Adversity

 Mercifully, the weather is cooler this morning, and the air is somewhat cleaner than it was yesterday.

The striations on the face of the sun is a cloud of wild fire smoke. No, Jupiter has not moved in close to us, though one might be tempted to believe so.

Marine air is moving in to shove a heat dome away from us so the temperatures may drop to more normal rates. While the heat is bad, I do have a little box fan that sits on a cart for office suppplies that I can turn on to get a little relief from the heat. however, the fire smoke is at the mercy of the currents in the air, and fires in northern Califronia and Oregon can entrain smoke in the upper atmosphere or at ground level, and only a sufficiently strong wind current can change the conposition of the atmosphere to clear the air of pollutants. I pray for the change to set in soon, and a little rain to follow.

It does not need to be thaat way it is, and no doubt, a large scale change in the hearts of men might rescue us all from things like wildfire smoke. Unfortuantely, only turning off internal combustion engines can clear out the air. The pollution can clear ut when more normal atmospheric parameters are in sway. Winds off the ocean are the norm around here, or at least was the norm until recent years. If you watch Youtube videos it is easy to get discouraged about the condition of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, by the same token, it is easy to see catastrophic violence in the atmosphere brought about by excesses in patterns of disruption cuased by increasing warming and consequent displacement of airmasses. 

The overall normal pattern has always been the weather coming off the pacific ocean and travelling in large waves of the jet stream steering air masses from northwest to southeast. In recent years, winds have been shifted to the east where the atmosphere is overheated by unmoving high pressure causing inordinate heating of the atmosphere and a lack of rain. The result has been desert-like conditions in parts of the country usually bathed in clement cool moist airmasses.

Besides being unbearably warm, the air has been unusually hot and dry as well, similarly to a desert environment.

But lately scientists have noticed the development of rainy weather beginning in the Saharan desert. This has disrupted the hurricane season by helping prevent hurricanes from forming in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico . The hot dry air is being rerouted. Changes in the weather, climate, means more violent weather in the United Kingdom and Europe, with violent heavy rain and hail have moved in stalled in various places not used to such excesses. The excesses of inordinate heat and drought or massive rainfall has led to very  unusually strong winds and heavy hail falls as well as flash floods and large urban flooding to which the inhabitants are not accustomed.

I have always enjoyed the surprise thunderstorms and winter snow. Several years ago, we had very cold weather so that the ground was dry and freezing cold, and moisture overriding the area brought heavy blowing snow - it was amazing to see, but has not been repeated since. Conditions that might have set in, did not, and the cold was insufficient to cause much snow, or even much rain. The cold air masses don't carry much moisture, which has led to large regions of unsual drought.

All of these things can be the topic of prayer. It is a charitable thing to remember those who have nothing, losing even the rain to grow their crops. While great floods wipe out large regions, other areas become inhospitable.

All these conditions as well as wars and violence or health crises are amenable to prayer, and those suffering under adversity will welcome our prayers. If we pray often and with intensity, they will come to know of it and God's blessings may be seen visibly.

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I obtained thethings I wanted which were for others, but it cost me - a great deal.

Fulfilled

 It could be said that if a person lives in seclusion, he does not need a habit. But then what is the purpose of wearing a habit? They will keep you warmer in the cold, but hotter in the heat. But then, the more the habit is worn, the more it deteriorates. and in the case of some orders who espouse poverty in their solitude, one habit is the usual quota for a solitary. 

But regardless of these things, it is the Lord who gives us our habit,  to wear. To say it is not necessary for a solitary to wear a habit is to say, Jesus doesn't care, and disregards who sees the habit or the monk.

In the matter of anything the Lord might insist on, the solitary is seen by the Lord, and his attitude is known, and if the monk disdains his habit, is he not also disdaining the Will of the Lord? It should be sufficient that He has spoken; all that is necessary is obedience. It may not be necessary to wear the habit in order to carry out one's mission, but in carrying it out, the Lord also regards the depth of our obedience. The habit may make secular people uncomfortable, and some religious cite that discomfort as a reason not to wear their habit; we must not discomfort others; the Lord wore poverty on the cross, and He intends that we should experience that empty poverty with Him, and to the extent we make an effort to carry out His Will as faithfully as we can, we will also experience His joy, for in union with Him, it will be possible to feel what He feels.

Then there is the case where a secular person wishes to live his life religiously, for Jesus and in accordance with His Will. It may come to pass that a secular person feels such identification with Jesus, that he wishes to be seen as being such an obedient person, that his own will is submerged in Christ. If He states He wishes a person to wear a habit, why not permit him to fulfill the Will of the Lord? Some will say not to wear the habit because it will confuse the secular people, but if a person wears a habit out of obedience to God, it will not confuse anyone. 

If a life is lived in exemplary virtue, it will not confuse anyone, but clarify the simple mandate that we should obey God, because obdience is of God. and if authorities refuse to permit a person to wear a habit simply because they can say a person ought not to, then there is a conflict which ought not to have arisen, and indeed, if a person was seen to be fitting in wearing the habit, then there is no reason to oppose it, unless there be some personal moral problem.

Indeed, obedience may cause conflict with those whom it should evoke conversion, in the life of one in authority and in the life of one dedicated to God out of love for embracing His Will.

Indeed, during the disorders in France, many religious were beheaded because they proclaimed their committment to God by wearing their habit instead of repudiating their committment to God's Will  by taking off the  habit. Indeed, it might have been preferable to  renounce one's convictions and live, but to those for whom it mattered, that was not possible.

In these days, it is fashionable to renounce religious life and discard religious garb, in order to give allegiance to something that hates Christianity altogether.

If a lay person (secular) wishes to live in accordance with virtues of a religious life, why prevent him from wearing his habit it he feels the conviction? The people themselves will repudiate that person if they do not live up to the virtues of religious. Phonineness and selfishness are not the signs of religious virtue.

One ought not to overlook the desires of God. It is the desire that all people should love God, and He goes to great lengths to provide grace so there might be virtue, and love so that we may know love and thus know the love of God. He goes to extraordinary lengths to reach out to people to heal their sicknesses and forgive their sins so they might be fit to live with Him in eternal happiness. He sends lay people to convert to religious for sake of making it obvious what virtue is and what its existence accomplishes in human lives. 

A priest who is the pastor of a parish ought not to cancel confessions without reason. He is placed where he is so that God may dispense His mercy by forgiving their sins and restoring them to grace so they can carry out their vocations to please God and be happy. The secularisation of religious life has sterilised Christianity and rendered it infertile, and it displeases the Lord. He created us as we are but not without the invisible aid He provides that explains all things to people so they might discover the joy of loving God.

By the same token, we were not made for debauchery and immoral and lascivious living. We were not created to live an entire life for the purpose of gathering wealth, possessions and power, and souls who are dedicated to such things are destined for suffering, sadness, despair and emptiness. 

Ordinary people who are filled with love are occasions of God's mercy toward us. Questioning His motives for allowing misfortune in lives overlooks the fact that it is precisely in suffering and pain and death that we are freed of sin and all things that prevent our happiness, contrary to what people think. The natural way of thinking sees suffering and pain as something to be avoided because it is so unpleasant. But Jesus Himself deliberately appeared in our midst and healed us, fed us, and provided spiritual nourishment in His words and deeds, so all people might look on His life and realize where happiness actually lies.

Certainly, from a human perspective, the scourging He endured ought to have been sufficient, yet we see that it was not, because the desire to kill Jesus was so strong that it went to extra lengths to carry out torture to the nth degree, in a futile attempt to oblitterate Jesus altogther. Many a saint has realizes this and has embrace the unthinkable in participating in the life of Jesus, in the scourging, the coronation with thorns and in the nailing of His Body to the cross in crucifixion, so that the nails might fulfill their destiny and fasten us all to Him to be purified and made wothy of His love. It certainly seems that was His motive in undergoing such an eradication. Those who through exemplary love enter into such a conformity to His divine love, even fpr a brief time every day, will find the truth made manifest to them in unmistakable terms. The proud scoff at Him that He does not make things more obvious, but they lack spiritual insight and in its place is sheer empty desocation in which there is no love, no kindness and no regard for other people.

There is one Good above all others that ought attract  our hearts and minds, and it is the unflinching love of Jesus for us all in every circumstance, diminishing our our sorrows by replacing them with His love.

Be still for a few moments. In every hour, be still long enough to hear His whispering "I love you". One day a trasnformation begins and a person is fulfilled in all  possible ways.

Retribution

 

Sometimes I wonder how anything can get so tangled up as my life. It is partly my own doing because I am determined and persistent, and the rest of the world around me is not; it keeps slogging ahead in its own pace regardless of what needs to happen.

It is strange to see how tangled up the world is, as if caught in a fishing net up to the knees, and no matter how fast they move, they can't escape the net, and the result is weariness , frustration and sometimes despair.

I have slept on the bed I have now, for twenty years, by my calculation. I was my mother's live-in caregiver for three years before she died. One day part of my bed came disconnected, and I thought I might be able to tie things together, but mom decided to buy a brand new bed and would not be dissuaded. The people came and delivered the new bed. unboxed and assembled it for free, and took away the old bed, though I don't know if they charged her for that.

Fast forward to now; I looked online at Amazon.com and found a bed that looked like it might serve my need. It has a simple metal frame and metal slats and wheels beneath, with a mattress. Delivery was free, and I will have to assemble it, but the company that runs the apartment complex charges for removing the bed, the frame and the box springs. That might not be so bad, but the new bed cost $54, and the removal will cost me $105. I tried to cancel the order, but since it was to be delivered today, it was not possible to cancel the order. I will have to wait until the delivery person arrives with the new bed so I can talk to him (IF I can talk to him; he might not bring the bed up to my apartment  but might leave it in the package area off the lobby).

It seems the solution I need is to return the new bed, then I don't need to pay for the removal of the old bed. But that ignores the fact that my back has been demanding a change for some time now, and often the result has been a muscle spasm that was so ferocious that I could not stand up straight for several days.

Besides that, I fail to see how the managers of this place think it is fair to charge so much to remove  an old bed. The elderly people who live here are at their mercy and the mercy of anybody else that is looking for victims to victimize. To me, they are fellow residents and friends. 

On the other hand, there was one manager who is no longer here, who thought it was funny when one resident, called "Dottie", who gets around on an electric wheelchair, ran afoul of the door somehow, and cut herself seriously. She had managed to get into the "Bistro", a little cafe the runs a catering service on the side, and left an alarming trail of blood to the point where she ended up stopping and was bleeding profusely. That manager came by and was laughing at Dottie. I was appalled; I called 911, and several other people did so as well, but the manager was not concerned.

Dottie scoots around pretty fast in her electric wheel chair and didn't clear the door very well. She required surgery to repair her injury but made a full recovery. The manager is no longer here and I hope she one day discovers for her self, how it feels to have had a accident and been injured as seriously as Dottie and to sit in the wheel chair passed out from loss of blood.

It is strange to contemplate the way managers of businesses will nickle and dime people for trivial things; the light went out in my bathroom and I reported the fact to maintenance who came by and replace the bulb, a special fluorescent thing. Next day, it died as well. It seems the maintenance buy got a used bulb from elsewhere to replace the light rather than getting a new one, and then I was charged money for the "new" bulb that was not new in the first place. I reported it to management and was reimbursed, but it was pretty puny in my estimation that they thought charging for bulbs was a bright thing to do in the first place since the bulb is part of the apartment and not my property to dispose as I please; it is policy that residents do not replace bulbs or repair other infrastructure, so why should they pay for a new light bulb in the first place?

We are in a time in which victimizing helpless people is the order of the day. Besides incurring the wrath of God, they do not consider that taking advantage of people causes victims to become angry and retaliate when an opportunity arises. 

Some of those victims, instead of retaliating, raise up prayers in defense of the helpless, because they see Christ in the helplessness. Nailed to a cross, scourged nearly to death, and crowned with thorns, Jesus took on all helplessness, victimhood and despair and put it to death for good, for all time, for all people, so that He may shine forth in great glory, His love for all people.

Those who are the opposite, are in a precarious situation, because God sees, and acts in due course to restore what He created because He created it out of His own limitless, divine love. 

It is a terrifying thing to be in the hands of the Living God, so be warned; cease wrongdoing and sin, because they bring retribution.

Confession

He knew people's hearts
and knew where they were
in Christ. 

Padre Pio's stigmata are an outward manifestation of the spiritual life of a man found suitable for Christ to impart life and suffering - His life and His suffering, and I can tell you, that if you desire to be anything consequential in the spiritual realm, there are parameters that must define your life and being, for the man into whom Christ imparted His wounds in a visible, painful and humiliatingly obvious way was  making him one with His Spirit and His Body in a consequnetial union of Body and Spiirt.

A writer who dedicated himself to presenting Padre Pio spoke of the stigmata as something he wore like a coat, yet it was more; as I said, he was united to Christ. On Golgotha, where He was nailed to the cross, and where His side was lanced open in a brutal effort to kill him; if He were already dead, He certainly had been rendered incapable of returning, and if He were not already dead, then He had to embrace yet one more agony before it was enough, and was finished.

And yet, Padre Pio's life was testimony that it was not enough and could never be enough, except and only because Jesus extended Padre to be more than what ordinary human eyes could see.

It is said he could be in two different places simultaneously through "an extension of the personality" as Padre Pio once explained to someone who asked how he could be in two places at once. The simplest and most direct answer is because God wanted Padre Pio to be in two places at the same time, and we might wonder if he could be in different times as well.

If we try to form our soul into what He wants us to be, we may find ourselves confronted with our own weakness and inability to live up to the reality of what He desires.  

He must cause us to grow, and deepen our spirit to match His own being. 

The world and the depths of our own heart will challenge us to forsake our desires in order to thirst as Jesus thirsted. There were many times He said that He was thirsty or used our thirst in speaking allegories capable to illustrating His meaning to those around Him. Certainly He must have reached out to take the drink offered Him when those around found out He needed a drink. Certainly, y the end of the day, those who had heard Him also knew the depth of what He really meant, the unquenchable drought in the soul that longs well beyonf thirst for our selves and our lives, given in the most sacred love imaginable.

And yet, people yearn to participate in His cross all the time, but they do not participate in that manifestation He wills.

A few, like Padre Pio were spiritually and physically capable and disposed by love to desire nothing more than His love. One arrives at such a sublime moment by His sheer grace, and in an incomparable moment, suddenly find their soul and bdoy united to Christ and the wounds of His crucifixion, and so it comes to pass, that the conditions necessary for stigmatization are fulfilled, and from the wounds imparted, blood flows for as long as He wants, and until the souls for whom He longs to be united are indeed made one by an irresisitible impetus of wounds and bleeding and a disposition to be satsified only with Him, His love and His Will, crucified and made holy for our sake and to be spared rejection and eternal suffering resulting form sin.

Padre Pio scarcely thought nothing of the condition of His being, united to Christ and marked with shocking manifestations of the britality inflicted Jesus and His children.

Padre Pio particiapted in what Jesus was doing while He was alive - calling souls to Himself to be transformed to belong to Him forever configured in being and mind to be useful to Him in a saving act.

All of us are made useful to him; that is His gift to us in prayer. He wants to lift us up to Him matured and made more profound, so that whatever we might be engaged in expands us into greater potentialities.

There is no way to shrug off the "coat" we have worn; we wear our beign at His Will, and the conformity of our beings to His Will determines what He can do to us. The deeper our maturity the deeper we can enter in to Him on the cross. Some of us may suffer very little on that account and He knows it so that we accomplish more modest things. Some may suffer deep aridity and longing, to the point of being spiritually crucified, participating in that salvific thirst which penetrated the Father's Heart.

Blessed are all people who suffer and participate in His suffering in addition to their own. We owe them more than we are aware. I cannot help but wonder at this late hour of existence, if there will ever be another Padre Pio. Such men come in atraordianry times, to save countless souls who would otherwise be lost. They come to help us realize our responsibility, because he cannot save everyone he might want to because so many foolishly dismiss him and the Lord He served.

Those who enter into His passion are aware of His deepest longings because our participation contains the reason why made plainly painful beyond the ordinary.

In my humanity, I am capable of desiring many things, and of seeing much fulfilled because I look for any sign of Him. Little wonder then, that, in my own selfishness, I somehow thought it possible that the Lord could let my hands and feet and side bleed, but at that time, I was unaware how silly it might be considering the person I was then. Perhaps out of my embrassment I might be saved by being closer to Him and to His will so that I have become equipped to do things I could scarcely imagine. The stigmara of St. Padre Pio happened in time at a certain point; certainly I am closer to my own point of configuration in which His wish and my own might be fuffilled to His joy and mine when I can respond in an ordinary way with tears and hope to being closer to Him for a moment before the hdarkness descends again. Without the sublime uplifting of my soul, I can respond to the cries of the forgotten and forsaken who in despair and agony stand a chance of being lifted up to His presence to be with Him forever. Padre Pio was filled with deep joy and love that was constant and unwavering, and which were the unction Christ imparts to those He makes worthy as He made Padre Pio worthy and makes all of US WORTHY. May we bless His Name when that worthiness becomes union with Him, on the cross or otherwise.

Remember

Tranquility.

I'm sure God is aware of my  pain as much as I am; it is such a common circumstance that I forget to make my offering, but then, it is part of aging. The young have no conception of little pains being so pervasive and all encompassing. In any case, I can mention it because it is not that intense, and you brace yourself for the next wave when you try to stand up to go do something. Other than mentioning it, and chiding myself for not making a conscious offering,  it blends into the continuum of awareness.

Then there are the times when I have to turn down a friend; not because I couldn't do it, but because I am not disposed to acquiesce. There is someone else available to water his plants in his absence, and I was not that happy the last time I did it and he complained that one of the plants died because i did not give it  enough water.

He has a habit of ignoring people or taking them for granted, and this is my way of combatting that a little.
On the other hand, I have made a point of checking on him and offering treatment advice when he has been sick or indisposed because of a side effect of a new medication.

Even cats and dogs will correct misbehavior. 

There are others in the bright light of public life that I would love to correct, but they are insulated from the harsh realities of life and are never touched with the moments ordinary people encounter. I am sure that the Lord disappoints them as He does the rest of us. Too bad the evil they do so blithely can't be held against them. Time and circumstance  put things into perspective for all.

It was more than just a bad day when Jesus tortured and beaten with Roman scourges and crowned with thorns as a wry statement to the Jews, though I wonder if they caught the innuendo. Jesus was unmercifully tormented until the moment He died. He underwent that final moment and did not beg off.

Perhaps we can remember that when we see people around us. We do not know what they are feeling or just how deeply they are tried by sickness and suffering they can't even mention because it hurts too much and they are too weary with it all.

There are times I wish I could mention them to the Lord and be sure my friends the suffering  ones could be instantly freed of the pain and weariness, but that isn't how it works, and often times, in order to obtain a favor for a friend, a lot must be borne. If you are free of pain and weariness, do not forget those who are not. Those who will take the time to remember are the ones who comfort Christ on His journey up Golgotha's hill.

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You might ask what penance I do. Modified fasting is the one thing I can do on my own that is truly penitential. I take medication for diabetes that curbs the appetite, but still, does not take it away altogether, and if I get too carried away fasting, I suffer the consequences. 

Not so  much in my control is sleep. Typically I go to bed around 5pm unless I am not feeling really sleepy. I may then wake up around midnite. Some nights i get up then, and other times just get up because I can't sleep. It is difficult doing without sleep. Then reading come to mind and after a while go to bed again.

Either way, I am in God's hands to control.

Energy

 

Earthly energy is surpassed by spirtual joy and love.

Time must end at some point, and we know the end will be horrific. While there is time we should prepare, and part of the preparation must be prayer to praise God and ask for mercy and forgive our sins.

I don't know which is more significant, that He yearns for our requests, or that people refuse to believe in Him or that all things are meant to come to an end - so that something eternally new can arise which involves us, rising to meet the Lord and enter into that which He has been preparing.

It is possible that we have been living in a human-friendly time, and that the old benign regime of climate is ceasing. Speculate all you want, but the truth is, things will take place over which we have no control, and from the looks of it, we might not survive. We know that God's mercy is abroad in the world, and those who grasp the supernaturality of existence no longer concern themselves over special epochs or favorable if astounding events. It won't matter to anyone absorbed in the immersion of our being into Christ. Why worry about bleeding and weeping statues when Jesus and His Mother reach out so fervently to us to embrace and love them as He is enabling us now?

Why would they insist so stenuously that we try to grow spiritually to be able to perceive them in our ordinary mortal existence? It can only be because they love us, and that loving them in return is more important than anything else.

We shhoudl not live for consolations, but neither should we turn our back on them if they are the agent of our maturation? Certainly chastising cataclsysms do not matter more? 

When Ezekiel did what he was told and entered a cave to watch the world convulse, he knew God was not in the upset and tumult, but recognised Him in a tiny whisper. The wind had blown so bad the rocks werre broken by it. Yet the wind was not what was important, the whisper was.

Is the Lord reaching out to you, straining to touch you, and speaking comforts and love to you? Perhaps you  do not know because you did not listen hard enough and did not grow so that you might be capable. Nevermind, for He is able to appear to you and to reach out and touch you so you are changed.

God knows what you need, which is why He provides what you need. Where is the gratitude? Gratitude more than anything else attracts the Lord, and if He sees you are willing and paying attention to a certain extent, you may come to know Him in His presence in your prayers, and the joy that inexplicably overflows from deep within you to confer the certainty you need.

If you entered a monastery and applied yourself to your utmost, it would be worth it to live through the final  moment of existane, buoyed up by joy and His embrace carrying you heaven to be with Him. yet do not give up anticipating that He could visit you palpably at some point and in some moment when He is particulalry near. They have been touched by God who go out of their way to be kind to others when all around you cruelty and violent hatred reign. That the  joy and kindness are present because of  you will make His Heart swell with love.

Retibution

How beautiful the feet of those who come in
the Name of the Lord.

 It may be tempting to see continual floods in China as some sort of condemnation, we must all remember that we are all sinners, guilty of trepasses we are not shocked at. We might also keep in mind that He is merciful and metes out only what we can stand, and evidently China can stand a lot; it has been enduring what has floored many others, including ourselves.

Last night we had strong thunderstorms until about midnight, and near continuous lightening and thunder as the storm roared through; all in all, exciting, but then we suffered no damages. The rain was good too; it has been so dry that the moisture will do wonders for our environment.

By the same token, we may not be guilty of what we think we are, and though the enemy is fondof pointing out our sins, they aare not so grivous as we may think, so that we should never run away from the Lord because of our sins. He took more than our stripes on Himself when He was condemned unjustly and crucified for his crimes agains Rome and the Jews. On a stormy day in spring He laid down on the cross so the Romans could nail Him to it with two other people. They did their best to erase their humanity, but the death of Jesus laid open the gates of heaven for us, and we need the sight to see past lies, and accept the truth. We must be as ready to atone as we are to eat supper with Him in paradise.

If He offers  us to participate in His cros, will we be as ready as we should be? How grreat is His mercy in not giving us what we deserve. Out of that realization must spring love and a forgetfulness of self, since He already preceded us.

The storms are over, and in the midst of tumutl and threats let us listen to His whispering love in the Garden.