Father Gerald Vann has been a penetratingly insightful spiritual guide during a bit of a tumultuous time, a time of great worldly change.  The reading of St Paul during mass also alights with relevancy.  I have been putting a lot of stress upon myself regarding work and the Hospice, demanding upon myself at a time I am confident God simply asks for my attention.  Perseverance, humility, and acceptance are all He ask as I settle into a demanding employment position, and while my time of Hospice activity approaches.  It is a life lesson for myself that where there are no serious problems, life basically a challenge, solutions and peace do not arise within dramatics, imaginary perfection, and reasoning.  The dependence upon faith, hope, and charity is applied to my worldly life, as well as my spiritual.  Malleability, a passive mindset allowing God to lead—while strong and independent as an individual—a purposeful man, one who is willing to present solutions to others, while seeking no attention, accolades, or causing complications become my approach to worldly situations.  I am not a man with an agenda, the ever-present need for personal justification, rather a human being caring and trying his best.  Yet deeper than this, for I am satisfied with my worldly exterior life—the perception and treatment of others, my self-esteem and internal coping, my disposition, possesses the peace and tranquility God desires.  I accept myself.  I am not consumed by anxiety.  Interiorly, within my core being, all that is me including my subconscious, I accept, trusting in God, coping with the complexities of life, allowing my humanity to heal and serve as a loving example of the presence of God.  I have been listening to Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist proponent of centering prayer, praising the wonders of AA, remarking that in one regard if you are human you will become an addict.  The presence of God within every human being is such an overwhelming reality, a demand and need calling forth such immense love, that a human being will become addicted to something as a consequence.  It is inevitable.  We must satisfy our condition of being human.  Anyway, let’s allow Father Gerald Vann a voice in regards to dealing with times of difficulty, the times when God is not easily understood.  He powerfully relates times of worldly trouble to the flight to Egypt by the holy family, a process in which defensive action, interior strengthening, is necessary.  However most important through example, the time of interior strengthening is accomplished in order to return to the world, fortifying being human in order to return to humanity.  The flight into Egypt precedes a return to the holy land and humanity for the holy family.  I see my new employer and Hospice volunteer work as the exercising of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth steps: my return from Egypt.  No one ever said it would be easy.  No one ever said it would be so hard.  I remember reading once, I believe Teresa of Avila wrote it, that no matter how far we advance in the spiritual life, we will always feel like beginners, that we are continuously starting over.  Lets go back to the start in order to get to the end.

Here then (troubled times), especially, we need to be prepared; but it is a preparation which must necessarily be a long process (St Francis de Sales spiritual direction—patience essential).  We shall not become poor in spirit suddenly, when danger most acutely threatens.  It is when God’s yoke seems light and His presence near that we need to school ourselves to meet the darkness; and to school ourselves, not by occasional dramatic renunciations but by constant daily attention to His will in tiny things “Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven”: if at every moment, we consult His will for us, if when life’s gracious things come to us, we refer them back to Him in gratitude and love, and when difficulties arise, we turn to Him also in obedience and love, then we are learning how to see the material world as His world and not ours, and material things as His gifts and not our creatures.  And so we can hope to be able to obey, even though it must be done instantly, even though it must be in darkness, when the times comes for us to flee into Egypt in our turn. 

But when Herod was dead…again appeared an angel to Joseph in Egypt, saying “Arise, and take the Child and His mother and go into the land of Israel, for they are dead that sought the life of the Child.”  There is a striking parallelism of circumstance.  Again it is night, and Joseph asleep, and the words are almost identical, so that the similarity underlines the contrast: no longer a question of a flight, but of a glad return, and the reason given: they are dead that sough the life of the child.

Those who have learned how to love the harshness as well as the tenderness of Love, to greet with gratitude the buffetings of God, come in the end to a state in which poverty of spirit is perfect in them, and greed and possessiveness are dead in them: they are dead that sought the life of the child in them, the newborn of God, and so they are free to return.  They are free to return to the world to love the world, to gather all God’s creatures into the embrace of their love, because God’s creatures can no longer endanger their love of God; they can only help express it.

The return of the holy family from the flight to Egypt.

…the land of darkness is a land of peril, filled with evil powers and presences who seek to destroy.  Sometimes it seems relatively easy to love God and to do His will, but there are the black moods, the times when the dark waters seem to be closing over us, when we seem to turn inescapably to evil thoughts and things, when we have a devil, and when the evil powers are abroad in the darkness.  It is then that, unless we have learned to be poor in spirit, the material world can turn on us and rend us, drag us down and humiliate us, and blot out altogether the presence of God.  For the black moods are, in fact, an uprising which reduces—perhaps for a time almost to nothing—the presence of God…the material world can dominate and tyrannize…we can become the slaves of our flesh, and the loveliness of God’s earth can turn for us into an evil beauty like a lovely face ravaged by greed and cruelty and lust.  –Father Gerald Vann ‘Mary’s Answer for Our Trouble Times’

Words from yesterday’s first mass reading struck me deeply: What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?  Of course not!  Paul spoke to me concretely, discernment identifying that living under grace, a call to the contemplative life, is a life beyond one of my doing.  The moral virtues are of my doing: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.  Responsibility exist, it seems ridiculous to state, yet necessary, that called to a deeper life, there must be accountability.  I cannot dedicate my life to a devout living focused upon God, while succumbing to the world and myself; faith, hope, and charity expiring under tumultuous times as grosser and lesser ways of being are resorted to during times of distress.  I place intense stress upon myself over work, and most recently the lack of communication from the Hospice.  In all honesty, I begrudgingly accept challenges in my life, complaining to God, whining in the manner of the apostles James and John.  ‘God please understand I am yours.  I feel Your call to a deeper life, committing myself to Your love.  However You have to start working with me.  I am Yours, yet all I ask is that You allow me to have things my way.  Please give me what I want and I will utilize the blessings into a celebration of You: God. Don’t You know and see my heart.  I am an authentic follower, willing to go the extra miles for You.  Please help me out at work.  Do You realize I hardly slept the other night, I was so stressed out from work, and yesterday I almost puked from stress due to the fact I could not get a machine up and running.  You need to help me out.  Do You want me to get fired?  Also, this Hospice crap, I am not understanding at all.  This is insane making me wait so long when all I want to do is be of service to You.  Please Lord start working with me better….’  On and on infinitum is the whining I will resort to when stressed out from life, the material world imposing challenges.  Paul writes of possessing a thorn in his life:  And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated.  Paul living under grace, struggles with a thorn, a distraction away from the love and solace of God.  I relate strongly, humanly knowing the words of Paul, intimately harassed by my own demons, pricked by my own thorns.  Seeking to exorcise, desiring to trust in God above all things, I recognize grace working in my life, yet my tendency to resort to my ways, to sink into the distractions of the thorn of fear and its consequences.  Ugly distractions arise from despondency.  In truth, my life is undergoing miraculous transformation.  God is raining graces.  Where I identify misery, allowing challenges, minor troubles in reality, phantoms of my imagination, to tyrannize my mind, there is a world of stability being established, surrounding and elevating through real world solutions.  My work is pleased with me, granting me a thirty day review that surprised me in support.  They like me.  Again, the sense my boss, who keeps his distance, really wants me a part of his department, identifying a solid future for me with the company.  There is no need to live in fear and stress when that is not reality.  My insecurities and life of anticipating failure are not what God intends.  The lead engineering tech on my crew I also sense has his eye on me, another one I catch staring at me.  His constant advice is to settle down and relax, stressing I am a smart man, yet I get too wound up, ‘a bit crazy you are’ he says, laughing in a knowing way.  I seriously become so upset and nervous when working on the machines, I feel like I am going to vomit.  It is horrible the state I will reduce myself to.  That is a thorn and a lack of trust in God, a fear of failure overriding the love of God.  I fear failure more than I trust in God.  In truth, I am a man who could live on the street.  It is not the material possessions that tyrannize, rather it is the acceptance of failure and inadequacies that haunt and dominate.  Then when left alone, knowing the love of God, hiding within anxiety, overwhelmed by the prospect of failure, keeping an eye upon Mary, knowing she knows where I will go, I seek not the love of God.  Instead, I allow my thorns to prick, fear to spawn wicked offspring, experiencing and seeking solace in the comfort of thorns, becoming overwhelmed within lust.  It is a distraction and a source of relief within the sickness.  I know it is a distraction, horrible in shame and reduction of potentiality, yet it is my human nature and it hurts.  Lust is not who I am, yet it is a part of me, a thorn in the regard Paul writes for it does stop me from being elevated and conceitful in my faith.  It keeps me honest, realizing no matter how much I love and devout myself to God, I can just as easily become overcome by self-imposed darkness, not a darkness akin to St John of the Cross.  A man drawn to holiness, I am also a man who could easily succumb to a hedonistic life.  Within the fact is truth.  Living under grace, I am still vulnerable; imaginary perfection does not work for me.  Lord please do not give me everything I ask for, because I will destroy myself.  Within destroying myself, with the potential of destroying myself while convinced of being righteous, I will only receive the graces with a negative mindset focused upon what is wrong, seeing within all the goodness the worst aspects.  Focusing singularly and destructively upon what is not completely up to my liking, I will find fault in whatever You offer.  I am not like my Holy Mother.  I am a complainer, whiner, and begrudging one, begging that You please do not silence my tongue as You did to Zachariah.  My human nature is frail and weak.  My disgruntled state humbles and keeps me poor in spirit.  The Hospice I will wait patiently upon, marveling at another grace You presented yesterday.  My landlord/roommate, Carter returned from South Carolina.  He has been visiting his sister, attending his nieces wedding, for the past several weeks.  I sense a change in him, a deep unsettling after losing his Hospice chaplain position.  He spoke to me confidentially, taking me out to the front porch for a serious private talk.  He wants to spend the winter in South Carolina with his sister, caring for her severely autistic adult child.  The young man is named Carter, named after him, and he feels drawn to help his sister as her professional life demands her time and energy.  Carter feels he can help his sister, draw closer to his namesake, spending the winter amongst family, a change of scenery and escape from a Cleveland winter.  He asked me if I could care for his home, receiving his mail, and staying in touch with him.  In return, he would charge me $185 a month in rent, providing me with a checkbook to handle expenses for the home.  I was startled and complimented by the offer.  Within in all the good happening within my life, the minor difficulties and my thorns only draw me closer to Your love.  Please forgive me and have mercy Lord.  For the sake of His sorrowful passions, have mercy on us and all the whole world.