Catholic Hermit: Lost Is Found

It is so strange, but having lost something precious of the tangible, and having detached so fully, the item is found.

In the interim of having lost it, a text for prayer came late that night.  A close relative, quite precious, was being prepared for a serious, sudden surgery in the middle of the night a long distance away.  In the early morning hours here, a call came; the person had made it through but in ICU and facing another surgery, abdomen left open, if makes it through next 24 hours.

More praying for greater conversions.  This is a person who just the week prior had been instrumental, in a way, in helping me see the importance of praying for deeper conversions to Christ, repeated conversions, cooperating with the conversions, bringing us closer and closer to Christ.  This involves our striving in that deeper conversion to seek, act, find Him in His Word, in sacred worship, in prayer and praise.

Amidst more phone calls regarding the medical crisis, the person's elderly mother being one call, it seemed as if I might not make it in time for Mass.  Yet with my own praying for deeper conversion for myself, and in desiring to be in Mass and to pray for the person so critically ill, I decided to quickly dress and drive.  If I did not make it in time for start of Mass, I would pray outside.  But it seemed best to push my own pained body and try.

It seemed it would be chilly out in early morning, so I noticed a pullover on a hangar farther back on closet rod.  All this "stuff" had been packed away for six years and just recently unpacked.  I decided to grab that sweater, and when I did, something on the hanger brushed my hand.

It was my lost and preciously tangible yet spiritual lost item!  I still have no recall as to how it got there.  But there it was, and I kissed it and placed it around me neck, thanked the Lord, and headed to Mass, making it just in time before opening prayers.

I have no idea if the Holy Spirit put that item on that hangar.  I usually hang the item at night on the first two or three hangars; the sweater was hanging half or farther back on the long, lower closet rod.  Could it be that in my increasing manner of mind being far from increasingly pained body, that I somehow, after all, had brought it inside and put it there?

I simply have no recollection at all.  But had I not pursued trying to get to Mass, had I not somehow noticed that sweater and decided to quickly put it  on, that precious item would have not been discovered for perhaps another year as the weather warms daily now.

Regardless, what was lost is found.  Now more than ever, the item is a reminder of what it represents in the heavenly, eternal sense.  It represents the prayer for deeper conversions, for it is the sign and reminder of not only my hermit vocation, but of the Holy Spirit, of the crucified and resurrected Lord, of those now on the other side who have been instrumental in my earthly life and who all the more, though, are instrumental from their being in heaven.

I am also trying to be more present, as well, and have an appointment with the surgeon's PA (physician's assistant) as she wants to check for leg weakness in the on-going problem with the spinal cord increasingly being squeezed off in lumbar section of my back.  I'm being pro-active in cues the mind is more leaving the bodily pain for longer stretches of time.  Pain is quite powerful in its effects.

Meanwhile, the precious family member has made it through another surgery, hopefully the last in this health episode.  The full intestines had to be removed.  The person is heavily sedated and will be in ICU for awhile.  Sepsis is so dangerous, but thankfully no other organs were affected. Praise God.

God bless His Real Presence in us!