Catholic Mystic Hermit: Done with Not-Niceness!

I appreciate this selection from The Catechism of the Catholic Church, numbered entry 1823.  The reminder of what Jesus teaches us as recorded by the Apostle John in his Gospel, helps me all the more each time I am reminded of the great commandment to love.

"Jesus makes charity the new commandment.  By loving his own 'to the end,' he makes manifest the Father's love which he receives.  By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive.  Whence Jesus says: 'As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.'  And again: 'This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.'"

The more I have pondered the events of the past few days, the more I recognize that I at least "feel" as if I've lost some "niceness" over time and as result of some life circumstances and encounters.  I have always been a very "nice" person, capable of and exuding much love.  However, I feel beaten back, and my reactions have been not-so-nice, or at least that is my realistic view of my thoughts and feelings, even of some responses.

It seems as if a person can get so ground down that the usual "filters" are not intact.

For example, I developed a kind of dread of the purported couple who would be calling to bring Holy Communion.  That dread derived from past encounters and even the conversation with the parish administrator a couple days ago.  (That the couple has not called and likely will not, is not unexpected on my part, of course, but the conversation with the parish woman stirred my thoughts and feelings afresh.)

There is a certain, unfiltered reaction that gets set into motion when I converse with those who have been not-so-nice, and this includes when they think they are being nice.  And my unfiltered reaction is not-so-nice, or at least to me it is not pleasant, not at the spiritual level that is within and without when I am being led and sustained by the Lord.

Rather, the other day I spoke and listened, and listened and commented, and the more I spoke the more information I gained that became even more outrageously not nice.  I said things true enough but in unfiltered light would be perceived very much as not nice.  

What the woman said is all very fine and well in details for a book I will be writing if I even live through this phase and episode of my existence in exile.  And the more details and instances of documentation of words, reactions, and treatment by Catholics to modern day Catholic mystics in this society and culture of the Western Church (and perhaps with some historical context of past treatment of mystics)--the more concrete examples, the better.

However, in information and data gathering, case study style, the more I must detach from the process and especially from the information.  The more I hear and experience as being the subject of case study in point, the more shocking to my thoughts.  The shock shudders and shutters the soul.  How sad and pathetic to realize the facts do not reveal much substantive improvement over the years and centuries regarding the topic: Catholics' treatment of Catholic mystics.

Upon waking this morning, the thought was on the mind: Catholic, but not Christian.

Well, that thought, sentiment, and/or reality can be an affliction of any of us in any Christian sect or denomination or rite within the Roman Catholic Church, or within the Orthodox Christian Church.  In other religions, it could be termed slightly otherwise.  We human beings are none of us perfect, and often enough we are not even that nice.

I had an urge which the Lord quickly quelled by some soul-checks as well as a phone call from the adult daughter who needed to discuss a teaching moment in parenting of their young son.  The urge I had was to call and leave a message on the parish priest's emergency line (for there is no other means of leaving him a direct message), and that it would be that I wish we could just start over.

My experiment of being honest and simply explaining what the ecstasy in Mass is, a simple phenomenon even if kind of rare, I'm told by priests, a bishop and his consulting bishops--the honest approach did not work out well at all.  People judge all the more, became more wary, fearful, and critical, shunning, unaccepting, and overall not nice.

I thought if we could start over and lie, and say I have narcolepsy, the situation would work out better.  As is said, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction; and Catholics and perhaps any group of church-goers or otherwise might in this case handle fiction better than truth.  Many live in fictionalized views of ourselves, anyway.  Or, if we take the filters off, we can say we live in self-deception often enough.

The parish administrator was deceiving herself with her transparent and silly blathering about her son's basketball schedule, convinced, it would seem, that I'd think he did not ever have 20 minutes to help carry drywall with his younger brother.  That fiction to her evidently seemed better than to simply say, "We are wary of you, think you are a nut-case, hysteric, [or could use less blunt terms], and don't want our sons to help you, not at any dollar price."  

But my daughter laughed at my notion, and said of course people want to try deception rather than such honesty; and I think it is because we want to keep up the fiction that we are very nice people, indeed.  Instead, we reveal ourselves as not nice, not living the law of God's love, and also as silly and unconvincing blatherers.  And that, then, can turn off those who want honesty in relationships and who hope for the ideal of truth, especially in a religious context, especially in Christianity in which truth is a major tenet of faith.

So it is that rather than attempting any re-do of what I had attempted in honesty about why I seem asleep or dead in Mass, that it is a mystical ecstasy and not to be concerned--nothing to worry about.  Somehow I thought people could just move on and relate otherwise normally with me who am normal as any of us are normal.  Just a mystic, and that is as normal as those who are not but who might be diabetic or homosexual or bipolar or autistic or narcoleptic.  

Somehow, the supernatural involved (although I think there is spiritual involved in all, but spiritual is perhaps slightly different from supernatural but not by much) causes especially Catholics to be undone to a point of not nice.

I have initiated just the beginnings of research on how the Eastern Church historically has reacted to and treated mystics.  Thus far--again in cursory glance--the Eastern mystics do not seem to be mistreated, not hidden away or put in house arrest, not burned alive nor even shunned.  They don't seem to have "anathema" declared nor are feared.  

But, I have a long way to go in research and reading more in depth.  Seems a bit naive for me to think there are people who are more Christian than Catholic or more Christian than Orthodox--no matter what branch or reformed denomination or non-denomination that evolved from the separated East and West Church.

My initial research already came upon how mystics of other cultures are treated, such as Native American mystics, Tibetan--Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Sufi mystics, et. al.  Thus far I find they are treated quite decently--even looked upon with having a value in their societies and groups.  

But thus far in broad reading of the Roman Catholic mystics--their lives have distinct elements of cruelty and abuse, even if for but a short time period in which others think they need to play the role, as a priest once told me he must--and call it, "the devil's advocate."

Lord, have mercy!  The devil certainly does not need priests or bishops or anyone else in the name of Christianity to be his advocate.  The devil does an excellent enough job with his legions of demons and those fallen humans who toddle right along in Satan's cloven-hoofed footprints.

Moreover, the Roman Catholic mystics' mistreatment by those of their own faith, has become a point of warped "proof" that if they suffer greatly as a result of being who and what they are--mystics--and even die as a result, they are all the more valid.  Sometimes they survive the abuse while yet alive, but often they are then in poor health and die earlier deaths.  

Or these dead mystic humans' main contribution to the Church and society ends up being that they endured the brutality of the devil's advocates, and thus are declared valid mystics, with the surviving onlookers delighting in the miracle of how they endured such ill-treatment.  What's this?  They were mystics after all--perhaps to be now-cherished saint trophies.  

And if these mystic human beings survived for long and with enough life left in them to write, or someone to write for them, their bit of writings remain as a little gift to those who might read them.  Although quite often their writings are altered by those not mystics but perhaps systematic theologians or even not, who think they need to correct what they deem improved upon by themselves....

Regardless of all that which in blunt honesty seems not so nice, I am again resolved to throw my body, mind, heart and soul into the Light of Christ's Love.  I will refrain from encounters with those who are not nice as much as is humanly possible to avoid.  The most crucial may be to avoid any not nice that is not nice in myself.  Stay clear of not nice reactions to not nice others and occasions!

I resolve to abide in His love and to imitate His love.  This means to not dally with being a Catholic-but-not-Christian.  I must be Christian and let the Lord decide if other labels ought precede or follow that of being a follower and lover of Christ, and a nice follower and lover, at that.  

I don't need to be, at this point of my grain-of-wheat-crushed-existence, to be distracted by emphasizing my group association.  Roman Catholic Christian or Maronite Catholic Christian? Greek Orthodox Christian or Church of Nazarene Christian or First Baptist Christian?  Or Byzantine Catholic Christian or Ukrainian Orthodox Christian or Coptic Catholic Christian or Evangelical Christian, etc.? 

I'd better just focus on being Christian, a follower and beloved of Christ and His Living Word,.  And to study and appreciate some very nice mystics such as Bernard of Clairvaux who lived just following the Great Schism of the Eastern and Western Catholic Church in mid-eleventh century.  Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs will reset my mind and heart in the proper perspective: Love of God and God's Love of His Creation.  

Then, I will also go back in time to those great mystics prior to the Schism, closer to the Lord in time and place and practice.  Or so this seems a wise plan as I desire instruction and inspiration regarding Christ and His Word--and how to live as a loving Christian, then, in my time and place.

I want to be nice again.  Very nice. I hope to be unimpeded in niceness, by which of course I mean charity: love!  I want to love again without such upsetting distractions, especially by my own slip-ups and from within my own Christian group designation. It also seems very much so that God is wanting to do some one-on-one tutorials with me in the silence of solitude, in my life of prayer and penance and praise of God.

Let love and mercy wash away any residual remnants of not-niceness from within me and all about me!  Let love and mercy fill me to overflowing so that love overflows from me!  

I pray to have my thoughts as those of Bernard of Clairvaux or Pseudo-Macarius or John Climacus or many others: Christ-thoughts and Christ-words, Christ-actions, Christ-life!  If this means staying clear of not-nice until I have niceness infused throughout, without stink coming back seven times more powerfully not nicely, then I will see if this plan is Wisdom that will be vindicated by her works in me.

Much love to all of you from an already more nice, more loving me, this Fourth Sunday in Advent!  God bless His Real Presence in us!

Detraction: A Turn-Off

Detracting others is such a turn-off.  Above all, God does not like it.

This nothing Catholic hermit has done it, surely.  Detraction is one of those vices of which a person can so easily convince him- or herself that it is not really detraction.  No, it is only being honest; it is being discerning, using wise discretion and critical thinking skills.

And sometimes it is one of those, but often we are deceiving ourselves.  Bottom line:  a lot of the time we criticize or debunk or judge or put down others, it is simply and honestly detraction.

Usually, at least for the nothing Catholic hermit, it has come out of frustration, or upset in something not properly done.  Or it comes down to not having perspicacity of vision, of tolerance, of letting others do as they do and say as they say, for often enough, it is not going to matter in the full spectrum of life.

Of course, when it is something of note, of vital importance to another, of an ultimate charity to speak or write, we do so.  But we need to be so very careful in discerning these fine lines that can trick us into falling into detraction.  When anger is added to it, or envy and pride, it becomes what today is known as "bullying" or being "abusive."  

Recently when so very ill, this Catholic hermit watched some YouTube videos and read some writings of the Eastern Church.  Some went back prior to the schism between the Latin and Eastern Church; some were after.  Of those after and of the past century up to current times, an undercurrent developed in speech and writing.

One speech by a Blessed of the Orthodox Christians, developed what was no doubt quite believable and reasonable to those of the Orthodox faith, the Eastern "lung" of the Church.  The subject was Francis of Assisi, and the Blessed wrote the various reasons and gave examples, as to why Francis of Assisi is not a saint but was rather a deceived person--deceived by the devil--and not someone to emulate.  The content had numerous points made, all backed up by what the Blessed (one highly esteemed of the Orthodox Church much as a Blessed in the Catholic Church is esteemed) purported.

And in reading it, this nothing Catholic hermit could see how easily one could think it rational and true about Francis--as the very statements and events in his life could be totally taken in another context and with other implications than holiness.  Yes, nothing Catholic hermit could totally understand, for it has itself been accused of this or that--from emotional and mental condition, to a fraud Catholic, to imposter Catholic hermit, to its spiritual experiences being from other than God.

And, truly, the jury is still out on this nothing Catholic hermit.  Only God knows for sure, the inner reaches of His created souls.  As for Francis of Assisi, other than what people have written of him, and the short rule of life he wrote under pressure by eager friars (Francis did not want to formalize his evolving spiritual way of life), there is nothing else--no video footage, no tape recorded talks, no photographs of his stigmata.  And, if there were such "proofs", people would insist they were photoshopped or doctored, or embellished.

Yet repeatedly, in what amounted to a full-scale detraction of Francis of Assisi, it was obvious that the holy Orthodox Blessed truly believed Francis' life was not valid in a spiritually good sense.  There was a sense of pity for him, that he had been so deceived by the evil one, but it only stood to reason since Protestants and Catholics are frequently termed "pseudo-Christians" by the Orthodox.  Found it stated repeatedly in comments and writings.

And, we all know of Protestants who think Catholics are not Christians or are not "saved", and we know of Catholics who think Protestants are not "saved", and of Catholics who no doubt think Orthodox are cut off and not to be heeded.

Frankly, it was quite humbly to have read what the Eastern Orthodox think of someone like nothing Catholic hermit and of Catholics and Protestants.  Had never considered that, probably because don't think of others as saved or not, except those who are doing evil deeds without repentance and who do not believe in God or in Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  And even then, must not judge because how does this nothing Catholic hermit know about the inner reaches of their souls?  And what is known of the next moments, hours, days and years of their life on earth, and of their judgment?  All could change in an instant, and someone thought to be this or that, could be entirely something else!

We really can only go by what is current, written fact, as far as discerning what we are and who we are, and if our lives are valid in His Divine Sight, Mind, Will, and Heart.

It is always good, and humbling, to realize that others can convince themselves based upon what someone has written about someone else, such as the many who have written about Francis of Assisi, and then decide upon a person based upon the ability to interpret what someone has done or purportedly said, or even written, from an entirely different viewpoint of the beholder.  Thus, the Blessed holy man of one wing of the Church, could write and declare Francis deceived and a false mystic and not a saintly man.  (The followers of Francis of Assisi thought otherwise, and the Western wing of the Church declared him a saint--obviously a differing view.)

So is it detraction to debunk Francis of Assisi?  Possibly and probably.  Detraction has a lot to do with the intent of the person writing or speaking, trying to put down the other.  It can be detraction even if he or she truly believes what he or she is writing is correct, or thinks is saving others from being duped, or thinks it is to warn them not to follow or emulate such a misguided or deceived or wrong person.  Is it detraction for any of us to build a case against another?

Well, a lot depends upon motive, and that is so very hard to discern in ourselves, especially if was are proud of our intellects and proud of our positions and presence and status in the world, even if but a small world in actuality.  The internet has done us a disservice, encouraging us to think we are quite the voices of authority just because what we write or say can be viewed by a few or many.  It is public.  And that make detraction all the worse, in some respects.  It is just out there, visible, readable.

Some say that public figures are fair game when it comes to pointing out wrongs (or conceivably rights) they have done.  Detraction deals with the wrongs, as its modus is negation, is putting down, debasing another's actions or words, or personhood.  And sometimes the truth is the truth, but yet again, as Jesus said, "He who is without sin may cast the first stone"

Even if St. Francis of Assisi was a total fraud, a false mystic, had no stigmata, his followers having cast fabrications about him--it then would seem rather ineffective to state all these deceptions unless one had valid proof, had known him, talked with him, observed in person, and was qualified to make a diagnosis.  Only people in Francis' time could truly do that, for anyone can twist what others have written about a person.  Even Padre Pio had doctors examine him and come away with quite different diagnoses of his stigmata than what other doctors verified.

We have the current internet flurry of people who see a blue and black dress and silver and gold.... But of course, that is not detraction to call it silver and gold when it is actually blue and black.  All that has to do with physiology in the way people's eyes functions with seeing certain colors.  However, detraction does have to do with viewpoints, with the way we view others, when viewing wrongly--putting another down, casting aspersions--even if we think we are right.

So, dear friends in Christ Jesus, filled with His Real Presence and loving God Almighty--let us not detract others.  There really is no need to do it.  Yes, we get angry and frustrated.  We are convinced our ways are the right way, our views the right and only views, the way we see things is the correct way to see.  And in some cases, particularly if we can weigh it with the right of the Gospel Rule, we might be right, or at least striving to be right.  

Yet how wrong it is to detract, to put someone else "down", to bully and make statements either in thoughts, words spoken or written, or in deed, that suggest someone else is less than what we think we are.  It is truly pointless in most any way we can rationally think of it.  Detraction does not help others nor ourselves.

And this nothing Catholic hermit knows it, as it becomes frustrated with such as a young man who came to do some plumbing--a young man the electrician was convinced could help when the hermit was so very ill.  No, the "plumber" ruined parts, did things incorrectly, and lied about codes.  It is all fact; the electrician felt terrible; the hermit has had to replace parts and re-do the plumbing, now feeling better enough to do it.  Lost $210 plus the costs of new parts and its own time and effort.

But why put the young man down?  Why detract?  Why hold anger?  It is pointless.  At most, the electrician is going to point out to him what he had done and the trouble and expense, and only so that the young man will hopefully not try to pull the wool on others--and will do a better job for others.  But detraction is not holy, is not good, is not right.  Never ought detraction be part of our action.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another!  God Is Love!  Remain in His Love, and remember we are all His children.  The jury is still out on all of us as to how good of children we each may be.  We have the potential to all be very, very good children by His grace and mercy!