On Community and the Hermit, part 1

[[Hi Sister, I have a question that may seem odd, perhaps even funny, but I ask it in all seriousness.
Should hermits have friends? I know there are lots of admonishments in monastic literature against having "particular friendships" etc. that could take away from community life, but a hermit has no community in that same sense. Scripture teachings that its not good for humans to be alone, so community of some sort is necessary for our emotional and spiritual well-being. What does community look like for a hermit? ]]

No, I understand this is a serious question; it's also a critically important one, especially when, as you note, some literature and praxis on the spiritual life was tainted by blanket prohibitions against "particular friendships", etc. I have written about hermits and the importance of friendships before in  several posts, so please check out the labels below. Also you might want to look at the following article. Hermits and Friendships. I am not sure I can add lots to it in answering your questions but we will see.

First, the focus on "particular friendships" is something I experienced first hand when I initially entered religious life and it was something which was quite often destructive rather than helpful in the spiritual life. Today we recognize clearly that vows of celibate love (consecrated celibacy or 'chastity') require affective maturity and the richness of loving generously and chastely; all that will necessarily mean friendships! It goes without saying that these friendships must also be mature, neither exclusive nor grounded in either (or both!) persons' neediness (which is not the same thing as a need for mature friendship!), and they must be focused in a way which allows each person to grow in their capacity as a human being and thus too, in their vocations. Enmeshment is not true friendship, nor is it really loving. It also goes without saying then that friendships cannot (and when genuine, will not) detract from one's vocation. This, especially for the hermit, comes with its own set of tensions, uncommon limitations, and difficulties --- particularly when one person in the relationship is a hermit and the other is not. However, negotiating these in a loving and mature way is part and parcel of the healthy eremitical vocation; eschewing them or simply ruling out friendships and other relationships entirely is not.

While I cannot say what community looks like generally for a solitary hermit, I can point to some of the dimensions of it in my own life. In this way perhaps I can eventually describe what is essential, what is exceptional, and what must be sacrificed for what eremitical life calls "the silence of solitude" and "stricter separation from the world" (being careful to understand that other people or relationships per se are NOT "the world"!!). In my own life there are a circle of close friends with whom I can discuss or share whatever I need to and who can share with me as they need. We may go to an occasional concert or movie or dinner out for birthdays or major holidays (Christmas, Easter), etc, and in one instance, we two meet for Mass and coffee most Sundays during the school year.  In this post I will focus on them only.

I count among this group my delegate and director (Sister of the Holy Family), a Dominican Sister, my pastor (Oblate of St Francis de Sales), a Franciscan Sister (whom I have seen in person a mere handful of times in the past two decades), and two friends from the parish. Additionally there is one diocesan hermit from another country; we don't speak or write often but when we do there is a lot of laughter and we pick up as though there was no gap in time. At present I don't have a regular confessor but even so, each of these persons understands my vocation and helps me to live it with integrity. Each adds to it in a number of ways, challenging me, filling me in on things I might otherwise be unaware of, instructing me, calling me to love and be loved. Generally they are folks I can talk with about the Church, prayer, theology, religious life and the vows, Scripture, spirituality more generally, as well as literature, music, etc. In the time between meetings they hold me in prayer and I do likewise with them. They are the sort of "inner circle" within the community I count on.

What is true and critical about this circle of friends is that they understand and value me and my vocation in a way others cannot. (Others I will also mention later value me and my vocation but in a different way.) Most (all but two) are religious and all but one of these do spiritual direction or pastoral counseling. Thus, most are vowed, all have significant prayer lives and appreciate the dynamics of physical solitude/concrete loving and contemplation/action as fundamental in their own lives.  For each of these persons Christ stands at the center of their lives. We (mainly) speak the same language spiritually, theologically, professionally, and humanly. In my own life I would have to say that these friendships are critically necessary. I do not know if my eremitical life would be a healthy one without them --- though I personally suspect it would not. While in most cases we don't see each other often, we do tend to pick up where we left off even as we try to hear about where the other person has been in the intervening space of time. What I can say about this group of people is that they are a daily source of joy and richness for me as well as of challenge and inspiration. That is so even when it will be days, weeks, months, or even years before I see them again. (We do email and/or write regularly. We also phone or skype occasionally.)

I suppose it is clear that this group of people are a fairly select group. One of the reasons they are so important to me is because each of them understands and has made  and routinely makes sacrifices for the sake of their commitment to Christ; they are neither dismayed nor surprised by my own. Instead they expect these and would be surprised if they did NOT exist. All both are and have good friends but all have significant limitations on how often they see these friends and each one makes sacrifices so their time together is quality time. We share the same vows and values which tends to mean we appreciate the same things, read the same books (or at least the same authors), are interested in the same Church-related topics and concerns, spend money (or try not to spend money!) in mainly the same ways, and so forth. More, we tend to laugh a lot when we are together and cry together when necessary. Prayer is a way of life for each of us and their presence in my life (and I hope mine in theirs) is humanizing and holy-making. Most of these people have community obligations and commitments --- people they love and serve as Sisters and Brothers --- as well as active ministry and prayer lives to keep up. Most are in or have been in leadership and formation in their own communities so you can imagine how full their lives are. My own commitment to the silence of solitude (and all that makes that what it is) as well as my own SD ministry and limited parish service takes the place of these in my own life so when we are able to get together it is a priority --- and a gift of God.

This is the first part of my answer to your questions. While this group is not all the community that exists in my life it is the most profound and intimate, the most challenging, and the most enriching in terms of my life as a religious and hermit. In the main these persons' dedication to Christ and his People (meaning the way they give their lives for love of these through a variety of spiritual traditions and ministries) inspire (and empower) me to live the same way --- though as a hermit who also stands in the Camaldolese tradition. And that, it seems to me, is the essence of community (or the most intimate friendship!) for anyone who seeks to follow Christ.

You may have more specific questions than I have answered here. If so be sure and clarify things for me and I will answer those in the second part. (It occurs to me that what I wrote about this year's retreat also gives a glimpse into the importance of friends and the nature of community for a hermit so take a look at that as well.)

Update on Dominican Sisters in Iraq

Dominican Sisters in Better Times -- 2013

I personally found this letter very inspiring. The Sisters continue to minister, to witness to the sustaining presence of God,  to spend their lives for love of God and the people to whom they are committed in ever new and creative ways, and to hope when it is very clear that without God and the more far reaching perspective faith provides there would be no reason to hope. In other words, they continue to be women religious doing what women religious have always done wherever they have gone and in whatever circumstances. I have been asked about and am checking to see if there are material ways to help these Sisters directly or via another Dominican congregation here in the US. That is especially important given the coming Winter months. When I have some information in that regard I will post it. Meanwhile of course, your prayers are indispensable.

best,
Sister Laurel, Er Dio.

Dear all,

Despite the crisis, fear, loss, miserable accommodations, daily worries, and the terrible reality of the unknown destiny that awaits us, we still witness the presence of God’s embrace; truly an oasis of joy and sisterhood.  On the 13^th of September, two of our young sisters (names given and withheld here) made their final vows in St Joseph’s Church. The celebration was wonderful and quiet, yet not without tears. We thank the Lord, and we thank our two brave sisters for their love for the Church and the congregation. All of this depends on your prayers, which strengthen us and deepen our love and hope every day.

Most of our sisters are still working at the camps everyday (8:30-1:00 and 17:00-20:00). They offer their services and solidarity, attend to the social, medical, and spiritual needs of the people and pray with them. Our sisters realize that women and children need special care in times like these, so they pay attention to them in a particular way.

There have been some initiatives to deal with housing problems, and as the school year starts, some houses and flats have been offered to the displaced people who had been staying in tents and at various schools.  One school where 300 families were placed has been evacuated, and two others now also, one with thirty-five families and another with seventy-five. Still the needs are great, winter is coming soon, and the number of displaced people remains very high.

Everyday, many families leave Iraq, without having a specific place to go, to countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey to apply to the UN for immigration. Some have managed to travel directly to France. Of course, among these people are families of our sisters, a fact that causes additional pain as they see the members of their families scattered in different countries throughout the world.

In our convent in Ankawa/Erbil, the containers (temporary housings) are now set up, and on the 28^th of September the sisters left the seminary and moved there.  They are equipped to provide the sisters with a decent accommodation. Thus, we celebrated our being together for first time since we left Karakosh on the 6^th of August—praying and eating together. It is wonderful to be together, sharing at the end of the day our difficulties, our problems, and also the wonderful initiatives and activities that bring joy to the hearts of all the children and adults we encounter.

Additionally, sisters thought of the orphans and children who have special needs. So, they decided to repair and expand the other convent we have in Ankawa (very close to Al-Bishara convent) to accommodate ten girls. The work is in process, and hopefully girls will move soon to the house where they can live peacefully with two of our sisters taking care of them.

We continue to thank you for your prayers and help. Your support is truly significant to us.

Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena –Iraq.

Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

The first two pictures here are taken of one of the small side chapel niches at Old Mission Santa Barbara. The first one shows the entire sculpture setting with statues of St Francis and St Clare along with the San Damiano Cross in the background. The second is a close up of a portion of this setting which I have used before; it was a gift given to me on this Feast Day last year and is my favorite statue of St Francis. The third stands in the (private) covenant courtyard of the Mission and is another contemporary rendering through which a Father worked out his grief over the loss of his son.


Today St Francis' popularity and influence (inspiration!) is more striking than it has been in a very long time. We see it animating a relatively new Pope to transform the Church and to live a simple Gospel-centered life just as Francis of Assisi was inspired by God to do. We see it in the renewed emphasis of the Church on evangelization and ecumenism where the One God who stands behind all true religious impulses is honored while he is proclaimed most fully in the crucified Christ. We see it in a renewed sense of the cosmic Christ and in a growing sensitivity to the sacredness and interconnectedness of all creation. Francis lived the truth of the Gospel with an honesty, transparency (poverty), and integrity which captures the imagination of everyone who meets him in some significant way. He inspires a hope and joy that only the God who overcomes death and brings eternal life through an unconditional love and mercy that does justice could do. He renews our hope in Christ that our own Church and world might well reveal the glory of this God as they are meant to do. Francis is a gift to the Church in ways which are hard to overstate.


On this Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi I feel privileged to celebrate this great man (saint) and all those who go by the name of Franciscan --- but especially the Franciscans I spent time with last week, whether Sisters, Nuns, Friars, or secular Franciscans. Our world is simply a better place with a more truly Christian presence, sensibility, and spirit because of Saint Francis and those who seek to live his way. Peace and all Good!

A Few Notes on Retreat

[[ Hi Sister, are you home from retreat? Welcome home if you are! Did you have a good time? Can you share some details? I am one of those people who thought it was a little strange for hermits to go on retreat (or vacation like you've also written about) but I understood what you said about that last week. Are there really people who believe vocations can be forced on someone or that God wills it if it is unpleasant and even against what one feels in one's own deep heart? What kind of witness would it be if a person was always struggling to accept such a call. It must be even harder for someone to become a hermit that way! Like solitary confinement or something!!]]

First, yes, I am home from retreat. I and Aggie, the friend I drove down to Santa Barbara with, returned last evening. As part of that trip home Sister Susan (more about her in a bit) and I drove together from Santa Barbara to Santa Maria where the Sisters in her congregation retire. Susan works with these Sisters once a week as a provider of "spiritual support". Aggie  (who was not on retreat but visiting family in the SB and Santa Maria areas) met us there and, after leaving Sister Susan at the convent, we drove the rest of the way North together. We listened to an audio book on the way home from somewhere beyond Salinas or so and ended up laughing and laughing over some parts of it that we just found ridiculous. (It was meant to be an inspiring book and there were places where it was definitely so, but instead of just being a true story it mainly turned into a very long sermon by a physician playing theologian. If I dispensed medical advice the way this doc does theology she would be be righteously offended and I would be in prison for practicing medicine without a license or some kind of malpractice or something!) It did, however, make the long drive seem a lot shorter!

A Few Notes on Retreat

Retreat was good. Very rich in many ways.  Like all retreats it was not what I expected (of course it never is and I try generally --- and usually unsuccessfully --- not to have expectations); some parts of it were fruitful and prayerful in a straightforward way and some will take some time to process to see what God is doing with them in my life. One of the things I can say is that Jeremiah's quotation about God's plans for us was central during the entire retreat. I am sure you know the quote I mean: [[For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a HOPE and a future.]] Jer 29:11. It was important because of a conversation with my friend on the way to Santa Barbara as I related  a little more of my personal story from the years before I entered the Franciscans.

It was important as I met and got reacquainted with Fr Kenan Osborne, OFM, who had been one of my professors for an MA course in Grace back in the mid-70's, or as I met and even connected with several new people who are part of the parish at the mission. It was important as I got together again with Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF, who had been the Vicar for Religious and (mainly) Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Oakland when I first petitioned to become a diocesan hermit and who is now not only Franciscan to her bones, for which I really respect her, but someone I consider a good friend. (She is the source of John Shea's poem, After the End, which I quoted a while back.) Jer 29:11 was important in considering and processing some of the darker aspects of stuff that came up as part of this time away -- not as an intrusion upon retreat but as something which did not fit easily or obviously --- though I have no doubt it will continue to change and challenge me in some ways. Jeremiah's quote was even important to a lot of the laughing we did on the way back from SB while listening to the audio book -- which actually quoted it explicitly. In all of these events and more a recurring theme was a kind of looking back in light of where I have come to as well as a looking ahead to consider how I shall continue to live what I am called to; it allowed me to see all the more clearly what God has done with my life and what a magnificent weaver of coherent stories he is.

I arrived and began retreat late Tuesday afternoon. The more significant pieces of things are partly reflected in the blog pieces I did those first days so while I don't want to minimize those here, neither do I want to repeat them. To summarize briefly though, my days from @ 4:00am 'til about 8:00am were mainly the same as at home except for two days when I got to sleep quite late and rose (or at least awoke!) with the bells at 6:00am. The afternoons mainly involved quiet prayer, lectio and writing.  In the evenings I prayed Vespers, read different things, took walks around parts of the mission, prayed quietly in the stillness (the stars were incredible), and then prayed Compline. Mass was at 7:30am each day except Saturday and Sunday. Saturday Mass was at 7:00am at the Poor Clares monastery a short distance from the Mission.

The ability to spend time with both old and new friends was both a great blessing and part of the retreat's meaning for me. Most significantly, Sister Susan and I met Friday for lunch and ate at her place -- which meant I was able (after 30 years of knowing Sr Susan in one capacity and another!) to meet her 92 yo dad! Since Susan can REALLY cook (not like myself!), and since I really liked her Dad it was a great lunch. Mr Blomstad heard a few stories about his daughter's work with me for the diocese back in the 80's, some of the funnier aspects of trying to do something new in the Church when few people (including Vicars for Religious!) understand what that thing means, some other stories about Susan's time as Vicar and Director of Vocations, asked questions about dioceses and their attitudes (mainly resistance) toward professing hermits while we ate garlic soup (definitely an excellent new experience for me),chicken in a lemon and herb marinade, and veggies. For dessert we divided a SMALL (not quite minuscule) slice of apricot tart into three pieces (neither Bob (Mr Blomstad) nor I believed it possible, especially -- I thought -- not without a scalpel) and because of the richness of the tart these micro slices were really enough (though I will not presume to speak for Mr Blomstad in this)!!

Afterwards Susan showed me around Santa Barbara a little; we visited Ellison park where we walked, talked, and sat for a bit. (There is a powerful and evocative monument there and we visited that. It was done in honor of one Father's son who died from an addiction/overdose with figures both free and still freeing or assisting others to free themselves carved from a huge block of Italian marble; the figures are drawn from the marble to greater and greater degrees with one fully freed person at the top reaching down to others only more and less emergent from the uncarved stone. There was also a terrific little amphitheater shaded with Oaks, etc. --- a great place to sit and talk, swap stories, etc). In this way Susan shared places she came to pray and other significant parts of her life here while also giving me a chance to visit parts of Santa Barbara whose beauty and power I would never have seen otherwise. We took the scenic (indirect) route back to the Mission, and, the apricot tart now having worn off (remember, these were micro slices!), stopped for ice cream at McConnell's (there was another great story attached to Susan's decision to stop here) --- and I had  truly the biggest cone I have ever had (Salted caramel chip as in the picture below -- only in a waffle cone.


I saw Susan and her Dad again at Sunday liturgy --- the Mission is their parish church. It was a wonderful liturgy and the second reading from Philippians 2:1-11 -- Paul's hymn of praise to the self-emptying God revealed in an obedient Christ --- one of my favorite passages ---  was a real surprise. (I had looked at the Gospel parable the day before and thought a little about that, but I had not read the other readings.) The choir did a version of the Philippians text for their hymn during the preparation of the gifts which was both traditional sounding and a kind of edgy harmony in places. The composer was Lee Hoiby. I didn't know him, but it turns out that he was educated here in the Bay Area (Mills College) and then at Curtis; later (ironically for me) he became a sort of recluse who lived deep in the Catskills and spent his time composing. This hymn was one of the most beautiful pieces I have heard in some time --- especially in this context. (A version is included below, not the best audio but it was the only one I could find. This one has a more extended organ introduction, etc at the beginning than the version used by the Mission Choir on Sunday.)



In the afternoon we saw each other again and I was able to meet some of  Sr Susan's Mission friends at the annual parish picnic. (In case you are wondering about what happened to retreat, please understand that the ONLY food on Sunday apart from donuts after Mass or cold cereal and yogurt from the kitchen was the picnic food; the dining hall and kitchen was being used by the parish --- so of course, I just HAD to go, much as I hated to!) Anyway, I was back in my room by about 2:00 pm and the picnic (which included a bluegrass band!) went on for another hour. I made a cup of tea, opened my journal, and settled back in.

Your other questions will need to wait until another time, I'm afraid. I will put up a second post along with a third about community and diocesan hermits --- a set of questions I was asked just before I left for retreat and have yet to finish answering. Let me say here that your question about the kind of witness such a "hermit" (one forced to accept profession and/or consecration) would be is right at the heart of matters -- so, good questions.

Benedictine Sr. Christine Vladimiroff dies

While the focus in some parts of this fine article is on the refusal of Sister Christine to simply do as the Vatican ordered and thus seems to be on disobedience, the truth is more complicated and positive. Sisters Christine Vladimiroff and Joan Chittester were not exercising disobedience but rather obedience as understood and practiced within the Benedictine tradition. Namely, they prayed about the matter, listened profoundly not only to the Vatican's concerns but to each other, the Holy Spirit, and the signs of the times, discussed it with experts, canonists, and others in a way which was also part of discernment, and acted on their discernment. This deep form of hearkening, counting the cost and then making the necessary commitment despite difficulty, other commitments and relationships, etc, is the point of today's Gospel lection and it is the essence of the Benedictine vow of obedience!

Sister Christine's response to the Vatican is appended below the article by Tom Roberts.

by Tom Roberts

Sep. 30, 2014 National Catholic Reporter

Benedictine Sr. Christine Vladimiroff, who as prioress in 2001 refused to follow a Vatican order that she prohibit another member of her community from speaking at a conference advocating ordination of women, died Sept. 25 at Mount St. Benedict Monastery in Erie, Pa., following a long illness. She was 74.

Vladimiroff, an accomplished woman who earned a doctorate from the Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca, Mexico, and who did postgraduate studies at several U.S. universities, was a teacher and administrator at various points in her career at the elementary, secondary and college levels.

In the 1980s, she served first as multicultural coordinator and later as secretary of education for the Cleveland diocese. In 1991, she was appointed president and CEO of the Second Harvest National Food Bank Network in Chicago. She remained in that position until 1998, when she was elected prioress of the Erie community.

She became most widely known, however, for leading her community through a high-profile confrontation with the Vatican in 2001. In March of that year, she received an ominous communication from the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, ordering her to “forbid and prohibit” Sr. Joan Chittister from participating as a principal speaker at a conference on women’s ordination scheduled for late June in Dublin.

Vladimiroff was to deliver the prohibition “by way of a formal precept of obedience,” and the letter made clear that “failure to heed this command on the part of the religious will result in appropriate punishment.” Exactly what that punishment might entail was not explicitly detailed in the letter, but canonists said it could have entailed removal of Chittister from her order, removal of Vladimiroff as prioress, as well as sanctions on the community.

Vladimiroff spent a great deal of time and energy in the intervening months meeting with both canonists and Vatican officials. In the end, she wrote the Vatican a letter explaining that she could not, in good conscience, prohibit Chittister from going.

During an evening prayer service the day before Vladimiroff left for a May 28, 2001, meeting with members of the Vatican congregation, she read to the community the letter she had written explaining her decision and invited all 128 active nuns in the community to add their signatures to the letter. All but one – Chittister herself – signed the letter. “After that,” Vladimiroff told NCR at the time, “we had dinner together. That’s what families do.”

Chittister spoke at the conference, and afterward the Vatican appeared to soften its stance. The Vatican spokesman at the time told NCR that the congregation “believed that the participation of the two female religious in the women’s ordination conference would not be opportune without permission of their superior generals. The congregation has not taken – in this case – disciplinary measures into consideration.” The other woman religious was Notre Dame de Namur Sr. Myra Poole of London, one of the organizers of the conference.

Vladimiroff, a native of Erie, joined the Benedictine community in 1957 and pronounced her perpetual monastic vows in 1962.

Following completion of her second term of office as prioress, she became executive director of St. Benedict Education Center, a ministry of the community in Erie that teaches job and language skills, often to newly arrived refuges.

In addition to serving as prioress, Vladimiroff served as president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses; president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (2004-2005); and as delegate to the International Organization of Benedictine Women, Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum.

[Tom Roberts is NCR editor at large. His email address is troberts@ncronline.org.]

From Sister Christine Vladimiroff, Prioress, Benedictine Sisters of Erie and President of the LCWR.

For the past three months I have been in deliberations with Vatican officials regarding Sister Joan Chittister¹s participation in the Women¹s Ordination Worldwide Conference, June 29 to 31, Dublin, Ireland. The Vatican believed her participation to be in opposition to its decree (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis) that priestly ordination will never be conferred on women in the Roman Catholic Church and must therefore not be discussed. The Vatican ordered me to prohibit Sister Joan from attending the conference where she is a main speaker.

I spent many hours discussing the issue with Sister Joan and traveled to Rome to dialogue about it with Vatican officials . I sought the advice of bishops, religious leaders, canonists, other prioresses, and most importantly with my religious community, the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. I spent many hours in communal and personal prayer on this matter.

After much deliberation and prayer, I concluded that I would decline the request of the Vatican. It is out of the Benedictine , or monastic, tradition of obedience that I formed my decision. There is a fundamental difference in the understanding of obedience in the monastic tradition and that which is being used by the Vatican to exert power and control and prompt a false sense of unity inspired by fear. Benedictine authority and obedience are achieved through dialogue between a community member and her prioress in a spirit of co-responsibility. The role of the prioress in a Benedictine community is to be a guide in the seeking of God. While lived in community, it is the individual member who does the seeking.

Sister Joan Chittister, who has lived the monastic life with faith and fidelity for fifty years, must make her own decision based on her sense of Church, her monastic profession and her own personal integrity. I cannot be used by the Vatican to deliver an order of silencing.

I do not see her participation in this conference as a "source of scandal to the faithful" as the Vatican alleges. I think the faithful can be scandalized when honest attempts to discuss questions of import to the church are forbidden.

I presented my decision to the community and read the letter that I was sending to the Vatican. 127 members of the 128 eligible members of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie freely supported this decision by signing her name to that letter. Sister Joan addressed the Dublin conference with the blessing of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie.

My decision should in no way indicate a lack of communion with the Church. I am trying to remain faithful to the role of the 1500 -year-old monastic tradition within the larger Church. We trace our tradition to the early Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 4th century who lived on the margin of society in order to be a prayerful and questioning presence to both church and society. Benedictine communities of men and women were never intended to be part of the hierarchical or clerical status of the Church, but to stand apart from this structure and offer a different voice. Only if we do this can we live the gift that we are for the Church. Only in this way can we be faithful to the gift that women have within the Church.

- Sister Christine Vladimiroff, Prioress,
Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania

On Professing Someone who does not Desire it

[[Hi Sister Laurel. Did your Bishop desire you to become a diocesan hermit? Is it possible that a Bishop would ASK someone to petition to be accepted as a diocesan hermit? I have read that a Bishop might desire this for the diocese and could do so even if the individual is not interested in becoming a diocesan hermit. Does this happen? A lot?]]

I think that I have been asked something similar before. If so this answer may repeat some of my earlier answer. Please check through the labels (below and to the right) so see if other posts also speak to these questions. (Actually I am now fairly certain I have done so some time last year or so; I would suggest looking under the labels authentic and inauthentic eremitism and/or abuses of canon 603 to find related posts.)

The idea of someone becoming a diocesan hermit simply because a bishop personally desires it is VERY unlikely! Moreover, the notion that a bishop would desire someone to do this even if they do NOT feel called to it themselves is even more completely unlikely --- not least because it is a silly and at least potentially, a seriously destructive way to proceed with regard to this specific vocation. (Actually, it's not a particularly desirable or edifying way to proceed with any vocation (consider marriage undertaken in this way for a great sense of SOME of the problems involved), but I would argue it is especially undesirable and disedifying with eremitical life!) Bishops, while they might say to someone, "Have you ever considered becoming a priest or religious (including a diocesan hermit), etc?" do not tend to ask someone out of the blue to consider becoming a diocesan hermit; it is altogether too rare, too significant, and too different from the way most folks are brought to wholeness and holiness --- which really means too different from the way human beings ordinarily learn to love and achieve genuine integration and individuation.

A candidate for profession and consecration really MUST have the sense that God is calling them to this and they must be able to make a convincing case of that for the diocese and bishop before being admitted to profession. More, I think the individual MUST take the initiative in this. It cannot be the decision of a director, et al to discern or seek this on behalf of another, nor can a person legitimately or validly approach profession while saying, "I am doing this because my Bishop desires it!" Thus I would have to say the most a Bishop can do (if he even has the opportunity, which is hard to imagine) is to say, "Your life strikes me as implicitly eremitical; why don't you pray and do some studying about the matter of vocation as a diocesan hermit? I will do the same."

I am not sure I understand the part of the question about desiring this for the diocese, or at least, it seems a little "off" to me. I suppose it reminds me of the practice once common in old English gardens; on large estates, no estate garden was complete without its ornamental "hermit". Of course I believe that a diocesan hermit is a gift to her parish and diocese and that that indicates that God has graced the life of these with an eremitical vocation, but it is not as though one can say, "Hmmm, I want some of THESE graces for the diocese so I will ask so-and-so to become a diocesan hermit!" Graces are shared manifestations of God's very self, not bits of "stuff" that can be separated off from the living God and stored up or parceled out or anything similar. The Holy Spirit works in individual lives in all kinds of ways and it is this active presence we call grace; when a diocese recognizes and affirms an eremitical vocation of course I think that is wonderful, but one cannot simply make someone a hermit (or ask them to become one!) because one would like "the graces associated with this" or something. That smacks more of the shopping network than (attention to) the work of the Holy Spirit.

Having said that though, let me also say I wish dioceses were more knowledgeable about and more open to the eremitical vocations in their midst. For instance, where I live there are any number of elderly people who live physically solitary and intensely prayerful lives who might well have eremitical vocations that could serve both the parish and the diocese as a whole as lives of real marginality, chronic illness, poverty, etc are radically transformed, consecrated in a public way, and set before the faith community as paradigms of the truth that God alone suffices. While such lives are (and would remain) marginal in the ways the world measures things they would assume a public place and role right in the very heart of the Church and be a resource even these individuals themselves never imagined. Their illnesses don't need to be healed, their poverty relieved, or their marginality eased as part of this radical transformation. Instead these things would be redeemed by God's consecration of them and made infinitely meaningful pointers to (sacramentals of) a joy and significance which goes beyond anything our world ordinarily imagines them to be or mediate. But, let me be clear, I do not mean that every elderly or chronically ill person should do this as a hermit much less as a diocesan hermit; still, I believe that dioceses have greater numbers of potential hermits living within them than they might realize --- genuine eremitical vocations which are already an unrecognized grace to parishes and dioceses but whose potential meaningfulness and fruitfulness is yet unknown to the local (or the universal) Church.

You ask if a Bishop can profess (and eventually consecrate) someone who does not wish this. The answer is simply NO --- at least not if he is acting responsibly and in a truly pastoral way (I am assuming he is!). As noted above, I wonder if such a profession is even canonically valid in such a case. As I have written many times here, ecclesial vocations are mutually discerned. One cannot proclaim oneself a religious or a consecrated person via a private dedication (that way lies self-delusion and pretense) nor can the Church profess and consecrate someone either against their will nor unless that person is also genuinely convinced this is the will and call of God for them. To attempt to do so is to sin against conscience and possibly involves one in a kind of sacrilege as one demeans not only a particular vocation but the entire rite of profession/consecration.

There is a strain in hagiographical writing which focuses on the unwillingness of individuals to embrace vocations to religious life and/or priesthood. It has sometimes tended to validate discernment of vocations --- a kind of psychologically and spiritually naive, "Well I know I didn't want this so it must be God's will" kind of thing. (It can sometimes be used to underscore a skewed notion of obedience and quasi-humility in a kind of martyred, "Well, the idea really is unpleasant for me but if my Bishop desires it, then I'll do it!" But in point of fact, we know that this is really not the way vocations generally work; radical conversion, perhaps to an extent --- at least in the beginning --- but vocations? Not really. The deeper and more compelling dynamic in vocations is always a deep attraction or yearning.  (By the way, I understand it is a bit false and impossible to tease vocation and conversion apart from one another in this way, but it is necessary in this context.) With the eremitical vocation, if one does not truly have the sense it is the way to human wholeness and holiness for them, if, that is, one does not really believe God is calling one to this as an amazing grace which redeems their lives and is a way of being there for others, and especially if one says, "No! This is NOT for me; I don't want this, it is even a bit repugnant to me!" then it is NOT their vocation!

Vocations are not a way we simply come to terms with God's will, especially with a grudging, foot-dragging, half-hearted,"Oh-all-right-I'll-go-along-with-this" acquiescence. Vocations are the deeply joy-filled ways we cooperate with God's life within us and our world. They make us profoundly happy and fulfilled in a way which sustains us in even the most painful situations which still befall us. This profound happiness or joy shines through even in the darkness; more it (and the call it stems from) is the ground which sustains one at these times. There is a great difference between someone who bitches and moans about how awful their life is, how difficult or arduous their vocation, how much pain they are in, how routinely rejected they are, or how endlessly God tests them --- who then ends this grim disquisition with the postscript, "God is love; how I love to do God's will!" and the person whose main life-theme is a deep joy while very real pain, difficulty, or rejection experienced are merely subtexts! Vocations are demanding realities, but they are not difficult in themselves. What I mean is that they present us with difficulties and may trouble us at times in heart and mind, but of themselves, they are a joy and gift which makes all the rest shine with the radiance of God.

The notion that a vocation (meaning here a vocational path like religious life) can be used to hide profound human unhappiness and dysfunction is something we are all the more sensitive to today. We know more clearly than we have ever known that this must NEVER be the case. After all, every vocation is a call to authentic, exhaustively loving and generous humanity. A vocational path must surely be a means to this. In referring to hiding profound unhappiness or dysfunction then, I am not speaking about dealing appropriately (and privately) with the more normal times of depression, mental illness, etc which can afflict every human life. I am speaking about covering profound unhappiness and personal dysfunction with the trappings of a vocation. That strain of hagiographical writing I spoke of earlier has provided some with the grounds for this misguided approach. So has the notion of higher vocations and a tendency to absolutely separate the supernatural from the natural, the eternal from the temporal, or the divine from the human. In eremitical life this tendency becomes even more acutely dangerous because for most people living in solitude is itself dysfunctional and can be used to escape or run from the demons which inhabit every human heart. It can be used to make of the hermitage an escape from the whole of God's good creation and the requirements of a heart which is only purified in loving and being loved by God and others. To profess and consecrate someone who is really profoundly unhappy and may be even MORE profoundly unhappy (and increasingly dysfunctional) in solitude is a serious failure in charity.


Postscript: (I forgot to answer this part of your question)

About whether or not my Bishop desired me to become a diocesan hermit I have to say I don't really know. Certainly I believe he had discerned this was what God was calling me to. Similarly I believe he discerned it was a gift to my parish, the diocese, and even to the wider Church. Finally I don't think he did something he did not desire to do in this, but at the same time, I don't usually think in terms of what Archbishop Vigneron desired or did not desire. This is important because if my eremitical life is a matter of discernment then many niggling questions and problems melt away with profession and consecration. If it had merely been something my Bishop (and I!) desired, then it actually raises questions, creates difficulties, and certainly it would heighten the niggling questions that would have remained on the day of profession. Let me know if you want me to say more about this.

Third Day of Retreat: Question On Matters of Focus

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, If you are on retreat how can your attention be focused outward to "the wider world" as you recently wrote? That's not my idea of retreating!]]

 Well,  you are entirely correct that some of my attention has been so focused and that is mainly because of two things: 1) my heart is profoundly engaged here and that naturally includes people who enrich my life by loving me and allowing me to love them, and 2) this is a natural rhythm for me at this time. I can certainly focus inward and there are times that I have done and in fact must do that to the exclusion of really thinking much about people outside the hermitage (or my room here at the mission), but going on retreat is a sort of paradoxical reality for me. It is a time when I leave the hermitage, meet and interact on  a limited basis with others, worship with those I don't really know (yet), and to a very limited degree when I am out of my room and somewhere else in the mission, answer occasional questions about this vocation, my own ties to Franciscanism and my journey from there to Diocesan Eremitical life and Camaldolese Benedictinism. While my time here is no different from the annual retreat taken by any religious, whether ministerial or not, it is the case that it is a bit more relaxed in some ways (not least that I can check email at noon time if I choose to and read questions like yours!) and that it frees me from some everyday concerns which are part and parcel of my life at Stillsong. Still, it is very much retreat time and I will do my best to simply allow it to be what God wills and thus, what I need it to be (and vice versa!).



Perhaps the first reading from today's liturgy captures this sense of rhythm and the appropriateness of flexibility best (it was because of this that I actually chose to answer your question today rather than next week some time): [[To everything there is a Season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. . . .a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. . . .A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. . . .a time to be silent, and a time to speak. . . .He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into [our] hearts]]

You see, I understand retreat as a privileged time to honor what is in my heart because the heart is that place within me where God bears witness to Godself. I do that by allowing myself to be taken hold of by what dwells therein in ways which may differ from when I am home. The different context assures that I perceive things from a different perspective because different things trigger meaningful associations for me and because it is all differently illuminated. I hear texts and prayers proclaimed or recited with new voices and so, in new ways. Similarly, I am vulnerable in different ways, that is, all of this and more serves to open my heart in fresh and surprising ways to our living God who is always new. 


You must admit that superficially at least there is a bit of irony or something just a little "mind-bending" in the idea of a hermit "going on retreat". In any case it hardly makes sense to go from "sitting in one's 'cell'" to sitting in another one and paying for the privilege of doing so --- unless, of course, there is something meaningfully new or different about the situation. You see, most people take retreats to break from their usual surroundings. It's important to do this and I do the same. What may be a bit different is that where "retreat" in the mind of most folks implies a move from busyness or routine that militates against prayer, from the world of noise that prevents silence, from relative superficiality, and so forth, in order to turn or return to God at a greater depth, for me it does not mean these things, at least not generally. (I can certainly relate to the need to move from a routine that can become stultifying or at least less than helpful sometimes in terms of prayer, and also to becoming caught up in some forms of busyness! I can also relate to the need to respond to God more deeply at almost any time or place so retreat does mean an opportunity for that for me.)

But for me retreat generally means an opportunity to take a step back and look at my everyday life from a new vantage point. (It is amazing the way daily struggles and the battles with the demons of our own hearts become less huge and intransigent when one can do this.) Of course it does mean taking time apart from directees and some limited parish commitments, but above all it means providing a new space  in which my heart can breath according to a different time signature and be stretched and sing itself in a new key. In that way I gain more perspective on living my life and hear more clearly the song I am called to be --- free of the muddle and  facile embellishments which sometimes accrue to and detract from it.. When I return home from retreat, I tend to see everything there with fresh eyes and a more truly grateful heart as well. In any case, retreat provides me with the opportunity to better honor all the ways God bears witness to Himself within my own heart.

On Belonging vs Fitting In

One of the questions I get asked in various ways has to do with "fitting in". Some wonder if a hermit could really fit in with other parishioners, and, if the hermit is a consecrated hermit with public vows, if they can fit in with lay people. Recently the question came up in a rather humorous way when one blogger opined that perhaps it is harder for a hermit to "fit in" if no one knows she is a hermit; if, the blogger suggested, one is known to others as a hermit then folks can accommodate her a little better; one wondered if this meant making allowances for the hermit's  eccentricities (it sounded that way to me); it certainly meant, as was explicitly suggested, that folks could consider the hermit's "differences" to be part and parcel of belonging to a different vocational category within the Church. In any case what was at least implicit in all of the comments I read, including these, was the fact that this blogger believed hermits are really kind of strange folks who are different from ordinary people and really do not "fit in" unless helped along in some significant way! So, last Friday as I was having coffee with some of the folks who attend daily Mass and get together on Fridays after the service, I asked if they had been accommodating me (cutting me some slack was the way I put it) for the past seven or eight years because they know I am a diocesan hermit! This got a great and gratifying round of laughter. One person pointed out she thought it was often the other way around! And of course the mutuality of all this is exactly the point (more about that later!).

The question of "fitting in" is a serious one and though I am speaking mainly about hermits here this is true for everyone. In this blogger's piece (and others written in the same vein), being a hermit is also linked to the idea that stands on the other end of the "fitting in "pendulum, namely, the idea not that a hermit is eccentric and needs to be accommodated for her various personal quirks and deficiencies, but that they are spiritually superior in some way. (Of course the two could -- and in this same blogger's view --- do coincide if the hermit is given to unusual "spiritual" experiences AND thought she was somehow superior because of this.)

A corollary for those holding this side of the question (the hermit is spiritually superior)  is the suggestion that a parish is no fit place for religious or even lay hermits whose primary community would ordinarily be the parish. This is supposedly so because of the (mistaken) notion that a parish is tailored to the lowest spiritual denominator or is a place where folks don't want "more" or are not particularly hungry for the nourishment of the Gospel and a serious spirituality. While it IS true that not everyone attending necessarily wants what is offered and some are definitely only nominal Christians, I don't think we can draw such simplistic conclusions, especially when they are given a kind of Gnostic or elitist cast. In that case, the question can be an even more seriously misguided one than the notion of parishes accommodating the supposed weirdnesses of individual hermits! Both conclusions build on stereotypes and both mistake the place and the challenge of any Christian in a faith community. After all, life in community of ANY sort but especially that of Christian community is not primarily about "fitting in" but BELONGING and making others aware that they too belong or are welcome to belong. Again, this is, of course, true for anyone --- not just hermits.

My own sense is that truly "fitting in" is a function of and always follows belonging, not (at least in an authentically Christian community!) the other way around!  It occurs to me that when we think about the ways of the Kingdom vs the ways of " the world" we really are talking about which of these terms has priority, fitting in or belonging. In the Kingdom one belongs because God has freely invited, initiated, and welcomed one into the Kingdom; God has, in the process, changed the way we think, feel, perceive and relate to reality --- especially to others we might otherwise consider different, "alien," or strangers -- but we ALL belong because God has welcomed us.

The change that occurs in us then, it seems to me, has occurred through our belonging -- belonging to God, to one another, and no longer exclusively to ourselves. A Kingdom identity is familial; it is rooted in a love which embraces all differences and diversity. How often does Paul speak about this to his troublesome Corinthian community? But putting the accent on "fitting in," making that a precondition for belonging is a matter of what ancient writer would call "worldly thinking." It is other things too: elitist, self-aggrandizing or arrogant (one's own nature, attributes, preferences, etc are made the criterion for approval of others; if they are not like you, then woe in the form of a blackball unto them), and of course it is selfish, exclusionary, uncharitable, unjust (remember that love does justice!)  and simply contrary to the Gospel Jesus proclaimed with his life, sinful death, resurrection and ascension.

In some ways, although belonging is a gift we give to and receive from others, belonging is more challenging than fitting in. Belonging is deeply and personally costly, fitting in is less so. The expense of fitting in is altogether more superficial and less personally demanding (costly) --- unless of course we are speaking of the costliness of losing our true selves and embracing our false selves. When we belong it is our whole selves that are implicated, not a single set of interests or values, for instance. When we affirm another as belonging we open ourselves to the whole of that person and, at least potentially, must deal with, accept and love the whole of them --- even if they don't "fit" or even believe they can! At the same time, if we choose to belong, we will be obligated to love others in the same way! We can't be elitist ourselves, we can't judge others on the basis of characteristics, attributes, and preferences we find attractive or unattractive. If we belong, belonging is a gift we will give others as well, a quality we will empower in them rooted in our openness to them and our commitment to love them as fully as we are able.

While we invite people to belong, we cannot make it happen. To accept the invitation to belong means to accept the invitation to love and be loved. Many would rather fit in (or insist they never can!) when the real problem, the true issue is these persons refusal to love or be loved. They wrap themselves in their differences and eccentricities like a cloak or a shield marking either their supposed "superiority" (including "spiritual superiority") or their fear of vulnerability and lack of generosity. Belonging requires a real humility which cannot be faked (cf. Abba Motius on Humility); it is this fundamentally honest sense of self in relation to God and others which grounds and allows both vulnerability and generosity. At the same time then belonging --- or encouraging another to allow themselves to belong is not the same as saying, "Anything goes," or "The sky's the limit!" It is not the same as saying, "You need do nothing at all!" To belong and invite another to belong is to say, "Whatever ways you 'fit in' in "worldly" terms, and whatever ways you don't, what is critical here is to love and to allow yourself to be loved by others. Nothing else works in a Christian community."

In my parish I think there is no doubt that folks accommodate me in some ways and I them in others (not least re the length of the reflections I occasionally do for them -- they are very patient --- and (sometimes) the degree of conversation and noise that can occur before Mass! --- I am not always so patient with them in this matter). But this has nothing to do with the fact they know I am a hermit. It has to do with the fact that we love one another and accept each other as equally significant members of the community. (By the way, I would personally argue it is charitable for a hermit, no matter whether lay or consecrated, to let others in her faith community know this because the eremitical vocation involves limitations that all in a community need to be aware of lest misunderstandings occur. In the case of a publicly professed hermit, she has embraced an ecclesial vocation with public rights, obligations, and necessary expectations on the part of those who know her and her public commitment. In short it is God's gift to this community and the Church as a whole. It would be irresponsible and more than a little uncharitable to keep her status hidden even if, in the main, her life is essentially so.) 

The bottom line in the discussion at hand however is that we accommodate one another because we are family; we belong to this community and, in a certain sense, to one another. Because of this, any "accommodation" that occurs is not simply a superficial toleration of the person's differences or eccentricities nor is acceptance based on superficial likenesses. Instead accommodation will represent a mutual process involving more profound change on behalf of the other. This kind of accommodation involves changing ourselves so the other CAN belong just as it involves the other in the same conversion and transformation of heart and mind out of love for us. So long as we love one another our differences will be transcended and every diversity can contribute to the sense of the richness and giftedness of this community.

First day of Retreat: Traveling Light, Being Who I am.

One of the pieces of my life, one of the most important dynamics at play and one of the virtues I try to cultivate is transparency. Perhaps that is a contemporary way of speaking about the radical honesty we call humility. In any case, the habit, the cowl or other prayer garment requires that I be aware of any pretense that creeps into things. I am here at the Old Mission Santa Barbara for a week's retreat and that means that when I move from my room to the chapel (or elsewhere) to pray I wear my cowl over my habit. Now, there is nothing unusual in this really, monks and nuns and hermits have been doing it for centuries and centuries in the exact same way day in and day out. But, though I wear the cowl every day at the hermitage and always at liturgical prayer, moving from place to place in it is unusual for me! Add to that the public character of the mission setting and the effect is a little unsettling. And amazing. I am aware every day that I am part of a living tradition, that I do not need to pretend to anything; I simply need to be who I am. Today, I woke (late for me!) with the mission bells and walked in cowl and sandals through the mission on stones that were worn over centuries by all manner of persons. It was hard not to feel a little moved by the whole experience.

And concerned. At least a little at first --- about pretense and fantasy. Imagining the history of this place and the uniqueness of my own garb (though the Friars wear robes over their street clothes too, mine is clearly NOT Franciscan) it was easy to hear in my mind the slap of many friars' sandals and the quiet swish of monastic robes as I walked to chapel for Morning Prayer and Mass. It took a moment before I could actually realize afresh that I am a living part of this tradition, both the Franciscan, the monastic (which Franciscanism itself is not), and the eremitical. And at that point I let go of any remaining concern or self-consciousness. At that moment I prayed in gratitude to God who has allowed me in my own brokenness and littleness to be a graced part of this living stream. I was myself in this new place (it is only the second time I have made retreat here) and was at home.

That sense of being at home, of simply being oneself in Christ and the complete sufficiency of that, was echoed in the Gospel where the disciples are sent forth and told to take nothing extra with them. Our homilist, Fr Charles, drew a lesson from it for us: travel light. Heartache? Troublesome memories? Incomplete plans or unresolved problems? Leave them here (in the chapel and with the others here) today and travel light! (Charles told another great story about a passionate if naïve postulant too which I will save for another time!) So, I have come here, been warmly welcomed by old theology professors (we will make some time to get together for a while this week), old friends (ditto!), and new ones as well; God has welcomed me too with his little nudges about authenticity, transparency, and the wonderful reminder of how graced is my existence as a part of this vital confluence of traditions. How strange (well, wonderfully surprising -- yet again) to think that I never really ceased being Franciscan even as I took on Camaldolese Benedictinism, and how strange to find I really am at home. That sense of belonging wherever we go seems to me to be part of the heart of contemplative prayer and especially of Jesus' injunction to "pray always". In this silence I will be and become more and more the word --- indeed, the song --- I am called to be. What a gift to be able to BE here -- in every sense of that verb!

I will blog when I can and as the Spirit moves me. Writing helps me pray (not least by opening my mind and heart occasionally to the wider world I carry in my heart) so I will play/pray it by ear. I ask that you remember me in your prayers as well.

The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (Reprise)

Tomorrow's Gospel is one of my all-time favorite parables, that of the laborers in the vineyard. The story is simple --- deceptively so in fact: workers come to work in the vineyard at various parts of the day all having contracted with the master of the vineyard to work for a day's wages. Some therefore work the whole day, some are brought in to work only half a day, and some are hired only when the master comes for them at the end of the day. When time comes to pay everyone what they are owed those who came in to work last are paid first and receive a full day's wages. Those who came in to work first expect to be paid more than these, but are disappointed and begin complaining when they are given the same wage as those paid first. The response of the master reminds them that he has paid them what they contracted for, nothing less, and then asks if they are envious that he is generous with his own money. A saying is added: [in the Kingdom of God] the first shall be last and the last first.

Now, it is important to remember what the word parable means in appreciating what Jesus is actually doing with this story and seeing how it challenges us today. The word parable, as I have written before, comes from two Greek words, para meaning alongside of and balein, meaning to throw down. What Jesus does is to throw down first one set of values -- one well-understood or common-perspective --- and allow people to get comfortable with that. (It is one they understand best so often Jesus merely needs to suggest it while his hearers fill in the rest. For instance he mentions a sower, or a vineyard and people fill in the details. Today he might well speak of a a CEO in an office, or a mother on a run to pick up kids from a swim meet or soccer practice.) Then, he throws down a second set of values or a second way of seeing reality which disorients and gets his hearers off-balance. This second set of values or new perspective is that of the Kingdom of God. Those who listen have to make a decision. (The purpose of the parable is not only to present the choice, but to engage the reader/hearer and shake them up or disorient them a bit so that a choice for something new can (and hopefully will) be made.) Either Jesus' hearers will reaffirm the common values or perspective or they will choose the values and perspective of the Kingdom of God. The second perspective, that of the Kingdom is often counterintuitive, ostensibly foolish or offensive, and never a matter of "common sense". To choose it --- and therefore to choose Jesus and the God he reveals --- ordinarily puts one in a place which is countercultural and often apparently ridiculous.

So what happens in today's Gospel? Again, Jesus tells a story about a vineyard and a master hiring workers. His readers know this world well and despite Jesus stating specifically that each man hired contracts for the same wage, common sense says that is unfair and the master MUST pay the later workers less than he pays those who came early to the fields and worked through the heat of the noonday sun. And of course, this is precisely what the early workers complain about to the master. It is precisely what most of US would complain about in our own workplaces if someone hired after us got more money, for instance, or if someone with a high school diploma got the same pay and benefit package as someone with a doctorate --- never mind that we agreed to this package! The same is true in terms of religion: "I spent my WHOLE life serving the Lord. I was baptized as an infant and went to Catholic schools from grade school through college and this upstart convert who has never done anything at all at the parish gets the Pastoral Associate job? No Way!! No FAIR!!" From our everyday perspective this would be a cogent objection and Jesus' insistence that all receive the same wage, not to mention that he seems to rub it in by calling the last hired to be paid first (i.e., the normal order of the Kingdom), is simply shocking.


And yet the master brings up two points which turn everything around: 1) he has paid everyone exactly what they contracted for --- a point which stops the complaints for the time being, and 2) he asks if they are envious that he is generous with his own gifts or money. He then reminds his hearers that the first shall be last, and the last first in the Kingdom of God. If someone was making these remarks to you in response to cries of "unfair" it would bring you up short, wouldn't it? If you were already a bit disoriented by a pay master who changed the rules of commonsense this would no doubt underscore the situation. It might also cause you to take a long look at yourself and the values by which you live your life. You might ask yourself if the values and standards of the Kingdom are really SO different than those you operate by everyday of your life, not to mention, do you really want to "buy into" this Kingdom if the rewards are really parcelled out in this way, even for people less "gifted" and less "committed" than you consider yourself! Of course, you might not phrase things so bluntly. If you are honest, you will begin to see more than your own brilliance, giftedness, or commitedness; You might begin to see these along with a deep neediness, a persistent and genuine fear at the cost involved in accepting this "Kingdom" instead of the world you know and have accommodated yourself to so well.

You might consider too, and carefully, that the Kingdom is not an otherwordly heaven, but that it is the realm of God's sovereignty which, especially in Christ, interpenetrates this world, and is actually the goal and perfection of this world; when you do, the dilemma before you gets even sharper. There is no real room for opting for this world's values now in the hope that those "other Kingdomly values" only kick in after death! All that render to Caesar stuff is actually a bit of a joke if we think we can divvy things up neatly and comfortably (I am sure Jesus was asking for the gift of one's whole self and nothing less when he made this statement!), because after all, what REALLY belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? No, no compromises are really allowed with today's parable, no easy blending of the vast discrepancy between the realm of God's sovereignty and the world which is ordered to greed, competition, self-aggrandizement and hypocrisy, nor therefore, to the choice Jesus puts before us.

So, what side will we come down on after all this disorientation and shaking up? I know that every time I hear this parable it touches a place in me (yet another one!!) that resents the values and standards of the Kingdom and that desires I measure things VERY differently indeed. It may be a part of me that resists the idea that everything I have and am is God's gift, even if I worked hard in cooperating with that (my very capacity and willingness to cooperate are ALSO gifts of God!). It may be a part of me that looks down my nose at this person or that and considers myself better in some way (smarter, more gifted, a harder worker, stronger, more faithful, born to a better class of parents, etc, etc). It may be part of me that resents another's wage or benefits despite the fact that I am not really in need of more myself. It may even be a part of me that resents my own weakness and inabilities, my own illness and incapacities which lead me to despise the preciousness and value of my life and his own way of valuing it which is God's gift to me and to the world. I am socialized in this first-world-culture and there is no doubt that it resides deeply and pervasively within me contending always for the Kingdom of God's sovereignty in my heart and living. I suspect this is true for most of us, and that today's Gospel challenges us to make a renewed choice for the Kingdom in yet another way or to another more profound or extensive degree.

For Christians every day is gift and we are given precisely what we need to live fully and with real integrity if only we will choose to accept it. We are precious to God, and this is often hard to really accept, but neither more nor less precious than the person standing in the grocery store line ahead of us or folded dirty and disheveled behind a begging sign on the street corner near our bank or outside our favorite coffee shop. The wage we have agreed to (or been offered) is the gift of God's very self along with his judgment that we are indeed precious, and so, the free and abundant but cruciform life of a shared history and destiny with that same God whose characteristic way of being is kenotic. He pours himself out with equal abandon for each of us whether we have served him our whole lives or only just met him this afternoon. He does so whether we are well and whole, or broken and feeble. And he asks us to do the same, to pour ourselves out similarly both for his own sake and for the sake of his creation-made-to-be God's Kingdom.

To do so means to decide for his reign now and tomorrow and the day after that; it means to accept his gift of Self as fully as he wills to give it, and it therefore means to listen to him and his Word so that we MAY be able to decide and order our lives appropriately in his gratuitous love and mercy. The parable in today's Gospel is a gift which makes this possible --- if only we would allow it to work as Jesus empowers and wills it!

A Contemplative Moment: Finding the Face of God in Others

"St Teresa of Avila used to say that to pray is to treat God like a friend. The essence of prayer is to hear not only the voice of Christ, but the voice of each person I meet, in whom Christ also addresses me. His voice comes to me in every human voice, and his face is infinitely varied It is present in the face of the wayfarer on the road to Emmaus, in the gardener speaking to Mary Magdalen; and it is present in my next door neighbor. God became incarnate so that man might contemplate God's face in every face. Perfect prayer seeks this presence of Christ and recognizes it in every human face. The unique image of Christ is the icon, but every human face is an icon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person."

by  Evdokimov cited by Catherine de Hueck Doherty in Poustinia

Letting go of Childish Things

Today's reading from Paul is one of the most beautiful passages about love in all of the Old and New Testa-ments. But the point of the reading is especially important for hermits who seek to live in solitude or others who find themselves otherwise isolated and alienated from the faith community of their local Church. The very first line of 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 sets the lesson: [[Brothers and Sisters: Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way!]] Paul then goes on to list a number of recognizable spiritual gifts including speaking in tongues, knowledge (including mystical knowledge), and faith (including the faith to move mountains!) but reminds the Corinthians that without love these gifts and indeed, the person herself, are nothing at all. (Despite medieval attempts to aggrandize being "nothing." Paul is clearly disapproving of being nothing here.) Paul's argument through the rest of the passage is clear, if one truly loves then one has every other thing as well; in truly loving, all the spiritual gifts, which are partial and finite, find their completion and eternity. Moreover without love these gifts are empty, void, possibly illusory (or worse), and disedifying.

One of the most salient criticisms of eremitical life is the observation that the hermit has no one around to love or be loved by in the truly demanding and concrete ways human beings require to grow in Gospel love and authentic humanity. This observation has caused some Church Fathers to deny the validity of the eremitical life. It is true that I, for instance, can write moving blog posts, articles, and chapters about eremitical life as essentially loving and about eremitical solitude as essentially dialogical or covenantal, but, as Paul clearly says, [[If I speak in human tongues or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.]] I might get some attention with and even praise for what I write, but unless it is clearly informed by genuine love, it will be empty and ultimately meaningless. Moreover, the validity or at least the quality of my vocation itself, including the mystical dimensions of my prayer, would need to be seriously questioned in such an instance. As Paul says, [[if there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing, if tongues, they will cease, and if knowledge [referring to mystical knowledge], it too will be brought to nothing for each and all of these will pass away.]]

We hermits may err in our vocations in many ways but it seems to me that given today's reading and the criticism of some Church Fathers (and the affirmations of all genuine hermits!), our focus, even in maintaining appropriate degrees of physical solitude and silence, must be on our growth in our capacity to love others in Christ both effectively and concretely --- even should we sometimes err against solitude in doing so. This tension between physical solitude and the commandment to truly love one another is always present in the hermit's life. It is certainly not acceptable to speak about loving humanity while one fails to love the individual persons sitting in the pews next to or around us --- much less claiming such a love while eschewing their company. "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand," may be darkly humorous in a Peanuts cartoon strip, but in the life of a hermit it is a blasphemy.

The emphasis on loving others in concrete ways and circumstances is one reason every hermit maintains the importance of hospitality --- whether that means opening one's hermitage to others in specific ways or participating in the local parish community in limited ways; it is also the reason hermits form lauras or are associated with parishes and communities; these are not optional but, even when necessarily limited, are essential to the eremitical life itself and certainly to the lives of those who are privileged via their professions and explicit commission by the Church to call themselves Catholic Hermits. In other words, community and the commitment to concrete forms of loving are critical dimensions of ANY authentic eremitical vocation, even those to complete reclusion; loving effectively and fully is, according to Paul, the truest sign of human wholeness and holiness, the truest sign of genuinely spiritual gifts. (The would-be recluse who is incapable of loving others effectively will be unlikely to be allowed to embrace reclusion.This is one of the reasons the Church requires serious vetting and supervision of eremitical recluses).

Part of the reason for this emphasis on concrete human loving is the especial ease with which a hermit (or other solitary person) can fool themselves about their own degree of spiritual growth or the nature of the spiritual gifts they have been given.  In today's first reading Paul has chosen not to take the Corinthians to task over the authenticity or inauthenticity of their spiritual gifts despite their tendency to self-delusion. Instead of calling them frauds he reminds them they are children. To motivate them to change and grow he speaks to and captures their attention by focusing on the thing which seems to  capture their imagination, namely, their drive and desire for more and more excellent spiritual gifts. He wants them to understand that love is the greatest divine gift, but also that it is the criterion by which all other gifts are truly measured and then brought to completion. Prophecy without love is not of God. The ability to speak in tongues without love is empty and essentially godless; mystical experiences or knowledge without the ability to love others in concrete ways is not authentic. One may have all kinds of moving and extraordinary experiences in solitary prayer, but  in terms of the spiritual life these are, at best, often "childish things" if they remain fruitless. At other times they are simply delusional:  they may simply be ordinary dreams (which can be be insightful, no doubt) treated simplistically as visions, empty visions which, tragically, lead to nothing more than self-satisfaction and navel-gazing, and the psychological projection of one's own problems, conflicts, and struggles. Spiritual maturity implies the ability to love those persons who are precious to God and to do so as they truly need! Divine gifts, whatever the type, are meant to allow us to do this.

These mystical and other prayer experiences and psycho-logical manifes-tations, like everything else in our spiritual lives, must be tested or proved --- words which mean several things including measuring, fostering maturation, and helping to make stronger and truer. They must be integrated into one's everyday life and growth; they must be transformed into personal maturity and wisdom. They must lead to or be associated with the ability to love in concrete situations and relationships. Therefore they must, to the degree they are authentic, lead to patience and kindness. They must not lead to or be associated with arrogance or rudeness nor to a sense that one's spiritual life is somehow "superior" to that of "ordinary" parishes and people! They must be associated with other-centeredness and to genuine humility and they must not allow one to brood over injuries done to one nor to rejoice when evil befalls others. Any authentic hermit, indeed any person who finds that their prayer lives (and especially what they call mystical experiences) do not lead to these manifestations of genuine love must surrender them for (or at the very least complement them with) the demands of community which do lead more surely to these manifestations. One must let go of the manifestations of spiritual childhood for the spiritual wisdom of adulthood. (cf, On Discernment With Regard to Prayer.)

Paul's letter to the (perhaps) spiritually precocious community in Corinth reminds us especially then that spirituality, even and perhaps especially eremitical spirituality, is not a "me and God" only enterprise. That is NOT what God alone is enough means! Canon 603 is very clear that hermits in the Catholic Church, particularly those that live the life in the name of the Church embrace eremitical solitude for the salvation of others. The love a hermit cultivates in the hermitage and in her relatively limited encounters with those in her parish, diocese, monastery, etc is not a facile abstraction, an exercise in empty piety, much less a matter of meaningless if superficially impressive verbal expressions, (e.g., "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" or,"in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do"). It is not enough to proclaim one's love for God or humanity while judging and despising people. What makes her vocation divine is the authentic love which motivates and empowers it. The moment a hermit forgets this or chooses isolation over eremitical solitude, she has embraced something which is not truly of God no matter how frequent or vivid the supposed mystical experiences that accompany it. Real union with God involves communion with others. It is the very nature of being a member of the Body of Christ and stands at the heart of Paul's concerns with adult faith and the community in Corinth.