The Silence of Solitude: More than the Sum of its Parts

[[Dear Sister, you have written that "the silence of solitude is more than the sum of its parts". I wondered if you could say something about what that means? When you read my [proposed] Rule for c 603 you encouraged me to explore this but I am not sure what you mean by that. Help!!]]

Thanks for the question and for permission to share it here. Canon 603 has some important and non-negotiable terms that serve as markers or defining qualities for a solitary eremitical life --- whether this is lived in the name of the Church (603.2) or not. As I approach these qualities I recognize that they point to whole worlds the solitary hermit explores rather than being terms with single, easily definable meanings. They are doorways to Mystery, not ends in themselves. "The silence of solitude" is one of these terms because it is more than the sum of its parts. By that I mean that c 603 does not merely say "silence and solitude" which would tend to refer primarily to external silence and physical solitude. Instead,  "the silence of solitude" refers to the fruit of a life of external silence and physical solitude, coupled with assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, and the Evangelical Counsels, all lived for the praise of God, and the salvation of others.

Yes, a hermit lives a contemplative life in external silence and physical solitude but this contemplative life bears fruit in what the canon refers to as the silence of solitude. This fruit differs from mere external silence and physical solitude. For instance, external silence may mean the absence or relative absence of created sound. It refers to an element of a context required for living one's hermit life. Physical solitude tends to mean the absence or relative absence of others in the hermitage and the isolated or relatively isolated location of the hermitage itself. But note that these merely set the stage for the eremitical life; they don't constitute it --- at least not as the church understands and codifies it. One adds the other terms of the canon and lives into them more and more deeply. As one does that, the result will be "the silence of solitude" where the hermit grows more and more profoundly related to God and others in God. 

When this happens the isolation of physical solitude is transcended in an inner relatedness in God and becomes a form of community --- it has a sense of being with and for others through and in external silence and physical solitude. Silence begins to speak and, in particular, in the compassion that develops through one's prayer, "loneliness", and the inner work made both possible and necessary by these, one begins to hear and be a response to the cry of anguish of the world around one.

It is fascinating to me that the silence of solitude represents a form of deep communion and community. That seems to be the complete opposite of "silence and solitude". Really though, it is radically paradoxical like many truly Christian realities. Note too that "the silence of solitude" points to the healing and quieting of one's own woundedness precisely so that compassion and the capacity for compassion may develop within oneself. This can require significant inner work as well as assiduous prayer, and gradually, as such work is accomplished, there is a quieting of personal anguish allowing one to open oneself to the anguish of the world around one. When I hear the phrase "the silence of solitude", the word silence there reminds me of this inner healing where one moves from being an isolated scream of anguish incapable of being truly open to the pain of others and instead, through the grace of God, becomes a kind of compassionate listening presence in the world.

This is a little of what I mean by my encouragement that you explore the difference between a life of silence and solitude and a life characterized by the silence of solitude. Canon 603 calls for the latter even though it includes and requires the former!! The silence of solitude is a fruit of the eremitical life. It is more than the sum of its parts since those parts (external silence and physical solitude) could just as well belong to a life given to unhealthy withdrawal from others and the silence or muteness of deep woundedness as to a life of wholeness and compassion! Hermits commit to exploring the depths of the silence of solitude and living it more and more profoundly for the sake of a wounded and noisy world. As they do they will discover it is not merely a context for living their eremitical lives, but a goal of that life and a charism or gift that they offer to this same wounded and noisy world.

Please get back to me if this is not helpful or helpful enough.

Canon 603, Desert Spirituality, and Chronic Illness or Disability

[[Hi Sister, I just wondered if it was right to exclude someone from profession just because they have a chronic illness or disability. I know that religious communities do this because they feel the person can't keep up or do all the things active ministry requires, but how does this work with eremitical life? You write about chronic illness as vocation so I thought you might have already written about this. If you have, could you point me to where I might find that? Thanks!]]

Thanks for this question. It is an important one and one I care about more than most. I get occasional anecdotal information about this question from hermits seeking to be professed under c 603 in various dioceses. Still, I have only received a report about one diocese that excluded a candidate because of chronic illness per se; in this case, they cited the impediment to orders 1044.1 which struck me negatively in several ways. First, the candidate was not petitioning for admission to orders or to a highly social lifestyle. This made the canon noted doubly irrelevant, nor did the diocese have a general prohibition on professing anyone with any history of mental illness. If there was some such history (the canon still uses the terms "insanity" and "psychic defect") it needed to be assessed in terms of the solitary eremitical vocation and the candidate him or herself. 

Also, a diocese needs to be able to give sufficient time and attention to discerning such a vocation or simply refuse to profess anyone under c 603. In the case mentioned here, this "impediment" was only noted after the candidate was asked to write a Rule of Life and had worked hard on it. (Writing a Rule is not an easy project; moreover, it takes a significant period of time, prayer, reflection, and probably, several consultations with a mentor to complete an adequate (liveable) Rule that is deeply rooted in both c 603 and the candidate's lived experience. Dioceses must understand all of this before requesting someone even begin writing their Rule, particularly if one is planning on using something like C 1044.1 as an absolute impediment to eremitical life.) Thus, in this case, the chancery's decision and justification struck me as lazy, essentially dishonest, and disrespectful. Again, it is not a surprise to find a diocese not understanding c 603 or vocations lived under it, but applying c 1044.1 after several meetings with the candidate coupled with the prior request that s/he write a Rule of Life, offends against the canon and the candidate pursuing profession under it.

Chronic Illness and the Desert Vocation:

It is especially important that a diocese recognizes that eremitical life is a desert vocation with desert spirituality at its heart. By definition, chronic illness is itself a profound desert experience. The Gospel that eremitical life witnesses to is the Gospel of a God whose power is perfected and most perfectly revealed in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9) Thus, dioceses who have a good sense of the vocation in general, will recognize not only that each vocation must be individually discerned, but that various forms of chronic illness, far from serving as impediments to eremitical life, may be important formative influences that allow one to form an essentially eremitical heart long before one embraces eremitical life in a formal or even a conscious way. This is a really critical element of the discernment of such vocations that flies in the face of much writing about eremitical life focusing on its austerity and physical demands.

While some few contemporary eremitical vocations may look like images of eremitical life drawn from past centuries and instances of solitary eremitical life, and while it remains true that this vocation is demanding and should not be watered down, it is also true that theologies of prayer, penance, the silence of solitude, and the other central elements of the canon have shifted some to allow the demands of the life to be primarily spiritual and holistic, not narrowly physical. What cannot be lost sight of is the desert character of the calling and our expanding sense of the myriad ways such a vocation is encountered and expressed. 

Similarly, we cannot forget what it means to witness to the Gospel in significant and fruitful ways for the praise of God and the salvation of others. Hermits are not navel-gazing nutcases who isolate themselves from the larger world for fear of being contaminated nor because they are on an entirely individualistic quest for holiness. They are individuals committed to living ecclesial lives of wholeness in a unique relationship and dialogue with God. In the silence of solitude, they do this in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit of love and communion. When this is lived with integrity, others will also come to know that however fragile or threatened their lives, the faithfulness of God will not allow them to return to Him void. This "for others" quality is the reason for everything the hermit lives in her hermitage; it marks every movement toward authentic holiness just as it defines the risen Christ and every member of the Communion of Saints.

For the chronically ill or disabled who are already marked as separated from the world of the differently abled and whose illness isolates them, the solitary eremitical life may be the context in which their anguish and isolation can be redeemed by the love of God. In this context, the hermit becomes a person of prayer meeting the pain of a suffering world with compassion. The poverty of spirit demanded by being chronically ill can be transformed into the inner wealth of one who knows s/he is deeply regarded by God. Many of the values associated with our consumerist world, the ways meaning and success are measured are countered by the hermit, especially the chronically ill hermit. To be a person who encounters the pain and anguish of the world with the compassion of eremitical prayer is to share in the fundamental vocation of Jesus. It is to live a penitential life oriented toward health and wholeness and builds on the suffering already built into human life. Dioceses need to be able to see the possibilities chronic illness and/or disability create for authentic eremitical life.

All that considered, it remains true that not all chronic illnesses lend themselves to eremitical life. This is especially true of some forms of mental illness. More to the point, however, not every person with a chronic illness will be able to come to live and pray their illness in the way a solitary hermit must come to do.  While endurance is important, one is called to do more than endure the illness; one is called to allow it to become subject and transparent to the transforming love of God so the world might be blessed by it and the life of the one who suffers from it. The bottom line in all of this, however, is that the diocesan team or personnel charged with discerning and assisting in the formation of the solitary hermit must discern on a case-by-case basis with the requirements of c 603 and the life it envisions uppermost in mind. To answer your question in your own terms, No, it is wrong to exclude someone from profession and consecration under c 603 merely on the basis of a chronic illness.

Easter and the Realization of God's Will to be Emmanuel (Reprise)

Several years ago I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize, for instance, the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. 

There are several reasons for our failures here. First, we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel" so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God in Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history but in that same Christ God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms its dimensions in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives and sanctifies us. He is mentor, brother, and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us that our God embraces and achieves in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross ostensibly having failed in his mission. (From one perspective we could say that had he succeeded completely there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture, and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross, this comes to a climax and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death, Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

As I have noted before, John C. Dwyer, my major Theology professor for BA and MA work back in the 1970's described God's revelation of self on the cross (God's making himself known and personally present even in those places from whence we exclude him or believe he should never be found) --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.

Beginning the Easter Season: First steps into a Life of Hope

Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!!! All good wishes for a wonderful Easter Season!!

For the next 50 days, we have time to attend to what Jesus' death and resurrection changed. In light of these events we live in a different world than existed before they occurred, and we ourselves, by virtue of our Baptism into Christ's death, are new creations as well. We have been embraced by God and live as God's daughters and sons, heirs of the inheritance he grants us. While all this makes beautiful poetry, it is also all true in the profound ways the very best poetry is true. Objective reality was transformed with Jesus' passion and death; something astounding, universal, even cosmic in scope, happened in these events which had to do with our own salvation and the recreation of all of reality. One of Paul's shorthand phrases for this transformation was "the death of death," something I hope to be able to look at a bit more as these 50 days unfold. Especially, I would like to look at the way we have become an integral part of God's story, the story of his will to bestow himself on and dwell with the whole of creation. 

At this point, it is probably good to recall that the early Church struggled to make sense of the cross, and that faith in Jesus' resurrection took some time to take hold --- though amongst the disciples, that period is greatly abbreviated. Surprisingly, no single theology of the cross is held as official even today, and variations --- many quite destructive --- exist throughout the Church. Many of these mistakenly affirm that God was reconciled to us in various ways rather than the other way around. Only in time did the Church come to terms with the scandalous death of Jesus and embrace him as risen, and so, they came to see him as the Christ who paradoxically reveals God's power in weakness. Only in time did she come to understand how different the world now was for those who had been baptized into Jesus' death, and even more time was required before she began to understand the cross in light of an unfinished and evolving universe. This last shift in understanding, though responding to new scientific knowledge of the world in which we live, is entirely consistent with Paul's and Mark's theologies of the cross. The Church offers us a dedicated period to come to understand and embrace all of this meaning; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, at least partly, geared to this.

Today is a day of celebration. It is a day we begin to allow hope to take greater hold of our hearts. Lent is over, the Triduum has reached a joyful climax, the season of Easter has begun and once again we sing alleluia at our liturgies. Jesus is revealed as Israel's Messiah and the sanest man who has ever lived. Though it will take time to fully understand and embrace all this means, through the Church's liturgies and the readings we have heard, we do sense that we now live in a world where both death and life have a different character and meaning than they did before Christ's passion and resurrection. On this day we call Easter, darkness has given way to light, and senselessness to meaning -- even though we may not really be able to explain to ourselves or others exactly why or how. On this day we proclaim that Christ is risen and begin our first steps into a life rooted in hope! Sinful death could not hold Jesus nor can it hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Indeed he is risen!! Alleluia, alleluia!!

Jesus' Descent into Hell (Reprise)

 The following piece was written for my parish bulletin for Palm Sunday 2012. It is, therefore, necessarily brief but I hope it captures the heart of the credal article re Jesus' descent into Hell in light of the resurrection itself. It also represents an explanation of the significance of Jesus' experience of abandonment by God which itself is an experience of hell or godforsakenness. All of this is part of the larger story of God's will to bestow himself, to embrace us and the whole of creation, and to take it all into his own life where it is entirely transformed. This narrative grounds all existence and assures us of an absolute future; it is the story of God's unfailing and eternal faithfulness.

During Holy Week, we recall and celebrate the central events of our faith, revealing just how deep and incontrovertible is God's love for us. It is the climax of a story of "self-emptying" (or self-bestowal) on God's part begun in creation and completed in the events of the cross. In Christ, and especially through his openness and responsiveness (i.e., his obedience) to the One he calls Abba, God enters exhaustively into every aspect of our human existence and in no way spares himself the cost of such solidarity. Here God is revealed as an unremitting Love-in-Act which pursues us without pause or limit. Even our sinfulness cannot diminish or ultimately confound this love. Nothing, the gospel proclaims, will keep God from embracing and bringing us “home” to Himself. As the Scriptures remind us, our God loves us with a love that is “stronger than death." It is a love from which, “Neither death nor life, nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, nor anything at all” can ultimately separate us! (Romans 8:38-39)

It is only against this Scriptural background that we make sense of the article of the Apostles’ Creed known as Jesus’ “descent into hell”. Hell is, after all, not the creation of an offended God designed to punish us; it is a state of ultimate emptiness, inhumanity, loneliness, and lovelessness which is created, sustained, and exacerbated (made worse) by every choice we make to shut God out --- to live, and therefore to die, without Love itself. Hell is the fullest expression of the alienation which exists between human beings and God. As Benedict XVI writes, it is that “abyss of absolute loneliness” that “can no longer be penetrated by the word of another” and“into which love can no longer advance.” And yet, in Christ God himself will advance into this abyss and transform it with his presence. Through the sinful death of God’s Son, Love will become present even here.

To say that Christ died what the New Testament refers to as sinful, godless, “eternal”, or “second death” is to say that through his passion Jesus entered this abyss and bore the full weight of human isolation and abandonment. In this abject loneliness and hopelessness --- a hell deeper than anyone has ever known before or will ever know again --- Christ, though completely powerless to act on his own, remains open and responsive (obedient) to God. This openness provides God with a way into this state or place from which he is otherwise excluded. In Christ, even godforsakenness becomes good soil out of which the fullness of resurrection life springs. As a result, neither sin nor death will ever have the final word, or be a final silence! God will not and has not permitted it!

The credal article affirming Jesus’ descent into hell was born not from the church’s concern with the punishing wrath of God, but from her profound appreciation of the depth of God’s love for us and the lengths to which God would go to redeem us and to bring creation to fulfillment. What seems at first to be an unreservedly dark affirmation, meant mainly to terrify and chasten with foreboding, is instead the church's most paradoxical statement of the gospel of God’s prodigal love. It is a stark symbol of what it costs God to destroy that which separates us from Godself and to bring us to abundant (eternal) Life. It says that forgiveness is not about God changing his mind about us – much less having his anger appeased or his honor restored through his Son’s suffering and death. Instead, it is God’s steadfast refusal to let the alienation of sin stand eternally. In reconciling us to Godself, God asserts his Lordship precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world.

Madman or Messiah? In the Darkness and Emptiness We Wait in Hope (Reprise)

In approaching this week, I admit that one thing I dislike associated with celebrating the Triduum in a parish setting is the inadequate way folks handle what should be periods of silence. This is notable after Holy Thursday Mass and especially after the stations and celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday when folks tend to greet one another in the parking lot with a cheery, "Happy Easter!" After all, in the first instance, our joy is bittersweet and marked by the anticipation of Jesus' betrayal and passion, while in the second instance we will have just marked the death of Jesus; yet, there is a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call "Holy Saturday" still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection. Even more, Holy Saturday says neither Jesus' work, nor God's own is yet complete. The Triduum is one long liturgical event that embraces different moods and salvific moments.

Silence is appropriate during these times; Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to live with something of the terrible disappointment and critical questions Jesus' disciples experienced as their entire world collapsed is a significant piece of coming to understand why we call today "Good" and tomorrow "Holy." It is important if we are to truly appreciate the meaning of this three-day liturgy we call Triduum; it is also a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday, but spending some time waiting and reflecting on who we would be (not to mention who God would be!) had Jesus stayed good and dead is something Good Friday (essentially beginning after Holy Thursday Mass) and Holy Saturday (beginning the evening after the passion) call for.

In explaining the theology of the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During Holy Week, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement. Sin has increased to an extraordinary extent and the one people touted as the Son of God has been executed as a blaspheming godforsaken criminal. We watched the darkness and the threat to his life grow and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for  Wednesday we hear John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials. For weeks before this, we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematical. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient  and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry were punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably "He slipped away" we are told, or "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover as darkness closes in on every side Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet, and reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker, colder, and more empty yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentic human being is revealed, made known and made real in space and time. Here, in the midst of the deepening "Night," God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or it is the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. Amid these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days we call Triduum we will see the answer.

On the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensified. During the night Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today he was brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement and then handed over anyway by a fearful self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position to those who would kill him. There was betrayal, of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship and covenantal bonds on every side but God's. The night continued to deepen and the threat could not be greater.  Jesus was crucified and eventually cried out his experience of abandonment even by God. He descended into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call hell. The darkness became almost total. It is difficult for us to see anything else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the question these events raises haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Is Jesus simply another idealistic but mistaken person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) Is this darkness and emptiness the whole of the reality in which we live? Was Jesus' preaching of the reality of God's reign and his trust in God in vain? Is the God he proclaimed, the God in whom we also trust incapable of redeeming failure, sin and death --- even to the point of absolute lostness? Does he consign sinners to these without real hope because God's justice differs from his mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply and we Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, beloved, brother, and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools, the most pitiable of all.

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees; though we do not see how it is possible we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. But on the Friday we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy," we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.

The Silence of Solitude: A Share in the Abyss of God's Own Heart (Reprise)

As we move into Holy Week, a week I will spend mainly in solitude, I wanted to reprise the following post as part of my reflection on the self-gift God gives us so that he might dwell with us eternally and we, in turn, may dwell with and in him in the same way.

 [[Hi Sister, I wondered why you speak of solitude in personified terms. You say "she herself must open the door to the hermit". Do you think of solitude as a living thing?]]

Thanks for the question. I have repeated Thomas Merton's observation that one cannot choose solitude as one's own vocation; solitude must open the door to the hermit or there is no vocation. I can't say why Merton used this personification with real certainty, but I  know that it reminds me of references to Wisdom in the OT, where Wisdom or Sophia, is a dimension of God --- and a distinctly feminine one at that! I suspect that this same sense might have been true for Merton. In describing the Eremo which is the Motherhouse of the OSB Camaldolese in Tuscany, Merton writes: [[In order to seek Him who is inaccessible the hermit himself becomes inaccessible. But within the little village of cells  centered about the Church of the Eremo is a yet more perfect solitude: that of each hermit's own cell. Within the cell is the hermit (himself), in the solitude of his own soul. But --- and this is the ultimate test of solitude --- the hermit is not alone with himself: for that would not be sacred loneliness. Holiness is life. Holy Solitude is nourished with the Bread of Life and drinks deep at the very Fountain of all Life. The solitude of the soul enclosed within itself is death. And so, the authentic, the really sacred solitude is the infinite solitude of God Himself, Alone, in Whom the hermits are alone,]] (Disputed Questions, A Renaissance Hermit, p. 169)

What Merton is getting at, I think, is that eremitical solitude is not only lived in communion with God, but it is communion with God lived in one's cell and within the very life of God. It is, of itself, a dimension of the God who exists both as a community of love and as an abyss of solitude. It is the life of God which is opened to us when solitude opens her door to us. Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, says something very similar in speaking of two freedoms meeting one another in The Eremitic Life. He writes: [[In this sense the eremitic calling is a consequence of meeting the original depths of the Trinity's solitude. God is the living interpersonal relationship of love inasmuch as he is the presence of the original abyss of solitude and silence. The reality of God is thus the original source of any solitude, an impenetrable abyss that calls to the profound depths of solitude of the human heart. Having heard that existential call of God's solitude, people respond to it by opening up the whole secret of their hearts.]]

So, yes,  I personify Solitude because I understand it as a dimension, even the most fundamental dimension of God's own heart. To speak of Solitude opening the door to us is to speak of God opening a particular dimension of God's own heart to us and inviting us to dwell there in silence and solitude and coming to the human wholeness, holiness, and rest hermits call "the silence of solitude" and hesychasts call "quies". It is critically important that we understand how qualitatively different from  ("mere") silence and solitude is the reality we call "the silence of solitude" or "eremitical solitude". The first is simply the (still important!) absence of sound and others; the latter is life lived in the solitary abyss of God's heart and so, a living and communal reality. This is also the reason I identify the Silence of Solitude not only as environment, but also as goal, and charism of the eremitical life.

Looking Forward to the Feast of Saint Joseph: Icon of Man in Search of Justice Mediated by the Will of God (Reprise)

For Tuesday's Feast of St Joseph, I wanted to repost something I put up a couple of years ago because it reflected an important step in my own appreciation of St Joseph.

[[Friday's readings (December 2015) focused on the coming of the One in whom justice will be done and creation set to rights. Jeremiah speaks of this in terms of the Davidic line of Kings --- a line that often profaned and betrayed God's sacred promise and hope. The psalmist sings wonderfully of the promise of the Lord bringing all things to right in the love of God.

But especially poignant is the Matthean story of Joseph as the icon of one who struggles to allow God's own justice to be brought to birth as fully as possible. It is, in its own way, a companion story to Luke's account of Mary's annunciation and fiat. Both Mary (we are told explicitly) and Joseph (we are told implicitly) ponder things in their hearts, both are mystified and shaken by the great mystery which has taken hold of them and in whose story they have become pivotal characters. Both allow God's own power and presence to overshadow them so that God might do something absolutely new in their world. But it is Joseph's more extended and profound struggle to truly do justice in mercy and to be a righteous man who reveals God's own justice in love, God's salvation, that was at the heart of yesterday's . . . story.

The Situation:

I am a little ashamed to say I have never spent much time considering Joseph's predicament or the context of that predicament until this week. Instead I have always thought of him as a good man who chose the merciful legal solution rather than opting for the stricter one. I never saw him making any other choice nor did I understand the various ways he was pushed and pulled by his own faith and love. But Joseph's situation was far more demanding and frustrating than I had ever appreciated! Consider the background which weighed heavy on Joseph's heart. First, he is identified as a just or righteous man, a man faithful to God, to the Covenant, a keeper of the Law or Torah, an observant Jew who was well aware of Jeremiah's promise and the sometimes bitter history of his own Davidic line. All of this and more is implied here by the term "righteous man". In any case, this represents his most foundational and essential identity. Secondly, he was betrothed to Mary, wed (not just engaged!) to her though he had not yet taken her to his family home and would not for about a year. That marriage was a symbol of the covenant between God and his People Israel. Together he and Mary symbolized the Covenant; to betray or dishonor this relationship was to betray and profane the Covenant itself. This too was uppermost in Joseph's mind precisely because he was a righteous man.

Thirdly, he loved Mary and was entirely mystified by her pregnancy. Nothing in his tradition prepared him for a virgin birth. Mary could only have gotten pregnant through intercourse with another man so far as Joseph could have known --- and this despite Mary's protestations of innocence. (The OT passage referring to a virgin is more originally translated as "young woman". Only later as "almah" was translated into the Greek "parthenos" and even later was seen by Christians in light of Mary and Jesus' nativity did "young woman" firmly become "a virgin".) The history of Israel was fraught with all-too-human failures which betrayed the covenant and profaned Israel's high calling. While Joseph was open to God doing something new in history it is more than a little likely that he was torn between which of these possibilities was actually occurring here, just as he was torn between believing Mary and continuing the marriage and divorcing her and casting her and the child aside.

What Were Joseph's Options?

Under the Law Joseph had two options. The first involved a very public divorce. Joseph would bring the situation to the attention of the authorities, involve witnesses, repudiate the marriage and patrimony for the child, and cast Mary aside. This would establish Joseph as a wronged man and allow him to continue to be seen as righteous or just. But Mary could have been stoned and the baby would also have died as a result. The second option was more private but also meant bringing his case to the authorities. In this solution, Joseph would again have repudiated the marriage and patrimony but the whole matter would not have become public and Mary's life or that of the child would not have been put in immediate jeopardy. Still, in either instance, Mary's shame and apparent transgressions would have become known and in either case, the result would have been ostracization and eventual death. Under the law Joseph would have been called a righteous man but how would he have felt about himself in his heart of hearts? Would he have wondered if he was just under the Law but at the same time had refused to hear the message of an angel of God, refused to allow God to do something new and even greater than the Law?

Of course, Joseph might have simply done nothing at all and continued with the plans for the marriage's future. But in such a case many problems would have arisen. According to the Law, he would have been falsely claiming paternity of the child --- a transgression of the Law and thus, the covenant. Had the real father shown up in the future and claimed paternity Joseph would then have been guilty of "conniving with Mary's own sin" (as Harold Buetow describes the matter). Again Law and covenant would have been transgressed and profaned. In his heart of hearts, he might have believed this was the just thing to do but in terms of his People and their Covenant and Law, he would have acted unjustly and offended the all-just God. Had he brought Mary to his family home he would have rendered them and their abode unclean as well. If Mary was guilty of adultery she would have been unclean --- hence the need for ostracizing her or even killing her!

Entering the Liminal Place Where God May Speak to Us:

All of this and so much more was roiling around in Joseph's heart and mind! In one of the most difficult situations we might imagine, Joseph struggled to discern what was just and what it would mean for him to do justice in our world! Every option was torturous; each was inadequate for a genuinely righteous man. Eventually he came to a conclusion which may have seemed the least problematical even if it was not wholly satisfactory, namely to put Mary away "quietly", to divorce her in a more private way and walk away from her. And at this moment, when Joseph's struggle to discern and do justice has reached it's most neuralgic point, at a place of terrible liminality symbolized in so much Scriptural literature by dreaming, God reveals to Joseph the same truth Mary has herself accepted: God is doing something unimaginably new here. He is giving the greatest gift yet. The Holy Spirit has overshadowed Mary and resulted in the conception of One who will be the very embodiment of God's justice in our world. Not only has a young woman come to be pregnant but a virgin will bear a child! The Law will be fulfilled in Him and true justice will have a human face as God comes to be Emmanuel in this new and definitive way.

Joseph's faith response to God's revelation has several parts or dimensions. He decides to consummate the marriage with Mary by bringing her to his family home but not as an act of doing nothing at all and certainly not as some kind of sentimental or cowardly evasion of real justice. Instead, it is a way of embracing the whole truth and truly doing justice. He affirms the marriage and adopts the child as his own. He establishes him in the line of David even as he proclaims the child's true paternity. He does this by announcing this new Son's name to be Jesus, God saves.  Thus Joseph proclaims to the world that God has acted in this Son's birth in a new way that transcends and relativizes the Law even as it completely respects it. He honors the Covenant with a faithfulness that leads to that covenant's perfection in the Christ Event. In all of this, Joseph continues to show himself to be a just or righteous man, a man whose humanity and honor we ourselves should regard profoundly.

Justice is the way to Genuine Future:

Besides being moved by Joseph's genuine righteousness, I am struck by a couple of things in light of all of this. First, discerning and doing justice is not easy. There are all kinds of solutions in the Scriptures that are partial and somewhat satisfactory, but real justice takes work and, in the end, must be inspired by the love and wisdom of God. Secondly, Law per se can never really mediate justice. Instead, the doing of justice takes a human being who honors the Law, feels compassion, knows mercy, struggles in fear and trepidation with discerning what is right, and ultimately is open to allowing God to do something new and creative in the situation. Justice is never a system of laws, though it will include these. It is always a personal act of courage and even of worship, the act of one who struggles to mediate God's own plan and will for all those and that involved. Finally, I am struck by the fact that justice opens reality to a true future. Injustice closes off the future. In all of the partial and unsatisfactory solutions Joseph entertained and wrestled with, each brought some justice and some injustice. Future of some sort was assured for some and foreclosed to others; often both came together in what was merely a sad and tragic approximation of a "real future". Only God's own will and plan assures a genuine future for the whole of his creation. That too is something yesterday's Gospel witnessed to.

Another Look at Joseph:

Joseph is the star in Matt's account, the one who points to God and the justice only God can do. It is important, I think, to see all that he represents as Mary's counterpart in the nativity of Jesus (Son of David) who is Emmanuel (Son of the One who, especially in Jesus, is God With Us). Mary's fiat seems easy, and graceful in more than one sense of that term. Joseph's fiat is hard-won but also graced or graceful. For Joseph, as for Mary, there is real labor involved as the categories of divinity and justice, law, and covenant are burst asunder to bring the life and future of heaven to birth in our world. May we each be committed to mediating God's own justice and bringing God's future into being especially in this Lenten-Easter season. This is the time when we especially look ahead to Christ's coming and too, to his eventual coming to full stature when God will be all in all. May we never take refuge in partial and inadequate solutions to our world's problems and need for justice, especially out of shortsightedness, sentimentality, cowardice, evasion, or fear for our own reputations. And may we allow Joseph to be the model of discernment, humility, and courage in mediating the powerful presence and future of God we recognize as justice and so yearn for in this 21st Century.]]

Postscript 2024: in a conversation with a friend on a liturgy her house had had last year on the Feast of St Joseph, she described a question that had been asked all the Sisters; each then shared her own answer if she chose to. The question was what characteristic do you need to ask Joseph for assistance with this year. My own answer for the present was patience in trusting God when the way we're moving is unclear or we don't understand what God is doing with or asking from us. My friend's answer a year ago was Help in Trusting God in times of uncertainty. I think she will repeat the same prayer this year. Readers might try something similar.

Canon 603 Hermits: How Important is a Background in Religious Life?

[[Dear Sister, I was wondering if Canon 603 works better for those who have been in religious life before living as a hermit? I was thinking that those who have been in religious life before already know a lot, have developed a solid spirituality, and may have less to change or let go of, if you know what I mean. Have you worked with former religious who want to become hermits? Do they make better hermits than those without a background in religious life?]] 

Interesting questions! I think this is the first time they have been asked. Yes, I have corresponded with and sometimes even worked with Sisters who felt they were called to life as hermits, though my personal experience in this work is relatively limited. I don't know that former religious make "better hermits" under c 603 than those without any experience of religious life, but of those I have worked with, the foundation supplied by initial formation in community seems to be almost indispensable. That "almost" is important because canon 603 does not explicitly require one have been in religious life prior to entering into a mutual discernment process with one's diocese re canon 603. Still, when I met and introduced myself as a diocesan hermit to Bishop Remi de Roo who was responsible for the intervention at Vatican II that eventuated in c 603 in the revised Code of Canon Law, the first question he asked me was whether I had come to eremitical life from (cenobitical) religious life. (Bishop De Roo had been the bishop protector of about a dozen monks who had left long histories in monastic life. This experience led him to make the intervention at the 2nd Vatican Council regarding recognizing eremitical life in the consecrated state. He certainly understood the importance of a strong background in religious life.)

The equivalent of such a background can be gotten apart from religious life, but it takes dedicated work on the part of the candidate with the assistance of others to do that. Moreover, the time initial formation takes before first vows is correspondingly longer for those who have no background in religious life. Moving from no background in religious life to truly discerning a call to eremitical solitude and preparing for a life commitment in this state of life is a long process and while the lion's share of this formation occurs in the hermitage alone with God, it must still be supervised and directed. This requires not only spiritual directors, but mentors as well. One key to discerning readiness for such a commitment is the canon's requirement that one write a Rule of Life. Many candidates fail in this specific requirement because the degree of experience and learning it requires is very significant indeed. Such failures seem to happen more frequently in those without a background in religious life.

I should also point out that those who have lived religious life before discovering a call to eremitical solitude must let go of many things too. Sometimes they also have still to develop the strong spirituality you refer to, not least because their life of prayer is no longer mainly communal. The individual schedule that works best for them may not yet be known and require experimentation over time. For instance, it might take them some time to discover that they pray best in the middle of the night or that they are late night people rather than early morning people (or vice versa). 

The freedom to set one's own schedule can be quite challenging. Learning that one does not have to be active at all times, that "praying always" does not mean merely saying prayers and might (at least superficially) look like "wasting time" in the eremitical life. Finding what resources one needs for praying Office alone will take experimentation and sustaining a sense of God's presence in the absence of faithful brothers and sisters may require extra attention. Finding ways to become truly self-supporting, as well as locating a good place to live in the silence of solitude is essential and takes time and sometimes special training and corresponding resources. Too, the hermit will need to learn new ways of understanding and living the evangelical counsels that living alone and being self-supporting requires. Religious poverty will differ in some significant ways as will religious obedience. Also, dealing with personal illness, whether acute or chronic, will be different than doing that in community. For some, these transitions are very difficult to negotiate and so is the underlying freedom and sense that it all depends on their own discernment.

The point is that whether one comes to eremitical life from a long period in religious life or from some other background, there will be a significant learning curve that occurs over a similarly significant period.  Every consecrated solitary hermit's life is similar to every other hermit's life in major ways (that is, they all include the central elements of canon 603) and yet, it seems to me that what is more striking is the variation each life reveals. I know some diocesan hermits as well as several hermits who are exploring c 603 and preparing for profession and/or consecration. Each one embraces and lives the central elements of the canon differently than the others because their life with God differs from that of other hermits. I think it is important that anyone working with candidates for profession under canon 603 understands this and that they let go of any sense that schedules, prayer practices, etc, must look the same from hermit to hermit. (Chancery personnel have as much to learn about hermit vocations as anyone else!)

It remains critical to understand that while c 603 does not formally or explicitly require a background in religious life, even so, writing a Rule of Life suitable to the living of such a life requires significant experience and formation that is more usually gotten in religious life. It can be done, yes, but I personally believe it is a relatively rare candidate for profession that will be able to accomplish this particular requirement without a background in religious life. Ironically, one of the best ways to determine the formation a person has and also still needs is by reading their Rule, or working with them as they write it. Thus, again, while c 603 does not explicitly require a background in religious life, it may be the case that the authors of the canon strongly implied the necessity of such a background by making the hermit responsible for writing their own Rule.

Eremitism and Eucharistic Spirituality, Pointed Questions (Reprise)

[[Dear Sister Laurel,
How is it that hermits reflect the centrality of Eucharist in their spiritual lives if they do not attend Mass daily? I heard you remark in another context that you didn't attend Mass if solitude required otherwise. My understanding is that religious are required canonically to attend Mass daily if that is possible, and you yourself say on this blog that Eucharist is the center of everything that happens at your hermitage. So, how is it you can skip Mass just because it is more convenient to remain in solitude and still claim the title Sister and assert how central Eucharist is in your life? My other question is how do you receive Communion if there is no one there but yourself? Isn't self-communication forbidden to Catholics?]]

These topics, as you apparently are aware, came up on the Catholic Hermits list. One person there argued that hermits, like anyone else, should get to Mass as often as possible (daily!), and should not miss simply because it was "inconvenient" to one's solitude. Since, they argued, religious are required to participate at Mass in this way it makes sense that diocesan hermits are also so required. Others have argued that in today's world of easy transportation and numerous parishes people should be able to get to Mass daily one way or another and that hermits certainly should do so. Some know hermits who attend the parish Mass each day, or at least most every day and argue on that basis. My own argument was that fidelity to solitude sometimes meant not getting to daily Mass. I believe it is possible to develop a strong Eucharistic spirituality in solitude even without getting to Mass daily and that is what I want to look at in this post.

On the Place of Solitude in the Hermit's Life

However, before I say more in response to your question I need to clarify one critical point. Your comments include a misconstrual of what I said, and a misunderstanding regarding the nature of eremitical solitude. Namely, hermits do not skip Mass merely because it is inconvenient to their solitude; they do so because solitude is their full-time calling and the actual occasion, environment, and resulting quality of whatever union with God is achieved in their life. Solitude is not just a means for the hermit, but a goal as well. In this perspective, solitude (or what Canon 603 refers to as the "silence of solitude") is not a self-indulgent luxury which just happens to provide an environment for other things in the hermit's life (though external silence and physical solitude will certainly serve in this way). It is instead the reality which is achieved together with God when a hermit is faithful to (among other things) long term external silence and solitude. Thus, it is important that the hermit  maintain her faithfulness to this long term external silence and solitude. Solitude is, again, both the means to and the goal of the hermit's existence because eremitical solitude itself is a form of communal or ecclesial existence and an expression of union with God and all that is precious to God.

In saying this I mean that the hermit's life is to give witness to the union with God which is achieved in solitude as well as the "silence of solitude" which is an expression and sign of this union, and so, to the redemption of all forms of human isolation, alienation and estrangement achieved therein. They are called to come to wholeness and holiness in solitude and their witness is to the most foundational relationship present in the human being, the relationship with God who is creator and ground of all existence. In other words, although community is important to the hermit, it is primarily the koinonia (communion) of solitude that is their vocation. They are called by God through the agency of his Church to the very rare and paradoxical reality of eremitical solitude --- a form of union with God and others marked by and grounded in aloneness with the Alone. Unless we understand that solitude is not isolation, not alienation, nor a feeble excuse for the misanthrope, and certainly not a luxury for the hermit, we may believe that it conflicts with a truly Eucharistic spirituality. My argument is that it does not and that the way the hermit approaches attendance at Mass is dependent upon this way of seeing things.

Eucharistic Spirituality in General

When we speak of Eucharistic Spirituality what is it we are talking about then? And for the hermit who claims that the Eucharist is at the heart of everything that happens in the hermitage, what is she really talking about --- especially if the Mass is not (or is rarely) celebrated at the hermitage? Of course it means a spirituality focused on the Eucharist itself and the hermit will usually (not always) reserve Eucharist in her hermitage, pray in the presence of the Eucharist, celebrate Communion services (Liturgies of the Word with Communion), and so forth. But even more than this everything at the hermitage will be geared towards Christ's incarnation climaxed in his cross and resurrection. It seems to me that the focus involves two particular and interrelated processes: first, that, in a dynamic of kenosis or self-emptying, the Word is made flesh, and second, that, in a dynamic of conversion, reconciliation, and transfiguration, flesh (in the Pauline sense) is made Word. Everything that happens is meant to be an occasion of one or both of these and at the center of it all is the Presence of the Risen Christ in Word and Sacrament, reminding, summoning, challenging, nourishing, and consoling.

Eucharistic Spirituality, The Word Made Flesh

God has chosen to come to us as a human person. More than that he has chosen to be present in a power perfected in weakness (asthenia). He is present in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. He enters into sin and death, the truly or definitvely godless realities and transforms them with his presence. In other words he makes what was literally godless into sacraments of his love, his being God for and with others. For me the Eucharist is a symbol of this specific process and presence (and I mean symbol in the most intensive sense as that reality which does not merely stand for something else (that would be a sign or metaphor) but rather as something that participates in the very reality it mediates). While Mass is the place where we literally re-member all of this, where bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, where the Word of God is proclaimed with power, Eucharistic Spirituality seems to me to be that spirituality where all this is worked out in everyday life so that every meal is holy, every reality is looked at with eyes that can see God's presence there, and where one is nourished, challenged, consoled, etc, with that presence in the unexpected place and way.

Eucharistic spirituality, is a spirituality which is open to God's presence in ordinariness, not only to his presence at Mass or the more exalted moments of prayer, etc, but in the humbleness of human life generally. And for the hermit this means in the solitariness of ordinary life --- for it is in solitude that we are generally weakest, and our brokenness is most clearly revealed. My own focus in the hermitage is the transformation of ordinariness into Sacrament. This is essentially Eucharistic. Everything should serve this. Everything within the hermitage serves the Word becoming flesh, the allowing of God to dwell within, to love, minister to, and to transform with his presence. Everything becomes a matter of dying to self and rising in God, to learning obedience (hearing and responding to the Word of God) in a way which leads to purity of heart. Yes, often (though not always) Eucharist is present in the hermitage, but whether or not it is present it remains the living symbol of what everything in the hermitage can and is meant to be if given over to the purposes of eremitical life. I sincerely believe that if the hermit practices Eucharistic spirituality she recognizes that her hermitage itself is meant to be a tabernacle situated in the midst of her community and that her own life is bread broken and wine poured out for others.

Eucharistic Spirituality, Flesh Made Word

The second and interrelated process which makes up a genuinely Eucharistic spirituality focuses on what happens to the hermit --- or really, to any Christian for whom Eucharist is central --- namely, that they become a Word Event which embodies and proclaims the Gospel of God in Christ. For the hermitage to become tabernacle, for the hermit to become bread broken and wine poured out for others, the hermit herself must, over time, be transformed and transfigured.

Flesh, in the Pauline sense of the term, means the whole person, body and soul, under the sway of sin. It means being a person of divided heart, one who is enmeshed in processes and realities which are resistant to Christ. It means being less than fully human, and in terms of language, it means being distorted forms of language events which are less than a univocal hymn of praise and gratitude --- screams of pain and anguish, lies or hypocritical formulations and identity, utterances (of anger, prejudice, arrogance, indifference, selfishness, etc) which foster division, insecurity, and suffering for others, a noisy or insecure presence which cannot abide silence and is unable to listen or respond lovingly and with compassion --- all are the less than human forms of language event we are, at least at times. These are also examples of what Paul would have termed "flesh" (sarx).

In the power of the Spirit, these can be transformed, transfigured into articulate expressions of Gospel wholeness, joy, peace, hope, and challenge. That which is less than human can become authentically human; sinners are reconciled to become persons who are truly and wholly authored by God. As one steeps oneself in and seriously contends with the Word of God one is transformed into an expression of that Word. In silence and solitude flesh can become Word just as the Word becomes Flesh. All of this is genuinely Eucharistic spirituality I think, and it remains Eucharistic even if the hermit does not celebrate Eucharist with her parish community daily. For the hermit, those privileged celebrations lead back to silence while solitude and the silence of solitude prepare for the hermit's participation at Mass. But they are all part of a single spirituality in which Christ is received as guest and gift and ordinary reality is transformed into an expression of his presence. Such a spirituality is open to anyone who cannot actually get to Mass more than once a week, and sometimes less frequently.  It is inspired by the Eucharist and modeled on Eucharistic transformation, life, and hope. In fact, I suspect it may well be an instance of genuinely Eucharistic spirituality our world truly needs.

Hermits and Self-Communication

Your last question was also raised on the Catholic Hermits list. It is customary that people do not self-commu-nicate and there are very good theological reasons for this, but solitary hermits are an accepted exception. Canonists are apparently clear (according to a clarification offered on the Catholic Hermits list) that this is a unique situation which calls for such an exception to general custom and theological wisdom. It is also, it seems to me, a sign of how truly esteemed and unusual is the hermit vocation for such an exception to be made. The Church allows this exception precisely because of the importance of eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the church. I would argue that eremitical solitude, to whatever extent it is lived authentically, is essentially Eucharistic --- even when the hermit is unable to leave her hermitage to attend Mass --- and is therefore a very good reason for this singular exception to be made.

In any case, hermits should certainly be careful of their use of this permission. Their own communions must always be seen as extensions of the parish and/or diocesan liturgy, their hermitages must be understood as tabernacles of Christ's presence, and the silence of solitude must be embraced as a natural expression of communal life and love. While the hermit does not literally receive Eucharist from the hands of another during Communion services in the hermitage, she does receive this Sacrament as a gift of the parish community and so, from their hands. The communal nature of the eremitical life is constantly underscored by the presence of Eucharist in the hermitage, and the quality of being "alone with the Alone" FOR the salvation of the world is underscored in this way as well. Eremitical life is not selfish, not individualistic or privatistic, and emphatically not a matter of merely living alone -- much less doing so in whatever way one likes. The presence of Eucharist both symbolizes and so, reminds and calls us to realize this (make this real) more and more fully everyday. I should note that it is entirely reasonable to expect that should a hermit ever tend to take the Eucharist for granted or become arrogant or simply lax in her praxis and perspective, then, at least for a time, she should forego even the reservation of the Eucharist, and get to Mass more often, until she recovers her proper perspective and devotion.

Summing Things Up

For me the bottom line in all of this is that while the celebration of Eucharist is indeed the source and summit of ecclesial life --- and it certainly is that for the hermit as well --- a truly Eucharistic spirituality does NOT necessarily require that one go to Mass daily. The hermit's life will be imprinted with the cross, be emptied, broken and given to others precisely insofar as she is faithful to eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the Church. She will celebrate every day, and do so with her faith community, even when the demands of solitude mean she cannot be physically present with them at Mass. If this is not the case, then we are implicitly saying to many people who pray, suffer, and love at least as fully and well as do daily Mass  participants (or diocesan hermits!) --- but who cannot get to Mass regularly --- that they cannot be said to have or even be able to develop a truly Eucharistic spirituality. I am positive we do not want to do that, wouldn't you agree?

see also: Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: On the Reservation of Eucharist by Hermits

Second Sunday of Lent: On Jesus' Transfiguration and Learning to See With New Eyes (reprise)

Transfiguration by Lewis Bowman

Have you ever been walking along a well-known road and suddenly had a bed of flowers take on a vividness which takes your breath away? Similarly, have you ever been walking along or sitting quietly outside when a breeze rustles some leaves above your head and you were struck breathless by an image of the Spirit moving through the world? I have had both happen, and, in the face of God's constant presence, what is in some ways more striking is how infrequent such peak moments are.

Scientists tell us we see only a fraction of what goes on all around us. In part it depends upon our expectations. In an experiment with six volunteers divided into two teams in either white or black shirts, observers were asked to concentrate on the number of passes of a basketball that occurred as players wove in and out around one another. In the midst of this activity a woman in a gorilla suit strolls through, stands there for a moment, thumps her chest, and moves on. At the end of the experiment observers were asked two questions: 1) how many passes were there, and 2) did you see the gorilla? Fewer than 50% saw the gorilla. Expectations drive perception and can produce blindness. (This observation reflects the fact that while focusing on certain things we exclude those that don't fit our focus; in the case of this test, viewers work actively to see and count the basketball passes while pushing other things out of their visual frame to help in completing the task they have been given. Unfortunately, this can become a more habitual way of looking at the world and that is not helpful.) Even more shocking, these scientists tell us that even when we are confronted with the truth we are more likely to insist on our own "knowledge" and justify decisions we have made on the basis of blindness and ignorance. We routinely overestimate our own knowledge and fail to see how much we really do NOT know.

For the past two weeks we have been reading the central chapter of Matthew's Gospel --- the chapter that stands right smack in the middle of his version of the Good News. It is Matt's collection of Jesus' parables --- the stories Jesus tells to help break us open and free us from the common expectations, perspectives, and wisdom we hang onto so securely so that instead we might commit to the Kingdom of God and the vision of reality it involves. Throughout this collection of parables Jesus takes the common, too-well-known, often underestimated and unappreciated bits of reality which are right at the heart of his hearers' lives. He uses them to reveal the extraordinary God who is also right there in front of his hearers. Stories of tiny seeds, apparently completely invisible once they have been tossed about by a prodigal Sower, clay made into works of great artistry and function, weeds and wheat which reveal a discerning love and judgment involving the careful and sensitive harvesting of the true and genuine --- all of these and more have given us the space and time to suspend our usual ways of seeing and empower us to adopt the new eyes and hearts of those who dwell within the Kingdom of God.

Taking Offense at Jesus:

It was the recognition of the unique authority with which Jesus taught, the power of his parables in particular which shifted the focus from the stories to the storyteller in the Gospel passage we heard last Friday. Jesus' family and neighbors did not miss the unique nature of Jesus' parables; these parables differ in kind from anything in Jewish literature and had a singular power which went beyond the already-significant power of narrative. They saw this clearly. But they also refused to believe the God who revealed himself in the commonplace reality they saw right in front of them. Despite the authority Jesus possessed which they could not deny, they chose to see only the one they expected to see; they decided they saw only the son of Mary, the son of Joseph and "took offense at him." Their minds and hearts were closed to who Jesus really was and to the God he revealed. Similarly, Jesus' disciples too could not really accept an anointed one who would have to suffer and die. Peter especially refuses to accept this.

It is in the face of these situations that we hear today's Gospel of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on a mountain apart. He takes them away from the world they know (or believe they know) so well, away from peers, away from their ordinary perspective, and he invites them to see who he really is. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus' is at prayer --- attending to the most fundamental relationship of his life --- when the Transfiguration occurs. Matthew does not structure his account in the same way. Instead he shows Jesus as the one whose life is a profound dialogue with God's law and prophets, who is in fact the culmination and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the culmination of the Divine-Human dialogue we call covenant. He is God-with-us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place. This is what the disciples see --- not so much a foretelling of Jesus' future glory as the reality which stands right in front of them --- if only they had the eyes to see.

Learning to See with New Eyes:

In light of all of this a video I watched today was particularly helpful. A colorblind man was given Enchroma glasses --- a form of sunglasses that allows colorblind persons to see color, often for the first time in their lives. By screening out certain wavelengths of light, someone who has only seen the world in shades of brown their whole lives are finally able to see things they have never seen before; browns are transformed into yellows and reds and purples and suddenly trees look truly green and three-dimensional or the colorful fruit of these trees no longer simply blend into the same-color background. In this video the man was overwhelmed and overcome by what he had been missing; he could not speak, did not really know what to do with his hands, was "reduced" to tears. He literally did not know what to do with himself and eventually expressed it all as he hugged his wife in love and gratitude. Even in the face of this immediate miracle, more is required; it will still take regular wearing of the Enchroma glasses before the man's brain grows accustomed to this new way of seeing the world around him. Meanwhile, family members were struck with just how much they themselves may have taken for granted as everyday they moved through their own world of "ordinary" color and texture. The entire situation involved a Transfiguration almost as momentous as the one the disciples experienced in today's Gospel.

For most of us, such an event would overwhelm us with awe and gratitude as well. But not Peter --- at least it does not seem so to me! Instead, he outlines a project to reprise the Feast of Tabernacles right then and there. In this story Peter reminds me some of those folks who want so desperately to hang onto and even control amazing prayer experiences --- immediately making them the basis for some ministerial project or other; unfortunately, in doing so, they, in acting too quickly and even precipitously, fail to sit quietly with and appreciate these experiences fully or allow enough time to let them remake us and thus, learn to live from them! Peter is, in some ways, a kind of lovable but misguided buffoon ready to similarly build booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus in a way which makes Jesus just one of an equal trio of religious patriarchs --- while neglecting the qualitative newness and personal challenge of what has been revealed and needs to be processed in personal conversion. Peter has missed the point. And in the midst of Peter's well-meaning activism comes God's voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!" In my reflection on this reading this text, I heard something more: "Peter! Sit down! Shut up! This is my beloved Son! You have ears; learn to listen to him. You have eyes; learn to see him with new eyes!!!"

Like Peter, and like the colorblind man who needed wear the glasses consistently enough to allow his brain to really begin to process colors in a new way, we must take the time to see what is right in front of us and we must practice seeing in this way. We must learn to see the sacred which is present and incarnated in ordinary reality. We must learn to listen to the One who comes to us in the Scriptures and Sacraments, the One who speaks to us through every believer and the whole of creation. We must really be the People of God, the "hearers of the Word" who know how to listen and are obedient in the way God summons us to be. This is true whether we are God's lowliest hermit or one of the Vicars of Christ who govern our dioceses and college of Bishops. Genuine authority coupled with true obedience empowers new life, new vision, new perspectives and reverence for the ordinary reality God makes Sacramental. 

There is a real humility involved in all of this. It is the humility of the truly wise, the truly knowing person with real vision. We must be able to recognize and admit how very little we see, how unwilling or unable we often are to be converted to the perspective of the Kingdom Jesus and John the Baptizer both proclaimed was right "at hand" then and there! How easily we justify our blindness and deafness with our supposed knowledge, and how even our well-intentioned activism can prevent us from seeing and hearing the unexpected, sometimes scandalous God standing there right in the middle of our reality.