Letter from the Bishop

This hermit has considered the Bishop's letter, the response to two letters sent nearly five and a half months ago, requesting approval by the Church for the hermit's vocation. The hermit also extended an invitation for the Bishop to visit, and this as a means to discuss the hermit life, perhaps, or for him to see the hermitage and have a view of the sincerity and genuine intent of the hermit in donating one's life and love to the Church.

This morning the hermit awoke considering key words in the response of the Bishop. One is "interest", for he wrote that he had read my letters "with interest."

The positive in this is that at least the hermit provides "interest" to others. I suppose the other writings would be even more interesting, such as the hermit's private journals written over two decades and into the third.

Another positive is that the Bishop wrote: I believe at this time you should continue a life of prayer and good readings as you are doing.

This the hermit will obey, of course! The hermit has lived a life of prayer and good readings for years and years, for over two decades and into the third, and only in the past 12 years as a Catholic. This way of life is a pleasure and joy, and it answers other questions as to active role and donations and involvements, without specifying. This is a kind of rule of life: pray and read. The hermit will add writing, for writing is a variation of reading and is the hermit's God-given talent, perhaps a predominant one.

The Bishop also wrote, in response to the invitation to visit: I will be glad to visit with you, but do not have the time now. Perhaps we could visit after Christmas. I will give [my secretary] a date.

This, too, is a positive. It tells the hermit that the visit is not perceived by the Bishop as anything to do with hermit vocation but merely a kindness, an act of charity, by a very busy prelate with no time (and also much exhaustion with his job with people in the world and in the Catholic world of regularity and irregulariy and many problems to be solved). Perhaps, perhaps, and we shall see what Christmas brings beyond the remembrance of the birth of Our Lord, and of the coming of Epiphany, and all other feasts and memorials celebrated by the Church Militant and Triumphant and of the Suffering souls in Purgatory who, as a mystic stated, are released to Heaven in high numbers on Christmas night.

Then, in closing, the Bishop wrote: In the meantime, I promise my prayers.

This is most important of all written in the response. The hermit needs prayers, and the prayers promised by a Bishop are prayers indeed and in need.

This morning the hermit awoke with much pain in body and the heaviness in soul, of the reality of the rejection of my offering of love and life to the Church. But then came a beautiful prayer from a friend, which is to help against temptations.

"Behold the Cross of the Lord,
Begone you evil power.
The Lion of the tribe of Judah,
The Root of David has conquered.
Alleluia!"

Then the hermit pondered the Bishop's letter, and was grateful for a conclusion to the requests mailed several months ago, and of knowing what the answer would be, and of seeing the positives in the answers.

There is now even greater freedom, and the hermit is secularized as a hermit, for the angel did not say the hermit had been chosen for the "Catholic" hermit life but that God had chosen the hermit for the "hermit life." But the hermit is a Christian and is a Catholic at that, but simply a hermit.

The hermit is praying much for the Bishop, for it is awful to not have time. The hermit has time galore--as much time as ether has, which is a gas created by God, in the upper realms, to shine and burn.

The hermit was just asked to stand at a pro-life box for donated baby clothing to make sure items are not stolen, at a Mass, and is thankful to do so, as ether can hover by a box, holding a book being read, and pray.