I hadn't read another hermit's blog in a long time, but decided to see how the person is coming along in hermit vocation and life, even if still in this temporal life, as we none of us know "the day nor the hour" we might be called from this world to enter into the next of eternity.
What I found was rather amazing in one way. The person who had for years been detracting me, had ceased that for most part. But what I noticed is the 180-degree turn from the hermit's insistence that I was a fraud and an illegal hermit, due to my being a privately professed Catholic hermit and as with all privately professed as well as the newer mode of "canonically approved diocese hermits", am part and parcel of the consecrated life of the Catholic Church, and am consecrated furthermore, by God. I have my vows of going on 23 years, received by a venerable priest of then 55 or more years (died a priest of 72 years in priesthood, a holy man blessed to have been my anam cara following being a spiritual guide for many of the years of our deep, spiritual friendship).
I was disheartened by the person's dishonesty in purporting to have "always" kept the position she now holds, that privately professed hermits and those of us who follow the trajectory of the early desert hermits, male and female, to be acceptable in this other hermit's mind.
But this was not always the case, and why not just admit that one used to hold other thoughts and offered some damaging if not embarrassing attacks against myself, for one, but in general some strongly-worded negatives toward other than this person's choice of being a CL603 diocese hermit?
How admirable if the truth stated, that the person had an aha moment, or even if some superior or other advised her to stop the attacks and detractions and that yes, the Church allows for each and all who follow along with what the Catechism states under Consecrated Life of the Church, subset under Eremitic Life or vocation? Readers would love such a humble admission and statement of conversion, even with an apology for any whom the person had tried to destroy by repeated denigration in this person's blog.
But that aside, I rejoiced that the person had come to a complete turnaround--except for continuing to insist. that privately professed Catholic hermits are not actually Catholic hermits, as to this person being a Catholic hermit suggests being a diocese CL603 hermit, and that somehow still, our vows, our following each and all aspects that the Catholic Church expects as written in the Catechism on Consecrated Life and Hermit Vocation, are not "consecrated". The person even borrowed the reality I've written in the past, that God consecrates us--GOD consecrates His people--in whatever vocation God wills of us, calls us to live out in our temporal, earthly lives. This includes privately professed and consecrated Catholic hermits, and diocese approved CL603 Catholic hermits, as well as others in various religious contexts who are called by God to hermit vocation.
What saddened me to the core, however, and actually sickened me, was the emphasis in what I read, of the temporal.
On and on, word after word--I guess it is now called "word salad" in our times--but focus and emphasis on canon laws, on this and that detail of temporal made-up terminology and a system of what hermits are this or what are not. I can't bother to sink into it again, nor to think about what I read, for it is so far from my life now, and never do I want it to intrude upon my mind, heart, and soul. What I read was of the temporal brain, temporal intelligence, not of thinking with the heart, not of the Spirit, not of Christ indwelling and inspiring.
So my spirit was sickened by the sadness of such temporal emphases, and the ongoing human-created terms, precedents, laws, mores, of vocation, of hermit types and labels, of approval, disapproval, protocols all made up by humankind, and for what reason or purpose, what matter? I have no idea nor is necessary; not going to bring anyone closer to His Real Presence. Saddens and exhausts in the attempt to read that. May this be a reminder to think with the heart, and write from the heart wherein dwells the Beloved Lord. Forgive me, God, for the times squandered when I got entangled, confused, in all that. No sense in drowning in the shallow end, if one is going to drown oneself.
Remain seeking that which is above, in and of the Spirit, of God's creating and Jesus' teaching and living and guiding. I just want to continue on in the blessed silence of solitude, in prayer and penance, in seeking to love His Real Presence more and more, and to live out His Living Word of which I've spent the past couple or is it three years now, appreciating. I've been striving to live Christ's teachings, of which keeping my mind and heart and soul on that which is above, and not on things of earth, is the penultimate challenge each moment of each day. I have not done well with it in several instances, I do admit fully and with shame. I offer some excuses; I admit to Jesus that yes, they are but excuses, and I know it, and I tell Him I accept my consequences.
But I am tired and weak, sick with pain and now finding out my thyroid has been grossly under-outputting for likely five years, culminating in a steep decline this winter and spring to a point I likely have damaged liver, heart, and/or kidneys. So health tests are piled up through April and May, and I can barely function with the added pain and exhaustion involved, on top of the spine problems, on top of the knee needing replacing and surgery set for June 20. Then, the worsening constant headaches: Is it from the hypothyroidism or is it from the neck that went from bad to "severe" in the latest MRI? So an appointment on May 1 with the neurosurgeon to figure out if the extensive neck surgery is nigh, or if it can be put off for awhile longer.
So matters of the temporal such as health surprises and suffering increasing, tend to be a major challenge in that the mind is brought crashing back to the body in a painful and tiresome "thud." Temporal concerns rear their ugly chain-heads: How will I keep the intestines and legs from paralysis with the added time in bed? How will I get some manual labor in to help my mind be distracted from the temporal-chaining pain? How will I get this hermitage in shape if I need to depart for health reasons or financial woes? And the financial woes also have escalated, which certainly drop grenades of temporal explosions, causing extreme alarm and fear if not for the reminders of Christ to have faith, not fear, to trust, not despair, to detach and die to self rather than to cling to the temporal no matter what threats loom or explode in my metaphoric face.
While I have considered in this time period that I have backslid, God provided a vision dream quite lucid and as if I was transported in Spirit, a bilocation to some other place on earth, but the clues are more that I was taken to the edge of the other side, to the edge of heaven, to a Mass of which the brilliance of light so profound that I was in the far back of a sense of ampetheatre of worship and praise, of celebration of the Holy Mass that had just concluded. People all about, but they seemed not to notice me there, and likely did not.
But a large and glorious presence appeared, a man of which I might describe more in detail later or elsewhere, came to me in astounding vestments, and with the brilliance of sunlight all about, thought-flashed to me that he knew me, that I was most welcome and loved, and to be encouraged. I thought at first he was a priest, upon coming out of this experience, this lucid vision-dream, but I'm not sure. Perhaps he was an angel of God, dressed in exquisite vestments, in that large gathering of which I could not see to the center of the vast assembly.
There were untold numbers of souls, all facing toward a center, yet it seemed that the others saw what I could not, what was obscured by the numbers of worshippers and what appeared to be immense light, only could be of the Almighty Triune God. Or so it seemed God sourced and was celebrated, Himself outward, from some centrifugal point, and of which this personage in vestments and of whom I thought to be the celebrant priest--or was he an angel in disguise?
Who knows except God, and what ethereal clues He has given?
[As to humankind creating protocols, labels, rules, systems, organizations, groupings, church/canon laws, precedents, assumptions, penances, echelons, making up descriptions and differentiations of a vocation that has been since the earliest mentions of the types of persons called to solitary religious contemplation of God, and who it actually is more humans who gave these a word name, eremite from an ancient language word...I'm allowing God in Three Persons to have the all of all of me for Himself. My being in His Body, the Church, is part of the all of all of me. So be it. Praise God.]
If the vision dream of a couple weeks ago is a glimpse of my impending passing from the temporal, or if it is a much-needed encouragement to keep striving in the spiritual life, and to live out the Living Word of Christ, of living through, with, and in His Real Presence in the Order of this Present Moment--I simply continue on. Love God above all things, love others as God loves. God bless His Real Presence in us, and Love in His Love!
This means in earth time, for me to very much love the person or persons who disagree or have interest in temporalizing and making up what otherwise is a means to a way forward in the spiritual life for the few who are called to such a solitary, contemplative, penitential, praising of God life style until we pass on where there will be no such vocations, no made up church laws, no disagreeable nit-picking, no notice nor need of protocols other than those which God gives us on earth as it is in heaven.
Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, Holy Spirit--please help me write and share what will uplift and further the desire in readers' and listeners' bodies, minds, hearts, and souls to live in His Real Presence, to laud Him above all else, to praise and love God, and love as He loves --fully, with mercy and compassion, and in the depth of spirit of which we are called and capable by the grace and power of God.
All of us--and if my quiet and interior life as a "Catholic hermit" who has for awhile now emphasized the "Christian" as well as the "mystic" to appeal more souls if God so wills, then please, Lord, help me to do so, to reflect Your Living Word, to exude Your grace in suffering and to simply keep going in daily life, including the tedious and often-stress-tempting trials and pitfalls of the world in which we all exist. Rendering unto the IRS and state governments what we are charged, dealing with neighbors of varying moral codes, encountering difficulties with workers hired who take advantage, or coping with the temporal problems in financial pressures, in families, friends, strangers, in our temporal abodes, requiring faith and perseverance and full-on virtue court-press!
Dear His Real Presence, please help us all to rise beyond the temporal of our minds and desires, our egos and need to be noticed and "important" by the world's erratic and increasing standards as such. Keep us humble and dying to ourselves so that we can become crushed, a seed in the dirt, ground down so that new life may come forth in due time, God's will. May holy fruition come forth from each of us, and ensue throughout our lives on earth and in heaven for all eternity. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
[Sadness left. I will not be sad again as I avoid the causes of sadness here on earth. I will not read the nefarious one's postings. My job is to pray for the person without knowing the earthly status. I will continue on the path God has marked out for me, with this vocation as a consecrated Catholic hermit; but of which I am called to be, above all and foremost a Christian and mystic, of which the Christian exists supreme, shining as the stars in the universe, as universal and eternal. Consider this for each of you, and please pray for me as I pray for you, that we live in the Scriptural Teachings, Divine Will, and the Love of His Real Presence.]
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