A Little on Witnessing to a Love that Does Justice in the Face of Tyranny

 [[Dear Sister, I am new to your blog and I haven't explored it very much. I am surprised to find a hermit writing about current events. Do you really not hate ISIS? I think I do. I think I shouldn't but I can't control what I feel when people kidnap and threaten to burn children alive! But here are my real questions. From other articles it seems that your vocation is pretty new and not very well known. I know we don't have any Canon 603 hermits in our parish or diocese. How many of you are there in the US? Do Canon 603 hermits exist in other countries as well? Are there many of them? Do you mind if I ask other dumb questions before I read much of your blog?]]

Welcome to Stillsong Hermitage's blog then. To be honest, I don't write very much about current events but I was asked to write about the situation in Syria and I was very moved by the murder of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. That this occurred just as we were preparing for Lent and the ritual of being marked with the sign of the cross in ashes made things immensely more weighty in my own mind and heart. Add to that the fact that I was just beginning to read the Scriptures with eyes more newly sensitized to the place of honor-shame in Middle Eastern cultures and to see many of Jesus' encounters with family, religious leaders, and so forth as violations of honor, occasions leading to dishonor and shame for some, and you can see why these stories had a special poignancy for me.

You see I have recently come to understand freshly the difference between what guilt-sin-individualist cultures like ours and honor-shame-collectivist cultures like those of the Middle East perceive as honorable. Consciences in these two types of society are formed in vastly different ways from one another. It is not necessarily that consciences have been turned off, as a friend recently commented to me, but rather that they are formed very differently, namely as an instance of group conscience according to what the group determines to be honorable or dishonorable. In light of this I came to see even more clearly how Jesus could be crucified or the cross could be a symbol of the most abject dishonor/shame an individual could know. I have also recently been freshly sensitized to the epidemic quality of shame in our Western culure and to how extraordinarily thin in number and depth have been the reflections of systematic theologians on this aspect of the Gospel and Cross of Christ despite the fact that exegetes regularly remind us that the Gospel writers focus on not the physical pain Jesus experienced but the shame associated with his crucifixion.

These and other threads came together for me recently within a short period of time and all of them were and are critically important. We have either lost or never had an adequate sense of how very counter cultural Jesus and the Kingdom he proclaimed were and are. If we are to begin to understand ISIS and to deal with them adequately we must recover and/or cultivate this awareness. If we are to love our enemies as well as our brothers and sisters in the faith, we must understand this. I suppose it is particularly ironic that a very small piece of this reflection on current events in light of Jesus' Kingdom message and behavior comes from a diocesan hermit living a relatively hidden and certainly silent and contemplative life. But this really is the role of contemplatives and hermits in the Church. Living in silence at the center of existence makes this possible and sometimes, anyway, even imperative. I am reminded of something Thomas Merton once wrote:

I make monastic [eremitical] silence a protest against the lies of politicians, propagandists, and agitators, and, when I speak, it is to deny my faith and my Church can ever seriously be aligned with these forces of injustice and destruction. But it is true, nevertheless, that the faith in which I believe is also invoked by many who believe in war, believe in racial injustices, and believe in self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny. My life must, then, be a protest against these also and perhaps against these most of all.

Of course, in the situation with ISIS the self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny are not those of the Church nor of Islam. But they are those of religion more generally. It is against just this kind of tyranny that Jesus stood, and against which we should stand in our own lives today. This is the reason theologians often distinguish religion from faith. Faith does not allow us to hate. Often it calls us to be weak and lacking in control but still it empowers us to love. This is so because it is rooted in trust in God's love and the power of that love to create justice. So, ordinarily my own protest is carried out in silence and prayer. Martyrdom, witness, takes many forms. When so many threads some together as happened recently, it may be time to speak.

Numbers of Canon 603 Hermits in the US and Elsewhere:

As for your "real" questions. . . numerically the diocesan hermit vocation is quite rare. While there have always been hermits --- especially in the Eastern Church (their course has been more variable in the Western Church, sometimes dying out altogether) --- diocesan hermits only came to be a possibility in 1983 with the publication of the Revised Code of Canon Law. The model and original impetus for the establishment of this new form of consecrated/religious life was a group of about a dozen hermits who had once lived solemn vows as monks in community; when they discerned a call to solitude they each had to leave their monasteries and solemn vows and become secularized; this was because there was no provision in their own congregation's proper law for solitary life, nor was there any provision in canon law --- the more universal law of the Church. Eventually they came under the protection of Bishop Remi de Roo who came to see the significance of their vocation. Bishop Remi then made an intervention at Vatican II sincerely pleading with the Church Fathers to recognize the eremitical life as a way of perfection. Nothing happened at Vatican II but the plans for a revision of Canon Law were initiated and these eventually included Canon 603 which provides for solitary consecrated hermits in universal law for the very first time.

In the US there are about 80 diocesan hermits, perhaps a small number more or fewer. The Vatican has begun to include numbers of c 603 hermits in their statistics on religious and consecrated life but I don't think any have yet been published. In some countries there are none at all. I have a friend in New Zealand who is a diocesan hermit; she is the only one there. In other countries, France and Italy, for instance, there are more than in the US but the number is still relatively small. Because canon 603 is part of a universal Code of Canon Law binding on the Universal Church, not just a single diocese here or there (as was once the case with hermits or anchorites in Europe, for instance), there are now diocesan hermits all over the world. As you can see though, relatively speaking diocesan hermits are an infinitesimally small percentage within the Universal Church.

Finally, please don't worry about questions being "dumb". I have asked in the past for folks to pose whatever questions they have. A few people do that and some even ask questions on an infrequent but more or less regular basis. They are all very helpful to me. For instance in a post I put up earlier I was able to answer a question about the meaning of the term "institutes". It never occurred to me that word could be a source of misunderstanding for someone reading canon 603 ("Besides institutes of consecrated life, the Church recognizes the eremitic or anchoritic life. . .") but it was a really great question because it made something clear to me I had not known. I think all questions can do that but quite often it is the most obvious ones that don't get asked and could be most instructive for readers, and for myself as well! So while I do encourage you to read posts linked to the labels on the right of this blog, please know all questions are more than welcome.

Even More followup Questions on Becoming a Diocesan Hermit.

[[Sister, thank you for your posts on the time frame, and other matters regarding becoming a diocesan hermit. What I found surprising was the distinction you drew between solitary persons and hermits. I always thought the two things were the same. I also hadn't thought much before about genuine eremitical calls and illegitimate "calls". So, my questions: Can you define hermit for me as you use the word? Also, can you say more about the distinction between genuine and not-so-genuine eremitical vocations? Finally, if a person believes they are really called to be a hermit (not just "solitary persons") how do they go about getting the kind of formation they need if the diocese itself does not provide that?]]



The literal definition of hermit is "one who dwells in the desert ("desert dweller")" but, given all I have said up until now, perhaps that should be revised slightly to read, "one who lives primarily from the grace of God in the desert silence OF solitude." Physical solitude is important, essential in fact to the hermit, but more, it is the genuine communal solitude of the heart which defines her. It is the solitude of the heart (the silence OF solitude) where isolation has been transformed and transfigured at the service of love that is the defining characteristic of the hermit. Saying this reprises a number of themes I have touched on in the past couple of years here: the notion that the eremitical life is always motivated by love and not by selfishness, the idea that solitude itself is an inner reality more perhaps than it is an outer one -- as important as physical solitude remains, the notion that "stricter separation from the world" is as much or more about one's own openness to and communion with the sovereignty or reign of God than it is about closing one's door to the rest of his good creation, the notion that desert can be defined in terms of any environment or situation of relative "barrenness" which separates a person from others and not merely a physical wilderness, etc.

I am not sure what more can be said (or at least what more I can say!) about illegitimate and legitimate calls to eremitical life except that legitimate calls represent calls to wholeness, to humanity which is generous and other-centered, to lives which are marked by love (of God, oneself, and others) and reconciliation, to a life of the freedom of one who lives from the grace of God and not from illness, compulsion, or any other form of bondage. I think it is often clear when someone approaches a diocese because life has broken them in some sense and their very brokenness is the dominant reality in their lives. In such cases the person MAY ALSO (at some point) be called to eremitical life, but they have not yet heard or responded to that call; they have not yet allowed God to heal them or to define their lives in terms of wholeness, mercy, grace, or freedom. And in some cases, the essential wholeness, the foundational freedom I am talking about never becomes visible much less dominant. When that is the case, one is not (yet) dealing with a genuine call to eremitical life, and may not ever be.

In such cases, cases where brokenness is the dominant reality (whether temporarily or not), solitude is more about physical solitude and not a matter of the heart's own communion with God and all he cherishes. In such a case, physical solitude is really simply isolation, and this serves to protect one from others (or vice versa), from the demands of life and love, and sometimes, even the growth work one needs to do oneself simply to be well. But for the legitimate call to eremitical life, while brokenness may indeed always remain a subtext, a sort of drone or pedal tone beneath the music giving it a special timbre and depth, what stands out are these other characteristics I have spoken of: wholeness, freedom, love, the capacity to relate to others and to be compassionate in their regard, the sense that one is like others not different than they, the capacity for deep joy and gratitude --- characteristics which should be present in ways which define the hermit as profoundly touched by the mercy and grace of God, more profoundly and extensively than brokenness ever touched her. Further, her brokenness will now be the basis of a deep compassion with others, not something which effectively separates her as different from them. Her solitude will not be mainly about physical separation, though this will always exist, but about a Communion with God which then empowers an eremitical compassion, love for, and service of others. For those dealing with chronic illness which itself isolates and establishes one as "different" than most others, this sense that one is really the same as others, etc, is a central piece of growth I would be looking for in determining whether a vocation is authentic or not. I hope this is helpful, but if your question is more specific than this, please get back to me and clarify it for me.

Finally, your question about formation since dioceses are not about providing this: While I think that every case will be somewhat different in their needs for formation (both initial and ongoing, by the way), there are certain broad brush strokes one can suggest as necessary for most candidates for eremitical life:

1) ongoing and regular spiritual direction with a trained or gifted spiritual director who understands contemplative life. Such a person need not be A contemplative (in the sense of cloistered nun, etc), and certainly need not be a hermit, but she should be familiar with contemplative prayer and have an understanding of the basic elements of the eremitical life (the silence OF solitude, stricter separation from the world (rightly understood!), prayer and penance. It helps if this person is open to the surprising ways the Holy Spirit works in our lives --- and of course any good director is! Regular work with such a person for several years at least is necessary as a piece of eremitical discernment and initial formation; ongoing direction is simply a requirement for ongoing formation in the eremitical life.

2) Study. Here I mean primarily the study of theology and spirituality, but other disciplines as well may be helpful too (psychology, art , music, sciences, sociology). One of the greatest lacks I see in some who would like to be hermits is a lack of sound theological and spiritual training or education. Recently I wrote a couple of pieces about the specious division of reality into the temporal and mystical Catholic worlds. One needs enough theology to prevent such blatant errors, enough contact with models of good spirituality (including contemporary spirituality!!) that one reads classic works with an educated eye and heart, enough so that one can read Scripture (and first rate commentaries) with real intelligence and sophistication. This category would also include study on the nature of the vows, monastic and eremitical life per se, the history of the church, etc.

3) Personal growth work to supplement that of spiritual direction as necessary. This might include therapy to help work through and heal past hurts, or simply to understand oneself fully and profoundly in psychological as well as spiritual terms, etc.

4) formation in prayer and spiritual disciplines. One will, over time, come to learn to pray the Office, do lectio divina, journal, pray contemplatively (etc), live in silence and solitude (and the silence of solitude) effectively and faithfully and more, allow all these to assume their proper place in a genuinely contemplative life. Also, one will learn what penance is lifegiving and motivated by gratitude as opposed to that which is actually an expression of self-hatred, and one will build these into her life. Included here too are all the values and practices associated with the evangelical counsels. One may not be preparing for vows, but one still needs to live the values central to Christian discipleship. Finally one's spiritual life includes others. It is lived FOR others, so over time one needs to determine valid and lifegiving ways to relate to one's parish and other communities despite one's solitude. Learning to be sensitive to, as well as to balance the demands of solitude and community effectively are a piece of formation I think even if one continues to learn this the whole of one's eremitical life.

In order to get this kind of formation one really needs to seek out resources for it. It should be clear that dioceses would not provide this stuff, but every diocese will have resources available, and the internet opens up the world to hermits for all of this as well. One just needs to seek these out and do so in discernment with one's director re what one really needs to be a whole and well-developed person, as well as spiritually well-rounded and theologically sophisticated. (One need not have advanced degrees in theology to be well-rounded here, by the way.) In any case, if I were looking at candidates for profession and consecration, those are the basic areas I would be looking for evidence of strength in. Because of that I think formation needs to include these in one way and another depending on the individual involved.

Again, I hope this helps. If it does not, or raises more questions, please do get back to me.

Loneliness With Others: A Sign of an Eremitical Vocation?

[[Sister, if a person is lonely when they are with others, can this be a sign they are called to deeper solitude or maybe even to be a hermit?]]

Great question! I would have to say no, the chances are much better that this points to the need for inner work on one's capacity for and in relationships. We can be feeling lonely because we simply do not connect with others, for instance, or because there is something going on in us which keeps us self-centered and angry or unhappy, because we are unable to be truly vulnerable in the way the situation calls for, etc. If we are not really at home with ourselves we can feel this acutely when we are with others, but then we can mistake it for a sign that we are called to greater solitude and even to eremitical solitude.

So, the feeling of loneliness in a group I think is a signal to ask ourselves some serious questions and take some time do do some significant inner work, whether we do that with the aid of a therapist, a spiritual director, or simply our own journal. Some questions could include: what other feelings is this "loneliness" composed of? (This is one of the most important questions I think. Loneliness is often a complex constellation of feelings and it can help to identify what is actually going on. Thus, for instance, I can feel loneliness in one situation that is different from the loneliness I feel in a different situation. In the first I am anxious and ill at ease, in the second I am sad and tired. In a third I can simply desire to share something on a level which the group does not allow for. When I look at these experiences the roots of the feelings are actually very different. Only the third MIGHT signal the person has a call to eremitical life, and it might be correct to call this feeling something other than loneliness.) Other questions could include, when did I start feeling this way? When else have I felt this way? Am I afraid to be close to others? What happens when I try? Do I feel vastly different from these others (whether superior OR inferior, both are important)? Where does that come from? In any case, there are innumerable questions which might come up. The point is that the experience you describe is likely a sign that one needs to do some serious inner work with regard to relationships.

There are a number of stereotypes which affect the way people think about hermits. One of these is that hermits are loner types who are uncomfortable in groups of people. While it is true that stories of hermits have their share of "gruff anti-social personalities," the truth is that in general hermits are quite comfortable with themselves and therefore with others. They are capable of delighting in the time away from the hermitage and in social gatherings. They know full well that the world they are called to greater separation from is as much a part of their inner being as it is reality outside of themselves. Thus, if they are alienated from others to some degree they also know it is likely that they are alienated from themselves and God first --- so much so that a large piece of the loneliness they feel may come from the very center of themselves, not from the external situation per se --- and this calls for inner work. After all, eremites are not escaping the demands of love, nor are they trying to fill (or avoid) a hole at the center of their being. Instead they are answering a call to a special kind of love, first of God and then of all that he cherishes.

Why isn't it enough. . .???

I received the following questions via email: [[How does one determine one is called to an eremitical vocation? Why isn't it enough to be uncomfortable with the world or to desire to avoid it, and to wish to retire to solitude? Is this at least a sign of a genuine eremitical vocation?]]

In order to answer this (or at least the second part of the question, because I will need to answer the first part separately), I want to first reprise what I wrote in an earlier post (cf Post on January 14, 2008, The Unique Charism of the Diocesan Hermit) : [[One embraces eremitical silence, solitude, prayer, penance and greater separation from the world in order to spend one's life for others in this specific way. Whatever FIRST brings one to the desert (illness, loss, temperament, curiosity, etc) unless one learns to love God, oneself, and one's brothers and sisters genuinely and profoundly, and allows this to be the motivation for one's life, I don't think one has yet discerned, much less embraced, a call to diocesan (Canon 603) eremitism.

[[. . . let me say something here about the phrase "the world" in the above answers. Greater separation from the World implies physical separation, but not merely physical separation. Doesn't this conflict with what I said about the unique charism of the diocesan hermit? No, I don't think so. First of all, "the world" does NOT mean "the entire physical reality except for the hermitage or cell"! Instead, "the world" refers to those structures, realities, things, positions, values, etc which PROMISE FULFILLMENT or personal [dignity and] completion APART FROM GOD. Anything, including some forms of religion and piety, can represent "the world" given this definition. "The world" tends to represent escape from self and God, and also escape from the deep demands and legitimate expectations others have a right to make of us as Christians. Given this understanding, some forms of "eremitism" may not represent so much greater separation from the world as they do unusually embodied capitulations to it. (Here is one of the places an individual can fool themselves and so, needs the assistance of the church to carry out an adequate and accurate discernment of a DIVINE vocation to eremitical life.)

reprise continues:

[[Not everything out in the physical world is "the World" hermits are called to greater separation from. Granted, physical separation from much of the physical world is an element of genuine solitude which makes discerning the difference easier. Still, I have seen non-diocesan hermits who, in the name of "eremitical hiddenness," run from responsibilities, relationships, and anything at all which could conceivably be called secular or even simply natural (as opposed to what is sometimes mistakenly called the supernatural). This is misguided, I believe, and is often more apt to point to the lack of an eremitical vocation at the present time than the presence of one.]]

The simple answer in light of what I have said before, then, is no, it is not nearly enough. We are speaking of a religious (and, in fact, Christian) hermit --- one for whom the heart of her vocation is love, not only of God but of all that God cherishes. I am interpreting your question to mean that avoidance of the world (in this case I mean the whole of reality outside the hermitage) is the dominating, even sole reason for embracing an eremitical life, and no other reason even comes close. Even if one finds oneself out of step with that world, determines she cannot fathom it, is misunderstood herself by it, and desires nothing more than to retreat from it, this is NOT the basis for an eremitical life, nor is it, all by itself, a sign of a genuine vocation. In fact, it is more likely a sign one is NOT called to such a vocation. This is especially true if one who is a novice to spirituality and eremitism takes one's sense of being out of step with the world, misunderstood by and unable to fathom it, as a sign one is radically different than it.

It is true because it neglects the simple fact that we are each and all of us part of the world, shaped and formed by it, and so, to greater and lesser extents, carry it deeply in our own hearts, minds, and limbs. This is true whether one is speaking of the world as all of reality outside the hermitage, or "the world" in the strict monastic sense of "contemptus mundi" --- that which promises fulfillment apart from God. We carry the world within us in both senses, and of course, are called to love, transform and heal the world (in both senses) outside of the hermitage. In the negative or monastic sense of the term (that which promises fulfillment apart from God) we bring this to the hermitage in order to deal with it, to subject it to God's love and healing touch. We bring it to the hermitage not because we cannot understand it --- or it us, but because we understand it all too well and know that God's love is the only alternative to our own personal enmeshment in it. The dynamic you described is of a person running from this reality (and, in fact, from the whole of God's world), but the hermitage cannot be used to run FROM ONESELF, nor from God's good creation; it cannot be used as a place of escape, but must instead be a place of confrontation and transformation, of love and healing.

To attempt to escape from the demands of the physical world outside the "hermitage" is really to actually transform the "hermitage" into an outpost of what monasticism calls "the world." This is so because one of the signal qualities of "the world" in the monastic sense is a refusal to face reality, and thus will also involve an inability to love it into wholeness. Thus, if the "hermitage" is merely or even mainly a refuge from all that one cannot face, understand, or deal adequately with, it has ceased to be a genuine hermitage in any Christian sense and instead is predicated on the very values of distraction, avoidance, escape, and inability to face forthrightly or love truly or deeply that which constitutes "the world". It is itself an instance of that world, an outpost of it and no true hermitage. To bring "the world" into the hermitage in this sense is far and away more dangerous and destructive than bringing in aspects of it openly and cautiously like TV, movies, news programs, computer, etc --- and we know how assiduously careful we must be about (and even generally resistant to) these latter inclusions!

There is a reason hermitages have been characterized as places of battle, as crucibles as well as oases of God's peace. Above all, they are the places where, in the clear light of God's truth and love, one is asked to confront the demons one carries within oneself. Thomas Merton once wrote that the purpose of the hermitage was to allow a hermit to face the falseness, and distortions in oneself: "the first function of the hermitage is to relax and heal and to smooth out one's distortions and inhumanities." This is true, he says, because the mission of the solitary in the world is, "first the full recovery of man's natural and human measure." The hermit "reminds (others) of what is theirs to use if they can manage to extricate themselves from the web of myths and fixations which a highly artificial society has imposed on them." However, Merton knew all too well that the battle is waged inside the hermitage as well. One cannot witness to a world one refuses to understand as though one were really all that different from it. One cannot do so because one has not dealt with "the world" one carries deep within oneself, and which, in fact, one IS until one has been completely remade by God's love.

By the way, it is, of course, true that the hermit comes to love the solitude and silence of her hermitage, and she desires to be there, to go about her daily routine, to do all the small and large tasks and chores that come as part of the life there. A certain degree of discomfort with the world outside the hermitage will exist since she wants always to get back to the sacred space of silence and solitude which is her cell. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, when she is outside the hermitage, she is completely capable of relating empathetically to others and so, understanding them and what drives them; she is able to delight in this world to the extent it is evidence of God's creativity and wonder, and to care deeply for it when it falls short of that glory. These people, places, and things are given her to love, to cherish in so far as they are God's own, and in so far as they possess the potential, no matter how yet-profoundly-unrealized, to mediate God's presence and love. This is a world the hermit knows to be very like herself in every way. Her vocation may be unique, but she is not. To the degree she is really a hermit she carries these persons, places, and things with her back to the hermitage to continue to love them, to pray for them, and also to let them love and shape her own life to the degree that is appropriate.

In NO WAY is the hermitage an escape from the world in this sense. It is the place from which the hermit lives to allow God's presence greater intensity and scope so that he might one day be "all in all" as the Pauline phrase goes. Again, this all gets back to what I said at the beginning: The basis for the eremitical life must be love; it cannot be escape. We are called to greater separation from the world only because love requires distance as well as closeness. But we embrace this separation in order that we may allow God's love full rein and scope, first in our own lives, and then, in the lives of all those others for whom we live.

I hope this answers the second part of your question! Please let me know if it does not, or if it raises more questions. In the meantime, all my best.