Good questions. I think with regard to c 603 it has been far more important to clearly state what the essence of eremitical hiddenness is about. Externals are not unimportant, but at the same time, they are not the heart of the matter. I thought writing about that was more important at the time. I think so still. Moreover, I trust that people can watch something and gauge the inconsistency involved when it is as blatant as what you have pointed out. I want to take this in another direction though, and move away from the person you asked about. The question your concerns raise for me is: can hermits or monks create videos and be truly hidden at the same time? Yes, I think they can. I am thinking of the work of a monk whose videos I was introduced to by a friend just yesterday. It is Fr Seraphim Aldea of Mull Monastery in Scotland. His videos are wonderful (so far I have only seen a handful); they are genuinely shot through with the Holy Spirit and despite the fact that Seraphim reveals his heart in them, there is never a sense that he is allowing us to go beyond what is kind of a personal iconostasis or grill.
In other words, it is in his transparency that Fr Seraphim lives and maintains a very real and essential hiddenness even in a public videographic presence. Perhaps this is because whether he is reading someone else's questions or responding from the deepest depths of his own heart, there is a clear reverence, love, and gratitude to God for every word, for the setting, for the potential of the communication, for those who will hear him speaking. More, there is a real joy in Seraphim's ministry, a love for tradition and also real regard for the contemporary world and its potential. He knows both of these, but he knows the Tradition in a particularly profound way. It is what allows him to speak credibly to the contemporary world. Father Seraphim recognizes some really awful ways monastic life has been compromised in this world, but he does not believe this is a necessary outcome. He is no antiquarian. No, he is a monastic who understands that authentic monastic (and eremitical) life can be lived in this time and place as well as in the first centuries of the Church. But what is striking to me is the way he maintains an essential hiddenness while simultaneously practicing an authentic transparency.
I have seen a similar paradox in a couple of Sisters I know. They are able to be entirely transparent to others, completely truthful, and yet it is in this transparency that genuine hiddenness is protected. What I see in them is that transparency does not mean that everything is allowed to hang out there for everyone to see. (We don't, for instance, hear about every ache or pain or medical appointment, etc.) It means instead, that the genuinely holy is revealed to others reverently and with love while what is not loving (and not helpful for the other to see or know) is withheld. Especially, there is no pretense in them, and no tendency to disrespect either themselves or others in this way. I am only just beginning to examine, reflect on, and analyze this. It is not entirely new to me, but it is entirely new with someone posting videos that are sacred and profoundly revelatory of self and of God.
Another piece of this is Seraphim's wearing of a habit. It is a simple fact that alerts one to his ecclesial identity. It essentially both stands out from and blends into the background -- whether the local forests, the monastery living room, a church where he is lecturing, or wherever he finds himself -- because, I am sure, he is entirely comfortable in his own skin. What we mainly see is Seraphim, not someone dressed in a costume. The covering of that skin is as familiar to Seraphim as any other part of himself and it functions both to signal the presence of hiddenness and to reveal him to others. That is the way habits function for those called to wear them. That is part of the reason one begins to wear them in novitiate so the novelty and correlative self-consciousness associated with them initially have time to wear off before one is seen in public in one. One needs time to grow in and come to know oneself in one's new role as a religious before being faced with the way the habit opens one to others' approaches with their profound needs and questions.
As an introduction to Fr Seraphim, I thought the following video was completely wonderful. Seraphim's first sentence in his response to the questions was stupendous! Unequivocal!! Compelling!!! Can we ever fall beyond the reach of God's love? See if you can see what I mean about that but also the combination of hiddenness and transparency Seraphim shows us, especially when he speaks of pretense.
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