In the Lord bringing me through the long corridor of the Catholic church, seemingly endless corridor with rooms on each side to stop off and learn and then keep on walking down and through that corridor, I have come to realize that there is not an end to it, but it continues on through as if portals after portals.
That is how I have come to realize that the temporal Catholic world is an ever-transitioning of which when the mystical is grasped, the temporal aspects gently drop away as we do when we age and our bodies decline, or when we ready for bed and remove the clothing of work in exchange for simple sleep covering, or even none. If not gently dropped, the mind and heart create quite the strife and upset for the resistant, questioning soul.
And really, hermit or not hermit has little or nothing much to do with it. It was just a temporal designation God provided and gave me, so that I would grasp and understand how I'd have to live in this life, that would help me have a designation for as long as I needed it, to cope with the immense solitude and silence and of being in essence not belonging to "the world." I really have not had a need of the hermit designation for quite awhile now, a few years, but I live it, if that makes sense. I live it because it is what God gave me as a means to have a pattern and of others who did not belong to the world but more to God, called out of the world while yet alive.
As Dylan Thomas wrote in his poem, wanting his dying dad to fight and resist--"do not go gently into that dark night" he pleaded--it is best to not fight, but to acquiesce to what God is doing, to the natural transitions and progressions of the lived experience--which includes very much the mind, heart, and soul--the soul that is eternally alive. While it seems that one is gently dropping off the temporal, what is spiritual remains. One finds that the spiritual is what is real and what matters, what will remain always
This is in part what I realized in letting go the identification of "Catholic" and recognizing that I need not that identification any more than a loved one who identifies as "Calvinist, Reformed," or another who identifies as "Mormon" or of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" but who amidst the belief systems and temporal practices, they are at root still believers in God and also in Christ. As one loved one stated, it is just different theologies. Well, I'm not sure it is that, for really, Calvinist Reformed seem not to have any different theology than do Catholics or Eastern or Greek Orthodox. All are Christians. The differences seem more in the practices and in differences in viewpoints, in interpretation. Of course, Mormons have a lot based on what may have started out as a book of fiction in the early 1800's, but evolved into religious practices and a belief system that includes practices of the men's group, commonly known as "Masonic Order" or "Masons." That group seems to be dwindling, as many such temporal groups come and go, one replacing another based on societal impulses in reaction to temporal life and emotions and thoughts.
People continue to seek meaning and God and answers to what we do not understand, such as what occurs after we die, and where have we come from before we were born, and what is a soul, or some question if there is a soul, and of course, if there is a God with many thinking not or unwilling to call God, "God". Somehow Christianity has been a point of persecution and a kicking post for so many even when Christ lived among mankind in person, in the temporal, as a tangible before them, speaking and performing miracles, of which the people came for the miracles more than what he spoke and taught. But others were will to leave all their temporal lives behind in order to follow Christ and to spread his message and preach the Good News that by following Christ, by believing in Him as One in Three Persons, of the Trinity, we will have eternal life and will live with God forever, and even now remain in Christ's Love, as He is in us and we are in Him--branch of His vine, fruit of His Vine, drawn into Him and can consume Him and be consumed in Him, of Him, mystically yet tangibly in consuming His Living Word as God asked Ezekiel to eat the holy scroll, and consuming His Body and Blood in the consecration of bread and wine.
At some point, or it seems to me in my being brought through the phases of this long and seemingly endless corridor, we seem less temporal and more spiritual, if we start to notice the dropping off and the blurring of he corridor and what seemed like rooms on either side. The lessons are not specific, it seems, and the consuming and being consumed, is not so tangible; or at least we discover we can exist spiritually being fed, being fed spiritually in faith, and simply naturally, without conscious effort. I suppose the effort transitions into unable to exert our temporal bodies and minds and emotions, but rather allow the various identities and what was mentioned to me as "different theologies" to fall away, and simply identify and trust our beings to be Christians, believers and followers of Jesus Christ, Son of God and One in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We even no longer need to specify to ourselves the titles or names or concepts for what we innately know, IS.
One aspect that I have not let go, and am trying to maintain or cling to, is that of distracting myself from great physical pain. To be still and know God, to be still and hear His still, small Voice--it seems too much for me to trust to let go of distracting my mind in an attempt to escape what seems to be so much pain that I will lose my mind if I do not distract it. But I am going to try to do less distracting and pray God that I can manage to feel the physical pain within, by stopping the temporal attempts to escape it.
So my identifying as Christian foremost or over Catholic, is not a leaving of Catholicism any more than I left Protestantism--I realize now, looking back with more expanded perspective from wherever I am on this eternal corridor that has become unclear and invisible all the more. All of the temporal aspects of this or that Christian "designation" that humans created in creaed differences in "theology" and in "practices," have become not so crucial, but perhaps that is because I opened myself to the past, and had prayed asking Jesus the question, "What Church did You start?", after I'd tried various Protestant denominations and noticed that they were all started by men or in rare occasion such as Christian Science, by a woman. God showed me in repeated dreams, and also in locutions, what was the start of His Church, of which of course, the Catholic church over the centuries has had a lot added to it and created and interpreted in ways that seem not quite what Jesus started in far more simplicity. But we humans tend to need to complicate and to create on our own, or even with inspirations--such as I've come to realize that the visions and locutions of certain persons who were taxed with he task of such as he devotion to Jesus as Divine Mercy, or Jesus as Love in His Sacred Heart, or the assistance of Mary per the Miraculous Medal and all that she is willing to provide in graces given her by God to disperse and dispense to our benefit--or the praying of the rosary--all these came as helps from God and as reminders, and means of people to have greater grasp or be reminded of God's attributes and truths--reminders of Jesus' life on earth and teachings, of how to live and to learn to love, and to forgive which is also love, and to suffer, which is also love, and to sacrifice and to die to ourselves, which is also love, and to pray from our hearts and love God and in and through God, to love one another.
I'm simply being brought through, and in that process and progression, I am learning to die which requires letting go--and not of the body, for it lets go naturally, but to let go within and discerning what are God's temporal helps and what are man's added-on what they think are helps, like over 1700 canon laws that I wonder if the Jewish High Priests of Jesus' time on earth had that many created laws. But to just try to hang on in the physical suffering and in this increasing emptying out that is happening whether I try to stop it or not, or whether I try to distract or not with temporal attempts to remain linked temporally, for God is progressing me, and not my progressing myself, and in that progression, there is a passing through into what is less tangible and more spiritual, more mysical, and therefore less known from a temporal perspective, and therefore might seem to people more temporal than spiritual even if adhering very carefully to the temporal ways and means of the temporal Catholic world, or the "theologies" of Calivinism, Reformed, or of Mormonism or Methodism or whatever Christian or even non-Christian "churches"--I am a Christian and am learning Who Is Christ and God and the Holy Spirit now, and without the temporal "garments" that seem to be helps in spiritual progression, but can weigh down when the passage, the journey, is better off being lightened from temporal, as the Trinity becomes foremost in the desire, and Jesus the Beloved, and the Holy Spirit the energy of luminosity of God Is Love.
I suppose beyond my identity of Christian is likely "child of God" and then "soul of God." Perhaps I ought ponder simply being a "soul of God" since I know that God is Christ is Holy Spirit, Trinity, and in my solitude that identity is approaching more the reality, for God is leading me forth away from the temporal and the created differences over interpretations and perceived need of "different theologies" and rules or doctrines or canon laws or whatever various churches and or various other religions and belief systems and movements call them. Each has a vocabulary, terminology, precepts, devotions, pracices--even those in the "mindfulness" movement, or the philosophy of Buddhism, of which the late Fr. Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington and Thomas Merton and handful of other Catholic priests developed what they call "centering prayer" based on practices of stilling or emptying the mind of temporal thoughts by repetition of a mantra. Some find it helpful, just as some find repetitive prayers helpful, or following the intake or outtake of breath. Various practices and helps come along, and somehow I simply want to go by however God seems to be taking me through the corridor, despite my tendency to cling and try to hang on--or used to--to certain "rooms" or "phases" along the passageway.
I suppose I hoped a certain devotion or practice might be the way, when really only God Himself knows the way and by what way He wills to bring us through, to take us through the passage. He took me from consciousness in the Mass, and I thought surely that was meant to try to help others. I always think that I am to be helping others progress, when that is a foolish and selfish and ego-weighted thought, nice as it seems. But it was not a sign for others, but rather has ended up being part of God's trying to bring me on through the passageway, and through a portal of many portals, into the mystical reality of His Real Presence beyond the tangible, consecrated bread and wine, beyond the temporal act of confessing to a priest who absolves in the place of Christ, a wonderful temporal practice with spiritual significance. But now for me to be stronger in faith in my confessions to God Himself, and His absolution. It all is a progression and a process, and I don't think we can leap ahead on our own; it is being taken through by God. The main hangup which I've had, is in not trusting Him and in clinging more to the temporal portions and the temporal group, of which if one is a priest such as was John of the Cross and others, who came to being brought through and let go and allowed God full reign in this process and passage, the temporal Catholic world was like earth and the body, mind, heart, and soul as if on a plane taking off and leaving, and seeing earth from a different perspective, but still very much and more so, through, with, and in God in Three Persons.
There is a passageway both and in each of temporal body, mind, heart, and also spiritually. It is as if the mind, heart, and soul must also pass through, die in effect to self and temporality, and whatever aspects temporal have come into such as Christ's church from the beginning, the Church He started, founded, had in Mind. God works with and through mankind over time with their need to add to, or when they lose step, and allows the shifts and additions and sends helps and reminders through mystical and temporal means involving people. That is all fine and helpful, but He uses other means, such as suffering, to help, and when a soul desires to learn and love and desires God with all the body, mind, heart and strength--then one must be willing to let go and to drop off whatever weights it carries that in other circumstances temporal, can seem to be very helpful. But when the soul is ready to lift off, these must be left off, and greater trust in God's process to bring one forth, of being born into more spiritual than temporal that is actual and real, yet inexplicable and definitely of a faith that is not written or taught theologically. All that it is, is of God so intangible and unnecessary to be tangible.
It's still kind of scary--I suppose what is meant by "leap" as in "leap of faith" or "dying to self" or "let go and let God."
God bless His Real Presence in us!
I'm going to attempt to let go of trying so many temporal mental distractions from the temporal pain, try to still myself despite the intensity of pain. Stop trying to still be relevant to anyone, for there is no one in my temporal world who needs my advice or insights or suggestions or help, of which there is nothing physical of help I can offer, anyway! But I'll not turn away from the various helps medically that God has provided through temporal means, for that is foolishness and would be outrageous pride on my part. I just feel that filing my mind to distract it by watching films of other people living their temporal lives is a poor excuse and silly attempt on my part to not participate fully in God's trying to take me along the passageway with spiritual benefit and reality, for that is also part of the stairway to heaven which I was shown through the Mass in mystical ecstasy. Temporal is not where any of us is ultimately headed.
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