Sunday, April 28, 2019

Catholic Hermit: Praying for Deeper Conversions


That's what this worn out, nothing, consecrated Catholic hermit has been up to these days.  I pray for conversions, for deeper conversions, for repeated, deeper conversions, over and over, deeper and deeper, going to Christ.

For anyone--those I know and strangers alike--I pray for deeper conversions. If I know they are not Christian for sure, I pray for conversion to Christ.

I'm exhausted with the increasing pain, noticeable to me a bit at a time, day after day.  The spinal cord and main nerves coming out of vertebra--think they are called facet joints--are increasingly being pinched off, and the nerve pain goes down the legs, and now there is more numbing in the feet--not fully numb but a numbing sensation.  

So more than ever, my mind leaves the pained body; it cannot handle being consciously aware for long, and definitely not inside with feeling the pain of the body.  So the mind leaves, and there can be a few hours or more, several hours, even a day nearly, in which it is as if I have blanked out from the body yet the mind continues thought flashing or something like that, communicating yet not always aware, and while doing other things.  Ora et labora at an extreme, perhaps this is.

I consider it a physiological necessity that somehow the body and mind "do" with agreement, to save the mind and heart/emotions from what is way, way too high of pain level.  

And in one of these blanked out phases in which I was cutting up rose brambles and jamming them into trash cans, and cutting up some type of barberry shrubs (that some cat had been using as a lavatory area or spraying them--yuck!), I did something that has been painful--quite painful--the loss of what is of tangibles, the most precious to me.

I had taken it off when doing the work, and I could not remember this until after much effort in going back into the body and mind, praying for focus of unraveling how this precious gift so meaningful and blessed, yet an object, was last on me and where I put it while doing the work.  I even had to sort through with much difficulty, the mind, trying to figure out and finally realizing when I removed it and set it--and where I am pretty sure now that I set it.  I can see my hand setting it on a place that I should never have set it, other than at the time it seemed I knew exactly where it was and would retrieve it.

But three hours passed, and it was time to go to Mass--in fact--time crept up on me.  (All this, has been recalled with effort, for being out of the intense pain of the lumbar especially so, is where the mind and heart and spirit can cope best while waiting to see the surgeon.)  And then I drove off to Mass, and returned for it was First Communion Sunday, and the day chapel was jammed.  So I continued being more or less blanked out yet functioning, did some more pruning and yard clean up, and awoke this morning to try Mass again.

And I knew then that I could not locate the item so dear, but I figured I'd locate it upon the return.  Once again--the day chapel jammed and even more so--as I realized there were so many First Communicants that all but one Mass of the weekend would have overflow crowds.  So I returned and hunted in more earnest, and then with that focus needed intently, I started to realize what I'd done--still not realizing I'd done it yesterday late afternoon.

So I drove the route to the parish and back, scouring the road and road edges for any sign of the precious item.  It is gone!  It is gone!  I felt this within.  I prayed to Little Child Jesus to help me find what was lost.  I begged my mom and dad to help me locate it.  I asked my late spiritual da to please help me locate what he, too, had a great role with, as were my mom and dad connected very much with what was so precious and now, lost.

Gone.  With more effort of bringing the mind back into the body more and focusing, I could then recall more of the actions, and that it was yesterday on the way to Mass, that surely the item had been lost, and someone walking, perhaps, or driving, had picked it up.  They'd not know to whom it belongs, and they'd easily see the high value in each of the components of the precious item, and could sell them each.

I called a neighborhood man who walks a lot, and he hopefully asked his wife to put the lost item out there on some neighborhood internet site.  I pray she did so, as he said he'd ask her.  But if it was lost out on the larger road, it is even more doubtful that it would be found.

I then prayed for deeper conversion for myself, and I chastised myself that I obviously no longer deserved such a precious item if I could not keep track of it better.  I also realized that my pain level is way too high now, and I recounted other recent episodes in which I knew I was farther out of body and distracted to a height or depth--whichever--that I'd never experienced while still being functional and doing tasks.

It is alarming.  I am going to call the pain doctor tomorrow as well as the surgeon's physician's assistant (the contact person who is handling my situation while waiting to get into the very busy surgeon).  Something needs to happen regarding this pain level and what my mind is doing to cope.


Yet I knew that praying for deeper conversion is what I needed, for I felt as if something of me had died--so much did the meaning and spiritual aspects of what I'd lost, affected my very core being.  So the answer came, which is probably the best aspect of my on-going consideration of praying for deeper conversions for myself, for others, for any situation or need.  It is a simple prayer and is a shoe-in for the Lord to answer--in HIS time and way, of course.

Jesus wants us all to draw closer and closer to Him until we have full union with Him.  So praying for that is sure to be answered; and praying for that also increasingly brings us to His Viewpoint, His Wisdom, His Insights, His All.  He's got the answers, the power, the glory, the might, the eternal.

The deeper conversion encounter I had is this:  His Real Presence (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit) let me know that it won't be that long until I would be with those very persons of which the precious object had such connection and meaning; and I'd be with Christ and the Holy Spirit then, too, and God the Father.

Immediately I felt all right.  Holy indifference, spiritual detachment came in a swoosh of grace.  I still miss the item, and I grab for it and it is not on me, but I also remembered (Holy Spirit whisper or maybe my guardian angel reminder) that Jesus Himself appeared at the side of my bed back in 1999 or 2000 (no doubt have exact date in one of my journals), and He placed a crucifix down into my heart.  Corporeal vision.  Just took that size of a crucifix and went right through my skin and breastbone and into my very heart.  

Yes it was painful!  It burned!  But when the pain subsided, Jesus departed--dissipated--and the sweet pleasure sensation replaced the burning pain of having that placed into my chest.

I will contact the police department in the morning on their non-emergency line and report what I'd lost in case someone turns it in.  Yes, that would be a miracle, for the sale value of not only the antique holy object but also the value of what was attached, is high.

My, oh my.  But I definitely need to do something about the pain situation, and hopefully I can somehow get into the surgeon sooner than later.  In the meantime, I will just have to deal with the increasingly lengthening blanking out of the conscious, and just accept it as, I suppose, a grace from maybe the Virgin Mary--whose maternal love would be very much helping me know cope with the physical pain situation.

So that brings me to praising God.  I must praise God that  I am somehow, by grace, able to be away from conscious awareness of much pain and yet be functioning.  It is quite another level of ora et labora, huh?  However, I did recognize at a certain level that I was done-in, last evening on way back from Mass that I could not attend....  I got back to Solus Deus (hermitage), picked up the rest of some brambles and jammed in a trash can, and then got inside and got down on the floor bed.

Still, though, all through the night and into this morning until able to consciously piece actions together in early afternoon, the mind was somehow able to be far away from the physical pain enough to start looking.  I think it is some type of dissociation.  I'm going to text Dr. H. with whom I've stayed in touch off and on all these years, who is adept at all types of various phenomenon, and mention this situation.  See if he has any suggestions other than what is obvious--hope to have the surgery sooner than later.

Anyway, I've been sharing this week in another format, going into this whole aspect of praying for deeper conversions for others and self--strangers, friends, family--and this has been a dramatic answer I got today once I prayed for deeper conversion, to draw closer and closer to Christ.  I was not expecting the answer, but it surely is Christ's view and perspective, and it is truth!  I will be with the very people, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit and God the Father, and with them for eternity, so the loss of the items that directly connect me to them in object form with great meaning and spiritual import, really was not so painful after all.

It is a good yet temporally painful lesson.  A good validation, also, that praying for deeper conversions brings us truly into Christ's heart, to there receive and be in His Love.  Remain in His Love.  And all this on Divine Mercy Sunday.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

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