Catholic Hermit: Calling Upon Jesus and St. Joseph

Both were and are carpenters.  Time is God's, and I'm considering all as present moment these days, as best I can in my utter humanness.  

Exhausted today with pain but yet keeping going.  A daughter, her husband, and grandson were here for a week--took their vacation week to come and help do some tasks around here.  The stairway (to heaven, in essence even if not substance) is completed other than some holes to fill and to try to tighten up the oil rubbed bronze, solid iron balusters.

I've been doing all manner of touch up work which takes far longer than I ever anticipate.  There are many facets to finish carpentry, painting, and tiling.

Plus, I still deal with the aftermath of the "flight from the stairway to heaven"--the brain bleeds, pain from impact, and shoulder that was affected and remains a lingering, bodily problem.

Yet we must continue on, doing our best, striving to keep going with the attitude of all for God, or omnia pro Deo.  

Just wanted to check in and let you readers know that I am thinking of you, praying for you, and hopefully before too much longer will return to more thoughtful--hopefully spiritually meaningful--and yet still temporally applicable sharing of the ups and downs of life as a person, Catholic hermit in the consecrated life of the Church, and also very much a sinner who seems to be not much improving as is said fine wines improve with time....

Yet, the Lord is with me--arranged for someone to spontaneously be offered, to do the stump grinding in the front yard.

Efforts are well under way in the temporal transition which also will be very much and primarily  spiritual transition--a metamorphosis from one phase to the next, whatever that next is.

I shall find out, either in this realm or the next wherever the Lord has set for me, just as He does for each of you!

Tomorrow morning the couple from the parish bring the Eucharist again, and I am more than eager and ready to partake of His Real Presence in tangible form, even if I know I am with, through, and in Him as we all are, in every present moment of earthly and heavenly existence for all eternity!

Catholic Hermit: Battling Discouragement

Having much fatigue from increased pain but also I am battling a spirit of discouragement.  

Rationally, there is no reason for feeling discouraged.  I am striving each day to keep going here, to try to do what manual labor I can in order to "finish the race" on this old farmhouse--my Te Deum Hermitage these past five-plus years.

I know well that discouragement is a "spirit" of the dark forces, sent by the devil to try to defeat from within the mind, heart, and soul.  These aspects of our beings (mind, heart, soul) can greatly affect our bodies.  All is connected--the temporal and the spiritual--while we are in our bodies on this earth.

I also know that praising God is a tremendous antidote against the spirit of darkness, which in effect is the disgrace of discouragement.

Yesterday I struggled with not allowing discouragement to affect the mind and emotions, yet the obstacles infiltrated all the same.  The devil can gain entrance through subtle cracks.  Fatigue is one of them--fatigue from pain as pain is quite tiring.  Upon waking, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit's body is exhausted.  Pain does that.

The devil also can gain foothold through even the most fleeting thought of past or future.  Thus it is crucial to remain in the present moment.  However, a memory was introduced via a present moment event--a reminder of someone in the past who quite cruelly mistreated, causing quite difficult challenges not only for me but for others--children then, now grown. I found myself praying yet again for the person yet noticed that while years have passed, praying for the person remains in itself not easy in purity of loving concern for a soul.  But that is the goal in prayer--to have purity of loving concern for whomever we pray.

Then the devil tried to creep in (and got part-way through the cracked opening) through obstacles in the manual labor.  Raphael who had said he would come yesterday to help figure out how to get the screen out of a skylight his workers had installed (need to now clean the window after a couple years of dust accumulation--like the spirit of discouragement, subtly but increasingly noticeable build-up).  He was also going to screw in the 6" screws to secure stair newell posts, as my right hand and elbow are not up to the steady strength required to maintain power of drill on head of 6" screw in such a crucial stair post setting.

He did not come; and in the meantime I also could not finish the upstair's hall flooring at a threshold until I can remove the pocket door which needs trimming at bottom to clear the new floor height as well as is catching on something within the pocket construciton.

So I tried to switch to other tasks needing completion.  I decided to set the final door frame in opening to upstair's bathroom.  Got it shimmed, plumb, and level--screwed into doorway--only to realize that I needed to saw off a half-inch at bottom of frame.  So I removed the screws and shims that took quite awhile to get just-so in order to have the frame as perfect as possible to hold the door itself.  Went to pole barn to retrieve the hand saw, set the removed door frame on the floor with padding so would not scratch floor, and sawed off the half-inch.  Reinstalled the door frame--re-shimmed, put in setting screws, and decided to paint final coat on door laid out on sawhorses in living room.

Painted it but was distracted then in another task.  Later when I walked by the painted door, I noticed some paint had started to run in the door's inset panel.  It also had dried enough that I will need to sand and re-paint that door, at least in the three places the paint had left "run" marks.  Must wait 16 hours between coats of this trim paint, so more delay in this project, as well.

Amidst these various attempts for the spirit of discouragement to gain entry to within from without, a thought returned of which I'd been reminded for awhile now.  It was that of the elderly woman who passed in here six years ago.  She has made her presence known a few times, rather obviously; and her soul is not one that is settled nor at peace.  

I have been praying for her to be at peace and for the repose of her restless soul, well as to reassure that there will be others to live here when I'm no longer.  There has been confirmation through others, and some tangible aspects, that in earthly life she was dabbling in non-Christian beliefs and actions.  The devil uses all weakness to attack.  I have sensed that this soul has been disturbed by my effort to finish and to leave, thus I've experienced strange but real obstacles in addition to the more logical ones.

Despite the various ways the devil approaches and proceeds to try to gain entry into our daily lives, through spirit of discouragement or whatever other spirit of darkness, we must persevere in praise of God as well as in prayer for others and even ourselves.  Lord, have mercy on my soul!  Lord, save us!  Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy!

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow.  Praise Him above and here below.  Remain in the Order of the Present Moment.  Keep going, simply keep going.  Even if the daily, temporal life events seem disjointed and haphazard--seeming without meaning or purpose in a spiritual way, or in our holy vocation or God-willed mission in life--these events and tasks are what God has allowed and of which are set before us to be tackled and from which we learn invaluable spiritual lessons.

Today is a new beginning, a metamorphosis from the night's dark cocoon of resting in some other realm, somewhere between temporal and mystical or combination therein.  Dawn brings new life, new hope, a new chance for increased faith, new conversations in prayer and new praising of God.
And today brings new challenges against spirits of darkness no matter the types.

We persevere for the love of God and strive to think, do, and be all for God, all for His glory,  all for His love.  The temporal outcomes (such as whatever occurs with finances, health, finishing (or not) but yet relocating (unless death precludes) do not matter nearly as much (or at all) as does the process in which we proceed and unfold in each present moment of life.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit's Prayer Love Anthem: Roy Orbison - You Got It

This afternoon, the body remained quite sore from yesterday's slips 'n slides on the pole barn roof.  I rested and thought of this song from the late, great Roy Orbison (the Big O, as familiarly known to fans from the past).  I listened to it on YouTube and chose this version in particular due to the grainy quality of the video and the wavering camera views in and out of focus and image.  Reminds me of the unfiltered and unstable aspects of our temporal, tangible lives on earth.  Only God sees clearly, all.

Orbison had a life of immense vocal talent, humility, and tremendous heartbreaks and traumas.  His first wife was killed in a motorcycle accident, right in front of Roy, also riding.  Then two of his three little boys die in a house fire when Roy was on tour in Europe.  He remarried and bore two more sons, rearing his eldest son, also, who had been an infant at the time of the fire.

The last song for which he performed and won an award shortly before an unexpected, massive heart attack when in his early 50's, is titled, "You Got It."

I'm not sure if it was my idea to listen to it this afternoon and consider it a purely heartfelt love-song of my expressing my love for God.  In anything He wants, I will do my best to give.  Anything He wants of me, He's got it.  He's got me, all of me, whatever He wants of me.

And as I prayed in the present moment, drowsily resting, I knew the Lord was listening, knowing my intent, my heart, my soul.  He sings the song back to me, promising me anything I want of Him, anything I need--all His love, anything at all.  The clear tone of Orbison's critically acclaimed and angelic voice lent to my reveling in the lyrics' meaning for me, a consecrated Catholic hermit, in love with the Lord.

I hope and pray this spontaneous form of praying this afternoon while resting on mattress, touched His Real Presence in the fullness of His Essence and Being.  This song has become a prayer anthem of love in this present moment.

And the Violent Bear It Away

This Scripture from Matthew 11 was selected by the late author Flannery O'Conner as the title to her only novel.  (She is known for her profound short stories, mostly.)

Reviewing and pondering what Jesus meant in His words, brings up the aspect of extremism.

Knowing Jesus Christ, following Jesus Christ, and being united in Jesus Christ are extreme measures in living and existing, without and within.

Yet, in this Advent season, we are reminded of the extremism of Jesus, the extremism of the conditions of His coming to earth, the extremism of how Mary conceived and bore a Child Who would be a contradiction to the "world" and yet be its Savior.

In our world today, and in so many souls, there is the extremism of secularism, of paganism, of anti-Christianity--not just atheism and agnosticism.  There is what is dubbed the "War on Christmas", and when we take a look at the world-at-large and the people in it, even those within Christian churches, we find a ebbing of passion, a weakening and lessening of those who, like John the Baptist, are willing to do anything at all for Jesus Christ, even to admit we are Christians or to show it by our love.

The violent (or violence) will bear it away.  Those with extreme love and devotion, with extreme passion for Jesus Christ, will be, as have always been, the ones to live and die for love of Christ.  It takes a willingness to desire all in His Real Presence that will bear away the darkness, that will confound the evil, that will raise up Jesus's merciful love over those whose love has been distorted in and by the darkness of secularism.

Extreme love for Jesus Christ means violating our fears of what others think, or of losing our temporal securities.  It means to love beyond all measure, His Real Presence, and to bear all in our lives in faith in God's goodness and supremacy over evil.  It means that we in whatever small ways daily and nightly, embrace the extreme and passionate efforts within ourselves, to conquer whatever hinders us from overcoming our hesitations, our resistances to His mercy and love.

Let us not fear the extremism of what it means to violently bear Christianity and conquer sin, beginning within our own beings.  Extreme love knows no bounds and yet can bear away darkness soundlessly and invisibly in addition to being seen and known, depending upon the conflict.  Yet at times we may be called upon to take more visible action, to let the Light shine, to be expressly fearless in Christ.

Put on the armor of Christmas!  Let the reality of God with us, God in us, and us in God, is extreme love, violent--passionate--faith, hope, and love that overcomes all opposition from sins outer and inner.  Let Christ in us and us in Him, live love and light over darkness and death.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, love one another, just as He loves us, extremely, birthing and bearing love in order to conquer darkness and death.