Follow-up on Dioceses and Guidelines

[[ Dear Sister, I liked the piece on Dioceses and Guidelines, particularly because you indicated mistakes made by both the diocese and by hermit candidates. You gave me the sense that moving from guidelines to a livable Rule took a lot of dialogue between the candidate and diocesan personnel. Is that common? Do dioceses balk at providing this kind of attention? How frequent should such conversations be? And who should take part? I'm concerned because in my diocese we only have a single person in the vocations office (not counting the secretary) and I wonder if he could create the kind of guidelines you are talking about. 

Beyond that, I wonder if he would have the time to meet with a candidate very often as part of ongoing discernment and formation. Hermits are not a big part of his job; priests (or baby priests) are! [I think the reference here is to seminarians. s.l.o'n] I can see how the process is supposed to lead to mutual education as well as discernment and formation of/for the candidate. Are dioceses usually open to this kind of learning? Aren't vocations people supposed to understand the various vocations?? How about candidates? Are they open to such an intense process? If I gave your article to my diocese would they be able to fill in the guidelines from the four main points you drew? And if they could not do that, would you be willing to help them?]]

WOW! Lots of very good questions!! Thank you! Yes, the process I envisioned in the last post and more generally, in the process of discernment and formation I have already described before, is meant to involve a lot of conversation and mutual education. One of the difficulties with c 603 is that it likely envisioned candidates with a history of religious life working with other religious who are all experienced with living a Rule and community constitutions and such. While it is unlikely that any of these folks would have ever written a Rule, they would have a strong sense of the importance of drawing from experience and would be able to recognize or distinguish promising from unsuitable candidates at little more than a glance. At the same time, they would be familiar with the need to give someone a really good shot at a fruitful process of discernment, growth, and maturation in eremitical life, understanding that such a process can bear fruit even if the candidate does not have or fails to persevere in a c 603 vocation. Finally, they would be pretty comfortable with the way the Holy Spirit tends to surprise us with a God who comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place!! But generally speaking, our diocesan offices are not staffed in this way today.

This means that most dioceses do not understand c 603 vocations (or eremitical vocations more generally) and may not be clear how to work with them. They may hold the same kinds of stereotypes and biases re hermits and hermit life prevalent in the general population. But in my experience, diocesan staff want to learn what they can, especially about vocations they have little experience with. When I was waiting for the bishop's acceptance of my petition, we met and talked and he said at the end of the conversation, [[Well, now I have a lot to learn!!]] It was a very promising statement and I have been grateful in all of these years since that he was open to learning! Before this I worked with a Sister serving in vocations and as Vicar for Religious. She came to my hermitage regularly and we talked. She also took a road trip with (I think) the Chancellor of the Diocese to meet with the Prior of the Camaldolese monks at New Camaldoli in Big Sur about what they looked for (and what she should look for) in a healthy hermit. That meant a several-hour ride down the CA coast, and very likely, an overnight stay as well as an equally long drive home!! I am still impressed by the care this indicated.

Sister Fiacra, OCSO, Glencairn

In the handful of dioceses and candidates I have worked with, there have been varying degrees of eagerness to work with the process, but my sense is still that these people want to do the best they can for candidates for c 603 profession and consecration. Yes, vocation personnel should have a working knowledge of the vocations they work with (or may work with !) but remember that most dioceses do not have c 603 hermits and of those that do, Vicars for Religious coming into office after the hermit has been consecrated may never even have met her! They certainly don't call her for advice or information without setting this up ahead of time! We want Vicars for Religious or Vocation directors to gain their knowledge of this vocation from conversations with real hermits who live the life and can speak to what it looks like from within the vocation itself. One way of securing this kind of education is with a process like the one I have discussed in the past that uses a c 603 hermit to mentor the candidate in her process of writing a Rule. In such an arrangement, everyone learns!! Not just the candidate!!

Some candidates are very focused on this process and give it their time, energy, prayer, study, and reflection. When this is the case, working with them is a complete joy, and ordinarily I have found their dioceses enthusiastic and very cooperative as well. Occasionally, someone is less enthusiastic or careful about the nature and quality of the vocation in front of them. You asked about frequency of meetings so let me address that here. There are a couple of different ways to do this but here is my preference: 1) as mentor I work with the person @ once a month and we talk about how they are doing with the life, the elements of the canon, the process of writing a liveable Rule, etc. 2) When the person has made progress on a section of the Rule, a meeting is scheduled with the diocesan team so they can get to know the person better and hear how these last several months have gone. This is a chance to see how the person is growing, how a Rule develops over time, and the ways the candidate lives the guidelines and understands (or is coming to understand) the critical dimensions of this ecclesial vocation.

Ideally, the Rule and how it is coming along as one transitions from living guidelines to composing a vision of how one is called to embody c 603, is what drives the meetings. Some candidates will set up such meetings for themselves and the diocesan representatives and apprise them of their progress; I think this is by far preferable since it accents a candidate's initiative and confidence; it also allows her to develop relationships that may have lasting value within her diocese. The team might be composed of the Vicar for Religious, Director of Vocations, and perhaps a canonist along with a c 603 mentor. Meanwhile, in such a process, the diocesan team can contact me anytime with questions or concerns or with a request for an evaluation of how the process is coming along, and I will do the same with my own questions or concerns!! The process is not meant to be onerous for diocesan personnel or for anyone else for that matter. It is meant to be authentically discerning and formative. As noted above, in such a process everyone is educated.

If you would like a copy of the last article (and this one as well), please email me. If your diocese wants to talk about it for any reason, I am happy to do that. We can talk about that more down the line if there is a need.

Should Dioceses Supply Guidelines for the c 603 Hermit?

One of the questions that comes up in regard to Dioceses and the Hermit's Rule of Life is whether it is appropriate for the Bishop to write the hermit's Rule and simply require she live accordingly. In the past I have argued that it is inappropriate, and I have put forth reflections on c 603 vocations and the importance for both discernment and formation that the hermit write her own Rule. Also, of course, this respects the unique way the Holy Spirit works in each hermit's life and assists her to be truly attentive to that. But the idea of the diocese supplying guidelines on living eremitical life in this diocese that one lives prior to writing a truly liveable Rule, and that will also be subsequently embodied in some way in that Rule is a really good one and one I have written about only a couple of times perhaps a decade ago or so. It's time to pull that topic up once again, partly because it belongs to my larger project on the discernment and formation of diocesan hermits, and partly because both hermits and dioceses need to understand the appropriateness, nature, and place of such guidelines as they move forward with processes of discernment and formation.

Quite often I hear stories about dioceses that tend to expect a hermit to go off and write a liveable Rule in a few weeks. They may leave this single concrete requirement of the canon to the last on a "to do" list while considering it the easiest part of the canon to fulfill. They will sometimes do this saying something like, [[There, now all we need is your Rule of Life!! Just go off and write that and we will be all set!]] But such an approach misunderstands the nature of a Rule and the difficulty of writing one, especially a liveable one or one that belongs integrally to the diocese's own discernment and formation processes with a c 603 hermit-to-be! Other times, dioceses go the opposite direction and write the hermit's Rule for her, although my sense is this is a much rarer problem. I addressed all of this in 2012, Should a Bishop Write the Hermit's Rule?

Failures by Diocese and Hermit:

Bearing that article in mind, what happens when either a diocese refuses to treat what they provide as true guidelines or the hermit decides s/he knows too much about eremitical life to accept such guidelines -- the two entirely antithetical possibilities? The basic answer to both questions is that strong and authentic ecclesial vocations will be lost, immature and slavish ones incapable of mature obedience will be established, and the Church's understanding of c 603 and its vocations will not grow as these need to -- meaning further solitary eremitical vocations will not be admitted to profession or even to mutual discernment processes. If the bishop or other diocesan personnel write the hermit's Rule for her, they are failing to discern this vocation. Likewise, they are failing to listen to the Holy Spirit and the way she is working in the contemporary church. If, on the other hand, the hermit acts as though she knows it all already and refuses to at least prayerfully consider the vision of the life the Diocese has provided as preparation for a meeting to discuss what works and what does not and why, she is simply demonstrating a lack of calling to an ecclesial vocation and possibly her unreadiness for vows of obedience or religious poverty.

A set of guidelines is important for the diocese to provide for all candidates. Not only will this assist the hermit in writing an adequate Rule of life based on lived experience, but every candidate will have the same starting point and the adaptation they each make will be able to be assessed more easily in terms of the Holy Spirit, contemporary eremitical life, and the healthiness of the individual hermit's spirituality. Still, it is critical the Diocese regards these as guidelines the hermit herself will flesh out (or prune as she truly feels called to) over time. The diocese might say, your Rule should cover religious poverty, but not spell out what that must look like in a particular hermit's life. At the same time, it is critical the hermit uses these guidelines in considering her Rule of Life, and that she tries to embody them in some real way in whatever Rule she eventually writes. (Thus, to continue the example, a hermit will take what is in the guidelines re religious poverty, and spell out the nature of that poverty and how she personally lives this out before profession and, after profession, how she will live it in law under c 603.)

What Should Such Guidelines Include?

So what should such guidelines include? It seems to me that these need to spell out the elements any liveable Rule must address. These include, 1) the requirement of a brief history and discussion of the place of eremitical life in the life of the Church. (Here, because of the way she recounts this story, is where the candidate begins to formulate the vision of eremitical life she intends to live in the 21st century as a piece of living history!) 2) The central elements of c 603 and the Evangelical Counsels; in dealing with this guideline, the candidate must be able to spell out how she understands each of these, why she understands them as she does, and how she lives them out in the present. 3) The importance of the public and especially the ecclesial nature of the vocation. Here the candidate will need to address her place in both the universal and the local Church, including her sacramental life, any limited ministry she needs to undertake, and the degree and nature of contact she will have with the parish community. 4) Relationships with the Bishop, delegate, and spiritual director. Here the candidate or hermit needs to spell out how she understands herself to be related to and participate in the Church's ministry of authority; she would include the role of a delegate (if she has one), frequency of meetings with the Bishop (once or twice a year is typical but not carved in stone), spiritual direction, and the way she regards both c 603 and her own Rule of Life.

Such guidelines will have subsections that spell out expectations and, for the hermit's part, the nuts and bolts of each larger section. For instance, in section #2, the hermit will discuss finances, living poverty, provision for health insurance, living space, work and how this meets her needs for stricter separation from the world, religious poverty, the silence of solitude, penitential life,  persevering prayer, and so forth. Also included, for example, will be use of social media, to what extent this is allowed and for what legitimate purposes, etc. This list is not exhaustive, but suggestive of some of what guidelines might list and what any good and liveable Rule must contain.

What if the Diocese and Hermit Cannot Agree?

If the diocese and the hermit find themselves far apart on this or on any element of the guidelines, these can be worked out in a series of conversations over time as both parties come to know the nature and quality of the vocation in front of them, and the hermit/candidate writes this or that draft or draft portion of a liveable Rule. The point is that the diocese provides guidelines of what she requires a hermit life to reflect along with what a sufficient Rule will include, and the hermit tries to accommodate all of these elements in a mature way as she explores the nature of an ecclesial vocation as she personally is called to live it!! As the process of discernment and formation moves forward, both parties will learn from the other, flexibility will increase, trust between the candidate and diocesan staff will grow, as will the sense either that this vocation is truly of the Holy Spirit, or it is not. 

Eventually, either the Hermit's Rule will be granted a Bishop's Decree of Approval and the guidelines will have done their job and be left behind for the more adequate and personal Rule of Life, or the candidate will be unable to write a liveable Rule that both meets the requirements of both the universal and the local Church and is true to the way God is calling her, and she will cease to be a candidate for c 603 profession and consecration -- at least for the time being!! So long as both parties have truly listened to one another and the Holy Spirit in this process and grown in their understanding of contemporary eremitical life under c 603, it can be considered successful.

The Unique Charism of the Diocesan Hermit: Another look at Aspects of Desert and Benedictine Stability (reprised from July 2008)

 As part of reflecting on the ecclesiality of c 603 vocations I am going to reprise one of the first posts I ever put up about this. It stresses the relation of the hermit to the local faith community and what Benedictines and other monastics call stability. In other posts I moved to reflect on the silence of solitude as the unique charism of the diocesan hermit. My hope is to bring these two threads together in the near future, particularly in light of the Guidebook (Ponam in Deserto Viam) put out by DICLSAL and its emphasis on the local community.  To that end I am moving this forward in time and space.

Throughout its history monasticism has recognized several kinds of stability. Augustine Roberts, OCSO, in his work, Centered on Christ, A Guide to Monastic Profession lists five different forms: 1) stability in cell,(this form was made famous by the Desert Fathers and Mothers) 2) stability under an Abbott (who might be the spiritual Father of several monasteries), and associated with Cistercians of the 12-13th centuries; 3) Stability on the pillar (associated with Simeon the Stylite, certain hermits, anchorites, and recluses who were closed up, walled off, or chained to walls); 4) stability of a traveler, which may seem like an oxymoron, especially given Benedict's comments on gyrovagues, but which allowed temporary movement to another monastery; and 5) stability in (the) community, which is Benedict's interpretation of the value, and which involves stability in the community of profession.

It seems to me that the diocesan hermit is asked to embrace implicitly (if not explicitly by vow) the fifth and first forms. (Non-diocesan hermits (that is non-canon 603 hermits) may be called primarily to that stability associated with the desert Fathers and Mothers but are not called to stability in the community in the same sense the diocesan hermit is. If they live in a laura or monastery, they would certainly be called to stability in community, but not in the same way a diocesan hermit with her commitment to diocese and parish.) I think everyone is used to thinking of a call to stability of the cell; who has not heard the comment, "Remain in your cell and your cell will teach you everything"? But, the notion of a "stability in community" which binds the diocesan hermit in a particular way is less familiar, I suspect.

During the rite of my solemn profession last year, Marietta Fahey, shf (rather than a Deacon) did the formal "calling forth" on behalf of the diocese. Since the profession liturgy involves the literal mediation of God's call to the hermit as well as her response, and since the rite of calling forth is a direct expression of this, the formula we used was, "On behalf of the Church of the Diocese of Oakland and the Faith Community of St Perpetua('s Catholic Church), I call forth Sister Laurel O'Neal." At the time I was clear that diocesan status bound me to the diocese itself, but I had not considered as much the parish dimension of my commitment. And yet, I was clear that I was being called out of this specific assembly, this specific faith community and also as I have written before, it is this specific community which supports me in my vocation on a daily basis. Yet, it seems clear that the rite of profession itself prepared for my own reflection on the unique charism of the diocesan hermit and its relation to Benedictine stability; it (the rite) was also informed by it and became an expression of it.

But another thing this particular piece of my profession rite underscores is the personal nature of that stability. While it is true stability generally binds one to a place, it is far more fundamentally communal or relational. As Roberts affirms, [[Stability is personal. It is interpersonal communion, or, more precisely, it is perseverence in this communion.]] In embracing Benedictine stability as a diocesan hermit one commits oneself to a community, first (or more generally) to a diocese, and then (or more immediately) to a parish. For the diocesan hermit this is the community in which one's profession is made and in which it is lived out. While for truly legitimate reasons one might change one's stability, it seems to me that a diocesan hermit considering the unique charism of their vocation would need to discern these with the same seriousness a Benedictine monk or nun in a monastery discerns such things.

If the vow or value of stability is essentially personal or interpersonal, what are its most fundamental values for the hermit, especially compared to other Benedictine values, for instance? Both forms, stability in cell and stability in community have them and they are very high values indeed. The first would be communion or koinonia I think. The hermits is, for all her solitude, still a community builder and nurturer. Certainly that happens through her prayer, but it also happens as she brings an essentially contemplative presence into her contacts with the parish. It happens as she learns to love in this context more fully and exhaustively not only because stability binds her here, but because it is the logical outgrowth of her vows of celibate love/chastity. Of course, koinonia is built on charity, and especially one's love relationship with God. It is stability though which helps assure that one's commitment to loving others in God is not some abstract, intellectualized form of "loving" in which no one is really touched or nourished or healed. And of course, it is stability which ensures the hermit grows personally. We do not grow in isolation from others, nor when we run from situations, conflicts, challenges, and the like (an important reason eremiticism cannot be built on the desire to escape the demands of human society), but only in communion with others, and especially in faithful communion --- whatever the form that takes.

A second value of stability it seems to me is hope. Hope is rooted in the certainty that God can work to the good in all situations in one (or in those) who love him and therefore allow him to love them. Stability very much addresses this virtue because it underscores the need (and ability) to find God where one is, to come to holiness in the limited and conditioning circumstances in which one finds oneself. Stability is the value that underscores the incarnational essence of Christianity, the fact that our God comes to us in weakness, in the unexpected, even shameful events of our day to day lives. Ours is the God who dwells and remains with us in all of life's moments and moods; He calls us to remain with him in the same way. Prayer happens not in idealized situations (though it happens in ideal ones), but more usually in the situations that are far from ideal and often apparently adequate for nothing else! Stability commits us to lives of holiness and prayer wherever we find ourselves. For the diocesan hermit who often lives as an urban hermit, stability is the value that reminds us all that it is the nitty gritty pressures and irritations of everyday life that become the womb of the pearl of great price. Contemplative life need not be lived in the literal desert or mountain environment, but it must be lived in the solitude and communion of the heart of God, and THAT reality is available to us wherever God is found if only we will "remain in him." (John 15)

A related value of stability is perseverance. In the Rule Of Saint Benedict they are synonyms. Our society or culture is not particularly committed to this. It is instead a culture of quick fixes, and when that is not possible, quick escapes. We run out on marriages, children, relationships where the going gets demanding, courses of study, jobs, our employees and employers, parishes, particular church denominations, etc, etc. You name it and we ordinarily look for the easy way out, the place or situation where the "grass is supposedly greener," or where we face less difficulty and need to be less concerned with doing right in difficult circumstances, acting with patience, sustained courage, integrity, or loving profoundly and faithfully. This disvalue is personal, yes, but it is also interpersonal and affects negatively our culture and society. Meanwhile, its opposite, perseverance/stability cuts the heart out of our tendency to look for quick fixes and escapes; it commits us to giving each situation, each person, each set of circumstances all the time, prayer, effort, and work needed to allow the seeds of life, growth, wholeness, and indeed, holiness, to take root and grow to maturity. In this sense it is the parable of the wheat and the tares that remind us of the value of and need for stability.

In any case, it seems to me that the diocesan hermit is called upon to embody these values in unique and intense ways. Yes, she is to remain in her cell and allow it to teach her all things. Even this can be a witness to others simply in their knowing it is happening somewhere in their midst (which, as noted in other places on this blog, is a central reason for public profession and consecration). But a diocesan hermit is also called to stability in community. She is able to catalyze or otherwise contribute to the growth of community in hidden and not so hidden ways --- and she has an obligation to do this as part of the eremitical life and mission! Most particularly she will do so on the parish level, and in a day when sensitivity to the vitality and importance of local churches and base communities remains quite high, this is a significant aspect of her unique gift/charism to church and world. Stability is rooted in other personal and interpersonal or communal values as well. Perhaps I can say more about those in another post.

Have I been About the Creation of Precedents and Protocols with this Blog?

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered what you make of the charge that you have made up all kinds of precedents and protocols for solitary hermit life under c 603? Is that really what you have been about with this blog? Does the charge have any merit, after all, not everything is written in c 603? Thanks!]]

Thanks to you as well; I am grateful for the question and surprised I have never received it before. Someone asked recently about the age of c 603 given that I have only been consecrated as a hermit for 17 years, but that was not quite the same question. When I look back at this blog over the past 17 years, I see one in which I have explored the nature and implications of c 603 and the vocation it governs.  As far as I know, I am responsible for only two precedents: 1) the post-nominal initials Er Dio (and variations like Erem Dio and ED), which Bishop Vigneron approved in 2008 on the anniversary of my consecration, and 2) a process of discernment and formation for c 603 hermits and their dioceses, drawn from my own experience of the challenging and formative nature of writing a liveable Rule, and which I have outlined here in brief form over the past several years. The first of these is pretty well established as diocesan hermits from a number of countries are permitted by their bishops to use these initials to indicate they are diocesan hermits. Everything else has been a part of my exploring this vocation and looking carefully at the implications of the canon and the public and ecclesial nature of the calling.

I am particularly pleased that these two precedents either already have been or are now being more widely adopted. The second one is by far more important, but I am still working on writing up the process of discernment and formation I have used with several dioceses/candidates thus far, so that is not yet ready for publication. One problem (but not the only one) is that some dioceses, it seems, don't have the staff to create a small team to accompany the candidate. Accommodations can be made, though this (small team with competent c 603 mentor approach) is still an ideal way to proceed to assist a good candidate, 1) to write a liveable Rule, 2) to educate themselves and the diocesan staff on this vocation, and 3) to discern and cooperate in God's formation of a sound vocation. Everything else here, I think, has been a function of my learning about my own vocation, exploring its depths and all of the rights and obligations which I embraced at perpetual profession and consecration. Though perhaps too repetitive, the questions folks ask have been really helpful here. Sometimes they stem from what I have written, sometimes from misunderstandings they are passing on, sometimes from simple curiosity or a hostile spirit, and sometimes they have been the result of someone wanting to become c 603 and asking questions that apply to their aspirations. 

The answers are never simply made up, however. Of course, they don't simply restate c 603 or the Catechism's paragraphs 920 and 921, because these are not the only texts that apply to the c 603 hermit. Other canons apply, whether because of the vows, the use of the term Catholic, garb, not-for-profit status, etc. Hermits' individual Rules also apply here. Too, I know to some extent how my diocese handled things (including frequency of meetings with three bishops and the Vicar for Religious while we had an interim bishop), and I have anecdotal material on other dioceses as well that I can draw from, including from the years before I was consecrated. And of course, the Church's theology of consecrated life applies, as it does to any consecrated vocation in the Church. So, what do I make of the charges that I almost single-handedly created precedents and protocols for c 603 vocations and distorted the canon and the vocation in the process? Well, at best they are exaggerated or significantly overblown, and at worst they are simply made up out of whole cloth while disregarding not only the canon's prehistory beginning with Vatican II, but the 24 years of c 603 life that preceded my own consecration and writing. 

What I find particularly hard to wrap my head around is that anyone could actually believe I have been so wildly influential rather than seeing instead that the Bishops, canonists, other c 603 hermits, and I are both exploring canon 603 in light of the Church's theology of consecrated life and therefore are simply coming to some of the same conclusions!! Yes, I write about the vocation from within it. I explore the implications of this new and ancient form of life. I think I appreciate what is possible for and required by it better than someone looking at the canon from the outside (which would include a lot of chancery staff and canonists), but c 603 already had a history of people living and exploring it before I was consecrated or began to write!  Of course, Bishops can and do certainly imagine, study, speak to others with experience of the canon, and have done so since @1983. And yes, today this might even include a few of them reading this blog, but that is still a far cry from my having been as influential as the "charges" have sometimes made out!

To summarize, when I began this blog, I wanted to explore the vocation and perhaps share it with anyone interested. It was relatively new despite the years since it had been published in the Revised Code and was similarly unknown in parishes or among parish priests. I had not expected to find c 603 beautiful in the way it combines a vision of eremitical life embodying non-negotiable elements with the flexibility of a personal Rule inspired by the Holy Spirit in a way that captures the unique freedom of the consecrated hermit; I had not expected questions and answers would become the basic format of the blog, nor did I anticipate becoming something of an authority on this vocation. If that is what has occurred (and I believe that to some limited extent it has), then I am grateful to God for that. Still, that I have overturned the "traditional" solitary hermit vocation and distorted c 603 with my writing here, or that I have single-handedly established all kinds of precedents and protocols is simply inaccurate! 

Caring About non-canonical Eremitical Vocations

[[Dear Sister, do you want to cause the more traditional hermit vocation to die out? You mainly write about c 603 so I wondered if you care about non c 603 vocations to eremitical life.]]

Thanks for your questions. I answered some similar questions a number of years ago. As I recall they were posed in terms of canonical vs non-canonical or lay hermits and pretty much wondered if I preferred c 603 over non-canonical hermit life. What I said then still holds but with development as well, namely, I care about non-canonical eremitical vocations, and I write about my own vocation because it is what I know best and what I feel the need to explore. I believe the Church requires this exploration as well and it is my desire to contribute to the sound implementation of this vocation in a way only someone living the vocation can actually do. While I have lived as a lay hermit, it is not my vocation, nor one I can argue for most passionately and convincingly. 

 Writing about the vocation in this way really does require someone (or several someone's!!) living this vocation themselves. For instance, it might be the non-canonical hermits in the Archdiocese of Seattle who discover a vocation within their own eremitical vocation to do that. It might be a non-canonical hermit in the Diocese of Boise who does not want the "traditional" hermit vocation to go away now that c 603 is better known and more frequently used to profess diocesan hermits! It might be Regina Kreger, whose actual location I no longer know (she was in Europe the last I heard). She is a fine writer and hermit and might turn her talents to this at some point. It might be lay hermits from any number of dioceses in the US or elsewhere who have written me about being a lay hermit when c 603 is not being used in their dioceses, or those who contribute reflections to Raven's Bread, the hermit newsletter put out by the Fredette's!! The bottom line in this is that non-canonical or lay hermits really need to be writing about their vocation themselves, particularly if they see real benefits in not embracing or petitioning for admission to c 603!! Still, every eremitical call involves a charism, mission, and some form of ministry; those living these in the non-canonical state as lay hermits need to be writing about this for the sake of this specific eremitical vocation!

What especially doesn't make sense to me is for someone who believes in the importance and authenticity of non-canonical eremitical vocations, to opt for becoming c 603 when they believe this canon betrays the older just-go-off-and-do-it form of eremitical life! No, the answer is to live one's lay eremitical vocation and do it well!! While c 603 has been normative of the solitary eremitical life from the moment it was promulgated, it has grown in its implementation and more dioceses have used the canon successfully now. Even so, it still is experiencing significant growing pains and finds resistance in those who wonder how to implement it properly or don't believe it is a valid form of life. Canon 603 hermits can help in this by writing about the vocation or giving significant feedback to their dioceses on what they have learned about the vocation and their own preparation to live this calling, but non-canonical hermits have really significant things to add to the conversation for the sake of eremitism in the Church and for the sake of the Church's own life as well.

So again, yes, I definitely care about non c 603 eremitical vocations. I see them as important and also as being the lion's share of vocations to solitary eremitical life in the Church today. I don't believe many of these vocations will discover a vocation within this vocation to write about and explore the life in a more public way, but I believe there will be some few who will do this. Given the Archbishop of Seattle's stand on c 603 vocations and his decision to allow non-canonical (lay) hermits to make a commitment within the context of Mass (which I applaud!), I would hope Seattle is a source of the kind of reflection that is needed here. (Of course, I recognize that others could well be such a source!! What is important is that those who live this vocation reflect on it and make it better known and appreciated --- not as antithetical to c 603 vocations, but as a complementary expression of solitary eremitical life that remain as viable and cogent today as they were in the days of the desert Abbas and Ammas!!) Perhaps this will lead to the recovery of a strong sense of the prophetic character of such vocations for the sake of the Church! I think all of that is a real possibility, but such a project needs to be led by those living the life!!

Questions on c 603 and Reclusion, and the Sufficiency of the Solitude Possible under the Canon

 [[Hi Sister, if I wanted to be a recluse under c 603, could I do that? How would that work? Do you ever worry that you will not have enough real solitude or silence as a c 603 hermit? I was thinking about not being part of a congregation that allows for recluses. With c 603 you have to support yourself and belong to a parish, so doesn't that detract from what you need to dwell solely with God?]]

Many thanks for your questions. Reclusion is possible with c 603 but only if that is understood as a profoundly communal or ecclesial calling supported by your parish and/or diocese, or others who wish to do so. You will need to be supported (psychologically, spiritually, socially, and to some degree, physically) by a faith community who makes sure you have all that you need to live your life; you also will still need to take care of yourself financially. One of the often-unconsidered truths about recluses is that they are truly and profoundly embedded within a faith community. The other piece of things is that your diocese will need to approve this and test this vocation which will take some years of living eremitical life itself under supervision. No one I have ever heard of is admitted to reclusion without a strong sense of being called first, to contemplative life, then, to eremitical life, and finally to reclusion. Even then, it is ordinarily only granted on a temporary basis for some time. This is much easier within a religious congregation, but even then, in the Roman Catholic Church only two congregations are allowed to accept reclusion by members, namely, the Carthusians, and the Camaldolese.

My own sense in this is that you would need to take some years establishing yourself in a parish context and allow them to come to know you and your vocation to eremitical life first of all.  You would need to be a living and significant part of the parish community's faith life, however it is that you establish this for them. Only after such a relationship is established could you even think about depending upon this community for the daily needs you have. (Of course, since the pandemic, it is possible to get many things delivered!) However, you will still need a spiritual director, diocesan delegate, confessor, etc., who will keep you connected to both the wider Church and the local faith community. You also need some form of ministry, which can include prayer, and which allows your life to serve others --- even in reclusion. Reclusion is definitely not a vocation for those who simply want to go it alone; within the Church it has always been deeply communal.

When you ask about my own silence and solitude, I have to say that no, there is no detraction. Canon 603 provides each hermit with as much as they need because they write their own Rule based on how God works in their lives, and how this shapes their prayer, work, study, limited ministry, etc. My own schedule allows for several hours of prayer in the mornings, several in the evening, and often two in the middle of the night. Each of these includes a period of quiet prayer and some writing or journaling. That's a significant dedicated time spent with God and I am alone most of the rest of the time as well. God is with me in all of this and I can turn to him at all times including when I work with clients. I also work with my Director weekly, most times, and that involves a profound and intensely prayerful attention to my own inner life which I prepare for each week, so, no, I don't think I am missing sufficient solitude or the silence of solitude.

Recently, and for a number of years, one lay hermit has been writing about my blog and speaking about how c 603 eremitical life is too taken up with the temporal Church and not enough with the spiritual. My own take on this appraisal is that it is theological nonsense. That is true because we are temporal beings modeling the Incarnation in our lives while the Church is primordial sacrament, and so, both spatio-temporal and suffused with the Spirit's presence. Yes, the Holy Spirit empowers this, just as she did for Jesus, and that means that we can be both spatio-temporal persons bound to space, time, and matter, and profoundly spiritual persons whose lives are given over to God in deeply committed ways at the same time.  I know that the following theology is not yet commonly held, but it is profoundly Scriptural. Because heaven is not our ultimate goal and we are not made to be disembodied, but rather embodied, and embodied as part of a new creation constituting a new heaven and a new earth that interpenetrate one another and make a single reality, I am really skeptical of any approach to spirituality that tends to divorce it from the spatio-temporal world (the world of space, time, and matter). 

I was taught as an undergraduate that Christians are materialists, though in a unique way made fully real (realized in fullness) in the Incarnation; this view emphasizes the depth and sufficiency of Jesus' prayer life and Communion/Union with the One he called Abba, Pater! This is the God who comes to us as Emmanuel, God-With-Us in this world so that this world might be wholly redeemed and made new by God's presence. Human beings are not angels. We are embodied spirit. Our spirituality is profoundly influenced by our bodiliness and the Spirit qualifies our bodiliness in return. Similarly, we are not isolated beings, but part of a community of faith love, and hope grounded in God! Our humanity is a task achieved in Communion with God and others. C 603 and those who implement this canon recognize these things. That is true when discerning vocations to reclusion, or even "just" the balance of a normal eremitical life.

Why isn't a Sense that God Consecrated One Enough for the Church?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, so why isn't it good enough for God to consecrate one? Why does there need to be a canon law with the Bishop consecrating the person? If someone has the sense that God consecrated them, why isn't that enough?]]

Thanks for your questions. I have written about this several times quite recently and am not sure what else to say about the matter. I would ask you to check out the following posts and others under the labels ecclesial vocations or ecclesiality as well as canonical vs non-canonical vocations, etc: Follow-up, Who Can Live c 603? and Once Again on "Illegal" Hermits. In these posts and many others, I have focused on the distinction between ecclesial vocations and those that are not, why it is important for the Church herself to extend God's consecration to the hermit with an ecclesial vocation, what it means to belong to a stable state of life, and several other things including ministry of authority, sound spirituality, competent discernment and formation, etc. The only other dimensions I have not dealt with are that of potential self- deception and the problem of being unprepared for an authentic hermit life and perhaps incapable of living it well.

To claim one is consecrated by God in a private act may or may not be true or accurate. One may or may not have gotten it right and there is no way for the Church to verify it. (One can certainly examine the rite used and the intentions of the minister if there is paperwork to try and determine the reason for the rite. If it involved private vows, then there would be no consecration.) In any case, in the Roman Catholic Church, admission to Divine consecration requires initiation into a stable state of life where this gift of God can be verified, protected, nurtured, and governed. Because such a gift is NEVER for the individual alone, and because the vocation belongs to the Church before it belongs to the individual, the Church establishes such vocations in law and provides for the structural elements I spoke of recently that will allow them to be lived as the Church understands they need to be lived out. The discernment of such vocations is mutual, involving both the individual and the church because they are ecclesial vocations. The Church is responsible for selecting and professing those with such vocations and God works through the Church via a second consecration beyond baptismal consecration. No one can validly claim God consecrated them in the RCC unless this Divine consecration is mediated to the individual through and in the hands of the diocesan bishop or, in communal religious vocations, in the hands of other legitimate superiors!

If someone insists otherwise, they are at least mistaken and perhaps even deluded in this matter. There is simply no such thing as private consecration in the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, one may make private vows. Many people do! But this is not the same as consecration. Neither are private vows an act of profession. Profession is an act that includes one's dedication of oneself in avowal and the taking on of the canonical rights and obligations of a new state of life. In other words, it is a broader act than just the making of vows. Meanwhile, consecration is part of the entire rite of perpetual profession where the individual dedicates herself to God with a perpetual avowal, and God consecrates that individual as they take on the rights and obligations of this new state for the whole of their lives. 

 As I noted above, Divine consecration that is part of initiating one into the consecrated state of life is a gift of God entrusted to the Church and only then to the individual. Also, please note that this is not a matter of putting Divine consecration up against Episcopal consecration. These two belong together or there is no consecration. It is not that bishops consecrate if by that we mean they do this for some while God consecrates others! No!! God consecrates hermits, and God does so in the hands of his bishops (or other legitimate superiors when we are speaking of hermits in congregations). The Bishop is not a "stand-in" for God, as I heard it put recently. Rather, God works in and through the Church specifically in the person of the bishop by empowering him to mediate God's consecration of the individual.

Self-deception aside (somewhat), the greatest difficulty of asserting God has consecrated one privately, is that one may be completely unprepared for living out an eremitical vocation. They may not understand it and critically, they may not be able to negotiate the tension between the modern world and eremitical life that allows the hermit to be a gift to the contemporary Church and world. As I have said here many times, it takes time for both the individual and the Church to discern and form the vocations of solitary hermits. It takes probationary living out of the calling under the supervision of the Church while working with a competent spiritual director and continuing to discern. It takes study, collaboration, and deliberation; above all, it takes humility and docility. 

One must be able to be taught and consider that ultimately one really might have gotten things wrong. When someone continues to insist, "God consecrated me," apart from canon law, apart from a bishop's permission and entrusting of the vocation to one, or according to established Church structures and rites, and particularly when they do so while denigrating the need for these ecclesial elements and context or while banging on and on about how they are the ones to show dioceses and other hermits the true way hermit life is to be lived, they are unlikely to be showing either humility or docility. 

This is not the same as saying "I am convinced God is calling me to this vocation; I know it" and persisting in that even when a diocese is unwilling to profess one under this canon for the time being. One may be called to persevere in good conscience in such a situation and do this with an openness to be taught about why dioceses make the decisions they do.  In the meantime, perhaps one will also learn about ecclesial vocations and what one is proposing to take on and for whose sake!! Until and unless one does this, one is more an isolated person than a hermit. And that argues against one's having been consecrated by God (or called to this), not for it!

On the Distinction Between Using Our Gifts and Being the Gift (Reprise from July 2015)

[[Hi Sister. I've been reading what you wrote on chronic illness as vocation. I wondered why God would give a person gifts they could never really use.  And if their gifts can't be used then how do they serve or glorify God? I mean I do believe people who can't use God-given gifts still serve God but we are supposed to use our gifts and what if we can't? Since you are a hermit do you ever feel that you cannot use your gifts? Does it matter? Does canonical standing make better use of your gifts than non-canonical standing? I hope this is not gibberish?]]

These are great questions and no, not gibberish at all. The pain of being given gifts which we may not be able to use because of chronic illness or other life circumstances is, in my experience, one of the most difficult and bewildering things we can know. The question "WHY?!!" is one of those we are driven to ask by such situations. We ask it of God, of the universe, of the silence, of friends and family, of books and teachers and pastors and ministers; we ask it of ourselves too though we know we don't have the answer. In one way and another we ask it in many different ways of whomever will listen --- and sometimes we force people to listen to the screams of anguish our lives become as we embed this question in all we are and do. Whether we act out, withdraw, retreat into delusions, turn seriously to religion or philosophy, resort to crime, become workaholics for whom money is the measure of meaning, create great works of art, or whatever else we do, the question, WHY?! often stands at the heart of our searching, activism, depression, confusion, and pain. This is true even when our lives have not been derailed by chronic illness, but of course when that or other catastrophic events occur to us the question assumes a critical importance. And of course, we can live years and years without finding an answer. I think you will understand when I say that "WHY?!" is the question which, no matter how it is posed throughout our lives, we each are.

One thing I should be clear about is that God gives us gifts because he wills us to use them and is delighted when we can and do so. I do not believe God gives gifts to frustrate us or to be wasted. But, as Paul puts the matter, and as we know from experience, there are powers and principalities at work in our world and lives which are not of God. God does not will chronic illness, for instance. Illness is a symptom and consequence of sin --- that is, it is the result of being estranged to some extent from the source and ground of life itself. Even so, though God does not will our illness, he will absolutely work to bring good out of it to whatever degree he can. Especially, God will work so that illness is no longer the dominant reality of our lives. It may remain, but where once it was the defining reality of our lives and identity, God will work so that grace becomes the dominant theme our lives sing instead; illness, though still very real perhaps, then becomes a kind of subtext adding depth and poignancy but lacking all pretensions of ultimacy.

This is really the heart of my answer to your questions. Each of us has many gifts we would like to develop and use. I think most of us have more gifts than we can actually do that with. For instance, if I choose to play violin and thus spend time and resources on lessons, practice periods, music, and time with friends who also play music, I may not be able to spend the time I could spend on writing or theology, or even certain kinds of prayer I also associate with divine giftedness. This is a normal situation and we all must make these kinds of choices as we move through life. Still, while we must make decisions regarding which gifts we will develop and which we will allow to lay relatively fallow there is a deeper choice involved at every moment, namely, what kind of person will we be in any case? When chronic illness takes the question of developing and using specific gifts out of our hands, when we cannot use our education, for instance, or no longer work seriously in our chosen field, when we cannot raise a family, hold a job, or perhaps even volunteer at Church in ways we might once have done, the question that remains is that of who we are and who will we be in relation to God.

The key here is the grace of God, that is, the powerful presence of God. Illness does not deprive us of the grace of God nor of the capacity to respond to that grace. In my own process of becoming a hermit, as you know, I had had my own life derailed by chronic illness. Fortunately, I had prepared to do Theology and loved systematics so that I read Theology even as illness deprived me of the possibility of doing this as a profession. I was also "certain" that I was called to some form of religious life; these two dimensions were gifts that helped me hold onto a perspective that transcended illness and disability, and at least potentially, promised to make sense of these.

My professors (but especially John C Dwyer) had introduced me to an amazing theology of the cross (both Pauline and Markan) which focused on a soteriology (a theology of redemption) stressing that even the worst that befalls a human being can witness to the redemption possible with God. In Mark's version of the gospel, the bottom line is that when all the props are kicked out, God will bring life out of death and meaning out of senselessness. In Paul's letters I was reminded many times that the center of things is his affirmation: "My (i.e., God's) grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." Meanwhile, at one point I began working with a spiritual director who believed unquestioningly in the power of God alive in the core of our being and provided me with tools to help allow that presence to expand and triumph in my heart and life. In the course of our work together, my own prayer shifted from being something I did (or struggled to do!) to something God did within me. (This shift was especially occasioned and marked by the prayer experience I have mentioned here before.) In time I became a contemplative but at this point in time illness still meant isolation rather than the communion of solitude.

All of these pieces and others came together in a new way when I read canon 603 and began considering eremitical life.  The eremitical life is dependent upon God's call of course, but everything about it also witnesses to the truth that God's grace is enough for us and God's power is perfected in weakness. When we speak about the hiddenness of the life it is this active and powerful presence of God who graces us that is of first concern. I have many gifts, but in this life there is no doubt that they generally remain hidden and many are even entirely unused while the grace of God makes me the hermit I am called to be. Mainly this occurs in complete hiddenness. I may think and write about this life; I may do theology and a very little adult faith formation for my parish; I may do a limited amount of spiritual direction, play some violin in an orchestra, and even write on this blog and for publication to some extent --- though never to the extent I might have done these things had chronic illness not knocked my life off the rails. But the simple fact is if I were unable to do any of these things my vocation would be the same. I am called to BE a hermit, a whole and holy human being who witnesses to the deepest truth of our lives experienced in solitude: namely, God alone is sufficient for us. We are made whole and completed in the God who seeks us unceasingly and will never abandon us.

So you see, as I understand it anyway, my life is not so much about using the gifts God undoubtedly gave me at birth so much as it is about being the gift which God's love makes of me. Who I am as the result of God's grace is the essential ministry and witness of my life. Answering a call to eremitical life required that I really respond to a call I sensed from God, a call to abundant life --- not the life focused on what I could do much less on what I could not do, but the life of who God would make me to be if given the ongoing opportunity to shape my heart day by day by day. Regarding public profession and canonical standing under c 603, let me say that it took me some time to come to the place where I was really ready for these; today I experience even the long waiting required as a gift of God.

Paradoxically a huge part of my readiness for perpetual eremitical vows was coincident with coming to a place where I did not really need the Church's canonical standing except to the extent I was bringing them a unique gift. You see, I knew that the Holy Spirit had worked in my life to redeem an isolation and alienation occasioned mainly by chronic illness. THAT was the gift I was bringing the Church, the charism I was seeking to publicly witness to in the name of the Church by seeking public profession and consecration. That the Holy Spirit worked this way in my life in the prayer and lectio of significant solitude seems to me to be precisely what constitutes the gift of eremitical life.  (Of course canonical standing and especially God's consecration has also been a great gift to me but outlining that is another, though related, topic.)

Thus, when I renewed my petition to the Diocese of Oakland regarding admission to perpetual profession and consecration in the early 2000's, eremitical solitude had already transformed my life. I was already a hermit not because of any particular standing but because I lived the truth of redemption mediated to me in the silence of solitude. I sought consecration because now I clearly recognized this gift belonged to the Church and was meant for others; public standing in the consecrated state made that possible in a unique way. I was not seeking the Church's approval of this gift so I could be made a hermit "with status" so much as I was seeking a way to make a genuine expression of eremitical life and the redemption of isolation and meaninglessness it represented better known and accessible to others. That, I think, is the real importance of canonical standing, especially for the hermit; it witnesses more to the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church, more to the contemplative primacy of being over doing, and thus, less to the personal gifts of the person being professed and consecrated.

By the way, along the way I do use many of the gifts God has given me to some extent. Yesterday, for instance, I was able to play violin for a funeral Mass. I don't do this often at all because I personally prefer to participate in Mass differently than this, but it was a joy to do for friends in the parish. (A number of people who really do know me pretty well commented, "I didn't know you played the violin!") Today I did a Communion service and reflection as I do many Fridays during the year. Often times, as I have noted here before, I write reflections on weekly Scripture lections, and of course I write here and other places and do spiritual direction. This allows me to use some of my theology for others but even more fundamentally it is an expression of who I am in light of the grace of God in my life. Even so, the important truth is that the eremitical vocation (and, I would argue, any vocation to chronic illness!) is much more about being the gift God makes of us  --- no matter how hidden eremitical life or our illness makes that gift --- than it is a matter of focusing on or being anxious about using or not using the gifts God has given us.

In other words my life glorifies God and is a service to God's People even if no one has a clue what specific gifts God has given me because it reveals the power of God to redeem and transfigure a reality fraught with sin, death, and the power of the absurd. A non-eremitical vocation to chronic illness does the same thing if only one can allow God's grace to work in and transfigure them. We ourselves as covenant partners of God in all things then become the incarnate "answer" to the often-terrible question, "WHY?!!"  In Christ, in our graced and transfigured lives, this question ceases to be one of unresolved torment; instead, it becomes both an invitation to and an instance of hope-filled witness and joyful proclamation. "WHY??" So that Christ might live in me and in me triumph over all that brings chaos and meaninglessness to human lives. WHY?1! So that the God of life may triumph over the powers of sin and death in us, the Spirit may transform isolation into genuine solitude in us, and the things that ordinarily separate us from God may become sacraments of God's presence and inescapable, unconquerable love in us!

I hope this is helpful and answers your questions.

In Honor of "Delixit Nos": On the Sacred Heart of Jesus (reprised)

[In his newest Encyclical, Delixit Nos, Pope Francis and the Church] celebrate a feast [and a reality] that may seem at first glance to be irrelevant to contemporary life. The Feast of the Sacred Heart developed in part as a response to pre-destinationist theologies which diminished the universality of the gratuitous love of God and consigned many to perdition. But the Church's own theology of grace and freedom point directly to the reality of the human heart -- that center of the human person where God freely speaks himself and human beings respond in ways which are salvific for them and for the rest of the world. It asks us to see all  persons as constituted in this way and called to life in and of God. [Jesus'] Sacred Heart, then, despite the shift in context, asks us to reflect again on the nature of the human heart, to the greatest danger to spiritual or authentically human life the Scriptures identify, and too, on what a contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart might mean for us.

As I have written here before, the heart is the symbol of the center of the human person. It is a theological term which points first of all to God and to God's activity deep within us. It is not so much that we have a heart and then God comes to dwell there; it is that where God dwells within us and bears witness to himself, we have a heart. The human heart (not the cardiac muscle but the center of our personhood the Scriptures call heart) is a dialogical event where God speaks, calls, breathes, and sings us into existence and where, in one way and degree or another, we respond to become the people we are. It is therefore important that our hearts be open and flexible, that they be obedient to the Voice and love of God, and so that they may be responsive in all the ways they are summoned to be.

Bearing this in mind it is no surprise that the Scriptures speak in many places about the very worst thing which could befall a human being and her spiritual life. We hear it in the following line from Ezekiel: [[If today you hear [God's] voice, harden not your hearts.]] Many things contribute to such a reaction. We know that love is risky and that it always hurts. Sometimes this hurt is akin to the mystical experience of being pierced by God's love and is a wonderful but difficult experience. Sometimes it is the pain of compassion or empathy or grief. These are often bittersweet experiences, but they are also life giving. Other times love wounds us in less fruitful ways: we are betrayed by friends or family, we reach out to another in love and are rejected, a billion smaller losses wound us in ways from which we cannot seem to recover.

In such cases our hearts are not only wounded but become scarred, indurated, less sensitive to pain (or pleasure), stiff and relatively inflexible. They, quite literally, become "hardened" and we may be fearful and unwilling or even unable to risk further injury. When the Scriptures speak of the "hardening" of our hearts they use the very words medicine uses to speak of the result of serious and prolonged wounding: induration, sclerosis, callousedness. Such hardening is self-protective but it also locks us into a world which makes us less capable of responding to love with all of its demands and riskiness. It makes us incapable of suffering well (patiently, fruitfully), or of real selflessness, generosity, or compassion.

It is here that the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' is instructive and where contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart can assist us. The Sacred Heart is clearly the place where human and divine are united in a unique way. While we are not called to Daughterhood or to Sonship in the exact same sense of Jesus' (he is "begotten" Son, we are adopted Sons --- and I use only Sons because of the prophetic, countercultural sense that term had for women in the early Church), we are meant to be expressions of a similar unity and heritage; we are meant to have God as the well spring of life and love at the center of our existence.

Like the Sacred Heart our own hearts are meant to be "externalized" in a sense and (made) transparent to others. They are meant to be wounded by love and deeply touched by the pain of others but not scarred or indurated in that woundedness; they are meant to be compassionate hearts on fire with love and poured out for others --- hearts which are marked by the cross in all of its kenotic (self-emptying) dimensions and therefore too by the joy of ever-new life. The truly human heart is a reparative heart which heals the woundedness of others and empowers them to love as well. Such hearts are hearts which love as God loves, and therefore which do justice. I think that allowing our own hearts to be remade in this way represents an authentic devotion to Jesus' Sacred Heart. There is nothing lacking in relevance or contemporaneity in that!

Hermits and Eucharistic Spirituality, Pointed Questions (reprised from 2011)

[[Dear Sister Laurel,

How is it that hermits reflect the centrality of Eucharist in their spiritual lives if they do not attend Mass daily? I heard you remark in another context that you didn't attend Mass if solitude required otherwise. My understanding is that religious are required canonically to attend Mass daily if that is possible, and you yourself say on this blog that Eucharist is the center of everything that happens at your hermitage. So, how is it you can skip Mass just because it is more convenient to remain in solitude and still claim the title Sister and assert how central Eucharist is in your life? My other question is how do you receive Communion if there is no one there but yourself? Isn't self-communication forbidden to Catholics?]]

These topics, as you apparently are aware, came up on the Catholic Hermits list. One person there argued that hermits, like anyone else, should get to Mass as often as possible (daily!), and should not miss simply because it was "inconvenient" to one's solitude. Since, they argued, religious are required to participate at Mass in this way it makes sense that diocesan hermits are also so required. Others have argued that in today's world of easy transportation and numerous parishes people should be able to get to Mass daily one way or another and that hermits certainly should do so. Some know hermits who attend the parish Mass each day, or at least most every day and argue on that basis. My own argument was that fidelity to solitude sometimes meant not getting to daily Mass. I believe it is possible to develop a strong Eucharistic spirituality in solitude even without getting to Mass daily and that is what I want to look at in this post. 

On the Place of Solitude in the Hermit's Life

However, before I say more in response to your question I need to clarify one critical point. Your comments include a misconstrual of what I said, and a misunderstanding regarding the nature of eremitical solitude. Namely, hermits do not skip Mass merely because it is inconvenient to their solitude; they do so because solitude is their full-time calling and the actual occasion, environment, and resulting quality of whatever union with God is achieved in their life. Solitude is not just a means for the hermit, but a goal as well. In this perspective, solitude (or what Canon 603 refers to as the "silence of solitude") is not a self-indulgent luxury which just happens to provide an environment for other things in the hermit's life (though external silence and physical solitude will certainly serve in this way). It is instead the reality which is achieved together with God when a hermit is faithful to (among other things) long term external silence and solitude. Thus, it is important that the hermit  maintain her faithfulness to this long term external silence and solitude. Solitude is, again, both the means to and the goal of the hermit's existence because eremitical solitude itself is a form of communal or ecclesial existence and an expression of union with God and all that is precious to God.

In saying this I mean that the hermit's life is to give witness to the union with God which is achieved in solitude as well as the "silence of solitude" which is an expression and sign of this union, and so, to the redemption of all forms of human isolation, alienation and estrangement achieved therein. They are called to come to wholeness and holiness in solitude and their witness is to the most foundational relationship present in the human being, the relationship with God who is creator and ground of all existence. In other words, although community is important to the hermit, it is primarily the koinonia (communion) of solitude that is their vocation. They are called by God through the agency of his Church to the very rare and paradoxical reality of eremitical solitude --- a form of union with God and others marked by and grounded in aloneness with the Alone. Unless we understand that solitude is not isolation, not alienation, nor a feeble excuse for the misanthrope, and certainly not a luxury for the hermit, we may believe that it conflicts with a truly Eucharistic spirituality. My argument is that it does not and that the way the hermit approaches attendance at Mass is dependent upon this way of seeing things.

Eucharistic Spirituality in General

When we speak of Eucharistic Spirituality what is it we are talking about then? And for the hermit who claims that the Eucharist is at the heart of everything that happens in the hermitage, what is she really talking about --- especially if the Mass is not (or is rarely) celebrated at the hermitage? Of course it means a spirituality focused on the Eucharist itself and the hermit will usually (not always) reserve Eucharist in her hermitage, pray in the presence of the Eucharist, celebrate Communion services (Liturgies of the Word with Communion), and so forth. But even more than this everything at the hermitage will be geared towards Christ's incarnation climaxed in his cross and resurrection. It seems to me that the focus involves two particular and interrelated processes: first, that, in a dynamic of kenosis or self-emptying, the Word is made flesh, and second, that, in a dynamic of conversion, reconciliation, and transfiguration, flesh (in the Pauline sense) is made Word. Everything that happens is meant to be an occasion of one or both of these and at the center of it all is the Presence of the Risen Christ in Word and Sacrament, reminding, summoning, challenging, nourishing, and consoling.

Eucharistic Spirituality, The Word Made Flesh

God has chosen to come to us as a human person. More than that he has chosen to be present in a power perfected in weakness (asthenia). He is present in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. He enters into sin and death, the truly or definitvely godless realities and transforms them with his presence. In other words he makes what was literally godless into sacraments of his love, his being God for and with others. For me the Eucharist is a symbol of this specific process and presence (and I mean symbol in the most intensive sense as that reality which does not merely stand for something else (that would be a sign or metaphor) but rather as something that participates in the very reality it mediates). While Mass is the place where we literally re-member all of this, where bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, where the Word of God is proclaimed with power, Eucharistic Spirituality seems to me to be that spirituality where all this is worked out in everyday life so that every meal is holy, every reality is looked at with eyes that can see God's presence there, and where one is nourished, challenged, consoled, etc, with that presence in the unexpected place and way.

Eucharistic spirituality, is a spirituality which is open to God's presence in ordinariness, not only to his presence at Mass or the more exalted moments of prayer, etc, but in the humbleness of human life generally. And for the hermit this means in the solitariness of ordinary life --- for it is in solitude that we are generally weakest, and our brokenness is most clearly revealed. My own focus in the hermitage is the transformation of ordinariness into Sacrament. This is essentially Eucharistic. Everything should serve this. Everything within the hermitage serves the Word becoming flesh, the allowing of God to dwell within, to love, minister to, and to transform with his presence. Everything becomes a matter of dying to self and rising in God, to learning obedience (hearing and responding to the Word of God) in a way which leads to purity of heart. Yes, often (though not always) Eucharist is present in the hermitage, but whether or not it is present it remains the living symbol of what everything in the hermitage can and is meant to be if given over to the purposes of eremitical life. I sincerely believe that if the hermit practices Eucharistic spirituality she recognizes that her hermitage itself is meant to be a tabernacle situated in the midst of her community and that her own life is bread broken and wine poured out for others.

Eucharistic Spirituality, Flesh Made Word

The second and interrelated process which makes up a genuinely Eucharistic spirituality focuses on what happens to the hermit --- or really, to any Christian for whom Eucharist is central --- namely, that they become a Word Event which embodies and proclaims the Gospel of God in Christ. For the hermitage to become tabernacle, for the hermit to become bread broken and wine poured out for others, the hermit herself must, over time, be transformed and transfigured.

Flesh, in the Pauline sense of the term, means the whole person, body and soul, under the sway of sin. It means being a person of divided heart, one who is enmeshed in processes and realities which are resistant to Christ. It means being less than fully human, and in terms of language, it means being distorted forms of language events which are less than a univocal hymn of praise and gratitude --- screams of pain and anguish, lies or hypocritical formulations and identity, utterances (of anger, prejudice, arrogance, indifference, selfishness, etc) which foster division, insecurity, and suffering for others, a noisy or insecure presence which cannot abide silence and is unable to listen or respond lovingly and with compassion --- all are the less than human forms of language event we are, at least at times. These are also examples of what Paul would have termed "flesh" (sarx).

In the power of the Spirit, these can be transformed, transfigured into articulate expressions of Gospel wholeness, joy, peace, hope, and challenge. That which is less than human can become authentically human; sinners are reconciled to become persons who are truly and wholly authored by God. As one steeps oneself in and seriously contends with the Word of God one is transformed into an expression of that Word. In silence and solitude flesh can become Word just as the Word becomes Flesh. All of this is genuinely Eucharistic spirituality I think, and it remains Eucharistic even if the hermit does not celebrate Eucharist with her parish community daily. For the hermit, those privileged celebrations lead back to silence while solitude and the silence of solitude prepare for the hermit's participation at Mass. But they are all part of a single spirituality in which Christ is received as guest and gift and ordinary reality is transformed into an expression of his presence. Such a spirituality is open to anyone who cannot actually get to Mass more than once a week, and sometimes less frequently.  It is inspired by the Eucharist and modeled on Eucharistic transformation, life, and hope. In fact, I suspect it may well be an instance of genuinely Eucharistic spirituality our world truly needs.

Hermits and Self-Communication

Your last question was also raised on the Catholic Hermits list. It is customary that people do not self-commu-nicate and there are very good theological reasons for this, but solitary hermits are an accepted exception. Canonists are apparently clear (according to a clarification offered on the Catholic Hermits list) that this is a unique situation which calls for such an exception to general custom and theological wisdom. It is also, it seems to me, a sign of how truly esteemed and unusual is the hermit vocation for such an exception to be made. The Church allows this exception precisely because of the importance of eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the church. I would argue that eremitical solitude, to whatever extent it is lived authentically, is essentially Eucharistic --- even when the hermit is unable to leave her hermitage to attend Mass --- and is therefore a very good reason for this singular exception to be made.

In any case, hermits should certainly be careful of their use of this permission. Their own communions must always be seen as extensions of the parish and/or diocesan liturgy, their hermitages must be understood as tabernacles of Christ's presence, and the silence of solitude must be embraced as a natural expression of communal life and love. While the hermit does not literally receive Eucharist from the hands of another during Communion services in the hermitage, she does receive this Sacrament as a gift of the parish community and so, from their hands. The communal nature of the eremitical life is constantly underscored by the presence of Eucharist in the hermitage, and the quality of being "alone with the Alone" FOR the salvation of the world is underscored in this way as well. Eremitical life is not selfish, not individualistic or privatistic, and emphatically not a matter of merely living alone -- much less doing so in whatever way one likes. The presence of Eucharist both symbolizes and so, reminds and calls us to realize this (make this real) more and more fully everyday. I should note that it is entirely reasonable to expect that should a hermit ever tend to take the Eucharist (and especially the reserved Eucharist) for granted or become arrogant or simply lax in her praxis and perspective, then, at least for a time, she should forego even the reservation of the Eucharist, and get to Mass more often, until she recovers her proper perspective and devotion.

Summing Things Up

For me the bottom line in all of this is that while the celebration of Eucharist is indeed the source and summit of ecclesial life --- and it certainly is that for the hermit as well --- a truly Eucharistic spirituality does NOT necessarily require that one go to Mass daily. (It does require one celebrate with one's faith community regularly and frequently!!) The hermit's life will be imprinted with the cross, be emptied, broken and given to others precisely insofar as she is faithful to eremitical solitude lived in the heart of the Church. She will celebrate every day, and do so with her parish faith community, even when the demands of solitude mean she cannot be physically present with them at Mass. If this is not the case, then we are implicitly saying to many people who pray, suffer, and love at least as fully and well as do daily Mass  participants (or diocesan hermits!) --- but who cannot get to Mass so regularly --- that they cannot be said to have or even be able to develop a truly Eucharistic spirituality. I am positive we do not want to do that, wouldn't you agree?

Postscript: Since this was originally posted the question has come up about people who never get to Mass for reasons of illness and disability. In such situations reservation of Eucharist is not a good idea. A better solution, including for hermits, is to depend on EEM's who bring the person Communion from the parish Mass. This maintains a necessary and vital (living) link between the person and the faith community as well as the essential linkage between Eucharist received in the home or hermitage and Eucharist celebrated at Mass. Since solitude is a communal reality, it cannot be devalued and allowed to devolve into isolation (eremitical reclusion is a different animal and profoundly communal); the link with the faith community, especially with an ecclesial vocation, must be maintained and fostered.

see also: Notes from Stillsong Hermitage: On the Reservation of Eucharist by Hermits and Feast of Saint Peter Damian