Clarification: Inconsistent Answers?

[[ Dear Sister O'Neal, thanks for your responses. You wrote recently that the most crucial issue in the discernment and formation of canon 603 vocations was an understanding of the charismatic quality of the vocation and enlarged on that by referring to how important it is to understand the gift quality of this vocation. In your response to my question about whether the canon is being implemented more appropriately your wrote that one area requiring improvement in implementing c 603 was the role of bishops in the ministry of authority. Are these two things linked in some way? If not it seems that you have answered the same question in two contrary ways. Thanks.]]

Another good question, thank you. The two responses are linked but the point I was making about charism is more foundational for everyone's esteeming this vocation; it may or may not be implicated in a bishop's failure to adequately supervise the vocation of a c 603 hermit in his diocese. You see,  the charism of solitary eremitical life is the silence of solitude. What I mean by this is that the real gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and world in this vocation is "the silence of solitude", The central elements of the canon refers not only to the environment of the hermit's life and hermitage (physical silence and solitude), but as I understand it, it is both the gift of the Spirit but also the very goal of what the hermit is seeking in this eremitical life, namely, the silence or stillness (shalom, quies, hesychia) and solitude (wholeness, integrity, union) of one who rests entirely in the love of God (cf., Silence of Solitude as Goal of the Eremitical Life). My sense is that most of the misuses of canon 603 that occur, whether by the folks petitioning for admission to profession and consecration under c 603, ultimately stems from a failure to understand and esteem this gift quality and goal of the vocation.

Specifically, it is lack of understanding of just how eremitical life is a gift to the Church and world which allows bishops to dismiss or give short shrift to c 603 hermits. It is this which allows lone individuals who will never be hermits to be professed. This same lack of esteem or regard for the charism of eremitical vocation allows individuals and dioceses to use canon 603 as a stopgap to profess those who would like to be a religious without being or becoming a true hermit. A lot of abuses and misuses would fall away if dioceses understood what a gift of the Holy Spirit this vocation is and took care to honor that. Having said that I think it is clear that a bishop not understanding the charism of the vocation or even its charismatic nature might fail in his obligations to a hermit professed in his diocese just as he might fear to use the canon at all or seriously discern with those who may well have a solitary eremitical vocation which is ecclesial and canonical. So yes, the two are related but the failure to understand the charismatic nature of the vocation is the more fundamental one and bishops may or may not fail in their own obligations because of this just as they may fail for others reasons as well.