Catholic Hermit: Perseverance

Another commentary, this one by St. Gregory the Great (6th c.), speaks to me what I need to hear.  I can read it and ponder from the perspective that I have experienced detraction, mocking, as Job is portrayed; but also I can consider this commentary as one who has cast my thoughts, opinions, and observations which can be, or be taken as, hurtful and abusive,  as well.

As a consecrated Catholic hermit, I'm still very much in on-going training, in process of progression.  I'm physically tired, mostly worn down by pain, and I need to push myself but seem to lack the impetus to be more active, to push through this consistent, higher level of pain in order to do what might help build up strength and energy.

So I have more time in resting, and more time to think.  Even the thoughts can turn in on myself with  frustration and remorse.  I suppose this is part of penance; last night I once again asked the penitent hermit, St. Mary of Egypt, to befriend and guide me--accompany me in this phase of my life in which the Lord is presenting before me a type of portal, unseen but yet very much here, real.  There is little else for me but to wait upon God to help propel me through this phase's portal.

I'll not try to describe further and will write out what Gregory the Great wrote that inspires and reassures.

"'He who is mocked by his neighbor, as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him' (Job 12:4 Vulgate Translation)....But sometimes the soul perseveres in good works with a constant heart, and yet is pushed hard by the scoffing of men; it does admirable deeds, and gets only abuse; and he who might have been encouraged to come out of himself by commendation is repulsed by insults and returns back again into himself.  He establishes himself the more firmly in God, as he finds no place else where he may rest in peace; for all his hope is fixed in his creator.  Amidst ridicule and abuse, he implores only the interior witness.  His soul in distress becomes God's neighbor, in proportion as he is a stranger to the favor of man's esteem.  So he pours himself out in prayer and, hard-pressed from without, is refined with a more perfect purity to enter more deeply into all that is interior.  Therefore, it is well said at this time, 'He who is mocked by his neighbor as I am, will call upon God and he will answer him...'  And while the soul of the good strengthens itself, with compunction, in prayer, it is united within itself in the hearing of the most High, in the very act that severs it from the approval of men outside itself....

"'For the upright man's simplicity is laughed to scorn' (Job 12:4).  It is the wisdom of this world to conceal one's feelings with pretense, to veil the sense with words; to show things that are false as true, and to make out as fallacious what is true.  But on the other hand it is the wisdom of the righteous, to pretend nothing in show, to discover the meaning by words; to love the truth as it is, to avoid falsehood; to set forth good deeds freely, to bear evil more gladly than to do it; to seek no revenge of a wrong, to count ill repute as a gain for the truth's sake.  But this simplicity of the righteous is laughed to scorn, because the goodness of purity is taken for folly by the wise men of this world.  For doubtless everything that is done from innocence is counted foolish by them, and whatever truth sanctions in practice sounds weak to carnal wisdom."

I realize this is much to ponder--these words with such great meaning to any of us who read them.  We might read them placing ourselves as the person being scorned and mocked; or we may be the ones to do the scorning and mocking.  Or we may read the above words thinking we are the upright, that we do not conceal our feelings with pretense, that we have done such good--and that others do not appreciate our righteously good deeds.  

If we do not see ourselves as we are, if pride blinds our self-honesty, we can find ourselves persevering in that which is not God's will in our lives--but merely that which keeps us thinking we are busying ourselves doing good.  Perhaps it is love God wants of us, for Him and for others.  In that, I find the first section of the above saint's writings, to be where we should place our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.

So I look at myself in realistic honesty, including the surgeon appointment in which my symptoms are most likely more to do now with the Adhesive Arachnoiditis than the remaining time of surgery recovery.  I see my situation, my pain and weariness, my sins, my love for others, my hermit vocation, my love for God--and I know that I must take upon me the action and stance of which Gregory the Great writes:

establish myself the more firmly in God, 
as I find no place else where I may rest in peace; 
for all my hope is fixed in my creator.  
Amidst what abuse of which there is little, 
but more now in my life my own flaws stand out to me, 
I must implore help only from the interior witness, the Holy Spirit.  
My soul in distress must become God's neighbor 
and I must become a stranger to wanting others' favor.  
I must pour myself out in prayer--
for I am hard-pressed from all the temporal about me.  
I must trust God to refine me with a more perfect purity 
in order to enter more deeply into all that is interior.

So I write the above, incorporating the saint's words as a prayer, as a plan of forward movement to and through this portal before me.  Yet even to make myself go for a walk--of which I've not gone for a walk for 10 days--the nausea tries to influence me to remain on the icy pad in bed.  It is past time for a pain med, so perhaps that will help my mind establish itself more in God, and my heart to encourage my mind and body to simply try to walk despite pain, nausea, fatigue--and to push through without thinking about potential, probable, after-effects of the morrow.

I must try, at least.  The spinal stenosis is no longer the main problem; and if I do not try to build up some muscle and stamina to be more out of bed than bed-ridden, then bed-ridden will be the reality.  And I can accept that if I truly cannot manage to push through a bit more, a bit longer, to keep physically going.  I managed the Lyft ride to and from the surgeon's office despite both low-to-ground, light-weight cars.  The nausea has started up in the last half hour, so that is an improvement over most days recently.  

Today's Psalm--The Lord is my Shepherd--encourages me to at least try a physical walk, in which God will carry for me whatever distress.  There is no cure for Adhesive Arachnoiditis, but walking as much and for as long as a person is able, is recommended.  Even if the ride today is having effect sooner than later, entering more firmly into God, and into all that is interior, will always be the best place where I may rest in peace.

It is by perseverance we shall secure our lives.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

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!

Catholic Hermit: Discernment, Temptation; Water Over the Dam

I admit to some discouragement in the past day.  The pain was starting to get to me, and then some.  Always the Lord reaches in with His guidance, His strength, His help in times of trial, small and great.

As to trials, discernment, and temptation, lo and behold!  This selection presented itself in one of my online, daily, spiritual readings.  From The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"2847  The Holy Spirit makes us discern between trials, which are necessary for the growth of the inner man, and temptation, which leads to sin and death.  We must also discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation.  Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, whose object appears to be good, a 'delight to the eyes' and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.

          "God does not want to impose the good, but wants free beings.... There is a certain usefulness to temptation.  No one but God knows what our soul has received from him, not even we ourselves.  But temptation reveals it in order to teach us to know ourselves, and in this way we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us."

Honestly, who'd ever anticipate such a selection at just the time so needed?  Yet this happens to us repeatedly:  the miracles of our everyday lives!  God provides!  Yes, I've been dealing with temptation to despair, to give up attempting to keep striving in strengthening muscles that once out of the temptation and cloud of painful trial, I am reminded just how long it can take for bones to heal, plus muscles, tendons, and ligaments that have been cut through on either side of my spine--about 10-12" worth.

But I have not considered all that God has given me, for my soul; nor have I thought through the reality that this trial of immense unknowing of so many aspects physical and spiritual, is a trial that the Lord is gifting me.  Temptation to despair over the consistently higher levels of pain I've had to endure for this stretch of time, gives way to my now considering the usefulness of this temptation.

I am knowing myself better than ever.  I've been given facts from research that affects those most loved on earth.  The Lord has shown me some

As for water over the dam, it is actually " additional flaws and wrongful inclinations that have caused the unfolding over time, of effect on others that in turn, causes others to mirror some of these very wrongs that have come from my flaws.too much water over the dam."  I was reminded of this aphorism after situation played out yesterday, quite briefly.  

Not quite a year ago, in a locution, my late dad intoned this to me:  Too much water over the dam.  At the time and now, I know what he was referring to in a relationship situation.  I'm now living out the consequences of a flaw in which way back, without realizing the future negativity, my lack of discretion and lack of verbal self-control in venting some feelings did damage into the future of now.  Even if valid, when impressionable ears are around, the venting of observations, the criticisms born of frustrations, play out over and over, passed down--the sins of the father, so to speak, repeated in the sons.

The outcome, the consequences, are oh-so-painful to the heart.  I praise God for revealing my flaw, my wrong doing, way back and for letting me experience the effects in being treated to the repeated effects, likewise, now.  And what is more, the damage is done; too much of the water is over the dam; there is no retrieving it now.  I can only accept these consequences, pick up:  myself, my evil inclinations, my temptation to despair over the loss--and move on with a few more scales removed from my eyes and a heart pierced through my own fault, my own fault, my own grievous fault.

With resolve to not repeat the flaw and to pray all the more with hope in God for those I've influenced by my past-but-infectious wrong doing, today I took up the goods of the temptation to despair yet again over what I have wrought and now am living out still in that situation.  There is only going forward now, and letting go of the other.  In fact, I must forbid myself to the temptation to reach in; only God can recapture water that has poured over the dam, and in this situation temporal time has also passed.  Too much water and time over the dam.

Although feeling fragile with the trials of this greater time of physical suffering and lengthy debilitation, I knew I needed to try the one phone number I've put off calling.  A man's name was given me by the parish secretary, and his phone number, over eight weeks ago.  After the unhappy results of the phone conversation with the woman the parish nurse had call me--the volunteer who was not at all a volunteer but rather a person wanting employment at hefty hourly rates--I did not have the courage to call this man, try this other phone number.

Today I did.  I left a message on his voicemail.  I had no idea if he, too, is someone seeking work beyond what I could afford and beyond what I need.  In my message, I tried to explain that I need another person or two for an occasional errand, given my recovery from spinal surgery is not progressing as thought and desired.  

Somehow--I have no idea--the message must have concurrently, weirdly, gone through as a text message to his phone number, in addition to the voicemail.  I had a response on my phone's text message, a simple "?".  So I texted this time, and explained I'd left a voicemail on his phone, but evidently it also alerted his messages, and wrote out a shorter version of the voicemail.  I expressed my need, and to please call me if this is something he or someone else he might know, could possibly do.  

I have my temporal need down to someone going to Costco for me and loading up on a variety of food supplies so that I'll be stocked for a couple or three months.  (I'd also left a message with the older parish couple who went to the grocery and brought some fresh produce, perhaps three weeks ago, by now.   Time flies....  But they have not returned the call; they may be on a trip as was the case a couple months ago when I called initially, asking their help.)

This evening I had a call back from the parish man!  He explained some his situation.  He retired from his work at age 55 with the intention of volunteering full-time instead.  He is soon to turn my age, and is quite willing to do a Costco-run for me.  In fact, he is coming in the morning to meet me, take my shopping list, and I will also give him my debit card with access to pay for what will be pricey--but the bulk foods will last this hermit for a long time.  Of course, I will also gift him with money for his kindness and effort, and I've asked him to let me know any prayer intentions I can delve into.

As it turned out, I did explain why it is that I am in need of a support network--and why it is that I do not have contacts established in this area or in the parish.  Regardless, I immediately felt uplifted, as he also spoke of how important it is to keep up the spirits after a surgery such as I've had.  He evidently knows the trickiness of spinal operations.  

The Holy Spirit has certainly taught me in practicum, the very lessons and truth written in the above Catechism  selection.  I've been asking the Lord to please help me, I've been asking my late parents and spiritual da to help me, and I had just texted, asking prayers of the couple who were so incredibly kind and helped me in my previous ordeal where I lived for 5 1/2 very arduous years.  The phone call from this man came between texts with the couple.

I'm in for another rugged night of higher physical pain, but my spirits are lifted by the amazing power of the Holy Spirit and the power of prayers answered.  Yes, when I really needed His touch and assurance in my facing more of my self, learning more to discern between trials, and in not giving into temptation to despair of managing both physical pain and my current temporal subsistence, yet also in accepting too much water over the dam....  That's done; it's gone.  Will there be ever new water filling in?  Wait and pray.

God bless His Real Presence in us!