Canon 603: a Paradigm for all Hermits

[[When we examine the now two Church-allowed hermit paths, we can see the challenges in each, but the greater challenge to me has remained that of living as a hermit unknown, unnoticed, non-acclaimed. Yet despite many trials and errors, I remain God’s beloved consecrated hermit--and a Catholic hermit. Indeed, some have stated that a privately professed hermit must not call him- or herself a “Catholic hermit” if not a diocese CL603 hermit. It does not matter, other than why cut off all the Church’s hermits who have lived and died living this more rare but special vocation when until recent times, there was no created church law establishing other than what always had been?]] 

Hi Sister, I wondered if you had seen this post and if you had any opinions on it. I wonder how the author can say "It does not matter" while it sounds like it matters a lot to her! Does Canon 603 cut off all who have lived and died as a non-canonical hermit? Was there no church law regarding hermits before c 603? I remember you saying there was but not universal canon law. Is this so? Thanks!]]

I have seen this passage before, yes. I agree that the assertion of an identity as a "consecrated Catholic hermit" despite never having been admitted to consecration as a Catholic hermit by anyone in the church with that authority and/or intention, does seem to matter a lot to the author. She is a Catholic and a hermit but does not live her eremitical vocation in the name of the Church. This is because using the term "Catholic hermit" to indicate a normative quality to the vocation requires someone with both authority and intent to establish one in law as a Catholic hermit. That, in turn, means extending the legal rights and obligations of a canonical (or public**) vocation to someone and the person to whom such rights and obligations are extended must also embrace these in law; this all occurs in the Rites of canonical Profession* and Consecration mediated by the Church in the person of the local ordinary. That the author has not met these requirements is significant given her claims. What is unclear to me is the reason she presses these claims since the Church recognizes all authentic forms of eremitical life in whatever state of life (lay, consecrated, or clerical) as laudable.

Before Canon 603, the main canonical provision for eremitical life was to join a congregation of Catholic Hermits (Carthusians, Camaldolese, some Carmelites, et al.). As you note, in individual dioceses in some centuries bishops did approve the lives of anchorites and cared for them if benefactors failed. During the Middle Ages there were local (diocesan) canons from place to place to regulate things in some ways (there was no universal Canon Law at this time). Otherwise, except for the orders/congregations of canonical hermits, the "traditional" form of solitary eremitical life was lay, not consecrated. Vocationally as well as hierarchically speaking, the Desert Abbas and Ammas were lay hermits --- they lived eremitical life in the lay state. So was every hermit who lived as a solitary hermit (that is, who was not part of a religious congregation) until 1983. Canon 603 recognized the value of solitary eremitical life after Bishop Remi De Roo intervened at Vatican II to ask for such recognition. De Roo requested that the eremitical vocation, which was so positive in his lived experience, should be recognized as a state of perfection, just as all religious life was recognized and established. 

But it took time to do this. There was the need to reflect on the lives of notable hermits and develop a list of characteristics a solitary hermit would live, just as there was the need to create a normative way of governing this life so it was truly exemplary --- not perfect, of course, but exemplary. Almost 20 years after Vatican II ended, the Church published a revised Code of Canon Law and for the very first time in the history of the Church, the solitary eremitical life was recognized in universal law as a state of perfection (that is, it was included as a consecrated state of life with those so consecrated recognized by the Church as Religious); thus it was defined in a normative way in Canon 603.

It is not that non-canonical hermits are being cut off, diminished, or disregarded. That seems to me to be a cynical and inaccurate representation of the facts. The long history of exemplary holiness and prophetic presence of such hermits is precisely what called for a Canon recognizing the value and dignity of this calling as an ecclesial vocation belonging to the Church. These hermits taught the Church this and made the way for Canon 603 as an eventuality!! The normative portrait of eremitical life in Canon 603 is drawn from the lives and wisdom of such hermits; in fact, it honors them!! At the same time, the Church is careful in discerning and governing eremitical vocations not only because these are significant gifts and more difficult to discern than vocations to life in community,  but also because the history of solitary hermits is ambiguous with evidence both of great holiness and disedifying or even scandalous eccentricity. 

The Church wants hermits to live this vocational gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, and she recognizes the support and guidance of the Church are important if individuals are to live such vocations well. After all, eremitism is neither about being a loner nor a too-common, sometimes rampant individualism. Instead, it is lived within the dynamic and demanding context of the ecclesial community with its long history of non-canonical hermits as well as canonical eremitical congregations and (now) solitary canonical hermits. At the same time, the Church knows that hermits of whatever stripe can be a prophetic presence challenging the Church herself to an ever more radical living out of the Gospel. Canon 603 celebrates and witnesses to this as well. 

This became clear as the Church recognized the significance not only of the Desert Ammas and Abbas but also of both the anchoritic and eremitic vocations on a diocesan level through various eras of her history. Bishops created statutes and devised liturgies recognizing and embracing these vocations because of this recognition. (For instance, recall the rite praying for and blessing the anchorite and her cell, as well as closing her within her anchorhold; note the ways diocesan bishops exercised responsibility for the upkeep of the anchoress when the local community or benefactors failed to do so; consider also the way the right to wear a hermit's tunic or the license to preach and solicit from others as a hermit, came in these same centuries, from the local ordinary.)  Still, what was necessary to truly demonstrate that all such vocations were valued throughout the church in all eras was the hermit's recognition in universal law. 

Bishop Remi De Roo

That only occurred in 1983 with the promulgation of Canon 603. Still, the majority of hermits will likely remain non-canonical. I would argue that it is now easier to live as a non-canonical hermit precisely because the church recognizes the eremitical vocation as such canonically and has made these instances of it a normative and consecrated state. With canon 603 every eremitical vocation, whether non-canonical or canonical is raised to a new visibility and valuation in the Western Church. Canon 603 is still under-utilized and likely will be so for some time to come. Not everyone will or should become a canon 603 hermit or thus live this vocation in the name of the Church, but those who live their eremitic vocations as non-canonical hermits can be grateful that for the first time in almost 2 millennia, the Western church has honored the eremitical vocation in universal law. 

This requires that canonical hermits live the normativity of their vocations well and humbly for they do so for all hermits. They reflect on the terms of Canon 603 for the benefit of every hermit, whether canonical or non-canonical. If canonical, they have embraced ecclesial responsibilities in making Profession and accepting Consecration through the church's mediation, and each one will demonstrate aspects of the life any hermit should be open to learning from. Of course, non-canonical hermits must also live their chosen callings well and humbly. If they choose not to be canonical hermits or are refused admission to canonical standing, I believe they must still let themselves learn from Canon 603 and those professed and consecrated accordingly -- as well as from hermits in eremitical congregations. From before the time I first knocked on the chancery door seeking profession (@1985) to consecration in 2007 (about 23 years), I reflected on c 603 and learned from it despite having been given little hope my diocese might ever implement it for anyone. I also learned from the Camaldolese and others. 

Whether living as a non-canonical or canonical hermit, it was the vision of eremitical life the Church recognized as normative that was important for my own faithfulness and growth in the eremitical vocation. I hope that all hermits can understand the importance of both the Canon and those exploring eremitical life in a canonical/consecrated state. They do this not only for God and the Church more generally, but for all hermits, whether canonical or non-canonical. Because C 603 represents the normative vision of what the Church considers to constitute eremitical life,  to live this life canonically is not about prestige, but about responsibility. This is the meaning of status in the phrase canonical status or standing. Acceptance of this standing and correlative responsibility is reflected in the right to call oneself a Catholic Hermit and such rights and obligations are never self-assumed. Again, they are given by the Church to those whose vocations they have also discerned.

* Profession is a broader act than the making of vows. It is a public act of and for the Church in which an individual commits him/herself to the rights and obligations of a new state in life. Usually, this is done through the making and reception of canonical (public) vows. In final, perpetual, or definitive profession, through the reception of the individual's vows and the prayer of consecration, the Church mediates God's consecration of the person. This sets him/her apart as a sacred person and constitutes his/her definitive entrance into the consecrated state.

** Public in this context refers to the public rights and responsibilities undertaken in a public (canonical) commitment, not to the place this commitment takes place, nor to the number who attend it. Likewise, private means that legal (public) rights and obligations are not extended to nor undertaken by the hermit involved.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

There is something startling about the second question in today's Gospel. Jesus is presented with all kinds of ideas about who people says he is, but he wants the disciples to state clearly who THEY say he is. Most people have several different answers to Jesus' first question, "Who do people say that I am?" The answers include Elijah, John the Baptist, and some of the prophets. But Jesus sharpens the question and moves from this more superficial way of knowing to the disciples own experiential or heart knowledge. He asks, "And you, who do YOU say that I am?"

I am reminded of the kinds of knowing found in [some] stories from Genesis with Adam and Eve in the Garden. As I told the third graders several years ago during a liturgy . . . the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not simply about knowing in our minds what is bad vs what is good. Instead, the passage refers to a deeper, more intimate way of knowing good and evil, namely, deep within ourselves. To "eat of this tree" is quite literally to take good and evil and the act of judging [into ourselves by choosing them]. The way I illustrated this for 3rd graders was to ask how many of them knew what it felt like to stand on one foot for fifteen minutes. Several hands came part way up and then dropped down again. The kids knew they could imagine what it would be like, but they also saw clearly that only in doing it would they REALLY know in their muscles, memory, emotions, etc. (After the liturgy one of the adults present told me one little girl tried the whole time to stand on one foot!!)

I am also reminded of the conversation between Eve and the serpent as the two of them theologize ABOUT God rather than speaking TO or WITH him. These are two forms or levels of knowing, the first which is interesting and maybe even important for Eve, but which involves only a part of her being until she commits to the definition she has come to in her dialogue with Satan --- a definition which is not the same as God's self-revelation --- and establishes herself as estranged from God.

Finally, I am reminded of my perpetual eremitical profession [sixteen] years ago on September 2,  when I responded to the Bishop's question about what I desired, with a statement that publicly included the claim of Jesus Christ as "Lord and Spouse." Though my experience of Christ is nuptial, I had never used the term "Spouse" before in this way, and never publicly! The question in Mark's Gospel, "Who do YOU say that I am?" was on my mind and heart as the bishop posed a series of questions to me, and at this moment, there was [a call to go beyond my theological education or the results of intellectual theologizing]. Instead, I was being asked to bring my whole self before God and the assembly and ask the Church to accept this self-gift in the name of Christ. Theologizing and speculation had no place in this exchange. Wishfulness and indecisiveness were definitely out of line here. Instead, it was time to claim that identity publicly which had been given privately many years earlier. This was my moment to answer Jesus' question, "Who do you say that I am?" from the knowledge I carried in my heart. I was actually surprised, and perhaps a little scared by my response.

There are all kinds of ways to avoid a genuine response to Jesus' question. Rote answers carved from creeds and catechesis are the most common. But, as we see from the Gospel story, it is not enough to answer Jesus' question with answers others have told us are the truth --- not even what we have been taught by the Church. Another common way of avoiding a genuine response is playing it safe and refusing to answer for fear of what others will think. I answered on that day of perpetual profession and consecration by referring to, ". . . Jesus who is my Lord and Spouse. . ." but in another situation, I might as easily have responded, "You are the one in the hospital all those years ago who called me "little one" and  [managed] to coax me to drink a glass of milk when I was so very frightened"; and I might have continued, "you have been my elder Brother present at every bedside ever since, reminding me of the steadfast compassionate love of God." There are many other ways to answer Jesus' question in my own life. I call him Christ, and Lord, and Brother, and the content of those terms, consistent as they are with Catholic Tradition, is always rooted in my own experience. So, I think, should all such answers to Jesus' question be.

Peter apparently answers the question Jesus asks, and does so in the terms of personal experience and the trust this requires: "You are the Christ", but when Jesus begins to redefine what being God's anointed one means in terms of suffering and death, Peter rebukes him and belies the authenticity of his own confession. Once again Divine reality conflicts with human theologizing --- and once again theologizing is estranged from the human heart and the trusting knowledge of faith. Peter even takes Jesus aside to instruct him in the truth of what the term Christ REALLY means (certainly not suffering and ignominious death!)! And Jesus' criticism is devastating: "Get behind me Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do!" He might well have said, Get behind me pseudo-theologian! You are thinking like human beings do, but I need you to know me, and claim that knowledge in a different and more exhaustive way!

The challenge of this Gospel is the same as the challenge to Adam and Eve in the garden, viz, allow God to reveal himself on his own terms. It is the same as Jesus' series of questions to Peter after Peter's triple denial. In these Jesus draws Peter deeper into his own experience of Jesus and helps Peter transcend that horrific failure. Implicitly, Jesus' question in Sunday's Gospel puts us into contact with the One we know profoundly and says, trust in that revelation; claim it here and now; live from it and for it! And of course, it encourages us to spend some time answering Jesus' question for ourselves. He knows who the Church says he is, and what textbooks in dogmatic theology claim and expound on, but we ourselves, who do WE say that he is? 

Jesus and the Canaanite Woman (Reprise)

If we're looking for a Gospel lection that breaks all stereotypes today's is one of these! This reading is sometimes categorized among the "difficult sayings of Jesus" because it has Jesus characterizing a Gentile woman as a dog (a typical epithet of his day when referring to Gentiles) and refusing to extend healing to her daughter because HIS mission is first of all to the lost of Israel, not to the Gentiles. And so, the woman, who has already silenced Jesus with a terrific act of faith, "Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David," answers Jesus' instruction on this point with a bit of instruction of her own: [[ Yes, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the Master's table!]] Jesus, already silenced and now thoughtful, seems even to reconsider and expand the scope of his own ministry in light of it. If Jesus can grow in grace and stature in this way, through the mediation of a completely disenfranchised woman, then is anyone in the Church really beyond being instructed by the women standing (at best) on the margins of power and authority or the Christ standing as their Master? I don't think so.

What happens to Jesus is as instructive for the contem-porary Church as all of Jesus' words, all his parables, discourses, instructions, imprecations, and remonstrances. For (again) in today's gospel story, Jesus hears and is silent! He is stopped, and arrested by a woman's compelling act of faith. It is a pregnant silence because it is the result of truly listening and leads both to further listening and to a fundamental shift or variation in Jesus' ministry from the lost sheep of Israel to the lost of all the nations. It is the silence of a teacher who is truly effective not because he has all the answers but because he is willing to listen, reconsider the answer and ministry God has given him, and learn! It is the silence of a docile teacher who truly hears the commission of God coming from the least and the lost; it is the silence of one who can change his mind and even the direction of his ministry as a result of an encounter with the truth a woman and outsider carries! Certainly, that is precisely the kind of teacher the Church itself is called to be! After all, the Church is not greater than her Master; instead, she is called to embody and mediate him. In light of today's Gospel lection, the challenge to embody and mediate the DOCILITY of Christ seems compelling!

All kinds of situations reduce us to silence but only sometimes do we really listen therein, only sometimes are we genuinely obedient. Ordinarily today silence is something that occurs momentarily while we plug in a different device or while we take a breath during a conversation to "let someone else have a turn". Rather than listening to that other person in the profound way Jesus listens in today's Gospel, too often our silences are reluctant at best, and tend to be filled with mental machinations as we gauge where and how we can reenter the "conversation" and continue our own discourse or argument! Conversations with Church leaders can sometimes give us the sense that we are speaking to a clerically-clad wall. Nothing, especially the living God, is truly heard in these conversations, no minds or hearts are changed, connections and bonds of charity are not made, aliens do not become neighbors, neighbors do not become brothers and sisters, and brothers and sisters especially do not become colleagues in the service of the Gospel!

But Jesus' example condemns such an approach. In this lection, one of the lowest and the least becomes the One by which Jesus truly hears the voice of his Father and comes to modify his own understanding of his mission. After his silence at her first words to him Jesus rehearses the standard Jewish arguments for her and for his disciples, arguments that make sense in THIS worldly terms and in terms of an Israel threatened by outsiders, but not in terms of the Kingdom of God: "I was sent only to the children of Israel; It is not just (right or fair) to take the food from the children (Israel) and throw it to the dogs (Gentiles)." (We might hear common arguments for excluding folks from Eucharist today --- arguments that make good sense in worldly terms: "We cannot pretend there is a unity that doesn't really exist. We cannot defile the Eucharist by giving it to public and obstinate sinners. It wouldn't be just to do these things!") But in Matthew's telling of the Gospel story, Jesus has already fed the five thousand (apparently mainly Jews) and found there was plenty left over. He has also just preached that it is what comes out of us that defiles, but to eat with unwashed hands does NOT defile. . . The Canaanite women's response is a reminder of Jesus' great Eucharistic miracle as well as the infinite value and power to heal possessed by even the smallest crumb that comes to the most unworthy from God.

But it reminds us of much more as well. For those, for instance, who object that women cannot teach, we have an example of a Gentile woman teaching Jesus about the will of God and helping to reshape his mission. In so doing she reminds Jesus of a different "justice" in which all are therefore welcome at Christ's table; similarly, she reveals that the way Israel is first may not be precisely the way the world (or Israel herself) sees or has seen such matters. Israel is to be first in including, ministering to, and serving the outsider and the unworthy, not in excluding them until some other day of the Lord is at hand. Moreover, Israel is to be ministered to and served by the formerly alien and marginalized!! That day of the Lord is here, NOW, and, with the Canaanite woman's intervention, Jesus too comes to see this more clearly and embrace it more fully. In some ways, this shift in vision, a shift the Church herself is called upon to make, parallels the two different ways we have of understanding the term Catholic: the Latin sense of universalis which means universal but leaves some outside the circle however large it is drawn, and the Greek sense of Katholicos which is universal in the sense of leaven in bread where no one and nothing is left excluded or untouched and unfed.

Follow-up Question: The Silence of Solitude as "Abiding in God and God in Us"

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, I am grateful for your last couple of posts before the one on Maximillian Kolbe. (I said that badly since I also liked the one on Maxillian!!) You wrote about the silence of solitude that it is more than the silence of a person alone or by themselves. You also said, "When I speak of the silence of solitude as goal I mean that we move toward the completion or fullness of communion with God in which we are completely known and loved, and therefore, know and love in return --- and do so as naturally possible. Any anxiety to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are is entirely quieted while we are more able to be ourselves with clarity and articulateness.". . ."The silence of solitude here sings with life and wholeness. It is poor, chaste, and obedient!! We are fully ourselves with and in God." How much of this is influenced by John's Gospel? I ask because it seems like what you write pays a lot of attention to Word and a lot to what John's gospel would call "abiding" -- like abiding in God and God in us.]]

Good job!! Yes!!! If I were to translate the phrase "the silence of solitude" into Scriptural language, I would probably call it [[abiding in God as God abides in me]] --- or maybe just abiding or mutual abiding. Shalom is also a good translation of the term and so is Union. What is critical is that we understand that 1) the canonical term (the silence of solitude) implies relationality in both silence and solitude and 2) the relationality it implies is absolutely redemptive as only a relationship with God can be. You can see, I think how the silence of solitude also implies dying to self into the paradox, [[I, yet not I, but Christ in me]]!!

As you know, I think, I define eremitical solitude as a unique form of community --- rare, little understood, paradoxical, for sure, but a matter of community nonetheless. And silence is only most superficially a matter of external silence. More profoundly, it is a matter of inner silence where our deep woundedness is healed, our unmet needs are submerged and enfolded in God's infinite love, and the cries of pain and anguish we might well be otherwise, are transformed and transfigured into paeans of psalmody and praise. In Canon 603, this silence is as paradoxical as the solitude it reflects and if we ask plainly where or how inner silence is achieved, the answer must by coming to rest in God.

Your question is very timely. Two days ago a friend of mine (Pat) died unexpectedly. Thus, today and yesterday I have been thinking about phrases like "eternal rest", especially in relation to what I know to be true of the silence of solitude, but also because this friend was a member of our class on the Gospel of John where we have been speaking of  1) God's will to be God-with-us (Emmanuel) as something eternal that drives God's creation of anything outside Godself, and 2) abiding with God is another way of speaking about allowing God to fully be Emmanuel.  All of these things come together in a dynamic relationship with God that makes us fully or authentically human and allows God's will for Godself to be realized as well. Eternal rest in such a situation means rest from struggle and striving; it means coming to and resting in the fullness of truth, not merely in what we may know but in what and who we are. 

Pat Snyder

One other member of the class wrote today to say Pat was [[now having the best day of her life. All her questions answered, she was so interested in all things spiritual.]] I remember learning that a question was a sentence in search of another that would complete it. Questions for me are noisy, restless things that reflect our own noisy, restless, incompleteness. They push themselves forward whenever there is the slightest opportunity and can be indefatigable in their search for meaning, and truth (imagine the incessant questioning of a small child who has learned the power of the words "what", "where", "how" and "why"?!!)They are the means to transcendence and growth. So when I think of human beings as language events I also see them as questions in search of an answer. When I think of Jesus as the Word incarnate, I understand him to be the human question we each are united with the answer (God) that completes him. So, I changed that person's affirmation to read "the question she was (and lived so very well) has been answered"!! That noisy, restless search she was and posed in so many remarkable ways in our faith community has come to resolution and completion. She knows the silence of solitude in a way hermits anticipate and witness to with their lives. She abides in God and knows the "rest" of eternity --- dynamic, fully alive, and inextricably wed to the One Jesus called Abba.

I know I ran with your question in directions you did not suggest or ask about, but the mutuality in the way John understands abiding in his Gospel, the close link between Shalom and wholeness or holiness, the relational character of both eternal life (life after death) and what one Gospel commentator calls "eternity life" (life here and now opened up to the life of God), along with the way all of these correspond to C 603's "the silence of solitude" have been knocking around in my head and heart throughout the year. Given your question and Pat's death, it is time to recognize these are all facets of the same gem. It is vastly richer in meaning and beauty than the assertion that "the silence of solitude" in C 603 merely means the external quiet of physically being by oneself.

Though I can't write about this in this post, I believe the other central elements of Canon 603, especially stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance, are also synonyms for the multifaceted experience of abiding in God and are profoundly Johannine. Thanks for the chance to enlarge on past comments!

Feast of Maximillian Kolbe (Reprise)

Today is the feast day of Maximillian Kolbe who died on this day in Auschwitz after two months there, and two weeks in the bunker of death-by-starvation. Kolbe had offered to take the place of a prisoner selected for starvation in reprisal when another prisoner was found missing and thought to have escaped. The Kommandant, taken aback by Kolbe's dignity, and perhaps by the unprecedented humanity being shown, stepped back and then granted the request. Father Maximillian sustained his fellow prisoners and assisted them in their dying. He was one of four remaining prisoners who were murdered in Block 13 (see illustration below) by an injection of Carbolic Acid when the Nazi's deemed their death by starvation was taking too long. When the bunker was visited by a secretary-interpreter immediately after the injections, he found the three other prisoners lying on the ground, begrimed and showing the ravages of the suffering they had undergone. Maximillian Kolbe sat against the wall, his face serene and radiant. Unlike the others he was clean and bright.

The stories told about Maximillian Kolbe's presence and influence in Aushwitz all stress a couple of things: first, there was his great love of God, Mary the Imaculata, and his fellow man; secondly, it focused on the tremendous humanity he lived out and modelled in the midst of a hell designed in every detail to dehumanize and degrade. These two things are intimately interrelated of course, and they give us a picture of authentic holiness which, extraordinary as it might have seemed in Auschwitz, is nothing less and nothing more than the vocation we are each called to in Christ. Together, these two dimensions of true holiness/authentic humanity result in "a life lived for others," as a gift to them in many ways -- self-sacrifice, generosity, kindness, courage, fidelity, etc. In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell.

It is easy to forget this fundamental vocation, or at least underestimate its value and challenge. We sometimes think our humanity is a given, an accomplished fact rather than a task and call to be achieved via attentive responsiveness to God. We also may think that it is possible to be truly human in solitary splendor. But our humanity is our essential vocation and it is something we only achieve in relation to God, his call, his mercy and love, his companionship --- and his people! (And this is as true for hermits and recluses as it is true for anyone else.) Likewise, we may think of vocation as a call to religious life, priesthood, marriage, singleness, eremitism, etc, but always, these are "merely" the paths towards achieving our foundational vocation to authentic humanity. Of course, it is not that we do not need excellent priests, religious, husbands and wives, parents, and so forth, but what is more true is that we need excellent human beings --- people who take the call and challenge to be genuinely human with absolute seriousness and faithfulness.

Today's gospel confronts us with a person who failed at that vocation. With extended mercy and the complete forgiveness of an unpayable debt, this servant went out into his world and failed to extend even a fraction of the same mercy to one of his fellows. He was selfish, ungrateful, and unmindful of who he was in terms of his Master or the generosity which had been shown him. He failed to remain in touch with that mercy and likewise, he refused to extend it to others as called upon to do. He failed in his essential humanity and in the process he degraded and punished a fellow servant as inferior to himself when he should have done the opposite. Contrasted with this, and forming the liturgical and theological context for hearing this reading today, is the life of Maximillian Kolbe. Loved with an everlasting love, touched by God's infinite mercy and grace, Father Maximillian knew and affirmed who he truly was. More, in a situation of abject poverty and ultimate weakness, he remained in contact with the Source of his own humanity as the infinite well from which he would draw strength, dignity, courage, forgiveness, and compassion when confronted with a reality wholly dedicated to shattering, degrading, and destroying the humanity of those who became its victims. In every way he was the embodiment of St Paul's citation, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness!"

Block 13 where the "starvation cells" were

In Auschwitz, it is true that some spoke of Kolbe as a saint, and many knew he was a priest, but in this world where all were stripped of names and social standing of any kind, what stood out to everyone was Maximillian Kolbe's love for God and his fellow man; what stood out, in other words, was his humanity. Holiness for the Christian is defined in these terms. Authentic humanity and holiness are synonyms in Christianity, and both are marked by the capacity to love and be loved,  first (by) God and then (by) all those he has dignified as his image and holds as precious. In a world too often marked by mediocrity and even outright inhumanity, a world too frequently dominated by those structures, institutions, and dynamics which seem bigger than we are and incapable of being resisted or changed, we need to remember Maximillian Kolbe's example. Oftentimes we focus on serving others, feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless and the like, and these things are important. But in Kolbe's world when very little of this kind of service was possible (though Kolbe did what was possible and prudent here) what stood out was not only the crust of bread pressed into a younger priest's hands, the cup of soup given gladly to another, but the very great and deep dignity and impress of his humanity. And of course, it stood out because beyond and beneath the need for food and shelter, what everyone was in terrible danger of losing was a sense of --- and capacity to act in terms of -- their own great dignity and humanity.

Marked above all as one loved by God, Father Maximillian lived out of that love and mercy. He extended it again and again (70 X 7) to everyone he met, and in the end, he made the final sacrifice: he gave his own life so that another might live. An extraordinary vocation marked by extraordinary holiness? Yes. But also our OWN vocation, a vocation to "ordinary" and true holiness, genuine humanity. As I said above, "In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell." In many ways this is precisely the gift we are called upon in Christ to be for our own times. Matthew's call to make forgiveness a way of life is a key to achieving this. May Saint Maximillian Kolbe's example inspire us to fulfill our own vocations in exemplary ways.

External Silence versus the Silence of Solitude

One of the sets of topics I think about a lot is the silence of solitude as 1) context of the eremitical life, 2) goal or telos of the life (where solitude implies communion with God and silence implies completion), and 3) the charism the world needs so badly. Isn't the silence of solitude just about the silence of being alone? It certainly is about this, but it is also more, and over time dwelling in the silence of solitude one comes to know and live ever more fully toward and into this "more". Today I ran across a quote by Thomas Merton I thought was suggestive of the more nuanced and multivalent understanding of the silence of solitude I think hermits will grow into for the sake of the Reign of God and the salvation of others. I thought it might be helpful in explaining a little of why I understand this term of Canon 603 in the way I do. Merton wrote:

[[It is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard.”]]

It is not hard to see what Merton means here. We can easily imagine being in a situation where we are meant to listen and yet find ourselves listening only for a chance to throw in our opinion, suggestions, and advice, or tell our own story. Similarly, I would bet every reader can picture a meeting where participants can hardly be silent as a need to speak out stands in tension with the requirement for patience and the need to hear and learn from others. We will recognize the anxiety thrumming through a person who can hardly contain their desire to interrupt a conversation in order to add their own voice and perspective. While they might be able to maintain an external silence, there is a noisiness about them, a noisiness that interferes with receptivity and infects the entire situation with unquiet. Imagine a child who has raised her hand desperately seeking to answer the teacher's question.  The answer itself is not nearly so important as the need to be recognized, affirmed, and given a place to stand in the teacher's awareness and regard. 

The need to be truly heard is a profound and legitimate need for every person at every stage of their life. Human beings are "language events" in this way as well. We are incomplete to the degree we have not been heard. The drives to be recognized, to succeed, to use one's gifts and talents, even to make a name for oneself, and so forth, stem from this need to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are. This, combined with the failure to have these fundamental needs met fuels the anxiety to be heard Merton speaks about. At the same time, it illuminates something of the nature and import of what it means to seek or achieve the silence of solitude.

When I speak of the silence of solitude as context of my vocation as a hermit I mean exterior silence and physical aloneness --- things that are necessary to create the space and time to seek and be exhaustively heard by God. But I also mean the silence and solitude necessary to learn to listen to our own hearts and pour them out to God as well as to come to know that in God's abiding love we are truly heard (accepted, affirmed, loved, and valued) in every dimension of our being. The learning and degree of inner work this takes over time also explains the importance of spiritual direction in the life of anyone moving toward fuller and fuller existence in God. 

When I speak of the silence of solitude as goal I mean that we move toward the completion or fullness of communion with God in which we are completely known and loved, and therefore, know and love in return --- and do so as naturally possible. Any anxiety to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are is entirely quieted while we are more able to be ourselves with clarity and articulateness. More, we are able to be open to others and to empower them to come to the same articulateness --- the same ability to speak themselves to the world. The silence of solitude here sings with life and wholeness. It is poor, chaste, and obedient!! We are fully ourselves with and in God and, to the extent we have been drawn into and reflect the silence of solitude, we are this without striving or struggle. 

I may develop this post further (at the very least I need to address the idea of the silence of solitude as charism), but I think this is enough for the moment. My hope is that it gives some basic sense of how truly profound Canon 603's "silence of solitude" really is. To reduce it to the external silence of  physical aloneness implies we have not yet lived it well enough, with sufficient attentiveness to its depths and nuance. The eremitical journey is a journey into the silence of solitude. It is a journey of growth, healing, sanctification, and communion --- a journey toward fulfillment and completion of our very selves in God.

The Pastoral Import of Eremitical Life

[[ Sister, could you say something more about how you see living eremitical solitude as ministerial or as a pastoral calling?]]

Yes, I'd be glad to do that. Because of time constraints, what I am going to do is quote from a couple of posts I published here about 13 years ago (November 2010) in response to questions about living as a hermit part-time, self-defined hermit life, and the importance of canonical eremitism. These posts were part of a conversation I had where a reader disagreed when I took exception to his sense that one could be a hermit on Saturdays alone, dress up in a habit if desired, and be as authentic as a full-time hermit (in this case, with canonical standing). My concern was with the way a consecrated hermit ministers to others out of the authenticity of her life with God in the silence of solitude. While I believe all true hermits are called to full-time eremitical life and will minister out of their authentic eremitism, whether or not they are canonically professed and consecrated, the most important part of my response had to do with the normative nature of a full-time canonical vocation and its related pastoral import, especially when contrasted with the example provided by my interlocutor. When the content of this excerpt is added to my last post, I hope it helps indicate how a hermit's life is genuinely pastoral or ministerial. N.B., redactions are enclosed in brackets [].

[[Why All the Angst?? The Pastoral Import of Canonical Standing

But, as you ask, why all the angst? I've written about this before under the idea of necessary expectations and charism, but let me draw a picture of "why the angst?!" Let's take the two examples of eremitical life outlined in your own email and mine: 1) a person [like your father] takes off on Saturdays for some prayer time, dons a [religious] habit, and calls himself a "hermit" even adopting the title "Brother." (What he does the rest of the week, exemplary or apostolic as it may be, I have no clue, nor does anyone else.) He then goes forth to proclaim the Gospel as he can. 2) a person lives the silence of solitude (and the rest of the elements of Canon 603) full-time. She publicly vows her entire life to God (and so, to all those God cherishes) and is consecrated in a way that signals the grace to live this life. She is vested with the habit and given the right to the title Sister by the Church which recognizes and helps ensure the meaningfulness and import of these things. She proclaims the Gospel uniquely within this context. Both persons identify themselves as "hermits", one is a lay person and one is consecrated. One is full-time, and one is not. One does so according to his own understanding of the term, the other according to the Church's understanding and traditional meaning of the term.

Meanwhile, their respective parishes have a large number of chronically ill and frail elderly on fixed incomes, most of whom are isolated in significant ways from the parish as a whole or from the surrounding communities: none of them can work, few of them can drive or get away from their situations on a weekend, and none of them can take a day (or even an hour) off from their state of chronic illness or frail elderliness. What they do know [from homilies they have heard and stories of saints] is that they might be called to lives of prayer and solitude, lives that represent a kind of counter-cultural witness even. They are looking for someone who can proclaim the Gospel to them in a way that is specifically helpful in their situations. They think (and their pastor agrees),  that surely a hermit will be able to witness in a way that helps us make sense of [and give hope to] lives of poverty and marginalization, whose witness will assist in negotiating the transition from isolation to solitude, [and] who can remind them that a life of physical, financial, and personal poverty can still be rich in God and all God makes possible.

So which hermit should the pastor call on to assist these parishioners in this? Which hermit should he call on as a true representative of [a living] desert spirituality? Which hermit has accepted freely and fully all the dimensions of the eremitical life which allows him or her to witness truthfully and effectively to these people? Which hermit knows intimately the struggles of full-time solitude or silence? Which one has dealt with these and does so day in and day out along with all the other demons which attack the solitary person from within their own hearts or from the surrounding competitive, workaholic, productive, and consumerist world? Which one will be able to effectively proclaim the Gospel to these people? (And, N. B., I could have contrasted the Saturday-only hermit with any full-time lay hermit and most of the points would have been the same here.)

You see, going out and preaching the Gospel is not merely a matter of proclaiming a canned text or message to people one does not know. It is not a matter of proclaiming the unconditional love of God without applying that in the way one knows it intimately oneself and in the way people need to hear it. Instead, proclaiming the Gospel means proclaiming with one's life the truth of the way God has worked and is working in it so that others might find hope and meaning in that. As St Francis of Assisi [is purported to have] once said, "Preach the Gospel; use words if necessary." Proclaiming the Gospel, I would suggest, also does not allow for pretense while the "hermit" in the situation you described appears to be all about pretense --- at least with regard to calling himself a hermit, donning a habit, etc. He cannot relate particularly to the situation these people are in or the good news they really need to hear. He does not live a definitive solitude [that is, a solitude rooted in his relationship with God that defines his life] nor has he assumed any of the rights or responsibilities of such a life (the habit in the scenario you described is little more than a costume he takes up to play a role on weekends.) And yet, the habit and titles (Brother as well as hermit) give these people the right to expect he will be able to speak to their situation in a helpful way from his own life experience. They have the right to expect these things to mean what they mean to the church --- not least a counter-cultural life of total dependence on God lived on the margins of society in the silence of solitude.

This is why all the angst over canonical [normative] standing. Such standing in law generally indicates the acceptance of rights and obligations by those who are discerned to have such a call [which includes full-time life as a hermit], etc. It is not because we [canonical hermits] are Pharisees, but because law often serves love. It does so in this case. . . .

[[So, I think we should just agree to disagree. I guess it comes down to who is the more accepting here? What is the most compassionate response? For that matter, why don't you go back and consider your own baptismal vows---why weren't they enough? What makes your life intrinsically 'other' than other's? It doesn't sound very nice the other way, does it?]]

While we may agree to disagree, there is a distinction between being genuinely accepting and merely being uncritical and uncaring of meaning or truth. Compassion requires that we be truly loving, and it is not loving to allow a person to live a lie, or to empty meaningful terms of content when that content is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and World. [In the Roman Catholic Church] Canon 603 is such a gift. It defines the nature of eremitical life in a world at a time when dislocation, isolation, alienation, and the search for meaning in our isolation and alienation are rampant. Even so, it is a canon that allows for great diversity and flexibility even while (and perhaps because) it clearly spells out foundational, or non-negotiable elements comprising authentic solitary eremitical life. It is the entire vision of eremitical life which it provides us which is a gift of the Holy Spirit to both the Church and world.

I will repeat my main point from the other post because this is the true answer to "What is it to you?" above as well. FULL-TIME hermits who have allowed isolation and marginality to be redeemed and thus transformed into the "Silence of solitude [lived in the heart of the church]", can speak effectively to all those persons in our parishes, dioceses, neighborhoods, and the larger world who CANNOT leave their situations for time off even one day a week -- those who are chronically ill, disabled, the isolated elderly, impoverished, etc. Hermits' lives are God's compassionate answer to many of the most significant questions these myriads of people have and are. 

These people need to know that their aloneness is not a sign of the senselessness of life or abandonment by God, but the ground out of which God can call them to the silence of solitude and union with himself. I don't think a person who is busy, engaged, working, socializing 5-6 days a week, and then takes a day for silence, solitude, and contemplative prayer can effectively serve in this way. Hermits, whether lay or consecrated, who live the terms of Canon 603 with the whole of their lives, can minister to these people in a way I believe no one else can do quite as fully or effectively. I believe this ministry is part of the charism of eremitical life and a reason the life (not an avocation) is growing today. It is certainly a reason eremitical spirituality is growing today, but again, embracing [discrete] elements of this spirituality does not make one a hermit any more than my own embracing of elements of Ignatian spirituality makes me a Jesuit.

Looking Again at the Generosity and Ministry of Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, I have always wondered about how hermits live the kind of generosity Jesus expected of his disciples when they live by themselves and don't minister to anyone. I don't mean you live a selfish life --- it's just that I don't understand how your life can be truly Christian. Don't you want to do ministry? I am sorry if this seems offensive. Just curious how you understand this part of your life. Thanks!]]

This is a good question and one I have gotten variations of before.  As always, I do suggest you read those posts, so check out the labels at the right. Check out posts under categories like Canon 603 - false solitude,  false solitude, contemplative life, genuine solitude, self-centeredness, Eremitical Hiddenness, solitude and community, etc. These will provide a lot of background for you and some will speak directly to your question. Because hermit's lives are often (mistakenly) considered in terms of a quest for the perfection of self rather than the salvation of the world or proclamation of the Gospel, they can easily be understood in terms of selfishness. But this would be a mistake. Similarly, because solitude is often mistaken for isolation, and the hiddenness of eremitical life is mistaken for a rejection of proclamation or an implicit affirmation of misanthropy. These mistakes also contribute to the notion that eremitism is essentially selfish.

It's rather difficult in the contemporary church to get much of a real hearing for contemplative life because we have so stressed ministry and ministerial religious life. Everyone today, quite rightly, is expected to be involved in significant ministry -- whether they are in the clerical or lay state of life. Emphasis on this came with Vatican II as part of the recognition of the dignity and importance of baptism and the baptismal state as well as to move the church from its clericalist distortions. Add to that the various stereotypes and frequently eccentric images of hermit life, and it becomes really easy to think of eremitical life as selfish and lacking in generosity --- even more than is true of contemplative life more generally, especially when that is lived in community. But contemplative life generally and eremitical life as well are generous forms of self-gift, first of all to God and to all God wishes to achieve in our world, then to one's deepest or truest Self, and finally to one's immediate and then to one's more extended communities. 

You ask if I want to do ministry. The answer to that question is yes, I do! My desire to do ministry, however, is shaped and colored by my commitment to allow God to create me in the way God desires to do. Ministry of whatever sort I am suited to will flow from that commitment as God wills it. For instance, I teach Scripture now and have done for several years. Doing so is both an outgrowth of my eremitical life, and leads constantly back to it --- to the silence of solitude, to lectio, prayer, and study. At the same time, I am hopeful the lessons I teach say as much to the participants in these classes about the power of Scripture and its importance in an individual's faith life as they do about the Gospel of Mark, Jesus' parables, or any other particular text or set of texts. We live from the Word of God and it is our hearkening to that Word in the power of the Spirit that shapes us as authentically human beings. The experience of seeking God, being grasped by God, and being made more true, more whole, more capable of loving as God loves, is a result of life in the hermitage; this experience is the essence of my own ministry --- whatever form (including living the silence of solitude faithfully) that takes. 

The ministry of the hermit, as I understand it, is about witnessing to the power of God and the meaningfulness of every life whether this is revealed in strength or weakness, wholeness or brokenness, illness or wellness. I understand that I minister to the world when I witness to the call to be imago dei and commit myself to the inner work, prayer, silence, solitude, etc., it takes to truly become what I am potentially in communion with God. Any limited active ministry I do, including spiritual direction, and answering questions or writing on this blog, flows from this more primary "ministry".  Thomas Merton said this best, I believe, and I have quoted him before. He affirmed, [[the first duty of the hermit is to live happily without affectation in (her) solitude. (S/he) owes this not only to (herself) but to (her) community that has gone so far as to give (her) a chance to live it out. . . .this is the chief obligation of the. . .hermit because. . .it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and grace.]] (Emphasis added.)

Because I also understand the task to be and become the person God calls me to be as a call to ministry, I also affirm that sometimes relinquishing discrete gifts and talents for life in the hermitage is a significant piece of the vocation. So often we are urged to share our time, talents, and treasure and yet, the greatest treasure we have is the God who gives Godself to us without reservation or limit --- precisely so we may become the person we are called to be. 

Humanity is a task to be achieved in communion with God. The hermit reminds us of this, often with special and paradoxical vividness. This Divine presence that makes the person God's own prayer in our world is a most mysterious and powerful reality and it is the heart of a ministry that preferences being over doing. While it is apparently less valued or understood in contemporary approaches to ministry, BEING imago dei and witnessing to the priority of being over doing is the unique concern and nature of contemplative and eremitical ministry.  It seems to me to be a selfless and generous gift made possible only by radical self-emptying and reception of the gift God makes of us. In Merton's language, we reveal to others not only the possibility of nature being transfigured by grace, but we emphasize the importance of giving ourselves over to that process. That is the essence of (an) authentic human being. In some ways, I cannot think of a more significant or foundational ministry!!

Solemnity of the Transfiguration: Learning to See with New Eyes (Reprise)

Have you ever been walking along a well-known road and suddenly had a bed of flowers take on a vividness which takes your breath away? Similarly, have you ever been walking along or sitting quietly outside when a breeze rustles some leaves above your head and you were struck by an image of the Spirit moving through the world? How about suddenly being struck by the tremendous compassion of someone you know well, or seeing their smile in a new way and coming to see them in a whole new light because of this? I have had all of these happen, and, in the face of God's constant presence, what is in some ways more striking is how infrequent such peak or revelatory moments are.

Scientists tell us we see only a fraction of what goes on all around us. It depends upon our expectations.  In an experiment with six volunteers divided into two teams in either white or black shirts, observers were asked to concentrate on the number of passes of a basketball that occurred as players wove in and out around one another. In the midst of this activity a woman in a gorilla suit strolls through, stands there for a moment, thumps her chest, and moves on. At the end of the experiment observers were asked two questions: 1) how many passes were there, and 2) did  you see the gorilla? Fewer than 50% saw the gorilla.  Expectations drive perception and can produce blindness. Even more shocking, these scientists tell us that even when we are confronted with the truth we are more likely to insist on our own "knowledge" and justify decisions we have made on the basis of blindness and ignorance. We routinely overestimate our own knowledge and fail to see how much we really do NOT know.

For the past two weeks we have been reading the central chapter of Matthew's Gospel --- the chapter that stands right smack in the middle of his version of the Good News. It is Matt's collection of Jesus' parables --- the stories Jesus tells to help break us open and free us from the common expectations, perspectives, and wisdom we hang onto so securely so that we might commit to the Kingdom of God and the vision of reality it involves. Throughout this collection of parables, Jesus takes the common, too-well-known, often underestimated and unappreciated bits of reality which are right at the heart of his hearers' lives. He uses them to reveal the extraordinary God who is also right there in front of his hearers. Stories of tiny seeds, apparently completely invisible once they have been tossed about by a prodigal sower, clay made into works of great artistry and function, weeds and wheat which reveal a discerning love and judgment which involves the careful and sensitive harvesting of the true and genuine --- all of these and more have given us the space and time to suspend our usual ways of seeing and empower us to adopt the new eyes and hearts of those who dwell within the Kingdom of God.

It was the recognition of the unique authority with which Jesus taught, the power of his parables in particular, which shifted the focus from the stories to the storyteller in the Gospel passage we heard last Friday. Jesus' family and neighbors did not miss the unique nature of Jesus' parables; these parables differ in kind from anything in Jewish literature and had a singular power which went beyond the usual significant power of narrative. They saw this clearly. But they also refused to believe the God who revealed himself in the commonplace reality they saw right in front of them. Despite the authority they could not deny they chose to see only the one they expected to see; they decided they saw only  the son of Mary, the son of Joseph and "took offense at him." Their minds and hearts were closed to who Jesus really was and the God he revealed.  Similarly, Jesus' disciples too could not really accept an anointed one who would have to suffer and die. Peter especially refuses to accept this.

It is in the face of these situations that we hear today's Gospel of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on a mountain apart. He takes them away from the world they know (or believe they know) so well, away from peers, away from their ordinary perspective,  and he invites them to see who he really is. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus' is at prayer --- attending to the most fundamental relationship of his life --- when the Transfiguration occurs. Matthew does not structure his account in the same way. Instead he shows Jesus as the one whose life is a profound dialogue with God's law and prophets, who is in fact the culmination and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the culmination of the Divine-Human dialogue we call covenant. He is God-with-us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place. This is what the disciples see --- not so much a foretelling of Jesus' future glory as the reality which stands right in front of them --- if only they had the eyes to see.

For most of us, such an event would freeze us in our tracks with awe. But not Peter! He outlines a project to reprise the Feast of Tabernacles right here and now. In this story Peter reminds me some of those folks (myself included!) who want so desperately to hang onto amazing prayer experiences --- but in doing so, fail to appreciate them fully or live from them! He is, in some ways, a kind of lovable but misguided buffoon ready to build booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus, consistent with his tradition while neglecting the newness and personal challenge of what has been revealed. In some way Matt does not spell out explicitly, Peter has still missed the point. And in the midst of Peter's well-meaning activism comes God's voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!" In my reflection on this reading this last weekend, I heard something more: "Peter! Sit down! Shut up! This is my beloved Son! Listen to him!!!"

The lesson could not be clearer, I think. In this day where the Church is conflicted and some authority seems incredible, we must take the time to see what is right in front of us. We must listen to the One who comes to us in the Scriptures and Sacraments, the One who speaks to us through Bishops and all believers. We must really be the People of God, the "hearers of the Word" who know how to listen and are obedient in the way God summons us to be. This is true whether we are God's lowliest hermit or one of the Vicars of Christ who govern our dioceses and college of Bishops. Genuine authority coupled with true obedience empowers new life, new vision, new perspectives and reverence for the ordinary reality God makes Sacramental. There is a humility involved in all of this. It is the humility of the truly wise, the truly knowing person. We must be able to recognize how very little we see, how unwilling we are to be converted to the perspective of the Kingdom, how easily we justify our blindness and deafness with our supposed knowledge, and how even our well-intentioned activism can prevent us from seeing and hearing the unexpected, sometimes scandalous God standing there right in the middle of our reality.