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Good living and good fruit are the same thing.

Perhaps you have had the experience of being told to come closer, to look more deeply and to let me awaken your faith? It is like Harry Potter and the encounter with the train to Hogwart's, getting to the station to board the train.

At one point, in a certain episode, Harry and Ron are trying to get to the platform but the wall does not disappear, but Ron and Harry both come to a brutal stop in front of the platform 9 and 3 quarters. At that point, they were a victim of the well-meaning Dobbie, trying to prevent them from getting to Hogwarts because of Voldemort's vicious plots.

But faith opens doors. Padre Pio went on living, breathing, seeing and eating just like all other human beings, and in spite of not eating more than a spoonful of his meal, still managed to gain weight and continue life.

God will see to our life; we need to be able to trust Him and get on with living. 

We can go through life half alive, but that is just about the same as mostly dead. A life that originates from God is fragrant, vibrant and peaceful, awash in light, and overflowing joy.

In spite of being assailed by a myriad of visions of catastrophe, I have seen the sun beat down abundantly, the wind blow briskly, and the warmth of a summer's day , in spite of the most dire assurances assailing me, that death was in the next breath.

But if the dead cells do not get removed, we would be dead. The Contrary is the overwhelming case; dead cells are removed, and we continue to live without our having to think about it. Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of attrition that takes place in life, and little by little we come closer to failing than succeeding, and in the end, we surrender our body to God, and our lives are safeguarded in His Heart for the day we are in paradise with Him.

He would not bring us this far and fail to provide for the rest of the journey. The person who can read a book is blessed in so many ways; how is it that we fail so miserably in trusting Him? But we continue. We can continue being like Him, or give in to despair and be like our enemy who is so empty and so full of misery at the same time. Jesus is our Lord, Our Champion who perpetually renews us and His joy in us in spite of everything arrayed against us to fill us with the darkness of despair.

The darkness of the Lord is merely our living through an adjustment to our vision so that we can more easily perceive the Lord and the spiritual world around us. His intent is that we achieve deeper trust and love so that we can endure greater trials, offer more reparation for sin, and salvation more abundantly for His children.

If we fail to achieve deeper dimensions to our existence, we become filled with impatience and frustrations, even jealousies and despair. That is why it is said, the way of the Lord is steep and slippery. Padre Pio came to the point where he ate so little because it was not necessary, and there were other things to be done in place of eating. He was too sick, often, to be able to eat, and so he learned to forego eating. We can achieve similar things in similar ways.

Love be the fruit of our life's efforts; if it is not, then either the fruit will be too hard and bitter, or it will be too ripe, rotten and unpalatable. If we are going to gather souls for eternity, then our fruit must be sweet and our labors too. A tree that has much fruit and is sweet and flavorful is a delight, nourishing and refreshing us. Our lives need to be good fruit, good example and good reward.

View

Good living and good fruit are the same thing.

Perhaps you have had the experience of being told to come closer, to look more deeply and to let me awaken your faith? It is like Harry Potter and the encounter with the train to Hogwart's, getting to the station to board the train.

At one point, in a certain episode, Harry and Ron are trying to get to the platform but the wall does not disappear, but Ron and Harry both come to a brutal stop in front of the platform 9 and 3 quarters. At that point, they were a victim of the well-meaning Dobbie, trying to prevent them from getting to Hogwarts because of Voldemort's vicious plots.

But faith opens doors. Padre Pio went on living, breathing, seeing and eating just like all other human beings, and in spite of not eating more than a spoonful of his meal, still managed to gain weight and continue life.

God will see to our life; we need to be able to trust Him and get on with living. 

We can go through life half alive, but that is just about the same as mostly dead. A life that originates from God is fragrant, vibrant and peaceful, awash in light, and overflowing joy.

In spite of being assailed by a myriad of visions of catastrophe, I have seen the sun beat down abundantly, the wind blow briskly, and the warmth of a summer's day , in spite of the most dire assurances assailing me, that death was in the next breath.

But if the dead cells do not get removed, we would be dead. The Contrary is the overwhelming case; dead cells are removed, and we continue to live without our having to think about it. Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of attrition that takes place in life, and little by little we come closer to failing than succeeding, and in the end, we surrender our body to God, and our lives are safeguarded in His Heart for the day we are in paradise with Him.

He would not bring us this far and fail to provide for the rest of the journey. The person who can read a book is blessed in so many ways; how is it that we fail so miserably in trusting Him? But we continue. We can continue being like Him, or give in to despair and be like our enemy who is so empty and so full of misery at the same time. Jesus is our Lord, Our Champion who perpetually renews us and His joy in us in spite of everything arrayed against us to fill us with the darkness of despair.

The darkness of the Lord is merely our living through an adjustment to our vision so that we can more easily perceive the Lord and the spiritual world around us. His intent is that we achieve deeper trust and love so that we can endure greater trials, offer more reparation for sin, and salvation more abundantly for His children.

If we fail to achieve deeper dimensions to our existence, we become filled with impatience and frustrations, even jealousies and despair. That is why it is said, the way of the Lord is steep and slippery. Padre Pio came to the point where he ate so little because it was not necessary, and there were other things to be done in place of eating. He was too sick, often, to be able to eat, and so he learned to forego eating. We can achieve similar things in similar ways.

Love be the fruit of our life's efforts; if it is not, then either the fruit will be too hard and bitter, or it will be too ripe, rotten and unpalatable. If we are going to gather souls for eternity, then our fruit must be sweet and our labors too. A tree that has much fruit and is sweet and flavorful is a delight, nourishing and refreshing us. Our lives need to be good fruit, good example and good reward.

Sharing

Behold the light :)

A word about sharing. It is difficult to share when the cross touches everything with its shadow, and is constantly making it self apparent. To put it bluntly, you cannot share the cross with anyone else; it is a solo performance. You must hurt it is in His Will that you should suffer. At least, it tests your love, and is assertive. Every moment that you toss in bed is another experience of pain, which, though minor compared to His cross, is dominant.

People can share in your joy and your love, however, so if you are sharing the cross, share also your joy and love. There are times when I don't know which is harder, the solitude or the pain, because they are so with me in so many moments.

No one owes me anything, but, rather, it is I who owes so many others, supporting me with their intentions and prayers. Slight though they may be, the pains can be more than a person can bear, under the circumstances.

Being grateful supports love, and being grateful makes the difference between totally dessicated, and merely arid.

In the darkness is a secret light; it is the discovery that He is very near and wants to hear from me. Should it always be tearful? It should, at least, be grateful, because He also shares His light  in the darkness, and His presence in the solitude. There is no other reason to be alone or to be in darkness except to shine light into the darkness and love into the solitude, for Him, in a secret moment, and in for His children, some of whom have known all too much of the cross.

Wherever I am and wherever I look, there He is, like a reflection of mirrors in the mirror of now. There will always be only  one moment when we are one with Him forever at last. We should live in such a way as to anticipate that with the greatest joy.

May you find Him supporting you as you hang in suffering, and may you be granted to gaze into His eyes fore always.

Sharing

Behold the light :)

A word about sharing. It is difficult to share when the cross touches everything with its shadow, and is constantly making it self apparent. To put it bluntly, you cannot share the cross with anyone else; it is a solo performance. You must hurt it is in His Will that you should suffer. At least, it tests your love, and is assertive. Every moment that you toss in bed is another experience of pain, which, though minor compared to His cross, is dominant.

People can share in your joy and your love, however, so if you are sharing the cross, share also your joy and love. There are times when I don't know which is harder, the solitude or the pain, because they are so with me in so many moments.

No one owes me anything, but, rather, it is I who owes so many others, supporting me with their intentions and prayers. Slight though they may be, the pains can be more than a person can bear, under the circumstances.

Being grateful supports love, and being grateful makes the difference between totally dessicated, and merely arid.

In the darkness is a secret light; it is the discovery that He is very near and wants to hear from me. Should it always be tearful? It should, at least, be grateful, because He also shares His light  in the darkness, and His presence in the solitude. There is no other reason to be alone or to be in darkness except to shine light into the darkness and love into the solitude, for Him, in a secret moment, and in for His children, some of whom have known all too much of the cross.

Wherever I am and wherever I look, there He is, like a reflection of mirrors in the mirror of now. There will always be only  one moment when we are one with Him forever at last. We should live in such a way as to anticipate that with the greatest joy.

May you find Him supporting you as you hang in suffering, and may you be granted to gaze into His eyes fore always.

Awake!

Bring forth love from your heart,
and you will draw close to the Lord.

My gouty foot is continuing to heal slowly, and my back has been behaving, for the most part. The weather has been cool, breezy and rainy for some time now, but to me it is normal for this time of year.  There is a progression of growth in the trees and wildflowers. It is hard to imagine a river like the Amazon or the Mississippi running so low as to be unnavigable, but so it is. I have prayed that places that need the rain receive it from the hands of the Lord. If the rains return, I hope they make the work of the Holy Spirit abundantly fruitful so that the work of the Lord does not fail to bear fruit in His children.

The more sensitive a person is, the more it hurts, it take little to ignite a firestorm within. While the Lord does not impose much on us, He insists. This may be aggravating, but I hope it brings people to life who have grown hopeless, listless and and cold. We can do something about our coldness, but it takes enough faith to overcome our negative emotions

We need the exercises of the Holy Spirit to keep us alive, literally, and to make us lovers of God. Everything is arrayed against us to discourage and cool the fire of our heart's love.

Do not let it go out. If consenting to some pain will guarantee a lively and loving heart, then we should be eager to receive. We cannot expect all our encounters with God to be blissful and exciting allowing us to wallow in our elation, to the neglect of the Lord. If that befalls us, pray to be brought back to life because you are close to death.

Any time that we allow our hearts to fade, we need the light of God to awaken us and enliven us, and I don't say for a minute that it will be easy. After so much ease, we could use a little austerity.

We might even grow fervent in prayer, asking with the zest of the Holy Spirit to fill us again, so we are aware of how much we need the Lord, who so often professes His own love of us. 

Priests and bishops pf the Church should always be eager to serve their children, because they are, after all, the children of GOD. It is a cold place where a priest does not want to witness any sign of a spiritual awakening, lest he be obliged himself, to be awakened, to shake off the coils of sweet slumber and tedium.

The way to stay alive is to move. It may hurt like all get-out, but the heart that is enkindled by pain to love, turns pain to love and enlivens spiritually.

Some people think their eyes are wide open and the minds and hearts lively and energetic, but you would be surprised beyond enduring, if you knew how Jesus sees, and how much He wishes we could ALWAYS see as He sees. 

He was crucified, died in agony and rose from death the third day to ascend into heaven before their eyes. He also wanted those who watched, to relate the experience, with others.

Somewhere down long ages and dim dusty corridors, people got the idea that the priest did the Sacrifice and we sat motionless and without any feeling, and would be safe from having to do anything strange of a religious nature. we need not touch the people around us, or share the spiritual life within us, or lay hands on those sick and discouraged elders to make them well. Our christianity had all the zest of a plate with a hamburger patty on that was covered in grease. I hope you never get to the point where you think that is normal or excusable, because no one excused the Lord His crucifixion, much less His scourging. What courage did it take see how quickly the fire of His love would diminish in people who sought not to catch on fire in His love. 

Do not wonder that the world is cold, inhospitable or rude and uncaring; it is the inevitable result of our life being allowed to burn down like a like pathetic match stick and go dark and smolder.

There is a secret.

God is always close by with a torch burning with His love to enliven us again and rouse us to vivid life by touching the earth and set the world ablaze. One fruit of thinking about the passion-life of Jesus is that can get lost in His presence, and feel life coursing through us like a 50,000 volt current. Warm to His love, and life will seem less insipid and boring. But there is nothing boring about a perception of His passion in your body, or wondering what He might ask of us. We will only be able to acquiesce to the extent the Spirit moves us to transform dread of pain into the pain of His Sacred Heart which is so full of love.

If you feel cold, draw near to Him in your heart.

Awake!

Bring forth love from your heart,
and you will draw close to the Lord.

My gouty foot is continuing to heal slowly, and my back has been behaving, for the most part. The weather has been cool, breezy and rainy for some time now, but to me it is normal for this time of year.  There is a progression of growth in the trees and wildflowers. It is hard to imagine a river like the Amazon or the Mississippi running so low as to be unnavigable, but so it is. I have prayed that places that need the rain receive it from the hands of the Lord. If the rains return, I hope they make the work of the Holy Spirit abundantly fruitful so that the work of the Lord does not fail to bear fruit in His children.

The more sensitive a person is, the more it hurts, it take little to ignite a firestorm within. While the Lord does not impose much on us, He insists. This may be aggravating, but I hope it brings people to life who have grown hopeless, listless and and cold. We can do something about our coldness, but it takes enough faith to overcome our negative emotions

We need the exercises of the Holy Spirit to keep us alive, literally, and to make us lovers of God. Everything is arrayed against us to discourage and cool the fire of our heart's love.

Do not let it go out. If consenting to some pain will guarantee a lively and loving heart, then we should be eager to receive. We cannot expect all our encounters with God to be blissful and exciting allowing us to wallow in our elation, to the neglect of the Lord. If that befalls us, pray to be brought back to life because you are close to death.

Any time that we allow our hearts to fade, we need the light of God to awaken us and enliven us, and I don't say for a minute that it will be easy. After so much ease, we could use a little austerity.

We might even grow fervent in prayer, asking with the zest of the Holy Spirit to fill us again, so we are aware of how much we need the Lord, who so often professes His own love of us. 

Priests and bishops pf the Church should always be eager to serve their children, because they are, after all, the children of GOD. It is a cold place where a priest does not want to witness any sign of a spiritual awakening, lest he be obliged himself, to be awakened, to shake off the coils of sweet slumber and tedium.

The way to stay alive is to move. It may hurt like all get-out, but the heart that is enkindled by pain to love, turns pain to love and enlivens spiritually.

Some people think their eyes are wide open and the minds and hearts lively and energetic, but you would be surprised beyond enduring, if you knew how Jesus sees, and how much He wishes we could ALWAYS see as He sees. 

He was crucified, died in agony and rose from death the third day to ascend into heaven before their eyes. He also wanted those who watched, to relate the experience, with others.

Somewhere down long ages and dim dusty corridors, people got the idea that the priest did the Sacrifice and we sat motionless and without any feeling, and would be safe from having to do anything strange of a religious nature. we need not touch the people around us, or share the spiritual life within us, or lay hands on those sick and discouraged elders to make them well. Our christianity had all the zest of a plate with a hamburger patty on that was covered in grease. I hope you never get to the point where you think that is normal or excusable, because no one excused the Lord His crucifixion, much less His scourging. What courage did it take see how quickly the fire of His love would diminish in people who sought not to catch on fire in His love. 

Do not wonder that the world is cold, inhospitable or rude and uncaring; it is the inevitable result of our life being allowed to burn down like a like pathetic match stick and go dark and smolder.

There is a secret.

God is always close by with a torch burning with His love to enliven us again and rouse us to vivid life by touching the earth and set the world ablaze. One fruit of thinking about the passion-life of Jesus is that can get lost in His presence, and feel life coursing through us like a 50,000 volt current. Warm to His love, and life will seem less insipid and boring. But there is nothing boring about a perception of His passion in your body, or wondering what He might ask of us. We will only be able to acquiesce to the extent the Spirit moves us to transform dread of pain into the pain of His Sacred Heart which is so full of love.

If you feel cold, draw near to Him in your heart.

Off Grid

 

Meteora

I was watching On "off-Grid" person driving home from a shopping spree in town. 

These adventurers indeed strive to provide, for themselves and others, with everything a person needs to live in isolation in the wilderness.

There are sacrifices that need to be made to live that way, and to handle the demands of life without amenities we take for granted, such as, hot and cold running water, toilet facilities, a cabin of some sort to live in with an iron stove, everything necessary for hunting and fishing and some means of producing electricity for everything and facilities for farming or growing a garden.

I admire them. Some share their experience in videos on Youtube, and we get to watch them carve a place for themselves away from the turmoil of modern life and modern people.

But the fact is, all of them who appear on Youtube need contributions to enable them to live in the solitude they seek and to do the things they went into the wilderness to do.

I don't begrudge them the income, because no matter how you slice it, creating a place to  live in the wilderness takes far more strength and energy than I possess myself, not to mention the personal interior resources to live as they wish, in peace and quiet.

But, there are different perspectives. The Desert Fathers aimed to live in unbroken silence and solitude, performing acts of penance and working honestly with their hands to support themselves and to establish an environment in which they could be silent, still, quiet and alone, free of the demands of society with the aim of replacing those demands with an attention to God, and listening and resting interiorly to achieve some semblance of union with God and the world in which He lives.

Eventually, God revealed to the Desert Fathers how He wished a community of hermits could be established in various places, dedicated to God and to each other according to a spiritual domain.

The truth is, regardless of how severe their penances were, they remained men ( and, if I am correct ,there were a few female hermitesses).

One might pause to ask themselves, why it was good to live in hard physical labor, eating only vegetables and living with only what they can fashion with their own hands.

Many a monk has asked themselves the same question. A few have relied on their wife and children to support their psychological needs as well as their physical needs, and have employed every bit of intelligence and strength to create what they seek.

The desert fathers lived in a desert and not a plush forest. Some hermits who decided to imitate them, found places atop limestone pinnacles very difficult to climb, and completely shut off from contact with others. For some, it was necessary to be so remote given the challenges to the spirit which impose themselves on those tough souls who wished as absolute an isolation as possible in which to encounter God. Making one's own mind and heart behave as if in the presence of God, bore that fruit when the Lord looked at their souls and marvelled. Some returned to the cities they left to spread the Good News of the Resurrection and Union with God

Some are not the harsh on themselves, and that is good, for God is good and gentle and whether we see it or not, He loves us completely wherever we and however we live.

The goal, as I see it, is to live and reflect quietly and ask very little of existence and in the meantime, to learn to love God in others and to attracts others to God.

We need not ask what we need to give up, but rather live without satisfying ourselves as much as is possible, in order to love, serve and admire God and His children.

One need not set aside years to such endeavors when one follows the Will of God and does it. 

Holy desires often follow holy dedication to great ideals and the quest to experience God, freely, and without fear of deception, seeking to be as holy as the Lord Himself, if He will open your being and shine His light within. 

This happens because it is what He wills. We need not fret that we may not catch on immediately what He wants. There are many saints, some lay people and some monks and hermits and nuns who were drawn by the most difficult of paths but with the sweetest presence and light. Ask yourself what He wants of you and listen. Turn everything off, and let that time be for you and God alone.

One need not fast himself into illness, although, if He wills that we share His cross in desolation and illness, it will happen surely enough. The goal is to be so obsessed with God, that it would be impossible to speak or even think, and to cherish His love more than life itself.

There are plenty of books one might read about this endeavor, but there are plenty of holy men and women we might meet with whom to share the sweetness of the Lord who is near.