Henri Nouwen on Loneliness

One of the most important dimensions of my own life is the transformation of isolation into genuine solitude. I do not understand solitude simply as being alone, but rather in terms of being alone with God, and therefore, through bonds of love, with all of those others God holds as precious. I believe that when Nouwen speaks of loneliness he is speaking of the experience of isolation and the transformation of this into solitude, it sounds very like the experience that stands behind what I write and understand about the silence of solitude of my own eremitical life and c 603 itself. 

Especially important for hermits, I believe, is the way Nouwen's understanding of the effects of trying to escape loneliness versus living it in the very concrete and exhaustive ways he describes leads to the redemption of that loneliness into solitude. When folks write about the Desert Fathers and Mothers, they often note a point when the escape from urban and societal chaos and violence is transformed into a search for something higher and greater, a search for God and the true self. I believe we are looking at the same moment as it comes to each of us whether through isolation, loneliness, or alienation; when transformed by the grace of God we find ourselves, and God (and eventually also the other) as we come to know authentic eremitical solitude. 

I hope you enjoy this brief interview of Henri Nouwen on the notion of becoming a Wounded Healer.

On Canon 603 being "Entrenched" and "Being Approved" Under c 603

[[Sister Laurel, is it the case that c 603 has become "entrenched" and squeezed out the possibility of non-canonical hermits? If I have lived as a hermit for 15+ years, what kind of process will it take for me to become c 603 if I decide to do that? Will they just approve me and let me sign a paper or will I have to go through some sort of "discernment and formation" process? I mean I have been a hermit for more than 1.5 decades so wouldn't they just allow me to be approved as a c 603 hermit?]]

Thanks for your questions. I have answered most of these in other articles so I ask that you read some of those for more comprehensive answers. The labels I add at the bottom of this article should lead you to further material pertinent to your questions. First of all, while the implementation of c 603 has become greater over the past 41 years, it has not become entrenched if that implies it is more valid now than it was when it was first promulgated in 1983. As I am sure you will understand, having a canon law that allows for consecrated solitary hermits, does not mean that every person that applies should be automatically consecrated. Moreover, having such a law means dioceses need to learn more about the vocation, appropriate candidates, or the varied forms of solitude that exist apart from eremitical solitude, and other things as well if they are to implement c 603 in their diocese. As I have written for more than a decade and a half, c 603 involves both dioceses and candidates in a fairly steep learning curve. Even so, c 603 has been the norm for eremitical life, and especially solitary eremitical life, from the day it was promulgated.

This also means, however, that it is an added form of eremitical life; it does not supplant earlier forms of life that are non-canonical or lived in the lay state (the baptized state). If you should desire to continue living eremitical life in this way, you are certainly welcome to do that. As a baptized Catholic, you are free to do that. If you want, you can (and I believe you should) use c 603.1 as a guide and norm for the nature of that life, but c 603.2 will not apply to you. (If you write a Rule of Life, don't expect it to be approved by your Bishop and diocese, but doing this is extremely helpful in living a healthy and faithful eremitical life. You can certainly have your spiritual director read it and help you live it.) If this is your choice, you will not be a consecrated hermit nor someone living eremitical life in the name of the Church, but you will still be living a life according to your baptismal consecration that is an exemplar for others in the Church. 

If you decide to petition for profession and consecration under c 603, and assuming that you are canonically free to do so, then yes, you will need to go through a discernment and formation process. Remember that you are not merely seeking to be "approved" by a diocesan bishop, but instead, you are petitioning to be initiated into the consecrated state of life which requires public profession and a second consecration. Just as people petition (seek, postulare) admission to religious life and profession and consecration therein, you will be doing the same with solitary eremitical life. It takes time, and so it should!! You must understand the canon, have a vision of your life that is consonant with that, write a Rule that demonstrates how you will embody this canon and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, etc. All of that takes time and formation, even if you have lived as a non-canonical or lay hermit for 15 years. If the diocesan staff discern that you are a good candidate for consecration under c 603, they will approve you for a mutual discernment and formation process. This does not mean you will be admitted to profession and consecration, but it is a good step toward that.

The diocese cannot simply "approve you" in a way that makes you a c 603 hermit any more than a religious can merely transfer to c 603 standing. You must be prepared for profession and consecration because the consecrated state is different than the lay state. It is never about merely signing a piece of paper (though there are certainly a few of those you will have to sign before your perpetual profession!). Instead, one will need to be created a canon 603 hermit by making public profession(s) and accepting the canonical obligations associated with this life. Consecration is part of the rite of perpetual profession.

After some posts from the past couple of months, let me assure you that the non-canonical or lay hermit vocation still exists in the Church and is something I believe has a greater representation than c 603. I believe, as I have said many times, there will always be more hermits in the lay or non-canonical state than there will be in the consecrated state. Let me also assure you that being "non-canonical" does NOT mean being illegal. It simply means not bound by the canons that bind consecrated ("canonical") hermits. One does remain bound by the canons applying to the laity so in that sense one is bound by canon law. Some hermits live their lives under c 603 and other canons additional to those binding a lay person. We call those hermits "canonical". Others live their lives without additional canons; we call those non-canonical. Both are legal in differing ways. Oh, one final point on something I mentioned above, namely canonical freedom: if you have been married, and if you have been divorced but without getting a decree of nullity, then you are not free canonically to take on another canonical or "life vocation". (If, on the other hand, your spouse has died, then yes, you are likely canonically free to try for c 603 standing.) Your diocese will tell you this when they see your Sacramental record.

I'm sorry to reiterate all of this, but your questions are reminiscent of someone who has heard or espoused the opposite of a lot of this, so I wanted to be sure and spell it out again.  The information on living as a hermit in the non-canonical or lay state is particularly important because it is important to understand that eremitical life can be lived in lay, consecrated and clerical states. As lay persons, we are free to live very many vocational paths, but if we want to do so in the consecrated state or do whatever it is in the name of the Church, the Church must discern and form us (or make sure we are adequately formed) in the vocation herself and then admit us to profession and consecration. Please note that neither have I been making any of this up since beginning this blog in 2007. I am merely exploring what the Church established the moment she promulgated c 603 in 1983. Your questions help me do that as so many others have done since my own eremitical consecration under this canon in 2007. Whichever choice you make, you are in for an adventure!! May God bless your eremitical life!

"Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage" by Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio

I am pleased to be able to post the following article from Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio. Rachel is a good friend who also "does Christology from below," and whose life is focused on him in the extraordinary ordinariness of hermitage life. It was a blessing to have discovered this article in The Merton Journal last night after I posted Why I do Christology from Below. I felt stunned, mostly by the content, and I wrote Rachel asking 1) how come she hadn't told me she had published this in The Merton Journal, volume 27, no. 2 (Advent 2020), and 2) could we publish this article on this blog as well? After all, I already knew we were on the same page theologically and eremitically, but I had no idea we were Sisters, maybe twin Sisters, in this sense too!! Rachel gave her permission to use this article, and I am ecstatic to be able to share it with readers here! I have invited other hermits to post here occasionally, so it is a joy to begin that practice (other than an occasional quote!) with. . .

Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage

I am a canonical hermit, originally of the diocese of Nottingham UK (professed 2006), currently of the diocese of Hallam UK: Hermits are eclectic and catholic in nature – we each do our own thing! I write from my own experience of hermitage, though I hope there may be common themes here which will resonate more widely.

Some questions from the beginning of the penny catechism:
1. Who made you?
God made me.
2. Why did God make you?
God made me to know God, love God and serve God in this world, and to be happy with God for ever in the next.
3. To whose image and likeness did God make you?
God made me to God’s own image and likeness. 1

As we draw towards the end of this Year-of-Covid, I have been curious to notice the priorities of the Church in supporting her members and the wider populace. Within local parish communities there has been much evidence of ongoing support for each other and for the most needy, finding innovative ways to celebrate and to support. But the ecclesial headlines appear to have focused quite specifically on the re-opening of church buildings for private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and thenceforward for the physical participation of the faithful in the celebration of the Eucharist.

When I was consecrated as a canonical hermit, I was offered the privilege of having the Blessed Sacrament reserved within my hermitage. I gave the invitation much prayerful consideration, but eventually decided against it. My understanding and experience of hermitage is that the whole of the hermitage is sacred space; the whole of the hermitage is tabernacle, the place where the hermit meets Christ. Hermitage is, for the hermit, the sacred space of God-with-us. This understanding and experience is a step beyond the foothills of the God-is-everywhere theme of childhood lessons. This is the confidence that, by God’s grace, simply to embrace and live out my humanity in the place and circumstance I find myself, is the fullest possible expression of my relationship with God during my life on this earth.

Deep within the paragraphs of Vita Consecrata (an encyclical on the consecrated life which is adopted by canonical hermits on their profession) there is hidden a quite audacious phrase. It describes Jesus’ life on earth, his humanity, as the expression of his relationship as the Only-Begotten Son with the Father and with the Holy Spirit 2 .

Being human is 'the expression' of Christ's love within the Trinity. 

We have been taught, perhaps too often, that Jesus’s humanity is a belittling, a humbling of his deity, as if it were second-best, dragging him down to our own “wretched” state. But if we ponder the statement above prayerfully, we can perhaps begin to trust that being human is, in and from the beginning, the most perfect way that Christ participates in being God – that Christ being the Word, Christ being human is the event of God speaking; as the encyclical states, it is “the expression” of Christ’s love within the Trinity. In the desire to most fully express the love of the Trinitarian Godhead, in the Word being spoken, Christ wondrously brought about, for Christ-self, the state of being human. Christ is human first, before anybody else was even imagined, right from the beginning!

And for ourselves, being human is Christ creating us upwards into the ecstasy of the Trinity. Christ’s undiminished humanity is the ecstatic love that we, and all of creation (because it is all spoken), are invited to share in our living today. Each one of us is created in the image of Christ’s humanity – in the image of the fullness of this unbounded expression of Trinitarian love. As a hermit, I witness that I am called to make manifest Trinitarian love, through my own humanity – of Christ – in my daily life; that the call to being human in Christ, and in imitation of Jesus, makes manifest in me, too, the fullness of our relationship, in Christ, in the Trinity.

So how does that work in practice? The heartbeat of my hermitage is its sacred ordinariness. It is an experience, in silence and solitude, of total immersion in the humdrum of daily life. A hermit is one who has, perhaps, become so overwhelmed by the immensity of the privilege of sharing Jesus’ humanity that she chooses to spend her whole life contemplating the mystery and manifestation of that gift in the most simple and ordinary form of living. A hermit lives out the mystery of the Incarnation in her own body, her own blood. A hermit says, “Christ, from the beginning of time, and in the fullness of time, chose being Jesus, being human, as the best way of expressing the love of the Trinity. Living in Christ, under the action of the Holy Spirit, and totally dedicated to God who is supremely loved 3, I will now do likewise”.

Because of the relentless ordinariness of her life, there is very little of worth that can be written about a hermit and her hermitage which cannot be written about every individual and community on the earth. That participation in the mystery of Christ’s humanity in Jesus is the focused privilege of the hermitage, but it is the lodestone of every human life. The hermit inhabits the tabernacle of her hermitage, but all people wait and attend in the tabernacle of the world. Christ is close to us when we are kneeling directly in front of the Blessed Sacrament in a church, but just as close when we are sitting in the pews at the back, or standing at the boundary wall outside locked doors, or at any moment in any place when we attend inwardly to the presence of God.

Lockdown in the hermitage was not a time of greater separation, but a time of dwelling deeper within the mystery. Now, as the churches tentatively regroup and are re-inhabited, as people kneel directly in front of the tabernacle, and celebrate Eucharist together in each other’s company, we are able to express more publicly again the community which is Christ’s self-manifestation and revelation to the world. In this time of Advent, of waiting, of expectation, and from the solitude and silence of my hermitage, I like to stand with the Church and the whole of humanity, bereaved, grieving and masked, together-yet-apart before the altar of God.

God is with us.

1. Opening phrases of the penny catechism.
2. Pope John Paul II, 1996, Vita Consecrata. 18
3. Code of Canon Law: Part III Institutes of consecrated life.

 Canon 573 i

Sister Rachel's website is found at, St Cuthbert's House.

Why I do Christology "From Below"

[[Dear Sister, I have read some of this blog and I wonder when you write about the hiddenness of eremitical life if you don't disparage Jesus by referring so strongly to his humanity. Jesus was God, a Divine person, so to speak of his "ordinariness" or even his faith in God demeans him. How would you respond to that objection?]]

Great question. Thanks. I suppose my response goes back to one of the first theology classes I ever had. This was an undergraduate Introduction to New Testament and made an impression I have never left behind. The professor asked us who Jesus was or is and he let us answer in all of the ways we thought not just described, and identified Jesus,  but also how we most honored him. I said something about Jesus being the Son of God and John (Dwyer) smiled, nodded, and said, "Okay, bearing that in mind, tell me who God is!"( After all, if the best, truest, or even the highest thing we can say about Jesus is that he is the Son of God, we really should be able to say who God is apart from Jesus.)  But of course, Jesus is the One who reveals God exhaustively to us; he shows us who God is in ways that transcend any of the partial revelations we have in the Hebrew Scriptures or in other religions. Moreover, he makes the Creating, Saving God present in space and time in ways not achieved except fragmentarily in the Law, Prophets, Judges, and others. (Remember to reveal in this usage means not only making visible and making known, but also to make real in space and time.)

So, the question, I think, is really how does Jesus do that, and then, what does this mean about his humanity? First, I believe Jesus reveals both who God is and what it means to be truly human. He does both in exhaustive and definitive ways and paradoxically, he does both at the very same time. I believe that this is a major part what the Christological Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon, for instance, were trying to say in the categories of that day and age. Secondly, I recognize that Christology can be done either "from above" or from below"; one (as in the Gospel of John) starts with Jesus' divinity, the other (as in the Gospel of Mark or the Letters of Paul) with Jesus' humanity. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, and each must address these if people are truly to understand who Jesus and the One he called Abba are for us. One of the weaknesses, I believe, in all Christology from above is that in starting with Jesus as God, it fails to truly "get to" much less adequately esteem Jesus' humanity; nor does it really see Jesus' humanity as a true model for our own.  I believe it also may prevent us from treating our earth with the reverence and responsible stewardship we are called to, but I will wait to make that argument.

Doing Christology (and all theology in light of this) "from below" not only shows us the depth of God's kenotic (self-emptying) love, it also reveals how truly we who are called to authentic human life fall short of or "miss the mark" of that very goal. When we do theology beginning with Jesus' humanity it is very much easier to see that to be truly human means to live in an indescribably intimate relationship with God (we cannot be truly human alone!!) and it means to become entirely transparent to the Love-in-Act of the God who wills to be Emmanuel, God-With-Us. What I have said about eremitical hiddenness and extraordinary ordinariness (cf Hiddenness and Extraordinary Ordinariness, and Essential Hiddenness) is meant to indicate that whenever our reality is allowed to become all that it is created to be, meaning whenever God is allowed to be God-With-Us in and through us, nothing at all is "ordinary", or, maybe better, the extraordinary everyday reality we so easily denigrate, demean, and diminish, is really and truly extraordinary, even sacramental. We, like Jesus, are called to make God really and truly present in this world. Jesus reveals this is the very nature of what it means to be human just as he reveals God as Emmanuel!

I realize this is not a complete answer to the implications of your questions, and certainly it is no Christological treatise, but to be honest, I just don't have the energy or the motivation to even try to write such a thing, and certainly not on this blog! I do not deny the aim of what the Christological Councils wanted to affirm about Christ and his relationship to the One he called Abba, Father; certainly I have studied these Councils (and the language they used!) but even so, I neither speak, live, nor understand reality in terms of the language (words and categories of thought and understanding) that were used in those Councils. Further, I believe that that language itself, despite the brilliance of those wielding it, fell far short ("missed the mark") and could only have fallen far short of capturing or expressing the paradoxes of the Christ Event fully and definitively revealed on the Cross! 

Now, I completely agree that all human language falls short of the heart of our faith, that Mystery that is ineffable, but in some important ways, the Greek categories of the Christological Councils made faith harder rather than easier and introduced obstacles into the way we see ourselves and the world God entrusted to us. (cf for instance, "Pebble, Peach, Pooch, Person," pp 159-168 as a critique of "the so-called "hierarchy of being" or cf.,"Nature, a Neighbor" (pp 153-158) in Elizabeth Johnson's Come Have Breakfast. Other essays in this book are also pertinent.) Semitic thought, and certainly Christianity itself, is profoundly paradoxical whereas Greek thought has a similarly profound difficulty in dealing with paradox. This means that being people of faith in God and his revelation in Jesus the Christ, sometimes calls for us to let go of certain categories of thought, and often to learn new ones** if we really want to hear and understand what the Christ Event and the NT reveals to us.

** it is not easy for those of us raised in 20-21st C Western ways of thinking to deal with paradox. To understand that Jesus' humanity best reveals the nature of transcendent Divinity, or that our God is one whose power is most perfectly revealed in weakness (2 Cor 12:9), or even that in emptying himself of his prerogatives as God, the One Jesus called Abba is most fully and perfectly Godself, all demand the ability to perceive and reflect on the paradoxical nature of ultimate reality. If you have ever tried to teach people to think in terms of paradox, you'll know how difficult this is. But consider the Beatitudes, for example, and try to make sense of them via non-paradoxical categories of thought. In this way they will tend to simply seem absurd, the foolishness of those "who cannot think rationally".

On Composing One's Intended Vows under Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, have you put up your vows on this site? If not, would you consider doing that? I have been asked to write a Rule of Life and I know part of that includes the vows. I was wondering what these look like, not so I could copy them, but just to understand what goes into them.]]

Thanks for your questions. Over the years I have put up this vow or that one, yes, but I don't know if these will be helpful to you. You see, each vow was an expression of my understanding of the way God was calling me to live the Evangelical Counsels, especially as a consecrated solitary hermit, and each of these understandings was covered in my Rule before I included the vows themselves. This means I wrote about the values and praxis involved in such a vow in a way that made sense of each one before I made these vows as a hermit. Each vow presupposes a whole theology, and it may not be a theology you and I share or that you are even necessarily familiar with. For instance, the vow of obedience I just put up and that you have read, presupposes a theology of human beings as language events with the Creator God as author. Yes, the vow of obedience involves attentive listening, which is true of obedience in the New Testament and Benedictine senses, but my own vow formula contextualizes that in a way that might not be helpful to you and may not speak to your own lived experience. The same is true with my other vows.

With that in mind, I encourage you to begin writing about your own understanding of what such a vow means. Write about that, whether it is from what you read, previous vows you have lived, or the way you live in and from God's presence every day in the present. Also write about how you have experienced God in terms of each vow or Gospel value, and especially what it means to truly live that today in our contemporary world. I say this because each vow reflects a foundational Gospel value that Jesus encourages us to live with him and in him. If your diocese admits you to profession and eventual consecration, you are called upon to let all of this be true in whatever vows you compose or propose to live.  Much of what you write may work in your Rule as you spell out the way a particular vow calls you to live within the context of c 603; most of it will never find its way into your vows in any explicit sense. However, it will all shape and qualify the way your vows are written and lived in your own life. You will return to your Rule again and again in prayer and reflection over the years, and hopefully will be inspired to move ever more deeply into the vows themselves by what your Rule captures of that sacred story.

What I want you to hear from all of this is that writing a Rule, a liveable Rule that reflects the will of God in your life is not an easy thing to do. In the work I do with candidates, the writing of such a Rule guides the discernment and formation process. (It also guides conversations with the diocesan formation team.) Especially, it is not just one thing in a finite list of things the diocese or you need to check off on the way to being professed and consecrated. It is meant to be something each c 603 hermit commits to living for the rest of his/her life because it reflects the unique way God has called this person throughout all of the years preceding this moment and calls them now into the future in this specific desert life and ecclesial context. 

One's sense of being called is a promise that God has been at work and will continue, now in ever more intimate ways, to be at work in one's life from this point forward. Together, the c 603 hermit and God will chart this course, not only through the context provided by c 603, but through the framework, call, and challenge of the Evangelical Counsels. One's vows will proclaim the intended and necessary Christ-bearing shape of one's response to that promise. What I also hope you will hear in what I wrote here is the degree of self-knowledge required along with knowledge of the Gospel "counsels", before one ever proposes to make or write explicit vows of the Evangelical Counsels. Most of the work that goes into writing a Rule will also help prepare one to compose and make vows under c 603.

I sincerely hope this is helpful!

A Contemplative Moment: Vulnerability (Reprise)

Vulnerability 

is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present abiding undercurrent of our natural state. To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become someone we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others. More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

 

To have a temporary, isolated sense of power over all events and circumstances, is a lovely illusionary privilege and perhaps the prime and most beautifully constructed conceit of being human and especially of being youthfully human, but it is a privilege that must be surrendered with that same youth, with ill health, with accident, with the loss of loved ones who do not share our untouchable powers; powers eventually and most emphatically given up as we approach our last breath.

 

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful , always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.

 

by

David Whyte

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment,

and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

"While Heaven is Important it's not the End of the World!"

Tom (NT) Wright notes that "while heaven is important it's not the end of the world!" Today, as we struggle with how we are to be Christian in this world so that God in Christ may truly be Lord, we recognize that that means allowing God to be Lord in and of this World so that we might truly be all we are called to be and too, that God's Creation might become the Eden it is meant to be. One view of heaven and Christianity sees heaven as the final destination of all the faithful, now disembodied, and it considers earth or "the world" (cosmos) in which we dwell something we must escape, but that is not the view we find in Scripture. 

Instead, we know that we find ourselves justified and sanctified by God so that we may carry out a mission in and to this world. We look for the transformation of all reality into God's new creation. Even the hermits I know understand that their own withdrawal from what we may call "the world" is a call to withdraw from that which is resistant to Christ so that Christ may be the Lord of the larger world around us with the aid of our prayer and other ministry, limited though this latter may be. We must focus our gaze and our energies not on "getting to heaven", or on some sort of disembodied existence, but instead on being pioneers of God's new heaven and new earth. We are called to live as People of Hope so that God in Christ and the Power of the Holy Spirit, may transform our world in light of Jesus' death, (bodily) resurrection, and (bodily) ascension.

My Scripture class finished NT Wright's Surprised by Hope this morning and the course was an amazing experience for almost everyone. Not only were most folks' perspectives on heaven and what Scripture teaches about this and the future that ultimately lies in front of us changed, but so were some aspects of our view of the role of the Church in this world and the importance of being a People of Hope so that we can move forward despite the looming consequences of our recent election and the growing influence of Christian Nationalism, etc. 

The class especially came to appreciate how meaningful is every small thing we do that images Christ in our world as we each participate in the interpenetration of heaven and earth that is already begun here and now. We know that what we each do is infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things. Still, we hold onto Tom Wright's image of the smallest tile or swirl in a design on the tiniest piece of stonework on the hugest cathedral in the world, and we recognize the cathedral is incomplete without it while its overall beauty is enhanced by it. That tiny swirl on that only somewhat less tiny bit of stonework fits with all the billions of other bits as an integral part of the overwhelming beauty of that still-to-be-completed cathedral. And so, we each do our little bit, knowing that while we cannot imagine the plan the architect has for all of this, nothing is ever lost to God, nothing is inconsequential or forgotten, and in the end, it all represents necessary parts of the coming new creation where God is all in all.

God Hates Only by Loving the True and Really Real into Existence

[[Sister Laurel, I was thinking what you said about God never speaking with a denigrating or sneering attitude. God judges evil and sin though. He clearly doesn't like these, so what is the difference? How about God hating sinners?]]

Good questions, so thanks for that! My sense of the difference between the two is that saying no to sin and evil, and disliking or even hating these (meaning disliking completely with one's whole self), does not disparage or denigrate the person involved in the sin or evil. God does whatever God does with love and that means with respect.  So, while God may hate sin and evil, he loves his creation, especially including those who do and are therefore diminished by the sin. When we imagine God sneering at someone or something, it seems to me that we are coloring the images with our own emotions and feelings. Let me say that that, of course, is not unusual, but part of discernment (or preparing for discernment) is working with and through the feelings and emotions that color the way we perceive things so we can appreciate the situation in a more objective (and perhaps more Godlike) way. Feelings can cause us to react to things rather than respond to them. But God, who possesses himself perfectly and without distortion or diminution, for that reason responds with, and as, a perfect self-gift. That means the One who is Love-in-act never simply reacts, and so too, never sneers at nor denigrates even as (he) pronounces awesome judgments.

When we speak about having our responses touched with sin or evil (and this can certainly include various attitudes!), for instance, we are speaking about one being in some sense or another, in bondage to, tied to, or hampered by something that prevents us from truly being the person God has called us to be. It may be anger, fear, resentment, grief, or any number of things caused by woundedness, trauma, etc., that bind us, but these bonds will distort our responses to make them more reactive than they (or we) are meant to be. When that happens, our "no" to something we may (perhaps rightly) not approve of, becomes tinged with the colors of our own wounds and personal distortions. A simple "no" may become personal denigration, and a simple statement of disagreement morphs into a sneer.  I hope you see what I mean.

Does God hate sinners? Well, certainly the way our Bible translations go, some have them saying that God hates sinners. (cf Ps 5:5) But what is being said really? First, it is important to recognize that in Scripture often "hate" is used as a semitism, that is, a Semitic idiosyncratic form of speech that may not translate so directly into our own language. Thus, when we are told that in "coming to Jesus we must hate our father and mother, brother and sister. . ." (Luke 14:26), hatred really means to love less or, better, to love them in a secondary place. Secondly, there is a paradox involved in this as well, namely, that those who love God more than they love others (i.e., those who put love of God first!!) will discover they are empowered to know and love those others even better than they had before putting God first. 

So, when we speak about God hating a sinner we must see things similarly. First, because we are sinners capable of becoming righteous, we each have a true and false self. The true self is the "righteous" self, the one who is as God created them to be, the self that is full of God-given potential and possibility and is a true response to God's love and call. The false self is the self that falls short of all of that, the one that wants to create themselves rather than receiving personhood as a gift of God, that self that is in bondage to false gods and disvalues that are unworthy of being chosen, those less than truly real selves who are distorted in all of the ways the true self can become distorted. In terms of the Semitism explained above, God loves the false self less than the true self. That is, God always puts the true self first and loves it into existence. God empowers the true self and allows that true Self whom he loves with all his heart to replace the false and distorted self. I think it is important to remember that God loves things into existence so they can replace the untrue and less real. In this way, God's "hatred" really is about loving something better and wanting more for the partial and/or distorted reality to be replaced.

At every point, when we speak of God responding to reality we are speaking about God being true to it and to himself. We are speaking about God's love, about God always being Love-in-Act. We are also speaking, then, about God respecting the truth he sees so clearly even amid great distortions and partial reality. When I wrote that God NEVER denigrates or sneers at anything or anyone it was as a piece of this larger theology of God as creator and redeemer through unconditional, eternal, and (I believe) inescapable love. Love is the way God both creates AND destroys in a single act. Meanwhile, to love in the way God does, also means seeing as God does, looking and seeing the deep potential for life and love that resides deep within everything that exists. The fact is, seeing in this way simply does not allow for approaching reality in a way that leads to denigration or sneering. 

We might also answer the question of whether God hates the sinner by asking someone to look at the crucifix and then see what they say. Paul's answer was simple: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. (Rom 5:6) This is a love that creates even as it destroys (and no, I am not speaking about the destruction of Jesus, but of sin and death as God begins to create a new heaven and new earth with Jesus' resurrection). It is a love that does not sneer at or denigrate those who crucified Jesus but instead takes both sinful and true humanity with the utmost respect and seriousness. I think that sometimes when the word hate is used in our Scriptures, it indicates respect (which is NOT necessarily the same as approval), as well as utmost seriousness. In any case, whether we perceive this in terms of creation or destruction, God's judgment is always essentially creative and an outworking of God's unfathomable love for the true and really real.

More on Ecclesiality and My Rule of Life

[[Hi Sister, were you aware of the ecclesial nature of your vocation when you were professed and consecrated? Would this be something a diocesan hermit would include in his/her Rule of Life? Is it possible for hermits to grow in awareness of this "foundational dimension" (your term)? If I were to want to put this in the Rule I am working on where would I put this?]]

Wow! New question! Thank you. I was well aware of the ecclesial dimension of my consecration and I still had growing to do in that awareness!! Still do, of course, because my theology of Church is evolving and that will change the way I see the ecclesial dimension of my consecration. My own growth in this vocation will also change the way I perceive and approach this dimension of my calling. I remember in my first conversation with Abp Vigneron, talking about how surprised I was that the ecclesiality of the vocation was not discussed much -- though it was a central element protecting the vocation from individualism and charges of selfishness and self-centeredness. Yes, I wrote this dimension into my Rule in several places, not with specific references to the ecclesiality of the consecrated vocation or state, but with references to serving the Church itself, that is, serving the People of God, in various ways so that they might truly be the People God calls them to be. The most focused sense of the ecclesiality of my own vocation, I think, was my vow of obedience. It reads as follows:

[[I acknowledge and accept that God is the author of my life and that through his Word, spoken in Jesus Christ, I have been called by name to be. I affirm that in this Word, a singular identity has been conferred upon me, a specifically ecclesial identity which I accept and for which I am forever accountable. Under the authority of the Bishop of the Diocese of Oakland, I vow to be obedient: to be attentive and responsible to Him who is the foundation of my being, to his solitary Word of whom I am called to be an expression, and to the whole of His People to whom it is my privilege to belong and serve.]]

I hope you can see a vow of obedience to God, which is about attentive and responsive listening that involves the whole self, given in service to God and God's entire People. It is this specific commitment to attentiveness and service of the whole Church that is the clearest statement of my sense of the ecclesial nature of the c 603 call. Insofar as where you might locate this in your own Rule, I'm afraid I can't help you with that. What I would encourage you to do is reflect on what it means to have an ecclesial vocation in the strict sense consecrated life represents and then spend some time seeing how this awareness colors the commitment you plan to make. How and where do you live ecclesially, meaning not just in the Church, but in specific service to the Church as Christ's own Church? Once you have done some of that, you could come back with other questions, or you might find someone knowledgeable on the diocesan formation team with whom you could talk about what you have learned from your own lived experience.  

However, were I to rewrite portions of my Rule today (and I do rewrite parts of it every five to eight years or so when needed due to growth or significant changes in my life), I believe one of the things I might do is add a specific section on the ecclesial nature of the consecrated vocation and cite a portion of Vita Consecrata as a key to the section. What I would also describe therein would be the various ways I recognize the ecclesiality of consecrated solitary eremitical life. For instance, I would note its importance in my vow of obedience, and in other significant sections of the life and Rule. You see, more than a list of do's and don'ts, my Rule is primarily a vision of this life that helps inspire me to live it faithfully. To have a vision of the life along with its personal, historical, and ecclesial significance, allows me to look at everything I am and do (or consider doing!) from this perspective and then evaluate it for the way it fits or fails to fit this vision. The do's and don'ts follow directly on this vision built on the terms of the canon and the way God is (and has long been) at work in my life for the sake of my true self and the lives of others.

On God's Mediated Presence and Whether God Sneers

[[ Hi Sister, I wondered if you could tell me what it means to "have God directly"? Do some hermits have God directly and others do not? Does the fact that you are canonical mean you do not have God directly? You have probably heard this but there's an online hermit who says c 603 hermits have God via a canon law or something like that. (I am sorry, but I don't quite understand what she means by this. I hope you do!) She tells a story about a dream she had where God showed her a young hermit kneeling in front of a large crucifix with a bishop and large volumes of canon law rising up to his waist. Then God says, "Why would you want THAT when you can have me directly?" The way she says THAT was denigrating [to] canon law hermits. I have problems with this story for different reasons. I know she has talked smack about you in the past, so I wondered if you have heard this and know what she is referring to.]]

Thanks for the questions. They are good ones, and important as well. As a matter of openness and clarity, let me say that you are apparently referring to videos on Joyful Hermit Speaks or Joyful Christian Hermit Speaks (You Tube) and not to any other online hermit site. Yes, I have seen at least 2 videos that retell this same story. I believe the roots of this dream stem from the fact that God consecrated me and others as c 603 hermits and consecrates all members of the consecrated state in the Roman Catholic Church in mediated acts defined and governed by canon law. In the case of c 603 hermits, it is the bishop that acts to mediate God's consecration, just as priests act as mediators of God's consecration of bread and wine during Eucharist, or God's forgiveness during the Sacrament of Reconciliation, for example. The Church is a Sacramental Church and that means she uses Sacraments and sacramentals to mediate God's grace and blessings (both involve God's presence) in many ways.

There are certain things about the story that trouble me as well. The main thing is the way the dream has God speaking in what Joyful has stressed and explicitly mimicked is a denigrating tone that disparages a central way almost everything spiritual or sacramental in the Church works, namely through God's mediated presence. First of all, let me point out that God's presence is no less real because it is mediated through the hands of a "sacred minister". While I have no idea of whether or not Joyful was consecrated in any sense at all, it was supposed to have happened through a liturgical rite where the priest blessed and incensed her. I hope she recognizes that all of that depends on some sort of mediation or symbolic representation. I also, therefore, hope she understands that c 603 hermits pray in the same way as any other person prays and God comes to us directly (that is in a relatively unmediated way) as well as in mediated ways: in the Scriptures or  Eucharist, etc., along with, in, and through the hands and hearts of those who work with us or with whom we work, and really, in and through any person who reveals (mediates) God's presence to us.

The description of God essentially disdaining a valued vocation in the Roman Catholic Church to which God calls people from all over the world because of its mediated nature, boggles the mind. To suggest that God disapproves of a particular canon law that finally, after 20 centuries, establishes as a state of perfection, a vocation God has been calling people to for all that time without sufficient regard by the Church, is even more mind-boggling. ALL vocations in the Church (priesthood, religious life, consecrated virginity, laity, etc. are established in law (that is, they are defined and administered by law to protect and govern what is recognized as a gift of God to the Church), no matter the state of life of the one with that vocation. 

Likewise, all of them are mediated to us in and through the hands of a legitimate superior or minister. Do we suggest that men ordained by the laying on of hands by the Bishop are not truly ordained by God? How about the consecration of Bishops? If someone is, let's suppose, refused admission to ordination and they have a similar dream of God essentially sneering at and denigrating the rite of ordination because it is a mediated (Sacramental) reality, are we to believe that this is truly God speaking?? Dreams are capable of mediating profound truth, and I think this one is certainly no different, but, as with any dream, it must be properly interpreted. Whatever God's place or role in this dream, one thing I know about God is that God NEVER speaks with a denigrating or sneering attitude. 

In any case, I believe that is what Joyful was talking about in the 2 videos I saw. To "have God directly" apparently means to experience God without mediating persons, sacraments, or sacramentals. As I think about it, it is important to underscore what I said above, namely, that even Sacred Scripture as it is (and must be) interpreted and proclaimed, mediates the presence of the Living God to us. Surely, we cannot disparage these ways in which God in Christ daily comes to so many of his beloved.

On the Importance and Relative Flexibility of Norms

[[Dear Sister Laurel, You wrote that without a norm that defines the nature of hermit life there is no way to determine what are abuses. You also wrote something about healthy eremitical life. Doesn't everyone just using common sense know what hermit life is like and about?  If you want to argue a life is not healthy for someone, then wouldn't that indicate the person does not have a true vocation? Does a diocese define how the various elements of the canon are to be defined or does Rome define those?]]

Thanks for your questions! I am afraid I am not very positive about what often goes by the name of "common sense"! I think that more often than not, I would call it common nonsense! I remember when I was inviting people to my consecration, I met one of the residents in the complex (a Catholic) in the hallway and told her what would be happening at the parish church. She looked a little puzzled so I thought I would start at the beginning and asked her if she knew what a hermit was. She responded, "Sure, it's someone who wants to escape. . ." and at that point her voice trailed off. Another time I was introduced to someone as a hermit. Her immediate response was, "Why aren't you home in your cave?" and then she realized what she had said when the usual social filters fell away, and she flushed with embarrassment.

In more serious examples, I have often written over the years that eremitical life, contrary to popular opinion, not individualistic or isolationist, and that solitude, precisely because it is a matter of being alone with God through Christ in the power of the Spirit, is very much a communal reality that includes all grounded in God. There is nothing "common sense" about that. Most people I have spoken to are surprised when they hear this, or when they hear that the life is not a selfish one given over to self-centered pursuits and concerns, or when they learn that one is withdrawing from things in order to be more closely and truly related to them. You can hear the paradoxical nature of so much of this, and that is definitely not what most folks call "common sense"!

I agree that generally speaking if a life seems to be unhealthy for someone, that means this is not their vocation. However, it is possible for someone to try to live something they have understood in an ill-defined way or are living in unhealthy ways which, if changed might make the life far more lifegiving and healthful for the person. In such an instance, the person might discover a true vocation. Consider what happens if hermit wannabes lived penance in the ways some have conceived it in past centuries with tons of fasting and corporal mortification. Let's say the person has diabetes or some sort of GI problem; what would happen to their health under such a penitential regimen? Some of us recognize that a regular medication regimen and a careful eating plan could well constitute a piece of sound penitential practice, but you can imagine what some who are truly unschooled or literalistic in their approach to this might replace the healthy praxis with!

Moreover, some approaches to penance treat it as synonymous with punishment and link it to shame and guilt as well. This is a serious misunderstanding or constellation of misunderstandings and with such an approach to penances (or ascesis), one's understanding of God can be completed skewed and with that, any possibility of getting eremitical life right or having it be lifegiving. But penance is not about punishment, and it is not to be connected necessarily with guilt or shame, much less foster these!! When an element of the spiritual life, whether eremitic or non-eremitical, is built into the life, that life will become unhealthy, whether the person really has this vocation or not. This is because such skewed notions of penance or other central elements of c 603, for instance, do distort our senses of our self and the God who calls us to wholeness -- if we can even recognize what wholeness is!

Each of the central elements of c 603 and so, of solitary eremitical life as the Church understands it, can be distorted because of ignorance or skewed theologies. When this occurs, they will lead to further skewing and other elements will become distorted as will the witness value of the life. This means that it will not serve others in the way it is meant to serve, namely, as a model of a life centered on Christ in relation to a God whose love is unconditional and whose mercy is gratuitous. Whether we are looking at an overly literalistic and individualistic notion of solitude, a distorted notion of prayer rooted in tendencies to measure things in terms of human achievement, a notion of hiddenness that is mainly defined by externals, we may end up with a distorted understanding of contemporary eremitical life, and that is apt to be singularly unhealthy. 

There is an interplay between local Church and hermit or hermit candidate in the way the central elements of c 603 are to be defined. The hermit or hermit candidate lives the elements as she feels called to do and the local Church (through the formation team and mentor) evaluates this in relation to other hermits, the eremitical tradition, the needs and insights of the Local Church, etc. There are essential senses that all hermits tend to agree on and there are variations of these individuals may feel called to live instead. The local Church evaluates all of this and discerns whether the entire life may honestly be called eremitical and healthily eremitical. The idea is to get a unified and healthy vision and praxis of how this person will live this vocation if it is agreed this is what she is called to live in the Name of the Church. The normative elements of c 603 are important and one must live them with integrity; at the same time that does not require slavish fidelity to a dictionary definition of a particular word or value, Instead, genuine faithfulness may require relative flexibility within an ecclesially accepted field of meaning.

Being a Work in Progress and Having no Regrets

 [[Dear Sister Laurel, I wondered if you have ever said you have devoted your life to canon 603 or wondered about the wisdom of that. I heard that somewhere. It was sort of as though you had wasted your life on a stupid canon law. You wrote not long ago about living as a lay hermit and then renewing your petition to become a consecrated hermit because you believed you had something to bring the Church. Was dedicating your life to c 603 part of that? If someone thinks spending time and energy on a stupid canon law is a waste, what would you say to them?]]

Thanks for your questions. No, I never said I devoted my life to c 603 as canon or felt called to do so. You see, it is not true. Yes, there is no doubt that over time this blog has taken on a focus and that focus is c 603 and the life this made canonical in the Church, but this blog is only one piece of my life, and it is important for whoever made the comments you heard to realize that. For instance, I do spiritual direction regularly, and my daily life is given over to prayer, some study, and Scripture. I also teach Scripture in my parish, and though we only meet once a week, it does take time to prep a class! Additionally, I spend time mentoring candidates for c 603 profession, and while I usually will not work with more than two candidates at a time, it still takes time and requires additional reflection and prayer. Finally, I do some recreational stuff. Since I am not playing violin due to a broken left wrist (not to worry; it happened several years ago now), I am learning to play cello instead and I also color with colored pencils (cf works in progress and completed in this article).

Yes, one focus of my study and reflection is c 603 itself, but I am also reading about consecrated life, discernment and formation of vocations to the consecrated life, and of course, more generally the nature of eremitical life itself. As I have noted before, a small group of c 603 hermits is reading Cornelius Wencel's book Eremitic Life together, and though we have all read it before (sometimes several times!), in looking at it together we are able to explore and share the various ways God has worked in us and called us to this vocation.  We all have different interests, different schedules, different gifts and limitations, but we all are grateful to God for this canon and desire to live it with and for God and for the Church. Having said all that, let me point out something far more important and maybe more pertinent, namely, that in concerning myself with c 603 here and elsewhere, I am concerning myself with lives, eremitical and non-eremitical lives that are precious to God, and to something that has the potential anyway, to positively touch many more people in the years to come, well into the future of the Church.

I had not the slightest inkling that a developing focus of my life would be c 603 itself, nor that I would ever work with and even mentor other c 603 candidates and hermits. I would certainly have told you that you were crazy if you had suggested these things to me. The same is true with virtual lauras. Of course, I had only had email for a few years when I was consecrated. Skype was, at least for me, in the future and ZOOM was in the far future. There was no way to have imagined, much less worked to implement such ideas!! In the days after consecration, Sister Nerina and I tried to form the Network of Diocesan Hermits; we succeeded to some extent, and in some ways, what is happening now is the natural outgrowth of that idea, surprising as that is to me. The reason I renewed my petition with the Diocese of Oakland before Bp John Cummins retired was because I knew I had something to offer the Church both because of disability and giftedness made significantly rich in a contemplative and eremitical context. I also thought this because of my theological education and work in hospital chaplaincy though I was not sure exactly how these would become important in an eremitical life.

Today, I simply marvel at what God is doing in and with my life. That is particularly true of my own personal work in spiritual direction and the way that has allowed God to bring so much together so it all makes a truly awesome sense. I really could not have done this simply with my own planning and energy or disability. And, like the picture to the left, while it is not precisely what I originally envisioned, nor, at various points was I happy with its progress (at other points, I loved what was happening), in the end I was happy with it and think perhaps that will be true when I hand my own life back to God for the final exhaustive and irrevocable time. 

I have not the slightest doubt that God has willed my being c 603, as well as my spending time and energy on it,  possibly even from when I was an infant and long before such a canon was a glimmer in the Church's eye. If someone were to suggest that c 603 is a waste of my life and I should move on to "something more spiritual" or whatever, I suppose (because this is the image that has popped into my mind just now), I would tell them what Harry Potter's "Marauder's map" told Professor Snape in The Prisoner of Azkaban, namely, that they "keep [their] abnormally large nose out of other peoples' business!" In a more Scriptural way, I might remind them not to judge lest they find themselves judged in the process.

Three Vocational States, Two Hierarchical Ones

 Dear Sister, you wrote,[[In part, however, women religious gave up their habits in order to truly stand in solidarity with others in the laity and call them to take on the universal call to holiness and ministry Vatican II recognized and made such an urgent matter in this world. They did so to help curtail the tendencies of the laity to think of themselves as second or third-class citizens in the Church and God's eyes. In other words, they stepped down from a fictional pedestal they had never wanted, so that others might rise to the level to which they were and are truly called as Disciples of Jesus Christ. This is precisely one piece of what vocations to the consecrated state are supposed to do.]] 

I had never heard this before. I wish I had known this; it is so much more positive than what I have heard said about women religious and habits over the years, and maybe said myself in those early days when it was so shocking and disappointing!!This is a completely new way of seeing what happened!! Did Vatican II tell religious to do this, because I was under the impression that the Vatican didn't like it much when women religious threw off the habit? Some still wear a habit though, so why is that? And what does one do with the three states of life, lay, consecrated, and clerical?]]

Great questions! Thanks for following up and also for sharing your own feelings and perspective from those "early days"! Yes, women religious read the documents of Vatican II and recognized that one major emphasis of the Council was the empowerment of the laity to truly see themselves as central to the ministry of the Church and not as second or third-class persons with no real vocation! Laity were not simply to be ministered to, they were called to minister themselves to the whole world they penetrated daily in their work, schooling, recreational activities, family life, etc. Because both priests and religious or consecrated persons were called to embrace a greater separation from the world in the arenas of finance, power, and relationships, the Church recognized that the laity were called to secular lives and to be Church there, where only they could truly go and be.

At the same time the Church began to let go of her tendency to demean vocations she considered secular and even secularity itself. This was an even huger step and really hard to make, but the Church has been about doing that for the past @60 years. One thing about the everyday world theology was beginning to appreciate better and which also helped with all of this, was the recognition that our ultimate destination is not heaven, but a new heaven and earth and also, that this new creation began to be accomplished through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and ascension. With God's revealed will to be Emmanuel (God With Us), it was already happening that heaven had begun to interpenetrate earth and that Jesus was, through his resurrection and ascension, Lord of this new world. Once the strict distinction between heaven and earth was mitigated in this way every vocation became a call to minister as part of the coming of God's Kingdom here! The secular was no longer to be disparaged, but to be embraced as the place God was laying claim to and recreating.  And of course, the secular realm was exactly the place most people of the laity were called to minister with their lives, not as second-class citizens in the Church, but as laity-as-Church for whom this was their proper sphere of life and expertise.  Vatican II's universal call to holiness truly only makes sense in light of this insight into what the Christ Event occasioned in our world.

The Vatican did not tell women religious to throw off their habits, no, but it did tell us to update and renew our congregations in light of their original charisms. At the very least it meant the modification of habits, but for many, their original charism meant to let go of the habit altogether. They were still consecrated women with ecclesial vocations, and public commitments to image Christ in their professions of the Evangelical Counsels. Thus, they served in the ways I have spoken about recently to both priests and the rest of the laity. (Men religious were sometimes drawn from the priesthood and like the women, were called to serve both other priests and the laity in their consecrations and professions of the Evangelical Counsels). Similarly, they would continue ministering to the lost and least in the ways they always had as well as in new ways too.

What I can say about those of us who continue to wear habits is that those I know who do, associate it with their consecrated life as eschatological signs, signs of the inbreaking of God's presence in the world. For some, they may have discerned the habit was part of their original charism (this would especially be true for monastics). The right to wear a habit was never taken away from them and, in fact, is extended to them during the rite of profession and consecration.  Most wear habits as a sign of material poverty as well. I do that. Additionally, I wear one as a reminder and sign of stricter separation from the world and a reminder that eremitism was the origin of monastic life. Finally, I recognize that bishops gave the tunic to hermits living in their dioceses or who came there desiring to preach or minister otherwise. Thus, the habit can be seen as an original part of the hermit's calling. For those in the religious state, in some situations wearing a habit is still significantly helpful and truly meaningful, especially when it is not used to signal special prestige or worldy values.

We still recognize three vocational states in the Roman Catholic Church, lay, consecrated, and clerical. It is simply that the term lay may be used in terms of either a state of life or as a reference to its hierarchical place in the Church. With public profession and consecration, a person enters the consecrated state of life. They may be drawn from either the lay or clerical states to do that. The Consecrated state of life does not constitute a third level in the Church's hierarchy, however, so consecrated hermits are also either lay or clerical. At the same time, they do still constitute ecclesial vocations that serve the Church in the ways I have described recently.

A Simple Change in Language, A Profound Spiritual Lesson (Reprised From 19. August.2024)

Postscript: 

Marsha died this morning at @7:00 EST, at the IHM Motherhouse Campus in Monroe, MI. I am grateful for the opportunity to have worked with her for many years and particularly during these last weeks and months. Marsha was under hospice care, met with me weekly or oftener (recently), and was accompanied in close friendship and sisterhood by many IHM Sisters and Associates. They surrounded her when she died as is the IHM custom and as Marsha had always wanted.  I am reprising this piece today and have redacted it slightly to bring out important truths; I have also used Marsha's name throughout.

Original Piece: 

One of the persons I accompany in Spiritual direction (Marsha West) is actively dying. We met today for only a half hour, and during that half hour, we focused on a lesson that is fundamental to spirituality and maintaining one's focus on God, even in the presence of terrible pain and weakness. I learned it from my own Director and try to pass it on to those I work with. It's a "simple" lesson with far reaching consequences, and yet, it is not one that is easy to do! I am hoping I can share here, what it is and something of why it is so important. The lesson is this. When you are speaking of what you feel -- especially if the feelings are multiple or at least seem antithetical, or when you are speaking of what is true and what you feel, please do NOT use the word BUT to link the clauses. Use AND instead! Let me give you an example.

It begins with a relatively positive statement: "I had a great idea today!" and then, all-too-often, the person says something like, "BUT I am afraid I don't have the expertise to carry it out!" Suddenly the excitement of the first statement is quenched with the second more negative or critical statement. If BUT were replaced with AND, this would not happen. Today Marsha said, "I feel so sick and weak! I am not capable of being myself." I asked her then to tell me who she was.  I suggested she imagine doing a school assignment and write 4 or 5 sentences affirming her identity. We tried it together and her first sentence was, "I live within the presence of God." She then followed this immediately with, "BUT I don't find any comfort in this!" We talked about what she was experiencing, of course, and then I brought her back to her first sentence and how she had followed it up; I pointed out the BUT in the middle of the construction. I asked her to replace it with AND. 

She then repeated,"I live in the presence of God AND I find no comfort in it." At first, she thought there was not much difference between using but vs and, but pretty quickly she said both sentences over again out loud, finishing again with, "I live in the presence of God, BUT I find no comfort in it." What she saw was the "but" in the sentence negates the whole first part and caused her to focus only on the second part, "I find no comfort (in living in God's presence)". Then she said again, "I live in the presence of God AND I find no comfort in it." And she began to see that replacing but with AND, manages to hold both truths together simultaneously. Both parts remained alive for her, both things remained true, and she could feel those truths even though it was uncomfortable to live them in tension with one another. 

In fact, holding both truths together with AND, does a lot more than this. It allows one to focus on the truth that one lives in the presence of God even when one is finding no apparent comfort in that --- a very positive affirmation that diminishes the power and scariness of the second clause. As one continues to pay attention to the fact that one dwells in the presence of God even though there are negative feelings at the same time, it allows one to find comfort precisely where there was none present before! It allows one to find God in the unexpected and even in the unacceptable place, right where Christ made him present through his public life and cross! And even when we are not speaking of God directly, we will gradually feel stronger when we substitute AND for BUT in our constructions. 

Marsha then moved on to make several other statements of identity. "I am beloved of God. . .", "I am a disciple of Christ. . ,", "I am a loving mother and grandmother. . ."; each was followed with a critical or self-doubtful BUT statement. And finally, "I am an IHM Associate. . . " She looked at each of these and, more and more securely, began to hold everything together with AND: "I am a disciple of Christ and I feel incredibly weak!" "I am a loving mother and grandmother AND it is so hard to die [and leave them without me]!" And finally, "I am an IHM associate AND. . ." (Marsha stopped here and looked at me; she was stunned and radiant with surprise and joy.) At this point Marsha found there was no BUT statement waiting to detract from the first half of the sentence, no critical voice telling her she was incapable, or doing it wrong, etc.). She felt only gratitude, not least because she was coming to see she didn't need to lose a sense of identity in dying into the presence of God. This was the gift of the IHM Sisters' and Associates' welcoming and sustaining love to Marsha. 

Being completely honest about what one feels is not a betrayal of one's faith. It helps demonstrate how strong that faith is. Marsha knew this, but as she approached death, it was harder to hang onto! Expressing such complete honesty results in the kind of statement Jesus made from the cross when he cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Faith is held together with the sense of abject aloneness and abandonment; Jesus still calls upon his God in faith.

Yes, Marsha was a woman of deep faith, a woman who worked hard in spiritual direction over the years, a woman who loved deeply and generously, AND she was a woman who found dying demanding and difficult as she also found ways to rest in God while letting go of any need to control things or make God measure up to her expectations. In these moments she found God always surpassed those expectations in surprising ways!! I reminded her of Paul's quote from 2 Cor 12:9, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness," for that is what she practiced in this session, as she held two seemingly antithetical facts together: 1) the graced presence and power of God AND 2) the incredible weakness she experienced as she felt the diminishment of dying overtaking her strength. Holding these two experiences together in a single act of faith and love is often the essence of being human. Practicing using AND instead of BUT can help us learn and internalize this lesson.

Used with Permission: My thanks to Marsha who gave permission for me to tell the story of this session and of her own struggle in faith and dying. In fact, she hoped I would do so. Otherwise, of course, our sacred work was entirely confidential.