Thanks for your questions and for reading the last post. The greatest problem in that post no matter the way I organized it, especially in dealing with the problem of hermits calling themselves consecrated or canonical when they are not, is the Church’s failure to adequately esteem the lay state and lay vocations (including lay eremitical life). This is a more universal and significant problem than is the misunderstanding of what we mean by canonical standing or associate with canonical vocations.
A second and related problem for many with regard to the term "canonical", I think, is not understanding that canonical standing is associated with specific legal rights and obligations, and also associated appropriate expectations. We call canonical what is associated with all of these in law and we admit people carefully to such additional rights and obligations lest they prove incapable of living what requires the specific grace of God. Baptism gives access to all the grace needed to live in the lay state. It does not, of itself, give access to the grace needed to live consecrated or ordained life, for instance. As a Deacon I am sure you are aware of that, just as in the same vein, I am aware I am not called nor graced as needed to live in the married state nor as a priest or deacon.
By the way, this is not elitist and should not be a cause for envy; it is simply the fact that God graces us in the way we each need to live our vocations in the state of life to which we are called. (I should also note, then, that a problem with treating a non-canonical vocation as canonical (or a lay vocation as one in the consecrated state) is that one is expecting of the person with that non-canonical vocation to respond to graces which accompany a canonical/consecrated vocation instead. Because some live out their eremitical vocations in the consecrated state and have been professed, consecrated, and commissioned to do so, some things bind these persons "in religion" in ways they would not do to one who is not called to the consecrated state. For instance, where some things may be sinful for one in the lay state because they constitute a sin against precepts of Divine law, these same things will be grievously sinful for those in the consecrated state because they constitute things which are also sins against a vow/public commitment. The point is that just as rights and obligations differ, so will the associated graces in order that one may fulfill one's commitments and live one's call faithfully and fully.
The third and (in this case) derivative problem or set of problems áre the way envy and resentment along with individualism, substituting license for authentic freedom, etc., take advantage of and are sometimes rooted in these other two problems, both the failure of the Church to esteem lay vocations, and the ignorance of what the term "canonical standing" actually implies. I think if the Church solved the first two problems, the problem of envy would lessen. I also think if she more clearly dropped the notion of "higher vocations" (as Vatican II seems to have done) and spoke and acted with real esteem for all vocations and all states of life, the problems mentioned regarding envy, pretense, fraud, etc would be significantly minimized.
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