On God's Mediated Presence and Whether God Sneers

[[ Hi Sister, I wondered if you could tell me what it means to "have God directly"? Do some hermits have God directly and others do not? Does the fact that you are canonical mean you do not have God directly? You have probably heard this but there's an online hermit who says c 603 hermits have God via a canon law or something like that. (I am sorry, but I don't quite understand what she means by this. I hope you do!) She tells a story about a dream she had where God showed her a young hermit kneeling in front of a large crucifix with a bishop and large volumes of canon law rising up to his waist. Then God says, "Why would you want THAT when you can have me directly?" The way she says THAT was denigrating [to] canon law hermits. I have problems with this story for different reasons. I know she has talked smack about you in the past, so I wondered if you have heard this and know what she is referring to.]]

Thanks for the questions. They are good ones, and important as well. As a matter of openness and clarity, let me say that you are apparently referring to videos on Joyful Hermit Speaks or Joyful Christian Hermit Speaks (You Tube) and not to any other online hermit site. Yes, I have seen at least 2 videos that retell this same story. I believe the roots of this dream stem from the fact that God consecrated me and others as c 603 hermits and consecrates all members of the consecrated state in the Roman Catholic Church in mediated acts defined and governed by canon law. In the case of c 603 hermits, it is the bishop that acts to mediate God's consecration, just as priests act as mediators of God's consecration of bread and wine during Eucharist, or God's forgiveness during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, for example. The Church is a Sacramental Church and that means she uses Sacraments and sacramentals to mediate God's grace and blessings (both involve God's presence) in many ways.

There are certain things about the story that trouble me as well. The main thing is the way the dream has God speaking in what Joyful has stressed and explicitly mimicked is a denigrating tone that disparages a central way almost everything spiritual or sacramental in the Church works, namely through God's mediated presence. First of all, let me point out that God's presence is no less real because it is mediated through the hands of a "sacred minister". While I have no idea of whether or not Joyful was consecrated in any sense at all, it was supposed to have happened through a liturgical rite where the priest blessed and incensed her. I hope she recognizes that all of that depends on some sort of mediation or symbolic representation. I also, therefore, hope she understands that c 603 hermits pray in the same way as any other person prays and God comes to us directly (that is in a relatively unmediated way) as well as in mediated ways: in the Scriptures or  Eucharist, etc., along with, in, and through the hands and hearts of those who work with us or with whom we work, and really, in and through any person who reveals (mediates) God's presence to us.

The description of God essentially disdaining a valued vocation in the Roman Catholic Church to which God calls people from all over the world because of its mediated nature, boggles the mind. To suggest that God disapproves of a particular canon law that finally, after 20 centuries, establishes as a state of perfection, a vocation God has been calling people to for all that time without sufficient regard by the Church, is even more mind-boggling. ALL vocations in the Church (priesthood, religious life, consecrated virginity, laity, etc. are established in law (that is, they are defined and administered by law to protect and govern what is recognized as a gift of God to the Church), no matter the state of life of the one with that vocation. 

Likewise, all of them are mediated to us in and through the hands of a legitimate superior or minister. Do we suggest that men ordained by the laying on of hands by the Bishop are not truly ordained by God? How about the consecration of Bishops? If someone is, let's suppose, refused admission to ordination and they have a similar dream of God essentially sneering at and denigrating the rite of ordination because it is a mediated (Sacramental) reality, are we to believe that this is truly God speaking?? Dreams are capable of mediating profound truth, and I think this one is certainly no different, but, as with any dream, it must be properly interpreted. Whatever God's place or role in this dream, one thing I know about God is that God NEVER speaks with a denigrating or sneering attitude. 

In any case, I believe that is what Joyful was talking about in the 2 videos I saw. To "have God directly" apparently means to experience God without mediating persons, sacraments, or sacramentals. As I think about it, it is important to underscore what I said above, namely, that even Sacred Scripture as it is (and must be) interpreted and proclaimed, mediates the presence of the Living God to us. Surely, we cannot disparage these ways in which God in Christ daily comes to so many of his beloved.