THE MYSTICAL DEATH

PART 4

In my own case I have been crucified and have undertaken reparatory sufferings BUT NO ONE KNOWS THIS. Isn't that in itself a great pain? After all, to suffer secretly for love, to be passed over for recognition for no one SEES your pain, that is pain. And It is enough pain, as far as I'm concerned to make up for the fact that I am not PHYSICALLY crippled or incapacitated on a bed of reparatory sufferings. No matter how awful, the fact that SOME people believe a stigmatist is suffering in union with Christ has to give SOME recompense some small measure of consolation. True - most people are attracted to reparatory sufferers/stigmatists, for all the WRONG reasons (just as men are attracted to beautiful women for all the wrong reasons.) The reasons; curiosity, free healings rubbing shoulders with a celebrity. Those who come in DEEP LOVE are very rare, and these deep lovers would compassionate with, the suffer AND BE WILLING ALSO IF THEY COULD, TO UNDERTAKE SUCH SUFFERINGS. (You know how FEW are willing to undertake sufferings.)

On the subject of celebrity, I also have enough of that in my life, without the need of physical wounds. As the well known repairers have been outsized and abused, so have I, in abundance., I have been called everything in the book, as they have in some cases: A hypocrite, phony, false prophet, etc. They have put salt in my invisible wounds to see if I hurt, to see if they are real; just as they put caustics into the wounds of exterior stigmatists. Yes, I believe one can suffer equally with the crippled WITHOUT ANY EXTERIOR WOUNDS. (I must add here, a healthy body notwithstanding, there is a great degree of physical- suffering that often goes with my pain. One can suffer physically without being clinically ill. And herein the body goes along with the soul to keep) it company in reparation. This is just, for St. Thomas Aquinas says that in the end, the body will enjoy either Heaven, with the soul, or the tort-tires of Hell. And this is just because the body participated in either reparation or sin. So the body as well as soul is rewarded or punished. Praise God for His justice.) Sometimes reparatory or purgative sufferings take on a comedic aspect, or as I said, an unreal dimension.

Right after I was betrothed to Christ, and just before, I suffered immensely from a group o show business people I was working with. The majority of them banded together as a group to see if they could overcome me, because of my "glorious" aspect and my appearance and celebrity (which was just blossoming.) They tried to get me fired from the job, to destroy my publicity, to make life hard for me all around during the three months I worked with them. I just bore it all patiently, plodding along in my mission for God, supremely triumphant in the end but not without extreme humiliation. My triumph was not an earthly kind. Or I should say, I achieved success in an earthly way, but my joy was only in that I did God's will and succeeded. My best friend at the time said I acted like "a doormat." But I countered with, "My success will be my revenge." She said, "If I were you and treated like this, I would take the next plane back home." I said, "Not until I have accomplished my mission for God. No adversity will stop me."

The last day, they riddled me with pies when I was taking my bows on stage. This was done with malice. Feeling guilty, they then tried to make up for it at a cast, party, but I did not attend. Many strange and funny things happened during this period which can not be explained in this short work. I am only stating these things to make the point: Purgation is often followed out in an external aspect, by people and things making life miserable for you, more miserable than is normal. It has an UNREAL aspect. Concerning this I would like to quote from a book: "SEEKING JESUS IN CONTEMPLATION AND DISCERNMENT," by Robert Faricy S.J., published by Michael Glazier, In. The chapter on "Darkness and Light," pg. 58: - "What causes the dark night in my prayer? My own need for purification, my own sinfulness, sinful tendencies, selfishness, general unreadiness for the graces the Lord wants to give me as he empties me out, purifies me, by the means of the grace of the dark night.

SOME FACTOR OUTSIDE MYSELF CAN ACT AS THE OCCASION, THE APPARENT CAUSE, OF THE NIGHT: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY, A SERIOUS FAILURE OR REJECTION, PHYSICAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLNESS, INABILITY TO "FIT IN" WITH MY PRESENT SITUATION, OUTSIDE PRESSURES, LONELINESS. BUT THE REAL CAUSE OF THE DARK NIGHT IS THE LORD WORKING IN ME, GETTING ME READY, HELPING ME TO ACQUIRE THE "NIGHT VISION" THAT I NEED FOR GREATER AWARENESS OF HIM."

During a period like that of outside persecution - you hone your talents of COURAGE, FORTITUDE, ZEAL; an overall untiring, unwavering constancy of your mind. You learn to OBLITERATE the opposition not by reacting in an emotional way, but by NOT REACTING, or perhaps the principal, in this case, of passive resistance. You simply GO ON. After all, if they can make you upset, they have caused you STRESS, and stress is very depleting and debilitating. (That is one of the great tricks of the devil. He can't cause you to sin, so he exhausts you by Opposition, wearing you out physically so you can't do your work! Oh, beware of Satan and all his wiles! Don't underestimate the enemy, learn the kind of tricks he pulls to avoid them!) This period of purgation following betrothal was interspersed with illumination. Not so the dark night. Here you enter into a dark cocoon and have no desire to go out, to see people, to be entertained. The sense world is obliterated. During the dark night I went to church, Post office, shopping for food and little else. I did not talk on the phone. I told people that I had taken a vow of silence and not to call me or even write me. LETTERS ACTUALLY CAUSED ME STRESS! You cannot believe the pain I felt from the simplest things - from the looks of curious people, from the letters of innocent love or curiosity. It was because I saw THROUGH it all. Just as I saw the imperfection in myself down to the core, I now saw the dark-side of all human nature. I saw how tainted were the phone calls and most of the letters I received, even from those professing true spiritual love. They were of the state I had left behind - good works tainted with self interest.

Did they really love me? Of course not! And to see that, to read it, gave me stress. AND YOU CAN'T TAKE STRESS IN THE DARK NIGHT. If you were not afraid to commit sin, you would SCREAM at people trying to bother you. You think nothing of TELLING OFF someone, cut ting them off completely, if they make some transgression pertaining to God in action or speech. I told several people like this off on the phone, screaming at them with all my might with the Light behind me. One man cal led up saying he was THE MESSIAH! I blasted him with such a blast that it had to blow at least a few demons out of him. But you are also like this with relatives and friends, if they do really wrong. You have a tendency to REJECT everyone and will use the slightest excuse to do so because you want and need to be alone. It is only when we want the company of others that we become so tolerant. Wanting to be with them, we forgive even grave sins, under the guise of tolerance. (I' ask myself now, is this tolerance of sin good? Wouldn't we be more charitable if we were less tolerant of it, and always pointed out the sins of our fellow man?)

But there is also an inordinate fear of 'HURTING anyone, so I never rejected or told anyone off WITH MALICE. My conscience was at a ZENITH OF FEAR. (Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?) I overburdened my confessor with almost daily confessions, and I had less to confess than ever in my life. I confessed my whole life to him in a stream of remembrance lasting months. I was obsessed with my state of spirituality you might say. There is an obsessive NEED of cleanliness, since you see the dirt so clearly, and the dirt gives you so much pain. (What a blessing to see the dirt!) As I look back now to those stressful times, everything falls into place so neatly and predictably. Would that it could have been so neat then. One of the greatest pains is not knowing where you are, what is happening, where you are going, how long it will last. I did not know I was in the mystical death except in a very vague, nebulous sort of way. How awful is ignorance, how blessed are knowledge and vision!