Discerning Whether one lives a Solitude marked by Community or Community marked by Solitude

[[ Hi Sister, thanks for answering my questions. I'm sorry for your difficulties in your parish. I will certainly pray for you and them! It does raise some more questions for me though. For instance, because your parish has always been such an important part of your vocation, would you ever consider changing parishes? What happens to a diocesan hermit who finds that living in a given parish or diocese detracts from living his/her vocation? I mean you can't just go off to another diocese, or can you? Also, from your earlier answer, what is the cut-off line that makes a hermit a hermit instead of being a religious living in community? I hope you understand what I mean here. You don't divide things up percentage-wise so how do you determine you are a hermit participating in community rather than a community member living a non-eremitical form of solitude? Does that make sense? And one last question, what kinds of questions can people ask you? Have you considered opening your blog to comments? I would bet you get more questions if you did that.]]

Good questions and yes, I think I understand what you are asking in all of them. Thanks for your prayers for me and my parish. I appreciate that very much and would note the difficulties we are experiencing are probably not much different from those a lot of folks have or are experiencing in relation to widespread attempts by some to move back behind or to prevent the full reception of Vatican II. Would I ever consider changing parishes? Yes, at least I would consider finding other options for regular Mass attendance and preaching that meets my own need to be fed. In some ways, I already do part of that by listening to homilies that are live-streamed. It may be at some point I will need to find a more comprehensive solution, but I am not there yet. 

Regarding changing dioceses the situation is more complicated. Though a diocesan hermit is a canonical hermit wherever she goes within the universal church, should she wish to move to another diocese, she must get the permission of the new bishop in order to be accepted as a diocesan hermit in that diocese. (She cannot live in one diocese and be professed in another.) Her current bishop will confirm she is a hermit in good standing while the new bishop accepts responsibility for her vocation, vows, and canonical status in this new diocese. So, the short answer to your question is no, hermits can't just go off to another diocese; neither am I looking to do so.

Your follow-up questions on determining whether one is a hermit living solitude as a unique form of community, or someone living in community with a consonant and significant focus on solitude is important. When a hermit writes that community is important in her life, is there a danger that at some point she ceases being a hermit and morphs into something else? Yes, that is a danger and it is something dioceses have to discern with candidates prior to profession and hermits must discern at various points thereafter as well. It is important both that solitude not be a name given to validate isolation and individualism, and at the same time, that despite the pervasive presence of community in the hermit's life and coloring her solitude, that she really be living eremitical solitude and bringing the silence of solitude to experiences of community. How does one know what one is really living?

You are correct that I don't use percentages to determine things here. The Trappistines I mentioned in my earlier post refer to balance as important in assuring that they live 100% community and 100% solitude. It is also an important term in managing the relationship between prayer and work so that while they live Benedict's ora et labora, eventually prayer seeps into the Sisters' work and they live a life of prayer in all things. In my own life, and I think in any hermit's life, one begins with the defining elements of one's life. Here c 603 refers to stricter separation from the world, assiduous prayer and penance, and the silence of solitude --- all lived for the salvation of the world. All four of these taken together (the motivation for the first three is critical) are important in determining whether or not one is living eremitical solitude or using the term solitude to validate something else. Together, they lead me to discern what I am living in terms not of balance, but of healthiness and focus.

The Silence of Solitude, a Key to Discernment:

When I write about the silence of solitude I treat it as the context, goal, and charism of the eremitical life. It is context because almost everything I do is done in the silence of my hermitage's solitude. That context is the ground and supportive sphere in which I pray, study, recreate, do inner work (spiritual direction-related work including meetings with my director), and write. Do I go out? Yes, for Mass, walks, some doctor's visits, occasional lunches or coffees, occasional workshops or talks, and until a few years ago, weekly rehearsals for orchestra. Since COVID I tend to do some shared lectio and some Bible study (including those I teach) along with annual or bi-annual retreats via ZOOM;  I meet my doctors via ZOOM as well, but the silence of solitude is first of all about living alone with God in this hermitage. This way is healthy for me, the way I am most truly myself, and the way God can most truly be God for and with me.

The silence of solitude is something I also recognize as the goal of my life. Here silence means the healing of woundedness, the healing and reconciliation of the various anguished and otherwise noisy voices of the past that call for forgiveness, and even more, the achievement of the authentic expression of my deepest self. When I speak of being made to be a Magnificat (cf banner at top of this blog) I am thinking of being made silent in some ways that allow God's life to sing within and through me so that I become not just God's prayer in this world, but God's hymn of praise --- even when the overtones and harmonies of that hymn are profoundly modal or echo my life's lamentations. In some ways, silence here means not getting in the Word's way and allowing it to come to fruition as I am called and empowered to incarnate it for the sake of the whole world. Here the "silence of solitude" which is central to c 603, points to human wholeness and holiness --- the achievement in God of true individuality where my own deepest potentials are realized and appropriately expressed in my most mature Sel. At the same time, the shouts, temptations, and anguish of the world that can deflect such a process are rendered silent or harmonious (even if now gently dissonant) and of no distorting influence.

Finally, the silence of solitude is the charism of my vocation. I believe hermits live this reality with a special focus and vividness. They say with their lives that every person is called to be completed by God and made for a love that can only be received as gift. Given all the various idols alive and prevalent in our world, all of the things without which we are told we cannot live or be happy and complete or whole, the hermit defines authentic humanity in terms of communion with God and points clearly to all of the values and goals which, more often than not, help ensure we "miss the mark" (i.e., are bound by and to sin) instead. That it is really possible to achieve meaningful and fruitful authentic humanity via the love of God is the claim hermits make with lives lived in eremitical solitude; it is a gift we live for the sake of all others and their own search for completion and abundant life.

The purpose of eremitical solitude is to provide a unique (though not the only) way toward Communion and even Union with God. Again, in my life, I understand communion with God as part of being authentically human and necessary for any genuinely loving relationship with others. Each of the canon's central elements mentioned above puts communion-towards-union with God right at the center of the hermit's life; communion with God which tends toward union is the primary definer of the meaning of eremitical solitude, there thing which makes it context, goal, and charism. The first question I have to ask myself therefore is "am I living an eremitical solitude which first of all tends toward union with God?" The second question is related and has to do with how I know this to be true, namely, "Am I living a healthy solitude which is marked by personal growth as a whole and holy human being?" The last questions I tend to ask myself are, "How does community color and shape my solitude and how is it affected by my solitude; does it foster my life in communion-toward-union with God or detract from that? Is it enhanced by my solitude or does it seem to conflict with it?" All of this and more goes into determining how I am living solitude in its relation to community. I hope this is helpful. 

Regarding your question about opening this blog up to comments, etc., I considered it a number of years ago and decided against it. While I appreciate folks writing me via email and otherwise, opening the blog to comments seemed to me to make the boundaries between my hermitage and the world outside it far too porous. This blog is an extension of my life in solitude and the questions I receive are questions I open within the hermitage and its routines. I have some real control over these --- when to read them, when and how to respond to them prayerfully during my day or week. I can work on my blog without being assailed by comments and questions and at the same time can give such things the time they really deserve and call for without feeling assaulted by other opinions, questions, and concerns. (Those too will have their proper time and space if and whenever folks take the time to write me!) Not sure if I can explain this sense of mine any better than that; I hope you can understand what I mean.