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.