On the Role of the Pastor in a Diocesan Hermit's Life

[[Dear to Christ Sr Laurel, Can you share with me the nature of the relationship between a hermit and her parish and parish priest? Does the parish priest in any way supervise the hermit? How do you discern the level of involvement you will have within the parish i.e. volunteer activities? I know you have a rule that cannot literally spell out everything you will or will not do and thus your understanding of the underlying principles of your rule must be your guide in decision-making. Do you find in your communications with other hermits that the parish priest accepts the hermit’s decisions? In my observation, a parish and parish priest may place certain expectations (such as leading bible study, catechism, and attending or leading retreats). Have you seen this? So many questions, I hope I haven’t asked too much but I think you will see the issue at the heart of it all. Thank you in advance for your help.]]

Hi there, Good questions. I have heard of what you describe once or twice. No, the parish priest has no direct role or say in the hermit's life per se unless he is more than the hermit's pastor. (Though unlikely, he could be the hermit's bishop and legitimate superior, for instance; somewhat more likely, perhaps he has been asked by the hermit and agreed to serve as the hermit's delegate with the diocese. In such cases, he would have some say in what her role in the parish could be because she is a hermit, but only in these cases.) If the pastor is merely the hermit's pastor, and if the hermit is involved in parish ministries to some extent she will discern and decide that based on expertise and consultation she does with her director (and sometimes with her bishop) in accordance with her Rule. In other words, ordinarily, the pastor oversees her ministry just as he does that of any other member of the parish doing ministry within the parish. He has nothing to do with supervising her eremitical life per se, and most pastors, I think, are wise enough to keep their fingers out of that pie!

A hermit MAY lead retreats and do other things for the parish community if and as she is competent, but she decides on what is necessarily part of her own hermit life and what it permits entirely apart from the input of her pastor. She is not assigned to a parish and is not simply a worker given to the parish by the diocese for specific ministries. Again, like any other member of a parish, she volunteers to do whatever she feels called to do (which includes what her Rule allows). If the parish can offer her a stipend for some of this, she is free to accept it or not depending on her understanding of evangelical poverty. Far more important, however, is the sense that she and her vocation are truly valued by her pastor and the parish faith community! (By the way, let me say here that in the past I have been very blessed to have had a pastor who allowed me the scope to minister and the freedom to remain within my hermitage as I discerned was appropriate --- while making it clear to all that my vocation and my place within the community is a valuable one. This was a very great gift of God!)

One thing which also must be noted is that to treat a diocesan hermit as a worker for the parish or as someone assigned to a parish for the purpose of ministry demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and essential freedom of the eremitical vocation. The hermit's essential work/ministry is to pray and be a source of prayer and the life of the Spirit in the parish or diocese. Yes, it is true that parishes may need men and women Religious to assist in various ways, and there are certainly fewer today than in the past, but the hermit is called to be a hermit. As one colleague of mine puts it, "She is called and sent into the hermitage, not out into the larger world", even that of the parish, as apostolic religious are called --- unless and to the extent she herself discerns such a call as an integral part of her call to the silence of solitude. Whenever such discernment is established, the degree of involvement will remain limited. Sometimes parishioners and pastors will understand these constraints and the way they serve the vocation, and other times they simply will not. The hermit's legal (canonical) and moral obligations to live her vocation with integrity persist even when the pastor or other parishioners do not understand the situation.

I should also note that it is my own opinion that the hermit should always be open to discovering a call to greater silence and solitude such as that found in reclusion. Though very rare today, and ordinarily associated with certain congregations of hermits, such a precious call could well require the parish/pastor to find ways to minister to the diocesan hermit in their midst rather than the reverse. Unfortunately, I have reason to believe that few pastors truly understand even contemplative life and far fewer still actually understand eremitical life. I suppose the temptation to treat the consecrated hermit as another apostolic Religious is a typical one and unsurprising. For that matter, the desire to minister as other Religious do is a perennial one for diocesan hermits who will generally always feel the tension between the solitary dimensions of a call to the silence of solitude and the communal dimensions of such a call. It is sometimes difficult to live a life that is so little understood, even by most of one's fellow parishioners. The refusal to attend parish functions or minister as one's gifts seem to suggest one ought can lead to a sense that the hermit is being selfish and increase the tension the hermit feels. It is critical for the hermit, her pastor, and the parish to understand that her life is fruitful for the parish and larger community in ways that are intangible but very real.

You asked how one discerns what activities in a parish one will participate in. A brief answer (a longer one would take forever!) is simply that one ministers in ways that flow from the silence of solitude and lead back to it. These days I do Bible for my parish. This grows directly from my own education and training, but also from the focus on Scripture that is part of my everyday hermit life. Moreover, it enriches my prayer and allows me to contribute to the life of the parish in ways that actually strengthen my eremitical vocation. Except for some very limited contributions I make at liturgy these days, my life takes place within the hermitage and is focused there. The limited teaching and spiritual direction I do is ordinarily done via ZOOM and so is the work I do with candidates for c 603 profession. When things begin to impact the silence of solitude I know it and I work with my director to resolve that. I take care in what I undertake concerning the parish or other dioceses. This isn't always easy, nor is it without some anguish at times; I believe though, that it is a necessary part of being a hermit called to the silence of solitude where silence is understood in terms of personal stillness and solitude is understood as a unique form of community.

I sincerely hope this is helpful.

Looking Ahead to Jesus' Prayer in Gethsemane: A Matter of Life and Integrity

[[Sister, you wrote that God did not will Jesus' death by torture and that in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asked for this cup to pass, God's response had to do with willing Jesus' integrity, not his torture, and so forth. I don't understand what you mean by this. For sure the passion and death of Jesus have me asking what kind of God would will the horrific passion and death of his Son, couldn't God forgive sin without all that? But at the same time, I recognize God is just as well as merciful. How do these two things link up with what you said about the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus living his life with integrity?]]

Imagine the scene in the Garden. Jesus has been journeying towards this moment his entire public ministry (and in one way and another his entire life!) because his entire life has been on a trajectory marked by integrity in doing the will of God. And what is that will? It is that in everything, Jesus says yes to God; it is that in all things he lets God be God; especially, he says yes to allowing God to truly be God-with-us in every moment and mood of human life. When we use the name Emmanuel (God with us) we celebrate the will of God not only for Godself but for Jesus and for all human beings. Jesus spends his entire life journeying toward the fullest embodiment or incarnation of the Word of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Not only does he grow in grace and stature in some general sense, but as he grows, he becomes more fully transparent to the One he calls Abba and implicates this God more extensively and deeply into the whole of created existence. Every choice that Jesus makes and is asked by God to make is about living this particular integrity, both as one achieving the fullness of authentic humanity in our world and as God's own counterpart among us.

Thus, when I imagine the prayer in Gethsemane, I hear Jesus asking if there isn't another path marked by this specific integrity, another way he could live his identity and be true to himself and the God he so loves. Isn't there another way he could embody or enflesh the Word of God in the whole scope of human and created existence? I hear him pouring out his love and terror, his faithfulness and anguish over what may seem to be the all-too-premature and tragic end of his mission. At the same time, I do not hear God saying -- "No, I want you to be tortured and die a godless death!" or, "I want you to suffer so I can forgive these people!" Nothing could be less true of the loving God whose justice is accomplished in mercy. However, I do hear God comforting Jesus and saying, "My dearest one, continue doing what you have been doing your whole life and especially in your public ministry. As you embrace greater and greater ways to allow me to be Emmanuel, go before and accompany all these others into the darkest and most forlorn places of sinful existence, for I want to be with them there too. I want nothing at all to separate them from me!! If they choose sin, I will meet and love them there; if they choose death, they will find me ready to embrace them even in that godlessness. Meet them wherever that takes you and continue to proclaim the Word with integrity!! I will be with you even when you feel most alone and abandoned, but act with integrity!! You are called and sent to this; choose to be yourself." (And then, very gently, I hear God say to Jesus), "Beloved, I know you will do nothing less."

In sinning, human beings create a world that is often marked by godlessness, a world of space and time (i.e., history) from which the eternal God is often excluded beyond the limits that God's transcendence already imposes. (God is eternal. Space and time (history) are human categories God must be implicated into by the free acceptance/embrace of humanity.) It is a world where the sacred is often marked off from the profane, where certain ways of acting and living are resistant to life and the God who authors life, where death assumes a form called godless or eternal death, and where God, simply cannot be personally present unless somehow (he) is allowed or brought into these places. In sending the Word and then calling Jesus to Incarnate that Word fully throughout the scope of his life, we say the glory of God is revealed in Christ; what we mean is that not only is God made known in Christ, but that in him God is also made real in space and time and one day will be all in all. All of this is included in the name Emmanuel. God wills to be Emmanuel, not simply in the sacred places but in the unexpected and even the unacceptable places where God, religion tells us, should never be. What I hear God doing with Jesus in the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is to remind him of his own truest identity as Emmanuel.

God indeed wills to dwell with us in even the deepest and darkest of godless places. He wills to transform all of reality with his powerfully loving and creative presence. That includes the transformation of sin and death. This is the meaning of forgiveness. We are forgiven whenever God reconciles us to himself, whenever he overcomes the alienation that exists between us, whenever, that is, he makes the unacceptable or godless his own dwelling place and changes it forever. Paul knew this well and reminded us that Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners. He celebrated the bottom line of God's will to reconcile everything to God not only in 2 Cor 5:19 ("God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,") but in Romans 8 when he listed all of the powers and principalities at work in our world to separate us from God and affirmed that nothing at all can or will ultimately separate us from the love of God. After all, this is the fullest goal and meaning of "God With Us".

Emmanuel is the essence of Jesus' own identity just as it reveals the nature of authentic humanity itself. It defines the mission he has committed himself to and embraced numberless times in his life. And now, here in the Garden of Gethsemane, in spite of his terror and in light of his trust in his Abba, he must recommit to this Life, Truth, and Way, one final time. It is a matter of being faithful to himself and to the God who loves him and us without reserve or condition --- the God whom he loves similarly above all things. Remembering the thrust of Jesus' entire life, God asks Jesus to be Emmanuel --- to choose life in and with God, whatever step comes next, just as he has always done. What God wills in Gethsemane is a matter of life and integrity for Jesus and for the whole of creation. Nothing less and nothing other.

Feast of the Annunciation (Reprised)

I wonder what the annunciation of Jesus' conception was really like factually, what the angel's message (that is, God's own mediated message) sounded like and how it came to Mary. I imagine the months that would have passed without Mary having a period and her anguish and anxiety about what might be wrong, followed by a subtle sign here, an ambiguous symptom there, and eventually the full realization of the inexplicable fact that she was pregnant! That would have been a shock, of course, but even then, it would have taken some time for the bone deep fear to register: "I have not been intimate with a man! I can be killed or abandoned for this!" Only over more time would come first the even deeper sense that God had overshadowed her, and then, the assurance that she need not be afraid. God was doing something completely new and would stand by Mary just as he promised when he revealed himself originally to Moses as: "I will be who I will be," --- and, "I will be present to you, never leaving you bereft or barren." (Both are good translations of the name sometimes translated, "I am who am".)

In the work I do with people in spiritual direction (and in my own inner work as well), one of the tools I (ask clients to) use sometimes is dialogue. The idea is to externalize and make explicit in writing the disparate voices we carry within us: it may be a conversation between the voice of reason and the voice of fear, or the voice of stubbornness or that of impulsivity and our wiser, more flexible selves who speak to and with one another at these times so that this existence may have a future marked by wholeness, holiness, and new life. As individuals become adept at doing these dialogues, they may even discover themselves echoing or revealing at one moment the very voice of God which dwells in the deepest, most real, parts of their heart as they simultaneously bring their most profound needs and fears to the conversation. Almost invariably these kinds of dialogues bring strength and healing, integration and faith. 

When I hear today's Gospel story I hear it as this kind of internal dialogue between the frightened, even bewildered Mary and the deepest, truest, part of herself which is God's own Word and Spirit (breath) calling her to a selfhood of wholeness and fruitfulness beyond all she has known before but also that stands in harmony with her people's covenant traditions and promise.

This is the way faith comes to most of us, the way we come to know and hear and respond to the voice of God in our lives. For most of us the Word of God dwells within us and only gradually steps out of the background in response to our fears, confusion, and needs as we ponder them in our hearts --- just as Mary did her entire life, but especially at times like this. In the midst of turmoil, of events which turn life plans on their heads and shatter dreams, there in our midst will be the God of Moses and Mary and Jesus reminding us, "I will overshadow you; depend on me, say yes to this, open yourself to my promise and perspective and we will bring life and meaning out of this; together we will make a gift of this tragedy (or whatever the event is) for you and for the whole world! We will bring to birth a Word the world needs so desperately to hear: Be not afraid for I am with you. Do not fear for you are precious beyond imagining to me."

Annunciations happen to us every day: small moments that signal the advent of a new opportunity to hear, embody Christ, and gift him to others. Perhaps many are missed and fewer are heeded as Mary heeded her own and gave her fiat to the change which would make something entirely new of her life, her tradition, and her world. But Mary's story is very much our own story as well, and the Feast of Christ's nativity is meant to refer to his being born of us as well. The world into which he will be brought will not love him really --- not if he is the Jesus our Scriptures and our creeds proclaim. (We bear this very much in mind during Lent and especially at the approach of Holy Week.) But our own fiat ("Here I am Lord, I come to do your will!") will be accompanied by the reassuring voice of God: "I will overshadow you and accompany you. Our stories are joined now, inextricably wed as I say yes to you and you say yes to me. Together we create the future. Salvation will be born from this union. Be not afraid!"

Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Feast of an Icon of Justice

Tomorrow's Feast (observed on Monday this year) is the Solemnity of St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary. One of the lessons we take from Joseph's story is the importance of faithfulness to the presence of God in even the most seemingly mundane parts of our lives. Such faithfulness can allow momentous things to happen and it is through such faithfulness in small, everyday things, that the will of the eternal God to set all things right (that is, the will to do justice) is ultimately done. We don't know lots of stories about Joseph but, we do know that he struggled to discern and do the will of God (hence his attention to dreams). We know too that he committed himself to what God was doing in and through Mary, and that he supported and expressed this through his daily faithfulness both as a husband and father.

Especially poignant, I think, is the Matthean story of Joseph as the icon of one who struggles to allow God's own justice to be brought to birth as fully as possible in his relationship with Mary. It is, in its own way, a companion story to Luke's account of Mary's annunciation and fiat. Both Mary (we are told explicitly) and Joseph (implied not least, by his dream and his attention to that dream) ponder things in their hearts; both are mystified and shaken by the great mystery which has taken hold of them and in which they have become pivotal characters. Both allow God's power and presence to overshadow them -- though in different ways -- so that God might do something qualitatively new in the world. But it is Joseph's more extended, and profoundly faithful struggle to overcome his fear and even some deeply held religious convictions, that is at the heart of those few stories we have about him. In today's Feast, Joseph does justice in mercy, indeed, he reveals the truth that true justice is mercy, thus modeling God's own justice in ways that fulfill OT conceptions of justice and challenge some of our own as well.

The Struggle to Do Justice, the Situation:

I am a little ashamed to say before several years ago, I hadn't spent much time considering Joseph's predicament or the context of that predicament. Instead, I had always thought of him as a good man who chose the merciful legal solution rather than opting for the stricter one available to him. I never saw him making any other choice, nor did I understand the various ways he was pushed and pulled by his own faith and love --- nor his fear! But Joseph's situation was far more demanding and frustrating than I had ever appreciated! Consider the background which weighed heavy on Joseph's heart. First, he is identified as a just or righteous man, a man faithful to God, to the Covenant, a keeper of the Law or Torah, an observant Jew who was well aware of Isaiah's promise and the sometimes bitter history of his own Davidic line. All of this and more is implied here by the term "righteous man". In any case, this represents his most foundational and essential identity. Secondly, he was betrothed to Mary, wed (not just engaged!) to her though he had not yet taken her to his family home and would not for about a year. That betrothal/marriage was a symbol of the covenant between God and his People. Together Joseph and Mary symbolized the Covenant; to betray or dishonor this relationship was to betray and profane the Covenant itself. This too was uppermost in Joseph's mind precisely because he was a righteous man.

Thirdly, he loved Mary and was entirely mystified by her pregnancy. Nothing in his tradition prepared him for a virgin birth. Mary could only have gotten pregnant through intercourse with another man so far as Joseph could have known --- and this despite Mary's protestations of innocence. (The OT passage referring to a virgin is more originally translated as "young woman". Only later as "almah" was translated into the Greek "parthenos" and even later was seen by Christians in light of Mary and Jesus' nativity did "young woman" firmly come to mean  "a virgin".) The history of Israel was fraught with all-too-human failures which betrayed the covenant and profaned Israel's high calling. While Joseph was open to God doing something new in history it is more than a little likely that he was torn between which of these possibilities was actually occurring here, just as he was torn between believing Mary and continuing the marriage and divorcing her and casting her and the child aside.

What Were Joseph's Options?

Under the Law, Joseph had two options. The first involved a very public divorce. Joseph would bring the situation to the attention of the authorities, involve witnesses, repudiate the marriage and patrimony for the child, and cast Mary aside. This would establish Joseph as a wronged man and allow him to continue to be seen as righteous or just. But Mary could have been stoned and the baby would also have died as a result. The second option was more private but also meant bringing his case to the authorities. In this solution, Joseph would again have repudiated the marriage and patrimony but the whole matter would not have become public and Mary's life or that of the child would not have been put in immediate jeopardy. Still, in either instance, Mary's shame and apparent transgressions would have become known and in either case, the result would have been ostracization and eventual death. Under the law Joseph would have been called a righteous man but how would he have felt about himself in his heart of hearts? Would he have wondered if he was just under the Law but at the same time had refused to hear the message of an angel of God, refused to allow God to do something new and even greater than the Law?

Of course, Joseph might have simply done nothing at all and continued with the plans for the marriage's future. But in such a case many problems would have arisen. According to the Law, he would have been falsely claiming paternity of the child --- a transgression of the Law and thus, the covenant. Had the real father shown up in the future and claimed paternity Joseph would then have been guilty of "conniving with Mary's own sin" (as Harold Buetow describes the matter). Again Law and covenant would have been transgressed and profaned. In his heart of hearts, he might have believed this was the just thing to do but in terms of his People and their Covenant and Law, he would have acted unjustly and offended the all-just God. Had he brought Mary to his family home he would have rendered them and their abode unclean as well. If Mary was guilty of adultery she would have been unclean --- hence the need for ostracizing her or even killing her!

Entering the Liminal Place Where God May Speak to Us:

All of this and so much more was roiling around in Joseph's heart and mind! In one of the most difficult situations we might imagine, Joseph struggled to discern what was just and what it would mean for him to do justice in our world! Every option was torturous; each was inadequate for a genuinely righteous man. Eventually, he came to a conclusion that may have seemed the least problematical even if it was not wholly satisfactory, namely to put Mary away "quietly", to divorce her in a more private way, and walk away from her. And at this moment, when Joseph's struggle to discern and do justice has reached its most neuralgic point, at a place of terrible liminality symbolized in so much Scriptural literature by dreaming, God reveals to Joseph the same truth Mary has herself accepted: God is doing something unimaginably new here. He is giving the greatest gift yet. The Holy Spirit has overshadowed Mary and resulted in the conception of One who will be the very embodiment of God's justice in our world. Not only has a young woman come to be pregnant but a virgin will bear a child! The Law will be fulfilled in Him and true justice will have a human face as God comes to be Emmanuel in this new and definitive way.

Joseph's faith response to God's revelation has several parts or dimensions. He decides to consummate the marriage with Mary by bringing her to his family home but not as an act of doing nothing at all and certainly not as some kind of sentimental or cowardly evasion of real justice. Instead, it is a way of embracing the whole truth and truly doing justice. He affirms the marriage and adopts the child as his own. He establishes him in the line of David even as he proclaims the child's true paternity. He does this by announcing this new Son's name to be Jesus, God saves.  Thus Joseph proclaims to the world that God has acted in this Son's birth in a new way that transcends and relativizes the Law even as it completely respects it. He honors the Covenant with a faithfulness that leads to that covenant's perfection in the Christ Event. In all of this, Joseph continues to show himself to be a just or righteous man, a man whose humanity and honor we ourselves should regard profoundly.

Justice is the way to Genuine Future:

Besides being moved by Joseph's genuine righteousness, I am struck by a couple of things in light of all of this. First, discerning and doing justice is not easy. There are all kinds of solutions that are partial and somewhat satisfactory, but real justice takes work and, in the end, must be inspired by the love and wisdom of God. Secondly, Law per se can never really mediate justice. Instead, the doing of justice takes a human being who honors the Law, feels compassion, knows mercy, struggles in fear and trepidation with discerning what is right, and ultimately is open to allowing God to do something new and creative in the situation. Justice is never a system of laws, though it will include these. It is always a personal act of courage and even of worship, the act of one who struggles to mediate God's own plan and will for all those whom that involves. Finally, I am struck by the fact that justice opens reality to a true future. Injustice closes off the future. In all of the partial and unsatisfactory solutions Joseph entertained and wrestled with, each brought some justice and some injustice. Future of some sort was assured for some and foreclosed to others; often both came together in what was merely a sad and tragic approximation of a "real future". Only God's own will and plan assures a genuine future for the whole of his creation. That too is something yesterday's Gospel witnessed to.

Another Look at Joseph:

Joseph is a real star in Matt's account of protecting Jesus' nativity and life beyond that; he points to God and the justice only God can do. It is important, I think, to see all that he represents as Mary's counterpart in the nativity of Jesus (Son of David) who is Emmanuel (God With Us). Mary's fiat seems easy and graceful in more than one sense of that term. Joseph's fiat is hard-won but also graced or graceful. For Joseph, as for Mary, there is real labor involved as the categories of divinity and justice, law and covenant are burst asunder to bring the life and future of heaven to birth in our world. But Joseph with Mary also both lived essentially hidden lives which were faith in all the little and big moments of being spouses and parents --- the vocations that allowed God's will to justice to be accomplished in their Son, Jesus.

May we each be committed to the work of mediating God's own justice and bringing God's future into being especially in this Lenten season. This is the time when we especially look ahead to the coming of the Kingdom of God and attune ourselves in hope to the time when God will be all in all. May we never take refuge in partial and inadequate solutions to our world's problems and need for justice, especially out of shortsightedness, sentimentality, cowardice, evasion, or fear for our own reputations. And may we allow Joseph to be the model of discernment, humility, faithfulness, and courage in mediating the powerful presence and future of God we recognize as justice and which we so yearn for in this 21st Century.

New Atmospheric River forecast for Tomorrow. New Camaldoli is shut down with Guests Unable to Leave the Hermitage

The newest information (also see update below) from New Camaldoli is that roads are being washed out and closed just north of the hermitage with another atmospheric river being forecast starting tomorrow. Currently (according to Big Sur Kate's blog), there are 8 guests who "need to get out" of the hermitage and immediate environs, but road damage and closures including access to the employees' driveway make that impossible. 

Please keep everyone at the Hermitage and their families in your prayers. The Hermitage is now closed to all visitors and the degree of rain projected beginning tomorrow will be at least as much as dumped by the storms that just finished. Access to the Hermitage could be seriously impacted for some time with roadways already undercut from sliding ground undergoing even further damage as the storms arrive.

Updated pictures 3/14:

As you can tell, the roadway (Hwy 1) just North of New Camaldoli continues to fall away from just a couple of days ago. How long it will take Caltrans to repair things once the rains have stopped is anyone's guess at this point. Meanwhile, work at Paul's Slide south of the hermitage will likely continue for months (next picture).

Continued prayers for everyone affected by these storms, especially those facing flash flooding throughout CA and in other parts of the country as well. While we are concerned for New Camaldoli and those who need to come and go from there (the hermitage is now isolated by ground), we are also grateful to God that they are currently well-supplied and are relatively safe despite road damage and closings. I will add further updates as I get these.