Walking with Head Turned Back

A previous assignee called last evening. He continues to desire to be validated by the B, desires to return to his position. It is not his destiny.

Later, the hermit saw him in inner sight, walking the rushed streets of the large city where he is discovering his future by grappling with his past temptations. He is finding himself, and he is open now to God's will--except in this one category of a vocation entered into with deception. That is not a pure vocation. To be purified, he must enter into the vocation anew and in purity, if that vocation is God's will.

Yes, he was walking along, but the oddity is that he walked with his head turned to the right and back over his shoulder.

The hermit called and expected to leave a message, but the assignee answered; his meeting with the group was finished for the evening. The hermit told him that he is trying to walk with his head looking back, and this is not efficient walking! His head is turned back, trying to look down the highway back to where he used to be--and was living a life not free, not himself, and not successful for the temptations overtook his soul. It was a life of total deception.

The hermit told him that the hermit knows how this does not work, for the hermit has spent years trying to walk forward while yet looking back...or sometimes off to the side, watching what others were doing or what they were saying ought to be done.

No, souls must walk with heads looking forward as we are created in this manner and function. Our souls are meant to focus on Jesus, and He leads the Way of the Cross, not looking back. He leads the Way to Resurrection, not looking back.

A friend e-mailed in response to something the hermit wrote about the Catholic books purchased, this weakness for these holy books! This friend struggles with schizophrenia, yet more and more she is cooperating with the graces God gives. She lives a life perhaps more hermit-like than the hermit in some regards, yet not so in exterior solitude, yet very much so in the interior world and isolation that hovers about those with mental sufferings.

She commented that having a collection can be a good thing. She points out that even if all the books are not read by the hermit, they are here, available, and enduring about as much as temporalities endure. This makes me consider that the content exudes the space all about; and, as yesterday was the Feast of St. Gertrude the Great, and the hermit had awhile back discovered a small treasure book on this saint, picked it off the shelf and read a chapter.... It was very beneficial!

Another woman called a day or so ago, needing to discuss some issues with a college-age son. In her conversation, she mentioned that the books of saints the hermit had given them, have now been read by a woman and her family who live down the road from them.

The hermit will stop fussing about the books but be grateful for their presence and their ease in gifting and sharing the gold. As in the hermit garb, and the hermitage furnishings--all some day, soon or not soon, will be passed on in charity. Nothing of them is dark or evil, but only good in their affability as temporal objects. The important point to weigh is the hermit's attachment or detachment to any objects or views.

On yet another topic, the hermit all the more is grateful to the Bishop and Vicar General for not succumbing to the view that the hermit must be consecrated canonically. All during the throes of the hermit's confusion over this issue, the hermit was looking to the side and back, allowing influence through insecurities of what was seemingly required in order to be God's hermit and a hermit for His Church. The hermit had no peace.

Now there is peace. The hermit had trusted and stated to the Bishop that God would see through the eyes of the Bishop. The hermit has learned that this is so! Nothing can imitate the peace of the Holy Spirit--and not for such a length of blissful time! Whatever may be the will of God in other hermits, this hermit is willed to be as is: privately consecrated and avowed.

There is no inner need or desire otherwise, now or in future. So be it and praise be to God! When in the past the VG said that God would provide the graces that othewise come through the Church in canonical approval, he is proven correct in God's peace and providence.

Also, there is complete peace in no urgings to utilize past training, talents, degrees--no urgency to write a book or be published, no urgency to work for the Church in any formal or even informal tasks, no desires for anything except to adore God, to be possessed and to possess.

The hermit tried to express this to the assignee who called last evening. This is what is out there for us, this blissful peace! But more on that in another post, perhaps.