To Be What One is Called to Be --- and to Become That Ever More Deeply

[[ Dear Sister Laurel, you wrote, [[It is this core identity that makes one a hermit, not the canonical designation per se. In other words, Canon 603 alone does not make one a hermit; it makes the hermit that one already is a canonical (consecrated solitary) hermit.]] You were writing about a situation in which someone described themselves as "sort of a monk/missionary" but not as a hermit. Is it possible to be professed under canon 603 and never genuinely become the hermit one is supposed to be? Does this happen very often? Do dioceses take care to be sure the persons they profess are hermits before profession? Is it important that they not make this mistake?]]

Good questions, but not ones I can mainly answer! It is possible to be professed under c 603 without ever truly becoming a hermit, yes (though of course this ought not be possible). Sometimes individuals seek to be professed under c 603 and known in this way but they have not, and may never, grow into the hermit they are called to become, yes. In the piece you are referring to I was writing about a priest who had had problems with his bishop (and vice versa) who sought to be established under c 603 and thus, freed from some of the constraints of his priesthood and for greater ability to follow his own values and vision of the way things ought to be. He recognized himself as "sort of a monk/missionary" but (rightly I think) could not call himself a hermit. And yet, he had sought to be professed under c 603. 

Canon 603 has sometimes been used by individuals to become religious without the constraints, challenges, or responsibilities of life in community. I think this motivation is usually kept fairly well-hidden, or at least not expressed to diocesan personnel. Dioceses have allowed this (that is, they have failed to uncover this motive in discernment) because 1) they themselves didn't know what a hermit is or, especially, what a solitary hermit is or how they are formed, and 2) they failed to see how it would matter if they professed a non-hermit. Mistakes are made for other reasons as well, even when the individual petitioning for admission to profession is sincere and well-motivated -- which happens when the person has a religious vocation but not an eremitical one. (The Episcopal Church allows for solitary religious who need not be or become hermits; the Roman Catholic Church does not.)

It is important that the church as well as candidates for profession under c 603 not make this mistake even as it becomes easier to make it, I think. Today's culture is highly individualistic, whereas paradoxically, eremitical life is not. Moreover, there is a strong current of what has come to be called "cocooning" which does not rise to the level of eremitical life, or the silence of solitude demanded by canon 603. It is more than possible for a person (and for diocesan personnel) to mistake these phenomena for the external characteristics of an eremitical vocation when they are actually contrary to such a life. There are external similarities between individualism and cocooning with stricter separation from the world and the silence of solitude, of course, but at their heart they are vastly different realities. Significantly, the characteristics of c 603 mentioned are at once solitary while being essentially communal and are meant to be rooted in and to support life in communion with God, with/in God's Church, and too, with God's good creation.

It is especially important that dioceses profess actual hermits who have embraced the values of c. 603 and show evidence of being committed to living into these ever more deeply so that c 603 does not become a cuckoo's nest where a different form of life is slipped into the heart of the Church's vocation to consecrated eremitical life. As with the life of a cuckoo's egg raised in another bird's nest amongst other hatchlings, this will be destructive of the solitary eremitical vocation itself and will render it incredible to the faithful seeking to understand and honor such vocations. Canon 603 is almost 40 years old at this time and we have only begun living down the destructive stereotypes associated with eremitical life; we must not, insofar as we are truly able, use it for anything but genuine hermits. 

It becomes particularly critical that c 603 life always be genuinely eremitical for those whose aloneness requires hope that their isolation can be transformed into deep communion lest they fall into despair. As I've said before, for those who must live alone for various reasons, but who are not called to be canonical hermits (or hermits of any sort for that matter), eremitical life can witness to the completion and joy that can come with a uniquely solitary expression of community; this is made less and less possible when dioceses profess non-hermits who may never actually become hermits at all --- and, despite having been professed and consecrated, may never discover (much less witness to) the deep consolation of such a vocation because they are not truly called to it.

In the "Bishop's Decree of Approval" for my Rule of life, the decree reads [[I pray that this Rule of Life proves advantageous in living the eremitical life.]] I appreciate my own diocese's humility in recognizing they had done the best that they could in discerning my vocation with me, and that my Rule might not truly prove advantageous to living eremitical life. Mistakes are possible, but it is important that these be minimized and if possible, that they not be made at all, especially given the importance of eremitical witness to God as the One who completes us in a culture that mistakes individualism for individuality and cocooning for eremitical life in the community the hermit experiences as eremitical solitude.