Awoke this morning in great pain after doing nothing yesterday but resting, writing, praying, distracting with a film watched off and on while in bed--a view of times of racial segregation but two persons' bonding in unlikely friendship despite racial differences. Each had his and her sufferings of persecution based on race and religion but became best friends through time spent in later years.
In the horrible, spinal headache, I thought there is no way I will be able to drive a distance even if I am intrigued in meeting the third party the bishop wants to have "vet" me and advise him on if I make the cut for the canon law-type hermits he has in mind for the Church. I do respect the desire of bishops to have some semblance of quality, or such, in who ought be approved of as hermits in the consecrated life of the Church.
And while I appreciate the vetting process and would love to drive and see other areas outside my small neighborhood and little world, the reality is that my pain level at this phase of life and after the surgery, is at a point that sitting to drive myself a distance is problematic. The intermediary person had replied to my query, also, in the aspect of did I mention my pain situation in my email he'd requested for the bishop? Yes, the intermediary responded that I had in fact mentioned my suffering.
So what is it that is not grasped here? Why then have me drive that distance to and from, instead of simply vetting me closer by? Surely there could be yet another person the bishop might know whose spiritual discernment he trusts? Well, perhaps not someone with vocational background. I never know from day to day how the pain level will be; but my main concern is driving a distance, for my mind then has to distract and depart from the pain, separate out from it in order to cope. I will not jeopardize other drivers, that is for certain. I have not driven but a few miles nearby since the spine surgery last summer, and the entire level of pain since that surgery has remained at another echelon beyond anything prior. It is not lessening nor likely will.
I leave it all in the Lord's most capable purview. I will do my best to not think on it during Lent, for while I can rev my spiritual desires to suffer more and have more pain to offer for the Church and for souls, the human part of me is likely not so willing to knowingly do something that automatically increases the pain and will have me suffering for quite awhile after. It would have to be something truly for others, some major need, for me to knowingly do something that would increase the pain.
But morally--I will not put others in jeopardy. That is unconscionable to take on some feat in which I'd have to put my mind out of body, at the potential risk of others. That is not in me, not at all. There would have to be some major benefit to others--such as some life and death situation in which my doing something in order to help or save others would justify the risk of accidentally causing harm.
After Easter, we will see how the Lord handles this matter. Much can happen between now and Easter, and after. My pain would have to be supernally better to drive that distance, or I be plucked out by the Lord by then--from this life, or I simply chuck the vocation in the temporal Catholic world and in the temporal eyes of the Church. Yet it does seem odd that since I did mention my suffering and pain, that of all means of screening me, of getting to know me, of vetting me, there would be this mode in which I must drive a distance to and from. On the exterior, it probably is that once more people really cannot comprehend the pain within this mortal body. On the interior or spiritual level, it is a challenge for me that the Lord is allowing--a test, of sorts.
It is one thing if I am being taken somewhere in which I do not have responsibility for a vehicle or means of transport, can take meds and stand or move about, rest, "zone out" or whatever. But it is quite something else if I must sit plus be responsible for a vehicle of transporting myself or others, or involving others who could be at risk due to my being in-the-driver's-seat. My hermit vocation might simply come down to a most temporal request that I will be unable to fulfill.
Yet, I do find great humor in this situation. I am reminded yet again of the temporal Catholic world's layers of temporal distinctions and hurdles, of sorts, and the ease of the spiritual world's miraculous flow and ease of movement and mercy. Jesus says, "My yoke is easy, my burden is light." That is not always so in the temporal realm of His Church. We humans are very much anchored to the temporal, and our lives are perfunctory and weighted, and we must use our minds to figure out. Or when we feel we cannot discern or figure out, we enlist others to do so for us, which is quite legitimate for we tend to be given many responsibilities.
Bishops are given all the more to contend with daily and into the nights--heavy responsibilities of which having to spiritually discern a single, solitary Catholic hermit is but one more duty to contend with. I'm amazed this bishop is even bothering; it is quite generous and kindly of him to do so, and for the third party person to agree to also do so. But alas, it may never come to pass simply because of the distance of miles and of a hermit with Adhesive Arachnoiditis whose last surgery has exacerbated the problem of sitting or standing all the more.
Whatever. God will figure it all out for me, and part of my Lenten test is to back away, forget about it, and let Him deal with it. He always has, always does, and always will. There is far more to this Lent than this one development and situation of vocational designation between God, bishop, hermit, and the canon law. But the humor and irony of this development is not lost on me!
Truly, the Lord was so right when in that vision He lifted me up and showed me the too-young a hermit kneeling and looking glumly, excessively morose in full habit, a bishop standing by an exaggerated pile of stacked-up canon laws. Then I was asked, "Why would you want THIS when you can have ME more directly now?" However, the bishop was not this bishop, and the Lord knows my sincere intentions of striving to align my spiritual hermit self in the spiritual/mystical world with the temporal Catholic world. Surely the two ought align, and me with them.
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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