[[Dear Sister, I understand you have written that disabled hermits should seek dispensation from their vows. Why should hermits stop being hermits because the suffering gets bad? Someone blogged you said this recently so I am wondering where you get off doing that!]]
Despite the misrepresentation, I have certainly never written such a thing. Nor would I. Not only do I live with chronic illness/disability, but I am also perpetually professed as a canonical hermit who values her profession and the witness illness/disability can lead to through the grace of God. More, one of the things I have written and published articles on in journals like Review For Religious, is chronic illness and disability as vocation --- and in fact, as a potential eremitical vocation! This blog has a number of posts on eremitism and chronic illness/disability including those that point out hermits' vows are not dispensed should they become ill or disabled after perpetual profession and positing the charity and justice of such a practice. That said, I did write a couple of posts recently which referred to chronic illness and eremitical life; one of these discussed the option of dispensation, but not because of disability or illness per se! Instead, I wrote about the obligation a hermit has, no matter their disability or suffering, to witness to eremitical life in a healthy way and as a healthy form of life --- not just generally, but for the hermit him/herself. The question at issue was and is not disability or illness, but the capacity of one to witness to a transcendent, and even more compelling or foundational health in Christ.
What I said there (cf below) was that if, because of illness or disability (and other things as well), one could no longer live or witness to the eremitical life in a healthy way -- and that means a way which edifies --- if folks got the sense that this vocation was unhealthy for one or the hermit was giving others the sense it was itself an unhealthy way of life generally, then one would might well need to consider getting their vows dispensed. A diocese would certainly need to do this in such circumstances. You see, in the main I was speaking of public vocations where responsibility for the vocation also belongs canonically to the Church, but those who have private vows (or none at all!) need also to consider the witness value of their lives. God does not call us to vocations that are unhealthy for us; he calls us to abundant life despite and even through our chronic illness and disability. Should one's vocational path fail to witness to this for some reason or other --- and should there be no evidence of rehabilitating or remediating the situation to change matters -- then it is time to consider seeking or accepting a superior's decision to seek dispensation of one's vows.
Here is the final paragraph of the piece (the entire article can be found at: Chronic Illness as Special Challenge). I would strongly urge you to read the entire thing for yourself -- and that when you write me, you speak on the basis of what you know yourself. I would sincerely appreciate that.
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