Here's another selection--this time taken from St. Teresa of Avila's classic: The Way of Perfection. Her practical wisdom on the variety of ways in which God leads souls--of all vocations--we are reminded how true in related ways for hermits, the upshot of her words and examples.
God doesn't lead all by one path, and perhaps the one who thinks she is walking along a very low path is in fact higher in the eyes of the Lord. So, not because all in this house practice prayer must all be contemplatives; that's impossible. And it would be very distressing for the one who isn't a contemplative if she didn't understand this truth...
I spent fourteen years never being able to practice meditation without reading. There will be many persons of this sort, and others who will be unable to meditate even with the reading but able only to pray vocally, and in this vocal prayer they will spend most of their time... There are a number of other persons of this kind. If humility is present, I don't believe they will be any the worse off in the end but will be very much the equals of those who receive many delights; and in a way they will be more secure, for we do not know if the delights are from God or from the devil...
Those who do not receive these delights walk with humility, suspecting that this lack is their own fault, always concerned about making progress. They don't see anyone shed a tear without thinking that if they themselves don't shed any they are very far behind in the service of God. And perhaps they are much more advanced, for tears, even though they be good, are not all perfect. In humility, mortification, detachment, and the other virtues there is always greater security. There is nothing to fear; don't be afraid that you will fail to reach the perfection of those who are very contemplative.
St. Teresa's writings require little explanation; this is the joy of her practicality and ability to directly reach most minds. There is not the erudite writing style in this saint! What a blessing and example! What she shares here is a reminder of the vast variety of religious experience, of prayer, of ways in which His Real Presence offers, allures, provides, allows, and navigates our souls to union with Him.
Her points may be applied to individual Christians no matter their vocations, as it pertains in her examples to pray and religious experience. However, the application to specific vocations and those living out their lives in, such as, the eremitic vocation, specifically those of us living our earthly lives in the Consecrated Life of the Church per our vows and professions, in our rules of life, and for the hermit our stricter separation form the world, hidden from the eyes of men, in prayer and praise of God, and so forth.
Despite the rather set parameters of privately professed and publicly professed eremites, we share in St. Teresa's point: There are many paths in which His Real Presence brings us to spiritual perfection. Yet she emphasizes a crucial point: "In humility, mortification, detachment, and the other virtues there is always greater security."
Those of us consecrated Catholic hermits who submit ourselves to the virtues and accept--even seek--humility, mortification, detachment, dying to our egos and our self-love, our paths no matter the degree or level or type of the various aspects that define a consecrated Catholic hermit, we will secure a place in line, so to speak, to enter the gates of heaven.
Readers seek answers of all types when they read my blog posts. Often the questions have to do with the more tangible or temporal aspects of being a consecrated hermit in the Catholic Church. The answers are so easily clarified by simply reading what the Church states about how to become a Catholic hermit.
Other questions deal with details of how a Catholic hermit lives the daily life. One such query pertained to if Catholic hermits can talk with other people. We could ask the same of St. Teresa, a cloistered, Carmelite religious sister, in the Consecrated Life of the Catholic Church. Cloistered religious sisters and brothers (nuns and monks) were to not speak; their rule of life included that of silence other than in short segments of their daily life called "recreation", or when speaking with a confessor or their superior.
But consider the writing of letters, of spiritual guidance, such as those available to us by the volumes, written by St. Teresa, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Therese of Lisieux, John of the Cross--when there are myriad letters and guidance written by men and women over the years from a variety of life vocations, charisms, personalities, and uniquely God-formed paths to union with God. Are they not, in essence, talking to, with people? Consider hermits--yes, especially those living a stricter separation from the world--they must speak to people in order to exist in this contemporary life.
While today I've not verbally spoken with anyone other than with a medical assistant calling to ask if I can make it to an appointment on Monday, I have "spoken" with untold people who will read my blog sites or listen to my vlogs. I have "spoken" with/to a cousin via text message, encouraging her in enduring post-major surgery, and texted the only contact person in the parish--a woman who brings Communion to me. I texted asking if she could pick up three grocery items for me, of which she texted back she will not be in the area for a couple days but then, yes, she can.
I have spoken via email with another consecrated Catholic hermit--just brief emails acknowledging receipt and appreciation of an instructive video forwarded to me on Spiritual Theology and a late French priest whose life was steeped in the evolving development of spiritual asceticism with mystical theology into the umbrella of spiritual theology.
When I read a book, such as I am now on the Holy Spirit, it is a form of conversing with the author, the late Archbishop Luis Martinez of Mexico, spiritual director of "Conchita" mystic, mother, servant of God.
But back to the variety of spiritual paths, spiritual gifts, spiritual challenges and evolving way, means, and maturation of consecrated Catholic hermits: the variety can vary depending on life circumstances. God and the hermit know in actuality the degree to which the hermit is living his or her vocation, rule of life, living out vows made, living the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. And at that, only God knows purely, truly, perfectly how the hermit is progressing in his or her vocational and specifically the path of that person's soul toward the goal: full union with the Divine.
Even the hermit cannot be sure of his or her steadfastness in the spiritual life of which the vocation is a vehicle by which the Lord has called the hermit to utilize in this life. No human is always and ever absolutely sure if his or her temporal and spiritual life is being lived well or best within and upon his/her path to God. While on earth, we are never immune nor totally free from the trip-falls of vices. Pride is the trickiest, in my estimation.
It is easy for any of us--no matter our vocations--to try to peek into others' lives and wonder, even find fault with, how they are living what we often do not grasp, or that which we have only partial view, information, facts, details. And another issue is this: no one--no hermit--remains set in time and place--not temporal place, not spiritual place. The physical body is in flux, the mind takes in new information, the heart grows in virtues, especially faith, hope, and love, the soul absorbs all that the Trinity offers, as much as the soul desires and is made ready to receive.
Yet still, what St. Teresa states about the needful humility remains crucial to anyone. Perhaps humility is paramount, very much so, to the Catholic hermit who lives in the solitude of silence, and who can become enamored with whatever aspects of self and perceived importance in vocation or otherwise that comes knocking upon the hermitage door--that vulnerable door of the hermit's mind, heart, or soul.
No comments:
Post a Comment