I continue to receive question from one whose priest continues, even in video Masses, to invite his parishioners to come into the Church to pray. The person, for whom I've answered in email repeatedly, going over the common sense reasons, sharing what a cardinal advises and explains as to why this is not the time to be going into churches due to the high contagion of COVID-19, plus the high percentage the researchers are finding now can be carrying the disease and be infectious yet without symptoms.
Once again the person wrote is tempted to go in to pray this week. I lost my patience. It does not take much despite the full and thorough abasement of not only my body, but my mind, heart, and soul as to the reality of my sinfulness, particular flaws that are egregious and loathsome. And yet I blasted back, finally, and repeated what previously had explained as that priest had previously even guilted parishioners that they should come in, that Jesus was all alone in the Tabernacle, waiting for them; and then another time that the priest was alone in the church, praying, and invited them to join him.
With my final blast of bluntness (aka straight-talk but super-sized), I added for Satan to get behind me, for I was already succumbing to my own temptation to frustration and enough to try to manage too much physical pain that sets me off in its own way, more than enough, ashamedly so. (I continue to marvel at the saints I've read about who were joyful through suffering, and I feel all the more rotten and weak-willed. Even though some maybe did not suffer for years, constantly, some of them certainly did; and all of them suffered far better than me. Fact.)
The person was so apologetic, thinking I was referring to the person as being Satan within that I needed to get away from. No! I cleared that up in a quick response. The devil is working me over; but I do need to be adamant in answering the same question of those tempted to blindly follow even a priest who either is not listening to the news or is not evolved so much in his own faith, or is, and I think likely so quite understandable, a very lonely person whose vocation as parish priest is focused on interactions with people, as much as all the time, day and night! And for a younger priest, all the more, realistically as a human being lest we forget, the spiritual life may not be matured, the level of faith in God being in us always, no matter where might not have become a practical reality despite the words of Consecration: through Him, with Him, and in Him.
I must always seek to perceive as even a priest would. I have been a Catholic hermit for over 19 years and add on nearly year and a half of discerning, practicing the life. Parish priests are not hermits; and just as I am and all of us, priests while having several years of education and practicum, they are yet souls-in-process, and to varying degrees. They face the same temptations as the rest of us. (And again, religious order and hermits and others in the consecrated life of the Church are as much souls-in-process, evolving, and in varying levels of degree and progress.)
I was not able to immediately have the discipline or have faith in the grace to stay in my hermitage, in the silence of solitude without temptations and going about on errands, or creeping back out into the world. Particularly tempting to me was to continue trying to use leadership talents in temporal ways of the parish, or to be involved in parish events and loved going to numerous weekday and weekend Masses. It has taken years of progression, and when I was not progressing as the Lord willed in my particular hermit vocation, formed by God's particular desire for me individually, the Lord would arrange circumstances in which I'd be stripped down in sometimes very sudden and drastic ways.
We can consider Jonah thrown overboard and swallowed by the whale, remaining inside the "whale's stomach" (archetype of Christ's tomb or a hermit's cell...) for three days and three nights. So a parish priest who is struggling very much in this global pandemic requiring sheltering in place and lockdowns of entire states and nations, has a very real situation going on within himself, trying to adapt and finding it most difficult.
Easy enough for priests, also, to confuse the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders with thinking good shepherding is asking people to come into the church to pray, ignoring doctors, scientists, and governing leaders ordering us all to stay in unless a medical appointment or necessary food need or if we work at a pandemic-necessary job, such as medical personnel and first responders, law enforcement, and just enough to stock grocery shelves, truck drivers delivering critical goods and supplies.
Pray for priests having a hard time adapting to being alone in ways they've not ever been. Pray for their faith and virtues of prudence and patience, wisdom and fortitude. This is not their norm maybe even more drastically altered than for most people who have nights off, or live with spouses, etc. But don't encourage them by going against what those who know best of this virus, tell us to do and not do. Daily there is new research. Now we are told it can be transmitted through air, simple talking, in addition to what we learned of it staying in air and on surfaces for hours to days. Now we are told if we must go out, to wear a mask, and in the next week or two of added danger, to not go to the grocery unless crucial.
This morning a well-known Catholic theologian and priest, interviewed on news, reminded all of us that this time period requires not only deep faith, but also common sense. He emphasized both needed, with oomph added to the common sense.
The person who wrote to me once again got a grip, knows not wise to be tempted to go in to the Church to pray. Actually quite advanced in the spiritual life and faith, love of Jesus, in tune with the Holy Spirit, it seems a lack of confidence in the gifts God has given her of such lovely spiritual progression. We all tend to forget that our parish priests (and people of other faiths seem to be in same dilemma) are humans and have not been through this coronavirus scourge, either.
It is a good time in this Holy Week for us to truly live out that the Kingdom of God is within us, as Jesus taught and Scriptures repeat to us in different words and ways. There will be the church building waiting for us to return to group worship and reception of the tangible sacraments soon enough--unless we get sick and succumb first. That is the point of everyone doing what we must do: join Jonah in the whale, join Jesus in the tomb. We will be spit out and resurrected one way or another, when God wills.
What St. Gertrude of Helfta (1256-130l) shares in The Herald of Divine Love, Book IV, SC 255, so made sense to me this morning! As a hermit, and with the increased pain this past year, all the more I am not tempted to need to get out of my cell, my hermitage, this house. My temptations are otherwise--deep, awful, soul-wrenching, scathing, self-revealing, and so very, painfully, real. And it is all so very, very good! Praise God! St. Gertrude's discussion with the Lord is just what I needed in this present time. Perhaps you will find it helpful, as well.
"Recalling the condescension of our Lord who, it is said, went to Bethany to the house of Mary and Martha at the close of that day (cf. Mk 11:11), Gertrude was enflamed with a longing to show hospitality to the Lord.
"So she went up to an image of the Crucified and, reverently kissing the wound in His most holy side, she made the desire of the most loving Heart of the Son of God to penetrate her completely and entreated it, thanks to the strength of all the prayers that might ever rise from this infinitely gentle Heart, to be pleased to descend into the insignificant and very unworthy inn of her heart.
"In His kindness, the Lord, who is always close to those who call on Him (cf. Ps 144(145):18), made her feel His longed for presence and said to her with sweet tenderness: 'See, I am here! What is it that you are going to offer me?'
"And she in return: 'Welcome to the One who is my only health and all my good; what shall I say my only One?' And she added: 'Alas, Lord, in my unworthiness I have not prepared anything suited to Your Divine magnificence, but I offer my whole being to Your goodness. Full of desires, I beg that You Yourself be pleased to prepare within me whatever may be most pleasing to Your divine goodness.'
"The Lord said to her: 'If you allow Me to have this liberty within you, give Me the key that will allow Me to take away and return without difficulty, all that may please Me, as much for My well-being as for My delight.' At which she added: 'And what is that key? The Lord's answer was: 'Your own will.'
"These words made her understand that if someone wishes to receive the Lord as a guest they must hand over the key of their own will to Him, surrendering completely to His perfect good pleasure and placing absolute confidence in His sweet goodness to work for their salvation in everything. Then the Lord will enter into that heart and that soul to fulfill everything that His Divine pleasure may demand.
I don't know about you, dear readers, but I am so weary with physical pain (pain doctor going ahead with an external trial injection required before a pain pump surgery--surely done after lockdown lifted, of course) and I am so filled with my sinful vices and weariness in battling them, that I am going to consider St. Gertrude's creative and heartfelt words and actions with an image of Jesus crucified, or most likely with the Crucifix on this bedroom cell wall. I am too tired to make up my own words.
My head injury area of skull the other morning was painfully tender all over again nearly two years after the fact--reminding me of that brain effected area includes feelings, emotions, detachment. I'll adopt St. Gertrude's lovely and holy words and sentiments, and in faith know the Lord will speak to me in whatever way, including no words. Lord, increase our faith!
God bless His Real Presence in us!
No comments:
Post a Comment