Mystic Hermit Catholic CHRISTIAN: I did it to myself, foolishly, but with what I thought to be good intentions

Contrary to how I may have seemed regarding holy people or what are labeled as "saints",  I do very much appreciate these holy people for the lives they lived for Christ and all they did and wrote to help other Christians.  But I am in a phase now of my own spiritual life in which I note my errors, and I also want to grow in love and to live God's law of love, to be united in His Real Presence. This requires more awareness and immersion in His Real Presence in His Living Word, in prayer, and in spiritual Eucharist.  I also know that He is in me and I am in Him, yet I have much more to learn and grow in His Real Presence and God's law of love.

But I am facing being in over my head (and body) with having taken on some manual labor of which my body is increasingly slow and having difficulty performing the work.  I am slow and fatigued, but of anything, I am in His Real Presence even in my dilemma and utter slowness.  And His Real Presence is in me.

I know very much in truth that I got myself into this situation of being in a situation that went against what seems even common sense, in trying to renovate a portion of this dwelling, including replacing all the doors in addition to total renovation of laundry room, kitchen, half bath and a full bath.  I realize I have not done the writing or sharing of the spiritual experiences of the reality of  His Real Presence in my life and in all of our lives, nor have I simply written much for awhile of love of God or learning lessons, or of His Living Word, or of daily life of one who is striving to love God and others as God loves.

The Gospel reading the other day of Jesus telling the young man who wanted to know how he could come into the kingdom of God that he must go and sell or give away all his possessions and then come and follow Him, hit home yet again within me both in temporal and spiritual aspects.  I'm in so deep with a mess in my living situation and domicile, and my body has now added problems which need surgery.  Rather than try to go in too many directions, I have at least started to focus the manual labor on two rooms to try to finish before addressing the largest, the kitchen. But I also have clothes and other items to go through and give away but without added energy to take on that task.  I accumulated once again several years ago in an attempt to fit in and also with the idea of providing a place and books and hospitality to others who are in the world--with my attempt at seeming to fit in as one of them in order to provide a sense of commonality and cohesiveness.

But it was a ridiculous and foolish attempt that did not work out, regardless!  His Real Presence was not leading that plan, it certainly seems now, but rather it was my idea tinged with my own desires--and likely some aspects within me that I did not realize still needed to be worked out, with more dying to self.

The other day I noticed this selection from John of the Cross' writings, and it stung me in several areas.  I recognized yet again just how complicated I made my life yet again, and now have the added pressure of trying to bring temporal, environmental order out of disorder that I caused when deciding to have a project that would force me out of bed and into doing some manual labor and exercise that had worked well with my body due to not sitting nor standing in one place.  But I did not realize that my neck was having increasing, serious issues, or that my knee surgery was not going to suffice and a knee replacement would be necessary.  So I'm facing that surgery plus probably surgery on my neck; I'll know more on Monday....

John of the Cross is so correct in what he writes regarding possessions and detachment, and what it is that is of greatest importance to our lives:  His Real Presence.  I wonder how it is I tend to overshoot the mark--having good intentions and good ideas of how I can serve the Lord and others in some way, shape, or form, but also still having "me" in it--aspects that I do enjoy myself in manual labor that helps take the mind off the constant pain plus get me out of bed for part of the day.  My taking on this project had a prudent aspect of increasing value of the dwelling so that I could better pay for nursing home care in future, if God did not have me pass suddenly.  But in that idea, practical and thoughtful as it is, there was still a lot of "self" in it.  I also reasoned when finished and no longer able to keep up a property, there would be more money after selling this and renting or finding a lesser place and area of country to live, so I could even more help others in need, financially.

But John of the Cross expresses what His Real Presence needed me to face all over again, and not only that I've done this to myself, but the other aspects of how I had de-possessed at one point and how good it was in a variety of ways, including relief of the temporal and joy and dependency in His Real Presence.

What John of the Cross wrote that if I can persevere by the grace of God and make it through more surgeries and finish up or find someone to finish what I started in the renovation project, I can once again try to not justify or convince myself that the ideas of such enterprises have merit despite my good intentions, but in fact are not God's plan or what makes the spirit most happy and joyful and useful to God:

"Seek for nothing, desiring to enter, for love of Jesus, upon detachment, emptiness, and poverty in everything in this world.  you will never have to do with necessities greater than those to which you made your heart yield itself:  for the poor in spirit are most happy and joyful in a state of privation, and he who has set his heart on nothing finds satisfaction everywhere.

"The poor in spirit (Mt 5:3) give generously all they have and their pleasure consists in being thus deprived of everything for God's sake and out of love to their neighbor (...)  Not only do temporal goods--the delights and tastes of the sense--hinder and thwart the way of God, but spiritual delights and consolations also, if sought for or clung to eagerly, disturb the way of virtue." 

Love in His Love, and God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit Amidst Suffering

Not sure why, but the low back has kicked up a fuss.  Pain radiating through intestines; just trying to manage pain, recalling last year's ambulance ride to ER.  Yes, pain med I-V toned it down, but I don't need that drama repeated.

So, I am mostly on the mattress, now moved from the small room to the living room (which now has floors leveled and new hardwood installed, of which I enjoyed the process and effort with grateful results).  Was able to pick strawberries this morning, green beans, squash.  Set them on roadside stand and all is gone but some of the zucchini.  

Perhaps the bending to pick berries and beans did not help the low back; but it surely stretched out some muscles which is always a benefit.  And my mind was far off in praying about not sure who or what, but at the present moment it was all quite clear and lovely within, with the Lord and life and soul.

Yesterday was able to leverage off the truck, one of the two double-door closet unit, with frame.  While leaning on tailgate, I then had to take off all shipping brackets holding the frame with the two doors intact.  Next, I removed the hinges from the doors and a piece of wood across the bottom, also holding the doors and frame in place. That done, I could lift each door, one at a time, from the frame and lean them against some other doors in the pole barn.  The door jam frame itself I was able to carry into the hermitage.  Getting it upstairs to the near-finished room for the closet will have to come another day and perhaps with someone else helping to make sure I do not gouge the stairwell walls.

This evening I forced the body to go out and leverage off the second and last closet door unit.  I admit I feel quite ill from the effort, but there is moisture in the mornings; the doors are not solid wood.  Best to be under cover other than the cardboard I had over them in the truck bed.

Am back into spiritual reading somewhat, amidst suffering.  I probably pray more about it than do it--do the reading.  But today's reading of introductory comments to another section of St. John of the Cross' writings in itself felt good.  Yes, it simply felt very good to read about what I will next read about in what the saint is going to instruct.  The sections have to do with ridding out attachments--attachments to things and aspects of the physical, of the senses, and attachments in the spiritual elements.  We humans, of course, are both sensory and spiritual beings.

I read the writings of John of the Cross a decade or more ago.  That is, I read through most, but for whatever reason stopped prior to finishing--drawn off by some other spiritual book or writings of another mystic saint or hermit.  I'm finding that now, in this present moment, there will be far more meaning in what John writes and advises; for I've had far more experiences in these years--more "death therapy" as I call it.

Perhaps it is quite blessed that I've had increased pain bouts lately, of the type that nail me to the cross.  I'm at the point in which I am crying out to the Lord to have mercy on my soul.  And I'm reaching for the spiritual writing that will help me endure in the unknowing of how long, how painful, how on  earth of anything here!  I continue with the daily Mass readings of Scripture.  The Living Word is powerful--but I also admit I return to the Scriptures, particularly the Gospel, off and on in the day to remind me.

Painful suffering does tend to make short term memory not hang on to much.  I suppose it is as well, for each time I re-read some portion of Scripture or even review some of what I've read in John of the Cross, the mind is absorbing in the present moment.  In fact, it is no doubt best that way--to live and think and read and do and feel and love God and others in the present moment--not in the past nor the future.

Yet I'm utilizing thoughts of the past to remind myself that usually the pain sieges lessen, and I am able to return to the manual labor and exterior upkeep required here to progress in order to sell and be out from under the financial dearth.  The lender of the short term loan would like to be repaid sooner than later with the latest being spring.  My bodily pain is not making it happen sooner; and it could be that the present moment will not allow completion.

Faith is like that--not knowing other than in some deep and blindly hidden way we know God is with us, God will take care of us, God loves us.  And the taking care of us--that is what trips us up often enough if we have expectations of what we think we need or how He should provide.  

That is one aspect that John of the Cross repeats about the spiritual path to union with God.  God takes us along the path and takes us to Himself, and He does so with whatever means such as many trials and sufferings that we must pass through, endure if we can to some degree or other, and on to the sweet release of finding ourselves in His love fully and completely.

All I know is that I'm on the journey; and this is what God needs for my perfection--or what John of the Cross prefers in terminology rather than spiritual perfection: union with God.

Mystic Hermit Reflects Further

I am zeroing in on these redacted paragraphs from Meng-hu's assessment of Mystic Personalities in 2007 blogpost, Hermit's Thatch.  Some of it is chilling to my inner core.  

I live in the Western World, and I have invested over 21 years in the temporal Catholic Church world of parishes and priests.  I have tried and tried to fit in, to donate time, energy, resources, to do good works of mercy and spirit.  Yet time and again I have been rejected in various ways, shunned, told by priests to not return, or in this last instance told that I was appreciated and welcome, when instead was an occasion of sin for parishioners and priest alike.  

It is all the same, even if at first a priest and/or bishop is intrigued or excited with having a mystic in their midst.  The problem is with the Western culture, with the scarcity of mystics which is nothing new in history: God has few mystic souls in any generation.  However, even among mystics, their roles vary, and I am having a hard time at this juncture, accepting that my role is even more extreme, more hidden, more filled with suffering than I ever anticipated.  I suppose we never anticipate such things, though, no matter our vocations, paths, callings, destinies--spiritual or temporal.

A friend just called.  God always has her call when I am stripped.  Somehow He tags her to call.  She agrees it is very sad that I am not acceptable to the temporal Catholic Church.  However, she said I am very much a Catholic.  Of course I am.  But I am trying to accept, myself, that I am on my way out into the extremes of the deep waters where I will never be able to touch ground and must swim in faith from here on out.  One can know it will be exhausting in some ways, yet freeing in other ways, particularly when I am no longer burdened by temporal issues, especially even the temporal debates that plague the administrative aspects of church, or even of vocations.

My writings as a consecrated Catholic hermit are hindered when there have been aspects of the temporal world sucking me down.  This includes quoting and explaining the vocational path of the traditional Catholic hermits very much living in the Consecrated Life of the Church.  Bottom line, as we can quote a past politician:  "What difference does it make now?"  It does not and never really did much, not to me, not to Jesus, not spiritually as a mystic. 

No, all the temporal issues and hassles and even the eremitic vocational titles and Catechism parameters or canon law repetitions and minor additions, do not really matter other than to create a cohesive vehicle for passing through life vocationally.  What matters is the soul, the spiritual ascent, the closeness with God, the desire for union and the great love that ought permeate all levels and dimensions of body, mind, heart, and soul.

My hermit vocation now appears to me as simply the vehicle of my life, which followed the vehicle of my responsibilities and joys of parenting dependent children, concluded.  Then came the joy of hermit life, of learning the ropes and living the daily and nightly eremitic existence for what will be the rest of my earthly life.  

However, it is a vehicle--like the New Balance cross-training shoes I wear upon my painful feet, or like the shirt on my back, or like the mattress upon which I recline for rest in pain and for sleep.  This vocation that is fitted to perfection to each hermit--a vehicle, a modality that the Lord tweaks and tightens, as He is tightening it for me, personally, a lot right now, stripping me further, showing the way to more austerity, more detachment, more suffering.

But being born a mystic, that is not a vocation.  And now I am beginning to sense and see, to be shown, that the priority of my existence, prayer, writing, loving, being, is as a mystic, centered in Christ, seeking union with God, doing His will and bidding for whatever earth time remains.  The hermit vocation is but a vehicle, and for some they are traveling more visibly, more actively, more in the temporal Catholic world.  The reason for my misfit is not that I am in a hermit vocation but that I am a mystic.  Am a mystic, not by choice other than God's bequeathing the mystic mantle at my conception in my mother's womb.  Am a mystic who is traveling this life now in the hermit vocation.

Thus, my writing must reflect the priority, the ordering of my body, mind, heart and soul.  As a mystic who has a hermit vocation, the beingness is that of mystic, and the modality, the vehicle, is hermit, and a more defined and stricture of hermit vocation than what non-mystics live.  The mystic thus is the burr in the sock of life, and very much in the life of parishioners and parish priests, and in religious orders where many, especially women mystics, were kept off in cells, ordered to stay to themselves such as were Faustina Kowalska and my confirmation patronness, Josefa Menendez.  

Hidden away, unacceptable to others within their own religious orders as I am to parishes and would also be to religious orders even though for temporal reasons not acceptable due to age, health, and so forth.  The temporal laws, the temporal mores, the temporal fears and suspicions--they create the sideways crosses for the Catholic mystics of the Western church.  This is my mystic way, my mystic existence carried along in time and place via a cordoned hermit vehicle.

Writing as a mystic will hopefully do more for my spiritual life and soul as well as for readers, without the occasion of sin I became for detractors caught up more in the hermit vocation vehicle or the temporal aspects of church, as I had been as well--sucked down by the snares of that which conflicted with my mystic being, my mystic soul, my mystic destiny for this life and all eternity.  Shameful that I stubbornly remained in such identity confusion, putting vocation before being, before inner destiny.

Now, I pray, that the Lord will better be able to utilize me for the writing He had asked of me years ago and in the suffering that I pray to better accept.

I italicized some of the thoughts expressed in the following redaction about mystic personalities and acceptance in context of East and West.

"The Western world has little tolerance historically for hermits, anchorites, and solitaries, let alone mystics, most of whom were objects of suspicion of heresy. Inevitably, the subjective content of their experiences were bound to enrich their understanding of theological definitions, and therein confront ecclesiastical necessity of controlling dogma and teaching. Unwisely expressed, mysticism in the West was an intolerable projection of subjectivity. But so too was eremitism.

"In contrast, Eastern cultures have not only tolerated hermits, solitaries, and mystics but fostered them. In the East the content of belief is fluid, not in the sense of relative but in being ultimately a matter of individual integration, with social and cultural latitude for this internalizing process and consequent expression.

"Such a subjective process does no harm to culture and society in the East because it is viewed as a refinement of a personal gift cultivated individually and returned in a creative way to society at large.

"In such a context, a mystic personality seems possible, even if stereotypical to critical Western onlookers. The life of the hermit, whether from historic India, China, Japan, Tibet, Thailand, or elsewhere in the East, does not threaten society or accepted beliefs. The lives of hermits are sources of edification in such social contexts. Where the lives of saints in the West serve to accommodate personality types and dispositions, this function is not taken literally but as a metaphor for expressions, carefully tempered. In the East, the saints are colorful, garrulous, even literal. It is hard to see them as merely mundane.

"The famous photo of Ramakrishna in an ecstatic state confirms to every Western viewer the stereotype of the mystic. There are some equivalents in the West but they would not be allowed such a prominent influence in spiritual practice because mysticism is an uncontrolled element in the West. Yet this ecstatic state is not a norm, and is not expressed as a norm anywhere, for the East has a more carefully mapped study of enlightenment than exists elsewhere. Shunryu Suzuki, the Zen master, was always insistent that enlightenment was not a priority, a pursuit, or a conceit. For the mundane, it is all the same to just practice.

"For the solitary in the West, the dominance of psychology and social conformity still permits a discrete pursuit of mystical themes, as even the great 20th-century physicists show. So, too, does solitude and silence have to underplay their presence in our public lives in order to safeguard themselves not from a past ecclesiastical authority but from the conformist society of the present."