Started to write this [warning: it's very long] to an elder friend who actually is not interested in such content of temporal and spiritual considerations. Instead I sent it to Fr. V., asking him to tell me if the thoughts make sense to him, if he finds them meaningful in some type of truthfulness of spiritual progression from temporal to mystical. Or to share whatever thoughts he has with what I've written and shared. Through much of it, as to myself, I am reminded of God's providence even in the details of an unexpected email, two years hence from same old new age melding with Christianity: a debate, of sorts, a dilemma.
I'm struck by the Scripture: Rend not your garments, but rend your hearts.
Also, today in the Gospel Jesus explains that while the Bridegroom is with them, the wedding guests do not fast. But soon the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and they will then fast.
However, we know from Scripture and from inner spiritual experience, that the Bridegroom is within us and we are within Him; He abides in us and we abide in Him; He is with us and we are with Him. Thus the Bridegroom is with us, so we praise, not fast.
Am I not thinking correctly? Seems yes, the apostles who were asking Him, did grieve when He was crucified and resurrected; yet He then sent the Holy Spirit shortly after He ascended into Heaven. But all along He said He would be with them, and that He was sending the Holy Spirit to continue teaching us and to be with us; and we know that the Holy Spirit is One with God and with Christ: the Trinity.
So the fasting that is temporal--is it what God desires of us now that He is with us always and we are with Him? Does He not prefer that we allow Him to do with us as He wills? And then we follow? Of course, we continue learning and progressing in understanding His Real Presence, and that is in prayer and praise and in living our lives and in studying His Living Word, absorbing and asking Him questions, as well as learning how to love as God loves.
I considered that for over a year now I cannot eat many foods, and if I eat too much, such as more than half an apple at a time, or more than a couple bites of banana, or the slice of raisin bread with peanut butter for breakfast, I get nauseated, and if I eat something like the sugary sweet but scrumptiously endorphin boosting piece of vanilla cake with cheesecake in the center, I get nausea all the same. But I cope or take anti-nausea med to assuage somewhat for what it is I've eaten that was too much or sweet. And enough of it and I won't eat more of that type of "food"--my just desserts that I receive in exchange.
So for me, temporal fasting has run its course. As for the no meat on Fridays in Lent, I don't have meat anyway; many people are by trendy choice, vegans. So that made up the rule to not eat meat on Fridays, which I liked when I was first Catholic as it meant people were thinking of Christ's crucifixion--well, maybe they were and maybe they weren't after years of that rule in the Catholic church. T/hey had dropped it but I continued it on my own, for I liked the discipline and of thinking of Christ with my not eating meat on Friday.
But we are to progress, right? We begin thinking of Christ often in the day, and not eating a certain food is not the reason nor reminder. Maybe if a family did it, with mindful of Christ and donated the money the meat costs to some cause or the poor? I can see for a child that giving up candy has some kind of impact--unless the child happens to not care that much about candy or is diabetic and candy is not good for the child.
Well, anyway, I'm not sure about fasting, temporally. But I can grasp that of rending the heart or of my fasting from memories of the past, especially those that pop up unbidden.
I had considered emailing [woman] from [parish] and apologize for my concerns about the spiritual directors group at the parish who are available to guide people's spiritual lives at least under previous priest--but now comes an email from her, after two years--a mass mailing including [man from parish] of whom I had forgotten his last name. They are pushing a Dream workshop, just $350, being led by a woman from [wealthy community in another state], who earns money by teaching the workshops and does one on one and group dream work, interpreting and so forth. $60 an hour or such.
This conference is going to be held near a monastery/convent somewhere, distance away. There are a few spaces remaining for the conference; they'd like them filled. I had researched the woman from [out of state] two years ago or so. No thanks. She is Catholic was stated a couple years ago in email advertisements for what he offered at the parish, but I am familiar with the confusion of the Catholic churches in that other area. It seems today the Holy Spirit or my angel or both have provided me with reminders that those with spiritual gifts should be helping others as: freely given, freely give.
Perhaps I'm antiquated, but it seems especially if one has spiritual gifts, they should not be charging others, especially Catholics or other Christians, to teach and impart what they've learned? Or, put it in a book and let those persons interested in new age purchase to learn from reading. However she makes money more by private sessions in which she interprets dreams and does personal therapy but without license or clinical credentials. She went to the [X institute]--new age education that is costly.
Yet, again, I see the void. Perhaps she has these gifts? Is she a mystic gone awry or a spiritualist, new age? She is doing the workshops in conjunction with the sisters' monastery, invited there, arranged via the [man who dabbles in new age, from parish]. The religious sisters have veered to new age, from researching online their interests and functions. There is a difference between Christian spiritual life and new age. Therein lies the problem. There is a difference between Christian mystics and new age gurus or spiritualists. But utilizing our dreams is good to do, but learning to interpret is more a matter of spiritual discernment and prayer--and His Real Presence called upon to help us do this (and free of charge, Divine grace].
I think the current priest and his assistant, both from a religious order of [foreign country], perhaps do not realize, or else it is too tricky to say "no more" to [the man] and the other parish spiritual directors or ask them to provide non-new age-backed credentials. It seems from today's email, [the man] held a workshop in the church in the fall--something on dreams yet again. He invited this woman whom he met at [new age institute] to come, and she charges for group listening plus for those who want one-on-one dream help. Just smacks of WRONG, to me, especially selling one's spiritual gifts in the church!
This brings to mind another Scripture, a major one in which Jesus was overtly angry, and said His Father's House was not to be used as a marketplace, not for selling. Her spiritual gifts all the more, if genuinely of the Spirit, ought not be sold. Anyone who can afford [institute across the country] and lives on [wealthy community] is most likely not hard up for money. She should do her "work" for the general public and keep it out of convents and churches, in my opinion, based on various factors that seem genuine. However, those who are doing this are quite sincere and truly believe there is nothing wrong in charging others in Christian churches for what is questionably based; maybe they do not realize God-given spiritual gifts are to shared or maybe written and published as would other authors, especially that of personal beliefs or new age tendencies.
That email from [parish woman] did trigger the temporal past in me, though, and another wrong going on in various convents and also with some monks and priests here and there, of which three have passed away--Rahner, Pennington, and Keating
There seems a void in the temporal Church, and perhaps it has to do with people not understanding the temporal church as a passageway in which to grow and learn yet progress onward, to graduate to higher or deeper levels of spirituality, of faith, of His Living Word, of grasping His Real Presence in us and us in Him. Perhaps if we all grasped more, and much of what humankind has made up and added to was then recognized as having passed or temporal and not so much of it needed, matters would be different.
As it is in many instances, some people seek all the more but do not recognize the simple purity of His Real Presence in us, and His Living Word that we can bring into us--so enter in new age ideologies or other beliefs, when Jesus is here for us! The Holy Spirit, God the Father, His Living Word should be enough for us! Mary, angels, and the writings of the mystics and those who passed through, progressed, and shared in writings or of their lives, also showing the way to the stairway to Heaven, and also His Mystical church which is ours for eternity.
We but need to stick with His Real Presence and HIs Living Word. Jesus, God the Father, the Holy Spirit: The Trinity ought be enough for us. His Living Word opens the mystical depths and breadths as well as the temporal way to be, think, speak, pray, praise, and love as God loves. His Real Presence in us and us in Him--ask and learn of the Trinity! Eat His Body and Drink of His Blood in tangible form at Mass or in mystical form within, for the asking, and subsummation into the Trinity is given us! Go forth, swim out into the deep, seek and ye shall find. There is far more "real" of true life than the temporal, for the temporal is always passing away.
I'll not be paying $350 for a new age workshop on dreams, even if cloaked in Catholic setting and promoted by and for Catholics at a Benedictine convent. I'll not be apologizing for my reticence two years ago, and my concern given to the leader of the parish "spiritual directors" as to all of their having taken training and certification by new age curriculum and new age teachers--even if some who run or own the certification programs, much of it online, say they are Episcopal background or former Presbyterians. It matters not the religious background when non-Christian ideologies enter in. Researching these persons, as I did, thoroughly, it seems they have filled their void, not with faith in the reality of God in us, and venture instead into the allures of spiritualism, or new age ideologies, and various techniques and temporal practices.
Yes dreams are vital in Scripture, and they are vital in our lives today. But God will help us learn to discern and pay attention to our dreams through simply asking Him! Study His Living Word! Pray to His Real Presence within, listen to Him respond; ask the Mother of God and our guardian angels to assist as well. It is as simple as that! And it is not necessary to focus on or want to have dreams. What dreams we are to have and the ones we are to heed, God will make sure we remember, and usually they are quite direct or we are able, with our God given knowledge or some simple research, begin to figure out the messages God is giving through dream images, scenarios, and words spoken.
Just a thought, that I could offer to the priest to share about dreams and how to discern if of God or not, and how to learn to figure out the messages if they aren't clear to us, which most are with some prayerful thought. Those who have learned, can teach others how to learn to interpret the dreams with God-given messages and how to know the difference. St. Joseph, all the Prophets, Mary, others in Scripture who had dreams in which His Real Presence was teaching or speaking, giving a message--did they need new age or otherwise dream workshops to dream more or know what they meant? God is in charge of the dreams that matter and are from a Christian basis of the Trinity, the Living Word, prayer; seek help from His Real Presence first if we do not get the point. Or, if still uncertain, and temporal help needed, discuss with a trusted Christian person for added help on discerning a dream or dreams. Is that not part of loving others as God loves? Such acts of Christian charity extend and progress us in the spiritual life, on the stairway to heaven, into the Mystical Church.
My thought to offer of God's gifts given freely, that I could freely give, is but a thought. I have not had any such thoughts of mine come to any good fruition in parishes, other than the soup kitchen which the Virgin Mary appeared in a dream vision and told me how to set it up, as it was an atypical soup kitchen which had several groups of volunteers and delivery went to the persons wanting--anyone who asked ask they needed a touch of love. That was a hard concept for some volunteers: to give with love and to learn that not only the poor are in need of love and assistance. Freely given, freely give.
I'm repeating myself, likely. That email after two years of nothing, is for a reason. And I'm expressing these thoughts yet again because they are of vital importance to us Christians--Catholic or other religious denominations or none. Karl Keating--the late priest and abbot who left his post because he was seeking something more, realizing the temporal rules and rituals, the laws and traditions created by humankind and of which he rigidly followed and expected as superior of his priests and brothers to follow likewise--were not progressing him spiritually, not taking him to the Stairway to Heaven, not to Christ's Mystical Church. So he veered into Buddhism, and adopted some of those techniques and exercises to his religious life.
He was made to quit his position as abbot, and he next left the monastery; but in kindness they did not remove him from priesthood or the religious order itself. But in actuality, he was on his own other than given some support and a beautiful place to live by the gratuity of a well-off friend. He further explored what morphed also into New Age ideologies, and adapted those into a quasi-Christian-seeming admixture of some bits of Catholic Christian and biblical familiarity. He wrote books that sold well, his name already known from his years as an abbot of a famous monastery. He was a brilliant man. And he did pray, was sincere, and he knew Scripture; but the Buddhist techniques and mind-emptying exercises, the new age ideologies--were they necessary? Did he have an aura of intrigue about him, if you will, from his dramatic and publicized vocational life change, as well as of living in solitude out in a lovely view home in a western, mountain state?
He was sought after for advice, for his wisdom of years and religious studies; and he was truly a thoughtful, intelligent, experienced priest who'd held, for some years, great responsibility and esteem when monk abbot. He collaborated with two other priests in developing a technique they famously called "centering prayer" based on a conglomeration of new age ideologies and Buddhist techniques, with some Scripture and Christianization, the prayer technique arose. The men also had their renown as priests to lend authenticity. Regardless, Basil Pennington and Karl Keating might have come, themselves, to a point of realizing the temporal Catholic Church in temporal, for them the humankind aspects "passing away," their personal, spiritual growth at crossroads, and they found themselves seeking more, something deeper, that of God Himself.
But it seems to me, from my experience in the spiritual life as well as being a life-long Christian who progressed through Protestant churches and studied of other world religions including Hinduism, Buddhism and Sufism, and knew closely some who were in New Age practices and ideologies to which God warned me with a locution to follow no one but Him--that one does not need to veer into new age or Buddhism or any other than Christianity. And this Christianity is and means Christ's Church which Jesus instituted, and His teaching the apostles with Peter as the elder man and upon whom Jesus placed leadership responsibility--and the truthful matter of understanding what is His Church. Jesus is Head, and all who believe in, love, and follow Jesus are His Body: The Church.
Follow Christ, remain in His Living Word and strive to live as he teaches. Learn to love as God loves. Love God above all else and love other as God loves. Pray, praise, worship God as the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Learn from His Real Presence, partake of His Real Presence given to us in tangible and in mystical form: His Body and His blood. Learn from the Mother of God, from those great souls who went on before us, of whom we can read and also read of those who left their writings, helping us to progress spiritually. Lean on our Guardian angels who are always with us to help and guide, to protect.
Appreciate all that His Real Presence, the Holy Trinity, has provided for us in order for us to progress in life and be led to the stairway to heaven, and to ascend each step, growing increasingly in His Real Presence, in faith, hope, and love; and then to at some point known by God, to pass into His Mystical Church for all eternity. This is also the trajectory for union with God, for His church is that of Christ as Head and the Body all His followers and beloved lovers--we, His children.
I have learned from reading Scripture and from the great writings of mystics and "saints", but most of all I have learned from His Real Presence--God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. I have learned, also, from the Mother of God--her life and way of being, as well as various souls known personally to me or whom I've know of as in saints--who have passed over from this temporal life to the mystical eternal life; and in varying levels of progression they came into fullness of Christ's Light. That's the best way I can describe it. I did not need new age nor Buddhism nor any techniques such as controlled breathing, emptying my mind, or repeating a mantra.
I learned from HIs Real Presence, from listening, from having my life turned upside down, from being crucified to my life as a married person, death of a career in the world, to rearing children while at the same time always seeking His Real Presence in this very life, everyday, in which we all live and participate. God guided me into the Catholic Church. As far as I can tell it was not only for my own spiritual growth and to meet the mystics so I could understand more and not feel so alone, but also so that my sufferings would be made one with Holy Mother Church and in union with Christ's sufferings.
If a simple person such as myself finds His Real Presence leading me, and filling me with Himself, and guiding me, progressing me from learning in the temporal Church to the stairway to heaven, even if I have been insecure and dense in letting go of that temporal Church, surely anyone can have the same. I'm finally understanding an important aspect of a vision of the past in which the temporal Church was shown to me as a long passageway filled with much opportunity and means for spiritual growth and learning, including much reading of good books proven by the test of time.
But 13 years later, I was given a vision dream, led by my angel to the base of the stairway to heaven. Shortly after in temporal time, matters altered so that it was increasingly difficult to continue in parishes for reasons I'll not go into or repeat. But it became, finally a few years later (God takes His time with a slow-to-catch-on soul!), it became obvious that I was not meant to physically be in a parish, but to progress on to the reality of the stairway to heaven which then begins our life in His Mystical Church.
Thus we understand that the temporal is temporary, but offers much good that we can learn and grow as the apostle Paul describes as drinking milk but when older eating meat. But the Church as passageway is to be traversed, in effect, and we are over earth time, usually, but being more spiritual and having gone out into the deep, we are led onward to the stairway to heaven. There, at the base before the first step, we begin to ascend while all the while we grow and spiritually yet still in our temporal bodies. At times it may seem as if surely this is not the way, but in the silence (and also can be much suffering), we come to greater faith, hope, and love! We swim more confidently in blind faith into the deeply vast waters of His Living Word; we partake of His Body and Blood spiritually and mystically; we are on the way to being eternally in His Mystical Church.
One thing I am learning when I do some research and uncover yet another tradition or label or ritual or rule or law that has been made by humankind after the time of Christ's being and living and teaching on earth, is that there may be good aspects of the human-created facets of the temporal Church. But I have learned there is the reality that God desires to progress our hearts and minds and souls beyond those temporal aspects, for they are just that, and as if stepping stones along the passageway,. Yet they are temporal, and the temporal is always passing away.
While temporal enough, human-made as they are, even historically with good intentions, (most of them), these aspects of the temporal Church for those desiring more fully of His Real Presence, the temporal aspects cease to provide what His Real Presence wills for us: our hearts, minds, and souls graduating toward union in His Real Presence, climbing the stairway to heaven, progressing in the spiritual life of His Real Presence, existing in His Mystical Church for eternity.
This graduation of the soul to higher levels of spirituality in His Real Presence, and coming to the stairway, ascending over time, learning yet more, and living in Him, does not mean we will not continue in acts of charity and love, in continuing to learn increasingly what it is and how to love as God loves. It means we also have our sins on display from time to time, beg forgiveness of God, repent, express our sorrow to those of whom or in situations we've sinned. But our faith and understanding increases of and in His Real Presence. Our love of Him and all His creation increases, our sufferings are less "ours" and more "His" to use as He wills--the love that suffering actually is.
I'm not there, myself! I'm aware, though, I'm getting it, I'm understanding why the shift and events and situations keeping me from temporal increasingly, and that includes temporal aspects of parishes. His Real Presence prods me, progresses me to be aware of the stairway to heaven, to leave the past behind yet with appreciation and gratitude--not the old hurt nor confused upset. Onward and forward, as I understand the passageway from His and humankind's temporal Church, into His Mystical Church.
Why His Mystical Church and not "ours"--is because in His Mystical Church we have become as one with His Real Presence. We in faith know with assurance, hope, and love, that we are in His Real Presence because His Real Presence abides in us always and everywhere temporally, spiritually, and in His Mystical Church. We are One Body in the One Trinitarian Headship in His Mystical Church.
I've written on and on what with some effort of mind and fingers I could edit and shorten. But I'll not. I'll let my humankind-self's repetitive inadequacy in expressing and describing, to stand as portrayal of truth of myself as very much learning and growing, a beginner of whatever stair step, likely the first one or two.
Awareness and acceptance of the passageway and the stairway to heaven, the temporal that passes away and the mystical that is eternal, plus the progression of the soul with mind and heart somewhat hindering at times the soul's journey--awareness and acceptance is a start, a solid start. They imply or impart the sense that the past is also accepted and that awareness is made, forgiveness asked and forgiveness given, humanly but graced and possible in the Divine.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
Love in His Love!
