More Visitors to Agnus Dei Hermitage

A young couple and their infant son visited Agnus Dei Hermitage. Soon into the visit, they outpoured a family situation in which the woman's father is emotionally abusive to his family, while keeping up a rather holy exterior in public. We discussed how this could be confronted in individual interventions. The hermit also gave a green scapular to be placed deep in her father's favorite chair or taped under the bed. Prayers and Communion offerings were promised--and being fulfilled.

An older couple arrived for dinner, as the hermit declined dining out, preferring the silence and stillness of Agnus Dei. The hermit has learned that choices need to be made to ensure more spiritual quality to hospitality. The trio ate black beans, risotto, greens, dark purple grapes, and a chocolate brownie each--this latter not typical fare. (Somehow the hermit has lost a sweet tooth in recent months or perhaps couple of years. Can't recall when!)

With this couple, the conversation opens more into people and events--all relative to the Catholic scene. However, the effect was not the same as the Catholic family who visited the night before and watched the film, Diary of a Country Priest. The couple required more effort, and the hermit did not do an exemplary job of diverting to spiritual heights. Yet, the conversation did not dip into detraction at any point. There was grumbling, though; the couple is leaving the Cathedral but with good reason, and God's will. Their work is in active ministry, and there is an outlying parish which will help foster the work God desires of them, better than a large and less-intimate Cathedral can facilitate.

With all guests, the hermit gives a gift, and usually one with holy connectedness--even if it is a jar of jam made at a Cistercian abbey. Sometimes it is a spiritual book being passed on, or a blessed medal, or in the case of the woman last night, some lovely clothes for her to wear since she is in the public eye with her focused and loving pro-life work. The presentation of herself is necessary with the presentation of this cause; and the hermit's habit does no longer includes the garments given. Everyone was pleased, especially the hermit whose wardrobe is fitting into the seed crushed and buried and died in order for new life to emerge.

The hermit improved in not doing much talking but of asking and listening. The couple asked, though, of the hermit's life, as the last time in conversation with them, the hermit was deep in the throes of spiritual confusion, darkness--and verily dunked by the devil. The hermit could sincerely report (whether they believed it or not), that the hermit has been given peace, that peace of God has been bestowed. There is no resentment but only gratitude to the Bishop and the Vicar General for keeping the hermit out of canonical approval, for in their wisdom the hermit has died and been released in more freedom to live the hermit life, in formation by God. The hermit stated that these two mentors and spiritual leaders have been formally thanked.

People often think that the peace is only temporary. Again, the hermit explains that the peace and the love are so co-united (and the hermit is pondering this union, considering peace and what it is, and love and what it is), that God does not take peace away. Only the hermit could let it diminish, or the devil could disrupt. Thus it is some effort at times, to listen to the soul and the intellect and will--to discern if the peace is jarred, and why, and to utilize love to settle the peace once again.

Visitors to the hermitage are very good, whether in person or on telephone, or in a way, via e-mail. They are welcome aspects of love, peace and practice in both. But solitude is welcome, also; and so too the presence of angels and saints in their silence and serenity.