HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025!!!

Of course, the new year begins with Advent for us Christians, but there is no doubt that the changing of the date on the 1st of January reminds us of the way the newness of time creeps up on us and the old slips away as well. We mark a transition by marking this day, a transition from unfulfilled promises, perhaps, to a time of new possibilities and potentiality. We will spend a bit of time getting used to writing a new date on our journal pages (or our checks!) and perhaps we will also recognize that living is about negotiating this ongoing never-ending transition well. Though we may have landed in a new year, and though we may quickly become used to writing that new number whenever necessary, we must not forget that time continues to move around, in, and through us, and we do the same with it. There is no real stopping place in time and no actual destination; there is only the journey.

So, today I renew my commitment to this journey and to valuing the journey over the destination. I am grateful (SO grateful!!) for those who accompany me, and who allow me to accompany them as well! I pray for and celebrate all of you. Meanwhile, we move into a Jubilee Year of Hope in the Church! This focus is rich and sustaining, and also very challenging because it promises not just times of light and increased life, but of darkness and loss as well. Resurrection is real and grounds our hope, but we don't experience resurrection without suffering and death. Someone reminded me that a year of hope also means a year of courage, so I pray that we each may find all the courage we need to negotiate this piece of our journey and live it well!! I am also reminded that David Whyte says the following about courage:

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we care deeply about. . .. To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made. (Consolations, excerpt pp 49-50)

May the blessings of our God touch each and all of us with his sustaining love and empower us with his presence as Emmanuel!! All good wishes for a genuinely happy new year!

Does God want the Hermit "All for himself"?

[[Sister Laurel, do you believe that God wants you all for himself?  Is that why God called you to be a hermit? One online hermit says that she is not meant to be involved in parishes or any form of ministry and especially not c 603 or any "temporal church" reality because God wanted her all for himself. That seems to me to be a strange way of seeing God or any Christian vocation, but I can't really argue against it. I mean can't God want us all for himself, can't he do whatever he wants? And if he is love itself, then couldn't he want an exclusive relationship like this? Do you see your vocation in these terms? Is that what c 603 says??]]

Thanks for your questions. I think they are important.  I see them as especially important theologically, that is, in what we are saying about God in this assertion. When we suggest that God wants someone all for himself it gives us a picture of God that is distorted.  While it is true that we are each called to live as someone belonging entirely to God, we must recognize that in Christian theology such belonging is part of giving our lives entirely for the sake of others. Both of these things are true at the same time. It is a significant paradox where one belongs entirely to God so that one may give oneself entirely to all that is precious to God. But this is not precisely the same, I don't think, as God wanting someone all for himself. That characterization of God sounds selfish to me; it seems terribly self-serving (both of God and of the hermit making the claim) and that is certainly not the God Jesus reveals to us.

Canon 603 defines this (solitary hermit) life as one of stricter separation from the world, assiduous prayer and penance, and the silence of solitude. Certainly, this is embraced so that God might be the One he has willed for eternity to be, and yes, it is for the hermit's essential well-being as imago dei. As such, the vocation is about union with God, no doubt. But the canon itself says it is not only for the praise of God but for the salvation of the world. In other words, we give ourselves entirely to God so that this relationship, 1) reveals the nature of God to others, and 2) is fruitful in the way any Christian vocation is meant to be. Eremitical life is not a selfish one and the God who calls one to this life is not a selfish God, but a God who gives himself exhaustively to us at every moment.

I can understand why you are having trouble arguing against this notion of God wanting someone for himself alone! I am also having trouble saying what is so profoundly disturbing about this notion (and it is disturbing enough to make me feel somewhat nauseous at the thought). It has, I think, something really fundamental, as one relative of mine might once have said, "ass-backward"!! Thinking back many years now, I have heard Sisters explaining their vocation to children by saying that God "wanted them for himself" as they talk about why they have embraced celibacy rather than marriage as they were consecrated to be the "Spouse of Christ". But while this explanation captures something of the special sense of being loved by God carried by the vocation, it is not accurate when taken at face value. 

This is because neither Jesus nor the One he called Abba want the Sister for themselves alone. God calls this Sister to this relationship because he wants the Sister's life for the sake of others and the missioning to others that being God's own allows and requires if God is truly to be Emmanuel!! We can reasonably talk about being God's own, for instance, and I have written here that we are called to our vocations for God's sake as well as for our own and for the sake of all we touch ministerially. I recognize that this is, to some extent, pretty provocative language, but I think it falls far short of suggesting that God calls persons to reclusive eremitical vocations because he wants them all for himself!! I suppose I just can't get other seriously flawed notions of God out of my mind here; this reminds me of child sacrifice or throwing people over parapets or into pits of flames, or cutting their hearts out as part of sacrificing them to a god who desires such things. It is an essentially pagan notion of God, barely one step removed from blood sacrifice made to satisfy the anger or blood lust of a tyrannical god.

I promise I will think about this more (in fact, I am likely not to be able to cease thinking about it!), and hopefully, I will be able to say more about what is wrong with this notion, or at least say it more coherently. As you capture in asking the question, there is something slippery about the assertion and we don't want to deny God anything God truly wills or desires. But the idea that God could want someone just for himself alone is perverse when we are dealing with the God of Jesus Christ who reveals himself as self-emptying love-in-act. After all, God is not a human person-writ-large nor does he need or desire us in the way other human beings need or desire one another. He is "Wholly Other" and yet loves us exhaustively so that he (and we) may be given to (love and serve) others in a similarly exhaustive way. 

That is the pattern or paradigm the Christ Event established as the very definition of both humanity and divinity. In fact, in the history of Theology Jesus has been called "The Man for Others". God empowers that in him and that is who he calls us to be as well, even when we are also called to live that fundamental generosity as hermits or recluses.

On the Essential Hiddenness of the Diocesan Hermit (Reprise from 2008)

[[Okay, so why would one want people to know they are a hermit unless they want notoriety or recognition of that? You have referred to the essential hiddenness of the vocation, but you also write that people in your parish might think you are just a contemplative sister without the cowl and other trappings. So, what do you really want, to be hidden or to be known? Isn't this, along with the emphasis on active participation in the parish, kind of hypocritical or at least inconsistent?]]

First, let me point out I referred to "merely" a contemplative sister (with merely in quotes) so that, hopefully, I indicated that I think very highly of such a vocation. My point was simply that that is not all I am. I also think it is desirable to have others recognize at least the general nature of a vocation that someone was called to out of their midst and on their behalf (as happens in the call at the beginning of the rite of perpetual profession). However, that aside for the moment, the eremitical vocation is both ancient and relatively new in the church. The existence of hermits remains quite rare, and despite a modest increase in numbers (and a larger increase in those who have climbed on what is a faddist bandwagon but will never actually be true hermits [see note at bottom]), it will, I suspect, always remain quite rare.

What is not rare in today's world though, is the alienation, estrangement, and isolation that affects and afflicts so many --- especially the single elderly, the chronically ill and disabled, the isolated poor living in the unnatural solitudes of blighted urban areas, those working day in and day out in an "ordinariness" which leads to the questioning of their own value or that of their lives, etc. It is to these people especially I think the hermit can speak specially and powerfully, for the hermit says with her life that isolation can be transformed with the grace of God into something far more meaningful and fruitful, namely a solitude which witnesses with special vividness to the Gospel of God in Christ.

By the way, recognition is not necessarily a bad thing. What God does in our midst deserves to be made known in one way or another. This does not necessarily conflict with what I have called the essential hiddenness of the vocation either (which is defined by Canon Law as a greater or stricter separation from the world, rather than as absolute separation or reclusion). The identity of the canonical hermit is a public one in the legal sense of that term. So, the canonical hermit lives out the witness of the core of her vocation, namely that God alone is sufficient for us, that he will always work to bring life out of death, light out of darkness, meaning out of meaninglessness, and wholeness out of brokenness. She says this with her life, and this is the case whether she has been brought to eremitic life through illness (or other challenges) herself or not. She also clearly says that any person is made for communion with God, that God lives at the heart of each person and wills to love them exhaustively, just as he wills them to return this love as exhaustively as they can. To live a serious prayer life, and in fact to be God's own prayers in this world is the essential vocation of every person, and the hermit lives as a reminder of this. I personally believe my life bears witness to much of this, and I seek to do so more profoundly and extensively.

As for what I want, well that is fairly simple and straightforward: I want to do what God wills for me, by living my Rule of Life, the Camaldolese charism, the unique charism of the diocesan hermit, according to the discernment I come to with the help of my director, pastor, Bishop, and others. The Camaldolese charism is particularly significant here since it involves a three-fold set of dimensions or "goods": 1) the cenobitic (communal), 2) the eremitical (solitary), and 3) the evangelical (the dimension of proclaiming or witnessing to the Gospel whether this be through hospitality, spiritual direction, writing, painting, etc). The Camaldolese charism itself justifies my limited active participation in the life of my parish community, but so does, I believe, the charism of diocesan eremitism. While it is true my life is lived with and for God alone, that is expressed in a concrete commitment to those he cherishes, particularly my diocese and parish. On the other hand, what is also true is that the majority of this commitment is lived out "in cell," not in direct participation in the events and activities of the parish. My limited participation enlivens and concretizes what happens within the hermitage, while what happens in the hermitage deepens and universalizes what is celebrated in the events and activities of the parish.

While it is common to think and question in sort of black and white, either/or terms and queries, the truth is that quite often Christian discipleship (of which eremitism is one expression) must be lived out in paradoxical ways, not either/or, but both/and. As I have said before, one must be careful not to fool oneself --- and we are all more than a little capable of rationalizing behavior that runs counter to that we are truly called to --- but once one determines the Holy Spirit is behind a certain impulse, etc, one must go with that. By the way, perhaps you are envisioning more than what I envision when I use the phrase "active participation" in the parish. I have described these other places so I won't do that again here, but I will say that it is not an "emphasis" in my life (real though it may be) and is truly minimal when I consider what is actually possible for me.

This brings us back to the question of the nature of the hiddenness which is the hermit's. What is this essential hiddenness I have spoken of, and others have also written about? Well, it has to do with who I really am, where my "real work" takes place, and just what that separates me from. For instance, despite your reading of my blog, you really have very little sense of my day-to-day life. People who see me daily at Mass or at an occasional parish event do not see me in the hermitage, tend not to be able to imagine what the shape of my days are like, etc. The hermit's life really is essentially hidden, and most specifically, hidden in the cell where the largest part of her life actually takes place. It is hidden in God, hidden in prayer, hidden from the eyes of those who might want to see inside, hidden even from the Church who commissions the hermit to withdraw (from the Gk, anachoresis) in this way.

Yes, she can list the various things she does: Office, lectio, quiet prayer, personal work, ordinary chores, study, writing, and direction, but really, what does this actually reveal? As far as I can tell, it leaves the essential mystery of the life intact. No, the life is one of essential hiddenness even if one does not remain completely anonymous, leaves the hermitage on occasion, wears a recognizable habit, or participates in the occasional parish or other activity. (And of course, non-parishioners don't know any of this at all; they see a sister -- no more nor less.) As you can tell, I don't think there is necessarily any real contradiction or hypocrisy involved so long as one is very clear where one's real life and ministry lie and does not allow that to be compromised. I hope this helps clarify matters.

[note: my reference to the faddist bandwagon was not directed to non-canonical hermits who live a truly eremitical life. The church clearly recognizes these hermits as a serious eremitical expression. It is directed, however, to those persons who think they can be hermits "on the weekends," or something similar. There are many "wannabes" out there in this as in any field or vocation, but most will never really embrace true solitude, nor will they therefore be able to witness to those people who cannot CHOOSE their (physical) solitude but need to hear it can be transformed with God's grace.]

Feast of the Holy Family (Reprise)

Today's Feast has not always been one with which I could resonate well because I grew up in what would euphemistically be called a "dysfunctional" family in which love was a difficult and sometimes difficult-to-find reality. Thus, the symbol of the Holy Family was one I was sure I did not understand and might never really come close to understanding. On the other hand,  both then and now, I have had many really profound experiences of  "family" in a broader and less formal sense including families who "adopted me" (again, in an informal but real sense), in music groups, with friends throughout school, via parish communities, and with Sisters with whom I lived in community or otherwise shared the values and bonds of religious life. 

In all of these, I learned the importance and challenge of loving and being loved into wholeness, that is, loving and being loved in a way that allowed my deepest potential as a person to be realized. And yet, that wasn't always an easy thing to allow! It took and still takes the focused work I associate with spiritual direction, the deep and intense silence of prayer, and the community in all its forms that grounds and renders meaningful and coherent the eremitical solitude that represents the context, charism, and goal of my own life with God. Luke's infancy narrative gives an account of Mary's single powerful "Fiat!" and notes, "She pondered all these things in her heart," which points to a process extending far beyond that single "Fiat". Coming to be the bearer of Light and Life God wills us each to be in Christ takes innumerable "Yesses" -- and not a few no's as well! The pondering we do in our hearts is not always peace-filled, and the Magnificat we learn to sing with our lives may be more compelling for the dissonances and darkness that continue to mark it in various ways.

 (Reprise) Christmas is a season of Joy not because there is no darkness, no sin, no oppression, or death, but because it reminds us that God has made of our humanity a sacrament of (his) own life and light in spite of the continuing presence of these other realities. History has become the sanctuary of the transcendent and eternal God. Our God is now Emmanuel (God-with-us) and we, the littlest and the least have been ennobled (and revealed as made noble!) beyond anything we might otherwise have imagined. In and through Christ we too are called to be Emmanuel for our world, in and through the Christ Event we are each made to be temples of the Holy Spirit. As Advent reminded us, we live in "in-between" times, a time of already but not-yet. There is work to be done, and suffering we will still experience. But the light and joy of Christmas is real and something which will inspire and empower all that still needs to be done: caring for, loving (!) the least and littlest so they truly know they are the dwelling places of God; opposing the Herods of this world in whatever effective way we can so the Kingdom of God may be more fully realized by divine grace through time; allowing the joy and potential of the Christ's nativity in our world and ourselves to grow to its proper fullness of grace and stature as we embrace authentic humanity and holiness.

My very best wishes to all on this Feast of the Holy Family and my special thanks to the Sisters of the Holy Family (Fremont, CA) for the charism embodied by the members of their congregation and the mission they embrace so selflessly. As they mark the renewal of their vows on this feast we celebrate that they have been and remain a light to the littlest and the least amongst us, to the lost, the abandoned and rejected, to the homeless or those who are otherwise without families, and to all those who have found in them a compassionate Presence capable in Christ of healing the wounds occasioned by the sin and death at work in our world and sometimes in our own families. I locate them at the crossroads of Mercy and Grace and know I am not alone in this. Special blessings to Holy Family Sisters Marietta, Dorothy, Annie, Sandra Ann, Michaela, and Elaine.

The Jubilee Year of Hope and Year of Hope Logo

The Jubilee Year of Hope Logo

My Director sent me this today and I thought I would share it. We are approaching the Jubilee year of Hope, and I couldn't think of a better theme to focus ourselves on given the state of our world and the promise the Christ Event provides for that world! Being hopeful is not the same as wishing for things. Being hopeful rests, with all of its uncertainty and risk, upon a strong ground of certainty. In Christianity this strong ground is the Christ Event, all it achieved, and all it continues to achieve as we move forward to the day when heaven and earth completely interpenetrate one another and God is all in all. It is for this reason that I love the above logo used the cross as symbol of our faith, as sail, and as anchor in times of great storm. It reminds me a bit of the Carthusian logo with its Cross standing still and stable over a changing, turning world and under a canopy of seven stars (For St Bruno and his companions, founders of the congregation).

With Christ's nativity the story of heaven's interpenetration of earth begins a new and definitive chapter in God's story and the story of God's creation. That child's humble birth will lead inexorably through Jesus' life, ministry, passion and death. In our daily readings of this season, we do not linger in the daily readings over the nativity because everything in the story tends toward and follows from the cross of Christ. So it is with Christian life and especially with Christian hope. The Cross is that still, solid, stable point grounding and guiding our ability to hope at all. As we celebrate this season of joy and move into this new Jubilee year, let us do so with an awareness of the way the Christ Event allows us to be a People of Hope. God knows, our world needs us in this way!

 

Defining terms: Bandaid Solution and the Christ Event

 Hi Sister, you wrote that the Christ Event is not a bandaid solution to human sin. That raised two questions for me, 1) What is the Christ Event? and 2) what do you mean by bandaid solution? I figure it has something to do with God willing the Christ Event from the beginning, but are you saying God did not send Jesus to deal with human sin? Thanks!

Thanks for the questions, and Merry Christmas! You are very much on the right track with your sense of what I meant when I spoke of a bandaid solution. First though, the term "Christ Event". Generally, the term means the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus as God's Christ. In this sense, it is synonymous with the term Incarnation since it takes the entire life, death, resurrection, and ascension for Jesus to fully incarnate the Word of God. This doesn't happen with Mary's fiat; instead, it is something that is realized only over time as Jesus, in the words of Luke, "grows in grace and stature" as the human one who is entirely transparent to the God he reveals definitively to us. I said in the post you asked about that our God reveals himself as the One who willed not to remain alone and was in search of a counterpart. The Christ Event points to all of those events in Jesus' life where he says yes to truly being the counterpart of the One he called Abba. One thing I should note is the importance of the term "event" in this. Theologians recognize that myriads of things occur throughout one's life only some of which have profound significance. When these rise to this level of significance, we speak of them as "events" and no longer as mere occurrences.

"Bandaid solution" is a way of saying Jesus' mission and the incarnation of the Word of God was about more than dealing with the problem of human sinfulness. It recognizes that as serious as the problem of human sin is, there is a deeper, more encompassing purpose to the Christ Event and to the will of God revealed there. It is a way of saying had mankind never sinned at all, God would still have sent Jesus to renew creation and to invite us to share in his true humanity. Within an evolutionary view of the world and the processes of creation, a creation that is ongoing, the Christ Event represents a moment in all of that that changes and even transfigures creation by making God personally present in space and time. Moreover, all Creation has been made for this Event and all it brings. This transfiguration is the deeper and inclusive purpose of God in the Christ Event; it is not simply a "bandaid solution" God threw on after the fact of human sin. It invites each of us to be remade in light of that Event, to become a new creation in Christ, and to be people who, in a conscious and focused way, live with, for, and from the One who is Emmanuel. We are those called to steward creation to its fulfillment with and for the One we know in Christ as "God with Us".

Gaudete, Christus est Natus. . .!!

Gaudete, gaudete! Christus est natus Ex Maria virgine, gaudete! 

Rejoice, rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary, Rejoice!

Tempus adest gratiæ Hoc quod optabamus, Carmina lætitiæ Devote reddamus. 

Deus homo factus est Natura mirante, Mundus renovatus est A Christo regnante. 

Ezechielis porta Clausa pertransitur, Unde lux est orta Salus invenitur.
Ergo nostra contio Psallat iam in lustro; Benedicat Domino: Salus Regi nostro.

The time of grace has come— What we have wished for; Songs of joy Let us give back faithfully. 

God has become man, With nature marvelling, The world has been renewed By the reigning Christ. 

The closed gate of Ezekiel Is passed through, Whence the light is risen; Salvation has been found. Therefore, let our assembly Now sing in brightness Let it bless the Lord: Salvation to our King.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!!!

A thread runs throughout the entire history of creation revealing that the will of God is to be Emmanuel, God With Us. Unfortunately, too often the way we have told this story is with a narrative of God beginning with Plan A (a perfect creation) which then requires God to come up with a Plan B when humanity sins and somehow screws up that creation. In this Plan B, the Christ Event is perceived as a kind of bandaid solution to human sin, a way of forgiving it and appeasing an infinitely offended God. I have even heard a version of this story where the theologian imagining the situation had a kind of heavenly conference occur between the three members of the Trinity to decide who would "go to earth" to resolve the problem!

Fortunately, we have now come to understand our world in evolutionary terms, and this means that the Christ Event is not Plan B, the way God deals with the unexpected and imperfect that are the result of human sin. Instead, it is what God willed from the beginning, a kind of evolutionary moment where a new creation begins in Christ. Sin is real, of course, and the Christ Event deals with sin and the godless death associated with it, but even more fundamentally, the Christ Event is part of this creation's evolution toward fullness and a new heaven and new earth where God is all in all. When scholars read Genesis and the story of the Garden of Eden today, we tend to read it as an account of our future and what we have been made for; it is the story of this played off against the way and reasons we refuse that future every day, rather than being an account of some primordial past. In this reading, the story becomes one of walking with God in a unique intimacy (or choosing to reject such intimacy out of self-consciousness and a sense of self-centered unworthiness). It too is manifestly the story of God as Emmanuel, God With Us and represents the most original will of God to not remain alone but to create as the sovereign God in search of a counterpart.

In creation, God is revealed as Emmanuel the One who wills to be God with us and the history of humankind is about learning that this is the God we are called to allow to love us fully as Emmanuel. In Jesus' life, and death, God is definitively revealed as Emmanuel, God With Us, and thus demonstrates his choice to assume a personal place in our lives and in and with his creation. In Jesus' resurrection and ascension, God reveals himself as the One who makes space within his own life for embodied (not disembodied!) human existence. Heaven and earth have begun more and more to interpenetrate one another. When we attend to the prospect of a second coming, it is within the context of a new heaven and new earth where God is not separated from earthly reality, but instead,as noted earlier, has become all in all. (Can we even begin to imagine what this phrase means??!!) 

At every moment of this extended narrative, our attention is drawn to God's eternal will to reveal himself (to make himself known and real in space and time) as Emmanuel, the One who is with us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place, the One who will allow nothing at all including sin and godless death to separate us from the Love-in-Act he is. We certainly see and celebrate all of these themes on today's Feast of Jesus' Nativity.  My sincerest prayer is that we can celebrate this God and (his) presence with us today and every day. I believe this is what it means to act, pray, and live in the name (the powerful self) of God. It is a name and power we must not forget, the name and power of redemption from bondage, of genuine Freedom and human wholeness, of promise and fulfillment for the whole of Creation --- the Name and power of Emmanuel, God With Us.

Why Not Profess Groups of Hermits Together?

[[ Sister, I wondered why we don't see little groups of three hermits when hermits are professed, for example. The trio you showed in your earlier post from the Diocese of Fort Wayne must be pretty unusual.  Why don't dioceses profess multiple hermits together? I guess there aren't that many, right?]]

Yes, hermits are a pretty rare phenomenon and for that reason alone we aren't going to see solitary (or diocesan) hermits professed together very often. But I think there are more significant reasons that have to do with the discernment and formation of solitary hermits. It takes time for individuals to discern such vocations and this is a really individual process. The same is true of formation and finding one's own stride in this calling. One person may have a background that allows her to move toward vows relatively quickly while another has a background that does not. Similarly, and even more importantly, the differences in strengths and weaknesses make it important to allow for a really individualized discernment and formation process that includes gaining enough experience to write a liveable Rule. Because this process is highly individualized, it will differ from one hermit candidate to another. 

Finally, c 603 is meant for solitary eremitical vocations; a c 603 hermit is required to live her life in the silence of solitude whether or not there is anyone else living this life alongside her. Too often lauras of hermits die out or are otherwise a failure. When this happens, the c 603 hermit is required to continue living her own Rule. This is quite unlike what happens when a community or congregation fails or is suppressed, for instance. In such cases, those professed as part of this congregation or community will cease to be bound by vows as soon as the institute ceases to be viable (unless other arrangements are made canonically).  With c 603 hermits, even those coming together in lauras, their individual Rules remain binding in law should the laura fail in some way. Thus, dioceses profess and consecrate c 603 hermits one at a time.

This solitary quality forever colors the hermit's life and reminds her/him and those to whom s/he witnesses or ministers of the ecclesial nature of c 603 life. At the same time, one piece of this life is the communal (diocesan, parish) context; the solitary profession of c 603 hermits happens within such a context at a parish church or diocesan cathedral. The community is reminded then, that they too are partly responsible for the viability of this vocation. There may be other reasons I have not mentioned, but these are the main ones I can think of, so I hope this is helpful! Meanwhile, on this eve of the fourth Sunday of Advent, let me wish you all good wishes for a wonderful Christmas!

A Little on the Purported "Univocal Meaning" of the Central Terms of Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, if c 603 says you are to live the silence of solitude, then why is it some hermits live with others? You wrote recently that you are not committed to absolute solitude, absolute silence, or absolute separation from the world. But if you are bound by this law, this canon, why not? Solitude means one thing, not many. Silence means one thing, not many. Separation means one thing, not many. You are called to obey this law and the Church consecrated and professed you to do just this, isn't that so? Isn't that what your Rule is supposed to help you do? One hermit who speaks about this says that she has chosen the law of God over a man-made law like this canon. You made your choice, a different choice I would say, so doesn't this obligate you to live this law absolutely?]]

This is an incredibly rich series of questions, so thank you. I think the first thing I need to clarify in order to get to all you have asked is the nature of canon law, and more specifically, the nature of the revised or 1983 Code of Canon Law. Like all things in the Church, canon law is contextualized in different ways; it does not stand alone, ever! Canon law serves the Church in important ways, but it is always subservient to the Gospel of God, and the life and law of discipleship measured according to Jesus Christ and the Law of Love. Our current Code of Canon Law embodies this, not only in certain canons themselves but in the very fact that it was revised in light of Vatican II. 

The 1917 Code was contextualized within a monarchical vision of Church and it reflected that ecclesial model. But Vatican II introduced (reintroduced!!) the guiding model of the Church as a Communion of Believers, a Faith Community, and more, a Communion of local Churches. Contemporary church law is meant to be read, practiced, and applied within that very different context as well as at the service of that reality. In the older code and the context in which it was read, a relative few were rulers (Bishops and to a lesser extent, priests) and the rest were the ruled. But in the Code of 1983 things changed radically; the values and especially the ecclesiology of Vatican II were embodied in the canons per se, but even when this was/is not the case, Vatican II's ecclesiology (and theology of discipleship, for instance) serve as the context for interpreting every canon of the Code. Thus, when we are baptized we are ALL made "priests, prophets, and rulers (or kings)" and the revised Code regards this in ways the older code never did or could.  Yes, Bishops have specific rights and obligations under law, but so do all of the faithful. We are all the Church and canon law is meant to serve us each and all in our vocation to be church, the assembly of the called ones, the ecclesia.

So, with that in mind consider all of the voices that need to be heard in interpreting a canon like c 603. Yes, bishops certainly have an important role in that, and so do all those who have both succeeded and failed at living eremitical life through the many centuries of Christian and Jewish tradition. Thus, too Scripture has a considerable role in assisting us in interpreting this canon, and so do linguists, poets, sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians, and theologians (et. al.) who reflect variously on the nature of the human person and human wholeness or holiness and where eremitism fits into this. Hermits are among those most critically involved in interpreting this canon, not because they live it perfectly (whatever that might mean!), are great scholars of eremitical life, or because they are somehow magically or mystically omniscient about all of this, but because they are committed to coming to union with God as, in one way and another, they negotiate the historical tributaries of the eremitical river in which they have committed themselves to stand and journey onward. 

I was reminded of the importance of the way we each do that on Monday morning when I met with the other c 603 hermits in our small "virtual laura". We are reading Wencel's book  Eremitic Life together. Sister Anunziata (Diocese of Knoxville) picked up a word we had been exploring a little. She pointed to one place Wencel had used it in the chapter and then compared it to a similar passage from St John of the Cross to comment on Wencel's meaning. She then took the further step of noting that the entire structure of this chapter mirrored the whole oeuvre of John's work. It was a wonderful insight and a truly brilliant bit of analysis on Sister's part; it was an exhilarating experience for me and I believe it reminded us of the histories we bring to this life and also, therefore, to the varying and similar ways we are called by God to interpret the canon within the Body of Christ and for the sake of that same Body. 

This brings me to the meaning of words in the canon. I wrote recently that I understand the term "solitude" as the redemption of isolation. I can only do that against a personal history with or experience of isolation -- at least enough to understand that eremitical solitude is vastly different despite superficial similarities. Someone without this same background or personal experience, even other hermits, might not be able to understand why I say this. Sister Anunziata's profound knowledge of St John of the Cross's work allowed her to say something about a chapter each of us other diocesan hermits were familiar with but did not see ourselves. Words are vastly rich resources and very few of them have only a univocal meaning or sense. That is certainly true of c 603's vocabulary.

As I have noted before here, each of the terms of c 603, the central defining elements of the canon serves as a doorway to Mystery. Yes, we need to know the basic sense of these terms to enter into the sense of this reality at all, but once we have stepped over that threshold, the richness of the term is opened to us. It is the job of hermits, and particularly c 603 hermits, to give their lives over to the exploration of the realms these "canonical" doorways open to us. That is what my own commitment is about, and it is certainly part of what is involved in my vow of obedience. But obedience, vowed or otherwise, is about attentiveness, listening care-fully with the ear of one's heart, responding appropriately to the address of Mystery, especially when we spell that with an upper case M!

The Divine Mystery stands behind every element of c 603 and the canon itself is merely a norm trying to define the outlines of a wondrous place from within which we are allowed to meet Mystery face-to-face and to dance with him! Those outlines are important and assisting others to find their way to and into this foreign realm is similarly important, but all of this is meant to serve the dance and, more importantly, the Lord of the dance and those who are called to share in all of this to be fully human. Canon 603, like any other canon in the Code, serves God who is love-in-act and God's compelling law of love that lives deep within us yearning to be set free and embodied in all the ways that energize and shape us as disciples of Christ. But, to mix my metaphors, c 603 is but a single mansion in a kingdom of many mansions and all of these are important and valid ways and witnesses to the Kingdom and its Law of Love. None of them supplant it!!

So, no, I have not chosen a man-made law over the Law of God. I have accepted and embraced a man-made law that (I believe and the Church affirms) was inspired by the Holy Spirit so that I may truly live God's law of love and do so in the name of and for the sake of the Church!! I am professed and consecrated to live the canon, and for this reason, I continue to explore and negotiate its depths and riches. Though I do this in the silence of solitude, I am also accompanied by others and sometimes accompany them in a way that informs my interpretation of the canon. When you say I must live this law absolutely, I am not even sure what that means, but if it means accepting the terms that are central to this canon have only a univocal sense, I would argue that has less to do with obedience than it does with a betrayal of the canon's richness; it may even represent a refusal to truly be attentive to the Divine Mystery that seeks to meet and dance with us in and through it.

Btw, my apologies for not answering your very first query. I just noticed that now as I reread your question. I promise another post dealing with that, hopefully, later today!!

A Contemplative Moment: "Anguish" by David Whyte

 ANGUISH 

is the emblem of our helpless love, felt fully in every cell of the body; felt fully until it overflows, in a cry, in tears in words that try to negate, powerlessly, what is occurring. Anguish is our foundational cry against the unjust taking away of what we feel should be forever ours.

Anguish is a word that is a cry in itself: carrying the sound of the body feeling at last what it has all along needed to feel: a physical pain running right through our core and turned by the voice into the sound of pain itself, a pain we often previously could not imagine, an agony that is accompanied by the shock of absolute helplessness, a helplessness which is perhaps the very hallmark of human vulnerability itself, and that separates it from all the other manifold pains in a human life we have words to describe. Anguish is a force that racks and inhabits a suddenly surprised and now fully vulnerable, mind and body. But anguish fully felt is also the first stop on the road to recovery and healing.

Helplessness and the pains of helplessness are abiding companions to the experience of being human: the nurse by the dying child's bedside, having exhausted all remedies; the parent witnessing a teenager's first heartbreak, all of us in this world today, scrolling through the news, seeing the bombed-out homes of innocent, everyday people. We are made to experience both love and loss and an extraordinarily deep, bodily, everyday level and it may be that without helplessness we cannot experience love or loss fully and properly: Anguish is the last fully felt measure of our care.

Feeling real, helpless, emotional pain, is also an entrance into the fully real and the fully felt and is an annunciation that we are actually paying attention at last -- both to what is affecting us and the depth to which we are so movingly affected --anguish means we have finally felt and fully understood not only the true depth and foundational nature of our own suffering but the heartbreak that lies in every other human life we have ever touched or accompanied. Anguish is the doorway through which our personal suffering meets all the griefs that are shared by the world.

Anguish is only entered fully through the door of powerlessness in the absolute physical sense of helplessness. Anguish cannot be simulated: it is not only a measure of our care for others but the inability to know how or when or if it is possible to help, anguish is the very physical incarnation of our sense of compassion brought to ground at last, in the suffering body of the world -- and in real anguish our body reciprocates -- refusing to eat, losing weight, sitting alone, refusing to go out the door, full of the tremors and vulnerabilities that have accompanied human beings since the beginning of conscious time, vulnerabilities that at times seemed to arise from nowhere. 

Anguish tells us that our deep sense of care has entered the timeless and the untouchable, that we have, for the moment, given up on solutions; stopped offering easy answers and let go of our previous, false sureties -- Anguish tells us we have finally decided to enter fully into the pain of our loss, or the pain of another.

The helpless pain at the center of grief is the soul's annunciation that we might have arrived at suffering's essential core, where there is no ready way forward, no remedy for our suffering selves, no cure for a suffering loved one, or it seems anything to be done about our distraught world.

Anguish is always waiting for us: beyond our refusing to care, or our unwillingness to feel fully how helpless we often are to help another, either those intimate to our lives or those suffering at a distance. Anguish is one of the most difficult qualities for human beings to enter because it is meant to be felt whether we have answers or not.

Anguish has its own sense of timing in both concentrating and inviting us to experience its pain, at what feels like a cellular level and then, soberingly, anguish stays longer than we would want and seems to have its own incredibly slow way of moving on. It seems not to move on in fact, until we have fully imbibed its painful instruction of how much we feel and how much we care.

Anguish is the act of finally allowing the transforming fire of care in the heart to rage fully at last, our defenses burnt away by the consuming flame of our helpless love, where, at the center of that fire, we feel our grief and loss to its very core and where grief, in its own timeless, unfathomable way, is allowed to slowly become its own cure.

Angish fully felt and fully articulated in its helplessness, becomes in that articulation, the threshold where our private incurable, unspoken grief turns to public, passionate remedy. Anguish is the true common hidden, a priori foundation to our speaking out for others in this world, even those who seem to have hurt us, anguish is the only true ground we can stand upon to do any useful, charitable, philanthropic work.

Anguish is not debilitation: anguish fully felt, is a sign that we are fully awake at last, through our own pain, to all the heartbreaking losses and goodbyes involved in the drama of a human life, anguish tells us we are getting ready to embrace, or are even now, against our will, willing to embrace, what until now could never be embraced, that is: our ability to live fully in this body despite its never ending griefs and wounds, as others live, and have always lived, half helplessly, half trying to help, in the greater body of the suffering world.

by David Whyte in 

Consolations II, The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

Note: I don't put up Contemplative Moments so close together usually, but this had special meaning to me (not least that after a period of profound anguish I received and read this first article in Whyte's now book on Gaudete Sunday). It changed my entire perspective on "anguish" and colored my prayer at Mass that morning. 

Also, of course, it calls attention to David Whyte's new book which is available for the holidays. It is a second volume of Consolations, David's incredibly beautiful and insightful reflections on the meanings of everyday words. These do indeed give nourishment and solace as they call attention to the deep mysteries words serve to mediate and open us to, the mysteries we each are called to live if we are to be fully human to and for one another. All good wishes for a wonderful "Gaudete week" in immediate preparation for the Feast of the Nativity of Jesus, in whom God is Emmanuel.

On Silence and Solitude in the Service of Intimacy with God

[[Sister, you write about hermits a lot. You don't take a vow of silence, do you? But why not if "the silence of solitude"is such an important element of c 603? At the same time why do you treat solitude as though it is not really about being alone?]]

Thanks for your questions. I think they are actually pretty common for non-hermits or for those whose notion of eremitical life is idealized. Similar questions could be asked about the other constitutive elements of the vocation including stricter separation from the world whenever "the world" is taken to mean anything outside the hermitage door. In each of these cases, solitude, the silence of solitude, and stricter separation from the world, what we find is that these terms are more nuanced than most people understand. None of them is absolute. By that I mean the eremitical life is not about absolute silence, absolute solitude, or absolute withdrawal from the world. Instead, these elements are real and substantial in a way that allows the vocation to be defined in terms of them, and at the same time, they are qualified by the needs of the hermit for growth, healing, and holiness as she moves toward maturity in her relationship with God and others in an ecclesial vocation.

So, for instance, no, I don't take a vow of silence nor do I hold myself to a Rule calling for absolute silence. I talk (to God and less frequently, to others), I sing, I listen to, compose (improvise), and play music, and all of this requires significant, but (obviously) not absolute silence. Silence is necessary to be a person of prayer because prayer is about listening and being available to God, and we are attentive and available to God so that God may recreate the world as he wills. That recreation begins with us and with the way God's love transforms us as human beings. Hermits cultivate silence for this purpose, not simply for itself alone. Moreover, silence can be external or internal; while both are important it is internal silence that is key in the hermit's life. The cultivation of inner silence and stillness is the aim of a life of stricter external silence. Whatever is happening externally leads us to the profound internal silence that allows for the song we are  to rise up within us and be "sung." 

What I am saying is that the hermit is silent and embraces silence to the extent it leads us to prayer and then, to union with God. The same is true of solitude. External solitude serves the hermit's life with God and her growth as a human being. One is alone with God for the sake of God's will and all that that Divine will desires and occasions. In some ways, there is also an inner solitude where the individual is at peace with themselves and with God. This solitude is about a harmonious relationship; one is truly oneself in this space, and one is oneself with God. It is the antithesis of isolation and when I write about it, I speak of it as the redemption of isolation. 

When c 603 speaks of the silence of solitude, most superficially it means the quiet that exists when one is not conversing with others or otherwise engaging with others, but at its deepest, it is an intimacy with God where God is allowed to be God and we are the human person God calls us to be. This silence of solitude is peaceful (though not painless!), profoundly energizing,  and marked by a sense of solidity and love in and through which one is truly oneself. It is therefore also about being profoundly in relationship with the whole of God's creation and the whole of God's People. When I write about the silence of solitude I also speak of it as involving the quieting of our existential anguish and pain. We can be screams of anguish and then be transformed through the love of God into a quiet and joyful song of praise. And of course, sometimes the anguish recurs and our personal song is transfigured into lament. This is still vastly different from simply being a scream of anguish! 

The bottom line in all of this is that when I speak of solitude it does mean being alone, but one is alone with God and, in varying degrees of intimacy, with all that is grounded in God. This is why I tend to usually say "eremitical solitude." There are a variety of forms of solitude; some are not healthy and most are not eremitical. The corollary is that when the hermit is not alone, but is with others, the inner silence and solitude of her relationship with God remains foundational. When a hermit has lived the silence of solitude for some time she does not need to be particularly concerned that contact with others, including occasional social functions, will destroy the silence of solitude that is so fundamental to who she is. 

Yes, of course, care is always necessary and is part of a vow of obedience, but the silence of solitude rooted in God's love is still the pedal tone of the hermit's life and it both calls her to be present to others and summons her back to the hermitage. The image I have in mind here is a Taize chant (cf., In God Alone) where woodwinds, etc., may improvise a kind of obligato above and around the chant and even occasionally sound a bit dissonant as the linkage to the chant becomes strained for the hearer, but these instruments and the line they play always find their way back to the chant of which they are always an exploration and elaboration.

Tracing the Roots of Canon 603: A Brief Look at Hermits in the 13-14 C

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I've read what you wrote about why c 603 came to be, but what about before c 603? Isn't it the case that people could just go off and become a hermit on their own just because God called them to this? Isn't c 603 something of a novelty? Because hermit life is so old I think people should be cautious about taking on a form of the life that is novel. You can understand that, can't you? Also, I think [the hermit you disagree with on all of this] has a point about wearing habits like those in religious communities. Is that another novelty you came up with because you had been a religious in a community?]] (Redacted from much longer email)

It may surprise you, but c 603 is not absolutely unique. Yes, it is binding universally and establishes hermits in law in the consecrated state and that is new (there was no mention of hermits in the older 1917 Code), but there have been canons in the Church before that bound hermits from this or that diocese in very much the same way c 603 does today. Because I don't much like copying long texts from other sources here, what I would like to do is quote a couple of paragraphs from a book including hermits and recluses of the Middle Ages that touches on the way hermits were regarded, the authority of the local bishop, and the service of investiture with the habit. This is a summary without detailed examples --- though these are available for the asking. I may also add something about the nature of the hermitage and solitude in the hermitage that also conflicts with the person you have referred to in your question, but that depends upon time. Since it is an important issue I could also hold it for another post.

Writing about hermits in the early 14 C and before, Edward L Cutts says in Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, [[ A man could not take upon himself the character of a hermit at his own pleasure. It was a regular order of religion, into which a man could not enter without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, and into which he was admitted by a formal religious service. And just as bishops do not ordain men to holy orders until they have obtained a "title," a place in which to exercise their ministry, so bishops did not admit men to the order of Hermits until they had obtained a hermitage in which to exercise their vocation.]] (page 98)

Cutts then examines the nature of a vow made by a hermit. The form is taken from the Institution Books of Norwich, lib.xiv. fo.27a: (I have translated this into contemporary English just for this article.) [[I, John Fferys, not married, promise and avow to God, our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the saints in heaven, in the presence of you reverend Father in God, Richard bishop of Norwich, the vow of chastity, after the rule of Saint Paul the hermit. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.]] (dated in the Chapel of Thorpe) (pp 98-99)

Here I simply want to point out the similarities between c 603 professions and this one. The Church today takes the time to discern the nature and quality of the vocation before them, she makes sure that the candidate for profession can take care of herself (i.e., is self-supporting in some substantial and stable sense), has a proper place to live where she can carry out her ministry, and requires that she writes a proper Rule of Life in light of which she will live her profession. John Ferris, above, apparently was able to use the Rule of Saint Paul the Hermit, but all of this including the ascertainment of Ferris's unmarried state (part of what I often call "the canonical freedom" to enter another canonical state of life) is familiar to anyone with a knowledge of c 603. For many years now, I have been accused of supporting a way of eremitical life that is a distortion of the "tried and true" way of becoming a hermit, namely, by just going off and becoming one, but here, in an example from 700 years ago it is very clear that c 603 has picked up in a careful and faithful way, something that was already established in the Church in the early Middle Ages at least. Canon 603 is not novel except in what it establishes in universal law.

Cutts also summarizes the service for habiting and blessing a hermit (from "Officium induendi et benedicendi heremitam"). This is taken from the pontifical of Bishop Lacy of Exeter (14C.) [[It begins with several psalms; then several short prayers for the incepting hermit, mentioning him by name. Then follow two prayers for the benediction of his vestments, apparently for different parts of the habit; the first mentioning 'hec indumenta humilitatem cordis et mundi contemptum significancia," -- these garments signifying humility of heart and contempt of the world; the second blesses "hanc vestem pro conservande castitatis signo,"-- this vestment the sign of chastity [in celibacy]. The priest then delivers the vestments to the hermit kneeling before him with these words, "Brother, behold we give to thee the eremitical habit (habitum hermiticum), with which we admonish thee to live henceforth chastely, soberly, and holily; in holy watchings, in fastings, in labours, in prayers, in works of mercy, that thou mayest have eternal life and live forever and ever." And he receives them saying, "Behold, I receive them in the name of the Lord; and promise myself to do so according to my power, the grace of God, and of the saints helping me." Then he puts off his secular habit, the priest saying to him, "The Lord put off from thee the old man with his deeds;" and while he puts on his hermit's habit, the priest says, "The Lord put on thee the new man, which after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." There follows a collect and certain psalms, and finally the priest sprinkles him with holy water and blesses him.]] (Op Cit. p 99)

There are numerous descriptions of the nature of the eremitical habit in this particular chapter of Cutt's book, but they are all pretty similar in certain ways. They tend to have a tunic, scapular, and perhaps a cincture as well as a hood or cloak with hood. Some have TAU crosses, many take up the hermit's staff, and the colors of these various habits differ, though blue, brown, black and grey are prominent. Cutts also refers a bit earlier in the chapter to habits worn according to Papal authority for the "Eremiti Augustini" which are constituted the same way though with white tunic and scapular and (for choir or going out) a black cowl and large hood. 

Habits were important, as they are today, because people of all ranks and stations became hermits and most hermits dealt with those from all ranks and stations. Let me point out briefly then that while a habit signifies poverty, it also allows a person to move easily between various social strata without having to be concerned with "dressing the part". In this sense too, the habit is a sign of stricter separation from the world and its various strata. For the purposes of this post, however, what I really want to make clear is that the clothing of a hermit in a religious habit is not new with me or even with c 603 itself. It goes back much further than the Middle Ages. Though I have only referred back as far as the 13C here in this post, I have noted before that the giving of the hermit's tunic is linked even to the Desert Fathers and Mothers.

I sincerely hope this is helpful to you and gives you a different perspective on what is novel or not in c 603 eremitical life and in what I write here. While I believe there are some relatively novel things about what I write here, I also believe they are deeply rooted in the living tradition of eremitical life and assist hermits and dioceses in discerning, forming and living these vocations well in a way that is truly edifying for the entire Church and world. After all, c 603 has to be contextualized to be understood, not just in terms of contemporary life, but also in terms of the whole history of eremitical life. I will hold for another post what Cutts has to say about the nature of hermitages and solitude, especially regarding the variety of ways solitude was provided for in hermitages. In this too you will find c 603 and what bishops allow are not so novel as all that.

A Contemplative Moment: Into the Eye of God (Reprise)

 

  Into the Eye of God

by Sister Macrina Wiederkehr, OSB

For your prayer

     your journey into God,

    may you be given a small storm

    a little hurricane

      named after you,

     persistent enough

      to get your attention

    violent enough

       to awaken you to new depths

      strong enough

       to shake you to the roots

     majestic enough

       to remind you of your origin:

      made of the earth

      yet steeped in eternity

      frail human dust

       yet soaked with infinity.

     You begin your storm

      under the Eye of God.

      A watchful, caring eye

      gazes in your direction

   as you wrestle

        with the life force within.

In the midst of these holy winds

In the midst of this divine wrestling

    your storm journey

    like all hurricanes

       leads you into the eye,   

   Into the Eye of God

     where all is calm and quiet.

A stillness beyond imagining!

Into the Eye of God

after the storm

Into the silent, beautiful darkness

  Into the Eye of God.

This poem is taken from Macrina Wiederkehr's A Tree Full of Angels, Seeing the Holy in the Ordinary. Advent, as noted in the past couple of posts, seems to me a fine time to consider the presence of the Holy in the Ordinary moments and moods of reality. Sister was a monastic of St Scholastica Monastery, Fort Smith, Arkansas. She died in 2020.

Faith in a Reality Rooted in the Miraculous

[[Hi Sister Laurel, in your last post on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, you spoke of miracles and the fact that our ordinary world is truly extraordinary. Do you believe in miracles? I would like to believe that way, but I just cannot. I have never experienced a miracle; nothing happened when I prayed for one. Is Christianity built on the miraculous? If it is, I wonder how anyone can be a Christian. It seems to contradict what is reasonable or rational.]]

Thanks for your questions. They are good and typical of human beings in a post-enlightenment world. Yes, I do believe in the miraculous; I believe miracles occur wherever the power of love breaks through everything in our world that militates against love or the life that is created by love. God is the ground and source of all that exists and has meaning and God is love-in-act. This means that everything we know or will come to know is grounded in the dynamism of love-in-act. Love is the source of life, meaningful life. I believe that love is capable of defeating evil and overcoming death in all its forms and I believe that the stories in Scripture reiterate this overarching narrative again and again.

Christianity is built on the power of love. Christian faith is faith in the power of God's love, the love that creates and orders reality, the love that overshadowed Mary and impregnated her with Jesus, the love that allowed Jesus to heal, and exorcise, to give himself exhaustively so people would know this love-in-act he called Abba, and of course, the love that is stronger than death and raised Jesus to new life.  I believe in this power of love because I have known it in my own life. I have experienced the risen Christ, and of course, I have been loved by those who have also known and come to live from and for the embrace of God's love. It has done for them what only God can do and has acted in my life as well. That has been true in different situations where death and evil seemed to have had the upper hand and changed everything. This experience of love, particularly of God as love-in-act, convinces me our world is rooted in the miraculous and that ordinary existence much more.

Christian faith then, asks us to trust that what seems ordinary is really quite extraordinary. Not only does the cosmos exist when it might well not exist (the fact that there is something rather than nothing at all is something science cannot explain), but even more, it is knowable and capable of mediating truth, beauty, goodness, and occasioning wonder and love. I think one of the reasons we celebrate Advent is to allow us time to check out how we look at reality. If we are incapable of seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary we need practice (and sometimes help with the healing of our minds and hearts) in order to see with "new eyes". What Christmas brings us is a God who chooses to dwell with us and to transfigure our humanity into the true images of God we were made to be. It prepares us to understand ourselves as infinitely precious, capable of mediating God to others and stewarding his creation in the way he has entrusted to us. It allows us to see God at work in our world so that one day heaven and earth fully interpenetrate one another. This leads to hope, a well-grounded hope rooted in the God of love and built with the aid of our faithful intelligence, hard work, and good will.