Followup Questions: On Professing and/or Consecrating Transsexual Persons to Consecrated Life

[[Sister Laurel, you said you opposed  the proposed profession of a transsexual. You also said you did it for reasons apart from the person's sexual identity. What you outlined was a pattern of fraud, duplicity, and dishonesty. That raises several questions for me: 1) was there a profession; if not, why is it an issue? 2) is it possible that the bishop does not (or did not) not know the person seeking profession was and is a transsexual? What I was thinking was that if it were me I might keep it quiet and maybe play dumb. I know you don't like the question, "Who could it hurt?" but if the person lives as a hermit and doesn't publicize that they are transsexual, maybe they could remain a good hermit without bothering anyone. Maybe that was what the bishop involved was thinking.

3) In what way did you oppose the profession? I can't see you picketing outside the cathedral on the day of profession (just kidding) so what do you mean?! I was also uncertain why you said one does not make vows to gain more data. 4) Aren't temporary vows made while one is still discerning a vocation? Shouldn't they be made exactly to gain more data? I think my last question is a what if question. 5) If you discover there has been a profession, now, several years after you opposed this, what will you do? 6) Do you feel the same way you did when you first opposed the profession? 7) Isn't it possible the person you described has discerned a real eremitical vocation?]]

Thanks for your questions; I've added numbers and divvied things into two paragraphs for readability. I have also chosen to use feminine pronouns throughout (except for bishops) because that is the form I ordinarily use in my blog pieces; the alternatives open to me are way too clumsy and unreadable. Also, any initials used in this piece were chosen at random. (I picked a couple of scrabble tiles for this!) Finally, except with regard to the idea of achieving justice in the church, I prescind from the issue transgender represents in this situation.

The background:

 Yes, I outlined a pattern of fraud, duplicity, dishonesty and what seems to me to be outright stupidity in the use/abuse of canon 603 and the vows/profession being planned or proposed. I should also have noted I found a kind of desperation and glibness that set this person up both to manipulate and be used. You see, the person seeking profession and I had spoken of the options open to her during a serious correspondence in 2019, as well as about various peoples' opinions that the church's teaching on the profession of transsexuals was going to change. She had been given a great deal of false encouragement and I thought this did her a distinct disservice because it involved a clear lack of candor or realism. 

When she and I began to correspond again in 2021, she had spent time as a long-term guest in a couple of monasteries and/or congregations. In one case, when the bishop of the diocese in which the congregation was located became aware of the situation, they were required to make her leave and this was described as personally devastating. Though not an actual member of the Order she had been allowed to wear the habit and having to divest herself of this was something that hurt her very deeply. Once out of her guestship with the congregation, she continued to style herself as a religious and to introduce herself with the usual formal title along with a new religious name in public and correspondence.

As noted above, M____ suffered from a lot of experiences involving the unreasonable raising and (unfortunately) necessary dashing of expectations during just these few years, and experienced an (increasing?) inability to accept the truth of what the church herself (not just this or that priest or religious) was saying to her regarding her ability to enter consecrated life. Largely because some within the church raised her expectations unreasonably, M___ continued to ramp up her efforts to find a way to make public vows. Eventually he located and moved to a diocese with an amenable bishop and enlisted him to assist in accomplishing M____'s will in this. I mention all of this because the pattern of duplicity, and dishonesty involved here (involving several people), as well as the degree of  M____'s personal woundedness was more profound than I had noted in Profession of a Transsexual Person?

The Questions:

So, with this added background, let me give your questions a shot! 1) Has there been a profession? The answer to that is apparently yes, though I don't know the details of it and only learned of it this week (in part because of a directory listing M____, and in part because of a spate of visitors from the area of M___'s chancery, residence, cathedral, etc). The diocese involved has not publicized it in any way except to list M___ in their directory as a diocesan hermit. Remember that even with temporary vows, diocesan hermits have been entrusted with a public ecclesial vocation with specific rights and obligations. Remember that this also means that people from this diocese and parish (and indeed, from the entire church) have a right to certain expectations regarding c 603 and this candidate, not least, that the profession was seriously, honestly, and conscientiously discerned as God's chosen way to wholeness and holiness for this person, as well as that the brother/sister professed exemplifies a commitment to chaste love in their foundational manliness or womanliness, the capacity for profound obedience to God, to God's church, and faithfulness to and regard for her teaching --- particularly regarding consecrated life. In the situation at hand I think there are doubts about each of these points.

Was the Bishop Knowledgeable?

The bishop knew of M___'s transgendered status. M____ said she had been entirely open with him in this and that the two of them were looking at profession under c 603 as a matter of justice in the church. I also mentioned it when I wrote the bishop as well as that I would precind from the issue of sexuality and focus on the misuse and abuse of canon 603 itself except where M____ raised the issue herself. I was advised by a second canonist to write not only M____'s bishop, but the metropolitan and Nuncio to the Vatican as well with a summary of the issues this proposed profession would raise. I did that, so yes, M___'s transsexual status was known. I also wrote M____ directly and reminded her of what she had written during our original correspondence or published in interviews around the same time. In that M___'s very real Spirit-breathed vocation was evident; she would have to give that up if she chose to pursue profession under c 603 and live solitary eremitical life faithfully in all of its depth and dimensions.

Vows, whether temporary or perpetual, imply the gift of the whole person, body, soul, and spirit to God. We make vows not to do initial experimentation and discernment, but instead because in the process of discernment --- sometimes over long years, both the candidate or novice and those discerning with her have come to reasonable clarity that this is indeed the way God is calling the person to human wholeness and holiness. Yes, temporary vows allow for further discernment, particularly as one moves into a new situation with new expectations and responsibilities. But one makes temporary vows with the same sureness one makes perpetual vows, giving the whole of oneself without reservation or reserve. One does not admit another person to vows without the sense that this is God's call they are answering, and more, that they are answering that call appropriately. To do otherwise is to indicate one does not regard this person's growth and sanctification (God's making them making whole and true) as an authentic human being. Yes, of course, for the candidate post-profession there will be continuing exploration of the vocation, but it will be an exploration of one's deepest self and the depths of the vocation in which one is professed and made transparent to God and God's love!!

Unfortunately, none of this seem to me to be what M_____ was about, nor were the reasons she gave for seeking profession an adequate reason to make vows of any sort. Here is M____'s explanation: [[The available position that feels closest to the identity I have discovered within myself is that of hermit. . ..I don't know yet if that position will lead to the discovery of a new vocation [meaning she doesnt have any sense of having an eremitical vocation yet and may never have such a sense despite being publicly professed and identified in this way], but I can't know until I have begun to explore from it. In the meantime we are going to experiment for a year and see how the exploration goes. If exploring from the position of a hermit does not work, then very well -- we have gained that data and can reorient. If it does ring true, then we will have gained that data. we're constantly checking in with each other, discerning, reassessing, and trying - together - to find the next right step.]] 

Most candidates understand or quickly come to understand and accept that they need to explore eremitical life as a non-canonical hermit long before seeking admission to public profession. Many bishops are even more keenly aware of this! Most seekers also recognize they might be wrong in what they have discerned and may need to humbly discern anew. But not M____. After all, what M___ sought was public ecclesial standing itself and life as part of a community. By seeking to use c 603, she was settling for public standing within the best canonical "slot" she could find. But settling in this way is not discerning. It uses c 603 as a stopgap way to religious life, as M was well aware and admitted to me while hoping I would understand. As I wrote in part to M's____ bishop about the above passage: [[In no way does this indicate the settled heart and mind of someone approaching profession in an ecclesial vocation. Neither does it indicate true discernment, whether on M___'s part, or, to be very frank, (to whatever degree it is a true statement of your role in all of this),  on yours, Bishop Y____, as representative of the Church in whose name M___ will live this vocation.]]

Next Steps:

Your fifth question is the most difficult one, I think. What more can I do? What more am I called to do? I have prayed about this, spoken to my own director, and a canonist (one of the two I originally consulted), and considered others I might need to reach out to for assistance or advice. The fact of a profession makes the situation more problematic than when I wrote the last post on all of this. Moreover, it seemed that the diocese at issue has maintained a troubling degree of secrecy with regard to this profession. (Nothing on the diocesan calendar, or in the diocesan or regional media refers to any profession while the directory now includes the person as a diocesan hermit.) I became aware of all this because upon publication of the post on professing transsexuals (again, Profession of a Transsexual Person?), this blog received a spate (really only a handful) of readers all from the diocese in question (cathedral or chancery, location of a local monastery, etc.) all within the space of about 40 minutes. This is a very small niche blog with fewer than 100 readers a day and that response was an atypical pattern for readers, particularly from the region in question. That made me curious and it was then that I decided to check the diocese's media and directory and discovered that, contrary to my earlier sense, the profession had apprently occurred. As a result, my feelings in the matter have intensified and become more complex, particularly with regard to the bishop involved.

Could this Person Discern a True Vocation to Eremitical Life?

Yes, though unlikely, it is not entirely inconceiveable that M____ will one day discover a true vocation to solitary eremitical life, but not before living it authentically, openly, and consciously for some years. There are stages to this vocation; one moves through a process of becoming a person of prayer, to learning to pray contemplatively, to another stage of becoming a contemplative, and then to a stage involved in discerning the presence and meaning of deeper and more extensive desires and needs for silence and solitude, as well as discovering that one is fulfilled by God as a man or woman precisely as a hermit in the silence of solitude. One will still need to discover which eremitical context is best for living this life authentically and well. It is typical (and usually necessary) for most authentic diocesan hermits to have lived in the silence of solitude for some years before approaching their chanceries with their petition. 

Because this vocation "belongs to the church" before it belongs to any individual, once one has approached their diocese, they will engage in a mutual discernment process with a small team from the chancery; this team may also include a c. 603 hermit consultant or other experts to assist with discernment and formation. As part of and throughout this process, the candidate herself will take time to write a liveable Rule based in her own lived experience and reflecting the non-negotiable elements of c 603. This Rule, throughout the entire process of writing, can (and I sincerely hope) will become the basis for conversations with and discernment and other assessments by the formation team. (Unfortunately, in the situation at hand there was dishonesty even here! M____ seems not have written his/her own Rule. Though a thoughtful and articulate writer, she asked me how to express the nature and obligations of poverty in this life because her SD, a religious Sister, only understood evangelical poverty within a community context, and (just a month and a half until the proposed profession) would I mind "helping her with that part of the Rule?" C 603 requires significant experience in a solitary eremitical setting; it is this experience coupled with an understanding of the terms of Canon 603 that makes potential diocesan hermits capable of writing their own Rule or professing the Evangelical Counsels (including that of religious poverty) the canon requires.

As a slight detour, let me note that besides the ability to write a liveable Rule, one of the things I personally look for when discerning with someone regarding their call to eremitical life is the experience and fruits of a redemptive experience integrally tied to this specific context. This may come slowly over time in a pattern of smaller "highs" and lows, or surprise us with a more abrupt inbreaking of God's powerful love. In which ever way this occurs, if we are to conclude someone is truly called to solitary eremitical life, that person must have met Christ within the hermitage context and have been brought to a degree of wholeness and holiness they have truly found nowhere else, in no other life context. One's life itself must then proclaim the freedom and compassion of the Gospel lived in the silence of solitude. 

I admit that I cannot see how this can happen when everything is built on a series of lies and has been conditioned by a foundational agenda shrouded in defensiveness and secrecy. While there is a real hiddenness to eremitical life this is not rooted in dishonesty, fraud, hypocrisy, or bad faith. Neither does it have to do with a similarly grounded secrecy. Instead, it is the result of having one's personal truth bound up in an ineffable intimacy with the deepest Mystery we can know and be known by. It is from this place of intimacy that the most profound truth of ourselves becomes both transparent to the God who dwells within us and entirely visible to those who know us. 

On the disservice done to the solitary eremitical vocation and to diocesan hermits:

Regarding what step I might need to take next, if any (I continue to pray about this!), I will likely ask for assistance in considering what is necessary and possible. This might include a conversation with various bishops, Vicars (or Delegates) for Religious, and other canonists I know. It may also involve contacting the Papal Nuncio again or reaching out to the DICLSAL. Changes in the situation may require this. At the very least the situation requires clarification regarding the validity of vows already made, particularly given the nature of the person's work outside the hermitage and public representation of herself as a diocesan hermit. I am definitely planning on having a conversation with a moral theologian I was referred to today. You see, from my perspective this profession has done a serious disservice not only to the person admitted to profession dishonestly, but (by both bishop and candidate) to the vocation itself, to the People of God who should be able to trust the seriousness, faithfulness, and honesty with which bishops are called to approach implementing canons like 603-605. 

I believe it could also become a significant disservice to other members of this diocese who may also be admitted to c 603 profession while trusting the church has done a really competent discernment. (The fact that the church discerns this vocation with us can be particularly reassuring in times of struggle and self-doubt. Usually this allows one to persevere in spite of difficulties. But what happens when the diocese shows it is truly careless in regard to such discernment and vocations?) Similarly it could become a disservice to others who find themselves turned away by the same bishop on what may be comparatively but objectively flimsier grounds. Once a bishop has admitted someone to profession who has frankly spoken of not having this vocation and who even presides at her profession because it fosters "justice in the church" (one must ask for whom?), this bishop's judgment in vocational or even in many more generally pastoral matters easily ceases to be trustworthy. 

For diocesan hermits seeking to establish virtual lauras, networks of diocesan hermits, and the like --- and who therefore depend on being able to trust someone's canonical status (i.e., as professed, and/or consecrated) as a signal to authentic eremitical life, the existence of such a badly conceived, agenda-driven, and imprudent discernment and profession is problematic at best. Diocesan hermits recognize their vocations as a unique gift of God to the Church for the sake of others' salvation. In this specific situation, a church authority and one who sought him out, acted dishonestly and without regard for the vocation itself, for its true nature and charism (gift quality), or for those who might be both directly and indirectly affected by such a profession.  Moreover, they did this despite being warned about it at length and after promising to take these things into careful account. Thus, I see it as a very serious matter. Though I never thought I would find myself saying this, I would much rather see bishops refusing to implement c 603 for anyone at all than indulging in this kind of thoughtless misuse.

Why is Star Trek Easier to Imagine than the Ascension? (Reprise)

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your post on the Ascension you said that it was difficult for us to believe that Jesus was raised bodily into "heaven". You suggested it might be easier to imagine the Star Trek story as true instead. I wondered why you said that. Thank you.]]

I appreciate your question. Thanks. We humans tend to draw distinct lines between the spiritual and the material and often we rule out any idea that has the two interpenetrating the other or being related in paradoxical ways. We simplify things in other ways as well. For instance, do you remember when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited earth and made a pronouncement that he had now been to space, had looked and looked for God and did not find him? The notion that God's relation to the cosmos was other than as a visible (and material) being among other material beings present in "the heavens" was completely beyond this man's ideology or imagination. The idea of God as Being itself, a being that grounded and was the source of all existence while transcending it all was simply too big an idea for this Cosmonaut. Imagine what he would have done with the notion that everything that exists now exists or is on its way to existing within the very life of God! (Gagarin is now said never to have affirmed this; instead Soviet authorities did and used his flight to do so.)

Another example might be better. When I was young, I went to a Christian Scientist Church and Sunday School. There, every Sunday we recited what was called, "The Scientific Statement of Being". It was a bit of neo-Platonic "dogma" written by Mary Baker Eddy. It was the heart of the faith: [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] By the time I was seven or eight I was questioning what it meant to say matter is unreal (or, more often, how could I be asked to deny the truth of matter's reality). Imagine what it was like to fall off your bike and tell yourself the blood and pain was "unreal" --- only Spirit is real. 

The answers never satisfied, but I think you get the point. The human mind has always had difficulty not drawing a distinction between the material and the Spiritual even to asserting the two things are antithetical --- even to the extent of denying either matter or spirit actually exists at all.  (Christian Science said matter was unreal, not just in the Platonic sense of being less real than the ideal, but in the sense of asserting that materiality is delusional; on the other hand, contemporary science often says anything except matter is unreal.) An incarnate God, or a God who would make room within his very life for embodied existence like ours (in whatever form that embodiment occurs) would be anathema and literally inconceivable to either of these! So yes, we often suspend disbelief in reading science fiction or fantasy literature in order to enter deeply into the story. But what is also true is that we need to learn to suspend disbelief in intelligent ways in order to appreciate the Mystery of God and the cosmos; we need to do this in order to enter deeply into this great drama. Star Trek's stories may seem easier to believe than stories of the Ascension because the Mystery we call God is greater than anything we can create or even imagine ourselves.

One last point. When I was studying theology (either BA or MA) my professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing then than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 7 or 8 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was strong and sufficient. 

I now know that learning to trust (and to be open to Mystery) in the way John described is both more difficult and more intelligent than any cynical skepticism scientific materialism offers us today. And one grows in faith (thanks be to God)! I have experienced things in my life which God alone could do, and I recognize the wisdom (and the humility!!) of John Dwyer's advice to students believing they were atheists or that faith was naive, namely, that they suspend their disbelief, open themselves to new ways of seeing, and see what happens. Of course, this specific form of suspension of disbelief would result in a vocation to commitment to a world itself called to be something ever greater than even the limitations of science can imagine. What is often difficult for us is to understand is that this specific suspension of disbelief is more profoundly wise than science itself can know, or our often-earth-bound imaginations can create.

 Authentic faith, (which, again, is not the same as naive credulity), is something different, and in some ways, both more challenging and compelling than the more superficial suspension of disbelief we adopt when we read science fiction or fantasy literature. The essential difference, I think, is that the first type of suspension of disbelief is a form of chosen naivete adopted temporarily for the sake of recreation and enjoyment; it allows us a vacation from reality, while exercising imagination in the service of creativity. This certainly enlivens us. The second type of suspension of disbelief, that of faith, while also exercising imagination in the same service, requires more than our imagination. It is neither naive nor credulous and requires the whole of ourselves in a more direct commitment to enlivening others; as a result, faith opens us to a more intense and extensive commitment to reality itself and is simply more difficult.

I Go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and Jewish Bridal Imagery (Reprise)

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. This Friday's Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

Can a Transsexual Person be admitted to Profession and Consecration Under C 603?

[[ Dear Sister, would the church profess or consecrate a transsexual (transgender?) as a diocesan hermit? I don't want to give more details. I just wondered if there are any hard and fast rules about this. Would you encourage a transsexual to seek profession and consecration under c 603? It seems to me that since there is no community, no one would be particularly troubled much less harmed by such an act. Are you aware of any transsexuals who are diocesan hermits? Thanks.]]

Thanks for your questions. Let me begin with some comments about transgender persons and sacraments as a preliminary to answering your questions. This might give you an introductory sense of how seriously the church takes the question of allowing transgendered persons to be professed and consecrated as religious. From all that I have read about the church's stance on transgendered persons in this regard, two considerations are always raised: 1) the honesty or lack of honesty involved (including self-honesty, potential self-deception, or questions of personal transparency), and 2) the possibility of scandal. The person involved must be acting freely, openly, and transparently, and there must be no cause for scandal. Still, there is relatively little out there in writing from the church. In speaking about the sacraments, for instance, the church only speaks of baptism as clearly open to transgendered persons (and some dioceses may still be disputing that). After that, things become even more complicated. Even having a transgendered person serving as a godparent for someone is not without complications. While religious profession and consecration are not sacraments, admission of a transgendered person to these definitive steps of public commitment within religious life raises even more difficult questions that also revolve around the questions of honesty or personal integrity and scandal.

Consecrated Life: A Call to Foundational Womanliness or Manliness

With consecrated eremitical life, some of these same questions apply whether we are speaking of semi-eremitical life or solitary eremitism under c 603. Remember that the profession of a diocesan hermit is a public commitment with public rights and obligations. This means the whole church has a right to hold certain expectations concerning the one being professed and/or consecrated. The most fundamental of these, no matter whether the person identifies as male or female, has to do with their foundational womanliness or manliness and their fulfillment**. Are they gifting God and the Church with their lives in this way because they (and those discerning with them!) sincerely believe they are being called to human wholeness and holiness (including a recognizable psycho-sexual maturity) in this state of life in Christ or is there something else at play here? Stated another way, are they embracing this life because they (and those discerning with them) feel assured that God's love for them calls and will bring them to psycho-sexual maturity, that is, to the highest expressions of manliness or womanliness one may achieve in this way or not? Will they witness to this foundational task and achievement as well as to the way God's non-gendered and self-sacrificial love makes it both a possibility and reality? 

First and foremost, a vocation to eremitical life is a call to human wholeness and holiness in loving dialogue with God in the silence of solitude. This can occur in the presence of various forms of gender dis-ease or gender dysphoria and other significant limitations. One gives the whole of oneself (including one's dis-ease) in the trust and expectation that God completes and makes one truly and fully alive in Christ with the abundant life promised in the Gospels. In fact, because the hermit gives up the use of so many specific gifts necessary for active ministry, this particular witness seems to me to be the essence of the eremitical call. The God of Jesus Christ is affirmed as the One who loves us just as we are and empowers us to love and live with whatever difficulties our lives include. We suffer with and in Christ in ways that witness to God's power to make sense of even life's worst apparent absurdities. We approach this promised achievement with hope that in giving ourselves totally (including what seems "broken" within us, so too will we find, complete, and transcend ourselves in Christ, and we do this for the sake of others who need and seek the same redemption and fulfillment.

The Church does not Recognize. . .

The church does not recognize that a person's fundamental manliness or womanliness (even as incipient) changes with gender-affirming transition. Moreover, the church identifies this fundamental given as consonant with one's sex at birth. Certainly, dimensions of one's fundamental manliness or womanliness are affected by hormones, genetic manipulation, and surgery, though in Catholic theology, these changed dimensions are not identical to a change in one's fundamental womanliness or manliness, one's foundational sexuality. Despite a person's profound and painful dis-ease with his or her assigned birth sex, that sexual identity remains a gift and a task s/he is meant to realize in psycho-sexual maturity within whatever given limitations or seeming inconsistencies there may be. Assuming no intersex problems cause physician errors in determining sex, the church's current teaching on admitting a suitable candidate*** to profession and consecration is clear: if one is born (or determined to be) female at birth, one must be professed and/or consecrated as a female; if born male, then profession/consecration must be as a male. 

Though this is a dimension of one's vocation most will recognize in terms of the vow to chastity in celibacy, when the church clothes the candidate in religious garb or styles the person Brother or Sister it also reflects this truth. Given the church's own teaching here, how is the church to clothe and address a transgendered person who was originally female for instance? Though fundamentally a woman in the church's eyes, does this person style herself as Brother  X_____ and represent a call to authentic manliness? 

The church sees a profound contradiction here on the most fundamental human level; what one claims (to be) and proclaims at profession conflicts with one's natural sexual identity, and for this reason, the church does not admit someone living as a transgendered person to profession or consecration. To do so would be dishonest and, if the professing bishop allowed the faith community to know about it in an entirely transparent way, it would cause significant scandal. (For that matter, were the bishop admitting a transgendered person to profession and consecration to knowingly withhold this from the faith community participating in the profession I think that too would legitimately cause significant scandal.)

In approaching your questions, I began with the most foundational element or dimension of the hermit's life because it is deeper and more extensive than the changes involved in gender-affirming transitions can change or achieve. It can be argued that the Evangelical Counsels and particularly the vow of chastity in celibacy (consecrated celibacy) can be understood in terms of this foundational identity as well as in other terms that may be more familiar to readers. Chastity in celibacy deals with integrity in relationships and the commitment to love others in the way Christ loved; thus, it also implies being true to one's fundamental manliness or womanliness to carry all of this out. As I understand the church's position, if gender (that is, the subjective experience of sexuality) fails to match one's sexuality (an objective reality not necessarily dependent upon or consonant with one's experience of one's sexuality), and one cannot love oneself as created and called to be, the ability to make a binding vow of chastity becomes problematic. 

Are there Currently Transsexual Diocesan Hermits?

I am not aware of any transgendered persons who have been professed or consecrated as diocesan hermits. I am personally aware of only one transgender person who sought profession under c 603 several years ago. I opposed his admission to profession (he is a trans male), but N.B., I did not do so based on the fact that he was transgendered  per se, but instead because he approached profession as a solitary hermit deceitfully and fraudulently. This person told me he (purportedly along with his bishop) planned on using the canon as a "matter [or way] of [achieving] justice" and was clear he was using the canon as a stopgap way to get publicly professed, something he knew from reading this blog that I have objected to. (He claimed to have discerned a call to "public profession" but not to eremitical life; the church does NOT recognize such a call apart from particular forms of religious life which may then require public vows.) There were other issues as well (bishop-shopping for an amenable bishop, an intention to create (or join) a community after consecration, the use of temporary profession to experiment and "gather data" on whether or not this life was a fit at all, among others), and in each of these, some degree of pretense and bad faith were apparent. Thus too, the validity of such a profession would have been questionable at best. (One canonist who was consulted opined the profession/vows would be invalid (cf c 656.4 and On Withholding the Truth), while another suggested sacrilege could also be involved were such a profession attempted.)

As you might surmise, this instance of a proposed profession raises several important questions. The one I want to focus on here has to do with using profession and consecration as a means to take a stand on something one considers unjust in the church, or for any other reason than expressing and embracing a genuine sense of a call to consecrated life (and in this case, to solitary eremitic consecrated life). Canon 603 sometimes seems a simple canon for folks to seek profession under even when they have not discovered or discerned a truly eremitical vocation. Artists or scholars of all sorts might like to do something like this while they write or paint or work on dramatic, cultural, and research projects; sometimes such folks justify the peace and solitude needed for such careers in terms of a too-casually defined "eremitism".  Authentic hermits know that the heart of the eremitic vocation is not writing, other artistic pursuits, or research even when hermits may also do these things. To call these (much less oneself) "eremitical" simply because they require silence and solitude is a distortion of what eremitical life lived in the name of the Church is all about. Still, it is easy to "justify" this kind of distortion of the vocation by asking the question (along with its implied negative answer) that you have raised yourself, "Whom does it hurt?"

As I have written before in Whom does it hurt?, and also On Intervening in Professions, any kind of fraud is harmful, particularly when it concerns an institution that depends on trust and Gospel witness to the truth as well as to what is possible when one lives for, with, in, and from God in the silence of solitude. I simply cannot see any justification in the kinds of deception present in such instances when one is (ostensibly) petitioning to live consecrated eremitical life in the name of the same Church one is essentially thumbing one's nose at in the very same act. That is especially true when other ecclesial communities (including sacramental ones like the Episcopal Church, for example) allow individuals to be publicly professed as solitary religious without concern for sexual identity or a requirement that these religious purposely live genuinely eremitical lives. As you can see, questions of personal integrity, transparency, and the potential for scandal are significant in matters like this. Thus, until church teaching and praxis on this changes, though I might encourage them to explore life as a non-canonical hermit, I would not encourage a person identifying as transsexual to seek profession and/or consecration as a c 603 hermit.

____________________________________________________

Notes:

Please note that language referring to trans persons is fluid and relatively idiosyncratic. For an introductory summary of how various terms are generally defined, please see https://www.apa.org/topics/lgbtq/transgender-people-gender-identity-gender-expression. Especially helpful is the discussion of the distinction between sexual orientation and gender.

**In Catholic Theology and in this blog essay, sexuality is used to refer to the most foundational call to womanliness or manliness, not merely in terms of superficial social roles and expectations or even in terms of mere biology. It is deeper and more expansive than these while, especially in terms of one's given biology, it remains generally consistent with these. In Catholic theology, the whole person is sexual. There are distinctively manly and womanly ways of understanding, feeling, and acting. Everything we think, or imagine, our motivations and perceptions of or responses to value are conditioned by the fact that we exist either as men or as women. Catholic theology affirms this is true even in the presence of gender dysphoria, and whether or not a person self-identifies as male, female, or some non-binary alternative (transgender, transsexual, mx, zie, or hir) precisely because this manliness or womanliness is deeper and more fundamental than gender identity itself. 

*** As  I understand it, a suitable candidate would need first to "detransition" and then live and discern the vocation just as any other person would do. The same conditions, requirements, time frames, and so forth would have to be met including medical and psychological testing. One would need to go through the usual stages of such a life, particularly concerning the development of a contemplative life that then calls for even greater solitude. There would need to be a special assurance that the candidate was not using c 603 in some ulterior way as a stopgap to profession.

The Silence of Solitude: More than the Sum of its Parts

[[Dear Sister, you have written that "the silence of solitude is more than the sum of its parts". I wondered if you could say something about what that means? When you read my [proposed] Rule for c 603 you encouraged me to explore this but I am not sure what you mean by that. Help!!]]

Thanks for the question and for permission to share it here. Canon 603 has some important and non-negotiable terms that serve as markers or defining qualities for a solitary eremitical life --- whether this is lived in the name of the Church (603.2) or not. As I approach these qualities I recognize that they point to whole worlds the solitary hermit explores rather than being terms with single, easily definable meanings. They are doorways to Mystery, not ends in themselves. "The silence of solitude" is one of these terms because it is more than the sum of its parts. By that I mean that c 603 does not merely say "silence and solitude" which would tend to refer primarily to external silence and physical solitude. Instead,  "the silence of solitude" refers to the fruit of a life of external silence and physical solitude, coupled with assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, and the Evangelical Counsels, all lived for the praise of God, and the salvation of others.

Yes, a hermit lives a contemplative life in external silence and physical solitude but this contemplative life bears fruit in what the canon refers to as the silence of solitude. This fruit differs from mere external silence and physical solitude. For instance, external silence may mean the absence or relative absence of created sound. It refers to an element of a context required for living one's hermit life. Physical solitude tends to mean the absence or relative absence of others in the hermitage and the isolated or relatively isolated location of the hermitage itself. But note that these merely set the stage for the eremitical life; they don't constitute it --- at least not as the church understands and codifies it. One adds the other terms of the canon and lives into them more and more deeply. As one does that, the result will be "the silence of solitude" where the hermit grows more and more profoundly related to God and others in God. 

When this happens the isolation of physical solitude is transcended in an inner relatedness in God and becomes a form of community --- it has a sense of being with and for others through and in external silence and physical solitude. Silence begins to speak and, in particular, in the compassion that develops through one's prayer, "loneliness", and the inner work made both possible and necessary by these, one begins to hear and be a response to the cry of anguish of the world around one.

It is fascinating to me that the silence of solitude represents a form of deep communion and community. That seems to be the complete opposite of "silence and solitude". Really though, it is radically paradoxical like many truly Christian realities. Note too that "the silence of solitude" points to the healing and quieting of one's own woundedness precisely so that compassion and the capacity for compassion may develop within oneself. This can require significant inner work as well as assiduous prayer, and gradually, as such work is accomplished, there is a quieting of personal anguish allowing one to open oneself to the anguish of the world around one. When I hear the phrase "the silence of solitude", the word silence there reminds me of this inner healing where one moves from being an isolated scream of anguish incapable of being truly open to the pain of others and instead, through the grace of God, becomes a kind of compassionate listening presence in the world.

This is a little of what I mean by my encouragement that you explore the difference between a life of silence and solitude and a life characterized by the silence of solitude. Canon 603 calls for the latter even though it includes and requires the former!! The silence of solitude is a fruit of the eremitical life. It is more than the sum of its parts since those parts (external silence and physical solitude) could just as well belong to a life given to unhealthy withdrawal from others and the silence or muteness of deep woundedness as to a life of wholeness and compassion! Hermits commit to exploring the depths of the silence of solitude and living it more and more profoundly for the sake of a wounded and noisy world. As they do they will discover it is not merely a context for living their eremitical lives, but a goal of that life and a charism or gift that they offer to this same wounded and noisy world.

Please get back to me if this is not helpful or helpful enough.

Canon 603, Desert Spirituality, and Chronic Illness or Disability

[[Hi Sister, I just wondered if it was right to exclude someone from profession just because they have a chronic illness or disability. I know that religious communities do this because they feel the person can't keep up or do all the things active ministry requires, but how does this work with eremitical life? You write about chronic illness as vocation so I thought you might have already written about this. If you have, could you point me to where I might find that? Thanks!]]

Thanks for this question. It is an important one and one I care about more than most. I get occasional anecdotal information about this question from hermits seeking to be professed under c 603 in various dioceses. Still, I have only received a report about one diocese that excluded a candidate because of chronic illness per se; in this case, they cited the impediment to orders 1044.1 which struck me negatively in several ways. First, the candidate was not petitioning for admission to orders or to a highly social lifestyle. This made the canon noted doubly irrelevant, nor did the diocese have a general prohibition on professing anyone with any history of mental illness. If there was some such history (the canon still uses the terms "insanity" and "psychic defect") it needed to be assessed in terms of the solitary eremitical vocation and the candidate him or herself. 

Also, a diocese needs to be able to give sufficient time and attention to discerning such a vocation or simply refuse to profess anyone under c 603. In the case mentioned here, this "impediment" was only noted after the candidate was asked to write a Rule of Life and had worked hard on it. (Writing a Rule is not an easy project; moreover, it takes a significant period of time, prayer, reflection, and probably, several consultations with a mentor to complete an adequate (liveable) Rule that is deeply rooted in both c 603 and the candidate's lived experience. Dioceses must understand all of this before requesting someone even begin writing their Rule, particularly if one is planning on using something like C 1044.1 as an absolute impediment to eremitical life.) Thus, in this case, the chancery's decision and justification struck me as lazy, essentially dishonest, and disrespectful. Again, it is not a surprise to find a diocese not understanding c 603 or vocations lived under it, but applying c 1044.1 after several meetings with the candidate coupled with the prior request that s/he write a Rule of Life, offends against the canon and the candidate pursuing profession under it.

Chronic Illness and the Desert Vocation:

It is especially important that a diocese recognizes that eremitical life is a desert vocation with desert spirituality at its heart. By definition, chronic illness is itself a profound desert experience. The Gospel that eremitical life witnesses to is the Gospel of a God whose power is perfected and most perfectly revealed in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9) Thus, dioceses who have a good sense of the vocation in general, will recognize not only that each vocation must be individually discerned, but that various forms of chronic illness, far from serving as impediments to eremitical life, may be important formative influences that allow one to form an essentially eremitical heart long before one embraces eremitical life in a formal or even a conscious way. This is a really critical element of the discernment of such vocations that flies in the face of much writing about eremitical life focusing on its austerity and physical demands.

While some few contemporary eremitical vocations may look like images of eremitical life drawn from past centuries and instances of solitary eremitical life, and while it remains true that this vocation is demanding and should not be watered down, it is also true that theologies of prayer, penance, the silence of solitude, and the other central elements of the canon have shifted some to allow the demands of the life to be primarily spiritual and holistic, not narrowly physical. What cannot be lost sight of is the desert character of the calling and our expanding sense of the myriad ways such a vocation is encountered and expressed. 

Similarly, we cannot forget what it means to witness to the Gospel in significant and fruitful ways for the praise of God and the salvation of others. Hermits are not navel-gazing nutcases who isolate themselves from the larger world for fear of being contaminated nor because they are on an entirely individualistic quest for holiness. They are individuals committed to living ecclesial lives of wholeness in a unique relationship and dialogue with God. In the silence of solitude, they do this in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit of love and communion. When this is lived with integrity, others will also come to know that however fragile or threatened their lives, the faithfulness of God will not allow them to return to Him void. This "for others" quality is the reason for everything the hermit lives in her hermitage; it marks every movement toward authentic holiness just as it defines the risen Christ and every member of the Communion of Saints.

For the chronically ill or disabled who are already marked as separated from the world of the differently abled and whose illness isolates them, the solitary eremitical life may be the context in which their anguish and isolation can be redeemed by the love of God. In this context, the hermit becomes a person of prayer meeting the pain of a suffering world with compassion. The poverty of spirit demanded by being chronically ill can be transformed into the inner wealth of one who knows s/he is deeply regarded by God. Many of the values associated with our consumerist world, the ways meaning and success are measured are countered by the hermit, especially the chronically ill hermit. To be a person who encounters the pain and anguish of the world with the compassion of eremitical prayer is to share in the fundamental vocation of Jesus. It is to live a penitential life oriented toward health and wholeness and builds on the suffering already built into human life. Dioceses need to be able to see the possibilities chronic illness and/or disability create for authentic eremitical life.

All that considered, it remains true that not all chronic illnesses lend themselves to eremitical life. This is especially true of some forms of mental illness. More to the point, however, not every person with a chronic illness will be able to come to live and pray their illness in the way a solitary hermit must come to do.  While endurance is important, one is called to do more than endure the illness; one is called to allow it to become subject and transparent to the transforming love of God so the world might be blessed by it and the life of the one who suffers from it. The bottom line in all of this, however, is that the diocesan team or personnel charged with discerning and assisting in the formation of the solitary hermit must discern on a case-by-case basis with the requirements of c 603 and the life it envisions uppermost in mind. To answer your question in your own terms, No, it is wrong to exclude someone from profession and consecration under c 603 merely on the basis of a chronic illness.

Easter and the Realization of God's Will to be Emmanuel (Reprise)

Several years ago I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize, for instance, the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. 

There are several reasons for our failures here. First, we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel" so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God in Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history but in that same Christ God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms its dimensions in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives and sanctifies us. He is mentor, brother, and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us that our God embraces and achieves in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross ostensibly having failed in his mission. (From one perspective we could say that had he succeeded completely there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture, and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross, this comes to a climax and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death, Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

As I have noted before, John C. Dwyer, my major Theology professor for BA and MA work back in the 1970's described God's revelation of self on the cross (God's making himself known and personally present even in those places from whence we exclude him or believe he should never be found) --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.

Beginning the Easter Season: First steps into a Life of Hope

Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!!! All good wishes for a wonderful Easter Season!!

For the next 50 days, we have time to attend to what Jesus' death and resurrection changed. In light of these events we live in a different world than existed before they occurred, and we ourselves, by virtue of our Baptism into Christ's death, are new creations as well. We have been embraced by God and live as God's daughters and sons, heirs of the inheritance he grants us. While all this makes beautiful poetry, it is also all true in the profound ways the very best poetry is true. Objective reality was transformed with Jesus' passion and death; something astounding, universal, even cosmic in scope, happened in these events which had to do with our own salvation and the recreation of all of reality. One of Paul's shorthand phrases for this transformation was "the death of death," something I hope to be able to look at a bit more as these 50 days unfold. Especially, I would like to look at the way we have become an integral part of God's story, the story of his will to bestow himself on and dwell with the whole of creation. 

At this point, it is probably good to recall that the early Church struggled to make sense of the cross, and that faith in Jesus' resurrection took some time to take hold --- though amongst the disciples, that period is greatly abbreviated. Surprisingly, no single theology of the cross is held as official even today, and variations --- many quite destructive --- exist throughout the Church. Many of these mistakenly affirm that God was reconciled to us in various ways rather than the other way around. Only in time did the Church come to terms with the scandalous death of Jesus and embrace him as risen, and so, they came to see him as the Christ who paradoxically reveals God's power in weakness. Only in time did she come to understand how different the world now was for those who had been baptized into Jesus' death, and even more time was required before she began to understand the cross in light of an unfinished and evolving universe. This last shift in understanding, though responding to new scientific knowledge of the world in which we live, is entirely consistent with Paul's and Mark's theologies of the cross. The Church offers us a dedicated period to come to understand and embrace all of this meaning; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, at least partly, geared to this.

Today is a day of celebration. It is a day we begin to allow hope to take greater hold of our hearts. Lent is over, the Triduum has reached a joyful climax, the season of Easter has begun and once again we sing alleluia at our liturgies. Jesus is revealed as Israel's Messiah and the sanest man who has ever lived. Though it will take time to fully understand and embrace all this means, through the Church's liturgies and the readings we have heard, we do sense that we now live in a world where both death and life have a different character and meaning than they did before Christ's passion and resurrection. On this day we call Easter, darkness has given way to light, and senselessness to meaning -- even though we may not really be able to explain to ourselves or others exactly why or how. On this day we proclaim that Christ is risen and begin our first steps into a life rooted in hope! Sinful death could not hold Jesus nor can it hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Indeed he is risen!! Alleluia, alleluia!!

Jesus' Descent into Hell (Reprise)

 The following piece was written for my parish bulletin for Palm Sunday 2012. It is, therefore, necessarily brief but I hope it captures the heart of the credal article re Jesus' descent into Hell in light of the resurrection itself. It also represents an explanation of the significance of Jesus' experience of abandonment by God which itself is an experience of hell or godforsakenness. All of this is part of the larger story of God's will to bestow himself, to embrace us and the whole of creation, and to take it all into his own life where it is entirely transformed. This narrative grounds all existence and assures us of an absolute future; it is the story of God's unfailing and eternal faithfulness.

During Holy Week, we recall and celebrate the central events of our faith, revealing just how deep and incontrovertible is God's love for us. It is the climax of a story of "self-emptying" (or self-bestowal) on God's part begun in creation and completed in the events of the cross. In Christ, and especially through his openness and responsiveness (i.e., his obedience) to the One he calls Abba, God enters exhaustively into every aspect of our human existence and in no way spares himself the cost of such solidarity. Here God is revealed as an unremitting Love-in-Act which pursues us without pause or limit. Even our sinfulness cannot diminish or ultimately confound this love. Nothing, the gospel proclaims, will keep God from embracing and bringing us “home” to Himself. As the Scriptures remind us, our God loves us with a love that is “stronger than death." It is a love from which, “Neither death nor life, nor powers nor principalities, nor heights nor depths, nor anything at all” can ultimately separate us! (Romans 8:38-39)

It is only against this Scriptural background that we make sense of the article of the Apostles’ Creed known as Jesus’ “descent into hell”. Hell is, after all, not the creation of an offended God designed to punish us; it is a state of ultimate emptiness, inhumanity, loneliness, and lovelessness which is created, sustained, and exacerbated (made worse) by every choice we make to shut God out --- to live, and therefore to die, without Love itself. Hell is the fullest expression of the alienation which exists between human beings and God. As Benedict XVI writes, it is that “abyss of absolute loneliness” that “can no longer be penetrated by the word of another” and“into which love can no longer advance.” And yet, in Christ God himself will advance into this abyss and transform it with his presence. Through the sinful death of God’s Son, Love will become present even here.

To say that Christ died what the New Testament refers to as sinful, godless, “eternal”, or “second death” is to say that through his passion Jesus entered this abyss and bore the full weight of human isolation and abandonment. In this abject loneliness and hopelessness --- a hell deeper than anyone has ever known before or will ever know again --- Christ, though completely powerless to act on his own, remains open and responsive (obedient) to God. This openness provides God with a way into this state or place from which he is otherwise excluded. In Christ, even godforsakenness becomes good soil out of which the fullness of resurrection life springs. As a result, neither sin nor death will ever have the final word, or be a final silence! God will not and has not permitted it!

The credal article affirming Jesus’ descent into hell was born not from the church’s concern with the punishing wrath of God, but from her profound appreciation of the depth of God’s love for us and the lengths to which God would go to redeem us and to bring creation to fulfillment. What seems at first to be an unreservedly dark affirmation, meant mainly to terrify and chasten with foreboding, is instead the church's most paradoxical statement of the gospel of God’s prodigal love. It is a stark symbol of what it costs God to destroy that which separates us from Godself and to bring us to abundant (eternal) Life. It says that forgiveness is not about God changing his mind about us – much less having his anger appeased or his honor restored through his Son’s suffering and death. Instead, it is God’s steadfast refusal to let the alienation of sin stand eternally. In reconciling us to Godself, God asserts his Lordship precisely in refusing to allow enmity and alienation to remain as lasting realities in our lives or world.