Discerning, slipping slowly into the ethereal, while my feet trudge drudgingly though the mud, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration waft through, with, and in sound, and vision, and yet something more. I am watching, waiting, praying, understanding there is no place else I would rather be, right now. The sisters have elevated their spiritual life to no compromise, beyond words, opinions and identity. There is a reason I have become focused upon them. Open minded, moving away from judgment, I take note of how they are doing day after day. What people think means nothing in the longevity of time and the continuing of days. Immediate community companionship, a threat, it still allows the opportunity for exercising love, while St Teresa of Avila and others exist to suppress and instruct. Everything centered in prayer. Life is truly religious. I watch, ruminating. Thy will be done. A life to be lived, yet like the single life, it is a dangerous life, even more, dangerous because it is more difficult. Marriage excites, properly holding to Tobaih and Sarah, to embrace the eternal with another, the reduction of immaturity and imperfections just really does not seem possible. Damage accumulates and surmounts within those faltering within broken single lives, children in the spiritual life, playing through selfishness, religion just a means of entertainment and the claiming of a superior identity. Patience and prayer, a struggle with my interior conflicts with my vicious inclinations and the performance of acts of the contrary virtues. To run away to the cloistered contemplative life improperly is a grave mistake. It will crush, induce insanity; sloth becoming a sin patiently, aggressively inducing a horrible death. Witnessing, there is a Trappist monastery, identity left alone, in which failure has become a way of life. God instructs through example. The vocational director, a friend I have not contacted in years, blunders deeper and deeper into insanity. My love for him is tremendous. My heartbreaks every time I speak to him. The communication becomes absurd at times. Matter of fact, I see him so clearly, the monastery will be a destination this weekend, the Ozarks always a sensation to encounter. A weekend retreat appears, becomes a reality, with the thought of ascending descending into the morning. Clearly, the need for reflection and peace manifests itself. God is good, giving, and instructing.  The Trappist lifestyle lived to a struggling state of stagnation will be shared.

Ah, My child, aren’t you convinced yet that you can only take as much light, grace, variety and virtue as you know about? Of course there have been saints who have always done My Will, but they have taken from My Will only as much as they knew about. They knew that doing My Will was the greatest deed, the one that honored Me the most and which won sanctification. They acted with this intention and this they took, because there is no sanctity without My Will and no goodness or sanctity, great or small, can exist without It.

This Mary statue is from the Trappist home. It captures my fancy through the neglect shown to it. There are no Rosaries being prayed for Our Beloved Mother. The absence of prayer is tangible, knowing the situation I see it in the photo. Whenever I observe the photo, the thought is forefront of Our Holy Mother being neglected. I was with my familial mother this weekend, spending time at my father’s gravemarker with my mother and my son, sounding Hail Marys and a prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The cemetery is holy, a place of prayer; peace and quiet warmly extended, a pond center, the presence of water present. My mother spoke excitedly to us about plans to install a sitting bench in front of my father’s gravemarker. It will be her seat for praying the Rosary. Places of prayer attain a presence easily to immerse ourselves within. St Paul’s Shrine is such a divine connecting space. Our Lady of Sorrows does not possess such warmth in this statue. Still, she radiates and calls forth.

Mary Assumption

Father,
I honor the Sacred Heart Of Your Son,
Brutalized by the corruption of my deeds,
Yet symbol of the triumph of love,
Pledge to all that I am called to be,
Teach me to see Christ in all the lives that I touch,
Allow my life to be a living worship to you My Lord
through love-filled service to my brothers and sisters,
Through the Sacred Heart of Jesus wash me from my iniquities,
Cleanse my heart,
so I can love greater,
Amen

Hidden Abode, an Ozark alcove.