Hermitage Note - Negligence And A Need For Penance

I have lately been negligent in keeping this chronicle of journaled thoughts and reflections.

Part of the neglect, I feel certain, is the result of such concerted and productive Pre-Lenten [Septuagesima] and Lenten seasons that included a lot of rich extra reading. We were quite personally invested in our consecrations to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to Saint Joseph. Stations of the Cross each Friday during Lent were especially meaningful, made even richer by the Station’s meditations written by our priest, Father J. Francis Sofie. It was during Holy Week, in the absence of anyone to assist at Mass as an Altar Server, that I began, at 67 years of age, to serve as an Altar Boy.

Looking back, it seems those three months passed like an Octave. Those three months were spent, or so it seems, in an instant that lasted only a week.

These past three months have also vanished like the mist of a morning once the sun is in the sky.

I had not planned to take a break from chronicling. It was more so one of those “life happens” sort of things – an event that runs interference on all of us at one time or another.

Late April involved a ten-day round about trip through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and back into the home State with a camp amongst some friends who live in their vans as modern-day nomads. A multi-day errand-of-mercy trip took us to North Alabama in May. Then another trip in late June took us to Kentucky.

It was when we started back from Kentucky in June that we received the terrible news of Father Frank’s cancer. And then came the even more terrible news that the cancer was already Stage 4, inoperable, and terminal. Then, in just a few short days, this priest who had so endeared himself to our little parish entered into medical retirement to suffer out his remaining days of physical life on earth while being cared for by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Our hearts ache. We pray. Not so much do we pray for ourselves but for our beloved priest and the physical miseries he is suffering.

I remember one of the first things Father remarked to me as I helped move his few material belongings [mostly a lot of boxes of books] into the rectory. I mentioned to him that we were really glad that he was here to be our pastor. Father looked at me and said, “I’m here as your penance.” I thought to myself, “Boy, this is going to be interesting.”

It took only a short time to realize that Father meant the remark as humor. Father had a really corny sense of humor. We loved him. We still love him. We always will love him. In our minds, Father wasn’t with us long enough. In the mind and plan of the Heavenly Father? We have to accept that Father Frank was with us within the allotment of time apportioned by the Heavenly Father. How else can we think and still conclude that God is in control even in the midst of pain and tragedy in our lives?

Maybe there really is something more to Father Frank’s remark. Maybe there really is something penitential going on here as a part of him being in our lives these past two short years. Maybe … in the giving and taking of Father Frank to and from us … in the heartache involved … there is an element of compassionate penance involved as we grieve emotionally for him as he physically suffers unto death.

I prefer to think that there is. I cannot help but to think that there is.

What now for us?

Our Bishop, rather our Archbishop to be more precise, has assigned us a new pastor.

Personally, I am well-pleased with the choice of His Excellency. There are, however, already some undercurrents of dissent from a certain segment regarding his provision of a pastor for our small parish. Not everyone appreciates the sacrifices made by priests from India who come to this country to serve the Church in a land where there is a terrible shortage of Catholic priests. Where these dissenters are concerned, I cannot help but to wonder what penalty such brutal and cold hardness of heart accrues. Is it mortal if left unconfessed and unrepented of? If it is venial, then what great length and degree of pain in Purgatory will it take to purify the soul of the deeply embedded stains left by such sin?

This small parish has been called to share an Indian priest with another small parish located some twenty miles away.

Is it possible that this “sharing” is part of our collective penance as a parish? It certainly could be for those who add their strength to the insidious undercurrent. It certainly could be for those in need of discovering true contrition in their hearts for their roles [past and present] in opposing the hierarchical authority of our Bishop and those whom he has sent to serve on his behalf.

Resentment is a terrible thing. Resentment is diabolical. Resentment has a paralyzing effect on the conscience. Resentment supplants charity and begets a type of self-love that is blind to its own spiritual emptiness and self-deception. Unlike cancer or venereal disease that eats away at the physical body, resentment infects the mind and soul. It embeds itself in the human passions and grows like a spiritual cancer or venereal disease that eats away at the mind and soul. Its diabolical end, if left unhealed, is spiritual death.