[[Sister Laurel, if c 603 is willed by God, then is it the only way to be a hermit? I know you have written that the majority of hermits will be non-canonical or not consecrated hermits, but if c 603 is willed by God, then why wouldn't it be willed for everyone who wants to be a hermit? Is c 603 the only way of being a hermit today?]]
Thanks for your questions. You know, you have managed to reprise the position I held when I made final profession, but it is a position I came to reject pretty quickly. It seemed to me then that non-canonical hermit life would be a temporary context for living one's hermit life until one was admitted to profession and consecration. Fairly quickly I came to understand 1) that not all hermits would (nor should they) seek to be consecrated, and 2) not all hermits would (nor should they) be accepted for admission to profession and consecration. I looked at the examples of non-canonical hermits beginning with the Desert Abbas and Ammas and came to appreciate the vocation more adequately than I had previously. That involved coming to appreciate more than I had that lay hermit vocations were significant in and of themselves (not as a mere stepping stone to something else), that they were truly eremitical, and, at the same time, that they were somewhat different than consecrated hermits (whether communal or solitary). What this meant was I came to see that God called people to more than one kind of hermit life within the Catholic Church, and God called others outside the Church as well.
As I consider why God might will three different forms of eremitical life (not counting lauras composed of those from each of these groups)
- solitary canonical (consecrated under c 603),
- communal canonical or semi-eremitic life (consecrated under various canons but not c 603), and
- non-canonical or lay hermit life (lived in the baptismal state* under the canons that apply to all the baptized),
what strikes me now is that the values and praxis of hermit life are particularly universal in truth, scope, and applicability. We need hermits from all
states of life so the unique witness of this life's share in the Gospel is seen from every perspective. At the same time, we needed a canon that established solitary consecrated eremitical life in
universal law for the first time ever**, and simultaneously we need one that provides a normative vision for all eremitical life in the Church. Canon 603 serves in this way. I believe that the diversity of eremitical life in the Church is incredibly edifying and inspiring. I have written many times now on whether c 603 is the only pathway to being a hermit today and the simple answer to that is no, it is not. There will always be lay or non-canonical hermits, and I believe they will always outnumber consecrated hermits, both solitary and communal. I think there will also always be communal consecrated hermits. To speak of the diversity and universality of eremitical life or the beauty of that diversity and universality is to affirm indirectly that even as it provides a normative vision, c 603 is not the only way to live eremitical life! We are a many-membered body and the heart of that body is revealed or made manifest by hermits from every state of life.
Because this is true, it is important to stress that the Church esteems every form of eremitical life and no one should feel constrained to become c 603 hermits if they truly feel called to non-canonical (lay or clerical) eremitical life, or to become a member of a congregation of religious hermits if they feel called to solitary consecrated eremitical life (which can also include lauras), for example. By the way, the image at the top of this page is of a Carthusian at prayer. I tend to love this picture not only because of what it captures with the starkness of the prayer desk, etc (we exist as complete human beings only in communion with God and live this in the silence of solitude), but also because it is iconic of every form of eremitical life. Every hermit, canonical and non-canonical, can find themselves in this iconic image and see that God has provided diverse forms of eremitical life that correspond to and reveal the unity, diversity, and freedom of eremitical life under the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church embraces them all. Thanks be to God!!
You can check out this link for the most recent prior article on this topic at The Only Way to be a Hermit?
** While a diocese will implement c 603 in somewhat differing ways from a neighboring diocese, for instance, c 603 is a universal Church norm, not a diocesan one. In fact, it replaced diocesan norms and statutes used for governing eremitical life in some places in previous centuries. The vocation is a universal one, but the discernment and supervision of the vocation occur at the diocesan level. Thus, the guidelines for understanding and implementing c 603 come from DICLSAL and the Vatican. Each diocese will do as they can to prudently implement such guidelines and the canon itself, but they are implementing a universal norm or canon in doing so.
* sometimes clerics will live as non-canonical hermits as well.
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