Catholic Hermit Shares Message from Jesus

Does not seem often that Jesus speaks aloud, within, so clearly.  Or perhaps, in actuality, it is not often that this consecrated Catholic hermit is listening closely to His Real Presence.  So many distractions of the temporal world can interfere if not watchful, listening, waiting within the recesses of the mind, heart and soul.

So yesterday, after reading another homily of Pseudo-Macarius on detaching from the distractions of the "world" so that one can choose to think of God, be in God, the hermit thought-flashed its apologies that it struggles with  discipline and will to cut loose from the distractions.

Then the hermit broached in the interior conversation, the recent attempt to pray daily the novena prayer attributed to St. Bridget, one that is said to have been given her by Jesus to pray.  A friend had sent the brochure with the seven-paragraph prayer, each covering a different aspect of Jesus' life and Passion.  One is to pray the Our Father and a Hail Mary prior to praying the words of each paragraph.

This hermit go through four of the seven.  With each, there was an appreciation of the aspects of praying for forgiveness and to improve in areas of life such as giving up sins of the heart, sins of the spirit, sins of the body, and so forth.  But the hermit found itself re-reading and back-tracking sometimes mid-sentence.  Just could not keep the mind focused!  

Ah, the hermit decided to try again the next day, then the next.  And it was this failure to successfully read-pray through a lovely verbal-mental prayer, that this consecrated Catholic hermit bemoaned its guilt and lack of discipline.  How sorry!  Why was it that the hermit delighted in and had the will and discipline--even to cling to--these forms of prayers when it first converted to the Faith 21 years ago?  What has happened?  

In this vein of thought-flashing conversation with the Lord, the hermit proceeded to apologize and self-chastise.  Then through the silent din within of its conversation, the Lord spoke:

Just talk to Me.

Ah.  So simple, so pure, so loving, so honest, so understanding is His Real Presence!  Just talk to Me.

Perhaps He is pleased with the banter, after all, that the hermit puts forth in stream of consciousness, interior converse with God, with Mary, with various saints, angels, and souls known and unknown to the hermit who lived and died and live again in fullness of Light on the other side.

Just that morning, when the young helper and the hermit had a most difficult time unsticking a blade in a tool so we could change it, the hermit had interiorly prayed to the patron saint of tools, whoever that might be, to please help us.  Instantaneously, the blade mechanism dislodged, freeing the effort.
Prior, when we searched diligently for the blade we wanted to install, the hermit asked Little Child Jesus to help us find it, and prayed that aloud.  Lo and behold, the blade was found in an unlikely spot.  "Thank You, Child Jesus," the hermit cheered, but then a rude aside, "but why did You take so long?"  And then an immediate, "Sorry for being so rude, Jesus!  Thankful You helped us find it!"

The other day a friend's husband could not find a swimming pool leak.  His heart is doing poorly, and going under water, holding his breath, caused some frightening, bodily symptoms.  "We need to ask the Prophet Jonah to help your husband," suggested the hermit.  The thought had just popped to mind. Of course, it is the Holy Spirit Who pops these ideas to the fore.  We just have to snatch them out of thin air and put them to action.  "He certainly knows about underwater experiences.  Three days he was in the belly of the whale, and in reality is an archetype for Jesus' three days until resurrection.

Three days later, the friend emailed with much excitement.  That day, her husband surprised himself.  He found the leak after three days of underwater searching.   While he scoffed that it was in answer to requesting Jonah to help locate the leak, attributing it to another silly Catholic superstition (his wife is Catholic; he is not), he did say he appreciated the prayers, all the same.  That counts!  

His wife and this hermit thanked the Holy Spirit and the Prophet Jonah.  No doubts in our minds.

So the brochure of the prayers purported to be ones Jesus asked St. Bridget to pray and promote, remains on the floor here by the mattress in this fixer-upper, Te Deum Hermitage.  The hermit has decided to review the main points of each paragraph of worded prayers, to get the gist.  It has asked St. Bridget to please pray these verbal prayers on behalf of the hermit, as they are lovely prayers, and beautifully worded, but somehow the hermit cannot keep focus when reading them.

The hermit is going to just keep talking to Jesus, telling Him all, sharing all, asking all, loving all, and listening to all that Jesus has to say to the hermit, day in and night out.

"Just talk to Me," Jesus said.

That's good.  That's real.  That's profound.  That's the truth.  And that's simple enough for this tired out old hermit with work galore to try to tend to the prayer requests of others and to keep renovating this fixer upper it got itself into, to be able to pray with full and sincere body, mind, heart, and spirit.  Praise God!

Affirmation on Frequent Prayer

This morning Office of Readings in the Divine Office (Monday of Week One), contains an excerpt from a letter to Proba, by Augustine.  Personally, it seemed a good affirmation from His Real Presence upon this hermit's returning to praying the seven "hours" of the Divine Office, breaking off other tasks in the day and utilizing the time in the night when awakened due to pain.

While not advocating set, formulaic, verbal or mental prayers for the sake of daily routine or sense of accomplishing some imposed standard for the eremitic prayer life, for this hermit, praying the Divine Office in segments is a discipline that had lapsed, and that happened to be a good effort.  

This is not meant to replace the affective prayers--those prayers of loving affection offered to His Real Presence, spontaneously and from deep within the heart.  Nor is it a substitute for meditative and contemplative prayer, should contemplation be graced by God upon the soul.  However, the Divine Office may lead the soul into meditation, and also unfold into contemplation.  A hermit has all the time God has given to be in His Real Presence; temporal tasks ought be secondary.

What impresses this hermit today, is Augustine's suggestion of praying at set hours with the purpose of turning our thoughts away from the efforts in the temporal, daily tasks and thoughts, and turning them to our heart's desire, which is His Real Presence:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  

There are additional, fine considerations in what Augustine writes to Proba.  Further in the letter (not represented below) is the reminder that the Lord's prayer contains all that is necessary in praying, if prayed from the heart and with full attention, desire, and love.  

However, as to this Catholic hermit's return to praying the Divine Office (which includes the Lord's Prayer) at various times in day and night, there is the added impetus that one is uniting in the same praises and supplications with all those who pray the Divine Office, world-wide.  This is one way in which a consecrated religious solitary is deeply connected with others of the Body of Christ not only in the present moment but also those who prayed and will pray the Office, past and future. 

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One might ask, as this hermit did:  Who is Proba?  From an internet site, Augnet.org, the following information helps explain.

"This is probably the letter of Augustine that is known the most.

"The letter Augustine wrote to Proba is called Letter 130. It was written in the year 412, by which time he had been a bishop for about seventeen years.

"Anicia Faltonia Proba was the widow of the wealthiest man in the Roman Empire.

"Three of her sons held the consulship. After Alaric led a Gothic army into Rome in 410 and pillaged the city, Proba, with a considerable retinue of widows and younger women, took refuge in Africa and established a community of religious women in Carthage.

"Among her group were her daughter Juliana and her grand-niece Demetrias. (Two years later in 414, Augustine wrote On the good of widowhood to Juliana.)

"Proba asked Augustine how she ought to pray, and in his response he advised her on the kind of person she ought to be, and what she ought to pray for.

"Author Peter Brown states that these ladies, affected by the teachings of Pelagius, elicited Augustine's most mature and sympathetic statements about his ideal for Christian life. Unlike Pelagius, Augustine could find room for a spectrum of human failings. In his own life and in that of others, he sought and encouraged blessedness, in spite of human failings.

"This Letter 130 by Augustine to Proba is a short instruction on Christian private prayer. The letter has two parts. Augustine first explains the interior condition desirable for praying (Chapters 1-3), and then (Chapters 4-13) explains the purpose of private prayer.

"The purpose of prayer is to attain a blessed life. He suggests that the use of words be kept brief and fervent, and be supported by a life of good works. The words are needed only to help us keep in mind what a person is requesting, and are not necessary to remind or persuade God regarding the request being made.

"Augustine proclaims that the Lord’s Prayer contains all the praise and petition that prayer requires. A person is free to express the same sentiments in other words if desired, but not to ask for anything that is either contrary to or beyond the scope of the Lord’s Prayer."

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Now for a selection from Augustine's letter to Proba:

Let us turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours

"Let us always desire the happy life from the Lord God and always pray for it. But for this very reason we turn our mind to the task of prayer at appointed hours, since that desire grows lukewarm, so to speak, from our involvement in other concerns and occupations. We remind ourselves through the words of prayer to focus our attention on the object of our desire; otherwise, the desire that began to grow lukewarm may grow chill altogether and may be totally extinguished unless it is repeatedly stirred into flame.

"Therefore, when the Apostle says: Let your petitions become known before God, this should not be taken in the sense that they are in fact becoming known to God who certainly knew them even before they were made, but that they are becoming known to us before God through submission and not before men through boasting.

"Since this is the case, it is not wrong or useless to pray even for a long time when there is the opportunity. I mean when it does not keep us from performing the other good and necessary actions we are obliged to do. But even in these actions, as I have said, we must always pray with that desire. 

"To pray for a longer time is not the same as to pray by multiplying words, as some people suppose. Lengthy talk is one thing, a prayerful disposition which lasts a long time is another. For it is even written in reference to the Lord himself that he spent the night in prayer and that he prayed at great length. Was he not giving us an example by this? In time, he prays when it is appropriate; and in eternity, he hears our prayers with the Father.

"The monks in Egypt are said to offer frequent prayers, but these are very short and hurled like swift javelins. Otherwise their watchful attention, a very necessary quality for anyone at prayer, could be dulled and could disappear through protracted delays. They also clearly demonstrate through this practice that a person must not quickly divert such attention if it lasts, just as one must not allow it to be blunted if it cannot last.

"Excessive talking should be kept out of prayer but that does not mean that one should not spend much time in prayer so long as fervent attitude continues to accompany his prayer. To talk at length in prayer is to perform a necessary action with an excess of words. To spend much time in prayer is to knock with a persistent and holy fervor at the door of the one whom we beseech. This task is generally accomplished more through sighs than words, more through weeping than speech. He places our tears in his sight, and our sighs are not hidden from him, for he has established all things through his Word and does not seek human words."

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God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another, for God Is Love!  Remain in His Love!