On occasion I read some blogs of others striving in this hermit vocation. My main take away is that there are many words, exhausting, and many words laborious to grapple with, plod through. So much so are the words, that the content loses meaning, the effect is, again, exhausting and empty, devoid of other than multiplicity of words.
I consider this reality and effect per my own blog and writings. Mine fare often the same, especially when the realities of the temporal church and those ensconced in the temporal, have flared briefly and then sizzled; the effect, also, exhausting and empty, devoid other than words--and painful the loss of the ideal of Christ and His Church.
Recently I found comfort in an early saint, mystic, and I believe Doctor of the Church (these labels that have been created and affixed in later centuries by humankind), for he struggled with the ways in which the Church, by the mid-to-late second century and early third century, in his estimation with cited reasons--the temporal Church had already begun to lose Her way. Well, the people, the body within the Church, the humankind leaders of the body, had done so--not Christ nor His Ideal of His Church.
Christ and the Ideal of His Church, with Christ as Head and all those who love and believe and follow Christ, who uphold His Word and strive to love as God Loves--the greatest command according to Jesus--Christ and the Ideal of His Church can remain intact today. Yet one must recognize what is His Church, the ideal of His Church, and this is His Mystical Church--for means of delineating that of the temporal Church which has lost the way in various ways, off the narrow path and too much created by humankind over the centuries.
What His Mystical Church is and means in such as this Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit's every-day life, is that of progressive learning and understanding. I must wait and be strong in order to learn and understand; and faith is required, plus picking up the cues and messages from His Living Word, such as a couple weeks ago noticing a profound description of His Mystical Church given by John the Apostle, in his Revelations. He was shown and pointed out the lack of temporal building for His [Mystical] Church, for the temple is God Himself!
Oh, my, the suffering of this body here, this temporal, physical body. And the emotional and mental suffering that accompany severe physical suffering, continues on and on as if world without end. But of course, there will be an end to my bodily and emotional and mental suffering. I can find the strength and patience to wait by continuing the open awareness to learning about and experiencing here and now, His Mystical Church.
Today in the Gospel, Jesus explains how we are to pray, about the bread of life, and of our being fed the bread, His Body, and of course many of us recognize that Jesus speaks metaphorically and on varying levels in His Living Word. I appreciated reading the thoughts on the topic, shared below by early 3rd century Cyprian, saint, Bishop of Carthage, and martyr. God Bless His Real Presence in us, and Love in His Love!
"Our daily bread"
“Give us this day our daily bread.” This can be understood both spiritually and materially, because either understanding is of profit in divine usefulness for salvation. For Christ is the bread of life and the bread here is not for all, but is ours. And as we say “Our Father” because he is the Father of those who understand and believe, so too we say “our bread” because Christ is the bread of those of us who attain to his body. Moreover, we ask that this bread be given daily, lest (...) by the intervention of some grievous sin (...) we be separated from the body of Christ, as he himself declares, saying: “I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of my bread he shall live forever. Moreover, the bread that I shall give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51) (...) The Lord himself warns us, saying: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you” (Jn 6:53). And so we petition that our bread, that is Christ, be given us daily, so that we, who abide and live in Christ, may not withdraw from His sanctification and body. But it can also be understood that we who have renounced the world and have cast aside its wealth and pomp in the faith given by spiritual grace seek only food and sustenance for ourselves (...). Moreover, those who have begun to be disciples of Christ according to their Master's words, renouncing all things, should ask for bread daily and not put off their petition and its desires, as the Lord himself again prescribes in these words: “Be not anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will have anxieties of its own. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Mt 6:34). Worthily then does the disciple of Christ ask for sustenance for the day, since he is forbidden to worry about the morrow.
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