On Differing and Similar Standards for Beginners and Mature Hermits

[[Sister Laurel, Are the standards for a beginning hermit different than they are for a mature hermit? I am asking because when you write about living eremitical life you accent the idea of living a vision with widows or doors to Mystery. You also speak of everything being part of the "privilege of Love" and that makes me think that it takes time to truly come to live the hermit life in profound ways. I also wondered about the relationship between contraints and freedom that you wrote about recently, and this ties in with my question because it seems that constraints come before freedom. All of this makes me wonder if the way a beginner lives eremitical life will be different than the life of a mature hermit. If someone wanted to participate in some form of limited ministry it would take time to develop the habits and depths of a life of assiduous prayer and the silence of solitude before one could really discern this, don't you think?]] 

This is a really great question and I really appreciate your explaining how you came to it! Thank you!! I understand what you are thinking, and I generally agree with your analysis. At the same time I also need to look at the way c 603 handles the matter. That allows me to suggest on one hand that in terms of spiritual depth and the aquisition of needed habits, beginners do indeed live the life somewhat differently than mature hermits. On the other hand, when I look at the standards the Church recognizes, namely, canon 603, the guidelines of Ponam in Deserto Viam, and the descriptive passages from the Catechism, beginners and mature hermits are both called to the same standards. Every day, we each walk through the same doorways to the same Mystery. Every day, each hermit is called to embrace assiduous prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, and stricter separation from the world, for instance, in order to come to union with God and one's own divinization. It is the encounter with that Divine Mystery that changes and calls for a tailoring of our lives in ways that differ one hermit from another.

The Fathers who wrote c 603 were aware of and provided for this. Paradoxically, one of the main unchanging standards of c 603 is the requirement of a (liveable) Rule of Life that the hermit writes for him/herself. Every c 603 hermit must do this, and the Rule must not only be rooted in significant lived experience of eremitism and other things as well, but it must demonstrate the way she understands and will live the other elements of the canon itself. It is here that the individual hermit's more personal or unique standards may reveal themselves as shifting even as the overarching elements defining the eremitical life remain the same. In some ways it is also here that the hermit will accommodate any changes in her vision of the way she is to live this vocation and clarify both the tensions that exist and the resolution of these tensions in her way of living solitary eremitical life.

The Beauty and Flexibility of C 603:

I have written many times her over the past nearly 2 decades that I find c 603 to be truly beautiful in the way it combines the defining elements without which one would be unable to live an eremitical life, and the flexibility of one's own personal vision of the life lived in a particular place and time by a particular person. The Church wrote really well when she opted for this combination of constitutive elements. Sometimes folks who believe hermits are "adding things" unnecessarily to or in betrayal of the vocation by this activity or emphasis,  or they may suggest that bishops are allowing things beyond some narrow, even unhealthy notion of eremitical life and don't really understand eremitical life. What is more often true in these cases is that those making the accusations have forgotten the requirement that the hermit write her own liveable Rule. 

Remember, this is a Rule that reflects not only all of the specific and explicit elements of c 603, but also personal elements that are part and parcel of the way God has brought this person to eremitical life and continues to speak to her in the silence of solitude. All of these elements are discerned by the hermit, her bishop, delegate, and (before perpetual profession and consecration) the diocesan formation team. The Rule spells out one's own understanding and vision of solitary eremitical life and its constitutive elements; it also spells out those things, additional and otherwise,  that are required for the individual hermit's own wellness, human wholeness, and personal holiness. It is here that elements that do not work for another hermit but are essential for one's own call by God will be found. 

This is also why I advise hermits I work with to use their Rule as a workbook along with their journal as something that inspires them every day. I also advise folks to revise their Rule every 8-10 years or so (or whenever major changes in the person's life makes this advisable). But let me be clear. The standards or constitutive elements of c 603 don't change. The guidelines of Ponam in Deserto Viam don't change either. If my hermit life looks different from one of the others in our laura (and it definitely does look different in some ways!), it is because my vision of the life, my personal background, relationship with God, and unique gifts and limitations differ. In other words, we have the same vocation and are called to union with God under the same standards (c. 603's constitutive elements, charism, and the Evangelical Counsels, etc); meanwhile, the ways in which God tailors his call or invites us to tailor and incarnate our responses --- especially I think, regarding the requirement that our lives be lived for the salvation of others --- will always also differ one from another. They are both alike and dissimilar precisely because we are each faithful to c 603 and God's call to this vocation! This is recognizable to each of us even though it may be hard to see from outside the vocation or the sharing we do with one another.

On the Interrelatedness of Constraints and Freedom:

I understand why you posit that constraints come before freedom. I think you are generally right in your observations. I believe even more strongly that the constraints, however, are opportunities that accompany and are fulfilled by freedom. My fallback example of this is playing the violin. One must certainly argue as you do analogously, that without technique, one could never play music at all. Imagine what would happen if one could not master bowing (or even hold the bow properly) or finger the notes with precision and speed. Imagine what would and could never happen if one's right hand was stiff and cramped or one couldn't shift with one's left hand because one was holding the violin at the neck of the violin rather than with one's jaw and shoulder. The latter posture leaves the left hand free and entirely mobile, while the former paralyzes it! And imagine all of the scales, arpeggios, and etudes required in all of the possible bowing variations that are necessary to master if one is to allow the violin to sing over the whole of its range!! 

Thus, it is absolutely true that one needs to learn proper technique before one can play to the limits of the instrument, the composer, and one's own imagination and abilities. At the same time, one plays to the limits of one's technique, and doing so musically will transform and push one's technique further as well. Technique serves musical freedom, yes, but musicality (which is partly, I believe, about the influence or inspiration of the Holy Spirit) fulfills technique and allows it to be much more than mere technicality. It is always the two together that produces music, and music, I sincerely believe, is a form of prayer and perhaps a model for growth in all prayer.

What I am trying to say is that it is not only possible but also necessary for all things to grow together simultaneously once one becomes a c 603 hermit. It is very much a holistic vocation. Yes, profession and consecration under c 603 require preparation. For instance, one should be a contemplative before discerning a call to eremitical solitude, and one should already have completed one's schooling and any certification or licensure work one envisions needing.  Strictly speaking, one should not be a beginner at eremitical life when one is admitted to profession and consecration as a c 603 hermit. For this reason a good deal of the growth you are speaking of happens before one becomes c 603; at the same time, we hermits recognize in one another the same patterns of growth, the same embrace of values and constitutive elements, the same vocations no matter the differences in our Rules and whether we have been a hermit for decades or for a only a handful of years. I'll end this here for now. There is definitely more to explore, though, so thanks again for your questions!!

Once Again on Standards for Canonical and non-Canonical Hermits: Potential Discussion Topics

[[Dear Sister, thanks for your response to my questions. I had a different idea about a list of requrements or standards. I am enclosing a list of the kinds of things that were included in the video I watched. Here is the list. Perhaps you could comment on what you think of these standards and of making them universal for all hermits in the Church.]]

1. Should a hermit do a video log (vlog) or have a blog? Does it make a difference if the hermit is canonical? What are the implications of such a move for the faithful wishing to pray there?
2. Is anonymity better than being ID'd?
3. Should "Traditional historical hermits" get their hermitages designated a "place or house of worship"? by the Bishop?
4. Should hermits wear religious habits?
5. Should hermits live alone? Is solitude a somewhat flexible term allowing for lauras, etc.?
6. Should they use post-nomial initials such as Er Dio of CH?
7. Should the spiritual director be a priest or brother ? Could it be a "girl friend" in a religious community?
8. Should transgendered persons or persons otherwise sexually disordered be consecrated as hermit?
9. Should psychological testing be required before admission to profession and consecration?
10. Who should guide and supervise hermits?
11. Should hermits have benefactors or be self-supporting?
12. Is it appropriate to charge for spiritual direction? Should hermits even do spiritual direction?
13. What kinds of jobs are allowed?
14. Should hermits teach courses at their parish? Bible or Scripture? Or should they be cleaning the Church alone at night?
15. How would universal standards be enforced?
16. What do we do about corpulent or obese hermits and their guilty vice of gluttony?
17. Should hermits get involved in politics or controversial topics that could lead them to anger, despair, or depression?
18. Do the USCCB and other English-speaking bishops' conferences need to create a list of such standards or requirements?

Thanks for supplying this list; I see better where your questions were coming from. I will keep these topics in mind for the future because, as you might be aware, I have written about a number of them over the years, sometimes multiple times. At this point, I think the best way to proceed is to suggest that you and other interested readers look first for past discussions from the labels on the right. Then, if you (or anyone else) want to discuss any of these topics further here, you can feel free to raise specific questions or issues in a separate context, and we can go from there. 

Unfortunately, some of these questions are important for the way they reflect on the person raising them as issues rather than on the substance of the question itself; for instance, at least one of them attributes motives to situations or persons no one but the person and God can know. None of us reads minds or souls so, for instance, attributing a physical condition (corpulence) to personal sin (gluttony) is completely out of bounds. So is calling someone's director or delegate their "girlfriend"-- as though there is something improper or unprofessional about the relationship. Only one person I know of has written this way in the past. It was wrong then and is wrong now; it reflects more on the questioner's biases and animosities than it does on anything happening in eremitical life today.  

One question you have listed about a bishop constituting a hermitage as a house or place of worship is entirely new and interests me. I have not heard of this before (though I expect it is linked to becoming 501(c)3) and would need to determine if it is even canonically possible. (Diocesan hermits can, if they can meet the civil requirements, become 501(c)3, but I was unaware of the idea that a hermitage becomes a "place of worship".) I'll do some research on this and see whether it would be a good topic to write about further than I have already done. (Cf articles on becoming 501(c)3.)

Is it Risky Accepting Hermits for Profession and Consecration under Canon 603?

[[Sister Laurel, it sounds to me like there is quite a risk in accepting hermits for profession and consecration. If there is no single list of standards each hermit must meet or cannot trepass against, then isn't it a case of every hermit needing to be directed and supervised individually? Won't some fail? Won't they come to their bishop claiming to be called to this form of ministry or another and won't at least some of them be wrong . . . [redacted]? Who really oversees the life of a hermit? Is it the bishop?]]

Interesting questions. Thanks. I had hoped that in my earlier post I had managed to indicate there are standards in the Code of Canon Law and also in Ponam in Deserto Viam. There are further guidelines in the other texts I cited, especially for formation of contemplatives. If the hermit wants to join with other c 603 hermits in a laura they are free to do so. I am part of a small virtual laura with four, possibly five, diocesan hermits from the US and Great Britain. We meet monthly by ZOOM and though we are quite different from one another in many ways, we are aware we are each called to and live the same vocation in our own significant ways. We are currently slowly discussing Cornelius Wencel's book on the Eremitic Life and exploring the ways we each live the values or constitutive elements of our vocations, how we have grown in this, how we can assist and support one another and so forth. Such virtual lauras allow us to hear the wisdom of our elders (a matter of experience, not age!) and to ask questions when we are dealing with a real problem or something difficult. This kind of situation, combined with spiritual direction, the input of a delegate, and the supervision of one's bishop, is both demanding, challenging, and consoling. It fosters growth more than any list of standards might do.

Even when a diocese has a common list of standards or guidelines, each vocation must be measured, discerned, formed, professed and consecrated, as well as supervised separately. Nothing else does justice to the profound and unique relationship between the hermit and God. This is God's vocation entrusted to the Church and to the hermit through the Church's mediation. Both hermit and Church must be subservient to God by discerning each vocation separately, especially once the essential qualities have been embraced by the hermit. While it is always possible to meet for group direction, each hermit will have her own director as well. This is the nature of the solitary eremitical vocation. I am not sure I would say that someone who tried solitary eremitical life and found it was not what she felt called to a failure. It is simply a step on her road of discernment and human formation. I personally don't believe anything is wasted in such attempts, but yes, many people will try to become diocesan hermits, and the majority will not succeed. There are many different reasons for this, and many do not reflect on the individual candidate at all.

Also, some diocesan hermits will want to try this ministry or that one as part of their eremitical vocation. They will be given time to try these and discern whether or not it is truly consistent with the hermit's life in the hermitage and then, whether it enhances her life in hermitage. Part of discernment is coming to understand not only what one feels called to but why. Some answers to this latter question suggest the hermit should not undertake the ministry, while others encourage the hermit, her director and delegate to support the project. The bishop is ultimately responsible for supervising the quality of the hermit's life, but the way a bishop supervises is not carved in stone (and some who "inherit" diocesan hermits professed by other bishops sometimes simply show no interest in supervising them. There is little a diocesan hermit can do in such a situation beyond requesting a conversation to discuss matters. 

Fortunately, a hermit with a delegate, spiritual director, and even a mentor and/or virtual laura is ordinarily well watched over and assisted by all of these persons. Curiously and ironically, even with so many people involved in various kinds of accompaniment and consultation, the vocation remains a profoundly free and independent one that is dependent on God's love and the divine will more than anything else. Still, given the relative rarity and significance of the vocation, it is not surprising it requires serious dialogue with God and others all along the way.

I sincerely hope this is helpful.

In Search of a List of Standards? Eremitical Life and The Privilege of Love

[[Dear Sister Laurel, is there such a thing as a list of standards for hermits based on historical hermits? If I wanted to become a hermit and be consecrated by my bishop would I go to my diocese for such a list or just where would I go, particularly if my diocese has never consecrated someone as a hermit before? I want to make sure I am doing all the right things. Does this make sense? It seems to me that different hermits all seem to live hermit life differently than one another. Oh, I'm sure there are similarities, but some live together, others live alone, some do various forms of ministry and others may not, some depend on benefactors, others are self-supporting, some work outside the hermitage and others work from home. It just seems too diverse to meet any single set of standards, but isn't there a list of such standards somewhere? Shouldn't there be a set of standards all bishops agree on?]]

Thanks for your questions. Eremitical life is, paradoxically, both constrained and incredibly free. In the Roman Catholic Church we now have canon 603 that defines eremitical life and allows for consecrated solitary eremitical life which includes not just solitary hermits, but solitary hermits who come together in colonies or lauras which do not rise to the level of juridical congregations or communities. (Some country's bishops, Spain for instance, have created guidelines for such lauras focusing on the limits these should observe.) Canon 603 has several conditions or central elements that are part of the essential definition of the solitary eremitical life, namely, the hermit lives a life of assiduous prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, and stricter separation from the world, within the framework of the profession of the Evangelical counsels; they do this for the praise of God, and the salvation of others, all under the supervision of the diocesan bishop and according to a Rule of Life the hermit writes for herself. Whatever else one does (limited ministry, etc.), one must live these elements if one is to truly be a hermit.

Canon 603 thus also implicitly refers to other canons having to do with the Evangelical Counsels and also with contemplative life in the Church. Thus, dioceses can require things c 603 never mentions explicitly as part of the profession and consecration of a c 603 hermit, and even when additional canons don't apply directly, there are encyclicals and exhortations that do. So, for instance, a diocese wishing to profess a diocesan hermit may refer any suitable candidate not only to c 603 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, but to texts like The Art of Seeking the Face of God, Guidelines for the Formation of Women Contemplatives, Vita Consecrata (Consecrated Life), The Gift of Fidelity the Joy of Perseverance, New Wine in New Wineskins, and of course, Ponam in Deserto Viam (The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church), et al. Hermit candidates and their spiritual directors should be familiar with these writings. Of course, these do not simply provide a list of naked standards as though one size fits all. They provide reflections on a vision of consecrated life that an individual should take on (and be helped to take on) in a way which illumines her life and makes it a gift to the Church and larger world as well. 

As noted above, to try to embrace such a vision in response to God's call is both constraining and incredibly freeing. The life one is called to is both regular or ordered in particular ways and also free to respond to more individual or particular gifts. Both dimensions are of the Holy Spirit and both must be honored if one is to live one's vocation faithfully and with integrity.  Some of this may surprise people when they are reflecting on eremitical life. For instance, this life is meant to be lived for the sake of the salvation of others. This is an integral requirement of what it means to be a hermit, especially with an ecclesial vocation. It is not just that the hermit prays for others, though this is certainly a dominant note in every hermit life, but also, that the hermit may be involved in limited ministry to others so long as such ministry enhances rather than detracts from her eremitical life. 

How does one discern this? Well, not according to an abstract list of standards; rather, one looks to the quality of the whole life one is living. Does this form of limited ministry lead the person to a stronger prayer life, a greater sense of her call and dependence on God, a life defined more completely in terms of the Word of God and as imago Christi? Does it allow for "the silence of solitude" to become not just about the absence of noise in some form of isolation from others, but also the stillness of human wholeness and holiness in communion with others? If it does these things, then discernment affirms that this is likely to be something God is calling one to. In the past I have spoken about this in terms of the ministry calling me not only out to the world around me, but back again and again to the solitude and silence of the hermitage; the limited ministry of the hermit is one legitimate way the life of the hermitage overflows in mission, rather like the image from last Sunday's Gospel: [[Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap.]]

Hermits learn over time to honor the various ways the Holy Spirit calls us to serve the Church (both as the Body of Christ and so, as a communion of brothers and sisters in Christ). They are also helped in this by their spiritual directors, delegates, and (though usually less frequently or regularly) by their bishops and pastors or confessors. Those exercising the ministry of authority in our lives generally do so out of love and those who are really good at their jobs have a very clear sense of the ways the hermit needs to grow and change. Thus, a list of standards is often only minimally helpful because it cannot know or reflect the individual hermit's life nor the way the Holy Spirit is working in that. What is essential beyond any external list of standards is faithful and prayerful dialogue with someone knows us well and who lives and knows what it means to live a contemplative life of prayer consecrated by God for the sake of one's own call to holiness and for others as well. To gauge the quality of an eremitical life according to a list of requirements, it seems to me, is to miss the point. 

A hermit is not merely someone who lives alone in silence while saying prayers at various parts of the day. Any misanthrope could do that! S/he is someone who, in the silence of solitude, lives with and in dialogue with God, and who, in light of this intimate relationship, is capable of loving not only God and herself but others as well. The Camaldolese congregation I am affiliated with apart from c 603 speaks about this kind of life as one of The Privilege of Love. It seems to me that this is the single or overarching standard by which a life lived under c 603's requirements is really to be measured. Of course, all of the central elements I listed above are definitive of this form of life, but within one's faithfulness to these, one must ask, is the person growing as one who loves God, themselves, and is committed to the growth in holiness and wholeness of others as well? Is she responding to the Holy Spirit even if this means doing something other hermits are not doing? Do those exercising the ministry of authority in her life agree with this sense of things? If so, then she is living c 603 and the life it describes faithfully!

I sincerely hope this is helpful. I have tried to give you a sense of the codified requirements that bind diocesan hermits and I have tried to indicate why no single list of "standards"-- especially if applied from outside a lived eremitical life -- is insufficient. C 603 is a place to begin. Ponam (cf above) is important as well if one wants to see how the Church views this vocation. Again, this, along with c 603 itself, serves to provide a series of doorways into ever-deepening Mystery whereas a list of standards does not. Your concern with "doing all the right things" is very much a beginner's concern. There is certainly nothing wrong with that and if you want to contact your diocese to see if they have a list of standards or guidelines, I encourage you to do that! Still, if you are truly called to an eremitical life and embrace that call, you will eventually come to a place where your deepest concern is to be yourself in response to God's invitation to life in Him. Similarly, your concern that God calls hermits to different incarnations of the eremitical vocation won't bother you so much as it seems to currently. You will enter the doorways to Mystery provided by c 603 or Ponam and, over time, come to know the deeper dimensions of things like silence and solitude (and the silence OF solitude) and let go of worry about any more rigid, less essential, and more superficial senses of these defining elements. You will understand your call as a vocation to the privilege of love and live this in the ways required of you in particular. 

Postscript: If I have failed to answer your questions, please get back to me with a list of the kinds of standards you were envisioning, for instance, and I can look at these more specifically. Thanks!

Feast of St Peter Damian

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person [Ecclesiola] and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Or again, [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell has functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

Once again, on Maintaining our Focus on Christ in the Face of the Demonic

[[ Dear Sister Laurel. I wonder if the way you described praying before and after watching the news means you are not sufficiently tuned into God's will or God's way of thinking. Don't you know that we are bound for heaven and can't be too concerned with temporal matters? Aren't you supposed to be about that because you are a hermit? Also, I wondered why you used the term "demonic" to refer to President Trump and what he and those working for him are doing if you don't usually refer to this? Isn't Trump the one whom God elected? Aren't you allowing yourself to be a bit consumed by temporal (political) matters to call Trump et al "demonic"? One person I listened to today said that perhaps this means you are not trusting God enough to do the best for us. (You are the only diocese hermit I know who wrote about what she referred to). She reminded us that God will never abandon us or let us be bereft and she should know because she suffers terribly, is tested by Satan all the time, and also is a consecrated hermit!]]

Thanks for your questions. I am assuming you are referring to today's Gospel reading in asking me about God's way of thinking. For those who have not read that lection today, it is Mark 8:27-33 and focuses on Jesus' admonition to Peter's reaction when Jesus lays out how he will have to suffer. Let me say that in the situation in the US, I believe I am seeing things as God sees them and that it is precisely so I can continue doing that (and do it even better) that I practice a period of quiet prayer before watching the news and a period of lectio afterward. I encourage others to do the same because I believe this can be helpful for remaining in Christ and allowing our minds and hearts to be filled with the Holy Spirit and not drawn into the destructive, narcissistic orbit or emptiness of the singularity we know as Donald J Trump. Certainly, I trust God is doing his best for the entire United States, but that is not the same as trusting that President Trump's election was something God accomplished or willed.

Granted, God allows human free choice, but simply because God permits something human beings choose to do does not mean God approves of it, or even that it comports with God's will. God does not prevent child abuse, or childhood deaths to cancer, for instance. He did not prevent the last Holocaust* with the torture and murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Catholic priests and religious, et al, but none of these could even remotely be considered the will of God --- even if we see God eventually bringing about a greater good out of all of this. If we begin to think this way we are really suggesting that we should do more evil so that God may do more good! Paul confronted this very question when he observed first that where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. Then he posed  the question, "Does this mean we should sin all the more so that grace may abound all the more?" to which he responded emphatically, "God forbid!" The first way of seeing the permissive will of God is, I sincerely believe, a human way of thinking. Paul's question and response represent God's way of thinking!

In the Markan reading, Jesus knows he is going to be crucified and die --- not only a horribly inhuman way to die but incredibly shameful as well because it represents the apotheosis of godlessness. Peter, as a good Jew, could never have conceived of God's own Messiah suffering and dying in such an ignoble way (or even in a noble way like that of Socrates, for instance)! It is still hard for us to accept that God wills to love us so exhaustively and generously that he will take on our sin and the reality of godless death itself so these things cannot continue to separate us from his love. But to take further steps and suggest that God willed Trump's presidency so that people might suffer and learn to think as God thinks moves from thinking as Christians dealing with a valid understanding of God's permissive will to idolators serving a monstrous abomination. 

I am not consumed with political matters, or rather, I am concerned with these because I am first and last concerned with the Kingdom of God and the Kingship of Jesus which is a Kingdom of justice, mercy, love, truth, and fathomless meaning. When I look at what is happening here in the USA, and abroad through us as well, what I see is vast senseless damage, much of it apparently irreparable because lives will be or have already been needlessly lost. In Acts of the Apostles, a book my Scripture class is reading now, we talked today about the primary Spiritual value that threads all through Acts, namely that of speaking boldly (parrhesia). This form of speech is about proclaiming the Gospel, of course,  and it means speaking truth to power, proclaiming the Kingship of Jesus, and unmasking the blasphemy of those (including Trump himself) who would like us to believe we have another King who is similarly anointed by God. Because those filled with the Holy Spirit speak out in this way I cannot keep from saying as clearly as I can, we don't have such a system of governance and we can't believe or ask fellow citizens of the world to believe that we do. We Christians have only one King and that is the risen Christ who sits at God's right hand (meaning he is present in this world and reigns with the power that comes from God).

The very fact that I take Christ's Kingship seriously with the kind of faithfulness and commitment it calls for is the reason I MUST also pay greater attention to Donald Trump's idolatrous excesses. Am I consumed with Trump or with politics? No, and I am trying to remain centered on Christ and all his resurrection and ascension mean for our world precisely so I can be appropriately informed without losing my Christian identity at the same time. If your hermit friend wants to criticize me for this, she is welcome to. She might choose to focus on an otherworldly "heaven" while denigrating the new heaven and new earth inaugurated with Jesus' incarnation of the Word of God, in his resurrection and ascension, she can do that too --- though not, I think, if she wishes to honor the Incarnation appropriately. Similarly, she might put up video after video speaking about how frequently she deals with Satan or sees Satan behind every bush or in every person who simply disagrees with (or, alternately, mirrors) her, and she is free to do that too, though I believe that trivializes the weight and extent of the evil the truly demonic represents. What she is really not free to do is to suggest that because I identify the Donald J Trump/Elon Musk duo as a demonic reality in the Tillichian sense of that term, I am not trusting in God sufficiently or thinking as God thinks! Those are judgments only God can make.

As I noted in my last post, I use the word demonic rarely, cautiously, and in a highly theologically nuanced way. My world is not peopled as some persons' worlds are reportedly peopled with demons or Satan who is always about tripping us up, making us ill, etc. However, I recognize what Paul referred to as powers and principalities that are still at work amongst us. I recognize that there are idols and idolatrous movements afoot that some**, I believe rightly, call Anti-Christ because of the degree of hatred these manifest and the degree of power and damage they intend to wield and do to those they are called instead to love as themselves. Absolutely God will never abandon us or leave us bereft!! He will fill us with the Holy Spirit of both Father and Son, the Spirit of comfort and courage, and he will expect us to do what Peter and Stephen, et al, do in Acts of the Apostles. Namely, he will expect us to speak truth to power, proclaim the Lordship of Jesus boldly, confront idolatry and blasphemy with the power of our own knowledge, hope, courage, and love, and to love one another not only with the gentleness of doves but to do all of this with the shrewdness of serpents!!

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* Though I have a minor in holocaust studies, I heard a figure I had never realized before last night. It was not only striking, it chilled me to the bone because I had already thought it had been unimaginable that our constitutional republic could be dismantled so quickly as has happened thus far in Trump's administration. The quote referring to the Third Reich and the German Republic was the following: [[The Nazis took 1 month, three weeks, 2 days, 8 hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.]] Consider that. Please consider that.

** I have been referred to Matthew Fox's book here on Trump and MAGA by a bishop whose theology and spirituality I generally respect. The title is Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ. I have not yet read it. It referred to these entities before the last election so it has not been written in light of the last month of willful, careless, and cruel destruction at the cost of the least and most helpless. I suspect Matthew Fox's position would be even more emphatic now.

Once Again: On Maintaining Hope in the Face of the Demonic

 In my last couple of posts, I wrote about maintaining hope and being those who already have a king and are not looking for another one. I want to reemphasize all that I said there and maybe push that a bit further here. I would especially like to sharpen my thoughts on what it means to be a hope-filled people of prayer and love with Christ as their King when our focus and attention is constantly drawn to Trump into a kind of mesmerism or fascination by the tragedy to democracy he represents.

When Trump was elected president this time, I promised myself I would not watch the news much. I heard a couple of other friends were attempting the same thing. As I wrote to my director last week, "That has pretty much gone by the wayside." I did not make this promise because I believed that hermits should be completely separated from all of that or insulated from the truth of this world and its needs. I don't believe that at all. It was that I remembered the way the news of Trump's blundering and self-centered (narcissistic) excesses and stupidities began to take over the last time Trump was elected, rather like a terrible accident makes it almost impossible to look anywhere else or remain sufficiently about my own life and ministry; I didn't want that to happen again. After all, my life has a very real focus and it is not Trump. In fact, my baptism and eremitic consecration, the canon that governs my life, my vows, my Rule of Life, my own conscience, and daily praxis, all tell me it must not be Trump!  

And yet, the unprecedented nature, quality, and degree of the chaos and destruction Trump/Musk is visiting upon our country and the world around us makes it almost impossible not to be sucked into focusing our gaze and energies on him. I believe this same tendency to lose our real focus, our life-giving and meaning-conferring focus is what makes hope so difficult to maintain at this time as well. So how do we hold these two competing foci together without relinquishing the real telos (intention and goal) of our lives? How do we keep ourselves from losing ourselves? Is there anything in Scripture or our Christian Tradition that can help us here? Several things come immediately to mind: 1) the story of Jesus' temptation in the desert, 2) Jesus' continuing ministry and teaching in the face of political and religious threats to his life, 3) canon 603's requirements of stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance, and 4) the desert Abbas' and Ammas' tradition of battle with demons as intrinsic to the spiritual life. I want to look at all of these over the next days, but for now I want to start with number 3.

Hermits are called to embrace a stricter separation from the world at the same time they embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. This dynamic can be misunderstood as implying we simply close the hermitage, convent, or monastery door on the entire world outside us. But "world" in the sense used by canon 603 means "that which is resistant to Christ" and can also be understood to mean "that which promises fulfillment apart from Christ."  At the same time, the hermit is called upon to be hospitable and to open her door to anyone who should come knocking in search of food, rest, a word (from God), or whatever the hermit can provide to ease their journey. This might look like a conflict, but really, it is a paradox. The hermit is one who offers hospitality to God in every way God can come to the hermit. This means first of all she lives a life of assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude, and then too, a life open to anyone in whom God might dwell (and who might be served in their vocation to make that more real by the hermit's hospitality). Both pieces of eremitical life must be preserved by the hermit in a single focus on openness to the presence and sovereignty of God. After all, this is who she is!

As I look at this paradoxical set of values and responsibilities and the task of maintaining an appropriate focus, it reminds me very much of the way we must handle the situation in which we in the US find ourselves today. We cannot shut our doors and windows to the evil happening beyond our hermitage boundaries, but neither can we fling them open so wide that the hermitage ceases to be what it is, namely, a place where God is hosted and may also be found by others. In other words, we must maintain our focus on God and hospitality to God so that God might truly be Lord of this world and transform it with (his) presence. If we can retain this focus, so too can we look evil full in the face and make decisions on what more we are called to do. But what does this mean? How do we do this?

In my life, it means to pray both directly before and after I watch the news. What I have begun to do is to pray quietly before watching the news and read and meditate on Gospel stories afterward. (So far, favorites include the story of the Good Samaritan and Christ's temptation in the desert. I will move on to others as these cease to nourish and strengthen me so much (one story I am sure I will be spending time with is Jesus' trial before Pilate and the conversation he held with Pilate there!). The idea is not to cede President Trump much real estate in my head or heart so that I don't become a kind of satellite of his narcissism; it is to maintain my focus on Christ, and on all those who are suffering in light of the current political situation the US finds themselves in and whom I might serve. In a very real way, it helps ensure I do not lose myself or my integrity to the soul-devouring emptiness and heartlessness we know as Donald Trump and those sycophants who cater to him. This praxis helps me to remain myself and strengthens my identity as imago Christi; in other words, it helps me to live to serve Jesus as Lord and King as the person I am called to be.

Some people will find their own focus and necessary praxis will differ from mine but their goal will largely be the same. A constitutional lawyer may make sure his/her attention is on the law, on statutes they have not paid attention to for some time and on working directly for the constitutional democracy that is currently endangered. A poet or musician will spend time writing and reading poetry, or listening to and playing music even more assiduously than they perhaps did in less chaotic times. All of us will try to be a positive presence contributing what we can for the sake of our world, especially those looking for a way to maintain hope. Again, the point is to not cede President Trump/Musk personal "real estate" in our minds and hearts as we entertain and are strengthened in the real values and relationships with those we are called to serve. This, I sincerely believe, is an instance of what c 603 calls "stricter separation from the world"!

For Christians, then, I believe the approach I suggest above will be helpful. We have one Lord and it is not Trump (or Trump/Musk)! We must be careful that Trump's vacuous heart does not suck us up into his orbit! Karl Barth once famously remarked that when he did theology he kept a newspaper on one corner of his desk and a Bible on the other. What I am suggesting is a variation on that. We must be informed. We must watch the news!! But we must first of all be persons of the Book, persons who live from and for the good news of Jesus Christ, persons for whom Jesus is the image of the humanity and lord of the Kingdom we are called to represent. As I said in my post on maintaining hope, we must be persons of prayer, both to help immunize us from and sensitize us to the evil we will meet and, of course, to inspire us to lovingly work for the good of all in the face of such evil and the suffering it brings.

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Postscript: I use the term demonic rarely and cautiously; when I do, as in the title of this piece, it is usually in the sense that Paul Tillich used the term, namely, for the distortion of the sacred in the direction of evil or non-being. Human persons are sacred as is all of God's creation. When the telos (intention and goal) of that creation is raised to its highest potential, there we have the holy. When it is emptied of goodness and its potential (for life, truth, beauty, future, meaning, etc.) is otherwise distorted in the direction opposing its created or God-endowed nature, there we have the demonic. Any great gift of God can be perfected towards real holiness or distorted in the direction of the demonic. The same is certainly true of persons as a whole. When this happens, especially when it is accompanied by great power along with messianic trappings and delusions, we begin to see a reality some identify as antiChrist.

God's Own Fool

 

I've been taken by the paradox of the Christ Event and the Cross for more than 50 years and I have enjoyed the music of Michael Card and John Michael Talbot for almost as long. I just heard this song for the first time tonight. Since I haven't finished the piece I am working on, I'll put this one up tonight and finish the other tomorrow! It's a great reminder of what Christians commit to in following Jesus!

King of Kings and Lord of Lords

In these days when it is so difficult to maintain hope and when we find our hope is not unalloyed but is instead a mixture of grief and grace, I thought the following version of Handel's Halleluia Chorus was most appropriate. It reminds us that the most fundamental truth is the sovereignty of God in Christ and we are those called to serve this One God who will one day be all in all, this overarching hope. I sincerely hope it will give you a laugh, bring a smile, a bit of respite, and maybe a reminder that we are stronger than we sometimes know and more creative as well. Most importantly, we already have a King and are not looking for another one!

How do we Maintain Hope in These Days?

[[ Sister Laurel, given everything that is happening in the country right now, how do we hang onto hope? I know it is supposed to be a jubilee year focused on hope, but how do we do that? I am so scared and depressed that I don't have a drop of optimism left in my body!!]]

Your questions are good ones, thanks for asking! There are two critical things to remember when we think about hope. The first is that hope is not the same as optimism. One can be a person steeped in hope without being particularly optimistic. Given the situation in the country currently, it is really difficult to be optimistic. So many people are being hurt by the completely careless and blind, not to mention the illegal actions of President Trump,  Elon Musk, and his DOGE actors, it is hard to be optimistic about anything that is going on. It gets even more difficult when we consider that working through the situation will take time and become even more critical and complex as that goes by.

The second critical thing to remember is that hope is always based on reality and rooted in truth. It is not about wishfulness. It is the attitude of someone who knows that they stand firmly in something that is strong and certain, even when there is little to be optimistic about. Christians hope in Christ and the victory Jesus won over sin and death. We hope because we know that God's love is stronger than death and that the evil human beings do will never have the final word.  We trust in that!  As you can see, I think, it is possible to have hope and not be particularly optimistic. After all, sin and death are still with us, yet at the same time they have ultimately been defeated and one day will be no more. We look forward to that day and we do so by staying in touch with the sovereignty of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit that is real right here and right now.

As I have written many times over the years, reality is ambiguous. In the days of the Reformation, we heard the reformers speak of Christians as both sinner and justified. We recognize today that heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and at the same time God is not yet all in all. In other words, the world is ambiguous; it is both justified and sinful, both good and flawed, godly and godless until God does become all in all. To be people of hope means to be people who live in light of what God has already done in Christ and who also look forward to what will one day be fully realized. We work toward that reality, not in terms of wishfulness, but because of what is already true. 

So, how do we maintain hope? We do it by staying in touch with the living Christ. We do it by recognizing that Christ is truly sovereign and is rightly treated as the sovereign of this world who, we affirm, is seated at the right hand of God. We do it by remaining aware of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Father and Son who enlivens and empowers us in this way. Hope is very much the result of a living faith in a similarly living God. Thus, to be people of hope we must be people of prayer --- not in the sense of asking God to take away our troubles (though we will certainly pour out our hearts to God), but in the sense of allowing a growing intimacy with that God and all a relationship with God brings into our lives. 

To be people of hope is to be people who allow God to love us, and in allowing that, to become ever more aware of the unconquerable power of that love. This is what Jesus knew intimately and exhaustively; he knew his Abba's love in a way that saw it overcoming both sin and death. Granted, Jesus' trust in his Abba's love did not prevent the worst that human beings could do, but it did allow that love's victory over this-worldly realities. That, by the way, also means it is crucial to take all the action we can legitimately do to remain involved and working towards the goals we recognize as supporting our democracy (or in other situations, any of the values we truly support). In other words, we must be persons of love as well as of hope; we must be people who are committed to doing a justice which is rooted in and helps strengthen both of these. As Christians, we continue to act and work toward the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God. No, we don't build that Kingdom ourselves, but wherever the goals of that Kingdom overlap with the goals of this world --- for instance, in making sure our country maintains its focus on the dignity of every person by working for a world where every person is a genuine neighbor whose fundamental needs are met wherever we can assist with this --- we work towards an ethos Jesus would delight in and give his entire life to and for. Maintaining hope requires all of this.

A Contemplative Moment: How the Light Comes by Jan Richardson

How the Light Comes

I can't tell you 

how the light comes

What I know is that 

it is more ancient than imagining.

That it travels

across an astounding expanse

to reach us.

That it loves

searching out

what is hidden,

what is lost,

what is forgotten

or in peril

or in pain.

That it has a fondness

for the body,

for finding its way

toward flesh,

for tracing the edges

of form,

for shining forth

through the eye,

the hand,

the heart.

I cannot tell you

how the light comes,

but that it does.

That it will.

That it works its way

into the deepest dark

that enfolds you,

though it may seem

long ages in coming

or arrive in a shape

you did not foresee.

And so

may we this day

turn ourselves toward it.

May we lift our faces

to let it find us.

May we bend our bodies

to follow the arc it makes.

May we open

and open more

and open still

to the blessed light

that comes.

by Jan Richardson

At this time in our country's history and during this jubilee year devoted to hope I read this poem (and also was sent it from another Sister who used it for prayer). Hope is not always easy, nor is working for justice, whether in our world or in the Church itself. And yet we must continue to be people of Hope, people moved and opened more and more and still to the Light we have come to know and witness to. Sincerest thanks to Jan Richardson for such a wonderful poem!

Followup Questions on Penance, Same-Sex Attraction, and Solitary Life

[[ Sister Laurel, are you saying that a person doesn't need to do penance if they have lived a seriously evil life? Sounds to me like you were giving the person who wrote about living a sinful life for years and years a total break by just focusing on the mercy of God. You know that God is also just, right? You also know that SSA is a sin right?]]

Thanks for writing. Please reread my response in the previous post. I did not say penance was not necessary. Instead, I said that there would be a significant amount of it in whatever way of life the individual discerned God was calling him to. Ordinarily, it takes a significant degree of penance or self-denial to fully embrace the mercy and forgiveness of God and to really live from that truth of life with and in God. However, my sense is that most folks define penance in terms of making up for the offense one gives God, a view that I believe is seriously misguided. Further, in my last post, I was mainly concerned not with what it means to embrace such a life, but with why one does so. While I did and do not know the answer to that question in the life of the person asking the question, and while I recognize he might well be being called to life as a solitary, my concern had more to do with the reasons one might wish to embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. Thus, I stated reasons I felt were unworthy of being chosen.

The solitary eremitical life is a rich (grace-filled) and relatively rare life lived with God for the sake of others. If this is to be true in all of its dimensions, it must be embraced for sound reasons. Among those that are not sufficient include guilt, shame, and an inability to forgive oneself for whatever sin or "evil" one feels culpable for. While this life means turning away from sin, it must be about more than this. One must be turning TO God and committing oneself to God in a more exhaustive way than this. While turning from sin is important, turning to a profoundly intimate relationship with God in order to witness to God's incredible love and mercy is the heart of the eremitical vocation. One thing I remember keenly from St Mary of Egypt's story is the way she recognized that turning from sin was only the first step in a much broader and more demanding commitment to God. Every time she was tempted to go back to the world she knew well, the world that had left her empty, her call to the desert was freshly discerned as a call to more than leaving sin behind. 

Redemption is always about more than leaving sin behind, though yes, it begins there. It always means embracing a new intimacy with God and with oneself and the whole of God's good creation as well. A solitary hermit witnesses to this incredible intimacy with her life. She says to others that the penance her life entails is part of a commitment to this intimacy and that she embraces it not because she feels guilty or ashamed or needs to make up for her sin (as if she actually could!!), but because she is in love and falling more deeply in love with the God who loves her unconditionally every day and minute of her life. In other words, penance serves the deepening of prayer; it helps to regularize, integrate, deepen and extend one's prayer to the whole of one's life, just as it did for St Mary of Egypt. It is not an end in itself.

Yes, I know that God is merciful and just. However, I also understand that divine justice is not something added to God's mercy, nor does mercy need to be strengthened or completed with divine justice. Instead, mercy is the way God does justice! I have written about this before, the last time about three years ago. You can find that post here: Moving from Fear to Love.  Another post from nine years ago reflecting on Pope Francis' motto can be found here: A Mercy that Does Justice. I think both of these would be helpful to you in thinking about the relationship between mercy and justice in God. 

Also, regarding same-sex attraction being a sin, let me remind you that the Church does not teach this. What she teaches is that acting on same-sex attraction is a sin (or as I was taught, unworthy of being chosen). Similarly, though your question didn't mention this, SSA is not a disorder like something found in the DSM V. It is considered by the Church to be disordered, that is, it is a drive, capacity, or tendency ordered to the wrong end but this is not the same as it being a disorder in the sense psychologists or physicians might diagnose a disorder. The Church considers masturbation to be disordered in the same sense and we do not say that a person who masturbates has a disorder, at least not necessarily. These distinctions are important, not only in representing Church teaching but in being able to see others as God sees them.

On Embracing a Solitary Life of Penance with Special reference to St Mary of Egypt

[[Sister, I wonder if you could be so good to comment? It may be perhaps that you have had this question before and have already answered it, in which case perhaps you could direct me to the proper place in your blog? I am currently a member of the Courage apostolate. Perhaps you know of this apostolate. I have lived with same-sex attraction all my life and am 64 now. 

 I have always been a Catholic and always been taken with the model of the saints of the desert. In the last several years as I have converted away from a gay life, I have been particularly struck by the example of Saint Mary of the desert who seems to have lived a dissolute life and then spent many years doing penance in the desert, alone. I believe that in many ways, my own life in the gay world paralleled hers prior to her conversion. 

As a consequence, I have been looking at the life of a solitary, perhaps in the world, or perhaps out of the world, as a serious recognition of my need for penance. I don’t know very much about how to discern such a thing or even if, given my past and my age, I ought to forget this entirely. I wonder if you would have any advice or comments on this question of an SSA man who has lived a very seriously evil life turning away from it, and doing the kind of penance in solitude that the fathers and others like St Mary used to do?]]

Many thanks for your questions. They are profound and probably will require the assistance of a good spiritual director if, in time, they are to be adequately answered for your own personal situation.  I want to give you my own impressions, mainly of good reasons to embrace the solitary eremitical life and reasons that I believe are unworthy of making such a choice. At the same time, I realize and must stress that each one of us embarking on such a journey will have a mixture of both worthy and unworthy reasons and only over time will these be purified and clarified so that one may live in terms of the worthy reasons. Even so, I believe that we should choose solitary eremitical life because it is the way we are called by God to become and be fully human. My response will presuppose that at every point.

If, after discerning this avenue with a competent spiritual director (a process that will take some time), you truly feel God is calling you to this, then I would say you need to try it. However, if you are choosing this because you feel ashamed, guilty, and perhaps uncertain of God's love and forgiveness, then I would say what you are considering is the exactly wrong thing. Each of us has a fundamental vocation to authentic humanity. That vocation is fulfilled for most of us in significant dependence upon relationships with others. Very few, relatively speaking, are called to the fullness of humanity through a solitary life of prayer and penance. In common language a solitary life is not healthy or capable of making a person whole or holy for most of us. We are made for society and ordinarily become holy in and with others. Yes, this includes our relationship with God, but for the majority of people, one also mainly comes to God through one's relationships with others. Even for those called to eremitical or solitary life, the Church is very clear that solitude must be defined in a nuanced way that respects plurality and multiplicity of life within a worshipping ecclesial community.

A second dimension of your question troubles me and that is your focus on the need for penance. All of us need penance, of course, but what does that really mean? Does it mean "making up for" past sins in a way which is essentially punitive, or does it mean living one's life in a full and grace-filled way which includes the discipline and work of truly forgiving ourselves, truly receiving God's forgiveness? As you may guess, for me it means the latter. I believe you have experienced a call to conversion or metanoia, yes. And I believe that that turning of heart and mind and habits, etc. requires asceticism (sometimes called penance) to carry out. But in such a case the asceticism or penance we are each called to is meant to serve the grace-filled, life-in-abundance that God offers us in his exhaustive mercy. Thus, for instance, in my own Rule of Life, I define the penance I do in terms of those things that help regularize, integrate, and extend a life of prayer to everything I am about. Here is the first part of what my own Rule says about that:

Prayer represents an openness and responsiveness to the personal and creative address of God which is rooted in and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Penance seems to me to be any activity or practice which assists in achieving, regularizing, integrating, deepening and extending, 1) this openness and responsiveness to God, 2) a correlative esteem for myself, and 3) for the rest of God's creation. While prayer corresponds in part to those deep moments of victory God achieves within me, and includes my grateful response, penance is that Christian and more extended form of festivity implicating the victory in the whole of life . . . . (Eph 1:4; Lumen Gentium 5, 48) from Canon 603 Eremitical Rule of Life, approved Bishop of Diocese of Oakland, 02. September. 2007.)

After this, I note the major forms of penance and/or asceticism that are a regular part of my life, including the inner work and spiritual direction I do regularly, but also things like fasting, simplicity of life, solitude, etc..  

When I think of Mary of Egypt (and I admit it has been some time since I read a biography of her), what I recall most clearly is the way she moved from a life that, rather than fulfilling her, left her empty in a profound way and embraced Christianity because she was moved by the Christians she saw celebrating lives of meaning and purpose, fullness and joy. She became aware that such a life was offered to her as well and she knew herself to be forgiven and more than that besides. She experienced not just the need to turn from sin, but Jesus' call to follow him. She went into the desert in grateful response to God's mercy so that his victory over sin could be implicated in the whole of herself and her life, yes, but in the desert, she discovered even more profoundly the God of love who had promised she would never be alone again, and she flowered as a person in communion with God. Penance was a piece of her life on the way to this flowering. It was difficult, but it was not punitive, nor was it about making up for sin.

If you should decide to try the solitary life I hope you will take these concerns seriously. If this is the way God is calling you, this vocation will be about fullness of life, a life of the abundance of Grace, love, meaning, purpose, and joy. I wrote recently that I do not believe God wills or sends suffering and that the suffering we each experience must be contextualized within a larger story. I wrote: 

Our God is the One who wills to live with us, to walk beside us in every situation, to accompany, love, and strengthen us in any way we need. This is the God who wills fullness of life for every person and the abundance of love, meaning, and fruitfulness that characterizes such a life. Through and very much in spite of my suffering, this is the person God calls me to be. Jesus' story is the same. He was called to allow God to be Emmanuel and he did this openly and exhaustively --- even in the presence of and despite his sufferings. Do I unite myself to Christ's sufferings? Yes, but not only and not even primarily to those. I also unite myself with Jesus' mission, with his abiding will to be the One in whom God is truly revealed (made known and made real) as Emmanuel. I unite myself with his compassion and amazing thirst for life. I unite myself with his courage and faithfulness in the power of the Holy Spirit, not with just his sufferings. Does God Will or Need our Suffering?

I believe the basic principle at work here fits your situation as well. God HAS forgiven you. He has also placed within your own heart the Spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom with which you are called to live an abundantly vibrant and vital life with and in him. If that involves the desert and the disciplines of the desert, then well and good. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of embracing a life of solitude because of self-hatred, shame, an inability to forgive yourself or a notion that you must pay God back in this way for his abundant and unconditional love and mercy, then I suggest that is not an adequate or worthy reason to embrace this life. 

The question you must ask yourself is, "Where can I be myself most fully?" Where, in other words, does God want you to joyfully and gratefully LIVE your best and fullest life? Is it with him with others (as it is for most persons) or is it in solitude with him? Wherever he calls you will entail penance as I have defined it above, but it will not be punitive, or rooted in guilt and shame. Instead, it will be rooted in the spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom that comes from knowing one is unconditionally loved and entirely forgiven by God. The only way to truly "make up for" our sinfulness (as though we ever could!) is to allow God to forgive us and call us to abundant life in him. This truly glorifies God. Embracing life wholeheartedly as God's gift to us and those with whom we relate, will involve penance enough! I believe that is what Saint Mary of Egypt's desert life required of her and even today reveals to Christ's Church.

I hope this is helpful. If it raises more questions for you, please get back to me. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience, I am sorry it took me some time to get back to you but I really needed to pray about this.