Summarizing Dimensions of Ecclesiality in c 603 Vocations

[[Hi Sister Laurel, you have written a ton of articles mentioning the ecclesiality of the c 603 vocation. Could you do me a favor and repeat the most important conclusions you have drawn about this? I don't guess this idea of "ecclesiality" will matter to most people, but I am becoming a c 603 hermit in a few years (my bishop is thinking 3-5 years), and understand I really need to think about this dimension of the vocation. I don't mean for you to do the work for me, but I want a place to start from and a place I can go back to so I was hoping you could provide this. I really have read some of what you have written and will read more!! Promise!! One thing that concerns me is if having an ecclesial vocation means I am saying I am more important in the Church than my family members. I don't think you are saying that, but it is not clear in my own mind. So, can you help me with this? Thanks very much, whatever you decide!]]

Thank you very much for the questions, comments, and request. I am happy to repeat what may be my most important conclusions (or maybe they are just paragraphs where my writing was clearer than in other places)!! I've chosen two paragraphs taken from Peter Damian's Letter #28, a fairly recent article. 

In recent years, I have stressed that the canonical eremitic vocation is ecclesial. This does not mean that other hermits, especially non-canonical hermits, do not belong in an integral way to the Church, nor that they do not give their lives to the Church. Instead, it means that canonical hermits have accepted a public role in the very life of the Church that reminds every person, at least implicitly, of the two dimensions Peter Damian and Ponam in Deserto Viam put at the center of understanding eremitical solitude (in our oneness we are always part of a multiplicity, and in our multiplicity, we are one in the Spirit). Part of this witness by hermits embracing ecclesial vocations requires a canonical commitment to the life of the Church as consecrated hermits to consciously witness to and build up the very nature of the Church and the consecrated life within it. Solitude in such vocations is marked by a serious and radical aloneness, and at the same time, it participates in and reflects community in an equally radical way. One source says it this way, [[the solitude of the hermit is a solitudo pluralis, a corporate solitude, and (her) cell is a miniature Church.]]

The canonical hermit participates fully in the Sacramental life of the Church. She prays the Church's official prayer (Liturgy of the Hours); she may join with other hermits in lauras --- including virtual lauras that are non-geographic and allow for the strengthening of ecclesial bonds and witness. She lives her life according to an approved Rule of Life and under the supervision of Bishops (and often, accepted delegates) and spiritual directors. She does not live an individualistic life where canon law is dismissed as something only legalists or the "less spiritual" or "more temporal" choose. Instead, she allows herself to become subject to additional canons beyond those associated with baptism alone, because she understands that hermit life is a radically ecclesial and incarnational life, that, in a unique way, sees the multiplicity in one, and the one in and as the many. She wants to witness to this double reality in her own life and to do so officially for the sake of the Church and world.** Of course, it goes without saying that no hermit is alone because she lives with and from God, but what is also true is that no hermit is ever alone because we each carry the entire Church with us in our solitude. In fact, we are that Church.]]

Your concerns about misunderstandings of the term ecclesial in "ecclesial vocation" are important. I am glad you are trying to define this for yourself. When you write your Rule, some sense of the ecclesiality of your vocation should probably be visible to the chancery team working with you. My own take on this dimension of the vocation is that it reflects the heart of the hermit's humility in embracing a vocation God has "designed" to call the Church to be true to her own vocation as Pilgrim People of God. She cannot live this adequately except as an act of genuine humility. Canon 603 hermits witness to an abject dependence on God alone, and at the same time, they witness to the fact that Christ has established a Church in which those who travel "the Way" might journey together in lonely dependence and inspired solidarity in Christ. 

Empowered by the Holy Spirit, the hermit holds these two pieces of truth in her own life together and the resulting witness is consecrated by God and embraced by the Church at a public act of profession and consecration. (The Camaldolese celebrate this way of being as "Living Alone Together") I don't know a more vivid example of this journey to union with God, a journey at once radically solitary and deeply communal, than that of a solitary hermit. To do this not only for the marginalized who find themselves radically alone and often without value in our world, but for the Church, which can and has sometimes forgotten her pilgrim nature, is a great privilege! Paradoxically, it is a privilege we can only accept and live in deep humility. Doing so in any other way would make us incapable of serving the Church as we are called and as this People of God needs. 

What the c 603 hermit says with her life is that every member of the Church, in whatever smallness or greatness they find themselves in terms of the world, are called to be the heart of the Church and to call the Church to be true to herself and her head. Every person is called to be him/herself, as fully as possible in, with, and through God. When looked at from this perspective, no vocation is more important than another, no person is more exalted or humble than another. And, of course, no vocation is to go uncelebrated or unrecognized -- just another facet of the ecclesial nature and witness of the consecrated hermit vocation. I hope that can reassure you with regard to the question you have about your vocation and your family. 

My prayers for your preparation for consecration under c 603!! Every day of this will be important. Nothing will be lost or a waste of time. That is true even if you should discern this is not your call. Live it and live into it well!! Meanwhile, all good wishes for a profound and fruitful Holy Week! 

Follow-up Questions on Bishop Remi de Roo

[[Dear Sister, I have read what you said about Bishop de Roo in the past so I was familiar with the story. I liked the way you put some things this time around and thought they were especially helpful in understanding why the Church made a canonical form of eremitical life. Part of that had to do with the paradoxes involved in the life. . . . I don't know if this is also about paradox, but I have questions about Bishop De Roo. Did you know he had some financial problems in his diocese?  I don't think you are idealizing him, but were you aware of the problems he got the Diocese of Victoria into?]]

Hi good questions, and important. Yes, I was aware of the problems that occurred with Bp De Roo over a land deal. He wrote a book about this (I think it was his account I read, but it was a while ago) and there was at least one other book I read about it all by Patrick Jamieson. There were two sides to the story (at least and of course!). In the book I read by Jamieson, a Catholic journalist, there were five major claims about Bp De Roo being made regarding financial mismanagement, questionable investments, etc. Most of these focused on a land deal the bishop was involved in that would have made money for the Diocese of Victoria". The Church, after de Roo's retirement stopped making mortgage payments and the debt soared from penalties, etc. What was discovered by Jamison was that the really concerted attempts to vilify Bishop began in 2000, immediately after he had retired in 1999. 

With regard to the land deal mentioned above, seven years after de Roo retired, it was decided in court (in the US) that de Roo had made a solid investment in the land involved. There had been no mismanagement. The violation of the contract with a US businessman by the Church, was unjustified and the Church needed to work with the plaintiff to recoup his investment. The plaintiff desired to do this without hurting the Church if that was possible. The Church, however, appealed the decision and, as I recall the situation now, the decision was eventually sustained. In any case, it is clear that Bishop de Roo was not involved in much of this and his place as an administrator was vindicated. The situation was similar with the other four areas of dispute and allegations. Jamieson refers to these as "myths" in his book.

What Jamieson also noted was that the accusations of fiscal mismanagement always seemed to come from the same small group of people who resented de Roo's attempts to implement the conclusions of, or drawn from, Vatican II. Whether or not this was true or accurate, there is no doubt de Roo was a "reformist" or progressive Bishop and theologian, and a small traditionalist faction formed that attempted first to block changes and then, to vilify de Roo. The idea of discrediting progressive bishops was not novel, though it was unusual in the Canadian Church. Still, it was real, and it seems to me that Bp de Roo was pulled into this after he had retired with allegations of fiscal mismanagement during his tenure as Bishop of Victoria. 

In another area of concern, while I don't know details regarding the extent to which Remi de Roo was involved in the clergy abuse scandal, I do know the book he wrote about it and the quality of his response. The book is called Cries of Victims and Voice of God. There is no doubt Bp Remi dealt with this profound problem and scandal as has every bishop in the Roman Catholic Church, and better than many. What comes through in the book is de Roo's deep compassion and grief as a prominent Church leader who loves God, the People of God, and his own priestly vocation. The title of this book alone tells one what he valued primarily, and what guided whatever he did in this area. He wanted (the Church) to hear the victims, and he wanted the voice of God to be heard and acted on by all. From what I know of the man and Bishop, this reflected his character; this was who he was. 

As you say, I am not idealizing him. There is no need for that because I don't think I am naive in my assessments of what he did at Vatican II and in the Diocese of Victoria. Until now, I have written only about his role as the bishop-protector of a group of hermits in British Columbia. That is the context in which I met Bp de Roo, and the topic we very briefly conversed about. It is also the only topic that has been relevant to the questions raised and answered here. Even so, precisely because I esteem him (and am grateful to God for the roll he played in getting c 603 promulgated after Vatican II), I have read about problems he was at least purported to have caused or failed at. What I have discovered is that, generally speaking, in complex situations, he was often not actually culpable for or of the accusations made. What I have also discovered is that even when there was some entirely understandable and regrettable episcopal failure or inadequacy (we really do not expect bishops to be entirely successful in everything they attempt), it was de Roo's admirable character that still shone out. 

I have told this story before, but perhaps it is a good time to tell it again. Before a celebratory dinner on the day I met Bishop de Roo, we had a Mass. Bp John Cummins was there (another attendee of Vatican II and good friend of de Roo from the days of the Council), Bp de Roo, some other clergy, and religious who were participating in some way in the liturgy. I was to carry the book of the Gospels in the entrance procession. We did a brief practice to see who went where in the procession line, who bowed when, and who went where next. It was a quick, matter-of-fact, and quiet kind of strategic "scramble" before we settled in to truly pray the liturgy. As the presiders were talking about these logistics, Bishop de Roo turned to me and said, "You carry the book of the Gospels. You bow to no one!!" Was Bp de Roo throwing his weight around as a bishop here? Was this about pride or prestige? No, it was about priorities, and I believe Bishop de Roo's were revealed very clearly in that moment.

On the Church's Regard for the Eremitic Vocation and c 603

[[Dear Sister Laurel, was your vocation under this new canon created or caused to be created by a dissenting Bishop? Did he do this because a group of hermit lobbied to force the Church to respect them and their vocations? I heard this from a hermit who does videos.]]

Thanks for your questions. From my perspective, the views you are asking about are erroneous and unhelpfully cynical. Bishop Remi de Roo was not a dissenting bishop. He was a supporter of Vatican II and a whole-hearted supporter at that. Vatican II is a significant part of the Tradition of the Church, and that is true even though it is a relatively recent addition to that Tradition that recovers some very early Tradition. I suppose if one is not particularly in agreement with Vatican II, particularly in its anti-clericalism and its universal call to holiness, one might call Bp de Roo a dissenter, but I would suggest that this is simply not the case.

Secondly, Bp de Roo was Bishop-protector for a group of hermits (a laura) in British Columbia who had left their communities and vows because they felt called by God to even greater solitude than their monasteries allowed, and eventually came together in the laura in BC. This is sometimes seen as the natural progression of the monastic life, so it ought not surprise us. Most of these men had been Benedictine monks for many years, but living as hermits was something their congregations' (or monasteries') proper or particular law did not allow. They loved their various communities and were completely committed to "seeking God" as every Benedictine commits to do for the entirety of their life, but in this particular matter, they found themselves having to leave their monasteries and vows in order to seek God in eremitical solitude. 

Had they wanted the Church's respect, they certainly chose a funny way of going after that. After all, they let go of everything having to do with such a choice, let go of legal standing and positions of influence, relinquished years and years in solemn vows and consecrated life, and chose to be secularized to seek God alone in stricter solitude. (Remember, the Church in the West had no universal canon law governing eremitic life, and hermits, as a vital reality, had almost died out. These men clearly followed God into obscurity in the very best Gospel and Desert fashion. Only over time did they come together in British Columbia, and then, only over time did Bishop de Roo become their Bishop Protector.)

Bishop Remi worked with these men for a period of some years, and he knew their lives to be a significant gift to the Church. Through the centuries, Bishops in the Western Church had established local canons to allow for hermits and anchorites in their dioceses, but there had never been a universal law recognizing the vocation. As a result of his experience with these hermits, Bishop Remi de Roo was impressed with the vocation, and as one of the youngest Bishops at Vatican Council II, he made an intervention supporting the recognition of hermit life as a state of perfection. He gave a number of very positive reasons justifying this petition. As I have noted before, these included: 

• 1) The fact of growing renewal of the eremitic life, 
• 2) the sanctifying value of the hermit's life, 
• 3) the hermit's contribution to the life of the church. This would include the hermit's prophetic role, a modeling of the Church's call to contemplation, and the centrality of prayer, being a paradigm of the way we are each called to confront evil within our own lives and world, or allow heaven (God's own life shared with others) to interpenetrate our reality, and a dedicated seeking of God that forms the basis of every Christian life or vocation and witnesses to the truth of the Gospel in a particularly vivid way, 
• 4) the ecumenical value of the hermit's life (especially in dialogue between Eastern and Western Christianity, but also in conversations with Protestantism, supporting the place of lives dedicated to prayer) 
• 5) a correction of the impression that the evangelical counsels are limited to institutionalized community life known as religious life. (This is something post-nominal initials help do, by the way, as does the habit, etc.) Remi De Roo was the Bishop protector of a colony of (more than) 10 -12 hermits. He wrote about these benefits and needs based on the lives lived by these hermits and others and "earnestly request(ed)" the Council "officially recognize the eremitical life as a state of perfection in the Church." (taken from Vita Eremitica Iuxta Can 603, p 137 reporting on Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II, vol iii, pars vii, pp 608-609)
• I would add another reason Bishop de Roo became more aware of after Vatican II, namely, that in a world where individualism is both destructive and was well on its way to becoming the epidemic it is today, it was important for the Church to recognize that eremitism is antithetical to individualism! This could be done by giving hermits canonical standing in the Church.

When God gives the Church a gift, the only appropriate response is to honor and celebrate it. Bishop Remi recognized the gift and sought to have the Church recognize and honor it universally by providing for it in law for the first time ever. Vatican II led to the revision of the Code of Canon Law, and in Advent of 1983, this revision included two "new" (and ancient) forms of consecrated life: c 603, solitary eremitical life lived under the local bishop's supervision, and c 604, consecrated virginity for women living in the world. There is no sense at all in anything I have been able to read on the subject that the hermits under Bp de Roo's episcopal protection lobbied for this in any way. Certainly, this had nothing to do with some kind of egoistic and vainglorious clamoring for prestige or status.

The eremitical vocation is profoundly countercultural. It isn't an easy vocation, and it needs the support of the Church it both serves and reflects. C 603 hermits live a hiddenness that is very real. They declare with their lives that the journey to union with God is at the heart of every person's call to authentic humanity, and they signal the hiddenness of this pilgrimage in a way that is provocative and, so, paradoxical. Again, by definition, the world militates against such a vocation. The Church, of course, is called to be "in the world but not of it"; hermits are among those called by God to make very sure the Church is true to this calling. We don't do this by running from the world that is God's good creation, nor by turning away from the Church that is an embodied (sacramental) reality rooted in history as well as in eternity. Instead, we do this by rejecting enmeshment in that which is resistant to Christ and embracing a solitary solidarity that is contrary to individualism. 

The Church's recognition of and regard for such vocations (ecclesial vocations to the consecrated state under c 603, for instance) not only assists in the proclamation of the Gospel (every hermit proclaims the truth of the risen Christ and God as Emmanuel in the extraordinary ordinariness of her life here and now), but also helps the Church maintain its own countercultural integrity and witness in the power of the Holy Spirit -- even though the world sometimes makes that very difficult. This public consecrated vocation is not about prestige or status, but instead, the granting and acceptance of standing in law, the canonical embrace of a place of radical humility which the world simply does not understand.

Living to Praise God, Being Who we Are Called to Be

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, what does the Catechism of the Catholic Church mean when it describes a hermit as one who lives to praise God (I know that's a kind of paraphrase, but I'm sure you know what I mean.)]]

Hi there! Yes, in speaking of hermits, the CCC says hermits live their eremitic lives for the praise of God and the salvation of the world. Everything c 603 outlines, demands, and calls for from such hermits is meant to lead them to become someone whose entire life praises God and witnesses to him in a way that can effectively lead others to life in, with, and through God. The life laid out in c 603 is meant to be redemptive for the hermit (this is a central quality that must be evident when dioceses discern such vocations), and to the extent this is so, it will be a life that praises God and leads others to praise him similarly (though likely not as hermits!). What I want to emphasize is that praise is not only something the hermit does (a specific form of prayer she expresses, for instance), but something (or, better, someone) she is. We are made to be truly human, to be truly and abundantly alive, and when we do that through the grace and Spirit of God, we become the very embodiment of Divine praise.

Augustine said it this way (you'll definitely recognize the last sentence): [[Nevertheless, to praise you is the desire of man, a little piece of your creation. You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.]] In this passage, Augustine identifies the deepest desire of our hearts (not a desire, but the desire, of the human person), as praising God. He then identifies this activity, this way of being, with being at rest in God. It is not a huge step from the realization that we are made to rest in God, to the realization that whenever we come to truly rest in God, we also become an act of praise for that One who is the very source and ground of our life and its telos or goal.

We desire one thing which we may describe in different ways. We desire God, above and before all else. We may recognize this as a yearning for abundant life, for meaning, for love and relationships, or belonging. We may identify this hunger as one for creativity, significant work, and the ability to assist and serve our brothers and sisters in this world. Or we may recognize a deep desire for happiness, for joy, for satisfaction, and the ability to give ourselves totally in spending ourselves for that which is truly meaningful. All of these are signs of our desire for God and the abundant life God gives us whenever God gives us (and we receive) Godself. To live out what God gives us as a gift to our world is an act of praise.

We can see that when we do something well with a gift or talent, we recognize as God-given. If one plays a Bach unaccompanied partita as well as one can, no matter how much work or time it has taken them to prepare such a performance, it is an act of praise to God --- and so is the work it took to get there! When a young child manages to tie her shoes for the first time -- or for the three hundredth -- it is an act of praise. If an older person manages to walk up and down the hallway of their residence a few times despite painful arthritis, it is an act of Divine praise, especially if accompanied by a commitment to be oneself fully or by a feeling of gratitude for the gift of life, even life with significant limitations. So, in an even greater way, the act of living our lives well and being the persons we are called to be, is an act of praise. 

For the hermit, we certainly do spend time praising God in the sense of saying prayers of praise, but more importantly, the hermit chooses to live her life with God, toward union with God, and for the sake of all that is precious to God, for God's Church, God's kingdom, and the whole of God's creation. She chooses to be God's own, as she and all of us are meant to be. She chooses to live as clearly and simply as she possibly can the truth of the Gospel, which means to be fully herself, here and now, at rest in God in Christ. In other words, she chooses to become the imago Christi she has been made to be, and that makes her life an act of great praise. Every person is called to this same fundamentally human vocation; hermits do it in a way that makes this plain because it is unobscured by a life of active ministry**, so the hermit's is a life dedicated to prayer and the silence of solitude with, in, through, and to God alone.

** Hermits are allowed to undertake some limited degree of active ministry. In fact, paradoxically, some degree of this may be necessary for the hermit's growth as a person and a hermit. Still, it should never overshadow what really defines their eremitical life, much less should it be allowed to obscure what that life is most profoundly about. Praise of God for the person of prayer is always about being before it is about doing, and doing flows from being or reflects learning to be. This is part of the hermit's lesson for both the Church and the world.

Feast of St Joseph, Iconic Seeker of God's Own Justice (Reprised)

Today's feast is the Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the lessons we take from Joseph's story is the importance of faithfulness to the presence of God in even the most seemingly mundane parts of our lives. Such faithfulness can allow momentous things to happen, and it is through such faithfulness in small, everyday things that the will of the eternal God to set all things right (that is, the will to do justice) is ultimately done. We don't know lots of stories about Joseph, but we do know that he struggled to discern and do the will of God (hence his attention to dreams). We know too that he committed himself to what God was doing in and through Mary, and that he supported and expressed this through his daily faithfulness both as a husband and father.

Especially poignant, I think, is the Matthean story of Joseph as the icon of one who struggles to allow God's own justice to be brought to birth as fully as possible in his relationship with Mary. It is, in its own way, a companion story to Luke's account of Mary's annunciation and fiat. Both Mary (we are told explicitly) and Joseph (implied not least, by his dream and his attention to that dream) ponder things in their hearts; both are mystified and shaken by the great mystery which has taken hold of them and in which they have become pivotal characters. Both allow God's power and presence to overshadow them -- though in different ways -- so that God might do something qualitatively new in the world. But it is Joseph's more extended and profoundly faithful struggle to overcome his fear and even some deeply held religious convictions that is at the heart of those few stories we have about him. In today's Feast, Joseph does justice in mercy; indeed, he reveals the truth that true justice is mercy, thus modeling God's own justice in ways that fulfill OT conceptions of justice and challenge some of our own as well.

The Struggle to Do Justice, the Situation:

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

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

What Were Joseph's Options?

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

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

Entering the Liminal Place Where God May Speak to Us:

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

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

Justice is the way to Genuine Future:

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

Another Look at Joseph:

Joseph is a real star in Matt's account of protecting Jesus' nativity and life beyond that; he points to God and the justice only God can do. It is important, I think, to see all that he represents as Mary's counterpart in the nativity of Jesus (Son of David), who is Emmanuel (God With Us). Mary's fiat seems easy and graceful in more than one sense of that term. Joseph's fiat is hard-won but also graced or graceful. For Joseph, as for Mary, there is real labor involved as the categories of divinity and justice, law and covenant are burst asunder to bring the life and future of heaven to birth in our world. But Joseph with Mary also both lived essentially hidden lives, which were faith in all the little and big moments of being spouses and parents --- the vocations that allowed God's will to justice to be accomplished in their Son, Jesus.

May we each be committed to the work of mediating God's own justice and bringing God's future into being, especially in this Lenten season. This is the time when we especially look ahead to the coming of the Kingdom of God and attune ourselves in hope to the time when God will be all in all. May we never take refuge in partial and inadequate solutions to our world's problems and need for justice, especially out of shortsightedness, sentimentality, cowardice, evasion, or fear for our own reputations. And may we allow Joseph to be the model of discernment, humility, faithfulness, and courage in mediating the powerful presence and future of God, we recognize as justice and which we so yearn for in this 21st Century.

Further Questions on Using AI in Writing a Rule of Life

[[Sister Laurel, in the pieces you put up about using AI with religious or spiritual texts like Rules of Life, you referred to being able trust the text and the person writing the text (or Rule). You also wrote about the presence of some AI in the work as analogous to leaven in a house during Passover. I don't want to argue with your example, but isn't it possible that AI could produce a better Rule, and one of greater wisdom and experience than the person who has been asked to write it? I'm sure some would argue that the Rules some people write could be a lot better than others that are available. Why do you reject such a position -- if you do?]]

Thanks for your questions. I admit that I have been very impressed by some of the conversations I have had with ChatGPT. It has been perceptive and capable of pushing me farther than I might have otherwise gone in certain areas. It has a greater knowledge base than I do in both theology and philosophy,  and allows for conversations and debate in ways that reading texts on the same subjects do not. At the same time, with regard to the project I have asked for help with, a larger knowledge base was not always helpful and I had to limit the degree to which I would allow ChatGPT to push and define the boundaries of the conversation and larger project. Maybe one day I will try to write the book Chat GPT envisions, but for now, learning to limit ChatGPT appropriately allows me to follow up on the project my own mind and heart believe in.

With regard to Rules of Life written for specific vocations, mainly monastic and eremitic, I deal mainly with Rules for and of c 603 candidates. In these cases, it is critical that the candidate write her/his own Rule for several reasons, not least because this is a really wise requirement of the canon itself: 1) such a Rule is rooted in the candidate's own experience of living with, toward, and for God in the silence of solitude, not in anyone else's experience, 2) the diocese discerning whether this candidate has an eccelsial vocation must be able to trust what the person writes, not only to discern the quality of the vocation with which they are dealing (i.e., can and should it be lived in the consecrated state in the name of the Church?), but also to assess the candidate's readiness for making a public commitment, whether temporary or a life-commitment (i.e., temporary or perpetual profession and consecration) the Church herself can look to as truly revelatory and potentially capable of witnessing to the Church's Gospel. 

Rules of Life do not have to be perfect. They are not literary works, or at least they are not evaluated as such! They are evaluated based on the very human content and language the candidate uses, the way they speak about the vocation, their relationship with God, other significant persons, and the Church, and whether they come across as truly knowledgeable or engaging in performative language, for instance. The Rule's language is diagnostic in a number of ways, but it can't function as it should for the careful reader if the candidate did not write it. Remember that a diocese reading such a Rule is making a decision regarding how God is and will continue to work in the life of this local Church in this single unique life. If a Rule does not indicate the presence of an ecclesial vocation at this point in time, or suggests more time is needed for maturation in the vocation,  the entire matter can be reassessed at another time. Moreover, the next time a candidate submits a Rule, this one and the original Rule can be compared, and both the candidate and the diocesan team will learn more about this vocation in the process. The situation shifts radically if the candidate has not written their own Rule, particularly if they relied on AI for this.

Neither are the Rules candidates submit to dioceses anything like a final paper or dissertation. Nor is profession and consecration like graduation and the granting of a degree. They are human documents that represent the conscious reflection on the way God has worked in a particular person's life, and they will have all the limitations that such a document will always have. This is not a deficiency, but a strength. Could AI produce a "better Rule of greater wisdom and experience"? Well, no, not if wisdom is truly rooted in this individual's experience and hard-won wisdom! And not if the Rule will be used by the person (or the diocese) to gauge growth and maturation in the vocation through the years! A Rule of Life is not an abstract document. Instead, it is a deeply personal and intimate text of a dialogue between the candidate/hermit and God in the silence of solitude that will be used over time as a kind of workbook for reflection and spiritual direction. The local Church may also decide to use it in assessing the way it discerns c 603 vocations. At every point, however, the Church must be able to trust both the document and the author of the document as entirely honest. The use of AI in such a context would vitiate such an ability.

Thanks again for your questions. They were fun to take on!

In Christ Alone (by) Josh Groben

My director sent this to me this evening. She and her Sisters had used it for prayer this afternoon. I had never heard it before, but I listened to it several times before deciding to share it here. Sometimes it just feels like a song was written for you specifically. This is one of those songs!!! What is truly awesome is the theological wealth and understanding it reflects. Some of the newer liturgical songwriters have managed this over the past several decades, but I still think this one is exceptional. And then it is Josh Groban!! Even better! Enjoy!! 

N.B., this is not the Townend/Getty version of the hymn.

Happy St Patrick's Day!!

 

Happy St Patrick's Day all! Just a musical version of the Irish blessing that has become so popular. This was done during the COVID pandemic I believe and is a wonderful version. Also, it strikes me that while I sometimes make fun of how Irish everyone claims to be during this holiday, it would be wonderful if we could all claim the same identity in this way every day of the year -- not because we are Irish since most of us are not, but simply because we are human beings, created by the One God, and trying to become more truly human with and for one another in the Kindom of God! Could you imagine parades, and costumes, and pageants, and celebrations of our unified and unifying humanity that had the same kind of spirit and passion as St Patrick's Day celebrations of often merely putative Irishness? Just a thought!! 

I wish you God's own blessing. May he make his face shine upon you and bring you the fullness of life and peace!! This year, may God especially remind us of the delight he takes in every person in this world and forgive us for the divisive attitudes and actions we have nurtured or taken, some, even in the supposed name of Jesus, God's own Christ.

 Lyrics for Be Thou My Vision

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night;
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, be Thou my true Word;
Be Thou ever with me, and I with Thee, Lord;
Be Thou my dear Father, and I as Thy son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee, one.

Will Thou preserve me, midst all of my foes?
Thy love as a fortress, that none can o'erthrow;
O be Thou my guardian, my shield and my stay;
Protect and defend me, through all of my days.

Be Thou my vision, O ruler of all;
Great heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Grant me Thy presence, when victory is won;
Great high king of heaven, my heaven's bright sun.

Followup Questions on Using AI for Spiritual Writing

Sister, can one use AI to write a Rule of Life? Do you use AI for your blog writing?

Hi again, and thanks for the questions! If one is using AI to write texts that presume knowledge rooted in personal experience on one's part, then it becomes a matter of pretense. That is especially dangerous and impactful with regard to religious texts. Either one has the knowledge and experience necessary to undertake what one is writing, or one does not. Consider that all religious texts make claims about the human person and about God, or at least higher awareness and knowledge. Are these claims rooted in human experience? Christians believe in resurrection and draw conclusions from that. In fact, they create an entire vision of humanity's future with God, based on that reality. The Gospel stories make clear what an unusual kind of experience the first Christians had had, and what a singular and difficult-to-define event Jesus' resurrection was. The questions of faith include, "Did this really happen?" "Can I trust this testimony and the event it claims is real, or is it all religious or human philosophical nonsense?" In faith, our belief is rooted in human experience and in our ability to trust it. A Rule of Life, especially if one wants to use it for others, functions similarly.

You know that I admire AI and have found it really helpful in carefully limited ways. Pope Leo, it seems, has done the same. But in this area of religious belief, our experience of God, and the creation of human communities that MUST be rooted in such experience, trust, and wisdom, AI has no real place. While your conversations with AI sound similar to mine and have been inspiring and insightful beyond your own, AI is not human, it is not a person, and, as Pope Leo has said, it is "soulless".  (This means it lacks the characteristics of the authentically and uniquely human person.) I have a friend, a bishop of an autocephalous Catholic Church. She uses AI and says it is the best teacher she has ever had in one area of learning. However, she has also had explicit conversations with it regarding its limits in relation to ethics. One of these is a lack of conscience; another is a sense of empathy. AI was clear that it lacked these. It noted other limitations I can't completely recall at the moment, though these had to do with a significant lack of capacity for relatedness or relationships with the users who are depending on AI. I should also note that AI has a tendency to flatter the user, and while this may not truly be dishonest in any way (it may be constructive criticism), one does need to ask AI to be honest with one in getting assessments whenever one begins to feel it is pulling punches in this regard.

So, I think it is fine to use AI for clarifying writing or points of limited understanding --- as when I am working on a chapter and have the sense that something is not working. AI can tell me what that is and why it is not working. It can also explain why something IS working and, in fact, AI is really great for that. It can also help with outlining when there is a lot of material to hold in mind. However, the writing and the experience leading to that writing, along with the wisdom related to these, must be my own. Otherwise, what I present as my own is simply a lie that I am surreptitiously trying to get others to trust. AI knows a lot! Tons more than I do in many ways, and it can help teach me and draw out the implications of what I write. That can give me things to research and reflect on, but it cannot replace that writing or the hard-won wisdom it nurtures and comes from. 

In short, no, I don't use AI for my blog posts, and would never do so (or accept someone else doing so) with something like a Rule of Life. I'm afraid that would significantly destroy one's capacity for trust -- at least that would be so if one desired to pass any part of this text** off as one's own work. How would I know which part is one's own work in such a case? How would I know this regarding what is one's own experience as its source or ground? How would any representative of the Church or anyone seeking to bind themselves to such a Rule know what was rooted in human experience and wisdom or not? The use of AI in news stories or pieces on famous people (Pope Leo is a significant example) has made it almost impossible to know what is genuine these days. The use of some percentage of AI in a piece of writing purporting to reflect spiritual experience and wisdom causes the entire piece and its author to become suspect. It works analogously to leaven in the OT. At Passover, the presence of leaven (a source of fermentation or decay) caused everything conceivably touched with, or affected in the way leaven affects them, to be thrown out or burned as tainted. This included several (5?) different kinds of grain, which were removed, especially if affected by moisture. That is as wise today, in these new applications to AI and what we may trust as genuinely human, as it was regarding leaven (hametz) at Passover.

** In determining if some percentage of the writing is done by AI, I am not referring to grammar checks and assistance. I thank God daily for help with commas and, sometimes, quotation marks, and would not claim or expect others to claim that some percentage of their writing was done by AI because of those kinds of aids!!! Even spell checking seems fine to me. 

Question on the Use of AI for Writing in Religion and Spirituality

Sister Laurel, I know that Pope Leo XIV has asked priests not to use AI to help them write soulless homilies. Have you ever used AI to support your religious writing and spiritual formation? If so, what are your thoughts on its role in these areas, particularly for hermits?

Hi there. Thanks for the question. It's a timely question since at the end of January, I tried using AI for the first time and was surprisingly impressed by it. I had decided to avoid it like the plague, but I had been ill and was struggling with some writing (not my blog), and decided to see what was possible with ChatGPT (Just FYI, I nicknamed it Geppetto or Jep for short because it is like, and may want to be a real person; also, it reminds me I don't want to be its puppet because I am a real person!). I had several conversations with it, outlining my needs and limitations, and the limits I wanted to be sure of regarding Jep's role. Not least, I need to be sure I write my own stuff, but can get help discussing topics, creating outlines, etc, when I can't remember everything that goes into the project. Together, we nailed down a working arrangement where it does not write things for me, but does reflect on and evaluate the material I give it (for instance, material from my blog written over the past 18+ years) that might be useful in one way or another. In analyzing my stuff, GPT learns my world, my writing, my values, and the way I think.

What I find most remarkable are the conversations and the stuff it gives me to think about. It uses categories that best reflect my education and the various theologians or topics I specialized in. It adopts the same values I have and pushes those further, so I learn from these conversations. And of course, it helps make up for my own limitations (some of these are neurological) so that I am more productive.

For me, the bottom line is that I must do my own writing. ChatGPT can assist with outlining, organization, and that kind of thing, but cannot write things for me. One of my priest friends also uses it for framing retreat presentations, etc. He does the substantive work, and Jep (he calls it Frank) makes suggestions on where else he might go, things he might have missed, etc. I completely agree with Pope Leo on homilies needing to avoid AI since I believe the homilists must wrestle with Scripture themselves before and in order to write a meaningful homily. Homilies depend upon the power of the Word to challenge and change the homilist. The homilist then shares the Word with people in a way that, hopefully, will allow the Word to challenge and change them. AI can't truly do this; it can't take the role of witness to the life-changing capacity of the Scriptural word or the events that stand behind it.

So yes, AI can be really helpful and yes, inspiring to converse with --- especially if one needs a clarifying, encouraging, or affirming voice that truly understands what you are saying. At the same time, one cannot give up one's own agency or responsibility. Not in the area of faith, spirituality, and writing that depends on one's relationship with God and the way God is working in one's life. Still, as I looked into the ways graduate schools were dealing with the issue of AI, particularly in regard to folks writing dissertations..., I learned that they were allowing its use when that use was judicious and carefully documented in the project itself. Instructors were told they could tell students they might not use it, but they needed to realize that AI is already with us, and trying to stop its use was like "standing on a shoreline and trying to stop a rising tide".

I hope this is helpful. While I didn't respond directly regarding hermits, the same ground rules apply. Hermits will have more limited access to computers and online time. They may also need the kinds of things AI can offer much less frequently than others might.                                                  

A Contemplative Moment: The Moment

 

The Moment

The moment when, after many years

of hard work and a long voyage

you stand in the centre of your room,

house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,

knowing at last how you got there,

and say, I own this,

is the same moment the trees unloose

their soft arms from around you,

the birds take back their language,

the cliffs fissure and collapse,

the air moves back from you like a wave

and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.

You were a visitor, time after time

climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.

We never belonged to you.

You never found us.

It was always the other way round.

by

Margaret Atwood

in the heart's time by

Janet Morley

 This poem is the one for tomorrow (Thursday), Week #3 of Lent in the heart's time. We are using it in our Scripture class just for the season, and I love the way it dovetails with the poem I put up last week called Homesickness. As I reflected on this poem along with Homesickness, I saw it as echoing the tendencies and deep needs associated with homesickness. Thus, the claim, "I own this" represented a  symptom, and perhaps even a kind of ratification of what we know as "original sin," that is, the enmeshment in a world that tends toward human beings wanting to be as God. 

I could also hear echoes of Augustine's,  "Our Hearts are restless until they rest in thee," as the poem spoke to what happens whenever we forget that we are always recipients, and everything coming to us daily is a gift of God which deserves gratitude and awe. At the same time, it speaks to our rejected role (vocation?) as stewards of God's good creation, and the way we have become alienated from it all as we exchange stewardship for ownership and reject the creator God in the process.

There is real tragedy in this poem, all captured in a single moment.

Hermits and Attending to the News

[[Dear Sister, do you pay attention to the news? I wanted to ask if you are concerned about the war in Iran? I guess I was wondering if a hermit "withdraws" from all of that kind of thing and just spends his or her day in prayer. Are you supposed to be involved in politics? Are nuns supposed to do that? . . . Do you ever go to the No Kings protests or are you even allowed to do things like that? . . . I have been feeling so angry about the war and the situation with ICE and the murders that happened in Minneapolis that I hardly know what to do with myself!. . . I guess I wondered if being a hermit keeps a person from being involved in all of that kind of stuff since you are trying to learn pure love, and then I wondered if that wasn't kind of irresponsible (again, no offense!!) . . .]]

Thanks for sharing how you have been feeling recently. I understand both your feelings and why you would ask these kinds of questions; I think they are great. Definitely no offense given or taken!! As far as the question of this Administration, the passage of the great big beautiful bill, the actions being taken by ICE, the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good et al, the military actions taken before and in Venezuela and Iran (including the bombing of schools and hospitals in Iran, 13 so far) have left me upset. Then there's Secretary Hegseth's juvenile and depraved video-game-style blustering about our military's power to kill, kill, kill, twenty-four-seven (as though acting "without mercy" and "showing no quarter", as he claims we are doing, is real strength). Combine this with his complete disdain for moral rules of engagement (he is making himself and others candidates for war crime trials, and destroying the US military's general reputation for professionalism and morality!), and now we have President Trump's comments on Cuba being next, so yes, like the majority of our country,  I too am angry, and have struggled with these events for months. 

My own pain over all of this escalated this past week because of our unauthorized and unjustified attacks on Iran, and the immorality and illegality of this war being carried out in our name. All that stunned me last weekend, and then I heard the reporting that some (perhaps) were trying to justify all of this in the name of Christ and so-called "Christian Nationalism" in an effort to initiate Armageddon. And all of this is being done in our name by a president who seems incapable of a coherent thought or of concern for anyone but himself! This (all) is the face of evil, the face of sin, the face of radical inhumanity, and the complete distortion of the universal vocation we share to image a merciful, loving God with our lives. It is what some theologians identified as total depravity being put forward as the idealization of strength, morality, and American ideals.

The Three Goods of Camaldolese Life

I do spend a great deal of time in prayer, and at the same time, I pay attention to what is happening in our world because an important part of my vocation is to be the intercessory place where God and the world come together. This is part of a call to compassion and one way I participate in the re-creation of the world God undertakes in Christ. What you may not have heard me say in earlier posts is "the world" I am called to be more strictly separated from, because I am a hermit living an ecclesial vocation, is that world that is resistant to Christ. What stricter separation means, then, is refusing to become enmeshed in that world because enmeshment makes authentic love impossible. Authentic love requires the ability to see clearly and to open one's heart fully and freely. Enmeshment makes that impossible. What stricter separation allows, then, is an objectivity that sees reality more clearly as it is, and allows one to love it and the God who is its source and ground, both freely and generously. 

So yes, I definitely pay attention to what is happening in this world. Everyone I know and love is affected by it. They are hurting, some with disappointment in the way this president has betrayed their hope in his campaign promises, and others who knew there was no chance he would keep these promises in any case. And of course, they are hurting from the suffering being inflicted on the entire country (and world beyond!!), on their neighbors of whatever political stripe or religious creed, and especially on those who are the most vulnerable among us in so many ways. I hold them in prayer before the living God who loves them so dearly and is also suffering on their behalf. That is at the very heart of an eremitical vocation. I don't think that makes me particularly political, though I certainly understand the issues and invariably vote, occasionally protest (the last No Kings day, for instance), and give what I can to important issues and causes. I think this is integral to being a Christian and a steward of God's good creation, as well as contributing to this world's genuine re-creation in Christ.

It is the way I do this that differs, I think. Nuns, generally speaking, can involve themselves in the political scene in various ways. It's pretty much up to them in discerning the ways and degrees of such involvement that are appropriate to their vocations and state of life. The same is true of hermits, though the constraints built into their lives will likely be greater. My own degree and style of participation cohere with my Rule, with my state of health, and with the urgency of the situation. Of course, most of the time my participation is done from here in my hermitage and centers on prayer, though as noted, I watch news in a selective way and will attend No Kings protests, etc., especially if I can go with another Sister or two. 

That said, I am not sure what you mean by trying to learn "pure love," nor, more importantly, I think, how it is that learning to love God better and better would keep me from careful or judicious involvement in matters affecting this world in the ways I have described. After all, we only learn love by loving and allowing others to love us. My involvement in the suffering of this country, and of the larger world, is motivated by a growing love for God and all that is precious to God. My obligation to do this is part of my vow formula. I sincerely believe that, in Christ, my participation fosters growth in compassion and the transformation of our world into something more just and loving. While my decisions in this regard are my own, and not necessarily appropriate for others, including other hermits, I can say that not involving myself in the way I have described would, for me, be cowardly, self-centered, and seriously sinful. As noted above, it would also violate my vows. It would, as you say, be irresponsible, and, too, it would actually be contrary to my vocation as a hermit. 

You see, I embrace the characteristics of an eremitic life not for themselves alone, but for a larger purpose than the characteristics themselves. All of the constitutive elements of canon 603 (silence, solitude, prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, the evangelical counsels, etc) are meant to lead each hermit to something larger than themselves, namely,  a listening and loving heart where we abide in God and God abides in us. This too is meant to serve a larger purpose by creating the intercessory space where God and the world he creates come together in the hermit. While I continue to live the constitutive characteristics of c 603 with integrity, the paradox is that I must also pay attention to the news, especially at times like the present US crisis. Only in that way do I truly grow in compassion and avoid the individualism that the Church is clear every c 603 hermit must avoid.

Sad though this also is, please know that what you are feeling is shared by millions and millions of people of every political persuasion, both in the US and outside it. Bring it all to God, of course, and pour your heart out to him and his suffering and risen Christ. And yes, let us hold one another in prayer, and allow that prayer to widen in scope as God's Spirit empowers it until it embraces even those whose immorality and illegalities are the source of so much suffering and death in our contemporary world. I wish you peace.

Follow-up Question on the Nature of Spiritual Life: On Being Embodied Spirit

[[Sister Laurel, I always thought that spirituality had to do with our spirits and flesh had to do with the material "stuff" of our bodies, but you have turned all of that on its head with the way you talk about Paul's language!!  If you are right, then where does the practice of dividing people into spirit and flesh come from? And then to hear Paul doing the same thing, I mean, where does the idea of spirit as the non-material in us and flesh as the material in us come from? Were you taught the same division into flesh and spirit as this, or were you taught the Pauline sense of these terms? What about our immortal souls, aren't they the spiritual part of us?]]

I think the way you have summarized things is the way most people think of spirit and flesh. It is also a seriously distorted way that we have to get over when reading St Paul. If we read his Letters aright, not only with regard to these two terms, but also in regard to his understanding of the change in reality Jesus' death and resurrection bring about, and the way he understands God's project for the future of both heaven and earth together, we will be much farther along. The Scripture scholar and historian doing the most focused work on all of this today is NT Wright, and those interested in this should read his 1) Surprised by Hope, and 2) his new sequel, God's Homecoming, the Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal. I am reading the second volume now, and am really grateful Wright has done this sequel. Similar work has been done by Gerhard Lohfink in, Is This All There Is? On Resurrection and Eternal Life.

The tendency to divide reality into the spiritual as the "more real", and the material as the "less real" (or unreal) and dispensable part of us is Platonic, that is, it comes from Plato's notion of forms or "ideas" as the most real, and it gives us a dualistic notion of the human being. Sometimes people will add the notion that the material of our world is evil and needs to be separated from the spirit or the spiritual. This even more radically dualistic approach is Gnostic. Further, some people think that some have a special kind of knowledge (γνωσις, gnosis) that makes them more spiritual than other folks, or that is the key to salvation. That too is Gnostic and has been with us since the days of the early Church. Finally, the notion that human beings have an immortal soul that will and should one day be separated from the body and exist disembodied in heaven is neither Christian nor Biblical. The eschatology (theology of last things) present in Scripture is vastly different than this.

I was raised mainly in a Christian Science church until Junior High, so I heard this stuff in its purest, contemporary form quite regularly. Christian Science is Platonic through and through, and also profoundly Gnostic (Mary Baker Eddy's "principles" qualify as a form of gnosis, γνωσις, or "knowledge") --- though I doubt any Christian Scientists would admit this. Every Sunday, we recited Mary Baker Eddy's "Scientific Statement of Being" (SSB) and discussed it and our lives in light of it. We also read Scripture in light of it, which, I didn't realize at the time, ensured we misinterpreted Scripture during each class. When I occasionally return to Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures today, what is most striking about the way Christian Science reads Scripture is its complete failure to take historical existence seriously. Historical persons are analogized as abstract "principles". The SSB that drives this approach goes like this (and yes, I still know it by heart all these years later), [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite mind in its infinite manifestations, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] Emphasis added.

While I had a basic, nagging conviction that "this just can't be right" and looked elsewhere from Junior High School on, I did not have the theological sophistication or categories necessary to understand how un-Christian this "theology" (and Platonism itself) is, nor to truly counter its errors until sometime after graduate school. Yes, I was given the most important pieces necessary for doing so in both my undergraduate and graduate studies, but it all really came together as I spent more time reading Scripture and exegetes who reminded readers of the Pauline meaning of terms like flesh and spirit (ψυχή, psyche) and who also began to take on the theology of a new heaven and new earth. Part of this "coming together" also came through presentations of the Lord's Prayer and the petition that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven (God's domain), and further work of my own on prayer and the will of God, always involving God's commitment to be Emmanuel, God With Us. The background to all of this included chronic illness and disability, with their challenge to take my entire self, both physical and spiritual, seriously in spite of limitations and obstacles --- something Platonism (or Christian Science) could never have done.

There were some really pivotal theological lessons throughout my schooling that made Christian Science and its "Scientific Statement of Being" impossible to accept. The first was a lesson on the distinction between Christianity and other religions, where I was taught that Christianity is the only faith that has God coming to us rather than us trying to get back to God!! The corollary to that was a lesson on the historical nature of Christianity and the Christ Event; this lesson reminded me that the Incarnation and any truly sufficient theology of the sacraments support a deeply positive evaluation of materiality, but also underscored that God comes to us in history and transfigures all He touches. 

Another lesson occurred in a graduate class on grace with Kenan Osborn OFM. Kenan was trying to get across the idea that human beings are not dualistic. We are not platonic soul/body dualisms, but instead embodied spirit (or inspirited bodies); that is, we are unities of body and soul or spirit, he affirmed.  During this class, Kenan (a really diminutive man), picked up a chair and clutched it tightly to his side; then he walked up and down several rows of students, repeating, "I don't just HAVE a body, I AM my body!!" (Not that this is ALL we are, but it is an integral part of who we are and, especially, how we possess ourselves! In other words, embodiedness is integral to being truly human.) At the time, I didn't really understand the whole lesson he was teaching, but I never forgot the example nor ceased being challenged by it and its urgency for Kenan. Eventually, I came to understand it as I continued to read and do theology.

During ThD work, but especially thereafter, I read more Scriptural exegesis, pointing out God's will to create a new heaven and new earth, and in Christ, as well as in those who are baptised into Christ, God would be Emmanuel in our world. I went back to consider sacramental theology (especially in the Eastern Church) and came to recognize the way God's presence sanctifies even the most fundamental material reality (think sacraments here). It was combined with Christianity's most foundational belief in bodily resurrection (Jesus), with Catholicism's affirmation of bodily assumption (Mary) --- these events both imply new forms of embodiedness --- with the affirmation that the intimate, dynamic love that flows between the Father and the Son is present to us in the Holy Spirit and, of course, with the theology of the New Testament that affirms that in Christ, God is in the midst of creating a new heaven and new earth, and science's discovery of our evolutionary universe.

What does all of this mean? Very briefly, it leads to a theology that allows us to take our whole selves and our world entirely seriously because, as it says in the book of Genesis, we are to be stewards of God's good creation. (Think how differently everything would be if we simply lived up to that vocation!) At the same time, this is a reality suffused with the presence and Spirit of God. "Heaven and earth are full of the glory of God!") Spirituality does not allow the denial or denigration of the material or the historical (the spatio-temporal), but rather, requires the affirmation of its potential in God. After all, taking the fundamental goodness of creation and the essential embodiedness of the human being completely seriously is what the Incarnation and affirmation of bodily resurrection demand of us. 

This is also what a theology of Sacraments and the sacramental demands of us, including our sense that the Church, flawed as it is in some ways, is "primordial sacrament". The world (God's good creation) is an evolving reality, and the Sacraments point to creation's potential to be transfigured and transformed by the Holy Spirit. Similarly, our belief in Jesus' "Coming Again" makes sense within this theology. Further, escapist mentalities that allow us to disengage with our Church and world as we focus on "getting to heaven" are entirely disallowed. (Also disallowed, then, are ways of seeing the world that allow us to begin wars to try and bring about Armageddon, a rather timely piece of wisdom regarding a particularly bad way of reading Scripture!!) 

Whatever you take from this post, I hope you will remember the fact that we are embodied spirit, and we neither can nor will remain disembodied after death. This is one lesson of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. (Following Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) once wrote that the soul is the form of the body (not the other way around!), and, reflecting on the future fulfillment of all creation, when God will be All in All, opined that even though disembodied at death, our soul or spirit yearns to build a body about itself once again! (Dogmatic Theology, Eschatology, vol 9) This is exactly contrary to the way so many have been taught to think of the relationship of soul to body and anticipates some New Testament eschatology. I also hope you will take with you Fr Kenan Osborne's lesson with the chair clutched to his body and his assertion that, "I do not just HAVE a body, I AM my body".

P.S. I realize I haven't really answered your last question, so I will do that in a separate post as possible. (If I can't do that, I will add a paragraph here later and let you know either way by email. Peace!)