Catholic Hermit: Born of the Spirit

I would like to write more thoughts of the apostle John's quoting of Jesus, regarding being born of the Spirit compared to be being of flesh. Of course, we are all and all living things in essence born of the flesh, born of temporal matter.  But in order to enter into God in fullness of reality in depth of interior far beyond and in essence meaningful, we must be born of the spirit.

"Jesus answered, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born from above.'

"'The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"

I'm trying to distract from physical pain as well as from a conglomeration of thoughts and memories--flashbacks--that have been bombarding since late yesterday, due to the coming phone appointment with the only priest I know of now alive and on earth, who I feel somewhat secure in turning to for help with spiritual and temporal discernment. 

While today's Gospel reading is that which speaks deeply to my soul, I have returned to this [above] Scripture from John 3:5-8.  It, also, addresses the dilemma that I face as a Christian, a Catholic, a Catholic hermit, a Catholic mystic, a Catholic victim soul, a human being in later years of temporal life--and somewhere along the spiraling double helix of spiritual development and growth.

I've yet to delve into spiritual reading such as by the late Archbishop Luis Martinez's work, The Sanctifier [the Holy Spirit].  The friend who emails now and then from afar who found the abridged and updated version by Sophia Institute Press under title True Devotion to the Holy Spirit, a week ago or so already wrote that the writing became complicated.  The person has returned to what brings more comfort and sensibility to mind and heart and soul--for that person--and that is in reading Scripture amidst other means of balancing out a lay person's temporal and spiritual existence which is more homebound due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as being an octogenarian.

The person wrote last week that of anything I wrote in an email, the following line seemed providential and expressive of that person's difficulty in continuing the book.  I admit that the words came to me without my later recall, and I found it as if new to read, when she quoted what I'd described of my recent and current status when trying to read spiritual books, regardless how classic and profound.  

For me, I think it is a phase in addition to temporal intrusions:  higher pain consistently, the use of external distractions to cope, the increased hours spent bed-bound, the push of mind over body to try to do a few tasks around the hermitage and in the garden, and the looming situation I must discern, decide upon, and act or not act of which either one will be action.

The statement that had such impact according to the older correspondent and spiritual seeker, a Christian and Catholic of many decades, is this:

"Too many words upon words without touchstone of some sort of accessible reality."

It is a statement of providential temporal-spiritual status.  Some writings of spiritual merit do tend to become, truly, too many words upon words without touchstone of some sort of accessible reality."

But then there is the Scripture.  In the Living Word of God, always we have words, yes, but there always are touchstones of accessible reality.  Always.  And the touchstones vary as to which any given seeker, observer, reader finds to grab hold or to have the Word of words, to grab hold of our minds, hearts, and/or souls.

Thus, if all else seems to be too much, and we are unable to find a touchstone, a foothold or hand-hold to reach out and grab and retain even in the present moment or a bit longer, there is always Scripture for us that will always be not just words upon words, but Living Word allowing us to grab hold  of touchstones or of touchstones that grab hold of us.  We find accessible reality in God's Word.

God's Word be it Scripture or otherwise, speak in essence of profundity, of Holy Spirit love, to the soul that is born from above, that is born of the Spirit.  That which is of the Spirit is accessible and real to those who have been born of the Spirit.  There is no temporal way to explain it otherwise; those born of the Spirit grasp.

I'll now try to silence the words upon words that tend to constantly flow through my mind from without to within and within to without.  I need to be stilled enough to express what needs to be presented for the priest to absorb and then to give wise discretion and guidance to my listening mind, heart, and soul in order to determine an outer action or non-action, both of which will be inner action.

God bless His Real Presence in us!