Preface, continued, end

This order of the present moment is a spiritual order, for religious order embodies established meanings based upon the documented traditional, historic orders of the Church. 

The Order of the Present Moment may be lived by one person or by one person amidst many persons, or as God wills in any given circumstance, lived by many among many, even though in actuality we all do live solus Deus, alone with God. 

Truly, this spiritual order necessitates perhaps more so than in religious orders, ecclesial movements, or confraternities, an interior ridding out and filling in, with the soul seeking God alone with God, having glimpsed the possible reality of the stairway to heaven.

What is uncovered and offered, in effect, is the hand rail to the heavenly stairway, as guide and support for our souls to grasp and lean, to steady and pull ourselves up, as we learn from each present moment how to climb, step by step. 

While climbing, spiritual graces strengthen the soul, through climbing, to gently adapt and incorporate what is in the living out of our daily lives, in which God's holy will ordains, placing each individual, with whatever blessings and crosses. Upon this lovely stairway the soul learns to love, and also learns to love to learn to love, and thus learns to sanctify and to be sanctified in the pure and loving moments God gives us.

This spiritual order of one (or of one among many), is more the subtle stream, nestled in a woods, not crashing waves, pounding visible rocks. It is an exploration of tenets, the treads on the stairway to heaven, and of the spiritual climb. Not an attempt to recreate based upon the historical orders of the past, not pouring new wine into old wine skins, nor stripping externals or forcing set patterns in order to learn love.  

This spiritual order is an ever-evolving, fresh order of fluid sequence, of creating and revising, of flowing gently. It allows penetration of the soft, vast, hidden interior, to renew and polish virtues to a sheen so that externals submit to the actual essence of the inner Light. The soul is transformed, transfigured, and the world and souls who witness, desire what they see, and that Jesus Christ and of God.

This order ought be a prototype, a preliminary model of that which can be copied and revised by and for anyone, anywhere, anytime. While a spiritual order, not historically temporal—it is to be a mystical Order that has its roots very much grounded in the temporal Church. Christ came to earth to provide all souls the Way, the Truth, and the Life, this spiritual order of the present moment must model as purely as possible, by our very lives, the Prototype of all prototypes: Christ.

And remember St. Catherine's dream message that it is nothing forced, no set pattern, no strained effort to find and pound the path from complex formulas or rigid exercises. It is learning to do all and also nothing that Jesus did and did not do, Himself. Seeking, being led to, and climbing the Stairway to Heaven is an exciting adventure, even if upon each step are present moment crosses.