While I've benefitted plentifully and by the grace of Jesus Christ, in the gift of grasping and being uplifted by the writings of not only St. Pope John Paul II (Vita Consecrata) and a brief offering by Pope Francis I on Consecrated Life, I am also much edified by writings of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
The joy is serene joy. If my life on earth will be as it has been for these two decades past, in my private profession, avowal, and living the eremitic vocation of the Church, the roots will deepen and spread all the more, while what is above ground will lessen.
Although I realize that there is a continuous attempt (has been and on-going) to discredit, disparage, and seemingly sabotage my personhood and my God-chosen vocation as a consecrated (or not) but very much a Catholic hermit, I have great trust in the Lord.
I also turn to the protection and guidance of the Blessed Mother Mary, St. Michael the Archangel, and my late Spiritual Da (who realize I have the devil by its tail, essentially and some literally). They and many others praying for me, will see me through whatever next in this deepening and furtherance of my body, mind, heart, and soul into His Real Presence and His Church, the Body of Christ.
I was unable to do manual labor today. But praying and reading has been helpful, and with the increased pain today thus keeping me more in bed, all that suffering is pain-prayer, being utilized by Jesus for so many souls needing healing and to be drawn into conversions and deeper conversions with Christ. I must not forget the reminder by my confessor, that not only as a hermit, but as a suffering servant (Victim Soul of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), the pain is providing unfathomable good for the entire Body of Christ. I pray so! I hope in God so!
Recently the Lord has brought to the silence of my Solus Deus Hermitage, a person from the past. This "bringing" is in terms not of any physical visitors other than the little neighbor girl bringing a small bowl of drywall mud last evening), but is a bringing across cyberspace. It is a suffering person I knew between 2005 and 2012. She suffers greatly, and as a supportive victim soul, so does the person's faithful spouse. They both are devout Catholics.
I am especially taken by the person who suffers tremendously from a mental illness that had onset earlier in life but has required much medication and even last-resort type treatments. Yet the suffering servant of God, continues in the devout life, and in fact loves St. Francis de Sales' classic: Introduction to the Devout Life. Also the person reads a numeric section daily from The Imitation of Christ (Thomas a Kempis). [I have joined in reading across the miles, this spiritual tome.] At other times of the day, the person gazes for a time upon two icons, Our Lady of Czestochowa (also known as the Black Madonna) and Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Each images of Our Lady have personal, family meaning, as well for this couple.
So the Lord re-connected us through internet, for brief contact of which the other is of course in active, married life--but yet with a disability that affects both husband and wife. Amazing couple, though, continuing to "row the boat" across the rougher waters than many experience in the journey of life. They keep on, in tremendous faith and steadfast devotion in Christ and Our Lady, in God the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Also, just day before yesterday, there was a marvelous reconnection with a woman and her adult daughter who live in the UK. The adult daughter suffers from mental illness and has anxiety regarding continuance of stipend or what in USA would be called disability pay support. The mother, a widow, lives in another location from the daughter, and has been through yet another death of a dear and beloved friend, perhaps four years or so after the passing of her beloved spouse who had been a deacon in their parish for the past decade or more.
It is quite something, when we are in a phase of great opening to all the positive and good that God has for us, to then see the actual effects of waiting upon the Lord for Him to choose for us in whatever ways He wills. Sometimes His choosing includes having us free others so that they might themselves, make more effort to live their own vocations, such as if laity in the active life, or young and married with children, to seek out those in similar vocation and apostolate...rather than to be dependent upon an old Catholic hermit who is being freed so as to deepen the living out of my own hermit vocation, and to focus also on the suffering in union with Christ.
The Lord is focusing me on better prayer life and increasing silence of solitude, of the way in which the Lord has chosen to more strictly separate me from the world than in some ways more than ever despite the previous "phase" being quite arduous. Yet, I have a long way to go in the stillness, the silencing of the senses as the pain is quite "loud" it's own silent but distracting "shouts" for my attention. Even if the Lord keeps me for Himself in profound ways,
Christ will always guide and form my mind, heart, and soul. The more I remove myself from the more external aspects of hermit vocation, and give also due to the victim soul reality, and rest in the Lord peacefully in all matters without and within, the mystic will choose the better part, always, in whatever situation.
We all must remember, as it is truth, that no matter the means or ways obstacles, or the persecutions, or no matter the tricks of the devil, Jesus is not only our Judge, but He is our Savior, our Redeemer, and for me and surely so many others, Jesus is our Beloved Spouse.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
No comments:
Post a Comment