Hermitage Notes - For The Sake Of Sanity and Sanctity

Today is the 103^rd Anniversary of the Apparitions of the Blessed Mother at Fatima. It is also Day 59 of our self-imposed hunker down on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.

I keep reminding myself that everything that happens to us is God’s will either directly or permissibly.

This is not to say that God ordains the immoral activities of humans. 

It is to say that even in the midst of immoral human actions and activities, God can, and will indeed, use these violations of his moral laws to bring about sanctity in the lives of those affected by actions of immorality.[1] We either allow them to continue to diminish us, thereby increasing our personal devastation, or, to our betterment, we do the hard work of allowing them to mold us into better images of Christ.

The choice is mine, then, in all arising difficult matters, to discern what I need to do in my life in order to be as perfectly centered as possible where God’s revealed will is concerned.

Seen purely as a natural phenomenon, the virus has sent the entire world and its economy into a tailspin. Global humanity is snatching at straws. For all its advancements in science and technology, the world still has not arrived at any reasonable working solution for the effects of the virus. One thing that this virus has done, with certainty, is that it has created definite lines of philosophical division as a secondary effect.

Overcoming the lines of philosophical division created by Covid-19 will likely be more difficult than discovering a vaccine for it. The cure for the primary physical effects of the virus are a matter of science. The cure for the secondary social effects is a matter of walking in love.[2] This love inoculation is a hard one to take and it has to be renewed daily to be of any lasting effect. 

A refusal to walk in love is a choice to walk in hostility, faction, and division.

Whether directly sent by God as a plague on modern society for its sins[3], or permissibly allowed by God to cause humankind an opportunity to consider their lives and turn from their sins, this microscopic modern-day virus is a tool in the hand of God. The social ramifications of its tilling teeth have begun to manifest. The grand outcome of its cultivating effect is, however, waiting in the shadows.

Though we exercise a few practical precautions when going out among people to take care of our necessaries, the Covid-19 tool has not been a significant life and routine changer for us personally. It has, though, been a very real clarifier of intention and purpose for us here in our little hideaway hermitage-like cabin in the woods.

At this point, having more thoroughly than ever before embraced the peace that is found in solitude, there seems to be only one positive direction for us to travel. That direction leads away from the surrounding meanness and mania[4] and deeper into the sanity and sanctity of solitude that we have discovered and thrive in.

And this we do for the sake of our own sanity and sanctification.

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[1] Romans 8:28

[2] 1 Corinthians Chapter 13

[3] Some insist that God does not do this. I beg to differ. The 10 plagues sent on Egypt are one example. Consider 1 Samuel 5 where God smote the people of Ashdod with emerods [tumors thought to be hemorrhoids]. Consider the numerous times that the Israelites, because of their choice to reject God and his moral laws, were overtaken by their enemies and led away into captivity.

[4] Most obviously and painfully portrayed in the lives of people who profess to be Christians while aggressively promoting political and religious hostility and division.