Catholic Hermit Prays for Wisdom

This morning is a good day to begin praying in earnest for Wisdom.  The first Scripture reading is of wisdom, and prudence in prayer prior to asking for wisdom.  

After closing the eyes, the soul begged His Real Presence for the gift of wisdom.

Then, there was a bit of time out doors, picking the remains of tomatoes, Delicata and Acorn squash, and pulling some weeds.  The gardens are rather a mess of weeds and overgrowth, rotting vines, cucumbers grown too yellow and seedy to eat, and various greens so tall and coarse and going to seed.  When another bit of energy comes, will go back out and pick the green tomatoes.  There might even be a quart of late season strawberries!

This will be the last day, for awhile, for the roadside table offerings.  People have been generous in contributions; and God's good earth has been generous in providing mounds of vegetables.  

Am feeling ill today, yet, with the sinus problem.  Am just worn out, plus am feeling the pain within of consternation, of questions about certain things, and also of the keen sense of desiring the Lord to a degree that exceeds wanting to be here.  So yearn to be with the Lord fully!

The psalm has much depth, appropriate for how the body, mind, heart and soul feels today.

Teach us to number our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Return, O LORD! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
Fill us at daybreak with your kindness,
that we may shout for joy and gladness all our days.
Make us glad, for the days when you afflicted us,
for the years when we saw evil.
Let your work be seen by your servants
and your glory by their children;
and may the gracious care of the LORD our God be ours;
prosper the work of our hands for us!
Prosper the work of our hands!
--Ps 90:12-13, 14-15, 16-17

The Psalm antiphon offers hope:  Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we will sing for joy!

Emboldened the two lines which ask the Lord to make us glad for the days when we were afflicted and when we saw evil.

This is pertinent right now, for am feeling very weary of the afflictions of body and mind and heart and even at times, of the soul.  The soul grieves for a purity of being in Christ and free from having to see things that are painful to see and sorrowful to sense.  How can a person be glad for the years of seeing ills and nastiness, of evil and wrong doing?  How can one be glad for seeing with inner sight and having to live with what is seen?

Perhaps the answer is in not living with what is seen, and of avoiding seeing with deep inner sense.  The sure way to not see the ills of the world is to avoid being in the world, whether or not it is the secular world of society or the temporal/secular world of the Church.

There is a certain freedom in being among people who are so steeped in the Living Word that they live in His Word.  That certainly seems better than those who live in Canon Laws, for example, or who live in their status or position or labeled vocation.  And this is not to cast aspersions on anyone in particular, but in general.  There seem to be much living in Canon Laws in the temporal Catholic Church, but then also in breaking those laws in some cases, or interpreting them in various ways, not consistent.  All that brings on more feeling of sickness, of weighty weariness, of soul disillusionment.

The hermit is praying about shifting the reference point of writing from third person nothing consecrated Catholic hermit to simply itself, a soul, a child of God, a bride of Christ.  Perhaps evade the heaviness of all that is assumed and implied and in fact created and purported that has lent to lengthy defining of a Catholic hermit in the consecrated life of the Catholic Church--and not even getting into private or public profession!  All that is sickening and unnecessary heaviness that is so far from even one line of a Psalm or one prayer asking the Holy Spirit for wisdom!  All that other is worlds away from a soul desiring His Real Presence, to be subsumed into the Trinity!

This morning was considering John of the Cross and others who hit right up against the heaviness, and the heaviness tried to take their love of Christ from them, tried to weigh them down and even in some, such as John of the Cross, tried to kill him not once but again.  In the "again" toward the end of his relatively young life, they tried to make his life so difficult, that they intentionally chose to order him to areas of the world, and then Spain, that they were sure he would dislike.  

But by then he had transcended the temporal Catholic world as it played out in his religious order.  He had left all that not totally in body, but totally in heart, mind and spirit.  And, for the most part, he had left it physically, too, as his body became ill and weakened, and he welcomed whatever horrible place he was to be sent.  The worse, the better, for he had detached and knew that if his body would die, he would be totally in eternal bliss--not just with God in mind, heart and spirit.

This hermit is being called to pay more attention to those on the other side who have over the years, given wise advice in visions, locutions, dreams, and simply by reading carefully the best documented books concerning some of them--nothing glossed over by hagiographers trying to make the temporal Catholic world seem better than it is, nor the people in it nicer than they were.

When Jesus a week ago awoke "me" in the night (for it was me who He awoke and gave the message, although it is a marvelous message for anyone interested in pondering it), He said: "Look at ME."  He did not say look at the temporal Catholic world, nor look at canon laws, nor look at diocesan games and tricks or priests or parishioners getting played, nor look at your own desperate attempts to distract or to fit into what is seen even though not wanting to see it.

He said "Look at ME."

So I am trying to, with all my body, mind, heart, and spirit.  I am not only trying to look at Jesus, but I am trying to love Him with all my heart--and yes, at this point it is rather with a desperation and clinging kind of love.  Leaving behind distractions of all types, and of those that can even cause me to doubt, takes full focus on Jesus and loving Him in blind faith.

I have certainly learned to not follow people blindly, nor would I want them to follow me blindly.  Jesus warned us there are wolves in sheep's clothing.  He did not have a lot of good to say about the temporal Jewish church in His day, that is for sure.  It was His church growing up, and the church of His nation, but He saw more than enough and said, "Follow Me."

So I will look at Jesus, and I will follow Jesus.

And I think in doing these two things, that I will be able to be quite glad to look back on the days when I was afflicted and the years when I saw evil.

God bless His Real Presence in me (and in you, whoever reads this!)  I love you, my fellow children, but you do not need to love me in return.  Jesus' love streams in on me through the window, flowing from the sun.

Catholic Hermit: On Not Belonging to the World

The Word of the Living Word of God: this from John 17.  Makes sense, deeply, to this soul, this morning and for a few prior....

"I gave them your word, and the world hated them,
because they do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world
but that you keep them from the evil one.
They do not belong to the world
any more than I belong to the world."


So it is that this hermit, this soul, ponders on not belonging to the world, yet of not yet being taken out of this world.

What does it mean?  The wondering and pondering brings forth the knowing of His Real Presence, and in knowing Him, one senses the meaning of His Words.  We are here in the temporal, yet we are not at all belonging to it.  We do not belong here--not in the temporal of all that does not lift us upward, spiraling through, with, and in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Yet we are here and by that of the temporal that can assist in our transitioning, in our spiraling upward in His Real Presence, to know Him, to love Him--we can utilize the temporal of the world. But never of evil--never of that which hinders and is an obstacle.  What is evil?  It is some degree of lacking in good.  So we learn by His grace and love, in the spiraling upward out of this temporal into His commandment of eternity, how to step upon the temporal treads and rise--climb the stairway to heaven.

In that way we transcend, and we overcome, bit by bit, any lack in good and are kept thus--removed by degrees commensurate with the lack of good replaced with good--from evil.  All movement from lack to increase of good, is the movement to the reality of not belonging to the world.  Then, we belong to heaven.  We are taken out of this world and into His Love.

This hermit has been suffering much additional pain in a new area of the temporal body.  How it adapts and views this suffering, whether as a tread and riser on a stairway to heaven or as a limitation and hindrance of the temporal world, makes all the difference between knowing Him and spiraling in His love, or belonging to the world and held by "evil", or a lack of good in perspective and reality of what is actually, of this world an unreality.

The one reality is not belonging to this world but of belonging in His Real Presence.  That belonging--His Real Presence and Perfect Love--is the real world, the one true reality.

Does this make sense?  Can we bring it into practical application in our daily lives, of the temporal that is always passing away and becoming out of this temporal world and into heaven?

Let us pray so!  Lord, please keep removing us from attachments to temporal loves and attach us in Your Perfect Love eternally, here and now.  We do not belong to this world--to any degree of lack of good, and You are the All Good.  Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for our belonging to Your World, now and forever.  

Catholic Hermits Correspond

Here is another sample of correspondence written from this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit to a priest the hermit met and with whom had spiritual friendship in this country, before his return to Nigeria.  He emailed in response to this particular correspondence, that he found the content to be a helpful, positive reflection.  Some friends have suggested that this hermit's letters may be the better of writing genre; but that does not presume that the letters are that good to begin with!  However, perhaps this piece of a Catholic hermit's correspondence will be helpful for someone who happens upon this blog post.  

Correspondence (written in the silence of solitude, one soul to other souls) is an example of what some Catholic hermits "do"--for some readers have sought input into what it is that Catholic hermits do in their daily lives.  Spiritual correspondence is a part of this Catholic hermit's vocational life-being and life-doing.  The content, for better or worse, is always regarding some spiritual, Scriptural, and hopefully insightful thought from His Real Presence, shared with whoever is receiving.

[Dear Fr. V...,]
"I did pray for Nigeria off and on yesterday, too.  I noticed in a news article that Boko Haram massacred many people in pre-election rampage in Nigeria, yesterday or the day before.  May the Lord use all my suffering for the people of Nigeria!  I have read some of Pseudo-Dionysius' writings on God as the good and on evil.  So I know that these people who do evil things, or when we have evil in any of us to whatever degree (such as I have, too), that evil is not a being, but it comes when we have a lack (to any degree of lacking) of the good.  

"God created us, and He is good and creates only good.  So when any of us fails or has a lack of some level of good, even if small, that is evil.  Some people falter greatly or have a great lack of good, thus seem more evil.  But it is good for me to remember that the persons themselves are created by God and thus are created as good beings. Same with creatures and all that God has created.  Lucifer was created as good but chose to falter from the great potential of good that God desires and wills.

"So I thought about the ways in which I choose to falter from the good that God desires of me, and also to consider what degree of good does He desire of me, what height of good is expected or are we given the graces to attain?  The degrees of 'perfection' from our human perspectives vary, for some are given more graces and more is expected, than others.  

"Some beings are created with more earthly anomalies than others, and thus the degree of the good to which some should attain might be different than that of others.  God knows and ordains, each to his or her degree of good that ought be reached.   When we falter or lack any degree of good, it is an evil.  Something like that, anyway.  I do a poor job of explaining what makes so much sense when I read it.

"But it does explain some Scriptures, and it is good to reflect for myself and ask, 'Am I achieving the good and performing God's works to the level and degree to which He has made it quite possible for me to achieve?  Am I striving for perfection in good, or am I allowing lack and faltering?'

"I do realize that I allow much lack and falter in the good when the pain takes over, for somehow I am letting it at least try to take over and allow the darkest of thoughts.  Those are not good.  It does seem, though, at some point, when the mind is derailed by that kind of pain which is so powerful to reduce us to not being able to think, and weakens the gift of free will, we truly are naked and helpless in the Hands of God.  It seems like that, anyway; and thus we have to hope and trust that He will protect us from ourselves.

"God bless His Real Presence!  May we always be in His Real Presence and keep as much good in us and clear out as much lack of good, so that He has much welcome and space in the abode of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls."

Some Human Hands on the Way

Pain has been horribly high, yet.  Went to clinic due to having kidney symptoms.  Thankfully was not--just a new way the pain was radiating to simulate the perfect kidney infection storm.

Barely able to function as far as accomplishing manual labor. One obstacle occurs after another. Raphael did not come as he'd said, to help unload the truck of some thin but heavy siding (Hardie-Plank).  Had to try to unload, one 12' length at a time and broke two.  They are very thin and wobbly. Called Craig at lumberyard, and he had a wonderful tip:  Use a long 1x4" plank underneath each siding board, and carry into the pole barn that way.  Used his advice and carried in the other 30 boards, thankfully without breakage and aided by the wrist brace to give support to a permanently stretched-out ligament.  The siding and the wrist need support.

Yes, support makes all the difference.

Later this afternoon this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit will have visitors for a couple or three hours.  They do not like to come here; the work is frustrating; they have any number of things they'd rather do and often times must do.  But they are coming because the nothing needs some support.  Need another set of hands.  Need some help making progress, being pushed some, motivated, to move through the pain to the other side of it as much as possible.  

Need someone to shove down on an ABS pipe from under the kitchen sink, as the hermit pushes up on the pipe from in the crawlspace--within the 3-4 second time span before the ABS pipe glue sets permanently.  That is not much time when coordinating with another, with a floor between us and tight quarters for the work.

Also need someone to hold the main drain pipe that goes down into the ground and to the septic tank. This consecrated Catholic hermit tried to saw the opened pipe (had to remove the original stack of drain pipes going down as am re-doing the hermitage plumbing to make it all code). The pipe wobbled so much, that the hermit could not get a good draw with the saw blade; the pipe wobbled so much that the concern is it will crack or break off under the soil line.  So even the pipe needs support.

Friends across the miles have been praying much, and their prayers are appreciated.  This pain siege has been a whopper. It continues somewhat, affecting focus, thoughts, and especially emotions.  Pain can do all kinds of things to a person's body, mind, heart, and spirit.  It is a powerful force.

Pain works.  Just consider Jesus on the Cross being Crucified and saving our souls for all eternity. Well, those souls who love and follow His Truth, Way, and Life are redeemed.  And we just never know if we are or are not, until we face our individual judgments, face-to-face (with whatever that actually will translate in visuals or some other sensing) with His Real Presence.

Yesterday was finally able to read some more in Pseudo-Dionysius.  It is the chapter on God as the Good, and what constitutes evil.  It is fascinating, Scripture soaked, inspired, and is the truth.  But the introductions to this volume are written by three different scholars who write about Pseudo-Dionysius (whoever he was; they don't really know for sure) and his writings.  Each scholar covers a period of Christian history and include an assessment of how the people of those time periods (including clerics and scholars) viewed and assimilated Dionysius' writings.

For the most part, those who tend toward the more concrete comprehension could not grasp the thoughts.  Those who were more of the mystical, such as John of the Cross, Tauler, Eckardt, and too many others to mention (and not just of the Middle Ages but prior and after) had their lives altered and uplifted by the writings.  And sometimes the writings would be refuted.  Martin Luther studied Pseudo-Dionysius' writings and grasped in the earlier years of his priestly formation, but he later dismissed them when he changed his views and allegiance theologically.  Some Cistercians as well as other notable religious, read but not always supported the writings.

So we have support again, as well as its opposite, a lack of support.  What that boils down to is that some people can grasp thoughts at more esoteric levels, and others cannot. Some like certain activities, and some do not.  Some enjoy certain books, and some do not.  The reasons for the support or lack therein of certain ways of life, thoughts, beliefs, interests, and so forth, is due to personality, intelligence, temperament style, and even somewhat cultural belief and political disposition.

In a previous post in a different blog [orderofthepresentmoment.blogspot.com], this hermit wrote of a paradigm which explains basic differences, calling it a difference between the dockers and the floaters.  Because that paradigm was given as an inspiring insight, His Real Presence teaching this nothing Catholic hermit why there is conflict at times, or misunderstanding, or totally differing perceptions when it seems such ought be unnecessary, it just seems to be natural and to make sense of these matters.

It is important to understand why some can grasp what might be called loftier thoughts or less tangible ideas, and others respond to concrete and temporal thoughts and ideas.  These may be truths being expressed, all the same, yet those requiring concretism do not at all gravitate or understand the other ways of expressing.  

Such was the case of the older spiritual friend who started to read the first few pages of Pseudo-Dionysius and said it seemed like mush to her--could not latch on and drink it down.  But the other spiritual friend read the first chapter and admitted that while it stretched the brain cells that had otherwise succumbed often to diaper changing and settling toddler-squabbles, it lifted her up and beyond and at the same time, made total, beautiful sense.  With the former mentioned friend--The Imitation of Christ made sense and salves the spiritual palate. With the latter friend, Pseudo-Dionysius reads like fine wine on the order of the wine Jesus created at the Wedding Feast of Cana.  

Thankfully, the nothing Consecrated Catholic hermit enjoys and digests both, but it's inclinations are to the expression of truths and thoughts of God that tend to float and take this body, mind, heart, and spirit with them, like incense prayers wafting up--or deeply in--to His Real Presence.  So we each have our "tastes" and ways in which we are best able to grasp and understand matters of soul and matters of His Real Presence Who Is Love and abides in us and us in Him.  

Yes, when we are primed and performing God's works for the Good to which we have been graced, to fall short in any degree is what constitutes evil.  Evil itself is not a being, for all beings are created by God and are thus created as good. Evil is some lack of good but never is there a total lack of good in a being, for beings are created by God.  There will always be that aspect of good in a being.  Well, for another post, perhaps, this sip of Pseudo-Dionysius' inspired writings.

But regardless of our temperament styles, personalities, intellects, cultural and political bent--support is necessary, one for another.  Even a most solitary Consecrated Catholic Hermit needs a helping hand as well as support--even to be respected and loved...but not due to any self-notion its own worthiness.  Quite the opposite, for it is nothing compared to God's All.  Yet a nothing anything can be respected and loved simply because it is a created being of God, imperfect and falling short of the good God desires of it, many times over. Any created being or thing of God ought to be respected and loved due to God's creating it.

And that is why we should respect and love all of God's created souls and creatures and earth and life as His, as well as to respect and love Him above all.