I've awaken in the super duper pain, but the first thoughts on my mind are what a current "pickle" I am in, physically. I had no idea just how serious would be this surgery nor the limitations and painful recovery.
I had no idea of why or how the situation with the family member would be; and truly the person is extremely busy, more so than I think I'd ever been way back before my life altered, way back in my early thirties.
I still am disappointed that the parish nurse did not have a volunteer call, but rather she had a woman who they don't want to hire part time at the parish but put her onto me, when I had said I just for now need someone to pick up medicine for me but might need occasional errand run until I can drive. I might get the gumption to call the number of the man who the parish secretary gave me, but somehow I think the Lord is putting me onto a different path.
The thoughts came also, of saintly souls such as Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich and Bl. Charles de Foucauld. The former was a mystic who had been an Augustinian nun until her order disbanded under persecution. She became bed-ridden, and there was but one priest who'd come visit her, bring her Communion once a week. Her family sent one of her siblings to tend her in a rented room. The sibling mistreated her emotionally and mentally, mostly--certainly not doing a loving job of helping her. Bl. Emmerich suffered it. But it was different times, and her incapacitation from surgery or needing medications or food.
I think of Bl. Charles de Foucauld because he was out in the Sahara, having gone there thinking he would start a religious community in which others would follow him. So he built a rudimentary building of cells, quasi monastery most simple. He wanted to be Christ among the Muslims in the village by which he settled on his own.
Over time he befriended them simply by his presence and loving kindness. He learned to communicate, hired a young man to assist him in tasks and chores. I assume if Bl. Charles became ill, the young man would help him if needed. He was executed by Muslim insurgents who had been convinced he was helping the French and Allies in the war that had extended into northern Africa.
As for my own situation, the thought was on the mind that the Lord does not want me to turn to a parish at this point. So many hermits did not. They simply hung out with the Lord, waited upon the Lord, were willing to suffer and pray and praise God. All matters worked out according to how the Lord willed and provided. Wait upon the Lord.
The other thought came that what I "need" if anything, is a Christian friend here. I should not limit myself to a parish or Catholic. Just a Christian friend, not an extern per se. A Christian friend for whom I will be able to be a Christian in return with whatever assistance through prayer, through counsel, through a reasonable gifting of money or objects they might want or need. When better, I could take them food if they are ill, or give them gas card or other gift card such as I gifted the very elderly man down the street who helped me with fixing some sprinklers.
I think the associate priest was correct--the one who told me not to tell anyone I was a hermit because "Catholics will not understand that." I drolly told a spiritual friend who happened to call last evening, that if I wore a habit the parishioners would tend to be all over themselves wanting to run an errand for me.
There is a woman who started a community. She did not like the three communities/religious orders elsewhere which she had tried out for a few months to a year before leaving. She went to a diocese where a bishop gave her permission to start her own community. Over time another woman joined her. They secured a house and volunteers came out in abundance to transform it, fix it up including landscaping. The woman wears a more old-fashioned Benedictine habit. We humans are influenced by a uniform plus a bishop's approval does not hurt. The women have been giving retreats; I have no idea if they have any training or education from which to base their retreats, but they do love the Lord and have strong desire to serve Him and teach others.
I'm rather circumspect on such matters; I tend to observe and dissect motives and situations. I do that to myself, as well. At times I've been told to "stop beating [myself] up." Yet also, I'm more a purist and idealist. As a hermit I want to remain in that "stricter separation from the world" and "hidden from the eyes of men" of which is set forth in The Catechism regarding hermits, the eremitic life, as stated of those who are in the Consecrated Life of the Church. The Lord years ago made clear that my "habit" is what I happen to be wearing in the present moment. Four months wearing the habit of a community of hermits taught me the negatives of wearing a habit.
I stuck out like a sore thumb, strangers and Catholics alike assumed some holiness or authority, wanted to gift me, poured out their lives to me in ways that I realized had I been not the prayerful and honest person I am, they could easily be taken advantage of. I learned that I could not at all trust the woman who started the community for she had become proud with the headiness of having started a community. I ceased my association, and it was not long before her Vicar General pulled the plug on it, as well.
As for how my attempt to find an extern or a "volunteer" as the parish nurse put it regarding the woman who really wants a part time job working for the parish, I realize I more simply need if not a Christian friend, I need now and then, a Simon of Cyrene. I need someone willing to step in and help carry my current cross to Walmart.
I'll not approach the parish for such as that. This is not the first time I've been disappointed in how difficult it can be to interact if not physically able or if by vocation not going to be involved in the various programs, activities, or even be at Mass. A hermit is such a person. From my various reading of the lives of hermits, including more recent ones, they would all fall in the category of privately professed; they are hermits prior to the 1983 CL603 of public profession and tie with a particular diocese.
Of the publicly professed hermits, thus far from what I read of them, usually articles in their Diocese newspapers with photos, they all wear habits of some sort or other, and they go to daily Mass and are known by others as hermits with the publicized blessing of a bishop. That carries weight. Yet it also removes them from the hiddenness of which I find intriguing and of an ideal. The spiritual friend and I discussed this last night, and while fine for those who choose that path, the Lord has instructed firmly in a vision and locution a decade ago, against that for me. For me, I emphasize. It did answer a lot of questions I'd had.
Yet the path He has me on requires a tremendous amount of blind faith in His providence. Plus, the onus of my hermit daily life is upon me for the most part, as it was on Bl. Charles de Foucauld, Saint Rosalia, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Anthony of the Desert, St. Godric of Finchale.... I consider all the hermits of which there are many known and unknown, who were not associated with a religious order and within their religious order were allowed by superiors to be hermits somewhere on the property of the monastery. I consider those myriad hermits over the centuries who were not, as in recent years, publicly professed and associated with a particular diocese and bishop.
These are the hermits I must turn to as mentors, if you will, in the living out of their lives in obscurity, yet in holy and inspirational perseverance to live the Gospel Rule of Life and to seek Christ with the fire that He wishes were already burning in our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls, on this earth, in our temporal lives.
The hermits I turn to in prayer for guidance and inspiration were not prone to turning to parishes, were not known in parishes for the most part if at all. So when I this morning reflected upon any insight or message from the Holy Spirit regarding my current exercise in pondering 920 and 921 in The Catechism regarding what is a hermit to do and be, the words "devote their life to the praise of God and the salvation of the world" mean just that. DEVOTE my life to the PRAISE God and the SALVATION of the world.
What does it mean to devote m life to the praise of God? All this has taken me so far from the small matter of getting my meds picked up from Walmart and so far from the function of parishes. I am not to devote my life to other matters, good as they are. My praise of God and the salvation of the world will cover all that and more. I don't need to be derailed or conflicted by other matters. As is said in Scripture many times and in many ways, God will provide for me.
For me as well as for all the like-type privately professed hermits of all the ages, if and when physically feasible, go to a parish--to church-- to the praise of God in celebrating Mass with the Body of Christ and share in the sacraments. At all other times I am in the Church, with my fellow members of Christ's Body with Him as Head. With praying the Lord's Prayer, as soon as "Our Father" passes the lips of my mind, the "Our" links me with all Christians everywhere on the globe as well as those in purgatory and in heaven.
In reality, Jesus is my Simon of Cyrene. He carries me as I am a cross at this point. We'll see in what ways He continues to carry me through this suffering, this life, and in the details of this morning in which the pain meds are helping enough that I must get the body up, brace on, and walker to bathroom then kitchen for something to eat. Within the fullness of faith, I know that Christ is sufficient for me. He knows the needs, and they are far simpler than what can stack up in my mind of what I might think are needs. Yes, Jesus is enough for me.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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