Just dealing with my 22 years as a consecrated Catholic hermit and year and half prior in hermit discernment and practicum, I now see various aspects in which I went wrong. (I can see vast array of how I went wrong in various aspects of my life in general and specific, of course, but will focus on the hermit part.)
The going wrong has to do with my seeking out the temporal too much. All wrongs come under this error. Seeking answers or reading or listening to temporal persons and their writings about hermit life and vocation especially Catholic, and not simply listening to and following God's guidance, direction, insight and will.
Then, in what I was given by His Real Presence, such as in the nine words that the Holy Spirit inspired--three through a very holy and humble cleric of many years and six more directly to me from Divine Will. I did not keep my life nearly simple enough as I am a creative person, plus with the pain situation I've had to learn perseverance to keep going through suffering--to keep the body, mind, and heart going by pushing through. The mind I have kept going by distractions which when included temporal aspects to help distract such as items to help potentially develop the mind's creative ideas--well, even the marvelous books I collected and the artistic hobby items, and so forth--then finding how good was exercise via manual labor in gardening and then in construction and renovation.
Well, I complicated my surroundings, for one. And then when suffering progresses, since I did not know I had Arachnoiditis all these years so did not consider nor put enough weight on the orthopedic surgeon who was a second opinion after what was a failed emergency back surgery and another immediately following when I died in recovery--the second opinion Scripps LaJolla surgeon said I'd have to learn to live a life I never dreamed I'd have to life, and that as I get older, "it" will get worse. I conveniently tucked that latter part away, for mind over matter has some advantages and does some good to a point, in living with intractable pain. I ignored nudges from the Holy Spirit. I followed along with what had been successful, by the grace of God, in one experiences and what I learned and the interactions and outcome being positive in the end, and got into another even if not as terrible a situation to remedy.
But I found out I have this Arachnoiditis, and even though I still practice mind over matter and push through with distractions, and gear my temporal daily life with aspects that will force me to have to get up, the Arachnoiditis does progress; it gets worse as time passes and the body ages. Just how it is. Temporal fact.
So the simplicity part of my hermit existence in His Real Presence, is not as simple as I'd like or as God prefers. I know it. Yet I've not figured out ways to sell temporal stuff online, and don't know of anyone yet to help me get what following online directions has failed to bring success in posting. At some point, someone surely will God send to help in this, someone who can take my phone in hand and get the photos to post on Facebook sales sites for this area. And I will also have energy to get stuff that does not sell to donation sites. I need energy which currently is lacking due to pain, and perhaps it's the temporal heat or the Arachnoiditis is progressing. Both are temporal factors of which I have no control. But the means I've used to try to keep going--body, mind, and emotions/heart--are in part where I've gone wrong.
The other, as mentioned above, is my lack of faith, an insecurity in trusting in God's leading and directing and guiding me in all aspects of this life He chose for me a long time ago, and first told me about in vision with my late grandmother speaking to me of it, showing me in part--that's been now over 36 years ago! The formalizing as in religious, Catholic consecration and an increasing vocabularly of terms such as consecrated, Catholic, hermit and having then heard about and read about such terms as rule of life and horarium and what-not-all-else temporally devised by humans over the past centuries and mostly on increase in the past few years, has been an unnecessary, divisive, distracting deterrent.
I went wrong in paying attention and being drawn off by temporal writings and temporal others who are very much into these temporal terms, protocols, rules, rituals, laws, clothing, names, titles, and notions of right and wrong when it comes to what amounts to God's choosing for a few in any generation, to be His in hidden silence and solitude, praying and penitent, praising Him and adoring Him, listening to Him and following His guidance, direction, and will.
And some, such as myself, are told, as I was told years ago in 1985, that I was "to write" specifically, and that was imparted in me even before that, years before, but with an inner sense even as a child, that I was to write--and to write about matters of God and the numinous, the holy of His Real Presence and our lives in His Real Presence lived out accordingly in the striving to do His will and in desiring union with God Almighty.
But these persons who God sets aside and calls to this type of existence while on earth--call them hermits, Catholic hermits, eremites, religious solitaries or even temporal recluses (which is the least accurate term but yet describes the format whereas misanthrope does not at all, of course)--these persons are not many. And God chooses them for this type of existence in life, in any given generation and time period, and it is not actually a way of life--at least not of God, then--that people decide or think about and choose for themselves. In that, I did not go wrong. I never chose this vocation for myself, nor would I have for any reason.
God chose me for this; just as He willed that I would be born a mystic and live my life as a mystic, although that is a term, also, created by humans to describe certain types and attributes of certain persons, again, very few, and even fewer than those who He determines and calls to be hermits or religious solitaries. (I believe that non-Catholic Christians would more be described as religious solitaries if not to avoid negative or anti-social connotations with the term "hermit." Catholics have used the term hermit as derived from "eremite" from the time of such persons who lived their religious calling by God in solitude in the desert, thus eremites or eremitic life.
Where I went wrong in my hermit life, indeed my consecrated Catholic hermit life, was when I wrote to a woman who had advertised a community of hermits that her diocese in the UK was sponsoring and of which she was, as she called herself, "prioress." Thus entered in a temporalized development and creation of more terms and protocols based on yet more via the books of past such persons and terms mostly coming out of the Middle Ages of people called Anchorites who had taken the desert eremites of the 2nd-5th centuries to more of an extreme in reclusion and additional terms, rules, protocols, rituals, clothing, behaviors, and self-imposed penance.
Thus I went wrong in getting ensnared in these temporal aspects, and was my first id the ntroduction into being brought through a phase called a "proficient" and into "novice"--so the hermit vocation had been thus amalgamated with or after the human-developed "religious orders" or "religious communities" of groups who had been established after the early desert persons, those who went out into the desert to seek God and His will, to live in His Real Presence in solitude much as had John the Baptist for a time period of his life, and in imitation also of Jesus who spent 40 days and nights in the desert. In part, while not called prophets, the early hermits' lives often were akin d gave the prophets.
Well, then I was shown through the flaws of the community and the "prioress" in particular, in that I was shown the flaws would be fatal, and pride had taken over the woman in charge, and departed what was of the temporal, not God. But not too long after some very good years of wandering in God's charge, enjoying communing and communicating in His Real Presence, I went wrong in falling for temporal confusion--someone wrote and said a certain person who was versed in these matters and was being "approved" by a church law, wanted me to contact her, and she would "help me."
I thought my email was anonymous, but learned unfortunately it was not, and contacted the person who then ended up causing years of temporal ugliness and deception, attacks and all for I suppose, the simple, temporal vice of the person falling to pride, envy and resentment. Did not like that I was a consecrated Catholic hermit happily writing my blog and sharing my experiences of the basic progression of my spiritual life, including interactions with His Real Presence as well as the temporal onslaughts the devil would use of temporal people, including clergy and parishioners, attacks by an oppressed or more likely possessed neighbor woman, and how God would lead me through with the holy help of my spiritual father, a holy priest yet on earth.
That temporal distraction from this person has continued for over 16 years now, and amidst that my distraction of pain and of veering from holy simplicity and complicating my life and surroundings--see how one can go wrong, and the going of wrongs accumulates and distorts and distracts the mind, heart, and soul while also causing great suffering and fatigue to one's temporal body?
(The temporal stuff will take some temporal effort to rid out, but in meantime simplicity is attainable in my mind, heart, and soul, all the same. Ridding out the temporal to enjoy temporal simplicity is minor compared to all that God desires to give of simplicity in all aspects temporal and spiritual.)
Then the soul recognizes, as the body suffers to a point of increased spiritual awareness, that the mind and heart (and body) went wrong. In this period of temporal stripping and suffering more death than what the earthly death of the body left--this dying begins to open the mind and heart and soul's spiritual lungs to great gushes of air of authenticity and supernal reality: God really meant it when He asked why would I want the temporal of temporal church and temporal beings caught up in temporal rules and terms and laws and precepts and temporal perceptions--when I can have HIM DIRECTLY NOW? And that now was already a few years back when I was going wrong after wrong after wrong.
But a renewal of faith and hope is flowing in, along with God's mercy and love--His forgiveness of my having gone wrong--and His Real Presence is giving me the courage and strength despite mostly bedridden in this phase, so that I am able to by His grace, go right, not wrong. I am reminded of other visions and locutions, and that these are the reality and are of His Real Presence--His Truth, Beauty, and Goodness--and not the temporal thoughts, terms, rules, laws, protocols, precepts of humankind.
I am being reminded and shown of those persons who have temporal standing in the temporal life and world, that His Real Presence is the reality, is the Truth, the Way, and the Life. Trust in God! Know God, love God above all else, and love God and love others as God loves. I'm facing that being subsumed into His Word is where God will teach me and in His Real Presence is where and how He will guide and teach me and lead me through and onward, upward on the Stairway to Heaven!
From where I went wrong, to where I know to go right into His Real Presence. Trust in God and none other. Choose not the temporal, but choose His Real Presence and what God chooses for us and wills us in whatever phase and portion given, of which we can have Him directly. We don't have to keep going wrong; we can pray, stop, ask God to help us go right yet again, again and again, unto always from here on out.
Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for Thy mercy, for Thy LOVE. Lead me on Thy path, the spiritual way, God's Divine Way, Christ's Way, Truth, and Life-- while my body is suffering increasingly as One with Holy Mother Church in the temporal. Thank You, Lord. God, for having me directly now and forever! Amen!
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the blood of his cross (through him), whether those on earth or those in heaven.
(And this is not just for me; this is for anyone! No matter the path and phase and purpose or means of purpose in this life God chooses for us, He is waiting and willing and wanting to guide, direct, to teach and lead, to lift us from the temporal and set us aright in the spiritual of His Real Presence while yet we traverse the temporal as if butterflies or birds winging freely above earth. He has us directly, and we can have Him directly, now and forever!)
Love in His Love, and God Bless His Real Presence in us!
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