Showing posts with label Camaldolese Oblature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camaldolese Oblature. Show all posts

14 May 2022

Spending a Couple of Days at New Camaldoli Hermitage

I was able to spend a couple of days at New Camaldoli this week in Big Sur. It was wonderful and, though I have been an oblate with the Camaldolese (associated with Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor, NY) for almost sixteen years, I had never been to New Camaldoli before this week!! I had not really known what to expect. Benedictine hospitality is a value the Camaldolese of course practice, but while reading the comments on the place or I heard from others comments like, "the accommodations are basic", "clean sheets, but not sure how often they wash the blankets", "the food's not the greatest but better than at Vina (the Trappist place in No CA)", and "we were able to stay in one of the newly refurbished spaces. The older guesthouse is not (refurbished)!" From these and others I was a bit apprehensive and brought a few extra things with me (a couple of cans of chunky soup, a comforter, some packages of Easy Mac (Mac 'n Cheese) --- just in case).

I needn't have been concerned. The food was terrific, plentiful, and diverse. Pickup meals (breakfast and supper) were more than sufficient unless one had their heart set on eggs Benedict or something, and dinner (the noon or main meal of the day) was simply excellent. The guesthouse kitchen was open 24 hours a day and had cereals, yogurt, breads, peanut butter, jellies, honey, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, milk, eggs, fruit, etc., always available in case of attacks of the munchies at odd hours. (I know because I was up in the middle of the night getting a peanut butter and banana sandwich and cold glass of milk). Some folks brought their own food from the trip before coming up the mountain and kept it in the refrigerator. Hand sanitizer and masks were provided in the entryway to any common area for those who were unvaccinated.

The rooms were more than basic --- though I suppose not if one is used to luxury. Each of these was clean and minimalist by design. Still, each had everything anyone might want in order to spend comfortable time in silence and solitude. (Unlike some hermit saints, I cannot pray well, and I especially can't journal, if I am cold -- hence the concern with having my own comforter.) There was a large desk in my room in front of a large set of windows with a straight-on view of a private patio area and a direct and awesome view of the ocean, which it overlooked. The patio area had a chair where one could sit in the sun and birdwatch, read, pray, or just check out the ocean; throughout the day this patio area (gravel with flower beds on either side) hosted any number of birds and small critters. (I wished I was more knowledgeable about the birds of the area!! I did see quail, and some kind of dove that nestled down in the gravel for a time.) A cupboard on the right-hand side of the desk held a slide-out surface with a tray holding a set of dishes for one, along with silverware, juice glass and coffee cup. A smaller cupboard on the left held a pitcher, a hotpot, an individual coffee holder with coffee filters for making drip coffee in one's own cup. (I was especially grateful for the hot pot. To be able to make tea or coffee in my own space without running even a short distance to the kitchen was a blessing.) In the desk drawer was a Bible and brief history of the Camaldolese (thanks to Thomas Matus, OSB Cam). 

There was no closet but there was a shelf with a set of pegs below for hanging clothes (perfect for my cowl, cap and veil, and jacket). The small dresser had three deep drawers for anything else. It also held a lamp and alarm clock (though the bells for office and Mass as well as preparatory bells for each of these are rung throughout the day). Next to the dresser was a combination glider-rocking chair. The bed had three drawers underneath it with extra blankets, a down comforter, extra pillow and pillowcase. The heater was powerful and above the heater was a shelf with a flashlight, umbrella and above that, though not used, a hatch for delivering food to the room most familiar to fans of the Carthusians and Camaldolese. (A friend had been to NCH when the monks delivered food to each guest room in this way. No longer!) Some, carrying food to their cells further away from the guest house, had tiffins --- the stacked steel containers also associated with the Carthusians and Camaldolese --- in fashion centuries before bento boxes!!! 

For me though, one thing that was wonderful was the opportunity to pray Office and celebrate Eucharist with the monks. I use the Camaldolese Office book ordinarily, so while there were a few chants I did not know (different versions of the Our Father, etc) most was already familiar. I still find the tempo and rhythm of praying with Camaldolese monks difficult (space is created in everything they do including liturgy); it takes a while to feel this much slower and spaced rhythm/tempo internally, but it serves both to slow one down and to quiet one's expression. As a woman I find singing with the guys is difficult because of pitch too. To sing right at their pitch is difficult and often too low to hit the note solidly, while singing up an octave makes one stand out and is often too high anyway --- more uncertainty of pitch!! Hesitancy and chant are not a good combination in any instance!! Still, since I do these chants alone at Stillsong, the chance to sing in choir with others was wonderful.

Silence was maintained throughout the place and the guests honored this as well (a real difference from other retreats I have been on). I had conversations with a couple of monks --- one who came after Lauds to introduce himself and meet me. (See corresponding picture, center front. That's the guy, er, monk!!) Our relatively brief conversation was delightful; he had a wonderful sense of humor! We spoke of chant ("why? (is it hard to sing with us) --- because we're so good??) --- said with a clear and ironic twinkle in his eyes, habits (he is the community tailor and checked out my cowl, felt the fabric, asked about the maker, etc.), bishops (what do I think of the Bishop of Oakland and the bishops who preceded him?), and oblature (you've been an oblate for sixteen years? And you've never been here before (not a question) -- why that's almost a sin!). Another sought me in the guesthouse with concerns that everything was okay and that I had what I needed. (He was actually looking for someone else who had had some problems with her car, but he still was entirely gracious to me once we figured out I was not the person he had sought.) These brief, spontaneous, and lovely kinds of encounters didn't intrude on the silence; they grew out of it and led back to it.

St Romuald receiving gift of tears
Simply spending time at a Camaldolese House was a powerful experience for me. I came away with a clearer sense of myself, especially my identity (as Camaldolese and a hermit); there were some shifting senses of my own gifts, strengths, and weaknesses (unconscious things were brought to consciousness and could be viewed in this new light), and a strengthened sense of the nature of certain relationships whose bonds are very deep and sustaining for me. I wrote in my journal at one point that sometimes we don't know how really close to another person we are until we go away. What I was thinking of here was that I had experienced a felt sense of these persons' presence, prayer, and love --- distant as we were geographically. I felt their presence even more clearly not only because they are part of my life ordinarily, but because of the depth of the bonds we share with one another. (These bonds are what allows one of these persons to say, "You came into my awareness," rather than, "I thought of you" the other day, for instance.) I had gone to NC Hermitage with the desire to experience the quality of the silence and solitude there. I was not disappointed. It is a living, breathing reality, grounded in and shot through with Presence --- of God, certainly, but of the monks and guests who have come here through the years as well. 

As I worked and prayed in my own cell I recognized how like being at home in Stillsong it was and how living in this space required no real transition for me. While that was not really surprising, it was still affirming. What I experienced is, I think, what happens when a solitary hermit and Camaldolese oblate comes to a house of Camaldolese hermit monks for the first time (or any time). I was at home and felt the gift of this place and all who also call this home even as I was aware that I brought the gift of my own eremitical life and Camaldolese self to this place as well. This is what real hospitality can bring and be. It is certainly what Camaldolese hospitality is about for both monks and guests.

Postscript: For those who wondered if I practice any asceticism at all and asked what I was doing up in the middle of the night raiding the kitchen (yes, I received snarky questions about this!), I was up getting something with potassium, calcium, and magnesium, to help balance and increase certain electrolytes. Enough said!!

09 January 2020

What Motivates You to Live and Work as You Do?

[[Dear Sister O'Neal (Laurel?), I also really enjoyed our conversation on hermits and friendship. I did not want to drop it but I haven't seen similar conversations on your blog. Too, it was holiday time and I had family to prepare for, shopping to do, and I wanted to help around my own church.  When you write about the hermit vocation I admit to being really surprised at how you describe it. I had always thought of hermits as people-hating, bitter, isolationists, who said some pious things about God in an attempt to salvage what was very unhealthy. Nothing about it seemed to be "edifying" (this is your word and one I never heard, much less used, before this!); I could not envision anyone wanting to becomes a hermit unless they were emotionally unwell.

So, you can imagine how I felt when I read what you had written about the importance of friendships or the kind of inner work you are doing with your Director.  You stressed wellness and the connection between holiness and wholeness. You talked in terms of reconciliation with God, self, and others and of the importance of being known and knowing others. And you talked about solitude in terms of community while you rejected isolation. Really, it just blew me away!! Do you think part of the church's renewal of this vocation opens the way to re-envisioning it or experimenting with it? Can you do something new with it because your bishop said what he did at your profession (you wrote about this recently but I could not find it to quote)? What motivates you in this? Some people would say what you write rejects traditional values, so what motivates you to write about eremitism in the way you do? Thank you in advance for your response!!]]

Thanks again for your follow ups. I left this one mainly intact rather than cutting and pasting as I usually do because it expresses so well things which have interested me for a long time now: stereotypes and combatting these, my sense of the prophetic quality of eremitical vocations today (and always when these are authentic), the importance of the life codified in canon 603, the distinction between eremitical solitude and personal isolation, the importance of ecclesial standing in such a vocation, etc. What struck me (what blew me away) in what you wrote is your summary and also the way you asked the crucial question in every case, viz., what motivates me -- especially in relation to the comments Abp Vigneron made during his homily at my perpetual eremitical profession re exploring the breadth and depth of contemporary eremitical life.

You see, there are so many really bad reasons for pursuing eremitical life and so many disedifying examples of this throughout history. I believe the ways I live, or think and write about eremitical life reflect some of the important ways eremitism can be a witness to the Gospel and assume real relevance in today's world. I also believe that not all instances of "hermits" in the history of eremitical life have been healthy or authentic instances of eremitical life. Even today, not all glorify God or provide a key to understanding the dignity of the human person with and in God alone. Not all reflect a loving life or a life of relative wholeness, nor are they interested in growing towards these. Some seem instead to be or have been little more than instances of misanthropy, escapism, narcissism, and so forth. The journey I am on with God and with the assistance of my Directors is about living a life both deeply loved and loving, profoundly rooted in the Gospel, and generally edifying to the Church, but especially, to those within the Church who are isolated in one way and another and who have no apparent way out of such isolation.

As to your specific questions, I am not much motivated by a need to re-envision or experiment with eremitical life. It is true that most of the time I am aware of contending with stereotypes and considering authenticity, but even in these, my overriding motivation is simply to live well this vocation to which God in (his) Church has called me in light of canon 603 and the Camaldolese tradition. What this means for me is to live this call in a way which leads to the abundant and abundantly loving life God promises all believers. The eremitical vocation is meant for this and it gains flexibility because of it. As a result, for instance, I define solitude in terms of personal wholeness, genuine freedom, and individuation in and with God; I understand the silence of solitude as the physical environment, but also as the personal goal, and charism (gift) of this vocation to the Church and world. I understand this vocation speaking most powerfully to those who are chronically ill, disabled, or otherwise isolated from others in ways they cannot change, but which God can indeed transform and transfigure in light of a deeper healing!

I also understand this vocation as speaking to those who, because of life-circumstances, believe they have nothing to offer the Church or world, and I try to witness to the fact that their own life with God is a supremely important and precious gift that can be offered to others even when, for instance, they cannot undertake active ministry. I believe that a hermit's life can give hope to those who lack it and a sense of meaning for those who have been unable to see this in their own lives. I think this is true because, as important and necessary as these things are, this life is not about our own talents and gifts, but instead it is about the way God loves, values, and completes us. When we really allow God to love us in this way we are empowered to love ourselves and others. Our life comes to make a sense it did not make apart from this. Naturally, I live and work as a hermit in the silence of solitude because I have the sense that this is precisely the way God has called me to wholeness and holiness, precisely the way he has called me to spend myself for others, and precisely the way he redeems my own life.

I am able and morally obligated to do these things, not only because (Arch)bishop Vigneron spoke at my perpetual eremitical profession  of my call to exploring the breadth and depth of this contemporary vocation and defined part of the shape of this life in doing so, but because I have a sense that God calls me to do so. Moreover, I am guided by Camaldolese spirituality in my oblature and am obligated in this way as well. Camaldolese spirituality has three pillars or "goods" (triplex bonum) which work together to give us the vision of eremitical life put forward by St Romuald, and St Peter Damian. These are: solitude, community, and the proclamation of the Gospel or "martyrdom" (witnessing). As a solitary hermit whose profession is made in the hands of the local Bishop, I have to work this out in terms of my parish faith community and diocese. What I am doing generally on this blog and in my daily living out of this vocation is working out the non-negotiable terms of canon 603 in light of Camaldolese values and a Camaldolese vision of eremitical life because this is precisely what I am called to do 1) by God, 2) by virtue of my association with and commitment to Camaldoli, and 3) by virtue of my Rule and profession under canon 603. Others professed as Camaldolese are doing something similar while living as solitary hermits under canons other than c 603 --- partly because c 603 has appealed to their imaginations as well.

Certainly there are other esteemed but differing visions of eremitical life, Franciscan, Carthusian, and Carmelite in particular. Diocesan hermits (solitary hermits professed under c 603) work out the shape of the non-negotiable elements in canon 603 in light of their own spiritual traditions and discernment. One hermit I know does this in terms of a Franciscan vision and tradition -- though he does not live as hermits did under Francis, while another does it in terms of a Carmelite vision. Canon 603 lends itself to this, but I don't think any of us are motivated by a drive or urge to experiment. Instead we are simply trying to live out our legitimate (canonical) and moral obligations in service to the Church and world -- always in response to the God of life who calls us to this. However, it is the Camaldolese tradition which allows and even calls me to think about eremitical life in the way I do. A central work reflecting the nature of Camaldolese life is entitled, The Privilege of Love, and it is this collection of essays I come back to repeatedly for guidance in how to live out my vocation. This is true of three essays in particular: "Koinonia: The Privilege of Love" (Dom Robert Hale), "Golden Solitude" (Peter-Damian Belisle), and Bede Healey's, "Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone".

Father Bede's essay informs my own thinking and living in a number of ways: with his stress on the relational self and the importance of not using solitude to run from community or community to flee solitude, the distinction between true and false selves, the capacity to be alone as a function of healthy object relations, the nature of contemplative knowing which comes from sitting with and working through our life experiences (precisely the nature of the inner work I do with my Director/delegate!), and growth in interiority as increasing freedom from ourselves and the "tyranny of our inherent falseness," --- what Scripture calls purity of heart. Fr Bede's work informs my understanding of "the Silence of Solitude" as environment, goal, and charism throughout. Dom Robert Hale (who assisted me in evaluating my Rule prior to perpetual profession) writes about love and communion as the foundation and ground of every stage of the hermit's life. Here Dom Robert is not speaking of love as a bloodless abstraction or empty idealization but as a concrete living out with and for one's brothers and sisters in space and time; it is the love of God we are all called to incarnate or enflesh and an outworking of the ministry of reconciliation St Paul says we are meant to be about.

So, these are some of the things which motivate and shape my life and work as a canonical (consecrated) hermit. They demand an eremitical life which is antithetical to those things you once saw as typical of eremitical life (and typical of the inauthentic and unloving life lived by counterfeit "hermits" throughout history and even today)! I do think the Church has taken care in making canonical something which is healthy, loving, and edifying as it eschews individualism, narcissism, misanthropy, and isolationism. Thanks again for continuing this conversation. A few people write here regularly (though not frequently) and though this kind of serial posting hasn't happened before, I am open to exchanges of this kind. And yes, Sister Laurel is just fine; I prefer it to Sister O'Neal.

31 December 2015

Are Camaldolese Oblates Consecrated?

[[Dear Sister, are Camaldolese Oblates consecrated? Do you wear a Camaldolese cowl?]]

Thanks for your questions. I am assuming you mean do persons who become Camaldolese Oblates also become consecrated persons in the act of oblature? Do these persons become members of the consecrated state through their gift of self in this way? The simple answer is no, one does not enter the consecrated state of life in this way. One does not become a religious, does not make public vows, and remains in whatever state of life into which they were already initiated. If they were already consecrated before becoming oblates then yes, they are consecrated, but not because they are oblates. The bottom line is that oblature is a form of dedication by the oblate, not consecration by God through the mediation of the Church.

While oblature in most Benedictine congregations is limited to lay people, the Camaldolese also accept religious, priests and consecrated virgins and diocesan hermits as oblates. However, lay persons who make oblature remain lay persons and are committed to live the Camaldolese Oblate Rule in their everyday lay life --- a very significant commitment in a world challenged to see that God comes to us in the realm of the ordinary. Clerics do not become clerics in the Camaldolese Order upon oblature, nor do religious become professed Camaldolese when they become oblates. All oblates are members of the extended Camaldolese family but again,  they are oblates who remain in their original state of life upon making oblature.

Also, while the process of oblature (this is not a profession of vows) involves both a commit-ment and reception of this commit-ment by a representative of the congregation, this is a private commitment. It is not public and does not have public rights and obligations (that is, the rights and obligations are those that obtain within the Camaldolese family alone). Nor does anyone acting in the name of the Church mediate God's own consecration of the person. As I have noted here a number of times, initiation into the consecrated state is a public act of the whole Church. A legitimate superior or other authorized person receives the person's profession or other commitment and mediates divine consecration in the name of the Church. The intention to do this must be present but so must the ecclesiastical authority. Camaldolese monks and nuns admitting others to oblature have neither the intention nor the authority to admit these specific persons to the consecrated state. (For instance, under specific  circumstances the Sister that received my commitment/oblature had the authority to admit Sisters in her own monastery to the consecrated state as part of her role as Prioress but she had no authority (nor did she have the intention) to admit ME to this state. She did have the authority (and intention) to receive my oblature.)

Regarding my cowl, please be aware that oblates, insofar as they are oblates, do not wear cowls. I wear a cowl because it is a symbol of solemn monastic or eremitical profession and I am a consecrated hermit; it was canonically granted at my perpetual profession and consecration under c 603. Because I am also a Camaldolese oblate, and because Camaldolese monks and nuns wear a cowl, it was important to make sure that the hood of my own cowl not be cut in the unique elongated Camaldolese style lest I give someone the impression that I am professed as a Camaldolese nun. (Mine is cut in more of a Carthusian or a Cistercian style with visible differences from these as well.)   In any case, no, I do not wear a Camaldolese cowl nor does any oblate as oblate.