Hidden and Public, the Eremitical Paradox under Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, in what way is your vocation a public one? Is it only your Bishop's role in professing and consecrating you that is public, or does this miss something? Does hiddenness conflict with the public nature of the vocation?]]

Thanks for your questions. Let me start with basic vocabulary. The term "public" can be used to refer to a kind of notoriety, a presence out in public, which contrasts with privacy. When we speak of hermits living a public vocation, this is NOT what we mean. The second way of using the term "public" refers to the assumption of public rights and obligations. Here we are speaking of what is binding in law through legal (canonical) commitments. When hermits are said to have a public vocation, this is what we mean; they have made legally binding commitments and the Church has admitted them to these. Because these two senses are so different from one another, it should be noted that a hermit having a public vocation can ALSO live in significant physical hiddenness and privacy. That's not a problem; the two need not conflict.

My own vocation is a public one in terms of its public rights and obligations. This means that the Church commissions me to live this vocation in a way that contributes explicitly to the life of the Church. The People of God have the right to hold certain expectations of me regarding the way I live out my vows, my Rule, the living eremitical tradition, and my relationship with God in Christ. My commitment is a public one in this sense. At the same time, the vocation entails significant privacy. Thus too, the eremitical vocations we embrace, whether private or public, are valuable. We cannot say either is better than the other, for instance, yet we need to recognize they differ in meaningful ways. 

If someone is a non-canonical or lay hermit, they are living a private vocation. If they have vows (not all do), those vows will be private. The Church does not discern this vocation with the person, nor does it receive the person's profession or commission the person to live as a publicly professed hermit. At the same time, the People of God do not have a right to hold certain expectations of them regarding the way they live out their vows, their rule of life (if they have one), the living eremitical tradition, and their relationship with God in Christ. Again, their eremitical commitment is a private one, not a public one. One privately vowed hermit says it this way: [[I don't tell [the people in the local community] that I am a hermit; they don't need to know . . ..]] Their lives may entail a good deal of privacy, or they are free to spend hours a day creating videos of themselves and opening the intimate details of their lives to the entire online world. Whether marked by privacy or by intimate sharing, the commitment itself is still a private one, and no one has a right to expect either more or less from them than the canonical obligations that already apply by virtue of their baptism and their public (lay) state of life.

So,  my Bishop's vocation is a public one in the sense provided here re rights and obligations, and so is mine. It is not the case that we speak of c. 603 as a public vocation merely because the Bishop has a public role and vocation and my profession is made in his hands. We speak of the c 603 vocation as public because the one professed and consecrated under this canon assumes new public rights and obligations beyond those that come with baptism. (The Church uses the term profession to speak of this public commitment and its assumption of new rights and obligations; it is a broader act than the mere making of vows and initiates one into a new state of life. Making private vows is considered an avowal and not a profession for this reason.)

The hiddenness of the eremitical vocation refers primarily to the inner life of prayer, the inner journey with and to union with God that the hermit is committed to making throughout the life of this vocation, 1) in the name of the Church and 2) for the sake of the silent preaching of the Gospel. It requires significant privacy, of course, and stricter separation from the world, but it is not measured as either public or private in these ways. For this reason, hiddenness does not refer to anonymity, not wearing identifiable garb, etc.  Whether people recognize the hermit by garb or name, or know her because of an online presence, post nominal initials, etc., they will ordinarily be unaware of the nature of her inner life. This is true even when she writes publicly about Scripture, prayer, spirituality, and theology.

We celebrate the profession and consecration of such vocations at Mass and with subsequent receptions, etc., because these are the normal and appropriate avenues for the public ecclesial celebration of life commitments. I may have mentioned that at my eremitical consecration, during the Litany of the Saints, I had the sense that the whole Church, in heaven and on earth, was focused on this small patch of floor and what was occurring here in this single small parish and diocese. This was not about me per se, but about this vocation and the Divine gift it (and all eremitical life) is to the Western Church. It was about the Church reclaiming something she had, to some extent, let go of or had trouble accommodating, and that she was meant to be enriched and challenged by, from the days of the desert Abbas and Ammas onward. Yet, even in the midst of such a public celebration of God and the life of the Church, the vocation itself is, and remains, a hidden and provocative one. This is not a matter of contradiction; it is one of paradox.

Discussions on Magnifica Humanitas with St Perpetua Catholic Community

I am including the notice for a discussion group beginning this week at St. Perpetua Catholic Community. Our Scripture Study class decided to take a break to spend time with Pope Leo's first Encyclical. Since we will meet via Zoom, we can accommodate people who might want to join the class even if they don't live near Stillsong Hermitage. (I am not sure of the number we can accommodate here from outside the parish, but numbers permitting, you are more than welcome. Please contact me if you are interested.)

Focus of Magnifica Humanitas

[[What does it mean to remain human? To say we have a duty to do that? In what ways does our world tend to dehumanize us? Why, in this technological world, are such questions so urgent? These are Pope Leo's concerns in Magnifica Humanitas (The Grandeur of Humanity). It is a pivotal and timely encyclical pitting a culture of power against what Leo calls a civilization of love. At the center of this battle, we find AI, robotics, digital technology, etc. --- new and unprecedented forms of power that can be used for enhancing human life or for destroying it. We have a duty to remain human. Leo's encyclical examines the potential threats posed by these new forms of power and turns to Scripture and Catholic social teaching to help us reflect on how we do that.

Please join us on ZOOM from 22 October through 03 December (no meeting on Thanksgiving) to discuss this encyclical! Meetings will be held from 10:00-11:30 am and will be recorded for those who wish to participate but cannot make this time. If you are interested or would like more information (ZOOM links, materials, etc.), please contact Sister Laurel O'Neal, Er Dio at: SRLAUREL@aol.com.]]

Text being used: Magnifica Humanitas, Humanity in its Grandeur, Foreword by Arthur C Brooks. Ascension Press. Afterword Fr Mike Schmitz.  Available on Amazon or at ascensionpress.com (1-800-376-0520) (If you have another version of the encyclical, that's fine. The Ascension Press version has some reflection questions we will use and a handy glossary. I can send those to folks who are using a different text.)

Conversation between James Martin sj and Bishop Mariann Budde

Lots of good stuff in this conversation but one is Bishop Budde's observation that God always meets her more than halfway. Another is the section on the way our prayer practices change over time. Enjoy.

Pope Leo XIV says Mass at Hospital

Pope Leo says Mass at the hospital. While the world prays for Pope Leo's well-being and the outcome of his surgery and ongoing treatment, Pope Leo celebrates the Eucharist. In a timely way,  our Scripture group is taking a bit of a detour and beginning a study of Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, The Grandeur of Humanity. It's an amazing work underscoring how fortunate the Church is to have Pope Leo at this time in history.  Holding him in prayer!!

Humans as Question, God as Answer: Where Does this Insight Come from?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, the idea that we are a sort of question in search of an answer makes some sense to me. I am intrigued by it. I wondered where you got the idea, though.]]

Good question!! I got the idea from several places. (These are not necessarily presented in the order in which I came to this insight.)

• The first is Paul Tillich's work on what he called "the Method of Correlation". Very simplistically described, Tillich understood the human question to be something articulated by philosophy and the answer to be provided by Theology. More fundamentally, this meant that human beings presented a series of existential questions, while God was the One who constituted both their source and their answer. 
• The second is Augustine's observation that our hearts are restless until they come to rest in [God]. In this insight, Augustine recognizes that we are made for God, and this in turn means that we feel that "made-for quality" as a restlessness to get home to God. In this too, then, God is both the source of and the answer to our yearning. 
• The Christian notion of freedom is the power to be the persons we are called to be. This is clearly a way of pointing to the fact that we are responses to a call that rescues us from bondage and answers our need for secure being and meaning. Only to the extent that we are such a response do we know what it means to be free. Again, we are made for freedom, and God is both the source of our "made-for" quality and the One who fulfills it in us.
• A similar and supporting insight derives from the German notion of what is necessary to ask a question: One must know enough to be able to ask a question, and at the same time, one must lack knowledge in a way that makes the question necessary. 
• This insight is linked in my mind with the notion of being "made-for", and so, with the sense we yearn so for God because we both know (and are known by) God and are somehow estranged from God (our knowing as well as our being known is partial and incomplete, or perhaps damaged and distorted, etc). Knowing God and also needing God because, in some senses, we lack God, causes us to yearn for God.
• A central source of this insight stems from my experience of prayer, where I am always a seeker, always a listener called to be open to allowing God's work within me and my life; God is the one who inspires and answers prayer with himself. Two critical insights here have to do with the Lord's Prayer and the work done on it by Gerhard Ebeling and so many others. 
• First, in the Lord's Prayer, we need to notice that every line except the opening invocation (where we call upon God by name in a way that requires permission and must be revealed to us) is a petition. In the prayer's two sections of petitions, we first concern ourselves with God and the things of God, and second with the things or needs of humanity that follow when we put God first. (This, in prayer form, is an elaboration of the admonition, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.") At the same time, each line represents a petition in which we open ourselves to what only God can supply. 
• The Lord's Prayer, then, is a paradigm of what it means to pray. Scripture contains two different versions of the prayer (Matt and Luke), so we cannot conclude it was primarily given as something to simply recite verbatim, nor that it represented the ipsissima verba of Jesus. In other words, the LP is a model of the nature and priorities of prayer. It sees prayer as a matter of opening ourselves existentially to the response God is and achieves within us. It teaches us to be or pose the "question" God "answers" or completes.
• Also, when Ebeling reflected on the invocation, he observed that in coming to learn to say Abba, Father, rightly, the entire prayer has been prayed and answered because God has empowered this invocation and comes to us in the process. To call upon God as Abba (a name, not a description) is to respond to a revelation. God himself is the answer to ALL sincere prayer. 
• These insights pointed me back to the human person as the one who lacks, calls for what they lack and need, and, in praying sincerely, finds that God wills to be Emmanuel (and wills us to be the human form or counterpart of that as well). In this way, God is the source of that prayer, and so too, the answer that completes us.
• A specific form of needing, seeking, and finding --- a way of posing the existential question and learning to receive the answer that is God and all God brings --- is the juxtaposition of doubt and faith.  In this way of seeking, faith and doubt belong together, and doubt calls for faith in a particularly neuralgic and powerful way.
• Another point came from the philosophy and theology of Language Events, and especially the idea that human beings are language events. What this means (in part) is that we are created by the words spoken to us and by the responses they empower us to become. We are, most truly or essentially, responses!! At one point, I came to see that it was possible for a person to be a "cry of anguish" or, at another time, "A Magnificat of triumph or joy". It was not a large step to consider persons yearning for God as "questions" (or "petitions") seeking the single completing answer who would be Emmanuel.
• A final point that leads me to this whole idea is the sense that human beings are made for relationship. Relationship is a constitutive dimension of the living God-as-Trinity, and in Catholic Theology, it is a constitutive dimension of being human and imago Dei as well. Hermits, for instance, know very well how critical relationships are to human beings being truly human because they know the difference between isolation and solitude! Because they are people of prayer, they know how we yearn to love and be loved, and they know that Love Itself calls us to completion both from within us and from without. Most fundamentally, we are relationship. 

In any case, these are the main ways I came to the sense that human beings are questions and God is the completing and originating answer (the Creator and Redeemer who reconciles all things to himself) --- at least off the top of my head!!! (I am probably forgetting a really central one, of course!!)

And What of Those Who Cannot Withdraw as C 603 Requires?

 [[Hi Sister, I wondered what you suggest for those who cannot withdraw as hermits do? Can they live desert vocations?]]

Though sitting in my inbox for some time, this is a timely question because I heard from someone this week who struggles with it himself, and I am still reflecting on our conversations. There is a piece of wisdom from the Desert Abbas and Ammas that is instructive here. It also ties into the posts I have been putting up regarding chronic illness and disability as desert experiences, and sometimes as specifically eremitical (hermit) desert experiences.  John Chryssavgis says it this way in In the Heart of the Desert. He is explaining that the desert is as much a way as it is an actual place:

It is clear in the understanding of these elders that one does not have to move to the geographical location of the wilderness to find God. Yet if you do not have to go to the desert, you do have to go through the desert. The Desert Fathers and Mothers always speak from their experience of the desert, even if they do not come out of that desert. The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. To avoid it would be harmful. To dress it up or conceal it may be tempting: but it also proves destructive on the spiritual path. . . .If we go through this experience involuntarily, then it can be both overwhelming and crushing. If, however we accept to undergo this [desert] experience voluntarily, then it can prove both constructive and liberating. p. 36

One point of my posts on chronic illness and disability as vocational paths is to stress that these are truly desert experiences where one meets one's true self and the true God. This is the case whether the person can ever withdraw in the way hermits do. The core of anachoresis, or withdrawal from the world, is not necessarily the physical withdrawal into a literal desert, but withdrawal from the values which distort us and make encounters with, and commitment to, the true God and true self impossible. The opposite of withdrawal from the world is not engagement with others (which authentic hermits do not necessarily give up), but falling into idolatry!! This was true with Israel, and it was true of Jesus' time in the desert. It was equally true of the Desert Abbas and Ammas. As Chryssavgis also notes:

 Living in the desert does not mean living without people; it means living for God. Antony and the other desert dwellers never forgot this. They never sought to cut off their connections to other people instantly. They sought rather to refine these relationships increasingly. Of course, the desert was, on a deeper level, always more than simply a place. It was a way. And it was not the desert [as place] that made the Desert Fathers and Mothers, any more than it was the lion that made the martyrs. (Ibid, p35, while quoting B Ward, The wisdom of the Desert Fathers)

For those who cannot find a way to physically withdraw in significant ways, as, for instance, c 603 requires, their very inability becomes one of those limitations that represent a desert experience. Some of us with chronic illness and/or disabilities either could not enter religious communities or could not stay, despite our (accurate) sense of having a religious vocation. Today, some of those with apparent calls to eremitical life must work and remain involved in active ministry in ways that prevent them from becoming consecrated hermits. Both groups of people have been asked to accept these limitations as desert experiences that lead them to embrace both their true selves and the true God. In this way, both groups of people are called to live out the very heart of the Desert Way, whether by physically withdrawing or not. Neither is better than the other. As one saying of the Desert Abbas and Ammas reminds us:

It was revealed to Abba Antony in his desert [place] that there was someone who was his equal in the city. He was a doctor by profession. Whatever he had beyond his needs, he could give to the poor; and every day he sang hymns with the angels. (Antony, 24)

By the way, when I write here about authentic and inauthentic hermits, I hope it is clear that it is those who live out the Desert Way wherever that occurs, that instruct us on authenticity. Some who call themselves hermits, shutting themselves off from others out of self-righteousness or misanthropy, or a mistaken notion of what stricter separation from the world means and entails, etc., create idols of certain forms of withdrawal and inadequate notions of eremitical solitude. (Remember that solitude (and the silence of solitude) may certainly mean or imply physical aloneness, but in deeper or more foundational ways, it also means wholeness and personal integration!! This latter meaning is particularly clear in the stories of Jesus' temptations in the desert.) As John Chryssavgis also writes:

The physical setting of the desert is a symbol, a powerful reminder of a spiritual space that is within us all. In the United States, the grand desert of Arizona can assist us in recalling that inner space where we yearn for God. In Australia, the frightening outback can also guide us in our search for that heavenly "dreamtime." In Egypt, the sandy dunes of the desert resembled the unending search of these abbas and ammas for "abundant life" (John 10:10) and "a living spring of water" (John 4:14).

First Steps: Applying Hermit Lessons to Those with Chronic Illness and Disability

[[Hi Sister Laurel,  I am chronically ill, probably on the way to being disabled. I don't want to live as a hermit. I want to do as much as I can with my education and my talents. I also want to maintain my relationships with others, but there is no doubt that illness limits my ability to do all these things, sometimes more than other times. Does what hermits live still apply to me if I am disabled or chronically ill? Can you please explain how what you live could apply to me even if I am not a hermit and don't want to be one?]]  (Redacted some)

Yes, I can sure try at least to start doing so in this post!!! Thanks for your question! When I look at my life, I know that it bears witness to two different sets of conditions: 1) those appropriate to a hermit, and 2) those appropriate to someone with chronic illness and disability. What is also true, however, is that in my life and that of other hermits with chronic illness, for instance, these two sets of conditions overlap. They are both ways to witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they are both examples of desert experiences, and even forms of desert existence. Both of these sets of conditions demand that I pose serious existential questions, questions of being and meaning, and that I am open to the most radical answer available to us, so let me start there.

Existential questions of Being and Meaning:

Questions of being revolve around the issue of being my true self. So, for instance (and just off the top of my head!) what does it mean to be truly human? Is it possible for me to be fully myself if illness (or hermit life) limits the gifts I can develop and use for others? Is it possible for me to learn to truly love others maturely if my relationships with others are curtailed by the limitations of disability (or hermit life)?  Questions of meaning revolve around the value and purposefulness of my life in Christ, whether as a Christian with a disability or as someone living in eremitical solitude. And largely, these questions can be answered positively and become a witness for others if the questions of being can be answered positively. For example, if I answer the question about the possibility of being truly myself positively based on my experience of disability or of eremitical life, then I can proceed to explain what the value or purpose of my life is or has been and why that is important. This essentially works out as Christian witness for the sake of others.

Whether one is a hermit or has no inclination to be one, disability and chronic illness impose a variety of existential questions of meaning. What kind of theology makes sense of both my suffering and the limitations associated with chronic illness? Does God will suffering? Could I love such a God? Why has this happened to me? Am I able to develop and use some of my God-given gifts? What if I am not? Am I able to value myself as a person with unique limitations or is that difficult for me? What makes it possible for me to affirm my beauty as a human being not only in spite of my limitations but perhaps because of them and what God is helping me to do with them? What do I do when other people seem to be repulsed by me? What do I do if I am repulsed by myself? Does my life really have value, can I really make a meaningful contribution, or am I a waste of skin? What if I am so self-centered and/or angry because of my situation that I can't really love myself or anyone else? What am I supposed to do? Am I just unloving and unlovable? Can I get past my limitations here? In whatever way we ask these kinds of questions about how we are to be ourselves, they are questions about the meaning of our lives and are some of the deepest existential questions we pose and/or embody.

A number of these questions are also raised by the solitary eremitical life, especially those dealing with our capacity and willingness to love ourselves and others, and those centered around letting go of specific God-given gifts in order to embrace a solitary eremitical life. Does the hermit really live a full and meaningful life when letting go of such gifts? Do they really make a meaningful contribution to the Church and world? Of course, all of the theological questions raised and many more besides will show up in some form. We are used to esteeming certain forms of ministry and valuing lives that make a contribution in strict Gospel language (preaching the Gospel, feeding the poor, clothing the naked, healing the sick, etc.), but hermits are a different matter because of their hiddenness, and because the value of their lives raises significant questions, both for them and for those who know and regard them.

Finding the Answer to Our Existential Questions:

Hermits don't only live the deep existential questions of being and meaning. Over time, both through their studies (Scripture, Spirituality, and Theology) and through their experience (especially of inner work like that of spiritual direction and through their long history of assiduous prayer), they come more and more to know the answers to these questions. Your own chronic illness invites you to be aware of and pose such significant questions. It invites you to find the answers!!! You need not withdraw completely to do this. Good friends can help. So can priests, pastors, spiritual directors, some physicians and therapists, and the time you take exploring such questions in writing, work, art, music, prayer, etc. This kind of exploration is not selfish. It can serve others who also suffer from chronic illness and disability, or are marginalized in other ways. Of course, you could distract yourself from such things and never really grapple with them, but that would be a lot like someone calling themselves a hermit while watching TV many hours a day, or otherwise being taken up with screens, etc. It would be like a hermit who does not commit themselves to the long and ever-deepening journey to union with God, which is all about growth in a relationship that completes us, and witnesses to the truth of the Gospel we find in Romans 8, for instance.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j] 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What is critically important to both the hermit and to the person with chronic illness or disability is the fact that the "answer" to our existential questions is discovered as we learn who we really are, and that only happens in relationship with those who see us for who we truly are. This does not mean seeing our flaws and limitations, though they will also do that, but rather seeing us as God sees us. In monastic life, the wisdom of truly seeing is doing this with the heart, seeing a person with love. This is what it means to see someone (including ourselves) as God sees us. It is what the Magnificat refers to when it says that God regards Mary. He truly knows her and esteems her, despite her limitations. In journeying to union with God, one will journey to the depths of one's own darkness, one's own distortions, defences, selfishness, fear, and despair. The hermit is committed, however, to finding the Light that darkness could not overcome.  She trusts in the existence of such a Light (this is what we call faith), and she learns, in time, to trust that this Light is deeper and more real than the darkness and distortions that obscure it. When she meets this Light, she meets not only her truest self, but the God Jesus revealed to us on the Cross, the God from whose love nothing at all can separate us. Here is the source of real hope and the ability to live with chronic illness/disability as a source of grace. Here is the witness that both hermits and those with chronic illness or disability are entrusted to make.

Obviously, this God is not only available to hermits. Such availability does, however, mean committing oneself to developing a strong and regular prayer life in which one grows in knowing God and oneself as God knows one. It means committing oneself to the kind of inner work that allows all of those existential questions to be fully posed so that God might reveal himself as the answer God is, and to do so as fully as possible. It means discerning how best to live one's life while accepting unavoidable and painful limitations. Hermits can be something of an exemplar here, especially if they have their own disabilities, but even if they don't, they still choose to allow God alone to be and do in their lives what only God can ultimately be and do. They want, and, of course, they are also called to witness to the deepest truth of the Gospel with their very lives! 

For every person created, God is the One who completes us and is the very source of both Being and Meaning. In other words, God is the one in whom the unique existential question that we ourselves are is "answered" and resolved. God is the source of meaningful life, peace, hope, love, truth, beauty, wholeness, and holiness. The basic or foundational vocational task of every human being is to let God be precisely THIS God, the God without whom we cannot be truly human or truly whole. When we are "successful" in such a vocation, the God our lives reveal and witness to in Christ, is the God Jesus revealed fully, the One we call Emmanuel (i.e., the one who is known most truly as God With Us)!! To witness to the God who is really Emmanuel in everything we live, including the darknesses, suffering, and even despair, lies at the heart of every vocation, eremitical and otherwise.

Please treat this as a starting point for your questions. If you have other, more practical questions, please get back to me. There are probably other pieces from the last year or two that are clearer, so have a look at those as well.

The Heart of the Church Revealed: Pope Leo Blesses Disabled Child and is Similarly Blessed

After writing last night's post referring to potential vocations to Chronic Illness and Disability, I came across this picture of Pope Leo XIV with the headline "Pope Blesses Disabled Child". What I want to make clear is that this picture is a startlingly vivid picture of the heart of the Church. If you don't see a contemporary version of the Pietà in this picture, please look again. Spend some time in lectio with it! If you want to understand the mystery of the hiddenness of the solitary eremitical vocation and its significance, consider the life of this precious child and her relationship with God. What do you think most people see in or do with this question? What do you think Pope Leo saw as he held her? 

Chronic Illness and Disability: Allowing Jesus to come to Full Stature in our Lives

[[Dear Sister, thank you for writing about diocesan hermits with chronic illnesses and disabilities. I think I am beginning to understand why hermits desired legal standing or legitimacy. When you think of being about the salvation of the world or being ecclesial, are you thinking about modeling a life where the chronically ill and disabled become central to the life of the church? I am disabled and have never thought about becoming a hermit, but for sure I know what it means to live a life cut off from the rhythm of most people's lives. Are you saying that my life can be one in which Jesus comes to full stature?? That would really be saving for me!! I have mainly thought that since I couldn't work or produce much, my life was of little or no value, and it didn't matter that I am well-educated. 

I hear you saying that by making the hermit canonical and consecrating them, the church takes lives that seem to be of little value and affirms them at the very heart of the church!!! WOW!! If that is what you are saying, then that is amazing!!! It has nothing to do with arrogance or pride, does it? . . . until I read your last post, what you were actually saying hadn't clicked with me. Too, I hadn't realized that many c 603 hermits live with disability. Am I getting what you are saying?]]

Wow!!!  Many thanks for your comments!! I am so glad you read the recent post and decided to write!!! Yes, you have really heard what I was saying. Absolutely, I believe you can become a person in whose life Christ comes to full stature. I don't know the details of your disability; however, I do believe that you can, with the grace of God, become authentically human (the universal task every person faces) and someone whose life glorifies (reveals) God as Emmanuel. While, of course, you don't need to be a hermit to do that, I believe the example of c. 603 hermits -- whether or not they are disabled --- can provide an inspiring example to those whom our world marginalizes. Hermits live apparently unproductive lives of deep vulnerability and profound existential questioning. This is the way to authentic holiness. No, it has nothing to do with pride or arrogance. Instead, it encourages genuine humility (loving honesty) and raises to God-given dignity those whose calling is to live the way of the Cross in relative hiddenness.

Long ago I wrote that while the church may do well in ministering to the chronically ill and disabled, it was not at all good at recognizing or nurturing ministry of the chronically ill and disabled. (I now think even my first conclusion is questionable.) I published a single article in Review for Religious on Chronic Illness and Disability as vocation, and potentially as eremitical vocations, but am only now returning to this theology in light of my own experience, and also as part of other writing I am doing. Thanks for the links to the post on Bishop Remi de Roo and diocesan hermits. I stopped watching Joyful's videos once she stopped calling herself a Consecrated Catholic Hermit or a Religious (cf., Diocesan Hermits as Widely Accepted Pathway). . . .. I haven't yet listened to your links. I deleted them from your post until I can do that -- probably tonight and tomorrow. If there is something I should respond to in that video, I will do so after I have had time to digest the contents. Again, thank you for reading this blog and sharing some of your own situation. Sorry this response is so brief.

Proclaiming the Cross of Christ: On the Importance of the Desert and Desert Vocations

[[Hi Sister, I wondered why you stressed that your vocation was a desert vocation. What is so important about the desert? I know that hermits get their name from the Greek for desert -- I read that here, and other hermits talk about it too- but why is that so important? You don't actually live in a desert, and you aren't in some deserted place, so you are not saying a literal desert is necessary. You don't believe that God can only be met and followed in a desert vocation, do you? Do you think that God can be followed better in a desert vocation? And that brings me back around to my first questions. Why are the desert and the hermit vocation so important?]]

Thanks for asking these questions. Because you have already read some of what I have written on this topic, it helps me to see the somewhat different direction they are leading. I appreciate that. What is most important about a desert vocation is that it represents a place where several forms of essential encounter occur and, because the desert leaves one vulnerable in a way that doesn't allow for many distractions, these encounters cannot be easily avoided or left superficial. Thus, these forms of encounter are radical, foundational, and call for a relatively all-consuming commitment from the desert dweller. In the desert, one meets oneself, both one's true and one's false self. One also meets God, and in this encounter, is called to entrust one's entire self to Him in a process of self-emptying (kenosis) and transfiguration. Finally, one meets the existence of evil, the presence of sin and death, failure, distortion, temptation, and all that can lead us to choose or turn away from God and the fullness of life he offers. The desert is the place where the fundamental choices between life and death, freedom and bondage, and despair and hope are presented to us most radically. That means that it is also the context in which the choice for or against God and one's truest humanity can be similarly made.

One way to think about this whole process, and what is at stake in desert spirituality and desert vocations, is to see it as allowing Christ to come to full stature in our lives. Likewise, it refers to us coming to full stature in Christ. As one author puts it, the desert is a "Geography of Growth," ** and as is true in Christianity generally, the Cross is the ever-present measure and standard of desert existence. It marks an event of unprecedented abjection and alienation, and at the same time, it celebrates the divinization and consequent glorification of what had previously been known as godless. This means that in the desert, as was the case with the whole of Jesus' life, hermits are those committed to a life where God's power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9), where Divine justice is done in God's mercy, and where self-emptying leads to the fullness of meaningful existence. 

In Christ, hermits are committed to posing the deepest and most searching questions of their lives. They confront and live out questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness, isolation and communion; in this way, they become those who receive and embody the answer whom God is for every human being and the whole of creation. The desert (which, in NT theology, includes mountains and seas, as well as the grassy slopes associated with the feeding of the multitude, etc.) is the privileged context in which all of this occurs. 

So, no, I am not necessarily speaking of a literal desert as the home of the hermit. Many human experiences are desert experiences and make it possible to live a desert existence. For instance, chronic illness and disability represent such an experience. So would poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and similar states of loss and deprivation. Whenever and wherever we are thrown back upon our own fragile and limited resources and are confronted by existential questions of meaninglessness and the threat of nonbeing, we have entered the desert with its critical invitation to entrust ourselves entirely to God and to allow the paradoxical Gospel of Christ's Cross to transform us into a new and truly free creation. While God can be met and embraced anywhere, I do believe that the desert, with the radical vulnerability it entails, is uniquely suited to encountering and being embraced by God at the depth that coming to radical faith and our truest humanity require. This is why the desert plays such a central role in both the Old and New Testaments.

Every vocation witnesses especially to some dimension or multiple dimensions of the Gospel. We call these dimensions "charisms" not only because they are spiritual qualities, but because they are gifts of God to us, to his Church, and to the larger world. The hermit vocation brings the desert and Christ's Cross right into the center of the Church with a unique vividness and challenge. As a result of the hermit's witness, it becomes and will continue to become more impossible to marginalize desert experiences like chronic illness, disability, poverty, etc., within the Church. This in turn means that those whom the world devalues, marginalizes, and otherwise excludes find a central place in the Church's life and proclamation of the Gospel of hope. It is no accident that many canonical hermits once considered "unsuited" for apostolic religious life because of chronic illness and physical disability found their true vocations as solitary hermits under c. 603 and identify profoundly with the Cross of Christ and the radical hope it brings to our world. 

** "Geography of growth": this characterization of the desert in the Scriptures is from The Wilderness Years by D. Michael Gross.

James Finley and Merton's Palace of Nowhere

 [[Hi Sister, do you know James Findley (sic)? I wondered what you thought of his work. Thank you.]]

Thanks, I do know Finley's work, yes, though I don't know him personally. I first met his work by reading The  Awakening Call, and also Merton's Palace of Nowhere. I had already read most of Thomas Merton's work and was moving into contemplative prayer and life. I think Finley's work is quite good and rooted in lived experience. I appreciate his acquaintance with mainstream Catholic Theologians like Bernard Lonergan, and his deep acquaintance with spiritual direction (both as director and directee), the healing of complex and developmental trauma, and his esteem for ordinary reality and the way God interpenetrates that as the One who wills to be Emmanuel. One video that might introduce you to some of these characteristics is the following:

I would recommend you begin with Merton's Palace of Nowhere if you are interested in reading Finley from "the beginning". You will get a good introduction to prayer, the nature of contemplation, dimensions of John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, and a pretty good introduction to mysticism and the way it differs from pseudo-mysticism. In all of this and more Finley is comfortable with paradox so I think he provides a way for readers not yet there themselves, to get comfortable with paradox and its central place in Christianity.

The Parable of the Vineyard Workers and the Generous Vineyard Owner (Reprise)

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

Now, it is important to remember what the word parable means in appreciating what Jesus is actually doing with this story and seeing how it challenges us today. The word parable, as I have written before, comes from two Greek words, para meaning alongside of and balein, meaning to throw down. What Jesus does is to throw down first one set of values -- one well-understood or common-perspective --- and allow people to get comfortable with that. (It is one they understand best so often Jesus merely needs to suggest it while his hearers fill in the rest. For instance, he mentions a sower, or a vineyard and people fill in the details. Today he might well speak of a a CEO in an office, or a mother on a run to pick up kids from a swim meet or soccer practice.) Then, he throws down a second set of values or a second way of seeing reality which disorients and gets his hearers off-balance. Instead of "a full day's pay for a full day's work" (note the merely implicit quid pro quo), Jesus' vineyard owner offers "a full day's pay" whenever the person accepts the new job.

This second set of values or new perspective is that of the Kingdom of God. Those who listen have to make a decision. (The purpose of the parable is not only to present the choice, but to engage the reader/hearer and shake them up or disorient them a bit so that a choice for something new can (and hopefully will) be made.) Either Jesus' hearers will reaffirm the common values or perspective or they will choose the values and perspective of the Kingdom of God. The second perspective, that of the Kingdom is often counterintuitive, ostensibly foolish or offensive, and never a matter of "common sense". To choose it --- and therefore to choose Jesus and the God he reveals --- ordinarily puts one in a place which is countercultural and often apparently ridiculous.

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

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

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

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

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

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

C 603 Challenges: When Bishops are Replaced by New Bishops

[[Dear Sister, while you didn't address this directly, you intimated the existence of potential problems when the bishop who professed and consecrated a c 603 hermit is replaced by another bishop. I understand a diocesan hermit can't just move to a new diocese, so can't follow this bishop, but what happens if, as you say, the new bishop has neither the time, the inclination, nor the appropriate expertise to supervise a solitary hermit? You have stressed the ecclesial nature of the vocation and the synodal nature of the relationship between hermit and diocese, so it seems a real problem if the hermit is willing to live her vocation on these terms, but the diocese would rather forget their c 603 hermit(s) even exist(s). Am I imagining a real problem or a non-existent one?]]

Really important questions, and I am grateful you have asked them after all these years! I have not taken on this constellation of questions on this blog because, until recently, my main information on it was anecdotal. One of the most "dangerous" (or perhaps "tricky") times in the important ecclesial connections that are part of the diocesan hermit's vocation occurs when a bishop dies, moves to another diocese as Archbishop, or is otherwise replaced by another ordinary. Whatever the cause of the replacement, diocesan hermits are pretty much the last persons considered on the list of those needing the new bishop's attention. By itself, that need not be a problem, but when a new ordinary comes into office, it is typical (at least in dioceses with a single bishop) that all other significant points of contact for the hermit will also be changed. The bishop's secretary changes; vicars for religious usually do the same. There will be new Chancellors and Vicar Generals, and few or none of these will be likely to be familiar with an established c 603 hermit in the diocese. That is even more true if the hermit's consecration was more than a few years in the past.

My own diocese clearly thought about some of these difficulties in asking me to select someone to act as a delegate for myself and the diocese/diocesan bishop. During one change in episcopal office (there have been five bishops during these years), the outgoing bishop assigned the Vicar for Religious, who already knew me, to meet with me either routinely or in case of special need until a permanent replacement (new bishop) was assigned. In that way, the interim bishop did not have to worry about me in any way, and I had an additional point of consistent contact with the diocese itself besides my delegate, as did Sister Marietta, my delegate. But over the years, new bishops came in, bishops' secretaries shifted to other offices and departments or left the chancery altogether, one Vicar for Religious died, a co-Vicar eventually left for another diocese, and some offices went unfilled for a time -- or simply ceased to be extant due to lack of adequate personnel. Additional difficulties can occur when an incoming bishop has no real sense of what "supervision" of a c 603 hermit actually means, or when diocesan "gatekeepers" (secretaries, for instance) who don't know the hermit have no real sense of why that person should need to meet personally with the new bishop. Some dioceses fail to include diocesan hermits in their directories, which leads to greater difficulties in setting appointments with the local ordinary or other diocesan personnel. It also means the diocese cannot easily refer others to the diocese's c 603 hermit(s) if they are called for this.

I have heard any number of stories from hermits who have tried to work out their relationship with the diocese, and especially with the bishop. Sometimes, bishops refuse to meet one-on-one and will only meet with all the diocesan hermits as a group. Few dioceses have more than one hermit, but when they do, this arrangement is not necessarily helpful because each vocation is incredibly individual, and each hermit really needs to be known in the same way. Moreover, real trust between bishop and hermit is rooted in personal knowledge, takes time to solidify, and thus, at least some of their meetings need to be one-on-one. All of this represents another reason delegates are such an important option in assisting a diocese to carry out its appropriate oversight for such a significant and little-understood vocation. I have never met a bishop who feels c 603 calls for too much from him or is an onerous responsibility -- whether out of a false sense of self-importance, or for any other reason. Most of those I know currently -- usually through candidates and those seeking information -- understand and honor the significance of the vocation, and that number is growing all the time. 

I have met or heard about incoming bishops for whom c 603 is a surprise --- especially if they learn of it through meeting their own c 603 hermit for the first time. (This was my experience (and his!) when I first met Oakland's current bishop.) Recently, the stories I hear are much more positive than in the canon's earlier history, with bishops seeking to treat c 603 candidates and consecrated hermits in the pastoral way the canon calls for. After all, solitary hermits with an ecclesial vocation really need these connections to be vibrant ones, even though actual meetings between bishops and hermits will be infrequent (once or twice a year). Most of these dioceses use delegates (usually religious women and men, other bishops, or Vocation personnel and Vicars). On the other hand, there are still way too many dioceses that refuse to even consider c 603 vocations, or that don't understand the significance of the vocation sufficiently to give them the appropriate supervision they call for.

The c 603 hermit needs to grow in her ecclesial sensibilities and place in the diocese and universal church. The diocesan role was envisioned to be central, whether for this reason or others (e.g., subsidiarity in regard to the exercise of ecclesial authority). Most of us turn to others who strengthen, support, educate, and help direct our growth in this. These may include pastors, spiritual directors, local religious communities, friends in the consecrated state, other c 603 hermits, including those in other countries, and so forth. It is unfortunate when the hermit's chancery excludes itself from such an arrangement. No one is served well when this happens, but that is especially true not only for the solitary consecrated hermit, but for the vocation itself and the local Church it is meant to nourish and serve. Brief though this post is, it points to one of the most important constellations of problems facing c 603's continuing use in the Church. Hopefully, this will raise some more specific questions to continue what is a new discussion here.

P.S. I should have noted, in the situation you describe with a bishop moving to another diocese, if he is doing so as that diocese's new Archbishop, a hermit might well "follow" him with his permission. If he were merely moving to another diocese without becoming its new Archbishop, then the permission of the second diocese's Archbishop would also be required. Significant discernment would be necessary by both the hermit and her bishop/proposed new Archbishop.

New Camaldoli Hermitage Evacuation Update

Dear Oblates and Friends, Thank you very much for your prayers and concern for the community of New Camaldoli as the wildfires continue here in Big Sur. We are grateful for the many messages of concern and prayer we have received during these difficult days. As our area is presently under an Evacuation Warning because of the Plaskett Fire to the south of the Hermitage and the Timber Fire continues to burn to our north, we decided it was prudent to evacuate and close the Hermitage before the situation became more urgent. Members of the monastic community and staff are safe and being well cared for.

We have been deeply touched by the prayers and expressions of support we have received from so many people. Please continue to hold New Camaldoli in your prayers, but also let your prayers extend to our neighbors throughout Big Sur, especially those whose homes and livelihoods are threatened by fires. We pray also for the safety of the firefighters and emergency personnel working in difficult and dangerous conditions, and for their families who wait and worry for them. We are profoundly grateful for their courage, dedication, and service to our community as they work to protect the Hermitage and this beautiful and fragile part of the Big Sur coast.

For the time being, the Hermitage remains closed while the fire is active and the evacuation warning remains in place, and we will announce reopening plans when it is appropriate to do so.

With gratitude for your prayers, friendship, and support,
Fr. Ignatius 

Prior - New Camaldoli Hermitage

With New Camaldoli already empty, Fr. Ignatius, walks alone from the church to the waiting car after entrusting the Hermitage and all it holds to God. He would be the last monk to leave

On the Adequacy and Supposed Inadequacy of c 603

[[Hi Sister, I watched a video about you and c 603 that said the canon was ineffective in correcting problems with hermits, and so, what was the use of the canon anyway? The person creating the video noted that if a hermit wanted to choose their own spiritual director, they could do that, and the canon, or maybe the bishop, had nothing to say in the matter. I thought they were saying again, what was the use of a canon law that did nothing anyway? As I say, the whole video (Leaving an Ugly Situation) seemed to be about you and canon 603 and said that your Diocese didn't even know who you were when this person called them about you. It raised a ton of questions for me [about hermits and their dioceses], but I wanted to ask here about the inadequacy of Canon 603. Do you think that's the case? I don't think I have ever heard you opine that the canon is insufficient or inadequate; have you? How would you respond to someone putting up a post like the one mentioned?]]

Thanks for the questions. I will answer those that are relatively new and skip the others for now. Unfortunately, when the author complains that c 603 does not deal with hermits whom a diocese has complaints about or who live their vocation badly, and for that reason, "what's the use of such a canon?" it's a lot like saying "that hammer is ineffective at drilling holes, so what is the use of having such a tool?" Similarly, saying that "c 603 does not specify who can be the hermit's spiritual director, etc." is a lot like complaining that a dictionary doesn't dictate (or legislate) how a writer must compose an essay. The point in either case is that c 603 does what it is meant to do. It was not created to discipline hermits or to chart the exact steps a consecrated hermit must take in her decidedly individual relationship and journey with God. It was created to establish in universal law -- and thus "raise" an ancient and still relatively little-known and inadequately valued vocation to the consecrated state of life.

Other canons and canonical processes are dedicated to doing the kind of thing your author decries c 603 for not doing. If someone is truly not living their vocation, there are canonical mechanisms for dealing with such a situation. If one's spiritual director is not sufficiently fitted to work with this vocation or this candidate/hermit, the diocese can even request the candidate (or hermit) find someone more suitable and provide specific referrals if that would be helpful. Still, c 603 is a wonderful combination of the "sine qua non" and the personally defined and necessary. It provides for a vocation of hardly-to-be-imagined depth served both by significant constraints and an awesome flexibility and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit. This means that c 603 reflects both the universally valid and the truly individual and deeply personal in a way that tries to assure the hermit/candidate neither falls into the worldly distortion of individualism nor slides into the anti-Christian pettiness and blind rigidity of legalism. 

Likewise, therefore, the canon expects the creative collaboration between Church and candidate/hermit as both together explore the face and importance of solitary eremitical life in today's world. It seems to me that c 603 invites a startlingly vivid embodiment of the process of synodality where both hermit and Church together walk their own vocations in a mutual and mutually enhancing freedom most would regard not only as authentic, but as prophetic. One partner's freedom enhances the freedom of the other and both challenge and inspire the other to truly be who God calls them to be. The Church learns from the hermit's lived experience while the hermit's own vision of and response to her vocation is also shaped by the ecclesial sensibilities revealed and entrusted to her by that same Church. Written over a period of several years during this journey of discernment with the local Church, the Rule of Life required by c 603 brings together what cannot be relinquished by either the Church or the solitary hermit committed to living the vocation given by God to both the Church and the hermit as a means to authentic humanity and union with God. In this way, Canon 603 does a great deal of work and allows for other canons in the Church's code to play their own roles when and as genuinely necessary. 

No, I don't believe c 603 is deficient. I do think it is inadequately understood, and that is where some experienced c 603 hermits will be a great help to the Church in the future. Most especially, the Church requires the assistance of those who understand the canon not merely as a norm (remember canon means "norm") or piece of ecclesiastical legislation they have learned about from the outside in, but instead as an astounding topographical map of an existential journey they have made or are making and therefore understand from the inside out. Once the canon is appreciated in this way, criticisms of its putative inadequacy and negative evaluations of its reasons for existing fall away.

As a final note, I have responded before to the accusations made against me in the video you referred to. If you wish to read that, you will find the post here: Misconceptions and whole cloth untruths. Several posts written during the Summer of 2024 are linked to the topics discussed in that post.

Why Not Describe Living With Chronic Illness More Often?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I wondered why you don't describe living with chronic illness more often. You don't give much sense of what living with intractable seizures and chronic pain is like. Isn't that important to you? Don't you think it would be important to your readers? I know you said that speaking about these things goes a long way and isn't necessary, but I am curious about how you live life as a hermit in such circumstances. I think that's important. Don't you?]]

Thanks for your questions. I am especially glad you have read what else I have already said about this, especially the part about how a little bit of this kind of sharing goes a long way and is usually not especially necessary except to signal lived experience, the need for prayer, or to indicate one might be helpful to others experiencing something similar. I do believe that the question of how one lives a hermit life in the presence of serious chronic illness is an important one. My own decision is to witness to the life I live, and to give less space to the obstacles/potential blessings that hinder and result from that life. Think of it this way. If I were traveling along a desert trackway and tripped over a rock, I might well describe how serious the fall I took was and how it changed my plans for the present. I would not necessarily speak about the rock's dimensions, color, composition, age, or rarity, and I would certainly not describe this every time I mentioned having once taken a serious fall that affected my life as a hermit.

I think that readers of this blog, and those who might be familiar with my other writing or teaching, will come to understand that over the years I have come to understand chronic illness as a potential vocational path, an example of desert existence and liminality, a way of life that marginalizes, provides unique perspective, opens one to the Gospel in significant and vivid ways, and intensifies the yearning we each have to become fully, authentically, and meaningfully ourselves in spite of our limitations. In other words, my experience of chronic illness points me directly to God and my own yearning for fullness of life with God in Christ. These are the things I write about, the things that are truly important to me and (I sincerely think!!!) to God. They are the things that allow me to write about the very full, even unimaginably rich life that c 603 involves in its hiddenness. They are the things that allow some aspects of uncontrolled seizure, the difficulty of managing medications and other treatment modalities, and the struggle associated with intractable chronic pain to assume places of grace in my life. This, in turn, opens my life to the white martyrdom (witness) of the hermit and enriches the life of the Church and others as well.

You have said you are curious. That's great. If you have specific questions about living with chronic illness, dealing with medications, or working with a huge variety of clinicians, please ask them. If you have specific needs to ask the question and understand the answer, please state those needs and ask the question!! If the question or answer violates boundaries of privacy, propriety, comfort, etc., I will be sure to let you know while saying what I can. (Mostly, of course, I'll just say what I can.) Some questions I could answer privately, but not on this blog. If that's sufficient for you, then great, ask away!! Your questions could really be helpful in indicating what would be useful for readers beyond what I have already written, and I would be grateful to you for them.