Well, as the wind blows, the Holy Wind, the Holy "Pneuma," I see that I am not going to get to the salvation of the faithful upon earth prior to the Law of Moses in this Lesson, but rather I want to continue a theme; the idea of "feeling saved."
So many people get caught up in the emotional restrictions of religious life, NEEDING to feel inspired, needing to feel holy, needing to feel useful, NEEDING, NEEDING, what satisfies the psyche, the soul. When most times, what troubles the soul is far more healing and real. We have to be very careful here, that we do not use our faith in narcissism, as a means to pamper our own feelings, or simply entertain our psyche. The charismatics are the worse in this regard, where everything has become "emotion" and they bounce from emotional high to dejected low, and actually become mentally ill.
I think the most instructive words my spiritual mentor and confessor ever told me were, "There is no virtue of the faith, greater than the patient endurance of dullness." He was saying, "give up seeking religious experience and get down to living your life faithfully, being careful to care for all the little things." This is discipline. Running from thrill to thrill is not discipline, that is "seeking signs" even if it is merely a constant emotional reassurance that is substituted for the actual presence of God. You see the patient endurance of dullness, requires the stilling of the mind. Why is stilling the mind, conquering that seemingly eternal flow of reverie so very important? Because without the stilling of the mind, coming to hear and know God's voice is impossible. The Holy Fathers and the Apostles talk about it in terms of "restoring the NOUS" as Saint Paul did in Romans 12. That Nous - that Noetic Faculty, sometimes translated the Heart, (but it does not mean the emotions) and sometimes translated the MIND, but it does not mean the function of the human brain, but rather the core of our being where the Jesus Christ we have accepted in Baptism lives in communion with us by the presence of HIS Holy Spirit. It is intelligence above our I.Q. and even above our experience, it is wisdom greater than the knowledge of the greatest philosophers, academics, psychologists, and psychiatrists. How can it be that we could possess this? Only when all else in us that is noisy and rebellious is silenced. Then we function upon our common intelligence and live our particular and unique vocation and at the same time everything we do engenders life, challenges evil, mocks death, as it is informed by God.
I knew a woman, we will call her Martha (Memory Eternal) who was a deeply religious, and committed "Christian" who was her own god, and was obviously tormented. Being god is exhausting work. She constantly talked about "spiritual things" and the soap opera happening at her "church," the successes and failures of each successive pastors and all the scandals, and all the people who were "just not quite right," and who she had said what to and when she had said it and why. Thirty minutes with her would wear me out. The longer she talked the more forceful and loud she would become, mistaking her loudness for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. I purposely guarded my mind, choosing not to retain anything she said. "What? Didn't you listen attentively so that you would know how to answer her? How to help her? Didn't you care?" Yes, I cared very much and enough never to allow the nature of her psychosis to become the economy of our communication. I would sit silently as she taught me her great lessons, and in the end, challenge her to her core in a few sentences, to faith and leave. The next conversation in a few weeks or a few months would always begin, "Father, I don't think you understood what I was trying to tell you last time." Meaning that my challenge to real faith had remained on her mind, she could not shake it. I know she spoke to others about me, as a villain or suspicious person.
You see, she constantly felt as if she were disappearing; and could not grasp that she needed to. She could not brook solitude or even silent company. Something gnawing in her chest required her to speak, to constantly speak, to catalog every person and experience into terms spiritual and religious, in concepts she could believe and file away. And she was a person of stellar morals, a super mother, a super wife, and pillar of her congregation. Though I have to tell you, she was not "saved," that is if SOZO really means healed. Instead, she was driven by anxieties that drove her to claw to retain psychic/emotional control of herself and everyone around her. She had in her fervor taken on the role of God.
Anyone interested in experiencing their faith deeply needs to at least once read "The Cloud of Unknowing" written by a Pre-Renaissance anonymous English Vicar, originally written in Middle English before there were any English language Bibles. It was written for the laymen and women, the common people, who were not "theologians" or "bible scholars" who could not read Latin, and even if they could read Latin, they could not afford the cost of a Bible, that was equal to a couple years wages. He opens up the "life of practical faith" "practical communion with God," in ways "religious people" cannot comprehend. It removes from the religious every crutch.
As I was thinking about this guidance I wanted to share, the fact that people seek things other than God while thinking they are seeking and serving God; I had a friend call and tell me about how they were changing churches because they just did not feel "uplifted" enough when they left church on Sunday morning. She explained that they just did not "get enough out of it." She paid lip service to my advice, but I know she rejected it since it is foreign to her understanding of what faith is. Her faith is her religion, not her life. I advised her that she had it backwards, that the purpose of true worship was to sacrifice ourselves to it, to give ourselves, our minds, our energy to the "service" to the Liturgy, and we were never to expect to get anything from it, except repentance before the end and eternal life. I used my old saw, "Always, and everywhere, in all our experience and relationships, never expect anything, you will never be disappointed and often pleasantly surprised." I had this image of people seeking emotional
experience, a sort of pacifier, from "church" when my good friend Ambrose posted these words from one of my two most favorite modern Saints, Saint Maria of Paris, she wrote: "It would be a great lie to tell searching souls: ‘Go to church, because there you will find peace.’ The opposite is true. The Church tells those who are at peace and asleep: ‘Go to church, because there you will feel real anguish for your sins, for your perdition, for the world’s sins and perdition. There you will feel an unappeasable hunger for Christ’s truth. There, instead of becoming lukewarm, you will be set on fire; instead of pacified, you will become alarmed; instead of learning the wisdom of this world you will become fools for Christ." I love it, when I point out the grief engendering realities of our lives, our culture, country and society and people call me an "alarmist" and tell me that what I have stated is "too harsh." "Christians" have become so hooked on drugged pablum all they want is their next fix, and never to be exposed to grief engendering TRUTH. No, the religious don't want to be alarmed, they want to sit comfortably and say, "Peace, peace, when there is not peace."
Real Salvation, REAL Healing/Salvation carries with it NO illusions, delusions or fantasies. It is such a raw grasp of reality, those foolish enough to grasp it, those willing to submit the wisdom of this world, and the pride of life, to the will of God, without question, fools as it were by worldly standard, live in simultaneous and intense joy and grief, totally alive and conscious of the deepest evils around them and in the world, and the most holy things, precious natural and spiritual, gifts and blessings, unwilling to accept a fantasy, wrapped in a soothing feeling.
So, let me share with you how merciful God was to Martha, and how fully she came to the fullness of faith, that Glory attended her suffering and repose. Firstly, Martha's Christian faith could not hold, after decades of struggling to be a good Baptist she became bitter, rejecting "organized religion" as evil. After attending "church" for six decades, she quit. She really became a "New Age Christian" accepting everything Oprah Winfrey said as Gospel. In other words, she became brainwashed by Cultural Marxism.
But in her new state, having found the ability to suspend disbelief long enough to sometimes hear me, I continued to challenge her assumptions, and as a politically correct Christian skeptic, she was actually a little more open to finding Truth, who is a person.
We got word that she was suddenly dizzy, and her grandson was rushing her to the emergency room. When we got to the hospital she was very alert. When I had a moment to speak with her, she said, "Jesus just told me it is time to listen." In a few moments, she was in a deep coma. All the normal medical chaos ensued as they rushed her for a CAT Scan, MRI, XYBG, whatever. The doctor waited for all her family to gather and announced that she had a massive brain hemorrhage, and was brain dead. When questioned he explained that nothing but her brain stem was keeping her alive, that the pressure in her skull had literally crushed her brain. She was breathing on her own, but for all practical intent was gone, dead, unable to be aware of anything at all and he assured unable to experience pain. One of the family members who had heard her statement to me asked, "Do you think Jesus is talking to her?" I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, because I knew that was not the case, yet.
The next morning when they had her situated in a "hospice" room in the hospital, expecting her to repose in a day or three, I started slipping into her room, between the visits of others and standing at the foot of her bed chanting the psalms. As time passed (days) I had made it to the 51 (50 LLX) Psalm when her sister caught me. She became quite angry telling me that her sister did not believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo and that I should have asked permission before doing that. (I had asked both her daughter and husband for permission). Her anger had attracted others, so I said, "Why don't we ask Martha?" Her sister retorted that I was an idiot, that Martha was for all practical purposes dead and totally unaware of what I was doing. I spoke to Martha who was laying on her right side (turned every two hours), "Martha, if you want me to stop singing the psalms for you, please remain perfectly still." Her sister once again assured me I was an idiot. She said "that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen! So you are trying to save face, saying she gave you permission to stop when all she can do is lay still!" I raised my finger to her signaling her to shut up, threatening the dark spirit she had become. I turned to Martha and said, "Martha, if you want me to continue to sing the psalms and pray WITH you, (because I knew she was praying intently) just move your left hand." There was a moment of pregnant, awkward silence as everyone stared at Martha wishing this embarrassing moment were finished, then Martha sighed, almost groaned, and began to flap her left arm at the elbow, like someone imitates a bird wing flapping, at least ten times, almost violently. Her sister almost fainted, but someone caught her. I have never seen a room empty faster. She reposed the next day, shortly after I finished the 150th Psalm. The air in the room was luminous with God's Glory, and Martha drew her last breath, SOZO, HEALED. So now I say, "Martha, I know you love me. You know I love you. Please remember me and pray for me, because I am still a great sinner."
"Seeing God strangely made man, let us become strangers to this vain world, and raise our minds to things divine. For this cause did God descend to earth, to raise to heaven us who cry to him.
"The Infinite was wholly present here below, yet in no wise absent from the realm on high, when He voluntarily suffered for our sakes, and by His death, put to death our death, and by his resurrection, granted to sing:
Jesus, Sweetness of heart.
Jesus, Strength of body.
Jesus, Splendor of the soul,
Jesus, Sharpness of mind.
Jesus, Joy of the conscience.
Jesus, sure Hope.
Jesus, eternal Memory.
Jesus, high Praise.
Jesus, my most exalted Glory.
Jesus, my desire, reject me not.
Jesus, my Shepherd, recover me.
Jesus, my savior, save me.
Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me."
"How can I keep from weeping when I think of death, for I have seen my brother in his coffin without glory or beauty? What then am I to expect? And for what do I hope? Lord, only grant me repentance before the end."
Holy Martyr Father Jacques Hamel, beheaded at Christ's Altar today, you mixed your blood with the Blood of Christ. Pray for us, now and at the hour of our trial. -Amen
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