Living the Questions: On the Foundational Ministry of the Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I have read your blog for years and I have considered becoming a hermit myself sometimes. There is one thing that keeps me from doing that. It has to do with active ministry and the fact that hermits don't do active ministry except in a limited way. I know you have written some about this, and about the ministry of the hermit, but I am not getting how it is that a person can be consecrated as a hermit when our world and church are so in need of active ministers. How can someone retire from "the world" when the Great Commandment requires us to love others as God loves us and we love ourselves?]] 

I have a good friend who sometimes supports a cloistered Carmel in his area. They live on the help of benefactors. I admit that I don't get this either. They are healthy, able-bodied women, and yet do no active ministry at all. I'm afraid the story with Mary and Martha and Jesus telling Martha that Mary has chosen the better part just sounds elitist to me, especially since Martha is working so that Jesus can be celebrated as a guest!! It doesn't help me to understand how someone (nuns or hermits) could sit at Jesus'feet while the world around her was so much in need of her active ministry. You can see why I have not gone ahead with my thought of becoming a hermit. Perhaps I will do it when I am older or infirm. I still need to understand how it is hermits minister if they are not doing active ministry. Can you explain this?]]

Thanks for your questions. They are timely. About three weeks ago, I did a presentation for an Independent Catholic Church on the eremitical vocation. The group was hosting its annual Ceilidh, with the overarching theme of "Commitment" and a secondary focus on ministry. What I tried to communicate was the nature of the fundamental eremitical commitment (to allow God to be Emmanuel and to allow ourselves in Christ to become transparent to God, that is, to become Emmanuel ourselves). I also tried to convey the idea of eremitical ministry, which has to do with standing in and even being part of the heart of the Church. Unfortunately, that was a pretty weak piece of what I presented so I have been thinking more about it, mainly in light of the recent writing I have done and the idea of becoming transparent to God. That is why your question is timely and I hope I will be able to say something that is helpful.

One of the criticisms sometimes made of contemporary religious men and women (though mainly women) who have decided not to wear habits, for instance, is that the Church needs religious, not "just" social workers. The idea behind this criticism is that when a religious woman looks the same as everyone else doing the same kind of work, her ministry is somehow reduced to being that of a secular social worker, teacher, or whatever. Women religious, of course, counter this criticism by pointing to the fact that the habit does not make them a religious. It is the person herself who shows what a religious woman is, and this can be done effectively without a religious habit. They do this because of all the virtues, but especially the love they bring to whatever ministry they do. This love and the ministry it informs and inspires is clear to those ministered to. Sisters are not doing this because of the high pay or similar benefits of the work they are engaged in, nor are their commitments grudging or half-hearted as might happen in a job that is not ministerial.

My sense is that this revelation of love is a foundational part of the Sisters' ministry, every bit as (or more) critical as any other dimension or element of what they do for others. A significant part of this also has to do with the reason a religious (or any Christian, really) does what they do. Yes, they do it because God in Christ calls and even commands them to do it, but they also do it because of who this love allows them to see the people they work with to be. When we feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, find shelter for the poor, or teach the ignorant, we do so because they are hungry, or naked, or imprisoned, or poor, etc. We do so in part because they are in need. Others (governments, social workers) can easily do all of this effectively without seeing the person as Christian ministers do. What is different in Christian ministry is that Christian ministers do not simply feed the hungry, etc., because the person is hungry, naked, imprisoned, ignorant, or poor. In fact, I would argue they do not even do so primarily because the person has such needs. Instead, their reason for doing what they do is deeper, more foundational. They do what they do because the person is precious to God and thus, to the minister. They do so because the person is of almost infinite value and dignity no matter their joblessness, homelessness, criminality, statuslessness, or whatever else marginalizes them, and because loving them as God loves them and treating them as the gift to the world they are called and have the potential to be, affirms and feeds, sets free and secures them, more foundationally than anything else can.

The canonical hermit (also a religious) is called to this specific and foundational dimension of Christian ministry even more radically than apostolic religious women and men. I say that because hermits' lives witness to who we are in God and because of God's love; no active ministry validates the hermit's life. A hermit lives her life in solitude with God for the sake of others, including all Christian ministers, servants, and shepherds, precisely to make clear the foundational truth all apostolic ministry is based on, namely, that every person is made for and called to union with God, and thus, that every person carries within themselves the spark of divinity and a unique capacity to image God, to be entirely transparent to God in our world. 

Everything in the hermit life marginalizes the hermit in ways intended to help her/him witness to this foundational truth, as no law, dogma, or doctrine can ever do. In the risen Christ, the hidden journey the hermit makes in and to the silence of solitude and its ever-deeper union with God, reveals the double reality that stands at the heart of every single life, deeper than any limitation, brokenness, doubt, or distortion, namely, authentic humanity and the living God. In the hermit, marginalization serves the truth that in the risen Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing at all can separate us from the love of God. In this way, the hermit witnesses to the nature and heart of the Church as it mediates the presence within our world of the God we know as Emmanuel and the way to the fullness of life that also represents Emmanuel.

That is what I have been writing about here for the past months and weeks, especially when I talk about the person as question seeking and anticipating the only sufficient answer, who is God. This was Thomas Merton's point as well. A friend sent me a copy of a page last night from a book on prayer she was reading. One line from a quote on that page struck me as the story of my own life seeking God and living as a hermit, viz.: [[I enter [my prayer space, prayer] as a suppliant and leave as a witness.]] I am especially reminded that the vocation to assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude assumed by the hermit has always been seen as one of white martyrdom, and martyrdom is, most fundamentally, about witnessing. The word means witness! While hermits are not usually called to red martyrdom, they are called to journey to the depths of human existence where estrangement from God and union with God exist "side by side" so to speak. This is why I speak of living the questions most profoundly, and journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair, where those questions are posed most radically, and where God and the truest Self exist in union with One another.

To summarize, the Body of Christ has many members with different functions. Hermits represent the heart of the Church, the reality upon which all active ministry is built and in which it is rooted. While this is not ministerial in the way most folks are used to thinking about or seeing ministry, the hermit's journey is itself profoundly ministerial. It is a witness to God as the ultimate source of all meaningful life and an affirmation of the value and call of every life to become Emmanuel and allow God to be the one he wills to be, no matter the degree of marginalization or estrangement marking stages or dimensions of the person's life. While hermits do not engage in much active ministry, they remind all ministers of the truth, the incredibly Good News that undergirds, motivates, and informs all genuinely Christian ministry. This, by the way, is what the story of Mary, Martha, and Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (the end of chapter 10) actually illustrates. The Greek (κοινη) text does not say Mary chose the better part, but rather that Mary chose the uniquely needful or necessary part that was identified as good.