A Brief Look at Cornelius Wencel's Writing on Work

 Dear Sister Laurel, you have written about Fr Cornelius Wencel before, and you know and like his writing. I can't give you the entire quote or the context but are you aware of a text that includes, [[there is nothing more foreign to the hermit than the clownery of a glittery career, success and all these vulgar illusions that tempt the modern world]]? I was wondering what the context of that statement is since [a vlogger I watch] posted about him denigrating other vocations, the pursuit of success in any vocation, and essentially being elitist about eremitical life. Do you know the passage or it's larger context?

Interesting question. Yes, I recognize the passage and know the context. It is from the section on "Work", pp119-125. What you describe represents a significant misreading of this passage because Wencel is speaking about the misguided drive to power, prestige, fame, and wealth so typical of worldliness --- a position I believe most hermits truly agree with. To read it properly, it is especially important to quote the rest of the paragraph (cf paragraph below in italics) and its immediate textual context as well as outlining a bit more of the larger context in which this passage occurs. Here that is.

Not in order to achieve his own perfection does the hermit set out on his solitary voyage. On the contrary,  he considers his way and mission to be part of a great and common effort to change and renew the cultural and spiritual life of humanity. . . .The hermit strongly opposes misdirected work, which aspires only to achieve success, domination, prestige, and fame, and which can easily destroy other people's good.

There is nothing more foreign to the hermit than the clownery of a glittering career, success, and all those vulgar illusions that tempt the modern world. For the hermit, his work is one of elementary and daily activities, necessary for his own sanctification as well as for the sanctification of the world. It is not a mere object, money-maker, and article of trade, but it is rather a way of realizing his life's calling and approaching his life's fulfillment. Thus the hermit becomes a sign of protest against all the vulgar tendencies of modern civilization, which view work only in terms of productivity and money. Such a way of thinking, and consequently of acting, testifies to how much worldly affairs have degenerated and have gone far astray from what would have been a humanitarian and harmonious course of events.

If human work is to use human abilities and talents in a wise and proper way, and if it is going to build up the good of the person and society, it should be performed in an atmosphere of love. . .Only when we see work in such a manner can we get satisfaction, joy, and a sense of personal fulfillment from our activity. Work, when performed wisely and seen as an expression of human, love-motivated solidarity and service, turns out to be out to be a very concrete way of liberation. . . Cornelous Wencel, Er Cam, The Eremitic Life, pp 119-121 

In this section on work in eremitic life, Wencel is discussing not only the work hermits do but also why they do it. He wants to indicate the vast distinction between why a hermit works as s/he does as opposed to the reasons many folks in the world work and what motivates them. It is not that Wencel denies the importance of success, but he does recognize there are vulgar notions of success that are unworthy of human beings. We can see it today when billionaires act politically and in every other way possible to secure themselves and their own wealth and reputation at the expense of everyone else and thus, without appropriate concern for humanizing the world for everyone. When the rich and powerful act in this way as though the world is their playground flaunting their wealth, ambition, and self-centeredness, while disregarding the bodies of starved and otherwise impoverished children and the situations of the truly and desperately needy, I think it could rightly be described as vulgar clownery.

Work in the eremitical life is both much more modest and also more elevated in import, meaning, and motivation. We follow our daily routine, take on the projects our life opens to us for our own sanctification and the sanctification of the rest of God's creation, and work in this way for the whole of our lives. We trust that the modest work and efforts we put forth every day fit into God's plan for the whole of reality even when we have no real concrete sense of where this leads. When I was first consecrated (c 603) a journalist asked me what it meant for me to "be successful"; how did I measure success as a diocesan hermit? Her question surprised me, but I came to see it shouldn't have. "Success" is a significant norm in our culture; eremitical life is hard to place within usual notions of what it means to be successful. I answered in terms of personal integrity and faithfulness. At the end of each day could I say I had lived this life humbly, faithfully, in a way that was true to myself and God's call? This is still the definition of success I would use in answering the question today, almost 20 years later. It is not the definition of success "the world" glorifies. 

We, hermits, are not about building the world's largest real estate empire, getting our pictures on the cover of Forbes or Fortune 500, gilding our living accommodations in gold and marble, dressing in designer clothes, or measuring success in terms of status, power, or material wealth. I believe Cornelius Wencel is correct when he refers to all of this in terms of glittering. . .vulgar illusions. These things are misguided. They are rooted in a falseness promising an ultimate happiness and satisfaction they can never provide; they cannot humanize or sanctify us. Instead, they demean and empty us of authentic humanity; they divide rather than unify and ensure the ongoing suffering of the least and the lost while adding even more persons to these ranks every day. They are precisely antithetical to what it means to be concerned with theosis or working towards the Kingdom of God.

 Eremitical life (cf c 603) embraces and is partly defined in terms of "stricter separation from the world". In the passage you quoted, Wencel is talking about "the world" with which eremitical life (and all genuine Christian life) is in conflict. It is "the world" with no room at all for the Evangelical Counsels or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount with its Beatitudes. The plutocrats and kleptocrats of this "world" tend to laugh or scoff at such Christian values and vision. They ridicule those who embrace religious poverty, chastity, and obedience to image Christ and serve others. These are some of the folks Wencel has in mind when he draws two very different notions of success and work, the eremitical or radically Christian and the "worldly". In speaking as he does of hermits, Wencel also underscores that our work is rooted in concern for the world outside the hermitage. We do what we do for God's sake and the sake of all that is precious to God. 

I hope this is helpful.

A Contemplative Moment: The Solitude of Death

 

The Solitude of Death

 excerpt from The Eremitic Life

by Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam

The solitude of the desert teaches a person to be at home in the face of death. The hermit sees everything through a child's eyes and heart. Since he is not attached to any popular views or widespread opinions, his solitude becomes a foretaste of eternity. The holy time of liturgy, the time of embracing past, present, and future things, is his time. The hermit does not meet eternity in the way gnostics are tempted to meet it. He does not reject what is temporal. He has his share of eternity by raising all earthly things up to their ultimate fullness by virtue of Christ's redemptive love. This gives him an inner peace which helps to overcome the fear of death.

. . .A special dimension of joy, springing from what we can call for short "the wisdom of life", permeates the hermit's solitude. Of course, the harmony and simplicity that accompany the hermit in everyday life do not shield him from experiencing pain and suffering. The very decision for the solitary life in service to God and specific people involves the danger of being deeply hurt and the possibility of experiencing various torments. To remain bravely and persistently within the limits of one's cell means to accept defeats, personal crises, and temptations of losing the chosen way of life. It means to give one's consent to all those difficult moments that can crush even the strong. But such an acceptance has nothing to do with resignation or passive approval for whatever blind fate may bring. The hermit's faith and prayer enable him to gradually transform his pains into a creative form of love. . . . 

For the hermit, these difficult periods of suffering are not only the path toward his own sanctity. But also, by touching the dark side of existence, the hermit strives for a blessing for all humanity. We have to remember that the calling to solitude is a special charism in service to the Church and the whole world. And this is another reason why the hermit's solitude does not mean loneliness, but just the opposite: the hermit knows that he is close to the whole world in joy, suffering, death, and resurrection.

A Contemplative Moment: The Silence of Solitude

In the Silence of Solitude

The term silence of solitude (solitudinis silentio), cherished by the Carthusian tradition, emphasizes that the hermit's silence does not consist in the absence of voices or noises due to physical isolation. Nor can silence be an outwardly imposed condition. Rather, it is a fundamental attitude that expresses a radical availability to listen to God. Silence is a total focus on the search for union with Christ and open to the attraction of the Paschal dynamic of his death and resurrection. Silence is the experience of the mysterious fruitfulness of a life totally surrendered. Paradoxically it is also an eloquent witness when inhabited by Love.

from

Ponam in Deserto Viam, DICLSAL, 2021

To be a hermit means to relate to the mystery that is present in every human life and that makes one feel small and powerless. To see with the eyes of faith the marvelous and eternal beauty of God means to be invited to come out of oneself and to give oneself up to God. Therefore, the only possible life option  that makes sense for the hermit is to become fully open to that absolute perspective of giving himself as a gift to God. In this sense, "the eremitic calling is a consequence of meeting the original depths of of the Trinity's solitude. God is the living interpersonal relationship of solitude and silence. The reality of God is thus the original source of any solitude, an impenetrable abyss that calls to the profound depths of solitude of the human heart. Having heard that existential call of God's solitude, people respond to it by opening up the whole secret of their hearts.

from

Cornelius Wencel "The Gift of Solitude" in

The Eremitic Life, Encountering God in Silence and Solitude

The Silence of Solitude: A Share in the Abyss of God's Own Heart (Reprise)

As we move into Holy Week, a week I will spend mainly in solitude, I wanted to reprise the following post as part of my reflection on the self-gift God gives us so that he might dwell with us eternally and we, in turn, may dwell with and in him in the same way.

 [[Hi Sister, I wondered why you speak of solitude in personified terms. You say "she herself must open the door to the hermit". Do you think of solitude as a living thing?]]

Thanks for the question. I have repeated Thomas Merton's observation that one cannot choose solitude as one's own vocation; solitude must open the door to the hermit or there is no vocation. I can't say why Merton used this personification with real certainty, but I  know that it reminds me of references to Wisdom in the OT, where Wisdom or Sophia, is a dimension of God --- and a distinctly feminine one at that! I suspect that this same sense might have been true for Merton. In describing the Eremo which is the Motherhouse of the OSB Camaldolese in Tuscany, Merton writes: [[In order to seek Him who is inaccessible the hermit himself becomes inaccessible. But within the little village of cells  centered about the Church of the Eremo is a yet more perfect solitude: that of each hermit's own cell. Within the cell is the hermit (himself), in the solitude of his own soul. But --- and this is the ultimate test of solitude --- the hermit is not alone with himself: for that would not be sacred loneliness. Holiness is life. Holy Solitude is nourished with the Bread of Life and drinks deep at the very Fountain of all Life. The solitude of the soul enclosed within itself is death. And so, the authentic, the really sacred solitude is the infinite solitude of God Himself, Alone, in Whom the hermits are alone,]] (Disputed Questions, A Renaissance Hermit, p. 169)

What Merton is getting at, I think, is that eremitical solitude is not only lived in communion with God, but it is communion with God lived in one's cell and within the very life of God. It is, of itself, a dimension of the God who exists both as a community of love and as an abyss of solitude. It is the life of God which is opened to us when solitude opens her door to us. Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, says something very similar in speaking of two freedoms meeting one another in The Eremitic Life. He writes: [[In this sense the eremitic calling is a consequence of meeting the original depths of the Trinity's solitude. God is the living interpersonal relationship of love inasmuch as he is the presence of the original abyss of solitude and silence. The reality of God is thus the original source of any solitude, an impenetrable abyss that calls to the profound depths of solitude of the human heart. Having heard that existential call of God's solitude, people respond to it by opening up the whole secret of their hearts.]]

So, yes,  I personify Solitude because I understand it as a dimension, even the most fundamental dimension of God's own heart. To speak of Solitude opening the door to us is to speak of God opening a particular dimension of God's own heart to us and inviting us to dwell there in silence and solitude and coming to the human wholeness, holiness, and rest hermits call "the silence of solitude" and hesychasts call "quies". It is critically important that we understand how qualitatively different from  ("mere") silence and solitude is the reality we call "the silence of solitude" or "eremitical solitude". The first is simply the (still important!) absence of sound and others; the latter is life lived in the solitary abyss of God's heart and so, a living and communal reality. This is also the reason I identify the Silence of Solitude not only as environment, but also as goal, and charism of the eremitical life.

A Contemplative Moment: The Necessity of Relationships

The Necessity of Relationships

by

Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam

The Eremitic Life

Human freedom is founded on two indispensable pillars: the ability to possess oneself and the ability to overcome oneself. This is why every human being is, by his very nature, a person of dialogue and relationships. Both dialogue and relationships express the great potential for love of the human heart, a heart that is free.

The seclusion and solitude that constitute the eremitic life do not aim at negating the fundamental dynamism of human existence, with its entering into dialogue and relationships. On the contrary, eremitic isolation and solitude form the basis of that dynamism. As was said, one of the most important motives for undertaking the life of the desert is the burning desire to find one's own identity. In the course of time, however, we discover that we are unable to realize that task unaided. The only way of learning anything important about oneself is to look at another person's face** with love and attention.

As mentioned before, the hermit's solitude can never be a sign of withdrawal and isolation from the world and its affairs. The hermit, since he wants to serve other people, must arrive at a profound understanding of his own nature and his relation to God and the world. That is why his solitude is not at all a barrier, but it is rather the element that encourages openness toward others. The hermit, changed by the gift of meeting God, knows how to address the lonely hearts of those who come to seek his help and support. His solitude is not therefore a lifeless emptiness, but it is related to the most vital aspects of the human spirit. It is related to those spheres of human personality that can exist only if they are open to meeting God and the world in love.

_________________________________________________

**The reference to seeking another's face is from an earlier section of the book where Wencel speaks of a quote by J. Tischner: [[To meet someone means to experience the person's face. Experiencing the other's face means experiencing his truth. What is necessary to make the meeting happen is mutuality; if we want to see the other's face we have to uncover our own face, and the other must have the intention to accept what has been revealed. . .The meeting introduces us to the depths of all the mysteries of existence, where questions about the sense and nonsense of everything are born.]] For Wencel, the paradox of eremitical solitude is the fact that it serves the hermit's quest and desire for love, and that implies "meeting and dialogue with God and with the human other."

A Contemplative Moment: On Behalf of the Renewal

"On Behalf of the Renewal"

from The Eremitic Life

by Cornelius Wencel, Er  Cam

If we want to live the eremitic life maturely and responsibly, so rich in the forms as it can be, we cannot aim at cultivating our own individual conceptions, projects, or ideas, nor at fulfilling our individual needs or tasks. Not in order to achieve his own perfection does the hermit set out on his solitary voyage. On the contrary, he considers his way and mission to be part of a great common effort to change and renew the cultural and spiritual life of humanity. Therefore, the eremitic life seems to be one of those underlying factors that really influence the social structures so that people can fruitfully work and multiply the common material and spiritual good. The hermit does not want -- and in fact is not even able --- to separate himself from the concrete experiences of modern people: from touching the toil, conflicts, and struggles they face. He takes part in all those experiences just because, through his existential meeting with Christ, he gains a new perspective and a new sensibility, and so he becomes more open to the problems of the modern world.

So, we can hardly take the hermit for a person who limits his entire mission to a few prayers he recites and to some daily routines necessary in everyday life. The hermit has to take into account all the difficult problems endangering the world today. But the hazards the modern world faces, which cause fear and can bring about a catastrophe of culture and civilization or even the total annihilation of mankind, do not paralyze his activity to improve the world. It is just the opposite: realizing how deeply he is rooted in the life of society and how greatly responsible he should be for the world and its future, the hermit wants to take part in coping with the difficulties and anxieties of today.

Of course, the hermit is much more a person of prayer than a person of activity, but he is far from neglecting any creative action toward changing the world for the better. When he undertakes a task, he does not aim at performing a great many actions for an immediate and striking effect. He is not an activist who lives on organizing neurotically different actions and events that are in fact inspired by his inner chaos and anxiety. The hermit strongly opposes misdirected work, which aspires only to achieve success, domination, prestige, and fame, and which can easily destroy other people's good.

There is nothing more foreign to the hermit than the clownery of a glittering career, success, and all those vulgar illusions that tempt the modern world. For the hermit, his work is one of elementary and daily activities, necessary for his own sanctification as well as sanctification of the world. . . .it is . . . a way of realizing his life's calling and approaching his life's fulfillment. Thus the hermit becomes a sign of protest against all the vulgar tendencies of modern civilization, which view work only in terms of productivity and money. Such a way of thinking, and consequently of acting, testifies to how much worldly affairs have degenerated and have gone far astray from what would be a humanitarian and harmonious course of events.

A Contemplative Moment: Seeing the World with New Eyes

"The Desert: Transformation"

from The Eremitic Life

by

Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam

[[The Christian anchorite is not a gnostic, whose isolation from the world takes precedence in order that [she] can secure for [her]self the possibility of reaching "the land of pure spirituality". Such an approach is obviously an illusion which, detected too late, will certainly lead all who adopt it to spiritual disaster. Even provided we agree on the illusionary character of the created world, such an assumption may be justified only if we take into account its relativity. It is true that created things can deceive and beguile us, though it is not because they are deceitful all by themselves, but because the human heart, tangled up in webs of sin and greed, is eager to take pleasure and satisfaction in them. The anchorite never gives up and renounces the world of things out of contempt for them. [She] does so in order to achieve the inner space necessary to appreciate their real value and inner beauty.

Leaving the world and inner renunciation are the path to discovering the logic and truth of the created world. Fathoming inner structures and meanings, the hermit realizes still more clearly that the ultimate value of the world is not constituted by the world itself, but it transcends the world soundlessly. What is essential for human being is the perception of things that last and are eternal. What is needed is a certain distance providing space for authentic freedom of mind and heart, in order to perceive the world and all its problems in truth and love, which means in God. By finding the whole creation at its very Source, the hermit becomes the person able to contemplate. The hermit's contemplation of reality is [her] special way of perceiving it through the eyes of faith. This kind of perception reveals to [her]  the rays of God's magnificence and glory. . . .This truth, however, should be understood and proclaimed not just verbally or intellectually, but above all by means of humbly accepting the gift of our own existence. The acceptance of the gift brings about the inner necessity of giving it back to its donor in love. The need to make such a sacrifice is the essence of  Christian ascetic life and inner conversion.]]

Note: I chose this reading from Cornelius Wencel for several reasons. The main one has to do with the Solemnity of the Ascension and the way it demands that we learn to see everything with new eyes. The disciples had to get their eyes out of the clouds and onto the world newly constituted around them. In Christ, they (and we) are gradually taught to see all of reality with the eyes of an artist like Bro Mickey McGrath, osfs (see Solemnity of the Ascension). 

A Contemplative Moment: The Silence of Solitude

 

The Silence of Solitude

"Solitude has nothing to do with existential neurosis, but is rather a creative search for the flame of love that burns in God's heart. . . .What occupies the center. . .is the existential solitude of God himself. This is what the human heart wants to absorb and this is where it wants to rest. The eremitic solitude is in no case a fruitless and spiritually empty isolation, a cold indifference toward people and the world, or a selfish passiveness. Just the opposite, it is a space of redemption, full of spiritual life and meant to accept and change any human distress, sorrow, or fear."

"Solitude, which paradoxically we happen to notice most intensely when we relate to another "thou", is a fertile soil in which grows our authentic life's calling of solitude by choice. Only one who is fully aware of the great value of human relationships, bonds, and connections can decide on giving them up in order to find them anew in an even fuller way. So, the choice of an eremitic calling should be made in freedom and humility. The person who is called to remain alone and makes his independent choice for solitude is, above all, a herald of the absolutely precious and meaningful love that is continuously going on in the depths of the triune God. . . .

To be a hermit means to relate to the mystery that is present in every human life and makes one feel small and powerless. To see with the eyes of faith the marvelous and eternal beauty of God means to be invited to come out of oneself and to give oneself up to God. . . .. In this sense, the eremitic calling is a consequence of meeting the original depths of the Trinity's solitude. . . . The reality of God is thus the original source of any solitude, an impenetrable abyss that calls to the profound depths of solitude of the human heart. Having heard that existential call of God's solitude, people respond to it by opening up the whole secret of their hearts."

Fr Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam: The Eremitic Life

A Contemplative Moment: The Silence of Solitude

 

The Silence of Solitude

"Solitude has nothing to do with existential neurosis, but is rather a creative search for the flame of love that burns in God's heart. . . .What occupies the center. . .is the existential solitude of God himself. This is what the human heart wants to absorb and this is where it wants to rest. The eremitic solitude is in no case a fruitless and spiritually empty isolation, a cold indifference toward people and the world, or a selfish passiveness. Just the opposite, it is a space of redemption, full of spiritual life and meant to accept and change any human distress, sorrow, or fear."

Fr Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam: The Eremitic Life

On Maintaining the Distinction between Utility and Value

[[Dear Sister, do you consider yourself "useless"? I read a post by a privately professed hermit who speaks of her own life that way. She believes that "doing is useful" and "being is useless." She also divides things into "good useless" and "bad useless." I am not sure I understand what she is getting at. What you wrote about "prayer warriors" and using prayer as a worldly "productive" tool reminded me of this hermit's posts and what I thought she might be saying. I wondered if you consider prayer useless or if you think of yourself that way?]]

No, I don't think of either myself or my life and vocation in those terms. I know both monastics and hermits who do use the term "useless" in a metaphorical or hyperbolic way to make the point that our lives are of value in a completely countercultural way, but when discussing the matter they are therefore capable of and are usually careful to achieve much greater nuance I think. Perhaps the references to good and bad uselessness as well as the distinction between being and doing is this hermit's way of trying to nuance her usage in this matter. In the sense that my life is not particularly utilitarian and cannot be used by anyone to support capitalism, consumerism, or any number of other "isms" for instance it is literally "useless." However, to the degree it is one of the most valuable ways of living, one of the most vividly countercultural, and one of the most hopeful for those who are isolated because of illness, bereavement, or other circumstances which marginalize or make relatively "unproductive," it is both prophetic and extremely "useful" in today's world --- though not in this world's ordinary or defining terms.

I have written about this before. One of the posts is the following:  Why Isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified? I encourage you to check it out and if it leaves you with questions or raises more for you please do get back to me. With regard to prayer per se, no, of course I don't believe prayer is useless, but I would tend not to see it in merely or even primarily utilitarian terms. When we pray we allow God to shape and heal us, to call and commission us in all the ways God desires --- and thus too, in the ways our world really needs. Prayer is the primary way in which we become God's own persons, persons who love and speak and act as God would speak in our broken world. Even more strongly put, prayer is the way we become mediators of God's life and activity in this world. There is nothing "useless" in that but at the same time neither is prayer merely some tool we pull out of our utility drawer in order to shape and modify things (including God!) to our own specifications.

One thing I probably should comment on here is the motivation behind speaking of either prayer or eremitical life in these terms. If one really feels one's life is a waste of some sort, if one struggles with chronic illness for instance and is left feeling that her gifts are unused and her life is defined in terms of neediness while being unable to give back, then that person has to be extremely careful in the way she hears and adopts this language of "uselessness." No true monastic or eremite believes her life is valueless or worthless; instead she knows it is of infinite value -- and more, that her life is mysterious in the same way God is mysterious. She lives that life as graced and empowered response to the call of God. Even if she cannot immediately see the value of it she will trust that it is of immense value and contributes to God's overarching creation narrative.

There is no need to even see prayer or eremitic life as "useful". Because they are responses to and mediators of God's presence in our world they need no justification at all. Still, they ARE of value in our world and are gifts to it in ways and to an extent many other things are not. When a hermit like Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, speaks of the eremitical life needing no justification he is not in disagreement with me when I stress the charism of the eremitical life for the isolated and marginalized. Instead we are speaking of two different dimensions of our lives, the first that of utility and the second that of value. (We may also both be distinguishing between treating something as utilitarian and secondarily recognizing its usefulness.) In any case, the distinction between usefulness and value is a critical distinction in our world, a distinction we must always be careful to maintain, because to confuse these two realities is at the heart of so much destruction that occurs so routinely today.

When we treat persons in terms of mere utility we often lose sight of their true value and become guilty of dehumanization (including our own by the way) and even murder --- in all the ways that can occur. This is especially a problem in societies which are capitalistic and stress consumerism, productivity, etc, but it can also happen in forms of ministry or piety when people are treated as "assignments" or "problems to solve" and their essential sacredness and mystery are forgotten in the process. The same is true when we approach those we would call "friends" in terms of our own needs and it is often true in the exploitative and utilitarian way we often approach God's creation in general. Further, when we treat tools as having some kind of ultimate value (including technology of all sorts!) then we have crossed the line into idolatry and will also find we have become incapable of seeing the world in terms of more transcendent (and fundamental) value.

When Genesis reveals mankind as stewards of creation this reveals us as those within Creation who maintain a true sense of the distinction between mere utility and true value. More, I think it reveals human beings as those who subordinate utility to value and in so doing set an example of both sacrifice and selflessness. A culture geared to utility at the expense of value is, or will inevitably become, a compassionless culture of death. One that maintains the distinction between utility and value and the priority of the latter will be and remain a compassionate culture of life and light.

A Contemplative Moment: On Silence and Solitude

In eremitic spirituality silence does not exclude speaking and does not discount meetings and dialogues. What is aimed at is bringing harmony between the heart and the mind, between the spirit and the body, and eventually between God and man. Silence sets us free from the burden of words that are banal and meaningless, from a humdrum that disturbs the true essence of the word. A human word, when it comes from the deep silence of the heart, causes a creative anxiety in everyone who listens to it. It becomes the word of a prophet, proclaiming eternity.

The rigor of solitude --- the second pillar of eremitic ascesis --- does not mean escaping and isolating oneself, and it is not misanthropy of any kind. The hermit wants to meet and confront himself in solitude in order to identify his heart's deceitfulness and to get rid of it. The choice to live in solitude is surely the choice to leave the humdrum of the worldly marketplace, but the character of such a decision is not negative. The hermit does not aim at running away from the world and its affairs and at finding a safe shelter somewhere there in the wilderness. It is not right to consider him a fearful and frustrated fellow, a runaway who is afraid of confronting his self. Solitude has nothing to do with existential neurosis, but it is rather a creative search for the flame of love that burns in God's heart.

Fr Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam  The Eremitic Life

Podcasts, Dialogue, Affirmation of the Mystery at the Heart of the World and Contemplative Life

[[Dear Sister, thank you for doing the podcast on A Nun's Life. It was really interesting and surprising in some ways. I had not realized that hermit life was "communal" at its very heart, and the whole idea of chronic illness as vocation was new to me. I also had not realized that hermits could do podcasts!!! I guess I did have the idea that hermits still live in the [modern] equivalent of caves. I wonder if you aren't concerned that people will think doing the podcast conflicts with the eremitical vocation or that you are giving scandal? Also, do other hermits agree with your description of the life as fundamentally communal or "dialogical"?]] (Redacted)

Good questions, and thanks very much for your comments. The experience of doing the podcast was an excellent one for me personally: exhilarating, challenging, a bit taxing physically and mentally, encouraging and inspiring (especially given the responses on chronic illness as vocation!), and just generally good fun! One thing I was especially grateful I was not aware of until afterward, however, was the number of people who tuned in to listen or participated from the chat room. There were almost 450 people participating in one way and another during the hour and I was terrified enough as we began the program!! I came away with tremendous respect for what Sisters Julie and Maxine are doing and how hard they work at it, as well as greater appreciation for their congregation's support for this ministry. As far as I can see, A Nun's Life is of tremendous benefit to the Church and to vocations of all sorts, so the chance to participate in it in some way was very cool --- and a real honor.

I think if I were doing podcasts every week (or every month, for instance) people would have a reason to complain or question. But this was an unusual event and, I sincerely hope, useful in serving the eremitical vocation and also those with chronic illness (or who are otherwise marginalized) who might never consider that their own illness (etc) can be the medium through which the Gospel can be proclaimed to the world with a clarity and concreteness few can match. However, I am not concerned so much with what others think so long as they are clear that this is one of those forms of ministry which result from the silence of solitude and lead back to it as well. It is exceptional but consistent with both the Canon that governs my life, the Rule I live by, as well as the Camaldolese Benedictine charism. It is also consistent with expressions of the eremitical and anchoritic life as found and embodied throughout history. Hermits and anchorites have always been sought out for the wisdom their very marginality witnesses to and helps foster.

Of course, as a hermit, it is important that my own life be defined not primarily by these exceptional instances, but by the essential elements stated in Canon 603: the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world (that which is resistant to Christ and includes the world which lives in one's own heart--- those various soils which stifle or resulting flora which choke the Word of God within and without us!). Even so another essential element of consecrated eremitical life (and any eremitical life, I think!) is that it is lived for the salvation of the world. One embraces this responsibility in a number of ways --- not least in living stricter separation, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance in the heart of the church so that one's life serves as a kind of leaven and witness to a dimension of mystery at the heart of everything --- but also, in opening up the fruit of these elements to others.

You may have read blog posts that argue a kind of mutually exclusive dichotomy between the temporal Catholic World and the Mystical Catholic World. These posts have argued that a hermit must choose either the temporal OR the mystical Catholic Worlds. I have argued that this stance is theological and spiritual nonsense. The reason I have objected is because Christ, undoubtedly a mystic whose entire life was motivated by the reality of his union with God, was also deeply committed to the temporal world. In fact he could not be a mystic without such a commitment --- and vice versa as well! Heaven (life wholly in union with God) and earth are not supposed to be antithetical realities. Christ came to reconcile them and to implicate heaven within the earthly so that it completely interpenetrates the world of space and time. As I have written before, the result will be what Paul refers to as "A new heaven and earth" where "God is all in all". What mystics affirm is the dimension of mystery which grounds and is meant to permeate all of the temporal world. The affirmation is made for the sake of God's own life and the world of space and time --- God's good creation --- not in rejection of either of these.

Something similar is true of the hermit life, but with an accent on solitude and the dynamic of human poverty and divine grace which defines it. We are not to despise or reject the temporal world in the name of some separate and antithetical mystical world. Instead we commit ourselves to the redemption of all of that reality in God from the perspective of our solitude. Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, writes: " The hermit does not meet eternity in the way gnostics are tempted to meet it. He does not reject what is temporal. He has his share of eternity by raising all earthly things up to their ultimate fullness by virtue of Christ's redemptive love."

In a section entitled, "Living in Dialogue" Wencel also notes, "The seclusion and solitude that constitute the eremitic life do not aim at negating the fundamental dynamism of human existence, with its entering into dialogue and relationships. On the contrary, eremitic isolation and solitude form the basis of that dynamism. . . . As mentioned before, the hermit's solitude can never be a sign of withdrawal and isolation from the world [used in a different sense than the term "world" in Canon 603] and its affairs. The hermit, since he wants to serve other people, must arrive at a profound understanding of his own nature and his relation to God. That is why his solitude is not at all a barrier, but it is rather an element that encourages openness towards others. . . .His solitude is not therefore a lifeless emptiness . . . it is related to those spheres of human personality that can exist only if they are open to meet God and the world in love." (The Eremitic Life, Encountering God in Silence and Solitude, Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam)

All of this is an expansion of, or variation on, one of the first things I mentioned on the podcast, namely we are each grounded in God and as we grow in union with God, so too do we grow in communion with all else that is grounded in him, all that he holds as precious. Hermits and other contemplatives (and certainly all genuine mystics) know this truth intimately.