Proclaiming the Feast of Christ the King: On Becoming the persons we are Called to Be

 Every year when we reach this last feast of the liturgical year I ask myself if Christ is more sovereign in my life than in past years. Have I grown in my openness to allowing Christ to be King or Ruler in my own life? Have I let go of the practices and attitudes that resist Jesus' sovereignty or the holy-making power of the mercy and love of the God Jesus calls Abba? A few years ago (about 5 and 1/2 years actually) I began writing about a process of inner growth and healing, a process of personal formation I had begun with my own director and I have commented on that a few times during these last years. The past year has been intense and of a somewhat different quality than the previous 4+ years; in October it was marked by a miracle --- yes, a literal miracle (there is no hyperbole or figurative language involved in that label) --- and throughout the year I experienced Jesus' presence in other ways that changed me, healed me, and too, challenged me to grow and mature in his love and friendship. The work I had undertaken proved to be powerful, and powerfully fruitful, and while the process continues (as a Sister friend recently reminded me, formation never ends!), its natural rhythm has led rather "neatly" (not that I really find anything about this work "neat") to this year's celebration of the feast of Christ the King, and a new liturgical year focusing on new beginnings, new life, and especially on a God who brings life out of barrenness!

One of the things I write about a lot in this blog is the way the phrase "stricter separation from the world" does not mean simply closing the hermitage door on the world around us. Instead it means changing one's heart, allowing our hearts to be loved into a wholeness that sees the world around us with the eyes of God rather than with the eyes of neediness, greed, acquisitiveness, and fear. To enter a hermitage or convent, for instance, without undergoing a significant metanoia of our own heart, is to make of the hermitage or convent an outpost of that world we shut the door on; to shut the door on "the world" in this way is to shut it up inside ourselves -- potentially a truly miserable-making situation for a hermit living physical solitude and external silence!! If our hearts are full of the woundedness and delusions regarding what is true, and which "the world" can cause, to live in silence and solitude within a hermitage can (will!) allow the screams of anguish one has distracted oneself from (or that one has become!), to come up freshly with increasing intensity and dominate one's personal reality. (Folks will know something of this experience because of the COVID-19 pandemic's need for social distancing and even outright "lockdown.")

But the world of the hermitage also provides the graced place and freedom to work with and in Christ to heal one's woundedness and to do battle (!) with the demons of one's own heart. This is the struggle to achieve what canon 603 calls "the silence of solitude" and requires of our lives as the charism and goal of diocesan eremitical life; it is also the gift a hermit will bring to her community whenever her vocation is lived rightly and well. I was very fortunate, the last few years especially, to have a director who either travelled to my hermitage every week or met with me by ZOOM so that we could work together with the frequency and personal accompaniment the work demanded. (It was a gift simply to find we could do this work via ZOOM!!!) 

I was aware that when the Church professed me under c.603 I had been given permission, indeed I had been commissioned to work with God in Christ to become the person he had made and called me to become! What other vocation allows for the space and time to attend to a call to holiness/wholeness in quite the same way as eremitical life? So, while I had never really anticipated doing the work I was doing, and despite some real risk that it could even mean I would need to consider leaving eremitical life for something else, the effectiveness of this work actually underscored my vocation rather than contradicting it. This year that means that I have come to a place where "stricter separation from the world'' means "greater adherence to the incredible life and potential of a God-given Self." It means "allowing God to empower and complete me" so I can be entirely myself and thus too, a clear expression of "God with us." 

And so, this year, as I review what has been during this past year, I am looking at a card my pastor gave me more than a year ago for my birthday. On the front it has a quote from e. e. cummings: [[It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.]] And that is certainly true; I have looked at that card several times a day this last 15 months, and been reminded of its deep truth. The world apart from God misshapes and distorts us each in all kinds of ways and still we are called to mature into the ones only God can fully envision, create, and complete. He is the potter, after all, and empowered by God's Spirit of Holiness we must find ways to allow ourselves to be clay --- God's own clay. This kind of growth and healing takes the grace of God in Christ who summons, accompanies, heals, transforms, and perfects us with his love and presence; often mediated by others who work diligently with us, it is this that empowers us to become the persons we are called to be. Letting the deepest, God-given truth in us --- the imago dei/imago Christi we are most truly --- live as abundantly as God wills it to is the work of a lifetime --- and the work of the God in Christ we are called to allow to be sovereign.

In some ways this piece feels to me like it is "all over the place" --- probably because there is so much to say in a brief space, along with the need to be discreet (and especially reverent) about some of it. But I need to return to writing regularly on this blog; I am hoping this is an opening piece which will allow me to do that. Sharing the spirit of this day then, I sincerely invite readers to regard your own lives and ask yourselves if Jesus is more truly King or Ruler in/of your life on this Feast day than he was at the beginning of Advent last year? Are you more fully alive? More true? More fruitful? Do you regard "the world" around you as something to be despised,  or do you view it more rightly as something to be loved because you see it with the eyes of God and engage creatively with it according to your calling? 

Human perfection is a matter of being in the process of coming to committed maturity (or responsible freedom!!) and fullness of life; it is about being on the path to that. Are you more perfect today than you were last year?  More complete or whole (because this truly indicates the sovereignty of God in your life)? Do you know (and so, accept) your own innate poverty and the mercy of God more fully? Are you more yourself, more moved by truth, generosity, courage, and compassion? Are you less tolerant of untruth in all of its various, subtle and not-so-subtle forms even as you love better those somehow wed to untruth? If, and to the extent you are any of these things, you know what it is to acclaim -- and proclaim with your life -- Christ as King/Ruler of creation. Alleluia, Alleluia! Let us celebrate this truth together!!

Beatitudes of the Bishop

Pope Francis published a text entitled "Beatitudes of the Bishop and gave cards with these printed on them to Bishops attending a plenary meeting of Italian bishops today. Most of these fit any pastor and anyone ministering will find themselves challenged by them as well, but our bishops are especially well-served by their instruction and challenge.

In Matthew's beatitudes, the first word of each is often translated as "happy" but another word used in some good translations is "flourishing". For the one who lives their vocation in these ways is flourishing in the life of God they mediate to others.

1. Blessed is the bishop who makes poverty and sharing his lifestyle because with his witness he is building the kingdom of heaven.

2. Blessed is the bishop who does not fear to water his face with tears, so that in them can be mirrored the sorrows of the people, the labors and fatigue of the priests, and who finds in the embrace of the one who suffers the consolation of God.

3. Blessed is the bishop who considers his ministry a service and not a power, making meekness his strength, giving to all the right of citizenship in his own heart, so as to inhabit the land promised to the meek.

4. Blessed is the bishop who does not close himself in the palaces of government, who does not become a bureaucrat more attentive to statistics than to faces, to procedures than to [people’s] stories, who seeks to fight at the side of people for the dream of the justice of God because the Lord, encountered in the silence of daily prayer, will be his nourishment.

5. Blessed is the bishop who has a heart for the misery of the world, who does not fear dirtying his hands with the mud of the human soul in order to find there the gold of God, who is not scandalized by the sin and fragility of the other because he is conscious of his own misery, because the look of the Risen Crucified One will be for him the seal of infinite pardon.

6. Blessed is the bishop who wards off duplicity of heart, who avoids every ambiguous dynamic, who dreams good even in the midst of evil, because he will be able to enjoy the face of God, tracking it down in every puddle of the city of people.

7. Blessed is the bishop that works for peace, who accompanies the paths of reconciliation, who sows in the heart of the presbyterate the seed of communion, who accompanies a divided society on the pathway of reconciliation, who takes by hand every man and every woman of good will in order to build fraternity: God will recognize him as his son.

8. Blessed is the bishop who for the Gospel does not fear to go against the tide, making his face “hard” like that of Christ heading to Jerusalem, without letting himself be held back by misunderstandings and by obstacles because he knows that the Kingdom of God advances in contradiction to the world.

Eremitical Life Without Monastic Formation and Experience?

[[Hi Sister I was looking for a post you wrote on becoming a hermit without formation as a monk or nun but couldn't locate it. Could you repost it for me or provide the link? ]] Sure, here is the original post --- at least I think it is. There is also a follow up post in February 2012 which you also might have been thinking of.

[[Dear Sister, I had a quick question regarding the hermit vocation and discernment. From what I have read, the monastic tradition often sees the hermit vocation as the ultimate expression of monastic life. In his Rule, St. Benedict holds the hermit life in the highest regard. However, he was very clear that such a vocation should be under taken only after years of formation and testing in the monastic community. This seems to be very prudent advice as the hermit life can be very difficult.

As such, isn’t it imprudent that many people today are interested in becoming diocesan hermits without the formation and testing that a proper monastic formation affords? I am having great difficulty understanding how one could discern a calling to the hermit life without being properly formed in the basics of monasticism. I would welcome your insights on how one discerns a vocation to the solitary life without the benefit of living the monastic life in the midst of a monastic community. Even under the guidance of a good priest and the support of a bishop, few in a diocese would understand the monastic life in its deepest sense. As such, few would be able to guide a person living as a hermit.

Could it not be argued that people who want to live the hermit life without the proper formation and testing are at great risk for spiritual self-deception? Could it not be argued that there is real risk of “throwing someone into the deep end of the pool” before they are prepared? Would be fair to say that someone who wants to skip living in a monastery MIGHT be displaying a type of pridefullness and individualism that is contrary to the monastic vocation? Would it not be better for one to join a contemplative order first (even one with hermits…like the Carmelite Hermits in Texas or Carthusians) so that they can be properly supported in their calling? I would appreciate your insights. Thank you.]]

Hi there,
your questions are good ones and essentially right on. Yes, it is dangerous in the ways you say and others as well. Still, while it is important that individuals have all the formation they can get before entering into solitude, and while it is important that we generally treat diocesan eremitical life as a second-half-of-life vocation, there are cases where the solitary eremitical life is a good one for individuals who are younger (one document on c 603 suggests 30 years of age is the very bottom limit for admission even to temporary vows) or have not had the benefit of a monastic formation. However, these are very rare, and so, one thing chanceries need to keep in mind is the rarity of the vocation, both relatively and absolutely.

Even so, it remains true that such persons must somehow get solid foundations in prayer, theology, spirituality, etc., and be good at self-discipline and taking initiative before they are accepted for even temporary profession as a diocesan hermit. Extended stays in a monastery during the period of initial discernment could be VERY helpful here and I personally suggest it should be required of aspirants to diocesan eremitical life without a background in religious or monastic life. This is true because most people today have very little sense of living in silence or solitude (much less the silence OF solitude demanded by canon 603), and they also need an extended period of living a daily horarium which is balanced between prayer, work, study, and lectio. All of this assists discernment and formation both.

One of the things I have written about recently is the fact that our culture is highly individualistic, even narcissistic, and the upsurge in interest in eremitical life is often an expression of this rather than a true call to the generous and other-centered life which is authentically eremitical. There are good spiritual directors who may not be monastics but can wisely direct individuals moving towards eremitical life, and equally, there are directors who are not well-equipped. It is not usually a matter of whether they are monastic but instead whether they are competent directors or not. A director (one skilled at listening) familiar with contemplative prayer and a balanced approach to life, along with a sense that God is found in the ordinary activities of life, and indeed, in the heart of one's own being, is far more important than that the director be a priest or monastic, I think.

Also problematical is the fact that relatively few Bishops, Vicars, or vocation directors really understand the eremitical life and therefore sometimes treat it as merely equivalent to a pious person who lives alone. It is, you can imagine, a good deal more and other than this. (cf post from Dec 9, 2011) While there are many stereotypes of the eremitical life which influence chanceries, this particular misunderstanding is more prevalent and widespread. It is a main contributor to the failure of aspirants who mistakenly think they are called to eremitical solitude. Unfortunately, in such cases, it is not quite the same as "being thrown into the deep end" because in such cases such aspirants never actually reach the deep end. They paddle about in the shallows and think this is eremitical life. The result is an implicit disparagement of this life which makes it both trivial and incredible.

I regularly recommend that younger persons who think they may be interested in eremitical life enter a community which is semi-eremitical not only for proper formation, but for the needed life experience and mutual discernment necessary. It seems completely unfair and imprudent to me to do otherwise. The life is simply too difficult for someone who has little life experience, training, education, etc. However, I do not recommend that anyone do this with the idea that one day they will become a diocesan hermit. The two vocations are different from one another and one does not make vows (especially that of monastic stability) within a community with the idea that one day one will leave it. That would make the vow invalid and be a betrayal of its very meaning.

I hope this is helpful.