Hermit Throws Down the Gauntlet

The hermit is perhaps too bold.

In the past few days, the hermit threw down the gauntlet. It had to do with the young priest, very much marked for his destiny as a priest, who thinks, now, otherwise. The hermit wrote to him about sacrifice, then destiny, then mysterium tremendum, and finally lowered the barrels and shot the straight of it, of what is at stake should he continue to set his sights away from his priestly destiny.

The hermit told the B and VG about the steps taken in this, for better words, "assignment." The B seemed rather thankful that someone was telling it like it is to the young man who is bent on a deceptive track. The VG seemed perhaps amazed, and this would not have been his tactic. He is more prudent, steady, reserved. He asked the hermit to pray before the Blessed Sacrament to ask the Holy Spirit to make sure what words are used are those of truth and of the Holy Spirit. The hermit did this, for sure.

Part of the situation is that the hermit is fed up with the devil. It is not so much the young priest to whom the hermit was leveling the supernatural realities of the stakes here. It was a throwing down of the gauntlet to the devil who is stirring up the lust and desires, deceiving the young man and his older woman friend, that he needs intimacy and has been sad and depressed.

Perhaps he has been. Who brings sadness and depression to the soul? Who stirs lust and carnal desire, especially in the mind and body of a priest?

The hermit slept little last night, and this situation has been consuming in prayer and offerings. Today the hermit placed two books this priest had givent he hermit when he was in seminary, as well as his hand-written and typed letters of that time--and placed them before the Our Lady of Grace statue which sits atop the hermit's coffin in the great room of Agnus Dei. The hermit turns over the case to the Blessed Mother.

No more words need be written to the young man, now on leave from active ministry. The hermit now will pray and await whatever sufferings the Lord may be pleased to exact, commensurate with the needs of the dire situation.

The hermit, now, is suddenly and deeply exhausted from all this intensity. The sun is barely edging the tree tops, readying to slip beneath Lake Immaculata, down into dusk, and the hermit may crawl into bed to ponder many things in the heart.