Last night, the yearning for God intensified; the heart pained in the area typical for this.
How to adore Him more?
The Virgin Mary will teach this. She is the model of all victim souls.
She is the model for contemplatives and hermits, this latter especially after Jesus ascended.
The grief runs deep for having not simply obeyed the given mission. Yet today is a new day, and Mass was lovely with the children at St. Jude's. Trying to pray the Office prior to Mass, a woman named Hope jabbered on with an older man, a sacristan, of the Cathedral. I could not concentrate, and I thought about the example to the quiet schoolchildren, not allowed to jabber. What do we adults think when we do such things? After Mass, the woman spoke to me and told me of the two morning Masses. Then she said I could do as she does and go to both. I simply said, "Good for you."
This flustered the woman, and I said that I really meant that it is good for her. And I do mean that, but initially the words just popped out; and I should have instead been silent. It is good for anyone to go to Mass once, twice--but to not speak of this to others. Perhaps I have done so in the past. I don't recall. I have spoken of the attempts in the hermit life to a couple or three friends, but I have learned to not speak of that, either.
It was not in boasting, for the hermit life is not an acclammation but rather a death. It is to offer oneself, to die, and to be yet living--a living, pleasing, holocaust for God, for His Church.
Last night I made an offering of self, sorry, so sorry that I had tried to flee from my death a few years ago; sorry that I had not actively focused on the simple mission to "just adore Him"; sorry that I had grasped for what I call a "normal life". Elizabeth of the Trinity has helped, this time, for me to see again where I belong, to Whom, and not in or of the world, not really. I am reminded of the three sages, and of their telling me I am to remain with them in the land of the living dead.
This is how it is: to be physically alive but to be actually dead, to be of the other world. In faith, my living death existence will become joyful and easier in many ways, once I finally and fully accept this position. I am in it, regardless, and to struggle against causes misunderstanding and sadness for myself, as God answers, at the same time, my pleas to help me do His will! Thus, He has to strip more away, and that seems painful to me until I recognize He is only doing as I begged.
My living death is offered for the Church, for my sufferings and the sufferings of Holy Mother Church shall be made one. Was I not told that nearly 12 years ago? And, now I lay myself down, remove myself from the world, as a victim for this Diocese, to die for this Diocese in particular, for here it is that I exist: a body, a soul, but not of this world.
