St. Antony Jogs the Catholic Hermit's Memory

While hanging wet laundry, St. Antony placed a memory in the Catholic hermit's mind.

The child took the bamboo pole and container of worms to the channel to fish. David, the neighbor child, had already been out and placed several fishing poles, baited with nightcrawlers and beavertails, along the edges of two channels, positioning them over bass beds.

His mother comes out, bee-lines to the child wanting to fish, and wags her finger at the child, and speaks authoritatively, loudly--admonishes the child that David is to fish, and the child is not to fish, for David was there first and the other must go away. The child picked up the bamboo pole and bait, and silently headed back into the cottage, but teary eyed.

The child's mother asked why the child had returned. The child said what David's mother had said. The mother was not pleased at this.

When the father came home not long after, the mother told the father what the neighbor woman had done. The father, a tall, handsome, reserved man, set his jaw. He went over to the neighbor woman's cottage and asked her a question. Then he told her quite evenly that his child had every right to fish in the channel, and that there were three channels, and that they did not own these channels. They were for everyone to enjoy and fish from. Then he returned.

The child was instructed to take the pole, the bait and return to the channel to fish. By then the child had lost the desire to fish, and yet the mother insisted that the child go back out. So the child did. But if there were fish caught, by either of the children, is not recalled.

Why did St. Antony bring this particular memory from the realm of the numinous intellect? Well, there were connections, of course, to the intercessions asked of him. So the Catholic hermit prayed, asking the Father to go to the neighbors and explain that there are plenty of channels in which all may enjoy fishing.

But the Catholic hermit is not quite sure it still has the desire to fish. The confessor this morning says to fish, but not to notice anyone else who is fishing, and only to fish for God's glory. So the hermit agreed to go back out and fish awhile. If the channel seems icky with surface scum and weeds, or stinky from muck, then it will return inside to enjoy other endeavors, or go out in front to the lake to swim in the clear waters. This is a transition phase. The waters are being tested, the depths plumbed. If more clarity does not come in a few days, the hermit will ask the Bishop to give his wishes as to the format of the hermit's writing.

The Catholic hermit told the confessor that it liked best the story of The Littlest Angel. The little child in heaven was allowed to have his most treasured, earthly possession: a small box of child-delights which had been kept under his bed, at home, on earth. The littlest angel ended up giving his box of simple treasures to the Baby Jesus, as his only gift to offer, while the older angels looked on. The littlest angel was focused on Jesus, not noticing the other angels watching.

So it is, the hermit told the confessor, that the only gift it has ever had--the most treasured earthly gift God has given the hermit, from childhood on--is the gift of writing. The hermit lays it before the Infant Jesus; the confessor commends the hermit to keep writing but only for God without thought of or personalizing others' reactions. The Catholic hermit can only try this and wait and see.

Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace and good will to all men.