Question to the Cathedral Rector

Of course, he is my confessor, usually. And this morning after Mass the hermit asked if it is theologically all right--if it is simply all right in any regard--to be inside here, inside the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He smiled and said it is perfectly all right.

Then the hermit asked about the perspective--and with consideration of what the Da brought up and what the hermit has also been pondering--is it all right to be taken by Jesus everywhere, as opposed to "my" taking Him places, as now "I" am the genderless soul in nothingness nesting in His Heart. Also, too, is it now to be that He receives "me" in His Heart through His Body and Blood of the Eucharist, and thus in some way, is it not "me" but rather "We" since "I" am within His Heart? And when does it become "Us"? (This last question of the "Us" I had in mind but didn't ask directly, but will next time!)

He said it is a matter of perspective, and that people have varying understandings and perspectives of this, so for some it is that they receive Him, but it is all right to consider that He receive us. Well, it simply must be this latter perspective now, for otherwise "I" would have to remain outside His Sacred Heart in order to receive Him. He has received me; He has taken me in like a poor mouse out in the cold allowed to scamper in when the door is left ajar.

He set His trap for me, for He saw me wanting in but my not realizing just how much I wanted in. He saw my little trail and my snitching crumbs and darting about from hiding place--to observing my emboldened scurrying from room to room. So He set His trap for me, and I am caught. He has taken me by the tail and has placed me in His cozy cage. I am within His Sacred Heart, and He will never let me go again. He is teaching me to become such a part of Him that it will no longer be other than We together as One.

But this comes with awareness and training, and sometimes the training is rather Pavlovian in essence; the mystical bell rings when the mouse must be reminded of the process.

The Rector had preached about St. John of the Cross and about how Jesus desires us to be within Him, one with Him, in union. He mentioned the dance, and how one leads and the other follows, and he played out this metaphor as being how we must follow Jesus through the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Later, the hermit commented on this imagery, and that there can come a point in which the dancer is no longer aware of the music or of the leading this way or that, and somehow becomes enrapt in the dance without consciousness. The Rector saw this, of course, and agreed, and glanced the motion of one in ecstasy. Yes, this is how it becomes, and thus it is in the dance with God, within the silent, rhythmic Sacred Heart.

Then the hermit said that during the night, the hermit awoke and thought about last summer and how the hermit was in the clutches of the devil--yes was definitely in the clutches of the devil. And now the hermit wished to express from within the Sacred Heart, how much the hermit loves Catholicism, yes definitely loves Catholicism more than anything or anyone on earth, and this is said from within the Sacred Heart and felt from within the Sacred Heart.

But there is nothing loved more on earth and not on earth, than the Sacred Heart, and this is said and felt on earth and also not on earth. For the love in Him is a love begun with the love of earth but becomes God-is-love.

The hermit could not express this, though, verbally while standing in the glorious cold and gray St. John of the Cross morning, outside the Cathedral--but thinking it from within the Sacred Heart. No, only the joy came from within in an outside smile, and the joy of the Rector returned from his within with a smile outside.