As some of you know I wrote a book called Seeking Christ in the Crosses and Joys of Aging when I was 60 years old. Now at 77 I have lots of new insights. I am finding that older age comes with a certain fragility, even though I am hardly yet disabled. But this fragility, on the positive side, leads to loss of what in Scripture is called “pride of life” – a certain pride in my powers which Christian teaching says can be vain.  It also diminishes, at least a little, my tendencies to bossiness, since it is often I who am being taken care of.  Isn’t it good if gratitude for being taken care of replaces bossiness?

In an opposite way, I was reading a book by Sheila Kaye-Smith, whose Catholic novels I have mentioned before on this blog. Her most famous one was called Joanna Godden. It is about a flamboyant, bossy woman and has telling descriptions of how badly men react to this kind of woman.  It rang home because I am somewhat like Joanna in certain ways and there are certainly men who are allergic to these traits, but whose allergies I don’t always get.  One of them said to me the other day when I was trying to force him to do something I thought was good, “You know, Ronda, you’re not my Mama!” 
Women readers, take note, if the shoe fits…..!

More from locutions allegedly received by me, Ronda, in the year 2008. For more explanation of such “words in the heart” see 12/18/2014 on this blog.

May 24, 2008
Poverty of Spirit in Battle
Holy Spirit:

When you are in a battle for the cause of truth, for Christendom; or to witness to your own personal values, you have an arsenal of words, your favorite weapons, that worked when others tried to convince you; that give you symbolic victory, words of Ours to bolster your truth with authority, sometimes taken out of context.

May 27, 2008
Light and Darkness
Holy Spirit:
(Context: I have being trying to be more silent. I think when I am being my usual chatterbox self, it keeps me from seeing things in other people and in myself I don’t like to see. So, whereas silence is generally positive for many people, for me it has the difficulties that the Holy Spirit is addressing.)

When you become more silent you can see in yourself and in others the twisted rays of light and dark in ways of life and character. You feel frightened, as you would say, alienated, from others and from yourself.

When you feel alienated from others, you want to hide in yourself, but then when you feel alienated from yourself, where do you go?
You have to run past any limiting images of Us, to the real God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and Mary, to our real presences so that you can hide in us and become more like us to get light and love for others with less darkness and fear (defensiveness).

This process of transforming you, doesn’t take place in a way that is clear to you. That is why trust is so important. Often what you consider darkness is shadow and what you run to as light is glitter. But We don’t sit on high laughing at your struggles. We are cheering you on for each tiny victory when you see goodness where previously you were too defensive to notice or where someone you think is critical and unappreciative ratifies what youare doing.

The closer you come to us, the Light, the greater will be your yearning that others and you, yourself, can be only light. This is the Cross of those who are given more of a foretaste of heaven. Don’t “kick against the goad.” Trust.

Dr. Donald DeMarco's new book became available today at Amazon. Here is the forward by Dr. Ronda Chervin: 
How to Remain Sane in a World that is Going Mad

This is the latest book of Canadian philosopher and award winning journalist, Donald DeMarco.  He is the author of such well-known titles as: The Anesthetic Society, Architects of the Culture of Death, New Perspectives on Contraception, The Biological Assault on Parenthood, and The Many Faces of Virtue.

The ability to insert wit into some of the heaviest topics of contemporary debate is surely one of the reasons why DeMarco’s books are so readable.

Another reason for the popularity of his incisive articles and books is his brilliant use of analogy. To whet your appetite for reading How to Remain Sane in a World that is Going Mad, I am here quoting some of my favorite analogies from this new book, a compendium of articles written over the past two years:

-          On how the mind provides the light so we can see where we are going and know what we are doing -  “Who would drive an automobile with his eyes shut?”

-          On why we need a foundation in God of such things as rights – “A client approaches a builder and tells him he wants a house with no first floor only a second floor…The builder, naturally tells the client that such an arrangement is impossible…”

-           About the criticism that Christians are imposing their morality on others – “Because moral values are spiritual and not material, they are not amenable to being imposed on anyone.”

-          About it being discriminatory to oppose such things as gay marriage – “A child progresses in his education when he passes from discriminating between a dog and a cat to discriminating between a beagle and a basset hound…is it sexist to argue that men and woman are different by nature?”

-          On whether failures in marriages mean that marriage should be defunct as some claim – “when a person consumes too much alcohol and then drives his car into a tree, we usually blame and driver and not the vehicle for the mishap…marriage is demanding. It is not like a player piano that is programmed to play by itself.”

-          On why Catholics must try to influence politics – “The coaching staff does not influence the players on the field directly, but surely, through their advice and inspiration influences them indirectly.”

-          On condemning the Church for laying guilt trips on members – “A baseball player took his life because he lost an important playoff game…yet I am unaware that Major League Baseball has ever been blamed for loading athletes with guilt.”

Besides the persuasive rhetoric of such analogies, I recommend How to Remain Sane in a World that is Going Mad for the research Dr. DeMarco has been doing into the ideas of what I would call “the enemies of truth” as found in newspaper articles, television talk-shows, as well as best-selling books. As DeMarco puts it: “I have adopted the mindset that obtaining a secular newspaper is equivalent to capturing the enemy’s plan to destroy civilization.” 

Many apologists for Catholic truth are too disgusted by the views of the confused enemy even to read them.  We may need the shock of the actual wording of errors that are flourishing in our times to become better apologists. Refreshing it is, indeed, to read DeMarco’s cogent defense of truth in the book you are holding in your hands.

Perhaps you are thinking, well DeMarco is witty and incisive but won’t reading this leave me feeling depressed and hopeless?  No, because Jesus didn’t say “Have a Nice Day!” he said “Take up your Cross and Follow Me!” and in the words of DeMarco: “The Church offers a way of life, forgiveness, and redemption. That should be enough to praise it over the world that offers scant light, little forgiveness and no redemption.” 

I was talking to an elderly priest with many painful chronic physical problems. He was recently in a re-hab for a few months. In his bed, he didn’t wear his clerical collar.  When he was leaving to go home one of the nurses found out he was a priest.  She told him that in her Church there is lots of anti-Catholicism, and that she bought into it. But now, finding out that he was a priest she was going to tell them how without most people knowing he was a priest, patients who were normally very difficult and even nasty to the staff because of their pain, stopped doing that whenever he came into the common rooms! 

A teaching I like:  Instead of drowning in self-pity, we should view problems as challenges. Take the word problem out of your lingo.  Sounds good to me. What is your challenge today, friend?

From family holidays back to the seminary: Even though I am a 77 year old grandma and my adult daughters are in their early 50’s, leaving them I felt like a mother cat with kittens taken away when she still has milk in her tits!  

I also thought often of a part of The Lord of the Rings where Lothlorien is visited. It is a place where the elderly go into boats and slowly sail away into the horizon. Psychologically, I think that many of us oldies do feel as if we are casting off from the world.

You know that I am a Widow Dedicated to the Lord. That involves making a promise not to re-marry but to be the bride of Christ, but without a vow in a community of Sisters.  Sometimes widows who have read my books about widows or seen me talk about this on EWTN write me.  One told me of her description of her Dedication that she put on her blog. With permission I am putting it here:

One Love: the diamond gift of chastity
By Shawn Chapman

 I don’t think of myself as a single person, really. Being a widow is different. I am someone who lived and fulfilled marriage vows. However, I am alone. Then again, I am forever changed by marriage, in all the best ways, and I feel its beautiful seal on my soul.
After the death of my first husband, Blaze, in a car accident at the age of twenty-eight, I didn’t understand what my life was- I lost that much of myself. I slept fitfully with the light on for years.
It felt imperative to me to understand my vocation. I was still a mother. I still loved my husband. Just because he was dead, I did not stop feeling like his wife. I didn’t even consider dating.

Over the years my ideas about celibacy evolved as I moved from the chastity of a wife to the chastity of a widow. I was surprised to realize that I felt an expansiveness of love, of my womanhood, of my motherhood, as I developed in this new life I did not ask for, but slowly embraced. When I turned the light off at night, I felt enveloped in love and peace. “Through the silent watches of the night, bless the Lord.” (Ps. 134:2b)

I wondered, during the quiet mutations happening in my soul, if this was how priests and religious felt- like they were half in love with everyone, like their hearts were available to people, and to God in a special way.
We could think of a celibate person not as “asexual,” but, as a sexual being, who is celibate in expression. 

I have come to recognize sexuality as a spiritual energy, so to speak. It is like a power current and a connection, body and soul, to and through God.  This was so when I was with each of my husbands, and it is so now. It is just directed differently. The proper direction of the spiritual energy of sexuality is what chastity is.

 My reasons for remaining celibate were changed over the years. I still loved my husband as much as I ever did, and he was part of me. The change was that I felt married to Jesus.

 I was so perfectly at peace with this idea, that God is the husband of the widow and the father of the orphan, that it was a very difficult adjustment for me when I felt I was being asked to consider loving Bob, ten years after Blaze’s death. 
It took a lot of prayer, a few “burning bushes,” and a couple of little miracles to help me see that loving Bob was now my way. I came to understand that Christ and I were going to love Bob together. Slowly this began to make sense, and I was able to let that love happen.
  I was very, very happy as Bob’s wife. I was more happy and unified with him than I can say. Truly, we formed Christ in one another and experienced Him living in our relationship. In an ineffable way, though changed, it seems to me that we still experience that.

Like a diamond that stays the same through its various circumstances, chastity is given to me again in a different setting, with a new cut. I didn’t think this would happen again, being widowed a second time.  But I cherish this beautiful gift, this diamond of chastity, like a spiritual engagement ring for a new life, in a new way, with Christ. It is powerful and affirming.

Widowhood is to live with a bottomless loss. But it is also a very special kind of love, and celibate chastity can be one of its expressions. It is less an expression of emptiness, in time, than a different kind of wholeness.
I heard that a wife said to her dying husband, “I love you so much, what will I do without you?” He said, “Take the love you have for me and spread it around.”. I think I have started to do this again now, and I recognize it as a sign of life.
As a daughter of the Church, I have the richness of Carmelite spirituality to draw on, and other Catholic spiritual traditions, too, that speak of the soul as a bride of God. Ronda Chervin, who has written about the spirituality of widowhood, calls this, “Jesus [as] the second Bridegroom.” * (In my case this would be “third Bridegroom,” of course.)

This understanding of my present form of chastity is profoundly healing for me. I feel filled, enclosed, and loved, carried and protected every day, in spite of my still very present loss. Celibate chastity is a positive, liberating presence in me, peaceful and meaningful.
To me, the virtue of chastity is a true One Love that puts all other loves in their proper perspectives, making them even more vivid. It’s a bright jewel given to my soul. The more I learn about it, the more I am dazzled.

“From His fullness, we have all received, grace flowing upon grace.” John 1:16

Here is more from the “words in the heart” allegedly from the Holy Spirit to me in the year 2008, entitled God Alone!   If this is the first blog you are reading, go back to the blog of 12/18/14 to see my explanation of these seeming locutions.

May 19, 2008

Expectations
Holy Spirit:
Go back to the teaching on expectations in previous messages of others you have read. You think “if only one person, plant seeds, etc.” is a cliché bromide. This is because your culture is dominated by statistics and cynicism. This is not a PR campaign. It is a transition for hearts. Have you not been changed? Was it so easy for you to become more loving that you want to doubt that the Source is directly working on your transition? 

“Love is patient, love is kind…” You are all too inclined to impatient harshness.

Yesterday you had a day of grey fear of the void. You became anxious. We told you
that it was okay and to move slowly into what would be sent to you to fill your time.

You are in training.

May 22, 2008
Our Church
Holy Spirit:  
Those working to heal divisions in the Church sometimes want to minimize the splits so they can have hope. We want, through love, to open each side to the truths which will enable each of you to let go of attachments to errors and half truths.

The truths that set you free are known to you already, but are veiled, not only by false philosophies, but also by lack of deep spirituality. Notice that in the midst of all the ecumenical and interfaith dialogues, John Paul II called leaders together in Assisi for a retreat.

If you are called to help heal divisions, you must become closer to those around you. Before, you would feel too angry with them to want to get to know them better.

(Note from Ronda: a reader wondered if this locution could be seeming to say the errors that divide don’t matter. I replied that I thought it meant that experts should work on those thorny issues in ecumenical dialogue but that some of us, I included, would be better off trying simple love and prayer.)

The image I got this Christmas to make into a prayer was that Mother Mary of the Nativity wants to feed my tiny soul – you tiny souls also??




Not a Christmas image at all but coming in response to some typical “holiday” scenes:

May 16, 2008

(I woke suddenly with images of war. I have been reading about the Vietnam War
and the Iraq war).

Jesus:

Wars are a shock treatment (we, the Trinity, permit) to break through the dreadful complacency of worldliness. What is important is not your analysis, but the cracking of the shell – the breaking through the illusion that you and others can make a paradise out of combined selfishness.

Shame

Jesus:

You are inclined to feel shame because you are vulnerable, instead of shame because you sin. The healing is to accept your creatureliness with childlike simplicity: “O, my Father in heaven, your little child feels weak, uncertain, and miserable. Lord have mercy,” and then toddle along through your day as we strengthen you.”

About Conversation

Holy Spirit:
There is a roughness in your talk, not only as in talk among embattled soldiers full of vulgarity and cursing, but also within your families. Teasing can be a form of fondness, but I am advising you to avoid harshness or the indifference of not greeting each other with words or gestures or smiles of welcome. It (rough talk) leads people to become shut up in cold defensiveness and then to seek relief sometimes in the comradeliness of shared addictions or in solitary addictions where there is a note of tenderness toward the self: such as “poor me. This drink will make me feel better, or this masturbation, this over-indulgence in food makes me feel good.