Catholic Hermit: Psalm Hits the Spot

Mercy.  The severe physical pain surge continues as result of last evening's trial-run drive of 1.5 miles and back to grocery.  But it is a start of trying to get back into more functionality in this long, post-operative recovery.  As in our temporal and very much our spiritual lives, we must pick ourselves up and simply keep going.

The Psalm from today's Mass truly hits the spot!

"But I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify Him with thanksgiving.

"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and His own who are in bonds he spurns not."

I consider the various types of poverty as well as the many forms of bonds of which we find ourselves.  Physical bonds are probably the least of what can bind us; mental, emotional bonds are worse.  But a soul bound to other than God, seems the ultimate in suffering.

This morning I've been thinking about Mary of Egypt (344-421) a desert mother (amma) of an early century.  I read a book about her, and while I don't recall certain details, I know and appreciate her life's story..  She went out into the desert as a penitent.  She had repented of her life of sexual licentiousness, turning to God, and lived as a hermit, freeing herself from bondage of body, mind, heart and soul.  

After many years, a priest came upon her, not knowing if she was male or female for her visage had grown wizened and hair had grown, covering her like a garment.  He realized he was in the presence of a holy one from brief conversation and her spiritual transcendence.  He gave her Communion, a consecrated Host, of which she'd not had for nearly four decades, or so it seems I recall from reading.  She had not seen a human in years.  The priest said he would return again with communion and to check on her; a year later he returned and located her, deceased.

St. Mary of Egypt is remembered as one whose conversion is profound, and her renunciation of sin and path of penance and prayer remarkable.  Her transcendence of soul is yet another example of the humbling aspects of the spiritual journey can bring in seeking God as penitents, praying and praising a while renouncing whatever and all that binds us in any way.  She is also the patron saint of penitents (and we can include her a mentor for hermits, too!).

Spiritual life and all that goes with it, is a process.  Spiritual-temporal progression takes temporal time, spiritually focused diligence, a living out our lives following Christ's way for each of us, and striving in seeking and accepting God's will.  Rare are the immediate infusion of transcending grace--a transfiguration of mind, heart, and soul.

I'm calling upon Mary of Egypt to befriend me today as I again start out anew, journeying farther into the desert, the physical aspects, yes, but also the desert within, so subtle yet richly full of  Christ's all.

But I tell you, also, this morning I thought happily of the man who shared his story of miraculously having a gift of being able to transcend his physical pain, to pick up and be cured of all the physical pains of spine that had reduced him to bed-ridden status.  I assume today as he heads pain free to work, he still is viewing all with gratitude.  

As for me, I am praising God even if a bit set-back with physical pain upon pain.  He hears and knows; He spurns not one of us who even if bound in whatever way, call upon His Name.  We all will be able to fully transcend, in Christ, whatever pain at some point; and for most of us that will be at the marvelous moment of our earthly death.  

But in the meantime, we can be freed from the various ties that bind us in so many ways, through faith in and love of God, acceptance of His love, mercy, and His will.  And in praise and prayer, we simply keep going! 

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Hermit's Reflection on Hebrews, Chapter 2

The Book of Hebrews

Chapter 2

If we place ourselves as the recipients of the Living Word (of which we truly are, for who else did God intend to speak and teach?), we find that although priests have far more responsibility in preaching and teaching and guiding souls, we each and all are called to more faithfulness.

All the more we must heed and enact what we are told by His Real Presence, the Living Word.  We know that the angels’ proclamations are accurate; those that fell receive their punishment, and those who obey receive reward.  Then likewise, we must not ignore the reality of what is our recompense if we disobey—nor what is given us in our obedience to God:  salvation.

Jesus taught all these realities to us in His Words and His actions.  We know also from the testimony of those people who were His companions as well as the general public who happened to hear Him or heard of Him.  God added to the truths spoken—of our just recompense in abasement or salvation.  The choice is ours.  God made these truths all the more noted through signs, miracles, acts of power, and bequeathing gifts to His Son and also then to His followers—gifts of the Holy Spirit—given according to God’s will.

God did not create the world for the pleasure and salvation of angels.  He created this world for us, each of us.  Yet we do not know how to live in this world as subjects of God.  So He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to demonstrate for us, how it is to live in subjection to Him, to be subjects of God of which all things are to be subject to Him.

For us to grasp and learn, to approach some sort of understanding of how to navigate this world and to live as all the world is to live, in subjection to God—Jesus was made man.  He became our leader but not a political leader or a regime leader.  He is the leader of our  souls’ salvation.  He is the leader who demonstrates in every temporal and spiritual detail, how to live in subjection to God yet exist in this world, among people and creatures, plants and things.

What is it that differentiates this created world from heaven?   What is it that distinguishes our human lives and that of God’s existence?  It is suffering.  So even in suffering God partook of the toils and tribulations of what we experience here on earth.  Jesus, from His mortal birth onward, met with the various hardships and trials, the persecutions, the evils, the humiliations and sacrifices, the physical pain and mental torment, the emotional sorrows, and the heartbreak of shattering disappointments of deception.

Jesus’ existence as God and as man, seals our consecration.  God is the only One Who can consecrate, can make holy and sacredly divine our soul’s existence, to bind our soul in Him.  Through His Son, God consecrates us and gives us one origin: holy, in God.

That is how Jesus can call us His own, the children God has given Him, His brothers and sisters.  We are not only called as Christ’s own; we are made His own, become His own.  By the grace of God, Jesus tasted life and swallowed death, like us, doing so for everyone.

Each of us humans share with one another blood, flesh, thoughts, emotions, outer and inner senses, and even each have souls—so also did Jesus share each human aspect with us.  There is one major difference, though, and that is what we humans ought hold near and dear when we live out or lives on this earth, amidst earthly creatures and creation.

Jesus as God’s Son, in union with God and the Holy Spirit, as God has power over the one who causes pain and destruction, chaos and despair, tears and deception, in our lives: the devil.  It is all that can mean “death” in our lives that we people fear throughout life.  We fear death for ourselves and for others, as well, and we fear all the accompaniments of death that the devil begets in our daily lives.  

These deaths are wrapped up in our wickedness to others and to creation, our deception, our pride and willfulness, our selfishness and sinfulness.  The devil preys upon our weaknesses—physical ailments, emotional hurts, mental sickness, weariness, innocence, confusion, doubt, sexuality, doubts, age.  The devil takes advantage of any of our disadvantages.  The devil plants seeds of greed and various vices in our tired or tepid minds.  We become slaves to death rather than subjects of God and glory!

But through Jesus Christ, God made man, God came to rescue us, to help us, to give us a pathway—a means of consecration—to holiness and eternal salvation.  No matter what we humans may suffer or experience in this life and in this world, no matter the time period or country or under whatever earthly ruler, no matter the devil itself, Jesus has suffered likewise in each nuance and situation.  Jesus, the merciful and faithful high priest before God, expiates our sins.

One must hope, even when he devil seems to have won out over a soul in this life, that Jesus in His mercy and faithfulness expiates that soul’s sins.  Even when a priest, a minister of the Living Word, an alter Christus or anyone who espouses that he or she is a follower of Jesus Christ, falls short and fail but one or many of the various tests we face in life—we must have hope and faith that Jesus, the high priest, Son of God and One with the Father and Holy Spirit—expiates our failings.  He ever helps those of us who are being tested.

God grant us redemption and salvation.  Jesus, help us to endure this life.

A Commentary That Helps a Solitary Hermit

This commentary on a section of Thomas a Kempis' writings gives further substance and explanation of this nothing Catholic hermit's thoughts in previous post of the challenge for a very solitary hermit's daily and life-long journey.

From The Imitation of Christ, spiritual treatise of the 15th century, Book II, ch. 12 (trans. Robert Dudley)

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must... take up his cross daily and follow me"

The commentary:

To many the word seems harsh; "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus"... Why do you fear then to take up the cross, the way that leads to the kingdom?  In the cross you are saved, revived, protected.  In the cross you are showered with sweetness from on high, your mind is strengthened, your spirit rejoiced.  In the cross is virtue's sum, and perfect holiness.  In the cross alone is the hope of life eternal, the soul's salvation.  So take up your cross and follow Jesus; and you will enter eternal life....  For if you die with him, you shall also likewise live with him.  If you are his companion in punishment, so shall you be in glory.

Everything is founded on the cross....  There is no other way to life, nor to true inner peace....  Walk where you will, seek what you will; you will find neither a loftier way above nor a safer way below, but only the way of the holy cross.

Plan as you will, arrange as you see fit; all you will ever find is suffering you cannot help but bear; and so you will always find the cross.  You will either have bodily pain or mental and spiritual affliction.  Now God will leave you, again your fellow will provoke you; and what is more, you will often weigh heavy on yourself.  There is neither remedy to free you nor comfort to ease you.... For God will have you learn to endure affliction with total submission to himself and become more humble.... You must endure with patience everywhere, if you would be at peace within, and earn the lasting crown.

After Consolation: Desolation

There always is an interplay between the soul and the Beloved.  With a consolation raising the soul as if up to the kiss of God's lips, one is so consumed in the cherished and unexpected gesture of love, that nothing else seems possible but the soul's delight with Christ.

Then comes desolation.  Yes, it always comes until the final breath of the earthly body when there is no more desolation for the soul who has desired and striven to be beloved of His Real Presence.  But until that moment, either at death or after judgment and more purifying of the soul into greater light enough to be one with His Light, there will be a reminder through desolation of the earthly attachment to sin, which is some degree of opposition to God's purity and perfect, loving will.

Desolation:  a state of complete emptiness or destruction; anguished misery or loneliness.

For various reasons, the main one being desolation comes after consolation (and consolation comes after desolation), this nothing Catholic hermit experienced tremendous and unexpected emptiness and anguish of body, heart, mind, and soul yesterday evening and this morning.  It was rugged, and thankfully was able to email a friend, repeatedly, expressing the temporal discouragements and sorrows.

Only later, by afternoon, did the hermit grasp what was the cause and effect that always is, was, and shall be in souls on the purgative, illuminative, and unitive way of the spiritual life:  consolation, then desolation, then consolation, then desolation, then....

There was no relief, no verbal or mental prayers that one can recall.  Just prayer without words, without thought, and the sorrows and sense of abject failure as a person and with its life, became as prayer of sorrow, repentance, and hopeless clinging.

In times such as these, the soul is let down.  The kiss on the lips by God is forgotten or seems long ago if recalled.  And, if recalled, there is added shame that somehow, within days, the consolation that was so glorious is as if spurned or rejected, and in its place is the dejected soul, unable to function, not able to force its mind to reading Scripture other than a few lines that seem unable to be absorbed.

Then, somehow, toward the evening after the night and day of desolation, there is a ray of light in the evening dark:  a song.   This hermit was turning to YouTube to find music--anything that might soothe the misery of its failed and flawed life and weakness in faith on the Sabbath, no less.

Harmony!  That is what this weeping soul sought.  And somehow--yes, by the grace of His Real Presence, the Bridegroom brought His emptied hermit-bride to the name of a back-up singer for another famous singer.  Then, a title drew the attention:  Song of Bernadette.  Then, from there another song title:  Joan of Arc [refer to previous post, song composed by Leonard Cohen, sung by Jennifer Warnes].

This hermit had never heard the latter song.  It listened while viewing the accompanying video and lyrics printed upon the vivid images.  Each word had clear meaning, deep significance, and each brought:  consolation.

Thanks be to His Real Presence for His marvelous works!  Thanks be to the Beloved for raising up and taking down...and raising up again!  May this tired, ailing, yet desirous nothing hermit soul be soundly reminded of its purpose and to accept the suffering of this life as a means of reparation with the Beloved.  To be burned in the fire of His Love is so very painful, yet it is necessary for its purifying qualities.

Consolations and desolations intertwine and spiral through our spiritual journeys on this earth.  At some appointed and anointed moment, there will be the final desolation, an immolation.  Then there is the final yet eternal consolation.  Think on these marvels of His Real Presence and His fiery love for each of us.  We cannot but accept such love, yet we will cringe with the desolations, for that is natural, and we on earth are of nature.

But with each spiraling cycle of consolation-desolation, we will learn to trust in His lifting us up, then setting us down, higher then lower.  But He always raises us up for the kiss of His Lips.  Even when in the dizzying delights of consolation or in the despairs of desolation, we may forget this cycle is occurring and all in His loving pervue, we will be consoled over and over until the soul is burned into His very Soul--never more to be disconsolate again.

God bless His Real Presence in us!  Little children, let us love one another, for love is of God.  Let us remain in His Love and offer ourselves as living, holy, pleasing sacrifices to His Divine Will.

Victim of Love: Bride of His Blood

Joan of Arc.  This song has particular meaning to this nothing Catholic hermit, each word, each thought, each action, all love.  God bless Joan of Arc and all who willingly yet painfully suffer with Him, for all souls and for the Church:  Victim of Love, bride of His Blood.