Congratulations to Sister Chela Gonzalez, OP

Insignia of Grand Rapids Dominican Sister Chela's Perpetual Profession: Profession Ring and Dominican Cross. The profession itself was really lovely and I just want to mark it here.

One of the things that has happened in contemporary religious life is the establishment of and growing unity among women religious of all congregations. Once we were marked by our differences: charism, dress, apostolates, etc, but not so much anymore and what is coming to be is a powerful reality I think. The internet has assisted with this and so have groups like the LCWR, the need to combine or merge congregations, and so forth. At Chela's Profession there were folks from all over the country attending, some of us by video streaming. A number were Dominicans from other congregations but not all! What was striking to me was that many of us already knew each other and our thumbnail videos (each was labeled with the person's full name) allowed folks to see and wave to one another while chat allowed us to type greetings.

There was real participation in the liturgy even from our remote locations. Some sang the Litany of the Saints along with the choir at Marywood as Chela stood with her head slightly bowed and her open hands gently outstretched in a gesture of receptiveness and humility. It was very powerful. The presence of many of us from around the country added to the sense that the entire Church in heaven and on earth was joined together at this moment to make this Sister's dedication to God and God's consecration of her real in space and time. Once Sister Chela made her Final Profession those in the Marywood Chapel burst into applause but so did those watching via video! It was a spontaneous and wonderful addition to the experience.

I am very grateful to Chela and her Grand Rapids Sisters for investing both time and money in the technology that allows greater unity and shared celebrations at such distances. I have seen a similar use of technology with the San Rafael Dominicans who regularly stream professions, funerals, speakers' presentations, and other events to their Sisters in the infirmary. And of course there are the Sisters and associates at Nun's Life Ministries who make speakers, Q and A blogs, podcasts and all kinds of things possible with their own investment in technology!

As a diocesan hermit with limited contact with most of these people and things, technology has been a real gift to me. Again, my congratulations and very best wishes to Sister Chela on the occasion of her Final Profession and my thanks to her and to her congregation for extending invitations to the Profession and for streaming the event for those of us who could not attend physically. Religious life is a tremendous adventure and we are participating in a new and vital chapter in its history under the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for those who have responded as they have!

Private Vows, the Normative Way to Become a Consecrated Hermit?

[[ Dear Sister, you said, [[As I have written many times here the unique thing about canon 603 is that for the very first time in universal law the solitary eremitical vocation is recognized in law as a "state of perfection"  and those consecrated in this way are recognized as religious in the RCC.  In other words, there were no solitary consecrated hermits prior to canon 603. Nor are there solitary consecrated hermits in the Western Church apart from canon 603. Canon 603 was created for the very purpose of admitting solitary hermits to consecration. Today the term lay hermit is used to distinguish those non-clerical solitary hermits who have not been admitted to the consecrated state under canon 603.]] (cf., Notes From Stillsong: Replying to Objections) Does this mean I cannot use private vows to become a consecrated hermit? I am asking because I read on A Catholic Hermit that I can just make private vows and this is the normative way to become a consecrated hermit.]]

Yes, that is precisely what it means. The author of the blog you mentioned is mistaken in her positions in this matter. In modern times and before canon 603 there were no solitary consecrated hermits. Apart from canon 603 there are currently no solitary consecrated hermits. There both were and are hermits who are consecrated as part of canonical communities (institutes or societies) according to the usual canons governing religious life, but canon 603 represents an entirely new possibility for solitary hermits who wish to discern and be admitted to the consecrated state of life in the Church. If you yourself wish to pursue consecration as a solitary hermit it will HAVE to be under canon 603; as I have noted here a number of times, there is no other option.

The creation of this option is the very reason canon 603 was promulgated. It is the reason Bishop Remi De Roo urged the Fathers of Vatican II Council to recognize solitary eremitical life as a state of perfection when seasoned monks desiring to live the silence of solitude were required to have solemn vows dispensed and be secularized themselves in order to embrace God's will that they be hermits. It is the reason dioceses struggle to discern such vocations and celebrate the occasion of these professions and consecrations. It is consistent with the fact that consecrated life (a public state in the Church) is never entered into with private vows or private commitments. Finally, the creation of Canon 603 is consistent with the Church's treatment of consecrated life generally and with all "stable (or permanent) states of life" which are marked by legal (canonical and public) rights and obligations. Thus it says specifically: "Hermits are recognised by law as dedicated to God in consecrated life if, in the hands of the diocesan Bishop, they publicly profess the evangelical counsels and live their Plan of Life under his direction" (Can 603.2) This is what is normative for solitary consecrated hermits in the Western (Latin) Church.

N.B., Private vows are never normative  in this way (meaning they are never held as a norm by/for the life of the Church per se any more than private revelations can be held as normative for that life); Nor can they be made normative precisely because they are entirely private. This is so because no one but the individual him or herself decides when private vows are to be used nor does nor can anyone oversee the meaning of their content or govern faithfulness to such commitments besides the individual him/herself; again, this is true precisely because such commitments are entirely private in every sense --- canonically or legally, ecclesially, and personally.

Were the Church (or perhaps a diocesan bishop) to say, for instance, "To be a hermit one MUST make "private" vows of the evangelical counsels (meaning, as the Church understands these Counsels)" this would be engaging in an incoherent act and/or changing the meaning of the term "private." In the latter instance such vows would cease to be entirely private (in fact they would need to become public) because they would involve mutual expectations, and obligations which would need to be supervised and appropriately governed. Were private vows truly private in every way and were it also held as possible to enter consecrated life in this way, it would be impossible for the Universal Church to write as she does in Lumen Gentium,  [[It is the duty of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to regulate the practice of the evangelical counsels by law, since it is the duty of the same hierarchy to care for the People of God and to lead them to most fruitful pastures.]] LG 44.4  Private commitments as private are ungovernable; neither can they ever represent a public or ecclesial witness within the People of God. It is critically important to see the fundamental incoherence of the position that one enters a public (canonical) state of life via a private act.

Questions?

If you have any questions about what you have read here or on the other blog mentioned, I would urge you to contact your chancery (Vicar for Religious or of Consecrated Life) or a canonist elsewhere. (There are canonists accessible here online like Therese Ivers who specializes in the law of consecrated life and is doing a doctoral thesis focusing on canon 603. You can find her at Do I Have a Vocation?) I have no doubt  whomever you contact will explain c.603 is the normative way to enter the consecrated state as a solitary hermit, that they will affirm that private vows (which do not constitute one in a stable or permanent state of life, are not received by the Church nor celebrated within the Eucharist) never initiate one into the consecrated state of life, and that they will affirm the new and unique place of canon 603 in creating the option of solitary consecrated eremitical life in the contemporary Church.

Besides, should you decide you wish to pursue a process of discernment leading to consecration as a Catholic hermit living his life in the name of the Church, canonists or Vicars for Religious in your chancery especially will be able to assist you in looking into this as well.

A Contemplative Moment: On Distractions

Prayer and Love are learned in the hour when prayer has become impossible and your heart has turned to stone.

If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray. For the secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection. And a [person] whose memory and imagination are persecuting [her] with a crowd of useless or even evil thoughts and images may sometimes be forced to pray far better in the depths of [her] murdered heart, than one whose mind is swimming with clear concepts and brilliant purposes and easy acts of love.

. . . But in all these things it is the will to pray that is the essence of prayer, and the desire to find God and to see Him and to love Him is the one thing that matters. If you have desired to know Him and love Him you have already done what was expected of you, and it is much better to desire God without being able to think clearly of Him, than to have marvelous thoughts about Him without desiring to enter into union with His will.

"Distractions" Seeds of Contemplation

by Thomas Merton, OSCO



Who Will Save me from this Body of Death? (Reprise)

I received a question yesterday regarding someone (a Catholic) who felt he was such a terrible sinner that he could not be forgiven by God. He felt abandoned by God. . .. The person who sent me this email had suggested the person offer up his sufferings and this person replied that they were the result of his sin; he could not offer them to God. He is entirely correct in this --- at least if this offering was meant to make the situation better in some propitiatory way. Such an offering could only make things worse. The ONLY solution to such a situation, and indeed to any of our situations of sinfulness is the mercy of God freely given and humbly received as wholly undeserved. I had already been writing a reflection on the first reading from Friday (Paul's letter to the Romans) so I decided to combine the two here.  Bearing in mind Paul's anguished and jubilant cry from [this Friday's readings]: "Who can save me from this body of death? Praise be to Jesus Christ!" my own response was as follows:

 If there is anything the Scriptures tell us again and again it is that God does not abandon ANYONE. (Even his abandonment of Christ was unique and more complex than simple much less absolute abandonment. Still, it was an expression of the abandonment we each deserve but which God in Christ also redeems.) In Christ, and especially in Christ's passion, God embraced the complete scope of sin and death so that we might be redeemed from these; in Christ he journeyed to the depths of hell to rescue those who were there. Israel failed again and again, committed idolatry, apostasy, etc etc, and NEVER did God abandon her.

It is prideful [or arrogant] to believe the sins we commit are too big for God to forgive or the state of sin from which these come is too great for God to reconcile and heal. The only thing more dangerous is to refuse that forgiveness when it is offered; THAT is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin against the power of the Spirit working in us that says, "Let me forgive you and change your life." Your correspondent has not committed that sin, nor does he need to. The Holy Spirit will continue to prompt him to repent and to allow God to heal him. Even at the moment of death he will be asked to make a decision for or against God. In part this is what death is, the moment when we make a final choice which ratifies or denies the choices of our life.

This person need not offer his sufferings but he does need to trust in Christ's, especially in his obedience [responsiveness] in his suffering and the sufficiency of these things together. There, Paul tells us, is nothing he can do on his own but get farther and farther from God. That [is] the point of [this] Friday's first reading from Romans. If you recall Paul calls out, "Who will save me from this body of death (meaning this whole self under the sway of sin). Law can't do it, good works cannot do it, offering up our own puny sufferings cannot do it (even those which are not the fruit of our own sin!). Only God in Christ can do it. While you say you pray that God might act on this person's behalf, there is no might about Jesus or God doing so or acting to free him from his sin. God has already done so in Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. The Church mediates that to us in innumerable ways. But this person must allow that to be true in his own life. Again, as the reading from Friday [. . .] makes clear, there is simply NOTHING we can do on our own. We are enslaved by sin Unless and Until we allow grace to work in us. Grace is unmerited always and everywhere. God offers us the grace of the victory already achieved by Christ time after time every day of our lives. We have to admit, with Paul, that the only answer to our enslavement is to accept that forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, etc on God's own terms, that is, without ANY sense that we have merited or earned it.

 The temptation to do something religious (including offering up our sufferings) to earn God's forgiveness is the most pernicious and dangerous temptation people face. I would argue it is far more dangerous than the temptation to sexual sins people ordinarily place at the top of lists, etc precisely because we mistakenly believe it (doing something religious) is unequivocally good at all times. Paul knew this well. He knew that the Law acted as temptation in peoples' lives and so, as I noted last week, he came to see it as a school master --- not to teach us what was good, but to instruct us about our weakness and incapacity to do anything salvific -- or even anything good --- on our own. In fact, Paul actually says that God gave us the Law for this very purpose and even so that our own state of sin might be intensified in such a way as to make us ready to cry out for a redeemer. That redeemer has been given to us. His death, resurrection and ascension have accomplished that redemption. We simply have to receive him and the new life he offers us as Paul himself did --- with cries of both abject helplessness and gratitude. 

Paul teaches emphatically: [[You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.]] While we were entirely powerless, while we were godless sinners estranged from God, from our deepest selves, and from the whole of creation, while, that is, we were wholly incapable of acting in a way which would resolve the situation but instead made things ever worse, God acted out of an unfathomable love to reconcile us to our truest selves, to Godself, others and to creation.  This is the GOOD NEWS from which we live and which we proclaim --- nothing other and nothing less.

I hope this is helpful.

A note on translations. Some versions of [this] Friday's first lection read "Who will save me from this mortal body?" I prefer, "Who will save me from this body of death?" because it more clearly connotes a self enslaved by the powers of sin and death. "Mortal body" is too easy to hear as simply referring to a material body which is finite and will die. Body of death refers more powerfully to a self in whom death is actively at work, not only in ourselves but in the world around us, a body (self) which makes death present as a sort of awful and active "contagion". In Paul's theology human beings find themselves to be either a whole self under the sway (enslavement) of sin (for which Paul uses the terms, "flesh body", "flesh" or "body of death") or under the sway (enslavement) of grace (for which he uses the term "Spiritual body", etc.).

Faith built on Grace versus a Religion of Hypocrisy and Fear

Today's readings are from Romans and the Gospel of Luke (Rom. 4:1-8 and Luke 12:1-7). In the first lection Paul refers to Abraham and David, two pillars of the Jewish faith and notes that both of them call for a faith which rests on the faithfulness and love of God, not on good works. Both of them affirm that covenant existence (righteousness) is rooted in the free grace of God --- even without works! It is a startling conclusion for this scholar of the Law-turned-Apostle of the Gospel, but Paul cites both the example of Abraham who "believed God" and only boasted in God's faithfulness, as well as the writings of the psalmist where he says, [[Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not record.]] We can never overstate the earth shattering reversal this priority of Grace over works and God's faithfulness over our own achievements (and failures) represented in Paul's day and yet represents today.

Especially Paul saw that obedience to the Law produces a terrible trap when this is the ground of one's religion and has priority over faith in grace. One commentator (Buetow) on the readings from this week characterized it as producing an experience which is something like a dog chasing its own tail. We try to keep the law only to find that we cannot do so, and we turn to the law to empower us to be truly human and keep the law thus falling even further into sin, and so it goes, on and on, around and around in an inescapable circular trap.

Our attempts to escape condemnation (i.e., to escape the consequences of our actions) lead to greater estrangement from God, to greater enmeshment in sin, to greater reliance on law, and so on. I like Harold Buetow's metaphor but in some ways I prefer another image. Once we have put our faith (trust) in the law and thus too, in our own ability to keep the law it will be rather like finding we have jumped from a cliff expecting we will be able to fly or change the course of things by our own efforts. You can imagine how much good it will do to tug hard at the tops of one's shoes in an attempt to slow down or stop one's fall --- much less launch ourselves upwards in the freedom of flight! We simply do not have the power to do that (heck, some of us can't even reach the tops of our shoes!), and if we try, if we put our trust in our own abilities and achievements, we will add presumption, fatal foolishness, and despair to our undoubted and ever-accelerating helplessness. We may even lead others to fall along with us!

In today's Gospel Luke paints a picture of the trap the Pharisees have fallen into in this way; he is also concerned with the consequences for themselves and others of the rapidly accelerating freefall they are still (ignorantly) in the midst of. In particular Luke is writing about two related forms of religion which are rooted in trust in works of the law rather than in faith in God's unmerited grace. The first form, represented mainly by the Pharisees, is a religion built on hypocrisy; the second and interrelated form, represented mainly by those ordinary Jews who cannot ordinarily keep the Law at all, is a religion which is built on fear.

The extended warning about secrets being revealed and all things being brought into the light of day or shouted from the housetops serves two purposes: the first is to remind the disciples and the Pharisees that all of the latter's plotting and planning, the secret judgments and betrayals will one day be fully revealed, first in the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, and later in the destruction of the Temple when their hypocritical and essentially empty personal religion will be fully manifested and come to judgment in such consequences. The second purpose is to remind the ordinary folks, Jew and Gentile alike, that their own small (or large) betrayals, infidelities, secret judgments, plottings, etc will be known by God, but even more, that they will have consequences which make them manifest to the world around them. At first this would increase everyone's fear of judgment --- just as the Law increases one's sense of and actual sin --- and it would temporarily sharpen the desperation that has the crowds trampling one another underfoot in their attempts to approach the One who incarnates the very mercy of God. (The trampling others underfoot is itself a great symbol of graceless religion and the trap it creates!)

But the solution to the trap, the ultimate resolution of any religion of either fear or hypocrisy, as Paul says clearly in the first reading, lies in the faithfulness of God and our own trust in the God revealed in Jesus --- just as the crowds in Luke's gospel lection have come on some level to know. At some point we have to stop chasing our own tails; we must stop grasping at our own "boot straps" and believe instead in God who holds us securely in the palm of his hand --- who, in fact holds the entirety of creation in the palm of his hand and proclaims it good. We must, as Luke's Gospel passage today affirms, believe God when he tells us he has numbered the hairs on our heads --- so precious does he consider us!

Once we do that, once we allow God's love to fill us with a mercy that justifies, we will be empowered to do truly good works. There will be no discrepancy between the inner and the outer person as there was for so many of the Pharisees, no conflict between the Law and the law of our hearts. While we live the law written on our hearts more purely and exhaustively, we will fulfill the Law itself --- and we will do both in Christ. Neither will we create a message of terrifying judgment or foster a religion of fear in others. Instead we will proclaim a Gospel of Divine mercy doing justice. But as Paul and Luke both knew this means "believing God" and letting go of any tendencies to trust ourselves alone. Both knew that life in Communion with God (righteousness) was a free gift, something we had to allow to take hold of us, not something we could ever achieve or grasp for ourselves.

My prayer today then is that each and all of us may be able to risk "believing God" and relinquish of any vestiges of a religion of either hypocrisy or fear. As in the Gospel antiphon today, we cry out to God, [[May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us;who have put our hope in you.]] With our whole hearts and lives may we each trust that it will be so according to God's own promises of mercy. After all, that is the very meaning of every Amen we say.

Common Questions re the Hermit and Canon Law

The readings throughout this week are focused on the relationship of law and faith, works and grace. The essential point of Paul's arguments is that we are justified (made part of a covenant relationship with God) through faith (i.e., through trust in God who is both the gift and gift giver) rather than through works, especially works of the law. That is the point of today's lection and of tomorrow's where Abraham is said to have believed God (note it does not say Abraham believed in God!) and this was credited to him as righteousness (that is, as right standing in a covenant relationship with God).

The corollary to this fundamental truth is that only God can bring us into right relationship with himself and that once this occurs, we are made capable of truly good works. Justification precedes good works, but at the same time, once we are justified, once we exist in a covenant relationship with God, we WILL do good works --- not least because we ourselves will be an expression of what it means to be truly human; we will truly be God's good creation.

Common Questions about the Hermit and Law:

Regular readers will know that one question (and variations thereof) which I have been asked a number of times in various ways over the years is, Sister Laurel, how can you live with such dependence on canon law or on what you call "proper" law? If living as a hermit means depending entirely on God, then why do you need law at all? Isn't this contrary to the Gospel and Paul's teaching on Faith? Isn't this a typical Catholic error? Isn't dependence on law a source of sin or doesn't it inevitably lead to sin? I received such an email a couple of days ago which was ostensibly triggered by the week's readings from Romans.

Thus, it seems like a good time to reiterate Paul's arguments on the relation of law to grace not only in relation to any life at all, but particularly in the life of a canonical hermit. First of all a hermit believes God (as tomorrow's reading from Romans puts the matter of Abraham). That always comes first and last. It is the critical and foundational thing, the very reason for her vocation and the thing such a life alone with God witnesses to. Imagine a life given over to prayer and to becoming God's own prayer in our world if one does not first and last "believe God" and thus, trust in God's promises, will, plans, and future.

Imagine giving up one's dreams of service (in the Academy, the Church, the world at large) as well as the promise of worldly success, wealth, prestige, influence, and so forth, even to the extent of giving up friends, family, career, and the potential for marriage, childbearing and parenting, etc, if one was not first and foremost "believing God" and proclaiming the absolute sufficiency of the grace of God with one's solitary life. When confronted with the choice for eremitical solitude we must figure that one who does these things is either crazy or rightly trusts the God who brings life out of death and meaning out of meaninglessness with the whole of her life. Either she has betrayed her humanity with all its gifts and potentials, or she has trusted God and realized that same humanity in the most radical and paradoxical way. The first word in any authentic hermit's life is grace! The second is faith and the two are inextricably wed in a fulfilling relationship.

Only thereafter comes law whether that be civil, ecclesiastical and canon law, or the hermit's own proper law. Moreover law serves love, it does not replace it. When Paul spoke about the Law he spoke of it as a taskmaster and more importantly, a teacher. It was the job of the Law to show us what it looked like to live a covenant relationship with God. It served to some limited extent to protect people from influences which would destroy that covenant relationship or draw them into loving something more than God or in God's place. It codified what a reverent life looked like, what a life which recognized the presence of God in ordinary life demanded of us. The written Law pointed beyond itself to the law written on the heart, the law which was really supposed to be the norm and dynamic of our lives. And finally, the Law taught individuals the impossibility of "keeping the law" on one's own. Not only did it instruct us in the ways sin appeared in our lives, but it impelled us to recognize we could do nothing apart from or without the grace of God --- especially keeping the Law or living the Law written on our own hearts (the will, spirit, and call of Godself which resides there). In other words, the Law witnesses to the foundational place of the grace of God. It presupposes that grace and serves to invite us to be open to it when and in whatever way it comes to us.

Canon Law and Proper Law and the Consecrated Catholic Hermit:

The Catholic Church recognizes that canonical or consecrated hermits live from the grace of God first and foremost, just as any authentic hermit does. She recognizes that the call to be a hermit is an extraordinary grace in and of itself. She understands it, in part, as a mediated grace which comes to the individual not only directly but through the life (Word, Sacrament, People and Tradition) of the Church and speaks to her heart. She sees it as a gift which God gives not only to the individual called, but to the entire faith community. Moreover, as a gift entrusted to the Church this calling is understood as an expression of the Gospel she is called upon to proclaim to the entire world. For all of this to be true the Church has to discern such vocations along with the hermit; beyond discerning such vocations (something that requires a clear and normative understanding of what they are and how they are characterized), the Church has to provide ways of maintaining, nurturing, and governing them. She is responsible for this, for discerning their soundness, and for keeping the pulse of the spirituality characterizing them. Especially she is responsible for being sure some of the common "isms" of our modern world like individualism, narcissism, cocooning, isolationism, and antinomianism, etc are not allowed to replace or pretend at being authentic eremitical life.

In all of this the Church knows that law can serve grace. Law can serve love just as the Ten Commandments can serve the more primary love of God. Structure can define, govern, nurture and protect a vocation. More importantly, in a world where grace is mediated through temporal realities, law can establish stable relationships that help nurture and protect the hermit's life with God alone. Canon law serves in all of these ways. It defines a consecrated form of life which represents a normative vision of the eremitical calling. It defines the way such vocations are to be discerned, nurtured and governed. It makes sure that the freedom of eremitical life with God alone is not replaced by pretense or distortion. It provides for ongoing supervision and assistance, spiritual direction, and accountability. (There is no love without accountability nor authentic freedom either!) It helps make clear that the hermit within the Church, and especially the canonical hermit, is an important part of a living tradition which cannot be allowed to be lost sight of --- whether by the hermit or by her legitimate superiors!

In addition to accepting the place of canon law in her life the consecrated hermit reflects on and expresses the place of the Grace of God in her life by writing a Rule of life. In that Rule she incorporates her vision of the life, especially as her own individual life with God belongs to the greater vision of the Church; she builds in allowance for the various forms of prayer, silence, solitude, Scripture, study, lectio, recreation, sacrifice or penance, and (limited) ministry through which God is truly allowed to be sovereign in her life. The Rule will reflect her vows and the relationships which are central in assisting her to being truly accountable. It will mark the times she requires for retreat or other time away from the hermitage and in its own way it will codify all the external constraints which mark a life of inner freedom, a life where Grace is the primary gift and the thing to which the hermit witnesses in everything she is and does.

I am sure that objections about the place of law in my life (or in the life of any canonical hermit, and also, perhaps, in the life of the Church itself) will be raised again from time to time, whether we are reading through Romans at that point or not. What needs to be made clear is that the canonical hermit does not embrace law, nor write about law because she is a legalist. She does so because she recognizes that God has gifted her with a unique calling, one which is so precious, so vital, and also so fragile that it requires the assistance of others and the establishment of stable structures and relationships to be lived in a genuinely responsive and accountable way. She does so because to go it alone is to risk mistaking some other voice for that of God and thus, ensuring that the witness of her life is either lost entirely or rendered destructive, "disedifying". In this, as in the entire history of Law and Gospel, Law is presupposed by and anticipates Grace for its fulfillment. It serves Love-in-act and allows that love to be mediated to others in service.

Question and Variations:

Clearly I don't believe governing eremitical vocations with canon (universal Church) and proper law (the hermit's own Rule) is contrary to Paul's own teaching on Law and Gospel. I believe instead it reflects the wisdom of Paul's understanding and theology. Can it be misused? Of course. But when the hermit, her diocese, bishop, director, and delegate, are all dealing from a place where they are prayerfully seeking to hear the call and will of God, when, that is, they are attentive to the grace of God, law will serve love as it is meant to do. The alternative is to jettison law and allow a fragile vocation to succumb to the powers, and ideologies of a world fraught with caricatures and fraudulent versions of genuine individuality and freedom. Please see the labels below for other posts treating various versions of the questions raised here, especially for those stressing the way consecrated states of life require legitimate relationships which foster both stability and accountability.

Questions on "Diocese-Shopping"

[[Hello sister ! First, thank you for your blog, I'm learning a lot. I have a question. I read your tag "diocese-shopping", and while I understand it, I have a question. Let's imagine someone who grow up in a diocese (diocese A.), loves it very much, etc... Later, for work, he have no other choice than to move to another city, and another diocese (diocese B.). He's invested in diocese B. life, but when he began to discern an hermit life, he moves to diocese A. because he wants to be an hermit on his native diocese. Is it okay ? Basically, is it okay to change of diocese to discern (and live) an hermit life because you love this diocese dearly, want to be close to the people of this diocese, etc... ? ]]

Thanks for your question. If the situation is as you describe it I can't see anything wrong with doing this. I suspect diocese A would want to be clear about your motives and they would determine you had not been denied admission to profession in diocese B, but if they accepted you for a process of discernment it would be up to them.  I do admit to having a bit of an immediate sense that your language about dearly loving the diocese and its people seems a bit over the top to me. Still, I can completely understand feeling at home in a diocese, especially due to differing dominant languages and culture and wanting to serve the Church as part of that diocese; I think the chancery involved can also see that. (By the way, before you move you should probably ask someone in the chancery if this diocese is open to professing canon 603 vocations at all. Some are not while some have professed people in the past and then become more cautious in professing others.)

After relocating and before contacting the chancery to make an actual request of them in your own regard you would need time to establish yourself as a lay hermit, reestablish yourself in a parish, get a regular director (or continue with the one you are already working with), and find a way to support yourself. If you live as a lay hermit for at least two years then you might contact the chancery with your request to be considered for profession under canon 603. Even though you would be returning to the diocese you would still be looking at living in this way for five years or so before being seriously considered for admission to profession as a diocesan hermit.

I say this first because from my experience you will need to live eremitical solitude for at least this long before you can actually: 1) determine this is not a form of transitional solitude you are living, 2) discern the proper balance between solitude and life and ministry in (parish) community, 3) discern whether it would be better for you and for the Church at large that you live this vocation as a lay hermit, and 4) begin to prepare for canonical profession if you and your diocese eventually discern you are called to that. I also say this because dioceses I know have made 5 years the minimum number of years one must live a directed and supervised eremitical life before they will admit one to even temporary canonical vows. Note of course that even then there is no assurance you will be accepted for public profession, particularly perpetual profession at the end of process that can extend from 5-10 years. (It is true that if the diocese does not consider a person suitable they will not extend the process beyond several years and sometimes they will not admit to a process of serious mutual discernment at all.) I just want you to know there are no certainties in this, especially as you are considering moving.

However, your original question is about "diocese shopping" and as you have described the situation I don't think that would be an issue. My posts on this topic, as I think you gathered, have been in regard to folks who propose to move wherever a diocese has diocesan hermits once they have been denied either serious discernment with the diocese or admission to public profession. Sometimes one hears of folks who have traveled abroad to attempt to get an Abbot to profess them when they have been denied admission in their home dioceses. I think what has to be the bottom line is that one feels called to eremitical life, will live it either as a lay person or one consecrated to do so --- whatever the Church deems best --- and that, generally speaking, they only shift dioceses if the one they are now living in is not consecrating anyone as a diocesan hermit. Gyrovagues and Sarabaites have always been a problem in monastic life and they remain one in terms of canon 603 and eremitical life in the Church today.

It is Only With the Heart that One Sees Rightly

Recently a parishioner sent a postcard to the daily Mass folks. Buzz and his wife, Diana, are doing The Way (El Camino de Santiago) and are on their way to St James de Compostela. The postcard quoted St Exupery's Little Prince: "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." Certainly on such a pilgrimage we come to see people in more profound ways than we do when we look at them superficially. In the best cases pilgrims begin to see one another in ways which make them more whole and takes delight in them --- warts and all. It reminded me of a reflection I did one Friday just two or three weeks ago regarding the beam in one person's eye and the splinter in another!

Also recently I read the story of someone who, as a result of some sort of 'private revelation', apparently "fled Mass in horror" because she had supposedly seen "through the masks" of people attending Mass, perhaps most especially the priest presiding there. She wrote of seeing various persons' flaws, seeing raw, unfiltered truth, and she is trying to make sense of this way of seeing that happens to her at Mass. In light of this deeply disturbing experience (for the person writing about it has written about also being profoundly troubled by it in the past) there is some monastic wisdom which is critical to keep in mind, namely, we only see a person truly when we see them as God sees them. Keeping this in mind will help us hear what is being said again and again in the Gospel readings throughout this whole week.

It is one thing to see a person's flaws. That is certainly part of the truth of who we each are. But it is not the deepest truth and it is the deepest truth which the grace of God empowers us to see and work towards.  The less profound "truth" we may also see can become literally diabolical, that is, it can divide, throw, or tear apart (diabolos comes from the Greek, dia for apart and balein, to throw). It divides the see-er from her own heart, it tears apart the one seen in this way by treating a part of them as the whole or most important truth, and it can result in ripping apart the community in which such things occur. Such truth is meant to be filtered, filtered through hearts that see as God sees, that love as God loves --- with a mercy that does justice, a love that makes whole. Otherwise, the result is true misery for all involved. In light of all this I wanted to repost this piece I put up several years ago:

It is Only With the Heart that We See Rightly.

In one of the best selling books of all time, The Little Prince, there is a dialogue between a fox and the Little Prince. It occurs over a period of time. The Fox begins by explaining about what it means to be "tamed,"  and he notes that it involves forming ties with others. He begs the Prince to "tame him" and over time (the prince agrees to "waste time" in this way!) the Little Prince does so while the Fox allows himself to be tamed; in other words the Prince works to become the Fox's friend and the Fox becomes his. As a result the most mundane parts of reality are also transformed. Golden fields of wheat which hold no interest for the Fox ordinarily (he eats only chickens!) now remind the Fox of his friend's golden hair and occasion joy. When the time comes for the Little Prince to leave the Fox is sad, and then he gives the Little Prince his most precious secret, a secret he says most men have forgotten: [[It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.]]

In last Friday's Gospel story Jesus knows that there is more than one way of "seeing" and he equates one of these with a destructive blindness which will lead everyone into the pit together. He warns that an untrained person is apt to harm someone and needs to get proper training before trying to act as a teacher. And he reminds us via this story that we ourselves are often afflicted with a beam in our own eye but that we are equally often one who blindly criticizes and offers to extract a splinter from another's eye. We hear one of Jesus' most damning judgments as he says: "You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from in your brother's eye!"

Jesus clearly understands several things; he knows what the fox reminds us most "men have forgotten": First, that seeing rightly (compassion) is something we do with our hearts and this requires a kind of training. It is the kind of training one does when, over time, one helps (trains) a child to grow in a certain way. It takes years to "train" a child's ability to stand upright, to help them become persons who love themselves and others, who are capable of giving themselves to the world in a way which makes it better, richer, more holy. It takes years to help a child become responsible for their own hearts as we ourselves are called to be responsible for our own hearts Our hearts are, as I have said here a number of times, the places where we meet and respond to God, but they are also those places within us where obstacles to this meeting reside; for this reason they need to be "trained"  (formed, healed, nurtured, strengthened, aided) to see rightly. The responsibility for forming our hearts, for taming them (what Christians call growing in holiness), is a lifelong process of being made capable of compassionate seeing by living with and from Christ.

Secondly then, he knew that the way our attention is avidly drawn to the splinter in another's eye SHOULD lead us to suspect the beam in our own; that is, we should suspect the real obstacles to accurate vision, to compassion, exist in our own hearts. They represent ways of seeing we have made our own whether they have come from our culture, from peer pressure, from our own needs, successes or failures, from the hurts of childhood, or wherever. Because of this I think Jesus understood very well that we ordinarily operate from habitual ways of seeing and behaving which are less than Christian; we operate from characteristic attitudes of the false self that serve as lenses which distort our own vision and prevent us from seeing rightly or compassionately with the heart. In terms of the Gospel, and the story of the Little Prince, they are the lenses which prevent us from making neighbors of those we meet or know, the lenses which prevent us from loving others, from letting others "tame us," and therefore from becoming friends.

 Two pieces of monastic truth:

Monastic life encapsulated Jesus' teaching in a number of ways, but there are two pieces which are especially important here. The first is the monastic teaching on what are called "the passions."  The passions are obstacles to humility, that is, they are barriers to recognizing and celebrating the truth about who we are in regard to God and others. Thus they are also obstacles to compassion, to seeing others with the same kind of loving truthfulness. They are most often the beams in our own eyes and hearts which cause us to overreact to the splinters in our brother's or sister's eyes. They are the symptoms of woundedness and disease in our own hearts which cause us to project onto others and fail to love them as we ought and as they deserve. As Roberta Bondi reminds us, "a passion has as its chief characteristics perversion of vision and the destruction of love." (To Love as God Loves)

Common passions we are all too familiar with include perfectionism, a kind of habitual irritation with someone or some situation, anger, envy, depression, apathy or sloth, gluttony (which often has more to do, Bondi points out, with requiring novelty than it does with eating), irritable or anxious restlessness, impatience, selfishness, etc. In each, if we consider their effects, we will notice these habitual ways of relating to ourselves and our world cause us to see reality in a distorted way (this is one of the reasons we think of seeing reality through the green haze of envy, the red film of anger, or the black wall of depression, and so forth). Further, they get in the way of being open to or nurturing the truth of others --- that is, they are obstacles to love.

Similarly they are destructive of sight and love because they cause us to transfer onto others our own flawed expectations, values, failings and woundedness.  We know this by its psychological term: projection. It is a serious disordering of our hearts and minds that Jesus apparently understood well; it is a result of our own brokenness and sinfulness, and it assures not only that the person being projected onto CANNOT be heard or seen for who they are, but also that the one doing the projecting becomes more and more locked into their own blindness and inability to love the other as neighbor. The wisdom of Jesus' admonition, "Remove the beam from your own eye before you attempt to remove the splinter from your brother's," as well as the appropriateness of his anger in calling others on their hypocrisy is profound.

The second piece of monastic wisdom here we should remember, and one which is closely related to the importance of dealing with these passions has to do with the nature of really seeing another truly. In our own time we are very used to acting as though we only know someone really well when we see their flaws. We approach people and things "critically," searching out their failings and weaknesses and when we have discovered them, we believe we have discovered their deepest truth. How often have we heard someone say something like: "I thought I knew him, but the other day, he acted to betray me. Now I really know who he is!"

But monastic wisdom is just the opposite of this notion of knowing. It is strikingly countercultural and counterintuitive. In monastic life we only really know someone when we see them as God sees them: precious, sacred, whole, and beautiful. We only see them rightly when we look past the flaws **to the deep or true person at the core. We only see them truly when we see them with the eyes and humility of love. As we were reminded by Saint-Exupery and as tomorrow's Gospel implies strongly, "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly," --- and only once we have removed those distorting lenses monks call passions, that is, only once we have removed the beams from our own eyes will we be able to do this!

** N.B., I do not mean looking past these flaws in the sense of ignoring them completely (it may or may not be loving to do so) but rather looking past them so they may be seen within the context of the deeper truth and relatedness to God as ground and source. These flaws are tragic but they are tragic precisely because of the deeper truth of every person. Secondly, we must see the deeper truth not only as reality but as the person's profoundest potential. Looking past the flaws means loving the person in a way which summons them to realize their potential by healing and transcending the flaws. Only seeing with the eyes of the heart make this possible.

On Stricter Separation From the World

[[Dear Sister Laurel, does the phrase "stricter separation from the world" mean something stricter than the Gospel counsel to be in the world but not of it? You write that it means separation from those things which are resistant to Christ but aren't all Christians called to this? Is the key word in this phrase, "stricter"?  To me the phrase sounds negative and kind of "world hating"; is the purpose a negative one --- like to keep one away from things that might contaminate one?]]

Thanks for the questions. I have written about some of this before under the label "Stricter Separation from the Word" but especially in the pieces on "spiritualizing stricter separation from the world" (cf On Spiritualizing Stricter Separation and More on Stricter Separation and The Purpose of Stricter Separation.  In each of those I think I make clear that the withdrawal or separation that hermits are called to differs from that of other Christians and also other Religious. The term stricter is therefore a key word, yes but perhaps not the key word. Still it does indicate a true withdrawal, not a merely spiritualized one like that incumbent on all Christians called to secular vocations (vocations in the ordinary world of economics, politics, power or influence, and relationships). It involves not just withdrawal from the things which are resistant to Christ, but also withdrawal even from many of the very good things of creation (both Divine and human)  most Christians find inspiring or sacramental.


There are negative reasons for stricter separation, yes, but in general it allows for a focused commitment to the search or quest for God and all that comes from such a quest. A second positive reason is that it allows us to see the larger world of creation with new eyes, eyes that can recognize the truly sacred and hearts that can honor that. A third is that it allows us to see ourselves apart from all the hype, all the definitions and props supplied by the world around us. The separation that seems so negative serves more positive goals. So, while it is important to draw away from the perspectives which distort a truly Christian view of reality, and while it is especially important to draw away from those things which eventually affect our commitment to Christ and may lead to outright sin --- which I guess might be spoken of in terms of keeping away from things that contaminate --- the more important reason is entirely positive: namely, to seek God and to find our truest selves at the same time. Again, please check the articles linked above.

[[Are diocesan hermits considered cloistered? ]]

Great question. I don't think I have been asked this before. I have referred to the diocesan hermit living a kind of functional enclosure; by this I meant that even the hermit who allows clients or occasional visitors in the hermitage tend to have a private prayer space which is not really open to others. I also meant, however, that there is a wider sense of being separated from others, from certain activities, kinds of media, and so forth which create an enclosed space that functions like the material enclosure of a monastery with its wall, grills or signs marking cloister or saying, "private" along with the restrictions written into the community's statutes. Some speak of cloister in terms of papal cloister or other forms of formal cloister marked and governed by canon and proper law, etc. In these senses diocesan hermit have not ordinarily been considered to be cloistered.

However, at this point I think we have to say that diocesan hermits are called, by the very terms of canon 603, to a form of cloister or enclosure. I say this because both stricter separation from the world and the physical silence of the life mark off very real dimensions of enclosure. Silence, for instance, has always been seen as the more personal level of enclosure within the physical (material) cloister marked by walls and grills. Similarly, I am reminded of a comment by Dom Jean LeClercq ** which noted that enclosure could be ensured not only by wall and grill, but by a simple row of stones used by someone like Charles de Foucauld or "even by a simple agreement". There is no doubt that canon 603 calls for stricter separation from the world, assiduous prayer and penance, and the silence of solitude all lived according to an approved Rule under the supervision of the diocesan Bishop. This certainly sounds like a form of enclosure or cloister to me, especially given the fact that it is governed by approved proper law (the hermit's Rule) and overseen by legitimate superiors.

Of course this is not strict or papal enclosure. As in institutes of religious life who, according to c 667.1, are required to adopt cloister to the character and mission of the institute, a canonical hermit is both obliged to enclosure and free to discern the degree of time and activity outside the hermitage which is required by daily needs (doctor's appointments, shopping, Mass, etc.), though one does so within the limits and values codified in one's Rule and sometimes in collaboration with one's director or delegate. One does not usually need specific permission to leave the hermitage nor to have occasional visitors as guests. Still, the pattern of these mitigations or exceptions will be examined and discussed with one's delegate, and perhaps one's bishop, to see how well they contribute to or detract from the hermit's need for and commitment to silence, solitude, privacy, etc., as well as providing for necessary community and hospitality. I think we have to think of the diocesan hermit as bound by a form of cloister or enclosure whether we call it "functional", "eremitical," and so forth. Whatever we choose to call it we need to see it is both recognizable and real; it is also, to the degree specified in the hermit's proper law and c. 667, a juridical matter.

** LeClercq, Jean, Contemplative Life, "Separation From the World" Cistercian Studies 19, p 35

On the Validity of Defining Solitude in terms of Community

[[Dear Sister, if you define solitude in terms of communion with God I can understand that but I am not sure how you move from there to communion with others. I am having a hard time seeing the difference between life in solitude then and life in community. If both are communal then what is the difference? Why don't you just say that the eremitical vocation is about being alone with God?]]

Good questions, thanks for these. Remember that I (and most of the theologians I know) define God not as A Being but as the ground and source of all being and meaning, and therefore too, the ground and source of all that is truly personal and of all relatedness. In, with and through God, we are related to everything and everyone else. If we live in communion with God then to some extent we are in communion with the rest of reality. And of course this works the other way around -- though not in the same way. If we love others, honor creation, are stewards of reality, we also love and honor God.

Thus, when I think about eremitical solitude and especially, when I think about the difference between eremitical life and isolated, alienated, or estranged life the difference is in relatedness in and through God. To describe this I talk about the communal dimension of life in the silence of solitude. Still, this does not make my life one of cenobitical or community life since from 85-95% of my life is spent in solitude. Moreover, the time I spend with others is either in direct service to them (spiritual direction) or in order that I might live a richer and completely healthy solitude (occasional time with good friends). For a Trappistine Sister living, working, eating, praying, and recreating with others --- though often silently --- there are also periods of solitude: silent prayer, lectio, study, etc, but the context for everything is life in (and for) community and the search for God that community makes possible.

I don't speak about eremitical solitude ONLY as being alone with God for a couple of reasons. First my experience is that even (and perhaps especially) in the most profound prayer experiences I have had --- those where there was an undoubted union with God in a way which even involved typical physical effects, either others were present supporting me and/or there were reminders in my prayer itself  of the fact that in God I was related to all others and all else. (I have noted before that in one prayer period I experienced having the entire attention of God and the moment I noted that --- with a kind of awed "This is so but how can this be so?" --- I was reassured that everyone else ALSO had God's entire attention; no one was being shortchanged or disregarded here.) It was another of those great paradoxes that underscored the truth of the experience. While I was not really aware of others per se, I was aware of them in a general sense through their relationship with God. In other words, at those times I was most completely taken up in God I was also clearly concerned with and reassured about others. I was aware of them more than at other times, in part because God, who never ceased being wholly or exhaustively concerned with each and all of us, directed my attention there as a consequence of his immeasurable love.

The second reason has to do with canon 603 itself. It describes this vocation as one of stricter withdrawal or separation from "the world" (i.e., from that which is resistant to Christ), the silence of solitude, the evangelical counsels, assiduous prayer and penance under a rule I write and the supervision of my Bishop. But it also says this vocation is one undertaken for the praise of God and the salvation of the world. By definition, I do not live it merely alone with God but for the sake of all those God holds as precious. So far as I can see this essential element of the canon is no less important or central than any other element. It implies and perhaps demands that my life is not merely absorbed in God as a life of personal piety, but that it is also is concerned with witnessing to some basic truths every person needs to hear and know. It is also, then, a life of prayer for others --- though I consider this secondary to the witness it offers. (Some hermits clearly consider this primary instead of secondary and are entirely free to do so.)

 Moreover, canon 603 says that to the extent my life is absorbed in God it will necessarily be concerned with all God calls his own. While I am certainly concerned with my own salvation, eremitical life is not simply a solitary quest for my own salvation, my own perfection. It is not some form of pious navel gazing or self-centeredness. The focus in not on me but on God and allowing God to be God, not only for myself, but for the whole of creation. Thus, while on one level I can speak of the eremitical vocation being one of being alone with God I think generally this is misleading to others, whether they be other candidates, Bishops and Vicars for Religious, or simply those looking into what a contemporary vocation to eremitical life is all about in the face of a culture taken up with individualism or given over to "cocooning". For all these reasons I have tried to be careful to define eremitical life as one of "being alone with God for the sake of others." Now I may need to say instead that it is "being alone with God in communion with as well as for the sake of others." If any of these elements is missing, then we don't have authentic eremitical life as the Church defines it. We do not have the silence of solitude but instead a life of dumb isolation and individualism.



Artist, Mary Southard, CSJ

In either solitude or community the aim of religious life (or of the lay eremitical life) is the same, namely, to seek and give ourselves over to God for God's own sake (for this is God's deepest desire) and for the sake of the perfection or fulfillment of God's entire creation. But the contexts are different. In my hermitage I mainly do this while physically alone and linked to others through my relationship with God. In community Sisters or nuns mainly do this while physically together and more directly dependent on the environment created by others to facilitate every Sister's quest for God. There is a communal dimension to my solitude (or that of any authentic hermit) but physical solitude is primary. For cenobites there is naturally a strong solitary dimension to their life in community but the context of community is still primary or definitive of the life they live.

An Empty House is a Vulnerable House (Reprise with tweaks)

Tomorrow's Gospel includes the small pericope about the house cleansed of a demon and then left vacant. The overall context is somewhat different than when I first wrote the following piece [we are not reading through Galatians this year] and I am hoping to put up something more completely relevant to tomorrow's reading from Joel and the responsorial psalm. (These focus on the need for repentance and the justice God does by loving us.) But until then. . .here is the post I put up three years ago.

The pericope of the house exorcised of a single demon from [tomorrow's] Gospel passage by Luke provides some real spiritual wisdom. It also serves to illustrate Paul's own concern in what he is is writing to the Church in Galatia and is especially meaningful when read within the context provided by Paul's letter to the Galatians. Remember, the passage from Luke speaks of clearing a single demon from a house; the demon then wanders around arid spaces looking for a place to inhabit. Eventually it returns to the original dwelling and finds it all swept clean and in order, but yet uninhabited. The demon thus  goes out to find seven more demons and they all move into the now clean and orderly but empty house.

The first part of the context for hearing this Gospel passage is provided by Paul's own theology and is summarized by the first lection: namely, the Law, a Divine gift,  functions as a curse apart from Christ. It provides rules on the way we are required to be and persist in being but it cannot empower us to do what it requires. The law instructs us regarding what is truly human, it can convict us of sin and point clearly to the demons which occupy our own divided hearts  but it cannot actually bring about Communion with God. The Law is important, especially as a schoolmaster preparing us for adult life in faith, but it cannot be thought to replace faith.

The second part of the context is provided by Luke's theology itself. A major theme of the Gospel is hospitality. Luke is concerned not only with our call to provide hospitality to strangers of whom we make neighbors, but with providing hospitality for God in our world, and further, with becoming ourselves God's own guests dwelling within the Kingdom of God's own sovereignty. In  the stories we heard this week from Luke's Gospel hospitality figures largely, and so does law to some extent. On Monday we heard the story of Mary and Martha, both offering hospitality to Jesus. Martha adopts a kind of legal maximization and busies herself going beyond the strict requirements of the Law (to provide a single dish for the guest) and  in the process, avoids actually providing the guest what he most desires --- her own hearkening (obedient) company. Mary, on the other hand, sits down at Jesus' feet and "hearkens" to him. What Martha seems to do is something Paul associates with the "curse of the law,"  namely she assumes that if x is required, 5 times x will be even better.

On Wednesday we heard the Lord's Prayer, which itself is about being taught to pray and thus 1) coming to allow God a place where he may be powerfully present in our world, and 2) becoming participants in the Kingdom of Divine Sovereignty where all dwell in communion with God and one another. What the pericope makes clear is that Law has NOT taught the disciples how to pray. Only Jesus (God's own empowering presence) can do this. On Thursday, there was the story of the importuning guest banging on his neighbor's door for bread to feed an unexpected guest. It is unclear whether or not all in this story eventually act as the Law requires them to act (the entire village is responsible for hospitality) but one can hardly praise the attitude of heart or spirit of hospitality demonstrated by (or lacking in!) the man who was sought out to supply the bread, for instance!

And [tomorrow we will hear] the story of Jewish leaders who are concerned with the Law and presumably keep it faithfully as God's gift, but who refuse to receive Jesus as God's own definitive presence in their lives and world. They even accuse Jesus of acting by the power of Beelzebul to cast out demons. Jesus confronts them with their inconsistency by asking what power it is by which they themselves exorcise demons; he then tells today's parable of the demon exorcised from the house with the house then being left uninhabited and vulnerable.

Probably very few of us are legalists in the strict sense, but how many of us tidy up our own hearts in a kind of spiritual housekeeping and fail to give those same hearts over to God to fully occupy? How many of us are intrigued by techniques and tools, workshops, etc, but resist actual prayer, that is, the giving of our lives over to [the active and dynamic presence of God?] I suspect this is a far more common problem in Christian living than legalism per se. Law of all sorts assists us in dealing with the demons which inhabit our own hearts: those of covetousness, greed, dishonor, dishonesty, anger, and so forth, but we have to go further and allow God to be powerfully present in whatever way he wishes. We have to allow our hearts to truly become Temples of the Holy Spirit. After all we are not called merely to be respectable (neat, clean, orderly, well looked after, with the right structure, facade, and all the right appointments), but to be Holy --- a new Creation, in fact. That means not merely being occupied WITH God or the concerns of his Law, but being occupied BY God in a way which transforms our hearts into God's own home.

Despite the humor present in Luke's picture of the returning demons the image is serious. [It reminds me of a commercial I once saw where a family of mucus blobs took up residence in a person's chest; that was somewhat humorous until one realized how sick and miserable such a sufferer would be.] We have all seen houses that were abandoned, and especially we have seen houses owners fixed up but left unoccupied; they become dens for animals, nests for squatters of all sorts, dump sites for lazy neighbors, sources for scavengers and thieves  drug houses, and so forth. In short, they are made unfit for human (or Divine) habitation. So too with our own hearts. Law helps us clean them of all those things mentioned above, and more. But Luke's Gospel also reminds us that God in Christ stands at the door and knocks. Unceasingly.

If we don't REALLY allow him to make himself fully at home, if we allow our hearts to be less than wholly hospitable to a God who desires [to share] an exhaustive Communion with us, then other and worse demons will replace the demons already exorcised: those of ingratitude, self-righteousness, complacency, fear, works-righteousness, arrogance, pride, and so forth. Houses are made to be inhabited and so is the human heart; an empty house is dangerous and vulnerable and so is an empty [ultimately uncommitted] human heart ---no matter how orderly and respectable. Law helps us ready our hearts for Communion with God, but at some point we really do have to allow God to move in as fully as He desires and take complete "ownership".

Eremitism as a Vocation that Belongs to the Church: Sources of this Position

 [[Hi Sister! Thanks for your recent posts on reclusion and the relatedness that is part of that vocation. I read your post on Sunday obligations for hermits last year (I think it was last yea) so I realized that reclusion is more dependent on others than we often think but there was something new in the idea that the recluse reflects the interrelatedness of all of creation. I think you were also clearer about the idea that such a vocation "belongs to the Church", not to the individual. Can I ask what the sources of your ideas on this are? Your emphasis on community is so strong that sometimes I have to remind myself you are speaking about eremitical solitude or even reclusion. Does this come from your reflection on canon 603?]]

Thank you for the question and the observations. If there is greater clarity about the idea that vocations to eremitical solitude and even to reclusion "belong to the Church" and not to the individual, it is because I am coming to greater clarity myself. I spoke recently of the spiral movement of thought -- you know, where the same points come up but each time a bit closer to the center and deeper as well. I think this is mainly something similar. When I first got some clarity on the nature of  ecclesial vocations (about 20 years ago) I knew I had come to a realization that would change a great deal in my own perceptions and understanding. I had no idea I would be exploring the meaning of the term in one way and another for the rest of my life! And yet, this is precisely what has happened --- and I think will continue as a focus for my own reflection.

(By the way, I should note here that in this post I use the term ecclesial vocation in two senses. The first is general, less usual, and means any vocation that "belongs" to the Church, is an expression of Church, or necessarily serves the Church and the world through the Church. The second sense refers to "ecclesial vocations" in the proper sense of the term. This usage is much more specific and besides everything just mentioned refers to those vocations which are mutually discerned by the individual and Church leaders and are mediated juridically by the Church in rites of profession, consecration, and ordination. Ecclesial vocations in the proper sense are governed by canons beyond those associated with the lay state of life. They are public vocations, not private ones and involve public commitments and commissioning, not private vows or the lack of specific commissioning. Consequently, they result in necessary rights, obligations, and expectations on the part of the whole Church, and often the public at large. I have ordinarily only spoken of ecclesial vocations in this proper sense.)

Something similar to what I experienced with regard to the notion of ecclesial vocations happened 40 years ago with the work of theologians Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs and the notion of the human being as a "language event" --- which ties in here because this idea too stresses the interrelatedness of all life and the embedded nature of all vocations; people come to be in being addressed and called to be by others. They come to be in responding to these words and in addressing others. They are mutually responsible in these and other ways. Thomas Keating, as I have noted here before, calls human beings "a listening". Scripture speaks of the Christ Event, the fullest revelation of both God and Mankind as incarnate Word. Ecclesia (the Greek word for Church) is the reality of those called together to witness to the Word. Because of the theology of "language events" I came to see more clearly that none of these things exist in isolation; they cannot. It is not their nature. In any case I am coming to greater clarity regarding the profound relatedness of eremitical solitude and the vocation to reclusion myself so there is little surprise that it shows up here on this blog.

Your question is about the source of all this and I think there are five main 'streams': 1) theology (both systematic and historical theology including reflection on canon 603 and its history), 2) personal experience (including ongoing reflection on living canon 603), 3) sociology, 4) science (especially in regard to contemporary physics and biology), and 5) an increased sense of the prevalence of stereotypes and distortions of the truth. Not to worry, I am not going to list all of these in detail, but I do want you to see that each of these areas provides a kind of stream that feeds my own posts here. Sometimes I will focus on the theology involved, sometimes, on the counter cultural nature of the vocation, sometimes on the stereotypes I have encountered or the distortions of the eremitical vocation as the Church understands it, and so forth, but whichever the focus for the moment the other streams are also prevalent and feeding my thought.

A little more about canon 603:

You ask specifically about reflection on canon 603 and here I have to say that is a really great and terrifically perceptive question. You see, the one place where all the other bits come together, the one reality which combines all of these streams or threads is precisely canon 603 itself so it makes sense that it would become a kind of structural or formal center which demands a person eventually look at all these dimensions. Canon 603 is a norm for the solitary eremitical vocation in the Church. It is a bit of codified (normative) wisdom which is theologically compelling, culturally challenging, open to the findings of the behavioral sciences, and immensely respectful of the needs and experience of both the believing community and the person called to live this vocation in the name of that community.

Up until now I have said that this canon is an amazing blend of non-negotiable elements and flexibility. I hope I have conveyed that it is an amazing combination of formal structure and charismatic energy. (How often can we say a church law is an inspired gift of the Holy Spirit? I don't know -- I am no canonist! Neither am I generally tempted to approach canon law in this way but I definitely believe it is true in this case.) In any event, yes, more often than not it is my reflection on canon 603 that has been the source of insight into the eremitical vocation. At the same time that is because this canon is sort of lens which both reveals and reflects all these other streams and sources in a coherent illuminating and life giving beam.

For that reason my own experience and theological reflection, along with the lives and theological (or canonical) reflection of others illuminates this canon so that its depths and hidden contours, colors, and capacity can be more readily appreciated. If instead we see it only as a constraining norm, a law which is merely superficial or extraneous to the vocation it defines and governs, or if we treat it as a legalistic imposition which supposedly stifles the eremitical vocation, we will have failed to appreciate the nature and function of the canon itself and probably the vocation it codifies.

Personal sources, Theology:

I don't want to go into the theology involved at any length here since I think it is something I write about all the time. It is true that because I am a systematic theologian I look for the deep connections and theological underpinnings of a reality. That is just natural for me. With regard to the eremitical vocation and the call to solitude, both creation (where God is meant to be sovereign) and ecclesiology (the theology of Church) itself are foundational here. We talk of the Church as the Body of Christ and of this body having many members, all important, all necessary, all interrelated. It is hard to believe that God would call people to eremitical solitude or even to reclusion (as you say) if it meant truly being cut off from the Body of Christ in some significant way.

While it is true the relatedness between hermit and community is sometimes obscure there is no doubt it is real and critical --- just as so many of the life processes of the human body are hidden but real and critical nonetheless. This dimension is foundational and must be protected. Paul's theology of the charisms of the Holy Spirit and the way they serve and complete one another is also foundational here. We do not have people speaking in tongues without those God inspires as interpreters. We do not have individuals called to symbolize the Church at prayer without them being integrally related to that same Church. Meanwhile, as important as individual salvation and perfection might be the ministry handed onto the Church by God through the Christ Event is the "ministry of reconciliation". Through this ministry all people but also all of creation is to be brought to perfection (maturity and fullness) so that God is all in all. In all of this eremitical life is a gift of the Spirit to the Church and it is up to the Church to mediate God's call to those who live this vocation in the name of the Church. Of course Lay hermits too participate in the Church's ministry of reconciliation in this paradoxical vocation --- though as hermits they do do so in what might be called "ecclesial vocations" in the much more general sense of the term.

Personal Experience:

I have known both times when I was unable to participate effectively in church and her ministry due to illness and times when I was able to participate fully. I have lived as a hermit during both of these and there is no doubt in my mind that the first period was also one where something crucial was missing from my eremitical life while the second involves a richer and more paradoxical sense of the silence of solitude. This sense is a large part of what informs my reflections even though it is usually only implicit in my posts. Especially here, I believe the time of enforced separation due to illness made me more aware of the ecclesial or communal dimension of the eremitical life -- and particularly of the need to be able to participate in some way in the liturgical and other communal life of the Church if one is to live consecrated eremitical life in the Church's name.

Reflection on canon 603 is something I have done in both periods of my life but the relational and ecclesiological sense of each of its elements was something I resisted (it was painful to embrace completely) so long as illness prevented my own participation in parish life. My relational standing in the People of God has helped me appreciate the history of the canon, the place of community in the growth of a call to solitude, the relational nature of the vows,  and the distinction between the isolation or estrangement of sin and the engagement with God on the part of others (and in limited ways, with them as well) which is so characteristic of the silence of  eremitical solitude in an ecclesial context. One can live as a hermit both ways but there is no doubt in my mind that alienation and estrangement --- even that occasioned by illness --- only allows for a partial and somewhat distorted understanding of the canon 603 vocation.

In particular this can become clearer once the Church has admitted one to profession and consecration, when she has, in fact, entrusted one with the canonical responsibilities and obligations connected to the public form of this vocation. At that point one acquires a profound sense of being part of the handing on of a living Tradition. One acquires a more explicit sense of mission which differs significantly from mere purpose and this happens as the result of being publicly and canonically consecrated and commissioned by the Church. This is vastly different, and in some ways, a vastly richer experience of the ecclesial nature of an eremitical vocation than simply living as a hermit because one has discerned one is called to be a hermit apart from the Church's active ministry in mediating this call. My experience in this also leads me to say that in the case of lay hermits, I think there must be a strong ecclesial dimension to their lives and though this is not as clearly established as it is in the case of the canonical hermit, it must exist and be nurtured and protected by the hermit in whatever ways are possible.

Culture and the History of Eremitical Life:

Both the nature of our culture and the history of eremitical life underscores the importance of understanding eremitical life and even reclusion as relational vocations which in significant ways "belong" to the Church. Eremitical life has always been a prophetic way of life speaking the will of God into the contemporary situation with a uniquely arresting kind of power and vividness. In the days of the Desert Mothers and Fathers hermits reminded the Church it had allied itself too closely with the political and cultural environment and called it to conversion.

Today hermits remain a counter cultural reality in a world marked and marred by individualism (often expressed in materialism and consumerism) so long as solitude is understood in terms communion with God and all that is grounded in God. If solitude is defined in terms of estrangement and alienation eremitical life becomes complicit in these and betrays its own roots and nature. Similarly, to some extent eremitical life reminds religious men and women that though communion with those in the saeculum does not allow for a simplistic division between the spiritual and the secular or the sacred and profane, neither can religious buy too completely into the world of the saeculum; they must maintain an eschatological perspective and orientation even as they participate profoundly in the saeculum.

The place of stereotypes and frauds in affirming this vocation belongs to the Church:

Skipping for now the place of the sciences, there are stereotypes and those who would distort eremitical life in ways which are obstacles to understanding the profoundly ecclesial and relational nature of eremitical or reclusive solitude. Stereotypes come to life in real people today and those who represent distortions of eremitical life make it much harder for others to leave stereotypes behind. This in turn could mean that eremitical life will continue to be neither understood nor appropriately valued by the majority of our Church and world. It can also mean that for those rare persons who have such a vocation, an eremitical life will be harder to consider seriously and harder for the Church to deal with. Prelates who are charged with discerning these vocations may instead dismiss them as too bizarre, too troublesome and time consuming, too difficult to discern, and too contrary to the Church's understanding of herself or her communal life to be considered healthy. This means especially that the major expressions of disaffected human existence today (misanthropy, narcissism, isolationism, etc) will be (or continue to be) more easily labeled "eremitical" despite the fact that they are realities which are antithetical to the real thing.

Tom Leppard (see articles)

In instances where the Church's own vocation to the consecrated eremitical life is misrepresented by actual frauds this situation is exacerbated and those without such a vocation may well be misled to unknowingly adopt an equally inauthentic version of this vocation. What is especially difficult about these fraudulent vocations is the disparaging way the ecclesial dimension is treated. I believe there are relatively few outright frauds out there but because they write and otherwise represent disingenuous or perhaps "merely" delusional nonsense which is disedifying and seductive for those seeking a way to validate individualism and narcissism, they can cause significant mischief in people's lives and in the life of the Church itself. Moreover they can do so in ways far more powerful than lifeless stereotypes (which are powerful enough in themselves) can do.

I do feel real sympathy for those I am aware of --- and in some cases I feel or have felt significant pain -- both because of and for them. I sincerely believe these persons began pursuing eremitical life in good faith but failed in solitude and came to reject the Church's role in governing ecclesial vocations precisely because of individualism, illness, and sometimes, outright narcissism. It is these cases especially that underscore for me the importance not only of humility in this vocation, but of a vital embeddedness in the faith community with competent direction and regular oversight. In the cases I am aware of some do seek admission to profession under canon 603 but when they are discouraged from this, or actually refused admission, their disappointment has sometimes hardened into despair and disaffection. Once this occurs their relationship with the Church can weaken and sometimes is transformed into actual disregard for her teaching, praxis, and members. These persons may then strike out on their own while yet representing themselves as Catholic Hermits --- hermits living eremitical life in the name of the Church. I do understand the pain of such disappointment; it is terribly painful to sustain what can feel like a personal rejection. But I also understand that one's identity as an integral part of the Body of Christ is too precious to jeopardize in this way. Certainly it cannot be replaced by this kind of pretense.

The tragic irony in such cases is that the eremitical life that could have healed one's self-centeredness and transfigured one's marginalization itself becomes a victim of these. What could have been a path to significant integration, reconciliation, and fruitfulness becomes instead an example of a withered fig tree which may have lost any possibility of a verdant future. Once again though, this underscores the ecclesial nature of the authentic eremitical vocation. Such vocations, whether lay or consecrated, "belong" to and must be overseen by the Church. They are a signifcant part of her living Tradition, her Patrimony. In what may be the vocation's most significant paradox these persons demonstrate that authentic Catholic Hermits are never those who attempt to go it alone.

One final source, Camaldolese Spirituality:

Let me note briefly here that a final source of my own conviction about the notion that eremitical vocations "belong to the Church" is my own relationship with Camaldolese and Cistercian spiritualities. Any Congregation or Order comprised of hermits or allowing for hermits constitutes an ecclesial context which assures the health or vitality of the individual vocation concerned and of the eremitical vocation more generally. One of the more significant contributions St Romuald made (besides founding the Camaldolese Benedictine Order!) was bringing isolated hermits together or at least under the Rule of St Benedict --- moves which helped curb tendencies to destructive individualism, provided discipline, and related these vocations to the larger Church. Centuries later it was Peter Damian, Camaldolese monk and prelate who referred to the hermit in (her) cell as an ecclesiola ("little church") --- not because one can be church by oneself, but because an individual who is properly professed and/or integrally related to church, represents or symbolizes the whole. One of the phrases characterizing Camaldolese life is "Living Together Alone". There is no doubt I am significantly influenced by Camaldolese thought, spirituality, and praxis in this matter.

N.B., for those interested in reading about Camaldolese spirituality generally or the phrase, "living together alone", please see The Privilege of Love, and especially Brother Bede Healey's "Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone". Also important here are Dom Robert Hale's "Koinonia: The Privilege of Love", and Dom Cyprian Consiglio's, "An Image of the Praying Church: Camaldolese Liturgical Spirituality."