Perceptions, Prayer and Authenticity

Am resting today after early Mass and confession.  Doing some writing, tidying up just slightly with more to be tidied, another day. Got the hermit survey post tidied, however, and hopefully more clear, concise.  Yet not enough responses by far.  Could be the Twitterers are not interested in a short hermit survey.  The point was to gain insights on perceptions people have of hermits.

And then in confession considered prayer, and wondered if I am praying as a Catholic ought, for it is not formal, not in appearance as a person of prayer, and not in prayer posture.  All day, all night, it is silence and rest, remaining in His love.  Yes, the tech glitch on the survey comments not showing up did challenge my remaining in His love as much as anything ever has.  That made me laugh and the confessor come near to a laugh and definitely a good chuckle.

Rue the day fountain pens and ink bottles and long hand as a standard of communication passed on.

But am going with the flow, for live here, now, and am very much reminded of those verses from Hebrews 2.  And the other day so loved the Psalm in Office of Readings.  Let's find it and share....

Well, it was so much praise!  So much joy and praise!  And then encouragement, such as If you find your delight in the Lord, He will grant your heart's desire.  Commit your life to the Lord, trust in Him, and He will act, so that your justice breaks forth like the light, your cause like the noon-day sun.

It seems so easy, so joyful, so full of love and peace.  Not the intense praying or even the somber praying, not before the Tabernacle in the chapel, but now before the Tabernacle of His Heart.  Cannot sit in the pews or kneel for any length of time, nor drive back in to the chapel.  So here, or anywhere--an errand now rare again, thankfully so, or writing Epiphany notes to friends and family, or putting away some glasses in a cupboard, or looking out at the snow falling gently, lightly upon the gardens--it is prayer and adoration before the Tabernacle of His Heart.

Even if others define it differently, such as alone time focused in prayer, formal prayer and intentional, what is not prayer of remaining in His love?  Speaking with Him, knowing He has taken me to Himself, within, even in the frustration of a computer glitch?  Or the realization that a survey on hermits may not be of interest to the vast majority or the vast minority; and that gives also a valid response.

One's vocation is spelled out by God, offered, then recognized (or not) and agreed upon (or not), by the soul. It is lived by the soul, in or not in Christ, in or not in His love, in or not in Him in present moments, on or not on the stairway to heaven.  The prayer is communication of the soul with God. 

Are there requisites of posture, appearance, duration, location, content or context?  

Or is it love?  Is it loving the Beloved and telling Him with words and without words, and loving creation and created souls, all that He loves?  Is it being in love, and praying with Him, through Him, and in Him?

As for what people perceive to be a hermit, or a hermit's attributes and appearance, and whether or not they would be accepting of one who did not match their perceptions...so?  

If one is hidden in Christ and hidden from the eyes of men, yet walking among mankind on the earth, in Christ as He walks, talks and interacts among mankind on earth, yet today, then who would know one's vocation other than God and the soul agreeing to and living the vocation?  And praying?

Perceptions are based upon perceptions based upon a variety of perceptions of the past based upon varied lives and the perceptions of those who wrote about those lives, and the perceptions now of the many with perceptions but of few who have read the perceptions of varied lives.

Perceptions are amazing.  Do we pray remaining in His love, in the Tabernacle of His Heart?  On the stairway to heaven? I have been going along with Jesus and the Apostles, plucking the heads of grain on the Sabbath, all the more, plucking...!

It is a good life, all of it.  Don't you love it?  I really do! Remain in His love!  It makes all the difference to always be in His love and find oneself on the stairway to heaven.  Then the short descents into the world to gather souls are not exhaustive. Soon enough we are ascending the stairway that we never really left except in perception, to gather souls by the lives we live that they see by perceptions!

Perceptions, prayer and authenticity fool many a beholder of perceptions; but prayer and authenticity surprise not the soul on the stairway, and delight with love, the beholder of Love.