On Peter Damian's Letter #28 and the Ecclesial Nature of c 603 Vocations

[[Hi Sister, you referred to Saint Peter Damian's Letter #28 (Dominus Vobiscum) and cited Ponam in Deserto Viam too. I am not clear why the ability to say, "The Lord be with you" is such a question. Also, Ponam in Deserto Viam speaks of two phrases in par 16. One is solitudo pluralis and the other is moltitudo singularis. I dont understand these or their importance, and I didn't hear Ponam make that clear. (I honestly read par 16 several times and just felt more confused.) Can you help me with this? Why begin with such a meaningless question and take it into the kind of difficult terms Damian does?]]

Important questions. Thanks!! One key to understanding the phrases in Par 16 of Ponam is Par 15. In these references, Ponam is exploring the nature of eremitical solitude and the way it represents and even defines the ecclesial role of the hermit life.  It says, [[In the Latin tradition, as Peter Damian (1007-1072) wrote. . .radical solitude most carefully defines the ecclesial role of the hermits' way of life. Hermits are like a microcosm of the world and the Church in miniature. Therefore, they cannot forget the Church and the world which they represent in their totality. The more one is alone before God, the more one discovers within oneself the deeper dimension of the world. With an expressive phrase, Peter Damian underlined this openness: 

. . .by virtue of the Holy Spirit, who is in each one and fills all, on the one hand one perceives a singularity that has plurality in itself [solitudo pluralis], on the other hand a multiplicity that has singularity in itself [moltitudo singularis].

Then, as you know, Ponam (par 16) explains something of these two phrases, solitudo pluralis and multitudo singularis, and concludes, "The hermit's life is not one in which its subjective distinctiveness becomes the criterion of all. Rather, it is a life in which plurality (personal and social) finds meaning in the only One who is necessary. Thus, the complexity of the individual part is integrated as in a microcosm of the whole. True identity is rooted in a vital tradition that neither excludes nor rejects, but includes, integrates, and reconstructs." I think that it might be important to look at some of what Peter Damian says in his 28th letter. In some ways, I think he is clearer than Ponam manages in its brevity. Damian says, 

"Truly the Church of Christ is so joined together by the bond of love that in many it is one, and in each it is mystically complete. Thus we at once observe that the whole Church is rightly called the one and only bride of Christ, and we believe each individual soul, by the mystery of baptism, to be the Whole Church. . . . If you search diligently through the open fields of Holy Scripture, you will frind the Church is often represented by one man or one woman. And although, because  of the great number of people, the Church seems to be many parts, it is still one and simple in the mystical federation of one faith and one divine regeneration.. . .  And so we conclude . . . since the whole Church is symbolized in the person of one individual, . . .holy Church is both one in all and complete in each of them; that is to say, simple in many by reason of their unity of faith, and multiple in each through the bond of love and the various charismatic gifts [gifts of the Holy Spirit], since all are from one, and all are one." (The Fathers of the Church, CUA Press, pp 262-263)

Peter Damian's letter goes further and speaks about hermits who might misunderstand the nature of their vocation: 

"It is possible that in their simplicity some of the brothers might be tempted while living alone to think that they are somehow separated from the community of the faithful, and that they would also be loathe to use the common language of the Church in their prayers." . . . For we are not here concerned with the number of persons but rather with the mystery of the Church's unity. Here indeed, unity does not exclude multiplicity, nor does multiplicity violate unity, for one body is at once divided among many members, and from the various members one body is made complete. Nor are many members lost in the unity of the body, nor is the wholeness of the body minimized in the multitude of its members." (Ibid. pp 271, 274)

In recent years, I have stressed that the canonical eremitic vocation is ecclesial. This does not mean that other hermits, especially non-canonical hermits, do not belong in an integral way to the Church, nor that they do not give their lives to the Church. Instead, it means that canonical hermits have accepted a public role in the very life of the Church that reminds every person, at least implicitly, of the two dimensions Peter Damian and Ponam in Deserto Viam put at the center of understanding eremitical solitude (in our oneness we are always part of a multiplicity, and in our multiplicity, we are one in the Spirit). Part of this witness by hermits embracing ecclesial vocations requires a canonical commitment to the life of the Church as consecrated hermits in order to witness to the very nature of the Church and the consecrated life within it. Solitude in such vocations is marked by a serious and radical aloneness, and at the same time, it reflects community in an equally radical way. 

The canonical hermit participates fully in the Sacramental life of the Church. She prays the Church's official prayer (Liturgy of the Hours); she may join with other hermits in lauras --- including virtual lauras that are non-geographic and allow for the strengthening of ecclesial bonds and witness. She lives her life according to an approved Rule of Life and under the supervision of Bishops (and often, accepted delegates) and spiritual directors. She does not live an individualistic life where canon law is dismissed as something only legalists or the "less spiritual" or "more temporal" choose. Instead, she allows herself to become subject to additional canons beyond those associated with baptism alone, because she understands that hermit life is a radically ecclesial and incarnational life, that, in a unique way, sees the multiplicity in one, and the one in the many. She wants to witness to this double reality in her own life and to do so officially for the sake of the Church and world.** Of course, it goes without saying that no hermit is alone because she lives with and from God, but what is also true is that no hermit is ever alone because we each carry the entire Church with us in our solitude. In fact, we are that Church.

While the question that begins Peter Damian's essay in this letter seems almost meaningless to contemporary readers, I personally love it. What I see Damian doing is taking a tremendously small act in the daily schedule of eremitic life, and demonstrating how it and, in fact, every single act done in cell is shot through with both the solitude and the multiplicity of the Church. This solitude and solidarity were what Pope Leo XIV spoke to in his address to hermits during recent Vatican festivities. Canonical standing, again, helps witness to these values and distinguishes the eremitical life from the individualism noted above. When I speak of the structure of canonical eremitic life protecting from the dynamics of "the world," the temptation to individualism is one of these.

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** When one does something officially, it really does have greater effectiveness than doing something unofficially. The very fact that the Church chose to create c 603 in response to interventions at the Second Vatican Council indicates the Church's openness to freshly evaluating or re-evaluating the importance of solitary hermits in the life of the Church as well as looking at the reality of religious life not associated with membership in an institute of consecrated life. The cogency of Peter Damian's ecclesiology in Letter #28 is strengthened by the contemporary establishment of c 603 and solitary hermits. These are very good reasons for the "official" or canonical establishment of the solitary eremitical life.