25 February 2025

In Search of a List of Standards? Eremitical Life and The Privilege of Love

[[Dear Sister Laurel, is there such a thing as a list of standards for hermits based on historical hermits? If I wanted to become a hermit and be consecrated by my bishop would I go to my diocese for such a list or just where would I go, particularly if my diocese has never consecrated someone as a hermit before? I want to make sure I am doing all the right things. Does this make sense? It seems to me that different hermits all seem to live hermit life differently than one another. Oh, I'm sure there are similarities, but some live together, others live alone, some do various forms of ministry and others may not, some depend on benefactors, others are self-supporting, some work outside the hermitage and others work from home. It just seems too diverse to meet any single set of standards, but isn't there a list of such standards somewhere? Shouldn't there be a set of standards all bishops agree on?]]

Thanks for your questions. Eremitical life is, paradoxically, both constrained and incredibly free. In the Roman Catholic Church we now have canon 603 that defines eremitical life and allows for consecrated solitary eremitical life which includes not just solitary hermits, but solitary hermits who come together in colonies or lauras which do not rise to the level of juridical congregations or communities. (Some country's bishops, Spain for instance, have created guidelines for such lauras focusing on the limits these should observe.) Canon 603 has several conditions or central elements that are part of the essential definition of the solitary eremitical life, namely, the hermit lives a life of assiduous prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, and stricter separation from the world, within the framework of the profession of the Evangelical counsels; they do this for the praise of God, and the salvation of others, all under the supervision of the diocesan bishop and according to a Rule of Life the hermit writes for herself. Whatever else one does (limited ministry, etc.), one must live these elements if one is to truly be a hermit.

Canon 603 thus also implicitly refers to other canons having to do with the Evangelical Counsels and also with contemplative life in the Church. Thus, dioceses can require things c 603 never mentions explicitly as part of the profession and consecration of a c 603 hermit, and even when additional canons don't apply directly, there are encyclicals and exhortations that do. So, for instance, a diocese wishing to profess a diocesan hermit may refer any suitable candidate to texts like The Art of Seeking the Face of God, Guidelines for the Formation of Women Contemplatives, Vita Consecrata (Consercrated Life), The Gift of Fidelity the Joy of Perseverance, New Wine in New Wineskins, and of course, Ponam in Deserto Viam (The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church), et al. Hermit candidates and their spiritual directors should be familiar with these writings. Of course, these do not simply provide a list of naked standards as though one size fits all. They provide reflections on a vision of consecrated life that an individual should take on (and be helped to take on) in a way which illumines her life and makes it a gift to the Church and larger world as well. 

As noted above, to try to embrace such a vision in response to God's call is both constraining and incredibly freeing. The life one is called to is both regular or ordered in particular ways and also free to respond to more individual or particular gifts. Both dimensions are of the Holy Spirit and both must be honored if one is to live one's vocation faithfully and with integrity.  Some of this may surprise people when they are reflecting on eremitical life. For instance, this life is meant to be lived for the sake of the salvation of others. This is an integral requirement of what it means to be a hermit, especially with an ecclesial vocation. It is not just that the hermit prays for others, though this is certainly a dominant note in every hermit life, but also, that the hermit may be involved in limited ministry to others so long as such ministry enhances rather than detracts from her eremitical life. 

How does one discern this? Well, not according to an abstract list of standards; rather, one looks to the quality of the whole life one is living. Does this form of limited ministry lead the person to a stronger prayer life, a greater sense of her call and dependence on God, a life defined more completely in terms of the Word of God and as imago Christi? Does it allow for "the silence of solitude" to become not just about the absence of noise in some form of isolation from others, but also the stillness of human wholeness and holiness in communion with others? If it does these things, then discernment affirms that this is likely to be something God is calling one to. In the past I have spoken about this in terms of the ministry calling me not only out to the world around me, but back again and again to the solitude and silence of the hermitage; the limited ministry of the hermit is one legitimate way the life of the hermitage overflows in mission, rather like the image from last Sunday's Gospel: [[Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.]]

Hermits learn over time to honor the various ways the Holy Spirit calls us to serve the Church (both as the Body of Christ and so, as a communion of brothers and sisters in Christ). They are also helped in this by their spiritual directors, delegates, and (though usually less frequently or regularly) by their bishops and pastors or confessors. Those exercising the ministry of authority in our lives generally do so out of love and those who are really good at their jobs have a very clear sense of the ways the hermit needs to grow and change. Thus, a list of standards is only minimally helpful because it neither knows the person or the way the Holy Spirit is working in her life. What is necessary is faithful and prayerful dialogue with someone knows us well and who lives and knows what it means to live a contemplative life of prayer consecrated by God for the sake of one's own call to holiness and for others as well. To gauge the quality of an eremitical life according to a list of requirements, it seems to me, is to miss the point. 

A hermit is not merely someone who lives alone in silence while saying prayers at various parts of the day. Any misanthrope could do that! S/he is someone who, in the silence of solitude, lives with and in dialogue with God, and who, in light of this intmate relationship is capable of loving not only God and herself, but others as well. The Camaldolese congregation I am affiliated with apart from c 603 speaks about this kind of life as one of The Privilege of Love. It seems to me that this is the single or overarching standard by which a life lived under c 603's requirements is really to be measured. Of course, all of the central elements I listed above are definitive of this form of life, but within one's faithfulness to these, one must ask, is the person growing as one who loves God, themselves, and is committed to the growth in holiness and wholeness of others as well? Is she responding to the Holy Spirit even if this means doing something other hermits are not doing? Do those exercising the ministry of authority in her life agree with this sense of things? If so, then she is living c 603 and the life it describes faithfully!

I sincerely hope this is helpful. I have tried to give you a sense of the codified requirements that bind diocesan hermits and I have tried to indicate why no single list of "standards"--- especially if applied from outside a lived eremitical life --- simply won't work. C 603 is a place to begin. Ponam (cf above) is important as well if one wants to see how the Church views this vocation. Your concern with "doing all the right things" is very much a beginner's concern. There is certainly nothing wrong with that! If you are truly called to an eremitical life and embrace that call, you will eventually come to a place where your deepest concern is to be yourself in response to God's invitation to life in Him. Similarly, your concern that God calls hermits to different incarnations of the eremitical vocation won't bother you so much as it does currently. You will recognize the deeper dimensions of things like silence or solitude and let go of worry about any more rigid, less essential, and more superficial senses of these defining elements.

21 February 2025

Feast of St Peter Damian

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person [Ecclesiola] and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Or again, [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell has functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

20 February 2025

Once again, on Maintaining our Focus on Christ in the Face of the Demonic

[[ Dear Sister Laurel. I wonder if the way you described praying before and after watching the news means you are not sufficiently tuned into God's will or God's way of thinking. Don't you know that we are bound for heaven and can't be too concerned with temporal matters? Aren't you supposed to be about that because you are a hermit? Also, I wondered why you used the term "demonic" to refer to President Trump and what he and those working for him are doing if you don't usually refer to this? Isn't Trump the one whom God elected? Aren't you allowing yourself to be a bit consumed by temporal (political) matters to call Trump et al "demonic"? One person I listened to today said that perhaps this means you are not trusting God enough to do the best for us. (You are the only diocese hermit I know who wrote about what she referred to). She reminded us that God will never abandon us or let us be bereft and she should know because she suffers terribly, is tested by Satan all the time, and also is a consecrated hermit!]]

Thanks for your questions. I am assuming you are referring to today's Gospel reading in asking me about God's way of thinking. For those who have not read that lection today, it is Mark 8:27-33 and focuses on Jesus' admonition to Peter's reaction when Jesus lays out how he will have to suffer. Let me say that in the situation in the US, I believe I am seeing things as God sees them and that it is precisely so I can continue doing that (and do it even better) that I practice a period of quiet prayer before watching the news and a period of lectio afterward. I encourage others to do the same because I believe this can be helpful for remaining in Christ and allowing our minds and hearts to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not drawn into the destructive, narcissistic orbit or emptiness of the singularity we know as Donald J Trump. Certainly, I trust God is doing his best for the entire United States, but that is not the same as trusting that President Trump's election was something God accomplished or willed.

Granted, God allows human free choice, but simply because God permits something human beings choose to do does not mean God approves of it, or even that it comports with God's will. God does not prevent child abuse, or childhood deaths to cancer, for instance. He did not prevent the last Holocaust* with the torture and murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Catholic priests and religious, et al, but none of these could even remotely be considered the will of God --- even if we see God eventually bringing about a greater good out of all of this. If we begin to think this way we are really suggesting that we should do more evil so that God may do more good! Paul confronted this very question when he observed first that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. Then he posed  the question, "Does this mean we should sin all the more so that grace may abound all the more?" to which he responded emphatically, "God forbid!" The first way of seeing the permissive will of God is, I sincerely believe, a human way of thinking. Paul's question and response represent God's way of thinking!

In the Markan reading, Jesus knows he is going to be crucified and die --- not only a horribly inhuman way to die but incredibly shameful as well because it represents the apotheosis of godlessness. Peter, as a good Jew, could never have conceived of God's own Messiah suffering and dying in such an ignoble way (or even in a noble way like that of Socrates, for instance)! It is still hard for us to accept that God wills to love us so exhaustively and generously that he will take on our sin and the reality of godless death itself so these things cannot continue to separate us from his love. But to take further steps and suggest that God willed Trump's presidency so that people might suffer and learn to think as God thinks moves from thinking as Christians dealing with a valid understanding of God's permissive will to idolators serving a monstrous abomination. 

I am not consumed with political matters, or rather, I am concerned with these because I am first and last concerned with the Kingdom of God and the Kingship of Jesus which is a Kingdom of justice, mercy, love, truth, and fathomless meaning. When I look at what is happening here in the USA, and abroad through us as well, what I see is vast senseless damage, much of it apparently irreparable because lives will be or have already been needlessly lost. In Acts of the Apostles, a book my Scripture class is reading now, we talked today about the primary Spiritual value that threads all through Acts, namely that of speaking boldly (parrhesia). This form of speech is about proclaiming the Gospel, of course,  and it means speaking truth to power, proclaiming the Kingship of Jesus, and unmasking the blasphemy of those (including Trump himself) who would like us to believe we have another King who is similarly anointed by God. Because those filled with the Holy Spirit speak out in this way I cannot keep from saying as clearly as I can, we don't have such a system of governance and we can't believe or ask fellow citizens of the world to believe that we do. We Christians have only one King and that is the risen Christ who sits at God's right hand (meaning he is present in this world and reigns with the power that comes from God).

The very fact that I take Christ's Kingship seriously with the kind of faithfulness and commitment it calls for is the reason I MUST also pay greater attention to Donald Trump's idolatrous excesses. Am I consumed with Trump or with politics? No, and I am trying to remain centered on Christ and all his resurrection and ascension mean for our world precisely so I can be appropriately informed without losing my Christian identity at the same time. If your hermit friend wants to criticize me for this, she is welcome to. She might choose to focus on an otherworldly "heaven" while denigrating the new heaven and new earth inaugurated with Jesus' incarnation of the Word of God, in his resurrection and ascension, she can do that too --- though not, I think, if she wishes to honor the Incarnation appropriately. Similarly, she might put up video after video speaking about how frequently she deals with Satan or sees Satan behind every bush or in every person who simply disagrees with (or, alternately, mirrors) her, and she is free to do that too, though I believe that trivializes the weight and extent of the evil the truly demonic represents. What she is really not free to do is to suggest that because I identify the Donald J Trump/Elon Musk duo as a demonic reality in the Tillichian sense of that term, I am not trusting in God sufficiently or thinking as God thinks! Those are judgments only God can make.

As I noted in my last post, I use the word demonic rarely, cautiously, and in a highly theologically nuanced way. My world is not peopled as some persons' worlds are reportedly peopled with demons or Satan who is always about tripping us up, making us ill, etc. However, I recognize what Paul referred to as powers and principalities that are still at work amongst us. I recognize that there are idols and idolatrous movements afoot that some**, I believe rightly, call Anti-Christ because of the degree of hatred these manifest and the degree of power and damage they intend to wield and do to those they are called instead to love as themselves. Absolutely God will never abandon us or leave us bereft!! He will fill us with the Holy Spirit of both Father and Son, the Spirit of comfort and courage, and he will expect us to do what Peter and Stephen, et al, do in Acts of the Apostles. Namely, he will expect us to speak truth to power, proclaim the Lordship of Jesus boldly, confront idolatry and blasphemy with the power of our own knowledge, hope, courage, and love, and to love one another not only with the gentleness of doves but to do all of this with the shrewdness of serpents!!

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* Though I have a minor in holocaust studies, I heard a figure I had never realized before last night. It was not only striking, it chilled me to the bone because I had already thought it had been unimaginable that our constitutional republic could be dismantled so quickly as has happened thus far in Trump's administration. The quote referring to the Third Reich and the German Republic was the following: [[The Nazis took 1 month, three weeks, 2 days, 8 hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.]] Consider that. Please consider that.

** I have been referred to Matthew Fox's book here on Trump and MAGA by a bishop whose theology and spirituality I generally respect. The title is Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ. I have not yet read it. It referred to these entities before the last election so it has not been written in light of the last month of willful, careless, and cruel destruction at the cost of the least and most helpless. I suspect Matthew Fox's position would be even more emphatic now.

17 February 2025

Once Again: On Maintaining Hope in the Face of the Demonic

 In my last couple of posts, I wrote about maintaining hope and being those who already have a king and are not looking for another one. I want to reemphasize all that I said there and maybe push that a bit further here. I would especially like to sharpen my thoughts on what it means to be a hope-filled people of prayer and love with Christ as their King when our focus and attention is constantly drawn to Trump into a kind of mesmerism or fascination by the tragedy to democracy he represents.

When Trump was elected president this time, I promised myself I would not watch the news much. I heard a couple of other friends were attempting the same thing. As I wrote to my director last week, "That has pretty much gone by the wayside." I did not make this promise because I believed that hermits should be completely separated from all of that or insulated from the truth of this world and its needs. I don't believe that at all. It was that I remembered the way the news of Trump's blundering and self-centered (narcissistic) excesses and stupidities began to take over the last time Trump was elected, rather like a terrible accident makes it almost impossible to look anywhere else or remain sufficiently about my own life and ministry; I didn't want that to happen again. After all, my life has a very real focus and it is not Trump. In fact, my baptism and eremitic consecration, the canon that governs my life, my vows, my Rule of Life, my own conscience, and daily praxis, all tell me it must not be Trump!  

And yet, the unprecedented nature, quality, and degree of the chaos and destruction Trump/Musk is visiting upon our country and the world around us makes it almost impossible not to be sucked into focusing our gaze and energies on him. I believe this same tendency to lose our real focus, our life-giving and meaning-conferring focus is what makes hope so difficult to maintain at this time as well. So how do we hold these two competing foci together without relinquishing the real telos (intention and goal) of our lives? How do we keep ourselves from losing ourselves? Is there anything in Scripture or our Christian Tradition that can help us here? Several things come immediately to mind: 1) the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert, 2) Jesus' continuing ministry and teaching in the face of political and religious threats to his life, 3) canon 603's requirements of stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance, and 4) the desert Abbas' and Ammas' tradition of battle with demons as intrinsic to the spiritual life. I want to look at all of these over the next days, but for now I want to start with number 3.

Hermits are called to embrace a stricter separation from the world at the same time they embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. This dynamic can be misunderstood as implying we simply close the hermitage, convent, or monastery door on the entire world outside us. But "world" in the sense used by canon 603 means "that which is resistant to Christ" and can also be understood to mean "that which promises fulfillment apart from Christ."  At the same time, the hermit is called upon to be hospitable and to open her door to anyone who should come knocking in search of food, rest, a word (from God), or whatever the hermit can provide to ease their journey. This might look like a conflict, but really, it is a paradox. The hermit is one who offers hospitality to God in every way God can come to the hermit. This means first of all she lives a life of assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude, and then too, a life open to anyone in whom God might dwell (and who might be served in their vocation to make that more real by the hermit's hospitality). Both pieces of eremitical life must be preserved by the hermit in a single focus on openness to the presence and sovereignty of God. After all, this is who she is!

As I look at this paradoxical set of values and responsibilities and the task of maintaining an appropriate focus, it reminds me very much of the way we must handle the situation in which we in the US find ourselves today. We cannot shut our doors and windows to the evil happening beyond our hermitage boundaries, but neither can we fling them open so wide that the hermitage ceases to be what it is, namely, a place where God is hosted and may also be found by others. In other words, we must maintain our focus on God and hospitality to God so that God might truly be Lord of this world and transform it with (his) presence. If we can retain this focus, so too can we look evil full in the face and make decisions on what more we are called to do. But what does this mean? How do we do this?

In my life, it means to pray both directly before and after I watch the news. What I have begun to do is to pray quietly before watching the news and read and meditate on Gospel stories afterward. (So far, favorites include the story of the Good Samaritan and Christ's temptation in the desert. I will move on to others as these cease to nourish and strengthen me so much (one story I am sure I will be spending time with is Jesus' trial before Pilate and the conversation he held with Pilate there!). The idea is not to cede President Trump much real estate in my head or heart so that I don't become a kind of satellite of his narcissism; it is to maintain my focus on Christ, and on all those who are suffering in light of the current political situation the US finds themselves in and whom I might serve. In a very real way, it helps ensure I do not lose myself or my integrity to the soul-devouring emptiness and heartlessness we know as Donald Trump and those sycophants who cater to him. This praxis helps me to remain myself and strengthens my identity as imago Christi; in other words, it helps me to live to serve Jesus as Lord and King as the person I am called to be.

Some people will find their own focus and necessary praxis will differ from mine but their goal will largely be the same. A constitutional lawyer may make sure his/her attention is on the law, on statutes they have not paid attention to for some time and on working directly for the constitutional democracy that is currently endangered. A poet or musician will spend time writing and reading poetry, or listening to and playing music even more assiduously than they perhaps did in less chaotic times. All of us will try to be a positive presence contributing what we can for the sake of our world, especially those looking for a way to maintain hope. Again, the point is to not cede President Trump/Musk personal "real estate" in our minds and hearts as we entertain and are strengthened in the real values and relationships with those we are called to serve. This, I sincerely believe, is an instance of what c 603 calls "stricter separation from the world"!

For Christians, then, I believe the approach I suggest above will be helpful. We have one Lord and it is not Trump (or Trump/Musk)! We must be careful that Trump's vacuous heart does not suck us up into his orbit! Karl Barth once famously remarked that when he did theology he kept a newspaper on one corner of his desk and a Bible on the other. What I am suggesting is a variation on that. We must be informed. We must watch the news!! But we must first of all be persons of the Book, persons who live from and for the good news of Jesus Christ, persons for whom Jesus is the image of the humanity and lord of the Kingdom we are called to represent. As I said in my post on maintaining hope, we must be persons of prayer, both to help immunize us from and sensitize us to the evil we will meet and, of course, to inspire us to lovingly work for the good of all in the face of such evil and the suffering it brings.

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Postscript: I use the term demonic rarely and cautiously; when I do, as in the title of this piece, it is usually in the sense that Paul Tillich used the term, namely, for the distortion of the sacred in the direction of evil or non-being. Human persons are sacred as is all of God's creation. When the telos (intention and goal) of that creation is raised to its highest potential, there we have the holy. When it is emptied of goodness and its potential (for life, truth, beauty, future, meaning, etc.) is otherwise distorted in the direction opposing its created or God-endowed nature, there we have the demonic. Any great gift of God can be perfected towards real holiness or distorted in the direction of the demonic. The same is certainly true of persons as a whole. When this happens, especially when it is accompanied by great power along with messianic trappings and delusions, we begin to see a reality some identify as antiChrist.

15 February 2025

God's Own Fool

 

I've been taken by the paradox of the Christ Event and the Cross for more than 50 years and I have enjoyed the music of Michael Card and John Michael Talbot for almost as long. I just heard this song for the first time tonight. Since I haven't finished the piece I am working on, I'll put this one up tonight and finish the other tomorrow! It's a great reminder of what Christians commit to in following Jesus!

14 February 2025

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

In these days when it is so difficult to maintain hope and when we find our hope is not unalloyed but is instead a mixture of grief and grace, I thought the following version of Handel's Halleluia Chorus was most appropriate. It reminds us that the most fundamental truth is the sovereignty of God in Christ and we are those called to serve this One God who will one day be all in all, this overarching hope. I sincerely hope it will give you a laugh, bring a smile, a bit of respite, and maybe a reminder that we are stronger than we sometimes know and more creative as well. Most importantly, we already have a King and are not looking for another one!

11 February 2025

How do we Maintain Hope in These Days?

[[ Sister Laurel, given everything that is happening in the country right now, how do we hang onto hope? I know it is supposed to be a jubilee year focused on hope, but how do we do that? I am so scared and depressed that I don't have a drop of optimism left in my body!!]]

Your questions are good ones, thanks for asking! There are two critical things to remember when we think about hope. The first is that hope is not the same as optimism. One can be a person steeped in hope without being particularly optimistic. Given the situation in the country currently, it is really difficult to be optimistic. So many people are being hurt by the completely careless and blind, not to mention the illegal actions of President Trump,  Elon Musk, and his DOGE actors, it is hard to be optimistic about anything that is going on. It gets even more difficult when we consider that working through the situation will take time and become even more critical and complex as that goes by.

The second critical thing to remember is that hope is always based on reality and rooted in truth. It is not about wishfulness. It is the attitude of someone who knows that they stand firmly in something that is strong and certain, even when there is little to be optimistic about. Christians hope in Christ and the victory Jesus won over sin and death. We hope because we know that God's love is stronger than death and that the evil human beings do will never have the final word.  We trust in that!  As you can see, I think, it is possible to have hope and not be particularly optimistic. After all, sin and death are still with us, yet at the same time they have ultimately been defeated and one day will be no more. We look forward to that day and we do so by staying in touch with the sovereignty of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit that is real right here and right now.

As I have written many times over the years, reality is ambiguous. In the days of the Reformation, we heard the reformers speak of Christians as both sinner and justified. We recognize today that heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and at the same time God is not yet all in all. In other words, the world is ambiguous; it is both justified and sinful, both good and flawed, godly and godless until God does become all in all. To be people of hope means to be people who live in light of what God has already done in Christ and who also look forward to what will one day be fully realized. We work toward that reality, not in terms of wishfulness, but because of what is already true. 

So, how do we maintain hope? We do it by staying in touch with the living Christ. We do it by recognizing that Christ is truly sovereign and is rightly treated as the sovereign of this world who, we affirm, is seated at the right hand of God. We do it by remaining aware of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Father and Son who enlivens and empowers us in this way. Hope is very much the result of a living faith in a similarly living God. Thus, to be people of hope we must be people of prayer --- not in the sense of asking God to take away our troubles (though we will certainly pour out our hearts to God), but in the sense of allowing a growing intimacy with that God and all a relationship with God brings into our lives. 

To be people of hope is to be people who allow God to love us, and in allowing that, to become ever more aware of the unconquerable power of that love. This is what Jesus knew intimately and exhaustively; he knew his Abba's love in a way that saw it overcoming both sin and death. Granted, Jesus' trust in his Abba's love did not prevent the worst that human beings could do, but it did allow that love's victory over this-worldly realities. That, by the way, also means it is crucial to take all the action we can legitimately do to remain involved and working towards the goals we recognize as supporting our democracy (or in other situations, any of the values we truly support). In other words, we must be persons of love as well as of hope; we must be people who are committed to doing a justice which is rooted in and helps strengthen both of these. As Christians, we continue to act and work toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. No, we don't build that Kingdom ourselves, but wherever the goals of that Kingdom overlap with the goals of this world --- for instance, in making sure our country maintains its focus on the dignity of every person by working for a world where every person is a genuine neighbor whose fundamental needs are met wherever we can assist with this --- we work towards an ethos Jesus would delight in and give his entire life to and for. Maintaining hope requires all of this.

06 February 2025

A Contemplative Moment: How the Light Comes by Jan Richardson


How the Light Comes

I can't tell you 
how the light comes

What I know is that 
it is more ancient than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.

That it loves
searching out
what is hidden,
what is lost,
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body,
for finding its way
toward flesh,
for tracing the edges
of form,
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.


by Jan Richardson


At this time in our country's history and during this jubilee year devoted to hope I read this poem (and also was sent it from another Sister who used it for prayer). Hope is not always easy, nor is working for justice, whether in our world or in the Church itself. And yet we must continue to be people of Hope, people moved and opened more and more and still to the Light we have come to know and witness to. Sincerest thanks to Jan Richardson for such a wonderful poem!

Followup Questions on Penance, Same-Sex Attraction, and Solitary Life

[[ Sister Laurel, are you saying that a person doesn't need to do penance if they have lived a seriously evil life? Sounds to me like you were giving the person who wrote about living a sinful life for years and years a total break by just focusing on the mercy of God. You know that God is also just, right? You also know that SSA is a sin right?]]

Thanks for writing. Please reread my response in the previous post. I did not say penance was not necessary. Instead, I said that there would be a significant amount of it in whatever way of life the individual discerned God was calling him to. Ordinarily, it takes a significant degree of penance or self-denial to fully embrace the mercy and forgiveness of God and to really live from that truth of life with and in God. However, my sense is that most folks define penance in terms of making up for the offense one gives God, a view that I believe is seriously misguided. Further, in my last post, I was mainly concerned not with what it means to embrace such a life, but with why one does so. While I did and do not know the answer to that question in the life of the person asking the question, and while I recognize he might well be being called to life as a solitary, my concern had more to do with the reasons one might wish to embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. Thus, I stated reasons I felt were unworthy of being chosen.

The solitary eremitical life is a rich (grace-filled) and relatively rare life lived with God for the sake of others. If this is to be true in all of its dimensions, it must be embraced for sound reasons. Among those that are not sufficient include guilt, shame, and an inability to forgive oneself for whatever sin or "evil" one feels culpable for. While this life means turning away from sin, it must be about more than this. One must be turning TO God and committing oneself to God in a more exhaustive way than this. While turning from sin is important, turning to a profoundly intimate relationship with God in order to witness to God's incredible love and mercy is the heart of the eremitical vocation. One thing I remember keenly from St Mary of Egypt's story is the way she recognized that turning from sin was only the first step in a much broader and more demanding commitment to God. Every time she was tempted to go back to the world she knew well, the world that had left her empty, her call to the desert was freshly discerned as a call to more than leaving sin behind. 

Redemption is always about more than leaving sin behind, though yes, it begins there. It always means embracing a new intimacy with God and with oneself and the whole of God's good creation as well. A solitary hermit witnesses to this incredible intimacy with her life. She says to others that the penance her life entails is part of a commitment to this intimacy and that she embraces it not because she feels guilty or ashamed or needs to make up for her sin (as if she actually could!!), but because she is in love and falling more deeply in love with the God who loves her unconditionally every day and minute of her life. In other words, penance serves the deepening of prayer; it helps to regularize, integrate, deepen and extend one's prayer to the whole of one's life, just as it did for St Mary of Egypt. It is not an end in itself.

Yes, I know that God is merciful and just. However, I also understand that divine justice is not something added to God's mercy, nor does mercy need to be strengthened or completed with divine justice. Instead, mercy is the way God does justice! I have written about this before, the last time about three years ago. You can find that post here: Moving from Fear to Love.  Another post from nine years ago reflecting on Pope Francis' motto can be found here: A Mercy that Does Justice. I think both of these would be helpful to you in thinking about the relationship between mercy and justice in God. 

Also, regarding same-sex attraction being a sin, let me remind you that the Church does not teach this. What she teaches is that acting on same-sex attraction is a sin (or as I was taught, unworthy of being chosen). Similarly, though your question didn't mention this, SSA is not a disorder like something found in the DSM V. It is considered by the Church to be disordered, that is, it is a drive, capacity, or tendency ordered to the wrong end but this is not the same as it being a disorder in the sense psychologists or physicians might diagnose a disorder. The Church considers masturbation to be disordered in the same sense and we do not say that a person who masturbates has a disorder, at least not necessarily. These distinctions are important, not only in representing Church teaching but in being able to see others as God sees them.

04 February 2025

On Embracing a Solitary Life of Penance with Special reference to St Mary of Egypt

[[Sister, I wonder if you could be so good to comment? It may be perhaps that you have had this question before and have already answered it, in which case perhaps you could direct me to the proper place in your blog? I am currently a member of the Courage apostolate. Perhaps you know of this apostolate. I have lived with same-sex attraction all my life and am 64 now. 

 I have always been a Catholic and always been taken with the model of the saints of the desert. In the last several years as I have converted away from a gay life, I have been particularly struck by the example of Saint Mary of the desert who seems to have lived a dissolute life and then spent many years doing penance in the desert, alone. I believe that in many ways, my own life in the gay world paralleled hers prior to her conversion. 

As a consequence, I have been looking at the life of a solitary, perhaps in the world, or perhaps out of the world, as a serious recognition of my need for penance. I don’t know very much about how to discern such a thing or even if, given my past and my age, I ought to forget this entirely. I wonder if you would have any advice or comments on this question of an SSA man who has lived a very seriously evil life turning away from it, and doing the kind of penance in solitude that the fathers and others like St Mary used to do?]]

Many thanks for your questions. They are profound and probably will require the assistance of a good spiritual director if, in time, they are to be adequately answered for your own personal situation.  I want to give you my own impressions, mainly of good reasons to embrace the solitary eremitical life and reasons that I believe are unworthy of making such a choice. At the same time, I realize and must stress that each one of us embarking on such a journey will have a mixture of both worthy and unworthy reasons and only over time will these be purified and clarified so that one may live in terms of the worthy reasons. Even so, I believe that we should choose solitary eremitical life because it is the way we are called by God to become and be fully human. My response will presuppose that at every point.

If, after discerning this avenue with a competent spiritual director (a process that will take some time), you truly feel God is calling you to this, then I would say you need to try it. However, if you are choosing this because you feel ashamed, guilty, and perhaps uncertain of God's love and forgiveness, then I would say what you are considering is the exactly wrong thing. Each of us has a fundamental vocation to authentic humanity. That vocation is fulfilled for most of us in significant dependence upon relationships with others. Very few, relatively speaking, are called to the fullness of humanity through a solitary life of prayer and penance. In common language a solitary life is not healthy or capable of making a person whole or holy for most of us. We are made for society and ordinarily become holy in and with others. Yes, this includes our relationship with God, but for the majority of people, one also mainly comes to God through one's relationships with others. Even for those called to eremitical or solitary life, the Church is very clear that solitude must be defined in a nuanced way that respects plurality and multiplicity of life within a worshipping ecclesial community.

A second dimension of your question troubles me and that is your focus on the need for penance. All of us need penance, of course, but what does that really mean? Does it mean "making up for" past sins in a way which is essentially punitive, or does it mean living one's life in a full and grace-filled way which includes the discipline and work of truly forgiving ourselves, truly receiving God's forgiveness? As you may guess, for me it means the latter. I believe you have experienced a call to conversion or metanoia, yes. And I believe that that turning of heart and mind and habits, etc. requires asceticism (sometimes called penance) to carry out. But in such a case the asceticism or penance we are each called to is meant to serve the grace-filled, life-in-abundance that God offers us in his exhaustive mercy. Thus, for instance, in my own Rule of Life, I define the penance I do in terms of those things that help regularize, integrate, and extend a life of prayer to everything I am about. Here is the first part of what my own Rule says about that:

Prayer represents an openness and responsiveness to the personal and creative address of God which is rooted in and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Penance seems to me to be any activity or practice which assists in achieving, regularizing, integrating, deepening and extending, 1) this openness and responsiveness to God, 2) a correlative esteem for myself, and 3) for the rest of God's creation. While prayer corresponds in part to those deep moments of victory God achieves within me, and includes my grateful response, penance is that Christian and more extended form of festivity implicating the victory in the whole of life . . . . (Eph 1:4; Lumen Gentium 5, 48) from Canon 603 Eremitical Rule of Life, approved Bishop of Diocese of Oakland, 02. September. 2007.)

After this, I note the major forms of penance and/or asceticism that are a regular part of my life, including the inner work and spiritual direction I do regularly, but also things like fasting, simplicity of life, solitude, etc..  

When I think of Mary of Egypt (and I admit it has been some time since I read a biography of her), what I recall most clearly is the way she moved from a life that, rather than fulfilling her, left her empty in a profound way and embraced Christianity because she was moved by the Christians she saw celebrating lives of meaning and purpose, fullness and joy. She became aware that such a life was offered to her as well and she knew herself to be forgiven and more than that besides. She experienced not just the need to turn from sin, but Jesus' call to follow him. She went into the desert in grateful response to God's mercy so that his victory over sin could be implicated in the whole of herself and her life, yes, but in the desert, she discovered even more profoundly the God of love who had promised she would never be alone again, and she flowered as a person in communion with God. Penance was a piece of her life on the way to this flowering. It was difficult, but it was not punitive, nor was it about making up for sin.

If you should decide to try the solitary life I hope you will take these concerns seriously. If this is the way God is calling you, this vocation will be about fullness of life, a life of the abundance of Grace, love, meaning, purpose, and joy. I wrote recently that I do not believe God wills or sends suffering and that the suffering we each experience must be contextualized within a larger story. I wrote: 

Our God is the One who wills to live with us, to walk beside us in every situation, to accompany, love, and strengthen us in any way we need. This is the God who wills fullness of life for every person and the abundance of love, meaning, and fruitfulness that characterizes such a life. Through and very much in spite of my suffering, this is the person God calls me to be. Jesus' story is the same. He was called to allow God to be Emmanuel and he did this openly and exhaustively --- even in the presence of and despite his sufferings. Do I unite myself to Christ's sufferings? Yes, but not only and not even primarily to those. I also unite myself with Jesus' mission, with his abiding will to be the One in whom God is truly revealed (made known and made real) as Emmanuel. I unite myself with his compassion and amazing thirst for life. I unite myself with his courage and faithfulness in the power of the Holy Spirit, not with just his sufferings. Does God Will or Need our Suffering?

I believe the basic principle at work here fits your situation as well. God HAS forgiven you. He has also placed within your own heart the Spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom with which you are called to live an abundantly vibrant and vital life with and in him. If that involves the desert and the disciplines of the desert, then well and good. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of embracing a life of solitude because of self-hatred, shame, an inability to forgive yourself or a notion that you must pay God back in this way for his abundant and unconditional love and mercy, then I suggest that is not an adequate or worthy reason to embrace this life. 

The question you must ask yourself is, "Where can I be myself most fully?" Where, in other words, does God want you to joyfully and gratefully LIVE your best and fullest life? Is it with him with others (as it is for most persons) or is it in solitude with him? Wherever he calls you will entail penance as I have defined it above, but it will not be punitive, or rooted in guilt and shame. Instead, it will be rooted in the spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom that comes from knowing one is unconditionally loved and entirely forgiven by God. The only way to truly "make up for" our sinfulness (as though we ever could!) is to allow God to forgive us and call us to abundant life in him. This truly glorifies God. Embracing life wholeheartedly as God's gift to us and those with whom we relate, will involve penance enough! I believe that is what Saint Mary of Egypt's desert life required of her and even today reveals to Christ's Church.

I hope this is helpful. If it raises more questions for you, please get back to me. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience, I am sorry it took me some time to get back to you but I really needed to pray about this.

02 February 2025

Followup on Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde and the Appropriateness of her Homily

Bishop Takes King
[[ Dear Sister Laurel, I read where you said you supported Bishop Budde in her comments to President Trump. I assume you are a Democrat and never Trumper because only someone like that could think that this so-called "Bishop" was really Christian or that this sermon of hers was proper to preach to the President of the US!! (I can't see it's right to let her preach at all since women are supposed to be silent in church!) You said you are teaching a Scripture class on Acts of the Apostles and that it is all about confronting the Leaders or Kings of this world with the Kingship of Jesus. But Jesus is no King and for sure he isn't the King of this world. He's the Lord of heaven, but not a King!! And you shouldn't make him political or the Gospel in the way Budde did. We have separation of Church and state here!! Anyway, I thought as a hermit you took a vow to stay separated from the world and focused on getting to heaven, like any good Christian.. . .]]

Thanks for your question, or perhaps I should say thanks for your comments. It is surprising to me to hear folks who consider themselves to be Christian or to understand the power and scandal of the Christ Event reacting in this way to Bishop Mariann Budde's homily. I say that because I recognized her proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God there, nothing more and nothing less. I could argue various points with you (e.g., the role of women in the Church, the nature of prophetic speech or what the NT calls parrhesia, the Kingship of Jesus, etc) and I could explain my vocation, but would that be of any assistance to you? Would you really listen or even see this response? If I am mistaken here, please write again and ask your questions or make your comments without the snark. I will be happy to answer or respond to them.

Let me point out one thing the Gospel writers make very clear, and that is the way Christianity, from Jesus' nativity to his death, resurrection, and ascension has always involved the political dimension of reality. Specifically, the Christ Event has always been a threat to the emperors of this world. Thus Herod wants to know where the newly born child is when the wise men come to Jerusalem looking for him and Mary and Joseph take their son and flee to Egypt until Herod's death when it is safer to return. Thus, the Jewish Temple leadership calls on Roman leaders to get Jesus tried and crucified; the disciples who preach with boldness after Pentecost are martyred, as is Paul in Rome despite being a Roman citizen. No one could read the New Testament and find that Jesus and his disciples, particularly after Jesus' resurrection and ascension or Pentecost, was not a threat to the established imperial order, or believe that it is not the role of Christians to speak truth to power in the same way Bishop Mariann Budde did in the National Cathedral the day following the inauguration.

I will also say to you what I said to my Scripture class last Thursday. Let's suppose President Trump (or anyone else in leadership in this country) had not wanted to hear the Gospel with all of its truth and challenge. In that case, if he did not want to be confronted with the message of Jesus who is God's Christ, the real King or Lord of this world (and certainly of the National Cathedral), he should have stayed away from there! If nominal Christians, don't want to hear a gospel focused on God's will in and for this world, God's will for the poor and marginalized, for the sick and suffering, or for the aliens we are called to make our neighbors and love as we love ourselves, then by all means find another faith or philosophy to embrace. Epicureanism might work since it involves significant values and a focus on pleasure** all without God, his Christ or the Holy Spirit. Don't use the Christian faith to give a patina of religious validity to an inauguration or other ways of celebrating someone's life or achievements when they are actually antithetical to the Gospel message! Especially, don't expect to hear Scriptures that do not condemn the ways of this world or that fail to celebrate the Kingship and values of Jesus, God's Christ. 

Spreading Hope and Compassion

Bishop Budde proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and requested Trump to remember the merciful and otherwise demanding ethics of that Gospel in accepting his new post --- something he claimed to consider was ordained by the God of Love. Isn't that her job? Isn't this her mission and even a huge part of her very vocation? Isn't this why we attend Church upon making a life commitment or assuming a responsible leadership position?? Meanwhile, to those who have castigated Bishop Budde for doing her job and fulfilling her vocation, I would ask you to imagine this homily in another context, say for the establishment of a committee or board whose focus is on Christian Unity, or on the ordination of new priests and preachers. Listen to the homily with that context in mind and ask yourself if anything in that homily was contrary to the Christian Gospel. I don't think you will find anything. In fact, wasn't the content and tone exactly what you would want Christian leaders to be hearing from the Church on such an occasion? 

The second thing I would ask you to do is to take a list of the actions President Trump has taken in the past couple of weeks and set those down alongside the bishop's plea for mercy from the president. Ask yourself if that plea was inappropriate for someone representing the Gospel and the coming Kingdom of God. Again, I don't think you will find it inappropriate at all. What it may cause you to ask is why don't we hear these kinds of homilies more often if this is what Jesus represented? Too often, what passes for Christianity, is the pablum we required as children. When we are given a meal meant to nourish an adult we may spit it out as too difficult to chew, not sweet enough, or too unfamiliar. In an age where an intellectually demanding theology is despised as "elitist" or dismissed because it is not some simplistic version of what it means to love God or oneself and others as oneself, or when speeches are pared down to sound bite proportions we may be unfamiliar with challenging homilies. What is especially tragic is what I heard from Christians who didn't even recognize that what they were criticizing was the Gospel of God in Christ --- it was the meal adult Christians are supposed to regularly share with others in word and deed.

Preaching the Gospel is not an easy task. It requires that we speak truth to power as much as we speak it to console and empower the powerless. It requires courage and intelligence, and it requires a keen sense of the demands and promises of Christianity as well as an ability to tailor what one says to the specific assembly present that day. It requires integrity because one must be (or be committed to becoming) the image of the God one is proclaiming.  One must live from the hope Christianity gives us and be entirely dependent on and in communion with the God who empowers not only faith, hope, and love, but the authenticity of truly human life itself. Bishop Budde knows all this much better than I do and she takes her vocation to serve God, God's People, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously. As I said in my first post, Thanks be to God, and today I am grateful especially for Bishop Budde's faithfulness during such a time as we are now facing in this country. It has been a source of inspiration for me in my teaching and writing this week. 

** Epicureanism, sometimes called Epicurean Hedonism, represents a philosophy with pleasure at the center of its thought. However, Epicurus never meant crudely pleasurable focuses on gluttony, greed, arrogant self-centeredness or license, and the like. Instead, he focused on the pleasure of the mind, a rational approach to reality rooted in living in the present moment and learning to be grateful for what one has right now. Epicureanism is an egalitarian and materialistic philosophy where genuine friendships are very important as is simplicity in the way one lives one's life. However, it has no room for God, particularly a God who dwells with us as Emmanuel!

*** Some may be interested in NT Wright's How God Became King for dimensions of the Gospel story that they may not have heard in the past.


29 January 2025

Once Again, On God's Permissive will

[[Sister Laurel, when people refer to the permissive will of God what do they mean? Thanks!]]

When folks speak of God's permissive will, I often find the term to be a bit misleading and very frequently misused. It is truly or accurately used to refer to those things God does not necessarily will or approve of, but which he also does not prevent. This can include all kinds of things we clearly see God does not will (human sin, for instance), but that God does not intervene in to stop. There is a sense that these might have been allowed so that indirectly God's will can be brought to bear or accomplished, and this can, in some limited ways, be a sound analysis of how things eventually work out. The main problem with this way of viewing things is that one can disregard the limited usefulness of this view and come to see almost anything God eventually redeems as directly contributing to the doing of God's will. Thus, in such an interpretation, Judas' betrayal of Jesus can be said to contribute to the doing of God's will and (though we don't mention this) Judas should be congratulated. Likewise, with Peter's denials or the murderous mob mentality that contributed to Jesus' crucifixion and death. It was this kind of reasoning that led Paul to ask rhetorically, "Does this mean we should sin all the more freely so that God's grace may abound all the more?? God forbid!!"

Another way this notion of God's permissive will leads to the sense that so long as God does not prevent something he must approve it is in questions of human choice, vocation, etc. Some will live their lives in a particular way and conclude that because God did not stop them from doing so, he must approve and even call them to live this way. They might even conclude this way of living is a divine vocation! Almost anything can be justified in this way, no matter how destructive, inhuman, or badly conceived it is. The problem is with the assumption that if God does not intervene and prevent something, then that must mean God approves of this thing or that it contributes in some way to God's will eventually being accomplished. But this caricature is not what permissive will means.

There is, however, a better way of conceiving and stating the truth of what it means to refer to God's permissive will. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it best I think: [[Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that happens does so outside the will of God.]] What this means is that God is sovereign (or potentially sovereign over everything); God is greater than even the worst evil that can happen and both can and will bring good out of everything including the horrendous evil and stupidity that human beings commit. In Christ, God's love embraces the whole of reality, including sin and godless death, and will redeem whatever falls short of its true nature and calling. However, this does not imply that God approves of these things. Neither, of course, does it mean that God will step in and prevent anything that does not comport with his will. 

Our God is not a micromanager; at the same time, his sovereignty does not conflict with our genuine freedom. Instead, authentic freedom is the counterpart of divine sovereignty. Where human beings live something other than God's will, they live in bondage to sin and estrangement from God, no matter how often they call out "Lord! Lord!!" or wrap their inauthenticity in pious rhetoric. When we discern and do the will of God, we are truly free; where we are truly free God is truly sovereign. Many appeals to the permissive will of God are really justifications for everyday idolatry. I have found this to be particularly true when the supposed permissive will of God is linked to notions of suffering "sent" or "willed" by God. At the heart of these notions, one will always find a punitive and even sadistic God who is insensitive and coercive of persons' lives.

I have written similarly about this just recently (Dec 2024). You might check out God's Permissive Will, and other posts with the label "permissive will" or "Dietrich Bonhoeffer". The bottom line in all of this is that where we can speak of God permitting or failing to intervene and stop something from happening as God's "permissive will", we cannot and absolutely must not assume this means God approves of it!

26 January 2025

Does God Will or Need Our Suffering?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, does God will our suffering? Does he need it? Does he even send it?? I have been thinking about what it means to unite our sufferings with those of Christ. I can understand that as being about uniting ourselves with the God you write about --- the One who wants to dwell with us in everything, but I can't get my head around God needing me to suffer for some reason. Hasn't there been enough suffering? Isn't Jesus'  death supposed to have destroyed death and overcome sin"? One person I talk with occasionally has told me that we must suffer to make up for what was lacking in Christ's own sufferings but were his sufferings really inadequate?

I was recently diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disorder that has changed my life. The diagnosis was a relief in some ways (at least this has a name and is not about it being psychogenic or something like that!) but on the other hand, it has begun to hit me that this is going to get worse, not better. I know you have a disability and live with chronic pain as well so I wondered how you manage it all? How do you make sense of your illness? Is it about uniting your suffering with Christ's? Do you use medications for pain or seizures and if so, why do you do that if it's really all about uniting your sufferings to Christ? As you can tell, my mind is racing, I am angry and frightened, and I am thinking about things I have never thought about before. Can you help me?]]

Thank you for your questions and for the way you poured them out! Let me say that God, as I understand the question, does not will our suffering any more than he willed Jesus' torture and death by crucifixion. What God did will in that case was that Jesus continued living his life with integrity and faithfulness even in the face of serious threats and terrible danger. Jesus was to continue proclaiming the Kingdom of God in communion with the One he called Abba, but the actual torture and death perpetrated in the supposed name of God by idolatrous leaders was not the will of God. For most situations involving suffering that I can think of, the truth is the same. What God wills for us is that we live with integrity and faithfulness, in freedom and truth, empowered by God's love and that we do this sure of the value of our lives no matter the degree of our suffering, disability, illness, etc. We are to be people who live and thus proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the reality of the Kingdom (sovereignty) of God that gives our lives meaning despite and even in and through our suffering.

God does not need our suffering. What is true, however,  is that we need God's grace and must come to depend completely upon that grace. This requires a serious learning curve, including an inner conversion process if our dependence is to occur with the necessary depth, fullness,  and maturity. Suffering can help us grow in the various ways we must grow to truly depend on God to the extent Jesus demonstrates (reveals) is proper to authentic humanity. Even so, while suffering can assist in this necessary growth by helping to wean us from an overweening self-dependence or individualism, this does not translate into God sending or needing our suffering. God needs human beings to "let him in," if he is to be Emmanuel, God With Us. He does not, however, force himself on us in any way; God uses circumstances to find and create openings to our hearts and minds. While we can say that godless death has been destroyed and Jesus has won the decisive victory over sin, we still live in a world where sin and death have some power. We look ahead to the day when heaven and earth completely interpenetrate one another and are one. On that day there will be no death or sin, and no suffering because we will enjoy fullness of life and communion with (life in) God.

The idea of making up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ is not about Jesus' suffering or death being objectively inadequate to redeem creation, but about the need for us to allow the fruits of Jesus' objective victory to become the subjective truth of our own lives. Sin and godless death have been overcome and transformed by the presence of God. Jesus' openness to God and the depth of his "taking on" sin and death for our sake opened these realities to God's presence more profoundly than we ever could, but at the same time, God does not force his way into our lives. Only we, empowered by the Holy Spirit can allow that. When we open ourselves to Jesus and all he accomplished objectively, then subjectively speaking, we are "making up for" what was lacking in Christ's suffering and death.

You ask how I manage the suffering in my life, or how I make sense of my illness, and so forth. First of all, I do not manage by assuring myself that any of this (illness, suffering) is the will of God. It is not and believing it was would distort my theology and prevent me from believing in God at all. What I know is that while suffering is real, it is not the only, much less the deepest or most meaningful reality of my life. There IS what God truly wills as well, and it is that I believe we each must hold fast to in faith, hope, love, and real joy! 

Our God is the One who wills to live with us, to walk beside us in every situation, to accompany, love, and strengthen us in any way we need. This is the God who wills fullness of life for every person and the abundance of love, meaning, and fruitfulness that characterizes such a life. Through and very much in spite of my suffering, this is the person God calls me to be. Jesus' story is the same. He was called to allow God to be Emmanuel and he did this openly and exhaustively --- even in the presence of and despite his sufferings. Do I unite myself to Christ's sufferings? Yes, but not only and not even primarily to those. I also unite myself with Jesus' mission, with his abiding will to be the One in whom God is truly revealed (made known and made real) as Emmanuel. I unite myself with his compassion and amazing thirst for life. I unite myself with his courage and faithfulness in the power of the Holy Spirit, not with just his sufferings.

While suffering is difficult (and sometimes it is especially so!), I try to keep this second constellation of things in mind. I try to remember who God calls me to be, who God has made me, and the mission in which I share. Suffering will inevitably come, but in the way I live my life, it must be secondary to the vocation and mission that God has entrusted to me in Christ. My suffering is thus contextualized within this larger and more powerfully sustaining reality. It becomes meaningful only in light of this larger context. Spiritual direction reminds me of who I am and my director encourages me to stay in touch with the deep truth and potential of that identity. To be frank, it is either that or it is to allow myself to be swallowed up by the suffering. I must not let that happen! 

When I have written about a vocation to chronic illness it is a way of maintaining the same perspective I have been outlining here. I have stressed, even in the work on chronic illness as vocation, that God does not call anyone to be chronically ill. Instead, he calls us to be ill within the church and Gospel so that we witness to Christ's love and compassion, and the possibility of essential wholeness even in the presence of various forms of brokenness or illness. Especially, I remind myself that we are all pilgrims on a journey to a time and place where God will be all in all and there will be none of the struggle or suffering that exists today.

Yes, I take meds for medically and surgically intractable seizures, chronic pain (CRPS), and several other things as well! (I am getting older, after all!) I do it because, as I said above, my own calling as a Christian (not to mention as a Catholic Hermit) is the witness to the truth of a larger reality and context than my own suffering per se. Medications help me in this and I honestly couldn't function, much less be or become fully human without them. Instead, the suffering would have swallowed up my life and any larger vision of its meaning or mission I might have had. This larger context doesn't make it impossible for me to suffer with Christ, but it does help me to live with and in him. It also allows even the suffering I experience to be transfigured into a source of grace. For me, it is critical that, as much as possible, one not focus on the suffering per se, but instead on the larger mission and vocation, both ours and Jesus' as well. Of course, it is important that we not deny or diminish our suffering either; still, we must not allow it to become the whole or even the predominant story of our life. Unfortunately, I have seen some people do this with their own suffering; they have no story to tell apart from their own conversations about their suffering. It is my sense that we are each called to much much more than our sufferings, even when these sufferings predominate. (Certainly, this is what is revealed in Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension!!)  I believe that keeping suffering contextualized in this way is the very best way to suffer well!

What you are looking at in your Dx is both a terrible uncertainty and an equally terrible certainty. I will certainly pray for you and I ask that you pray for me as well. At the same time, I encourage you to do all you can to refuse to allow your diagnosis to take over your identity. This would be the worst kind of betrayal of either yourself or of God. God has made you much more than your illness and he has called you to witness to the power of his creative love. I think that is the only way to really manage serious chronic illnesses. We must find and witness to the larger hope to which we are called --- the larger life, meaning, and purpose that allows even suffering to be transfigured in Christ. At least, that is what I try to do myself.

I sincerely hope this is helpful!!