Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit: Living the Law of Love of Neighbor

I've been praying about how to love as God loves and how to be a "good neighbor" when the neighbor is problematic.  I've come to understand that to love as God loves means to love souls, to desire souls to be saved. This is how God loves all souls no matter how they behave or ignore Him:  He loves their souls as He desires all souls to be saved.

I don't need to love the crudity, childishness, neediness for engagement, the persistence despite my explaining I do not feel well enough for socializing.  My body needs much quiet which is another reason why God in His omniscience chose the hermit vocation for me years ago:  He knew what the pain is called, how the Arachnoiditis occurred, knew the earthly spouse would leave and wanted to free me for Himself, regardless.  God knew the pain would increase and with it a host of maladies odd and discomforting to downright debilitating.  God knew and knows me and loves me for His own purposes.  

I grasp loving God above all else; God, to me--His Real Presence--is easy and delightful to love and pour my whole self into Him!  But this other aspect of God's Law of Love, to love others as God loves (including ourselves), had not been so easy because there are aspects of us humans not kind, not loving, not pleasant, not considerate, not in love with God, and not seemingly even very good in behavior.

But the simple answer as to how to love others as God loves, is to love their souls and desire that their souls be saved.  It is not that we must do anything to try to save them, nor even do or say anything, not have to make them our best buddies for sometimes that can lead to troubles we are unprepared or should not deal with.  But we can love their souls and pray their souls will be saved.

I thought the neighbor man and his wife were leaving, separately, and going to be gone a week.  I was looking forward to being able to go outside with the pup Mercy, and enjoy peace and quiet--not be pulled into conversations or asked obvious questions not needing to be answered, often repetitive of previous time I stepped outside.  But no, at least he is still here, and was watching me from he perch on his back porch, of which I had not noticed because I thought due to initial silence, he'd left.

The sense of privacy was shattered when he spoke.  He commented on what a nice dog I have. This has been his latest repetitive comment and seems very nice.  It is always the same, a lead in for more chit-chat that often includes his asking questions of which he knows the answers.  But I decided to repeat my same response of "Thank you; yes she is a good dog" as I walked her toward the back door, knowing I did not want to be watched nor dragged into schmoozing talk, which is what proceeds if I do not remove myself.  

He started in yet again, saying they need to work on their dog's barking and.... I do not let him go into the rhetorical questions and asking what I think they ought do, for they have no intention of a bark collar such as the wife mentioned a trainer had said was needed, and they were horrified and fired the trainer.  I simply said, "It's the breed of dog, his instinct to guard and protect.  He can't help it."  I said it kindly, for. I mean it.  Of course, the dog could be trained.  German Shepherds are trained for use as guard dogs and police attack dogs, are intelligent but not necessarily great house pets if one is not going to get them trained, not willing to keep on leash when outside their fenced area.  Yet it's not the dog's fault.

By then I was inside with little Mercy, said another prayer of love of the man's soul, prayed for him to desire Christ, and prayed for his wife who either was on the phone with him (he talks on speaker phone seemingly wanting me to hear his conversation if I'm outside) or she put her head out. I don't look, obviously. My part in being their neighbor is to love their souls as God loves and to pray for their souls to be saved.

I sure hope people are praying the same for me!

Regardless, I think this kind approach of simply answering with same answer to his same questions, head toward my house while doing so, and being positive with voice, going inside, and praying, is the way forward in Christ.

I love this selection St. Augustine (354-430) wrote.  Very helpful in the growth I need regarding putting God's Law of Love--loving as God loves-- prayerfully and actively in daily life.  

This People Honors Me with Their Lips, but Their Hearts Are Far from Me"

"'The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed you from the law of sin and death' (Rm 8:2)....Saint Paul says that the Law of Moses has been given to prove our weakness,and not just to prove it but to increase it and thus force us to find the doctor....  'Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more' (Rm 5:20; cf. 3:20).... But why did the first Law, written with the finger of God (EX 31:18), not give us the essential assistance of grace?  Because it was written on tablets of stone, not the tablets of flesh that are our hearts (2 Cor 3:3).

"It is the Holy Spirit who writes 'the Law of the Spirit of life' not on stone but in the heart: this Law of the Spirit of life that is in Jesus Christ in whom the Passover has been celebrated in truth (1 Cor 5:7-8), has delivered you from the law of sin and death.  Do you want to have proof of the manifest and certain difference separating the Old Testament from the New?... Hear what the Lord spoke by the mouth of one of the prophets:  'I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts' (Jr 31:33).  So if God's Law is written in your heart, it does not bring forth fear [as at Sinai] but pours a secret sweetness into your soul."

When one is desirous and asking God to teach the very soul to love others as He loves, the simplicity of the ability becomes known to the mind and heart, as well.  God's Law of the Spirit of Christ is written upon my heart; His Law of Love draws forth from Christ's Spirit, the Law of God that Christ teaches is the one law necessary, the law above all others.

O my dear His Real Presence--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--thank you for the law of the Spirit of Christ written in my heart and soul.  Thank you for explaining to me so simply and purely, how to love others as God loves!  May I always be in the Law of the Spirit of Life and live my life in Your one Law Jesus says is above all others and the one necessary:  The Law of Love.   May I ever love You, His Real Presence, above all else and love others as You love all our souls and desire our salvation!  Amen!

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Love in His Love! 

~ from a blessed, suffering, joyful hermit of His Real Presence!

Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit: More Correspondence on Focus in Loving His Real Presence

 More correspondence to a friend whose interest or comfort level has been more in writing of persons in the canonization process or already canonized as saints in the Church.  I've been encouraging (maybe even badgering a bit!) trying to write of His Living Word and of His Real Presence, for His Real Presence is in His Living Word, of course.  I'm praying for the friend to be enlivened by His Real presence, the Holy Trinity, and might find writing on what ought be the love and life of our existences to come easier than it has thus far, and for the heart to be in it, rather than writing daily saint biographies.  

I suppose after awhile, if it continues to be not the captivating and enlivening topic that I find His Real Presence to be, the veritable Love of my life and soul's existence, then in I will need to stand down and suggest the friend return to what is more comfortable--and that is partly what I've found deterring in the elevation of holy souls through an involved canonical approval process called "canonization."  

People can get ensnared in these persons' lives without recognizing that these "saints" were not that interested in other than intense, magnanimous love of and for and in His Real Presence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And this includes then delight and love of and in any aspect of His Real Presence as he is in us and we are in Him. So His Living Word, Spiritual/Mystical Eucharist, and Prayer (love-talk, loving and praising conversation with HRP), take on a consuming delight and meaning, a purpose, such as to then love God above all else and love others and self and His Creation as God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit love.

Dear X,

I know writing about HIs Living Word is more difficult than writing of the saints.  As we know, today is the celebration of John Vianney, parish priest and amazing mystic.  I've read a fat book about him years ago, and another smaller one. I really like him, but it is personal and selfish, both, as he helped me accept some of the persecution.  Plus, earlier on in my spiritual life, I had more overt attacks by the devil, usually at night when I could more easily be taken off-guard, including some with fire and also being tormented in other ways; John Vianney had fire across his bed (and in his room), and I learned from him how to deal with it.  He learned to recognize immediately and not be fearful or upset, but would just laugh and speak aloud to the devil whom he called the Grappler, and would turn over and go back to sleep.  I think part of what I have found very difficult or did was to recognize that while God is so real, the devil is, also.  

However, as always, these people who are made into saints without their consent because it's after they've died, often are priests or religious or have something the temporal church wants or can use which is a good thing in many ways--some active or temporal good that they provide or the church can benefit from which is for good purpose even if to attract more people to Catholicism, to Christianity.  But I seem in an odd category of those who are rejected, which is not at all a rejection by His Real Presence, but by people in the temporal church and the temporal church itself.  And I consider that a very good thing because it is His Real Presence Who leads us to Himself, not a temporal church.  

The temporal church can help such as with education and a place to gather to worship, or not online worship, and there is much benefit for those who do not have HIs Real Presence in the Living Word except when they might listen to His Living Word in worship services, but they have His Real Presence in tangible Host, even if they might not realize or their minds not grasping yet that HIs Real Presence is in them at anytime and all the time, through a simple awareness and appreciation and spiritual communion.  Plus, that of prayer--and more can be taught if the priest preaches about His Real Presence in any or all of the Three Persons or of His Living Word in Masses that people can listen to with varying degrees of attention.  

And the other traditions and reading about such as saints or especially the writings of marvelous Christians particularly the early ones, brings a great deal of help to us Christians today. You read In Imitation of Christ--an earlier writer, they think Thomas a Kempis but not totally sure.  What a treasure, and thankfully he was not canonized and all that process, but what is emphasized is what he wrote--a tome of wisdom and practical living out our lives as Christ-like beings, or that is the goal.

I can tell your heart is maybe not yet enlivened and on fire with His Living Word, but the Holy Spirit is lighting it, and will help you find it easier and second nature to you because His Real Presence in in you.  One thing in these current readings that you point out is focusing on faith (trust/faith).  Yet something other that is the reason we have or learn to have more and more faith, and trust--and that is due to our love--of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit:  His Real Presence.  The more love we have for and of HRP, the greater our faith, and the greater our trust, and the greater our courage, and the more of these, then the more love.  

So love is our reason and purpose, love for HRP, and faith is a means of increase of love, and love is a cause of increase in faith, trust, courage, etc.  So I think if we consider love of His Real Presence or break it down to love of Jesus or Love of God or Love of the Holy Spirit separately but at some point bring them together as they are One Person, it is love that progresses us and love drives us to desire more of HRP and our faith increases, and at some time our love increases, and then more courage, more trust, more virtues. But it all seems to hinge upon and begin with love, and the depth of our love and focus of our love, as in Love the Lord God with all your mind, heart, and strength, or Love God above all things and others as ourselves, meaning love as God loves, which comes increasingly as we become more in love with His Real Presence and in love with learning to love.

That is the secret of those people (saints) of which the temporal church people were assigned to the task of making them into canonized saints.  That is really what we learn from these people who lived and died and the reason why they grew spiritually and were able to be courageous and be increasingly as Jesus said was possible.  They learned to love God more than all else and to love as God loves--loving all souls and all creation and all that is of His Real Presence.

It was for love of her daughter and having heard that Jesus had the ability to heal and to drive out demons, that the Canaanite woman begged Jesus to help her daughter.  Jesus did use that situation to demonstrate and teach about the coming time when the apostles would be bringing the good news of His Real Presence to all peoples of the earth--the Gentiles as they were called of those around them such as other than Jews.  And Jesus commends the faith of the woman and her humility, knowing she was not Jewish and viewed as but a dog of sorts, but her motive was great love, and Jesus responds to LOVE such as of others, also; and we can figure that when Jesus healed her daughter, the woman LOVED Jesus ever after, and her faith grew, and she knew in her heart and mind that Jesus is God or whatever the Creator of all would be termed in her culture.  She loved Him and her mother heart was surely touched deeply with His love.

I know when His Real Presence starts speaking to you freely in His Living Word, you will not find it difficult at all and in fact far easier than going through the two or three saint books and composing and writing out the biographical information.  Your mind and heart will have only to write what is being enlivened and ideas and understandings will come, and relate to your life and others' lives, or whatever, I'm convinced you will have a far easier time writing of this and your heart will be on fire in His Living Word more than in the written biographies of those in the canonization process or canonized.  When in love, what and who is the One a person thinks about and wants to talk about--I mean in love as in Divine Love.  

I guess we'll find out if you and I pray--ask His Real Presence to increase our love and converse and enlighten our minds, hearts, and souls in His Real Presence in His Living Word, in prayer, and in what can be come (as we can have HRP in praying always) having HRP always in on-going spiritual Eucharist, too.

The saints are of value for how they came to this love of His Real Presence and understood His Real Presence is in them always and in all ways: in His Living Word, in prayer/conversation with God, and in spiritual, mystical Eucharist,  and these sustain because His Real Presence is in these and thus in us and us in His Real Presence. These aspects  increase our love of HRP and thus increases our faith in HRP.

It's all very real.

I noticed Augustine's understanding and writing of Peter's love for Christ was what sustained him and gave him faith and courage to walk toward Jesus on the water.  Then there came Peter's taking his eyes and focus off Jesus and his love for Him, and distractions caused him to lose faith and falter.  Yet he calls out to Jesus, and Jesus of course pulls him up and to the boat in safety. His Real Presence is in us and the One to Whom we turn to in love and talk with in our love relationship, and HIs Real Presence responds to us whom He loves, always and in all ways.

Saint Augustine (354-430)

Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church

Appendix no. 192 , attributed sermon; PL 39, 2100

"Command me to come to you on the water"

       When Peter courageously moves across the sea, his feet are unsteady but his love grows strong (…); his feet sink down but he clings to the Christ's hand. Faith upholds him so long as he feels the waves making way. Troubled by the storm, he takes heart in his love for the Savior. Peter walks across the sea borne up more by love than by his feet. (…)        He pays no attention to what his feet are treading on; all he sees are the footprints of him whom he loves. He saw his Lord from his position of safety in the boat and, led by love, climbed down into the sea. He no longer sees the sea but Jesus alone.

Christian, Mystic, Hermit, Catholic: God Provides All Necessary in Today

I think I've worked through even though it's taken me along time and much writing and praying, to simply and deeply accept and say YES, I agree to want and have you more directly now.  And I add on, "Please show me what next and what is helpful in this phase."

I don't want any reader to think I have "left the "church."  The Body of Christ with Christ as Head, the Church, is now not so much a place or thing, nor is it a temporal need now.  When several years ago God showed me in vision the persons and objects and aspects in a type of visual metaphor of the temporal Church,  and asked me, "Why would you want THAT when you can have ME more directly now?", it has taken these years to experience and consider and pray about God's will and what He meant and means.  And despite my continuing to try to force forward thinking I needed the temporal Church still, that I must be misinterpreting, in part, the vision and locution, God in practicum did not allow any of my attempts to continue temporal life in the temporal Church.  Even the other day I thought aloud in conversation with a long time friend and helper, "Should I try again?"  He responded, "How many times would you keep subjecting yourself to what continues to be closed doors and non-acceptance?  And maybe more importantly, why would you keep doing that?"

And true, the latter is the question that led me to understanding that God chose for me and was delighted for me to become Catholic, but He is showing me as in all of life, even into eternity, it is all a process through which we all progress at individual "time" and ways and means of process and progression.  He leads; He guides; He wills all.  God is patience but persists in helping us progress through the process, or series of processions, one flowing into the next, on and on. Probably the major flow-to-the-next is at our temporal deaths, but there are many deaths and rebirths within our temporal lives if we desire Christ increasingly, but have our hindrances tethering.  God then progresses us which requires some breaking of the tethers, even ones that might seem ought be what we ought have throughout this life, in the same way, shape, and form.  

No.  And so I am reviewing the positives and reasons why God and what God provided and the ways in which I still attached possessiveness and my human desire for acceptance and to fit in, and my naive wish for something on earth to live out the ideal as well as to be a constant in this life, and that this would be a constant, a once-and-for-all place or thing or experience.  But the soul is not created to exist like that, to essentially not progress and be brought by God through processes to closer and closer relationship and understanding of and with and through and in God. The more we desire union with God, the more we must be prepared for and accept shifts and changes and learning and growth, and letting go of even what seem to be or we think ought to be sacrosanct temporal aspects, such as the ideals of the temporal Church.

Nothing can be forced--and that includes forcing ourselves to stay in one place or phase, or to move forward beyond what God ordains, such as desiring for Jesus to come back and take us with Him. That desire cannot be forced into a reality unless that reality is based on the reality that Jesus exists in timelessness and will come take us from this life according to His will and means.  It cannot be rushed or dictated by what we want in order to essentially escape the "lessons" we have yet to learn here, now, and often without knowing specifically what are these lessons nor how to learn them--or on our time frame and conditions which generally wants a rush-order job-done. 

This morning I did force a praise of God, first thing.  I had a determination of my will to get up from bed and be dressed and mudding the bathroom walls, doing a second and final skim coat. I wanted to do this starting at 9 a.m. or shortly after.  I have come to accept that my praise of God is often forced, when I remember to praise God, but that a forced praise of God is better than no praise of God at all.  And as often can be the case, a habit can become natural and unforced with practice and conscious recognition and desire.  I did not, of course, do a forced praise of God without having the sincere desire to praise God. My praise of God, forced, does not mean my desire to praise God is any less than a spontaneous and rich and glorious praise of God.

Then I noticed today's Gospel reading is of Jesus' praising of God!  And I noticed a commentary on praising God by Augustine.  (I have come to a point of consciously not referring to these great people, great souls, as "saints" or "St." this or that because I know consciously that titles of sainthood and canonization process and confirmation on certain humans is a mechanism of humans, specifically those humans who were and are in a man-created hierarchy in the temporal Churches:  Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and other offshoots of Catholicism, and other religions in the world might designate the people they consider to be holy by some other designation.  But at this phase in my progression in the process, it is important for me to let go of the man-developed mores and practices that Jesus did not create or use or find necessary or needful.  Jesus is wanting all souls to be holy and to be saved and to come to the Father, to believe in the Father and Holy Spirit and come through Him, God's Son, One in Three, Second Person of the Trinity--and have fullness of life in the Spirit, and be children of God, and so forth.

Even in praising God, forced, and in praising God after reading the Living Word and deepening the reality that I am in God and He is in me, and in then praising God with deeper love and conscious awareness of God Being All and my being nothing of my own and only relevant in God and His Love and Mercy of and toward me--I could not force my body up to remain up.  The physical lumbar, hip, leg, foot pain and radiating pain causing unctuous nausea,  put me back on the bed for another couple of hours. And yes, I do whatever at my temporal means to help the physical situation:  oral pain med to augment the pain pump release, called for appt. to increase pump release of med, anti nausea meds-- a second type when the first had litle to no effect.  And the acceptance of having to get down and stay down awhile.  

Change my temporal goals, and let go and let God for this morning and however long physically, just as I had o let go and let God when I accepted God more directly, and had to let go of what I loved tremendously, even too much--the temporal Catholic church of parish and diocese, of all that entails, of this and that temporal and human-developed, human-created and evolved over the years.  

This does not mean I let go of my faith, or of His Real Presence in spiritual communion (spiritual Eucharist), or His Living Word, or prayer.  It does not mean that I do not appreciate and find friendship in and much good help from holy persons living and deceased such as Augustine and many others, including little known holy people like the auto mechanic's secretary who is pivotal in a holy and helpful business that helps so many with love, honesty, integrity and excellence in quality of work done.

And I recommend to any and all, if seeking God: the Catholic Church.  In this Church will be the spiritual, mystical Church, Christ's Church.  I just don't recommend loving the externals or such, but love God more and discover His Real Presence in the Mass as in Eucharist, Living Word, and prayer.  Then discover His Real Presence all the time in the "mass as our lives", in spiritual eucharit, Living Word , and prayer.  Discover the mystics and the prophets and writers, the great spiritual directors, the theologians who strive to explain, and the Scriptural scholars, likewise.  But know that the Church is created and intended by God as a means of process and progression, to find and have His Real Presence in Eucharist, Word, and prayer, and to recognize His Real Presence Who Is in us and in others, as we are in His Real Presence always and everywhere He Is.  Learn to love to learn to love, and suffer to love and love to suffer. Love God above all things, and love others and self as God loves us.  

The Catholic church is a means of many processes of progression to God, but the Church is not God Himself.  The Mass is beyond description.  The Mass is the stairway to heaven, and I suppose each soul must figure that out with God's individualized instruction and progressing in the processes.  

I became very attached to the "Church" and so wanted to be accepted and fit in and have it remain steady, not a progression itself, so static as such, but God provided all necessary to proceed and understand that His acceptance and fitting into Him, becoming one with God, is what He ultimately and primarily and primordially desires and wills in His great love and desire for us to remain in His Love, in His ineffable Beingness.

And thus, I share here a cut-and-paste of today's Gospel reading of His Real Presence in Living Word, plus excerpt of Augustine's writing on praising God.  And God Bless His Real Presence in us all!

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11,25-27.

At that time Jesus exclaimed, "I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."

Saint Augustine (354-430)

Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) and Doctor of the Church

Sermon 34 ; CCL 41, 423-426.

"I praise you, Father"

We are invited to sing a new song to the Lord (Ps 149:1). The new man is the man who knows this new song. Singing is joy and, if we consider the matter more closely, love. Someone who understands about loving this new life knows the new song, and so we need to be informed as to what the new life is for the sake of the new song. All these things belong to the same Kingdom: new man, new song, new covenant. The new man will sing a new song and be a member of the new covenant. (…) “See!” you will say, “I am singing.” You are singing; yes, you are singing, I can hear you. But be careful that your life doesn't bear witness against your tongue. Sing with your voice, sing with your heart, sing with your mouth, sing in your conduct: “Sing to the Lord a new song.” You are wondering what you are to sing for him whom you love and you cast about for the praises to sing to him. “His praise is in the assembly of the saints” (Ps 149:1). The praise to be sung is that of the singer. Do you want to sing praise to God? Be yourself what you sing. You are his praise if you live uprightly.