Catholic Hermit: Epiphany; Pursuing Truth, Positivity; and of "Friends"

While I've been expunging negativity from my life and sifting through my self and the accumulation of negative personal habits, attitudes, and relationships, I also have been praying and reading and viewing that of truth and positivity.  It is not just for us to expunge the negatives, but to replace with truth and positives fills in what has been vacated.

I consider the Scripture in which Jesus speaks of the casting out of devils--by Whose power Jesus Himself casts out evil.  From Luke 11: 21-26 we gain truth from Jesus' teaching:

"When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed.  But when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied and distributes his plunder.  'He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me, scatters.'

"'When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, "I will return to my house from which I came."  'And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order.  Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.'"

We see Jesus' point in the importance of guarding against evil or negative influences and spirits, but also of filling in and keeping within us, that which is to fill up in holiness and truth rather than leave empty space for evil to enter back in, and then some.  Fill ourselves with Christ, with His truth, beauty, peace, and goodness.  Abide in Christ and remain in His love; allow Jesus to fill our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls, fully!

In order for Christ to full indwell us and for us to remain fully in His love, we must recognize in ourselves the negatives, the diseased and wrongful or unnecessary presences that we must sweep away.  This requires us to be quite honest with ourselves and to also discern that which we have kept in our lives or allowed to influence and take up residence in our thoughts and emotions--in our spirits and souls.  

In faith in Christ, and through prayer, discernment, and perhaps some wise advice and input from a spiritual director, confessor, and/or the insights given us by the Holy Spirit and Scripture, we face the negatives and receive the strength and courage to rid out or let go of what hinders--even if there has been good in the past.  Sometimes it is a matter of outgrowing or a season having passed, and time to plow and reseed, or in essence, rotate crops--or let a field lay fallow (but not empty; still substantive soil being restored).

I've been praying about not only expunging negativity, but then the wisdom and truth in the replacing and filling with holy, Godly, positivity.  I mean, to seek God's will and allow Him to guide the filling in with holiness, with virtues, with spiritual truth, and with His love.  As Jesus points out in Luke 11:27-28:

"While Jesus was saying these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore You and the breasts at which You nursed.'  But He said, 'On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.'"

Jesus tells us to not only hear and know what we are to do that is blessed and holy, but to take action (corporeal, active, and/or spiritual) to put God's will and His Word into practice.

Thus this morning I've been resting, trying to manage the pain, pondering, and praying.  I watched two documentaries last night of which one posited research on how our attitudes and spirits affect our temporal bodies in health and energy, but also how negativity and positivity affect the spiritual energy and health of our minds, hearts, and souls.  God is Creator of the seen and unseen, the sensible and the non-sensible of all creation and creatures.

I also happened to read an article about a man who memorizes Scripture--now up to 20 books of the Bible, and speaks the Scriptures as they were proclaimed in early centuries--expressed with energy and "heart", with lived spirit and impactful meaning.  

I considered the documentaries and of the value of meditation and contemplation, of positive imagery and of positive visualization, and the roles and impact of these efforts and practice play in our temporal and spiritual lives.  I considered the benefit to the man who absorbs Scripture, and literally fills his body, mind, heart, and soul with the Living Word of God.  Yes, these efforts take time and desire of focus.  But the results are calculable and measurable scientifically, if one even needs to know numeric, statistical results.

In the Psalm for today, I noticed and experienced the positivity of the hymn, the liturgical "song" with centuries of repetition in the human consciousness of mankind in the timelessness of corporate spirit.  I then considered Jesus' words of truth, and those of John the Baptist, pointing the way always with humility and holy deference to Christ our Savior and Redeemer of the world.  My thoughts went to pinnacle lines of a commentary by St. Augustine; and I pondered in the silence of solitude here, within, in present moment, of the incomprehensible depth of God's love for us, and that we may participate in His love flowing out to all people, all souls, all His creation.

Thus, I thought of those people most often referred to as family and friends, and especially the word "friends."  I considered how abrupt or harsh it can seem when I perceive that having "friends" per se may make us seem secure, or that we tend to find our purpose and worth based upon having friends or thinking of others as "friends".  But that in the full spectrum of our lives on earth, and of our progression as not simply human beings but as souls created by God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit--the Trinity--we begin to see not "friends", but rather we see all persons, their outer bodies and presence but more so their inner beings--their souls and all the intrinsic aspects that make up our souls.  And we begin to recognize the truth that "friends" or "family members" are far more than what we ascribe to them or they to us.  And they are also far less, in many regards, than what we attach to them or they to us.

So rather than "friends," of which we of course would like to possess or expect "friendship" in family members as well as people we've known in our lives, we really come to the truth and reality and holy freedom of deeply understanding that it is love that we desire and God desires in us--love of God in Himself, and thus God's love of others as He loves, and as we then love others.  We love in Christ's love, in the Father's love, in the love of the Holy Spirit all persons.  

Thus in reality, and perhaps in better descriptive accuracy, I can express the matter of "friends" and "family" as "loves."  And of "loves", I have uncountable and infinite "loves".    I have love and many "loves", I desire and appreciate love; and the love that I need and is pivotal and requisite for my soul's existence, is of course God's love.  The other loves--such as if other persons or more importantly, other souls, love me, that is lovely.  But the only love that is requisite for our soul's existence is to accept and know God's love.

I'm not sure I have expressed this effectively, and there are facets that could be further described, but this seems to give the point and the truth of a more precise and accurate reality of the myriad loves of all souls, including those whose externals and attitudes can display negatives or negativity in some aspect or other.  And the reality of God's love being the only love that is requisite for souls' existence and sustenance, as replacing my previous notions and even thinking in terms of identity of, for, and being based upon "friends" or family as "friends", rather than of all souls being "loves," and of our loves being possible through our love of God in Himself, and of accepting His eternal, all-encompassing, perfect love.

From St. Augustine's Sermons on St. John's gospel, no. 7, Augustine uses the word familiar to us:  "friend", as describing John being "a friend of the Bridegroom."  Yes, we can use the word "friend" as God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit is our "friend"--and actually the only friend we truly need for existence.  However, I am going to substitute "love" for "friend", as I'm comprehending the reality of God and all that He created of souls and creatures and all creation as more accurately, truthfully:  Love and loves.

"'John was there and two of his disciples with him.'  John was such 'a friend [love] of the Bridegroom' that he did not seek his own glory; he simply bore witness to the truth (Jn 3:29, 26).  Did he dream of keeping back his disciples and preventing them from following the Lord?  Not in the least.  He himself showed them the one they were to follow....  He declared: 'Why cling to me?  I am not the Lamb of God.  Behold the Lamb of God....  Behold him who takes away the sins of the world.'

"At these words the two disciples who were with John followed Jesus.  'Jesus turned and saw that they were following him and said to them:  'What are you looking for?'  They said to him:  'Rabbi, where are you staying?'  As yet they were not following him definitively; as we know, they joined themselves to him when he called them to leave their boat.., when he said to them:  'Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men' (Mt 4:19).  that was the moment they joined him definitively, no longer to leave him. 

But for now they wanted to see where Jesus was living and put into practice the words of Scripture:  'If you see an intelligent man, seek him out at daybreak; let your feet wear away his doorstep!  Learn from him the precepts of the Lord' (cf. Sir 6:36f).  So Jesus showed them where he was living;  they went and stayed with him.  

What a happy day they spent!  What a blessed night!  Who can say what it was they heard from the Lord's mouth?  Let us, too, build a dwelling in our hearts, construct a house where Christ can come to teach and converse with us."

For myself, this day, answers from the Holy Spirit and the Word of the Living God are helping me, guiding me.  I need no friends; if I have no friends, it is that I have loves.  And all souls are my loves, and His Real Presence is my only needed Love, my only requisite Love for my soul's existence eternally.  Yet, as I love God above all things, and I love God in Himself, I then in Him love all He loves; I love all His Loves.

As I am allowing the Lord to help me recognize and embrace this greater reality of His Love, I also am more understanding and at peace with allowing the negatives which are comprised of my misunderstanding of what is love and what is not love, what is of God and what is not of God, and to allow the not-good, not-God, to pass away.  I can image the negativity and negatives as simply what is not best, what is not love, what is not necessary, and allow these to float up onto a cloud that gently drifts away.

And then delight, my mind, heart, and soul, and even the emptied-of-not-needed of my body--in the Lord's providing the filling in of His Love, increasingly as I grasp even more so, the existential, ontological beingness of God Is Love.  It is His Love that a soul needs for existence; it is God's love that allows us to love as He loves, to have infinite loves through His Love of all souls, all creatures, all creation.  

I can love all souls, I am empowered to love all souls; yet I need not all or any temporal people, nor need all or any souls to love me in return.  (But we know the holy ones who have passed from this earth do love us, for they are in God and filled with love of God and filled with His Love.)  Yet I can love all, and it is love that is in my being--God's Love that indwells.  Where and when His Love fills all emptied-of-unnecessary-negatives, love sustains and assures that nothing not-love will enter in, take root, usurp space intended, created by God for God's Love.

This reality is a constant prayer and grace; this is a spiritual truth that frees me and provides the purpose and confidence in God I so need in this juncture of yet another passing over.  This morning's contemplation:  an Epiphany grace.  Grateful, Lord!

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Hermit Phases

It has not always been so, in the nearly 17 years since private profession of eremitic vows, or in the time prior of discernment and evolving into the hermit vocation.  It has not always or even ever, been this way of this present time.

There have been phases within the vocation as this consecrated Catholic hermit has tried and tested various horariums (hourly daily schedule) and of the daily life formation involved in living "hidden from the eyes of men in the silence of solitude."

For me, the co-aligned vocation of suffering has provided disruption to what otherwise might have been a quite stabilized and disciplined schedule.  And there have been times in which I did pray the Divine Office in all the hours, even rising in the middle of the night to read from the Breviary.  Yet the reality of the circumstances in which pain or other temporal responsibilities intervened.

There have been times when this hermit would attend daily Mass and often more than one Mass per day, when I lived across the street from a parish and another time beside a parish.  Of course, during pain sieges which can last a few days to weeks, there would be no Mass and little to no spiritual reading, and no set hourly schedule.

As the years have passed, and especially in this current living situation, the vocational externals have evolved into a less time-ordered schedule to a more present-moment unfolding.  Of course, the good of such evolvement is up to judgment, and that by Christ.  Yet it is difficult for me to not judge myself and to wonder if I am doing as God wills, or living my vocation as He desires, as it is so easy to consider the externals for it is more difficult to view with clarity, the interior.

Again, Christ knows the interior, as One in Three Persons.  Thus the Trinity knows and judges and hopefully informs what changes and shifts I must attempt in order to be living and praying and praising. For God desires most of me.

The increase in years of life have brought an increase in suffering, and the circumstances of my life have unfolded in ways I'd never have thought possible.  Such is the effect, in a great degree, of some mystical experiences along the way as well as some very concrete temporal events that helped shape and form the external responsibilities and conditions of my life as a consecrated Catholic hermit.

For better or worse, what is of crucial value is the mind's, heart's, and soul's intentions.  Doing all for love of God, making decisions as best one can through prayer and then attempting to listen to answers, and in consideration of charity of those in one's life--these elements ensure that one at least is seeking to do all for God, in His will.

In these past four years-plus, the temporal circumstances could have been met with an early-on decision to simply bail out of this hermitage that was purchased with all good intentions and high hopes.  The dwelling is set in a lovely spot for quiet prayerfulness and a rather ideal location for a consecrated hermit.  Yet, the living conditions soon revealed themselves to be unsafe and unhealthy, with the place needing to be gutted.  Enough surface demolition had been done that to try to sell "as is" would not have been all that honest nor prudent.  One major consideration: a hermit must be able to sustain him- or herself financially.  To bail out would have meant great financial losses without a set means to replenish the funds.

Thus, a phase unfolded of more external emphasis on manual labor and also of learning construction skills of all types with new tools to learn. Then there were the interactions with workers for awhile, and learning that people can be dishonest and also not that capable in the skills they espouse they possess.  Then there were the interactions with purchasing supplies from stores, and some of those products being defective involving the mind and energy of body to be in effort of righting wrongs.

And in all this, there was great suffering.  Suffering includes physical pain from added hardships of cold living conditions, of rat urine and feces and dead rats and birds in the walls, crawlspaces, ceilings, and attic, as well as suffering from the chronic pain from back and neck injury of years past.  There was the painful suffering of having been deceived by those involved in the sale of this property and others selling their services and wares, so to speak.  Yet there have been the great and heroic, holy people who have helped and offered instruction and support as well as marvelous material deals on supplies needed.

There have been times of attending Mass; but the mystical state, known as a mystical ecstasy, that occurs during Mass, has been problematic for priests and parishioners to the point that along with the difficulty in sitting for any length of time due to the increasing back troubles, it became best to remain in the hermitage.  Only within the past year did a couple from the parish begin bringing Communion on Sunday mornings.  God bless them.

And it has evolved that even trying to do spiritual reading other than when mentally freed enough to absorb, is not often these days and nights.  Always, though, first thing in the morning I read the Living Word, the daily Mass Scriptures.  

In previous phases, what had been a mainstay of my hermit life with hours spent in lectio divina and various genre of spiritual reading, and even of daily writing of spiritual matters and reflective of Scripture and the writings of spiritual masters--are not the current phase.  The mind has currently needed to be sharpened to operating power saws and nail guns, of figuring framing and plumbing and even some electrical efforts.  Often enough, the body has been simply weary and seeks simple distractions, visual, auditory, more mindless in content.  Easy.

Yet what has risen to the top of each present moment, has been the closeness to the Lord Jesus Christ which is evolving as the highlight of this current phase of a few years.  The praying has not been with memorized prayers as much as I used to pray these, or the devotions of which I wholeheartedly loved and repeated and celebrated.  Even though I knew and know how vibrant and desired are the prayers and devotions--many came by the private revelations of saints as received from Christ, the Virgin Mary,discerned and documented in their veracity--I am not in that phase of zeal or discipline.  

Instead, the praying now has been in whatever thoughts have come while working.  Whatever holy insights or instructions of spiritual benefit come in the periphery of the mind and heart and soul with body at work or in physical suffering, even while distracting with news or peaceful voices and scenery in video form.  Yet the daily miracles occur in that the Lord has allowed me to attempt to make "all things new"--and to use skills newly learned and to successfully accomplish amazing tasks by His grace and with His assistance, often through the instruction or help by others.

So my perspective on my own phases as a hermit, has broadened and deepened.  I no longer consider anything a set condition or how a hermit's daily life or prayer routine ought be.  There is more understanding of St. Paul's "praying always".  Within that "always" set forth by God are the ways and forms and words and wordlessness that prayer can become when we let go of what we think prayer ought be.

In the next months (if the Lord gives me days or months or longer here on earth) this current phase may turn to a more set discipline in an horarium-type hermit.  There may be a return to schedule of religious life, of set times of verbal and mental prayer, of praising God, of attending formal, liturgical worship, of receiving weekly the Eucharist in tangible Host or in spiritual communion.  

I do not know what is ahead, other than the Lord will guide and structure this hermit's existence and consecrated vocation in whatever ways and means He desires.  He certainly surprised me with these past four-plus years and the honing of hermit existence in ways I'd never have accomplished without being here, enduring this, struggling along, learning a blind faith never imagined.

My role and place must be in the Lord's heart, remaining in His Love.  I must try not doubting His Real Presence and the power and truth in even the smallest and most distracted prayer of love in His Love, and love of others as God loves.

Pray, listen, praise, and offer the sufferings.  This phase, as all phases, shall pass.  The Lord will reveal whatever next phase and phases.  God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Severe Pain Siege

Dearest blog readers, this wearied, nothing, consecrated, Catholic hermit has been flat on the floor mattress with quite a severe pain siege.  Thus, all has ceased other than existing; and existing is quite a bit of something.

Pain is a powerful force. Pain wipes clean the memory.  Pain shuts down the more active bodily functions, including the ability to stand and walk, to prepare food to eat, to drink much or eat much or think much.  Pain becomes a prayer and thus is the prayer.  The body, influenced by severe pain, tends to automatically shut down enough to protect the body from having to do what will cause even more pain, thus the slow down in food and water intake.  

Since it is so painful to get up and walk, the appetite for food and water subsides; thus no need to eliminate bodily waste other than once in 24 hours.  There is no brushing of teeth or bathing, no ability to walk to the door if there would be anyone knocking; but of course there is no one there knocking.  

The hours and days come and go, and after a few days there is the beginning of thought that perhaps the next day, maybe the body can try to rise and be up for five minutes or so.  Then comes the questioning of if the body is going to be given its energy back ever.  

Thoughts begin to sort through life, screening backwards to choices made, noticing weaknesses in the will and forks in life's road along the way, and how God allowed free rein but also introduced major stop lights at certain juncture points when the will could not seem to make needful choices.

As the days and nights painfully progress, the pain lifts slightly, gradually, just enough to remember the great effort to empty the bucket even if cannot recall the day of that feat.  The mind recalls the body stood for more than four minutes to crush cranberries, an apple, an orange: food enough to eat on a couple times a day for a couple days.  Salted peanuts, a slice of cheese, some old, refrigerated, cooked rice microwaved with some curry sauce--these are the quick-grabs at odd hours.

The laptop remains the window to the outer world and source of communication.  A friend emails, asking if the hermit would like an "Ace" bandage mailed to wrap the injured hand?  No, cannot do work, cannot yet walk the short distance to mailbox. Thanks, though.  

Surely in a few days will be able to drive to civilization; am supposed to see the young grandson in a theater production.  That day comes, and while the body can rise to get more water and use the bucket more often, there is not the energy by a far stretch to even think of driving; but the hermit has been able to gather the mail.

The spiritual father has written.  The cherished letter is among a pile of junk mail.  Perhaps this ratio reflects the amount of junk thoughts and wasted God-time in our lives: mostly junk with a dab of rich quality hidden in the mound of moments.  Fr. V. emails, as well, and inquires as to Advent season, reports his preaching a retreat to high school students in his native Nigeria.

The mind is beginning to recollect above the pain.  A dream is recalled.  The Lord reveals through the images and performance that the body, mind, heart, and soul has not been accepting nor loving someone in the outer life, as himself.  Ah, it is truth!  Correction is needed.  It is not easy to live God's law is it?  We don't even realize, often enough, that we lack love right in our own inner circle.  

God deals with us directly when we are reduced and simplified.  Pain helps reduce and simplify.

By the sixth day of being "mattressed," the mind asks the Lord what is the purpose of this prolonged pain siege?  The reality surfaces that whatever physical, natural impetus triggering the pain siege would have been already rested and corrected.  What is the supernatural or spiritual reason? As with past pain sieges (of which none of this magnitude have been for months and months amidst the numerous short-term sieges), there is always a spiritual reason.

Advent.  Advent waiting. It is in patience in perseverance, that the soul shall possess itself, shall be saved.  These words of Jesus--verbage dependent upon which Biblical translation--give the answer.  The mind considers various here-and-now options.  Perhaps am not making the correct choice in continuing work efforts on this hermitage, trying to make it salable?  Perhaps am not doing with this life what it is the Lord wills and desires of it?  

Waiting.  Thoughts of John of the Cross and Bernard of Clairvaux float to the consciousness.  Am able to correspond with a couple of spiritual friends, physically far away but right here, now.  One brings news of a ridiculous occurrence in an aspect of the temporal Catholic world.  It is a laughable yet painful reminder of how far beyond we ought to be from such temporal foolishness.  There is also great sadness in the example, great irony. Try to let go the details.

Then a young woman calls on the phone.  There are the usual issues going on in her everyday life which continue to be tainted by her short past as well as issues of her own physical body, of infection and illness that interfere with energy, duties as wife and mother, and very much affect temperament and extended family relationships.  Anger, misspeaking, loss of emotional control pepper the past few weeks in her interactions.

I speak of the law of minds and the law of God--the royal law, the law that fulfills and supersedes all other laws.  Love God above all things and love others as oneself.  I mention the example of the foolishness of the sad-but-true story of the monsignor and his parish and the temporal Catholic world occurrence in which the priest once more tamps souls down to his level of love and personal dis-ease.  

We are all capable of hearing about, for example, Bernard of Clairvaux's Four Degrees of Love.  "What are they?' she asks?  The hermit, in the Advent moment able to think above the physical, bodily pain, explains each level and attempts to use simple examples from our current life choices.  

Yes, we humans are able to grasp such matters as degrees of love.  We are capable of being led to the higher levels--or at least of having them presented so that we are aware we can strive for greater degrees of spiritual maturity in God's royal law, in His Love.

You may be asking what are the degrees of love that Bernard, some ten or so centuries ago, wrote out with timeless examples.  He is not the first, of course, to do so.  The same loves surface in the earlier writings of the desert abbas and ammas.  They also exist in the Living Word, even if not listed in ordered fashion.  

The ultimate love is that of God in Himself.  The basic love is love of ourselves.  Yes, it is base to love ourselves; it is a starting point.  Then there is love of ourselves in relationship to others in pleasing others for what reward might come.  Then there is love of others and love of God for what rewards might come.  And again, the ultimate love is love of God in Himself--not for any other purpose.  Just love God as He Is, for Whom He Is, within Him.  Love God in Himself.

All other love unfolds and flows from within God Is Love.

The pain will subside to a point in which the mind can manage the pain rather than the pain ruling the body and mind.  The pain will not be removed from the body in this lifetime, not even with the strongest of pain medications other than if the body were to be medicated to a point of comatose condition.

This pain siege might last the duration of Advent.  But it seems that more likely the pain will be lifted enough for continuance of the manual labor efforts, when the mind, heart, and soul have learned what it is that the Lord wills to directly teach--through reminders from His Living Word, the writings of great spiritual minds and souls, the examples of current life experiences, the flaws of self and others, in dream images and in emails and happen-chance conversation.

Advent waiting can be quite painful!  Yet there is great good in pain, for sure.  There is much unknowing with pain.  We just never know if, when, or how it might lift enough to allow continuation of body, mind, and heart living.  But always we know the soul lives fully in the experience of pain.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love God above all things and love others as ourselves!  Desire and reach for the highest degree of the Law of God, the Law of Love.