On the Importance and Contemporaneity of the Eremitical Vocation (Part 2)

 [[Hi Sister Laurel, I was surprised to find your blog. To be totally honest, I thought that hermits died out a long time ago. It is not that I don't believe someone should be able to go and cut themselves off from the world of relationships if they want to. I believe everyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as no one is hurt, but why would the Catholic Church elevate something like this to the point of consecration? I am sure that most people I know would be quite surprised to find out people choose to live as hermits today, and even more surprised to hear the Catholic Church supports and even celebrates such a choice. After all, the church is about community, and a hermit's life is not, right? So my questions are about whether or not eremitical life is anachronistic. Doesn't it really belong to another time, but not to the 21st Century? Is it meaningful (is it relevant)? Does it have anything to offer the non-hermit (or those who seek to become hermits) besides an escape from everyday difficulties --- if it even does that!? Can eremitical life be justified? Should anyone (you) even try?]]

I sincerely hope the first part of this answer (Importance and Contemporaneity of Eremitical Life) was generally helpful. What I tried to do was to outline the way in which I and the hermits I know or have read regard this vocation and its general importance in the 21C, or any century really. What I would like to say more about here are the questions of this vocation's justifiability and ecclesiality, whether or not it is escapist, and in what senses that word might or definitely does not apply. I also want to say something about the notion of freedom you raise in your questions, and whether hermits cut themselves off from the world, or from the world of relationships, and in what sense those actions are true. Many of these have been addressed in other posts over the years, and I'll try to add some links where I can, but perhaps it will be helpful to write about these again within the context of your basic questions about eremitism's justifiability and contemporary relevance.

I have argued that this vocation is not only not anachronistic, that is, it doesn't only belong to past centuries in terms of relevance, but that it is an important and, in fact, a prophetic vocation for the contemporary Church and world. The Church herself recognized this when, in response to Bishop Remi de Roo's intervention at Vatican II it revised the Code of Canon Law and added canon 603, thus allowing for the first time in universal law, the vocation of the solitary hermit as an ecclesial vocation and call to the consecrated state of life. In your question, you recognized the significance of such a move on the Church's part when you asked why the Catholic Church would raise eremitical life to such a place in the Church's life. 

Bishop de Roo had been the bishop protector for about a dozen hermits in British Columbia. These men had left their various monasteries and accepted laicization after many years in solemn vows because they experienced a call to greater solitude and had to leave their monasteries to follow this call. (Let me be clear; these men were often leaders in their monasteries and were not unhappy with monastic life, their vows, monasteries, or anything of the sort. They simply had experienced a call to greater solitude, and found that this call could not be accommodated under the monastery's own (or proper) law. Eventually, they formed a laura or colony of hermits. Because Bishop de Roo knew these men, their motivations, sensibilities, theologies, and vocations, he eventually wrote an intervention at the Second Vatican Council listing the important positive reasons the church should recognize this vocation as a state of perfection. The reasons he provided in his intervention are listed in, Visibility and Betrayal and at least one earlier blog post in late 2006 or 2007. 

Canon 603 and Ecclesiality:

One way of summarizing all of this history and its meaningfulness, is to point out that c 603 governs a form of life that is ecclesial; that is, it is a form of life that is not only part of the Church's patrimony, but is part of the Church's own holiness and contributes to the Church's health, both generally and specifically in terms of her prayer life, religious life, mission, and ministry. The canonical hermit's life reminds the Church and other religious (especially those in apostolic congregations) that before active ministry there must come a profound relationship with God. It is this relationship that allows the religious man or woman to love others as they ought to be loved in the midst of apostolic ministry. It is also this specific relationship that is mediated along with any other forms of giving that the religious does. The hermit's vocation does the same for cloistered religious and reminds them of the real witness of their lives, namely, a life in community lived for the sake of God and God's place in this world. And of course, the hermit does this for the entire Church, reminding us all that God comes first and can fulfill lives that are not wealthy, powerful, or possessed of much prestige in worldly terms. As I have noted recently, while the hermit may do some limited apostolic ministry, it is the inner journey to union with God that is essential to and definitive for the vocation.

Ecclesial vocations aren't simply lived within the Church; they are also lived for the sake of the Church, that it might truly be the church Jesus calls it to be. Those hermits who accept canonical standing with public vows and consecrations mediated by the local Bishop also embrace this dimension of the eremitical vocation in a public way. Non-canonical hermits live their vocations within the church, but they do not necessarily accept this dimension we call "ecclesiality" in the same way. Canonical eremitism, of course, is not the only ecclesial vocation in the Church, but the emphasis on the inner journey made possible by assiduous prayer, penance, stricter separation from the realm that is resistant to Christ or to Truth, and by the silence of solitude, sets eremitical life somewhat apart from the others, and allows it to emphasize something the others accentuate to a lesser degree or in a different way. As noted in earlier posts, it is the inner journey that allows us to confirm that the Gospel of Jesus' resurrection and God's unconditional Love, from which nothing including sin and godless death can separate us, are real and encounterable today. This allows canonical eremitical life to serve these other vocations and the Church as a whole. When we speak about the relevance or contemporaneity of the hermit today, ecclesiality is an important way of describing this.

Eremitical Life and Freedom:

In your question, you said you believed that anyone should be free to do whatever they felt like, so long as no one was hurt in the process. I believe that is the notion of freedom many people in today's world have. Let me point out that this is not the idea of freedom Christianity understands or embodies. Instead, Christianity defines freedom as the power to be the persons God calls us to be. This, in turn, is made possible by the Holy Spirit and God's unconditional love for us. Hermits live a regular life of prayer and penance, study, lectio, and limited ministry because they live a life focused on their relationship with God and on becoming the persons God calls them to be. One of the most important witnesses the hermit gives others is the fullness of life that is possible whenever God is put first. Some who read here know that one of the persons I have contended with most often over the years is an online self-designated hermit who calls herself a victim soul and writes almost interminably about the suffering she is experiencing. I have sympathy for her, but it is my understanding of eremitical life that it is not about suffering or being what has sometimes been called a victim soul. It is about living life with God. Yes, there will be suffering, just as there is with any life in this world, but eremitism is not a life OF suffering; it is a life of joy, meaning, and fulfillment --- countercultural as each of those actually is.

Canonical hermits (and likely all authentic hermits) are truly free. They are not free to do anything they want, of course. Their lives are constrained by vows involving the main areas of life, including wealth, power, and sex, and still they live lives I recognize as fulfilled because they are full of life, love, and meaning. They live according to a daily schedule, maintaining regularity and balance. They live a stricter separation from "the world," which includes but does not primarily mean separation from much of God's good creation; and yet, they are interested in, committed to, and engaged with that world for the sake of its well-being and the furtherance of God's Kingdom, nonetheless. All of these point to a fundamental freedom the hermit has to live a life as full and meaningful as possible within the framework of a desert context. Freedom, from this perspective, is definitely not about doing whatever one likes so long as no one is hurt. It is about living a responsible freedom where one's life is not only received daily as a gift of God, but also is given daily for God's sake and the sake of all that God loves and holds as precious.

Relationships, Escapism, and Eremitical Engagement:

Most hermits are not recluses, and even recluses in the Catholic Church are only allowed to be so within the context of a loving religious community that provides for such unique vocations. (The last I heard of recluses, only the Camaldolese and the Carthusians were allowed to have recluses. The last Camaldolese recluse I know of died a number of years ago in Big Sur, while the most famous might be Nazarena, a recluse living with the Camaldolese nuns in Rome.) All human beings need to be loved and to love, and for that reason, we all need others in our lives. We hermits say that "God Alone is Enough" for us, and we mean that in two related ways. First, only God is capable of completing us as human beings. Only God is sufficient for this. We are made for God, who is the ground and source of life, love, meaning, truth, beauty, and truly personal existence. Secondly,  our openness to and need for God make us open and responsive to all that mediates God to us in the incredibly varied ways the created world and other beings do that. What this saying does NOT mean is that human beings do not need other human beings, or can become truly human in complete isolation from others. Eremitical life has never meant to affirm such a notion of human being or of the nature of eremitical solitude. 

In my writing on this blog over the past 18 years, I have always drawn a clear line between isolation and solitude. I distinguish these two because one is life-giving and the other can deal death to the human being. I am personally sensitive to the distinction between these two and associate isolation with alienation and forced separation from the community of others. Hermits are more or less physically isolated from others; eremitical solitude requires this in order to spend time with God and the inner journey to healing, wholeness, and holiness we are each called to. However, we are not usually personally isolated from others, though we may not be as social as most people or able to spend much time with the people who are important to us. We are assisted in living this solitude by the Church and her liturgical and sacramental life, by spiritual directors, pastors, members of the larger community of faith, family members, physicians, and many others. I include among this significant group of people, especially other religious, and members of the virtual laura I am part of, as well as those I do spiritual direction with. It is not that I interact with these people every day or even every week or month of my life, but they are all a significant presence, and each one helps to focus my life on the defining relationship with God that makes me who I am and who I am called to be.

You suggested not only that a hermit's life is cut off from the world of relationships, but that it is not about community. I would argue that it is about community, though it is lived in eremitical solitude. In fact, I would argue (and have often done that here) that eremitical solitude is a rare and unique form of community dedicated to building the human family and the community of faith from the most important and original relationship extant, namely, that between the human being with the rest of creation and God. As for escape from everyday difficulties, there is no way c 603 life allows for or encourages that. The (canonical) hermit is self-supporting, publicly responsible, committed to the Church and society, and engaged on their behalf. She lives with the same limitations any other person does and perhaps a few more besides. What is most important to remember about this vocation is that it is identified by the Camaldolese in terms of the Privilege of Love. Indeed, I am not going to run for political office or travel to (or even stay home to do) a job forty hours or more a week, but, because I am called to stricter separation from "the world" in the specialized way c 603 uses that term**, it also means I am committed to God's will for the whole of this larger world. Thus, I stay updated on current events, work to ensure my education remains up to date, and I engage in whatever ways I can within the limits of my state of life to make our world all that God calls it to be.

So, this is the second part of my answer to your question. I hope it clarifies some things and raises more questions for the future. As always, if I have been unclear, please feel free to get back to me with comments and questions. Again, thanks for your questions. I enjoyed thinking about them freshly. I will post this before adding the additional links, so in the meantime, you can look at the list of topics on the right-hand column of the blog for additional information. All my best.

** The Church recognizes that "the world" in the c 603 phrase, stricter separation from the world, refers to that which is resistant to Christ, and not first of all to the larger world we identify with God's good creation. As a result, while the hermit is thus more strictly separated from aspects even of God's good creation, she is also well able to engage with and on behalf of that world within the limits of her state of life.

On the Importance and Contemporaneity of the Eremitical Vocation (Part 1)

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I was surprised to find your blog. To be totally honest, I thought that hermits died out a long time ago. It is not that I don't believe someone should be able to go and cut themselves off from the world of relationships if they want to. I believe everyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as no one is hurt, but why would the Catholic Church elevate something like this to the point of consecration? 

I am sure that most people I know would be quite surprised to find out people choose to live as hermits today, and even more surprised to hear the Catholic Church supports and even celebrates such a choice. After all, the church is about community, and a hermit's life is not, right? So my questions are about whether or not eremitical life is anachronistic. Doesn't it really belong to another time, but not to the 21st Century? Is it meaningful (is it relevant)? Does it have anything to offer the non-hermit (or those who seek to become hermits) besides an escape from everyday difficulties --- if it even does that!? Can eremitical life be justified? Should anyone (you) even try?]]

Thanks for your questions. I once said almost exactly the same thing about hermit life having died out. Similarly, I once thought that contemplative life, more generally, was a "waste of skin." Clearly, I am in a much different place today! In much of what I have written over the past two or three months, for instance, I have tried to maintain a balance between a potentially disedifying focus on personal details and the way my own experience illustrates the more universal meaning and significance of the eremitical vocation in today's Church and world. My own eremitical journey, my own journey with and to God, especially in the inner work required by, and associated with personal growth and healing, is at the center of everything I have written, and what is remarkable to me is the way that experience comports with that of contemplatives, hermits and mystics throughout the centuries. In some ways, that journey is precisely what makes me a contemplative and hermit. The nature of it is what also makes my journey a mystical one

But why is this important? You are correct in posing the question of a hermit being anachronistic (i.e., displaced in time). This is the overarching question posed to contemporary hermits by the 21st Century generally -- both by the Church and the larger world. It is the basic argument I hear reflected in others' questions (and my own as well): "If your vocation is anachronistic, then it is meaningless, irrelevant, and has no place in today's world and Church." Of course, most people never actually say this or ask the question outright. They tend just to look puzzled as I explain I am a consecrated (or a Catholic) hermit, and you can see them trying to work out what I have just said in terms of the church and world they know and understand. Usually, the next question I get after explaining I am a hermit is a disbelieving, "So (pause), what is a hermit?"--- as if the two of us can't possibly be thinking of the same reality, not in today's day and age!! (I can imagine them thinking, "Maybe the meaning of this changed with Vatican II or something!!")

And so, I explain a bit of the history of the hermit life and the establishment of c 603 within that. And I wait for other questions. "What do you do all day?" is usually one of the early ones. "Wouldn't you rather...?" tends to be another, along with, "How many of you are there?" once the conversation actually gets going. And it is a deep hope of mine that such a conversation will get going. After all, if, on the other hand, this vocation is meaningful and has a place in today's Church and world, that means it is meaningful not only for the hermit, but for God, for the Church itself, and for God's larger creation as well." Unfortunately,  most people tend to smile politely and move to other topics. So, I am really grateful you have asked what you have, because as I understand things, it is up to the hermit to explore the eremitical life and these associated questions as we come to a coherent sense of their answers. No one but the hermit can do this in quite the same way!

Most hermits I know firmly believe their vocations are important, not only for what they mean for the hermit him/herself, but for the way they witness to others in our Church and world about really foundational human and societal questions and needs. Merton once wrote that hermits say something fundamental about the relation of nature and grace, and I think he was exactly right. The fundamental truth that human beings are made for God and that God wills to dwell with and within us is the truth Merton was speaking of. He recognized that human beings have a "made-for-God" quality that is rooted in God's own will for creation and for Godself. In other words, human beings are incomplete and less than truly human without God. At the same time, God has chosen to turn to us so that his love might be known and fulfilled in this way. Using an older language to say this, nature is perfected in grace, and grace intends to reveal itself fully, even exhaustively, in nature. 

In a Church where apostolic ministry is (quite rightly) esteemed, and the relevance and value of the contemplative calling is, at least tacitly, questioned by even some of the highest up in the Church, eremitical life is, again, a radically countercultural vocation. In a world where individualism reigns, consumerism is rampant, and, far too often, the accumulation of wealth and privilege are supposed to be the marks of real success, the eremitical life again stands as a radically countercultural witness and challenge. The same is true in a world where privacy and discretion are sacrificed on the altar of superficial "belonging" via "friending" or vlogging and blogging. This means that the eremitical vocation, besides being countercultural, is a prophetic calling; it witnesses to deep truth in a world hungry for it, and in need of the wisdom derived from it. At least that's what I and the other hermits I know believe. To apply an observation St Paul made in another context, if the hermit vocation to witness to God and the human seeking of God is not truly serious and seriously true, then we hermits are the greatest fools of all!

Hermits' lives are not meaningful merely because we pray for others, though undoubtedly we do that, and yes, that (we claim!) is significant. Hermit's lives are meaningful because they are dedicated to seeking God and living with, in, and from God, and moreover, they are meaningful because this seeking is engaged in for the sake of others (first of all for God's sake and then for that of the whole world) as well as for the hermit's own sake. What we say to others is that every prayer, every act of attentiveness and responsiveness to life and love, every gesture of generosity, or decision leading to self-sacrifice. and service, every moment spent by anyone in this world cultivating the values at the heart of the Gospel, making neighbors and friends of those distant from or "other" than we are, is meaningful and contributes to the sovereign life of God-With-Us we Christians call the Kingdom of God. Hermits (authentic Christian hermits) say with their lives, that God wills to dwell with us here and now and that where that is allowed and even seriously pursued, human life becomes what it is meant to be, joyful, fulfilled, simple, loving, free, hopeful, and engaged for the sake of the whole of God's creation.

And hermits witness to more than this as well.  In the inner journey we make while seeking God, we explore the questions of meaning and meaninglessness, the existence and nature of the God we seek to know and be known by, questions about prayer and suffering, the nature of the human person, the importance of relationships in every life, personal integrity (or holiness), etc. --- questions every serious person asks in varying ways throughout their lives. We don't ordinarily do this in the formal academic way theologians do (though some of us may also do that); we do it experientially. Recently, a couple of diocesan hermits responded to an observation I made about my blog and the questions I get. "You write about the same things again and again, but you [continue to] do so from a[n ever] deeper place (or in a deeper way)." I sincerely hope that is true because if it is, it means this blog is a witness to the nature of my own journey with, in, and for God and what is precious to God. In any case, the inner journey is a journey of profound questioning; it poses the question we human beings are as well as those we pose. It is the journey of faith and doubt, woundedness and healing, despair or near despair, and ultimate hope. Hermits make this journey with Christ into the darkness of sinful (godless) death and the blazing light of resurrection. We seek God in every dark and wounded place, especially within our own hearts and minds, our own memories and deep aspirations, and to the extent we do this and find (or are found by!) God in our searching and hunger,  we proclaim, with St Paul et al., the truth of the Christian Gospel, namely, there is no place and nothing at all that can separate us from the love of God.

Individuals within the Church have always made this journey. Lay persons, religious, priests, contemplatives, hermits, mystics, have all made this inner journey with Christ into darkness and death, and discovered the reality of Jesus' resurrection and the truth of Romans 8:31-39. I would argue that there is nothing whatsoever to justify such a journey, or such vocations, apart from this seeking of God and the truth of the Gospel. At the same time, I have to note that making this journey so that others can know the truth of Jesus' resurrection and the depth and expansiveness of God's love, not as a matter of doctrine but as one of personal experience, is imperative for the vitality of contemporary faith and the life of the Church. So, when you ask what the hermit does for the non-hermit, I would need to say that all of this is applicable. I don't know a single person, believer or non-believer, who doesn't wonder if their life is meaningful, if they are loved or really capable of loving, if "this is all there is," or how is it one lives life in a way that truly honors who they are most fundamentally. The hermit says with her life that even when stripped of the various things the contemporary world believes make our lives meaningful (health, wealth, prestige, power, appreciated societal and service roles, etc), our lives can be full, truly free, given for the sake of others, and ultimately meaningful. Moreover, such stripping can lead to persons with the perspective needed to move our world forward into God's own future.

I'll return to your comments and questions (especially the nature of freedom, on escapism, and on the creation of eremitism as an ecclesial vocation) with another post. Consider this the beginning of an answer on the meaningfulness of the eremitic vocation. If it raises different questions for you, please get back to me as soon as you can. It would be helpful for the way I put together a second post.

On the Presence of Loneliness in the Eremitical Vocation

[[Dear Sister, when you were a new hermit for the Diocese of Oakland, there was an interview with a spokesperson for the Diocese, a priest, and he said something about you being joyful or happy all the time. He asked, "Can you imagine spending all of your time with the Lord and not being happy?"  or something like that. Do you remember that? Did you know him? I'm asking because from what you've written recently about existential solitude and loneliness, and everything, I am wondering what you thought about that comment of his!]] 

LOL!! What a great question!!! Thanks for asking! No, I did not know him, had never spoken to him, and I believe that the journalist who also interviewed me must've commented to him on my being a happy person or some other comment like that. That's the only thing I can think of that might have prompted such a response, given we had never met. At the time, I remember thinking, "Yes, I am really happy, and yet, here's another hermit stereotype that must be countered." It's not the first time I have heard something like that either. Early on after perpetual profession and consecration, I went on retreat at Bishop's Ranch, the Episcopal retreat center in Northern California's wine country. During one of the presentations in preparation for a desert day everyone was going to observe during that week, the priest speaking to everyone decided to encourage us retreatants not to worry about being lonely during a full day of solitude. He explained about hermits and how they were never lonely because they always had God with them. I was more than a little irritated by his comments and (though I should have remained silent) said so to Sister Donald as we left the chapel and started back toward our rooms.

Some have a sense that being lonely is unhealthy or even somehow pathological,* and that when one is living in eremitical solitude, God's presence prevents one from feeling lonely, for example. But sometimes loneliness is the face love (and the fact that we are made for love) wears in eremitical (or existential) solitude. Sometimes loneliness is the feeling most associated with our hunger for God and for wholeness and holiness, while that hunger is a sign of our knowledge of these realities as well as of our lacking them in some sense. Years ago, I began to distinguish between the loneliness I associated with wanting to share with others and a kind of "malignant loneliness" that is darker and (perhaps) deeper as well. In my mind, this latter form of loneliness was unhealthy and a symptom of an unhealthy existential condition, while "ordinary" loneliness was not. I was still struggling with the sense others had given me that hermits should never be lonely because they dwell with God. It took some time to shake that false generalization off completely.

Sr M Beverly Greger, Marymount Hermitage, Idaho

For most hermits, time in physical solitude is wonderful and something we love. We have the time for prayer and lectio, for writing or whatever ministry we might also take on, as well as for recreation and inner work. The existential solitude we live is also something we generally experience as positive, even joyful, and something that draws us in. When Cornelius Wencel speaks about that, he describes it in terms of two freedoms meeting each other.  It is what we human beings are made for, and most of the time it is experienced as consoling, creative, and a source of deep peace, abundant life, and gladness. What I have written about recently is merely one dimension of that same journey into existential solitude, but it is still an undeniable part of that journey.  In other words, loneliness, too, is part of the eremitical journey and wears different faces depending on the reasons for its existence. In a life of continuing communion and even union with God, this is still, or perhaps especially, the case. It is not necessarily a signal that anything is wrong. Instead, it reminds us that we are each social, communal, relational, or "dialogical" realities, made for love, as is our vocation. (It is striking to me that the Camaldolese Benedictines write about their lives and vocations as "the privilege of love." Eremitical Solitude itself is a communal reality, something we only experience within and in light of our truly belonging to and living our lives for God, the ecclesial community, and the wider world. 

While we are made for love and, as is true of every human being, are each relational to our core, we hermits forego many of the relationships and activities that are literally fulfilling for most people; we do this because God calls us to underscore the fact that every person is made for life with and in God. This is the source of the affirmation, "God alone is enough for us," not because we do not need other people, but because only God truly completes any person as a human being. This side of death, our sense of that "made-for-ness", our hunger for it, and the One who is its ground and source, can certainly be associated with feelings of loneliness, even to the point of great anguish. What hermits reject are the almost infinite ways human beings find to distract themselves from such loneliness. In fact, as I have been writing recently, we commit to journeying ever deeper into our existential solitude for the sake of seeking God, and an affirmation of the truth that God both is and most desires and wills to be Emmanuel (God with us).

* Some forms of loneliness are indeed unhealthy, and chronic loneliness, especially when it is rooted in childhood loss or trauma and associated attachment difficulties, is linked to serious health problems in later life. These include all manner of common ailments, including chronic pain, depression, anxiety disorders, and many others. I am not speaking of this kind of loneliness as intrinsic to eremitical life, although for some, it can certainly color, complicate, and perhaps also motivate a focused and deep journey into existential solitude.

Does God Love Us Because We are Pathetic?

[[Does God love us because we are pathetic? Would that even be love? I think it might be pity, but it's not love. Someone said they asked God why he loved them and the answer God gave was because they are so pathetic. I can't see that as love, myself. Thanks!]]

Thanks for the question! It reminds me of a question from the NT we will hear this week, namely, "What is man that you are mindful of him?"* I tend to agree with you on this, but I think the statement you are reflecting on raises more questions besides. I don't think God regards anyone in this particular way. My sense is that God sees us as we are, of course, and that means he sees us with all of our potentialities, struggles, accomplishments, failures, etc. He knows us intimately, better than we know ourselves, and he does not see us as pathetic (which is a human judgment) but rather as precious (a function of Divine love and delight). I think that is true whether we have sinned seriously, made terrible mistakes, or whatever. That does not mean that God sugarcoats things, or engages in some sort of denial about us. Rather, he sees the truth of who we are, the entire truth and of course, the deepest truth, and he loves us because we are his own and are made for him. Besides, love is the only thing that can truly call us to become the persons we are made to be.

God, after all, is Love-in-act. That is what and who God is as well as what it means for God to do what God does. I remember once being bothered by this thought because it seemed to me that perhaps God could not do anything BUT love me if he was Love-in-Act. I thought of this as some sort of coercive situation or as though God was limited and unfree in some important sense. It seemed to me that I could not trust such a God or his love if he could do nothing else. Eventually, I worked through the theology of it and realized that this was truly the fullness of Divine Freedom, not a limitation of it. I came to some of this realization because of the narrative in Genesis where human beings choose to know good and evil, that knowing good and evil does not represent knowing more than only knowing good does. 

In this story, the satan suggests that God knows more than these innocents because he "knows" both good and evil, but knowing in the intimate, almost sexual, sense the Scripture uses the term makes knowing both good AND evil a reference to knowing less, and more importantly, it means knowing good less well, less fully and intimately. That is, it implies a divided heart and mind, a heart and mind given over to both good and evil. But God ONLY knows the good in the intimate OT sense of the verb "knows". And God, precisely as God, loves what God knows in such a profound way. This is not a limitation in God; it is the fullness of Divinity and of authentic Freedom. It is the rest of reality that "knows" (not just knows about) both good and evil that is limited and limiting because such reality is always less than it is meant and created to be; it knows God and the whole of God's creation less well than it was made to do.

I would suggest that whatever this person heard about being pathetic, they were not hearing the voice of God. The voice of their own self-understanding, their own lack of self-esteem perhaps, their own woundedness and shame, yes, but not the voice of God.  While I don't think God is blind to evil, I do believe that he does not know it in the way we do --- at least not apart from the Christ Event. He is profoundly aware of the choices we make and the reasons and circumstances driving those choices. Again he knows us far better than we know ourselves. God knows us and that we know evil and God loves us in a way that redeems and frees us from that knowledge. He, quite literally, loves us beyond any evil. The notion that God judges us only in light of our sin or weakness and limitations is a serious theological mistake I believe. 

The Old Testament shows us God renouncing such a way of judging us or our world when it speaks of God's decision never to destroy the world as occurred in the narrative of the great flood. The OT tells the story of God changing his mind, but as in other stories in the OT, this is really a way of revealing a very different God to the hearers of this story than they could have imagined. (It is simpler to reveal a God who supposedly changes his mind than it is to develop the theology of a completely different God out of whole cloth; it is simpler for people to accept as well!)  In the New Testament, the central image of God's judgment seems to me to be that of harvest and this develops OT images like that of gleaning in the book of Ruth, for instance. God sees and summons the good, the true, and the holy out of the ambiguity of sinful existence and calls these to abundant life in himself. Moreover, he does so clearly and inevitably. That is the way of Divine judgment, the way of God's love and mercy.  It demonstrates the way God sees us, precious, full of potential and fruitfulness.

It is also a sacramental way of seeing reality. We Catholic Christians look at ordinary limited and even flawed matter and, because we are part of a highly sacramental and incarnational faith, are capable of seeing the extraordinary nature of the most ordinary reality. We can imagine wheat and grapes becoming bread and wine which in turn can become the very Body and Blood of our Lord. Oil can be used to consecrate, strengthen, and heal us; water can become a means of washing away brokenness and godlessness while initiating us into the very life of God, and a few simple words in absolution or blessing, or a brief Scriptural passage** can raise us to greater wholeness and holiness as they feed some of our very deepest needs. God, in Christ, teaches us to see in this way, and I believe he especially asks us, in the power of the Spirit, to see ourselves this way, as both ordinary and extraordinary and at least potential incarnations of God. Again, we are precious, full of potential and fruitfulness --- or, in the words of Scripture, we are imago dei, the very image of God.

Recently I was told a story about someone concerned about disappointing God. It's a common belief and I have heard (or entertained) the same concern many times. My immediate thought in response was that God could never be disappointed in us, though I thought he could be disappointed FOR us. When I reflected on my experience of that I realized it is because my own experience of God (especially in prayer and in the people who represent God to me) always has God seeing me in terms of deep truth, essential beauty, and indestructible potential. God is not naive. God, like others in my life, "sees everything" but God loves me beyond all of that (which means he both sees me more deeply and loves me into more abundant life). Even more, God continues to love in that way as I come more and more to allow my life to be defined in terms of this love! I continue to believe that God can be disappointed for me, but not in me; I especially can never believe the God I know loves me or any of us because we are pathetic.

*  Hebrews 2:5 

** I am thinking of Rom 8:31-37, but there are innumerable others --- ordinary words made extraordinary in God.

Meaning of Living Hermit Life (or any good life) for God's Sake

Sister Laurel M O'Neal, Er Dio
Diocese of Oakland

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I read the article in OSV on you on 20. September.2024. It's a great article!!** [links found at the bottom of this post] One of your responses made me want to hear more. You were talking about the life you live, and you said that eremitical life is lived for God's sake, for the sake of the hermit's wholeness, and for the sake of others in a way that gives hope and promises a full and meaningful life. The phrase that surprised me was "for God's sake". I think the other two phrases of that sentence are expected, but living a vocation for God's sake? This sounds like God needs something from us just to be God. I definitely have never heard that idea before and wonder how God can be God and need anything from us. Could you explain what you were saying here?]]

I was hoping someone would ask about that. Thanks for doing that and for the compliments! This is the first question I have received about the article, so good place to start.  What does it mean to live life for God's sake? In thinking about this I begin with what God wills always and everywhere, namely to be God and even more, to be God for and with us, that is, to be Emmanuel. That is the will of God. In every moment and mood of creation to be Emmanuel is the will of God. What people who pray are about is letting God be God, and that is certainly what hermits are about! We pray to love God, for to love God really is to let God be God.

Sisters Angela and Fiachra OSCO, Glencairn Abbey

It does sound a bit strange to say that God needs our prayer if God is to be God, but there it is! In the beginning, God determined not to remain alone. God decided to create the cosmos outside of himself and, in fact, was in search of a counterpart, one who would respond fully and exhaustively to God's love and in doing so, truly let God be God. After all, as I have written recently here, the way we each truly love someone is to find ways to let them be all that they are called to be. And who God wills to be is not simply Creator or redeemer --- though absolutely these are part of who God ultimately desires and wills to be --- but Emmanuel, the One who is with and in us, the one who makes our world his own and takes us and the whole of creation into himself so that heaven and earth may eventually become one reality, what the Scriptures call a new heaven and a new earth.

Prayer is always about lifting our minds and hearts to God so that God may be God and that he may be God within and through us. We recognize that prayer is always God's own work within us and that even the act of raising our minds and hearts to God implies God is already at work in this way. It is a small but still rather startling step to acknowledge that prayer is something we do for God's own sake. After all, we have been taught that God is entirely self-sufficient, that God possesses "aseity", and that God is all-powerful. What could God possibly need from us? But one piece of theology not everyone has been taught or heard before is that to create a world outside himself, and especially a world that will evolve so that at some time there will come a being who could respond in a conscious and whole-hearted way to this creative impulse of the God who is love-in-act, for God to find a counterpart, God must limit Godself and become vulnerable to his own creation. Anyone, including God, who turns to another in love must become vulnerable to that other and to the possibility they will not return that love, not let them become or be themselves with and through God. This is the decision God made on our behalf and on behalf of the whole of creation. I suppose you could say it is the decision God made and the risk he took in deciding to be Emmanuel.

Sister M Beverly Greger, Diocese of Boise

So, a hermit gives her life to let God be God. That is what he became in and through Jesus. It is what Jesus reveals as the very meaning and vocation of being human. In the power of the Spirit, we persevere in prayer and penance, in stricter withdrawal and hiddenness, in poverty, chastity, and obedience for God's own sake and thus too, for the sake of all that God loves and wills to love into wholeness. This is our way of living a life of faith, our way of glorifying God!!

**Original Article (here on this blog)  OSV: What is the Vocation of a Diocesan Hermit? (Sept 20, article, Our Sunday Visitor) Note, the OSV Article is taken from the print version of the Fall Vocations Guide which comes out in late October or November.

On Growing Towards Perfection: Journeying in the Direction we are Born For.

A number of times recently the commandment to "be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect" has come up for me. The first time was in an email to my director referring to the use of the term "total commitment" in something I was reading in relation to our work together. I wondered what "total" meant in the context involved; I couldn't understand it as even conceivable much less possible and that, it sounded like, could jeopardize everything. She wrote back pointing out the similarity of the word "perfect" in the NT and the difficulty of defining it. She then defined "total" contextually, in a less absolute (but no less personally demanding) way, a way which corresponded to the needs of the work being done and which, yet again, was a matter of "trusting the process" and the changes, healing, and growth it brings about. (This of course involves trusting the grace of God in all the ways it is mediated to me over time especially in this process!)

Other instances of meeting the word "perfection" had to do with Lent itself, with the God I was somehow supposed to come to  image more perfectly and who was defined in static Greek categories: (omnipotence, omnipresence, etc). Another had to do with consecrated life and the older usage regarding being called to "a state of perfection". Again, I thought, as I always do, that being called to perfection meant being fully human because I think being authentically and fully human is at least part of this call to perfection --- but somehow the word "perfection" continued to raise obstacles within and for me. It is a problem all by itself. I would bet I am not alone in this. In fact I know I am not; one of the reasons women Religious don't often refer to "states of perfection" is because to do so seems elitist and divisive. It can also lead to needless or unwarranted anxiety over hypocrisy and failure.

So, I went back to the original text --- not something I do often enough these days --- and was reminded that the word translated as perfection is τελειος (teleios) --- from the Greek telos (τελος) which refers to the goal, end, or fulfillment of something. (Jesus is the telos or end/goal/fulfillment of the Law, for instance.) That was suggestive of being goal-directed or of having reached a goal (some have defined this call to perfection in terms of "maturity") but it still left me little further along in my thoughts and prayer. Then, while in Tahoe I was reading a book by William O'Malley on Parables and not far into the book O'Malley begins to discuss the difficult word "perfection". (God does indeed work in surprising and delightful ways!) O'Malley also notes that the Greek is teleios (τελειος) but in light of that word, he went on to define the call to perfection as the call to be "heading in the direction [we] are born for". And that made "total" (!) sense to me. It is a refreshingly dynamic way of defining perfection (a way which is appropriate to the God who is verb, who is Love-in-Act) in an unfinished and evolving universe; it also reduces anxiety or concerns about hypocrisy and elitism and is able to free folks from any unhealthy perfectionism. Perfection, in the sense Jesus and the New Testament used the word is not about having reached, much less achieved a static state without flaws or frailties, but instead is about being true to the journey; it is about being on a pilgrimage to authenticity with, in, and towards life in God.

Last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration. We often use the term transfiguration in the sense of change or transformation, but when we think about the transfiguration of Jesus the only thing that changed was the way Jesus appeared to others. Jesus was transfigured in their eyes but he himself remained who he was right along. The disciples saw him for who he really was, namely a truly human being living with, in, and towards life in God. They saw him as the glory of God, the revelation of the love and mercy which every human being is called and born to be. Whether they were aware of this or not, what James, Peter and John saw in Jesus was also an image of their own telos, the end or fulfillment of their own journeys to authenticity and maturity in, with, and through God. They saw an image of human perfection --- a man well on his way in his journey to fully reveal the glory of God in ordinary life situations. Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem with all that implied and involved; he was on his way to the Cross and the exhaustive revelation of a Divine power which would be perfected in weakness; he was on his way toward changing the very nature of reality by reconciling reality to God, destroying (Godless) death and by effectively giving creation a place in the very life of God. In other words, He was "perfect" (teleios) because he was "heading in the direction [he] was born for".

So many times Jesus could have turned aside or away. There were so many times he could have chosen a different path, one which was good, fruitful, respectable, admirably religious and apparently "law abiding" --- but which was not about heading in the direction he was born to head. But, as he did during his time in the desert, he chose to do what he was born (or baptized) to do. He entered the desert having heard from God that he was God's beloved Son who did indeed delight God. He grappled with what that meant both in personal and pastoral terms. And finally he chose to respond to the deep call of God to be that person and live that identity in the ordinary and extraordinary things of life. This choice was one he renewed again and again throughout the course of his public life with every act of compassion and self-emptying; in the process he renewed the course of his journey with, toward, and on behalf of God's sovereignty and the extension of that "Kingdom of God" to all God holds as precious. He affirmed and reaffirmed a commitment to the same perfection we are each called to, namely an authentic and God-centered humanity lived for others. And isn't this what Lent gives each of us the space and encouragement to do?

A few folks have emailed and suggested that by focusing on the work I have already been engaged in with my director I am failing to do what Lent really calls for. That, they believe, is inexcusable in a consecrated (canonical) hermit who lives this life in the Name of the Church! Apparently, they suggest, in outlining my plans for Lent I have not made a sufficient commitment to additional prayer, penance and almsgiving. But in (thus far) this 10 month-journey I have called "inner work" what my director and I have been engaged in is a profound desert-time where I grapple with 1) my identity and 2) with God's call to be myself as fully and freely as possible. This is the call to be perfect as God (Him)self is perfect --- nothing less.

We are each involved in a journey towards authenticity and (identically) communion with God. As with Jesus, it is a journey where we may have to renounce what is usually recognized as "respectability" in order to embrace genuine holiness --- just as we may need to embrace brokenness in order to be reconciled to God, self, and others to live the joy and freedom of life in and of God. The question Lent asks and gives us space and time to answer with our lives is, "are you headed in the way you were born to be headed?" Are you headed in the way your heart has been shaped throughout your whole life by the Love-in-Act we call God? If not, if you are impelled and even compelled by something else, how will you change course? What paths do you need to leave behind? What ways of being? What obstacles to freedom, personal deficits, woundedness, etc will you need to work through and let go of?  How, after all, will you embrace the call to be "perfect", the call to be "heading in the direction you were born to be heading"?

Renovation of Hermitage AND Hermit!

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I've noticed that it seems a little longer than usual since you've updated your blog. I'm hoping that's because you're away on retreat or vacation and not due to the recent harassing commentary you received about the 'inner work' post. I was quite shocked by that person's tone and I'm sorry that you had to endure that. I follow your blog regularly and find it to be one of the few serious resources available about the diocesan eremitic vocation. Your blog fills a real need and a real gap in the vocational literature. I hope you'll continue to share your experience.]]

Whew! Getting a breath! Many thanks for your comments on the place of this blog in the available vocational literature. It is precisely why I continue to write about c 603 and the nature of this vocation. I am sorry if I have been a bit less active here on this blog for the past month or so but I had been getting ready to have new carpeting put in the hermitage and now am slowly "recovering" from that. (The carpeting had not been new when I moved in here almost 18 years ago and in that time I have surely added to the mess it was!) But man, what a lot of work! The major problem was books and book cases. These had to be emptied, lower wall shelves also had to be emptied and removed (the upper ones stayed full and in place ---thank God!!!)--- but also a wardrobe, file cabinet drawers, etc. etc. (and there was a LOT of etcetera!) --- anything required to give access to the floor space!

On Monday a week ago I went up to the parish house and hung out while the carpet guys installed new carpeting and baseboards. It is all BEAUTIFUL and I am loving it!! (Not least I am enjoying my new vacuum cleaner, a $270 machine I got "as new" for $105! It's got everything including headlights (LOL!), transforms into a hand-held vacuum, has unstoppable suction, almost propels itself, etc, etc. Who knew vacuuming could be so much fun??) After reshelving about 35 boxes of books and files in the past week, I still have a number of boxes of books and other stuff to put back in place or dispose of completely. It is physically tiring and a bit embarrassing (how in the world did I ever acquire so much "stuff"?) but generally speaking  this part of this whole process is both satisfying and gratifying.

One especially cool thing so far is that I was able to rearrange the furniture some in my bedroom/ chapel and I am liking the space even better than before. For prayer I am using the Zafu both with and without a small table to hold whatever book is needed (if and when) and that now has a central place. It feels wonderful! At the same time I have been doing some inner work --- another kind of "emptying out and remodeling". Because I continue to get (sometimes extremely cynical) questions about it, its importance and validity in eremitical life especially, I wanted to try to say a bit more about it here. The inner work I am referring to can be called healing work or growth work (both are involved and reinforce one another) or just "the work of conversion"; as I have written in earlier pieces I believe it is an essential part of a hermit's spiritual life --- however it comes about.

The Human Heart and Inner Work:

One of the things I write about here a lot is the sacred space which is the human heart; the heart, as I have noted many times before, is the place where God bears witness to Godself. It is not so much that we have a heart and then God comes to dwell there as it is that where God dwells, where he speaks himself freely and we respond fully in obedience (openness, etc.) to that Word or Spirit, we have a truly human heart. Thus I also write a lot about the call we each experience to allow God to speak or sing Godself fully in and through our hearts. In fact, this is the essence of what it means to be human; we embody and become transparent to this call in responding in obedience. It is who we are meant to be.

The work I have been doing in this regard, and the work I consider essential is geared to our growth in Christ. It involves but is not limited to healing any woundedness that keeps parts of my heart bound by or to pain, fear, and grief, for instance. We all have such pockets of pain (sometimes very large or very deep pockets) which prevent God from moving and singing Godself freely in and through our hearts. While I always give God permission (and in fact, silently and trustingly implore God) to love and touch me as and wherever he will during quiet prayer, and while I know unquestionably that God does so, it still takes attention and work to deal with those realities within our hearts that, in one way and another, are obstacles to Love ---even the Absolute Love-in-Act we know as God.

It is critical to understand that these pockets of pain or grief prevent us from growing and from being (or "singing") ourselves as truly and as fully as we yearn and are meant and called to do. They make us reactive but incapable of the responsiveness we know as obedience. Our hearts must be both empty and full to welcome others there, to love them as they and we are meant and made to do. In eremitical life we speak of being more strictly separated from "the world" while in last Sunday's reading from Galatians Paul we heard about freedom from the things of the flesh. "The world" and "the (things of the) flesh" are synonyms and both are put in opposition to the Kingdom of God (the realm where God is truly sovereign) and the things of the spirit (in this case, the human under the sway of the Spirit). In part the purpose of the inner work done as a dimension of my prayer and penitential life --- which means as a dimension of my commitment to Christ --- is to create (or allow God to create) an appropriate separation from the "things of the world" in my life and heart and an expansion or greater realization of the Kingdom of God both within and around me --- a move from fleshliness in the Pauline and NT sense to living in the Spirit in that same sense. But, even and perhaps especially for the hermit, this will also always mean the creation of appropriate and concrete bonds of love with God's creation in the power of the Spirit.

Inner Work and the Work of Forgiveness:

For instance, forgiveness, the capacity for forgiveness, and otherwise fulfilling our call to the ministry of reconciliation are all critically dependent on this kind of inner work. We do not truly forgive another who has seriously harmed us (nor do we forgive ourselves when we have harmed another) merely by willing to do so; it takes healing, often profound healing, to create the personal capacity for a future which is lived with and for others --- potentially including those who hurt us or whom we have hurt. It takes healing to allow the kind of vulnerability forgiveness requires and healing to create the kind of strength, courage, and integrity necessary to live into the future with others and without the chains of anger, bitterness, and pain. To forgive is to be open to new life, to energies that are freed for love and for this kind of openness I think inner work is absolutely essential.

For the diocesan hermit who both chooses and is chosen to live the silence of solitude as an ecclesial vocation, it is, as I have said many times, terribly important that solitude not be a cramped and stunted form of isolated living where one is protected from or incapable of the demands of love and compelling witness. Especially it cannot be (or be allowed to remain) a way of isolating one from others or cocooning oneself away in one's woundedness and limited ability to love and reveal Christ to others. As I have quoted before, a hermit must be able to hear (and this means to receive in a responsive way with one's mind and heart!) the anguished cries of the world --- something that is simply not possible if and to the extent the cries of anguish which really dominate are the cries of the hermit's own still-wounded heart or Self. While it is true that life in eremitical solitude itself (meaning life lived alone in communion with God) is incredibly healing and strengthening for one genuinely called to it, as noted above, a significant part of this time alone with God is regularly given over to inner work (including the work of spiritual direction) precisely so that God might be as fully active and present in one's life as God wills.

Meanwhile:

Meanwhile, back at the conversion of the physical space, I am hoping to put up some pictures of the changes here at the hermitage when I have actually finished. If I can manage it financially (and I probably can!) I would like to get a couple of new living room chairs (matching with a small footprint), as well as to get rid of a couple of larger pieces of furniture, replace them with smaller pieces (or none at all) and essentially open up a greater sense of spaciousness. (This is the space where I meet with spiritual direction clients so I would like to make it as open and comfortable for them as possible.) There is still SO much to do and though I have been physically wiped out most of this month I have been and am also incredibly excited and energized by all that is happening. Surprisingly, that has also meant I have been able to keep up my commitments at the parish and even do several extra things there as needed --- something I am really pleased about.

While it is ironic and has been difficult that both the increased external, physical work and the inner work have taken place at the same time, despite the drain on physical and emotional energy which both involved, overall this simultaneity has also been mutually reinforcing and empowering. God has been "mightily" at work in all of this (including in and through others!) and I am very grateful! Despite the work remaining I am especially hopeful I can get back to writing here more regularly. When I get things a bit more under control I'll try and post those pictures I mentioned above which (until I can change the elements constituting the blog template itself) will contrast some with the ones in the columns to the right. If so it's as close to a before and after "reveal" as I will be able to come.

Postscript:

As I noted in my email reply the "snarky" questions and comments (SUCH a good word for these kinds of things!) about inner work played no causal role in preventing my writing. Folks should know these kinds of comments come my way sometimes and usually do not find their way into this blog. However, as you noted, these comments went "over the top" --- especially in suggesting my director was foisting something off on me. That is rarely a good thing to say to someone about their spiritual director. In this case it could not have been more inappropriate or wrong. I was more than a little angry and for several reasons decided it was important to post both the "criticism" and my response publicly. That was especially true given the depth, intensity, and importance of the work being undertaken as well as the personal honesty, integrity, courage, and generosity it takes for both the director and the directee to engage together in it. When done well, when done faithfully and in obedience (openness and responsiveness) to God that is, it is an act of worship glorifying the One who constantly summons us to the Freedom of more abundant life.

On Being a Hermit in "Some Essential Sense"

[[Dear Sister when you have spoken of readiness for formation and even temporary profession as a solitary hermit you have said it is necessary for a person to be a hermit in some essential sense. Could you say more about what you mean by this phrase? I think maybe I know what you are talking about but I also find the phrase difficult to define. Thanks!]]

Introduction:

That's such a great and important question! For me personally, articulating the definition of this phrase or the description of what I mean by it has been a bit difficult. It is a positive phrase but in some ways I found my own senses of what I meant by this come to real clarity by paying attention to examples of inauthentic eremitical life, individuals who call themselves hermits, for instance, but who, while nominally Catholic, are isolated and/or subscribe to a spirituality which is essentially unhealthy while embracing a theology which has nothing really to do with the God of Jesus Christ.  To paraphrase Jesus, not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" actually  has come to know the sovereignty of the Lord intimately. In other words it was by looking at what canonical hermits were not and could or should never be that gave me a way of articulating what I meant by "being a hermit in some essential sense." Since God is the one who makes a person a hermit, it should not surprise you to hear I will be describing the "essential hermit" first of all in terms of God's activity.

Related to this then is the fact that the hermit's life is a gift to both Church and world at large. Moreover, it is a gift of a particular kind. Specifically it proclaims the Gospel of God in word and deed but does so in the silence of solitude. When speaking of being a hermit in some essential way it will be important to describe the qualities of mission and charism that are developing (or have developed) in the person's life. These are about more than having a purpose in life and reflect the simple fact that the eremitical vocation belongs to the Church. Additionally they are a reflection of the fact that the hermit precisely as hermit reflects the good news of salvation in Christ which comes to her in eremitical solitude. If it primarily came to her in another way (in community or family life for instance) it would not reflect the redemptive character of Christ in solitude and therefore her life could not witness to or reveal this to others in and through eremitical life. Such witness is the very essence of the eremitical life.

The Experience at the Heart of Authentic Eremitism:

Whenever I have written about becoming a hermit in some essential sense I have contrasted it with being a lone individual, even a lone pious person who prays each day. The point of that contrast was to indicate that each of us are called to be covenantal partners of God, dialogical realities who, to the extent we are truly human, are never really alone. The contrast was first of all meant to point to the fact that eremitical life involved something more, namely, a desert spirituality. It was also meant to indicate that something must occur in solitude which transforms the individual from simply being a lone individual. That transformation involves healing and sanctification. It changes the person from someone who may be individualistic to someone who belongs to and depends radically on God and the church which mediates God in word and sacrament. Such a person lives her life in the heart of the Church in very conscious and deliberate ways. Her solitude is a communal reality in this sense even though she is a solitary hermit. Moreover, the shift I am thinking of that occurs in the silence of solitude transforms the person into a compassionate person whose entire life is in tune with the pain and anguish of a world yearning for God and the fulfillment God brings to all creation; moreover it does so because paradoxically, it is in the silence of solitude that one comes to hear the cry of all in union with God.

If the individual is dealing with chronic illness, for instance, then they are apt to have been margin-alized by their illness. What tends to occur to such a person in the silence of solitude if they are called to this as a life vocation is the shift to a life that marginalizes by choice and simultaneously relates more profoundly or centrally. Because it is in this liminal space that one meets God and comes to union with God, a couple of things happen: 1) one comes to know one has infinite value because one is infinitely loved by God, not in terms of one's productivity, one's academic or other success, one's material wealth, and so forth, 2) one comes to understand that all people are loved and valued in the same way which allows one to see themselves as "the same" as others rather than as different and potentially inferior (or, narcissistically, superior), 3) thus one comes to know oneself as profoundly related to these others in God rather than as disconnected or unrelated and as a result, 4) chronic illness ceases to have the power it once had to isolate and alienate or to define one's entire identity in terms of separation, pain, suffering, and incapacity, and 5) one is freed to be the person God calls one to be in spite of chronic illness. The capacity to truly love others, to be compassionate, and to love oneself in God are central pieces of this.

The Critical Question in Discernment of Eremitical Vocations:

 What is critical for the question at hand is that the person finds themselves in a  transformative relationship with God in solitude and thus, eremitical solitude becomes the context for a truly a redemptive experience and a genuinely holy life. When I speak of someone being a hermit in some essential sense I am pointing to being a person who has experienced the salvific gift the hermit's life is meant to be for hermits and for those they witness to. It may be that they have begun a transformation which reshapes them from the heart of their being, a kind of transfiguration which heals and summons into being an authentic humanity which is convincing in its faith, hope, love, and essential joy. Only God can work in the person in this way and if God does so in eremitical solitude --- which means more than a transitional solitude, but an extended solitude of desert spirituality --- then one may well have thus become a hermit in an essential sense and may be on the way to becoming a hermit in the proper sense of the term as well.

If God saves in solitude (or in abject weakness and emptiness!), if authentic humanity implies being a covenant partner of God capable of mediating that same redemption to others in Christ, then a canonical hermit (or a person being seriously considered for admission to canonical standing and consecration MUST show signs of these as well as of having come to know them to a significant degree in eremitical solitude.  It is the redemptive capacity of solitude (meaning God in solitude) experienced by the hermit or candidate as  "the silence of solitude"  which is the real criterion of a vocation to eremitical solitude. (See other posts on this term but also Eremitism, the Epitome of Selfishness?) It is the redemptive capacity of God in the silence of solitude that the hermit must reflect and witness to if her eremitical life is to be credible.

Those "Hermits" not Called to Eremitical Solitude:

For some who seek to live as hermits but are unsuccessful, eremitical solitude is not redemptive. As I have written before the destructive power of solitude overtakes and overwhelms the entire process of growth and sanctification which the authentic hermit comes to know in the silence of solitude. What is most striking to me as I have considered this question of being a hermit in some essential sense is the way some persons' solitude and the label "hermit" are euphemisms for alienation, estrangement, and isolation. Of course there is nothing new in this and historically stereotypes and counterfeits have often hijacked the title "hermit".  The spiritualities involved in such cases are sometimes nothing more than validations of the brokenness of sin or celebrations of self-centeredness and social failure; the God believed in is often a tyrant or a cruel judge who is delighted by our suffering -- which he is supposed to cause directly -- and who defines justice in terms of an arbitrary "reparation for the offences" done to him even by others, a strange kind of quid pro quo which might have given even St Anselm qualms.

These "hermits" themselves seem unhappy, often bitter, depressed and sometimes despairing. They live in physical solitude but their relationship with God is apparently neither life giving nor redemptive -- whether of the so-called hermit or those they touch. Neither are their lives ecclesial in any evident sense and some are as estranged from the Church as they are from their local communities and (often) families. Because there is no clear sense that solitude is a redemptive reality for these persons, neither is there any sense that God is really calling them to eremitical life and the wholeness represented by union with God and characterized by the silence of solitude. Sometimes solitude itself seems entirely destructive, silence is a torturous muteness or fruitlessness; in such cases there is no question the person is not called to eremitical solitude.

Others who are not so extreme as these "hermits" never actually embrace the silence of solitude or put God at the center of their lives in the way desert spirituality requires and witnesses to. They may even be admitted to profession and consecration but then live a relatively isolated and mediocre life filled with distractions, failed commitments (vows, Rule), and rejected grace. Some instead replace solitude with active ministry so that they really simply cannot witness to the transformative capacity of the God who comes in silence and solitude. Their lives thus do not show evidence of the incredibly creative and dynamic love of God who redeems in this way but it is harder to recognize these counterfeits. In such cases the silence of solitude is not only not the context of their lives but it is neither their goal nor the charism they bring to church and world.

Even so, all of these lives do help us to see what is necessary for the discernment of authentic eremitical vocations and too what it means to say that someone is a hermit in some essential sense. Especially they underscore the critical importance that one experiences God's redemptive intimacy in the silence of solitude and that one's life is made profoundly meaningful, compassionate, and hope-filled in this way.