Discerning an Eremitical Vocation: From Lone Pious Person to Solitary Hermit under Canon 603

 It has been several years since I have written about this topic in a dedicated way, and I think there is no doubt that I can improve on what I have written in the past. I would like to make a start on that here. Recently, a Vicar from another Diocese wrote me about consecrating a c 603 hermit there, and one of the questions he asked was what missteps I have seen dioceses make over the years. It was a very fine question, and I wrote about six major missteps with some subtopics as well. One of those missteps was "professing a lone pious individual rather than a hermit". While I don't think it is always easy to tell the difference, one of the best ways depends upon the person having negotiated a couple of stages in their spiritual lives before contacting a diocese with a petition to be professed as a diocesan hermit.

The first stage involves the cultivation of a strong prayer life within one's usual parish involvement. This prayer life will likely mainly be communal with strong sacramental participation, though it will also include a significant degree of solitude and private prayer. Most people will find this is challenging and plenty sufficient for their own journey with and to God within their own vocational state. Some persons, at some point, however, will desire greater solitude, as well as greater intimacy with God, and will move to become more clearly contemplative in their prayer and lives more generally. At this point, some will find their yearning for God, and for knowing themselves continues to deepen and their thirst for solitude intensifies. They will find ways to accommodate these needs and yearnings. Some (relatively few) of these last persons are likely to discover they are called to be hermits and, given time, will be most able to fulfill the constitutive elements of c 603, in the Roman Catholic Church, including writing a liveable Rule rooted in their own experience.

Once the person perceives a sense that perhaps they are called to live as a hermit in some way, they will need to take a close look at c 603 and what it claims as integral pieces or dimensions of the solitary eremitical vocation. Over time, the person will build her life around God in a more focused and primary way and embody these elements consistently. They will come to define not only c 603, but her own life. She will come to think of herself as a hermit and will need to make choices about how she is best able to live this vocation. Will it be as a solitary hermit? What about in a laura or lavra, and if so, where will this be? Will it be as part of a community of hermits -- that is, as part of a group of those living eremitical life in a juridical community? During all of this time, the hermit's discernment and formation continue. Does she need a stronger background in Scripture? How about theology? What about praying the Divine Office? Is there a local monastic community that she can join for liturgy who would teach this? Does she need to take some classes, even if online for this or other dimensions of monastic life? Does she have a way to support herself within a hermitage situation? If not, what training or education does she need to do this? A strong candidate for canon 603 life, for instance, will tend to discern and find ways to meet these needs on her own initiative -- which, of course, does not preclude getting assistance as needed!

After a period of some time, the hermit (or candidate) will be in a position to write a liveable Rule of Life. She will know herself well, will have a good sense of how God works in her life, and will have developed the skills necessary to embrace an eremitical life for the whole of her life. In all of this process of preparation and discernment, real growth is occurring, first as a Christian for whom Christ is central, then as a contemplative, and finally as an eremite. The preparatory journey begins with a lone pious person responding more deeply to God as a Catholic Christian, but then moves forward in a way that deepens the person's sense of ecclesiality, especially the ecclesiality of this eremitic vocation lived out in the silence of solitude. The Art of Seeking the Face of God, Guidelines for the Formation of Women Contemplatives, says it this way: 

Deepening one's proper charismatic tradition must be placed in context and interpreted in light of sentire cum ecclesia, in harmony with the sensus fidelium and through intelligent discernment of the signs of the times. . . . In this ecclesial perspective, every aspect of formation will be put in practice according to the original inspiration of one's institute [or, in this case, solitary eremitical life codified in c 603] . . .In this respect, in vocational accompaniment, starting with initial formation, a sincere feeling of heartfelt belonging to the Church should be cultivated: "the path of consecrated life is the path of inclusion in the Church [. . .]. Thus, we are talking about an ecclesial inclusion with ecclesial categories, with an ecclesial spiritual life [. . .]. There is no room for anything else.

 Sometimes today, we find dioceses professing persons under c 603 who do not feel called to be hermits. They are individualists seeking to use the canon as a stopgap means simply to get professed or to start a community, etc. Some of these individuals are lone, pious people who have not made the transition to an eremitic life, or even to a strong contemplative life, and have not subsequently discerned an eremitical vocation. Their dioceses, for whatever reason, have not taken seriously the charism of the solitary eremitical life. They have not regarded, much less required, the profound inner journey a hermit makes in seeking the face of God or their own truest self in the silence of solitude. Neither have they required the commensurate experience needed by the solitary hermit to engage in such a journey in a lifelong public ecclesial commitment. To fail in this way is a betrayal of the gift God has entrusted to the Church in calling people to become desert dwellers in the consecrated state. Nonetheless, the move from lone pious individual, to contemplative, to hermit discerning an ecclesial vocation are the main stages of development anyone seeking to become a c 603 hermit must negotiate in a sound process of discernment and formation. At the heart of each stage is an ever-deepening search for and response to God. This inner contemplative journey, made for God's sake as well as for the sake of the hermit's own wholeness, the holiness of the Church, and the salvation of others, is the raison d'être of the eremitical life and the only reason embracing the silence of solitude in the way the hermit's life requires, makes sense in a Christian context.

On the Question of Civic Activism and Eremitical Solitude

[[Sister Laurel, I wondered how it is you encourage civic activism if you are living solitude. How can you be engaged in this if you are called to be a hermit? The two things just seem to me to be incompatible and I wonder what you say to others who feel called to solitude but not to be engaged in the concerns of our country or the world around them?]]

Thanks very much for these questions. From something I read recently, I know that hermits and solitaries are asking the same questions. Some want to withdraw into solitude and not be engaged with the larger world or the politics of this country. Some likely feel differently, and more as I do. So let me tell you how I approach the issue. There are two main and interrelated pieces to my thinking. The first is the way I regard and think about my responsibility to citizenship in this country. The second is the commitment I have made to God and to God's Church and world to live in and towards the silence of solitude under c 603. Both of these, as you can see, involve significant commitments and sets of obligations.

I am a citizen of the United States. The freedom I have to practice my faith, to live as I am called by God, to be able to do so in relative security, and to pursue my prayer life, writing, limited teaching of Scripture, etc., are all due to rights the Constitution of the United States has granted me. I fulfill the responsibilities of a United States citizen, including paying taxes, voting, staying informed about current events and issues, and speaking out when I believe it is right to do so in good conscience. I sign petitions, write postcards (sometimes), and very occasionally, I will blog about something that seems really critical to me. I don't consider myself an activist, but neither do I take my citizenship for granted. In recent politics, some issues are very concerning to me and I will definitely speak out on those, not least, the gutting of the rule of law (which includes the way immigrants are being treated and the President's tendency to authoritarianism), moves that endanger religious freedom (like gutting the Johnson Amendment, setting up a US President as an "anointed leader", or creating an office for religion in the White House and fostering so-called "Christian" Nationalism on the way to some form of  "theocracy"). As a Catholic Christian, I am beholden to this nation for extending the rights it does to me, and I extend my gratitude by exercising those rights intelligently and faithfully.

The second set of commitments is related to the fact that the Church called me to profession and consecration as a solitary hermit under c 603. My vocation is an ecclesial one, not only because it originates in the patrimony of the Church and her eremitical tradition, but because it makes me responsible for contributing to the Church's own holiness and ministry. Thus, I try to live my vocation well and faithfully. The silence of solitude is a central element and can even be considered the charism of this vocation; I understand this element of the vocation -- including the ways it differs from most people's sense of what it means and requires of a hermit. Initially, what is especially surprising to some people is that the silence of solitude, coupled with stricter separation from the world, does not make the hermit a recluse. Moreover, it is not another name for isolation. Instead, it allows the hermit to be prudently and responsibly engaged with the larger world outside her hermitage, but (and this is really critical) without becoming enmeshed in it! In my experience, eremitical solitude is the redemption of isolation; it is also a form of freedom from enmeshment. As I understand it, eremitical solitude is a rare form of community. One lives it with God in the context of the local Church, precisely so one can live it for God's own glorification and for the sake of others' wholeness and holiness. (This includes, by the way, living our lives responsibly for the sake of the eremitical vocation itself; because it is a gift of God to the Church and larger world, hermits do what they can to ensure the gift continues to be available in the way it is needed.)

I recognize that I need greater and lesser degrees of reclusion at various points in my life, but even when I  am more fully reclusive, I depend upon others and do what I do for the sake of others, first God and God's Church, but also for this country, and the whole of God's creation. I am struck by the fact that the Church has only allowed two congregations to have recluses, the Camaldolese and the Carthusians. As I have noted before, the recluse depends mightily on his/her congregation, not only for material support, but for spiritual nourishment and more general fraternal and sororal understanding as well. For the non-recluse, for the more usual diocesan hermit, the dependence we have on those around us is at least as great. At the same time, while people may not understand how the hermit contributes to their own well-being or the well-being and holiness of the Church, the Church is clear about the matter, and it is something hermits take seriously. 

All of this (and I have not even mentioned the Church's teaching on social justice!) indicates a real, though often missed, interrelationship between the hermit and her Church, country, and larger world. Not least, it does so because the hermit's vows commit her to cherish all that is cherished by God. (This is an explicit obligation in my own vow formula, but I don't know any hermits who would reject it as part of their ecclesial obligation.) None of this requires that I become an activist in the sense many people mean that word, but it does mean that I must do what is appropriate to my own commitments to God, my country, and the Church. At this point in the United States' history, I see things that endanger the very freedom I have been granted to pursue my vocation faithfully. To neglect doing what I can within the legitimate (civil, canonical, and personal) constraints of my life to assure the continuing ability of every person to pursue their God-given vocation would be no less faithless and irresponsible than abandoning my prayer life and my engagement with Scripture or the Sacraments, for example. 

If I were to push this answer further, I would need to discuss the innumerable and consistent choices Jesus made for the Kingdom of God in the face of empire and culture, the way he asserted and allowed the revelation of God's sovereignty in everything he said and did, even though it got him crucified. After all, I am his disciple! I would need to discuss the Church's teaching on social justice, the Biblical admonitions to love our neighbor as ourselves, the call to make neighbors of the alien and friends of neighbors, and so forth. Eremitical solitude does not allow misanthropy or quietism. It is a commitment to love, first God and then all that God loves in the way God loves it. After all, eremitism is about a commitment to journey with God through the whole of one's life to greater and greater union with God. This is the essence of the Christian notion of authentic humanity. How can one do that while completely turning one's back on the very things God loves and is acting to love into wholeness? So, engagement, yes. Enmeshment, no. That's how I (begin to) think about these things.

What I say to other hermits (i.e., consecrated hermits with canonical vows, and thus, public ecclesial commitments that are binding in law and recognized in civil law as well) is to consider these points and act in good conscience. I cannot say that what I choose is the right thing for every hermit discerning what God is calling them to, but I can say that it is what God calls me to for several substantive reasons. Neither I nor other hermits can live our lives with integrity and compromise our eremitical vocations. At the same time, the meanings of the constitutive elements of the c 603 vocation are more flexible and often richer than stereotypes or common misconceptions allow for. For those hermits who are not bound by legitimate public (canonical) commitments beyond those of baptism (i.e., non-canonical or lay hermits), I would urge them to consider not just the points I have raised, but their baptismal promises, and, again, that they act in good conscience.

A Contemplative Moment: Everything that is, is Holy

 

"Everything that is, is Holy"

by Thomas Merton

Seeds of Contemplation

It is not true that all the Saints and the great contemplatives never noticed created things, and had no understanding or appreciation of the world and its sights and sounds and the people living in it.

Do you think that their love of God was compatible with a hatred of things that reflected Him and spoke of Him on every side?

You will say that they were supposed to be absorbed in God, and they had no eyes to see anything but Him. Do you think they walked around with faces like stones and did not listen to the voices of men speaking to them, or understand the joys and sorrows of those who were around them? Then you do not know what a contemplative is.

It was because the Saints were absorbed in God that they were truly capable of seeing and appreciating created things, and it was because they loved him alone that they alone loved everybody.

Do you think that a saint has to excuse his interest in created things by tripping himself up in his language and introducing a lot of uselessly explicit references to God whenever he talks or thinks about the world and what is in it? A saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit references to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love for God that the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an arbitrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so stupid they make you think there is something the matter with religion.

And the reason for the difference is that the saint knows the world and everything made by God is good, while those who are not saints either think that created things are unholy, or else they don't bother about the question one way or the other because they are only interested in themselves.

The eyes of the saint make all beauty holy, and the hands of the saint consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God, and the saint is never offended by anything and is scandalized at no man's sin because he does not know sin. He knows nothing but the love and the mercy of God, and he is on earth to bring that love and that mercy to all men. . . .

The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own self-hood. (I do not say the body, because the body is God's temple and therefore it is holy), and enter by love into union with the Life Who Dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls. In His love, we possess all things and enjoy the fruition of them, finding Him in them all. And thus, as we go about the world, everything we meet and everything we see and hear and touch, far from defiling, purifies us and plants in us something more of contemplation and of heaven.

Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait" with Heather Cox Richardson at Tanglewood

One of my favorite sources for historical and contemporary commentary and analysis is Heather Cox Richardson. In this Tanglewood concert, Richardson narrates Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait. Given the current circumstances in which this country finds itself, I have never heard this done so powerfully or effectively, not least because I know what passions Richardson holds in her own mind and heart regarding the importance of our democracy and the dangers that threaten it today. Be inspired by this brief but truly significant performance!

Solemnity of Mary's Assumption: Heaven is Not Only a Spiritual Reality!! (Partial reprise)

During last Summer, the Scripture class I did for St P's was reading NT Wright's Surprised by Hope. On this day, we began chapter 7, which begins with a discussion of the Ascension and especially, the importance of believing the ascension of Jesus is a separate event from his resurrection. One of the things Wright wants to get across is that with Jesus' ascension, humanity (embodied, glorified humanity) assumes a place in the Divine "space" or life. If there was no ascension or if ascension and resurrection are collapsed into a single event, among other problems, we might be able to think of heaven as a purely spiritual reality for disembodied human beings, but in light of Jesus' ascension, we must affirm that heaven looks a lot different than most of us were taught and that is a pretty big surprise for many! It is a place where God takes glorified, embodied humanity into his own life or "space", another step towards the day when God will dwell with us in a new heaven and a new earth where God is all in all.

Wright says: [[The idea of the human Jesus now being in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied risen state, comes as a shock to many people, including many Christians. Sometimes this is because many people think Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human for a while, stopped being human and went back to being divine. . . More often it's because our culture is so used to the Platonic idea that heaven is by definition a place of "spiritual," nonmaterial reality so that the idea of a solid body being not only present but also thoroughly at home there seems like a category mistake. The ascension invites us to rethink all this; after all, why did we suppose we knew what heaven was? . . Part of Christian belief is to find out what's true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture. This applies in particular to the idea of Jesus being in charge not only in heaven but also on earth, not only in some ultimate future but also in the present.]]

I had prepared this chapter earlier in the week and that included rereading Chapter 6 in preparation, which uses a number of Scriptural references and images dealing with what God wills for the world, namely, that one day heaven and earth would become one realm where God is all in all. We humans will have glorified bodies, just as Jesus does now, and the whole Cosmos will be recreated with Jesus as the first fruits of this new life. I was not, however, thinking of today's Feast or the importance of a theology of Mary's bodily assumption. However, when I prepared for today's Feast, it became clear that this dogma supports and underscores the early Church's conviction that heaven is not about disembodied beings and an entirely spiritual reality in this Platonic sense. It is about embodied glorified persons who have assumed a place in the very life or "space" of God and are both absent from us and our world as it is, and also present to and for us in a new way!

This was a new way of thinking about Mary's assumption for me --- though it certainly seems pretty obvious now. I love that it underscores this "new" (and very early Christian) way of conceiving heaven and the future of the cosmos. I also appreciate how getting the ascension right rules out any misguided attempts to make of Mary a mediatrix, even as it allows her to be honored appropriately. This is also a point Wright makes as he discusses the consequences of getting the ascension right.** It was also an incredibly timely Feast for me because of recent encounters I have had with Gnosticism and those who are seemingly allergic to the goodness and sanctity of the material and spatio-temporal world. I am posting this not only because I am presently spending time on this theology, but also because I wanted to celebrate this aspect of today's solemnity as a gift of God I had simply not expected or seen coming.

(August 15, 2025) What does it mean to be without sin? It seems to me that one of the things it means is that the sinless one is authentically human and in touch with all parts of her being without obstacles or distortions. That includes, of course, one's bodiliness. Moreover, I believe it means being fully aware of and comfortable with the fact that our bodiliness is the primary way we mediate God's presence to others in our world. It is the primary way we express our spiritual nature in so many creative and concrete ways. (The act of sexual love, though often trivialized and distorted, is one of these, of course.) When Aquinas wrote about the soul, he identified it as the form of the body (the body is not the form of a formless soul). When Pope Benedict XVI wrote about this, he discussed the way a soul "builds a body" about itself. The body is not a mere and passive container for the soul, something to be dismissed and discarded at death. The relationship between the two is much more dynamic and integral than that!! When I think about this relationship, the word that comes to mind is "sacramentalizing".  Our souls (and so, the very breath of God) are "sacramentalized" through the action of embodiment.

When I was working on an MA in Theology (@1974), I had a Summer class on Grace with John Dwyer and Kenan Osborne, a Franciscan theologian. One day, Kenan picked up a straight chair and clamped it tightly next to his side. He then strode back and forth across the front of the classroom, and up and down some rows of desks, saying repeatedly, "I don't just HAVE a body; I AM MY Body!!!" I have no idea what the lesson of that day's class was, nor whether I understood much of it at that time, but I never forgot Kenan doing this, and it is one of those things that comes back to me from time to time illustrating some puzzling piece of theological reading I am doing, or some enigmatic bit of this Feast or that one. Today, along with Kenan's teachings on Sacraments, this memory is strong in me as I reflect on Mary's Assumption and the way our bodies sacramentalize the very breath of God in our world.

In the past weeks, I have been working around my hermitage to discard so much "stuff" I no longer need. Papers, books, etc., just so much stuff that is now in the way of the work I feel called by God to do. I have been busy building (i.e., assembling) furniture (mainly filing cabinets and shelving units, but also a ladder for my library), and have been freshly surprised by just how much I enjoy such work. At the same time, I have had to face the way age is slowing me down, or illness has weakened me.  Yet, there is an underlying joy in all of this "bodiliness", all of this "negotiating space and time" in light of the eternity of God's love!! 

It is all profoundly spiritual, even something as mundane as finding the right (and affordable!!!) hardware to secure a library ladder to shelving or drilling holes, driving screws, etc. because God is with me and delighting in the project and processes involved --- not just the creative work it involves or prepares for, but the aging, the chagrin (I accumulated SO much "stuff!!), the laughter (personal conversion occasions a lot of humor and even some appropriate laughing at oneself!!), the wisdom that comes in the midst of it all, and the celebration of life with God in all its spatio-temporal aspects!! In a sense, all of this work is the natural outpouring of a soul that builds a body around itself in so many ways, including not only our physical bodies, but a home, a body of writing or other work, a series of relationships, and so forth.

The Feast of Mary's Assumption has become an important one for me in ways I could never have anticipated. The celebration of bodiliness and its underscoring of the way God creates room for us within Himself, not as disembodied persons or souls, but as those who ARE, by definition, embodied in every way! All good wishes to you all on this amazing Feast!

** Wright's work here is dependent on Douglas Farrow's,  Ascension and Ecclesia, On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology. (Cf, especially pp152ff) My sense of Farrow's work is very positive; this is a usual "go to" work for anyone reflecting on the Ascension.

Feast of St Maximillian Kolbe (Reprised)

Today is the feast day of Maximillian Kolbe who died on this day in Auschwitz after two months there, and two weeks in the bunker of death-by-starvation. Kolbe had offered to take the place of a prisoner selected for starvation in reprisal when another prisoner was found missing and thought to have escaped. The Kommandant, taken aback by Kolbe's dignity, and perhaps by the unprecedented humanity being shown, stepped back and then granted the request. Father Maximillian sustained his fellow prisoners and assisted them in their dying. He was one of four remaining prisoners who were murdered in Block 13 (see illustration below) by an injection of Carbolic Acid when the Nazi's deemed their death by starvation was taking too long. When the bunker was visited by a secretary-interpreter immediately after the injections, he found the three other prisoners lying on the ground, begrimed and showing the ravages of the suffering they had undergone. Maximillian Kolbe sat against the wall, his face serene and radiant. Unlike the others he was clean and bright.

The stories told about Maximillian Kolbe's presence and influence in Aushwitz all stress a couple of things: first, there was his great love of God, Mary the Imaculata, and his fellow man; secondly, it focused on the tremendous humanity he lived out and modelled in the midst of a hell designed in every detail to dehumanize and degrade. These two things are intimately interrelated of course, and they give us a picture of authentic holiness which, extraordinary as it might have seemed in Auschwitz, is nothing less and nothing more than the vocation we are each called to in Christ. Together, these two dimensions of true holiness/authentic humanity result in "a life lived for others," as a gift to them in many ways -- self-sacrifice, generosity, kindness, courage, fidelity, etc. In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell.

It is easy to forget this fundamental vocation, or at least underestimate its value and challenge. We sometimes think our humanity is a given, an accomplished fact rather than a task and call to be achieved via attentive responsiveness to God. We also may think that it is possible to be truly human in solitary splendor. But our humanity is our essential vocation and it is something we only achieve in relation to God, his call, his mercy and love, his companionship --- and his people! (And this is as true for hermits and recluses as it is true for anyone else.) Likewise, we may think of vocation as a call to religious life, priesthood, marriage, singleness, eremitism, etc, but always, these are "merely" the paths towards achieving our foundational vocation to authentic humanity. Of course, it is not that we do not need excellent priests, religious, husbands and wives, parents, and so forth, but what is more true is that we need excellent human beings --- people who take the call and challenge to be genuinely human with absolute seriousness and faithfulness.

Today's gospel confronts us with a person who failed at that vocation. With extended mercy and the complete forgiveness of an unpayable debt, this servant went out into his world and failed to extend even a fraction of the same mercy to one of his fellows. He was selfish, ungrateful, and unmindful of who he was in terms of his Master or the generosity which had been shown him. He failed to remain in touch with that mercy and likewise, he refused to extend it to others as called upon to do. He failed in his essential humanity and in the process he degraded and punished a fellow servant as inferior to himself when he should have done the opposite. Contrasted with this, and forming the liturgical and theological context for hearing this reading today, is the life of Maximillian Kolbe. Loved with an everlasting love, touched by God's infinite mercy and grace, Father Maximillian knew and affirmed who he truly was. More, in a situation of abject poverty and ultimate weakness, he remained in contact with the Source of his own humanity as the infinite well from which he would draw strength, dignity, courage, forgiveness, and compassion when confronted with a reality wholly dedicated to shattering, degrading, and destroying the humanity of those who became its victims. In every way he was the embodiment of St Paul's citation, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness!"

Block 13, where the "starvation cells" were

In Auschwitz, it is true that some spoke of Kolbe as a saint, and many knew he was a priest, but in this world where all were stripped of names and social standing of any kind, what stood out to everyone was Maximillian Kolbe's love for God and his fellow man; what stood out, in other words, was his humanity. Holiness for the Christian is defined in these terms. Authentic humanity and holiness are synonyms in Christianity, and both are marked by the capacity to love and be loved,  first (by) God and then (by) all those he has dignified as his image and holds as precious. In a world too often marked by mediocrity and even outright inhumanity, a world too frequently dominated by those structures, institutions, and dynamics which seem bigger than we are and incapable of being resisted or changed, we need to remember Maximillian Kolbe's example. Oftentimes we focus on serving others, feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless and the like, and these things are important. But in Kolbe's world when very little of this kind of service was possible (though Kolbe did what was possible and prudent here) what stood out was not only the crust of bread pressed into a younger priest's hands, the cup of soup given gladly to another, but the very great and deep dignity and impress of his humanity. And of course, it stood out because beyond and beneath the need for food and shelter, what everyone was in terrible danger of losing was a sense of --- and capacity to act in terms of -- their own great dignity and humanity.

Marked above all as one loved by God, Father Maximillian lived out of that love and mercy. He extended it again and again (70 X 7) to everyone he met, and in the end, he made the final sacrifice: he gave his own life so that another might live. An extraordinary vocation marked by extraordinary holiness? Yes. But also our OWN vocation, a vocation to "ordinary" and true holiness, genuine humanity. As I said above, "In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell." In many ways this is precisely the gift we are called upon in Christ to be for our own times. Matthew's call to make forgiveness a way of life is a key to achieving this. May Saint Maximillian Kolbe's example inspire us to fulfill our own vocations in exemplary ways.

Feast of the Transfiguration (Reprise)

Have you ever been walking along a well-known road and suddenly had a bed of flowers take on a vividness that takes your breath away? Similarly, have you ever been walking along or sitting quietly outside when a breeze rustles some leaves above your head, and you were struck by an image of the Spirit moving through the world? How about suddenly being struck by the tremendous compassion of someone you know well, or seeing their smile in a new way and coming to see them in a whole new light because of this? I have had all of these happen, and, in the face of God's constant presence, what is in some ways more striking is how infrequent such peak or revelatory moments are.

Scientists tell us we see only a fraction of what goes on all around us (and this is without accounting for the reality that can only be properly perceived by faith). It depends upon our expectations.  In an experiment with six volunteers divided into two teams in either white or black shirts, observers were asked to concentrate on the number of passes of a basketball that occurred as players wove in and out around one another. In the midst of this activity, a woman in a gorilla suit strolls through, stands there for a moment, thumps her chest, and moves on. At the end of the experiment, observers were asked two questions: 1) how many passes were there, and 2) did you see the gorilla? Fewer than 50% saw the gorilla.  Expectations drive perception and can produce blindness. Even more shocking, these scientists tell us that even when we are confronted with the truth, we are more likely to insist on our own "knowledge" and justify decisions we have made on the basis of blindness and ignorance. We routinely overestimate our own knowledge and fail to see how much we really do NOT know.

For the past two weeks, we have been reading the central chapter of Matthew's Gospel --- the chapter that stands right smack in the middle of his version of the Good News. It is Matt's collection of Jesus' parables --- the stories Jesus tells to help break us open and free us from the common expectations, perspectives, and wisdom we hang onto so securely so that we might commit to the Kingdom of God and the vision of reality it involves. Throughout this collection of parables, Jesus takes the common, too-well-known, often underestimated and unappreciated bits of reality which are right at the heart of his hearers' lives. He uses them to reveal the extraordinary God who is also right there in front of his hearers. Stories of tiny seeds, apparently completely invisible once they have been tossed about by a prodigal sower, clay made into works of great artistry and function, weeds and wheat which reveal a discerning love and judgment which involves the careful and sensitive harvesting of the true and genuine --- all of these and more have given us the space and time to suspend our usual ways of seeing and empower us to adopt the new eyes and hearts of those who dwell within the Kingdom of God.

It was the recognition of the unique authority with which Jesus taught, the power of his parables in particular, which shifted the focus from the stories to the storyteller in the Gospel passage we heard last Friday. Jesus' family and neighbors did not miss the unique nature of Jesus' parables; these parables differ in kind from anything in Jewish literature and had a singular power which went beyond the usual significant power of narrative. They saw this clearly. But they also refused to believe the God who revealed himself in the commonplace reality they saw right in front of them. Despite the authority, they could not deny they chose to see only the one they expected to see; they decided they saw only  the son of Mary, the son of Joseph and "took offense at him." Their minds and hearts were closed to who Jesus really was and the God he revealed.  Similarly, Jesus' disciples too could not really accept an anointed one who would have to suffer and die. Peter especially refuses to accept this.

Looking at Today's Gospel:

It is in the face of these situations that we hear today's Gospel of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on a mountain apart. He takes them away from the world they know (or believe they know) so well, away from peers, away from their ordinary perspective,  and he invites them to see who he really is. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is at prayer --- attending to the most fundamental relationship of his life --- when the Transfiguration occurs. Matthew does not structure his account in the same way. Instead, he shows Jesus as the one whose life is a profound dialogue with God's law and prophets, who is in fact the culmination and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the culmination of the Divine-Human dialogue we call covenant. He is God-with-us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place. This is what the disciples see --- not so much a foretelling of Jesus' future glory as the reality which stands right in front of them --- if only they had the eyes to see.

For most of us, such an event would freeze us in our tracks with awe. But not Peter! He outlines a project to reprise the Feast of Tabernacles right here and now. In this story, Peter reminds me some of those folks (myself included!) who want so desperately to hang onto amazing prayer experiences --- but in doing so, fail to appreciate them fully or live from them! He is, in some ways, a kind of lovable but misguided buffoon ready to build booths for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, consistent with his tradition, while neglecting the newness and personal challenge of what has been revealed. In some way, Matt does not spell out explicitly, Peter has still missed the point. And amid Peter's well-meaning activism comes God's voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!" In my reflection on this reading this last weekend, I heard something more: "Peter! Sit down! Shut up! This is my beloved Son! Look closely!! Listen to him!!!"

The Lesson for Us Today:

The lesson could not be clearer, and yet, how hard it is for us to see what is right in front of us! Recently, I wrote about a view that sees the Church as "too temporal." This perspective is not merely concerned with the Church buying into models of power more appropriate to princes and potentates. It sees the entire Church, insofar as it is committed to this world, as having given itself over to something that is "not spiritual." But this perspective forgets it is speaking of a Church that lives in this world and mediates the Spirit to that world, a Church that mediates Christ's presence for those with eyes to see. It is not an either/or way of seeing, but a both/and way: both ordinary and extraordinary, both material and spiritual, both temporal and eternal. Central to this Church is the notion of Sacraments; in fact, the Church herself is a primordial sacrament, a sign where ordinary reality is allowed to shine forth the power and presence of God. They take the ordinary matter of our world and in them, see this transformed into the very power and presence of God. And yet, it requires the eyes of faith to perceive and appreciate this transformation. The either/or perspective I referenced above tends to see reality in a particularly Gnostic or neo-Platonic way. What it cannot see, and what remains scandalous to it is an incarnational God who is fully present in the ordinary matter of our world, divinizing it with God's presence. How very different is the Sacramental way of seeing reality!!

Here I am reminded of a story I once told of a video of a man who was given Enchroma glasses --- a form of sunglasses that allows colorblind persons to see color, often for the first time in their lives. By screening out certain wavelengths of light, someone who has seen the world in shades of brown their whole lives are finally able to see things they have never seen before; browns are transformed into yellows and reds and purples and suddenly trees look truly green and three-dimensional or the colorful fruit of these trees no longer simply blend into the same-color background. The man was overwhelmed and overcome by what he had been missing; he could not speak, did not really know what to do with his hands, was "reduced" to tears, and eventually expressed it all as he hugged his wife in love and gratitude. Meanwhile, family members were struck by just how much they themselves may have taken for granted as every day they moved through their own world of "ordinary" color and texture. The entire situation involved a Transfiguration almost as momentous as the one the disciples experienced in today's Gospel.

Like Peter, like the Gnostic or neo-Platonist who divvies reality up into the temporal and the spiritual. And like the colorblind man who needed to wear the glasses consistently enough to allow his brain to really begin to process colors in a new way, we must take the time to see what is right in front of us. We must learn to see the sacred, which is present and incarnated in ordinary reality. We must listen to the One who comes to us in the Scriptures and Sacraments, the One who speaks to us through every believer and the whole of creation. We must really be the People of God, the "hearers of the Word" who know how to listen and are obedient in the way God summons us to be. This is true whether we are God's lowliest hermit or one of the Vicars of Christ who govern our dioceses and College of Bishops. Genuine authority coupled with true obedience empowers new life, new vision, new perspectives, and reverence for the ordinary reality God makes sacramental. 

There is a humility involved in all of this. It is the humility of the truly wise, the truly knowing person. We must be able to recognize how very little we see, how unwilling or unable we often are to be converted to the perspective of the Kingdom, how easily we justify our blindness and deafness with our supposed knowledge, and how even our well-intentioned activism can prevent us from seeing and hearing the unexpected, sometimes scandalous God standing there right in the middle of our reality.