Catholic Hermit, God's Hermit: Embark in a New Direction!

May 15, St. Isidore the Farmer

Based on today's Gospel of Mass from John15, St. Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662), monk and theologian, writes regarding imitating God who loves us so much.

"The law of grace directly teaches those who are led by it to imitate God himself.  For--if it is permitted to speak this way--despite the fact that because of sin we were his enemies, God loved us so much more than himself that, although he is beyond being, he entered without changing into our being, took on human nature, became man, and, wishing to reveal himself as man among men, did not refuse to make his own the penalty we all must pay.

"And as in his providence he became man, so he deified us by grace, in this way not only teaching us to cleave to one another naturally and to love others spiritually as ourselves, but also, like God, to be more concerned for others than for ourselves, and as proof of our love for each other, readily to choose, as virtue enjoins, to die for others.  For as Scripture tells us, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend (Jn 15:13).

"The law of grace is a principle transcending nature whose purpose is our deification.  It transforms nature without altering its fundamental character and, in a manner which defies comprehension, reveals to human nature, as if in an image, the archetype that lies beyond being and nature and is the ground of eternal well-being. To treat one's neighbor as oneself is to be concerned simply with his existence.  This pertains to natural law. To love one's neighbor as oneself is to care, in a way that accords with virtue, for his well-being. This is prescribed by the written law.  To love one's neighbor more than oneself is a prerogative of the law of grace."

It is no easy task to truly, honestly, be fully willing to die for someone other, especially not a close loved one but even those who are strangers or probably more difficult yet, an enemy even if they chose to make themselves such.  We read of ex-spouses murdering their former beloved; it is rare or never to read or hear of a divorced person risking life or dying for a former spouse.

We can but pray for the grace and courage and the selflessness in pure charity, to imitate Christ in every day life by loving others no matter the relationship with them--strangers or known to us, family, friend, or foe.  Try to imagine being called upon or presented with a circumstance in which we'd have to give our lives in exchange or to save the other. Try to then think of the more common or realistic ways in which we likely, daily or often, are called upon to be selfless, to be thoughtful, loving, and sacrificial in the small ways, the unnoticed ways of love and kindness.

This afternoon I had a long and fruitful conversation with a spiritual and long-time friend, a professional, and someone whom I esteem advice and perspective.  After questions and answers and discussion of past, present, and possibilities next,  a conclusion arrived upon, a decision is made!  

I am embarking in a New Direction.

This has nothing to do with my vocation or spiritual life, or personal or religious life and affiliation.  But it is a New Direction, all the same, in how I will proceed in what I can offer others and God.
I'm taking a few days to further pray and plan and then put the New Direction into effect.  As we know, we truly do not know the day nor the hour, any of us; but we do pray and listen to God's guidance and will, and plan before embarking in a New Direction.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Let us love God above all and love others as God loves.  Let us be willing to lay down our lives for God and for others, as well.

Catholic Hermit: Living Reparation

Increasingly, for now, perhaps from now on, my life is lived in reparation.  The constant and on-going suffering is in reparation for my flaws and sins, for those of others I know and love, and for those of others I do not know but yet love,   

And by love, I include those who are difficult to love for what they have chosen to do to me and others, and for those difficult to love for what they do or do not do out of their own lack of love of God and others.  Our lack of love stems, in part, for our lack of being able to see ourselves as we are, unable to know what are our weaknesses, flaws, that then grow to harm others whether or not we intend to hurt others.

I'd like to think that at least early on in our unchecked flaws that grow into harmful sins (or at least do damage to ourselves, our lives, and the lives of others subtly or more aggressively so when combined with others' own weaknesses and flaws)--that we simply do not see ourselves as we are.  Or we do not see in those around us, in those we love, what beginnings of flaws are developing.  Our love for those closest to us tends to blind us to weaknesses and flaws.  Our self-love blinds us, as well as our love of others, when ardor is in its height of eros love, the positive feelings of fresh love that seems as if nothing will ever challenge such love.

The maturity of our love depends upon love beyond ourselves and others. When we are able to love God and learn to love God above all things, including ourselves and those dearest to us for whom we are in relationship of binding vows or as parents to children, and if we actively grow in love of God along with instruction through Scriptures, prayer, worship, and various forms of religious instruction, we learn to love.  

We then also love to learn to love as love takes shape and formation when we grasp that God is love.  We learn from Jesus' love for us, His loving life. His truthful yet difficult, loving teachings and example, and sacrifice of His life.  We learn from Jesus Christ; and we continue to learn from the Holy Spirit given us as Paraclete, as spirit, as loving forever-teacher and guide.

At some point in our learning to love and how to love, we come to a point of self- and other-awareness, to being able to recognize and accept the realities of our flaws that lead to our sinning, and to others' flaws that lead to their sinning.  Flaws that are left unchecked, do tend to lead to harming ourselves and harming others--subtle or moderate or outrageous harm; sudden or trickling or quite deceptive harm.  

It is never too late to address our flaws and weaknesses, nor too late to address our sins and to see, admit, and ask forgiveness of God, of ourselves, and of those others our sins have harmed.  Then we spend the rest of our lives grasping the reality of living reparation.  We can live our lives in reparation for our weaknesses, our flaws, our acting on these in sins, and live in reparative state, also, of weaknesses, flaws, and sins of others.  

Even though forgiven by God (and hopefully but not always forgiven by others, and we cannot force others to forgive, and definitely cannot control if they forgive or also if they can forget as God can and does--full forgiveness and as if our souls fresh and new), we can come to a phase in our spiritual lives of or as if, being reparation.

I'm pondering this aspect of existence, of existing as being reparation, and in a way that is not negative, but instead is quite loving and healthy and holy.  I do not have the words yet to express or describe this aspect of love, of being in a state of reparation, of loving reparation for self, others, and through, with, and in Christ's loving reparation.

While the topic may seem somber, and indeed it is rather a serious component to and in love and in the gift of fully loving, reparative existence is a beautiful facet that carries the honing from suffering and the patina of holy wisdom.  There seems not the tarnish of coldness nor distaste, but rather a warmth and honesty, a validity and yet with the rawness of truth.  It seems that raw truth is a most beautiful facet in love.  Raw truth we might recognize in aspects of pain, of suffering. Suffering is not deceptive; suffering is raw and true even in its smallest portion or sip.

The root of the word reparation is "to repair."  The meaning encompasses as does the evolving nature of living as being reparation, the motion of "to make ready" or "to make ready again."  Being reparation involves movement and motion, forward-active in repairing, on-going.  That motion may encompass the repair and making ready again (the soul through love) as also a way of making amends for our or others' wrongs--weaknesses, flaws, that have morphed into sins at whatever point or level of process and progression.

Love is what repairs; love is the motion ongoing that can make ready or make ready again, our souls and others' souls, known and unknown, both and all.  Love as reparation must thus include God Who Is Love, for God being love, any other notion of love is false and without reality, no matter how we may try to argue the point. What is love and from whence love comes, is God even if other terms or descriptions are utilized. God is love and is the source of love, and is the motion of love and the beginning and end of love and all between of love.

So I am on the fringes of grasping the fringes of my soul and existence, of my being reparation.  This means my being created in His Likeness and Image, as in union with the Trinity, His Real Presence, God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit Being Reparation. Thus I remain in suffering as being reparation.  On going in love is God in repairing, making ready and ready again and again, in and as love is God, in being reparation.

The following, written by St. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580-662) who wrote on love, from what he read from writings in the Philokalia, of Fourth Century on Love.  Love ever teaches us, does God-Is-Love.

"That person has not yet attained perfect love and profound knowledge of Divine Providence who, in time of trial, when affliction befalls, does not have magnanimity, but cuts himself off from love for the spiritual brethren.

"The aim of Divine Providence is to reunite by means of right faith and spiritual love those who were cut asunder and scattered by evil.  It was in order to 'gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad' (John 11:52) that the Savior suffered.  So someone who refuses to bear the burden of arduous circumstances and endure sorrows or suffer pain, walks outside the love of God and the aim of Providence.  If 'charity is patient and kind (I Cor 13:4), does not the person who is fainthearted in sorrows, who bears malice against those giving offense, or who severs love due to them, fall short of the aim of Divine Providence?... They are long-suffering who await the end of the trial and receive praise for what they have endured.

"'Whoever is slow to wrath abounds in wisdom' (Prv 14:29 LXX); for such a one relates all that happens to the ultimate end and, in its expectation, bears all afflictions.  And the end, says the Apostle, is everlasting life (cf. Rm 6:22). 'And this is eternal life, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom You have sent (Jn 17:3).'" 

So I remain here, on the icy pad on this bed of suffering, and I suffer with a newly, barely-grasped understanding of the wisdom of my body, mind, heart, and soul being reparation in love, only truly in God's love, for my weaknesses, flaws, sins ongoing, forgiven yet the human process ongoing.  

And I remain here in being reparation for the weaknesses, flaws, sins of others ongoing in the human process ongoing, forgiven, and those not forgiven (who do not yet believe in nor yet love God, do not yet ask forgiveness, not yet forgiven).  Yet in God's love I remain, as being reparation in union with His Real Presence, ongoing, Being Reparation.

My words, direct, blunt, or not, seem not to make a dent nor really likely would they, for we are blinded mostly to our weaknesses and flaws that lead sooner or later, suddenly or over time, to sin; Even if we do see, we struggle to not sin, again and again, stemming from our weaknesses and flaws that propel us to sin.  And those of us who love God and believe in Jesus Christ Whom He has sent, and can see the sins that our weaknesses an flaws have wrought in harm to self and others, ask and receive forgiveness.  And some of us recognize Christ as Being Reparation, and of ourselves, of also in Him, being reparation, of ourselves and others known and unknown to us.

This understanding of the fringes of wisdom, is most comforting and helpful to me.  There is greater purpose and love in suffering, all the more now.  I continue to find Him in my pain.  Being reparation needs not speak; it is wordless in accomplishing love--love in God, of God, and God's love for us all.

God Bless His Real Presence in us!