More on Discernment and the Long Journey to Union with God

[[Sister Laurel, if the eremitical vocation is about the journey to union with God, how is it that someone can know they are called to this when they are relatively young? Did you know this was what you were called to when you read c 603 for the first time? It seems to me that either a diocese has to be really patient and willing to take a risk with someone, or the person has to have made a long journey before contacting their diocese to request profession and consecration. The first problem with this is, what diocese has the patience to wait as long as needed to discern a solitary eremitical vocation with someone? The second problem is how does a person subordinate everything else in their life for the journey you have described?. . . ]]

Thanks for your questions and for the comments I have not included above. There are several bits of wisdom that speak to these, so let me mention them here. The first is that eremitical life, but especially solitary eremitical life, I think, is generally seen as a second half of life vocation. In the history of the vocation, whether Christian hermits or those from other traditions (those is China or other parts of Asia, for instance), the hermit life is embraced after one has lived a full life, and often, raised families, had a career, perhaps struggled in a variety of ways, and come to know themselves and their own deepest yearnings and potentials more clearly. A specific (and privileged) form of this kind of pattern involves the movement from active ministry to contemplative life, and then to a life of even greater solitude as one comes to be aware that God is calling them to union with Godself. There is a sense in such lives that one has met life head-on and lived each stage of it as fully and as well as one could, and now, there is both the freedom and the yearning for an adventure into even greater love and wisdom as one says yes to a more direct and demanding relationship with the greatest Mystery that is God.

Some, I think, will discover this call earlier than most, and among these will be those who suffer from chronic illness or, perhaps, forms of trauma that raise the questions of the possibility of meaningful existence and personal wholeness and holiness with existential urgency. Karl Jung once noted that some people with certain kinds of experiences -- like the ones mentioned -- are wiser than their years and become suited to ask the profound questions some folks only ask at the end of their lives. I do believe that the urgency with which I encountered and posed the questions of being and meaning in my own life was a sign that I was called, first, to do theology and then, to solitary eremitical life earlier than most. I believe one of the reasons many c 603 hermits I know or know of have chronic illnesses is precisely because these conditions raise certain existential questions and longings with a particular vividness and urgency. The result can be a serious existential search for the Face of God and all that a relationship with God promises in terms of fullness of life, holiness, and meaningfulness. In either situation, the eremitical journey towards union with God requires a "long" and profound background of solitary seeking, struggle, discernment, and formation.  The general insight that this vocation is a "second half of life" vocation holds true in either situation.

The second bit of wisdom that must be recognized is that solitude in eremitical life is never merely, or even mostly, about physical isolation. In fact, eremitical (and monastic) solitude is the redemption of isolation that is achieved in deep relationship, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with others. Eremitical solitude is about being alone with and for the sake of God, one's truest self, and the needs of the Church and God's entire creation. The Camaldolese identify this vocation with "the privilege of love," and recognize that at the heart of all human life, longing, and struggle, what is most profoundly true and meant to be fully realized in any life is the following motto re life with God: "Ego vobis, vos mihi". I am yours, and you are mine. Once one comes to understand the truth of this saying, eremitical solitude can never be defined in terms of isolation, misanthropy, or a selfish and individualistic quest for personal piety and an alienating "holiness". (Real holiness is, of course, something vastly different!) And of course, the journey to this awareness also takes time.

If dioceses take these two bits of traditional wisdom seriously, it will help in truly discerning c 603 vocations and their stages of readiness for profession and consecration. However, yes, you are entirely correct that more is needed from dioceses that wish to implement c 603 wisely.  You said, [[It seems to me that either a diocese has to be really patient and willing to take a risk with someone, or the person has to have made a long journey before contacting their diocese to request profession and consecration.]] I believe both things are true. The person must have made a relatively long journey before contacting a diocese with the request to be professed under c 603 AND the diocese must be patient in a process of mutual discernment and formation that assists the person making their petition to truly know the way God is calling them, and to prepare for the necessary stages of commitment if they (both) find the person is called to c 603 eremitical life.

C 603 provides no timelines. Nor does it need to. What it does provide is a list of constituent elements the person must be living and the requirement that they write a Rule of Life rooted in their own experience and sense of the way God is working in their life. The process of writing such a Rule demonstrating one's understanding and existential knowledge of these constituent elements, a Rule that is in touch with and reflects the Holy Spirit and the way she speaks to the person each and every day, and the way the person lives her life as part of a long and diverse eremitical tradition and now proposes and petitions to be allowed to do so in an ecclesial vocation, takes time, experience, research, conversations with mentors and diocesan staff, and so forth. Dioceses, as I have written before, often treat the writing of the Rule as the simplest requirement in the canon. Not so. It is a formative process from which the maturing hermit and the diocese will learn about this vocation and the candidate for profession. It is a process which can guide discernment and formation both, and, so long as it is clear the candidate is growing and maturing in this vocation, it takes as long as it takes. There is no need for arbitrary canonical time frames, limits, or requirements. This is one place the wisdom that life, in this case eremitical life, is about the journey, not the destination, carries real weight.

Now, for your other questions. Because of what I have already written, I don't know if a young person can truly know they are called to be a hermit. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that I doubt young people can be clearly aware of such a calling. The journey requires a certain kind of foundation if it is to be truly discerned. Thus, again, it is generally understood to be a second half of life vocation. When I first read c 603 (a few months after the new Code had been published), I had a sense that my entire life could make sense within the framework outlined in the canon. That meant giftedness, limitations, illness, education, background in theology and religious life, etc., etc. Over time, this translated into a sense that I could live the truth of my deepest self in communion with God in this specific way, but that awareness and an ability to articulate what had begun as a relatively vague sense of meaningfulness took time to develop. 

It also took the assistance of my spiritual director, delegate, and vocation personnel. Mutual discernment is not only important because this vocation is an ecclesial one that belongs to the Church before it belongs to the individual whom God (through God's Church) calls to profession and consecration, but because it is only over time that one can see more clearly what begins as a more or less inchoate sense that one might well be called, for example, to be a hermit. Conversations, mutual prayer, the way experienced formators can and do challenge us to grow as human beings and thus, too, to come to greater and deeper clarity regarding the way God is working in our life, are absolutely essential in one's coming to clarity about something so profoundly mysterious as a divine vocation.  I don't know anyone who simply receives the equivalent of a text message out of the blue from God saying, "I want you to be a hermit"!! I should also say that I would be unlikely to trust the person's sense of self or vocation if that were the way it supposedly came to them anyway!

Your last question is a challenging one, and it also underscores the reason eremitical vocations require time for discernment and formation. You asked, [[how does a person subordinate everything else in their life for the journey you have described?]] I am struck, because of your question, both by the extraordinary nature of the journey to union with God I have described, and also how completely ordinary and normal it is. You see, I am aware that in describing a call to active ministry (and this could certainly include marriage and raising a family) which can develop into a call to contemplative life with greater degrees of solitude, and finally, to a call to even greater solitude and union with God, I might also be describing what happens with some people as they move from serving God and others in the more usual ways this happens in every life, to what happens once the children are grown, or perhaps after retirement from  a career when there is greater leisure to pursue one's relationship with God and to live greater solitude, and then too, when one reaches old age and not only begins losing friends and loved ones to death, but is marked with increasing frailty and illness and the questions of being and meaning are very urgent indeed!!

Every person God has created is called to union with God. Every single person is called to develop a contemplative prayer life where one can, in Christ, truly rest in God and, as a result, can witness to the Risen Christ and God's merciful, loving will to be Emmanuel. From a Christian perspective, this intimacy with God is the heart of what it means to be truly human. Some relatively few persons will live the dynamics of this call to authentic humanity in paradigmatic ways as contemplative religious, and even fewer will do so as hermits, but it would be a critical error to believe that only some are called to divine intimacy and union with God. Here is where it becomes absolutely critical that we understand that every calling, every sphere or dimension of human life, every circumstance, can reveal God to us and provide ways of relating to God. We are used to divvying reality up into the sacred and the profane, as though God can be found in the sacred but not the secular or profane. This way of dividing reality and limiting God is precisely what God overcame in the Christ Event and the incarnation of the Word.

So, while I accept that a vocation focused on the journey to union with God is an extraordinary thing, I also recognize that it is the most profoundly human journey every person is called to make. Wherever human beings seek out love or express and extend love to others, whenever they seek to know and express or act in truth, or do something similar with beauty or meaning or existence, whenever they attempt to explore and even push the limits of these things, they are involved in the journey monastics identify as "seeking God".  What contemplatives, including hermits, say to others is that there is a ground and source of all of this seeking and sharing and celebrating we human beings do in the arts, sciences, relationships, and human activity of every sort, which we know as God. We try to say "feel free to seek as deeply and expansively as you feel called to, because the existence of God makes that possible as the very essence of what it means to be human." When this is the case, subordinating everything to make the journey to union with God in whatever way God speaks most clearly to one is the most natural thing in the world!

I hope you will accept this as the beginning of a response to your questions, especially the latter two. I need to think about them a bit more and try to pull together my thoughts in a way that might be more helpful. I still need to respond to your questions regarding dioceses taking risks and requiring patience. As always, if this response raises more questions or is unclear in some way, please get back to me, and I will try to improve upon things!!

Should Dioceses Supply Guidelines for the c 603 Hermit?

One of the questions that comes up in regard to Dioceses and the Hermit's Rule of Life is whether it is appropriate for the Bishop to write the hermit's Rule and simply require she live accordingly. In the past I have argued that it is inappropriate, and I have put forth reflections on c 603 vocations and the importance for both discernment and formation that the hermit write her own Rule. Also, of course, this respects the unique way the Holy Spirit works in each hermit's life and assists her to be truly attentive to that. But the idea of the diocese supplying guidelines on living eremitical life in this diocese that one lives prior to writing a truly liveable Rule, and that will also be subsequently embodied in some way in that Rule is a really good one and one I have written about only a couple of times perhaps a decade ago or so. It's time to pull that topic up once again, partly because it belongs to my larger project on the discernment and formation of diocesan hermits, and partly because both hermits and dioceses need to understand the appropriateness, nature, and place of such guidelines as they move forward with processes of discernment and formation.

Quite often I hear stories about dioceses that tend to expect a hermit to go off and write a liveable Rule in a few weeks. They may leave this single concrete requirement of the canon to the last on a "to do" list while considering it the easiest part of the canon to fulfill. They will sometimes do this saying something like, [[There, now all we need is your Rule of Life!! Just go off and write that and we will be all set!]] But such an approach misunderstands the nature of a Rule and the difficulty of writing one, especially a liveable one or one that belongs integrally to the diocese's own discernment and formation processes with a c 603 hermit-to-be! Other times, dioceses go the opposite direction and write the hermit's Rule for her, although my sense is this is a much rarer problem. I addressed all of this in 2012, Should a Bishop Write the Hermit's Rule?

Failures by Diocese and Hermit:

Bearing that article in mind, what happens when either a diocese refuses to treat what they provide as true guidelines or the hermit decides s/he knows too much about eremitical life to accept such guidelines -- the two entirely antithetical possibilities? The basic answer to both questions is that strong and authentic ecclesial vocations will be lost, immature and slavish ones incapable of mature obedience will be established, and the Church's understanding of c 603 and its vocations will not grow as these need to -- meaning further solitary eremitical vocations will not be admitted to profession or even to mutual discernment processes. If the bishop or other diocesan personnel write the hermit's Rule for her, they are failing to discern this vocation. Likewise, they are failing to listen to the Holy Spirit and the way she is working in the contemporary church. If, on the other hand, the hermit acts as though she knows it all already and refuses to at least prayerfully consider the vision of the life the Diocese has provided as preparation for a meeting to discuss what works and what does not and why, she is simply demonstrating a lack of calling to an ecclesial vocation and possibly her unreadiness for vows of obedience or religious poverty.

A set of guidelines is important for the diocese to provide for all candidates. Not only will this assist the hermit in writing an adequate Rule of life based on lived experience, but every candidate will have the same starting point and the adaptation they each make will be able to be assessed more easily in terms of the Holy Spirit, contemporary eremitical life, and the healthiness of the individual hermit's spirituality. Still, it is critical the Diocese regards these as guidelines the hermit herself will flesh out (or prune as she truly feels called to) over time. The diocese might say, your Rule should cover religious poverty, but not spell out what that must look like in a particular hermit's life. At the same time, it is critical the hermit uses these guidelines in considering her Rule of Life, and that she tries to embody them in some real way in whatever Rule she eventually writes. (Thus, to continue the example, a hermit will take what is in the guidelines re religious poverty, and spell out the nature of that poverty and how she personally lives this out before profession and, after profession, how she will live it in law under c 603.)

What Should Such Guidelines Include?

So what should such guidelines include? It seems to me that these need to spell out the elements any liveable Rule must address. These include, 1) the requirement of a brief history and discussion of the place of eremitical life in the life of the Church. (Here, because of the way she recounts this story, is where the candidate begins to formulate the vision of eremitical life she intends to live in the 21st century as a piece of living history!) 2) The central elements of c 603 and the Evangelical Counsels; in dealing with this guideline, the candidate must be able to spell out how she understands each of these, why she understands them as she does, and how she lives them out in the present. 3) The importance of the public and especially the ecclesial nature of the vocation. Here the candidate will need to address her place in both the universal and the local Church, including her sacramental life, any limited ministry she needs to undertake, and the degree and nature of contact she will have with the parish community. 4) Relationships with the Bishop, delegate, and spiritual director. Here the candidate or hermit needs to spell out how she understands herself to be related to and participate in the Church's ministry of authority; she would include the role of a delegate (if she has one), frequency of meetings with the Bishop (once or twice a year is typical but not carved in stone), spiritual direction, and the way she regards both c 603 and her own Rule of Life.

Such guidelines will have subsections that spell out expectations and, for the hermit's part, the nuts and bolts of each larger section. For instance, in section #2, the hermit will discuss finances, living poverty, provision for health insurance, living space, work and how this meets her needs for stricter separation from the world, religious poverty, the silence of solitude, penitential life,  persevering prayer, and so forth. Also included, for example, will be use of social media, to what extent this is allowed and for what legitimate purposes, etc. This list is not exhaustive, but suggestive of some of what guidelines might list and what any good and liveable Rule must contain.

What if the Diocese and Hermit Cannot Agree?

If the diocese and the hermit find themselves far apart on this or on any element of the guidelines, these can be worked out in a series of conversations over time as both parties come to know the nature and quality of the vocation in front of them, and the hermit/candidate writes this or that draft or draft portion of a liveable Rule. The point is that the diocese provides guidelines of what she requires a hermit life to reflect along with what a sufficient Rule will include, and the hermit tries to accommodate all of these elements in a mature way as she explores the nature of an ecclesial vocation as she personally is called to live it!! As the process of discernment and formation moves forward, both parties will learn from the other, flexibility will increase, trust between the candidate and diocesan staff will grow, as will the sense either that this vocation is truly of the Holy Spirit, or it is not. 

Eventually, either the Hermit's Rule will be granted a Bishop's Decree of Approval and the guidelines will have done their job and be left behind for the more adequate and personal Rule of Life, or the candidate will be unable to write a liveable Rule that both meets the requirements of both the universal and the local Church and is true to the way God is calling her, and she will cease to be a candidate for c 603 profession and consecration -- at least for the time being!! So long as both parties have truly listened to one another and the Holy Spirit in this process and grown in their understanding of contemporary eremitical life under c 603, it can be considered successful.