Exploring Some Implications of the Ecclesiality of the Eremitic Vocation

 [[Sister Laurel, I was pondering something you have been writing about. What does it mean to speak of an ecclesial vocation? I understand that every vocation reflects on the Church in some important way, and I bet some do that more clearly than others. But I get the sense you are saying more than that when you use the term "ecclesial". Can you explain it to me? I remember that with your own vocation you once said that the vocation belongs to the Church before it belongs to the hermit and that is part of the answer, but why would it be important for a hermit to understand they are committing their lives to an ecclesial vocation? ]]

Well, thanks for asking your first series of questions, then!! They are really very good ones and mainly about a dimension of this vocation (as you note), I am exploring currently. What I am mainly discovering, and have been looking at over the past couple of years, is the way this vocation is an ecclesial one, so I may not have a complete answer for you at this point, but I will give it a shot! It might be very helpful to look at the way that contrasts with a vocation that is not an ecclesial one. I find that question very intriguing, but also a little tricky to answer without demeaning the non-ecclesial vocations. (I don't think an answer should be demeaning, but it may be hard to make that clear, so I am talking about my own deficiencies here!) By the way, I will have to return to some of your questions (see below) in additional posts. I've included them below until I decide. What I want to do here in this first part is to describe why some vocations are ecclesial.

I began my own exploration of the ecclesial nature of this vocation (and all vocations to the consecrated state) just prior to my perpetual profession and consecration. If one spoke with others who were becoming consecrated hermits or desired to become consecrated hermits under c 603, the idea of the vocation's ecclesiality was not something that came up particularly. The neuralgic point where this sometimes was raised was in the discernment of vocations and the sense that if the person had discerned they were called to religious life or to eremitical life, then why did the discernment have to be mutual? How could congregations or dioceses, for example, send someone home (or away to live as a privately dedicated hermit in the lay state) when they (the candidate) was certain s/he had a vocation to consecrated life?!! Couldn't this mean that a community or diocese could make one "miss one's vocation"?

Beginning an Exploration of the Concept

Over the years, I worked out a number of bits of a solution to this apparent problem, but I never really came to peace with the questions raised in the last paragraph. As I neared perpetual profession and consecration as a diocesan hermit, I came to see the importance of mutual discernment and began to understand the notion of the vocation's ecclesiality. Partly this came from my own sense that while I could live as a privately vowed hermit, it was also true, I thought, that I had something unique to bring the Church and that it was also up to the Church to discern that and accept it or not. Still, while I recognized the term "ecclesiality" fit this situation in some way, I was a long way from my starting argument on this blog, even, namely, "the vocation belongs to the Church before it belongs to the individual hermit"! (By the way, I argue that this is true of the Desert Abbas' and Ammas' vocations as well, and it would be a very long time before I came to be able to argue that point!!) 

This vestigial sense of what ecclesiality meant, especially for consecrated eremitical life, remained an interest that would eventually be the characteristic or rubric under which I could both understand and express the significance of the consecrated solitary eremitical vocation for the hermit and for the entire Church. So, with that long introduction, what do I mean by calling a vocation ecclesial? Most fundamentally, I mean that such a vocation is one that belongs intimately and integrally to the Church, and it does so because it reflects something critical about her life in this world. Another way of saying this is to say this vocation reveals something central about the Church without which she would not be Christ's own Church. Ecclesial vocations may share these dimensions with one another, and at the same time, some may reveal one or more of these dimensions with greater clarity or vividness than do other ecclesial vocations. I believe that what congregations identify as their own charisms are these various ecclesial dimensions possessed with a significant vividness, personality, or unique application.**

The Journey of the Canonical Hermit

The canonical hermit, whether a solitary (diocesan) hermit, or a member of a congregation of hermits (some Carmelites, some Camaldolese, and Carthusians, for instance), lives certain elements of a consecrated life with particular vividness. So, for instance, every consecrated person prays, is committed to conversion of life, lives degrees of silence and solitude as well as stricter separation from that which is resistant to Christ so that Christ may have priority in their lives, but the hermit, and especially the solitary hermit, will live these elements with a radicality and vividness that is revelatory in calling attention to the hidden core or heart of their lives, namely, the redemptive journey to union with God in and with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. None of the constitutive elements of the eremitical life makes real sense apart from this hidden core or heart. At the heart of eremitical life is a pilgrimage to and with Love-in-Act that is essentially freeing. This hidden journey allows the hermit's call to authentic humanity to be realized in space and time, and at the same time, it is all about allowing God to be Emmanuel, the One God wills to be, and has willed to be from before creation. 

The journey the hermit makes goes right to the deepest, darkest depths of her own humanity. On the way, and especially as she moves to and through the apparent limits of her own life, her own brokenness and fragility, she encounters her own hungers, her most profound needs, the desire for being and meaning that colors everything else in her life, and especially, the ultimate need to love and be loved that is the source and fulfillment of all of these. In other words, as far as possible, the hermit sets aside everything except the dialogue with God she is called to become and is most essentially and profoundly. In the process of the journey, and especially in the darkest depths of her own humanity, the hermit meets God and a self rooted in God that lives beyond death, beyond all the brokenness, beyond the limits, and even the various forms of godlessness that have been part of her life. In short, she meets the truth of the Gospel and the offer of fullness of life in God. She lives from and for this truth and the God that is its source and ground.

Becoming a Microcosm of the Church and its Gospel

Where this occurs, where one becomes fully oneself in Christ, and where God becomes fully Emmanuel, there is revealed (made real in space and time) the "intercessory place" where the reconciliation of heaven and earth is achieved in the "Kingdom of God". While this happens in a hermit's own life, indeed, in her own heart, what is revealed here is the very nature and goal of the Church itself. The hermit's life mirrors this life and the truth of the Gospel that God will allow nothing whatsoever to separate us from him. (This is, of course, the Good News of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension, as Paul reflected it in Romans 8, and the Church is called to proclaim in season and out.) 

Every Christian's life is meant to reflect this message and become an embodiment of its truth. Each Christian is part of the Body of Christ and called to carry on the Church's mission to proclaim Christ's liberating message. Each of us is called to be a microcosm of such a life-giving dynamic realized in space and time in our work, our families, and so forth.  Hermits and other members of the consecrated state, however, embrace (and are entrusted with) this vocation for the sake of God, God's Church/People, and the well-being of the entire cosmos. They will give up families, renounce marriage and having children, give up certain kinds of careers, relinquish the use of many discrete talents and gifts, etc.,  for the sake of the Church's being Christ's own body. This, then, is not merely a vocation lived in the Church, but a vocation that is essential to the Church being God's very own community of "called ones". 

[[Does it [the ecclesiality of your vocation] change the way you approach your daily life? I think I also want to know what it would look like if you were living a vocation that was NOT an ecclesial one. What would that mean? Would it mean you approach living as a hermit differently than you do now? Thank you for persevering in this blog. Do you get a lot of readers? I don't get here very often, and this is the first time I have asked a question, but I always go away thinking about what you write and how little I knew about being a hermit before reading your blog.]]

Yes, absolutely. I think it doesn't so much change what I do as why I do it! When I think about the eremitic vocation, I wonder about its importance and why it exists. What is such a life supposed to embody? What message does it give to others and call for from them? What does it matter if I don't live this life with integrity? After all, it doesn't do or produce much! In answering these questions and a number of others, I recognize that the answers can cut in very different, even antithetical ways. One set of answers leads in the direction of personal failure, isolation, and emptiness; the other leads in the direction of Christian responsibility, abundant life, mission, and meaningfulness. Without a sense that this is an ecclesial vocation***, the answers one gives to the questions noted above can tend to cohere with answers that reflect on a human being's failure to truly be human. But, as an ecclesial vocation, each question is a challenge to both the hermit and those she encounters, to uncover (and even explore) the positive, God-centered, communal, redemptive, and lifegiving answers, rather than the ones that point to brokenness, meaninglessness, lostness, emptiness, and likely signal human failure.

One of the things that changes without the sense that my vocation is an ecclesial one is my ability to pursue eremitical life with the same dedication. Does even God really need me to be a hermit? Why in the world would God need or will that? One needs to be able to answer these questions thoughtfully and substantively, or one will never be able to live this life with integrity! Another thing that would happen without a sense that the Church recognizes the eremitic life and calls some to ecclesial eremitic vocations is the increased tendency to slide into individualism and selfishness. While hermits do pursue personal holiness in the power of the Holy Spirit, eremitical life in the Church is not primarily about this. Instead, it is about God's will to be Emmanuel, growth in compassion, and the desire to be the place where heaven and earth come together for the sake of others --- the Church, and all that is precious to God. Without this larger perspective, it becomes very easy to justify whatever one thinks and does in the name of eremitical weirdness. (This is especially evident with regard to solitude in the next point.)

A third thing that changes without the sense this is an ecclesial vocation is the tendency to a niggling sense of failure and wastefulness of gifts and talents. I am dedicated to this life because it makes sense of all dimensions of my own existence. Not only my talents, but my limitations and brokenness actually contribute to this vocation and make sense within it. Chronic illness does not take away from my ability to live a life of prayer, nor does the diverse forms of isolation it causes. Instead, this isolation becomes a means to explore eremitical solitude and to learn just how radically different it is from personal isolation and unhealthy withdrawal. It allows me to find a deeper relatedness to others in my life, a relatedness that illness cannot affect, except, perhaps, to make me keener in my commitment to it. 

Further, though, in this vocation, I let go of certain discrete gifts and talents and discover that in doing so, what that makes clearer is the gift God makes of me (or, potentially, any other person) for others. This is a profoundly countercultural way of approaching one's own giftedness, and would ordinarily seem wasteful and disparaging of God, who is the giver of such gifts. Again, the perspective here is deeper, broader, and, to be truly appreciated in the way I believe God wants, requires one to believe in the significance of eremitic vocations in the life of the Church and world. Especially, it uncovers the truth that the person, per se, is the creation and invaluable gift of God, even without outstanding talents and gifts. I both reflect on and write about the ecclesial nature of the eremitic vocation not because it is simply another element of the life I have discovered over time, but because it is a foundational dimension of the vocation that allows one to live it faithfully, fruitfully, and generously, even when it means letting go of every gift but the gift God alone makes of one. In turn, this will mean assisting the Church to be the Church God calls it to be, and especially, I believe it will help individuals marginalized by chronic illness and other things to see themselves as the gifts of God they are made to be in our Church and world.

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** For instance, the Sisters of the Holy Family in Fremont have an emphasis on ministering to and for the lost and least. They do and have done parish ministry, catechetics, personal growth and healing work, music ministry, social justice, accompaniment or spiritual direction, children's homes, etc, etc., but who they are in every form of ministry are "gleaners" and specifically, gleaners for the Kingdom of God. Other congregations do the same ministries, but the charism of SHF is their attention on the lost and least, the forgotten, and undervalued. This congregational "gift quality" or "charism" reveals something intrinsic to Jesus' life and ministry, and so too, to the life of the Church itself. Not only is the Church revealed to itself and to others in the lives of SHF, but it is challenged to be ever truer to this call. The SHF, no matter the kind of ministry each Sister undertakes, has embraced (and been entrusted with) ecclesial vocations that make the Church what it is called to be.

*** While I write in this piece about canonical eremitical life, it is important to remember that the significance of eremitic vocations of all forms is witnessed to by the ecclesiality of consecrated vocations to the eremitic life. While non-canonical eremitic vocations are not ecclesial vocations per se, the fact that the Church recognizes eremitical life in law and consecrates ecclesial vocations to eremitic life, both solitary and in community, underscores the value of ALL eremitical vocations, whether canonical or non-canonical. This is another way the existence of c 603 vocations serves the Church, especially since the majority of hermits throughout history and even today are non-canonical.

Canon 603, Ecclesiality, and Witnessing to the Value of Eremitical Life in ALL of its Forms and States

[[Dear Laurel, I was wondering why isn't it good enough for you or other diocesan hermits to be hermits the way God called hermits before 1982? Isn't that way good enough for you? I like hermits that really stay incognito and hide themselves like the cathechism says they are to do. Wasn't it good enough for you and other CL hermits to be the same as the historical and traditional hermits so you had to get some kind of special status and prestige?]]

Thank you for your questions. I would ask you to read the posts I have put up about the history of c 603 life. Check the labels to the right to find appropriate articles, and let me know if you need help finding the most helpful articles. I have written a lot about this in the past couple of years, especially, but also throughout the past 18-19 years. I think one of the things you have missed in your understanding of why Canon 603 was established is the way it reflects on the lives of past hermits and the way the Church either once regarded, or now newly regards, their vocations. Perhaps I have not spoken about this aspect of the reason for c 603's existence. Canon 603 is meant to rectify a significant lack or defect in the way the Church has regarded the eremitical vocation throughout the centuries. Far from saying hermits throughout the centuries could be disregarded, c 603 came into being not only to assist contemporary hermits who had left their monasteries to be secularized, but to point to the importance of the vocation in whatever way it had been lived within the Church up until 1983 and will be lived in the future.

The eremitic vocation has not always been appropriately esteemed in the Church. The fault for this is multifaceted, and both the Church and hermits bear blame. On the whole, hermits were treated with suspicion by the Church, something that may have stemmed 1) from the critical stance towards the institutional Church and its relation to the state taken by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, but also 2) from the genuine independence of the authentic Hermit living his/her life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the centuries, Bishops and dioceses took the responsibility for anchorites and hermits living in their dioceses. There were diocesan statutes created (ordine), and anchorites were more strictly regulated, but hermits were vested with the hermit's tunic, and if they felt called to preach, bishops provided a license to do so. In this way, the Church limited and tried to guide (sometimes this was about controlling) hermits in the region. At the same time, hermits (for good and for ill) multiplied at times of social unrest and struggle, which tended to increase the Church's distrust of the vocation.

It took time for the Western Church to truly recognize the value of eremitical vocations, and then, more time for the Church in the West to be presented with an experimental example of the life being lived in a way that could be examined by the Magisterium/hierarchy and reevaluated as a prophetic vocation. This model colony was also 180 degrees opposed to the individualism of the age. It was gradually coming together in a colony of hermits in British Columbia, particularly since these hermits were committed to "living singly in total solitude". (Here you can see the difference between a laura and a community of hermits. In the laura, which constitutes a supportive structure, the hermits live a more rigorous solitude.) It took time to find a monk who would serve as abbot, and time for the bishop protector to come to know these men and their lives and see the value of the eremitic life for the Church. Vatican Council II provided the perfect opportunity for Bishop de Roo to try to get this form of life recognized in the Western Church (it had never died out in the Eastern Church).

But here is the critical piece of the picture you appear to have missed: the eremitical life in the Western Church had died out, though it was a life God clearly called well-formed, experienced monastics to. It was also, therefore, a life of significant value, and needed to be recovered by the Church herself if it was to thrive in the way it did in the East, and seemed to want to do in the West as well. In creating c 603, the Church was not saying the hermit life is only now of value, and especially not only in a few canonical hermits!! She says it has always been of inestimable value in every century, and it is time to put suspicion and distrust behind us and recognize this vocation in universal law!! It is not only possible to be a hermit, but it is possible, if one feels called to do this, to live the life in the name of the Church! Canon 603 hermits, in recognizing they stand within a living stream of the Church's spiritual tradition, say to everyone, the hermit vocation -- every hermit vocation -- is valuable; the vocation is to be esteemed as a gift of God to our Church and world!!! Some witness to this publicly, normatively. Most do not. But the witness c 603 hermits give to the Church and world serves every eremitic vocation in this way.

This is part of the ecclesial nature of the c 603 vocation, by the way, one of the specific ways the c 603 vocation serves the Church directly in helping her be the Church God calls her to be. This particular dimension of ecclesiality also fosters humility in those called to it. It is a literally awesome thing to think that God might call people to be part of a vocation almost completely lost to the Western Church, and to stand awed by one's call is to be both reduced and raised to humility. This is the paradoxical or countercultural prestige of the Kingdom of God, the call to stand with and for others so that God might be glorified and they might have life and have it abundantly! In this instance, c 603 hermits stand specifically to witness publicly to the eremitical vocation in all of its forms and to their important place within the Church. (Please note: the hiddenness of the c 603 hermit is found most radically in the inner journey the hermit makes with Christ to union with God. This focus of the hermit's entire life is almost entirely hidden from the eyes of humankind. I can say more about this in another post if this is not enough.)

How Does Having a Delegate Work for You? Could it Work for Me?

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I am a diocesan hermit, but because of the nature of my question, I don't want to identify myself or my diocese. I hope that is okay. What I am really hoping is that you have some suggestions for me in dealing with this situation. My diocese has a new bishop since I was professed and consecrated. I understand that my position as a c 603 hermit is not in jeopardy, even if my new bishop does not agree with the idea of hermits, but you know, I have been unable to meet with my new bishop, and it looks like such a meeting, much less regular meetings with him, are not going to take place anytime soon. You have a delegate. How does that work, and could I work out such a situation in my diocese? I realize that not all bishops are ready to take on the role of supervising a diocesan hermit. Is this a very common situation, if you know? I'm just hoping you have a little bit of wisdom to share with me! Thanks!!]]

Thanks very much for your questions. They are really important, and apply to many dioceses in one way or another -- at least from what I know anecdotally. First of all, it might be helpful to consider what role a delegate serves. Bishops are called to supervise c 603 vocations in their diocese; they are to be sure the hermit is living her vocation, growing in it, and representing the Church and Gospel in the ways hermits do. A person's bishop should be knowledgeable of the hermit's Rule and have a sense of the way God has worked in her life over the years. However, the Canon does not define how it is the Bishop carries out this responsibility. Thus, some bishops have determined that they will use a delegate who serves the diocese (the local Church) and both the hermit and the bishop by accompanying the hermit and then by being available to the bishop to fill him in, et al., should the diocese wish to discuss how things are going. (I should note here that this arrangement is in addition to meetings between the hermit and her bishop.) This works well, both because the hermit really does need to be able to check in with someone regularly, and because they definitely may need to meet with someone more frequently than Bishops might be able to do, a delegate serves everyone involved, along with the requirements of c 603.

Now, here's the rub insofar as you are concerned. I was asked prior to being admitted to perpetual profession and consecration to get a delegate. You have not been asked to do this. The Vicars for Religious at the time (we had two), had met with Bp Vigneron prior to my meeting with them at this one point, and, as a result of that meeting, asked me to get a delegate. Thus, the request came directly from the bishop; it was not my idea. However, the use of a delegate is now pretty well-known and common. While it was not done in your case prior to your profession and consecration, it seems to me that you could make a proposal to your diocese/bishop about adopting the use of a delegate who could 1) meet with you regularly (as necessary), 2) be available to your bishop in your regard, 3) be responsible for keeping his/her finger on the pulse of your vocation, your growth in it, and in the life of the Church -- both universal and local. Even if the arrangement remained completely informal, it could assist you to live your vocation with integrity, and a record of your letter would be kept in your file for future reference.

As you know, Canon 603 is very clearly meant to foster the presence of deeply ecclesial eremitical vocations, and given the individuality of this vocation, and the lack of religious community c 603 hermits experience, the connection to the local Church must be maintained to prevent the hermit from falling into individualism or feeling like there is no real relationship with the local or universal Church. After all, the canonical hermit makes commitments beyond those of baptism, which are binding in law, and that she lives for the sake of the Church. In this way, too, she glorifies God and serves the salvation of the world. This is the reason the supervision of the local bishop is required. As you likely also know well, the eremitical life is both vital and fragile, especially in a world where a selfish individualism routinely replaces healthy individuality lived for the sake of others.

It does happen that bishops are unready to meet regularly with hermits, though I don't know the frequency of this. I was fortunate in my diocese and was able to meet with my bishop twice a year, as well as meeting more frequently with my delegate. Bp Vigneron, who followed Bp John Cummins, communicated through my delegate; he was followed by Bp Cordileone, and he kept a twice-a-year schedule unless I needed to meet for some unexpected reason, in which case I simply needed to contact his office for an appointment. When Bp Cordileone left for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, he arranged for me to meet with the Vicar for Religious in case of need. We had an interim Bishop in there for a time, and he also kept in contact through the Vicar for Religious (Rev Robert Herbst, OFM Conv), who left for the Diocese of Las Vegas after Bishop Barber took over. My first meeting with Bp Barber came when he did a visitation at my parish, when we met in the sacristy after Mass. It was then that he learned he had a diocesan hermit in the diocese whose legitimate superior he was. He was a bit surprised!!! So, a lot happened in the first ten years after consecration, but Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF, served as my delegate during all of that time, and still does, now with Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF. 

I don't think there is much in this post that is new, but perhaps it gives a better sense of why the delegate can be helpful and is often necessary. Bishops who "inherit" diocesan hermits may well feel ill-equipped to follow or assist such a vocation, particularly alone. (They might feel inadequate to supervise any contemplative vocation, but that of a solitary hermit might accentuate this sense, and that is understandable. Having a religious who understands contemplative life, and the importance of solitude, can be of immense assistance to the bishop.)  My suggestion to you is to find someone who could serve in this role (a religious or religious priest with a background in formation, spiritual direction, contemplative life and prayer, leadership in community, theology, spirituality, and the willingness to read about eremitical life) is especially helpful. If you can get a monastic who can do this, that would be great! Make sure they have a copy of your Rule, and have a conversation (or several!) with them on the ways you live it now and once lived it, the ways you have grown in your understanding of the elements of Canon 603, and why you are taking this step now. Also, be clear how you understand your vow of obedience and make sure they are on the same page with a ministry of authority; after all, this person will be a kind of "quasi-superior" for you and you need to see religious obedience in the same way.

Once you have someone who can and will serve in this way, write your bishop with your proposal (be sure to cite the canon, the person you have spoken to about serving the diocese in this way, and also give the reasons you have found such an arrangement important); request an appointment to discuss the matter. See if he would like to meet with the proposed delegate at the same time. If you cannot get an appointment with your Bishop, see about an appointment with the Vicar for Religious or Vicar of Consecrated Life. Finally, as an additional aid, you might also consider joining other diocesan hermits with whom you might meet once a month or so in a virtual laura. These kinds of non-geographical arrangements can be really supportive for solitary hermits living c. 603. In this way, you can share with folks living the same lifestyle you are, and doing so in the same world; they will have probably dealt with the same questions and challenges you are. This does not take the place of a delegate, for instance, but for some of us, this arrangement is incredibly life-giving!!

Do get back to me to let me know how you do with all of this. I'm sorry I don't have more suggestions than this one solution, but it has worked really well for me and for the C. 603 vocation in the Diocese of Oakland.  

Canon 603, a Break With the Eremitical Tradition? (Reprised from March 2012)

[[Dear Sister, how big a break with the traditional form of hermit life is canon 603 hermit life? Is the focus on law and rules a distortion of the simplicity of the hermit life as found throughout the history of the church until the last century? Why would the church move in this direction? One lay hermit says that the Church had canons on eremitical life in the 1917 Code of Canon Law and that the addition of c 603 in the 1983 Code was designed to curb abuses.]]

Thanks for your questions. I am not sure what you mean by "the traditional form" of hermit life unless you are referring to the most original (Christian) forms established and typified by the Desert Fathers and Mothers (they had more than one). Throughout the history of the church, there have been a variety of forms of eremitical life: solitary, laura-based, religious or communal (sometimes called semi-eremitic), anchoritic, urban, reclusive, and so forth. Appropriately, all of them see themselves as carrying on the tradition and spirituality of the Desert -- the spirituality of John the Baptist, Jesus (especially in the desert), and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Today we recognize three main forms of, or avenues for living, the hermit life: 1) religious or semi-eremitical hermit life which does NOT use Canon 603 as the basis of their public profession (Carthusians, Camaldolese, etc), 2) solitary consecrated or diocesan (canon 603) life, and 3) lay (dedicated or non-canonical) eremitical life. While the desert Fathers and Mothers are the original instance of Christian eremitical life, they lived both solitary and laura-based lives as well as reclusion. So, there has always been significant diversity within several major forms, not just one or (in light of canon 603) two forms or avenues.

I think your question about canon 603 as a break with tradition, though, is a question about canonical standing or the place of law in all of this, no? Your next sentence focuses on law and rules, and I read it as an elaboration of this first question. Some people do assert that law in any form is not consonant with the eremitical vocation, but these generally mistake license for genuine freedom and forget that freedom is exercised in spite of or at least in relation to life's constraints. They also exaggerate the desert Fathers' and Mothers' freedom from custom, precedents, and the like, and minimize the degree of communal responsibility every hermit had. Moreover, they seem to treat post-desert Father/Mother hermit life as entirely independent of the supervision of the Church and her hierarchy, laws, and customs. While there were always folks doing the equivalent of whatever they wanted and calling themselves hermits, and while there have also been true hermits who had no formalized relationship to the institutional church, the general truth is that authentic hermits have often lived in a formal, legalized relationship with the Church and even sometimes with the secular society. This has been true for the majority of the church's history. In any case, then, the answer is no, canon 603 eremitical life is not a significant departure from, much less a break with, what has existed for at least the last 14-15 centuries in the Church.

The Customs of the Desert Fathers and Mothers

It is true that the desert Fathers and Mothers were part of a movement to protest the Church's linkage with the State, and substitute in some way for the loss of red martyrdom as well --- the loss of which made living one's faith a less risky or demanding business. These two changes, while certainly desirable, also made living merely as a nominal Christian very much easier. Additionally, it is certainly true that the desert Fathers' and Mothers' move away from "the institutional" church led them into an area of recognizably greater freedom and individuality, but not to one of individualism or complete freedom from constraints of any kind. They were prophetic in this move, but they would have ceased to be prophetic had they not also been related to the Church and her Gospel at the same time.

As noted, there were, for instance, customs that these original hermits observed in learning their vocation; novices lived with an elder who mentored them and taught them what they needed to know. Such elders also served to help discern the genuineness of the novice's call to the desert. They taught the Scriptures, assisted the novices to learn to pray assiduously, to fight demons, to fast, to live the evangelical counsels, etc. Additionally among these thousands of hermits there were customs regarding the giving or taking away of the habit (they could not be donned on one's own authority and would be taken away if the person lived the life badly), the way one lived in one's cell, the ways one exercised hospitality, requirements for work, manual labor, time out of cell, etc. but beyond the desert Fathers and Mothers and their customs, eremitical life has always been supervised (often by Bishops) and subject to forms of legislation (established Rules, monastic constitutions, decretals, diocesan ordine, etc).

A Summary of the Relationship between Solitary Hermits and the Hierarchy in the post-desert Fathers Church

Thomas McMahon, O Carm, writes a brief general summary of some of this history and notes; [[While the early lay hermit movement [speaking of non-religious, non-ordained hermits] was very charismatic, the hierarchical Church demanded some measure of accountability. Lay hermits enjoyed certain canonical rights and protections both in ecclesiastical and civil law. Consequently, one was not free to simply go off on one’s own and become a hermit. Because they often did some spontaneous preaching and often depended on the alms of the faithful for support, the bishops claimed some rights over them. While anyone was free to live a life of retirement and prayer, a man needed to seek the blessing of the local prelate before he could assume the habit of a hermit. Hermits, like canonical pilgrims, wore a tunic that fell somewhat below the knees but was not as long as a clerical gown. They belted this with a leather belt and wore a short hooded cape. Pilgrims, in addition to this basic habit, added a purse slung from their belts in which to keep food or alms given to them for their journey, and they also wore the badge of their pilgrimage, such as a scallop shell for those going to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella or a palm for those going to Jerusalem. The pilgrim, like the hermit, had a right to appeal for alms.]] Emphasis added.

In a work including more detailed inventories of the legal rights and obligations of hermits (anchorites) in various countries @ 1000 AD (one essay deals with hermits @ 400 AD onwards), Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe has several essays by various authors, two of which especially make it clear that anchorites during this period were generally scrutinized by and lived eremitical (anchoritic) life under the supervision of their Bishops. While the Bishop's primary (and lengthiest) duty was to see to the spiritual well-being and maturation of the anchoress, there were established rites of enclosure, sometimes with a Mass, sometimes not, requirements regarding financial well-being, suitability of the anchorhold, etc. Some dioceses had detailed lists of statutes ("ordine") applying to anchorites and extending certain benefits to those who were their benefactors. Civil laws were also promulgated, which protected the anchorites. Their lives and presence were highly valued so these statutes or ordines established formal relationships between anchorites and the society at large, which protected all involved and are reminiscent of the way canon 603 functions today. (cf McEvoy, Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe.)

Canon 603 as Break with Tradition: A Serious Misconstrual of Eremitical History

All of these things and more point to the fact that it would be a serious misconstrual of the history of eremitical life to suggest there was one form in the main which existed until canon 603, and which was free of canonical or civil legal constraints and permissions. While there have always been those who went off to live lives of prayer (or those who went off to do their own thing!), those who were recognized as hermits or anchorites and wished to minister in the church through or in light of their solitude have generally been licensed (yes, actually licensed!) or "approved" by their Bishops and thus bound by a variety statutes or lists of statues and canons established diocese by diocese. Canon 603 is unique because for the first time ever it provides for hermits to assume standing in universal law, and for that reason, and to some extent, it cuts through all of the varying diocesan regulations that governed this life through the centuries.

By its establishment, Canon 603 continues and renews a tradition of dialogue between church and hermits where the church accommodates the authentic call to solitude in various ways while the hermit herself accepts the relationships and commitments established in law to assist her in this. Hermits have always been dependent in some way on those around them, whether it is their town, their community, their parish, diocese, or the church at large. Even the largest numbers of the desert Fathers and Mothers lived on the edge of the desert rather than alone in the deep desert, and were accessible to those in the nearby towns and villages. In later centuries, it was expected that some situation like this would exist for the mutual benefit of all concerned; total solitude was not only impossible, but undesirable. (cf Mari Hughes-Edwards, "Anchoritism: The English Tradition", p. 146, op cit.)

What law does, and, apart from heavy-handed abuses or mere attempts at control, what it has always done, is establish stable ways this dependence can be worked out for the benefit of the whole church. Canon 603, for instance, does away with some of the instability that can obtain from diocese to diocese, parish to parish, and village to village by establishing this vocation in universal law and locates the hermit in the heart of both the local and universal church. (Calling the hermit forth from the parish or cathedral community and publicly professing her in the parish or cathedral church underscores this traditional understanding of the mutual relationship between hermit, community, and Bishop. Yet, each hermit, et. al. will work this out individually as best suits her vocation.) What it also does is provide for a vocation which requirements for participation in the sacraments and an essential ecclesiality once made illegitimate. Paul Giustiniani (Camaldolese) called for laura-based eremitical life and an end to solitary eremitical life when these requirements were codified. Now, once again, because of canon 603, the church is recovering the solitary eremitical vocation and providing norms which remind us these vocations are 1) ecclesial rather than individualistic, and 2) despite a rich diversity, marked by specific non-negotiable elements.

Reasons Canon 603 was Promulgated (yet again!)

As for the reason canon 603 was established then, it is much more positive than an attempt to deal with abuses. I have told this story at least twice before, so please do check the labels on the history of canon 603 (cf canon 603 --- history) for a more complete account. As you can see from the terribly abbreviated snapshot of historical conditions above, while law did prevent abuses, its more important raison d'etre was the protection and nurturing of a very unusual or uncommon, fragile, and significant vocation. Candidates needed to be checked out (not everyone can live this life!), they had to be provided for, whether by their town, by other benefactors, or --- when these failed --- by the anchorite's own Bishop. Without the protection of law, the existence of hermits becomes a very iffy thing, which means that without the protection and requirements of law and the relationships legal standing helps establish and regulate, a Divine vocation can be lost.

Canon 603 serves to replace, or at least subordinate to universal law, any diocesan schema used to legislate hermits from diocese to diocese. It calls all dioceses and all Bishops to reflect on the essential nature and value of the eremitical life and be sure that candidates for this life live these central elements with fidelity and even prophetic power. It allows for collaboration and learning from one another regarding successful and unsuccessful examples of this vocation in our own day and age, and helps the entire Western Church to be on the same page in approaching such vocations. At the same time, it does not level out or destroy legitimate individuality. It allows for and, in fact, requires the hermit's own Rule or Plan of Life, which she writes herself and which reflects her own individual lived expression of the essential elements of canon 603 in dialogue with both the eremitical tradition more generally and the contemporary world. If a country has 100 diocesan hermits, it also has 100 individual expressions of this life. At the same time, all of these hermits are publicly covenanted (vowed) to live the same essential elements. This is the pattern of all authentic eremitical life --- a pattern of individual creativity and faithfulness to the central elements and values of a given tradition in conjunction with the hermit's own world, and in response to the Holy Spirit. Canon 603 helps ensure this authentic pattern.

Finally, though I have said this in this article and many times in this blog over the past several years, let me reiterate: Canon 603 is absolutely new in universal law. There has never been such a canon affecting the universal Church before in the Western Church. The 1917 Code had nothing in it addressing eremitical life. (As I understand it, a 1911 draft version of such a canon did not ultimately find its way into the 1917 Code.) This was left up to the proper law of religious congregations --- that is, to the constitutions of religious congregations (many of which had no provision for such a call to solitude!). Neither was c 603 developed primarily because of abuses. This had been necessary in the past when hermits were numerous, but in the modern era, religious hermits were governed by proper law and solitary lay hermits (of which there were few beyond the Middle Ages and almost none in the contemporary period) lived privately committed lives, and most people did not know of their existence.

Neither did canon 603 come to be because hermits wanted some kind of social privilege or status. It came to be because religious people who discovered a call to solitude late in their vowed lives were often required to leave their communities and vows and become secularized to try to live out such a call. (Again, often the congregation's proper law had no provision for hermit life, and there was none in universal law -- i.e., the 1917 Code of Canon Law.) Meanwhile, eremitical life --- at least as an institution --- was called upon to exercise a place in a more public dialogue with and prophetic or countercultural witness to the contemporary world --- even if the individual lives of hermits were essentially hidden. Bishops recognized the gap in law here based on the significant pastoral inadequacies of the situation, and pressed for the Church to recognize the eremitical life as a state of perfection. In any case, "canonical status" does not refer to this kind of status (that of social privilege) but to standing in law as well as to initiation into what the church refers to as a (stable) status or "state of life." After all, as I have also noted before, one does not correct a badly lived lay eremitical life by granting the hermit admission to public vows and canonical standing. While such standing emphatically does not mean the canonical hermit has a higher vocation nor necessarily is a better hermit than her lay counterparts, it does mean she accepts public responsibility for the eremitical vocation generally and her own call specifically. It makes little sense to extend such responsibilities or the rights that go with them to one who has shown they live the life badly, especially when their existence is hardly known.

Summary: Canon 603, A Continuation and Renewal of Tradition

The bottom line in all of this is that canon 603 is entirely consistent with the history of the way eremitical life has been lived in the Western Church throughout the centuries. It is not a break with that tradition despite the fact that it is also new in some significant ways. Instead, it recovers something that was lost in the Western Church, especially after the Middle Ages --- namely, solitary eremitical life lived in dialogue with the Church, especially in the person of the diocesan Bishop. In response to the needs of the church and world, it also makes of diocesan eremitical life a "state of perfection" and allows for public vows (or other publicly embraced sacred bonds). This means that the "religious state" is no longer only associated with public vows made within the context of a religious community. (Cf, Holland, Sharon, IHM, Handbook of Canons 573-746, especially p 55, O'Hara, Ellen, CSJ, Norms Common to all Institutes of Consecrated Life) But again, these new elements are lived out by virtue of the traditional dialogue/relationship between the individual hermit and the local Bishop common throughout the history of the life.

I hope this is helpful.

On Not Cherishing the Spirit of Separation

[[ Hi Sister, you said Fr Wencel wrote that the hermit was not "to cherish the spirit of separation", but a hermit is supposed to embrace stricter separation from the world, right? What is the difference Fr Wencel is trying to emphasize here? Aren't hermits supposed to love what they do?]]

Good question and on a great line from Camaldolese Father Cornelius Wencel!! I think this line is especially provocative and a good way to help dioceses and others discern authentic vocations to eremitical life as well. In approaching this line, I come at it in a couple of ways. First, I pay attention to the meaning of the phrase, "spirit of separation" and second, I look at what it means to cherish something. The canon reads "Stricter separation from the world, along with the silence of solitude, and assiduous prayer and penance but at first seems to say nothing about the spirit of separation. Preceding this, however, the canon says that the hermit lives this life for the praise of God and the salvation of the world. It is here the canon provides the Spirit that drives a hermit's separation from the world. Instead, the spirit that drives c 603's separation from the world is the spirit of compassion for the world, and, in Christ, the spirit of engagement for the sake of the world's salvation as well as for the praise or glorification (revelation) of God and God's Church. 

This kind of engagement (like all truly loving engagement) requires commitment to be grounded in both intimacy or closeness to, and in some definite distance from that to which we are committed. Otherwise, we lose ourselves in the thing itself (this is what we call enmeshment), and once that happens, we cannot truly love it effectively or ourselves either. So,  hermits accept stricter separation from the world, first of all to commit ourselves to God more completely, and in order to love the world that is resistant to Christ into greater wholeness through the power of God's love. In this way of seeing what c 603 calls for, stricter separation is a form of penance embraced for a larger and other-centered purpose. In the language of the Desert Abbas and Ammas, this was called anachoresis, a healthy withdrawal from that which was resistant to (or insufficiently committed to) Christ in order to bring all of reality into unity with God in Christ.

But Cornelius Wencel also refers to not cherishing the spirit of separation and being closed to the social aspects of life and of being cut off from any form of communal life and the problems of this world, and notes that many great hermits reveal that any authentically spiritual experience (which, he observes, is always the culmination of an experience of love) "leads to an attitude of ministry" (an attitude of service). In other words, eremitical life is not about admiring, esteeming, revering, or protecting, the spirit of separation. This cannot motivate the authentic hermit vocation. Rather, the hermit is called to truly love God and others so they can be themselves as fully as possible (and the hermit can also!!). This means embracing the spirit of engagement, which will include stricter separation without being driven by, much less cherishing, the spirit of separation!

There is a paradox right at the heart of c 603's phrase "stricter separation from the world". If one misunderstands what the canon means by "the world", or, if one believes c 603 is calling for what Wencel identifies as the "spirit of separation" rather than the spirit of engagement rooted in authentic love, one will mistake what eremitical life, and especially c 603 eremitical life is all about. Then one will begin to absolutize the various elements of the canon and make idols of them rather than servants of the life. Canon 603 means what it says when it defines the spirit which is to shape and drive one's anachoresis and it is not selfishness, concern with one's own spiritual purity, fear of the "worldliness" of others, escape from the spatio-temporal, or a sense that we are more spiritual than others. Again, the withdrawal the hermit embraces is driven by love and the spirit of engagement, both with God and with all that God truly cherishes. This, by the way, is the same Spirit that informs the vocation's ecclesiality and allowed the Church to perceive the vocations of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, as well as embrace the c 603 vocation as ecclesial.

Vigil for Peace with Pope Leo XIV, Saturday 11.April.2026

Dear Friends of Stillsong Hermitage,

I wanted to invite you to share in an event that is taking place in Rome, and wherever we each are in this world that so desperately cries out for peace at this particular time. Pope Leo XIV has called the whole world to join him in a Prayer Vigil for Peace, Saturday, April 11, at 6:00 p.m. Rome time (9:00 a.m. Pacific/noon Eastern). The vigil can be seen below.

The Holy Father's call "rises from an urgent truth he has named with uncommon directness: "We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and growing indifferent. 'He invites us — all of us — to resist that indifference with the one power that can truly change hearts: prayer." We tend to turn to prayer when we feel helpless to do anything else, or (better) when we have also done everything else we can do as well! Coming together in such a way is both a means and a goal of the fulfillment of such prayer. We recognize that our entire world has been threatened by the actions of a single man and all he has set in motion, though not only by this, and we remember that in Christ we belong to one another and to God in this single world in which we are called to be one.

The candles used at the vigil will be lit from the flame of the "Lamp of Peace" --- the oil lamp that has burned perpetually at the tomb of St Francis at the Basilica of Assisi, and has never gone out. [[It has kept vigil through eight centuries of war and wounding, poverty and plague, and it burns still. Tonight it travels to St. Peter's Square for the vigil. Pope Leo himself has written a prayer to Francis for this moment:

"You recognized true peace in the Crucifix of San Damiano; 
teach us to seek in him the source of all reconciliation
that breaks down every wall.
You who, unarmed, crossed the lines of war and misunderstanding,
give us the courage to build bridges
where the world raises up boundaries."

Along with my Franciscan and Camaldolese Brothers and Sisters, I invite you to join the vigil in whatever way is possible for you. [[As the USCCB president noted, even "one Hail Mary with sincere faith" is a real act of solidarity with every soul caught in the fires of war.]] With thanks to Michael Cummingham, OFS, from San Damiano Retreat Center.

Here is the video of the Vigil after the fact, from YouTube:

Canon 603 Life: Consecrated as Part of Centuries old Protest Movement!

 You know, I have never been a particularly political person. At the same time, I am a prayerful person whose "job" it is to stand in the place where the cries and yearning of humanity meet the love and endless mercy of God in Christ. I recognize that the longer I live in this "place", that is, the more deeply established and the larger my heart becomes as compassion grows in me, the more political I become. It is a quiet politicization. Because of complaints about hermits (and Popes!) who are too political, I have reread recent articles here on this blog, and I don't hear anything strident or unseemly, especially for a hermit. But a growing capacity to hold "the world" together with God's great love? Yes, that is what I see happening. And I have to praise God for it because it is all God's doing here. 

God has brought me to this place, and God has done so, so that He might dwell in this place as well. He has willed to be Emmanuel, God-With-Us, and as I understand my vocation, I am confronted with the immense paradox that I remain in the desert precisely so that God might be made more real in the space and time of this fragile, thirsting, and clamoring world. This is the paradox I began to see when I recognized that "stricter separation from the world" called for freedom from enmeshment, not an atemporal life without regard for others, but a profoundly engaged life where eternity meets finitude and transforms it entirely. This life begins first of all with engagement with God, and then, because God willed to be Emmanuel, it became engaged (mainly in prayer) with others and the state of this world. And, in ways I had not expected, that has made me political. Or rather, that has made me deeply concerned for the sake of this world, profoundly touched by the pain and terror that is currently rampant, and distressed by the needless chaos set loose by the current "leaders" of the US government. In short, I have PROTESTED at "No Kings" protests, voted whenever the opportunity has arisen, and prayed for the continued coming of God's Kingdom, God's new KINdom where all are welcome and of equal value!

The desert Fathers and Mothers mainly lived in the near desert, the desert that interfaced with "the city". They lived on the margins, in a liminal space. Their lives were given over to God, and at the same time, it was given over to God in protest of the way the Church had apparently "sold out" to the State and become domesticated. The desert Abbas and Ammas went into the desert to PROTEST what they perceived as a betrayal of radical Christianity, a betrayal of the Church's ability and obligation to do as Jesus had done, and speak Truth to power. (Pilate's question on that fateful Friday, "What is truth?" is the critical one.) Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdoms of this world put him to death. Yet God vindicated Jesus and raised him from the dead to new life. The Desert Abbas and Ammas were concerned with sharing in that new life as fully and faithfully as possible. They were called to be ecclesia, the congregation or assembly of called-out ones. And they responded by moving into the physical and cultural margins of their society, not in complete disengagement (though, yes, some moved into the deep desert in almost total reclusion), but in a way that allowed them to witness to the great faithfulness of God evident in the resurrection of Jesus, while joyfully witnessing simultaneously to human obedience, faithfulness, and hope. 

To summarize this move to the desert, it was a protest movement, and a living out of a new KINdom in God in response to Jesus' own proclamation and risen presence. These men and women wanted to be Church, and they wanted to be themselves and rise as truly as possible to the humility that authentic humanity in the Incarnate One implied. What became clear to me as I looked over what God has been doing with my life, were the similarities between it and the desert Fathers and Mothers, especially in terms of protest, radically living the truth, being men and women of deep prayer living on the margins and yet, deeply engaged in compassion and solidarity with and on behalf of the Church and the larger world. This was essentially an ecclesial vocation calling the Church to be what the Church was meant to be! I was also reminded of some things Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam has said:

In fact, the hermit must not cherish the spirit of separation; he must be open to the social aspects of life. He understands perfectly that it is the Church as community that rests by the Lord's feet and listens to his voice. . . Hence the Hellenistic idea of contemplation, monos pros monon (alone with the Alone), dating back to the Neoplatonic School, is essentially alien to the Christian Hermit. . . .the hermit's individual reception and interpretation of the Word of God is always rooted in the whole Church's experience of faith. . .and that bears its fullest fruit in the liturgical community. Wencel, Cornelius, The Eremitic Life, Encountering God in Silence and Solitude, (pp 151-152, Emphasis added)

and again, 

It might seem that the grace of an eremitic vocation should have cut the person off from any form of communal life and from the problems of this world. But the many examples of the great hermits reveal that any authentic spiritual experience, which in its very nature is the culmination of love, lead to an attitude of ministry. Catholic Mysticism has never meant contemplating one's own self. Ibid, p 174

or here: 

The seclusion and solitude that constitute the eremitic life do not aim at negating the fundamental dynamism of human existence, with its entering into dialogue and relationships. . . .The only way to learn anything important about oneself is to look at another person's face with love and attention. As mentioned before, the hermit's solitude can never be a sign of withdrawal and isolation from the world and its affairs. The hermit, since he wants to serve other people, must arrive at a profound understanding of his own nature and his relation to God and the world. That is why solitude is not a barrier, but it is rather an element that encourages openness toward others. Ibid.  (p. 200)    

Cultivating ignorance about the affairs of the world or pretending to a kind of studied ignorance of what others write and say in this regard is not eremitical. It is not even human, and it is assuredly not Christian. In my own eremitic life, I am bound by a vow of obedience --- a vow to be attentive and responsive to God in all of the ways and places God comes to me. I am also bound by a vow of chastity in celibacy --- a vow to love God, of course, but also to "cherish all that is cherished by God". Sometimes, like the Desert Abbas and Ammas, that means standing shoulder to shoulder (so to speak) with others carrying "NO KINGS" signs and protesting the deeply false, loveless, and uncaring administration that wants to make a Messiah and King of a profoundly flawed (read genocidal!!) and malignantly narcissistic President. 

This is where God has brought me. It is where God asks me to stand in the milieu of prayer and the freedom of my hermitage ---  and particularly in light of the clarity of vision afforded by a long eremitical tradition of prophetic presence. Enmeshment in this world? No!! Compassionate Engagement with it for God's sake and the sake of all that God cherishes? Absolutely!! And yet, given the seriousness of the situation in our country and world, I am more than a bit overwhelmed by where God has brought me in this life with him. Who would ever have guessed that when I petitioned to be consecrated as a hermit, I was asking to be made part of a profound and centuries-old PROTEST movement that was also (of course!!), so profoundly timely, challenging, and consoling!?!

Beginning the Easter Season: First steps into a Life of Hope

Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia!!! All good wishes for a wonderful Easter Season!!

For the next 50 days, we have time to attend to what Jesus' death and resurrection changed. In light of these events we live in a different world than existed before they occurred, and we ourselves, by virtue of our Baptism into Christ's death, are new creations as well. We have been embraced by God and live as God's daughters and sons in Christ, heirs of the inheritance he grants us. While all this makes beautiful poetry, it is also all true in the profound ways the very best poetry is true. Objective reality was transformed with Jesus' passion and death; something astounding, universal, even cosmic in scope, happened in these events which had to do with our own salvation and the recreation of all of reality. One of Paul's shorthand phrases for this transformation was "the death of death," something I hope to be able to look at a bit more as these 50 days unfold. Especially, I would like to look at the way we have become an integral part of God's story, the story of his will to bestow himself on and dwell with the whole of creation. 

At this point, it is probably good to recall that the early Church struggled to make sense of the cross, and that faith in Jesus' resurrection took some time to take hold --- though amongst the disciples, that period is greatly abbreviated. Surprisingly, no single theology of the cross is held as official even today, and variations --- many quite destructive --- exist throughout the Church. Many of these mistakenly affirm that God was reconciled to us in various ways rather than the other way around. Only in time did the Church come to terms with the scandalous death of Jesus and embrace him as risen, and so, they came to see him as the Christ who paradoxically reveals God's power in weakness. Only in time did she come to understand how different the world now was for those who had been baptized into Jesus' death, and even more time was required before she began to understand the cross in light of an unfinished and evolving universe. This last shift in understanding, though responding to new scientific knowledge of the world in which we live, is entirely consistent with Paul's and Mark's theologies of the cross. The Church offers us a dedicated period to come to understand and embrace all of this meaning; the time from Easter Sunday through Pentecost is, at least partly, geared to this.

Today is a day of celebration. It is a day we begin to allow hope to take greater hold of our hearts. Lent is over, the Triduum has reached a joyful climax, the season of Easter has begun and once again we sing alleluia at our liturgies. Jesus is revealed as Israel's Messiah and the sanest man who has ever lived. Though it will take time to fully understand and embrace all this means, through the Church's liturgies and the readings we have heard, we do sense that we now live in a world where both death and life have a different character and meaning than they did before Christ's passion and resurrection. On this day we call Easter, darkness has given way to light, and senselessness to meaning -- even though we may not really be able to explain to ourselves or others exactly why or how. On this day we proclaim that Christ is risen and begin our first steps into a life rooted in hope! Sinful death could not hold Jesus nor can it hold us as a result. Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Indeed he is risen!! Alleluia, alleluia!!

Madman or Messiah? We Wait in the Darkness

In reflecting on the periods of silence after Tenebrae, Holy Thursday's Mass and reservation of the Eucharist, and especially after Tenebrae, and the celebration of Jesus' passion on Good Friday, I am freshly struck by their importance and ambivalence. After all, in the first instance, our joy is bittersweet and marked by the anticipation of Jesus' betrayal and passion, while in the second instance, we have just marked the death of Jesus; there is yet a significant period of grief and uncertainty that we call "Holy Saturday" still standing between Jesus' death and his resurrection. The Triduum is one long liturgical event that embraces different moods and salvific moments. Because of this, the silence we observe between services is critical to our ability to enter into this extended liturgy.

After all, Easter is still distant. Allowing ourselves to hear and live with something of the terrible disappointment and critical questions Jesus' disciples experienced as their entire world collapsed is a significant piece of coming to understand why we call today "Good" and Saturday, "Holy." It is important if we are to hear our own deepest questions, and truly appreciate the meaning of this three-day liturgy we call Triduum; it is also a dimension of coming to genuine and deepening hope. I have often thought the Church could do better with its celebration of Holy Saturday, but spending some time waiting and reflecting on who we would be (not to mention who God would be!) had Jesus stayed good and dead is something Good Friday (essentially beginning after Holy Thursday Mass) and Holy Saturday (beginning the evening after the passion) call for.

In explaining the theology of the Cross, Paul once said, "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." During Holy Week, the Gospel readings focus us on the first part of Paul's statement. Sin has increased to an extraordinary extent, and the one people touted as the Son of God has been executed as a blasphemous, godforsaken criminal. Throughout this week, we have watched the darkness and the threat to his life intensify and cast the whole of Jesus' life into question.

In the Gospel for Wednesday, we heard John's version of the story of Judas' betrayal of Jesus and the prediction of Peter's denials. For weeks before this, we had been hearing stories of a growing darkness and threat centered on the person of Jesus. Pharisees and Scribes were irritated and angry with Jesus at the facile way he broke Sabbath rules or his easy communion with and forgiveness of sinners. That he spoke with an authority the people recognized as new and surpassing theirs was also problematic. Family and disciples failed to understand him, thought him crazy, urged him to go to Jerusalem to work wonders and become famous.

Even his miracles were disquieting, not only because they increased the negative reaction of the religious leadership and the fear of the Romans as the darkness and threat continued to grow alongside them, but because Jesus himself seems to give us the sense that they are insufficient and lead to misunderstandings and distortions of who he is or what he is really about. "Be silent!" we often hear him say. "Tell no one about this!" he instructs in the face of the increasing threat to his life. Futile instructions, of course, and, as those healed proclaim the wonders of God's grace in their lives, the darkness and threat to Jesus grows; The night comes ever nearer, and we know that if evil is to be defeated, it must occur on a much more profound level than even thousands (or billions!) of such miracles.

In the last two weeks of Lent, the readings give us the sense that the last nine months of Jesus' life and active ministry were punctuated by retreat to a variety of safe houses as the priestly aristocracy actively looked for ways to kill him. He attended festivals in secret, and the threat of stoning recurred again and again. Yet, inexplicably, "He slipped away," we are told, or "They were unable to find an opening." The darkness is held at bay, barely. It is held in check by the love of the people surrounding Jesus. Barely. And in the last safe house on the eve of Passover, as darkness closes in on every side, Jesus celebrated a final Eucharist with his friends and disciples. He washed their feet and reclined at table with them like free men did. And yet, profoundly troubled, Jesus spoke of his impending betrayal by Judas. None of the disciples, not even the beloved disciple, understood what was happening. There is one last chance for Judas to change his mind as Jesus hands him a morsel of bread in friendship and love. God's covenant faithfulness is maintained.

But Satan enters Judas' heart, and a friend of Jesus becomes his accuser --- the meaning of the term Satan here --- and the darkness enters this last safe house of light and friendship, faith and fellowship. It was night, John says. It was night. Judas' heart is the opening needed for the threatening darkness to engulf this place and Jesus as well. The prediction of Peter's denials tells us this "night" will get darker, colder, and emptier yet.  But in John's story, when everything is at its darkest and lowest, Jesus exclaims in a kind of victory cry: [[ Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him!]] Here, as darkness envelopes everything, Jesus exults that authentic human being is revealed, made known, and made real in space and time. Here, in the midst of the deepening "Night," God too is revealed and made fully known and real in space and time. It is either the cry of a messiah who will overcome evil right at its heart --- or it is the cry of a madman who cannot recognize or admit the victory of evil as it swallows him up. Amid these days of death and vigil, we do not really know which. At the end of these three days, this Holy Triduum, we will see the answer.

On the Friday we call "Good," the darkness intensified. During the night, Jesus was arrested and "tried" by the Sanhedrin with the help of false witnesses, desertion by his disciples, and Judas' betrayal. Today, he was brought before the Romans, tried, found innocent, flogged in an attempt at political appeasement, and then handed over anyway by a fearful, self-absorbed leader whose greater concern was for his own position to those who threatened Pilate and would kill Jesus. There was betrayal -- of consciences, of friendships, of discipleship, and political and covenantal bonds on every side -- but on God's. The night continued to deepen, and the threat could not be greater. We marked this darkness during Tenebrae services, both yesterday morning and today as well. Jesus was crucified and eventually cried out his experience of abandonment even by God. He descended into the ultimate godlessness, loneliness, and powerlessness we call sinful death and hell. The darkness became almost total. It is difficult for us to see anything else. That is where Good Friday and Holy Saturday leave us.

And the single question these events raise haunts the night and our own minds and hearts: namely, messiah or madman? Can I trust God vindicates Jesus,  or not? Is Jesus simply another idealistic but mistaken person crushed by the cold, emptiness, and darkness of evil --- good and wondrous though his own works were? (cf Gospel for last Friday: John 10:31-42.) Is this darkness and emptiness the whole of the reality in which we live? Was Jesus' preaching of the reality of God's reign and his trust in God in vain? Is the God he proclaimed, the God in whom we also trust, incapable of redeeming failure, sin, and death --- even to the point of absolute lostness? Does he consign sinners to these without real hope because God's justice differs from his mercy? The questions associated with Jesus' death on the Cross multiply, and we Christians wait in the darkness today and tomorrow. We fast and pray and try to hold onto hope that the one we called messiah, teacher, friend, Beloved, brother, and Lord, was not simply deluded --- or worse --- and that we Christians are not, as Paul puts the matter, the greatest fools, the most pitiable of all. 

We have seen sin increase to immeasurable degrees this year in our country, in the larger world, and in the Gospel accounts as well. Though we do not see how it is possible, we would like to think that Paul was right and that grace will abound all the more. But on the Friday we call "good" and on the Saturday we call "holy" we wait. Bereft, but hopeful, we wait.

The Crucified God: Emmanuel Fully revealed in the Unexpected and Even the Unacceptable Place (Reprise)

 Several years ago, I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. There are several reasons here. 

          + First, we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide, so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. 

          + Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way at all. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel," so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility, which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) 

          +  And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus (that is, his entire living into death) to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God-in-Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history, but in that same Christ, God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event, heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms dimensions of it in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives, and sanctifies us. He is a mentor, and brother, and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum, we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death, God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us that our God embraces in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us, as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross, having apparently failed in his mission and shown his God to be a fraud. (From one perspective, we could say that had he succeeded completely, there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross, this comes to a climax, and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus, even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. 

Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto godless death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the absolute lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death, Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

In perhaps the most powerful passage I have ever read on the paradox of the cross of Christ, John Dwyer (my major professor until doctoral work) speaks about God's reconciling work in Jesus --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel to transform everything --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.