Catholic Consecrated Hermit, Christian, Mystic, and Victim Soul: Update

 

I've not been writing much at all on this site for a year or more.  It's been a very difficult year with health trials following a total knee replacement a year ago June 20--a surgery that failed.  My left knee is constantly in pain, is large, hardened from fibrotic tissue that grew erratically beginning actually during the surgery. 

Now I continue the oil and wraps and heat packs, the PT, for the knee is always going to be a sad and sorry state of added suffering that should never have occurred but for the only explanation I located that was not due to the surgeon or his PA mucking up--was that possibly the Arachnoiditis caused oxidative stress on the cells during surgery, which I read can the oxidative stress can cause the collagen cells to grow erratically and rapidly thus the thick layer of impervious collagen tissue--and a painfully stiff, hardened knee that causes permanent disability in walking, bending the knee and coping with enough pain of its own that would need pain med.  

Aside from the failed knee replacement, I'd been so fatigued that the month prior (May), I'd gone to an internal med doctor who did blood tests and found my thyroid had gone kaput.  I was put on medication that replicates what the thyroid used to produce, and began to feel a little better but not at all back to normal (factoring in the Arachnoiditis pain and being 72).  

What was going on behind the scenes of my thyroid and knee replacement was not found until the following November. However, I kept alerting the internal med doctor, a young man whose only interest was in getting transferred to lead an Alzheimer's clinic, that my blood tests showed other alarming results.  He poo-poo'd my concerns and what the blood tests were alerting him, but that is how it can be in the life of one cursed, oppressed by the devil, and a victim soul.

By late summer and fall I was failing--knew it myself but thought the Arachnoidiits was progressing and that this was how it was to be--a bodily decline and increasing fatigued and knew something had to be not right--as bad as the blood tests seemed in at least three of the areas of blood issues.  By mid-November I had a particularly terrible week.  Prior had lots of intestinal troubles but tests okay for colon.  Ended up hospitalized after other trips to ER for intestinal issues.  Kidneys had gone into failure.  Was having allergic reaction since the previous May or before--the indications were in the blood tests that the internal med dr. ignored or was ignorant as they are for when someone is have an extreme reaction.  

Off Meloxicam for rest of life after being on it for 37 years.  But, thankfully the kidneys turned around from kidney diet and no more of that med which pain patients are given despite that very side effect plus liver issues.  Lost health and declined, though. Damage but the filtration rate is up again.  Then still not well and blood tests had still the other bad indictors, so had bone marrow biopsy.  Looked like a blood cancer but was a similar reading but is a precursor so will be rechecked periodically. Also found I have a bad anemia condition that my body does not absorb or store iron. So that's a problem; I take iron supplements. Fatigued, terribly. 

Mostly in bed as a result of pain and fatigue, and the pain doctor replaced extended release meds with non-extended so am veritably a pain yo-yo now--with meds taking awhile to help, then wane after three hours of marginal help; if I forget to now-seeming short time span which happens when doing mental distractions as pain management, the pain can get out of control and take even longer to get pain contained.  Just how it goes--this Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit's life as a Victim Soul of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!  Love to suffer, and suffer to love--words spoken to me from a mystical experience 20 years ago this end of July--has me renewing my quest to fully understand and cooperate with the beautiful, spiritual meaning of what St. Michael pronounced to me, Christ's "victim of love and suffering".  

God bless His Real Presence in us!

The Catholic Hermit: The Problem with (or for) Mystics

 I've had ministers give me the squinted glare, also (one told me to leave and take my child with me), but as long as some Protestants or anyone could consider me "psychic", that helped ease their angst. Yet others, of course, were convinced I was new age or like the seers of the OT who connived and communed with the dead in dangerous ways.  Catholics seem to be expecting some type of person of which fantastical dreams are made--hagiographical- embellished "saints".  

It does help if there is some utilitarian mystical gift comes with the person, such as the gift of healing, clairvoyance,  or the visible stigmata--once the person has been put through the wringer to have the phenomenon proven legitimate and not of their own doing.  (I do understand that for the sake of others who can take things out of context, those with especially visible phenomenon need to be discerned as well as to discern, themselves, if a mystical phenomenon is a chronic condition in the mystic's life.)  

I have come to accept that this lack. of acceptance is part of the suffering God has allowed me, andI ought to bear it with kindness, gratitude, and grace.  I so loved Mass;  Mass was a joy and privilege that lifted me up from bed of pain each morning despite the difficulty then of sitting. But after the ecstasies began in later 2008,  troubles ensued with  people not understanding and those who did, were envious or resentful.  Those who did not understand would become angry at my rudeness for seeming to sleep through Mass. 

Others would injure me by trying to waken me, or call 911 and the fire truck, police, and EMS would show up and be coming into Mass with the gurney about the time Mass had ended. The final time this occurred, I tried to imitate Jesus His last time in Nazareth when the people were readying to throw him off a cliff.  "He walked through their midst."  

My spiritual da later reminded me that Jesus never went back to Nazareth after that.  I never returned to Mass at the Cathedral; for one thing, my neck was so severely injured I was unable to drive for several weeks and took 8 weeks to function per usual.  But the monsignor did not want me to return; he'd been letting me know for months and months prior.  I simply did not want to give up the beauty and glory of the Mass!  

The deeper the ecstasy the more bliss, but I had to finally consider charity to others and that of not being an occasion of sin to them. I began to consider that perhaps God allowed the situation because He preferred me to Himself in the hermitage. I considered the ancient hermits as well as the desert dwellers who often stayed hidden and in silence of solitude and did not participate in Mass  nor receive the tangible consecrated Host for the rest of their lives.  

I sacrificed the sacrifice of the Mass; I knew this was at least until shown and allowed otherwise, the charitable thing to do for others. Charitable?  Yes.  Part of suffering is to forsake what we  love in order to protect others from doing, thinking, and speaking (gossip, criticism) wrongly.  It had become too much of a problem for priests to navigate personally and with their flock, as well.  I had to grapple with why would God have this happen--that I'd not be able to participate in Mass?  

But then I factored that two weeks prior to the ecstasies commencing, my angel appeared in a dream.  He placed his hand on my righti arm and said as he led me, that he was taking me to the Stairway to Heaven.  He took me to the foot of an immense stairway; we stood at the foot and gazed up to where I could see no farther.  In considering this event, I finally understood that the Mass is the stairway in a spiritual way, and the ecstasies have a powerful message in that reality.  

Stairs lead us onward, upward, and that designates a transition from one level or place of being to another.  We must let go of where we had been and what we had known and even loved, and begin the ascent to that which we know not yet must trust that God is taking us to where He wills and of that which we need for the glory of His will and desire for our souls and for His Body, the Church. 

Christian Catholic Mystic Hermit: In Need of Prayers

 Appreciate prayers for severe pain and nausea from the pain.  Going along with His Living Word, striving to live in Him every moment, suffering and not knowing how I will manage especially now with the pup Mercy.  God will provide.  

I have no idea how the lumbar has flared so much, shooting pain down legs, left knee has worsened, but the new area of pain is the left shoulder and upper left back, with nerve pain burning down left arm particularly in the night making hands and fingers numb.  This could be unrelated to the bad neck situation, or could be some type of shoulder injury that I was unaware of.  All-told, the pain is literally sickening.  Pain pump was increased three days ago to no improvement that I can discern.  

At times seems more pain than i can bear, and so unexpected is the left shoulder pain and all it affects.

Years ago I offered all my sufferings for Holy Church; the temporal Church specifically with its many challenges and issues from our human interference and alterations and sin nature.  I figure the Lord is utilizing this horrible pain currently for many problems that break His Sacred Heart.

Summer of 1995 in a powerful waking locution I was told that my sufferings and the sufferings of Holy Mother Church shall be made one.  So this is just more of it.

Thank you for prayers that I can endure this pain over the weekend.

God Bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Mystic, Hermit, Victim Soul: Comments and Replies to Comments

 I have tried in various ways to be able to change my settings in this new blogger format, to be able to reply to your comments.  So I will respond by posting a comment myself.  If you leave a comment, please check back to the post to which you left the comment, as likely I will have responded underneath your comment.

I so appreciate the positive, supportive, and encouraging comments. I also appreciate comments that are critical; these help me to ponder what I've written and to explain further or simply accept that I have not been helpful in what I've shared.  

This is quite a strange and arduous phase and unexpected shift in my life temporally and spiritually.  I never would have thought the Scriptures I've pondered in the previous blog post could be so real and actual or in what are deeper meanings that go beyond my erstwhile limited view of what was expected in the temporal life including the temporal and temporal-spiritual expectations and protocols.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Labor Day Thoughts

I've not written at all lately other than correspondence.  The suffering continues as much if not more than ever, but that is to be expected even if not wanted.  Adhesive Arachnoiditis symptoms continue on progressively.  The other morning awoke with one of the worst of pain sieges involving the head in the upper ranges of pain thus far after 36 years of pain since the accident and 33 years since the surgeries and death experience.  Turns out I had another ailment--an infection--going on concurrently.  Antibiotics will help the infection.  God only knows the why and wherefore of suffering, truly.

So it is Labor Day, and I listened to Mass on EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network).  Can watch it on laptop via live stream at certain times they offer, or on youtube at any time. I was more interested in today's Scriptures than the comments on Labor Day itself.  The mystical ecstasies have not occurred during Masses seen as if from one world into another world far, far away.   There is subtle effect if the homilies (or sermons) are based on the Scripture; the more spiritually based the sermons, the better.  So it was when in past I was able to be at Mass in a church and with a Tabernacle in vicinity.  Always the mystical state would be far more profound if the sermons were spiritual and not with temporal, personal anecdotes or sharing.  Definitely the ecstasies would be as if I was bound in hell wanting to escape if there were aspects at the altar or the celebrant that the Holy Spirit knew not good.  It had nothing to do with anything I as a mortal could detect, of course. When in ecstasy, our mortal faculties are as if set aside.

This summer I continued some net-casting in this locale, this diocese.  All doors closed.  I had decided to be honest about my mystical life; that is very unnerving to Catholic parishioners and priests and even bishops, on a whole.  But having been passed through some type of what was said to me within is a "mystic portal" on Pentecost in June, there was impetus to simply be as I am, as God has me, and take and accept what may.  I suppose this is another level of detachment for the mind, heart, and soul.

The final net cast happened to be the leader of a parish's lay spiritual directors.  A woman, older and who had received spiritual direction certification from mostly online courses of some sort from an Episcopalian priestess' spiritual direction certification program, begun in California but she expanded it to be available for those in other states--that woman had emailed in response to some inquiries.  She was not happy with my questioning why a more new age type person who was the contact man for the online program instead of getting certification from some of the several offered by Catholic universities which are also mostly online but contain Catholic theology as well as counseling points to learn when one counsels others?

I did then apologize sincerely, for when I saw a photo online of the woman lay leader, I realized she was quite a bit older, and her "companioning" others was likely not the spiritual direction that I had in mind or that was more in depth.  She called it companioning, and that suggests being company for lonely persons, encouraging them to pray or such.  So I thought perhaps she might be or know of someone with similar interests in reading or spiritual writing or mystical situation as I deal with.  I emailed some thoughts and that I needed prayer to discern what topic God might want me to write in a more formal way or focused way, with perhaps more length than blog posts.  I decided to use the "m-word" and said I need prayer and discernment if I should write of experiences in my "life as a mystic."

Well, that did it.  It always does.  Same with the parish secretary. I had decided it was best to cast the net even in pulling up stakes from parishes and allow the Lord to do with me as He wills--that I would be as if totus Tuus to Christ--belonging to God Alone and not with parishes and dioceses.  (Thus why watching Mass on EWTN--it is not a parish nor diocese but a small Franciscan religious community of a few priests and three brothers.  And my mystical life is unknown to them, of course, and I am anonymous to them as they are to me other than I can get to know and sense them through my little laptop window to the world.)

The parish secretary had emailed me to say that the parish priest did not read my emails or if anything, only a line and then nothing more.  I had sensed that, of course, but she mentioned the staff and she decided to let me know--so I suspected the staff may have included the priest.  It always amazes me that I can explain that I sense things, or other aspects of mystic beings of which we cannot help it nor choose it; mystics are born this way.  It is nothing one can decide to "be".  And, frankly, I can't think anyone would want it given how it creates all kinds of troubles for the mystics, all through life if one lives very long.

I had responded the secretary that I knew that, but my writing was cathartic, all the same, and needed to be written.  And that some things written would have been good for the priest to have read, but it is God's signal to me of a door closed, a net pulled up and empty.  I dared mention the secretary that this type of situation seems to occur with mystics from what I've read of them in the many books I have--books that are not re-writes simplified of the books written and translated from those who either knew the mystic or lived closer to the time in which the mystic was alive; and if writings included by the mystic, then all the better. 

Just the mention of the "m-word" with Catholics seems to upset them and cause them to judge.  They don't want to think they are judging and sometimes respond with, "I am not judging you, but...."  There is always the "but."  The last priest I spoke with in the diocese was that of the Cathedral, and I could see in his eyes (our mouths and noses covered with our masks in this time of Covid-19 pandemic so no reading the nuances of his lips or chin or nose) that he had turned off shortly into his asking me about where I had been going to Mass and my mention of being a Catholic convert 25 years ago. He wanted to know how it was that I became Catholic?  Well, that very much involves a series of supernatural events including locutions and visions as well as amazing aspects of God reaching into the temporal of my life in the conversion process over ten years' time in which the Holy Spirit was quite involved, as well.  I'm not sure I used the m-word then, but no doubt I did the colder his eyes became.

There is no sense at this phase of life and the occurrence on Pentecost of passing through this mystic portal thing, whatever it is, to be mincing words anymore.  There is no more trickery, no glossing over the mystic reality and being taken in to a parish only to have the priest and parishioners going into the mode that has been handed down to them for centuries. I figure it started to be this way for mystics in the Middle Ages, for in the early Church, Christians were far more open to mystical experiences and spirituality of some; it was the non-Christians who stoned St. Paul and eventually cut off his head.  But by Joan of Arc's century, mystics were being quite harshly judged, questioned, doubted, shunned, and horribly mistreated.

I consider that in our century, mystics who are in the Catholic Church are considered a problem, a disruption, or otherwise a mentally ill or emotionally psychotic or downright charlatan.  There is more shunning and negation as a person, and a non-welcoming aspect or if told allowed to come to Mass, are very discouraged from it.  The last priest I spoke with said of course the church is open to all Catholics, but he then said go to the parish you had been going to--and this despite my telling him I was not allowed to be in the main church but was told to be in a room without even a tabernacle but with a screen for the live-streamed Mass, and it was better to watch EWTN on my laptop than do the added sitting and driving only to be reminded that I was different and not to be with the normal people in the big church!

So the leader of the lay spiritual directors emailed back saying she did not want to correspond with me--even though she said she was not judging me, but that God chooses mystics.  Well, yes, He does.  The point?  I suppose it was that God does not choose them currently or at least not in this area or not in whatever area I came from previously, nor wherever I was born.  The parish secretary never responded once I used the m-word and described some of what I'd been through and the net-casting I was doing to see if it was even possible for a mystic to be accepted--a plain and simple human person who happens to be a mystic, and otherwise nothing unusual that is noticeable aside from ecstasies during Mass.

That concluded my net-casting of many nets prior.  The Holy Spirit then reminded me vividly of the last vision and locution that involved Jesus Himself.  It was the vision and locution surrounding the actual marriage ceremony of the mystical marriage and banquet following, and my pleading for consummation. But Jesus told me no, that he had to tend to other souls but would be back to consummate our marriage and to take me with Him.  However, Jesus gave me instructions, very clearly.  He said to remain strong.  He told me to wait.  Then He showed me a group--kind of like a gaggle--of priests and Catholic parishioners who were pointing and staring and whispering gossip about me and priests doubting and dismissive of me.  Jesus said firmly:  Pay no attention to them!  And, the last words He spoke were a repeat, but much more forcefully, of the:  REMAIN STRONG.

As I was reviewing in detail that marriage and banquet, the intense love and desire for Jesus to consummate our marriage, and then of what were the last words He spoke to me some 8 years ago this week--I realized that I'd taken much of it literally as it needed to be taken literally.  I have tried to remain strong (not always strong but try to do so!) and I have waited.  Yes, I literally have waited.  But I have not taken literally the "Pay no attention to them!" directive by Jesus.  I have paid attention, I have continued to push on parish doors and doors of priests and three bishops--and those doors have either not opened or if opened, just a crack or for a temporary time enough for the priests to say "no" repeatedly in word or in action such as shunning or coming up with excuses as to why I was not welcome.

So I decided recently to take Jesus seriously in all that vision and locution.  What a difference it has made once I got over the feeling sorry for myself and then a bit of disgust that I was so weak and pathetic as to think surely He did not mean it.  I reviewed when was that mystical marriage and banquet and the message of Jesus to me--and that I thought moving to another location would help.  Maybe Jesus just meant pay no attention to the priests and parishioners in that diocese.  After all, they were telling me directly I could not come to their parishes and telling parishioners to run me out if I came.  Seriously.  They meant business!  But in the next area God kept the doors closed even when I tried hard to push them open. And here, one door did open, but to what?  To a room with a screen; and then the Lord had the spine worsen and a major surgery and unable to go, anyway.  But then even with trying to find a kindred type or spiritual director--NO.  The nets repeatedly  came up empty.  

And the good part of all this is that I am no longer blaming others, nor am I blaming myself!  Jesus meant that directive literally as much as he meant "wait" and "remain strong" literally!  This is all part of having passed through the mystic portal (what the Holy Spirit called it back in 2012 around the time of the mystical marriage and wedding banquet).  But God in His kindness and patience let me refuse the mystic portal passage while I cast nets port and starboard, aft and stern in various parishes in a couple more dioceses.  Then God laid me low but still had doors close when I'd inquire via emil or meet in person with a couple more priests and parishioners.  Jesus says in Scripture let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Well, in striving after God in Three Persons, I realized that the Trinity's yes means yes, and Their no means no!

I've been told under no uncertain terms and repeatedly:  No.  Pay no attention to them.    I am taking the Lord literally now, and there is progress and more peace!  There is also plenty of pain of suffering, and the week after the final priest's being horribly dismissive and the doors closing elsewhere in major shut-downs, I admit to being very, very low in spirit.  But remember that we are never forsaken by the Lord, and so it is true that even with the horrible pain siege of a few days ago and still sick with the infection on top of the usual Adhesive Arachnoiditis pain, I woke up this Labor Day morning here in the USA, and I realized I am a real hermit now.  I am a real Catholic hermit!  

Then I come upon the comments that somehow I could not see from the older blogger format.  One of them I deleted for the person was very angry with me for I had right before my surgery last summer suggested I could not keep emailing.  I had emailed this spring or early summer to see how she was doing.  I never heard back.  Somehow she had blocked me after I said I could not keep corresponding last summer, but I did not know that; and so my email or contacting her via video comment section really upset her terribly.  So I am sorry, although I doubt she will see this.  I did not realize she had taken it so hard when I explained I could not continue corresponding.  No, I needed space and time to deal with the surgery upcoming, and the person was wanting to email fairly often and wanting more contact and attachment than what I could do.

Other readers have left comments, and I will try to figure out how to respond. For now, I think I simply clicked to post them.  Please accept my apologies for I never saw the comments until today!  But to the one person who wrote at length in rather frustrated mode as to why I vacillated on the issue of canonically approved hermit vocation for diocese hermits or simply being a consecrated Catholic hermit of the traditional, historical type--the vacillation was due to a woman CL603 hermit who for 13 years had stalked and detracted me, and she is all-in for canonical approval for various reasons that I do not agree with.  

And just the other day I noticed one of her buddies whose email and contact information is listed with this lady's CL603 blog--the buddy who is kind of like a "fixer" for the CL603 hermit and used to leave such angry and nasty comments several years ago that I closed comments for a few years until awhile ago.  Well, the buddy, a woman also, had viewed a site online for people to connect with, that someone had set up for me years ago thinking it would be good.  I do not use that site but have not figured out how to unsubscribe or whatever.  They send notices if someone has been looking, and sure enough, this other woman had.  And lo and behold, I read her information, and she belongs to and says she is a priest--with title of reverend--in a made up Independent Catholic Celtic Church of some sort.  There are several women priests and a couple male priests and a male "bishop" in this made-up but very actual "church" they consider some type of Catholic, I suppose. (See: https://www.celticchristianchurch.org/clergy.)

I was stunned.  Not only did the CL603 hermit lady whose attacks and persecutions of me as a consecrated Catholic hermit caused me consternation for years  and a lot of ups and downs and back and forth on if God wanted me to be CL603 when visions and locutions indicated He did not want that at all--but then I found out her own bishop is not even aware of her and vicar general wanted nothing to do with her when I finally contacted them in hopes they could get her to cease and desist her online doxxing and detracting and stalking.  I'm sure they also have no idea that her alternate person on her hermit blogsite is a woman priest in a made up Catholic church (there are offshoots dotted around a few places in the country).  But I ultimate laughed when I realized how the devil was in all that, and all the more I find the CL603 hermit situation too much for bishops to even supervise, for the most part.  

Well, it was yet another affirmation as if I needed any more, that God definitely did not want me to have anything to do with it. That is the temporal Catholic world in its complexity in addition to the temporal Catholic world's goodness of parishes and priests and outreach programs and bona fide religious orders and societies of the faithful, of the married and single Catholics all over the world.  As for me, I remain and always in this life will be a victim soul, mystic, consecrated Catholic hermit, and bride of Christ.

God knows what He is doing.  The problem is, we don't always discern as God intends; but God in his loving mercy and patience, gives us all the time we need to figure it out the way He wants us to live and be and love Him in Himself and above all things, and to love others as He loves.

And God does answer our prayers in big ways.  I was in my acceptance of remaining strong, waiting, and paying no attention to parish priests and parishioners and all that entails.  I pray for them; I love them; but I am on the other side of the mystic portal now.  I do not belong to that other world.  I have been told that, also, by God and His heavenly messengers.  But I tend to not trust, always, especially that which I don't want to hear and trust!  So I had been thinking of getting a hypo-allergenic dog, thinking maybe my pain was not maybe as bad to be keeping me in bed so much, and that a dog would force me to get up in the morning.  I thought it would be a creature that is always accepting and would not mind if I were a mystic or not!  So it was getting closer to the time to choose which pup and then four more weeks or so to get the pup.  I asked Jesus quite directly to let me know if I should get a dog or not--but added on to please tell me in a dream or vision or some other way than through more suffering...please!  

Well, God answers our prayers in whatever way He knows is necessary for us to get it and get it straight, no questions asked, no wriggle room.  The next morning I awoke early with such a horrific spinal headache with lumbar, legs and feet on fire with burning pain--that even trying to text was an ordeal, but I made one quick text to the lovely young wife and mother who had the darling puppies--and told her no way can I have a dog! Please remove me from the list.  Said I was in a pain siege and no way could I have even let a dog outside!  Serious pain siege!  She texted back did I mean it, and I had enough ability to squint to type, "Yes.  Sorry."  

I'm still in bed with this siege and God tossed in an infection I've never had all these years until now, for good measure.  I'd put a deposit on the dog since I need one that is hypoallergenic and those don't just show up in the shelters.  That loss of deposit as it was non-refundable will be added reminder, and thanks be to God I did not pay the rest and even try the puppy.  I will dedicate the money to helping the hurricane victims in Louisiana and other good causes.  I know the pain is as God has it, and the being laid low by it is as God has it. And my adult children and grandchildren in their independent and active, responsible lives are as God has them.  There is very little contact and communication; that is for valid and good reasons God has let me fully understand.  

God has me where and how He wants me, while I wait, while I remain strong.  God is taking care of and has the priests and parishioners in their lives where and as He wants them.  I am free now, for the Holy Spirit and my angel to show me around what is on the other side of the mystic portal.  Even though I have not come across that term in the writings of mystics thus far--or at least not in that specificity of wordage--I will be looking for that aspect in some other form of it in Scripture and in the writings of mystics and great spiritual writers through the centuries of Christianity and the prophets prior.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit into God's Hermit: A Lovely, Holy Closing

Happened upon this quote from my Confirmation name saint, Sister Josefa Menendez.  She died on December 29, 1923 in Poitiers, France, in convent (Sacred Heart).  The diocese opened the cause for sainthood, to be a Servant of God, on November 30, 1948.  She was a mystic and victim soul, and is the first that a parish priest whom the Lord told me in locution I was to go.  He opted for private instruction for me; his choice.  

He is the priest who said I'd come to the right place, that this was where I belong, that the Church is "filled with mystics" as he swept his arm in the direction of the parish church, as we met in his rectory office.  He was excited having read some of my writings and insisted on my sharing various spiritual experiences and declared I am a mystic and a victim soul--news to me....  He explained some what is a victim soul, but then left briefly and came back with a book he asked me to read, The Way of Divine Love--biography of Sr. Josefa Menendez.  

Even Josefa's photo on the inside of the book was familiar to me from an encounter with someone--too much to explain.  But reading of her life and the messages to her from Jesus and Mary, her sufferings, her feeling different and not really fitting in for various reasons including her being Spanish but transferred to French convent of which she did not know the language.  Her mystical life and the stigmata further separated her from the others in essence, but the superior insisted on her being more removed physically, as well.  

I obviously bonded with Josefa Menendez; and that is why the date of my hermit profession occurred on the evening of Dec. 29, 2000, and why I chose her rather than St. Teresa of Avila with whom I'm deeply attached, also, as she spoke through me in a doctoral psychology class in San Diego, CA, one Saturday in May 1988.  That is another experience of which I did not begin to get into with the two emails to the bishop nor the two to the parish priest.  

This morning when I came upon this quote from Josefa, one of the locutions from Jesus to her, I found to be beautiful and better and best for a more holy concluding post on this Catholic Hermit blog site.

"It is My intention, also, to show souls that I never refuse grace, even to those who are guilty of grave sin; nor do I separate them from the good souls whom I love with predilection.  I keep them all in My Heart, that all may receive the help needed for their state of soul."  ~Jesus to Sr. Josefa Menendez

For much of this morning, given the pain is high level and burning type, I have had to rest but have wondered and asked the Lord what He wills next, and also have asked myself and the Lord, "What has happened to the goodness and kindness of the soul, to the expectant hope in God and delight in the unexpected that awaited  over 25 years ago, when younger and freshly entering into Christ's Holy Catholic Church?  I've prayed for my innate goodness to be prevalent, and am already receiving that anticipation of much good in God to open up in this next phase that He has in store.

I also came across, unexpectedly, the following letter written by another victim soul and priest saint of whom that first priest who privately instructed me and chose a most private Confirmation, which was for the best as it turned out due to yet another rare mystical experience that occurred.  Padre Pio, now Saint Pio of Pietrelcina, caught my mind and heart and guided me mystically, at one point in a waking vision telling me:  Silence and Penance!  

Padre Pio (not then canonized) in the second year of my Catholic life warned me of the tricks of the devil, in a dream, and I did not heed his warnings and showings, and fell miserably into a trap of the devil.  Yes, the Lord gave me the strength to get out of the trap, but not without much struggle.  Yet, that victory which took a few months of battle, proved to be pivotal in securing a turning point at that juncture point!  I love Padre Pio!  And I'm praying all the more that He will intercede for me and pick up the training of my soul at this time of major transition.  I promise to try to heed this saint's lessons and instructions to the best of my imperfect, human ability.

"God's spirit is a spirit of peace; even after our most serious failings he makes us feel a sorrow that is peaceful, humble, and confident, precisely because of His mercy.  The spirit of evil, on the other hand, agitates, irritates, and makes us feel a sort of anger at ourselves when we have failed.  Yet it falls very much to ourselves to practice charity in the first place.  So when you are bothered by certain thoughts, the agitation never comes from God but from the devil, since God, being a spirit of peace, brings you serenity."  ~St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Letter 549

Padre Pio, I learned from reading several books on his life as well as what volumes of his letters thus far translated into English, passed from this earth on September 23, 1968.  My beloved maternal grandmother passed on October 19 of that very year.  I had no knowledge of Padre Pio nor any saints of the Catholic Church at the time, a senior in high school, and having been reared a devout Protestant of Methodist denomination.  Yet now, each year for the past 20 years, I have renewed my vow of consecration of suffering, as a victim soul of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in recent years on Sept. 23--Padre Pio's passing from earth anniversary date.

How would I ever have known in 1968 that 27 years later I would be confirmed a Catholic, would realize that the strange inner life I experienced all my life that I was a mystic and also a victim soul--and that I would learn of Sr. Josefa Menendez and Padre Pio and so love them, count on them in loving friendship and needful of their holy instruction and mentorship?  

Thus I have been praying, also, asking these saints, victim souls, and mystics to be guides yet again, more fully, since I've been so distracted for a long time, in the trials and mishaps and lessons learned in the temporal Catholic world.  Now that there is this conclusion of a major phase and awaiting what it next, there is an eager anticipation once again, a return of that sense of freshness and tremendous hope in God and faith greater than what my distractions and the exhaustion of so much sufferings of various types has seemingly allowed to break through in my mind, heart, and soul!

Thank you, dear readers, for the years you've been following off and on or consistently, my sharing of the spiritual journey of a consecrated (I realize consecrated to Christ) Catholic and hermit (not rightfully a Catholic hermit given the standardized and normative establishment now of CL603 for recognizing through canonical approval of diocese hermits.  Please pray for me, and I promise my prayers for each and all of you!  

Above all:  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow, and God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Cocoon Phase of Metamorphosis

It's been a rough time of it lately.  The phone appointment came and went, and I felt a bit at peace for a few minutes following; but the overriding effect was the reality that there is a misconnect of someone such as myself with a parish priest who is incredibly gifted and talented--a dream of leadership abilities and style so effective that I've not witnessed the like thus far in known-to-me parishes.  However, it is not efficient for parish priests, even gifted ones, to spend time trying to guide a Catholic mystic, for one thing; the hermit part is probably the easier portion.

But I see the point of the situation I'm in being one of a win-win, in the priest's way of viewing it--which did not deal with the mystical reality and aspects so was a pie-wedge portion.  The process is typical; that is agreed upon.  The underlayment of the situation was not much addressed other than I know for myself and relayed it, that it is as it is, and that's the way forward.  Something never intended to be regulated is regulated; so be it.   Amen.  One goes along to get along, and the win-win part is that either way it goes, I must find positives.

I tend to always find positives in whatever situations (adventures, escapades, ordeals...).  The higher-level, on-going pain plus whatever this period of coming toward the end of another metamorphosis process spiritually, has been arduous and fatiguing.  I'm nearing conclusion of being in the cocoon phase; it's becoming tight, painful, squished, and wanting to break out, break free and be done with cocoons.

Then the butterfly phase will come; it always does.  It will seem fresh and new, some morning or afternoon or night when the "aha" moment erupts and all is clear and the Lord is revealed in glory and wonder--and I wonder why I was so pent up and feeling so suffocatingly trapped.  The cocoon is forgotten!  The wings unfurl, dry off, and begin to flutter, and off I fly freely with joy and great expectation of the fresh winging of delight in sense of strength in ability to conquer all in Christ's love and power!

Then there will be the fatigue and slowing, the darkness approaching, the pain and added suffering, the dying, the death.  I will wonder how I could have forgotten this part of the process?  The darkness spreads and extends and surrounds; after awhile I get used to it some--adapt.  I'm in the cocoon.  The cocoon becomes comfortable enough.  I don't mind now being enclosed and limited...until it starts to get old and cramped, and the mind casts about for escape and ends up going into the past, the memories, the sufferings, the questioning, the finding of circumspect reality.

That's the cycle, over and over and over.  Toward the end of the cocoon phase, the pressure builds, and one has no sense of outcome other than wanting it over with.  There is temptation to hasten the breaking free from the cocoon, of sabotaging the outcome just to finish it off, to be done with it, not be a butterfly pinned to a specimen board when caught, but to just keep flying in delight and joy of freedom to be what butterflies seem meant to be for their time of butterflying before the wings weaken, droop, and flutter no more, and then death.

So I read over, way back, writings of years ago.  I'd forgotten the pain of various situations as well as many of the visions and locutions.  In retrospect, reading past into old-present, into not as far past but still past, into more old-present, I could see God's ordaining all of what were torturous metamorphoses, one after another.  It was as if I was reading someone else's both painful ordeals and glorious adventures.

In correspondence for the past few days, I'd vent the anguish of what is toward the end of this cocoon experience, for this cycle, this metamorphosis.  I'm receiving prayers for the plight.  I received an accurate reminder and assessment, of which today I'd come around, also, to accepting all over again.  The crux of the matter really has to do with being a mystic; the hermit part is not the issue as much as is the mystic reality.

Mystics simply do not do well at all in parishes, nor will there be likely a parish priest who has the background, or if some interest or general knowledge, is not geared nor called to deal with mystics.  The parish priest is trained and called to deal with the temporal and active and normal, non-mystic-type Catholics. 

And hermits really ought not be involved in parishes other than to pass unnoticed to and from Mass, provided the hermit is able to be at Mass and get to a parish for Mass, or if a monastery near enough, even better to go and come to a monastery Mass. A parish priest ought not have to deal with a hermit much, either.  A hermit is consecrated to Christ and a gift to the Church, actually the universal Church, not limited, not specific; the hermit's life is devoted to praise of God and prayers for the salvation of the world.  That is broad and deep:  vast, beyond specification and temporal locale.  

A parish priest is called to shepherd a fullsome flock of all types, and if a hermit is one of the sheep, it is the least of them, the hidden one, not needing to be seen nor heard; for a hermit is to be a silent preaching of Christ, not a noticed bleating, old sheep--and also not a lamb.  Hermits have been sheep for a long time by the time they are hermits.  And if the hermit is also a victim soul, a suffering servant, that facet, also, by virtue of being an older sheep and versed by then in suffering and in being hidden and silently praising and praying and preaching Christ without bleating, the parish priest ought be efficiently utilizing time and talent with the fullsome flock of lambs, ewes, rams of all ages, needs--all breeds and types, bleating and all else of typical sheep.

I've already provided answers to various questions which was made simple enough by cutting-and-pasting what I've written years ago. Some aspects do not change in the wording--only in the living out over years upon years.  I was asked of things not in the rather simple law itself; but they are aspects I've written of years ago, so sent all that pertains.  The exercise was positive enough for it was a review and thus caused me to consider again, and to gain perspective on the interplay of all that was not included nor asked nor needs to be--the interweaving of a soul mystic, suffering, hermit, and Catholic.

A Catholic who has been through so much it is indescribable as to why.  At least the more sensory demonic assaults are years past now; onto the more insidious demonic attacks as well as ones from the outer world--pests and hassles human and otherwise.  A Catholic who at one point 15 years ago during a horrific pain siege and having to deal with a reprehensible assignment involving a troubled priest and much persecution to try to discourage me from obedience to the assignment the Lord had given me, cried out to another priest who'd brought me a consecrated Host, "Catholicism is my last and only hope!"

It goes on and on, does life, do the cycles and trials of phases of metamorphosis...over and over and over.  I wonder if after purgatory, when a soul with mind and heart but thankfully no temporal body gets to heaven if there will only be butterflying for all eternity.  Please, no more repetitive cycles of metamorphoses one after another.

The parish priest mentioned what is there to lose, just see what happens.  Well, there is a lot to lose such as what I already consider is lost of what was precious and unhindered, free to evolve like an ever emerging butterfly out of its cocoon, able to fly without notice, and die, and then the cocoon for hiding but never becoming cramped.  Only emergence without emerging, flying without butterfly wings being touched or grabbed, not being pinned to a specimen board.   All silence, solitude, slowness, stillness, simplicity, stability, serenity, selflessness, and yes, suffering some but all for God, omnia pro Deo, and solus Deus, God alone.

One must not assume that all this could still be possible.  Just let it unfold.  The Lord will decide, after all; this is His world, His creation, His Church.  I'm His hermit, His nothing mystic, His victim soul, His Catholic, His espoused and betrothed.  

While the priest mentioned in the win-win, that regardless of outcome, it is simply a matter of altering the position of a couple of words.  Yes, that is easy enough to do.  But I'm unlikely to play word games.  I will simply be the other that Jesus has of me and eliminate the one.  The life itself lived, will not alter at this point but will simply keep going, simply keep going, one cycle after another, one metamorphosis after another.   That is truly simple, is it not?

Here I am Lord, I have come to do Thy will.  Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner...and a nothing cabbage butterfly.

The Living Word of God is so helpful!  From yesterday's first Mass reading, 1 Peter 5:5b-14, Feast of St. Mark:

"Beloved:  Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for:  god opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble.  So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. 

"Cast all your worries upon Him because He cares for you.  Be sober and vigilant.  Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for (someone) to devour. Resist him, steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world undergo the same sufferings.  

"The God of all grace who called you to His eternal glory through Christ Jesus will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a little.  To Him be dominion forever.  Amen....Peace to all of you who are in Christ."

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Rough Week

As this is of my journey--my spiritual journey as a consecrated Catholic hermit--the truth includes the difficulties, such as this week has for the most part been quite challenging against discouragement that has settled in.  I think it has to do with the level of pain that is unrelenting--more than ever I've had to endure on a steady basis.

(Of course, I exclude the acute pain post-surgery, the pain of the lengthy incision and the extreme pain in any movement at all.  But I was on plenty of medication then, and the anesthetic took awhile to leave the system.  So this pain is not the same type, but it is still far more than the pain I had prior to surgery in the general sense of spinal pain that I bore, which did not include the stenosis issues or disintegrated vertebra.)

This pain now is such that I am worn out.  I find it more comfortable to remain in bed on the icy pad than to try to go for a walk.  I attempted another trial run to the grocery, 1.5 miles away.  That resulted in extreme pain but made it back to the hermitage safely despite my headlights not working properly.  Burned out?  That would be appropriate to my temporal condition, as well!  This time a customer plus checker noted my white face, evidently; the customer started bagging the groceries while the checker called for help to get cart and myself to my truck and groceries and me into the truck.  Yes, I want to say I did a tad better this time than nearly three weeks ago when I tried the errand.

Tomorrow will be four months since the surgery.  I do not sit at the table nor attempt the sofa or lounge chair.  I know just from the Lyft rides, that sitting that amount of time is disastrous, pain-wise.  The effects seem to come the most the next day.  I know I probably should keep trying to walk, trying to get interested in some little thing or other to "do"--even clear off a counter.  But I lack impetus even to read this week, other than Scripture and daily commentary.  Well, I did read through some of the information that came via email regarding the parish course on dreams.  I will read more of that, for it is quite interesting with more on St. Theresa of Avila and St. Joseph, this week.

I decided to see if there were other options to include in handling what I think might be a major part of this pain situation:  the arachnoiditis.  I researched more, this afternoon, and realize I have the "Adhesive Arachnoiditis"--the nerves are clumped within the spinal cord, so adhesion has occurred.  I re-read the unfortunate prognosis of which this rare disease is progressive.  I did find one doctor who thinks there are helps for it in a combination of hormone therapies, steroids or anti-inflammatory medications, more recently created nerve medication typically used for epilepsy, and opioids.

I read about what is not good to try, of which injections of steroids in the spine are considered not good at all as it tends to make the condition and pain worse.  That is exactly what I tried to explain, in vain, to the pain doctor last early July, but he was insistent.  I ended up in ER that night with a most horrific headache that none of the medications I have would help.  At least I know why those injections such as one years ago, cause more pain and problems than worth, cost, and hassle.

There are a few forums of arachnoiditis patients, but some of the persons had not been actually diagnosed, so the profitability not accurate or as helpful.  Those who had been diagnosed had not had it as long as I have, but their symptoms and agony and the progressive nature was tragic and real.  I recognized the symptoms, also, from the additional information I found on specifically Adhesive Arachnoiditis--with again the notation that most doctors will not have heard of it.  But more will become aware, although there is the reminder that not many people actually have the adhesive type, so not to be looking for specialists in AA, anytime soon.

That is fine.  I simply need to get on top of the pain and discern if best I remain in bed, or if I should try to make myself go for a daily walk.  I am so discouraged with the slightest effort increasing pain to a point that I have trouble managing it; yet I know that walking and stretching are about the only physical helps recommended as far as exercise per se.  A major point for that is to increase oxygen flow which is always good for nerves, muscles, and tissues.

Installing an electro-stimulator is not recommended; it is thought that only increases likelihood of pain issues from the surgical install, and the help for adhesive arachnoiditis minimal to nil.  Since the symptoms and pain worsen with time, some have morphine pumps installed.  But the good of researching more and of reading a few persons' experiences, seems as well to not go the pump route; they require maintenance.

All I know for sure is that this week has been most challenging thus far since surgery, regarding the consistency higher level of pain and the reality that other than remaining in bed on icy pack, any activity makes the pain worse and fatigues me further.  Yet, I pray the Lord help me to go for a walk tomorrow.  I know that the exercise and oxygen flow through the body is healthy.  Perhaps I need to increase the medication dose to offset the added pain of going for a walk. I have no idea how one walk a day and the rest of the time in bed is going to affect the body over a long period of time; I've never had to be down so much over this length of time.  The pain sieges would be a few days to on occasion a few weeks if pneumonia or other illness included.

But whatever else, I do need to get my courage up, the attitude up, the spiritual reading up, the body up--and maybe the pain meds up until perhaps a little walking daily over more weeks and months will build up some type of stamina to not need to be in bed all or as much of the time as now.  And I'm also praying that the Holy Spirit help me, somehow, supernaturally handle this level of pain.  I hope in God He knows this is getting to be too much.  Obviously, He knows.  We're together in this place, this Solus Deus Hermitage, in this room.

I'm praying for whoever out there has Adhesive Arachnoiditis.  I appreciated reading a couple or three stories of people who have it, unfortunately so; and yes, they were persecuted, particularly if not diagnosed for several years. I could relate.  Plus, it is confusing to the patient him- or herself, in that the symptoms also develop and increase over time.  I guess it is good to information gather; I'm thankful for the few forums I noticed.  I also realize that it can be quite sad, thus fact-find but remain focused on my eremitic vocation!

I'm really only going to get through however many years left of increasing pain, by the grace of God.  So I'm hunkering in with the Lord, praying for others (yes, this week I have been keeping up with prayers for others even though my prayers have been droopy perhaps!).  Just have to hang on to Christ and know He's got a far greater and stronger grip on me.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: The Hermit Ponders Sideways Crosses (reprise, June 2008)

[Note:  Retrieved this post from late June, 2008!  I wrote others in that time frame re. the topics of suffering that we bring upon ourselves as opposed to suffering that God allows us to bear.  Of course, pain can teach us much, regardless, but is best if of God's choosing, not our doing.  God wills all good even if we might not see it His way, for those of us who love Him!]

Well, here we have a sideways cross on a purificator. The nothing Catholic hermit asked the confessor to open the sacristy so it could get a small pile of these, so as to re-press them, so as to have the crosses not sideways but right-side-up.

This was following a confession dealing with its compulsions. The compulsions include not only seeing a vision of how something might look but in feeling it--sensing what more is needed and focusing intensely until that vision manifests. Example given: The Mary Gardens here at Agnus Dei and the recent re-investment in more roses for the Our Lady of Fatima Memorial Rose Garden.  The nothing tries again on the roses, thankfully with some discounted lovelies.


Then there was the example of many interests of the past, and of purchasing the supplies such as watercolors for an in-home publishing company of Christian greeting cards and artistic consignment jobs, but the market did not sustain this after a move to another locale. There are still the makings for rosaries, with many Job's Tears seeds waiting to have tiny holes drilled in them. Maybe that will wait until (and if) the hermit is bedridden at some point.

Then there is the matter of these sideways crosses. Nothing noticed them months ago when doing its little sacristan job, one Mass weekly. It then gained permission to take these to the hermitage to right-side-up them. Nothing is rather meticulous about how the altar looks, down to the embroidered crosses on the purificators. Some of the little embroidered crosses are faded, some hand-stitched, some machine-embroidered, some of one style, some of another, and another. But the sideways crosses seem unseemly.

If they were at an angle, that would help for it would remind us of Jesus falling the first, second, third and many more times in the history of our human affronts to His dignity and love.

The confessor opened up the sacristy, turning off the alarm, so nothing could fulfill its small mission. It was a compulsion to upright the sideways, but with a good intention. The confessor had counseled that earlier--that what the nothing was mentioning was not sinful but to be considered based upon the motives. It had good motives in painting Christian cards to sell to help augment low income to rear the children. It had good motives in learning to make rosaries, in acquiring classic Catholic books, in desiring to learn to play the harp (first song hoping to play, "Panis Angelicus"), and even in wanting to correct the sideways crosses. Nothing desires the altar to be beautiful, in loving order, and every tiny detail to the glory of God!

So we searched around for those purificators which nothing had forgotten to take the other evening, as the priest had returned them in one of the several teeny sacristan drawers--the kind of drawers that excite the nothing because they are rather mysterious, aren't they, with all their little labels of this and that of holy ministrations? He did gently suggest that perhaps they would not be able to be righted. But nothing insisted it would be a matter of refolding them correctly and repressing.

Nothing returned to Agnus Dei, and then thought to try refolding one, so the cross would stand up like a respectable, holy cross ought to stand. It didn't work. Instead, the purificator would have to be folded in twice on each side, then folded down in half, making the purificator a squatty, thickened, cumbersome wad.

So nothing began to ponder that in trying to right seeming wrongs, sometimes one must accept them instead, and try out a sample option prior to taking larger steps. Why had it not simply tried to refold one purificator after Mass the other evening, when the desire took fruition to straighten up those sideways crosses?

Another option is to snip the embroidery and re-embroider upright crosses. Well, that is too compulsive for even the nothing. It began to ponder that perhaps nothing isn't so compulsive, after all, for the gardens have this, that, and all kinds of flowers here and there, not in any order or fashion other than what paints a picture somewhat akin to the vision in nothing's inner sight and senses.

Next nothing pondered the good of sideways crosses. Surely there is good in them. While resting the spine to alleviate pain, nothing lay in bed and considered that St. Peter was crucified upside down...but the cross was right side up. St. Andrew was crucified on a cross on an angle, in an "X" shape. How could one be martyred on a sideways cross? Nothing considered that it would take some engineering to do that, and with its own pain, would desire to be hung with the right side of its body, up, and the left hanging down. Yet, that is the body being sideways, not the cross.

These thoughts did offer opportunity to meditate on the suffering of any form of crucifixion, and how people in some time period thought up crucifixion, and built crosses in a certain fashion so as to torture people until they died. A sideways cross would not work, as it would require being suspended on the long-sided end by a chain or rope from...something.

Again, what can be considered with sideways crosses, since they have appeared as a reality in nothing's life? Yes, we do have sideways situations in our lives, in our souls! Of course we do! It is perspective gone awry, from some natural instinct of the vertical and horizontal, and based upon physics as well as physiology as well as what the cross means to humanity, especially followers of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps sideways crosses are those burdens in life that we not only cause from some lack or skew of perspective, but those crosses we bear in a kind of lop-sided, awkward and cumbersome way. They are just not quite right, somehow, and aren't the kind of crosses that allow holy suffering but rather stand out as something brought upon us, by "self", from carelessness, lack of attention to detail, distraction in an effort, or downright confusion.

Sideways crosses, then, could be corrected with extra effort. Or maybe it is best to put them in the bottom of the stack, or to be discarded, for they are not really suitable crosses. They are wrought from our own misconceptions or oversights.

Sideways crosses, for example, could be self-induced sufferings due to not getting our own way, being upset over trivialities and stirring ourselves into upset, feeling the victim when the problem is our own doing, trying to control others and situations that are none of our business, and agonizing over material objects. Yet pondering sideways crosses unfolds new ways of viewing what one (and maybe others) may not recognize as askew...until it is noticed eventually and the simple attempts to upright these sideways crosses become futile.

The best thing to do with sideways crosses it seems, is to notice, assess, and efficiently get rid of them. Perhaps they are to be burned, like dross, in the furnace where our other mistakes incinerate, sooner or later.

Catholic Hermit: Needing Strength

Today this pained, Catholic hermit is needing strength of His Real Presence.  Angel (person who used to bring me the consecrated Host for Holy Communion about once a week) must still be away.  While she'd given to the parish nurse her list of those to whom she brought the consecrated Host, evidently no substitute parish visitor took up the blessed task.  So His Real Presence is needed here in Solus Deus Hermitage in the various other ways we Catholics can receive Eucharist [see post on Eucharist and Hermit].

The physical pain remains at higher level than what it had been.  No progress in being able to be up, walk a little bit, do the minimal, physical therapy exercises, or in stamina to stand in kitchen such as to make oatmeal.  The pain simply yet noticeably rises when I am up and out of bed, off the icy pad therein.  

The physical therapist on her final visit 10 days ago said to give her updates now and then.  This morning I texted my current plight of this week, and of my needing to accept and adapt to the reality that I am an invalid, 2 1/2 months post spinal surgery.  I've had to cut back on the very limited walking and other aspects of self-care like getting food from fridge or changing out the ice pump ice, twice a day.  I mentioned my sleep is now but five hours at night, if that.  Perhaps I must return to the additional medication at night--as I've had to otherwise increase the other medication, essentially, by taking it in closer intervals?  I also wonder, and texted thus, is the shift in weather into autumn also causing increased pain?

The physical therapist texted back that I should try to get in to see the surgeon sooner.  I responded with this additional reality:  there is nothing the surgeon can say or do about this fact of yet-higher pain than prior to surgery and higher pain than a week ago.  Is the walking and minimal physical therapy exercises plus my cooking a few pieces of chicken breast (last Sunday) too much?  I'm already 99% bedridden--getting up for necessity of basic self-sufficiency and doing the minimal, basic body movements like walking up and down the stairs 2-3 times a day for exercise, and standing at base of stairs 2-3 times a day with one foot on first step, and lifting the other leg and body, up to 10 times each side.  Was trying to do the modified "plank" exercise too much?  Perhaps! 

What could or would the surgeon say to me?  He already said a month ago that he's convinced it is 85% chance that my pain will be less.  But it is not, at least not thus far.  Yes, it is less than immediately after the surgery--the acute pain that comes with invasive repair work, particularly on the spine.  However, I am not at all making progress these past few weeks and in fact am currently in regression in being able to tolerate pain that is definitely increased, even when on my back, in bed, on this icy pad.  Nerve pain down the hips and legs are definitely increased, too.

The painful ordeal that would be even worse the day after sitting in a car to ride to and from surgeon's office, my mind cannot agree to attempting--especially when, truly, the surgeon can say nor do anything to change the reality of my outcome at this point.  The pain should not be going in this reverse direction; but it is, and the only action is to accept and adapt, and for now to not physically "do" other than the least problematic aspects of getting up for necessities.  

The PT suggested my keeping a log of activities. I have been doing so.  I'm not up the 8 times a day I had been.  If this pain is partly due to the cooler weather, there is nought I can do about it.  I know for a fact that remaining in bed more is not helpful to increasing the endorphins (brain chemical that helps body manage pain); but what if the pain is such that being up increases pain more than what staying reclined proffered?

I'm exhausted with and by pain.  I reminded the PT that she'd said to check in now and then, and this is probably more my attempt to accept and adapt to the invalid status at least for now by writing the issues to someone whose done her best to instruct me in what is usually for-the-best.  However, I'm in a situation now that seems best-to-face.  Perhaps over time, this higher level of pain will simmer down.  Writing of it in this blog helps a little in the necessary acceptance and adaptation process the mind and heart must make when the hoped-for outcome is not happening, for now.  I always must add the "for now."  Only God is forever.

This broken record even of writing of the reality of this pain is so repetitive.  It gets old. So I turn, as always, increasingly to God, for only God knows and only God is forever.

The first reading from the prophet Nehemiah gifts with the Eucharist we receive in the Living Word of God.  This portion of what is being proclaimed today at Masses the world over  unites me in communion, as well, with the entire Body of Christ--souls including many others with sufferings, others in the Church, others in His Real Presence on this side and on the other side, for all eternity.

"'Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!'
And the Levites quieted all the people, saying,
'Hush, for today is holy, and you must not be saddened.'
Then all the people went to eat and drink,
to distribute portions, and to celebrate with great joy,
for they understood the words that had been expounded to them."

My main takeaway of this scriptural, "daily bread,"  this "bread of life," are the words of exhortation:

"Do not be saddened this day, 
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!"

I will rise now, for third time this morning, now that the medication has gotten into the physical body enough to help manage the pain of being upright and ambulating.  I will do the few steps involved in removing the thawed out water bottles in the ice pump and exchange with frozen water bottles from the freezer.  The reacher-grabber tool helps, as well as the walker which I use to transport items due to the convenient walker tray.  I will rejoice in the Lord, and if feasible, will get the oatmeal bowl soaking, then brush and rinse out the already sudsy-soaking oatmeal saucepan.

I will try walking up and down the stairs one time and do the leg-strengthening exercise using the bottom step of the stairs--the stairs I've named as "the stairway to Heaven."  In all matters--yes--I must turn to the Lord, hush my thoughts and pain with the reminder that today is holy.  And I will not be saddened this day no matter the physical pain; rejoicing in the Lord must be my strength!

Truly, God IS my joy and strength.  I'd written an article that was published in The Liguourian years ago, titled "When Healing Doesn't Come."  I might try to locate it and share it with you readers, for I know the Holy Spirit guided my thoughts and typing fingers when I wrote it, back then.  Even though the increased pain and the bit of increased medication makes me extra fatigued, turning to the Lord always awakens our awareness of His tender, loving care. 

Rejoicing in the Lord--must be our strength!

God bless His Real Presence in us, all ways and always!

Catholic Hermit: Humor and Praising God!

Might seem far apart, but the Lord provides me with humor in the most unlikely and even persecuting of earthly circumstances.  I remind myself that humility and sincerity are helpful and hopeful that Jesus will view me with love and mercy.

I rambled on in my vlogs, and blunderingly tried to relate some odd situation that keeps on, regarding surgeon, surgeon's nurse, and the young osteo PA.  My surgery is hanging on a condition yet, and I figure not to be surprised if more "conditions" come up from the surgeon and/or his nurse in the next three days.

I met one condition, although it set me back physically to jump through that hoop.  I don't plan to explain here as have already--not in any impressive relating of the situation but enough that maybe others can make sense of it.  What I'm impressed with most, now, even though at the time it was terrible and I felt that the surgeon's nurse had been perhaps vindictive in her extreme interpretation of my honest explanation of why a person in constant and increasingly more severe pain, and this for years and years, would have dark thoughts from time to time.

Anyway, there was much humor from that adventure, and I can find many aspects so marvelous as to praise God repeatedly, for having had the experience, no over.  One point of humor is that honesty is not always the best policy!  And all things are relative to any given set of circumstances; and as well, people we pay in this temporal realm to provide for us often do not have a grasp of the pain, for example, that the population they are being trained, educated, paid to serve, do indeed bear, sometimes for decades until they are released from earthly bodies.

I've realized the good of now repeating my vow of and consecration to suffering.  There are excellent reminders when I made the vow again this morning, with whomever as witnesses this time.  Always the Lord knows--His Real Presence knows--and Our Lady of Sorrows by also the title, Our Lady of Solitude.  She knows.  They have accepted my offering years ago, even when I'd forget in the midst of one of many pain sieges, or such as now with a steady increase in pain hour by hour and a steady decline in bodily strength.

Yet, I can praise the Lord, for the reminders in the vow of suffering include responding in love.  Plus, I am reminded of the lofty calling for those of us who suffer and have been called by Christ to be one of His Own--such as a victim soul of His Sacred Heart.

The distractions of the temporal world--of which I admit I allow them and sometimes seem to chase after them, even, in human desperation to take my mind out of body and away from pain--these can also cause us to forget  the purpose, the good, the goal that is so critical to remember in order to suffer well, or better, for love of His Real Presence, His Church and all in His Body, and as His Mother--suffered in union with her Son.

The Gospel for today reminds to praise God--the Gospel for today's Mass reading (and celebrated today in the Universal Church as Ascension of our Lord despite Thursday past the traditional day, nine days prior to Pentecost).

"As He blessed them He parted from them
and was taken up to heaven.
They did Him homage
and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and they were continually in the temple praising God."

So many aspects of loving and serving God can be so easily forgotten consciously when in pain or when otherwise not in pain and out living an active life.

In this sense, pain is a good way of life, for it does tend to be a constant reminder if we allow it to infuse and inform our spiritual lives--minds, hearts, and souls.

While my body right now is not "up" for driving to the 24-hour Adoration Chapel at the parish, nor would it be prudent for me to tax the body to attempt that physically, I am reminded that the tabernacle is also my heart, and that my heart is in Christ's Sacred Heart, and I am also bound by various vows and consecrations to Mary's Immaculate Heart.

So I can, with great joy (have to ask grace to be joyful even if it does not "show"), I can continually be in "the temple" praising God.

Praising God!  That is really simple enough.  Just takes the mind God gives us and the physical senses that are blessings, and if some of them have failed over time or injury, then the inner senses that are always there for us--that we should pray and do all we can not to prohibit full reign within us.

So I can look about me in this bedroom of my Solus Deus Hermitage, and I can praise God for many things seen and unseen.  I can have an inner sense look about my mind, heart, and spirit and have multitudinous experiences and aspects of which to praise God!

I have renewed my vow of suffering, and within that vow are so many points upon which to praise God, including that I have made the vow.  Just making a vow, offering all aspects of suffering as a victim soul of Jesus as well as in response to agreeing and accepting the power of God's making my sufferings and the sufferings of Holy Mother Church:  as One.

I can also praise God that He has given me many situations to laugh about, and also to laugh at my own stupidity of sorts, to have answered a couple questions with honesty, when honesty was not at all the best policy given the person who was asking--that person's personality and intentions being not as one might hope or expect.  

Yet, I can praise God for the very fact and reality that He is in His Omniscience, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence is the Master over all that He allows us to experience in this life.  He is always calling us via the cross, to the next situation, the next moment, the next higher level of suffering or the next lessening of suffering.  

He is calling us always to offer our sufferings with a heart and mind and spirit of PRAISE to His Glory, His Power, His Might!

No matter the temporal outcomes determined by others' reactions and decisions, we who have given ourselves fully to His Real Presence, have the assurance that God's will, will be done!  That is a major praise--and what a relief of otherwise what can be quite a heavy burden to bear--too heavy, in fact.

Carrying the cross or crosses He gifts us, and with the help from others along the way, is our calling, our mission, our work.   Even if but one person helping us carry our cross or crosses, now and then, we can praise God.  (But most likely there are so many  helping us we do not notice--such as our guardian angels and most definitely  all the ones who love us and root for us from the other side!) So many seen and unseen help us carry the cross we've been given in any present moment.

Yet also with such lofty and serious realities, God also gifts us with the ability to have a sense of humor--an outer sense, yes, but in times of suffering, the inner sense of humor remains inviolable.  Humor sprinkled in humility is like salt enhancing the flavor of food.  We can laugh at ourselves; lighten the darkest moment, lighten deepest pain, lighten most humbling of situations.

Jesus Christ is ascended to heaven.  He sent the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.  His Real presence is with us, in us, through us; we are in Him always.  Remain in His Love!  Repentance, Humility, Love and Mercy mark our souls with the reality of His Real Presence for all eternity.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

His Real Presence makes all the difference, always.