Catholic Hermit: Focus on Jesus and His Dad

Am doing all I can to out-psyche my nothingness who prefers bed to anywhere else in the world.  It is the most comfortable spot for this pained body, especially the spine.  I set the pain doctor appointment intentionally in the morning to force myself up and out.  Was couple days ago and had to be in bed rest of day due to to having to drive to orthopedic specialist the day before.  These were the first times I've been out from hermitage in I think three weeks--since the intrathecal pump trial external injection.  Not even sure of dates and days and weeks, which is as well.

This morning I forced up to drive to Lowe's because they've been wanting me to pick up the bathroom cabinets and some additional pieces special ordered for the upstairs' bathroom renovation.  Hard to believe--ordered them back in February before COVID-19 became our existences.  When at Lowe's, had to wait two hours while they looked for four cabinet boxes and one end piece--and could not find the other two packaged items:  toe kick plate and scribe molding.  

I wanted to remain outside due to the place being jam-packed with customers, and most did not wear masks, but there were far more than when I did a curbside pick-up at Home Depot--was that three weeks ago, also?  However, I had to remain inside by the pro-desk for the bulk of the time waiting because I was told the employee looking for the  rest of items would be "right back," and then I'd be "checked out."   I wore a mask but wished I'd had a tighter fit one, or had brought the ventilator type mask I used for asbestos removal and insulation install.  Maybe seems like over-kill, but had phone call that the spouse of the older friend who passed from COVID three days ago, also has it.  Their adult daughters are removing her from the retirement facility that has been horrible in lack of care and their decision to not have staff wear masks until later on in the pandemic.

While waiting, I observed customers and employees.  There is much that I could describe, most distressing as to humanity's seemingly becoming increasingly "out for him- or herself"--survival of the fittest, to each his own.  It seemed as if the masks (many employees wore them, a good thing) were somehow causing an effect of employees thinking they had some invisibility.  The place was more packed than I've ever seen a store!  Finally, I said to give up on trying to find the added items ordered, and while they loaded my truck I commented on how busy!  The pro-desk man who was helping load said that today was nothing like last Monday (when we were supposedly still on lockdown), as it was their biggest sales day on record.

So much for Slowing the Spread....  I was finding it difficult to focus on Jesus.  I also considered St. Joseph, His earthly dad.  I somehow had thought that perhaps it being the first day of some major restrictions lifted, that people were shopping even more than a Black Friday sales promotion of which I've heard stores are packed--but no, not if last Monday this Lowe's store had it's highest sales ever.  I kind of figured the shoppers were not there thinking about St. Joseph the Worker--inspired to get to work on projects of their own or the contractors and carpenters there picking up supplies for their jobs.

Inner feelings can easily be riled if one does not focus on Jesus.  I recognized just how easily that can occur, especially with added thoughts and changes of ways of being that the coronavirus has brought to all peoples everywhere in the world.  We must remind ourselves that this is not forever.  At least this particular strain of COVID-19 is not forever.  There will be a vaccine; there already is a promising antidote medication that is fast-track approved by the FDA and being used as of today.

But how difficult it is, now that I am trying consciously focus on Jesus, to keep at bay the distractions that can start to roil within.  Divisiveness can take hold and even root in!  I became irked by customers who were not wearing masks and not social distancing.  For pity's sake!  When a customer without a mask rested his arm, hand, and upper body on the large cabinet box.  (Does he not know that the virus can stay on cardboard surfaces for a day or more?)   Mercy!  I was shocked with my surprise reaction, for I did not think I'd feel these frustrations and temptation to being testy, snappy.

How this pandemic has caused thoughts and concerns we'd never anticipated just two months ago!  The divisiveness comes to the fore when we realize there are those who are trying to be compliant and do all possible to do what will slow or even stop the spread of COVID-19, and those who do not take it seriously are feel in good enough health or not in older age bracket that it does not matter to them;  and there are those who don't like anyone such as government federal, state, or local to tell them what to do.

Got home with the bulk of cabinet order, and spoke with someone who had struggled with similar thoughts but has had more situations of being disappointed as is not a hermit and has many friends and acquaintances--sadly too many who outright say they don't care, or that this is just how it is and people weaker will simply die.  We spoke of learning much about others and ourselves through this pandemic situation, and perhaps life will not ever truly be back to how it was BC (before Covid) because for one thing, we will have discovered the character of other people, and they us.  Differences in character and nobility will also cause division among people; some friendships will alter or dissolve altogether.

I mentioned a major way forward is forgiveness, but the other also mentioned that there will always be a knowing of disappointment in those who choose to have been more selfish than selfless, who were out for themselves and not to uplift and support communally in cooperation for doing what protects others and self, for the greater good of all.  

I then mentioned the admonition a couple days ago:  Focus on Jesus.  This focusing on Jesus, while more of a challenge--as I'm realizing especially when there are distractions of all types--even ones that come to me in the silence of solitude and stricter separation from the world when in the hermitage.  But to FOCUS ON JESUS as Son of God and Lord and Savior, as well as Jesus as one who was born, lived among mankind, and had a mom and dad, and the dad teaching the Son the carpentry/stone mason trade--helps all the more in having all else fade in comparison to when not focusing on Jesus.

A neighbor man noticed me backing my truck into drive and the boxes on it. I finished the conversation, as the man and his son came over to unload it for me.  What an unexpected blessing from Jesus and His dad--of that I'm convinced!  I was going to use the ramp I'd made of wood and brackets to hook onto the Precious Blood pick-up truck tailgate, and slide and push the boxes into the house--other than I knew there'd be no way I could probably slide the large cabinet off the truck without a miracle assist from my guardian angel and also St. Joseph.  But God Provided yet again through the dad and his son from next door....

Was rare for me to have some cash, but I'd recently turned a year older and elderly aunt had sent $20.  Perhaps the dad can treat his wife and seven children to some milkshakes with it; it won't go far, and he did not even want to take that, but St. Joseph and Jesus would have been paid for their work and rightly so.  My back is so appreciative! In fact, in honor of St. Joseph and Jesus on this Solemnity of St. Joseph as worker, I cut out more hunks of carpet and pad and carried to trash bin, and then after resting some, started spray painting a bookcase for The Priests Room upstairs, and finally planted some geraniums and petunias in three hanging baskets left over from last summer.

So much easier focusing on Jesus in Solus Deus Hermitage--but I know not to be duped in thinking I've caught on.  The devil will not want people focusing on Jesus because there is peace and joy, there is perspective and understanding, there is forgiveness and wisdom and faith, hope, and love no matter the world's disruptions and disappointments, crises and pandemics the world over and right within dwellings and the families therein.

Today is the first day I can recall since surgery last July, that I have been out of bed for this long...or so it seems.  Thanks be to God despite how the body might feel tomorrow.  Right now is bad enough with the high pain level, and thus lengthier blog post.  Yet I want to also include this portion of what Pope St. John Paul II said in a May 1, 2003 General Audience, regarding St. Joseph (the Worker).

"Today is also a wonderful occasion to reflect on the importance of work in the life of the human person, the family and the community.  We are made in the image and likeness of God, we participate with God in the work of maintaining and sanctifying His creation.  We work with Jesus; Jesus said, 'My Father is always at His work to this very day, and I too am working' (Jn 5:17).

"Every day St. Joseph, as a carpenter, provided for the family's needs with manual work.  Thus the Church rightly points to him as the patron of workers."

"The dignity of the human person is constructed through work, and in the light of this truth, we can clearly perceive the fundamental connection between the person, work, and society.  Human activity--the Second Vatican Council recalls--proceeds from the human person and is ordered to the person.  According to God's design and will, it must serve the true good of humanity and allow 'man as an individual and as a member of society to cultivate and carry out his integral vocation' (cf Guadium et spes, n. 35).

"In order to fulfill this mission, a 'tested spirituality of human work' must e cultivated that is firmly rooted in the 'Gospel of work,' and believers are called to proclaim and to witness to the Christian meaning of work in their many activities and occupations (cf. Laborem exercnes, n. 26).  

Catholic Hermit: From Fr. V: Focus on Jesus

Fr. V. responded to correspondence; what he wrote I find so helpful and true, wise and regenerative in focus on and in Jesus, that I find it too marvelous to not share to anyone coming upon this blog.  He had been so patiently praying and fielding my concerns and questioning of certain aspects of the temporal butting up against and twisting the spiritual, or trying to impose itself upon and inventing or creating what is not even actuality or truth in the spiritual--law and ways of man distracting from the law of God.

Fr. V. cut through my frustrations and plaints, even though I'd already accepted the reality of the temporal and the spiritual detachment necessary to float above it yet recognize the fallacies, hypocrisies, and pitfalls while retaining compassion and a humble compliance in the ways of whatever crosses.  

"Thanks for your prayers for the people of Nigeria and the entire world. I always pray for you for the grace to accept the pains and other hardships for the sake of the kingdom.

"As you rightly pointed out, it is difficult for people to understand someone who seems to be different.  It's even more difficult when people are functioning under false conviction.  This was the problem of the Pharisees and the Scribes.  They were "convinced" of all that the scriptures said about the Messiah:  For sure He cannot come from Nazareth.  It was this conviction that made them to kill Him because He was making Himself the Son of God.  

"This has been an age-long problem and continues to be.  Our position or fellowship with Jesus does not prevent from this prejudice.  The two disciples on the way to Emmaus had this "conviction."  They believed in the man Jesus who was considered great before God and man:  AND THEY WERE HOPING THAT HE WILL SAVE ISRAEL FROM THE ROMAN AUTHORITY.   It was because of this that after the Great Disappointment of Good Friday, they have to go back to their homes and continue with their old trade.  

"It's only the Light of the Holy Spirit that can remove this false conviction from our mind and lead us TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH.  And true, true, this is not easy.  I enjoin you to always fix your mind on Jesus and ask Him to help to know what He truly want from you.

"Remain in His Love.  Accepting and spreading falsehood is quite easy; it's truth that is difficult to accept and teach."

So simple, when it is laid out like this, or so it seems to me.  All the distractions between the unnecessary (seems to be) death of older friend who was a sitting duck in a costly retirement health facility when they all were doing as told:  staying in their rooms for five weeks and counting, no visitors.  

But staff employees were not wearing masks nor gloves until a couple or three weeks ago; and sure enough, some employee/s must have brought it in--for none of the residents were going out nor anyone other than staff coming in.  Ron lost his battle with COVID-19 today in an isolation room of a hospital.  His wife was finally tested but no staff wants to come into their apartment other than one nurse in hazmat suit must do it once  a day to take vitals; and no one has said the results in five days when it was to be known in 24 hours.

Distractions with news and politics of the global pandemic, distractions with news of a relative's finding out abdominal malignant mass is gone after months of chemotherapy--but three spots on lungs discovered on PET scan results so immediately had more chemotherapy and on to a pulmonologist.  Distractions with the usual of temporal responsibilities, abode maintenance, bodily tending, and for me, pain, pain, pain--just distractions after distractions.  

Distractions with people not accepting those with all kinds of differences--physical, mental, spiritual, mystical; personality types and temperament styles; mindsets, external locus of control, internal locus of control.  Distractions with laws of men and processes of discerning and judging for that which has not been necessary for centuries but is now; distractions with recognizing the confusions of those who function under false convictions, who cannot see the spiritual realities, the spiritual truth, the supernatural--the spiritual view.  

So FOCUS ON JESUS.  This is the complete truth given us by God:  Jesus Christ His Son, true God and true Man.

I already sent the simple text of Fr. V.'s message to someone far away, who has felt distracted and frustrated lately.  I suspect many of us are in this rut of distractedness in a variety of ways and feelings, for a variety of reasons and temporal, false convictions. So just FOCUS ON JESUS.

And I will ask Jesus purely, simply, directly:  What does He truly want of me?

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Faith, Hope, and Love in God!

Catholic Hermit: Born of the Spirit

I would like to write more thoughts of the apostle John's quoting of Jesus, regarding being born of the Spirit compared to be being of flesh. Of course, we are all and all living things in essence born of the flesh, born of temporal matter.  But in order to enter into God in fullness of reality in depth of interior far beyond and in essence meaningful, we must be born of the spirit.

"Jesus answered, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of spirit is spirit.  Do not be amazed that I told you, 'You must be born from above.'

"'The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'"

I'm trying to distract from physical pain as well as from a conglomeration of thoughts and memories--flashbacks--that have been bombarding since late yesterday, due to the coming phone appointment with the only priest I know of now alive and on earth, who I feel somewhat secure in turning to for help with spiritual and temporal discernment. 

While today's Gospel reading is that which speaks deeply to my soul, I have returned to this [above] Scripture from John 3:5-8.  It, also, addresses the dilemma that I face as a Christian, a Catholic, a Catholic hermit, a Catholic mystic, a Catholic victim soul, a human being in later years of temporal life--and somewhere along the spiraling double helix of spiritual development and growth.

I've yet to delve into spiritual reading such as by the late Archbishop Luis Martinez's work, The Sanctifier [the Holy Spirit].  The friend who emails now and then from afar who found the abridged and updated version by Sophia Institute Press under title True Devotion to the Holy Spirit, a week ago or so already wrote that the writing became complicated.  The person has returned to what brings more comfort and sensibility to mind and heart and soul--for that person--and that is in reading Scripture amidst other means of balancing out a lay person's temporal and spiritual existence which is more homebound due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as being an octogenarian.

The person wrote last week that of anything I wrote in an email, the following line seemed providential and expressive of that person's difficulty in continuing the book.  I admit that the words came to me without my later recall, and I found it as if new to read, when she quoted what I'd described of my recent and current status when trying to read spiritual books, regardless how classic and profound.  

For me, I think it is a phase in addition to temporal intrusions:  higher pain consistently, the use of external distractions to cope, the increased hours spent bed-bound, the push of mind over body to try to do a few tasks around the hermitage and in the garden, and the looming situation I must discern, decide upon, and act or not act of which either one will be action.

The statement that had such impact according to the older correspondent and spiritual seeker, a Christian and Catholic of many decades, is this:

"Too many words upon words without touchstone of some sort of accessible reality."

It is a statement of providential temporal-spiritual status.  Some writings of spiritual merit do tend to become, truly, too many words upon words without touchstone of some sort of accessible reality."

But then there is the Scripture.  In the Living Word of God, always we have words, yes, but there always are touchstones of accessible reality.  Always.  And the touchstones vary as to which any given seeker, observer, reader finds to grab hold or to have the Word of words, to grab hold of our minds, hearts, and/or souls.

Thus, if all else seems to be too much, and we are unable to find a touchstone, a foothold or hand-hold to reach out and grab and retain even in the present moment or a bit longer, there is always Scripture for us that will always be not just words upon words, but Living Word allowing us to grab hold  of touchstones or of touchstones that grab hold of us.  We find accessible reality in God's Word.

God's Word be it Scripture or otherwise, speak in essence of profundity, of Holy Spirit love, to the soul that is born from above, that is born of the Spirit.  That which is of the Spirit is accessible and real to those who have been born of the Spirit.  There is no temporal way to explain it otherwise; those born of the Spirit grasp.

I'll now try to silence the words upon words that tend to constantly flow through my mind from without to within and within to without.  I need to be stilled enough to express what needs to be presented for the priest to absorb and then to give wise discretion and guidance to my listening mind, heart, and soul in order to determine an outer action or non-action, both of which will be inner action.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Process of Spiritual Discernment

The COVID-19 pandemic continues across the globe.  The man, Tom, today is leaving the hospital after nearly two weeks on a ventilator and several days added hospitalization.  But a call yesterday came from an elderly person living with spouse in a lovely assisted living retirement facility.  The spouse was taken to the hospital late Sunday; no temperature, no symptoms other than a slight cough but oxygen level low.  

The spouse has tested positive for COVID-19 and now has pneumonia and is on a ventilator. The elderly person calling me has yet to be tested.  Neither husband nor wife had left their room in several weeks, no visitors--just employees of the facility had been in their room, so obviously they were infected by an employee.  

There would be no means of finding out about the spouse on ventilator in hospital if not for a granddaughter who is a medical doctor, who is getting phone answers from the treating physician.  The one remaining in the retire facility apartment only sees a nurse on rare occasion, dressed in Hazmat suit, to take temperature, blood pressure, and oxygen level.  It is a shame to consider the thousands of dollars spent each month to be in an assisted living facility, and to have been "sitting ducks" to become ill with coronavirus.  Three weeks ago employees were not yet required to wear masks, while the elderly residents were required to remain in their rooms, on lock down.

An aspect of the process of spiritual discernment has come to me as a reminder of what the late spiritual father said to me many years ago.  God gave you an abundance of brains and expects you to use them.  I've been thinking of this admonition all the more in times of people becoming agitated with having to stay in, to take precautions against a highly infectious virus.  Yet we are finding that the virus subsides, or not, dependent upon compliance by others; we are asked to trust and rely on guidelines that will indeed help and do work--if there is compliance by not only ourselves, but also by others.

When we find that others have their own notions and ideas of what to do, how to behave, what is valid and invalid regarding a contagious, deadly virus with many unknowns and elements of nebulous factors--we realize we must use our intelligence, and to screen what news we watch or listen to for not all is accurate.  We must sift through political biases and attitudes of individuals but also information and notions that are reflect persons' virtues and vices.

I continue with a process of spiritual discernment not so much of the vacillating and variating attitudes, actions, and knowledge involving COVID-19--for that seems obvious and cut-and-dried to me--but more so with what God wills of me in what seems turning point phase of spiritual life that also very much includes the temporal and religious life. 

The process of spiritual discernment involves not only prayer and information gathering of holy persons, facts, trends, history, and tradition, of Scripture and great writings of saints and those well-versed and experienced in living out temporally and spiritually--but it also includes prudence and common sense based upon temporal realities, lived experience.  

Yet another aspect of spiritual discernment includes insights--that of the gift of "inner sight" given, of being aware of "red flags" and inconsistencies, and of sensing that which is the flow of God and of that which is of the foibles of human nature.

I'm information gathering, of which will include a phone consultation with a priest who will be able to guide regarding various personality types and to help assess the signals and insights I've been noticing one after another.   Then I will consider along with what guidance proffered, one of three possible actions to take in this progression--in this forward-moving process of spiritual discernment.

I've been relying, also, upon Scripture of the past several days, such as this account from Acts 4:1-12. Lectio divina, or the thoughtful, prayerful, contemplative-type absorption of the Living Word of God, provides a deep grasp or understanding of what it is the Lord Himself is revealing to us, speaking to us.  

From Scripture we have revealed to us what otherwise we might not understand or think about, or  what aspects Christ is providing personally in answers to us that directly relate to specific, temporal-spiritual situations we are trying to discern.

"On the next day, their leaders, elders, and scribes were assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly class.  They brought [the apostles] into their presence and questioned them, 'By what power or by what name have you done this?'

"Then Peter, filled with the holy Spirit, answered them, 'Leaders of the people and elders:  If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a cripple, namely, by what means he was saved, then all of you and all the people of Israel should know that it was in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarean whom you crucified,whom God raised from the dead; in His name this man stands before you healed.  

"He is 'the stone rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.  There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved'".

The above Scriptures tell me a great deal in the specific situation that is personal yet will be substantive in the temporal-spiritual outcomes in turning point phase in life.  Lord, to Whom shall I go?  You have the Words of Eternal Life! Jesus, I trust in YOU!  By what power, by what name, by whom am I to do and be?

The answers to each question and of many within my mind and life continue to be revealed over quite a period of temporal-spiritual lived experience and situation.  Deep within, there is a sense of what is best, what is right, what is true and authentic, real and congruent.  Now am patiently waiting for one more consultation--and then to reflect upon the feedback; the input will be added to all the other signals and answers in the unfolding process of spiritual discernment.  

All of God's omniscience and grace from without and within the spiritual discernment process is worthwhile; all is holy unfolding and all will be of God.  There is grace in the waiting, the pondering, the praying, the listening; there is courage in the asking and courage in the outcome of action or non-action.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: The Seven Deadly Sins

"Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away" (Acts 3:19).

Did a little review of some good ol' moral theology.  Here's the easy, go-to-list of the seven deadly sins (not that the consequences of sin and various wrong-doings are "easy"):

pride
greed
lust
envy
gluttony
wrath
sloth

Consider these words as rather vast categories; expand their breadth to visage, image, expansive multi-facets.

Then consolidate down to personal-riveting drill bit, torqued, and battery charged.

As is stated, "These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions."

Over the centuries, the Catholic Church (persons therein, such as theologians and spiritual thinkers, inspired, and teacher-writers) categorize sins as mortal and venial.  Mankind seeks order and understanding; we are more secure with reason.  We want a sense of things temporally, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. 

Mortal sin's gravity is tested by whether or not the act itself is intrinsically evil and immoral.  A benchmark for gravity is that the person must know that what they are doing or planning to do is evil and immoral.  Another gauge is deliberate consent: the person must freely choose to commit the act or plan to do it.

Mortal sins imperil our souls, and venial sins complicate ours and others' lives as they are still wrongs done but less serious breaches of God's law.  Of course, determining the categories and breadths and depths and impact and consequences to our lives, others' lives,  and ultimately, most importantly to others' souls and our souls requires discernment and "judgment."  This judgment is that requiring critical thinking skills and wisdom, ability to discern right from wrong but also have perspective as to particulars, details, mitigating or aggravating circumstances, and numerous other considerations.

Conscience comes into play in determining if our actions are sins or not, and if so, what "value" ascribed such as grave or less serious; a person needs a well-formed conscience and a degree of mental capacity to be able to judge one's own actions and thoughts.  Or we need to find someone with a keen conscience, mind, and strong levels of the virtues in order to help us judge, discern, decipher what we have done if we are unable to see for ourselves.  In fact, it is often a great spiritual benefit to have another person adept in discerning and making wise judgment to help us sift through our thoughts and actions when we have caused harm to others and ourselves even in the slightest of ways.

I'm not writing here of becoming scrupulous--to nit-pick over ourselves to the degree of narcissistic morbidity which is on flip side self-love gone awry to finding a perverse type pleasure in agonizing over every thought and action we make daily and often nightly.  

However, there are times when our thoughts (less often) and our actions (more easily noticed due to external aspects and of which other people see or are affected by our wrong doings, our sins) are not so easily detected for us to discern and judge and make correction.    This is true especially when an emotion of sorrow, shock, anger, or other such feeling enters; emotion seems to be a trigger point for committing wrongs, and emotion likewise seems to be what masks our wrong doings from ourselves and also can tempt us in providing ourselves with excuses for what wrongs we've done.

I'm trying to refrain from examples for they will come from my own lived experience that involves others.  However, please think of the above statements, and I also think examples will come to mind.  Or, I can use myself in a recent re-reckoning of a sin I committed in writing of a situation and the persons in it.  I did not intend to cause hurt, at least not consciously.  In self-examining, I cannot say that even subconsciously I intended or wanted to hurt anyone.  

However, I felt shock in something I had to face regarding others and the situation; I had great sorrow in each persons' lives; I had frustration in that my previous attempts to try to bring reason and logic to one of the persons was not going to get through or bring about change; and I had outrage and anger in the effects of behaviors of one upon the other.  So I turned to writing about the situation and my means of trying to work through my own issues in trying to digest and let go of it, through spiritual means.

I also had verbalized to another and even I think another who knew nothing of the persons involved, but listened to my upset, concerns, frustration, and inability to bring about change when it was getting to a point that one person was going to be further at risk.  I could have taken action in calling upon professional intervention, but the situation was such that it would not be easily discernible what was evolving and had for a long time.  So I prayed, but my own impatience and emotion, hindered my self-control from verbalizing which I did in writing.  

Even if anonymous, someone read it who found it or else one who alerted the subject read it, and thus the person of half of the situation was deeply hurt, and hurt then causes anger, upset, outrage and actions.  So wrong doings, sins even if venial which include lack of wise discretion, lack of ultimate faith in silently leaving the situation with God, causes the person who is in a situation of upset and wrong, then also makes choices in reacting to being essentially accused of doing wrong, even if the person has aspects of issues in which cannot see the wrongs, the rejection, the whatever that in turn has harmed a situation which was the basis of the whole mess to begin with. 

So we see by my even trying to give an example of the ways of sins (venial sins in this case although the one hurt might think it a mortal wounding) that examples become complex, yet the ultimate reality that surfaces after writing or reading the ins-and-outs of the ripple effect of errors, mistakes, wrongs, sins--is that of a mess of chaos.  

And for those (and we all have degrees of this in us) whose modus is needing to have control over situations, others, and life itself, the result of wrong doings no matter the impetus that gets the ball rolling, is that there is loss of control.  The result is loss of peace inner and outer, loss of control over reconciliation, loss of future outcome as sin is very much a riveter of usually bringing the past alive in the present moment in order to try to eradicate it.

On a more concrete note here, a bit more on venial sins....  Venial sins tend to follow along one or two of the same conditions met in mortal sins.  The thought or action is immoral or intrinsically evil; there is full knowledge of these; there is full consent to knowingly commit the wrong, the sin.  So venial sins are minor violations of moral law.  

Venial sins weak the soul but do not kill the grace within the soul.  But venial sins weaken our inner strength and purity of thought and emotion--of soul.  Venial sins--infractions showing our weaknesses in one or more virtues--cause more venial sins in ourselves and in the ones seeing, knowing of, or experiencing the effects of our infractions and weaknesses.  This is the ripple effect of wrong thought and wrong action.  

Our venial sins can cause reaction in others that tempts them to not only their own venial sins in reaction but to mortal sin depending upon how they are affected by even the most minor of sin on our part.  Bullying is one such venial sin that can result in the recipient committing not only venial sin of anger, but can also cause the recipient to act on that anger either toward mortal or grave sin against others or more likely, on themselves.

There are volumes that could be, and indeed are, written about morality in the sense of study of God, or theology, and of sin--mortal and venial, of the consideration of virtues and vices, of mitigating conditions, of discernment and judgment, of consequences, examination of conscience, spiritual guidance, confession, forgiveness given and forgiveness received, forgiveness accepted or rejected.


We can even begin to grasp that such as our own wrong doing--mortal or venial sin--can be a result of someone else's wrong whether or not the persons grasp or are psychologically able to grasp, or of situations from years past and what might trigger us to react in a way that we lose virtue and commit sin whether venial or mortal.  (The labels are simply for our ease in analysis and learning with the goal of understanding and correction over time, in our lives.)

Yet we must not fall to the temptation of recognizing that what we may have done that was wrong and hurtful, was a reaction to what others had done or persisted in that was wrong and hurtful, or that what we or others were doing or thinking that was a later-on reaction from others' actions or ways of being years before, of which the behaviors and thoughts and ways of doing and thinking triggered or in part caused or affected the wrongs or sins later in life.

When sin is involved, no matter if we consider it an error or lapse, a mistake, or a sin of grave matter--we must stop ourselves dead in our tracks and not get into excuses for ourselves.  We cannot analyze nor go through examination of conscience for others; that is not our due process unless asked or employed in that line of work.  We can reason the various aspects and conditions when examining ourselves and what it might have been that triggered our thoughts and caused us to act or speak or write wrongly, or why we harmed others, if we intended to or not.  

When our sins, our wrongs, our vices are involved, we must remain in the present moment and humbly embrace our mea culpa!  I have sinned against my brother and sister, against myself, and against God through my own fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault.

Once we express our remorse and sorrow to those we've hurt or wronged, whether or not the other is able to forgive or also even be able to forget to some degree or other, or for other/s to ask that question of if there is some aspect in myself or themselves that reflects in any particle the wrong, the sin, the other/s committed--we must pick ourselves up and move on with the prayer and resolve to actively work on changing the vices we have and also changing the conditions in which we are tempted to sin. A bully needs to stop bullying as much as the bullied will want to avoid the bully. A spouse who had proven unfaithful will need to either stop the infidelity or accept the wounded spouse will need to decide if can risk further wrongs or can forgive and continue on, or if the unfaithful spouse is being unfaithful due to factors that both are not willing to change.

On another similar but very venial level, someone emailed of upset with returning to a parish FB site and finding inner feelings of unrest and of critical resentment or perhaps more it was boredom in noticing the same persons were yet unable to grasp that faith in God can be of spirit and within.  The women were yet clinging to externals of faith, much as Mary Magdalen tried to hold onto Jesus who said "Do not touch me!  I have resurrected!  I am with you always in spirit and truth!"  

Those on the FB site wrote  of  clinging to such as church bells ringing and their needing to drive in to listen to them as an external show of piety or religious fervor since in our time of COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders no one is to gather, and gather places are to remain closed.  They were going into the church building, with photos posted of the pews roped off other than a small area in which people were to sit for the youngish priest continues to ask them to come and pray.

The person emailing felt guilty for the inner feelings of disagreeing and of sense of passing judgment. Was it wrong?  This is an example of emotions and feelings helping us to discern, and to stop the emotions before taking action such as trying to explain to the FB persons about the kingdom of God is within, and that Jesus is not the church bells, not the sounds of ringing; Jesus is not wanting them to come in and risk getting the virus nor of taking it home to their families; jesus is not lonely for Jesus is through, with, and in us wherever  we are.  No--the person had already tried to explain and comment was censored, was removed, and the posters went on the attack of that person.

The feelings of resentment and some anger were signals that the person had graduated from the level the FB parishioners were yet in soul school.  When we graduate from one grade to the next in school, or when we take a new course in college, do we continue to remain in the previous grade or with those in certain courses when we are to move on to other courses?  No! So do not cling to where others are in their lives when we have been moved on.  And this can be a necessary aspect to ponder and pray about when we have committed a wrong or a sin, or are tempted to in thought before we commit a deed.

The late country singer Kenny Rogers had a well-known hit single titled "The Gambler." A line we may be familiar with is due to the value of the simple, applicable truth-to-life inherent:  

"You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run...."

Often in our lives, when we are faced with temptation to sin, venial especially, or when our virtues are being challenged by the vices we try to keep in check, we need to consider the situation and thoughts we are experiencing, living in, facing.  Or if we have already committed wrongs--sins venial or mortal--and look at "the cards in our hands, the cards we are dealt or picked up ourselves, current and of what aspects of past included.  Determine what to do with "the cards"--keep playing, or fold them.  Continue in the situation, or know the time has come to walk away either in the instant for a few moments, day, or let the consequences unfold and play out.  And in some cases, we need to know to run away from further complications that tempt us to sin in thought, word, and deed.

I advised the person emailing wanting to know if was sin--the person's feelings and thoughts toward what was being written on that FB site--to consider if there was anything the person was benefitting in drawing closer to God, or in further spiritual growth by what was being written?  Why was the person having feelings of unrest and some critical frustration within?  Could it be that it is a simple matter of the person having grown some, or that over time the person's faith had evolved and was a simple matter of time to go forth and have leave-taking of those who are not growing in the same ways or time frame?

Avoidance of occasion of sin, deadly or harmful (for the person who is recipient of our sins might feel it was deadly and killed some part of them, and the person doing the wrong in thought or action can lose a hunk of inner life, very much so, in committing sin)--is a major factor in the spiritual life.  We literally need to be open to learning to play the game of the soul's life in Christ.  We have to learn the rules of charity but also in that charity to know the rule of spiritual detachment to our will and of doing what is best for others and ourselves in avoiding occasions of sin.  

Sometimes it is God's will that we remain in circumstances, situations, relationships, and sometimes God's best and will to graciously have a leave-taking knowing that we never "leave" nor are the others or a situation "left" in a vacuum.  When there is a leaving, at the same time there is a going to or a coming; and that means for all involved.  Releasing means also reforming, re-entering, re-giving.

This has been an especially long post.  I have yet more to write regarding my hermit vocation, of the circumstances of the individuality of variety of hermit experience and ways the Lord forms the unique vocations based upon the unique circumstances as well, very much, as the variety of souls.
Perhaps more on that topic, but for now I'm still having trouble motivating myself to rise from the bed-tomb, despite this now the third day of First Week of Easter and the New Life.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

[I've enlarged my type font due to my eyes weakening with age!  Reality therapy!]

Catholic Hermit's Easter Thoughts and Blessings in Christ

"Brothers and sisters:  
If you were raised with Christ, 
seek what is above, 
where Christ is seated 
at the right hand of God. 
Think of what is above, 
not of what is on earth.  
For you have died, 
and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  
When Christ your life appears, 
then you too will appear with Him in glory.
                        ~ Colossians 3:1-4

"Resurrection of Christ" ~ Fra Angelico

Easter, 2020, following a Lent that likely will not be forgotten by any of us living through it, nor by the historical accounts of COVID-19 global pandemic.  For the first time in the history of this and many countries around the world, people have not been able to gather to celebrate Jewish Passover or Christian Triduum:  Holy Thursday's Last Supper, Good Friday, Easter Resurrection of Christ.

For many years, waking upon Easter morning, a first thought is:  Christ Is Risen!  A second thought is of Mary Magdalene, or Mary of Bethany (as considered by most accounts one and the same person), standing by the empty tomb of Jesus Christ, grief-stricken and with but His burial cloths, not knowing where is His corpse.  Only after Jesus appears as a gardener and then reveals Himself to Mary and tells her to go and inform the others that He lives, that He has risen from the dead--does she begin to grasp the joy of this encounter with her beloved Lord.

A third thought, here, in the blissful silence of Solus Deus Hermitage while awaiting the growing light of earliest of dawn's glimmers, is that of what each Easter for these many years has been the sense of reality that Christ rose, but I very much bodily remain here; and the crucifixion aspects of my earthly suffering never take a day off be it a feast day or solemnity.  But one of these Easters, Jesus will take me with Him--sans my ever-painful body.

In the meantime, the mind, heart, and soul have the blessing of always being in His Real Presence.  On this Easter morning--particularly this year--the relief of a new dawn, a fresh beginning of the spiritual rising with Christ gives such immense hope and faith and love!

I'm fully forgiven the sins the Lord helped me recognize; I am to rise, go forth (even if not physically out of bed and no means of leave-taking yet more pain resulting from spinal cord injection a few days ago), and sin no more.

Now, of course I will sin again in some fashion or form.  I am human, indeed, as much as Christ Is Risen, Indeed!  And I'm not particularly upset nor bothered by the reality that I will muck up again, and repeatedly, of this or that sin of my human flaws--those that I am aware of for years and those that I am not yet recognizing as part of my imperfect, human condition.

I don't want to do wrong, don't intend to sin or offend God or hurt others.  But I more consider the tremendous love of God for me, and that Jesus is merciful.  And while we already--amidst our celebration of Christ Is Risen on yet another Easter--anticipate the Ascension of Jesus and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost some 40 days from now, we know in fact and reality that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, is with us in the Trinity of His Real Presence.

The Holy Spirit continues to guide and teach me in the way of the spiritual life, in the path of narrow traversing of this temporal life.  The Holy Spirit will keep on pointing out my temptations and my flaws, will stop me in my tracks of doing wrong or will shine His Light on what it is of which I might already have erred.  And then the Holy Spirit will help me examine my mind, heart, and soul--rutting out whatever my body in action, or my mind in thoughts and heart in emotions have caused disruption in the bliss of beloved unity of what is the nothingness of me with what is the All of God.

This process of sowing within the means of learning to love, and of loving to learn to love His Real Presence and all others and else whom the Trinity loves including ourselves, creates the reality of Christ's life through us, with us, and in us.  We are constantly evolving into union with Him, through the process of being born again into Christ, and of falling and being saved by Him, and then picked up and rising yet again, over and over, with the Risen Lord, our Savior, Jesus Christ!

The Triduum is an on-going reality for each of us.  In Christ we live, think, feel, move, and have our being.  In Christ we die to ourselves; in Christ we rise to eternal life in praise and communion with His Real Presence--an eternity that begins now, today, this Easter and every third day following the first and second days of symbolic-yet-actual metamorphosis of spiritual regeneration.  God's All begets  our always rejoicing.

The following homily is of thoughts from St. Gregory of Nyssa, monk and bishop (c. 335-395):

"Here is a wise saying:  'The day of prosperity makes one forget adversity' (Sir 11:15).  Today the first sentence passed against us has been forgotten--more!--not just forgotten but cancelled!  This day has wiped away completely all remembrance of our condemnation.  In former times childbearing took place in pain; now we are born without suffering.  Formerly we were no more than flesh, born of the flesh; today, what is born is spirit, born of the Spirit.

"Yesterday we were born mere children of men; today we are born children of God.  Yesterday we were cast out of heaven to the earth; today, He who reigns in the heavens makes us citizens of heaven.  Yesterday, death reigned because of sin; today, thanks to Him who is the Life, righteousness regains its might.

"In former times one man opened for us the gates of death; today, the one Man brings us back to life.  Yesterday, life was lost to us because of death; but today, Life has destroyed death.  Yesterday, shame caused us to hide ourselves beneath the fig tree; today, glory draws us towards the tree of life.  Yesterday, disobedience expelled us from Paradise; today, our faith causes us to enter it.

"Once again the fruit of life is held out to us to be enjoyed as much as we wish. Once again the stream of Paradise, whose water irrigates us through the four rivers of the gospels (cf. Gn 2:10), comes to refresh the whole face of the Church....

"From now on what are we to do but imitate the mountains and hills of the prophecies in their leaping for joy:  'Mountains, skip like rams; hills, like lambs of the flock!' (Ps 114[113[:4).  'Come, then, let us sing joyfully to the Lord!' (Ps 95 [94]:1).  He has broken the power of the enemy and raised up the great trophy of the cross....

"So let us say:  'The Lord is a great God and a great king above all gods!' (Ps 95[94]:3).  He blesses the year by crowning it with His bounty (cf. Ps 65[64]:12), and He gathers us together in spiritual chorus in Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom be glory for endless ages. Amen."  

Blessed Easter, dear readers or anyone who stumbles upon this blog post and manages to read through to this my personal greeting and blessing through, with, in Christ Jesus: 

God bless His Real Presence in us!  He is Risen! Alleluia!  Our sins are forgiven, Christ's blood shed for us.  We are now given the freedom and strength, the mystical means of abiding in Christ:  to rise through, with, and in Him, and to live in His merciful love for all eternity!

Catholic Hermit: Good Friday in Image

Domenico Theotoko's "Expolio de Cristo"

For Those Missing Not Being Inside a Church

I continue to receive question from one whose priest continues, even in video Masses, to invite his parishioners to come into the Church to pray.  The person, for whom I've answered in email repeatedly, going over the common sense reasons, sharing what a cardinal advises and explains as to why this is not the time to be going into churches due to the high contagion of COVID-19, plus the high percentage the researchers are finding now can be carrying the disease and be infectious yet without symptoms.

Once again the person wrote is tempted to go in to pray this week.  I lost my patience.  It does not take much despite the full and thorough abasement of not only my body, but my mind, heart, and soul as to the reality of my sinfulness, particular flaws that are egregious and loathsome.  And yet I blasted back, finally, and repeated what previously had explained as that priest had previously even guilted parishioners that they should come in, that Jesus was all alone in the Tabernacle, waiting for them; and then another time that the priest was alone in the church, praying, and invited them to join him.

With my final blast of bluntness (aka straight-talk but super-sized), I added for Satan to get behind me, for I was already succumbing to my own temptation to frustration and enough to try to manage too much physical pain that sets me off in its own way, more than enough, ashamedly so.  (I continue to marvel at the saints I've read about who were joyful through suffering, and I feel all the more rotten and weak-willed.  Even though some maybe did not suffer for years, constantly, some of them certainly did; and all of them suffered far better than me.  Fact.)

The person was so apologetic, thinking I was referring to the person as being Satan within that I needed to get away from.  No!  I cleared that up in a quick response.  The devil is working me over; but I do need to be adamant in answering the same question of those tempted to blindly follow even a priest who either is not listening to the news or is not evolved so much in his own faith, or is, and I think likely so quite understandable, a very lonely person whose vocation as parish priest is focused on interactions with people, as much as all the time, day and night! And for a younger priest, all the more, realistically as a human being lest we forget, the spiritual life may not be matured, the level of faith in God being in us always, no matter where might not have become a practical reality despite the words of Consecration:  through Him, with Him, and in Him.  

I must always seek to perceive as even a priest would.  I have been a Catholic hermit for over 19 years and add on nearly year and a half of discerning, practicing the life.  Parish priests are not hermits; and just as I am and all of us, priests while having several years of education and practicum, they are yet souls-in-process, and to varying degrees.  They face the same temptations as the rest of us.  (And again, religious order and hermits and others in the consecrated life of the Church are as much souls-in-process, evolving, and in varying levels of degree and progress.)  

I was not able to immediately have the discipline or have faith in the grace to stay in my hermitage, in the silence of solitude without temptations and going about on errands, or creeping back out into the world. Particularly tempting to me was to continue trying to use leadership talents in temporal ways of the parish, or to be involved in parish events and loved going to numerous weekday and weekend Masses.  It has taken years of progression, and when I was not progressing as the Lord willed in my particular hermit vocation, formed by God's particular desire for me individually, the Lord would arrange circumstances in which I'd be stripped down in sometimes very sudden and drastic ways.

We can consider Jonah thrown overboard and swallowed by the whale, remaining inside the "whale's stomach" (archetype of Christ's tomb or a hermit's cell...) for three days and three nights.  So a parish priest who is struggling very much in this global pandemic requiring sheltering in place and lockdowns of entire states and nations, has a very real situation going on within himself, trying to adapt and finding it most difficult.  

Easy enough for priests, also, to confuse the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders with thinking good shepherding is asking people to come into the church to pray, ignoring doctors, scientists, and governing leaders ordering us all to stay in unless a medical appointment or necessary food need or if we work at a pandemic-necessary job, such as medical personnel and first responders, law enforcement, and just enough to stock grocery shelves, truck drivers delivering critical goods and supplies.  

Pray for priests having a hard time adapting to being alone in ways they've not ever been.  Pray for their faith and virtues of prudence and patience, wisdom and fortitude.  This is not their norm maybe even more drastically altered than for most people who have nights off, or live with spouses, etc.  But don't encourage them by going against what those who know best of this virus, tell us to do and not do.  Daily there is new research. Now we are told it can be transmitted through air, simple talking, in addition to what we learned of it staying in air and on surfaces for hours to days.  Now we are told if we must go out, to wear a mask, and in the next week or two of added danger, to not go to the grocery unless crucial. 

This morning a well-known Catholic theologian and priest, interviewed on news, reminded all of us that this time period requires not only deep faith, but also common sense.  He emphasized both needed, with oomph added to the common sense.  

The person who wrote to me once again got a grip, knows not wise to be tempted to go in to the Church to pray.  Actually quite advanced in the spiritual life and faith, love of Jesus, in tune with the Holy Spirit, it seems a lack of confidence in the gifts God has given her of such lovely spiritual progression.  We all tend to forget that our parish priests (and people of other faiths seem to be in same dilemma) are humans and have not been through this coronavirus scourge, either.  

It is a good time in this Holy Week for us to truly live out that the Kingdom of God is within us, as Jesus taught and Scriptures repeat to us in different words and ways.  There will be the church building waiting for us to return to group worship and reception of the tangible sacraments soon enough--unless we get sick and succumb first.  That is the point of everyone doing what we must do: join Jonah in the whale, join Jesus in the tomb.  We will be spit out and resurrected one way or another, when God wills.

What St. Gertrude of Helfta (1256-130l) shares in The Herald of Divine Love, Book IV, SC 255, so made sense to me this morning!  As a hermit, and with the increased pain this past year, all the more I am not tempted to need to get out of my cell, my hermitage, this house.  My temptations are otherwise--deep,  awful, soul-wrenching, scathing, self-revealing, and so very, painfully, real.  And it is all so very, very good!  Praise God!  St. Gertrude's discussion with the Lord is just what I needed  in this present time.  Perhaps you will find it helpful, as well.

"Recalling the condescension of our Lord who, it is said, went to Bethany to the house of Mary and Martha at the close of that day (cf. Mk 11:11), Gertrude was enflamed with a longing to show hospitality to the Lord.

"So she went up to an image of the Crucified and, reverently kissing the wound in His most holy side, she made the desire of the most loving Heart of the Son of God to penetrate her completely and entreated it, thanks to the strength of all the prayers that might ever rise from this infinitely gentle Heart, to be pleased to descend into the insignificant and very unworthy inn of her heart.

"In His kindness, the Lord, who is always close to those who call on Him (cf. Ps 144(145):18), made her feel His longed for presence and said to her with sweet tenderness:  'See, I am here!  What is it that you are going to offer me?'  

"And she in return:  'Welcome to the One who is my only health and all my good; what shall I say my only One?'  And she added:  'Alas, Lord, in my unworthiness I have not prepared anything suited to Your Divine magnificence, but I offer my whole being to Your goodness.  Full of desires, I beg that You Yourself be pleased to prepare within me whatever may be most pleasing to Your divine goodness.'

"The Lord said to her:  'If you allow Me to have this liberty within you, give Me the key that will allow Me to take away and return without difficulty, all that may please Me, as much for My well-being as for My delight.'  At which she added:  'And what is that key?  The Lord's answer was:  'Your own will.'

"These words made her understand that if someone wishes to receive the Lord as a guest they must hand over the key of their own will to Him, surrendering completely to His perfect good pleasure and placing absolute confidence in His sweet goodness to work for their salvation in everything.  Then the Lord will enter into that heart and that soul to fulfill everything that His Divine pleasure may demand.

I don't know about you, dear readers, but I am so weary with physical pain (pain doctor going ahead with an external trial injection required before a pain pump surgery--surely done after lockdown lifted, of course) and I am so filled with my sinful vices and weariness in battling them, that I am going to consider St. Gertrude's creative and heartfelt words and actions with an image of Jesus crucified, or most likely with the Crucifix on this bedroom cell wall.  I am too tired to make up my own words.  

My head injury area of skull the other morning was painfully tender all over again nearly two years after the fact--reminding me of that brain effected area includes feelings, emotions, detachment. I'll adopt St. Gertrude's lovely and holy words and sentiments, and in faith know the Lord will speak to me in whatever way, including no words.  Lord, increase our faith!

God bless His Real Presence in us!