He Was Pleased to Crush Him in His Infirmities

Another crucifixion beginning late Thursday and lasting through yesterday. This morning's rain confirms the cleansing--and also the fact that it isn't "the weather", but I'll let Fr. Ry figure it out if it is even necessary, which I doubt it is.

Thankfully, he gave me the Annointing of the Sick. I would not have survived without it, and yet, I haven't survived in the sense of living. I died in a deeper sense.

Each time, I die bit by bit. This time, I knew by Saturday that I would not be returning to that world, not this time, not at all. Somehow I made it to noon Mass at the Cathedral on Saturday, and then I wandered in the suffering, half in and half out of that world and half in and half out of the other world. Lying in the car, I waited to be able to go to confession. It was a matter of existing on the Sacraments; and that is why they are the Bread come down from Heaven. Jesus gave the Church Sacraments in order to sustain us--sustain the living and sustain the living dead.

I told the confessor that I do not exist in his world and was pretty sure I would not be returning to that world. Not this time. It seemed definite, and stating the fact helped me to comprehend even though the confessor could not comprehend. This morning I tried to express it more to the Vicar General, both of us standing outside the Cathedral chapel in the rain, my purple umbrella beside his black and white umbrella--even colors of the different worlds! A world of blacks-and-whites and a world of purple--the color of mysterium.

Both worlds are valid. It is just that most live in the world of blacks-and-whites. God has it this way, so there is no resentment. And God has the confessor an intellect. He is so needed for all the black-and-whites--oh how they need him! But to comprehend the purple world, one needs to think with the heart.

And one in the purple world must think with the heart yet appear to be black-and-white. And at times, yes, the purple world soul must speak black-and-white, to make boundaries clear for the many soul encounters of the black-and-white world. That world.

But I am not returning to that world. Not this time. How many times must I suffer and die and be told that I am not to be in that world anymore? The three wise sages explained it to me several years ago with the pointing of their fingers in the direction of the black-and-white, and then wordlessly explaining to me that I am to remain there, with them, in their world.

It wasn't purple in virtual sight, not as we might think of the color purple. In fact, there was much lush green all about: verdant and misty, all contrasting and blending--at once. Then there was my own dad, come from the other world, the purple world, and he told me point-blank in black-and-white no-uncertain-terms that I do not belong to "that" world anymore: the world of black-and-white, of head-thinkers and doers in a world so lovely and enticing and very necessary for most souls. I tried to listen, but I kept reaching back into the black-and-white, for it does seem so solid and good, and it is solid and good. Most of the time. There is a certain security in black-and-whites.

The amount of the suffering, and the significance of it regarding certain sick souls, helped me, finally, to accept that I would not be returning. God does not force matters but rather accustoms those who resist, to the purple, shade by shade and tint by tint.

I made the statement to a couple of friends. I think they sort of understand; one of them, anyway, caught the nuance of meaning. The other thought the confessor would think it meant I was not returning to the Sacrament of Confession or to Mass. No, I knew he didn't think that. Yet, I know I am not of his world, and that I cannot and will not go back to what it represents, good and necessary as it is for many and maybe most.

The purple was played out against the black-and-white as I lay on the oak-floor cross. Next door I could hear the gaiety of parishioners partaking of the parish festival. I heard the sounds of the joyful black-and-white. I heard it deep within the pulsing purple blood.

The phone rang, and I heard a woman speaking. She is in the black-and-white but dabbles in lavender. My pain surged. I had to abruptly leave off the conversation. Lavender is not purple. It is lovely in its own hue, but when a soul seeks to make lavender purple, this is of dangerous doing and not of God. Women, in particular, seem to want to dabble in the purple but remain deceived in lavender. Deep suffering comes to purple blood. One is brought to the purple world; and all the seeking does not make it so.

But seeking helps: seeking within and upon the narrow path, the Way of Jesus, the path of the Church and the Sacraments. And this requires blacks-and-whites. This woman who called, she dabbles outside the blacks-and-whites, and she is confused in lavender. She is fooled. It is foolishness.

Two statements kept coming to me in the heights of the pain. One, "They shoot horses, don't they?" had its reply this morning by a priest who e-mailed to remind me: "You aren't a horse."

The other statement is from Isaiah, the Prophet: "He was pleased to crush him in his infirmities."

To this, last night the answer came. It is a purple answer for a soul who has finally agreed to exist in the purple world, even though it feels strange to have finally accepted purple, really accepted it.

The infirmities are my faults, the vices, and even the aspects of my most inner soul, the damning aspects of self, which must be crushed. Crushed! And God is pleased, yes pleased, to crush me in these, my infirmities. They must be crushed, I must be crushed, crushed to death. They are all the infirmities of the black-and-white world, and they do not belong in the purple world. There is no way, no possible way for them to intermingle.

This answer explains what I have wondered for several years of sufferings. Why would God be pleased to crush him in his infirmities? I never realized what the infirmities represent.

This answer gives me much hope and joy. (And if another priest or laity tells me I need to have joy, I will ask them to please look upon the face of Jesus hanging on any cross they can find, and see there joy, for this joy is not as man sees in the outer appearances but as God sees in the heart. It isn't black-and-white joy; it is purple gaudium.)

The hope is purple, also: that God has crushed me in my infirmities enough to enter the purple world and remain there guilt-free of the black-and-white spider web. Perhaps He is pleased to crush me enough to enter the blood of the unitive way. Perhaps. In the purple world, "perhaps" is the word of seeing in the dark.