On the Difference Between a Lone Individual and a Hermit

[[Hi Sister, when you write about the distinction between a "lone individual" and a hermit or when you speak of isolation vs solitude what are you thinking of here? I am a bit of a loner but I sometimes wonder if I can be a hermit. I am not sure I understand the difference between solitude and isolation. Does this mean I am not called to be a hermit? What do these two things actually look like?]]

Important questions. Thank you. I will ask that you read through past articles here. I think they will assist you more than any one response will. Still, this should provide a place to start. Let me give you an example that may help. I live in a senior complex with 68 apartments mostly occupied by single (often widowed) individuals. Some are disabled, and a few are couples. I am the only hermit. That is not merely because I am a hermit canonically, but because the way my life is shaped, structured, motivated, and related to others differs fairly substantially from these things in the lives of others here. Similarly, during this time of lockdown, though many people know something more of what it means to live in extended physical solitude, very few seem to be allowing their lives to be shaped or motivated in the way a hermit's is. I do know a couple of people in my parish who make me think they might well be discovering something like an eremitical calling  during these circumstances, but in the main people are finding physical solitude merely isolates and truncates their lives and relationships. They are not discovering a deeper relatedness to others rooted in their relationship with God, nor -- again with a few exceptions --- are they allowing their lives to be shaped more completely by their relationship with God (which will naturally involve relatedness to others).

Most of those living in this complex are lone individuals. They may or may not have family nearby; most have friends including friends here in the complex. But it is circumstances of life that has them living alone, not the choice to do this in communion with God for the sake of the Gospel or the glory (revelation) of God and the salvation of others. Their time is their own and if the majority of their time is taken up watching TV or shopping, visiting their families, etc, then that is entirely fine -- though some of this will depend on or be limited by the requirements and stresses of shelter-in-place at this point in time. However, their life is strikingly different from mine -- not only in the lack of focus re ongoing formation, and relative lack of prayer, but especially in relatedness. One's relationship with God which includes a life lived very specifically for others and in some real community with them, I think, constitutes the difference between a hermit and a lone individual.

During the homily at my perpetual profession, Bp Vigneron said that I had given my home over to God. At the time I thought that was unsurprising given that I was giving my life to God and had done that at profession in the past. Yet, over these past months of "shelter-in-place" especially, I have come to see how unusual doing this actually is. What Bp Vigneron was saying in his own way was that my life was not compartmentalized with religion and spirituality in one compartment and the rest of ordinary life in another. Once, a candidate for profession under c 603 with whom I was working asked how I balanced the "hermit things" I did and the ordinary or "worldly" things. I asked what the "hermit things" were and he said, prayer, lectio, study, etc. When I asked what the ordinary (or even "worldly") things were, he explained, "Doing the dishes, cleaning house, scrubbing the toilet, laundry -- those kinds of things". It took me a bit of time to get him to eventually see that everything a hermit does, including scrubbing the toilet, is a "hermit thing". Solitude comes in different forms. Eremitical solitude means that everything one does in physical isolation is transformed by one's commitment to and relationship with God and to all that is God's; the transformation is real, not notional, not merely intellectual.

 You may be a bit of a loner; this is not necessarily a reason you can't become a hermit. I assume by saying you are a loner you mean you are an introvert and maybe that you have a very few really good friends. You can still be integrally connected to your parish and others in your community though an introvert. You can still live your life in the heart of human community in a real, not merely figurative way as an introvert. In any case, there is nothing wrong in being a lone individual, at least I am not saying there is; I am merely saying a hermit is something more and other than this and that such a person should not be mistaken for a hermit. The distinction between isolation and solitude is, again, rooted in the hermit's shaping, structuring, and the motivation for her life, especially as she does these things in terms of God and all that is precious to God.

In considering what I believe is a graced reality, I have sometimes written about "genuine solitude," or solitude as the "redemption of isolation". This, along with the distinction between a true individual and an individualist, I believe, is helpful in understanding the significant distinction you asked about and which all "would-be" hermits negotiate in truly becoming a hermit rather than merely a lone individual. Posts which may also help explain the distinction at the heart of this article will include those dealing with the distinction between the Episcopal canon on solitary religious life and the Roman Catholic Canon 603 which is specifically eremitical. Please check the labels listed to the right on "Canon 14 vs Canon 603".