From 2 Timothy: 4 ~
"But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances;
put up with hardship;
perform the work of an evangelist;
fulfill your ministry."
This pained, consecrated, Catholic hermit has been wondering about it's ministry lately. Just this morning wrote a letter with numbed right hand (numbness comes and goes as hand is past-due for surgery--drill whip injury a couple years ago) to the spiritual father. I penned my concern that I have not, am not, fulfilling my potential in and for the Lord, am not witnessing to Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Mary, Joseph and angels and various and multitudinous saints who have so kindly and graciously, previously, graced me with so much love and support--truly too much to begin to describe.
But I lack discipline currently and probably for some time. I'm rather done-in with added pain since the hard fall on a store's concrete floor, a week ago today. I tried to push through the pain after being down a couple days, and even in those two days at least picked strawberries and dealt with a couple of coons. Got quarts of berries to little roadside table by mailbox--as I thought mobility a good thing after a fall. ER doctor said no broken bones from the x-rays taken, so I had confidence in trying to keep a goin'.
However, it has been a slow go and not much. Yesterday morning I had three hours before much-needed, forecast showers were to come. And the grass very much needed to be mowed. Hiring someone is problematic if they'd show up and definitely with the extremely high charges for labor here. So I pushed through knee pain to mow. I admit I'm adept at distracting myself from goodly levels of constant pain for nearly 34 years now.
But after mowing the yard, my body decided to quit being upright. This morning I pushed through to go out and limber with picking but two quarts of strawberries as the coons had taken most. Last night was unable to get up to handle what it takes to capture the invasive, rabies-ridden creatures that are way over-populated in this area. Even such little standing and walking as two quarts of berries has proven too much for the knee. It has been pulsating with pain for a few hours now, and the knee not stressed but propped under the usual pillows my body requires in order to take added stress off the ever-painful back.
So today's Scripture reading from 2 Timothy 4 particularly "touches a nerve." For one thing, it is all I can do to not be emotional with the level of pain. For another, fending off despair due to the pain and inability to get up and even stand to clean upstairs' bath tile and seal it--cannot manage that little bit of physical distraction from the pulsating knee pain.
"But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances...."
I'm refraining from emailing to a couple of friends to vent about the added pain issues. I decided the other day that it is pointless to do so. The situation is one-sided as a form of friendship for one person to be more the writer and sharer of thoughts and feelings be it of pain and aspects of the spiritual life, or if it were sharing what progress being made in manual labor. So I decided to revisit some self-discipline and mirror the length and type of what writing is put forth from the other.
This is a long-time friend who has great self-discipline and is extremely self-possessed. While I have inquired as to the health of her sister and even such simple questions as what projects she is working on (is quite generous in gifting others with home-made, creative gifts--most often my queries go unanswered, but there are more questions asked of me.
I realized this is a relationship that has gone lopsided--in fact, one-sided for the most part. Thus, while St. Paul to Timothy is advising for ultimately spiritual progress and good, being self-possessed (as in most virtues) can be learned by beginning with some temporal basics of practiced self-possession. I'm better off writing of that which some anonymous readers might find of benefit in one way or another (even if to judge that my spirituality and hermit life is woefully weak for a consecrated Catholic hermit) than to keep writing of such as sufferings or whatever else in one-on-one communication that one-sided to a futile degree.
I apologized to the friend and mentioned, again, that I must practice the discipline that I admire in the long-time friend. I did have a response--that venting can be very helpful, though. Yes, and I said I should learn to tell it to God, to vent to Him Who Is All and Who Is Love, from me who is nothing.
So last night I had my first practice in an email self-possession.
This morning, though, I have written through the pulsating pain in other format, and now this blog post could go terribly off-kilter in the area of human pain and suffering, if not for the focus needing to be on being self-possessed in all circumstances, as well as to:
"...put up with hardship."
I doubled my pain med of which I've not done in a long time. In fact, I've been trying to lessen them without good results. After nigh on 34 years of constant pain that is worse as I age, my old brain is not generating enough endorphins nor dopamine. Yet all the more I must learn to put up with hardship! Suffering is part of my mission in life, for the sake of souls and for God's sake--as an offering of essentially "unto blood"--as my very life a sacrifice for, with, and in Christ crucified to ensure our salvation.
But this from St. Paul--"perform the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry".... I must pray and ask the Lord for a reminder and recap: What is my ministry?
If assiduous prayer and penance and praise of God is that to which a consecrated Catholic hermit must attend as his or her ministry, then how is my witness being spread or evangelized, to others? Maybe a good question, also, is: What is an evangelist? And, is the work of consecrated Catholic hermits from as far back as first century, to be that of evangelists?
The primary definition of an evangelist is one who seeks to convert others to the Christian faith, particularly through public speaking. A secondary definition refers to the four authors of the written Gospels: Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
I suppose this latter form of evangelism, through writing, more fits this Catholic hermit's mode and no doubt would that of most hermits, as we are to be "hidden from the eyes of men.." Our communications primarily are to be with the Most Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet as ministry, and fulfilling it, any Christian is to be involved in evangelism, of hoping to and helping convert others to Christ and the Christian faith.
So what I write takes on a different importance, or should. The purpose is being focused by the call to fulfill my ministry--which is rooted in discerning and focusing on my God-given mission, or His purpose, for my life.
If I write about pain or any hardship, the point should be how to endure it; and then to reflect upon Christ and relating the pain or hardship or glory or grace to temporal existence and Christ's drawing me into His Love increasingly as well as pointing me to the mystical existence of union and ultimate union through, with, and in Him in Heaven for all eternity.
For right now, in this present moment, the second pain med has not interrupted the pulsating knee pain. Veritably, only God can interrupt that pain, stop it from pulsating, and so I know I must not keep standing on the leg nor walking on it, at least for now. It was worth the experiment to see if more pain medication could shift the trajectory.
While I have no idea how I will manage here, when I will be able to rise and do more tasks needed to finish or if Monday I will need to painfully drive myself to a larger hospital's ER to get an MRI, or wait the weeks it can take to get into an orthopedic knee specialist. Or perhaps by Monday or tomorrow or tonight the knee will respond to full rest and allow me to slowly plod onward with tile cleaning and sealing and the other tasks physically required here that are in on the to-do list in order to sell and be out from under financially and physically.
Through it all, the Lord is indeed answering my prayers (and responding to my admission that at minimum I am not feeling as if I have been fulfilling my God-given life purpose, my ministry as St. Paul writes, and have not been in self-possession enough to endure all hardships in all circumstances.
In this present moment God has given me, He has provided the pulsating knee pain and the body's major aversion to trying to get up to stand or walk on it. He has not allowed pain meds to mask it. He has gifted me with realizing the off-kilter, lop-sided, one-sided correspondence, and to consider anew what it is to do the work of an evangelist and to fulfill my ministry within the vocation of a consecrated Catholic hermit.
God bless His Real Presence in us! We all have these considerations to ponder, no matter our vocations, if we are followers of Christ Jesus. And to put up with hardship is a tangible enough challenge to grasp, grip, and grapple with. It is the suffering--even the present moment pulsating knee pain that is disrupting the needed efforts to get on to the next place in my temporal life that can be a vehicle for the more spiritual and mystical aspects of my work as Christian evangelist and in my ministry within vehicle of the Catholic hermit vocation.
Every Christian has purpose, mission, evangelistic ministry to grasp, grip, and grapple with in order to produce whatever God wills in our lives. Sometimes we have to be made lame in order to walk in the path or paths He chooses in any given phase of present moments.
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