Writing a Rule: Vision Before Legislation (part II)

 [[Hi Sister, you said recently that a Rule is about a vision of eremitical life before it is about legislation. I wondered if you could say more about this. I think it is easy in some ways to make a Rule a long or complicated to-do list but how does one make it into a vision one lives for the rest of one's life?]]

Thanks for this question, in the last years I have worked or am working with people approaching admission to profession according to C 603. In each case, I said I hoped the Rule they are or were writing would truly become an embodiment of the way God has been working in their lives and speaks to them in this canon. After all, the Canon describes a way of life where God is central, where everything is focused on letting God be God, and particularly, focused on letting God be God-With-Us in the silence of solitude through assiduous prayer and penance, etc. 

As I have written before, the Rule should reflect not only the letter (the literal terms) of the Canon but the singular lived experience that stands at the heart of the life it governs. This experience of letting God be God is the essence of what it means to be created, called to be, and made truly human as imago Christi. The solitary hermit in the consecrated state perceives and commits to the truth that this best occurs for her according to the terms and conditions that define her vocation canonically and without the community context that requires Rules (or Constitutions) to be shaped more generically.

I think this means that the solitary hermit's Rule should also reflect what it means for this particular person to have such a vocation and be called by God to be created and shaped by, as well as to be one who witnesses to and even mediates God's love in the really unique way her/his vocation makes possible and necessary. Such a person's Rule should convey something of what it means for them to be called by God not only to be a hermit, but to be a solitary canonical hermit whose commitments are made and whose life is lived, for God's own sake and for the sake of the salvation of others as well. Because this is not a Rule guiding and inspiring a community but an individual, because the charism of the vocation is discerned as part of a singular dialogue between Canonical requirements and the signal graces God has gifted this hermit with during her life, I am convinced the personal dimension of one's own story cannot and must not be omitted from the Rule of a C 603 hermit. To do this, to omit this personal dimension, is to turn the Rule into what I referred to in an earlier post as "an out-sized to-do list" that speaks to no one, perhaps not even the one who wrote it.

So what does this mean concretely? I think first of all it means constructing a Rule which tells (both you and others) not only what you will live but why you will and in fact, do commit to living this. For instance, besides an introductory section that summarizes some of my own story very generally, I will write about the specific elements of the canon and how I understand them. When I write about an element of the Canon like the silence of solitude, I do it from the perspective of someone who has experienced isolation and knows that the redemption of isolation is found in solitude. In fact, it is recognized as solitude. The achievement of God's redemption of isolation occurs for the hermit when she comes to genuine solitude. The details of one's experience of isolation is unlikely to be directly pertinent to one's Rule itself, but the sense of what isolation causes in us, how it affects our relationship with God, our faith, etc., could be helpful in spelling out the nature of the redemption achieved in solitude. This, in turn, will affect the way we think, pray, and write about solitude (and other elements as well!), how we protect and live these out, what conflicts with it (or them), impacts it, yearns for it, transforms it from curse to blessing, and so forth. 

Likewise, the way we see and write about "the silence of solitude" will be affected by all of this. In this term are we speaking merely about the absence of sound (like that which comes from turning off -- or throwing out -- the TV, etc), or are we speaking about something deeper as well --- the absence of woundedness and the resulting varied "cries" for comfort or attention that lead people in all kinds of unworthy or obnoxious directions, the effects of forgiveness and healing, the cessation of tendencies toward self-assertion, the quieting of fear and insecurities of all kinds --- that come when we stand strong as ourselves in the power of God's love? By extension then, are we also talking about the kind of silence that allows the deepest cries and yearnings of our heart to sound out clearly, to be heard and attended to? Yes, of course, the silence of solitude means first of all a physical silence and solitude associated with being alone (with God). That corresponds to my understanding of the silence of solitude as the context for eremitical life. But because of the life experience I bring to the hermitage and this context, that is only the beginning of the way I understand this central element in the Canon governing my life. Thus, besides treating the silence of solitude as context for eremitical life in my Rule, I also include "the silence of solitude" as goal (telos), and then as the charism of my eremitism and life. 

When I write (indirectly) about these personal things in my Rule, it is because I have a vision of the solitary life that appreciates both the silence of solitude and eremitical life together as a gift of God for myself, and for far more than myself! In a world fraught with isolation, woundedness and trauma, division, and noise on every level and of every possible type, a hermit living and exploring "the silence of solitude" as part of what it means to be truly or authentically human becomes a gift to that same world. More immediately, the hermit's Rule becomes the story of God working in her life and provides the outline of a vision of how to continue participating in that story! It is a vision she commits to grow into with God wherever this takes her. 

Canon 603 has a number of other requirements and each of them needs to be addressed in a similar way. These need to 1) imply one's own story with God, and 2) provide a vision of the life that may serve others who are searching and waiting to hear the Gospel as the answer to their own journeys --- even if they never step anywhere near a hermitage. What is absolutely critical is that in some way the hermit writing the Rule combines the requirements (central elements) of Canon 603 with her own life story, not because she cannot let go of her life before the hermitage, but because in every way, the Rule she is proposing to live indicates the continuation and fulfillment of a long journey towards redemption by God's love. It spells out a coherent way of living out the victory of that redemption as it has unfolded to bring her here and still continues to unfold in this new context and commitment. This is what it means to have a vocation; this is the vision she must hold onto when living that vocation becomes especially difficult or demanding. It is who she needs to be as she determines what she will also do to witness and continue responding to that Divine call.

As something of an aside, when I submitted my first Rule to my diocese back in @1984, it was sent off to a canonist to read and approve. She had a couple of comments regarding theology and then an observation about the nature of the document as a whole. She noted that it had a rather personal feel to it "but that in Rules of this sort" that was perfectly acceptable. Still, I remember feeling like her approval on this point was not unalloyed.  When I look back at that Rule today, I find it kind of laughable; it was certainly inadequate. The irony is that that personal tone and nature, something that was pretty new at that time (since such documents and the Canon that called for them were pretty new at this time) later was perceived as a key to discerning such vocations and providing a way of working out the formation of c 603 hermits.

Canon 603: A Complete Departure from "Traditional Eremitical Life"?

Unity is NOT uniformity!!
Celebrate Canon 603!

[[Dear Sister, I was looking for a post where you wrote about canon 603 as not being a complete departure from the tradition of eremitical life through the ages but couldn't find it. Do you have the link? At the same time, I wondered if you could recommend some books that show hermits were often committed to eremitical life in the hands of their bishops or something similar. (I know it isn't exactly "in the hands of" like canon 603 or religious profession but I am not sure what to call it.) Was it typical throughout the centuries for hermits to be given permission by the church to live as a hermit? What about wearing habits, writing Rules, being "vetted" by others, and things like that? Also, if there was oversight over hermits, what makes canon 603 different as you claim it is?]]

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I will find the link to the post you asked about. I can't recall the title right off hand, but I should be able to find it. I can recommend several books that speak of hermits and anchorites and their relation with their church and bishop. What is clear from these is that even though C. 603 is new in the sense of it being a part of universal law, it continues a trend that existed well into the Middle Ages and after as well, namely, that of having hermits be licensed to present themselves as hermit, to wear an eremitical habit, to beg for alms, and even to preach. 

Two books I would recommend are, Hermits and Anchorites in England 1200-1550  trans. by E.A. Jones. This book is an anthology of many records of things like Rules, rites of enclosure used, characteristics of the life, failures, visions, sleeping and dreaming, clothing, daily routine, preparation and discernment of vocations, licensing by bishops, certificates of profession, renegades and charlatans, letters of protection and safe passage, etc, etc, right on up to dissolution under Henry VIII et al. It gives good anecdotal evidence for the institutional involvement with anchorites and hermits in England during these 350 years. The second is The Call of the Desert by Peter F Anson, a good overview of eremitical life to the early 20th C. There are several other on anchoritic life by Liz McAvoy and one by Anneke Mulder-Bakker Lives of the Anchoresses, The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe, that I would also recommend depending on your specific interests, but these latter tend to be pricey

One observation in Jones' book is helpful in debunking the notion that c 603 is some sort of betrayal of past eremitical practice, and in responding, at least as a beginning, to your questions:

[[The outline and character of the anchoritic life were more or less established by the point at which this book begins (1200 CE). Enclosure was now expected to be strict and irrevocable. The role of the bishop in approving and supervising the vocation had been asserted and passed into usual practice, and was underlined by the prominent part he took in the process of enclosure (Chapters 2-6). . .[and later, when dealing with the eremitical vocation per se, the author writes,] This is the context for a suite of measures that seemed to have been designed to put the hermit vocation on a secure canonical foundation to match that already in place for anchorites, The examination of candidates and testing of their vocation, profession ceremonies, and rules or guides for living --- all of which already existed for anchorites in 1215 -- started to be provided [for hermits] around the beginnings of the fifteenth century. (For more on this, see Chapter VI.)]]

So in England, anchorites and anchoresses in the Catholic church participated in mutual discernment processes and were supervised by bishops by around 1200 CE. Hermits (always male and more itinerant than anchorites)  participated in similar processes by the 1400s. This was true of the granting and wearing of habits, rules, nature of the cell or hermitage, upkeep, health, etc. For instance, in other situations (other countries, or times) with regard to the habit, a mentor granted the habit when s/he thought the candidate was ready to take on the responsibilities of what was a public vocation (I say public here not only because it was not a merely private decision, but because it witnessed to certain values and did so under supervision). If the candidate failed to live eremitical life well, the permission to wear the habit was removed.  (This was true of the Desert fathers and Mothers in the 300s-500s as well and others have noted similar practices through the centuries.) And note well that this book references merely one small period of time in the history of the Church's varying attempts to adequately come to terms with this often-problematical but clear gift of the Holy Spirit! Given the varied presentations of and motivations for eremitical life (or those for claiming one was a hermit) there was no single attempt at dealing with eremitical vocation, but many over the course of the centuries). It is important to understand this when trying to gauge whether canon 603 is a betrayal of solitary eremitical life as "traditionally lived".  

There were good reasons for all of these steps taken by the church. Usually, bishops licensed hermits and in this way sometimes gave them the right to beg or to be seen as appropriate recipients of benefactors' assistance and charity. Sometimes they licensed them to preach. The wearing of the habit (which only modified contemporary dress some, remember, or added this or that symbolic piece of clothes or accouterment --- like a pilgrim's badge, etc.) facilitated access to others and a sense that the person could be trusted over the more ordinary beggar, and so forth. Professions, it seems, were carefully undertaken and recorded, especially in certain settings; this was a matter of safety for all concerned as was the discernment or "vetting" process during this time. Each diocese and/or bishop adopted steps that protected the anchorites or hermits (not to mention the dioceses, bishops, and parish churches to which such persons were attached), and which also allowed the vocation itself to be and be seen as credible, and dealt with changing situations and conditions on the ground. 

As I have written before, the difference between Canon 603 and the various canons, statutes, and diocesan guidelines is that Canon 603 is universal in nature. It is meant for the whole Church and is binding on every diocese, every bishop, and every canonical solitary hermit. This means the learning curve regarding this vocation is broad and can be approached in a more systematic way as dioceses contribute their (new) knowledge and experience to assist others without such. One of the things c 603 signifies is a central ecclesial vision of eremitical life that, within certain limits, is also incredibly flexible and can be individualized according to the conditions and needs of the diocese and the hermit in question. At the same time, individualization remains subsumed under the broad,  central, and accepted vision of a solitary eremitical life so that individuality is also constrained and invited to transcendence in light of something larger than itself.

Please note, I can't locate the post you asked about so it may have been shifted to draft mode somehow. I also lost a couple of posts accidentally last week and don't know how that happened --- they are gone forever though, and one still needs to be re-written out of whole cloth (I need to recover the questions first). Let's hope that is not true for this post! I will keep looking and if I find it I'll add the link at the top of this article. Please check back occasionally, won't you?

Follow-up on Growing as a Hermit: The importance of Others and Learning to Listen

[[Dear Sister, first of all, thank you for your response to my question. Also, thank you for the chance to follow up. What I was interested to hear was how does a hermit with little access to other people measure their [own] growth? Here's where I was coming from in my question. I know that it is in my relationships with others that I really find out whether I have been growing or not. Sometimes I think I've got some hang up taken care of and all of a sudden there's an encounter with someone at my parish and any thought that I have grown in my ability to love others, or my capacity for patience, or whatever --- is shown for the delusion it is! It just seemed to me that a hermit has less chance to have the kinds of experiences that prove whether they have grown or not.

I also wanted to follow up on what you said about letting God be God. I never made the connection before between letting God be God, letting ourselves be loved by God, and loving God ourselves. They really are all the same thing, aren't they? Thank you for that insight!]]

Thanks again for getting back to me. I understand where you are coming from in your observation regarding access to people or relationships. My own experience is, in some ways, the same as yours with regard to seeing how I have grown as a hermit. One source of gauging or measuring growth will be how I deal with other people. Sometimes this has to do with how others still trigger reactions in me, how I get irritated or impatient or judgmental --- all that kind of thing. Sometimes I will notice shifts in relating that are more positive (though I might be noticing how much less irritated or impatient or judgmental I get than I once did, and this represents growth and healing). Yes, there's nothing like relating to others, especially after periods of solitude, to help one see the work that has been done and the work (or conversion, growth, or healing) that still needs to be done!!!

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

I do pay attention to the keys these kinds of encounters with others give me, but the source of growth, healing, and conversion will always mainly be my relationship with God. I grow in that relationship and as I do that, I find that it bears fruit in other relationships, in the way in which I see reality around me (for instance, is my realism tinged (or strongly colored) by cynicism or by hope?), and in the way I experience or know myself as well. It also bears fruit in the way I live each day, how I handle illness and chronic pain, how faithful, caring, creative, and courageous I am able to be in spite of limitations, and in all of this, how faithful to prayer.) There are certainly times when all of that is harder (and sometimes very much harder) than at others and I depend on regular meetings with my director to share it all and to maintain perspective and direction. In between meetings for SD, it is journaling, prayer periods, and my time with Scripture that help keep me in touch with who I am called to be and who I am becoming. 

I think what I want you to hear here is the fact that a hermit's life is not ordinarily entirely closed off from others, or from the kind of listening and responding that characterizes relationships with these same others. Eremitical solitude is not isolation, after all!  Also, there are other ways to listen. I know, for instance, that when I stop journaling (or blogging!!) for a period of time something needs special attention. I know something is up when my prayer -- or my approach to prayer -- changes (for instance, I resist prayer or can't return to a normal pattern after a period of illness), or Scripture feels relatively flat to me. Note, however, the changes can also indicate something positive is going on with me and certainly in my relationship with God (and others), so, for instance, the need to add a third period of quiet prayer to the day.)  All of this, and what it all means for being faithful to (growing in) my identity and vocation in Christ depends on a commitment to listening and openness to myself and to God, and so, all of it is implicated in what I refer to as faithfulness to prayer. 

I remember writing here once about Thomas Merton saying that to be really crazy requires other people and that sanity was gained with the trees and mountains (probably a bad paraphrase but it will do for a very limited application). We really have to learn to listen to the content and quality of our own hearts if we are to grow. Moreover, we must learn to hear who God says we are --- how he loves and takes delight in us!! I think that best occurs in the silence of solitude, whether that solitude is about being in touch with ourselves while resting in the heart of God alone, being in touch with ourselves through the abundant life of God's creation, or seeing ourselves anew as we speak our truth to a good friend who generously gives herself over to hearing and accompanying us in this journey toward the fullness of Selfhood. In all of these situations we can hear our own hearts gently reflected back to us if we have learned to listen. That way lies growth, no matter who we are. Sometimes, our encounters with others result in inner turmoil, a kind of cacophony that doesn't serve growth in quite the same way --- if at all!

Thanks again for the follow-up question. I enjoyed pursuing this a bit further than I pursued it originally! And yes, "Letting God be God" etc.,  all mean essentially the same thing!!! Pretty cool, isn't it?

Measuring Growth in Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered how you measure growth in eremitical life. Do you look for prayer experiences or "stages" in prayer? When I look at how I am growing, I look at relationships and my capacity to love, but how does that work if one is a hermit? You probably see what I am getting at. I know you are a scholar but I don't get the sense that you measure personal growth in terms of scholarship or canonical standing or other externals, so how do you measure growth in your own life or in the life of others you work with?]]

Wow, good questions! Challenging too, because they are questions that we all think we know the answer to until we try to put that answer into words! At that point, we are apt to find we have never asked ourselves the question so directly and never really listened to the answer we have been trying to discover and live. So, let me say initially there are two ways to read your initial question. The first means [[How do I recognize I am growing as a hermit?]] The second is, [[How do I recognize I am growing as a person?]]. Ideally, if one is called to be a hermit, the answers to each will overlap, be similar, and even identical, because growth in one's vocation will mean growing as a human being and growing as a human being will mean growing as God calls one to grow. Still, it is possible for someone to grow into a version of a hermit they hold as normative and be warped as a human being. This is one of the reasons it is so critical to honestly discern what vocation it is to which God calls us. But, back to [[how do I measure growth in eremitical life]] --- and I am going to try to answer both ways of reading that initial question!

In measuring my growth as a hermit there are externals that help me mark progress in my vocation and I do pay attention to those. The most central one is how faithful am I to prayer? No matter what I am doing, how I am feeling, whether I am sick or upset, feeling terrific, in pain, or whatever is going on, I am called to be a person of assiduous prayer. In fact, the NT counsel in this (and for more than hermits!) is to "pray always". This is the goal of God creating each and all of us, and the place where growth as a hermit and growth as a human being coincide. It is not enough to pray a lot, especially if by saying we pray a lot we mean saying a lot of prayers. Here we move from the externals of the life to a deeper, inner place --- and yet, the externals remain important. 

What this counsel to pray always calls for instead, is that we allow ourselves to be transformed into persons in whom God is able to breathe, speak, and sing himself at every moment and mood of our life. Yes, this begins with persistence in regular prayer and it may involve what have sometimes been defined as "stages" of prayer (though really, in some senses one moves backward and forward through these various ways of praying as the exigencies of life demand, and does not so much approach them as a kind of ladder to be climbed). Thus, I think growth in prayer means growth in allowing myself to be loved by God and too, in allowing God to love through me, to relate appropriately to the world he has made his own dwelling place. This always begins and ends by letting God be God. I think that love of God must be defined in these terms before anything else. Love of others will similarly mean allowing (accepting, guiding, nurturing, empowering) them as/to be the persons God calls them to be.

The ways I open myself (in response) to God's love (and thus, let God be God) are numerous and all are important in becoming faithful to prayer in the way I am speaking of prayer here. (This is true even when these things don't seem particularly "spiritual" to us. Remember that prayer is always God's own work within us, God's own being Godself within us.) Prayer periods, silence, study, lectio divina (Scripture and other spiritual reading), journaling, work with my director, recreation like playing music or coloring, walks, regularity in sleep and waking (a real difficulty for me sometimes), liturgical prayer and time with others, teaching Scripture, doing spiritual direction, and serious friendships --- all of these and more are part of being faithful to prayer. While some of these are more critical than others on an everyday basis (i.e., they will shape my day, day in and day out), all of them open me to God's presence so that (he) may work within and through me. So, a piece of measuring my own growth has to include an assessment of how carefully (full of care) I approach all of these. 

Bro Mickey McGrath osfs**

When I was studying theology formally my major professor used to characterize the fruit of the Gospel as making a person capable of [[living in joy and dying in peace]]! I think that in many ways that is the way I measure growth in eremitical life as well. Usually, however, I speak about it as "the silence of solitude" --- a constitutive element defining canon 603 life which I identify as the vocation's charism. For me, this term points to personal healing, to the stillness of shalom, and to the joy-filled wholeness of the individual person who stands in constant dialogue with the God of Love who always wills to be Emmanuel -- God-With-Us. As I have written several times recently, I believe that Emmanuel defines not just God's deepest will for Godself, but for us too and that means being a Self-With-God God is what it means to be truly human. That will be our joy in life and our peace in death. That will be our truest identity. It shouldn't be a surprise then, that the prayer of union is the highest form of contemplative prayer, or that I identify "praying always" as the primary goal of growth as a human being and as a hermit.

In persons I work with, I use the same criteria really --- though, because most of these persons are not hermits, I recognize that the source of authentic joy and peace that is God, will be mediated to and through them differently than it is for me or for other hermits. Still, the signs of growth will be the same. Are they more whole? More truly alive? Are their relationships better and more loving? (This is certainly true for hermits too, by the way!!) Is their work fulfilling and a source of creativity and fruitfulness for themselves and others? Do they live with greater intensity, integrity, and intelligence, and, in the whole of their lives, are they more attentive and responsible? In other words, are they more truly human and moved by the will/love of God? Do they live in joy and can they die in peace (that is, even when things are difficult, are they deeply happy and fulfilled) because in either case, in and with God they are truly being themselves? 

Regarding prayer stages, I look for these mainly to assess what, if anything, needs to change in the way I am directing or accompanying the person. Regarding canonical standing, I do try to ascertain whether someone is ready to make the kind of commitment canonical standing presupposes and calls for, that kind of commitment requires evidence of all of the other things first of all. Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly. The commitments we make and recommend others to be allowed to make should, it seems to me, be marked by a clear path towards more truly-abundant life. If the commitment is a public one, then that life is, and is always meant to be, at the service of others in an explicit way. Both the one making the commitment and those helping to discern such a call must be aware of the way God is at work in the person to create life.

I've ranged all over the place in this answer. As I said, it was/is a challenging set of questions. Please feel free to ask anything I was unclear on again, or for whatever clarifications you think might help. Meanwhile, I will think about what I have said here and see if I can get greater clarity and order in my response. If I can, I will follow up with further posts on the same topic.

** I chose Bro Mickey's photo above because he is simply one of the most joyful folks I know.  His joy is not superficial or lacking in seriousness; it does not lack shadows that also reveal the presence of light. It is deep and real and especially spills out in his art. Those of you who are also friends or acquaintances will recognize the appropriateness of the picture to the text!

Song of Farewell: In Memoriam for Three dear Friends

 

 Sometimes it is hard to find words for loss. At these times song can help. In April 2009 I lost three very special people, 24. April, Father Frank Houdek sj, and Marjorie C. Folinsbee, MD, and on 25. April, Philip Calanchini, MD. While these dear ones no longer have any need of being accompanied to heaven by angels (I trust they reside there in joy and peace), the hymn is a lovely and familiar one used at all Catholic funeral Masses. I love the image of these dear friends, who accompanied me in many ways in my journey with God, being at rest with God now and accompanied by throngs of God's beloved.

This piece has an added poignancy for me because, through the centuries, it was the prayer that was sung sometimes when anchorites were conveyed to their anchorholds after profession. The symbolism of dying to self and world and living only for God was quite strong, as was the imagery of being buried and/or entering the precincts of heaven in one's profession, consecration, and conveying to one's cell. We did not use a rite like this in my profession and consecration, but the symbolism still lives and is a good reminder of the work that occurs in the hermitage (c 603 terminology), and the nearness to everyone, both dead and alive, that exists because God is our common ground and accompanist.

On Misunderstandings of my Position on the Non-Canonical Eremitical Vocation

[[Dear Sister, I think your posts on lay (non-canonical) hermits and the c 603 vocation as norm or paradigm have caused a bit of a kerfluffle elsewhere on the internet! You may already be aware of it but it raises a question for me I hope you will answer. To wit, have you always believed lay hermits represent a valid form of eremitical life?]]

Well, as someone who lived eremitical life as a lay hermit for some years (It was early days in the life of c 603 then, and I had to leave my community to try what c 603 outlined), it would be a surprise to find I didn't believe the vocation was valid. What is true too, however, is that once c 603 was promulgated, I began to see that as the normative way to live solitary eremitical life in the Roman Catholic Church and I tended to believe that living as a lay hermit with private vows was valid, but also merely preparatory for assuming canonical standing under canon 603 --- now that there was such a canon which did justice to solitary eremitical life and understood it as a "state of perfection" and an ecclesial vocation. That was the view I held on the day I was professed. Within the year, however, it became clear to me that the Church was going to use c 603 sparingly for some time into the future, and also, that some were perfectly happy living eremitical lives outside canonical channels. 

Some simply wanted no part in assuming the legal and moral obligations that came with canonical standing; others simply could not do so for various reasons even if they wanted to. And most importantly, there were the exemplars of eremitical life we know as the Desert Abbas and Ammas who would never have sought canonical standing because of the prophetic nature of their eremitic vocations rooted in their disapproval of the post-martyrdom, post-Edict of Milan (or Constantinian) church. In short, though I felt called to live eremitical life under c 603, not everyone else did or could; also, the long history of the church indicated most hermits had always been (and likely always would be) non-canonical hermits. This was coupled in my mind with Vatican Council II and its emphasis on the importance and dignity of the laity. Thus, I began to write here about the importance of the lay/non-canonical eremitical vocation within months of perpetual profession.

Two of the early posts in this vein were from mid-November 2008: On the Importance of the Lay Hermit, and How Credible is My Writing on the Importance of Lay Hermits? This second article indicates I had already been writing about the importance of lay eremitical vocations for a while (and here I am using Lay in the vocational, not the hierarchical sense), so again, I was writing to support the lay (non-canonical) eremitical life within months of my consecration under c 603. Much of this writing was meant to address hermits who, it seemed, were unlikely to seek or to be admitted to c 603 for any number of reasons, and who therefore needed to be able to accept the dignity of the lay vocation if they were ever to live non-canonical eremitism well and whole-heartedly. Yes, I wrote about canon 603 as well and I did so from a very positive perspective --- after all, I was exploring this vocation from the perspective of perpetual profession and consecration; my bishop had told my parish during his homily at my consecration that that was precisely what I would be doing, so that's hardly surprising. Other Religious I respected recognized the need for this vocation to be better understood, particularly by someone living it, and with a strong theological background rather than by a canon lawyer. Even so, I tried to be evenhanded about both vocations. Whether I ultimately succeeded in that or not, by 2008 I was writing passages like the following on a regular basis:        

Still, the question is important, not only for me personally, but because it is really the question every hermit must answer in some form in discerning and embracing the call not only to eremitical life, but to lay or consecrated states as the critical context for their own charism, witness, and mission. At this point I wish to say merely that whichever choice one discerns and makes, the eremitical life they are discerning and choosing is a real and significant vocation and that we must learn to esteem not only the similarities they share with their counterpart (lay or consecrated), but especially their unique gift quality and capacity to speak variously to different segments of the church and world.

 So, I am sorry if my position in these matters has been misunderstood or if someone is upset because of what I have written about the paradigmatic notion of canonical eremitical life, whether solitary or semi-eremitical. However, I am clear about what I have been writing consistently for the past @16+ years in support of the non-canonical or lay eremitical life. That also includes what happens when it is lived badly by eccentrics, frauds, and posers. There are laughable and tragic stereotypes throughout the history of lay eremitical life that are often the first thing folks think of when the word "hermit" is heard. I believe c 603 helps to avoid those. Still, those living authentic eremitical lives, whether non-canonical or canonical should surely cringe at these proverbial "cuckoos" in the eremitical nest! I believe I have written consistently about this as well.

Two Were bound for Emmaus

I listened to this several times during the past few days. What struck me most during the first couple of hearings were the lines, [[Love unknown walked beside them, come back from the dead. And they knew he was risen, in the breaking of bread!]] How often in these past months I have tried to remember that Love Unknown walks beside us!!! A small drawing of two stick-figure girls, one named Grief and one named Grace had been given to me a number weeks ago by my Director; it captured where I was in my own faith journey. Under the names it said, [[Companions on the journey/ "Grief goes as deep as the gift"]] Later, the lines from the song that struck me most were, [[When the road makes us weary, when our labor seems but loss, when the fire of faith weakens, and to hide seems the cost, let the church turn to its risen Lord who for us bore the cross, and we'll find our hearts burning at the sound of his voice!]] 

This Triduum, most of the liturgies I attended were done by ZOOM. They included small, intimate house churches, liturgies done in somewhat more moderately sized convent chapels, and Easter Sunday Mass at my old college chapel (this I attended in person), as well as services here in the hermitage or the parish chapel (also in person). None of it was what I expected Triduum-Easter liturgies to be. And each celebration stunned me in one way and another by being exactly what God willed it to be!! 

In one liturgy the Exultet was sung by the presiding bishop as another participant did an accompanying liturgical dance.  I had never seen/heard this before. The gestures were exquisitely well-choreographed and I found myself in tears several times during the chant. In another, the readings were framed by a continuing narrative (commentary) of God's unceasing and unconquerable love --- while the readings were done in a contemporary translation that took us from creation to the proclamation of a new creation in Christ's resurrection. Others I love were also attending via ZOOM so we shared this unique intimacy at a distance --- as we could during such unsettled days in the church. 

In every celebration Love walked beside and shone within us; in every liturgy, despite distances, differing time zones, illness, and isolation,  the risen Christ brought us together as his newly constituted body and we found Him in the breaking of bread. No, there were no huge choirs, no churches piled high with flowers. Instead, we each brought our whole selves and the gifts (and grief) we carry within us and what God did with and within us was Eucharistic through and through. Love unknown (and now known very well) walks beside us!! Continuing Easter blessings!

Do You Love Me Peter? Being Made Fully Human in Dialogue with God (Reprise)

One post-Easter Gospel includes the pericope where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. It is the first time we hear much about or from Peter since his triple denial of Christ --- his fear-driven affirmations that he did not even know the man and is certainly not a disciple of his. After each question and reply by Peter, Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." 

I have written about this at least three times before and I love it more and more each time. About four or five years ago I used this text to reflect on the place of conscience in our lives and a love which transcends law. At another point I spoke about the importance of Jesus' questions and of my own difficulty with Jesus' question to Peter. Then, about three years ago at the end of school I asked the students to imagine what it feels like to have done something for which one feels there is no forgiveness possible and then to hear how an infinitely loving God deals with that. The solution is not, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have termed it, "cheap grace" --- a forgiveness without cost or consequences. Neither is it a worthless "luv" which some in the Church mistakenly disparage because they hear (they say) too many homilies about the God of Love and mercy and not enough about the God of "justice". Instead, what Jesus reveals in this lection is a merciful love which overcomes all fear and division and summons us to incredible responsibility and freedom. The center of this reading, in other words, is a love which does justice and sets all things right.

But, especially at this time in the church's life, today's Gospel also takes me to the WAY Jesus loves Peter. He addresses him directly; he asks him questions and allows him to discover an answer which stands in complete contrast to and tension with his earlier denials and the surge of emotions and complex of thoughts that prompted them. As with Peter, Jesus' very presence is a question or series of questions which have the power to call us deeper, beyond our own personal limitations and conflicts, to the core of our being. What Jesus does with Peter is engage him at a profound level of heart --- a level deeper than fear, deeper than ego, beyond defensiveness and insecurity. Jesus' presence enables dialogue at this profound level, dialogue with one's true self, with God, and with one's entire community; it is an engagement which brings healing and reveals that the capacity for dialogue is the deepest reflection of our humanity.

It is this deep place in us which is the level for authentically human decision making. When we perceive and act at this level of heart we see and act beyond the level of black and white thinking, beyond either/or judgmentalism. Here we know paradox and hold tensions together in faith and love. Here we act in authentic freedom. Jesus' dialogue with Peter points to all of this and to something more. It reminds us that loving God is not a matter of "feeling" some emotion --- though indeed it may well involve this. Instead it is something we are empowered in dialogue with the Word and Spirit of God to do which transcends even feelings; it is a response realized in deciding to serve, to give, to nourish others in spite of the things happening to us at other levels of our being.

When we reflect on this text involving a paradigmatic dialogue between Peter and Jesus we have a key to understanding the nature of all true ministry, and certainly to life and ministry in the Church. Not least we have a significant model of papacy. Of course it is a model of service, but it is one of service only to the extent it is one of true dialogue, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with all others. It is always and everywhere a matter of being engaged at the level of heart, and so, as already noted, beyond ego, fear, defensiveness, black and white thinking, judgmentalism or closed-mindedness to a place where one is comfortable with paradox. As John Paul II wrote in Ut Unum Sint, "Dialog has not only been undertaken; it is an outright necessity, one of the Church's priorities, " or again, "It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. . .any display of mutual opposition must disappear." (UUS, secs 31 and 29)

But what is true for Peter is, again, true for each of us. We must be engaged at the level of heart and act in response to the dialogue that occurs there. Because of the place of the Word of God in this process, lectio divina, the reflective reading of Scripture, must be a part of our regular praxis. So too with prayer, especially quiet prayer whose focus is listening deeply and being comfortable with that often-paradoxical truth that comes to us in silence. Our humanity is meant to be a reflection of this profound dialogue. At every moment we are meant to be a hearing of Jesus' question and the commission to serve which it implies. At every moment then we are to be the response which transcends ego, fear, division, judgmentalism, and so forth. Engagement with the Word of God enables such engagement, engagement from that place of unity and communion with God and others Jesus' questions to Peter allowed him to find and live from. My prayer today is that each of us may commit to be open to this kind of engagement. It makes of us the dialogical reality, the full realization of that New Creation which is truly "not of this world" but instead is of the Kingdom of God --- right here, right now.

Questions on Types of Hermits and Use of the term Lay Hermits

[[ Hi Sister, you usually write about 3 types of hermits. I wondered if you could explain why CICLSAL says there are 4 kinds? Also, you speak of lay hermits and you wrote about the hierarchical meaning of "lay" recently. Could you cite some official church document that speaks of lay hermits? Thank you.]]

Hi there yourself! You must be asking about the DICLSAL document, The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church (Ponam in Deserto Viam, Is 43:19) Guidelines. The difference between the way DICLSAL divides hermits and I do points to a significant oversight on my part really. DICLSAL includes hermits who are members of fundamentally cenobitical communities whose proper law (the law proper to the congregation itself which governs as well as canon law) allows for this option. Generally, I have overlooked this type of hermit not because they are unimportant, but because they do live eremitical lives, but under the proper law of the congregation. Discernment, resources, ministry of authority, Rule, etc., all fall under the congregational Constitutions and Statutes. In my mind it's a self-enclosed world, where one is professed as a member of a community and not as a hermit; though I am sure I have mentioned this option existing, it was this that caused me to overlook it, so thanks for reminding me of what DICLSAL lists as the four forms of eremitical life. (For readers not familiar with the document noted, the four types of hermit are:

1.  Clerical/Lay members of non-eremitical (i.e., monastic or apostolic) institutes of consecrated life living as hermits because it is an option and is regulated under proper law; (please note in this and other categories, DICLSAL has lay persons as members of an institute of consecrated life when lay is used in this hierarchical sense). In this sense of the word, one can be in the consecrated state and lay at the same time because one is not a cleric. 
2. clerical/lay members belonging to eremitic or semi-eremitic institutes of consecrated life whose lives are regulated under universal and proper law, that is under both canon and proper law.
3. clerical/lay faithful who live eremitical lives without professing the evangelical counsels, (please note that Ponans specifically affirms that all the baptized are called to live the evangelical counsels according to their own state of life, ( cf. Par 33); because of this the emphasis of the italicized and emboldened phrase falls on the word professing used in its technical or proper meaning. In this sense profession/professing always refers to a public ecclesial act and not to an act of private avowal no matter who witnesses the act); this also speaks specifically then to secular clergy and lay persons living as hermits without benefit of profession since promises to one's bishop notwithstanding, secular clergy do not profess the evangelical counsels while clergy who are members of institutes of consecrated life always do. Thus, both secular priests and lay persons who do not make public profession can live as hermits. The church recognizes this as a valid form of eremitical life.
4. clerical/lay members of the faithful professing the evangelical counsels by vows or other sacred bonds, in the hands of the local bishop, (C 603 or diocesan hermits).  [The profession of other sacred bonds is what is meant when the Catechism says without always making vows publicly. By definition, profession is always a public act, and with C 603 one need not use vows but can use other sacred bonds.]

I think it is clear just from the document you yourself referred to that hermits can be either clerical or lay members of the faithful. In all cases, DICLSAL is using the hierarchical notion of lay (i.e., anyone not in orders is laity). In the types noted above, members of institutes of consecrated life (i.e.,  religious women and men), whether eremitical, semi-eremitical, monastic or apostolic are either clerical or lay despite profession and consecration. While one could therefore refer to a lay hermit or a priest hermit, as I have done in the past for specific situations or persons, the better general solution is to refer to hermits in terms of their canonical status/standing, either non-canonical or canonical (or, alternately, non-canonical or consecrated. This would include those hermits mentioned above living their eremitical lives under the proper law of a congregation; they would be canonical religious (Benedictines, Carmelites, etc.) living legitimately as non-canonical hermits). This also avoids the confusing ambiguities of the term lay when the hierarchical sense contrasts with a vocational sense. If you want further evidence of the use of lay hermits (or hermits who embrace the evangelical counsels and remain in the lay state), please let me know.

I haven't written here much about Ponans, though folks have asked me several times about whether I had plans to do so or not. I am grateful for your questions; perhaps they will get me started doing some reflections on these important guidelines.

Please note: CICLSAL is now a Dicastery rather than a Congregation, thus the initials DICLSAL rather than CICLSAL.

If Canonical Means Normative, then Shouldn't all Hermits be Canonical?

[[ Hi Sister, if canonical means normative, then shouldn't all hermits in the church be required to live according to canon 603? I mean I know you said they don't, but shouldn't they?]]

Thanks for the question! Here is where the terms "paradigm" and "paradigmatic" may be more useful than canonical, at least initially. One strength, perhaps the strength, of Canon 603 is its ability to provide a paradigm of what it means to be a hermit in the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, it provides a model of what the church considers to be paradigmatic of such a vocation (that is, essential, characteristic, typical, worthy of following or modeling oneself after, etc). All other hermits in the church, whether canonical or non-canonical can be deemed authentic or inauthentic based on how well they live or embody the defining elements of this paradigm --- just as is true for solitary hermits bound legally by the canon. If someone wants to try to live as a hermit and wonders what is involved, c 603 will let them know that --- at least in outline form.

However, canon 603 is normative in a second sense as well; namely, it provides a way for hermits to make public commitments to the life which bind the hermit in law. It provides not just disparate elements found in every authentic eremitical life according to the church, but an ecclesial framework through which one may make a public, legally binding commitment intrinsic to and commensurate with the seriousness of the vocation defined therein. It implicates the entire church in such vocations and establishes legal and moral relationships between the hermit and her bishop and delegates, as well as more casual relationships between the hermit and the rest of the faithful in both the local and universal church. Here is where the importance of a public commitment comes to the fore.

Because the canonical commitment is public and not a private one, it can be and is binding in a way that affects (and makes the hermit deliberately and legally responsible for) the upbuilding of the church as a whole via this vocation. It allows others to have expectations of this hermit and the vocation as a whole, especially that eremitical life generally is not a means to a selfish and defensive cocooning, an expression of misdirected individualism, or the work of something other than the Holy Spirit in the Church's midst, but is healthy, life-giving, and part of the holiness of the church herself, and also that this person in this place and time has been truly called to proclaim the Gospel with her life in this unique and rare way. These characteristics are also linked to the affirmation that c 603 vocations are ecclesial vocations, belonging first to the church and only thereafter to the hermit called in this way.

Though everyone is called to live their vocations with integrity in a way that edifies, not everyone is called to take on the same public responsibilities and rights, however. Not everyone should attempt to do so. There are several paths in the church to eremitical life and many more outside the church. Only two of these are considered canonical and are seen to be both paradigmatic and legally binding on those whom God has consecrated accordingly. This "standing in law" that comes with profession helps the one called in this way to truly live the vocation in an exemplary way. It provides a specifically ecclesial context where the person can explore the depth and breadth of such a vocation and it ensures the person's commitment to doing so is carefully, consciously, and seriously made with God at the center and the wellbeing of the entire People of God in mind!

Vision before Legislation: A Livable Rule is not an Out-Sized to-Do List!!

[[Sister Laurel -- I tried writing a Rule for myself, not as a hermit because I am not one, but just for living as a Christian every day of my life. I got hung up though and it sounded more like I was making a colossal to-do list or something. I hate to-do lists because I always fail at them and they always get longer and longer and totally unfinished in every way. I think I may have a touch of OCD in this!! When I read what you write about writing a Rule or even recent posts on the canon you live under and are responsible for, it doesn't sound like your Rule or Canon 602 are like huge to-do lists. You even speak about this pattern as something beginners tend to write. Is there something about the way you look at these things which keeps you from making them into huge obstacles to living them? Thanks!]]

Thanks to you for your questions as well! I really like the way you describe the problem with your Rule as you perceive it! I am also really grateful for the way you linked Rule and Canon (603 by the way). I don't think I have ever written about the similarity between the way I approach the two of them, but you are entirely correct --- I do look at them similarly. For me, both embody a vision of eremitical life as lived in the contemporary church and world. As I have written here before, the elements of Canon 603 represent doorways to Mystery. Each doorway allows me into something of the whole life and to explore some specific dimension of it. Each one also provides a way to approach the world around me, to meditate on and understand its more important needs and yearnings. 

So, for instance, in praying with my Rule (I use it for lectio and as a kind of "workbook"), a term like stricter separation from the world (a mandatory norm of the eremitical life) can take me into the heart of God, the very essence of solitude and the summit of a warm and loving silence that sings my name and smooths the sharp edges of loneliness. It opens a world of both personal growth and challenge that comforts me and summons me to be myself to the fullest extent possible in and with God. But too, carried in the heart of God I am called back into the world by the God who would be Emmanuel. At the same time, it reminds me of all of the unnatural and inhuman experiences of silence we impose on others or have imposed on us, the cruel forms of "noise" that tear at the human heart or create what is sometimes called "soul murder", and it shows me a vision of eremitical life that stands in countercultural opposition to or tension with the world around me. It also allows me to see myself and my eremitical life as leaven affecting this same world for the better -- just as a beating heart quietly affects the entire person simply by carrying on its hidden work at the core of the organism.

Reflection on the phrase assiduous prayer and penance leads me to understand eremitical life as a form of spirituality where the hermit becomes God's own prayer in the world. Thus, I rarely understand this element of hermit life as being primarily about saying prayers or doing the ancillary kinds of things that support and nurture prayer (journaling, fasting, desert days, vigils). Instead, my reflection leads me to consider the needs of the world around me for love, for the ability to dialogue honestly, to listen deeply, and to be a vital source of the Holy Spirit at the center of it all. I tend to reflect on what things are like without God at the center and imagine what they could be whenever prayer (God's powerful and dynamic presence acting within) is made real there, and I pray for specific people and situations.

Even the way the canon is structured and composed provides material for reflection, meditation, and then, contemplation because I marvel at the way it combines necessary elements, the sine qua non of eremitical life with the individual's Rule of Life. This allows me to see more clearly the way human freedom (represented by the Rule itself since the hermit writes this on the basis of her own experience and understanding) combines with the varied constraints of life (the required elements of the canon) to produce healthy freedom and relatedness. In this, I have tended to reflect on the way the hermit models authentic freedom in opposition to undisciplined individualism and unconstrained liberty. Moreover, she does this in relative hiddenness. People speak about the freedom of the hermit. Somehow they truly recognize it despite the hiddenness and relative anonymity of the life. 

One hermit I know who is well on her way to profession and consecration under c 603, reflects on eremitical hiddenness in terms of a maternal "hidden love" that inculcates in her a compassionate solidarity with the unseen, unheard, uncounted, and uncared for in our world. For her as well, hiddenness is not primarily about things she will do or not do --- though she carefully considers such things, but about a vision of who the eremitic life calls her to be with and for others in order to effect change in (bring salvation to) our world. That she can be present with and for these others in this unique way is part of the deepest mystery of her vocation, just as it is for any hermit. The requirement that hermits lead an (either relatively or absolutely) hidden life in "stricter separation from the world" opens to this hermit the stunningly intimate and paradoxical Mystery revealed in Christ who is God-With-us.

In all of these examples the Rule codifies a vision of a meaningful life and how it is the central elements of c 603 provide the basis for a vision of the person the hermit will be and the life she will life on behalf of God's creation. There is always some attention to the do's and don'ts of the life but more fundamentally the Rule conveys who the hermit will be and the values we incarnate in order to be a significant-yet-hidden presence in our world. If you can begin to think of your own Rule in similar terms (terms that fit your own circumstances and state of life!!) I believe you will find it engages both your head and heart in profound and exciting ways that transcend the whole "to do or not to do" calculus that is so much an obstacle for you. Like contemplative life more generally, I think a Rule of Life that is truly livable for a person is one that inspires her to BE before it legislates what she will or will not DO.

Give it a try and please get back to me as you progress in your efforts. I would like to hear how you are doing with this; perhaps you can follow up with concrete examples that fit your own circumstances.

Followup Questions on "Canonical" as meaning Normative or Paradigmatic

[[Hi Sister, let me push you some on the idea of canonical as normative or meeting certain standards, okay? Are you saying that a non-canonical eremitical life is less authentic than a canonical eremitical life? I am afraid the idea of normative and not normative could be interpreted to mean perfect and imperfect, good and not-as-good, or something like that. I really hope that is not what you are saying!! How do you understand this when applied to your own life?]]

Those are really good questions and you are correct that I am not saying the things you are afraid I am saying. What I have tried to say is that some forms of eremitical life in the church have norms and standards set by the church herself, and others do not. This in turn means that if one wants to live eremitical life in the name of the Church as a Catholic Hermit, s/he must accept, embrace, and be confirmed in embracing and meeting these norms. In fact, she must show a pattern of valuing and living these norms for some time before the church admits her to a public commitment and state of life as a representative of someone living and continually striving to live more deeply, such a normative (canonical) life.

It is, again, the life itself that is established in law as normative, not the person living or proposing to live it. Still, I think we all know people who have been shaped by and embody a way of life so well, that they come to represent a normative (or perhaps paradigmatic) instance of it. This is ideal and the way truly living a vocation tends to form or shape us. In religious life, we sometimes refer to people as "Living Rules". For instance, I can think of various Benedictines or Camaldolese who are what it means to be Camaldolese or Benedictine. I know one Sister who IS Franciscanism for me and another who IS what it means BE a "Gleaner" -- the very charism of her community. To be admitted to canonical standing says, that the church trusts that one will strive to live ever more deeply into the normative (canonical) state of life to which one has been admitted. It means that one has carefully and honestly discerned this vocation with representatives of the church, entered whole-heartedly into initial and (as time approaches for perpetual profession), ongoing formation processes; it means that one understands and meets the requirements of the canons (norms) which govern the life (c 603, in the case of solitary hermits), and that one accepts responsibility for bearing this part of the church's tradition in a way that shapes her whole being and potentially, the vocation itself.

Sometimes, because I write about c 603 a lot, I have been accused of being obsessed with c 603, and of not maturing spiritually. That doesn't bother me one whit. After all,  I am a c 603 hermit and I am professed not just to live the evangelical counsels, but to live ever more deeply into the constitutive elements of the canon (or the canon's vision) itself. What else should I be so concerned with given the fact that God and his salvific will are central to the canon's very existence? As I have noted in the past, I actually am struck by the beauty of c 603's construction, and I accept that it is normative for my life; in fact, I see it as defining my life in ways that ask me to become a living embodiment of the vision of the silence of solitude the canon involves in the unique way God calls me to that. Others are called similarly; paradoxically, they will live this canon both as I do and differently than I do precisely because we both take the elements of the canon with similar seriousness. That is because we each live our relationship with God under these norms in a way that allows God to shape us individually with our whole history, personality, vision, and variety of talents, gifts, idiosyncrasies, needs, perceptions, insights, etc., under the norms of the canon and the supervision of the church.

So, I am not saying norms create uniformity, nor am I saying that a canonical (normative) vocation means the person representing that vocation is perfect or normative. Still, within reason, persons admitted to canonical profession have been deemed by those capable of determining such things, capable of understanding, valuing, and carrying out the rights and obligations they are undertaking in the name of the church; they have been seen to be sincere in their attempts to live these well over some time as part of the church's proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and, most importantly, they have been discerned to be (and truly believe they have been) called by God to do so as the way they become fully human or holy. The vocation is normative because the church has discerned it contains or is constituted by the elements necessary to constitute a way that helps shape these persons and their commitment into the persons God calls them to become. This is less about the persons themselves than  it is about the power of the vocation they are called to and their commitment to be shaped by that vocation and the God who is its source.

At the same time, there is no reason that someone embracing a non-canonical eremitical life because they are rightly convinced God has called them to this, cannot be every bit as good (or even better!) a hermit as the canonically professed hermit. Again, canonical means the vocation is normative or paradigmatic within the life of the church and all she touches; simply because something is not normative in the same way does not mean God does not use it to call outstanding hermits.

Does the Church Fail to Regard Non-Canonical Eremitical Vocations Sufficiently?

[[ Hi Sister O'Neal, I hope you don't mind a follow-up question from a couple of your recent posts. It has to do with lay hermits. If a lay person makes private vows of the evangelical counsels, or the other elements of c 603 would they cease being a lay person? Does the Church not regard these vocations [sufficiently], particularly if they are the oldest eremitical vocations in the church, as you have said a number of times and just recently as well?]]

You are correct that I have written about this many times over the years. One of the objections I had to the writing of someone who, until about three years ago, used to write about c 603 was that she seemed to believe if a lay person made private vows of the evangelical counsels they ceased being a lay person. Were that so, there could be no lay hermits (and perhaps no lay persons at all -- depending on how many kept the evangelical counsels as the church asks us ALL to do)!! But this can be shown to be untrue for at least two basic reasons, (1) I myself, though consecrated and perpetually professed as a diocesan hermit am still a lay person in the hierarchical sense of that term; that makes me a lay hermit since I am not a cleric (in the alternate, or vocational sense of the term lay, I am a (publicly) consecrated person, and so am a consecrated not a lay hermit). The ambiguous and confusing dual meaning of lay is one reason non-canonical hermit vs canonical hermit is a simpler and more accurate way of distinguishing the two) and (2) as noted above, every baptized person in the church is called upon to live out the evangelical counsels according to her or his own state of life! The profession of the counsels does not, of itself, initiate us into the consecrated state; that requires an act of God which occurs during the Rite of Religious Profession culminating in the solemn prayer of consecration. (We may call the entire Rite either profession or consecration as an act of synecdoche, but the making of vows and the consecration of the one making vows are two distinct but profoundly related acts occurring during the single Rite.) In the hierarchical sense of the word lay, all non-clerics, including all men and women religious, are laity.

In creating c 603 the Church was attempting to rectify a long-overdue oversight, namely, the making of the eremitical vocation a state of perfection (that is, an instance of the consecrated state of life). Bishop Remi de Roo noted that hermits had long been overlooked and he listed the good they provided for the faith of the church. Much of Vatican Council II was a matter of going back to the sources, and in this particular intervention, De Roo was serving as bishop protector of a dozen or so hermits who had had to leave their monasteries and solemn professions to be secularized in order to pursue the eremitical solitude they felt called to. Since monastic life had its roots in the Desert Abbas and Ammas, and since the apex of monastic life was also often understood as solitary union with God and the eremitical state, it made sense that secular (that is, non-religious) hermits, who, despite some eccentrics and outright nutcases were also marked by holiness and a prophetic presence in the church, should have the dignity of their lifestyles recognized by initiating them canonically into the consecrated state of life. Thus, the Church listened to Bishop De Roo and eventually, with the revision of the Code of Canon Law, published a canon for solitary hermits and allowing their initiation into the consecrated state.

Of course, not everyone who is or calls themselves a hermit seeks or is suited to consecration as a canonical hermit. The Church does not automatically admit every person to profession and consecration. I will say, however, that some of us, in accord with The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church** guidelines, are working to develop better processes of discernment and formation for such hermit candidates, processes which will be more individualized or tailored to the needs of each candidate and the way the Holy Spirit works in his/her case. Over time it is hoped that all dioceses will be able to use a process more like the mentoring done by Elder Abbas and Ammas in the desert and less laden with arbitrary canonical time frames and other considerations that are more suitable to cenobitical life. Canon 603 itself contains all that is needed to discern and form such vocations in a way allowing diocesan personnel to work with an experienced hermit and to journey with a "candidate" until s/he is ready for profession and later, perpetual profession and consecration,  discerns a different call, or demonstrates unsuitability for those steps instead.

Again, no one is denigrating non-canonical hermits through the ages!!  In fact, canon 603 came to be precisely because the church recognized that eremitical life was an outstanding way to holiness and throughout its history, had produced many outstanding examples of this. With canon 603, the Church honors them and, again, is simply trying to rectify a longstanding failure to regard the importance of the hermit vocation by making it possible for hermits in the lay state of life to be initiated into the consecrated state if a genuine call is mutually discerned. For those who find canon law onerous, who have no desire to undergo a several-year process of discernment and formation with others (diocesan personnel and canonical hermit mentors), who believe that the Church's mediation of one's call and response to this vocation in c 603 and its necessary structures get in the way of a "direct" relationship with God, or who perhaps are simply way more individualistic than all that allows for, the fact is that one can always become a hermit in the way people have done since the third century and earlier, namely, do it on one's own as a hermit in the lay (non-canonical) rather than the consecrated state.

The Church has provided sufficient choices here for everyone. Is God calling you to the consecrated state? Then join an institute of consecrated life or petition for admission to profession and consecration through the diocesan offices of Vicar for Religious and Bishop. If you desire to go it the longstanding way of 20 centuries of church history, the way of the Desert Abbas and Ammas, then accept that you will do it in the lay state by virtue of the freedom granted you by baptism (or baptism and the clerical state if you are in Orders). I don't think any other categories of hermit life are necessary. Meanwhile, every hermit is called to live the following terms of canon 603 in some way, shape, or form: evangelical counsels (like all Christians), assiduous prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, stricter separation from the world, all lived for the salvation of the world. None of these of themselves make a lay person other than a lay person. 

One final reminder, the Church recognizes that the eremitical vocation in the consecrated state belongs first of all to the church herself and only thereafter to individual hermits. She extends the gift of initiation into the consecrated state and this ecclesial vocation only after mutual discernment and sufficient formation to be sure the individual will live the life well. Though some might well want to do this, they will fail in what they aspire to. However, the non-canonical eremitical life is still open to these persons and if they should do well at the life in that way,  they would, after a number of years, be able to request the church take another look at the case with an eye toward discernment and eventual profession and consecration.

** Ponam in deserto Viam, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, now Dicastery for Institutes. . .Life.