I read this a few days ago and ever find helpful on humility. Written by a monk and priest, Theognostios, and included, as from the Philokalia, may these word-thoughts uplift and restore us on this Thanksgiving Day (celebrated today in the USA).
"When you are completely detached from all earthly things and when, your conscience clear, you are at any moment ready in heart to leave this present life and to dwell with the Lord, then you may recognize that you have acquired true virtue. If you want to be known to God, do all that you can to remain unknown to men....
"Consciously look on yourself as an ant or a worm, so that you can become a man formed by God. If you fail to do the first, the second cannot happen. The lower you descend, the higher you ascend; and when you begin to realize that you have nothing and know nothing, then you will become rich in the Lord through practice of the virtues and spiritual knowledge.
"Since salvation comes to you as a free gift, give thanks to God your savior. If you wish to present Him with gifts, gratefully offer from your widowed soul two tiny coins, humility and love, and God will accept these in the treasury of His salvation more gladly than the host of virtues deposited there by others....
"For even if the treasure of those who are dispassionate consists of every virtue, the precious stone of humility is more valuable than them all; it brings about not only propitiation with the Creator, but also entry with the elect into the bridal chamber of His Kingdom."
The description of the soul as being widowed is apt. In various ways, our souls are as such. In my recent consideration of the hermit vocation as set forth in The Catechism's sections 920-921, I realize that God provided this vocation for me as a place of refuge, out of His foreknowing what would unfold in my life, from as early as 1984 and with more obvious vision and locution in early 1986. The word "hermit" was not used then, but rather that I would "need to learn to hibernate like a bear, for protection from the world."
Of all my many faults and weaknesses, I most react pathetically to rejection. Rejection is my most challenging life aspect. Being or feeling--either one--rejected can cast me down to the devil's doorway more than I think anything other of life's occurrences. And it does not take much to experience rejection, to feel it, to recognize being rejected.
Often enough I'm sure some fault of mine, or even a sense of my not liking rejection, or the hurt reaction to rejection even if masked, all the more invites rejection to occur. It is a quite easy way for those who dislike or feel burdened by another, to do or say even the smallest of actions or words or in fact, non-response, to create the rejection that will wound.
All the more, then, rejection of others, whether one's personhood or way of being could somehow justify the rejection in whatever form of many forms rejection takes, can cause us to turn all the more to God Who never rejects. The turning away from those who knowingly or unwittingly reject, can then in some ways, seem as if the one rejected is rejecting by turning to God and away from others and the world.
Fascinating business, all this; and yet there is cause and effect in rejection. We all have rejected others for one reason or another. Either we cannot handle or cope with some person or situation, or they have rejected for whatever reasons, and the one rejected turns away to avoid more pain of rejection, thus in turn, essentially rejecting those who reject. It becomes on-going, or can.
I suppose the cessation of a rejection can be secured in turning all the more to God. There is security in God, for others who turn to God will also be there, and in God's love and His forgiveness, there is not rejection. We are never a burden to God; we never "trigger" in God some rejective reaction or response. When we speak to or call upon God, we are always answered in one way or another. Never spurned, are we, by God.
In my hermit life, I admit that it is not a vocation that I sought out. In fact, I would have chosen for myself to be a normal parent, not with incessant back pain, married to the temporal spouse through thick or thin, sickness or health, and having a normal type Thanksgiving Day with spouse, perhaps hosting Thanksgiving Dinner or visiting one or more of the adult children and their families. We'd likely be of one faith, perhaps all celebrating Mass this morning in our respective places or even together. There would be the normal relationships socially, with others.
There would not be the rejection or resentment. I would not be remembered as a burden-bundle of pain, or for the negatives of flaws, words or things done of my imperfect self, the vices seemingly enhanced and embellished over the pain-riddled years. I still tend to not do what I resolve: to not reach in, to not contact unless contacted, to not expect normalcy in responses any more than I can provide normalcy in offering of self.
So the Lord provided the eremitic life in His foreknowledge, in His omniscience of all matters past, present, and future. And I, over time, evolved as others went on to live their ordained lives; and while I never anticipated the effect my personhood and flawed self would create in results later on, I am thankful for God's calling me to eremitic life. He provides a place for me, and I accepted His call even before I had much inkling of how best and providential as temporal time passed and continues to pass.
I accept always His will and His call!
For me, and perhaps for other hermits, the vocation is God's will and call, not our choosing if we actually thought in terms of life as our choice, not God's will. Hermit life, as in other vocations such as single and married life, holy orders, or even in career/job vocations--life is essentially sacrificial of our wills dying in loving humility, to do as God asks of us no matter the circumstances in which we are called by God's providence and will. Humble acceptance and thanksgiving are our loving responses to our loving God.
I can now pray in ways not previously as effective, such as the increasing physical pain praying and the interior, soul-pain praying. Love-praying, it all is. God's love praying through, with, and in me, for His glory and for His loving good of others known and unknown to me. Praise of God, is love-pain-praying. And consideration of rejection as not that, but rather as what is positive in freeing others to be of and for God in whatever ways He wills, or if they choose not God for now, He gives them that freedom of will, as well.
Love-pain pray for those I love and for those I hurt and for those who hurt. We are humans who hurt and are hurting in our widowed souls, no matter if yet or ever earthly wed...or not.
Humility is necessary, always. Humility allows us to forgive, to suffer, to love.
Blessed Thanksgiving, one and all! Thank God for all our lives, lived, we pray, with love, in the various ways God has ordained, allowed, unfolded for us. God bless His Real Presence in us! He has a place for each of us in His Kingdom, on earth as it is in Heaven!
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