Defining "Spiritual Life"

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered how you define "the spiritual life". Did you become a hermit so you could live a spiritual life when it was not possible otherwise? I know you are asked to embrace "stricter separation from the world" so I wondered if a spiritual life is not possible in the world. Though I have that question I also wonder if that isn't elitist because it seems to say ordinary people can't live spiritual lives. Does your definition of spiritual life accept that ordinary people in the world can live spiritual lives or is that ruled out? How do we recognize that? One final question, and I don't mean any insult, but do you think you are at a higher level of spiritual growth than those who are out and about in the world? Are you more spiritual than others you know?]]

Important questions, so thank you for asking. One of the real strengths of Vatican II was its recognition that every person is called to holiness, no matter their state of life. Of course, this is rooted in Scripture. Every person is called to (learn to) abide in God and allow God to abide in them. Every person is made for this. It is actually what it means to be truly human. This "abiding in God/Love-in-act and letting God/Love-in-act abide in us" is what holiness is all about. We sometimes speak of wholeness and being made true and the way this all happens is in the power of the Holy Spirit. All of this points to the fact that we are essentially spiritual beings. That is our truest nature. What we often live are wounded and even distorted versions of our truest selves insofar as we are estranged or alienated from the ground and source of life and love we know as God.

With all of that said, I am in a position to answer your first question and probably a couple of the others as well. I define spiritual life or spirituality in terms of "living and learning to be our truest selves in the power of the Holy Spirit." To be a truly spiritual person means to live an authentically human life in the power of the Spirit of God. It is nothing more nor less than that, though it is true that because of the richness and dynamism of this experience, we can describe it in terms of dialogue with God and a number of other ways as well. This also means that spirituality or "the spiritual life" does not refer to the life of the human spirit disembodied or otherwise divorced from the rest of the person, but rather to the life of the whole person under the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, I believe that any person in any state of life, especially if sufficiently loved and supported in this journey to union with God, can learn to allow God to love them "into" their own deepest truth and potential. After all, Jesus calls all of us, though we are in the world, to not be of the world!

This is also the profoundly Pauline meaning of the term "spiritual life" just as "life of the flesh" means the life of the whole person under the sway (or suasion) of the powers and principalities of this world. Folks reading Scripture often fail to understand what Paul means by terms like person of the flesh or person of the spirit, or even just references to flesh vs spirit. It is important to remember that almost all of the time, Paul is speaking of the whole person, and then, under what power or spirit they live their lives, either that of the flesh or the Holy Spirit.  When hermits speak of "the world," they are to be more strictly separated from, the meaning is similar. We are called to stricter separation from the world that is under the sway of the powers and principalities that are resistant to Christ, or resistant to truth, life, and wholeness. We are not called to be more strictly separated from the world that is God's good creation, except to the extent that our time learning to abide in God and allow God to abide in us is better spent in the hermitage.

I became a hermit because I felt called to spend my time in prayer, study, and the silence of solitude to truly become my truest and best self with and in God. This is also to say I became a hermit to glorify God, since in becoming our truest selves in the power of the Holy Spirit, we reveal God at the same time. Hermit life gave me the space and time to do this in spite of limitations and outright obstacles. Others are called to do this in more active and less hidden ways, and while I consider hermitage a great gift of God. I recognize others' paths to wholeness are an equally great gift. The key to understanding what constitutes a spiritual life is that it is always a life empowered by the Holy Spirit, God's own Spirit of love, truth, and wholeness. 

That means that, in light of the crucified and risen Christ, there is no place or reality from which God's Spirit is now cut off, no godless place or realm, no part of ourselves the Holy Spirit does not and cannot embrace and transfigure with her presence. In Jesus' crucifixion, death, and resurrection, the whole world is transformed with God's personal presence, and as a result, there is no longer any place we can call godless or even entirely profane. Learning to see reality in this new way, however, requires practice and conversion of mind and heart. This is what Jesus called coming "to see with new eyes," and it is the mark of the truly spiritual person, a person empowered by and able to recognize the Holy Spirit wherever and in whatever surprising way that Spirit "shows up" in our world.

How then, you ask, do we recognize this? (I think this is what you are asking!) Chapter 5 of Galatians has Paul reminding the Church in Galatia of the answer to this same question: the fruit of the Spirit (meaning the Holy Spirit) is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) What Paul is describing here is not only the way those empowered by the Spirit behave, but also the way those who have "crucified the flesh" exist. It is not the case that these persons are disembodied or have left their materiality behind somehow. They no longer live under the spirit of the world or of the flesh. They are no longer marked and marred by the fruit of this spirit, and are free of things like enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, and envy, etc. (Gal 5:19-21). They are, that is, free to love.  A "spiritual person" is marked by the fruit of the Holy Spirit. A "worldly (or fleshly) person" is marked by the fruits of the spirit of the flesh.

Regarding your last question and what I believe about myself, I don't tend to compare myself to others in those terms. Secondly, I have no way of knowing how spiritual anyone is (myself included) unless I can see the fruits of the spirit of their lives, and even then, I think, it is impossible (and likely worldly or fleshly) to compare ourselves with others in the way you describe (cf rivalries, envy, and jealousy above). The ability to "see with new eyes" is the ability to see someone's deepest potential, to see God in them, to see them, in fact, as God sees them. At the same time, when I listen to or watch the news, I do see people today who yet leave wreckage and ruination (enmity, strife, dissensions, idolatry, divisions, and rivalries) in their wake, and who appear to be motivated by the spirit of this world (fits of anger, rivalries, jealousy, envy, drunkenness, (sexual) immorality, etc.). 

More and more, I see these persons as "unanswered questions" (where God and the love of others in God are the answers they yearn for and need so desperately), or I see them as people who are tortured by homesickness (as in my last post), and who lash out and hurt others as a result of their own suffering. My prayer for these persons is the same as Paul's was when he spoke to the Galatians regarding those disrupting their faith community: [May they] live by and keep step with the Spirit. [May their flesh] with its passions and desires be crucified in Christ, and, as persons of the Spirit, "Let (the rest of us) not become conceited, provoking one another, or envying one another."

I do know people who are profoundly loving and are marked by the other fruits of the Spirit. Some of them are Christians. These persons are deeply committed to this world and seek to be those who mediate God's presence to it in Christ. Like any expression of the Church and its Eucharist, they allow themselves to be broken open and poured out for the life of this world just as Jesus did and as baptism calls us all to do. As they live their lives in this way, the world is gradually transfigured and transformed. They work with (and belong to) a great "cloud of witnesses" (the Communion of Saints) just as do all Christians living their faith on the way to God's still (relatively) incipient or nascent new creation, --- what the New Testament calls a "new heaven and new earth". 

While these persons do not focus on their own holiness, their commitment to this world as God's own and on God's will to be Emmanuel implies that, in and with God in Christ, they do work towards being themselves more and more fully, more and more authentically and exhaustively. Their lives are marked especially by their capacity for compassion and self-giving love in relationships and in ministry. These are people I recognize as profoundly Spiritual. Paradoxically, the greater this spirituality, the more profoundly they are also rooted in their own psychosomatic truth and in the physical world in which they live, thus affirming the sacramental realities we each and all are called to become in Christ.

Dying of Homesickness

 In Tuesday's post, I shared a poem called "Homesick" by Carol Ann Duffy. While I love the entire poem and the mood it captures (even as it says that such a thing is uncapturable and all of our modes of expression are inadequate to the experience, and reality behind the experience), one of the lines from that poem has stayed with me as particularly moving and intriguing. Duffy writes:

Why is our love imperfect,

music only echo itself,

the light wrong?

We scratch in the dust with sticks,

dying of homesickness

for when, where, what.

It is the second stanza here that most caught my attention and stayed with me because it reminded me of the story in John 8, where Jesus, dealing with the all-too-human tendency to judge others and to execute those we judge, pauses to write with a finger in the dust before looking up again to find the woman (but not the man!) caught in adultery, now standing alone, her accusers having left, their stones uncast and dropped behind them. And I wondered about Jesus' "homesickness", his yearning to be reunited with the One he calls Abba, and our own as well, and the idea of Jesus both living and dying to bring us all home to God, or perhaps more accurately, bringing God to us so we might finally rest in Him for whom we are made and yearn.

Throughout the poem, every reference to human expression, lovemaking, homemaking, music-making, writing,  is of something that is profound, deeply creative, and simultaneously, profoundly inadequate, a mere echo of something we know deeply and cannot really articulate clearly. But as I reflected on the line I take as a line about Jesus, I recognized that this deep Mystery is one he knows well, and articulates exhaustively in every moment and mood of his life. His pausing to write in the dust reflects his patience and mercy as he gives the judgmental in the story, time to consider his words, "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone", and walk away from their chosen course. Jesus' tracing in the dust gives the woman a chance to imagine a life beyond her terror, and to hear the God of Jesus the Christ revealed in the words, "then neither do I condemn you!" and the gift of a future at rest in the peace only this God can give, "Go and sin no more".

Dying of homesickness is a phenomenon we know very well, especially in today's culture and in the United States' political situation. It's a good way of describing the situation of sin. We yearn for something or someone, we do not know what or who, and we try to fill or assuage that yearning with something other than that for which we truly yearn, sometimes something unhealthy, even like power over others, where we exploit the yearning of others and deprive them in the name of our own hungers. We build lives and careers around this yearning as we search for a fulfilling love and a transcendent meaning we sense we are made for, and in our insecurity and resulting voraciousness, we create worlds where others are deprived while we are momentarily satiated. At the same time, this "homesickness" is also not merely the situation of sin, but the source and impetus of our greatest potential and creativity as well. We are rooted in some great Mystery we cannot articulate, and we reflect it in both our greatest and least acts of creativity. Because we know both "home" and "homesickness," we create art and music and life and order and religion. We create organizations dedicated to charity, science, art, and authentic humanity. In other words, we live our homesickness, both in great creativity and in great cruelty and destruction.

As I reflected on it during the last few days, I saw that homesickness is a terrifying form of suffering and at the heart of the Christian Faith. It is what caused Augustine to famously acknowledge, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee!" And of course, dying of and for homesickness is something Jesus does. It is how we know him best. He did it every day of a life lived for others and their deep homesickness in Galilee, and he knew it himself as he yearned to come home to the One he called Abba. He did it as he poured himself out for the poor and sick, the bereft and bereaved, or as he taught his disciples and the multitudes, or as he emptied his heart to God in prayer. He did it on the cross as he took on the agonizing homesickness of sin we laid across his shoulders. And he does it today as well as do his ministers and disciples (of every faith) as they creatively pour themselves out for others in the streets of Minneapolis, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, or in any place the poor, the stranger, the hungry, et al are persecuted, deprived of any home at all, and as they seek to find (or others seek to provide) rest, nourishment, meaning, and love in human community. 

We are all called to live and die of and for homesickness because we are all called to live and die for the new creation, the new heaven and earth God has begun creating in Christ. It is that "Kindom" that will ease our universal "pining" for the "somewhen" that Carol Ann Duffy captures so well in her poem. 

Until then, until God is All in All and the new heaven and new earth are brought fully to be, writers will continue "scratching in the dust," --- though more often they use wordprocessors today --- homemakers will do their best to make a true home for those they love, philosophers and theologians will explore a different kind of life and light, and beauty of a different order. In contrast, composers of all sorts continue to write the magnificent music that is still merely an echo of a more profound music/Mystery we each know deep inside us. 

In this first week of Lent, because of Janet Morley's book and a wonderful poem of Carol Ann Duffy, I will take away something new, something I had not really named so clearly before. Specifically, that Jesus, in living and dying to reconcile the whole of creation to God, "dies of homesickness," both ours and his own. Lent thus becomes more clearly a season that calls me to get in touch with my own homesickness and prepares me (and others!) for the homecoming Jesus set in motion with his life, death, and resurrection, as well as with God's sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

A Contemplative Moment: Homesickness

As a way of continuing the theme of "living the questions we are," and entering more fully into this first week of Lent, I wanted to share a poem from the book I recommended in my last post. After all, in Lent we learn to pose the question we are more and more profoundly as we seek more consciously, and prepare ourselves to truly hearken (hear and respond) to the "answer" God is. That answer comes to us in fullness and is exhaustively revealed with Jesus' death and resurrection. For now, though, we continue to fast, pray, and find ways to give alms as we explore more and more deeply the "question" we are, and the really deep needs and seeking that drive us in this life. I hope this poem helps with that exploration.

Homesick

by

Carol Ann Duffy

When we love, when we tell ourselves we do,

we are pining for first love, somewhen,

before we thought of wanting it. When we rearrange

the rooms we end up living in, we are looking

for first light, the arrangement of light,

that time, before we knew to call it light.

Or talk of music, when we say we cannot talk of it, but play again

C major, A flat minor, we are straining 

for first sound, what we heard once,

then, in lost chords, wordless languages.

What country do we come from? This one?

The one where the sun burns

when we have night? The one

the moon chills; elsewhere, possible?

Why is our love imperfect,

music only echo itself,

the light wrong?

We scratch in the dust with sticks,

dying of homesickness

for when, where, what.

from the heart's time 

by Janet Morley

                                                                              

Lenten Resources

[[Hi Sister Laurel, Good Lent to you! I'm getting a kind of late start on asking you about resources for Lent, but I did want to do that.  What are you reading for Lent? Do you have any suggestions for readers here? If there's something I could bring to my parish, I would love to do that. There are a few of us who are going to meet as a group, so we need something to use as a focus. Any ideas? Thanks!]]

You are not getting started too late, though; if you are going to order books, you will miss a few more days. I have three books to recommend. The first two are daily readings (only the second is Scriptural) with accompanying reflection and discussion questions. The third is a new book by NT Wright that is a sequel of sorts to his wonderful Surprised by Hope. So, here they are: 

1) Morley, Janet, The Heart's Time, a Poem a Day for Lent and Easter. Morley has another similar volume for Advent through Epiphany Haphazard by Starlight, which I used last Advent. It is wonderful -- rich, insightful, with well-chosen poems! You don't need to read the entry for every day, and can stay with any poem that really speaks to you for as long as it nourishes. This book for Lent and the first week of Easter seems the same to me.

Morley begins with a poem by a known poet, follows that with an analysis of the poem, and finishes each offering with a reflection question for the day. (I notice she uses two of e.e. cummings' poems, including "i am a little church", and "i thank you god", both personal favorites of mine.) I've used this book for the last several days, and it really is one of those books that screams FEAST!! --- even in a season of fasting. It could certainly work for some parish groups, as well as for priests and religious looking for personal Lenten resources for retreat

2) Wright, N.T., From Wilderness to Glory, Lent and Easter for Everyone. Wright takes a Scripture lection for each day (Monday through Saturday), and supplies a commentary on it. This is followed by several questions for reflection or discussion. One problem here is that Wright does not have the Sunday readings in this volume. (I'm sure you can find a similar volume by Wright for Lent/Easter, and this year, (Year A) which will be similarly formatted and focus on the Sunday readings.) I would recommend this for parishes, for small groups during Lent, for Bible study groups, etc.

3) Wright, N.T.,  God's Homecoming, the Forgotten Promise of Future Renewal, This is a new book (2025) about the New Testament story of God coming to recreate heaven and earth and dwell with us here. It stands contrary to the idea that the NT is all about how it is we are saved and go to heaven. It also deals with the idea of an immortal soul in what will be a very surprising way to most folks. As Wright begins, [[Most people imagine that the point of Christianity is "to go to heaven when you die." . . . They are all wrong. The point of Christianity is not that we should go to heaven. The point of Christianity is that Heaven [God's own life and dimension]  should come to us." and again, "When (the early Christians) spoke of salvation, they were not talking about people being saved from the present world. They were talking about the creator God's plan of salvation for the present world -- with themselves, as rescued and repurposed human beings, playing an important role in that project." (GH, pp 3-4) 

I recommend this especially for study groups already familiar with Surprised by Hope, or for anyone wanting a fresh and more Biblically accurate approach to the Cross of Christ and what was achieved there, as well as what the mission of every Christian is now. It is probably not workable with groups with little background in Scripture, or who want something more clearly "Lenten". On the other hand, it would make a great personal read for Lent.  (Just FYI, I led a Bible group last Summer and we read through  Surprised by Hope. We read and discussed it for more than three months and folks found it both rewarding and challenging. (We may read this delayed sequel as a group, but not for Lent. On the other hand, I am reading it for Lent and I do recommend it!) 

Finally, since you asked, I've also just begun a new book by a Benedictine priest, Fr Francis Bethel, OSB, From Silence to Silence, A Benedictine Pilgrimage to God's Sanctuary. It looks intriguing to me because of something I am already working on regarding the silence of solitude and c 603, but I haven't read it and can't yet recommend it. I would suggest you check it out on Amazon and see if it is of interest to you.

Have a terrific, fruitful, and surprising Lent!! (I find God always surprises me during Lent!!)

What Does it Mean to Say We are Called to Be and Become God's own Prayer?

[[Hi Sister Laurel, could you please say more about what you mean when you write about us becoming God's own prayer in the world? I think it must have a whole lot to do with how we understand prayer, but I am not sure I really get how we can be God's prayer. Our own, yes, but God's?]]

Yes, absolutely! Prayer, from our human perspective, is about allowing God to be God for and within us. Prayer is God's own work within us, in our hearts, in our whole selves. Nothing is excluded from prayer because nothing is excluded from God or the Love-in-Act that God is. Whenever we allow (because we are empowered to allow) the Spirit to open us to the presence of God in all of the ways God comes to us, we are praying. Whenever we pour our hearts out to God, we pray. When we work mindfully, open to what is true, good, real, beautiful, and meaningful, we pray. When we struggle deeply and honestly with the pain and suffering of this life, we are praying. Prayer is, in fact, what God does within and through us in our lives and world and this includes empowering us to pose the question we are as profoundly as possible, and similarly receive the answer God is.

Over the past months, especially, I have written several times about posing the question we are and how that presupposes the answer God is. What I have said is that we question not only because are aware of some lack and have need of an answer, but also because we already know enough of that answer to seek it. And what is also true is that God both is and desires to BE that answer! God desires to complete and transfigure us as an answer completes and transfigures the question it presupposes. In pouring out our hearts, we anticipate the answer God is. In creating us to be complete in himself alone, God anticipates both the question we are without him, and the answer we are with him. In pouring out our hearts in all things, we learn to pray. In allowing God to be the answer on his own terms, we learn to pray even more deeply. And in creating us to be his very own in all things, God pours out his own heart. Every act of creation, then, is part of God's own prayer in our world. And so, then, is every act of healing or recreation, every act of empowerment or completion God does in our own lives.

Most profoundly, we are made for God, made for Love-in-Act, made to be completed and entirely transfigured by God in, through, and with God as Emmanuel. As we allow God to complete us more and more profoundly, we see fulfilled not only the deepest longing of our own hearts, but the deepest longing of God's heart as well. To be Emmanuel and to make of us those who are also Emmanuel is God's heart's desire. In this fulfillment, we become the very embodiment of God's own prayer, the person he longed for us to become with and in him. Moreover, in this mutually-conditioned life, this ongoing heart-level dialogue with the very ground and source of our existence, we will also transfigure our world. In Christ, we become God's own prayer FOR our world as part of the "new heaven and new earth" God is creating now in and through the Christ Event. All of this is what I mean when I speak of being and becoming God's own prayer.

Feast of Saint Peter Damian (Reprise)

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter, which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person [Ecclesiola] and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Or again, [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity, Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things that are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter, Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. 

The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell has functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

They Came to listen and be healed. . . Nevertheless Jesus Would Withdraw to Pray (Reprised from 2019)

 It happened that there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was;

and when he saw Jesus,
he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said,
"Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean."
Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said,
"I do will it.  Be made clean."
And the leprosy left him immediately.
Then he ordered him not to tell anyone, but
"Go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing
what Moses prescribed; that will be proof for them."
The report about him spread all the more,
and great crowds assembled to listen to him
and to be cured of their ailments,
but he would withdraw to deserted places to pray.

 I have written in the past (and recently) that, had Jesus healed every person that came to him in need, it would still not have been enough; Jesus' mission was the reconciliation of all of creation, the destruction of sin and death themselves and not merely the healing of this illness or that form of "demonic possession", this dimension of social dysfunction, or that aspect of personal distortion or alienation. Jesus' realization that his mission has various differing priorities may have grown as he matured and grew, "in stature and grace", but gospel writers clearly recognized and do convey to us that he was more than a healer or exorcist.  They do this by comparing him with other healers and exorcists or by identifying him as King and Messiah; they do it by noting his refusal to heal or exorcise at times, and of course they do it by focusing on the import of Jesus' death and resurrection --- where no one was healed and nothing exorcised, but creation as a whole was reconciled to God and sin and death were transformed forever on the way to their eventual total destruction.

But the Gospel lection two Fridays ago ends with an even more surprising, even shocking, set of priorities. After healing a leper and having reports of this and other healing activity spreading far and wide, and after crowds of people actually assemble to hear him teach and  hea,l Luke says, BUT he would withdraw to deserted places to pray. The coordinating conjunction "but" makes it very clear that, despite the clear need for his capacity to teach and heal, Jesus recognized and embraced a greater priority; crowds of people had assembled so he could minister to them, nevertheless, he would withdraw (the meaning of the Greek here is that he would regularly withdraw even in these circumstances) to deserted places to pray. Granted, as a hermit, this clear statement of priorities is something I am sensitive to and appreciate; it is a way the gospels indirectly justify my own vocation to mainly eschew active ministry and embrace a contemplative life of prayer in the silence of solitude. At the same time, it is a salutary reminder to everyone in active ministry that withdrawal (anachoresis) to the desert is a priority that must be embraced in significant ways even when crowds clamor for our teaching and (mediated) healing.

I think sometimes we treat Jesus' clear pattern of regular withdrawal to pray as some sort of icing on the cake of his mission --- something which adds sweetness or depth but is not strictly necessary because, after all, "he is both human and divine". But with Christmas, we recognize that his mission is to be and truly allow God to be Emmanuel, God with us; this means that Jesus' prayer is the very essence of his embracing this identity because prayer is the very act of allowing God to be present to and active within us. Incarnating the Word of God demands and implies the lifetime dialogue of a human being with God. Incarnation itself is the result of this dialogue; it is the acceptance of a covenant relationship, the actual embracing of an identity as covenant reality. It is to be a person of prayer, and for Jesus, it is to be THE person of prayer or even THE embodiment of God's own prayer (God's Word, plan, will, desire, the very content of God's heart) in our world.

The Incarnation of the Word of God is real at the moment of Jesus' conception but God's desire to be Emmanuel is not fully accomplished at the moment of Jesus' conception and nativity; it requires Jesus' entire life for its full revelation (remember revelation is not just making known or manifest; it also means making real in space and time}. Christmas marks the nativity of the Incarnation, but Jesus' "growth in grace and stature" clearly points to an understanding of Jesus' fuller and fuller embodiment and revelation of the Word of God in every moment and mood of life. This covenantal identity implies his continuing dialogue with the One he calls Abba; again, it implies being a person of prayer and more, the incarnation of God's own prayer in our world. Whether we use the language of dialogue or covenant, prayer and the embodiment of prayer are the priority of Jesus' life, identity, and mission. I believe our own prayer is meant to serve in the same way.

It is not unusual to hear from those in active ministry for whom prayer is important but quite often seen as a way of "recharging one's batteries", or in some other way serving as a break from the activity of their ministry. Perhaps it is understood as something that allows one to recover energy for further active ministry. The problem I suspect with these views is that they do not see that Jesus' prayer witnesses to the fact that prayer is essential for one's identity as authentically human, as a covenantal reality who can only minister to others when and to the extent they are authentically human and live from, for, and with God. Maybe for some the idea of prayer (and retreat) as a way of recharging one's batteries is a colloquial way of describing this truth, but it seems to me when one really understands the importance of prayer for one's very identity and only then, for one's capacity to minister God's own Good News to others, "recharging one's batteries" simply fails to capture the truth of the situation. But prayer was essential to who Jesus was; it is meant to be at the heart of who we are as well.

Recently, as I was working through something in spiritual direction, my director asked me, somewhat rhetorically, "Why do you pray?" And looking around briefly to the space in which we were meeting (my hermitage prayer space) she continued, "It is the heart of your life; why do you pray?"  My answer was that I pray so that God might be God in me and, through me, in and to our world. Of course I also pray so that I might be made whole and holy, so that I might become the person God calls me to be --- a counterpart God created the cosmos in search of, someone who can be loved and love in response and therefore, in whatever way possible, reveal the God who is Love-in Act and the nature of the human being as covenant partner of that same God. But all of this is covered under the affirmation that I pray so that God might be God. In this way, my life of prayer is also my mission, and I think the same is true of Jesus. This, it seems, is what Luke is saying about Jesus and Jesus' prayer when he points to the striking priority this has in Jesus' life; according to our vocations, I think it is the priority that Luke is asking we each and all embrace with prayer and to whatever else we do in our own lives as well.

When We Pray for Healing: God as the Answer to Every Prayer

[[Hi Sister, I have always struggled with the feeling that God is not answering my prayers. I also have seizures, and God has not answered my prayer that they be stopped and healed. When you said "this gift of God's Self is the . . .answer to all prayer," what did you mean?]]

Thanks! I am grateful for your question! I sometimes hope folks will ask about certain things I say, and I often wait for it, or decide to say more later on anyway. Still, when the question I had been hoping for is asked, it is wonderful, so thank you! Also, thanks for sharing a bit about your situation.  My own seizures are medically and surgically intractable, so I think I know at least a little of what you mean about your prayer for healing. In any case, please know that I will hold you in prayer!

Now, about your question. I remember hearing someone explain in a homily, "God always answers our prayers; sometimes he says 'No'!" and at first, I thought that was a really clever answer. Until, that is, I had studied some theology and realized it raised more questions and created more difficulties than it answered or resolved. Over the years of reading theology, I saw several "mainline" approaches to the problem of suffering, and the struggle was always to 1) do justice to the nature and will of God,  2) do justice to the reality of our world and of sin, and 3) respond in a truly pastorally sensitive way. It seemed to me that if we were able to do justice to the nature and will of God, the rest would work itself out. I continue to believe that, and now, I would add that that often happens in unimaginable ways.

The Nature and Will of God in our Evolving World:

So what is the nature and will of God? I begin with the most foundational thing I think we can say, namely, God is Love-in-Act. God is the dynamic, eternal act of loving, and everything that comes to be comes to be because of this. God loves without ceasing and wants to create those who would be his counterpart. As far as the will of God goes, when we pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," with what are we concerned? What is the will of God in every situation and circumstance? It can only be one thing, and that is that the God who is Eternal and the source and ground of existence, seeks to give Godself to us and love us into wholeness, or, stated somewhat differently, the God whose deepest desire is to be Emmanuel and to transform us and our world with His presence, is allowed to be and do that. This is always and everywhere the will of God. It was the will of God revealed on Golgotha when Jesus, in the face of godless sin and death, which he wholly took on, also remained open (obedient) to the one he called Abba, redeeming the situation and transforming godless reality with his presence. 

Remember that in our lives, ultimately, the one thing missing to one degree or another is God. Every person is made for union with God, and every person is born into a world subject to estrangement and alienation from God. We are incomplete and threatened by death in all of its forms, large and small. Every illness, every sin, every source of serious anxiety, and every failure to love or to be loved,  every act of inappropriate self-assertion and misguided autonomy, every instance of idolatry in its infinite number of forms, all of these and more, stem from the fact of this estrangement or alienation. Life has, to some extent, lost touch with its source and ground, and that source and ground is God. In Christ, God is about the larger project of reconciling all things to Himself. This constitutes both our ultimate healing and the definitive resolution of the lesser forms of illness and suffering we each encounter. We are perfected or brought to wholeness in God.

If all of reality is estranged or alienated from God, it is important to realize that in the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and purpose, Jesus' healing ministry was "not enough". Even if Jesus had healed every person he came into contact with in his public ministry, it would never have been enough. After all, these illnesses, etc., were symptoms of a much deeper and more extensive situation. Thus, what God willed was to be with us, truly and personally present to, with, and for us in every moment and mood of our existence. God willed to reconcile all things to and in Himself. Our openness to letting him be God is the necessary way forward here. We had (and still have) to learn to be obedient (attentive and responsive) as Jesus was obedient, not because God willed Jesus' suffering nor ours (he did not and does not!), but because God willed Jesus' exhaustive integrity, as God's own counterpart here, in the face of our world's brokenness and hostility. 

Learning to be God's Covenantal Partners:

If we could learn to allow God to be Emmanuel (God With Us), if we too could become his counterparts, and never be alone, ultimately never be incomplete, never be without comfort or hope, the suffering that also and inevitably comes our way would lose a great deal of its sting; it could even be made meaningful as something that puts us in touch with our deepest yearnings and thus too, opens us to God's presence which is the source of our yearning in the first place. It is as though we ask for smaller gifts (healing, the easing of certain situations, etc) because we can't see any further than these things allow us to see, and God gives us the greater gift, the ultimately healing and comforting gift of Godself. So now, when I hear the statement, "God always answers our prayers," I complete it with "Yes, He gives us Himself," and I may note that with this presence, he transforms the entire world even in and sometimes through our woundedness!

Aware that in Christ God has become an eternally present, active, and faithful part of my life, I try to remember that God's purposes are larger than the problems I have and may seek healing for. I try to watch for signs of what God is actually doing with my life, despite and even through my illness and pain. I try to remember that my life is meaningful because of who I am and become with and in God, not what I might have been able to do if my desire for healing itself was met. Then, too, I try to discern what God and I are called to do together in these circumstances. A few of the questions I might raise include: Does his presence transform my suffering even though God does not heal me (and especially, not at this point in time)? Is my healing something that occurs on a deeper level? Am I more compassionate? More courageous? Am I less focused on my own limited vision of things? Have I become more vulnerable and less self-centered? Can I truly say, with St Paul, O God, "your grace is sufficient for me, your power is perfected in weakness"? In other words, have I accommodated myself to God's will, or have I failed in this? Do I watch for the unexpected ways my life can glorify God, or do I only see things in one key?

What is Possible When Healing Doesn't Happen:

In my own life, what became possible sans my own healing was a theology of chronic illness or disability as vocation, and as a potential eremitical vocation. I have been able to publish some (though not enough) on this. It has also, therefore, made eremitical life possible for me and led to an approach to eremitical life that broadens the concept of desert existence to include chronic illness and disability. This, in turn, opens the vocation to many who might have been turned away because they could not have met older notions of desert spirituality that required the hermit to live a physically arduous existence in a literal desert. It also contributed to my experiential sense that God did not will Jesus' crucifixion, but rather, God willed Jesus' radical openness and integrity as he continued a ministry that "spoke truth to the powers and principalities of this world" more than it concerned itself with directly or immediately healing every person or illness. 

The point here is that I can consider all of these and more because God has given Himself to me and to this world, not necessarily to heal this specific illness or that particular disability here and now, but instead to help me contribute to his re-creation of the whole world by witnessing to the truth of the Gospel, and reconciling this world to God in Christ. What I know is that God makes our lives abundantly alive and meaningful, even though this side of death, our union with God is imperfect, and we do not have the fullness of life we are called to yet. That God makes his dwelling place with us and acts with us to minister to his world, even in our brokenness and woundedness, is an affirmation of the way God values the whole of our lives. 

When we receive God in our lives, they become a covenantal project we undertake with Him; even illness and disability become potentially sacramental realities that affirm not only that we are made by and for God, but also that every dimension of our lives, including our brokenness and woundedness, is meaningful. With God, we will never be truly alone in anything we undertake, or in any suffering that comes our way. With God, our lives take on a completely new perspective that allows us to make a significant contribution in spite of, and sometimes, even because of illness and disability, not because God said no to our prayers for healing, but because he answered them in the affirmative way he answers every prayer, with the gift of Himself!! 

With this in mind, I would encourage you 1) to continue to pour your heart out to God as fully and honestly as you can, and 2) to practice discerning God's presence in all of the ways God comes to you, even when that does not involve the immediate healing of your seizure disorder. (In fact, if you focus mainly on healing, you may be less aware of the other ways God is at work in your life and miss possibilities for meaningful contributions to God's Church and world.) God will always answer your prayer, and he does that by giving Himself to you again and again, continually in fact. Accept him on his own terms, in his own good time (hard as that will sometimes be!), and try to trust that in this, as in everything, God works his will to bring life out of death, good out of evil, and meaning out of meaninglessness or absurdity. 

Again, know that I hold you in prayer. Thanks for doing the same for me!

On Fasting: Attending to Our Deepest Needs and Hungers

Today's readings had a strong strand about hunger, and the care we need to take in what we take in and who we allow to nourish us!!! ("Be cautious of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod" and again, "The disciples had forgotten to bring bread!" and Jesus called them on their concern by giving the example of what he had done with a handful of loaves as himself a source of real nourishment.) Tomorrow's readings for Ash Wednesday focus on fasting: proper fasting, improper fasting; fasting that pleases God, fasting that does not; fasting that causes fights and grumbling, fasting that is a genuine and fruitful sacrifice and leads to reconciliation with our deepest selves, our God, and with others. 

When I was a student, my major professor was quite emphatic that "Fasting is not intrinsic to Christianity," or "Fasting is not essential to Christianity," or "There is nothing about fasting that is essentially Christian." At the time, I didn't realize John intended to provoke reflection; my conclusion re fasting was instead something like, "Oh, well, in that case, toss the practice out!" But of course, the question and nature of fasting is much more nuanced than that, and while it is not essential to Christianity, it remains an important piece of spiritual growth. Let me be clear, though. Fasting does not make us holy; it makes us hungry.  As the readings from yesterday and today indicate, it is what we do with our hunger that can lead to holiness. 

Specifically, fasting can help put us in touch with our deepest hungers, our most profound needs. Turning to God with these and then, in gratitude, turning to our hungry world is what can make us holy. But we need to pay attention! We need to approach fasting as a tool that can make us a bit more vulnerable and open to knowing ourselves, a bit more open to turning to God with and in that vulnerability, and a bit more committed to listening to the rumblings and murmurings of hunger that make themselves known not merely in our stomachs, but in our hearts and minds. Only after we have attended to these signals within us can we become better able to hear the murmurings and pain of others, the deep cries of their hungers and yearnings. Only then will our compassion be awakened and grow to allow us to sacrifice for these others in the ways that Isaiah and Jesus call for.

Fasting thus has two purposes: 1) to open us to our own deepest needs and to the God who meets them --- whether in prayer or through the mediation of others, and 2) to sensitize us to the needs of others and empower a compassionate solidarity with them which may help us meet their needs on many levels. It falls along a three-point arc which defines Lenten praxis in Catholic parishes all over the world, viz., fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. We begin with fasting to awaken our minds, hearts, and bodies to the needs that define us in part; we proceed by bringing all of ourselves, but especially our deepest needs for fulfillment and healing to God so that God may work within us and touch us wherever and in whatever way God wills (and especially, we pray so God's own profound yearning to be God-for-and-with-us may also be met or accomplished). We may then act in gratitude and compassion toward those whose lives are similarly fraught with the need to hear the Word and to be touched and embraced by the Merciful God, who is Love-in-Act. 

Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving (or perhaps the more circular: prayer, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, prayer, fasting, prayer, almsgiving, prayer, fasting, etc.); that is the ever-deepening dynamic marking authentic Lenten praxis and growth in the truly compassionate life. When I say it this way, it has the rhythm of breathing for me and prioritizes God's activity in our lives. And when I repeat it this way: growth in love for God, growth in self-love, and love for our neighbor, it is the dynamic of the Great Commandment. We begin by paying attention to our deepest needs and hungers, and thus, too, to the God who is their source and ground. We begin with fasting.

All good wishes for a wonderful Lent!

More on Terminology, Individualism, and the Grace of an Ecclesial Vocation

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, . . .I am glad you wrote about terminology again at the same time you have been writing about individualism. Wouldn't someone's refusal to use the term Catholic Hermit in the way the Catholic Church uses it be an example of individualism? I think the same is true of the other terms you discussed as well as the idea that the bishop consecrates as a kind of "stand in" for God rather than God consecrating the hermit. I admit, I have never understood how someone could insist God consecrated them when the only thing they have to show for this is their insistence it is true! How important to you is it to live your hermit life "in the name of the Church"?]]

Really good point about terminology. Thanks!! I don't know how common this kind of thing actually is. It does not surprise me when someone who is Catholic and a hermit calls themselves a Catholic Hermit. It is an easy mistake to make, and the line between what one does "in the name of the Church" and what one does not is not always an easy one to draw. It is easier, of course, when the Church itself sets up norms for certain things, and one meets these norms (including accepting standing in law according to a particular canon or set of canons). Once the norms are set and the Church implements these canons, there is a way to determine what it means to be a hermit, 1) as the Church understands the vocation, and 2) as she calls people forth to live this in her name. Before such norms (canons) anyone who was an isolated pious person AND a faithful Catholic could say "I am a Catholic hermit", but, after Vatican II the Church made the decision to establish this vocation as a state of perfection with a central (though hidden) place in the Church's own call to glorify God; it established this vocation in law, and so, certain norms must now be met.

All of that changes the Church's language, and our own as well.  Because the Church specifically calls people forth to live this vocation in her name, it means that she sometimes does NOT call others. One knows whether one has been called by God via the Church to live a public (canonical) vocation or not. If someone were to mistakenly call themselves a Catholic Hermit, it would be potentially embarrassing, but easily corrected. They merely have to say, "Correction, I mispoke. I am a Catholic AND a hermit, but not a Catholic Hermit." I think the problems really occur when a person's usage is corrected and they refuse to make the adjustment, either in usage or personally, and in their own mind. Then we could be dealing not only with individualism, but, at least potentially, other things, including a lack of flexibility and humility, or even arrogance and self-righteousness. This is tragic because the eremitic life is a significant one, no matter what state of life the person is called to live it in. Each state of life allows the hermit to witness in somewhat different ways to both the Church and the world.

Yes, it is important to me to live my hermit life "in the name of the Church", and so, to live it well. At the same time, this importance has shifted over the years. It is awesome still, and what has deepened is my sense of the nature of the Church and my place in allowing it to be that. Because I studied and still read and do theology, I have had a good sense of the nature of the Church, that is, what constitutes sound ecclesiology, and what does not. It is a different (and maybe always awesome) matter to see God calling me to be a living stone in this edifice Jesus builds day by day and person by person. Recent shifts in my own understanding of eremitic life all have to do with the ecclesial nature of the vocation, and the inklings of all this were present when I approached my diocese @ 1985 or more strongly when I met with Bp Vigneron for the first time in 2005. To see some of the ways my understanding has clarified and deepened is so gratifying!

It is not necessarily easy to understand, especially initially, why God calls one to eremitical life rather than to other vocations, especially given the great need the world has for apostolic ministry. It is difficult (many times!) to understand why God might allow various traumata and associated chronic illnesses to be defining realities in our lives. And yet, whatever the circumstances of one's life, what remains true for each of us is that one is called to authentic humanity in dialogue and communion with God. Another way of describing this foundational vocation is that one is called to allow God to be God, and most especially, to allow God to be Emmanuel, God with us! It seems to me that this gift of God's Self is not only the answer to all prayer, but the call to let this gift be real in space and time is the very essence of the Church's own vocation in our world as well. In the Church's case,  it is not a call to be truly human, of course, but to be the place where God is allowed to fully reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the One who will truly be with us in every moment and mood of creation's history. (Here, by the way, is both the beauty and truth of a sacramental Church that reveals the whole of creation is shot through with the presence of God in the risen Christ and will one day be transformed completely when God is All in All.)

In my own life, the depths and darknesses that have colored so much of it have given me the opportunity to witness to the truth of this ecclesial vocation. With the assistance of and within the context created by the Church, I have been able to plumb those same depths along with all the questions and doubts they raised for me over the years, and find both God and my truest self together there. As I have said before, Frederick Buechner once remarked that "Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need". For me, the hermitage is the place where all this happens. It is the place God called me to so that I might have the time and space to truly explore not only the complex question(s) I have lived (and been!) for so many years, but also so that I might allow myself to hear the answer God is as Emmanuel. Even more profoundly (and very much a continuing source of awe!!),  it is the place I have been called to become myself, the place of intercession where the love and mercy of God meet the anguish and yearning of his creation and the Good News of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension proclaimed as lived experience. I think this is true of all c 603 hermits.

I believe that having been called to a specifically ecclesial vocation has challenged me to explore what that really means, and more, what it means to live it for God, for the Church, and really, for all of God's creation. This dimension of the vocation not only deals with individualism, but it replaces fear of (or concern about) individualism with a sense of mission and charism that mirrors the Church's own, even within the silence of solitude. Because I am a convert to Catholicism, I am even more blown away by what it means to be called to live as a hermit "in the name of the Church". I have told the story of the experience I had when I attended my first Mass with a high school friend. I recognized (or "heard") while kneeling and watching others receiving Communion, that "in this place every need (you) have, whether intellectual, emotional, aesthetic, spiritual, or psychological, (can) be met".  I began instruction that week.

About 18 years later, after I had spent some years in community, worked in clinical lab (hematology), developed an adult-onset seizure disorder (epilepsy), finished academic studies, had some experimental neurosurgery, worked as a hospital chaplain, and begun working with my current spiritual director (not necessarily all in that order), I read the newly published Canon 603, and had a similar experience. On the third or fourth reading, I reflected, "My entire life could make sense in terms of this way of life -- wholeness, brokenness, limitations, talents, giftedness, deficiencies, etc. -- everything could be meaningful." It took years to discover the experience at that first Mass was actually a promise God was making me, and many more to understand the paradoxical, counterintuitive, and truly perfect (though still painful) way God was shaping the answer He and I together within the ecclesial context established by the Christ Event and Canon 603, would become!

"Acting in the Name of": Another Shot at Common Definitions including Catholic Hermit

[[Dear Sister, what does it mean to say someone lives hermit life in the name of the Church? You use this phrase a lot. If I am a Catholic and want to live as a hermit, wouldn't I be a Catholic hermit? Doesn't baptism mean I can use the name Catholic? I am sorry to ask this because I know you have answered it before, but I am missing something and am not quite sure what that is. If it's not something having to do with prestige, why not? Isn't standing about prestige? I am not sure how you are using these terms either. Would I have standing as a hermit? I also heard someone say that while your bishop acted to profess you publicly, this doesn't mean that your hermit life is public so you should be more hidden. Is this so?]]

Thanks for your question. While I have answered or tried answering these and similar questions for awhile now, apparently there is something I have not been clear about so it is a good thing that you bring your questions again with an added request for a particular definition. First of all, to act in another's name means to be entrusted by them with some task or responsibility which you do with their authority and while representing them and their wishes and wisdom, their values, actions, spirit, etc. Ambassadors act in the name of a country or monarch, for instance, and they may set many of their own perspectives, values, etc aside in doing so. By the way, while a Catholic lives a Catholic life, and so, lives that life in the name of the Church, this does not mean that everything they do is specifically done in the name of the Church. For instance, if you are an athlete at the Olympics, this does not mean you compete "in the name of the Church". (The flag you would compete under is not the flag that flies over the Vatican!) Still, as a Catholic, to some extent, you would represent the Church's life with your own life, and so, with the integrity of your competition. C 603 hermits are specifically entrusted with the responsibility to live solitary eremitical life under c 603 "in the name of the Church". 

This means the Church has discerned the vocation with them and determined that they can serve God and the Church's consecrated life (etc!) publicly in this specific state of life. Such persons have been Catholics, and likely, they have been Catholics AND hermits for some time. But until the Church has extended (and the candidate has accepted) the canonical rights and obligations that are associated with their profession and Divine consecration, one has not yet become a Catholic Hermit in the consecrated state, one who lives this life in law and with the authority of and responsibility to the Church (or, that is, to God through the Church's mediation). At the same time, not everything I do is specifically done in the name of the Church (I don't write this blog in the Church's name, for instance), but everything I do or fail to do (and here I include this blog and other writing I do) is part of the way I represent this ecclesial vocation, and so part of doing it well, or doing it badly.

Catholic Layperson AND Hermit:

Baptism alone absolutely means you can (and should) use the name Catholic. You are a Catholic and live as a lay person (a member of the People of God, λαος του θεου), and you are called to do so in the name of God and of the Church. You have been called and commissioned to witness to the Catholic faith and the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ entrusted to this Church with your entire life, and you have accepted this call and commission publicly in your baptism. This also means you are bound by the same canons (universal or catholic norms) that bind any other lay person by virtue of their baptism. You can also live as a hermit, though you would be doing so privately, without the Church extending further canonical rights and obligations marking such a vocation; you remain a Catholic AND a hermit (or a Catholic lay hermit, or a Catholic "non-canonical" hermit) unless and until you change that with a "second consecration" under c 603, for instance.  Your "standing in law" is as a Catholic lay person, meaning you live your life in the lay state, and your standing as a hermit would then be part of this specific state of life. Hermit life itself, in that case, is not specifically undertaken in the name of the Church, nor would your commitment to hermit life have been specifically received by the Church. It would remain significant, and its significance would differ in some ways from that of a canonical hermit.

Non-canonical does not mean illegal!

A bit more about common Catholic usage (hoping this is helpful): non-canonical, despite the sound of the term, does not apply to a Catholic's whole life as though the person is non-canonical or without law, much less illegal, because the laity are all bound by certain canons. Rather, it means a non-canonical hermit lives eremitic life itself without the additional law that becomes binding in some commitments the Church receives and commissions. Also, I should note that the use of lay has two senses, the first is hierarchical. In the Roman Catholic Church, which is hierarchically "ordered", one who is not clergy is lay. Anyone not a priest (or in orders) is laity. This is the hierarchical sense. The vocational sense is a bit different, and it is what I mainly concern myself with in this blog. Here we add the consecrated state, which draws from either/both clergy and laity. There are clerical, consecrated, and lay states of life, and it is possible for one to be a priest in the consecrated state or a lay person in the consecrated state. Men Religious who are not priests/deacons and women Religious are also laity, though we say they are in the consecrated state of life because of the additional ecclesial commitments and canons that define this state of life for them.

Publicly can also be used in two senses:

Publicly is also used in two senses usually, but in terms of vocations, we are not talking about the common sense of "out among ordinary society". "Publicly" here is about being in the midst of and seen by the public. It can mean notorious. But in the Church, to say a vocation is a public one means that it is marked with and defined in terms of public rights and obligations. It is the antithesis of a private state that is not bound by specific public rights and obligations. Your own baptized state is a public one; it is not a private state marked by a private commitment. So are marriage, religious profession, ordination, and consecrated virginity, though they all are certainly characterized at the same time by appropriate degrees of privacy. An essentially hidden vocation like that of the c 603 hermit is also a public vocation; that term has nothing to do with notoriety or the amount of time spent out of the hermitage with others. Yes, the rest of the Church (and the larger world) has the right to expect the person to live her commitments. This is because these commitments (and thus, her vocation) are not private even though her vocation is essentially hidden! 

Most appropriately, public vocations are celebrated at Mass, where public commitments are made and received by the Church. Again, this is not about notoriety but about the assumption of public rights and obligations within the Church that allow the entire Church to have new expectations and a sense of God at work in their midst in this way. In your question about my bishop professing me in public, he did so, not because he is a public figure acting in public, but precisely because we were celebrating the "making" (the perpetual profession and Divine consecration) of a public vocation in the Church. While it is "right and just" that such acts of worship occur within Mass  (profession and consecration are acts of worship where God is glorified by receiving and consecrating the person making profession), the fact that c 603 vocations are little-known and less understood public vocations in the Church makes public (open) celebration within Mass additionally important.

As you can tell from the discussion of "standing in law" above (the real meaning of the term status) and the reference to the glorification of God just made, the term "status" is not about prestige, nor does this kind of standing necessarily indicate a lack of humility. I agree that sometimes people gain prestige from certain vocations and states of life. They are honored for these. In the very best instances, prestige is awarded because the vocations are lived well, serve, and are inspirational for the Church as a whole. Most of the religious men and women I know hate being put on some kind of pedestal, and especially treated like they have some kind of direct line to God. And, though I know some genuinely holy people, they definitely understand that all of us in the Church are called to be saints; the call to holiness is the ordinary and universal call assumed by all persons in their baptism! Meanwhile, the hiddenness of my life has much more to do with the journey I am making in and to union with God that no one can see. If you want (let me know), I will write about that in a separate post.

I sincerely hope this is helpful!