Ecclesiality, a Mutually Conditioning Dynamic Between Church and Solitary Hermit

[[ hi Sister! Are you saying that the Desert Fathers and Mothers had ecclesial vocations the institutional Church didn't recognize? I am not sure I see how the vocation of the Desert Fathers' calling belonged to the Church before the Church knew it herself.]] 

Hi there yourself! Yes, I am saying that in one way the vocations lived by the Desert Abbas and Ammas were deeply and essentially ecclesial because they were lived for the sake of the Church and called her to all the things eremitical life holds for the Church. In particular, the desert Abbas and Ammas did what c 603 (and other) hermits do today in showing the Church her own heart, a heart rooted in prayer, the Lordship of Christ, the Evangelical Counsels, humility, and stricter separation from the world. In living countercultural lives dedicated to encounter and dialogue with God. Additionally, I am suggesting that the formula, "ecclesia semper reformanda est" was a dimension of what hermits called the Church to and reminded her she would always need to be. These lives (vocations) belonged to the Church even when the Church did not recognize this and their witness was profoundly ecclesial even as they lived apart from the larger Church.

However, in a second way, the way I ordinarily speak of ecclesial vocations, the Desert Abbas and Ammas did NOT have an ecclesial vocation because they were not explicitly commissioned by the Church to live as hermits. Today we have canonical hermits in congregations and orders (institutes of consecrated life) as well as c 603 hermits who are actually and explicitly commissioned by the Church to remind her of all the things the Desert Fathers and Mothers did, but by explicitly living these things in the heart of the Church as the Church itself commissions us to do. My argument was that the Church herself took a long time to recognize and make canonical these specific vocations, but doing that was part of a journey towards greater authenticity both for the Church and for hermits more generally. C 603 specifically created the option for public and ecclesial solitary hermit vocations that represent the Church's own internalization of the values of the desert Abbas and Ammas in universal law. By creating statutes on the diocesan level, bishops had done this for anchorites and hermits through some centuries, but never in universal law. With c 603 the Church finally made the solitary hermit life an intrinsic part of the public and essential life of the Church and in this way also bound herself to the values the hermit lives, including the prophetic witness some hermits (like the Desert Abbas and Ammas) have been known for. In other words, she realized (made explicitly real) what had only been implicitly real to this point.

The ecclesiality of c 603 vocations is something every c 603 hermit must come to understand and value deeply, and at the same time, it is something the Church herself must come to see and profoundly esteem. As I reflect on the dioceses that have failed to implement c 603 I recognize that some fear they cannot do justice to this vocation because they lack the chancery staff, for instance. Others recall the stereotypes and caricatures of authentic eremitical life I referred to in my last post and want no part of such egregious distortions of eremitical life. Some, simply think the vocation is about keeping folks out of the limelight by shunting them into a hermitage --- a way of taming problem children of all sorts. But some are afraid of the witness of hermits in the heart of the Church, afraid they will introduce a bit of inspired instability in a Church insufficiently in touch with its need to reform itself. I don't believe these fears achieve consciousness in these bishops and chanceries, but I do think the nervousness these chanceries experience over contemplative and eremitical vocations points to this.

When I write about the ecclesiality of c 603 vocations I almost always say the vocation belongs to the Church before it belongs to the hermit. What I must also say, I think, is that hermits and anchorites through the centuries have called the Church to claim, nurture, and protect this birthright as they held onto the fact that they lived this vocation on behalf of the Church. They were not individualists, nor pseudo hermits separated from the Church, but instead, were men and women deeply imbued with the Gospel and in love with Christ's Church living life for her sake. With canon 603 the Church has claimed this vocation explicitly and is on the way to doing so fully. The relationship of the c 603 hermit to the Church is critical for the hermit being all that God calls her to be and also for the Church being all that God calls it to be as well. Just as the Church entrusts the hermit vocation to individuals under c 603, these hermits reveal to the Church her own generous and humble heart, not in the power and might associated with this world, but in a weakness where God's grace is sufficient and God's power is made perfect.