Did Bl. Charles de Foucald Go Through This?

A friend had just heard of Bl. Charles and noticed his biography. There was a base of understanding, then, and I posed the question which we considered, "Did Bl. Charles ever have a time in which he had great anguish and adjustment to the loneliness and solitude?"

It isn't written, that part of his life if it was present, unless I just haven't encountered it yet. I have thought the same of Maria of Olonets and other hermits. Did they go through periods of extreme spiritual anguish? And are there hermits who are also victim souls, who suffer much physically? Yes, of course there are, and yet they might not have been known as hermits. Seems as if the victim souls had more people around, such as being in convents or family members present. Gemma Galgani lived with a family who cared for and protected her reputation from people who would gossip.

I guess I'll have to ask Bl. Charles in prayer if he felt such joy in being alone with God from the onset of his arrival in the Sahara, before he knew the language of the Musselman tribe.

Perhaps I've not made it clear, but part of my suffering and anguish have to do with much persecution and being shut down in odd ways, over the years of my Catholicism. Some of it might be from my suffering, and people not comprehending. Much of it is from sheer meanness, the kind that little children can display, the kind that made the novel "Lord of the Flies" such a classic.

The priest I had to lunch the other day asked if I talked about my mystical experiences, and I said not directly, but if there was a need to help someone, they could figure it out. And in the occasion of a horrible situation with a very sick priest, I felt I needed to warn two people who stood great trouble to their lives if they did not know what was the problem. And, as my spiritual Da said, they would then wonder how it was I knew about the priest. And so it was, for in order to get the people to get out of the way of danger, I had to answer some questions, for it was so sensitive a situation that they had to be convinced for their own assurance that I was telling the truth. Then, the two had to explain to their significant close ones, for the problem affected two families with children. But that was that. It did explain much why that priest treated me as he did, and which encouraged parishioners to treat me as they did. These two people had wondered.

I yet wonder why I put up with such ordeals--except for the love of Christ and of souls. Yes, I do love Jesus and I love people. Right now I'm a bit touchy, for the pain of some of the ordeals has surfaced. I could go to a therapist to try to work on the hurt, for I had thought it was taken care of. But it wouldn't pop up again now if healed. A therapist would hear all the incidents and no doubt try to get me to leave the Church. Where would I go? Protestantism had no answers to begin with for the situations at hand but was more compassionate with the suffering. They get accused of being touchy=feely, and it is a marvelous attribute. What remains--head to the hills of solitude?

Even in the darkest of dark yesterday, when I told this poor confessor who could not deal with it, that my faith seemed dead--I became anxious during confession because I could hear Mass in the Church, and I knew I was missing Holy Communion. So after I told the priest it was too much for him to comprehend, for I could not comprehend what was going on within, and he gave a short penance and absolution for my darkness (I guess), Mass was ended. I went to the Sacristy and beseeched the Host. The priest there relented, and I knelt in front of the Monstrance as he gave me the Body of Christ.

This is how bizarre it can be.

Sometimes I can appreciate why St. Bruno left the Church proper and fled to the farthest reaches of the Alps. Thankfully, he had companions. That helps. I suppose they all were friends based upon their therapeutic needs, and their therapeutic needs had arisen from the persecution they had experienced from their Bishop and other meanies, or at least those who had shut down St. Bruno from his teaching and hindered his parish work. St. Bruno was a very brilliant and popular priest.

It was several years after he had made the comments to his friends, and they decided they wanted to worship God in more purity and freedom --to not have the flack they were experiencing--when they left. Perhaps they came to a point of such frustration that the transition to solitude was not that awful. But again, there were seven of them, together, and that would make it not seem so alone.

I have my Protestant friends upon whom I can marginally lean (for my therapeutic needs which very much include pain management issues when the ordeal extends like this one has). Then I have those to whom I reach out in love and encouragement via e-mail or a smile and kind word in passing. Most of the outreach is through prayers for people, such as the British couple in Portugal now being turned on by the fickle crowds who stop short of crying, "Crucify them! Crucify them!"

This weekend I'll be praying about bucking up and proceeding with presenting my hermit rule of life and vows I took nearly seven years ago, to the Vicar General, even though it is nonessential information to anyone else, including him in his work. Perhaps I will feel strong enough to go forth. However, St. Bruno did not present anything to anyone other than his ideas to his friends. I will ponder on this. It sure makes a difference to be a priest and going off to die in Christ, such as did St. Sharbel Maklouf in his hermitage and Bl. Charles in his and St. Bruno, too.