Take Silence

The hermit must take complete silence.

Is it the physical pain that is causing the spiritual darkness, or is it the spiritual darkness exacerbating the physical pain?

Seems as if the spiritual darkness is the main difficulty. It comes, then goes some, then comes back only darker. Is there darker than dark, blacker than black? Yes, there are degrees of blackness, and bleakness.

The VG is willing, and just that--willing--to listen to the hermit's thoughts on rule of life and private vows and other aspects learned from Diocese hermits. This is the VG who commented that friendships cannot be based upon the hermit's therapeutic needs. While much positive was gained, a priest with background in psychology said that the comment was not positive.

The darkness arrives without much pre-warning, although perhaps like dusk, one knows it will come and remain awhile and then dawn and then overcast day and then darkness again, and many nights without moonlight. It seems then, in these darkest of nights, that the source of the agony is Catholicism. If one could somehow get away from Catholicism, from Catholics with whom one does not have a place or fit in, then the despairs would depart and the physical pain would lessen.

This is the rationale, dark as it is, and the hermit tried to get the idea across to a confessor who was not able to comprehend but kept talking in various avenues without knowing. Finally, the hermit said that only God could help at this point, and that it was too difficult to explain or comprehend, and the confessor suggested then to be silent.

That seemed a flashlight beam, brief but a beam. The hermit is going to be silent, to take complete silence. This will include not discussing the rule and the vows, for these may be perceived as being based on therapeutic needs, anyway.

The hermit is beginning to feel the way in the dark. Silence is the best plan thus far, for in silence one can see in soundlessness.

It is a break-through to know that this is a time for God and the hermit to figure it out sans the interference of the Catholic or Protestant issues. The confessor spoke about this, too, that one can be like a pendulum but must be one or the other and tend to the time on the clock, but not swing back and forth. He missed the point, difficult as it is to express other than the hermit's first words: I am in the deepest despair and darkness ever, and my faith seems dead.

Silence is the fruit of that confession, for all the words otherwise swung back and forth and gonged without hitting the mark until silence.