Darkest Hour Before Dawn

The hermit had some lessening of the darkness one day, and in the middle of the night awoke with ever darker darkness, plummeting the soul into blind despair.

Who knows why these darknesses come.

Perhaps it had to do with the realization that the hermit is not going to be, ever, utilized in the Diocese. There will be no jobs, no volunteering, no nothing--except, of course, for now, and the most important active work, to be an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist. There is a glimmer of chance that the hermit will be able to proclaim the Word.

The hermit expressed the darkness in confession. The confessor had so kindly listened and spoken with the hermit the night before, on the phone. But there was no indication or movement otherwise for the hermit's involvement. What the adult daughter had said rang true: the Diocese wants regular people to work with regular people.

The hermit is not regular. The hermit continues to have no place. It has all been so negative, so painful, so suffocating. Realizing that one's God-given gifts and talents and experience are not going to be utilized by what one loves most, that one is not going to be able to serve due to being different, is agonizing.

Until one accepts, that is. So the hermit is working on acceptance, and it is coming along nicely.

The confessor pointed out that the hermit IS consecrated, that the vows have been RECEIVED by a priest. But still, something niggled inside and caused the hermit to say that this is not enough, somehow, but could not explain why. The hermit still did not have a PLACE.

But the hermit is part of the laity--that is the place for the hermit.

No, the hermit is not really part of the laity. The hermit is irregular.

The hermit blurted out, finally, that there is no room for a mystic in the Catholic Church.

But the confessor said of course there was and has been through out the history of the Church. Well, this hermit, this mystic hermit, has no place.

Not yet. But it will come if Jesus desires a place for this one who is very much outside the center, on the peripheral, and now very free, for the first time in years.

The confessor had said that the hermit must be "yourself". Ah, yes. So the hermit is working on this, too. And rather than work, it is more a shedding of much past negativity, of memories, of letting go of the struggles to try to fit in, to try to be acceptable or even prove that one can be regular if given a chance. That chance is not being given, nor will it be.

As the adult daughter said, when regular people are around the hermit much, the spiritual qualities come out even if not spoken, and this makes regular people very uncomfortable, and even priests are uncomfortable.

The hermit understands and does not want to make others uncomfortable. The hermit now comprehends and accepts that regardless talents, degrees, gifts, experience and skills--no Diocese would want to utilize the hermit in any active sense. The hermit might be seen but not heard, so to speak. It is all right. The hermit accepts, for it is all God's will.

There is much thanksgiving now, and a rejoicing in being set free to discover God's will in the parameters set forth. Praise be to God for the adult children who came to the rescue with clarity in expression and repeating what they've said before but the hermit did not want to accept, and for the confessor and VG who although didn't express it directly, did not respond when the answer would otherwise be what the hermit was starting to see meant "no."

The confessor/VG did encourage the hermit to try to write for publication again. In the meantime, within hours of the acceptance of being the seed crushed, fallen to the ground, buried and died--God opened up some other jobs, more out in the secular world, and more incredible interactions with souls out in the secular world.

Dawned, dawning, dawn arrives.