Reflecting on an Experience of No Kings Day

Yesterday, I attended a small but effective "No Kings" event in my town. There was a very much larger rally in the next town over (10,000 people), but Sister Marietta and I had lunch here at Stillsong first and then walked over to the event occurring at the town's major intersection not far from here, where we joined with others to wave signs, beat drums, clap, thank those in cars waving and honking as they moved past us, and cheer for our country and those supporting our constitution. We were few in number, but passionate and peaceful in witnessing to our love for the US and our concern for the well-being of our democracy and all it brings to our world.

As we came to leave my place, Marietta stopped and quietly and clearly stated (prayed) our intentions to support the Nation and its values. In this way, we made even more concrete why we were going to this small protest and why we were joining our own minds, hearts, and bodies with those of other Americans throughout the country. These values and our participation were every bit as sacred as daily prayer or liturgy, and every bit as much a way of participating in the coming of God's Reign as the other things the consecration of our lives requires and empowers. Stopping to affirm our intention in this quiet, matter-of-fact way before stepping out of the door was powerful and helped set the tone of our participation. It remained with me throughout the afternoon.

The gathering was both intimate, peaceful, and celebratory. There were some great signs, one of the best being one that began, "I'll show you my civility if you show me yours . . ." Most were some variation of "No Kings." There were parents and children, people with disabilities, young and old, and even a large and very affectionate dog with us. You name it. Generally, we cheered and waved to (and often with) those who came past our corner. Lots of folks responded with smiles, cheers, honking, thumbs up affirmations,  and a few with the ASL sign 🤟 for love or I love you. One young woman stood up through the sunroof of the car she was in and waved her own sign and cheered with us. Others were silent, studiously avoided looking at us face to face, and a few used a rigid, solitary middle finger to tell us what they thought of what we were doing. One driver yelled out, "F__k y'all!" but in the main, people who disagreed with or disliked what we were doing were simply silent and moved past without a sign of actual animosity.

Until, that is, one man walked across the small park behind us and directly into our midst. He challenged us in a sentence I cannot now recall, and then, just inches from a number of us, he leaned close and continued to rage, "This is not Berkeley!" You're scum!! You should (or perhaps, "I hope you) all burn in hell!' We were stunned. Marietta felt chills and later sadly noted the shocking ugliness of the rant and grieved that any human being should speak that way to other human beings. I was bewildered by the man's anger and his decision to come all the way across the small park to confront us specifically. (Neither Marietta nor I were dressed differently from anyone else in the group, though we both wore small crosses and rings, so religious garb was not part of drawing his attention. It may, however, have been part of the reason he tailored his words regarding hell as he did.) Still, what we were doing was quintessentially American and positive. It created community and strengthened solidarity with other citizens and non-citizens alike. Therefore, what I was even more stunned by was the fact that this man was apparently an immigrant who had come here from Russia or some linguistically related, Slavic country, who was raging about the exercise of our constitutional rights and joy at being American. The irony was striking.

I woke up this morning with this man in my thoughts and prayers, along with the others I had spent time with yesterday afternoon. I was still struggling to make sense of the man's anger and verbal aggression. And, of course, I could not. In some ways, I felt grateful for the brief encounter the man offered because of the way it helped crystallize the brutality, ugliness, and inhumanity the No Kings movement, among others, is struggling against. I am not unfamiliar with evil as it consumes the hearts and minds of people and leaves them feeling hopeless, helpless, and profoundly angry in its wake. I think this is what I was seeing yesterday and part of the inhumanity "No Kings" stands against as it affirms the importance of maintaining America as a "shining democratic (not theocratic!) light on the hill".

America is not the Kingdom of God, nor is it meant to be, much less is it meant to supplant that. However, it is meant to participate in and witness in its own unique way to the gradual and universally inclusive coming of that reign. The democratic experiment in which we participate every day of our lives contributes uniquely here, but only if it does not succumb to the idolatry that seeks to set up a theocracy or enlists the energies of those who believe others are scum and should be excluded from this democracy and even (smugly, gratefully, and self-righteously) consigned to hell! Everyone on that corner yesterday was shocked by and concerned for the man who railed at and against us. I believe we all recognized the terrible bondage to which he was and is captive. And, of course, I know at least some of us prayed for him. Rooted in the love of God we also celebrated yesterday, we will continue to pray for him as we do what we can to dissent from and protest against the fear-inspiring, inhuman, and alienating perversions currently being done in the name of the United States and a Nationalism some mistakenly call "Christian". This was the intention Marietta and I set out with yesterday, and the intention I pray we all find the continuing courage to live into and represent to the world.

Another look at Pope Leo's Address to Hermits

[[Hi Sister! I heard an online hermit [name omitted] complaining that Pope Leo "left out" the "traditional historic" hermit from his recent address to hermits in Italy. She felt it was divisive and argued that c 603 hermits wearing habits and styling themselves as Sister or Brother was about mimicking genuine religious and was basically false. She also wondered if the traditional, historic hermits were no longer welcome in the Church, especially since there is such an emphasis on diocesan hermit (sic) being social when the others were not. She thought not still being in the Church was a good thing for these reasons.  On another note, I was happy to see she spoke of everyone being called to union with God, but I was disappointed to hear her suggesting there was no difference in their vocations really. I don't think she picked up on Pope Leo's reference to diocesan hermits as exemplars of what is a universal calling. Oh, she also made a point of the fact that traditional historic hermits were not limited to a single diocese, but were hermits in or of the universal Church. I think you have written about this before, haven't you? (I couldn't locate the post myself.)]]

Thanks for your email! All of these topics, except the complaint against Pope Leo, "leaving out" the "traditional historic" hermit, are things I have heard or read over the years from the person you mentioned. It is the questions that I want to deal with here, however, not their source. The complaint against Pope Leo fails to appreciate the brevity and context of his address, namely, he was making his comments to diocesan hermits who had travelled to Rome for the Jubilee. I know this because I was invited to attend with (perhaps) some small (read tiny!!) chance to speak with Pope Leo while I was there. Unfortunately, I could not attend. If one is speaking to diocesan hermits about the significance of their vocation, and the address is to be a brief one, one's comments will necessarily be limited and focused as Pope Leo's were, to diocesan hermits!! (Still, as I note below, Leo did recognize the diocesan hermit's necessary engagement with the stream of history, so that must not be missed or dismissed.)

I thought Pope Leo's comments were amazing in the way they touched on the really central aspects of the c 603 vocation. Beginning with Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman, Leo outlined the fundamental vocation everyone has to worship God in Spirit and truth. That is incredibly important and absolutely foundational for understanding the nature of eremitical life and the way it is an exemplar for every person's fundamental vocation. It was a wonderful beginning that set the stage for hearing everything else Leo spoke of and understanding the paradoxical nature of a vocation to the silence of solitude. Leo also touched on the ecclesial nature of the vocation, especially its solidarity with others (per the great quote from Evagrius Ponticus) and its open relationship with the ecclesial body and body of history. Leo captured the dialogical nature of this vocation 1) with God and one's deepest Self in the secret sanctuary of the heart, 2) with others and all of creation, and 3) with the Church itself and the eremitical tradition, which the c 603 hermit embodies.  

It is interesting (though saddening) to me that the hermit you mentioned felt it was a good thing to leave the Church in light of the Pope's comments on solidarity (the deeply social nature of hermits). This solidarity is an expression of the vocation's ecclesiality and is an essential element of the eremitical vocation as the Catholic Church understands it. To reject it and the paradoxical way the elements of c 603 must be understood is perhaps to admit one is not really a hermit, but rather, remains simply a pious loner. The essential nature of eremitical life, as Pope Leo outlined it, may surprise some, but it is exactly the profoundly and canonically ecclesial vocation c 603 outlines and codifies. In any case, c 603 does not do away with non-canonical or lay hermits, nor does it push them out of the Church. This is a kind of destructive all-or-nothing way of thinking that lacks nuance and is invalid. Much of what Pope Leo said applies to non-canonical hermits as well. But again, in his brief address, he was speaking to an assembly of c 603 hermits called and commissioned to be exemplars of the solitary eremitical vocation and the universal call to union with God. He was not excluding anyone.

As I have written before (you were correct), the diocesan hermit is a hermit in and for the universal Church, though she especially serves her local diocesan Church. S/he lives eremitic life in the name of the Universal Church and has been granted and accepted the rights and obligations associated with that place in the Church's life. However, her immediate legitimate superior is the Bishop of the diocese where she resides and in whose hands she is professed. (Delegates serve as quasi-superiors on the Bishop's and the diocese's behalf.) This is an issue of subsidiarity and an example of the effective exercise of the ministry of authority. The Church always administers or exercises such things at the most local level possible. This respects the genuinely dialogical and loving character of such ministry; after all, superiors need to know and genuinely love those with and for whom authority is exercised. They need to know the local Church in which such persons are embedded and serve. I will try to locate the post you were thinking of and link it below.

Thanks again for your outline of the online comments. They were especially helpful in providing an opportunity to look again at Pope Leo's address and consider how truly complete and well-ordered his comments therein were. It is wonderful to hear the way these resonate with my own lived and reflected experience of c 603 life, and that of others I am in contact with. I especially loved the way he begins with Scripture, draws a picture of the very core of the vocation in speaking about the human heart where worship occurs, and then draws from significant representatives of the desert tradition, in this case, from Evagrius Ponticus. What Pope Leo did in this brief address was to also capture the dialogical nature of the eremitic life in regard to its contemporary manifestation and its historical origins and foundation. He essentially affirmed that this relatively new c 603 life is authentically eremitic and reflects the desert tradition with integrity, even when that surprises people and calls for reflection and explanation. 

Moreover, Leo made very clear the way this vocation is lived for others, and serves the Church it reflects. This service is not about an occasional or limited foray into active ministry, though hermits may engage this way. Neither is it about an occasional act of charity one may do for someone who comes to one's door seeking a word, though hermits will surely do this as well. Instead, it is the service flowing from the worship occurring in the inviolable tabernacle of the hermit's heart at every moment of the hermit's life as she grows more and more transparent to God and the love and truth God is. In this way, the hermit mediates God/love/truth in and to a world badly in need. Pope Leo also addressed this point beautifully. Yes. This was truly a very fine address and a gift of God to the Church and world for the sake of this vocation and those called to live it! Or, maybe better, I should have said this was a gift of God to this vocation and those who live it for the sake of God, the Church, and God's entire creation!

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I just realized I did not address your comment regarding c 603 hermits "mimicking religious". I have addressed this before, especially on the basis of comments made in the Handbook on Canons 573-746. For the dedicated post I put up on this topic 5 years ago, please see: Are C 603 Hermits Religious?

Diocesan Hermits and Subsidiarity (This linked post was written about six years ago and can also be found under the tag, "subsidiarity".)

Pope Leo's Jubilee Year Address to Hermits (For the post with the entire address)

Witnessing to Hiddenness, Both Inner and External Forms

[[Hi Sister Laurel, so when the catechism speaks of hermits being hidden from the eyes of men, are you saying this is not about being anonymous, or not wearing a habit, or not using the title Sister or Brother, for example? What I hear you saying is that eremitical hiddenness is about the inner and ordinary nature of the hermit's journey to deeper union with God. No one can look in at this journey; it is always a hidden part of a human being's life. I wonder, though, if there isn't some degree of external hiddenness from others. Are you saying that there is no hiddenness except for the inner journey the hermit makes to God?]]

Great question!! Important too, since the Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to the hermit's life being hidden from the eyes of men, not just the hermit's work or ministry. Yes, you have pretty well captured what I am saying. Still, let's look at the statement of the Catechism re hermits and see what it actually says, especially in paragraph 921: [[[Hermits] manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One.]]

The first thing I want to point out is that hermits' lives manifest something to others. That is, in their everyday way of being, they make something known that others might not be able to see so well via other vocations. That something is the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church and of the human person. So, right off the bat, we have the notion that something is hidden (or interior at this point in the text) and also that it is made universally known. Hermits are called to make the inner life of the Church, consisting in intimacy with Christ, manifest in a very specific and unusual way (I argue this way is most accurately defined as paradoxical), and they do this for the sake of everyone, not merely for a limited or elitist few.  

The paragraph goes on to describe another way of thinking about the inner or interior life of the Church, namely, as personal intimacy with Christ. Here is the real key to understanding the hiddenness of the hermit's life. It is about intimacy with the Risen Christ, and with the words "silent preaching," we are introduced explicitly to the paradoxical nature of making such a hidden reality manifest. Hermits' lives are all about the journey to ever deeper union with God in Christ, just as Jesus' life was about this same journey or pilgrimage through all the exigencies of a life and death burdened and shaped by human -- though not by personal -- sinfulness. Luke describes this journey as one where Jesus grew in grace and stature, and other NT writers describe the journey as one of, "being about his Father's business" and traveling from the heights of blessedness and divine intimacy to the depths and horror of apparent abandonment by God. Even so, in all of this Jesus' life is a pilgrimage to the depths of human existence and relatedness that we identify as union with God.

We all read the Scriptures as assiduously as we can, and the truth is, we are often struck by how little of Jesus' own journey we can truly know or how little of the nature of his pilgrimage to God we  comprehend. (Huge historical quests and theological debates have focused on this and related questions during the 19th, 20th, and into the 21st centuries.) This inner life and journey is a hidden reality, and Jesus himself, though a public figure with a strikingly public vocation, remains essentially obscure to us. 

So it is with the inner life of anyone we know, no matter how well we know them. However, with regard to hermits and paragraph 921 of the Catechism, it is important to recognize that the Church uses this paragraph, not merely to assert the fact of essential hiddenness associated with the hermit vocation, especially when hiddenness is mistaken by some to imply external isolation or remaining entirely anonymous or unknown to others, but rather to explain the nature of that hiddenness and the paradoxical forms of relatedness it requires or in which it is rooted and flourishes.

I believe it is true that large parts of the hermit's life, besides their inner life, will be hidden from others, though I also believe that apart from more ordinary requirements of privacy, this is really because the whole of the hermit's life is about growing in intimacy with God in the "silence of solitude". This requires more silence and solitude than most people experience or require. However, even those parts of the hermit's life that are public (in the common, not canonical sense of this word) and observable will remain obscure because they are motivated and colored by dedication to this inner relationship. The experience that corresponds to such hiddenness and that hermits may describe to others (especially directors and one another) is the sense that their vocation is not truly understood by anyone except those whose life commitments are similar. Even then, there will be a core of undisclosable truth which cannot be known by others --- just as is true regarding the inner life and personal mystery of any human being. 

So, no, I don't deny there are significant degrees of external "hiddenness" from others in a hermit's life. What I assert and know from experience is that these are always secondary to the inner mystery and obscurity to which this vocation is dedicated. They must reflect and serve this inner mystery, which is always primary. One makes a serious misstep if one primarily identifies the hiddenness of the eremitical vocation with externals like anonymity or a refusal to relate to others, especially if one absolutizes these as though they are what this vocation is all about. At the same time, it should be noted that some externals can also make manifest something of the fact and nature of this inner mystery and journey. Thus, besides the relative lack of active ministry, for instance, the Church celebrates such vocations publicly, and grants hermits permission to wear habits and prayer garments, style themselves as Sister or Brother, use post-nominal initials, and so forth. 

While some folks may believe these things are clearly and completely understood, my own sense is that in our contemporary world, they themselves are mysterious and point to something countercultural and even more profoundly mysterious, grounded in the Ineffable. In any case, I would argue that because c 603's focus is on mirroring (revealing) the inner nature of the Church and the exhaustive incarnational journey of the hermit doing so, and because such external elements have the power to point beyond themselves to Divine Mystery, there is a wisdom in the fact that c 603 does not require or even invite anonymity, that it involves public profession and consecration, and that it grants the use of visible signs of one's consecration. These are always balanced by the completely ordinary dimensions of the hermit's life, which also have a significant, if paradoxical, sign value. Even so, they have a place, and it has nothing to do (as some will argue) with self-aggrandizement or violations of eremitical hiddenness.

Pope Leo Addresses Hermits in Rome!

A link to this address was sent to me this morning. Given what I posted yesterday after almost a month of silence I have the sense the Holy Spirit was working overtime both here and in Rome! God is truly very good and it is wonderful to have Pope Leo addressing hermits and particularly diocesan hermits while stressing not only the universal yearning for God that is at the heart of every eremitical life, but the paradoxical way solitude reflects and even empowers community!! Enjoy!!

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you! Good morning to you all, and welcome!

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for being here. This meeting offers us the opportunity to reflect on the vocation of the hermit life in the Church and in today’s world.

I would like to begin with a word that the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, which we read in the Gospel of John: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him” (Jn 4:23). Yes, the Father seeks and calls, in every age, men and women to worship him in the light of his Spirit and in the truth revealed by his only-begotten Son. He calls women and men to devote themselves entirely to him, to seek him and listen to him, to praise him and invoke him, day and night, in the secrecy of their hearts. “When you pray”, says Jesus, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6). First of all, the Lord calls us to enter this hidden place of the heart, patiently delving into it; he invites us to make an inner immersion that demands a journey of emptying and divesting ourselves. Once we have entered, he asks us to close the door to bad thoughts in order to safeguard a pure, humble and meek heart, through vigilance and spiritual combat. Only then can we abandon ourselves with confidence to intimate dialogue with the Father, who dwells and sees in secret, and in secret fills us with his gifts.

You, as hermits, are called to live this vocation to worship and inner prayer, proper to every believer, in an exemplary way, in order to be witnesses in the Church to the beauty of the contemplative life. It is not an escape from the world, but a regeneration of the heart, so that it may be capable of listening, a source of the creative and fruitful action of the charity that God inspires in us. This call to interiority and silence, to live in contact with oneself, with one's neighbour, with creation and with God, is needed today more than ever, in a world increasingly alienated by the media and technology. From intimate friendship with the Lord, in fact, the joy of living, the wonder of faith and the taste for ecclesial communion are reborn.

Your distance from the world does not separate you from others, but unites you in a deeper solidarity. Evagrio Pontico writes: “A monk is one who, separated from all, is united to all” (Treatise on Prayer, 124), because prayerful solitude generates communion and compassion for all humankind and for every creature, both in the dimension of the Spirit and in the ecclesial and social context in which you are placed as leaven of divine life.

The diocesan hermit “is a figure in open relationship with the ecclesial body and the body of history” [1]. Your simple presence and your prayerful witness, through communion with the bishop and fraternal relationship with parish priests, become precious and fruitful, as they increase the “spiritual breath” of the Christian community. This is especially true in the inland areas of the country, rural contexts where priests and religious are becoming increasingly rare and parishes are impoverished of opportunities. Even in anonymous and complex urban contexts, marked by a bad kind of loneliness, hermit presences are oases of communion with God and with our brothers and sisters.

While you remain faithful to the legacy handed down by the Fathers of the Church in safeguarding the Word, through the lectio divina and the service of prayer and intercession with the prayer of the Psalms, you are at the same time called to interpret the new spiritual challenges with the creativity of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the Paraclete who opens you to dialogue with all seekers of meaning and truth, educating you in sharing and guiding their spiritual quest, often confused. All of you can encourage others to return to themselves, to rediscover the centre of gravity of the heart, as Pope Francis taught us in the Encyclical Dilexit nos. And there, in the depths of the soul, each person can discover the fire of the desire for God that burns and never goes out, as Saint Augustine teaches us: “Let us desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually” (Letter 130, 18-20). You are the guardians and witnesses of this desire that dwells within every person, so that each one may discover it and nurture it within themselves.

Dear friends, our troubled times ask you, finally, to “enter into the mystery of Christ’s intercession on behalf of all humanity, accepting to ‘place yourselves in the middle’ between creatures, fragile and threatened by evil, and the merciful Father, the source of all good” [2]. Called to stand in the breach, with your hands raised and your hearts alert, walk always in the presence of God, in solidarity with the trials of humanity. Keeping your gaze fixed on Jesus and opening the sails of your hearts to his Spirit of life, sail with the whole Church, our mother, on the stormy sea of history, towards the Kingdom of love and peace that the Father prepares for all. Thank you.

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[1] Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church. «Ponam in deserto viam (Is 43,19)». Guidelines (30 December 2021), 10.

[2] The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church, 18.

On Eremitical Hiddenness: Witnessing to the Journey to Deeper Union with God

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered what it is that hermits witness to, especially since they live in solitude. Do hermits witness with the hiddenness of their lives? I think you have said something like that and it sounds nonsensical to me. At least I don't get it! I mean how can someone witness to something with the hiddenness of their life? (I guess if they are witnessing to hiddenness, then they do that with hiddenness, but that seems really silly to me.) But really, what is it hermits are most concerned with witnessing to? Do you do this in your solitude?]]

Thanks for your questions. Sometimes the paradoxes involved in Christianity seem silly or absurd, at least initially. I definitely understand that. Imagine trying to explain to someone without a sense of paradox how it is that "power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9) without that leading to some kind of oppressive and dehumanizing dynamic between the weak and the powerful in the equation or relationship! Or, imagine trying to tell some folks that poverty is really a form of wealth essential to human wholeness. Understanding the truth and wisdom of such assertions requires a sense of paradox, an ability to think in terms of paradox, and the ability to live at peace with and even in it. This is so because human existence is paradoxical, and paradoxes like these are some of the most important truths we are asked to grasp and, more importantly, allow ourselves to be grasped by. (At the top of the "paradox food chain," we Christians live from the conviction that a crucified Messiah is not only NOT the height of failure, literal godlessness, and offensiveness to Divine holiness, but is instead the epitome of human integrity, commitment to meaningful life, and the glorification of a loving, merciful God.) 

At the heart of our lives,  our Christian faith and vocations, is the absolute Mystery that (or who) we cannot comprehend in the way we might other realities we know. This is Mystery that we must allow ourselves to be known by instead (cf Galatians 4:8-11). Similarly, then, the paradox of witnessing to something precisely in the hiddenness of our lives represents a profound truth that hermits allow to take hold of them more deeply, and to define their lives and vocations more and more fully and completely. So, what is it hermits witness to, and why does this happen in hiddenness? To sharpen your questions somewhat, I might also ask why it is that the real heart of an eremitical journey can never be seen by others, even when it is something a hermit witnesses to with her life? Why is it that authentic hermits affirm that no one outside this vocation can really understand it? Why doesn't the Church require anonymity from her c 603 hermits, and why does she mark them and their vocations out in the various ways she does as something to be esteemed? Or, in other words, what is the Mystery the Church so regards that stands at the heart of the eremitical vocation that requires the paradoxical description, "revealed in hiddenness"?

In the past year or so, I have written more directly about the journey or pilgrimage hermits make to union with God, or, (probably a better way of describing this journey) toward deeper union with God. I say this is the better way of describing this because in our deepest self, we are already united with God, and our pilgrimage is one we make toward not only that deepest self, but the God who is its ground and source. To speak of human beings as sinful is to affirm we are estranged from that deepest self as well as from God (and from the rest of God's creation). The hermit commits to spending her life in pilgrimage to recover and live this profound truth that stands at the heart of her being. As she does this, she gradually brings all that she has experienced and all that she is to God so that her whole self may be redeemed by God's love. This is the inner journey no one sees, the journey no one can see. It is the pilgrimage that is always only partly clear to the hermit herself, the obscure but compelling journey she undertakes in faith and response to the often profoundly mysterious call of God into Mystery itself. And, of course, it is the heart of the eremitical journey, the only thing that could possibly make sense of its solitude and other forms of asceticism, its turn from much of God's good creation and its essential renunciation (or at least the relativization) of active ministry in visible service to others and to the Church.

While it is true that the hermit witnesses to hiddenness, she only does so secondarily. What comes first is the journey itself. It is a necessarily hidden journey into the depths of human yearning and fulfillment. The same can be said for a hermit's service of God, others, the Church, and this vocation. The hermit who lives her vocation well certainly serves all of these. Her life is, avowedly, a life of service. However, it is only this insofar as it puts the hidden journey to deeper union with God first. Service to others is not unimportant in the eremitical vocation; at the same time, it is an obscure service, often neither seen nor understood by others, because its heart is the mysterious inner journey no one can see or comprehend except analogously in light of their own inner pilgrimage to redemption and deeper union with God. 

When the Church discerns the presence of eremitical vocations in myself or others, what it is looking for are signs that the person is seeking God and is capable of committing their life to this specific quest as primary and definitive. That is, it and the yearning that underlies it must come before everything else and define every dimension of the hermit's life. Additionally, the church looks to see if the person is able and committed to making this pilgrimage in and to "the silence of solitude" for the sake of the Gospel and in the name of the Church. Because the journey to deeper union with God involves the healing and redemption of the whole person, the overcoming of the estrangement of sin and growth in genuine holiness, there will be signs that such persons have turned, and continue to turn more profoundly and completely, from that which is resistant or opposed to Christ (i.e., what is often unhelpfully called "the world") and have allowed themselves to be embraced by the God of life, love, selflessness, and grace. Such a vocation is a microcosm of the foundational vocation of the Church itself, and it summarizes the nature of human existence as well. (Cf Ponam In Deserto Viam, paragraph 15 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars 920-21) Again, it is a hidden reality --- though it bears witness to itself in the fruit associated with it. 

When Thomas Merton spoke of this foundational calling, he referred to the primary responsibility of the hermit:  [[. . . to live happily without affectation in his solitude.]] Merton continued, [[(the Hermit) owes this not only to himself but to his community that has gone so far as to give him a chance to live it out. . . . this is the chief obligation of the . . .hermit because, as I said above, it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and of grace.]] (Contemplation in a World of Action, p. 242) And here, in the reference to "certain latent possibilities of nature and grace", we also see what the hermit witnesses to, namely, the potential of each and every human life to reveal the essential unity that exists between God and the human person, that is, the essential relationship that makes a human being truly human. Hermits seek deeper union with God not only because Emmanuel (God With Us) is who God is and wills to be, but because Emmanuel also defines the nature of truly human existence. 

Merton described the hermit's pilgrimage as one of a profound seeking and exploration of Mystery that can only be done in hiddenness. Because this solitude is universal (all persons exist as made for God and estranged from God at the same time), some persons are called to witness to the pilgrimage every person is meant to make so that hope may triumph over despair in every life. As I have noted before, Merton writes, [[My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become, as it were, an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit -- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.]] (The Monastic Journey, pages 169-173, section published posthumously)

And here is a central clue as to why the Church esteems eremitical vocations today. In their rarity, these vocations represent calls to authentic humanity that are lived out for the sake of others and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They witness to the universal call to union with God, and they do so with a directness and salience other vocations lack. (In saying this, I do not mean to denigrate the rich witness of other vocations that also depend upon degrees of union with God for their fruitfulness. However, it seems to me that eremitical life cannot be justified in any other way, except in terms of the universal yearning for and call to union with God, not in terms of active ministry, education, social service, pastoral ministry, direct service to the poor, etc.) Eremitical life is ALL about the mysterious hidden journey every human person is called to make to deeper union with God, and to be who we are in light of that journey with, to, and into ultimate Mystery. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, powerful or powerless, celebrated or shrouded in obscurity, every person has been uniquely gifted with this same precious identity and calling.

In (perhaps) the most direct or dedicated way possible, where contemplative lives prioritize being over doing, eremitical life witnesses to the solitary call to be truly human in and with God by allowing God to be God With Us as completely as God wills. If one wants to understand what hermits DO with their lives, what it is that makes their lives so valuable to the Church and world, perhaps the best answer is that they are persons who are singularly focused on learning to BE themselves and to let God be God. In hermits, we find an unambiguous exemplar of ordinary human life given over to union with God and leading in its own way to the healing and fulfillment of reality that can only occur in communion with the Divine. Hermits witness to this profound and foundational giftedness and task, even when so many of their discrete gifts remain (and must remain) relatively unused, undeveloped, or relinquished entirely. Moreover, it is in the complete ordinariness and inner nature of this incarnational journey that the profoundly purposeful hiddenness of eremitical life is revealed (made known and made real in space and time). It is an incredible and divinely authored paradox that reminds us of all the other paradoxes that are so central to Christianity!! In and with Christ, in the power of the Spirit, this is who the hermit is called to be.

I hope this response is helpful. As always, if it raises more questions or fails to respond adequately to others, please get back to me, and I will revisit these.