Sister Briege O'Hare, OSC: The Transformation of the Heart

 

My co-Director (Susan Blomstad, OSF) sent this on to me this morning. She really likes Sister Briege and, through her sharing over some years, so so I. This particular talk is wonderful. It resonates with so much of the theology I have shared here and in other places, and in the formative work I do with Marietta Fahey, SHF. This includes much that I have shared here on the nature of the human heart, the true self, the divinization of creation and incarnation of God in each of us, and the way Jesus' passion on the Cross is not the will of God but the inevitability of a life lived for others; a life lived with this kind of integrity is the work and will of God and allows God to bring good out of what is evil and inhuman. 

Sister Briege begins with two very different views of the heart (true and false hearts) and then moves on to explore what the transformation of the human heart is and how this comes about. At the same time, she shares why contemplative prayer is necessary and an integral part of our own giving birth to Christ within creation --- much as midwives help bring babies to birth. If we can understand the why, the how of contemplative prayer will largely take care of itself. One thing that is especially good about Sister Briege's presentation is the rich collection of quotations she provides on the topics involved.

I sincerely hope you will carve out some time to listen to Sister Briege O'Hare, OSC on the transformation of the heart.

YAHOO!! Road Trip!!

Sister Dorothy Schmedinghoff, SHF

What kinds of things do I do with other Sisters when I leave the hermitage for the day?? Well, yesterday it was a Road trip (yay!!!) and a BBQ!! And a lot of sharing!! So, here is a really brief introduction to some friends who are a joy to me even though we see each other relatively infrequently.

The last time I announced a road trip here, it was almost exactly two years ago when I went to the Fremont Motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Family. There I got a chance to see the changes accomplished to the SHF campus. Yesterday Sister Marietta picked me up and we went for a BBQ there, something we have been trying to do for several months. In particular, I wanted to see and have lunch with a couple of friends, Sisters Dorothy Schmedinghoff, and Ann Marie Gelles (aka Annie, along with her guide dog, Earhart)!! 

Dorothy is a terrific photographer and musician (among other things!!), and we met just three or four years ago because of a photograph Marietta shared with me. After a number of email exchanges, and because of the pandemic, I was able to visit with her face to face in the Sisters' oratory rather than in her own room or cottage for the first time just last year -- which was extra special because she celebrated her own 75th jubilee last Summer and only family could attend. In my earliest road trip with Marietta, also during the pandemic, I had only been able to speak to Annie (and meet Earhart) by standing outside her bedroom window as we visited through the screen. 

Despite Covid still being prevalent, yesterday was different with hugs and kisses (including several from Earhart!), a brief tour of Annie's computer setup and Braille equipment (book readers, braille printer, etc) in her new room, and then a really terrific meal of BBQ chicken and tri-tip, with corn on the cob, beans, watermelon (including yellow watermelon I had never even heard of before! I had picked up a piece of it thinking it was a pineapple wedge. I discovered it tasted exactly like regular watermelon), cookies, iced sodas, and iced water. (I'm grateful someone at our table noted what the yellow watermelon was before I took a bite of it while I was fully expecting to taste pineapple!! Instead of shock and disappointment, I experienced anticipation and a very pleasant surprise!)

Sister Ann Marie Gelles, SHF with Earhart

It was a good experience to meet Sisters I have mainly or only known by name, newsletters, jubilee books, and/or pictures, including the Holy Names Sister who will be taking over canonical matters as a trustee once the final leadership team's time in office is complete. Some of the Sisters knew of me, either because they worked at the chancery, or through other contacts, but for all of us, it was a chance to tell our stories and share and expand our connections with SHF and allow a few more pieces of our lives to come together in the incredible way God does that! Annie and I have known each other since around 1983 through Marietta and Holy Family Center. She had been Marietta's novice when it was still particularly unheard of to accept a legally blind person into the convent. 

Annie is a braille specialist teaching only part-time now at the California School for the Blind and volunteering to tutor students as needed. We heard one story about Marietta watching out for Annie's safety in the MH kitchen with huge industrial ovens whose doors were sometimes left open, and another one where Annie said her veil impeded her hearing causing her to keep walking into some poles. (I need to hear more details about this!) I tend to always be the last one finished at any dining table and yesterday was no different. When I commented on this having always been true (I was really trying to get to desert!!), Annie told the story about the way her family used to prank her when she was a kid. Not particularly fond of peas (they were okay, just not Annie's favorite), Annie would eat those first; later she would discover someone had quietly filled her plate with more peas!! Apparently, they did it with other things too which meant she too was often the last one done! Meanwhile, Dorothy reminded me I had been busy talking with Sister Annamarie with Marietta when most of the rest of the table had started to eat. Good point! I appreciated the sensitivity!! Marietta had the real solution though, and boxed the remaining chicken up to take home --- along with some second helpings for dinner last night!

Sister Annamarie Colapietro, SNJM

In particular, I was pleased that Sister Marietta introduced me as the "creator" of the Holy Family Center Logo/Sign to Sister Annamarie Colapietro, SNJM --- not because of the sign per se, but because of Sister Annamarie's place in the future of Marietta's congregation. We shared a bit of laughter though because while the signage is present at the entrance to today's Motherhouse, it began its life for a different Holy Family Center, a former SHF convent turned retreat center in 1982. Thus, Annamarie, who, upon seeing the sign for the first time in its Fremont location, had wondered at the fact that the child Jesus was missing from the tableau she assumed was a version of the Holy Family (the source of our laughter). Marietta and I explained the Logo was really a kind of snapshot, of a moment from when Sister Marietta began working with me as my spiritual director at Holy Family Center. Sister Margaret Diener, OP (another friend from HFC and the San Raphael Dominicans), and her dad took the picture I had drawn and translated it into a large steel sign by cutting it out of a sheet of metal with an acetylene torch; the Diener family placed it in front of Holy Family Center on the feast of the Holy Family in 1984. Since Annamarie is soaking up the SHF story and will be responsible for important parts of it in the future when she assumes the role of canonical trustee, it was good to help share some of the story of this chapter of their history.

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

Because I don't drive, these kinds of trips are both too few and too far between and I celebrate them big time when they are possible. It can be a lot of driving for whoever is giving me a ride, but we do have a good time, and at least yesterday the heat was down a bit and freeway traffic flowed pretty freely!!! Summers have always tended to be full for Sisters: there are retreats, chapters,  jubilees (Holy Family's is next weekend -- the San Rafael Dominicans' was last weekend), community days, and BBQs like yesterday's where friends and family can come completely casually, meet one another, and relax together. I skipped class to do this and, though I love teaching on Thursday mornings, I had a terrific time. I was especially grateful to touch base with Dorothy and Annie again -- not least because Dorothy ended up briefly in the hospital (1 day only, thanks be to God!) at the same time I did last month; although we've both written to check on one another and send best wishes, visiting was important. We'll try to do it again before too long. 

Followup on the Use of Delegates in Supervising Solitary Eremitical Vocations

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I was trying to find what you wrote about your delegates and the way supervision by your bishop works. I couldn't locate it. My question has to do with what happens when a person's bishop retires or dies or is made an Archbishop or something as happened to you a couple of times? If you make your vows in the hands of one bishop then you are approved by him, right? What then if another bishop doesn't believe in your vocation, or even in any c 603 vocation? He wouldn't approve you, so then what? Does the Diocese just cut you loose? Can you go on being a diocesan hermit anyway? I know you didn't really answer these questions in what you wrote recently but I thought what you wrote spoke to these questions in some way and wanted to see if that was so. My questions come from suggestions that an approved diocesan hermit could cease to be approved and then would be operating as kind of a rogue once their original bishop left the diocese. This seems to be one of the major flaws of canon 603 in the eyes of some who criticize it. And lastly, when a new bishop comes into office, are you responsible for making contact with them?]]

Thanks for your questions. I will reprise what I wrote most recently below (or cf, Clarifying Misconceptions and Wholecloth Untruths) and also, I am providing a link to what I wrote last year when I became aware through others' questions, that these objections to canon 603 were being raised. Here is that link: Supervision of a Stable State of Life. The discussion of what happens to hermits who are perpetually professed and consecrated when bishops move on is found in the second half of the piece.

Succeeding Bishops Must Accept a Previously Professed Hermit's Canonical Standing:

Archbishop Allen H Vigneron

What I don't say in that article is that what seems to be the crux of the misunderstanding on all of this is the phrase "canonical approval". Yes, I was approved by my diocese for admission to perpetual profession and consecration, but once that occurred and I was consecrated I had what is called, canonical standing. This means I (or any other canonical hermit who is perpetually professed and consecrated) have standing in law and unless that standing is rescinded, further bishops' approvals or disapprovals of me (or other hermits) personally, or of the c 603 vocation itself, do not affect our standing as diocesan hermits. Approval is a word used in a limited way in all of this, namely in terms of admission to profession and or consecration. After one is canonically professed and consecrated, however, "approval" even by one's bishop or members of his curia is much less pivotal and the term tends not to be used any longer. The idea of "approval" shifts to the fact of "standing" as in, "canonical standing," and that standing is significant.

 Of course, should a bishop decide one is not living the life, and should he believe he has significant grounds to do so, he can take steps to deprive the hermit of her canonical standing and dispense her vows. However, this is a process requiring warnings, chances to repent or be rehabilitated and always, opportunities for appealing any judgments made against one. Especially it cannot be done facilely or unilaterally. Remember that canonical standing is meant both to establish and to protect a stable state of life so that one's vocation can thrive even when elements in the contexts in which the vocation is lived militate against it. Though one hopes this is not the case, that can include the disapproval of succeeding bishops for the vocation itself or even the dislike of critics and others making unfounded and even malicious accusations against the hermit. In more ordinary circumstances, canonical standing assures everyone meeting the hermit (or any other vocation to the consecrated state), seeking to work with her, being ministered to by her, etc, that she has the Church's support and is faithfully living her vocation in the Church's name.

Yes, of course I contact new bishops when they are made bishops of my diocese. I usually wait for a few weeks so they have some time to settle into their office before seeking an appointment. Usually doing that is not problematic, but occasionally a new bishop will not be particularly responsive or accessible. For instance, on one occasion, I met the new bishop in my parish church sacristy during a visitation, and let him know he was my legitimate superior. He was pretty surprised at hearing that and made sure the chancery had all my contact information. In this instance getting an appointment was difficult. For example, in October or November I called the bishop's secretary to set something up. She was a new secretary so did not know me already, and told me there was nothing open. Then she suggested I call again in January when perhaps they could set an appointment for sometime in the Spring.  Note that that was an 8 month wait for an initial appointment. So yes, while I contact new bishops when they come to the diocese, the bishop's accessibility can be an uneven proposition. Fortunately, as noted earlier, my diocese (Vicars for Religious speaking for the Bishop) had had me select a delegate prior to perpetual profession and consecration, so supervision of my vocation was not interrupted or otherwise negatively impacted. As I understand it, most dioceses, unless they are very small, do something similar.

Misunderstandings in Vocabulary:

This brings up what you asked about regarding what I wrote recently regarding the supervision of a hermit's life by her bishop. Before I cite that, let me provide some vocabulary notes regarding language in the Canon. In the different versions of c 603 I have read two different words are used in speaking of the Bishop's role in the hermit's life. The first is "supervision" and the second is "direction." There has been some tendency to see supervision as meaning direct supervision without the assistance of delegates or others. I have never yet met a diocesan hermit whose bishop works in this way, even when he and the hermit are very close and the diocese is a very small one. Delegates are still a typical accommodation allowing c 603's requirements to be met prudently, creatively, and with appropriate expertise. Thus, supervision (or direction) in c 603 implies delegated supervision using others who will be more accessible to the hermit and capable of informing the bishop and curia of concerns and needs that might turn up for or with the hermit.

Regarding the term direction, this emphatically does NOT mean spiritual direction, but instead uses the terms direction and director as one might for a vocation director, novice director, or the like. As noted below, the bishop is the hermit's legitimate superior and for that reason, he cannot be the hermit's spiritual director. To conflate the two roles is also to draw matters of internal and external forums into potential conflict. By this I mean that the things one deals with confidentially with a spiritual director (matters of conscience and the internal forum) are not automatically open to a legitimate superior, nor may one desire to reveal these. While religious superiors were once able to ask about such matters,  the Revised Code of Canon Law (1983) rejected this practice categorically: C 630.5 [[Members are to approach superiors with trust, to whom they can freely and on their own initiative open their minds. Superiors, however, are forbidden to induce the members in any way to make a manifestation of conscience to them.]] The simplest way to prevent transgressions in this area is to keep the two roles (Director and spiritual director) distinct and separate. Thus, c 603 cannot possibly be referring to the hermit's bishop undertaking their spiritual direction.

Prior Piece reprised:

Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF

Supervision by a Bishop: It should go without saying that not every bishop desires to supervise a hermit, nor are some gifted with either the time or the expertise. (And, since he is her legitimate superior, it especially goes without saying that c 603 does not expect a bishop to be a hermit's spiritual director!!) Some do not believe in or understand the vocation or c 603 itself and yet, they "inherit" hermits professed before their own tenure began. To assist with all of that, my diocese asked me to select a delegate (their term, along with "quasi superior") to serve me when bishops were unavailable or could not do so. Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF, who has a strong background in personal and religious formation and spiritual direction, has served as my delegate (I prefer the term Director with a capital D) since perhaps a year before I was finally professed. In the last few years, Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF has agreed to serve as co-delegate (she prefers the term Advocate) and is mainly available to me and my diocese should Marietta not be. Both Sisters belong to canonical congregations and both have served in leadership. Susan is doing so currently, not for the first time! Sister Marietta's congregation is of Pontifical right. I think the same is true of Sister Susan's since it is an international institute (Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity). 

This arrangement has been very effective for continuity in supervision considering we have had 5 bishops since I began living as a hermit. The first three (Bps Cummins, Vigneron, and Cordileone) were more accessible to me, Archbishop Burnett was an interim whom I met and joked with a bit, but whom I never met with (instead I met with the Vicar for Religious per the former bishop's instructions), and Michael Barber,SJ, whom I first met in the sacristy of St Perpetua parish during his first visitation, has been less accessible, but I have been (and remain) a diocesan hermit in good standing in my diocese under competent Direction all these years. 

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

To repeat, throughout these years and any changes in diocesan leadership, Sister Marietta has consistently served both me and the diocese as my delegate. Sister Susan was Vicar for Religious or Vocations Director for the Diocese of Oakland when I first started becoming a diocesan hermit; she worked with me for five years; then, though the diocese and I had begun trying to regularize my situation before Bp Cummins actually retired, and though Susan was now in Santa Barbara, she wrote a letter of recommendation for perpetual profession in @2006 to Bp Vigneron. She continues to assist me in this vocation but now mainly from the position of a good (dare I use the word?) friend. Please recognize that Ms McClure casts aspersions on these Sisters, their competence and fidelity to their commitments when she trash-talks me. That is particularly upsetting to me because I know how they have poured out their lives for Christ and so too, for me. Meanwhile, the comment that Sister Marietta is my "girlfriend" is unworthy of even a response.

On Waivers of Liability:

A lot of the discussions of these matters seem to me to have hung on one person's biased and specious accusations against me. When @5 years ago she apparently called my diocese to accuse me of having committed crimes (I really have no evidence this call ever happened, and am assuming it did for the purpose of your questions), not surprisingly, she is said to have spoken to someone who didn't know me and who had to find out whether I was professed as a diocesan hermit. (Apparently, they did discover I was and told the caller that.) Even then she seems to have spun the story in the most damaging way possible and was essentially told if she truly had a case against me, to take me to court. What she may have also been told is that I, like other diocesan hermits, had signed a "waiver of liability" upon the day of perpetual profession. In the main, this is meant to relieve the diocese of responsibility for any potential claims regarding past wages or other remuneration should, for instance, the hermit leave her consecrated state or fall into financial hard times even while in the consecrated eremitical state. 

Should I ever truly commit a crime, I suppose this would also mean my diocese is not responsible for any legal fees, etc. Those would fall to me personally. Should a diocese inform a caller of this situation, it does not mean the diocese wants nothing to do with their hermit or rejects them as a diocesan hermit. Here is where the unsuitability of continuing to use the term canonical approval is especially misguided. So long as one has canonical standing, a diocese cannot simply reject her. It does, however, mean that if someone calls threatening to take legal action against a diocese or their bishop and Vicar General because of something a diocesan hermit is said to have done, the diocese has a quick and easy way to shut that down. 

In any case, my diocese never took steps to act on such a call or even to notify me (or my Director) about it or the purported charges. This indicates to me they believed the accusations to have been empty, as was indeed the case. (Please note that had credible charges been made, and particularly if they were sustained by a court, a diocese might begin proceedings to dispense this hermit's vows.) In any case, be assured that any diocese would initiate a conversation with the hermit and her delegate to explore the situation and take appropriate steps --- whatever those might be. Canon 603, however, cannot be seen to be faulty here and complaints that it should be "tabled" until its inadequacies can be remedied are as empty as the personal charges against me.

Operating as a Rogue?

The question of someone continuing to act or represent themselves as a diocesan hermit after being dispensed of their vows or otherwise leaving the consecrated state of life is an "interesting" one. I have never heard of such a thing happening and accusations that I personally am acting in this way (implying my diocese and Director are allowing this) are both untrue and irresponsible. What is far more common is someone representing themselves as a "Consecrated Catholic Hermit" when they have never been one and may have been determined to be unsuited for such a calling. Still, it would be very difficult, I think, for the situation you have described to go unchallenged. The diocese would contact the hermit's Director and also might well contact the hermit's pastor to inform him that the hermit's canonical standing or juridical status has changed --- though they would expect the hermit to make their new standing clear to others. If the hermit changes parishes, her standing would be checked out by the new pastor who would contact the diocese (or speak to his confrere who is the hermit's former pastor). I don't think any diocese would make a public announcement regarding such a situation (though journalists might write about the situation if a crime had been committed), but at the same time, the critical personnel would be told. 

Remember that while one is always free to contact a diocese with concerns about anyone claiming to be a c 603 hermit for that diocese, the diocese will not give any information beyond a brief statement about the person being a diocesan hermit in good standing (or not). Before one takes such a step, however, it is always best to bring one's concerns directly to the hermit herself (a diocese is apt to suggest this as well)! It is important, particularly with hermits, to not assume they see blog posts, videos, or other media on the issue. As I am sure you are aware, that is not the way sincere and charitable persons deal with such matters. If someone has more specific concerns, however, I encourage them to always bring them first to the person they involve more directly. Otherwise, the person's concerns may grow while the person they are concerned about may have no idea in the matter. 

Another Look at the Divinization of our World: Anticipating Life after Life after Death!!

[[Hi Sister, I wondered if you had noticed that Joyful Hermit is beginning to talk about "spiritualizing the temporal" (see: Spiritualizing the Temporal). . . . Is "spiritualizing the temporal" a good way of talking about the Christian mission to help bring the Kingdom of God? My own SD reminds me that no reality is ordinary in light of Christ's death and resurrection. What you wrote in your response to my two other emails reminds me of the same insight.]]

Hi, and thanks for connecting again! No, sorry, I haven't seen the video you noted here, though I am interested in hearing if its maker has made the fundamental theological change involved in the title you referenced. I sincerely hope she has! As I noted in my earlier post, an absolute dichotomy or antithesis between the temporal and the spiritual is a dualism typical of Gnosticism, a movement alive since before and certainly during Jesus' time. Scholars note that traces of it can be found in the Gospel of John (written around the end of the first century), though this may have more to do with John's countering Gnosticism through the Incarnation and all implied by that.

A shift to the idea of the spiritualizing of the temporal is absolutely foundational to Christianity and is a dynamic captured in sayings like, [[God became man so that man (human beings) could become gods!]] so, if she has made this shift, good on your videographer!! The Eastern Church's theology of "divinization" or "theosis," is a wellspring of Christianity's rejection of Gnostic Dualism. The same shift is critical to our own theology of the Incarnation including the way the Cross works to destroy sin and godless death as well. (If God is implicated by Christ in these realities, they cannot be godless any longer, can they? That is part of the radical shift in the whole of reality we know in light of the Christ Event.) It is also part of "the scandal of Christianity" because our God is found in places where religion often says God does not belong --- in the spatiotemporal, for instance. But in the Christ Event, our God reveals himself fully in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place (like a sinful world or on a criminal's Cross and in Jesus' "godless" death).

 In a piece I put up just last night on the dual context of eremitical life the last line from DICLSAL, noted, [[Thus, hermits are aware that the present and eternity no longer follow one upon the other but are intimately connected.]] This is the same theology once again; it reminds us that the reality of space-time and eternity interpenetrate one another leaving neither of them unchanged. The temporal is precisely where the eternal has taken up residence, and, as noted earlier this is why we call God in Christ, Emmanuel (God with us). As you say, it is very much part of speaking of the coming of God's Kingdom both in the way some commentators refer today as the Kin-dom or extended family of God, and in the more original Sovereignty or Reign of God right here on earth in space and time. Personally, I think hermits are especially called to affirm the world around us in this way -- another reason the piece I put up last night speaks of the world as a significant (and positive) context in eremitical life.

Your SD is definitely on the same page with his/her observation about ordinary vs extraordinary. In New Testament terms we say we are part of a new creation and of course, what we mean is that we are now part of an extraordinary reality where God has revealed his will to become all in all, and where that project is well underway!! When we speak of the world around us as sacramental, or celebrate the presence of the Holy Spirit within ourselves and in our midst, when we recognize that we are adopted Daughters and Sons of God and Imago Dei and Imago Christi, when we recognize that despite the limitations and even the distortions in our world, it is shot through with the power, presence, and glory of God, we are saying what your spiritual director says. There is nothing ordinary in our world, it is all extraordinary and becoming more extraordinary as time goes on -- not because of some sort of natural progress or evolution, for instance, (though we do believe in an evolutionary and unfinished universe) but because God is at work within us and in the whole of reality making it God's very own!

I am reminded that in our Bible class, we decided to use the Summer to read something a little different before we begin Galatians sometime in the Fall. We are now working our way through Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope, Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. NT Wright reminds us that heaven is not our final or ultimate destination, but rather, what we truly anticipate is the new heaven and earth that will come in fullness with final judgment when God becomes All in All. (Tom Wright calls this, "not life after death, but life after life after death!") He teaches powerfully about the job of Christians to work towards this reality -- even beyond death as part of the Communion of Saints (in part, this is what he is referring to by the phrase "the mission of the church").  He captures this idea by calling us Christians, "Citizens of heaven, colonizing the earth."

In the piece I put up last night, the Church in Ponam in Deserto Viam recognizes hermits similarly as "sentinels of hope," precisely because hermits see this intimate relation between heaven and earth that exists everywhere we look! I love that characterization of the hermit's vocation!! We do not write off the spatial-temporal world, nor condemn it categorically, nor do we flee it as though our destiny is a disembodied heaven. Instead, we love it into wholeness in the power of the Holy Spirit. Or, we help make of it the new Temple of God in Christ by allowing and assisting God, in the language of your videographer, to "spiritualize the temporal!" 

Once Again, Canon 603 is NOT the Only way to Be a Hermit in the Church!!

[[Dear Sister Laurel,  My diocese has never [yet consecrated a c 603 hermit] and I don't think my current Bishop will say yes to my request . . . But he is retiring, . . . I told [the Vicar General] after Mass today, . . . that I cannot be a hermit if I am not canonically approved as a hermit. Yet I have every reason and indication and have for six years and more intensely again in the past year, that this is what God desires and wills of me. I thought I could simply live the life without consecration, but after reading people like Dom Leclerq, Pere Louis Bouyer, and some of the Camaldolese writings . . ., I see that one must be consecrated for some good reasons . . .. The Vicar General today told me that in his opinion I could just live the life of a hermit anyway. Is this sound? 

 I mentioned the necessary graces through the Church, and he said God would give the graces anyway. While I do plan to make the request of . . . the new bishop, whenever, I also realize perhaps I should be open to moving to a diocese in which hermits are not unheard of. But, I have not had an indication that I should do this; I have just finished having my hermitage built, and am in the concluding phases of a massive. . . Garden[ing project] which is very helpful. . . for [me]. . .. But, I will go and do whatever necessary. I would appreciate your "take" on this situation, as just living the life as a hermit is fine if it is truly in keeping with the Church, but from my reading it seems not.]]

I'm sorry not to have gotten to this email in a more timely way. I am unclear whether you have felt that what God wills for you is non-canonical eremitism as you have been living it during the past years or canonical eremitism as you have petitioned your Bishop. Your sentence regarding that is ambiguous for me -- though I believe you mean the latter. Whichever is the case, remember that whether you are reading what I am writing about the hermit vocation or writings by Camaldolese monks and hermits, Dom LeClercq, Pere Louis Bouyer, et al, we are all writing from the vantage point of those esteeming the consecrated forms of monastic and eremitical life. We are writing about what we know, sometimes have been entrusted with, and are responsible for; that includes the specific graces associated with consecrated eremitical life. No hermit I know writes that this is the only way to live a solitary eremitical life, but because it is our vocation, we do see it (whether in community or as a solitary hermit under c 603) as having significant benefits to ourselves, the Church, and to others as well.

I think your representation to your Vicar General that you cannot be a hermit unless you are admitted to (a second) consecration beyond baptism is inaccurate; he is correct that you can certainly live as a hermit by virtue of your baptismal (lay) state in the Church. You are free to do that as is anyone initiated into the faith community of the Church --- though that would not mean you live the vocation in the name of the Church or with the Church's specific commissioning. If you continue to believe you have discerned God is calling you to live consecrated eremitical life under c 603 however, then by all means, as you have approached your current bishop, approach the new bishop as well. (Your diocese will have a file on you with your petition and other information, so ask that your petition be renewed if need be.) 

If the diocese were to accept you as a suitable candidate, you would then participate in a mutual discernment process with no promise that you will be admitted to the profession. Even so --- even if you are not admitted to profession or eventual consecration under c 603, this mutual process of discernment could still strengthen your sense of eremitical vocation as a non-canonical hermit. Given your new hermitage and your apparent relationship with your diocesan Vicar, et al, I think it would be especially mistaken to go diocese shopping for one that would profess you canonically. I tend to recommend that option only when a diocese declines to use c 603 at all, and then, only when the person seeking consecration understands the very real risk that they may not be accepted by any diocese for profession under c 603.

Remember that the Church knows several (4) different forms of eremitical life and values them all. Yes, c 603 has raised solitary eremitical life to a canonical (consecrated) state, but in doing this she raises eremitical life as such to an esteemed place in the life of the church when it had often failed to be recognized as a true vocation of God and increasingly was associated with nutcases and eccentrics who had failed at life in society. What the Church has done is signaled to the faithful that hermits of whatever form are no longer to be seen in stereotypical ways and instead represent unique vocations with a significant mission in the contemporary Church. 

For hermits living and witnessing during a period marked and marred by exaggerated individualism, raising solitary eremitism to a form of consecrated life underscores the ecclesial nature of the vocation and reminds her that it is first of all the church's own vocation which the hermit is then entrusted with on the Church's behalf and in her name. While individual it is emphatically not individualist --- nor is any form of authentic eremitical life individualistic. I think from the Church's perspective, this is one of the most important witnesses of contemporary eremitical life and one of the significantly normative emphases of c 603. If you should determine you are called to non-canonical eremitical life, then of course God will grace you in whatever way is needed, including in terms of this non-individualistic emphasis. Again, in this too I believe your Vicar General is entirely correct.

A Contemplative Moment: The Dual Context of Eremitical Life

A hermit's life, therefore, moves between two poles of reference: the church and the world. The Church is the maternal womb which generates the specific vocation. She is also the vital context in which the vocation flourishes and is realized with authenticity and fullness. The second pole is the world. Hermits separate themselves from the world by choosing to live in the margins of society. The church and the world are the contexts that preserve the hermit from individualism. This establishes them as sentinels of hope advancing "down the paths of time with eyes fixed on the future restoration of all things in Christ." (John Paul II, Post Synodal Ap. Es. Vita Consecrata (25 March 1996), 59) Thus, hermits are aware that the present and eternity no longer follow one upon the other but are intimately connected.

Ponam in Deserto Viam, 

The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church

Guidelines #13

Sources of Definitions in Living Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister, where do definitions come from in living eremitical life? When I read some words or look them up in the dictionary I am surprised that you don't seem to use the words in the exact sense the dictionary provides. Why is that? I am sure that some say that you are making things up or setting precedents or things like that, but is that the truth? Where do definitions come from? Thanks!]]

What a really terrific question, and one that applies to more than eremitical life! In some ways, I can answer it and in other ways, I will find it difficult to answer simply. So let me give it a shot. 

I think I should comment on the nature of dictionary definitions first of all. When you or I use a general dictionary to find out the meaning(s) of a word, it is important to remember that the meanings provided are descriptive. That is, general dictionaries describe the way most people use the term at a certain time in history. If we want to use the term in the way most folks understand it, we will adopt the dictionary meaning, at least as a starting point. This basic meaning provides a kind of doorway or means of entrance into understanding the multifaceted way this term with all of its depths and nuances applies in our world. Remember, we live reality not words. Words are attempts to name or otherwise articulate our experiences of reality. The meaning provided is not necessarily the whole and complete meaning of the term, nor are general dictionaries prescriptive of the word's sense --- meaning they do not prescribe in a constraining way how a word must be used. Understanding words means learning to apply and reapply them as we evaluate and re-evaluate the sense we began with in light of broader and deeper experiences. This is the way we grow in genuine understanding and expertise.

 

To see good examples of the point about general dictionaries not being prescriptive above, check out some really important religious words and look them up in a general dictionary. For instance, look up God or humility. When you look up God you might find "the supreme being" as a definition, for example. Again, that's a starting place, but if you speak with a Christian theologian you are apt to find them speaking against this definition as inaccurate and pastorally doubtful --- even destructive. They will see it as limiting and denigrating God's transcendence. God is not A being, not even the highest or most supreme being. God is being itself and the ground and source of all that "exists", that is, all that stands up (-istere) out of (-ex) being itself, but he is not A being among other beings. 

Or consider the dictionary definition of humility. It sometimes includes, " having a low self-regard or sense of unworthiness." But common as this is, Christian spirituality defines humility as a form of loving truthfulness regarding who one is in light of God's love and regard for one. Mary's Magnificat in the Gospel of Luke is a paean of genuine humility because she accepts herself as one regarded by God and thus, sees herself as glorifying God. Generally speaking, if one is important or one's life is significant in some way, then humility itself will imply being honest about these things. In these examples, the dictionary meaning leads us astray if we really want to understand the meaning of either God or humility.

We begin with a dictionary definition (as we might as an elementary school student) and then we add experience, both our own and that of those whose study and expertise is greater than our own. Eventually, as we live our lives we observe and reflect on reality. All of this will involve and  affect the way we understand and use language. So, for instance, I might have read the definition of "hermit" in the fourth grade and discovered the dictionary definition: a person who lives in seclusion. If I then looked up "seclusion," I would have found that according to the dictionary, it means "the state of being private and away from people." Only later after study and experience do I come to understand a hermit is a desert dweller, or that the desert is understood as a place of significant dependence and encounter with God and with the demonic. In the same way, let's say I learn that a better word than seclusion is solitude and that for Christian hermits this solitude is not absolute but qualified. It is rather about being alone with God. At some point, I might also learn that a key value of eremitical life is hospitality or that despite the fourth-grade definition I learned, the Catholic Church has a public eremitical vocation that is consecrated and commissioned for the sake of the entire Church and world. You can see how the terms come to change meanings or at least are increasingly nuanced through all of this.

With the experience of aloneness, isolation, and solitude in several contexts (including chronic illness, bereavement, etc.), and greater reflection on those experiences (say, some years living as a hermit or a contemplative nun), I might come to understand that while both involve forms of aloneness, solitude is very different than isolation; beyond that, I might compare the two experiences and conclude that solitude is the redemption of isolation. I might discover that when God loves us our isolation is redeemed and we discover the reality of solitude. As I share my experience with others, including other hermits, spiritual directors, religious, theologians, and scholars, we may draw further conclusions about what is a very basic vocabulary for each of us. Sometimes these conversations will call us back to the most fundamental meanings of the words or realities we are discussing, and sometimes they will expand these meanings --- as happens when silence and solitude are combined in the new term, "the silence of solitude." What is critical is that in the language that defines our lives and about which we care very much, we do not stop listening, learning, or reflecting -- not just about single words but about the life vision or project they are meant to help us understand.

When you ask where meanings come from then, I would say experience (lots more needs to be said about this), consultation (including with other hermits and religious), education (including vocabulary building!), prayer, and other reflection.  Most particularly I spend a lot of time with c 603, histories of anchorites and hermits, and notions of the various central elements of canon 603 as they are lived by others the Church recognizes as hermits. I also listen to other religious who live and reflect on significant degrees of silence, solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, the evangelical counsels, stricter separation from the world, the ministry of authority, spiritual direction, the relation of solitude to communion, etc. I pay attention to what is healthy and appropriately challenging for me in living these various values, and, therefore, what they ask for from me. This is particularly so when they are combined in a recognizable lifestyle I am commissioned to live faithfully. 

It is this lifestyle I try to express in and live according to a Rule of Life that has been examined by Bishops, canon lawyers, other monastics, spiritual directors, and delegates, and approved as potentially helpful in living eremitical life. Over time, I will continue to learn more and more about desert living and the life characterized by the silence of solitude, particularly in the 21st Century. At the same time, my vocabulary will grow wider, deeper, more nuanced, and better capable of describing my experience and understanding. Sometimes this means I will reject the initial or common sense meaning of terms I use and first gleaned from a general dictionary; most times it will simply demonstrate the paucity of the original meaning and underscore its place as a starting point and continuing touchstone for meaningful exploration of profound realities, including the Mystery we know as God, that are richer than I ever imagined or could have imagined.

Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene

While I first published this piece in 2016, it remains appropriate, not merely for today's Gospel, but because our Church is still struggling (or refusing to struggle) with the importance of allowing women's voices to be heard as those capable of proclaiming the Gospel with power and sensitivity to the needs of all. It is genuinely great that Pope Francis preached recently on the importance of hearing women's voices and allowing them positions of real authority in the church.

But Jesus went further still. He called Mary by name and sent her out (the root of the word apostle) to proclaim his resurrection to the male apostles. I think we must never forget that the first proclamation of the Risen Christ was a woman's message, rooted in the intimacy of a friendship that spanned Jesus' entire adult life, and proclaimed at the very heart of the Church.

                                    * * * * *

(First published 22. July. 2016) Probably everyone is aware by now that today's commemoration of Saint Mary Magdalene is indeed a FEAST. I heard a great homily on this from my pastor last Sunday --- it was on both the raising of Mary Magdalene's liturgical celebration from a memorial to an actual feast and Pope Francis' move to create a commission to look into the historical facts regarding the ordination of women as deacons in the church. Change comes slowly in the Catholic Church --- though sometimes it swallows up the Gospel (or significant elements of the Gospel) pretty quickly as it did with last Sunday's story which was originally about Jesus' treating Mary of Bethany as a full disciple sitting at his feet just as males (and ONLY males) did. As we know, that story --- when read without sensitivity to historical context --- has been tamed to make it say instead that contemplative life was the greater good or vocation than active or ministerial life; still, once the stone has been rolled away as it is in today's Gospel, and we are able to hear the radicality of the good news and the call to apostleship, we may find the Spirit of God is irrepressible in bringing (or at least seeking to bring) about miracles.

One sign the stone is being rolled away by Pope Francis is the raising of Mary Magdalene's day to a Feast. For the entire history of the Church Mary Magdalene has been known as "Apostle to the Apostles" but mainly this has been taken in an honorific but essentially toothless way with little bite and less power to influence theology or the role of women in the Church. But raising the Magdalene's day to the level of a Feast changes all that. This is because the Feast comes with new prayers -- powerful statements of who Mary was and is for the Church, theological statements with far-reaching implications about Jesus' choices and general practice regarding women (especially calling for a careful reading of other stories of his interactions with women), a critical look at the way the early church esteemed and ministered WITH women and not merely to them --- especially as indicated in the authentic writings of Paul, and the unique primacy of Mary Magdalene over the rest of the Apostles (including even Peter) as a source of faith, witness, and evangelism.

The Church's longstanding and cherished rule in all of this is Lex Orandi, lex credendi, literally, "the law (or norm) of prayer is the law (norm) of belief", but more adequately, "As we pray, so we believe." And what is true as we examine the new readings and prayers associated with today's Feast is that the way we pray with, with regard to, and to God through the presence of Mary Magdalene has indeed changed with wide-ranging implications as noted above. The Church Fathers have written well and I wanted to look briefly at a couple of the texts they have given us for the day's Mass, namely the opening prayer and the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer.

 The Opening Prayer Reads: [[O God, whose Only Begotten Son entrusted Mary Magdalene before all others with announcing the great joy of the Resurrection, grant, we pray, that through her intercession and example we may proclaim the living Christ and come to see him reigning in your glory. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit.
R. Amen.

What is striking to me here is the very clear affirmation that Mary was commissioned (entrusted) by Christ with the greatest act of evangelization anyone can undertake, namely, the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus' Resurrection from the dead. This is a matter of being summoned to and charged with a direct and undisputed act of preaching the one reality upon which is based everything else Christians say and do. It is the primal witness of faith and the ground of all of our teaching. It is what allows Paul to say quite bluntly, if this is false, if Jesus is not raised from the dead, then Christians are the greatest fools of all. It is this kerygma Mary is given to proclaim. Moreover, there is a primacy here. Mary Magdalene is not simply first among equals --- though to be thought of in such a way among Apostles and the successors of Apostles in the Roman Catholic Church is a mighty thing by itself --- but she was entrusted (commissioned) with this charge "before all others". There is a primacy here and the nature of that, it seems to me, especially when viewed in the context of Jesus' clearly counter cultural treatment of women, is not merely temporal; it has the potential to change the way the Church has viewed the role of women in ministry including ordained (diaconal) ministry. The Preface is as striking. It reads:

Preface of the Apostle of the Apostles

It is truly right and just,
our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks,
Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God,
whose mercy is no less than His power,
to preach the Gospel to everyone, through Christ, our Lord.
In the garden He appeared to Mary Magdalene
who loved him in life, who witnessed his death on the cross,
who sought him as he lay in the tomb,
who was the first to adore him when he rose from the dead, and whose apostolic duty [office, charge, commission] was honored by the apostles, so that the good news of life might reach the ends of the earth.
And so Lord, with all the Angels and Saints,
we, too, give you thanks, as in exultation we acclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts. . . (Working Translation by Thomas Rosica CSB)

Once again, we see two things especially in the Preface: 1) the use of the term Apostle (or apostolic duty [office or charge]) used in a strong sense rather than in some weak and merely honorific sense --- this is, after all, the Preface of the Apostle of the Apostles!!! (Note how this translation brings Mary right INTO the collegio of Apostles in a way "to" may not; here she is definitely first among equals) --- and 2) a priority or kind of primacy in evangelization which the apostles themselves honored. In the preface there is a stronger sense of Mary being first among equals than in the prayer I think, but the lines stressing that Mary adored Jesus in life, witnessed his death on a cross --- something which was entirely unacceptable in ordinary society and from which the male disciples fled in terror --- and that she sought him in the dangerous and ritually unacceptable place while the rest of his disciples huddled in a room still terrified and completely dispirited, these lines make the following reference to "apostolic duty" --- which Mary also carried out in the face of general disbelief --- and thus, to Mary's temporal (but not merely temporal) primacy over the other apostles all the stronger.

Do Not Cling to Me: Another Sign the Stone has been Rolled Away

 

Part of today's gospel is the enigmatic challenge to Mary's address of Jesus as "Rabbouni" or Rabbi -- teacher. In response Jesus says, "Do not cling to me!" He then reminds Mary he has yet to ascend to his Father and her Father, his God and her God. What is going on here? Mary honors Jesus with a title of respect and great love and Jesus rebuffs and reproves her! The answer I think is that Mary identifies Jesus very specifically with Judaism and even with a specific role within Judaism. But Jesus can no longer be identified with such a narrow context. He is the Risen Christ and will soon be the ascended One whose presence, whose universality (and even his cosmic quality), will be established and freshly mediated in all sorts of unexpected and new ways. To be ascended is not to be absent but to be present as God is present --- a kind of omnipresence or ever-presence we must learn to perceive and trustingly embrace. This too is a critical part of Mary's commission or officio; she is called to proclaim this as well --- the eschatological or cosmic reality in and through which the Gospel of God's presence is opened to all the world.

Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, who is already aware that he is difficult to recognize as the Risen Christ, not to cling to old images, old certainties, narrow ways of perceiving and understanding him. He reminds her he will be present and known in new ways; he tells her not to cling to the ones she is relatively comfortable with. And he makes her, literally and truly, Apostle of and to the Apostles with a world-shattering kerygma or proclamation whose astonishing Catholicity goes beyond anything they could have imagined.

And so, it is with us and with the Church herself. On this new Feast Day, we must understand the stone has been rolled away and the Risen and Ascended Christ may be present in ways we never expected ways which challenge our intellectual certainties and theologically comfortable ways of seeing and knowing. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, as we pray so we believe. What a potentially explosive and ultimately uncontrollable rule beating at the heart of the Church's life and tradition!! The stone has been rolled away and over time our new and normative liturgical prayer will be "unpacked" by teachers and theologians and pastoral ministers of all sorts while the truth contained there will be expressed, honored, and embodied in ever-new ways by the entire Body of Christ --- if only we take Jesus' admonition seriously and cease clinging to him in ways which actually limit the power and reach of the Gospel in our world.

Like the original Apostles we are called to honor Mary Magdalene's apostleship so that the "good news of life [can] reach the ends of the earth." We pray on this Feast of St Mary Magdalene that that may really be so.

On Supervision of c 603 by Bishops, Eremitical Hiddenness, and Calls for Anonymity

[[ Hi Sister, were you aware that because of the Brother Christian Matson situation, someone is now putting up videos saying that bishops do not have the time or the understanding to supervise diocesan hermits and canon 603 should be "tabled until the bugs can be worked out?" You have raised some similar concerns, haven't you? If canon 603 requires diocesan hermits to be under the supervision or direction of their bishop, and bishops are so busy, how does such a one direct a hermit? I guess the video I saw made me wonder if c 603 is even possible for bishops to fulfill? Also, aren't hermits to remain hidden and anonymous?]]

Hi there and thanks for your questions. Yes, I am generally aware of the situation. It is not a new criticism. Thanks for making contact, however. Please read some of what I have already written about delegates as those posts will fill out what I will say here. The Lexington, KY situation indeed demonstrates how little some bishops and many canonists as well (!) understand the c 603 life --- at least before they have to deal with candidates for c 603 profession. Even more importantly though, it demonstrates how little they regard this vocation, the centuries and history it took for c 603 to be created and promulgated, or the time and effort many dioceses have spent in trying to implement the canon wisely and faithfully. In particular, as I have written before, bishops' lack of understanding of the charism or gift-quality of this vocation is at the heart of any disregard for or misuse of it shown not only by Bp Stowe but also by others in the past (cf., Archdiocese of Boston, Archdiocese of Denver, et al.).  Thus, it might be helpful to you to read more recent posts on charism as well.

I have written about some of what you raise in your questions and agree to some degree, yes, but contrary to what the video you reference apparently asserts, canon 603's terms do not necessarily mean that ongoing supervision by a bishop cannot use intermediaries to assist him in this; often, humility and true regard for the vocation, in fact, seem to call for such "delegation"! As I wrote recently, and have written before, in @2006 my own diocese (Oakland, then-Vicars for Religious, Revs. Raymond Breton and Robert Herbst, OFM Conv.) asked me to choose someone who would act as a delegate for myself and the diocese. That person was meant to be able to meet with me as needed and contact the bishop in the same way. (In my experience the Bishop can and does also contact the delegate if he wants to communicate something to me.) At the same time, the hermit is usually going to meet annually with the bishop himself (more frequently if there is a need) so the two things together seem to be sufficient for intelligent supervision or direction (not spiritual direction!). Others have found this to be true as well. Supervision can therefore mean, "done with the assistance of competent professionals", and of course, because Bishops are so busy and oftentimes, themselves are not expert in formation or spiritual direction, that is precisely the model dioceses generally use. It means that the Bishop's role in directing c 603 vocations is more than possible, though it ordinarily requires the assistance of others with appropriate expertise and an openness to learning.

Adding to this Model today:

Today, we are adding to this model, the model used by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, namely, the addition of mentorship with already well-established and experienced diocesan hermits. This is the suggestion included in Ponam in Deserto Viam. In particular, this mentorship can be very effective in assisting with discernment and the initial formation of candidates. In the model I have been working on, a competent c 603 hermit works with a small diocesan team to assist in the discernment and formation of these vocations. The initial contact is ordinarily made by the candidate or their Vicar for Religious and the c 603 hermit discerns whether or not they can work with the diocese in this regard. If they can, they will accompany the candidate in assisting them to write a liveable Rule of Life. At the same time, they will be available to the diocesan team or chancery staff to educate them on the nature of c 603 and the life it describes and governs.

For ongoing post-profession supervision, the person selected need not be a c 603 hermit or a hermit at all. Still, for the period of initial formation, it is important that the diocese at least look to a diocesan hermit as a resource for the diocese and hermit candidate. Canonical hermits from other traditions (Camaldolese, Carmelite, Benedictine, etc) can also work here, though it seems to me they need to be in touch with a c 603 hermit to help with dimensions of discernment, formation, and diocesan education (education of those who will be responsible for admitting this person and those who come after them to profession and consecration) that are unique to c 603 life itself.  For instance, the vow of poverty will likely need to shift from the way it looks in community, establishing oneself in a parish and finding resources for daily living will also differ to some extent. The major temptations, stresses, transitions, and challenges of c 603 life may also be best understood by another c 603 hermit.

Remember, all of this is not about "working the bugs out," so to speak. C 603 represents a vision of solitary eremitical life that names the essential elements of any authentic eremitical life. There is a learning curve in determining how to implement it intelligently and faithfully, particularly in a world where silence is rare and individualism and isolation have generally supplanted real solitude. Add to that a tendency in the Church to not truly understand or appreciate contemplative life itself while it stresses active ministry, and eremitism seems to be an anachronistic way of living with little relevance to the contemporary church or world. In light of all of this, the learning curve can be steep. That does not mean the canon has "bugs", as you quote. Rather, it is another indication that the Fathers of the church who composed c 603 wrote better than many have seen. Eremitism is a countercultural vocation. That implementing it takes time, experimentation (which includes mistakes), and creative input from the whole church, including those living eremitical life in all its forms, shouldn't be surprising. 

Hiddenness and Anonymity:

You ask about hermits remaining hidden and anonymous. Let me be clear, hiddenness is not mentioned in c 603, the normative legislative text defining this form of life for the Church. It is part of a descriptive section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is not legislative and refers to a major dimension of the heart of the hermit's life with and in Christ. I have written here a number of times regarding hiddenness including my sense that it is a derivative characteristic and also that it has more to do with one's life and ministry being hidden in Christ rather than open as it is in apostolic ministry so I would invite you to check these posts out. As far as anonymity goes, that is neither required nor even necessarily a value of c 603 life. Remember that c 603 defines and governs a public vocation defined by public rights and obligations. (These rights and obligations give a public vocation its character as public!) If one wishes to remain anonymous for some good reason (say for safety's sake), one is still responsible for at least making clear in what diocese one was professed and remains in good standing. (One's bona fides must be made known to whatever extent one claims to be a Catholic hermit living eremitical life in the Church's name.) 

If one refuses to do this much, or truly cannot for safety's sake, for example, then I would argue one should not be doing other activities in public either (including online videos). This is particularly true so long as one represents oneself as a Catholic hermit, diocesan hermit, consecrated hermit, consecrated religious, and the like. All of these are public and ecclesial vocations entered with public profession. They all imply both a specific content, along with ecclesial "vetting" and the right to minister in specified ways in the name of the church. The people to whom one ministers (i.e., speaks, writes, teaches, opines, preaches, etc.) have a right to know with what authority (generally speaking) this occurs, and thus too, to what extent (again, generally speaking) one can be trusted with the precious dimensions and vulnerabilities of one's life.

Miscellaneous on Community, Technology, and the Paradox of Eremitical Solitude

 I wrote recently that one of the conceptions of eremitical life I have found in some is both limited and one-dimensional. That view of eremitism focused on the aloneness of the hermit with no room for lauras, community (including parish) support, and so forth. In this person's view, to be a true hermit, one had to be entirely alone so if two hermits shared a large house where they mainly each did their own thing alone and drove to Mass together, or ate a meal together once or twice a week, or even came together once or twice a day to pray some hour of the Divine Office, for example, that could not be considered eremitical solitude and the two persons would not be true hermits.  Even the Carthusians were not considered, "true hermits," but rather "quasi hermits" --- "that is, apparent, but not real hermits." Imagine calling the Carthusians "quasi hermits" rather than considering that perhaps eremitical solitude, while defined in terms of physical aloneness, is a richer reality than one has thought! 

At the same time, from several different sources recently I have seen a richer, often paradoxical sense of genuine eremitism, and particularly eremitical solitude. These sources include the Carmelites whose Feast day was this week, especially the writings of Ruth Burrows in Carmel and The Essence of Prayer, but also the lived example of the Carmel of Reno which has fully embraced technology to work with Carmelites from around the world and produce Nada Te Turbe; it includes a book a couple of us are using to help with the discernment and formation process of another new diocesan hermit: Solitude and Communion ed A. M. Allchin,  the spirituality of the Camaldolese who speak of living alone together, The Privilege of Love, and the work of Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam in, The Eremitic Life. In each and all of these sources, solitude is a covenantal reality that both implies and empowers community. Eremitical solitude that did not do this in some real sense within a Christian context would more rightly be termed isolation.

The Varying Shapes of the Silence of Solitude:

Canon 603 hermits are bound to live what the canon and Carthusian tradition calls, the silence of solitude. it is therefore critically important that the candidate for profession under c 603 understands what this term means, not only in its most obvious and superficial sense but in its more profound and richer constellation of senses.  At its most fundamental, solitude means being alone with, in, and for God. Eremitical life defines itself in terms of this dynamic. The silence of that solitude means, first of all, the relative (not absolute) absence of external noise or sound. As we progress to deeper senses of the term we begin to see that these forms of silence imply as goal, an inner state of quies constituted and occasioned by love, resulting in personal healing, and sanctification. At this deeper level we meet significant paradoxes. The hermit involved is made a divinely inspired word event and the silence of solitude can take the form of song, prayer, praise, silence, struggle, tears (all sorts), laughter, grief, and joy, for instance.

As the silence of this "silence of solitude" changes and reveals itself in various forms, so too does the solitude at its heart. Because it begins not merely with being alone, but in being alone with God, and more, because human beings are only fully persons and fully personal to the extent they are interpersonal or related beings, so too is the solitude the hermit pursues a matter of communion and community. Still, it is a paradoxical form of these so that eremitical solitude implies not merely being alone, but being alone in and with, or, as Camaldolese like to say, "being alone together." Sometimes this being alone together involves the communion constituted by prayer, particularly in its intercessory form. Most times it involves the deep awareness we have of those who have supported and loved us throughout our lives, all those without whom we could not be the persons God has called us to be. Often it involves us in the communion of author to reader (as in lectio), or the communion of all believers (as in liturgy), but always it is a mediated reality through God who is the ground and source of all creation.

The Place of Technology and Communion in Solitude:

One of the ways this communion-in-solitude or solitude-as-communion is intensified and made more concrete is through the use of technology.  Here the paradox of being alone and in relation with or to others is incarnated via ZOOM, Google Hangouts, Skype, etc. We saw this, especially in the virtual choir project undertaken by the Carmelites throughout the world. Think of all the individual thumbnail pictures of solitary Sisters singing their own parts alone into a microphone and computer with the whole world of other Carmelites in mind and the potential for a communal project that eventuates in the virtual choir of Nada Te Turbe. Beyond revealing a deep interconnectedness between Carmels and many individual Sisters, this technologically-accomplished project also created even deeper, broader, and more intense communion (community) with a broader audience --- and in ways that did not threaten but heightened solitude at the same time.

People already present to us in our hearts and minds assume a new kind of presence via computer. In one sense we could say we were alone before the computer session and during it we are no longer alone, but in another sense, we can say we were alone in both situations and in either we were also with someone though in different modes. One non-canonical hermit I am aware of speaks of the authors of the books she reads as "friends". While some might scoff and contend this is some sort of psychological defense against serious loneliness or isolation, I think the truth may and certainly can also cut in a different direction, namely, towards an indispensable and more generous sense of presence and interrelatedness. Meanwhile, some authors approach this from the opposite direction and speak of their readers bringing an indefinable something to them in the reading of their works. (I read this this week as well, but can't remember quite where!) Again, appreciating this assertion will require a more generous sense of presence and interrelatedness or communion as integral to even eremitical solitude.

Peter Damian's Dominus Vobiscum

Dom Andre Louf, exploring Peter Damian's famous letter (Dominus Vobiscum) in the paper "Solitudo Pluralis" (Solitude and Communion, Papers on the Hermit Life, ed A.M. Allchin) writes about the "community implications of a Christian vocation to solitude," --- the more generous sense of presence and interrelatedness or communion described above. A hermit had written St Peter Damian with the question, "Does a hermit celebrating the Office in solitude have a right to pronounce, Dominus Vobiscum, 'The Lord be with you,' or not? If he has that right, then why is that so?" Peter Damian's answer was straightforward: not only can the hermit pray in this way, but s/he must do so and for two reasons. First, because the words are obligatory, and second, because they express a deep truth of the hermit's life: even when alone the solitary is never truly alone. [[By the adhesive of love (caritatis glutinum), the solitary is united with all his brothers and sisters; he is always with others, his solitude is in some way necessarily corporate.]] (Allchin, 17) 

Thus too, in prayer, a strictly solitary action is no longer possible. (Louf/Damian) What the solitary celebrates alone has repercussions for the entire church. Indeed, it is all of this that causes Peter Damian to call the hermit a "little church!" Damian further explains that whatever is done by any single or individual member of the faithful should be regarded as being done by the whole church joined together in the unity of faith. (By the way, when I write here about the ecclesial vocation of the canonical hermit, or speak of the hermit revealing the church's heart to herself, this is one of the characteristics implied with the word ecclesial only now associated with the idea of normativity and commissioning by the church. Because the c 603 vocation is canonical (normative) it represents the entire church in a normative way and the gift the hermit is and strives to be to the church. It is what the Church specifically commissions such a hermit to be and looks to in a normative way. This is the specifically authorized way of being a solitary hermit that the Church describes as "living an eremitical life in the name of the Church.")

Once again, Solitude vs Isolation:

All of this underscores why I found a particular notion of eremitical life to be limited and one-dimensional this last week, and also part of the reason I am really sensitive to folks who suggest eremitical solitude is another term for isolation, or who have no tolerance for hermits who live in a lavra, or who call Carthusians "quasi hermits," and the like; (Carthusians are true hermits, and the context within which they live eremitism is communal. Thus the term used for them is semi-eremitical). The history of authentic eremitism in the Church has always had a communal dimension to it. Whenever it is healthy it always will.  The Camaldolese, Carmelites, Carthusians, Franciscans  Benedictines, and many others know this and have known it --- sometimes for centuries. Hundreds of c 603 hermits have known and modeled it over the past 4 decades. What every Catholic hermit says with his/her life is that eremitical solitude is a form of covenantal reality that represents the redemption of isolation, while (and this may truly surprise some) isolation can and often does represent a degradation of authentic solitude.