I created this Litany many years ago for YouTube so you will see where we use to be called the Hermits of St. Giles. Now, of course we are named Hermits of the Holy Cross which more closely reflects our ministry to our loving Christ Jesus. It’s my prayer that this litany will bring you closer to Jesus in your heart.
Peace to you,
bro.Mark
Hermits of the Holy Cross
“It is now the hour for you to wake from sleep, for our salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith. The night is far spent, the day draws near, so let us cast of deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Romans 13: 11-12
As the Church, a Community of Believers, we have now entered into the Advent Season in our Calendar. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity made a sacrifice by coming to us as a member of the human family
“that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity”
God emptied Himself for all of us that we could share His holiness. God did not have to humble Himself in this way. He could have stayed in His Heaven ordering us all to do this or do that, condemning us for the smallest infraction. Christ, in the depth of His love choose sacrifice, compassion and eternal love for us His children. For those who have raised children, I’m sure you in your compassion and love, you can remember the many times you sacrificed for them. Most parents have desired more for their children than for themselves.
As Hermits of the Holy Cross, our sacrifice to God is our own sufferings that we endure each day because of our physical disabilities. These sufferings can be emotional, psychological, and physical. Society teaches us that our sufferings have no meaning at all and that we should do everything we can to eradicate it. Sufferings are just a nuisance. But we all know through experience we cannot completely eradicate our suffering in our daily lives. Therefore, they cannot be completely removed. But, that’s not to say, that we shouldn’t try to alleviate them. We do try because we want to experience peace in heart and mind. Christ taught us through His own sufferings that they have meaning.
Personally, here’s what I believe, I believe our sufferings, when offered to God through our free will, assist God in the creation of grace. Sounds odd I know. Christ Jesus tells us that we make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the Church.” Col 1:24
Through the suffering, and death of Christ upon the Cross he taught us suffering has purpose. God does not waste it, but uses it. Think of grace as spiritual fuel for our daily lives. Plants and trees need rain, our bodies need food, cars need gasoline, many products need electricity. Our spirit too, needs grace to grow closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Advent and Christmas Season ask God
“to fill you with the knowledge of His will with all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.” Col: 1:9 Have you ever seen the painting of Christ Jesus knocking upon the door to be welcomed in but there is no door knob on His side of the door. This reminds us that Christ doesn’t barge in but patiently waits for us to open the door to allow Him in. The spiritual life is a give and take between two lovers. Try giving God your sufferings this, the Season of Incarnation, and ask Him to help you to understand why suffering is in our lives. Grace will be there for you. Through our suffering offered to God we participate in the creation of Gods gift, transforming grace.
Have a wonderful Advent and Christmas Season.
You are in our prayers each day. If you would like us to pray for any special intention please email bro.Mark at dextraze13@yahoo.com Its free.
Your brother in Christ Jesus,
Mark
Hermits of the Holy Cross
I read an article this morning from and on-line website called, Truth and Charity Forum. As a Benedictine Oblate, I was moved by the Author’s insights into The Rule of St. Benedict regarding Peace. Everything about the Rule speaks to Peace and a harmonious way of life for everyone who resides in the Monastery. But for those of us following the Rule while still living in the world, sometimes the stability and regular rhythms of the Monastery can be lacking in our less than consistent daily routines. So, I thought to re-copy the article’s most relevant points for finding Peace in our lives and post it here for all of us to consider, if we are so inclined. I hope it speaks kindly and gently to our hearts…
2014 Rule of Peace By Mitchell Kalpakgian, Ph.D.
Christopher Derrick’s The Rule of Peace draws from the wisdom of St. Benedict’s famous Rule for monastic life to teach the art of how to be at peace in the world as well as in the monastery. According to St. Benedict, four steps are needed to master the art of peace. First, a person must learn to be peace with his environment and learn to be at home in that part of the country or world where he lives and works; second, a person needs to be at peace with himself with his particular strengths and weaknesses; third, everyone must strive to be at peace with his neighbor. One cannot love God without first loving one’s neighbor. All of these forms of peace, then, prepare a person to be at peace with God. To be at peace with God, however, is not the world’s idea of living without difficulty or stress.
To be peace with one’s environment means, according to Derrick, “living gently and at peace with one’s natural surroundings” in the way a monk resigns himself to a life of stability instead of constant travel. Also, the monk who lives in tune with nature lives simply and economically. This Benedictine way of life opposes
the restlessness of wanderlust and the quest for ceaseless diversion. St. Benedict’s Rule teaches the art of staying at home and finding contentment in the regularity and rhythm of daily life with its balance of work and rest, the active life and the contemplative life. To enjoy being at home and enjoying one’s surroundings instead of always seeking new places and thrills develops a sense of belonging or rootedness essential for happiness. For many, however, the environment in which they are born, live, and work is not entirely in their control. But to be at peace, a person cannot be daydreaming or fantasizing about new sensations or faraway places that he imagines to be more perfect.
To be at peace with one’s self means to accept one’s male or female nature, one’s unique temperament and individuality, and one’s particular gifts and inclinations as God-given. It means acquiescence to one’s ethnic identity, family background, and history. A person at peace with himself is not jealous of another person’s good fortune or special talents. Every person must accept his lot and the crosses of his life rather than making invidious comparisons with others who appear more prosperous or gifted. A true monk, in Derrick’s words, is filled with an “inner serenity and joy” because he accepts sufferings and difficulties as a fact of human life and learns to overcome anxiety and fear by an abandonment to God’s Providence. The monk knows that Christ’s words “Peace be with you” mean that man needs to live without anxiety, trust in God, and not be ruled by tension and stress—one of the reasons God created the Sabbath as a day of rest. This peace with one’s self never requires drugs, alcohol, or escape from life’s duties.
To be at peace with one’s neighbor also requires the same effort and skill as learning to accept one’s environment and one’s human nature because a person does not always choose his relatives, neighbors, or colleagues, but simply finds them present by accident. This aspect of peace demands patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and charity. Monks do not shout, slam doors, welcome loud noise, or speak with loose tongues, always practicing the virtue of courtesy because “ceremony is the friend of peace.” Monks know that the Devil wants persons to have arguments, lose their tempers, and not live in friendship and charity. Monastic life “includes all the family virtues of love and loyalty known to the ancient Romans as piety.” Just as the abbot rules in the monastery with both authority and gentleness—not as a autocrat—parents too must govern their families with both justice and mercy and children honor their parents with respect. With gentle authority and glad obedience men can live together in peace and avoid the many useless, trivial arguments produced by prideful egotism. Monastic life teaches the discipline of the tongue and recognizes that “too much talk is the enemy of the soul.” So often peace with one’s neighbor is destroyed “when somebody said something which never really needed to be said”— insensitive, offensive, or tactless words.
All the various kinds of restlessness—the pursuit of excitement, novelty, or diversion in the form of entertainment, travel, and endless change– result from failure to live in tune with the environment, family, and person that God created. To be at peace according to the Rule of Saint Benedict is to be centered and have a still point rather than being fragmented and divided by the centrifugal forces of the world that rend asunder the unity that dwells in the soul that knows peace. The Benedictine vow of stability centers a monk in the one place he will live and reside for a lifetime. The home centers a person in the society of the family he is bound to for life. The vocation a person chooses gives special priority to this one form of service that shapes the future.
A Vocation to Embrace Suffering – How can such a Calling possibly be Realized, Fully Accepted, and Lived Out by Anyone who is of Sound Mind and is in a state of basic Psychological wholeness and Emotional wellness? This is the astounding if not even somewhat mystical revelation of the Mystery of the Cross for the Hermits of the Holy Cross that I hope to be able to address in this Post.
Are we delusional? Are we simply making the best of our crummy lot in life, hoping to find an excuse, however poor, for meaning, relevance or purpose in this world? Is it some irrational imagining to escape the reality of our chronic pain and sickness?
Some might wonder. We, ourselves, at times, might even wonder. But, to linger in such thoughts would be, for us who experience this Genuine Calling, a definite Temptation against our Vocation. How do we know? We Know because the Grace to Understand what it is we “Know” in our deepest center to be True is part of our Vocation.
We do not need to imagine. We do not need to escape. Nor do we need to romanticize what is the True Nature of our Calling in order to make it more palatable. On the contrary. What every Hermit of The Holy Cross Knows to be True is already contained in this mysterious Grace that is given to us, in order that we may embrace the Responsibility of the Call; to hold our place quietly, humbly, and in a hidden manner, according to God’s Plan and Purpose. We can thus share the burdens of humankind in silence, in union with our Lord, Jesus Christ, as we offer our sufferings for the Salvation of All the suffering souls in this World, both living and deceased, in Faith that God will bless and accept these offerings through Christ, our Lord, AMEN.
Blessings and Peace,
+ Theresa (HHC)
April will be a month of Catholic Holy Days starting with Palm Sunday. Catholics and Christians everywhere will be planning which Holy Day Services they will be attending, and who will be coming over for Easter Dinner. In my meditation this morning, I pondered about our kind of Calendar Religion. It’s good in some ways, of course, but it does tend to keep people thinking in terms of Religious vs Secular-type divisions in our minds. Like, Sunday is special because it’s Church, but Monday is just my ordinary life again.
If I think about what Jesus showed us regarding such practices, I see something different. I see Him rebuking those who tried to censure His freedom of the Spirit at every moment, by quoting “the Rules of Religion” at Him. But it was in fact His ordinary life that was the place of many of His greatest miracles and parables. He lived His Spirituality every moment of every day, not just on the Sabbath day. Why? Because He was always Awake and Aware of His connection to The Divine! Attentive and Centered within Himself, He clearly understood that His Union with the Father was a very Present Reality; one that was ever-active, regardless of what the Calendar said.
He had respect for the proper Services of His Faith, but He was not limited by them. He participated in Synagogue Services, but He would also wake up early in the morning to go apart by Himself to pray. He wanted no divides between people. He wanted them to understand Truth from their hearts. But for that to happen, they would have to wake-up to their actual lives and step out of their automatic conditioned behaviors. Jesus knew that would not be an easy thing for them. Thanks be to God, He had a plan!
Jesus did not leave us the New Testament. That came years later, after having been handed down and finally written down, and then after having been filtered through a Greek translation. He did not leave us a Religion of the Calendar. Or a structured Church system. Jesus did leave us something of much greater value to our eternal destiny. His Holy Spirit! When His message was preached everywhere to whomever would listen from their hearts, those people would receive the Holy Spirit. That Free Gift of the Holy Spirit changed their reality! They did wake-up! And their ordinary, everyday lives were transformed from within!
TODAY – I Am Awake to the Presence of God in my Ordinary Life. I am grateful! I am loved! I am blessed!
Greetings to You,
I am sorry for not writing sooner. I have been somewhat in a slump these last couple of months. I have not been inspired to do much of anything productive . I wait for that spark to enter into my heart which enables me to write and without this spark nothing comes and it leaves me frustrated.
Anyway, I am a true believer in the “paranormal”. I often hear that many do not believe in ghosts or the spirit world. I can’t understand why not. Especially us Christians who do believe in an after life. I don’t believe all spirits just go to Heaven or hell when we pass. I believe in a Purgatory, a place where the individual needs more purification before entering into eternal glory. If this is the case, why can’t spirits experience their purgatory here on earth and if they are why can’t we get in touch with them with so much new technology out there. Well, I believe we can document that there is some kind of spiritual existence here on earth. It seems to be behind a veil we can’t see. I understand This has been a hotspot of controversy and inquiry for many many years. So what does “paranormal” mean anyway? Well, basically it means, anything outside of normal. This can become confusing to us because normal is so varied among each of us. What is normal to another might not be normal to me or you. Often it is difficult to understand what is outside of our reality let alone try to explain it. We are afraid we will be ridiculed or shunned by others if we admit we buy into the notion and realm of the “spirit world”. However even St. Paul in his letter to the Colossians ch.1 v12-20 writes, “In Him everything in Heaven and on earth was created, things visible and invisible.” So, what is it that is “invisible”? The Scriptures say we are not fighting against man but against “the principalities and powers of this world.” If everyone on earth embraced this understanding we would no longer fight each other, but fight that which is beyond us. With the creation of so much new technology, paranormal investigators have been more successful with the ability to record and document paranormal events and experiences. Of course, many of these experiences are on a personal level and cannot be verified they still can be believed. What can we say about truly documented evidence however? Especially when evidence comes in from all around the world. Remember when Peter and the others were in the boat when a storm came in and Jesus came to them walking on the water. When He got to the boat they said to Him,”We thought You were a ghost”? Even then, people believed in ghosts and a spiritual realm. Spirit is in all things. Spirit is the breath of God that sustains all life. If this is truth then our spirit is alive in Him. If we embrace the fact we are seeking Eternal Life our spirit, our soul then is eternal. With this in mind, spirits (ghosts) who die troubled or with unfinished business could possibly remain on earth. Scientists do admit there are different levels or veils to reality. With this said is it not possible for a spirit to move in and out from these veils? Think on it pray about it see what God reveals to you. I would love to hear what you believe regarding the paranormal. Until next time, have a beautiful and most blessed New Year.
Love and Prayer,
Bro.
Hermits of St. Giles
Hermits of the Holy Cross 