Followup to "Eremitical Life sans Monastic Formation?"

[[Thank you very much for your response. . . .You are right when you say that it would be dishonest to join a community in order to someday leave it to be a diocesan hermit; that being said there are now communities that are open to the hermit vocation (i.e. Trappists and some Benedictine communities). Do you feel that there is a difference between the eremitical life lived by say a Trappist on the grounds of his/her community and that of a diocesan hermit? If so, what do you think would be the difference? I'm thinking there would be a huge convergance between the two ways of life, but perhaps the need to support oneself for the diocesan hermit would put a different spin on the life. I would also imagine that a hermit who belongs to a religious order would also be deeply influenced by the charism of their community more than a diocesan hermit who would unattached to a particular contemplative charism.]]

Great questions! While I believe there are great similarities between any authentic form of eremitical life I do think there are some significant differences between the diocesan or c 603 vocation and that of someone living as a hermit though part of a congregation like the Carmelites or Carthusians or Cistercians.

I have written about this a fair bit here so let me just outline some of the differences at this point. The fact that a c 603 hermit is self-supporting and part of a parish definitely changes the nature of the vocation and allows it to be a gift to people who find themselves isolated and questioning the meaning of their lives. It allows eremitical life to speak to such persons in ways someone living within a monastic base with its inherent security, regularity, freedom from many everyday chores and concerns, and its well-established regard will never do. C 603 hermits living solitude in urban and suburban contexts witness to the possibility of the transfiguration of isolation into true and meaningful solitude, and they do so without withdrawing into a monastery but rather with the same support provided any person by a parish community. They achieve human individuation which contrasts vividly with the individualism of the world which actually discounts their lives --- and they say that others living in the midst of the world can do the same with the grace of God. I think this is the real charism of diocesan eremitical life; in the canon it is best described as "the silence of solitude" lived "for the praise of God and the salvation of the world" and is therefore something our world desperately needs.

Another huge difference of course is that the diocesan hermit has, as her primary community, her parish. I mentioned this implicitly just above. The hermit lives and prays in its midst. She worships there and serves in whatever ways suits her life. She allows her life to touch those of others in the parish as would rarely happen with a monastery or hermitage of a number of hermits, and of course those others touch her life as well --- sometimes quite profoundly. For me personally this tends to lead to an emphasis on the dialogical or communal dimension of solitude which has its origin in the relationship with God a person actually is. This exists for every hermit, but I think it is drawn out in sharper relief for the diocesan hermit.

As for the spirituality attached to particular congregations, most (or at least many!) diocesan hermits do affiliate in some way with a particular form of this even if it is not official. They are still professed as diocesan and may not (i.e., are not allowed to) make vows in another way but they may affiliate more casually with a particular tradition. I am an oblate with the Camaldolese, for instance, and thus, this imparts a particular flavor and set of values to my own embodiment of the eremitical life which differs from that of another diocesan hermit --- someone with a Franciscan spirit for instance. On the other hand diocesan hermits are free to try on various spiritualities to find which serves them and both their charism and mission best. For me Trappist also seems to fit my life very well as does a lot of Eastern (Christian) spirituality. The difference is that I am diocesan and therefore primarily live the charism of that life even if I do so with the assistance of the Camaldolese triple good (community, solitude, evangelism or witness), for instance.