do what you want,
But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law."

These Living Words delight this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit!  They are sheer truth, and the recent death of my will is a marvelous assist in living by the Spirit.

However, my own thoughts, notions, ideas, intellect--oh, how my mind needs to be replaced by God's Mind.  For, my own intellect stirs ideas and notions--even if not "bad"--do frustrate and work against His Will.  God's Will is in union with the Spirit, of course.  His Will is the Spirit's and the Spirit's His.

So it comes to the point that my ideas and thoughts can essentially and do--oppose what God's Ideas and Thoughts are, in deed and in truth.  My own ideas can seem perfectly all right, such as thinking I should try to get Raphael to come and help finish this hermitage, so that I can sell and be out from under the on-going work load and financial constraints, in order to focus more on spiritual writing, simplifying, solidifying.

Yet when I live by the Spirit, when His Will has replaced my own will, which it did the Wednesday after Easter last, my thoughts and ideas, good and reasonable as they may seem, are not going to be realized if not His Thoughts and Ideas.

Even my spiritual director's thoughts and ideas, so bluntly and even unexpectedly humorously stated, are not so easily accomplished if at all, without some manual labor help or a miracle.  "Get the damn house done and get to your writing!"  my spiritual father wrote a couple weeks ago.  

Well, yes, I want to!  In fact, there was a health consideration that was looking to be very serious, and my mind generated thoughts accordingly, and made calls to empty out the last of the coffers, to sell off stuff, to hire Raphael to come and finish the place, to hire the neighbor boy to assist in what time I might have remaining to do so.

But, no, these were not God's Thoughts and Ideas--not His Mind.  Raphael was to come last Monday noon.  He never came; he's not responded over the ensuing days to four phone messages.  A Lowe's cabinet employee made yet another error and ordered the wrong kitchen base cabinet.  The installer had to leave for he could not proceed.  Who knows how long it will be before he can return--perhaps a few weeks after the correct cabinet comes in at least a couple or three weeks from now.

So I can't even finish the kitchen--probably not until some time in August.  For then once the installer has a free spot in his busy schedule and cabinets installed, then we wait for the countertop measurer, then we wait for the countertops.  In the meantime, there is no sink.  Yes, I'm most thankful for a bathtub at this point, although it is painful on the back and the increased area of pain and potential difficulty, leaning over to wash a bowl and a spoon in the tub.

The way in which my mind was so sure, given a trip to ER by the EMS a couple weeks ago due to horrific pain, that God was preparing to take me out of this temporal realm, had to face it that my mind was not in syncopation with God's Mind.  God's Will is in me, yes.  But His Mind has not yet replaced mine, obviously.  And in a similar way in which the flesh can be opposed to the Spirit, our own minds, our intellects, can be opposed to God's Mind and Intellect--His Omniscience.  

So in similar effect as when our flesh opposes the Spirit and we cannot do what we want, if our minds and thoughts, our intellects are not His Mind, His Thoughts, His Intellect--we will not be in cohesion in powerful union of His Mind and Will.  Again, the will and the intellect take center position within our souls.  When God's Will replaces our wills, and His Mind replaces our minds, we can grasp how the effect can be--what power in prayer and action, in interactions and in beingness results!

The other statement of the above Scripture that is so delightfully significant and invaluable is that if we are guided by the Spirit, we are not under the law.

Duh, as teenagers used to say when something is obvious.  If our wills and our minds are replaced by God's Will and His Mind, we are totally living in the Spirit.  His Will reigns; our ideas and thoughts no longer oppose His Ideas and Thoughts for His Mind has replaced our intellects.

We no longer are under the law.

This is significant because it places us so in the Spirit, in the center of God's "Soul", so to speak, that we will not be needing the law of minds.  We will do and think and speak in the Spirit, from the center of God's Will and His Mind.  Rules of minds of mankind, good as they can be, and helpful, are superseded by the existence in the Spirit.

All the more, the formulas and all the details of ways of doing and the laws of Church traditions and concern over this interpretation of this or that canon, or the need for some to criticize others who they think are not living in accordance with this or that law of mortal minds, no matter how inspired the minds may be--not necessary when God's Will and God's Mind have replaced ours.  We then live by the Spirit.

Praying for our will to die and God's Will be in us, and to then beseech the Lord to replace our intellects with His Mind--so important!  Even if our wills have died, and His will is in us--that is a major grace and worth all the suffering leading up to the death of our own wills.  Having yet our own thoughts and ideas, then, are irritating and oppositional to what would otherwise be supreme flow of God's Mind and His Will informing and guiding us.  

In my case, the only glitch in this latest episode of temporal life has been that my thoughts were excitedly geared to the surreal aspect of impending physical death.  It has been a marvelous experience, and perhaps some sort of test by His Real Presence.  For what I thought and even what a CT Scan indicated and ER and primary care physicians thought, ended up not being the reality.  The PET Scan results were normal.  Liver lesions, nodules and lung lining nodule evidently benign.

And I faced yesterday and today the immense disappointment of not, at least by that type of illness and death, to be soon on my way to the other side.  Once more, I am realizing that God's Mind has not yet replaced my mind, even in the bit of resentment and frustration now, of having to deal with another area of increased pain.  

Ought I try to find out if the tear in the upper quadrant of liver will heal on its own, or if somehow was it a misread scan, or if this higher level pain in the liver region is from the always-painful back?  Perhaps it is radiating pain, and that causes the pain to then locate in liver region, and then radiate to the intestines, causing all kinds of painful distending, debilitating the body with distracting--pain!

Another option, of course, in praying for God's Mind to replace ours (or mine, anyway), is to practice cooperating.  Maybe just not seek answers as to why the one scan showed a splayed and frayed upper liver quadrant, as the ER doctor described?  Let God's Mind give whatever answers if any needed.  I suppose none are.  The Will of God and Mind of God working in union with the Son and the Spirit, really do not need to tell me information of some bodily ailment, one way or another.

Just live by the Spirit in the Order of the Present Moment.  My own ideas were to find out what was wrong, and of course the doctors said I must be referred for a Pet Scan and lung nodule specialist to deal with the lung as more sizable a nodule and the liver to be dealt with later.  We live among others who are more under the law and not living by the Spirit, and that also can encourage the opposition that we may be praying for in desiring our minds to be replaced by God's Mind.

God's Mind does not think as our minds do.  God's Mind was not running off in all directions, excitedly planning a huge end-of-life sale, of trying to hire people to help finish the work quickly, in figuring out where to go to die, in thinking of how to "get to my writing" and deciding perhaps doing videos to share aspects of my mystical life and insights of His Real Presence to anyone, if anyone, who might wish to read or watch.

God's Mind was putting me through an exercise, dramatically showing me how I have a ways to go to let loose my mind, my thoughts, my ideas, my interpretations, my living under the law, and how it is to live by the Spirit.  A mystic-hermit-parent (what I wanted on my tombstone) would not be thinking of such details, making such plans.  Rather, God's Mind would be simply listening and then returning to do what it could do, in the present moment, and letting God's Will and God's Mind cooperatively unfold whatever changes, if any.

And God's Mind, such as today, would not be kind of put out, teed off, with the "thought" of having to remain in such major manual labor work-mode, here, and with having to assimilate more and more bodily pain, and being rather tired out between work and pain, to "get to the spiritual writing!".  God's Mind would be accepting of the Order of the Present Moment and not even be put out with the disappointment of staying in the temporal for who-knows-how long.

It is all right.  I had at one point exclaimed within, "Cruel!  Cruel!"  But it is all right that I am not soon to have my mystical marriage consummated with physical death, not yet.  This is a significant lesson learned, that if I want God's Mind instead of my bungling thoughts and ideas, or even those of others in the world, I must relinquish my mind fully.  And I must live by the Spirit in the Order of the Present Moment, even to the point of perhaps not pursuing anything more about the liver's splaying and fraying area.  No need to think on it with my mind.

God's Mind can do all the thinking for us.  And until we let His Mind do so, we will not be living by the Spirit, not fully.  Our thoughts will off and on, without notice, be in opposition at times, with His Mind--even if His Will has already replaced our wills.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love God above all things and one another as Jesus loves us.  Pray that His Will and His Mind replace ours, as that will assist us so much in living by the Spirit Who is Love, and no longer under the law of minds.