Questions on Writing a Rule of Life: Why Demand a Longer Process?

[[Dear Sister, you wrote that only after a person has lived eremitical solitude for several years should a diocese ask them to write a Rule. Are you trying to draw out the process? Why can't a person write a Rule before they even approach the diocese and then turn up there Rule in hand as they make their petition for profession? Surely it can't be all that difficult to write a Rule for hermit life. I think you are trying to make this more difficult than it needs to be and I have never heard of a diocese asking a person to wait for years before writing a Rule. Usually it is the first thing they look for! Do you think you know more than dioceses do in this matter? Hardly very humble for a "consecrated hermit" is it?]]

Yes, I wrote that just recently and I have done so from time to time over the past fourteen years as well. There are always exceptions of course, but generally speaking, most people showing up seeking to be professed as diocesan hermits have never lived in the silence of eremitical solitude at all much less for an extended period of time. If you were to engage them in a conversation on canon 603, its central elements, history, or the vows it calls for, you would find they knew little if anything about these. If you asked them to describe the vision of life they live by few would be able to articulate this, and if you asked how it is they structure their lives in light of their life in and with Christ, the response you would get is a far cry from what eremitical life looks like.

In those I have been in touch with, it has seemed to me that a number of them are expecting the diocese to accept them as candidates in some sort of hermit formation program and to profess them at the end of two or three years after they have simplified their lives a bit, been kitted out in a habit, and read a few books about prayer, desert spirituality, and the vows (maybe!)!  In truth, those who are serious about eremitical life are at the beginning of a long journey, a life-long journey, in fact, which will change them to their roots -- just as it will reveal God to them in ways they could never have imagined. It is only as a person has lived this journey for some time, and have begun to glean a vision of what its shape and substance will be, that they will be able to write a liveable Rule of life.

Yesterday I "met" via ZOOM with a diocesan hermit who is making her solemn/perpetual profession on the 22. Aug. (Feast of the Queenship of Mary) I don't think she will mind my sharing this story here. You see, it has been my privilege to accompany her over the past several years --- first, as she considered what this call might mean for someone living solemn vows as a monastic for 34 years, and then, as she went through the process of exclaustration and began her formation as a solitary hermit with an ecclesial vocation. This was our very first ZOOM conversation so it was wonderful to actually see each other. (It is amazing what the light in another's eyes adds to a conversation!) One of the things we talked about briefly was the content of the Bishop's Decree of Approval, Rule of Life because hers reads a bit differently than mine does. But we did that after a bit of laughter-filled reminiscing when she asked me, "Do you remember what my first Rule of Life was like?" (I did!) . . . Do you know, there were seven drafts??!" (I did not!!) She also reminded me what my advice was after the first draft: "Set it aside [and live your life]." All of this is instructive in one way and another --- not only because of the struggle and growth it points to, but also because of a shared joy and humor at the way the Holy Spirit had worked with our limitations in all of this.

Consider Sister's experience of cloistered religious ( i.e., monastic!) life, of the vows, and of living according to a Rule and constitutions. She had served in leadership in her congregation and been a novice directress. She had felt the tug of a call to greater solitude and had to move against the tide of community life (which she loved deeply) to honor that call. And she was tested in this. And yet, it took her seven drafts to negotiate the gradual transformation from cenobite to semi-eremite and finally, from eremite to diocesan eremite  (not that all of these are experienced as entirely discrete stages), 2) who God is in her life, 3) an expression of eremitical life which is at once traditional and contemporary, and which, 4) she can truly live in the name of the Church. Those seven drafts were the record of her initial formation as a hermit. But they were much more than that. They were also the workbooks in which she claimed and articulated that formation for herself and the church in a way which aided discernment and perhaps will have served (or will serve in the future) in instructing others regarding what such a process of becoming a solitary hermit looks like when it is well (faithfully) done; (the approved Rule becomes a quasi-public document marking another hermit's assumption of a vital place in the church's eremitical tradition); moreover, these drafts were guidebooks on the way which, besides marking the landmarks of her formative journey, helped inspire that formation.

So, no, I do not suggest that dioceses have people live as hermits for a few years before asking them to write a Rule in order to draw out the process or set arbitrary obstacles for the person. The process is an organic one which takes work, and prayer, and time --- significant periods of time. Dioceses that ask someone to write a rule as soon as they believe the person  might  be a suitable candidate for profession does this person no kindness. Instead they can be setting the person up for failure. Using the gradual crafting of a liveable Rule as a guide to discernment and assistance in formation simply makes good sense and takes advantage of what the process demands anyway. In any case, I suggested what I did because I want to see people succeed in what is already a demanding process.  I want the Holy Spirit to be given a chance to work in all the ways She needs to work. My own writing of my Rule was, until the past four years of intensive inner work, the most formative experience of my life. I very much want others to have a similarly rich and fruitful experience if that is the will of God --- and yes, I absolutely want to educate dioceses on the way the requirement that a hermit write her own Rule can be allowed to be a grace for all involved!!!

Do I think I know more than dioceses do in this matter? Yes, generally speaking, I believe I do. I have learned from my own crafting of a Rule and I have sometimes mentored others. Thus, I did not impose a set process on anyone, but I urged them to allow the Rule to take shape as their own eremitical lives and corresponding vision did. Those who were able to entrust themselves to the potter's hands over what was typically a several year period, evidenced a similar process to my own. We each made the journey and allowed the journey to shape the Rule just as we allowed the portions of the Rule we had composed (and therefore, canon 603 itself) to further shape and define our journeys/lives. This is not arrogance. It is humility -- a loving honesty learned by trusting the Holy Spirit and the call we each heard or discerned in the other, a humility meant to assist dioceses and those faced with the prospect of writing a Rule of life despite never even having read, much less lived according to a Rule! (My friend was very far ahead of the game in this regard and yet, her own growth and inspired vision took time to form and more time to come to expression in a liveable Rule!!!)

I know that this requirement of canon 603 is the most concrete-sounding element of canon 603, and the most easily pinned down by a diocese with little experience or sense of how to proceed in this matter. But it is not one someone without experience living solitary eremitical life can accomplish --- nor should they be asked to try, especially without mentoring. A Rule is a tool, but it can become a precious friend --- if I may speak this way --- for the Rule accompanies us, supports, challenges, inspires, guides, instructs us, and protects our vocation. It is a window for the Holy Spirit, a living document which breathes with the life of the hermit, her Abba, and her Lord and Spouse. It (and certainly the crafting or weaving of such a sacred text [from the Latin texere, to weave]) should be allowed to function in all the ways such a process can function. This will serve the hermit, the diocesan staff who work with her, the Church universal who promulgated canon 603, and the eremitical tradition entrusted to all of these.