Authentic Eremitism vs Stereotypes and the Source of Stereotypes

Dear Sister, I think I understand why you insist that in discerning an eremitical vocation there must be a redemptive experience at the heart of everything. If a hermit's life experience is mainly a desert or wilderness experience then life in physical solitude can just be about escaping or not fitting in unless there is a redemptive experience which transforms all of that, right? Most religious vocations require someone to be physically well but you write about chronic illness as vocation and about that maybe even leading to an eremitical vocation. At the same time something has to transform chronic illness into something more which speaks of wellness and that's where redemption comes in. Do you think the stereotypes associated with hermits came to be when the redemptive experience or element, as you put it, was missing?

Really great question. I never saw it coming as I read the comments that led up to it. Almost everything I write about eremitical life depends upon the redemptive element you spoke of and yes, that certainly includes my impatience with and rejection of stereotypes. The stereotypes I can think of have to do with rejection of others, escapism, an individualism which is antithetical to life in community and often to the generosity it requires; they can involve an emphasis on the difficulty of life in solitude without any focus on the answer it represents for the hermit and all of those living with/in desert situations, and also a piety which is superficial and tends to devotionalism, but not to the prayer and deep love of God, self AND others which profound spirituality makes possible. Stereotypes, it seems to me, take one part or side of eremitical life and runs with it while excluding the completing and paradoxical elements or side which a strong commitment to Christ brings.

Eremitical life is rare but it is not bizarre or essentially inhuman; it can be difficult but its deep meaningfulness makes it a life of genuine joy as well. Hermits go away or withdraw from "the world" (i.e., that which rejects Christ), but not simply to be apart from others; they do it so they can come to communion with God, themselves and with others. They do it so they can grow in their capacity for love and proclaim the Gospel with their lives because this is the way solitude works for them; it is a goal toward which these lives are moving. For any of this to be true means there must be a redemptive experience at the heart of hermits' lives, something which transforms all the superficialities into something deeper and more "real". In my own eremitical life I work hard with my Director, and at all the aspects of eremitical life (prayer, lectio, study, etc.,) not because I am (or am looking to be) some sort of spiritual prodigy (I am not!) but because Christ is the answer to the question I am and comes to me in a silent solitude which will eventually be transformed into "the silence of solitude" and a genuine gift to the Church and world.

In my experience, the physical solitude of eremitical life helps sharpen and bring to expression the question each person is while (when turned to assiduous prayer) giving God all the room God needs to become/be the answer in love and abundant life. That is  the very essence of monastic and eremitical life, the very essence of desert spirituality, the heart of Christian theology's "Theology of the Cross". But without the redemptive experience Christ brings to the desert a (putative) hermit is left like a JBap proclaiming repentance without any sense of the Messiah who will succeed and transcend the significant word of repentance he brings himself. We can find examples of such hermits throughout history and even online. They are often little more than stereotypes and caricatures, voices crying in the wilderness witnessing only to their own pain and inadequacy, their own "spiritual" experiences, but living an isolation that gives the lie to their catholicity. A hermit will know suffering and pain -- of course! But yes, as you say, without a profound and abiding sense of redemption of all of that, they will not be hermits in the sense the Church defines this vocation. The answer they seek must also have come to them in the silence of solitude if they are to witness to more than a sterile silence and loveless aloneness.

Without the redemptive element -- and by this I mean without a participation in the Christ Event in a way which brings wholeness out of brokenness, personal wealth (a fruitful and abundant life) out of poverty, meaning out of absurdity, and a loving humanity out of sinful inhumanity --- the hermit can witness to only one side of the human equation, the side of the lone, sinful individual in search of love and the ultimate healing of emptiness and estrangement. It is out of this milieu that we get stereotypes that disedify and make the eremitical vocation irrelevant at best. All of the essential elements of canon 603 I have written about on this blog over the years, but especially "the silence of solitude" as a unique communal reality, depend on our seeing eremitical life in this way. It must be informed by and witness to the redemption of the human person and transformation of the human heart which comes to us in Christ or it is worse than worthless --- especially in a world of rampant individualism, cocooning, and even misanthropy.

Again, great question; thanks very much for that. The Church understood well what eremitical life was and was not about when it composed this canon Thus, those claiming to be hermits (whether lay or consecrated, canonical or non-canonical) cannot speak only (or even mainly) of pain or struggle; there must be a sense that in Christ isolation is transformed into solitude and the pain and struggle present has been (or is on the way to being) transfigured into the joyful silence we call shalom and stillness the tradition knows as hesychasm. This, unlike in apostolic or ministerial religious life, is the very purpose of eremitical life. Canon 603, after all, describes a redeemed and essentially generous life, not a selfish one dominated by struggle and suffering and certainly not one populated by stereotypes! It is about who we are when God alone is truly allowed to be sufficient for us. It is the hermit's life and who she is made by God to be that is the gift, not the ministry (even that of prayer!!) she does. It is not merely or even primarily about what she does (not even a life of piety and devotionals or suffering and deprivation); these, by themselves, are the makings of disedifying stereotypes. Instead it is the prayer that sings of God's victory over sin and death that she is made by God to be that is the essence of an eremitical vocation.