Catholic Christian Hermit: LIfe-changing words from Origen

 I found these words to be inspirational plus practically helpful in making changes in my own life.  Perhaps they will be profoundly changing for others, as well.  I realize to no let my own attitudes enslave me, nor the attitudes, moods of others or to let situations enslave me, as well.  Jesus is my Master; I must follow Him as best I can, and not droop with whatever is going on around me.

Origen (c.185-253)

priest and theologian

Homilies on Exodus, no. 12, 4

"If you remain in my word (…) the truth will set you free"

“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17) (…) But how can we find this freedom who are slaves of this world, slaves of money, slaves of fleshly desires? It is true that I strive to amend and judge myself; I condemn my faults. And on their part, let those who hear me examine the thoughts of their own hearts. But let me mention that, insofar as I am bound by one of these attachments, I have not been converted to the Lord nor attained true freedom, since such matters and preoccupations still have power to hold me (…). As we know, it is written that: “A person is a slave of whatever overcomes him” (2 Pt 2:19). Now, even if I am not overcome by love of money, even if I am not bound by concern for possessions and riches, yet I am hungry for acclaim and anxious for human glory when I take account of the regard shown me by others and of what they say about me, when I worry about what someone thinks of me, about someone else's estimation, when I am afraid to displease one and want to please another. So long as I have these preoccupations, I am their slave. Yet I should like to make an effort to set myself free from them and try to break free from the yoke of this shameful slavery and attain the liberty Saint Paul tells us about: “You were called for freedom; do not become slaves to human beings” (Gal 5:13; 1 Cor 7:23). But who will gain this freedom for me? Who will deliver me from this shameful slavery if not he who said: “If the Son sets you free, then you are free indeed” (…) So let us faithfully serve and “love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength” (Mk 12:30), so that we may merit to receive the gift of freedom from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Catholic Hermit: Knowing Jesus

Still considering how it is that there is divergence in Christianity and why some depart.  Or, also, why some are prone to legalism, to laws of minds, functional as they may seem--I wonder.  

I appreciate what The Catechism explains of the "old law" being a first stage of revealed law, of moral prescriptions, and why the law of Moses was necessary.  It does make sense of matters even in the early church when some (personality tendency?) even then remained occupied with needing externals to form or uphold their ability to have faith.

"1980 The Old Law is the first stage of revealed law.  Its moral prescriptions are summed up in the Ten Commandments."

"1981 The Law of Moses contains many truths naturally accessible to reason.  God has revealed them because men did not read them in their hearts."

If we do not have truths--Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life--in our hearts, we may then turn to or actually need a first stage, such as the old law, moral prescriptions or externals such as what food to eat or not eat, or what various laws of minds are then created to give security to some or many.

In our lives and moral and spiritual development, we do seem to progress through phases.  As St. Paul put it, we needed milk when young but later ought to live on pure spiritual food.

Perhaps, I do think, the divergences come when some progress to knowing Jesus, of having God's law of love and the ability to "read" the law of love in our hearts.  Or, there are those who have not progressed to knowing either the Father or Jesus, who have not God's law, the greatest commandment, nor ability to read God's law of love in our hearts.

It thus seems crucial that we desire and pray to know Jesus and the Father or either One, and to be open and accepting to the Holy Spirit in our hearts, our inner sanctum of our souls.  It is crucial to grasp with great faith, hope, and love, that we are within the Trinity and the Trinity is within us, always and everywhere.

Jesus gives us the prescription of spiritual life, as quoted in the Gospel of John.

"I have told you this so that you may not fall away.
They will expel you from the synagogues;
In fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.
They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me."

So today, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit and child of God, lover of Christ my Spouse, will ask anew that I know deeply and truly, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  I pray to love God with all my body, mind, heart, and spirit.  I pray to love God in Himself, above all things, and to love others as God loves.  

To know Jesus, to truly know Him, is to know the Father.  To have love of Jesus in the depths of our beings, to know with assurance that He is in us and we are in Him--this is truth and eternal life.  

I wonder if I know Jesus to the degree that I desire, or if I desire to know Jesus in the fullness of love of God in Himself?  I suppose I would not know, nor is it necessary to know.  What is needful is to simply keep loving, keep asking to love Him more and more, and to desire with fullness of body, mind, and heart, that His love will infuse love all the more in my soul.

This will be my hope, in faith, of holy charity, while I get up on the ladder that I will pull up onto the scaffolding, while I paint the stairwell trim, way up high, for the final effort before installing the stairs.  Yes, in many ways literal and spiritual, the result may then be the stairway to heavenly love. 
  

Catholic Hermit: Remain in Jesus' Love

My spiritual father wrote again.  I so cherish his letters; it takes a great deal of physical effort on his part to write due to health considerations.  The content is always rich and deep, speckled with humor, as well.

He wonders about what it is that priests have done or not done, for he grieves the people leaving the Catholic Church.  He takes this upon himself, being a priest--and a holy one at that.

I have pondered his comments and concerns, and I responded to his letter the other day.

It is not on the priests, although many have not been screened by bishops, perhaps, so well before entering seminary.  The decline in membership and also those attending Mass is also not a new sorrow for the Church, yet it does seem to be increasingly so.

Much has to do with all of us Catholics, whether those of us in the consecrated life of the Church or those who are in married or single vocations.  

The problem seems to be within ourselves, and it has to do with following and immersing ourselves in the laws of mind or the law of God: the law of love.  Love God above all things and love others as God loves.  This is the law of God, Jesus' greatest commandment, and it is verily how Jesus taught and more so, how He lived His earthly life as an example for us all.

Another way to view the dispersion of people to other faiths or no faith at all, has to do perhaps with the externals.  It does seem to me--this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit who is old, worn from suffering but praying while doing a great deal of manual labor and learning a bit to remain in Christ's love--that some are drawn to the Church and exist in the Church due to a need or attraction to externals.

Someone wrote to me recently with an article attached, about a US bishop who was convinced the decline in Catholics is due to not receiving Communion properly.  He had a call for Catholics to receive Communion on the tongue and not in the hand, and in a kneeling position.

The person who sent me the article found this to be just the answer to our Catholic Church's membership woes and why such persons as our Vice President and newest Supreme Court justice left the Catholic Church and attend other--such as evangelical or Episcopalian.  Well, we all known those who have left the Catholic Church over the years, and there are many factors involved in the persons' reasons and choice.

Even trying to figure it out can bring us to dwell upon the externals.  Yet there is a reality occurring, and whether in the time of John of the Cross or of the early Church or of our time period now, it seems to come down to love.  Love in His Love, or not so much love in His Love.

We are in love of Christ or not so much, and we love God in Himself or love a bit more the temporal aspects of the Church, and in some cases love the temporal aspects of the world.  And there are gradations of these aspects of love.  

But love of God in Himself, loving God above all else and loving others as God loves--remaining in His love: this is the command of Jesus, given to us to follow and live, always, in all circumstances.

We do love aspects of the world, but it is through the love of God that this is possible and keeps the love as outflow of God's love, not our notion or expression of love--but a love that flows from God.  We are in God, and He is in us.  Jesus says in so many ways:  Remain in My love.

Remaining in His love includes remaining in His Living Word.  It includes remaining in His Real Presence, also, and this includes receiving His Body and Blood.  Yet there is the grace of God involved and our own choosing, to love God above all things and to love others as God loves.

We must get ourselves out of the way and cease our desire to live in and place our minds and hearts and bodies into other considerations, the laws of minds which tend to be rooted in the externals.

I suppose some personalities are more inclined to the externals, or it can be a habit or was instilled in childhood or such.  To love God above all things and to love others as God loves is not on the same trajectory as loving laws of minds and being caught up in externals.  Remaining in Christ's love alters a soul's life and existence, here and eternally.

Pray to remain in His Love.  Desire to love God above all things and to love others as God loves.  God loves in and through and with us, thus.  Quite the process, but there is a turning point of grace that He provides once we begin to let go of ourselves.

I suppose, of course, that loving God above all things includes the things that we people have deemed as necessary, such as the early Church began deeming certain rituals or trends as necessary.  Laws of minds develop from minds.  The law of God is of God Who Is Love.

"Remain in My Love" Jesus tells us in His Word and life example.  There are mystics and saints who learned obedience through suffering, to love, to love to learn to love in His love.  We do have many examples, thus.

Catholic Hermit: Octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Gifts!

How the Lord blesses us!  The more this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit adapts and accepts increasingly the Lord's unfolding of this life--each of our lives--the more we might notice, see, hear and accept the gifts that He often gives us--particularly on those days of great Christ-holiness.

On these days in which aspects of Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and bequeathing the Holy Spirit--in addition to those persons in His life and ministry whose days on earth are remembered and lived anew in us--Jesus gifts us in so many special ways.

Of course, every day holds many blessings imparted by the Trinity and the many holy souls and angels who love us very much.

So it is that this Lent, this hermit has noticed increasingly the reality of the blessings, the gifts, the graces from His Real Presence and His emissaries of Divine Love.  And during the Triduum and especially Easter, more gifts given.  Then on Divine Mercy Sunday--additional graces and reminders of years' past, of particular, loving graces and gifts given.

And yes, the more we recognize and appreciate, the more we openly and lovingly accept all that God wishes for us.  He delights in gifting His beloved children!

I noticed someone made a comment relative to friendship.  The person said that friendship is a two-way street, and if the person wishes another a good day, is it not right and correct for the other to respond and wish likewise?

Others responded with agreement, and one other responded that we should not have expectations of others, of friends, or of what friendship ought to be in return for our friendship offered.  I thought about it some, as I, too, consider that while we are very human and of course want friendship to be returned when we offer a kindness, but there is, once again, the reality of the temporal and the spiritual views and realms.

These are my shared thoughts on the matter:

I suppose in the spiritual life--that of life in Christ--we hear Him remind us to serve, and to love God in Himself, and to love others as God loves.  He asks us to love and serve in love, unreservedly, mercifully.  However, it has been amazing the people who have told me they love me, such as siblings, yet do not answer a phone call in nearly 13 years, nor rarely respond to emails or if so with little content other than mentioning loving me, nor do they remember a birthday.

Reminds me, also, of when my earthly spouse left, rather cruelly so, and wrote to my dad of all that was wrong with me in my spouse's estimation, and then added that [the spouse] loved me.  My dad responded to the letter, writing back that if this was love for me (and our children), my spouse certainly had an odd way of showing it.

So the temporal view and the spiritual view for those of us who follow Christ, must increasingly be to the spiritual view with increasing selfless understanding and holy detachment, yet with much love and mercy.

We continue to reach out, to pray, to remember such human aspects as birthdays and to share our lives in some degree or other, in whatever appropriate ways.  We may stop trying to make a phone call or share less depending upon the reception or none, as there are always others who God places in our lives who desire and need more of what we can offer.

I suppose in the spiritual realm of the Way, Truth, and Life--to live in Christ is perhaps more a one-way-street:  Following Jesus as He lived and lives yet, and loving as God loves, difficult as that is for us to do sometimes!


In this hermitage, I continue to be in drywall mudding mode.  The coughing continues but to be expected even when wearing a mask during sanding and clean up phases.  There is otherwise so much dust in an old place being remodeled, that results of a recent lung x-ray are not surprising.  No active pneumonia but signs of interstitial lung cell hardening, indicative of COPD and also thoracic degenerative disc disease.  Typical, these findings, of chronic and age-related issues.

Granted, four years living in rough circumstances can affect the body; but what difference does it make compared to all that has benefited the soul?  There is not growth without some growing pains.  There is not spiritual progression without sacrifice.  There is not learning to love God in Himself and to love others as God loves, without learning to detach from fear of not being loved by others, nor being accepted by this temporal realm.  

Fear is the flip side of faith, the Lord once told me, years ago.  He followed up with a dream in which I was fighting a grizzly, old woman who in the dream was said to be fear.  And then I was shown that to conquer fear is a quest and process; the victory comes with faith overcoming fear.

This quote I heard a month or so ago.  I was listening to a priest preaching a sermon live-streamed by Eternal Word Television Network.  [I have since not been able to live-stream EWTN due to the stream breaking every 3-4 minutes--not practical to get off ladder or to put down mud tray and wash hands in order to get the stream up and running again.]  The quote has stayed with me, although paraphrased when I first heard it:  A coward dies a thousand deaths; the brave die but once.

I mention "first heard it."  Well, doing some research, I discovered that William Shakespeare is the author of the quote, and I've read it in the past and heard it at a Shakespearean Festival as the playwright had Julius Caesar speak the words.  Shakespeare penned it thus:

"Cowards die many times before their deaths.
The valiant never taste of death but once."

Seems relevant to many aspects of our lives, especially our spiritual lives, our spiritual journey, our spiritual progression toward loving God in Himself and loving others as God loves.  To exist in fear rather than in faith is to die as many times as we fear.  To live by following in faith, Jesus Christ, is to let go of fear and to live fully in the present moment, disregarding whatever might hinder by what and where and how faith leads.

The other day in the Gospel selection for Mass, Jesus explains that we do not know from whence wind comes, nor do we see the wind or know where it is going next.  So it is with our belief in God, that we may not see Him, do not know from whence He came or where He leads, but to have faith and believe in God and in Jesus as the Son of God assures us of eternal life with God.

We are each and all going to die of something.  Let it not be of fear many times over in this life time.  Let us live in faith and die but once to this world--yet die to ourselves as often as need be in order to have life in Christ and have it abundantly.

The couple returned on Divine Mercy Sunday with Communion.  I thanked them once again for their offer of time, energy, and expense in order to bring His Real Presence.  I have accepted that the Lord is not opening the door for a physical return to Mass, not at this time.  The couple continues to not interject otherwise, and the priest certainly did not encourage.  I remain in an exile that has become one of spiritual renewal, grace, and unexpected holy expectancy.  May God be praised!

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Let us love God in Himself and others as God loves!