[[. . .I've read some of your notes on friendships and the importance of them, but since you said only clients or your director ever come visit you, do you never have visits with friends? And I haven't seen any mention of family. I feel in an eremetical life it would be hard to see family, because they are such a connection to life on earth, memories, attachments, and not the looking forward to life in Heaven. Do you have any family you ever see? (I hope I'm not trying too much). . . A bit more Memento Mori related-what will happen to the few things you do own when you die? Do you write out a will just like a non-hermit? And is it more fitting to the vow of poverty to rent or own your living space? If you rent, you obviously can't claim it as yours, but if you own it, it may be more confusing to the vow of poverty if you're not having to pay for it forever. ]]
Hi there, I have cited part of your email to respond to what you said about family and memento mori. First, I now have only my sister and niece living. We see each other rarely --- a function of distance and finances!! When we have been able to get together, it has been wonderful; in those cases, I go to where my sister lives and we spend time together talking, watching her favorite movies, eating favorite dishes, and even going to Disneyland! One thing I know is that loving family, communicating with them in whatever way one has available (including occasional visits, internet, phone calls, etc), thinking about and praying for them, and remembering life at home, do not need to detract from life with God or from looking forward to eternal life with God.
One of the things you may have gathered from earlier posts or emails is that I do not refer to everything outside the hermitage as "the world". Instead, while I do live within my hermitage embracing and moving toward "the silence of solitude," and while God draws me more and more deeply into intimacy with him, what has often denigratingly been called, "the world," is more accurately defined as that which is resistant to Christ, resistant to love, and tending to reject the God who is the source and ground of all creation. My family is not necessarily part of "the world" in that sense any more than I am or a convent or hermitage is part of the world in the way you use the term. Moreover, God dwells with and in them, just as he does with anyone I know in "life on earth". It is important to recognize that what we call heaven is less a place "out there somewhere" than it is a state wherein the very life of God is shared with us and also (importantly) through us. We don't know what that final sharing will be like once God is "all in all" and there is "a new heaven and a new earth," but we do know that life here shares in the One's life who is Emmanuel, God with us, and one day will do so fully.
I am not pulled away from life with God by my loves, memories, friendships, and so forth; they do not necessarily detract from my life with God, i.e., my life in heaven or what Mary Coelho, in writing about the Gospel of John, calls "eternity life". Quite often these things can mediate God's presence/love to me and turn me towards God more fully and intimately. I recognize this is a different perspective than that which is often associated with "
contemptus mundi" or similar dated monastic motives; I also note the need to cultivate the silence of solitude that allows the hermit to spend quality time with God alone. At the same time I recognize that my own heart is marked and marred by "the world" in the way this phrase might be most familiar to you; if I speak so easily about "leaving the world" in entering a convent or "returning to the world" when leaving the convent or hermitage behind perhaps, I will never recognize the way I have closed "the world" up inside the hermitage right with me. That would be the real and blind tragedy!!
 |
| Speaking to Parish During the Pandemic |
As for visits with friends, yes, I see friends from the parish on Fridays for coffee after Friday Mass as often as I can. Another friend and I travel a short way to Church each Sunday morning. I also see good friends and others in classes I teach each Thursday morning. I no longer play violin or see the friends I saw once a week in orchestra (effects of a broken wrist), nor do my Dominican friend and I go out for coffee after Sunday Mass because she no longer travels this way each week. Still, I occasionally go out for a meal with another Sister or meet via ZOOM with my former pastor (a good friend and in many ways, the (slightly) older brother I never had) as well as with other good friends I see all too rarely! There are no hard and fast rules in this regard except that my life with God is something I must and do take care to give priority, and it is actually richer and fuller to the extent my eremitical solitude is seasoned with such life-giving relationships. Were that to shift, I would need to change whatever it took to make sure friendships, etc., contribute demonstrably to my eremitical life with God.
So, what happens to the things I own when I die? Some will be gifted, others sold, and a lot will probably simply be thrown away. Every person in the church preparing for public profession is required to make up a will before that day and to keep it updated as needs change. Also, since diocesan hermits need to support themselves, and since for me that means a theological library, clothes, furniture, music, computer and equipment for ZOOM, etc. I have a small household of "stuff" to get rid of at some point. Other kinds of provisions are also my responsibility, insurance, DPOAH, and so forth. Whether it is more fitting to rent or own, I can't say. But since I cannot own, I must rent. I would prefer to own (or to have a secure hermitage on church property) --- I would like to own a hermitage (I would actually
love to have a tree house as we see on the TV show,
Treehouse Master), but it has never been possible. Poverty implies living simply, of course, but for me personally, I define it mainly or primarily in terms of my dependence upon God alone as the sole source of strength, meaning, and validation of my life. So long as I truly put that first and continue to grow in it, everything else tends to fall into place --- no matter the material or financial circumstances.
Posts
