Catholic Hermit Continues Manual Labor, Praying

Have appreciated the daily Mass Scripture readings.  The Lord speaks to us in His Living Word!

Although am physically weary from pain, age, and life efforts, I will continue today with the praying while laboring around the hermitage.  After several days of helping family members prepare their house for selling, am returned to hermitage.  Then made another journey to the lumber yard early yesterday to pick up a very good deal that Craig offered this hermit.

I noticed when at the lumber yard returning some fence wood that we did not need at the family member's house, a double-paned, solid wood, exterior French door in the store's "bone yard."  (The bone yard is what many lumber companies call their area of returned items, usually special orders returned by customers for one reason or another, and then discounted to sell.  Bone yard deals have helped this hermit immensely in rehabilitating this hermitage.)

Yes, Craig made a deal I could not pass up.  The door is an inch or so shorter than normal exterior doors, but it will be lovely to replace an old, vinyl sliding door.  It's odd size will fit just fine since that side of the room has a lower ceiling line than the normal 8', while the ceiling then vaults to the other side to 11' or so.  An inch or two is not going to matter, in door height.

Since my summer helper is evidently not going to be assisting any more (Mass situation probably too difficult and awkward for his parents to assimilate and accept--and can't blame them), the new neighbor boys have been eager to help out on occasion.  What is marvelous about this development is that they ask far less per hour than my young Catholic helper wanted, plus they can just walk to assist even in something relatively small as helping unload the new and heavy French door from the pick-up, Precious Blood.

Tomorrow one of the teens will return to help install it.  God provides!  Each door weighs a substantial amount, and this old hermit cannot lift them nor hold them steady and at the same time screw the hinges to the frame.  Our guardian angels do so much in helping us--and that includes arranging for helpers when we need!

As for my summer Catholic helper and his parents, I did call and leave a message, offering the work to him first out of loyalty and love.  But already, with finances continuing to dwindle, I was open to the new neighbor boys and their much lower hourly wage-requests.  I always consider that God provides in the way He wills and desires.  Perhaps there is some reason for the hermit to interact with the new lads, for the summer helper will always remain in this hermit's heart of prayers.  Such a dear and sweet boy and lovely, loving family will always be remembered with prayers and thankfulness.

Looking back upon the priest and Mass situation at the area parish, it most certainly would seem terrible to others--and quite judgmental of me to have said what was seen and sensed within.  Only God and this hermit and the spiritual father and the priests and spiritual friends who have known me for years understand that I would never have seemingly judged, thus, had it not been for the intensity of the unfiltered state during Mass which senses so clearly truth, beauty, goodness--and also that which degrades, is unhealthy and counters truth, beauty, and goodness.

This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit is at peace with acceptance of what has transpired since and in obedience to my spiritual father.  The Lord has been teaching much in the past three months of mostly the silence of solitude, being hidden from the eyes of men, in praise and prayer and penance!  What is a sacrifice is proving to be prayerful offering for all priests, for all parishioners, for the Church, for this my soul and all souls--here and in eternity. 

God Bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us learn to love to live God's law of love--the fulfillment of all laws.  Love God and one another!

Scripture Has Deep Effect

Always, Scripture has deep effect.  The Lord speaks and explains all to us through and in Scripture.  He speaks to us through and in suffering, as well, for He Is Love, and His Love suffers much, and that is not bad but good.

From the Book of Amos in today's first reading at Holy Mass, or for anyone reading Scriptures, any day, and reads Amos chapter 7:

"Then Amos answered Amaziah, ‘I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy to my people Israel.'” 

How vivid is the Lord's action in Amos' life.  He "took" him from his work following the flock and essentially had Amos follow His will for Amos' life and the Lord's needs and purposes.  In Amos' case, it was to prophesy to the Israelites.

Is this not marvelous and good?  Amos yet could not see himself in the role in which the Lord "took" him and "said" for him to do and say.  Amos thought of himself yet as a herdsman and one who harvested the bark from sycamore trees (commercially and practical, useful bark in that time period). 

But prophet he was made, and prophesying he did do, according to God's taking and saying for Amos to be and do.  Amos had not asked for this task nor job description and label.  

One time in this past year, my spiritual father, on the phone, reacted yet again to the rugged living conditions and how I was taken advantage of by people in the world.  But he pointed out that it was certainly more austere in the hermit life and added, "After all, you asked for this!"

No, not in so many words, and I pointed out that I had never asked to be a hermit nor particularly wanted to be a hermit.  At first I sensed I was being taken into the hermit life due to repeated situations that defied other possibilities, and there would then be odd instances of hermit life presented either within or in the temporal daily events.  

However, I never wanted to use the term "hermit", for it was frightening to me and also very misunderstood by my Protestant family and friends as well as many Catholics who wondered at the defining shift in my life.  It was only when my angel appeared in a dream the week after I moved into a lovely, small home that I thought was to be where I could remain for whatever years God would give me.

My angel chastised me in tone and message.   

"You have not been living nor honoring the hermit life that God chose for you and values very much."

I have pondered this and written it before, and I still feel the cringe when my angel uttered with emphasis:  hermit.

So no, I did not choose it. God chose it for me.  I accepted it, though, even before my angel chastised me with a direct, mystical, wake-up call.  And it was true that I was not living it nor honoring it, for despite my profession of vows which were blessed and accepted privately by a venerable priest of many years, I had gotten off track and had been pulled out a bit more into the world in little ways--not bad things--but I had slacked in that intimate responsibility of living and honoring what God had chosen for me.

When I read about dioceses and their interactions with the hermit vocation, and then I place that along with all the various hermits' lives I have read in the years since I was chastised for my avoidance, in some ways, of embracing even the earthly label for such a vocation, I sense two variations or tributaries of the stream.

It has taken some time to process and to appreciate the label for this vocation.  Labels are helpful even if not the point of a vocation in the spiritual aspects.  Labels define and frame; they lend support and also confront us.

What seems key to me, though, is to keep asking the Lord to define what He means by this vocation, and what He desires of me within this label.  Obviously my spiritual father was right in the aspect that the Lord has given me far more arduous circumstances and placed me in far more silence and solitude and all other aspects eremitic.  But I did not choose it any more than Amos chose to be a prophet.

Is this not what God takes of us and asks of us, no matter if we consciously label a vocation or role: to be and do as He wills in whatever vocation, even if our lives are altered in not hugely dramatic ways but in hints and subtleties?  

Think how Amos' life was turned up-side-down when he was plucked from being a shepherd and tree bark harvester. But Amos had become a prophet, for God told him to do what a prophet does.  Perhaps at some point in Amos' life, he came to grips with the label and was able to accept it and lend himself all the more to prophesying.  He certainly took the flack that prophets tend to receive by those who do not like the message.  

And the reason they don't like the message is because they don't see that they are doing as they are doing which is displeasing to God.  And they don't feel they have to believe it because who is this man or woman, prophet or prophetess, to be telling them what God says, when these prophets are just people like they are, and often times deemed of lesser account by others.