Routines

My current life has its routines now. Sunday is the best day, when I get to go to Church in the city for the Latin Mass and talk with Church friends over coffee. I have been going early and making a day of it as Mass is now in the evening. On Thursdays I get to go to Eucharistic Adoration for a little while and Benediction at St. Benny's. And on Fridays they have Jesus on the altar all day at the little chapel at Holy Child. I can go and look at Jesus for as long as I want if I am not busy on Friday. Some people look at television. I like looking at Jesus. I have not watched television or movies regularly in many years so I am used to the quiet and the silence. I use the computer, but that is different from television and is mostly reading and typing. So I like the quiet, to sit silently in a room or a chapel and pray. I say prayers. Lately I have been praying the Little Office and the Way of the Cross and on Thursday nights I have my holy hour. On week days I try to walk to Church three times so I can pray. I like to go and talk to God. He lives in the tabernacle even on the days when they do not have Him exposed in the monstrance.

I do not understand why, but it seems more monumental to look at and speak to Jesus when He is in the monstrance than when He is merely in the tabernacle. Behind a door. Behind a veil. I know He is there but I can not see Him. I can only see His house. But on Thursdays and Fridays I can look into His heart. I go to Him and just look at Him. And I pray, but I like looking at Him. I thank Him and I do not blame Him. I say thank you for letting me be happy but I do not curse Him for the times when I am sad.

And I look at the clouds. That has been a great source of happiness, looking at the clouds. They are very beautiful and every time I walk outside of the house I can look up at the sky, at the sun, or the clouds or the moon, even if there are no birds, and it is beautiful, and seeing beauty gives me great happiness. I do not know why I am noticing the beauty of the creation now more than I used to. But ever since I got out of the hospital I have been ever sensitive to the beauty of nature. Inside Churches or looking at paintings there is beauty, but somehow it does not compare to the natural beauty of the earth and the sky, even in the city where man-made buildings are dominant and nature is in the background. There is always a sliver of sky and I can look at the heavens and cry out "that is where God lives." It is as if the earth really is in the center of the universe and the firmament is above us and all the stars and the sun and the moon circle around us and are there in the firmament above us which appears to be infinite but is really just a vision and above there are the waters and then the infinite heaven where God lives with His mother and all the angels and the saints.

I have not been going on my walks during the winter time, instead I have been simply going to Church to pray rather than spend all that time walking. So I have my routines. I hope to start a fasting routine soon, for Lent or maybe sooner. I am trying to eat less food, but my will is weak. I am often eating just a little bit more bread. Hopefully I will master my appetite and cease being a glutton. I have done it before so I know I can do it again.

So tonight I went to Benediction. A relative of one of my old schoolmates Jose was there and she took out her phone and showed me a picture of him with his children. He is lucky to have a big family.

So I do have my routines. I don't know how interesting they are to you, but they are to me. Go to Benediction if you can. It is wonderful to just sit there and look at Jesus for a while and then kneel for the blessing. I would that it were every day. When I go into the City for Church and I get there early, I have been walking to Holy Innocents. In the afternoon the have Vespers but they do something weird. After Vespers is over they take Jesus out of the tabernacle and put Him in the monstrance for a few moments and then have Benediction and then immediately put Him away. It would be better if they took him out in the beginning before Vespers and left him there for the whole service so that we could look into the heart of Jesus for the whole time instead of just for a moment.

I have no troubles and no doubts lately. I live in a little world that is wonderful in happiness. The future, who knows, but for now I an happy. Even though my mind is broken I do not suffer much. I hope if my life becomes sad that I will have hope and still love Jesus if I end up in a bad place.

So I am looking forward to Church as I always do and I am looking forward to therapy again this Monday. It has been too long. My therapist is finally back from her illness. It is supposed to be every two weeks, but I have only been there about three times since the end of July. The people there are like my friends. I will be happy to see them and talk to them. I hope my few readers, and I cannot tell how many I have, like reading my little blog posts. I write them for comfort and for a record of my life and my routines and I share them with you in case you care enough to read them. You can be my friends and these posts are a little chat in the evening to ask about your day.

A lot of people have blogs where they talk about the news in the world, or like the ones I read, in the Church, but I do not talk about such things. I know a little about such things, but they are not important to me. I just want to look into the heart of God and find love and peace, and I feel I have a little bit of happiness and am grateful for it.

People who do not believe would laugh at Eucharistic Adoration and Benediction; to think that a little piece of bread is God. He is. But everyone needs a God in their life and mine is Jesus who comes down to us from the hands of the priest in the form of bread and wine. He is my God and I love Him and I want to visit Him and look into His heart and thank Him for everything.

Peninsula

Home from visiting my best friend Julian. We talked about Church things and prayed the St. Michael Chaplet. He is a sedevacantist and a Feeneyite if you know what those things are. When we talk he often remarks how he was threatened and thrown out of various Churches for his peculiar beliefs. He was thrown out of the Church whose Bishop was in the post last month. The Bishop yelled at him for not accepting the papacy of Pope John Paul II (even though the bishop does not in any meaningful way submit to him) and cast him into the exterior darkness. And he had problems at the little upper room where I go to Church and where I met him. You see, Julian is vocal about his rather extreme beliefs. I understand them, even though I do not agree with them.

He seems to be a pious soul, and is sorry for his sins. He said in his youth he became wicked after falling into the heavy metal scene. But now he is sorry. He was not nearly as wicked as I was in my youth. And now he is blind while I can see. It is comfortable talking to him knowing that he can not see me. I sat on his bed and he was in his wheel chair next to me. I prayed the Chaplet slowly and we had to end it before the last Our Father near the end because the nurse interrupted us.

It is good to visit the sick. I told him that if they let him out of the nursing home and he moves to his sisters' house six blocks from the house, I will take him to the diner which is two blocks from the apartment. He told me he can walk up stairs and walk with a walker. He goes to physical therapy. I can guide him. Perhaps we could meet for lunch at the diner once a week. One week, I will pay, the next week, he will pay. That is how we can be friends. I will give him back his two bags of religious books (not that he can read them).

There were a lot of sea gulls and common starlings on the way to the nursing home and back. Seagulls are more beautiful that common starlings I think. The way they fly through the air softly like a ship at sea in the steady waves.

I wonder if I will be able to get angry Tom to visit and meet us at the diner near our house. Perhaps he would like to talk to Julian. I gave him his phone number. He said he would like to call him.

So nothing of note, just to remember that I visited a friend today, really my best friend.

A House Mouse

As I sit in the living room there is a mouse in our house. He scurries back and forth in the dining room and when I move, he runs away quick as a flash of lightning. When I am not moving he goes right and left under the table, toward the book case, and then flees under the record player.

Once he came into the living room where I was, went under the couch and then under the very chair where I was sitting, drinking coffee. Then when he was right under me I moved and he ran away. The mouse is my friend. I do not want him to eat the cheese in the traps my father sets for him and be killed by the trap. I wonder what vegans do about mice? Do they have little boxes that trap them unharmed and then bring them out of the house and release them outside?

I read an image that struck me. The image was of little flies. We people are like little flies hovering here and there and trying to reach the sun, which is Jesus, Our God. In our vain little attempts to fly we are like little house flies who are trying to fly towards the sun. Without assistance it would be impossible. But if the sun were to come down to earth and pick us up, then we could be saved. One brother noticed how sometimes when flies are trapped inside a house they spend all of their effort in trying to fly through the window when there is no escape until in the end they are exhausted and fall dead on the windowsill. And then the brother sweeps up the flies and puts their dead bodies in the garbage and throws them away.

Sometimes in my paranoia I am afraid of flies. I see them as images of the devil. If he is the "Lord of Flies" the houseflies must be his servants. And when there is a fly buzzing around one's house it is a sign that the devil is near, and that perhaps he is my master. But not so with the mouse. Mice are our friends. They have warm blood and they are beautiful, more than I can say of the little houseflies.

So I just wanted to record the house mouse and the thought about the houseflies. Something that interested me that I would surely forget if I did not record it here. My day is going well as all days have been going lately. I learned recently that my therapy will resume a week from today, Monday. I am happy. We can talk about my life. It is happy now. With my house mouse.

I don't know why. Maybe because I am thinking quietly and praying more. But every time I leave the house and go out into the world I am very happy. I look at the sky and it is so very beautiful. The clouds. And the birds as has been the case for a while. But the beauty of the world overwhelms me and I am happy. I don't know why but it is good.

Out In the Street

I am like a stupid little child. I know nothing. I just have a few ideas in my mind. I want to be good. I am lucky to have a home. I like going to Church. Especially since I got back from the hospital. Church has been my life and it is a happy life. I think about God all the time and only about him and the angels and the saints and the Blessed Mother. I think, I pray, and when I am on the computer I go to mostly religious sites. Before I was in the hospital for a while I thought about two things, God, and women, but now I am thinking of women less.

This is my favorite photograph of the Little Flower. I find she looks very beautiful. She looks peaceful. She is everyone's favorite saint by now. When I think of Marie Therese I think she has a beautiful name and wonder if she was named after the Little Flower as seems likely. I often have the idea that one can see grace (as well as sin), in the faces of people, and that this effect grows more and more over time. So that a just man looks just and a sinner looks wicked. Make-up can make such things confusing. But I get the sense that the Little Flower looks like a good girl in the photographs I have seen of her. She also looks very happy and serene.

This is her on her sick bed, as she lay dying. Holding a crucifix. I was struck by this picture also like with an arrow in the heart. Waiting for the unknown. I do not like having my own picture taken. There are different mirrors in our house. In the bathroom mirror, I always look good. But in the living room mirror I do not look as good. I do not know what I look like to other people. The last time I saw my brother, he told me I looked good as long as I don't gain weight. And he told me to do fifty push-ups a day, something I have yet to begin.

I have a very happy life. My mind is broken like a kaleidoscope, but the broken images I see are happy. As I was walking to the store to buy dinner I just looked at the clouds and could not help but think how beautiful everything was and how it made me happy. As the birds fly here and there in different directions, like every one of them was an angel. And when the pigeons fly in little companies always in circles and in curves. How do they know where to go and when to turn? I wonder if I will see the little brown pigeon with the crown again. The one who has a turquoise band on his leg and goes around with the pigeons and flies with him. I thought he must have been a pet, as he looked different from all the other pigeons and had a band, and that he left his house to hang out with the wild pigeons and then at the end of the day came back to his home.

On New Year's day we went to Church for the circumcision. I spoke to angry Tom and other people as well. Three of us spent all day in the coffee shop talking, mostly me and Tom. About Church and people we knew. It was nice to talk for a while. Neither of us had anything more important to do. But what is more important that going to Church and being with friends?

Tomorrow is Sunday, a big day. The plan is for us to go out after Church for dinner at a nice restaurant. So I got a lot of money out of the bank to cover the bill. We may drink wine.

I have my little pictures and my little books. I have everything I need. For now. The future I don't know. But I have hope.

I do not have many friends. Except for people from Church. I hope they are good people. We are all crazy though. All of us. Only crazy people could go to the conservative Latin Mass that we go to. But I have few friends. I lost a friend this year. My old girlfriend. I hope she contacts me again, but for now she is gone. She was my only connection to my school days oh so long ago and I have fond memories of her. I wonder if there are people from my past who often think of me. Does anyone love me or wish that they were with me? I guess it does not matter. I am happy. But perhaps they could contact me and then we would be happy together. I'm in heaven when you smile.

Abba Moses

Wouldn't it be nice to climb into a little hole and live there alone for the rest of one's life with no troubles from the world? I was looking for a story about one of the desert fathers. As a young man one of them (I thought it was Abba Moses but I could not find it in my lovely little book) was a criminal and he saw a pregnant woman and with a knife cut the baby out of her womb, killing the mother and the baby. And he repented and ran into the desert for many years. A while later he went to his brother hermit and he told him that after all this time God has forgiven him for killing the woman, but he has not yet done enough penance for the child. And a while later he went back to his brother and he told him, now you have been forgiven for killing the child, be at peace. And in another story one of his brother hermits saw Moses after his death in heaven eating honey cakes with the angels and the saints. Moses was a dark skinned black man and some did not trust him because of his appearance, and others did not trust him because of his violent past. But he became a priest and a great father or so they say.

I found out that on Thursdays for now they will have Eucharistic adoration at St. Benny's from the end of the 9:00 Mass until Benediction at 12:00. I went there yesterday for about an hour. It is in the big Church. The man at the office said that they may have it until later in the day but for now the new pastors do not. They do not have enough people to have someone with Jesus at all times and not be left alone. They used to have Jesus in a little room, barely larger than a closet, with a cube-shaped tabernacle. And when there were people there He would be exposed and when people left they would put Him away. Now they have no priest living there. The Church was taken over by my own home Church which has a bishop and a few priests. I liked praying in the little closet. I could visit a few times during the day. Now I can only go one time. Today they have Jesus in the little Chapel at Holy Child right by my house. I like to go throughout the day a few times and at night for the benediction. I would that I could go every day.

I have free time because I am disabled. I am broken. But I feel at peace. I have never done anything great. I am a little person. I don't want to be a big person. A great man.