Catholic Hermit: Shift Escaping to Seeking

Prior to confession, prior to Mass, this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit was praying over the failings and sins as of late.  Thoughts of escaping hovered; but then the Lord entered in with His Thoughts.  Change the perspective!  Escaping instead can be perceived and realized as seeking!

Something of the slogged wastes of energy and time, of suffering not so well, of insular thoughts, of much expended regarding notions and desires to escape.   Escape suffering, escape the mess of surroundings, escape the work load, escape, escape vocation upgrades, escape deeper conversion.  But the priest was excellent in praying and suggestions, and during Mass, more answers came.

Seek the Lord in all that is humble.  You will find Him in humility, lowliness, in the least of all.  Seek and ye shall find...Him in the midst of hardships, suffering, ordinariness, commonplace, the humble of and in everything and everyone.

Jesus meek and humble of heart.  Make my heart like unto Thine.

So, I am refreshed and renewed from the healing and miraculous "waters" of Mass.  The sense of escaping has given way to seeking.  The effort of seeking has given way to the hope and faith and blessed assurance in finding.  And I will find Him in all that is humble.

And I must be humble, for a vocational habit and downfall for hermits is that of becoming insular and self-inundated, of not remembering that distinction of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy that can be offered in prayer but also in the few physical encounters with people...and through the more frequent written communications.  In prayer, though, resides a bulk of gifting and loving others.

Prior to Mass three parishioners were sharing that one was trying to find out who is St. Gerard.  I was right behind them, and I could not help but easily hear their query.  So I smiled and answered.  After Mass, after thanking the priest for his gifting the parish with spiritual uplift and direction, the woman who was seeking to find out who is St. Gerard came up and said, "This is the only person in the parish who we could find to tell us who is St. Gerard."  

Well, I am sure there were others in the parish who would know, but she spoke with what I sensed the purpose of trying to make conversation, of opening the bridge of communication since during Mass, per usual, I was in the mystical state--slumped, I suppose is how it must seem.  But people are adapting nicely. Much surely depends on a priest who is inspiring with loving kindness.  Leaders set the tone, after all.

I truly thanked the woman for bringing up St. Gerard, for I so needed the reminder to simply enjoy the fun of these real people who lived, suffered, were persecuted or whatever but had gifts that they shared with others and even now are around to help us.  It is fun to consider them, and I'd forgotten a lot of the fun aspects of the Church.

She shared about a friend who had given her the St. Gerard momento--her friend suffering from cancer.  Now, here is someone for which to pray, and the woman had mentioned she and others had a little rummage sale to make money to gift the woman for use with medical bills or whatever.  I have become so used to few opportunities with people on the spur of the moment like that!  But if I see the woman next week, I will donate for her ill friend some of the generosity given me from the roadside table contributions.  Regardless, I can pray for both women and all suffering cancer.

And thinking of St. Gerard Majella reminds me to ask his help as a favor for a woman and her husband hoping to conceive against some medical odds not in their favor.

Shifting away from thoughts of escaping and efforts of distracting myself as a form of escaping, I now know that a different perspective on escape is more aptly expressed as "seeking."  And seeking Jesus in all that is humble helps me accept that my living conditions are humble; my health is humbling; my pathetic attempts when the perspective escaping is humbling if not humiliating as well.  (There is something good in the humble circumstances of seeing ourselves in the positive light of justly-placed humiliation.)

What is the rush on finishing that which my body, mind, heart, and spirit must humbly accept as major work load for someone with chronic pain, lung and liver nodules and cysts, sinus problems, and old age creeping in?  The process will progress in the balance of seeking Him in all humility and finding Him in all that is humble.

Mercy, how self-preoccupied this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit had become.  It crept in with the shift in weather, and then some....  Praise His Real Presence for the visions of fruit during Mass and the refreshing miracles of each Sacrament in the Sacrifice of the Mass.  No escaping; instead it is seeking...Him wherever humility exists and humble is found.

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.