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.