The Hermit Is Asked a Question

Three nights ago the hermit had a dream. In it, the hermit's spiritual father appeared, bearing a clump of deep purple-blue grapes. He instructed the hermit that he'd brought them to be eaten. Some of the grapes had been eaten already, presumably by the spiritual father. It was a shared meal, thus.

Then the spiritual father, with much eagerness asked the hermit this question--and asked it twice in succession:

Have you become God? Have you become God yet?

There was intensity and enthusiam, an eagerness and hope that the hermit would share the excitement and joy of this question, the hope of the intent!

The hermit, however, was at first stunned, for the hermit is not God and said so. But then the hermit comprehended, and had to respond, "Not yet, not yet. The hermit knew that this was expected, and that it was good indeed: to become God.

Upon waking, the hermit recognized that this dream bore a significant message from God in the guise of the elderly spiritual father. But the dream needed to be placed in the collander of discernment and rinsed through and through.

A message was left with the spiritual father, relaying the dream and asking if this is theologically sound and Scriptural. The hermit went to confession with the first available priest, who happened to be a Canon lawyer from Nigeria. At the conclusion of confession, the hermit asked permission to ask a question of discernment, and relayed the dream.

The confessor gave the usual discernment admonitions but said that in Scripture St. Paul tried to express it thus: It is not now I who lives but Christ who liveth in me. He said that we are to become as God, to live in our minds, words and actions in our daily lives, as Jesus would live. He said this is a valid message.

Of course, the hermit explained that the hermit is NOT God Himself! The hermit mentioned having read some mystics and saints who, when they had union with God, would exclaim "I am God! God is me! We are One!" Now the hermit wishes to have written down these, but at the time the exuberance and confidence in such statements seemed uncomfortably strong, just as the hermit felt in the dream when asked with such joyful hopefulness: Have you become God yet?

Then the hermit did a word study, for the word "become" kept appearing as a critical clue.

become [AngloSaxon. Be-cuman to come, to happen.] to grow into or come to be; as, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. To undergo change or development. To appropriate or suitable to; to accord with the character, appearance, nautre, etc., of.

The question is a good one, and one in which we all as Christians should aspire to be-coming! We should be willing and eager to grow into God, to come into God and to undergo change and development in order to be suitable to God--to accord with God's character, appearance and nature.

The hermit is now willing to become God. The hermit had never pondered it in such wise. May the Lord change the hermit--and how? Obviously, God was trying to let the hermit know that through the Eucharist, through the Blood of Christ as represented by the dark purplish grapes--that this is the meal that will change the soul to grow into God.

Then the soul will be appropriate to and suitable to God.

It is what God desires of all of souls--to become Him.

Do you understand now?