Looking at the term Charism: Does it Mean Anything for the c. 603 Hermit?

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, Sisters I know talk about the charism of their communities', and their missions. Does eremitical life have a charism? How about Consecrated Virginity? Can you help me understand what the word means? I was wondering if it would be helpful for lay people to have a sense of the charism of their own vocations. Does it make a difference for you?]]

First time questions, I think. Many thanks. In my life I identify the silence of solitude as the charism of solitary eremitical life. Because I identify solitude with more than external aloneness (I see it as a place of quiet and wholeness where the noise of human woundedness, struggle, and pain come to rest in the deepest truth of life and the peace of God), and I identify silence less with physical silence and more with hesychia or a kind of stillness that results when one's life is rightly ordered in terms relationships with God, self, and others, the silence of solitude represents the completion and fullness of life in relationship that occurs when God completes one and she exists in communion with God and God's creation (including one's own deepest and truest self).  This completion/fullness is a gift of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the life of prayer, stricter separation, silence and solitude. The word charism reflects this gift quality (gifts = charisma) and it reflects a form of community absolutely foundational others also need and are made for.

Generally, a congregation's charism refers to a unique gift quality their life and ministry represent for both Church and world given as the Holy Spirit acts in conjunction with human beings to meet significant contemporary needs. When I think of eremitical life and especially that under c 603, assiduous prayer and penance are not unique to it, nor is stricter separation from the world. The Evangelical Counsels are not unique to it either, although all of these elements are gifts of God to the hermit and others. The one central element of c 603 which, it seems to me, orders all other elements towards significant contemporary needs is the silence of solitude.  Always more than the sum of its parts, the silence of solitude takes up all of the other elements of the eremitical life, and of c 603, and transforms them into a whole that can effectively proclaim the Gospel to every person.

You see, I understand the silence of solitude as a countercultural reality which speaks not only to religious persons, but to anyone seeking reassurance that the isolation of alienation which so marks and mars our world can be borne creatively and transfigured and transformed in the process.  Eremitical solitude is antithetical to alienation and isolation; it is relational through and through. The silence belonging to this solitude is not an anguished cry of emptiness, but a distinct song that rejoices in God's love as that love-in-act completes us as human beings and we come to live in union with God and the whole of God's creation. The term silence of solitude refers to the human person made whole and holy through the power of the Holy Spirit. It refers to what occurs when we are healed of the wounds that cause us to cry out in anguish or withdraw in fear and exhaustion from the struggle to live fully. It is the human being as language event brought to her most perfect and powerful fulfillment in God.

Think what it is like to sit quietly with a friend, without strain or competition or the need to prove oneself or be anyone other than the persons we are while resting in the presence of another. That moment of selfhood achieved while at rest in the life and presence of a friend (and in fact, is, in part,  made possible by that presence) is one of the silence of solitude. We all recognize such a moment as one in which alienation is overcome, the noisy striving of everyday life is quieted, and the human potential and need for profound relationship is, for the moment, realized. When the hermit rests in and enjoys the company of God in a similar way, when, that is, she becomes God's covenant partner and allows God to be hers in all she is and does, something similar but even greater and more definitive occurs. It is this that I believe c 603 recognizes as the silence of solitude; moreover, it is something every person yearns for and hermits witness to with their lives. Thus, I identify the silence of solitude as the context, goal, and charism of the eremitical life.

Does the fact that my life is charismatic and has a specific charism make a difference for me? Yes, absolutely.  For instance, because I have a sense of the charism of my vocation it means recognizing that my life is lived for others and therefore, that the call to wholeness and holiness in silence and solitude can never be allowed to become or remain a selfish or me-centered reality. It means recognizing and committing to living this vocation well because, as Thomas Merton once said, this life "makes certain claims about nature and grace"; to live it badly is to fail to allow it to witness to the truth of such claims, namely, that whoever we are and in whatever situation or condition, our God delights in and desires to complete us and bring us to fulness of life with and in God himself. It means insisting that dioceses and candidates understand this charism so that vocations to c 603 life are understood as significant and needed vocations, and discernment and formation processes (including the ongoing formation processes of consecrated hermits as well as those of candidates for profession/consecration) are undertaken carefully with equally significant rigor. 

When we forget the charism of this vocation (or any other vocation for that matter), we open the door to professing and consecrating those who can neither live nor witness to others in the way a c 603 hermit is called to do. I have been convinced for some time that it is in neglecting the charism of this vocation (that is, in forgetting that this vocation has a charism and is essentially charismatic) that we open the door to fraudulent hermits and stopgap vocations that are disedifying and even scandalous. Once dioceses identify the charism of this vocation, they will have a better way of discerning vocations to eremitical life under c 603. I think that the same is true of any vocation, including the vocation to lay life in the Church, Understanding the gift quality of any vocation helps one to live it well and to commit to growing in this ability for the whole of one's life.