One hermit Franciscan

©Author Louise Gosselin

The one that, animate of a big desire gets under way for a long journey, dowry to fill some conditions previously to be in good physical condition, to find good friends on asa routes and be ready è to provide a sum important of work.

God's researcher anxious to explore his/her/its Mystery to know l‘Amour more, must be able to stand, what requires a good frame, up. This frame for me, it is JESUS CHRIST who can gather to hold me to me together and on which I can lean that is my central pivot.

With Jesus Christ who acts like a magnet to the heart of my life, I want to move. Four poles I am offered the Prayer, the Solitude, the brotherly Support and Work. This manner to go to God, I explain it a little in the pages that follow, happy to find "surrounded me thus of a multitude of witnesses" that worked long before me on this path of the love.

1 - Jesus Christ, my central pivot,


God's Researcher leaves in journey and yet this hermit, that praying lives in a place! I like François of foundation well when, the extensively opened out arms like to kiss the universe, he/it tells his/its brothers before the blue sky and the verdant landscape: There is our cloister"; when also, he/it explains that his/her/its brother the body is the cell where lives his/her/its soul the hermit. The two go together where. For me this Hermit this motor, this living, it is JESUS CHRIST, my central pivot. My life, all my life has need of this column, vertebral to tarnish together. I can go where without being dislocated for since I go there with Jesus Christ, - others told it before me. Everywhere where I will go, this Hermit will live in my brothers the body, my sister the bodily envelope. It is the unique reality to which I am not able to want to renounce.

With Jesus Christ as central pivot, I am assured of a big liberty of interior and outside movement to explore "the height, the length, the width, the depth of "God's Mystery, while letting it to probe my heart and to let it this one to penetrate the heart of the world. This journey therefore, and this sedentary lifestyle lives themselves in my place and place human, because it is about one interior journey, it is not necessarily conditioned by a place. An author a few old already, said about Marie and living Joseph in Nazareth: "Their time? - is It always the hour to enliven Jesus Christ! And their country? -It is everywhere the place to like Jesus Christ! »

Jesus Christ is therefore at a time for me the center of my life, the sense of my research and the term of the journey, he is at the same time the journey and the place where I leave since he is THE PATH. He/it holds in himself, in myself the two tips of the path. "I am the path"… (JN 14,6), "no one goes to the Father that by me". (JN14, 6), "That sees me, sees the Father", (JN 14.9) As says Jean Raguin, S.J., Jesus is not only the road toward, but "he is the two": God - her-Road, Father and Son in a same to Blow. This living intimate to which, I believe, is the sure dynamism that guides me and that carries my weakness prou so often to lead me farther. My journey is as long as of me to the Father and also close to the term that Jesus Christ is in due course present to my life, living in my place, this eternal instant.

11. Four Poles of life

1. prayer

I already have said everything on the place, and the importance, and the ode of prayer of God's researcher in what precedes, and those that touched the But__ as as quite the small of the prayer, that there happens to all new and simple as doves - could say me: "Tais=toi, it is to the other to speak! " But me ais touched not the goal, and now I begin to speak. I am going to situate a little therefore my prayer

For me, the prayer includes two measurements: the intimacy and l immensity.

a - the intimacy
The prayer I am a fundamental, vital need as intimate meeting with God. Meeting that feeds me, that makes me live. It is the aspect of the meal, of rest in the prayer and in life, of the daily sharing of joys and worries. Spouse's meeting in search of mutual "Knowledge" that is without end, in an intimacy always increasing and personalizing, insofar as God will want it and where I will answer, as in all relation staff, the prayer is the place of my courage and my perseverance in ç ' in is even the essential place, otherwise my present engagement would not have any sense, when one knows that this place is Jesus-Christ - Trinidad.

b - l immensity: God - universe, God-world

a) God - universe--- The God for that I look in the prayer is also The cosmic, immense, shattering God and that transcends the time. This view widens name soul and stop it from withdrawing into it. I belong to bigger than I, May life appears in this big intention universe! From there emerges the action of grace and the humility while wondering that this immense and mysterious God to the Centuries and centuries can accept an alliance with him.

b) God - monde—Ma prayer if she/it is often lone, is not isolated. If I go from good moments only by the small chapel of the Franciscans of The Underground cave, to The fall I share their communal prayer also: and every evening, their Eucharist or their vigil, surrounded with the friends who like to join them. All together we pray on the city and on the world. But even when I am alone feel registered in the living human mass, and I have my luxury hotel to the heart of this humanity as simple and laborious existence, but also as praying one to the praying of the world. "I don't know how to pray respectable", of it I am well conscience, also I try to accommodate me in the Christ's prayer, him that is praise and supplication, forgiveness and mercy, disinterested offering.

Solitude

J ' lives in a small lodging at the basement of my owners to The Fall. J ' there only screw, sustained by the Franciscan spirituality but not making gone juridically of a religious community. The solitude imposes itself therefore as a matter of course to me. I also searched for it, by that that me foreshore knows indispensable to the deep monitoring of God's Speech that creates and that sends and I find it good. But I also must there me to tame and sometimes to defend it against myself and against those that I also like, there are born hermits (that are not necessarily God's researchers), others like the solitude but must get used also to the desert that purifies, that frees and that had to lead praying it to the transparency where only God is discerned and known, for oneself and for the others Solitude that brings back all to the essential, this Essential that is one.

Praying it has the friends who like It and qu would like to make so much for him, and likes them to him also, The friendship is a delicate and precious flower that requires an infinite mutual respect, and it is a grace that God makes, to the hermit especially, to offer him one or of the friends who understand and sustain that that he lives. The friendship of sharing to this level is very rare, but on our path we meet a whole possible regards range, passengers or of environment. Also praying it must always know how to come back to the solitude, by fear to let itself/themselves snatch. Because of the prayer, because of Jesus Christ. So much that I would not be perfectly at ease in the Christ's whole dimension, my pendulum of the hour of the time will continue to oscillate between my friends, my want, my family and the only one to Only so important. And yet, this coming and going stays a factor of balance. Sometimes, to the days where I retire, I am not always included, I make the pain and I feel some. Otherwise, I could experiment that the lone and silent prayer, far from cutting me of people offers to weave between us of the mysterious ties rather, to create new relations and to deepen those sometimes already existing. My solitude included a bundle of friendly relations created by the circumstances of places or spontaneous meetings besides always.

2 - support fraternel—Pain and Wine, Bread and Water

I like to express in terms eucharistiques and familiar these ties that unite us and this brotherly support of prayer, friendly exchanges and help, bound for the expressions "Graze and Wine - Bread and Water."

L ' History of God's demonstration, among the men has been punctuated always by times of meal, those of the family, of the road, of hated them, of l ' welcome of l foreign ', of the sacrifices and the feasts of the cult, Jesus Christ went for a walk on the roads of the sea as on those of the earth, as in a place of abundance and glut, as around the table of the world, as the fisher and himself nets full è to break itself/themselves, as the sower who prepares the crop, that harvests it, as the woman who works leaven, as the field where mingles the good and the harmful, as the offered grapes of wheat to his/her/its disciples at the hour of the hunger, or of the grape fermented that sinks è generously the wedding, etc

Jesus, on the day of his/her/its adieus and his/her/its will, let us the grain of wood become again grain of wheat for the girls and sons of the church, and his/her/its expressed blood in wine of alliance offered è the round è his/her/its apostles as signs of his/her/its infallible presence to the world.

Our life can become thus Eucharist celebrated and: Shared Eucharist, An action of graces qu makes that we like to regroup to pray and to rent God whereas Christ jésus dedicated for the world between the Father's hands is offered us as the living ferment that makes raise the whole dough as the grain wild mustard that grows, was this in the middle of the bad herbs, because his/her/its intimate being is to be Father and Mind. An action of graces that becomes feast in the meetings, in the offered and received forgiveness, in the songs and the laughters around the table of the fraternity. It is there the kindness of the life of family of those for that Jesus is known and sought-after as the pearl of Kingdom. It is the presence widened of Jesus Christ in the table of the world, And to this table all meet. No one can forget those that there is seated in humiliated mistreated, thirsty and starve, because the Justice of God's Kingdom penetrates until those that we want to see happy and free.

3 work: Win - bread - relation - world, health - balance, growth.

a - wins - bread-relation-world.

Praying it lone of plaited some rushes once to manufacture some of the baskets or chairs that him aillait to sell to the market. This work also makes in the prayer yes permitted to obtain the few of things necessary è his/her/its subsistence. It was also a factor d ' Équilibre. HE/IT met people on his/her/its road and to the market, keeping contact thus with the world for which and what he/it prayed in the. Even while wishing to live very merely, praying it of today must be satisfied with the available lodgings of which the cost of renting and maintenance is a lot more elevated than once. It requires that one is going to look for himself a salary to answer his/her/its obligations of life.

My engagement to the prayer must not weigh on anyone, but the necessity to provide to my bodily needs doesn't must either to make obstacles to my God's research. I opted therefore for a part-time work. The one that I have currently is dissociated of my dwelling place, because I am born not sufficiently of artisanal or artistic resources in me that allow me to win sufficiently. I wish besides that my work always maintains me to the heart of the common path and the concrete problems of life. Praying it lone has need to be in contact with other people. He/it is brought back quickly thus to his/her/its professional limits, of temperament, of relations, of communication, etc, what stimulates it to progresses. And this contact with the outside, coins some shapes that it is given back him constantly also the taste of the solitude.

b - health - balance

The long moments of stations in prayer must complete themselves by times of activities physical. The manual work helps to facilitate our physiological exchanges. He/it hands us in contact with the things, the beautiful things of our life, of our environment, of our precious human matter. God laughs of our health norms, of our balance conditions but he also asks humanly us of "beautiful" home, to take care of our bodily envelope, all as he tells us to like our earth, to search it until the atom and his/her/its ultimate division. I can regrets not to be specialized in all sciences, nor even in no, but I can really stay of the less awake to the reality of work as beautiful and good thing!

c - growth

It is here about the intellectual work. The human life is growth without end. One maintains it, it is vital, by the outside while feeding it, as making it breathes, etc, but all as much the in by the reflection, reading, the acquirement of knowledge. I confess here a hiatus. Since the 6 years dedicated è the prayer, I especially felt the need to stay in presence of God and I have difficulty persuading me to take more time to read again. As I am not brilliant and my limited science doesn't splash anybody. It preserves me on the other hand of the temptations to appear he, to put forward it. It, in other words, holds me at my place. And God will find the means to pull something of it.

There are the various elements that compose my shape of life for the meantime therefore. C‘est four poles, oriented toward Jesus Christ and controlled by him, my central pivot, constitute my bottom of stability, so necessary to the one that dedicates itself to the prayer, people and the places can move, to change according to the circumstances, and me with, but I remain with Jesus Christ, my God's presence.

111. Every thing to his/her/its place

While finishing these lines on work, I add that he/it remains always subordinate to ask it, as the I said higher. He/it can be called therefore to alter or to disappear temporarily, so God calls there more strictly by his/her/its signs, to live for example, a stage érémitique what I wish besides and ' qu him ' m appears necessary. When the hour will have come from it, I believe that I will be able to hand of it to me to God of this project. There is a place in the gospel for those and those that confide thus in God. Then the whole universe is offered to them "TO what good, to make you so much of worry…, look at the trivial of the sky, your celestial Father feeds them. Look at the lilies of the fields, Salomon has never been clothed as well! "" LOOK FOR D ' FIRST KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS/HER/ITS JUSTICE, AND THE REST will BE GIVEN YOU BY ADDITION", (L 12,22-31, Mt 6, 25-33).


This sentence meets at the heart of the rule of Saint François for the Hermitages, but it lives me since a very long time. Constantly during my life, I refered myself there to hold, for very grandir,…et to decrease, in the perspective of Kingdom. It is the gospel that sometimes dives us in the universe of the poor people, of the small, of the resourceless, faced to all sorts of necessities, of obscurities and sometimes of hostilities. It is also the gospel of dazzle them, of the amazed always and forever, that have confidence to God, qu relies on him of all. What n ‘not at all removes the obligation to earn his/her/its life worthily.


1 - the prayer and the sinner

I would like to say a word also on the prayer, in his/her/its bottom, to encourage me, and with me those and those that can sometimes question their vocation to the prayer and some forms of life that it is.

As a tree - like a rock - like a drop d" water

There is the silent, tenacious, bare, lone and often isolated prayer, in this sense that she/it is not always included, that she/it is even decried often: "to "waste time, hollow leisure, ‘' him there as much to make! '.. Laziness, marginalité" etc. The reality is that the prayer is a terrifying, powerful and heavy strength, and those know it well that would like to stop it from being merely there all, like a tree where one can come to cool off year shades it and the good scents, like this rock where one touches the security because the Christ in is the foundation, as the water that penetrates tastes drop and don't count the time. Heavy strength that carries in herself his/her/its density, but at the same time so light, so fluid, so fast, as wind, as the water that browses the world in next to no time, as light and like a wave, and vigorous also, and strong as the Rock on which she/it leans, her yet so fragile in bone human existences. A calm and wise strength and yet so disturbing, so cumbersome, that doesn't let to whoever doesn't coast it any respite. Living, and powerful, and disturbing strength so dynamic, that the cut tree will take life, that the removed rock, it will remain the Rock, that the interrupted debit, it will remain the water of the deep layers.

It is a little it the prayer, and c, is also a little praying it becoming little by little prayer from his/her/its dry tree, of his/her/its cold and hard rock, of his/her/its rare water. Calm and slow strength, beaming fragility in the destitution. Weakness and Strength of God in us lives.

2 - and me, sinner,

Prayer and sinner go enough well together! The strongest of my experience is maybe to have had the confidence, with God's grace, to hire me in the life of prayer whereas I was sinner and d,y to persevere by the same path. Don't be-this not besides the best means of finds Jesus Christ on my road him that came for the patients and the sinners, for those that need a physician! I think that the rest of my existence will continue to take place under the sign of the weakness and the indigence, of the progress but also of the cowardices sign living the tenderness and Mercy of God. Sign of his/her/its Exemption from payment and his/her/its Fidelity without faille and marvel of the love on the World.

God invites us è these audacities, to this confidence. It is his/her/its call to the whole humanity: "COME TO ME, YOU THAT BEND TO COIN AGAIN THE BURDEN OF YOUR WEAKNESS ES YOUR SOLAGERAIS AND AGAIN… '

Conclusion

I didn't create anything, nothing innovated, I came after others, pilgrims as me, On the Franciscan ways of the gospel, monks and sinners, but as living researchers of God and. watchers of the mind. I made my training of the prayer here, while coasting some Franciscans every day, while looking at them to live and to speak of the Christ and François, while praying with them, at home. And I have been impregnated of the Franciscan mind as by osmosis, as by the Christ, as I have describe this experience of the prayer little in the pages that precede.

The company of the Franciscans of The Underground cave, in Lachute, allowed me to penetrate the Franciscan spirituality of universal fraternity better, and of simplicity and deep prayer, d ' love of the things, of welcome, of people in the respect of that that they are of infinite patience and tolerance, trustworthy unshakable the one that only the Christ cannot only offer but to give. It is a homage in the Franciscan fraternity that I return here, a homage to God's secret way that draws some roads in the desert", and that can make shout the stones of joy.