On Excommunicated Hermits and Stricter Separation from the World

[[Dear Sister Laurel, in 2020 you wrote about three hermits who had been excommunicated. In your article the reporter whose article you criticized said that the three were not trying to build bridges to the world but rather to escape from it, cf., Excommunicated Hermits. You also wrote recently that CICLSAL has produced a guidance document for c 603 hermits which says clearly that hermits are not fleeing the world and you used the word escapist. You said hermits are not escapist (cf., Purpose of Stricter Separation from the World.) I have always heard monastics speaking of fleeing the world or embracing something called "contemptus mundi" which I believe means contempt for the world. So, here's my question: do you see yourself and other c 603 hermits trying to build bridges to the world outside your hermitage? Don't you embrace a kind of "contemptus mundi" in separating yourself as you do? I want to suggest that those hermits of [in] Scotland had the right idea in fleeing from place to place. You would disagree, wouldn't you?]]

Thanks for your thoughtful questions. I have added links to the posts you refenced. I think I have answered a lot of what you ask about in the following post: Stricter Separation: Loving the World into Wholeness, so I would ask that you take a look at this post and especially, that you pay attention to the different ways the term "the world" can be used. We need to be clear that there are several different usages of the term and not confuse one for the other. For instance, the world the hermit separates herself from is not primarily the world of God's good creation; instead, it is a constellation [[of attitudes, values, perspectives, and priorities which live in a hermit's heart just as they live in the hearts of others]] and constitute a kind of widespread and typical pattern of vision and inner reality.  

In this view of things, because these patterns of values, perspectives, and attitudes are deeply inculcated within each of us, and because they are often-unconscious lenses through which we view reality, closing the hermitage door merely shuts one inside with "the world" one needs to separate oneself from more assiduously. Doing so can provide a false sense that one has done what one needs to do in "leaving the world" and this inaccurate sense may grow into or foster a kind of sense of spiritual superiority in the hermit. Additionally, it can lead to a self-centered spirituality focused merely on one's own perfection or salvation, rather than on a holiness which at every point, serves and is meant to serve the needs of a world often bereft of love and wholeness. Nothing could be more "worldly" in fact.

If you look at the behavior of the three Scottish "hermits" as outlined in the NCR article I wrote about (please note, there are other, entirely legitimate hermits in Scotland), what you find is distinctly "worldly" behavior. They have a habit of making themselves "unwelcome and getting in trouble". While supposedly more strictly separated from "the world" they engage in provocative acts of judgmentalism that are hurtful and meant to be so. While there is a legitimate prophetic or "truth-telling" dimension to eremitical life, this is not it. When their bishops (more than one apparently) have tried "numerous times" to break them up, they have resisted and eventually gotten themselves thrown out of the diocese(s). I have to tell you how rare such problems are with genuine hermits. An actual pattern of offensive and disedifying behavior in genuine hermits is even more rare. 

Other things strike me as "worldly" with regard to the three persons in the NCR article. Despite no longer having a right to wear a Capuchin habit, one of the hermits continues to do so and one wonders why. He is not witnessing to canonical eremitical standing nor an ecclesial vocation, nor to religious poverty or consecration by God --- and there are certainly poorer and simpler ways to dress. Why could he not let this go as he ought to have done when he left the congregation that extended this right to him? And then there is the glee, first at excommunication and then at the amounts of correspondence and financial aid flowing their way as a result!!! These "hermits" are not victims of the "mean old" institutional Church --- and yet they are excited to benefit from those seeing and treating them in this way! None of this sounds anything but profoundly "worldly" to me.

I am not sure I would describe my life as one of building bridges to the world around me, but I accept my responsibility to witness to that world, and also to "the world" I am to be more strictly separated from --- that constellation of attitudes, values, and perspectives which really distort the way we see and relate to God, ourselves, and God's good creation. One other element of c 603 is that this life is to be lived "for the salvation of others"; that requires engagement on behalf of God and his good creation even as it requires freedom from enmeshment in all that distorts it. There may be some tension between these two elements of the canon, but they certainly don't conflict. That is especially true as I understand that the really critical dimensions of my life, the dimensions that define me as a person and hermit, are hidden from others and that even to the extent my life is of witness value it is hidden in Christ. So, while I don't try to build bridges with the world around me in any focused or concerted way, and while there are very real and necessary limitations in my engagement with the world, that engagement is still very real and motivated by my life in Christ.

If the term "contemptus mundi" can be understood in terms of turning away from attitudes, values, and perspectives which are typical of contemporary life and serve to distort the way we see and behave toward God and God's good creation, then yes, I embrace it. In some ways I work hard to free myself from or allow myself to be healed of the woundedness which contributes to the personal and common lenses which so distort the way I/we see and relate to reality. I recognize that Christian life, and certainly eremitical life within that, is one of freedom from this kind of enmeshment. I definitely work hard to allow Christ to be primary in my life so that I can say with Paul, "I, yet not I but Christ in me. . .". Even so, "contemptus mundi" seems to me to invite misunderstanding as it is wrapped in several layers of mystifying language: a Semitic sense of the term hatred** (see below), now translated into Latin and combined with a Greek and Johannine term (mundi) with at least three significantly different senses in the Gospel writer's work. Besides the fact that c 603 does not use this phrase, I usually don't use it for this reason.

Finally, I have a strong appreciation for the Benedictine value (and vow) of stability. This means I appreciate that where I am (diocese, parish, hermitage) has all I need to grow in holiness, and I am committed to seeking God (letting God find and be present to me in all the ways God chooses to do that) here. Yes, there are good reasons sometimes to move elsewhere, but a pattern of frenetic mobility, especially if it is occasioned by getting oneself in trouble and making oneself unwelcome wherever one goes, is contrary to Benedictine stability (and several other Christian values as well)! The evolving world the Scottish trio of would-be hermits are trying to escape is the world they are called to witness to. Meanwhile, in their attitudes and values, for instance, they seem to be ever more deeply enmeshed in the world they should be more strictly separated from! A genuine hermitage in the midst of such a world is, like the Carthusian image, a still point in the midst of sin's roiling disorder. My own sense is that these three apparent misanthropes (it is hard to see what or who they actually love beyond themselves), to the extent they cannot embrace such a stability, are not seeking God, but are running from precisely the place in which he is surely to be found. I think the Incarnation tells us that.

I hope this is helpful!

** In the NT Semitism the idea of "hating," as in Luke 14:26, is a comparative term and has to be understood as "love less". When Luke says, [[If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple,]] he is saying a disciple must prefer Jesus to or love Jesus more than all these others. Perhaps an even better way to say it would be, [[You must love me first and best, and all else and all others only in and through your love for me.]] If we are given a choice, Jesus or our own life (and so forth), the choice must be for Jesus and the One who sent him. [[Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these. . .will be added unto you.]]