Catholic Hermit: Why Accept Pain?

One of the final words the new spiritual father, the hermit-priest, said to me as we parted Monday afternoon after meeting and discussing, and praying for God to bless the encounter and whatever next, were to "come to a peace" or something close to that.  Was of seeking and encountering peace, and I found this so of the Holy Spirit, for peace is the very gift of the Holy Spirit and the bequeathing of Christ that so often I myself recognized is wanting, especially when the suffering becomes quite rough.

I did hear back in a text from Dr. H. last night, following my most lengthy texts written to him regarding the proposal to form our own group based upon the book The Power of Eight, and to try the formulaic procedure (what to me seems gimmicky in certain ways, and "new age," for those who are opposed to Christianity in their lives and personal relationship, faith in Christ Jesus).  Dr. H. said he was working 12-hour days so could not read all I wrote, but hoped to on the weekend and to be in touch via phone then.

I texted back to not bother to read all I wrote, but that I knew for me, was not my path--not a power of  eight group, nor power of seven, nor even of two--but that I know all my thoughts and texting, my research on the author and her writings and experiments, was good for me as the Lord needs me to more fully accept the power of pain, and to trust what I've been shown and told over the years mystically and spiritually, and in circumstances.  Also, that I must stop complaining of my pain.  

But that, yes, we can touch base on the weekend.  Perhaps on the phone I can try to explain once more, why it is that I know the Lord is not choosing for me a great release from physical pain, and why I've come to learn that pain is not the enemy; suffering is not the enemy.  Of course, we want for ourselves and others less suffering and all goodness of the temporal world; on this day of praying for the protection and legal rights of humans in the womb and those elderly at risk of euthanasia, we want a relief of suffering and pain, of murder of innocents.

Whether we pray or we focus "intent" for the good of mankind and of souls, there is a good in people banding together in goodness and concern for one another.  But when we read in Scripture the words of Jesus, saying "Where two are three are gathered,"  Jesus very much includes "gathered in My Name," and in other wording, "in the Name of the Father" or "calling upon the Holy Spirit" regarding prayers of the faithful, of us human souls who know Jesus Christ personally, who have faith in God, who experience the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But all my lengthy text messages, delving deeply into various facets of this situation that arose--ironically in juxtaposition of a most unexpected and spiritually rich encounter with my new spiritual director, the hermit-priest--came this proposal that is more for people who have no faith in Christ, or if they do, may not trust the power of a single prayer, or even have come to accept suffering if it be God's will, or in all of life, to desire only God's will, to be in the Divine Will, and to have surrendered ourselves fully to Divine Providence.

This situation regarding the Power of Eight experiments seems now more something the Lord wanted me to dissect, to consider, to write out from my inner mind and heart, to try yet again to explain to the kindly and caring Dr. H., but more so for myself, why it is that when offered an experiment of this type, I balk; and instead I choose to accept the pain of over 35 years.  

Yet, also, why do I accept the pain medication which tones down the pain somewhat--not much but enough to help my body temporally cope--or that I am fine with the pain doctor beginning the process of an intrathecal pain pump which will require some suffering of its own in a 3-4 hour surgery, even if my body responds well to an external trial, and the reality of needing a replacement in 5-7 years should I yet be alive?

Why, years ago did I offer myself and all my sufferings to God to use as He wills?  Why was my mind and heart and soul inflamed and inspired to write out a vow of consecration of suffering 20 years ago this February 13, of which various priests have witnessed in my verbal renewal of this vow, over the years?

Why is it that even though Dr. H. witnessed and also asked questions regarding my suffering and pain, of God Himself in a rare and unusual mystical occurrence in June, 1988, and received answers from God and other holy ones on the other side, from heaven, which Dr. H. tape recorded and suggested I transcribe, which I did--that Dr. H. was not affected by those answers, and doesn't even remember specifics?  Why does it seem my added mystical experiences, the locutions and events of which I've shared with him over the phone, seem not to have impact in him, so that he continues to think in terms of finding some method or technique that would cause the pain my body suffers, to go away or be alleviated?

Why is it that we humans are looking for what we think is new, or a formulaic experiment or process that will bring about results from the use of our focused minds, or scientific hypotheses and modalities, despite supernal and mystical encounters with God and His saints, angels, and our own loved ones on the other side, in heaven or in progression toward heaven?

Why are so many people opposed to the word "prayer" or to Jesus, or God, or the Holy Spirit, or anything to do with what they call "organized religion"?  

Again, why would I accept pain over trying a seemingly simple, formulaic experiment of 8 people focusing their minds in loving intent for my pain to go away while looking at a photo or image of myself, for ten minutes at the same time each day, for fourteen days--that a writer has devised and tried out in experiments regardless their adherence to strict norms of research but with some varied yet some positive results, and called The Power of Eight?

The Lord has helped me sort through the thoughts and questions.  For one thing, I have deep faith and believe in Jesus Christ, and over the years I have come to trust in God's will regardless what I or others may think would have been a much more productive life, what would have been better at least on the external aspects for my now-adult children, and as some have said over the years--thinking of what all I could have done had I not been disabled by pain.

I also recognize yet again, that I can write of and verbally share with others the locutions, visions, mystical encounters, ecstasies during Mass, and various encounters with God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, angels and saints, holy souls passed on, and my death experience--but repeatedly and over 35 years and even before then, it is as if the persons reading or listening may seem as if understanding and taking it in, they really cannot absorb or fathom, nor even remember.  

This reality helps me understand why so many people do not read the Scriptures with the same absorption or faith, or do not participate in Mass with grasping and experiencing the supernatural realities of the living God, Christ, and Holy Spirit.  It is why so many Catholics and others in the various Christian denominations and worship groupings, do not have a real and internalized relationship with the Holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary.

It is as it is.  But for those of us who have been touched deeply, who have been born mystics or who in life have experienced even one numinous, mystical event that alters our way of perceiving the temporal and the spiritual worlds, or for those with the gift of faith and to the degree of even blind faith in God, in Christ, in the Holy Spirit--we grasp, we fathom, we have capacity to understand some and even more that God may reveal to us.  We pray with increasing love of God in Himself and God's love for others as well as ourselves.  

We can read the lives of the Christian mystics and the words and experiences and teachings of prophets, saints, of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity--and we have no difficulty trusting and understanding that of course, this is truth.  We don't need to have science prove an existence of Noah's ark, or have metaphysical or mythological thinkers come up with alternative explanations of Jonah three days in the belly of a large fish or whale, or that Job not a real, historical person.

Yet, we are not bothered if such explanations and discussions are posited.  Our inner sight, our inner grasp, our inner understanding and acceptance does not require logical explanations or proofs.  We have been touched by not only the finger of God, but by the Living Word, the numinous of the Holy Spirit, the reality of Jesus Christ, Son of God and the God-Man.  The virgin birth by the power of the Holy Spirit, the reason for Jesus' life among us, the sacrificial death on the cross for reparation of our sins and for the salvation of all mankind, the resurrection and ascension of Christ, the conversion of St. Paul, the visions and locutions of St. John on the island of Patmos, written in what now is the Book of Revelation--and so much more, reaching back into the Old Testament--does not phase us nor need scholarly proofs or debate.

The reality of the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Eucharist, transformed from bread and wine in the Consecration of the Mass, the supernatural reality of the Mass itself, from beginning to end, of the Living Word of God proclaimed, of all the sacraments present and inherent in the Mass, the sending forth of our bodies, minds, hearts, and souls out into the world to witness to the power and love of God--all these realities need no shrouding of terms and words to be more palatable or believable to those who have not yet been touched spiritually, or who have not that blind faith of many who may live their entire lives without a numinous, mystical experience.

Essentially, to simplify, for these and lesser reasons, I can accept pain in this life.  At this time in my later years, perhaps my last decade, I do not have a burning desire to participate in prayer intention focusing which is not called prayer, or has certain set rubrics in order to "work".  I am more interested in conversions and deeper conversions, of being in the Divine Will, of seeking and participating in Divine Union, of awaiting the consummation of my mystical marriage with Christ--the glorious wedding and reception having mystically but oh-so-real, occurred one night in September, 2012.

I may attempt, if Dr. H. calls this weekend, to yet again explain the reality not only supernaturally but as it reaches into the temporal, of the years of mystical experiences, and why it is that somehow, I go more with them than I do with temporal attempts to remove pain that over time I have come to understand as having merit and of being productive, of being reparative, and of even as a title could be called The Power of Pain.  (This title, written in this blog, constitutes a trademarked name!  Ha ha! But it qualifies the four words as a temporal groundwork of trademark--oh, my.  As if God cares of the banality of that, and as if people would desire a book of that title!)

A marvel, it is, that somehow I was inspired within to include in my vow of consecration of suffering (equally not a best-seller of idea or written vow that people would clamor to repeat to God for themselves), that if I have options presented to me, I would choose the path of greater suffering.  Well, choosing to accept pain over participating in a power of eight group experiment, and to choose a surgically installed pain pump which will be another physical ordeal, does seem to be choosing a path of greater suffering.  

And I don't even know from whence or why that offering came to me to be included in various other aspects of a vow of suffering--or why even a vow of consecration to suffer at all?  Yet, I recall the intensity within, and the praying over it for quite awhile, and the discerning of the offering with my late spiritual father, who lived over 99 years and was a priest going on  73 years of that long life.

So be it.  I accept this pain and the various other forms of pain and suffering of which humans experience in this temporal life.  I accept them on behalf of Christ and His Church, and I offer them to Christ and His Church, for all the reasons and purposes temporal and spiritual which are written out in probably ad nauseam detail.  It's all from my mind, heart, and soul, even if my body, thoughts, and emotions yet struggle with suffering, sometimes a lot, and complain--in this temporal life God has given me for however more earth time He wills.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

[An angel of God did tell me in an early morning approaching while I yet slept, reminding me of how hurtful it could be that I used the author's name and seemingly was rather harsh regarding the quasi-research and experimentation, the claims made, the developing of and marketing for monetary gain of what the writer calls the power of eight.  So I did remove the name, and I hope in God that I did emphasize the good of what the person intends, the genuine zeal and passion of the person.  But of course, my path is the narrow path, and is of Christ, prayer, praise of God, and love of God in Himself and love of all souls as God loves each of us.  I reminded myself that I do love the writer whom I do not personally know, but that my path is not of that other.]

Catholic Hermit: Hermit Correspondence

I'm sharing some of my thoughts in this morning's correspondence.  Perhaps it will remind me of the working out of thoughts of the current transition and learning more of facets of a hermit's transition and growth into a deeper phase in seeking God.  Perhaps a portion of this email sample will give a glimpse into a hermit's hope-in-God desire to express more of a hermit's life in doing and being: praise of and love of God in whatever daily life interactions.

The recipient of this bit of correspondence is much older, and I've admired in the decade or so of friendship across the miles, this person's many virtues, notably wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and patience gained from a long lifetime of many experiences.  Even so, the friend joins with me in our each reading and e-discussing thoughts from St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, I.

Dear MK.,

I'm acknowledging as one parent to another, that the time we are able to spend with our adult children is so precious all the more due to it not happening often or for length of time.  Then there are the good-byes and the transition; and for you, transition upon transition as you ease back into the evolving routine you'd tried to develop.

My crazy intensity from pain is slightly more under control.  I was trying to be celebratory in spirit with you across the miles, and instead I had to consider myself more a "character" and oppressive "case" than ones I've been noticing with criticism-turned-to-compassion.

Trying to have compassion for oneself is not easy because it does no good to be too lenient, or the correction won't occur for next time (or on-going as is my situation!).

Your days of glorious interlude are worth savoring.  I'd written on my blog a little about praise of God. (Church brief outlay for a privately or publicly professed hermit, either one mentions praise of God, not praise to God such as praising Him for things or favors.)  I think praise of God is more something a person, a soul, learns or IS or does from within heart and soul--not so much a thinking of, for example, "I praise You Lord for giving me this or that."  However, that type of praising God for what He does for us is may be like a stage of love in which the human loves God for what He does for us. I think that is the second degree of love, or third degree of which St. Bernard writes in his Love of God.  The fourth degree, the highest form of love that St. Bernard suggests is the love of God in Himself--is loving God because He is God Who Is Love.  

Perhaps praise of God is akin to that fourth degree of love, so something that develops within the heart and soul as far as praising goes.  While it might seem to us something we develop; it is more a grace, of which our awareness and desire of praise of God and love of God allows us to receive the grace from God.

So glad you were at the [new, popular rooftop bar] with weather lovely again!  Then on to [restaurant].  Catching a movie is all part of now memory of two days of get-away without having to leave the city limits.  I've been considering per the narrowing of the path in transitions and this phase, that the travels become more interior.  

But they can be just as fulfilling and delightful.  Simplicity such as the highlight of love of two brothers and their mother is a major "trip" with warmth and lots of practical endorphins and dopamine boosts in the body, mind, and heart.  Love it!

More fun than exercise, but my task is to consider walking past three houses plus mine and back, and then one or two houses on other side for total of five or six house lots--is FUN.  Your half-baked routine is preferable to a fourth-baked or unbaked routine.  I'm considering life now, in this transition, by degrees.  Tiny increments: the PT said it is best to stay in a continuum, not in the peaks and then valleys of backsliding....  

Yesterday I did water the potted trees/plants, though.  [Young neighbor child] did not come to water the night before.  I carried a tiny bucket of perhaps a half gallon or so, filling at kitchen sink so as to not make it more strain by lifting up from patio with  the pincher-grabber tool.  Walking back and forth with that amount of "weight"--5 lbs?--had the pain up; but I did as the PT said then, to offset it or at least know why more pain.  I've not been doing the exercises that I think aggravate some, despite being good to strengthen the core.  I'm not advanced enough, after she said my doing such as the little bit of carrying water or refreshing the ice pump twice daily is far more than patients attempt who've had even a simple laminectomy.  I have to lower my expectations and do the walking and the leg strengthening step-ups using bottom stair and floor, 10 times each leg if I can manage 10 times.  Repetition is important more than length of time or higher number or sets each time I'm up from bed.

Does my example of exercise help as metaphor in our spiritual ascent?  Not how much, but is consistency and little bits more beneficial and pleasing to God?  I think Sermon 3 [St. Bernard's Sermons on Song of Songs] might touch upon that only in that he warns to not over-reach what we are ready for.  I am not sure I have all three "kisses" mentioned, but I grasp the two--and I grasp the point, I think.  The soul evolves over time and through our life experiences.  

I suspect we are each now good-to-go for asking for the kiss of His lips.  We are used to penance, have been down on the ground prostrate or with our heads to His feet, begging forgiveness; we are familiar with penance--penance that comes to us as consequences God allows and penances that comes from us--our sorrows for what we know we've done and wish we'd not:  sorrow for not only our sins but for our errors wrought from erstwhile, good intentions.  I'll have to reread to consider the other "kisses" he mentions that are metaphors for other stages of spiritual growth and experience.

An example in over-reach on my part was my vow of consecration of suffering nearly two decades ago.  Wrote it out and repeated it in [priest spiritual director] presence on Feb. 15, 2000.  It is a full page of all I wish to offer of my suffering and my willingness to suffer all kinds and manners of suffering and for what purposes--for God, for His Church, for salvation of souls, for the world.  Up until the island years I renewed that vow on Sept. 23, Padre Pio's death day and then feast day after canonization in 2002.  During the island years when written vow mostly not accessible, I felt the vow of consecration of suffering spoke for itself without being read or repeated, given the circumstances in that difficult phase.

So when I read it the other night, having invited [spiritual father] to be here in spirit (and I dare say he sat in the chair across from foot of my bed) I wondered how on earth I'd come up with all that?  And also I recognized yet again just how far beyond what I could possibly personally manage to suffer or to even fathom what breadth and depth of suffering could possibly come.  Now, that vow when offered so many years ago could seem rather foolish, looking back.  However the outcome is that God allowed the various types of sufferings including persecution from the Church which was quite painful; God nonetheless got me through sufferings I'd never conceived.  The lesson, the outtake, I see, is that I don't suffer well, very much or what is beyond my human self.  

But how will we grow and learn unless we offer--even seemingly foolhardy offerings-- beyond us at the time and maybe beyond for our lifetimes?  God always has a safety net for us when we are genuinely well-intentioned even if childish (as I am often enough in my desires).  He understands and has mercy when I have great desires to offer much--and much beyond what I can possibly, realistically, or well-manage in various aspects of managing.  

But at least the offerings are my way of letting myself and Him know I'm willing to try.  And maybe that is the same as when--on Monday afternoon in the stillness other than the ice pump humming by the side of the bed--I asked for Him to kiss me with the kiss of His lips.  Asking God for union with him--even a brief union--well, why not?  Even though beyond me, at least I'm telling Him I'm aware of it as a possibility.  It seems a most beautiful and loving request; and even a humbling request seems better than never asking at all.  

The asking of God and the offering to God at least lets God Who knows All, to hear my request of a sincere desire.  He can smile back in loving pity and decline; He can say "Not now, not yet."  I suppose He can even say "Never," but I don't believe God would say that other than if we asked for something not His will.  It is His will and desire to bring us to the point of the kiss of His lips--either while we are yet alive or when we are on the other side, as long as it is not hell.

If I never dare to approach God with trust and familiarity, where does that leave me and what does that admit of me to God about me?  Am I the servant who in fear or ignorant unawareness, buried the talent given me to keep it as is but without chance of increasing, growing, that which He imparted within me to bring about greater yield?

I suppose two points to remember are that of humility and mortification.  HOW I approach God matters.  If I approach Him with the attitude that I deserve something or am so experienced that I can handle on my own whatever comes, that will lead to disaster because my approach is all wrong, my attitude one of pride and of presuming I am better than or equal to His perfection and perfect challenges.  If I approach with the sheer desire, delight and trusting willingness of a child--even with naivete--perhaps that is at least heartening to Jesus.  Pride seems to be the deal-breaker in the spiritual life.  Pride is in presumption....

I tell you, when I get up to as much as walk around the house, the pain spikes in my lumbar.... Washed a couple dishes and got a pan soaking in Dawn soap water.  Then back to bed and the icy pad.  I will try, try again today to get up more often and walk outside and do the exercises that are simplest for the leg muscles, plus the upper body.  It will take Divine Grace and a miracle for me to like doing such exercises and for me to give the kiss of my mortal lips as a goodbye to the fun, project exercising I've loved doing in the past. 

Love in His Love,

[Catholic Hermit]

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.  

Catholic Hermit: Calming from Catechism

I've read this selection from The Catechism of the Catholic Church.  I apply it to many aspects of life, and for me now, pinned like a bug to a specimen board, squirming in pain and not yet dead, perhaps the aspects of contemplative prayer are akin to how the Lord Jesus would like me to be suffering.

2717  Contemplative prayer is silence, the "symbol of the world to come" or "silent love."  Words in this kind of prayer are not speeches; they are like kindling that feeds the fire of love.  In this silence, unbearable to the "outer" man, the Father speaks to us His incarnate Word, who suffered, died, and rose; in this silence the Spirit of adoption enables us to share in the prayer of Jesus.

I don't need to explain to you readers who have far more wits about you than I do in my bug-squirming, pained body, my head more than half out of it and just typing away rampantly.  (It is a distraction but perhaps helpful one, better than a complaining tone to a neighbor when I tried to get up and go outside, using the trenching spade as a support pole.

Silence.  Silent love.  I do love Jesus so very much!  I do think I ought repeat my lengthy, wordy vow of suffering as a sort of penance, as a means of humbling myself for I know the silence of pain, of my stilling myself despite feeling as if I am going crazy from the suffering is likely better for God, for others, and for self.

Be still.  Be silent.  Smile.  Indeed, such silence when suffering so does seem unbearable to the "outer" man, to me.  It can be that way for us humans even when not suffering.  But at least a consecrated Catholic hermit--or hopefully so--finds silence not at all unbearable but quite sweet.  I love silence!  It is just that I have difficulty when in extreme pain not having distraction.  And distraction even if silent distraction, is not really, fully silent.

You know what I mean better than I can express.  I know you do!

It is a goal, a hope.  Something for which to try to be:  Silent in and out of suffering.

Today we celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord--well, used to be today the Holy Day of Obligation. 
The Church will celebrate Christ's Ascension into Heaven on Sunday.  Today it still is the Ascension.  My first Ascension that I knew that it was celebrated, after I began my private instruction to be confirmed a Catholic but yet not confirmed, I decided to burn all the hate letters from my temporal ex-spouse and included a letter or two from the ex-spouse's new spouse.  

Burned them in the back garden in the children's old hamster cage.  (The fire department approved an in-town burn if in a metal container; I'd told them it was old letters.)  As the ashes rose up into the sky, I prayed that all the hateful and untrue words written about me and to me, would be as ashes turned to graces, and would become holy as gifts given to God above.

Today, yes, perhaps I ought to offer this incessant and crazy-making pain, in the same way.  It is already burning!  It is burning from the nerves on fire, shooting flames in my body, simmering like coals in my lumbar spine.  These sufferings are my offerings, to have them ascend with Jesus to God the Father, by means of the love and action of the Holy Spirit Who on Pentecost will renew indwelling in us all.

Each of us will celebrate this Pentecost either on earth or in heaven--and pray not hell.

Pray for silence.  Pray in silence.  Breathe in silence.  Be stilled in silence.  Suffer in silence.  Jesus suffered, died, and rose.  So shall we some day, some hour, some moment.  Let us do so in silence of the kindling that can be pain, that will feed the fire of Christ's love.  Of our love for Christ and for others.  Let me love others as I love His Real Presence!