A Well-Timed Reminder

Someone wrote asking for the updated guide to victim souls. It is not completed!
My spiritual father had just suggested I keep writing blogs--but also write a book, but wait until autumn for the book as the gardens and hermitage need upkeep.

But the decision as to what to write is solved. The updated guide is in process--with a two-year cessation. A friend had just said she'd shelved a novel (with many redeeming qualities as a Christian-Catholic novel) for five years, and recently she has been reminded to continue the writing efforts. She must wait until they get moved, for now her time is busy with preparations.

I think I stopped because the style was becoming stilted--not deviating enough from the original, written 75 years ago, and then shortened about 60 years ago. Still a different style of writing than now, and my style might need some updating itself!

Something else has come to mind, and it has to do with the intensity of pain being in correlation to heightened intuition. This can happen sometimes, if a person's vocation includes this aspect. It is all up to God. But it happens in some early on, and in others, suffering frees the soul to listen to God. Once the Virgin Mary said: You will know Him in your pain.

This is so true.

The devil gets involved, also. The more one knows Jesus in his or her pain, the more one meets up with the devil since the devil does not want souls to know Jesus more and more intimately. In this, then, a demonic attack can be a kind of affirmation that all is well, and to simply proceed calmly, quietly, and yet carefully.

Sometimes the battle is waged at night when one is not as capable of fending off the devil, but this is as God allows, for then one has to rely on God all the more, and one's angel, to protect and defend. There are lessons learned.

For example, one can discern that one is in more pain than realized, and thus must keep the attitude in love and pray for all and any guidance in the waking hours. Also, it might help know the fine-tuned directions of one's vocations.

The Lord can teach us much through the assaults of the devil. Our souls can observe the assault as if watching the two forces battle back and forth, and take the content (sometimes symbolically presented) and review the components, gleaning much good advice. Pondering is required, prayerfully.

For example, the devil may try to paralyze the body, which can be frightening at first. Then the Lord may allow an image of a good physician one had trusted in the past, and that physician may give good advice. There may be confusions and exhaustions in the scene, and that can indicate too many distractions in the daily life, causing the soul to be unsettled.

If one simply stops at the body being paralyzed--or whatever other devices the devil is allowed to use to cause panic--and considers that not panicking but rather in calling upon the Lord, brings assistance one way or another. Then, one can consider that the devil would not be allowed to disrupt if the Lord did not see the soul needed stretching and strengthening, and some answers in its spiritual life.

Thus, such an occasion which otherwise might seem upsetting, can be seen rather as very good. The soul may review its course and make some increased efforts in love and prayer, and to keep the shoulder to the plow, not looking back.

Victim souls do seem to have these sensitivities, commensurate with the suffering. But one must not collapse into them, or allow them to become distractions. That is what St. John of the Cross advised with phenomenon. Don't become ensnared with the effects. One is to discern them. Take the good and leave the incorrect aspects; and either way, keep moving forth. Keep the focus on the cross and remain on the narrow path.

Last night was one such incident here, and it shows that the soul is beginning to fret some of the lack of energy and the multi-directional responsibilities in the vocation's physical aspects, such as maintenance of abode and maintenance of body. The pain has increased, and with that comes exhaustion, and with that comes less energy to maintain, to keep loving order in surroundings. With the increased pain (perhaps, just a supposition), it seems the sensitivities to souls increased, the heightened intuition "heightened", and this added some to the concerns, for it is not so easy to be in a group of souls, such as at Mass, for the sensitized soul can be like sponge absorbing this and that.

All must be kept in calm love, like looking down into a lake from a sailboat in a dulldrum. It is time to ponder and not fret if the wind is going to pick up or not. Keep the attitude positive and loving. Take the time, God's time it is, after all, to rest. Breathe deeply, eat what one can of healthy foods, do whatever simple means to help alleviate the pain, avoid those souls whose essence disrupt yet pray for them, remain with the sacraments and Scripture, offer everything of one's being to Jesus, and wait in gratitude.