The Surprising Face of Eremitical Solitude Through the Centuries

In my last post, I was asked about living in solitude and why it is that hermits don't always live strictly alone. My response presupposes a lot of what I said in that post regarding the meaning of words and especially on the nature of the constitutive elements of c 603, but it also involves the history of eremitical life, which is rather different than some believe it to be. Perhaps most surprising to those who believe solitude always means being absolutely alone is the fact that throughout the centuries hermits have often lived with one or two others. This was true of the Desert Abbas and Ammas because they accepted that novice hermits needed to be mentored and gradually introduced to eremitical life under the tutelage of an experienced hermit. There are other reasons two hermits might live together including safety, some degree of illness or debility, etc., and this has never been seen as a betrayal of the vocation's requirement of solitude.

Saint Francis' Rule for Hermits is a very brief but really significant document for the way we look at eremitical life; it sets up a living situation in which two or three individuals live in solitude while being looked after by at least one other Friar who serves as "Mother" to the hermits. After a sufficient period of time in solitude roles are reversed and the one serving as Mother begins his period in solitude while the hermits take turns serving as Mother. All of the brothers spend their days in community in a broader sense, but the community allows for significant eremitical solitude for individuals. In other words, it makes safe and healthy Franciscan eremitical life possible. While life in this setup was not luxurious by any means, I am struck by the complete lack of accent on any kind of harsh, arbitrary, or externally imposed asceticism in the name of spiritual "purification". Solitude in this scheme is not some kind of brutal attempt to gut out absolute aloneness for aloneness' own sake or to learn the hard lessons that isolation might be able to teach. Rather, it is about giving generous and humble Friars the chance to spend significant time alone with God in genuine solitude within a loving community of brethren.

I recently cited the work of Edward L Cutts on "The Hermits and Recluses of the Middle Ages" and one of the insights his work gives is into the hermitages and living situations of some hermits who are not recluses. He notes that Richard Rolle lived for some time at the residence of Sir John Dalton who gave him a solitary chamber, clothed him in a hermit's habit and paid for his necessities. It was from this place that Rolle wrote books, counseled visitors, and was absorbed in prayer. Interestingly, Rolle had experiences of temptation and "demonic assault" and became most concerned with the spiritual consolation of recluses. Later he lived near a Cistercian monastery (nunnery) in Hampole and it was here that he died after a long history of writing devotional and mystical works.

While this may seem an exceptional account, Cutts also notes, [[It was not very unusual for hermitages to be built for more than one occupant; but probably in all cases, each hermit had his own cell, adjoining their common chapel. This was the original arrangement of hermits of the Thebais in their laura. The great difference between a hermitage of more than one hermit, and a small cell of one of the other religious orders, was that in such a cell one monk or friar would have been the prior, and the others subject to him; but each hermit was independent of any authority on the part of the other; he was subject only to the obligation of his Rule, and the visitation of his bishop.]]

I want to point out the similarity in what is being described here and what sometimes happens with c 603 hermits today. In the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, for instance, the current Bishop has professed and consecrated three older women who live together in the same house. I was asked several years ago how this could be allowed under c 603 and suggested a living situation very like the one Cutts has just described from the Middle Ages. Similarly, when c 603 hermits join together in a laura, the requirement that this not rise to the level of a religious institute, but that the c 603 hermits each have their own Rule, own bank account, etc., so each is self-supporting, sounds very like what was true in the Middle Ages. The same is true of Sister Beverly's Marymount hermitage in the Diocese of Boise, though Sister Rebecca no longer lives there. In these examples, eremitical solitude, which is not defined in terms simply of being alone but which implies significant time alone with God, yet also within a parish, diocesan, or neighboring community (and sometimes a small community of other solitary hermits) may, for some, be a surprising way of looking at solitude.

The point here is that eremitical solitude is a special form of solitude with a special purpose, namely communion with God for the sake of others. Yes, some of us live a significant degree of aloneness in our time with God and some find they are called to actual reclusion. This is critically important to the vocation and to the witness the vocation provides. (Here I am thinking of Thomas Merton's comment about nature, peace, and the grace of God and what the hermit's life says about these. cf last paragraph of Ministry of the Hermit.) Community, however, is always a dimension of (Christian) eremitical solitude precisely because the life is both rooted in and serves a faith community. Through the centuries this tendency to distinguish eremitical solitude from a dangerous and destructive isolation with practices like that of  Saint Francis, the Desert Abbas and Ammas, Anchorites and anchoresses living linked to churches and village or town communities, or the example of Richard of Hampole and others from the Middle Ages, is a recurring pattern of authentic eremitical life.

A Little on the Purported "Univocal Meaning" of the Central Terms of Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, if c 603 says you are to live the silence of solitude, then why is it some hermits live with others? You wrote recently that you are not committed to absolute solitude, absolute silence, or absolute separation from the world. But if you are bound by this law, this canon, why not? Solitude means one thing, not many. Silence means one thing, not many. Separation means one thing, not many. You are called to obey this law and the Church consecrated and professed you to do just this, isn't that so? Isn't that what your Rule is supposed to help you do? One hermit who speaks about this says that she has chosen the law of God over a man-made law like this canon. You made your choice, a different choice I would say, so doesn't this obligate you to live this law absolutely?]]

This is an incredibly rich series of questions, so thank you. I think the first thing I need to clarify in order to get to all you have asked is the nature of canon law, and more specifically, the nature of the revised or 1983 Code of Canon Law. Like all things in the Church, canon law is contextualized in different ways; it does not stand alone, ever! Canon law serves the Church in important ways, but it is always subservient to the Gospel of God, and the life and law of discipleship measured according to Jesus Christ and the Law of Love. Our current Code of Canon Law embodies this, not only in certain canons themselves but in the very fact that it was revised in light of Vatican II. 

The 1917 Code was contextualized within a monarchical vision of Church and it reflected that ecclesial model. But Vatican II introduced (reintroduced!!) the guiding model of the Church as a Communion of Believers, a Faith Community, and more, a Communion of local Churches. Contemporary church law is meant to be read, practiced, and applied within that very different context as well as at the service of that reality. In the older code and the context in which it was read, a relative few were rulers (Bishops and to a lesser extent, priests) and the rest were the ruled. But in the Code of 1983 things changed radically; the values and especially the ecclesiology of Vatican II were embodied in the canons per se, but even when this was/is not the case, Vatican II's ecclesiology (and theology of discipleship, for instance) serve as the context for interpreting every canon of the Code. Thus, when we are baptized we are ALL made "priests, prophets, and rulers (or kings)" and the revised Code regards this in ways the older code never did or could.  Yes, Bishops have specific rights and obligations under law, but so do all of the faithful. We are all the Church and canon law is meant to serve us each and all in our vocation to be church, the assembly of the called ones, the ecclesia.

So, with that in mind consider all of the voices that need to be heard in interpreting a canon like c 603. Yes, bishops certainly have an important role in that, and so do all those who have both succeeded and failed at living eremitical life through the many centuries of Christian and Jewish tradition. Thus, too Scripture has a considerable role in assisting us in interpreting this canon, and so do linguists, poets, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and theologians (et. al.) who reflect variously on the nature of the human person and human wholeness or holiness and where eremitism fits into this. Hermits are among those most critically involved in interpreting this canon, not because they live it perfectly (whatever that might mean!), are great scholars of eremitical life, or because they are somehow magically or mystically omniscient about all of this, but because they are committed to coming to union with God as, in one way and another, they negotiate the historical tributaries of the eremitical river in which they have committed themselves to stand and journey onward. 

I was reminded of the importance of the way we each do that on Monday morning when I met with the other c 603 hermits in our small "virtual laura". We are reading Wencel's book  Eremitic Life together. Sister Anunziata (Diocese of Knoxville) picked up a word we had been exploring a little. She pointed to one place Wencel had used it in the chapter and then compared it to a similar passage from St John of the Cross to comment on Wencel's meaning. She then took the further step of noting that the entire structure of this chapter mirrored the whole oeuvre of John's work. It was a wonderful insight and a truly brilliant bit of analysis on Sister's part; it was an exhilarating experience for me and I believe it reminded us of the histories we bring to this life and also, therefore, to the varying and similar ways we are called by God to interpret the canon within the Body of Christ and for the sake of that same Body. 

This brings me to the meaning of words in the canon. I wrote recently that I understand the term "solitude" as the redemption of isolation. I can only do that against a personal history with or experience of isolation -- at least enough to understand that eremitical solitude is vastly different despite superficial similarities. Someone without this same background or personal experience, even other hermits, might not be able to understand why I say this. Sister Anunziata's profound knowledge of St John of the Cross's work allowed her to say something about a chapter each of us other diocesan hermits were familiar with but did not see ourselves. Words are vastly rich resources and very few of them have only a univocal meaning or sense. That is certainly true of c 603's vocabulary.

As I have noted before here, each of the terms of c 603, the central defining elements of the canon serves as a doorway to Mystery. Yes, we need to know the basic sense of these terms to enter into the sense of this reality at all, but once we have stepped over that threshold, the richness of the term is opened to us. It is the job of hermits, and particularly c 603 hermits, to give their lives over to the exploration of the realms these "canonical" doorways open to us. That is what my own commitment is about, and it is certainly part of what is involved in my vow of obedience. But obedience, vowed or otherwise, is about attentiveness, listening care-fully with the ear of one's heart, responding appropriately to the address of Mystery, especially when we spell that with an upper case M!

The Divine Mystery stands behind every element of c 603 and the canon itself is merely a norm trying to define the outlines of a wondrous place from within which we are allowed to meet Mystery face-to-face and to dance with him! Those outlines are important and assisting others to find their way to and into this foreign realm is similarly important, but all of this is meant to serve the dance and, more importantly, the Lord of the dance and those who are called to share in all of this to be fully human. Canon 603, like any other canon in the Code, serves God who is love-in-act and God's compelling law of love that lives deep within us yearning to be set free and embodied in all the ways that energize and shape us as disciples of Christ. But, to mix my metaphors, c 603 is but a single mansion in a kingdom of many mansions and all of these are important and valid ways and witnesses to the Kingdom and its Law of Love. None of them supplant it!!

So, no, I have not chosen a man-made law over the Law of God. I have accepted and embraced a man-made law that (I believe and the Church affirms) was inspired by the Holy Spirit so that I may truly live God's law of love and do so in the name of and for the sake of the Church!! I am professed and consecrated to live the canon, and for this reason, I continue to explore and negotiate its depths and riches. Though I do this in the silence of solitude, I am also accompanied by others and sometimes accompany them in a way that informs my interpretation of the canon. When you say I must live this law absolutely, I am not even sure what that means, but if it means accepting the terms that are central to this canon have only a univocal sense, I would argue that has less to do with obedience than it does with a betrayal of the canon's richness; it may even represent a refusal to truly be attentive to the Divine Mystery that seeks to meet and dance with us in and through it.

Btw, my apologies for not answering your very first query. I just noticed that now as I reread your question. I promise another post dealing with that, hopefully, later today!!

A Contemplative Moment: "Anguish" by David Whyte

 ANGUISH 

is the emblem of our helpless love, felt fully in every cell of the body; felt fully until it overflows, in a cry, in tears in words that try to negate, powerlessly, what is occurring. Anguish is our foundational cry against the unjust taking away of what we feel should be forever ours.

Anguish is a word that is a cry in itself: carrying the sound of the body feeling at last what it has all along needed to feel: a physical pain running right through our core and turned by the voice into the sound of pain itself, a pain we often previously could not imagine, an agony that is accompanied by the shock of absolute helplessness, a helplessness which is perhaps the very hallmark of human vulnerability itself, and that separates it from all the other manifold pains in a human life we have words to describe. Anguish is a force that racks and inhabits a suddenly surprised and now fully vulnerable, mind and body. But anguish fully felt is also the first stop on the road to recovery and healing.

Helplessness and the pains of helplessness are abiding companions to the experience of being human: the nurse by the dying child's bedside, having exhausted all remedies; the parent witnessing a teenager's first heartbreak, all of us in this world today, scrolling through the news, seeing the bombed-out homes of innocent, everyday people. We are made to experience both love and loss and an extraordinarily deep, bodily, everyday level and it may be that without helplessness we cannot experience love or loss fully and properly: Anguish is the last fully felt measure of our care.

Feeling real, helpless, emotional pain, is also an entrance into the fully real and the fully felt and is an annunciation that we are actually paying attention at last -- both to what is affecting us and the depth to which we are so movingly affected --anguish means we have finally felt and fully understood not only the true depth and foundational nature of our own suffering but the heartbreak that lies in every other human life we have ever touched or accompanied. Anguish is the doorway through which our personal suffering meets all the griefs that are shared by the world.

Anguish is only entered fully through the door of powerlessness in the absolute physical sense of helplessness. Anguish cannot be simulated: it is not only a measure of our care for others but the inability to know how or when or if it is possible to help, anguish is the very physical incarnation of our sense of compassion brought to ground at last, in the suffering body of the world -- and in real anguish our body reciprocates -- refusing to eat, losing weight, sitting alone, refusing to go out the door, full of the tremors and vulnerabilities that have accompanied human beings since the beginning of conscious time, vulnerabilities that at times seemed to arise from nowhere. 

Anguish tells us that our deep sense of care has entered the timeless and the untouchable, that we have, for the moment, given up on solutions; stopped offering easy answers and let go of our previous, false sureties -- Anguish tells us we have finally decided to enter fully into the pain of our loss, or the pain of another.

The helpless pain at the center of grief is the soul's annunciation that we might have arrived at suffering's essential core, where there is no ready way forward, no remedy for our suffering selves, no cure for a suffering loved one, or it seems anything to be done about our distraught world.

Anguish is always waiting for us: beyond our refusing to care, or our unwillingness to feel fully how helpless we often are to help another, either those intimate to our lives or those suffering at a distance. Anguish is one of the most difficult qualities for human beings to enter because it is meant to be felt whether we have answers or not.

Anguish has its own sense of timing in both concentrating and inviting us to experience its pain, at what feels like a cellular level and then, soberingly, anguish stays longer than we would want and seems to have its own incredibly slow way of moving on. It seems not to move on in fact, until we have fully imbibed its painful instruction of how much we feel and how much we care.

Anguish is the act of finally allowing the transforming fire of care in the heart to rage fully at last, our defenses burnt away by the consuming flame of our helpless love, where, at the center of that fire, we feel our grief and loss to its very core and where grief, in its own timeless, unfathomable way, is allowed to slowly become its own cure.

Angish fully felt and fully articulated in its helplessness, becomes in that articulation, the threshold where our private incurable, unspoken grief turns to public, passionate remedy. Anguish is the true common hidden, a priori foundation to our speaking out for others in this world, even those who seem to have hurt us, anguish is the only true ground we can stand upon to do any useful, charitable, philanthropic work.

Anguish is not debilitation: anguish fully felt, is a sign that we are fully awake at last, through our own pain, to all the heartbreaking losses and goodbyes involved in the drama of a human life, anguish tells us we are getting ready to embrace, or are even now, against our will, willing to embrace, what until now could never be embraced, that is: our ability to live fully in this body despite its never ending griefs and wounds, as others live, and have always lived, half helplessly, half trying to help, in the greater body of the suffering world.

by David Whyte in 

Consolations II, The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Note: I don't put up Contemplative Moments so close together usually, but this had special meaning to me (not least that after a period of profound anguish I received and read this first article in Whyte's now book on Gaudete Sunday). It changed my entire perspective on "anguish" and colored my prayer at Mass that morning. 

Also, of course, it calls attention to David Whyte's new book which is available for the holidays. It is a second volume of Consolations, David's incredibly beautiful and insightful reflections on the meanings of everyday words. These do indeed give nourishment and solace as they call attention to the deep mysteries words serve to mediate and open us to, ther mysteries we each are called to live if we are to be fully human to and for one another. All good wishes for a wonderful "Gaudete week" in immediate preparation for the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus, in whom God is Emmanuel.

On Silence and Solitude in the Service of Intimacy with God

[[Sister, you write about hermits a lot. You don't take a vow of silence, do you? But why not if "the silence of solitude"is such an important element of c 603? At the same time why do you treat solitude as though it is not really about being alone?]]

Thanks for your questions. I think they are actually pretty common for non-hermits or for those whose notion of eremitical life is idealized. Similar questions could be asked about the other constitutive elements of the vocation including stricter separation from the world whenever "the world" is taken to mean anything outside the hermitage door. In each of these cases, solitude, the silence of solitude, and stricter separation from the world, what we find is that these terms are more nuanced than most people understand. None of them is absolute. By that I mean the eremitical life is not about absolute silence, absolute solitude, or absolute withdrawal from the world. Instead, these elements are real and substantial in a way that allows the vocation to be defined in terms of them, and at the same time, they are qualified by the needs of the hermit for growth, healing, and holiness as she moves toward maturity in her relationship with God and others in an ecclesial vocation.

So, for instance, no, I don't take a vow of silence nor do I hold myself to a Rule calling for absolute silence. I talk (to God and less frequently, to others), I sing, I listen to, compose (improvise), and play music, and all of this requires significant, but (obviously) not absolute silence. Silence is necessary to be a person of prayer because prayer is about listening and being available to God, and we are attentive and available to God so that God may recreate the world as he wills. That recreation begins with us and with the way God's love transforms us as human beings. Hermits cultivate silence for this purpose, not simply for itself alone. Moreover, silence can be external or internal; while both are important it is internal silence that is key in the hermit's life. The cultivation of inner silence and stillness is the aim of a life of stricter external silence. Whatever is happening externally leads us to the profound internal silence that allows for the song we are  to rise up within us and be "sung." 

What I am saying is that the hermit is silent and embraces silence to the extent it leads us to prayer and then, to union with God. The same is true of solitude. External solitude serves the hermit's life with God and her growth as a human being. One is alone with God for the sake of God's will and all that that Divine will desires and occasions. In some ways, there is also an inner solitude where the individual is at peace with themselves and with God. This solitude is about a harmonious relationship; one is truly oneself in this space, and one is oneself with God. It is the antithesis of isolation and when I write about it, I speak of it as the redemption of isolation. 

When c 603 speaks of the silence of solitude, most superficially it means the quiet that exists when one is not conversing with others or otherwise engaging with others, but at its deepest, it is an intimacy with God where God is allowed to be God and we are the human person God calls us to be. This silence of solitude is peaceful (though not painless!), profoundly energizing,  and marked by a sense of solidity and love in and through which one is truly oneself. It is therefore also about being profoundly in relationship with the whole of God's creation and the whole of God's People. When I write about the silence of solitude I also speak of it as involving the quieting of our existential anguish and pain. We can be screams of anguish and then be transformed through the love of God into a quiet and joyful song of praise. And of course, sometimes the anguish recurs and our personal song is transfigured into lament. This is still vastly different from simply being a scream of anguish! 

The bottom line in all of this is that when I speak of solitude it does mean being alone, but one is alone with God and, in varying degrees of intimacy, with all that is grounded in God. This is why I tend to usually say "eremitical solitude." There are a variety of forms of solitude; some are not healthy and most are not eremitical. The corollary is that when the hermit is not alone, but is with others, the inner silence and solitude of her relationship with God remains foundational. When a hermit has lived the silence of solitude for some time she does not need to be particularly concerned that contact with others, including occasional social functions, will destroy the silence of solitude that is so fundamental to who she is. 

Yes, of course, care is always necessary and is part of a vow of obedience, but the silence of solitude rooted in God's love is still the pedal tone of the hermit's life and it both calls her to be present to others and summons her back to the hermitage. The image I have in mind here is a Taize chant (cf., In God Alone) where woodwinds, etc., may improvise a kind of obligato above and around the chant and even occasionally sound a bit dissonant as the linkage to the chant becomes strained for the hearer, but these instruments and the line they play always find their way back to the chant of which they are always an exploration and elaboration.

Tracing the Roots of Canon 603: A Brief Look at Hermits in the 13-14 C

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I've read what you wrote about why c 603 came to be, but what about before c 603? Isn't it the case that people could just go off and become a hermit on their own just because God called them to this? Isn't c 603 something of a novelty? Because hermit life is so old I think people should be cautious about taking on a form of the life that is novel. You can understand that, can't you? Also, I think [the hermit you disagree with on all of this] has a point about wearing habits like those in religious communities. Is that another novelty you came up with because you had been a religious in a community?]] (Redacted from much longer email)

It may surprise you, but c 603 is not absolutely unique. Yes, it is binding universally and establishes hermits in law in the consecrated state and that is new (there was no mention of hermits in the older 1917 Code), but there have been canons in the Church before that bound hermits from this or that diocese in very much the same way c 603 does today. Because I don't much like copying long texts from other sources here, what I would like to do is quote a couple of paragraphs from a book including hermits and recluses of the Middle Ages that touches on the way hermits were regarded, the authority of the local bishop, and the service of investiture with the habit. This is a summary without detailed examples --- though these are available for the asking. I may also add something about the nature of the hermitage and solitude in the hermitage that also conflicts with the person you have referred to in your question, but that depends upon time. Since it is an important issue I could also hold it for another post.

Writing about hermits in the early 14 C and before, Edward L Cutts says in Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, [[ A man could not take upon himself the character of a hermit at his own pleasure. It was a regular order of religion, into which a man could not enter without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, and into which he was admitted by a formal religious service. And just as bishops do not ordain men to holy orders until they have obtained a "title," a place in which to exercise their ministry, so bishops did not admit men to the order of Hermits until they had obtained a hermitage in which to exercise their vocation.]] (page 98)

Cutts then examines the nature of a vow made by a hermit. The form is taken from the Institution Books of Norwich, lib.xiv. fo.27a: (I have translated this into contemporary English just for this article.) [[I, John Fferys, not married, promise and avow to God, our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the saints in heaven, in the presence of you reverend Father in God, Richard bishop of Norwich, the vow of chastity, after the rule of Saint Paul the hermit. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.]] (dated in the Chapel of Thorpe) (pp 98-99)

Here I simply want to point out the similarities between c 603 professions and this one. The Church today takes the time to discern the nature and quality of the vocation before them, she makes sure that the candidate for profession can take care of herself (i.e., is self-supporting in some substantial and stable sense), has a proper place to live where she can carry out her ministry, and requires that she writes a proper Rule of Life in light of which she will live her profession. John Ferris, above, apparently was able to use the Rule of Saint Paul the Hermit, but all of this including the ascertainment of Ferris's unmarried state (part of what I often call "the canonical freedom" to enter another canonical state of life) is familiar to anyone with a knowledge of c 603. For many years now, I have been accused of supporting a way of eremitical life that is a distortion of the "tried and true" way of becoming a hermit, namely, by just going off and becoming one, but here, in an example from 700 years ago it is very clear that c 603 has picked up in a careful and faithful way, something that was already established in the Church in the early Middle Ages at least. Canon 603 is not novel except in what it establishes in universal law.

Cutts also summarizes the service for habiting and blessing a hermit (from "Officium induendi et benedicendi heremitam"). This is taken from the pontifical of Bishop Lacy of Exeter (14C.) [[It begins with several psalms; then several short prayers for the incepting hermit, mentioning him by name. Then follow two prayers for the benediction of his vestments, apparently for different parts of the habit; the first mentioning 'hec indumenta humilitatem cordis et mundi contemptum significancia," -- these garments signifying humility of heart and contempt of the world; the second blesses "hanc vestem pro conservande castitatis signo,"-- this vestment the sign of chastity [in celibacy]. The priest then delivers the vestments to the hermit kneeling before him with these words, "Brother, behold we give to thee the eremitical habit (habitum hermiticum), with which we admonish thee to live henceforth chastely, soberly, and holily; in holy watchings, in fastings, in labours, in prayers, in works of mercy, that thou mayest have eternal life and live forever and ever." And he receives them saying, "Behold, I receive them in the name of the Lord; and promise myself to do so according to my power, the grace of God, and of the saints helping me." Then he puts off his secular habit, the priest saying to him, "The Lord put off from thee the old man with his deeds;" and while he puts on his hermit's habit, the priest says, "The Lord put on thee the new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." There follows a collect and certain psalms, and finally the priest sprinkles him with holy water and blesses him.]] (Op Cit. p 99)

There are numerous descriptions of the nature of the eremitical habit in this particular chapter of Cutt's book, but they are all pretty similar in certain ways. They tend to have a tunic, scapular, and perhaps a cincture as well as a hood or cloak with hood. Some have TAU crosses, many take up the hermit's staff, and the colors of these various habits differ, though blue, brown, black and grey are prominent. Cutts also refers a bit earlier in the chapter to habits worn according to Papal authority for the "Eremiti Augustini" which are constituted the same way though with white tunic and scapular and (for choir or going out) a black cowl and large hood. 

Habits were important, as they are today, because people of all ranks and stations became hermits and most hermits dealt with those from all ranks and stations. Let me point out briefly then that while a habit signifies poverty, it also allows a person to move easily between various social strata without having to be concerned with "dressing the part". In this sense too, the habit is a sign of stricter separation from the world and its various strata. For the purposes of this post, however, what I really want to make clear is that the clothing of a hermit in a religious habit is not new with me or even with c 603 itself. It goes back much further than the Middle Ages. Though I have only referred back as far as the 13C here in this post, I have noted before that the giving of the hermit's tunic is linked even to the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

I sincerely hope this is helpful to you and gives you a different perspective on what is novel or not in c 603 eremitical life and in what I write here. While I believe there are some relatively novel things about what I write here, I also believe they are deeply rooted in the living tradition of eremitical life and assist hermits and dioceses in discerning, forming and living these vocations well in a way that is truly edifying for the entire Church and world. After all, c 603 has to be contextualized to be understood, not just in terms of contemporary life, but also in terms of the whole history of eremitical life. I will hold for another post what Cutts has to say about the nature of hermitages and solitude, especially regarding the variety of ways solitude was provided for in hermitages. In this too you will find c 603 and what bishops allow are not so novel as all that.

A Contemplative Moment: Into the Eye of God (Reprise)

 

  Into the Eye of God

by Sister Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

For your prayer

     your journey into God,

    may you be given a small storm

    a little hurricane

      named after you,

     persistent enough

      to get your attention

    violent enough

       to awaken you to new depths

      strong enough

       to shake you to the roots

     majestic enough

       to remind you of your origin:

      made of the earth

      yet steeped in eternity

      frail human dust

       yet soaked with infinity.

     You begin your storm

      under the Eye of God.

      A watchful, caring eye

      gazes in your direction

   as you wrestle

        with the life force within.

In the midst of these holy winds

In the midst of this divine wrestling

    your storm journey

    like all hurricanes

       leads you into the eye,   

   Into the Eye of God

     where all is calm and quiet.

A stillness beyond imagining!

Into the Eye of God

after the storm

Into the silent, beautiful darkness

  Into the Eye of God.

This poem is taken from Macrina Wiederkehr's A Tree Full of Angels, Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary. Advent, as noted in the past couple of posts, seems to me a fine time to consider the presence of the Holy in the Ordinary moments and moods of reality. Sister was a monastic of St Scholastica Monastery, Fort Smith, Arkansas. She died in 2020.

Faith in a Reality Rooted in the Miraculous

[[Hi Sister Laurel, in your last post on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, you spoke of miracles and the fact that our ordinary world is truly extraordinary. Do you believe in miracles? I would like to believe that way, but I just cannot. I have never experienced a miracle; nothing happened when I prayed for one. Is Christianity built on the miraculous? If it is, I wonder how anyone can be a Christian. It seems to contradict what is reasonable or rational.]]

Thanks for your questions. They are good and typical of human beings in a post-enlightenment world. Yes, I do believe in the miraculous; I believe miracles occur wherever the power of love breaks through everything in our world that militates against love or the life that is created by love. God is the ground and source of all that exists and has meaning and God is love-in-act. This means that everything we know or will come to know is grounded in the dynamism of love-in-act. Love is the source of life, meaningful life. I believe that love is capable of defeating evil and overcoming death in all its forms and I believe that the stories in Scripture reiterate this overarching narrative again and again.

Christianity is built on the power of love. Christian faith is faith in the power of God's love, the love that creates and orders reality, the love that overshadowed Mary and impregnated her with Jesus, the love that allowed Jesus to heal, and exorcise, to give himself exhaustively so people would know this love-in-act he called Abba, and of course, the love that is stronger than death and raised Jesus to new life.  I believe in this power of love because I have known it in my own life. I have experienced the risen Christ, and of course, I have been loved by those who have also known and come to live from and for the embrace of God's love. It has done for them what only God can do and has acted in my life as well. That has been true in different situations where death and evil seemed to have had the upper hand and changed everything. This experience of love, particularly of God as love-in-act, convinces me our world is rooted in the miraculous and that ordinary existence much more.

Christian faith then, asks us to trust that what seems ordinary is really quite extraordinary. Not only does the cosmos exist when it might well not exist (the fact that there is something rather than nothing at all is something science cannot explain), but even more, it is knowable and capable of mediating truth, beauty, goodness, and occasioning wonder and love. I think one of the reasons we celebrate Advent is to allow us time to check out how we look at reality. If we are incapable of seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary we need practice (and sometimes help with the healing of our minds and hearts) in order to see with "new eyes". What Christmas brings us is a God who chooses to dwell with us and to transfigure our humanity into the true images of God we were made to be. It prepares us to understand ourselves as infinitely precious, capable of mediating God to others and stewarding his creation in the way he has entrusted to us. It allows us to see God at work in our world so that one day heaven and earth fully interpenetrate one another. This leads to hope, a well-grounded hope rooted in the God of love and built with the aid of our faithful intelligence, hard work, and good will. 

Why do we Tell These Same Stories Over and Over Again?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I was wondering why we celebrate Advent. Even more, I was wondering why we celebrate the birth of Christ again and again or why we do the same thing with the other major parts of Jesus' life and death. I think Christmas works well for children and families but what about for those of us who are grown and have no families; why is it important for us to celebrate Jesus' birth year after year? It seems to me this only causes pain and encourages a naive faith. . . . Like I said, it works well for children but not for adults or those seeking an adult faith. And with Advent we actually spend weeks getting ready to take on this childish faith yet again! Is this what the Church is encouraging with seasons like Advent? I hope this is not offensive, I don't mean it to be. I just don't understand the place of telling children's stories again and again to adults. . . . I do get that Jesus was conceived, was born, lived, died, and was raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God. Why is it important to tell these same stories over and over though?]]

Thanks for the questions. Sorry to have only cited part of your email, but I think I have copied enough for other readers to understand your questions. My answer has several parts so I may only just begin my response here. We'll see what I can do, because they really are excellent questions and go far beyond what I was thinking of when I read your first sentence! They are especially important during Advent because they (like the season) prepare us to celebrate events that are at the heart of our faith, events that stand in the past and present, and events that also stand before us as our future.

The first reason we tell these stories then, is because, unlike many other religions, Christianity is built on historical events. Christianity does not theorize about what God is like. Instead, it reflects on the God whom Jesus revealed to us during and through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Other religions might consider God as a creator or hypothesize that God loves us, or that God judges sin and sinners, but Christianity begins with historical events and everything we say about God must be rooted in these events. We know that God has power over life and death because the events associated with the Christ Event reveal this to us. We know that God is a creator God because he is revealed as the author of both new and old creations in the Christ Event. We know that God says no to sin and yes to sinners, and so too, that God's judgment is a sort of harvesting that teases the weeds (sin, false self) and wheat (true self) apart because that is how Jesus dealt with sin and because God vindicated Jesus by raising him from death to new life. Everything we claim to know in Christianity is dependent upon the historicity of the Christ Event and whatever we claim about God, the One Jesus called Abba, we know because Jesus revealed this to us.

The second reason we tell these stories is that at our core we are storytelling people. Telling stories is our way of communicating deep truths, dreams, aspirations, reminders of who we are and what we are made for --- all of this and so much more are communicated through story. (cf., Advent Decisions: In What Story?) Our family stories provide a context for new members to truly belong more deeply; we share the most meaningful stories of our lives with those closest to us to invite and draw them more intimately into our own lives. We listen carefully to the stories others tell us because in this way they gift us with a place to stand in their own lives --- a place we could never have shared otherwise. God has offered us a place to stand in His Own story and that place is given to us when we take our own place in this ever-enlarging narrative the Church recounts for us each year throughout all of her feasts and liturgies. During Advent we prepare ourselves for hearing stories we may have heard many times before, and we prepare because at the same time we also know that we have NOT heard this year's story before and we do not want to miss anything this time around!!

The third reason we celebrate Advent and tell these stories again is because they allow us to understand what God, in Christ, has begun to do and continues to do day in and day out here among us and with our world, namely to recreate this so that heaven and earth interpenetrate one another so completely that God who is Emmanuel (God with us) will be all-in-all.  We look forward to the day when Jesus "comes again" (parousia or παρουσια, pronounced pah-roo-SEE-ah with each syllable separate from the others), and we recognize that we are in the midst of a world being remade by God with Jesus as the firstborn of this new creation. So, we celebrate Advent and all the liturgical seasons, not merely to honor the past, but to learn to think and dream in terms of what God is doing now and working toward the world he is continuing to recreate in the Spirit. We do not tell these stories again and again out of nostalgia, but because we find our truest selves in them, and too, the will of God and future of our world and entire cosmos.

And here is where the importance of really good preaching and teaching comes into play. It is up to the homilist or the good teacher to link past events with both present reality and the future that is already coming to be. What we need today are not sentimental stories fit for children alone, but rather, challenging and inspiring stories that give us something to hope in and to work towards. Whether on the macro level, the BIG story of what God is doing in and with God's creation, or the smaller level of our own personal narrative, we celebrate beginnings and newness regularly as an impetus towards growth and fulfillment. Advent serves this purpose on both of these and a number of other levels as well. It provides us with a story we can stand in as human beings in a troubled and troubling world and at the same time it reminds us that in the Christ Event God was and is doing something that affects the entire cosmos. 

In today's Gospel story, for instance, we find God taking a young girl overshadowed by the Holy Spirit so she becomes pregnant with Jesus; this young girl then marvels that nothing is impossible with God!! That this story is historical is important for our belief and for our capacity to hope, but even if this story were mythological it would convey something of the nature of God's love that only a story could convey adequately to other human beings. The power of God's love to overshadow and transform reality is something we hear about again and again in the Scriptures. The choice these stories place before us is one of hope versus despair, life versus death, meaning versus meaninglessness, and the power of love over the power of carelessness, bigotry, and hatred. Yes, the Church is encouraging us to believe in a God whose love for us results in miracles and more importantly, results in an ordinary world that is itself extraordinary with an even more extraordinary future that calls for equally extraordinary commitments to life, love, and hope from us. The stories we rehearse are not for children (though if they capture our imaginations as children that is a wonderful thing); instead, they are for adults who can commit to working for a Kingdom where Christ is sovereign and God is all in all, adults whose hope must be rooted in history in the same way it will be fulfilled.

Advent decisions: In What Story Will we Stand? (Reprise)

A while back I lost a friend I first came to know back in the early 1980’s. We met at a small local retreat house and came together regularly for workshops, retreats, spiritual direction, occasional dinners, outings together to SF, etc. Years later, when she developed Alzheimer’s, Helen continued to remember those times at the center as a watershed period of her life. It was a complete joy for both of us to step back into that time and share our memories. It was the retelling of these stories especially that allowed her to remain hopeful and faithful in the face of continuing loss and increasing limitation. She rested in these stories and retained a sense of the meaning of her life in this way. Stories can do this. During Advent, as we begin retelling our faith’s foundational cycle of stories once again, is a good time to reflect on the importance and power of story in our lives.

It wouldn’t be too strong an assertion to say that we are made for story. Weaving stories and allowing others to weave us into their stories is not just a significant need, but a profound drive within us affecting everything we are and do. Everything that is meaningful in our lives is mediated by story – so much so that scientists have concluded we are hard-wired for story. Neuroscientists have even located a part of the brain which is dedicated to spinning stories. It is linked to our ability to imagine ourselves in relation to the world around us, but it also functions to “console” us, to make sense of reality and to compensate us for the loss of personal story in some brain disorders, for instance. Sometimes I heard this at work in my friend as she filled in holes in her own memory so her own story could move forward.

Evidence that we are made for story is everywhere. Whenever we run into something we don’t understand or cannot control, something we need to hold together in a way that makes sense, we invariably weave a story around it. Whenever we yearn to move into a larger world, whenever we imagine and anticipate such a move, again we weave a story around it. Children do it with their dolls, stuffed animals, crayons, and toys of all sorts. Imagine a child explaining what has happened and whispering reassurance to her doll or stuffed animal after a natural disaster puts the whole family in an arena shelter. Watch too as she listens as that special friend cuddles her back and rehearses bits of the story the child needs to hear as it reminds her, “you are not alone, and you will not be alone”. Such stories help this child to negotiate the challenges and uncertainties of the present and move into a more viable future.

Fiction authors weave stories that change our lives in a similar way. We love to dwell in the worlds they create, especially when our everyday lives are stressful, but in entering these stories psychologists note that we also grow in real world abilities: empathy, the skills we need to tolerate being alone, and we become better at relationships and dealing with uncertainty as well. Such stories help widen our own sense of self and let us confront the “real world” with a sense of confidence and even adventure. Physicians weave stories more subtly, maybe, when they use a patient’s symptoms to determine diagnoses, treatment plans, and prognoses. Historians use story to explain the significance of events and allow us to engage with the past, present, and future when they do this well. Scientists and theologians do something similar when they spin very different but complementary and deeply true stories to explain the nature of reality.

At their very best, hearing and telling stories helps create a sacred space and healing dynamic where we can truly be ourselves and stand authentically with others in the present. When someone we love dies it is natural that we come together to tell stories, including those of Christ and the way he lived, died, and was raised. Doing so helps to knit the broken threads of our stories into something new and promising --- a new and hopeful narrative that eases grief and leads to a future marked by promise and hard-won wisdom. Couples deciding to have a new baby, and families who choose to adopt are making the tremendous choice to allow the breaking open and reshaping of their stories as they give these children a name and place to stand in their lives and even in the greater world. Therapists, priests, and spiritual directors help us to hear, claim, and tell our truest stories, especially when they are difficult or overwhelming, unworthy of us, or (at least so far) unable to have been fully processed. Especially healing is the way these “pastoral ministers of personal story” allow us to be deeply heard and to find rest in acceptance, forgiveness, and new beginnings.

So profoundly human and humanizing is our capacity and need for story that the Church’s greatest acts of worship take the form of story. Our liturgy of the Word is, of course, made up of stories that challenge, console, and inspire us as only the Word of God can do. And listen today as we recite the Creed together. It is not composed of a series of disparate beliefs or dogmas but is a coherent story in which we find meaning, hope, and peace together as a single People of God. Even the act of Consecration is accomplished by the recounting of a story we embrace and let embrace us in our great Amen of faith: “On the night before he died, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it saying, ‘This is my body. . .’ Then he took the cup, blessed it saying, this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. . .’” We are asked then to reenact or retell this story with our lives, and to do so in memory of Him. In these mysterious and sacred acts of storytelling and our reception of them, the most profound potential of story is made real among us: viz., our deepest hungers and needs are met and we are made truly human as we accept a central place in God’s own life and allow God a place in ours. In so many ways our capacity for story is a blessing.

But not always! Sometimes we do get caught up in or substitute stories that are unworthy of us and therefore of God as well. When we do, we are deeply diminished. For instance, when young people opt to join a gang, they are telling themselves and their world a story of status, power, community and belonging rather than the story of relative powerlessness and emptiness they feel caught in. Or consider the kinds of stories adults who choose to have affairs tell themselves --- stories our world colludes in in every way possible, stories about a selfish notion of “Freedom” and love, eternal youth, the importance of physical attractiveness and immediate gratification.

At the same time, think about the realities these folks must deny or suppress --- things like genuine faithfulness, sacrifice, and humility, the importance of patience, generosity, and service --- and all of the other dimensions that are part of the abundant life God wills for and offers us in Christ. Substituting (or as happens in instances of abuse and neglect, being caught up and enmeshed in) partial and inadequate or distorted stories can skew our own lives and prevent us from becoming the persons God calls us to be.

And of course, today we find ourselves dealing with more than one pandemic. The first one is about COVID-19; the second one is about story-telling-gone-awry. In some ways, this is even more deadly than the first pandemic. There are all sorts of stories being told, and I am sure you have heard them ---from the notion that President Biden is a malfunctioning robot disguised to appear human, to the notion that Lizard People control our politics and feed off our emotions to the idea that our planet is controlled by an evil cult that engages in child trafficking and on and on. A tendency to conspiracy theories, false narratives, a need to blame others, and an allergy to objective truth in a world under threat seem to have nudged that part of the brain I mentioned earlier into outright lunacy in these cases. We want to shake our heads and laugh at these stories, but they are dangerous. Yet, because we are made for story, when our lives seem empty, powerless, and without hope, we will latch onto stories that feed even the worst tendencies within us at the expense of others which are more worthy of us.

It shouldn’t surprise us then that the Genesis account of humanity’s “fall from Grace” centers around the fact that, at evil’s urging, Adam and Eve swap the story they experience as they walk intimately with God --- the story about themselves, their world, and God’s place in it with them -- for another view of reality they prefer to believe. In THIS story eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (rather than knowing just the truly Good) will supposedly not bring death. In THIS story God is portrayed as petty and a liar. In this story human maturity and responsibility are exchanged for self-consciousness, fear, and a blame game that we recognize replaying in one form and another every evening on some versions of the “news.” To choose a false narrative or to be caught up by such a story in this way is the very essence of sin. It separates us from the very source of life and light, it cripples our relationships, and it weakens and even destroys our capacity for truth. Sometimes the stories we embrace and hand on as truth are a curse.

If the fact that we are hard-wired for story is both blessing and curse, then it is also the way home. You see, it is not just that we are hard-wired for story; it is that we are made, hard-wired even, for God's own story. The cycle of stories we began just 4 weeks ago says that in our lostness, God comes to us in Christ and in Christ, God works to free us from sin – the state where we miss the mark of our true humanity --- and gives us a new home – a new narrative in which we can be our real selves. Jesus frees us from the distorted, inadequate, and unworthy scripts and stories we live by. One of the ways he does this is with the powerful and uniquely engaging stories we call parables. In telling us these stories he offers us a place to stand in God’s own story, God’s own reign, as he makes our own stories his.

The word parable is made up of two Greek words, "para" (alongside of, as in parallel lines, parallel parking, paralegals, and paramedics --- lines running equidistant alongside one another and legal and medical professionals who work alongside attorneys and physicians). The second word is "balein" (to throw down).

What Jesus typically does in his parables is to throw down one set of values, a single perspective, one story or situation his hearers know well and identify with personally. They will begin spinning the story as soon as Jesus, speaking with a wholly unique authority, says "The Kingdom of God is like", and follows it with something even as brief as “A man had two sons” or “Ten lepers were coming along the road”. In this way the story (and its storyteller!) draws us in and engages our hearts and minds (and so, probably some prejudices as well!). And then, just as his hearers have settled down comfortably in this well-known story Jesus throws down a second perspective or set of values (viz., those of the Kingdom of God) which clearly clashes with the first. Because we are firmly planted in the first set of values, the first script or story, the resulting clash disorients us and throws us off balance. Being off-footed in this way means Jesus’ parables help free us from our embeddedness or enmeshment in other narratives; it creates a moment of “KRISIS” (crisis) or decision; it summons us to choose in which reality we will stand firmly, which story we will make our own. This is what Advent asks us to consider, the question that stands behind Isaiah’s invitation that we Prepare the way of the Lord

In today’s Gospel, two women, one only 12 yo and on the cusp of marriage and motherhood -- and the other beyond childbearing age and barren, have allowed their own stories to be broken open by the unfathomable mercy of God. In a culture where especially the most “pious” or religious will ostracize, ridicule, and disbelieve them, they were thrown off balance by their unexpected experience of a God who ALWAYS surprises and have regained a new balance by saying yes to allowing (him) to do something qualitatively new in and for our world. 

Their courage – and God-given fruitfulness make our world resonate with a new hope and promise. Like Mary and Elizabeth, and like my friend Helen (even in her limitations and loss) -- none of us is too young nor do we ever need to be too old to similarly accept a new and deeper place in God’s story. After all, it is the story we are made and most hunger for, the story that makes us true and whole, the Divine and ultimately, the truest Human Story we are hard-wired for --- the story in which nothing is ever lost or forgotten. This is the great conversion Advent prepares the way for – if only we can bring ourselves to say a whole-hearted "yes!" to making God’s story our own. What greater gift can we imagine or be given?

On Advent and Allowing our Lives to be Those of Constant Vigil (Reprise)

 Perhaps it is the focus of Advent with its emphasis on preparation and waiting, but I came today to see my life specifically and eremitical life more generally as one of vigil --- and continuous vigil. Whether the time in our hermitages is obviously fruitful, or marked by darkness and seeming emptiness, whether one turns to prayer with joy and enthusiasm or with resistance and depression, one waits on the Lord. One spends one's time in vigil.

Now this is ironic in some ways because despite loving prayer at night the Office of Readings which is also called "Vigils" has never been my favorite hour and in these last years, I have substituted another way of spending the time before dawn which has been very fruitful for me. The time from 4:00am to 8:00am has been one of vigil but it consists of quiet prayer, Lauds, some lectio, and writing. A Camaldolese nun mentioned her own monastery (and the one I am affiliated with as an Oblate) treating these same hours as a time of vigil and I very much liked the idea. I did not know that it would define both my day and my life, however.

There is something amazing about living in a way that is not "just" obedient (open and responsive) to the Lord, but that actively awaits him at every moment. (Yes, these are intimately related, but not always practiced that way.) The heart of Benedictine spirituality is the search for God. When candidates for Benedictine monastic life arrive at the monastery, the goal they are expected to affirm is the search for God. This is the defining characteristic of the authentic monastic life and a significant point of discerning a vocation. We can hear that phrase as emphasizing an active, even desperate attempt to find something that is missing from our lives, or we can hear it as a process of preparing ourselves to find the God who is immanent in our lives and world at every point. In the latter case, our lives become a vigil to the extent that they are transformed into something capable of perceiving and welcoming this immanent God.

Another central Benedictine value is hospitality, and there is no doubt it plays a very significant part in this perspective. While we ordinarily think of hospitality as offering a place for guests who come to the monastery or hermitage in search of something, we should extend the notion to God. All of our prayer is a way of offering hospitality to God; it is a way, that is, of giving him a personal place to stand in our lives and world. While God is omnipresent and the ground of the truly personal, he does NOT automatically have a personal place in our lives. Like someone whose name we do not know, he may impinge on our space, but until we call upon him by name and give him a place he cannot assume on his own, he will remain only impersonally there. And so, in prayer, we call upon him by name ("Abba, Father"), we carve out space and time for him, we give him permission to enter our lives and hearts and to take up more and more extensive residence there. We offer him friendship and hospitality, and we structure our lives around his presence. We continually ready ourselves and look for him just as we look for a best friend we expect at any time, and thus our lives become a vigil.

For hermits, whose whole lives are given over to God in a focused and solitary way, vigil is simply another description of the environment, goal, and gift (charism) of eremitical life we refer to as "the silence of solitude." It is also a description of who we are and the attitude with which we approach life. Those four hours before Mass or Communion in my daily horarium define the characteristic dynamic of the whole of my life --- at least when it is lived well! It is a vigil that requires the silence of solitude (i.e., external and internal silence and solitude), leads to the silence of solitude (i.e., communion with God), and gifts the world with it and all it implies. During Advent especially, the call to make something similar of our own lives is extended to every one of us in a special way.