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.

The Urban Hermit, Saturday Evening Post

Recently parts of an interview I did over a year ago for Jack El-Hai and The Saturday Evening Post was published in an artcle on Urban Hermits. I noted it here in early May. You can now find that article on the SEP website (until July the May/June issue itself was not available online) The New Urban Hermit | The Saturday Evening Post ; there is also now a related video provided above. Apparently staff at the SEP thought about what they needed to do to "unplug and unwind" as a result of the piece. I will note that despite the article stereotypes of hermits continue even in the comments of the editorial director (I, for instance, do not live "off the grid") but it was nice to see the article stimulating folks to think about their own lives and excellent of course to have anyone interested in writing such an article at all. Check it out!!! May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post. Please also read, Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: A Call to Extraordinary Ordinariness, a summary of what it means to live an "ordinary life with extraordinary motivation".

Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (Reprise)

Image from Saturday Evening Post article

In the current (May/June 2013) issue of The Saturday Evening Post there is an article on "The New Urban Hermits" for which Jack El-Hai interviewed Karen Fredette (former hermit and, with her husband Paul, editor of Raven's Bread), Roger Cunningham (former Buddhist hermit), and myself. There are a couple of factual inaccuracies which make me sound like a vowed Camaldolese rather than a vowed diocesan hermit and Camaldolese Oblate but generally I think the article is really well done and that Jack El-Hai got his head and heart around something few people really understand. He deserves real credit for that.

One of the fine points Karen Fredette  makes is that hermits are about doing ordinary things with an extraordinary motivation.  I made a similar point used later in the article which, when taken with Karen's comment, suggests hermits experience this as the sustaining "glue" and heart of a vocation to contemplative life including eremitical solitude. It is certainly fundamental to Benedictinism and Camaldolese Benedictinism. I can't post the article here (I don't have a copy to do that with anyway) but I can reprise a post I put up here five years ago on living "an extraordinary ordinariness." Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (05. June.2008) Too often people think of hermits or their essential hiddenness as abnormal. This blog post spoke to these things; for those who are coming to this blog because of the SEP article, Welcome! I think you will find this post is a good introduction to the heart of eremitical faitfulness.

On Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness

[[Thank you for answering my questions about the hiddenness of the hermit life. What you write about its "essential hiddenness" sounds like the same "hiddenness" which is true of the lives of many people living in the world. You and other hermits seem to make a virtue of this, but isn't it pretty ordinary?]]

Yes, it is very ordinary, and in fact, that is precisely its virtue. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the hermit is meant to witness to those whose lives are ordinary in ways which may cause them to question the meaning and value or significance of  those lives. I have written about those in unusual circumstances (chronic illness, disability, etc) who are called upon to witness to the Gospel in vivid and poignant ways, but I have not really said much about those who work day in and day out at menial jobs and who see their lives as essentially meaningless or unimportant. I think the hermit can remind us each that every life, no matter how apparently unproductive or ordinary, is really (or is certainly meant to be!) part of a profound dynamic where the Kingdom of God comes to be realized more and more fully in our world. That happens, for the most part and for most persons, in the perseverance and day by day faithfulnesses exercised in ordinary life.

There is nothing spectacular or even very remarkable about the hermit's life in the ordinary sense of those words. It is very much a life of day to day faithfulness to the call of God and that call summons the hermit to prayer, work, study, and (sometimes) even some degree of outreach or evangelization every day in a way which repeats again and again. No one much recognizes what happens here in the hermitage as special, and from one perspective, there is nothing special about it. It is completely ordinary whether one is writing an article, doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom, praying Office, doing personal work, studying, or meeting with occasional direction clients. Even contemplative or quiet prayer is pretty ordinary stuff from one perspective. From another perspective, of course, it is all very special, because it is all done in and with God, and in order to foster the coming of his Kingdom. When the ordinary is undertaken with and in the grace or presence of God it always becomes extraordinary, and yet, no one is likely to see that really. When I wrote in my earlier response that even my telling you what I do during the day would leave the essential mystery of the life intact, that is what I meant.

The challenge to each of us is to undertake the ordinary in a way which is attentive and sensitive to the presence of God. It is the challenge to undertake these things with a care and even love which, through the grace of God, transforms them into something extraordinary. This is basic spirituality and it is this which the hermit's day to day life accepts and affirms as infinitely valuable. I can say without question that although I do not know how it happens, I know without a doubt that my life in this hermitage, my daily perseverance in cell, my faithfulness to prayer, work, study, and the ordinariness of life, allows for God's Kingdom to be more fully realized right here and right now. I know without question that Stillsong Hermitage is a small bit of leaven in the loaf that is my community and the world, and that it contributes to the transformation of that whole even though I may never really understand that or see it realized in my lifetime.

Personally, I believe that every person is challenged to embrace his or her life in this way, especially in its ordinariness. God transforms everything he is allowed to touch with his hallowing love, and our job is to let that happen in all the ways day to day living puts before us. If we can do that, and to the extent we do it, again, the ordinary will be transformed into something extraordinary because each task and moment becomes the occasion where God's grace is allowed to enter in and to triumph. That is the very essence of affirming the goodness and sacramental nature of all reality. So, in each and everything we undertake, we strive to be attentive, aware, care-full, loving, and (describing all of these together) truly present. Nothing in this life is really ordinary unless we allow it to remain that by foreclosing it to our own conscious presence and the effect of God's grace. On the other hand, the really extraordinary in our daily lives is likely to remain hidden from most people for the whole of our lives.

I am thinking of the husband or wife who cares for his or her sick spouse day in and day out for weeks, months, or years, for instance. The most mundane act is transformed when carried out with loving awareness, attentiveness, and openness to God's grace, and yet no one sees this or thinks much to remark on it. It is unspectacular in many ways, but clearly extraordinary at the same time. And yet it is essentially hidden from the eyes of the world. So much of our lives really is hidden in this way.

It takes the eyes of faith to see as the hermit or other contemplative sees! I think the hermit witnesses not only to this essential hiddenness, but to the humility and faithfulness that is so necessary in a world where everyone seems to need to make a name for him or herself --- even if the only name they can claim is that of victim --- a thriving category of dubious "achievement" in the contemporary world! The hermit witnesses to how truly extraordinary is the life of "ordinary" faithfulness, "ordinary" perseverance, ordinary "heroism," and "ordinary" love undertaken in God. After all, this is precisely what Jesus' life was about; it is precisely who Jesus was and what Jesus revealed true humanity to be. It is therefore unsurprising that Jesus' miracles were, in the end, insufficient to really reveal the Kingdom of God except as a testimony to the fact that that reign comes to us and is made manifest in ordinary faith! The hermit witnesses to how infinitely meaningful is the life that our contemporary world dismisses as trivial and insignificant -- if it is lived in and through the grace of God.

Addendum, July 2013: The article is now available on the Saturday Evening Post website:  May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post