Rule of Life Questions; 24 year old Hermits?

[[Sister Laurel,
I am 24 yo and have lived in solitude for less than a year although I work outside several days a week to support myself. I would like to write a Rule of life for my diocese who might be open to professing me. What should I include?]]

Thanks for your questions. To answer your direct question, I would suggest you look for posts here under the labels related to a Rule of Life. You will find a couple of posts which treat the kinds of things any Rule should contain if a diocese is 1) to discern clearly that you are called to this life, 2) to see that you have the requisite experience which will admit you to public vows, and 3) to be able to pass on (approve) what you have written canonically (by far the easiest of the three)! The posts list not only the areas a Rule should usually include to be complete, but point to the kinds of knowledge and experience one must have to write a livable Rule and be faithful to it. They should help you to achieve a balance between a Rule that is overly detailed and does not inspire, and one which is insufficiently detailed and idealistic but for that very reason not really helpful in concrete ways when one is struggling with the day to day living of the vocation. Even so, the real key to such balance is experience of actually living full time in solitude.

But let me take this in a different direction as well --- because I don't want to encourage you unduly in this venture and even less in the notion that a diocese will admit you to profession if you simply write a Rule, I have to say upfront that I do not know a diocese that would profess as a diocesan hermit someone of your age or degree of life-experience. As I have noted recently, some commentators reflecting on canon 603 vocations suggest that 30 years of age is the absolute minimum age for profession (temporary) under canon 603. This is not a canonical requirement but is one of the things which needs to be determined prudentially. Most regard this vocation as a "second half of life" vocation, and I completely agree except in cases with serious extenuating circumstances. (Examples would be situations where the person is somehow isolated by circumstances, have NO control over those and, a la Jung, have achieved a rare maturity because of them. Chronic illness is the one situation that can work this way that is best known to me.) The related problem you face is one I suggested in the last paragraph: namely, your own experience of solitude may not yet allow you the experience or knowledge (both of self and of the eremitical life) to write a livable Rule of Life much less keep it faithfully or grow in it. Bishops I know believe that 5 years living in solitude prior to temporary profession is also an absolute minimum for a diocesan hermit and this means that one must live the life for some time before being experienced enough to write a Rule which is livable. I tend to agree with this as well.

Consider what would happen if a person entered a community of religious women, were given the congregation's constitutions, a Bible, a brochure of the life these Sisters live, and then was left to her own devices for the next six months. Then, with that limited contact with the congregation's life behind them, the congregation asks her to write a Rule of life which reflected her experience of religious life, of the charism of this congregation, the place of prayer, work, ministry, etc. The person being asked to do this would be at a serious disadvantage, wouldn't she? Consider another analogy: you enter a community and live the life for a year. They ask you to write a Rule and suggest that when that is complete they might be open to professing you as a Sister of ___ for the rest of your life. Is it a prudent decision on their part? Is any part of the way they are treating you prudent? Loving? Careful or full of care for you, for the life of the congregation, or the vocation you MAY one day represent? I would say it is not.

While the axiom "remain in your cell and your cell will teach you everything" is profoundly true in the eremitical life, even the earliest Christian hermits had mentors with whom they lived and from whom they learned. We don't have many resources to provide such mentoring and our culture is vastly different from that of the desert Fathers and Mothers. This means that the diocesan or, better, the solitary eremitical life is even rarer now than it ever was --- and rightly so. Instead, as I have written here before, young persons desiring to explore an eremitical vocation do better to enter a community which stresses solitude, allows for the formation (personal, social, and spiritual) which can usually be gained only in community (or society), and allows one to truly discern with others whether one is called to be a hermit or not.

The one question I must ask you (and I suspect anyone in formation work with your diocese will feel similarly compelled) is "Why?" Why do you want to be a hermit, and why a diocesan hermit at your age? Why are you not exploring congregations if you are interested in solitude and a vowed life? Why do you feel solitude is the right context for living your life? What causes you to say this despite recognizing that solitude is a very uncommon way to human wholeness and holiness? Please don't get me wrong; I love solitude and the life I am called to, but I would never have even considered it at your age! There was too much to learn, and explore, and do at that point --- and too much growing to do in all kinds of ways, even if I didn't always realize that clearly. Of course this doesn't make you wrong and me right, but it does indicate the kinds of questions ANY person with experience in vocation work will want to hear the answers to from you if you approach them about this. You see, not only is solitude ordinarily not the way we come to human wholeness, it is also usually a transitional state --- one which indicates limitations and unfulfilled potentials as well but does so on the way to something else. Anyone looking at you as a candidate will wonder why you feel particularly called to this and will recognize the importance of community in helping form you for solitude as well as in discerning such a vocation.

Since eremitical life is associated with a number of stereotypes (hermits as escapists, social failures, misanthropists, selfish and self-centered persons, eccentrics and lunatics, among others) vocation personnel must be sure they are not professing any one of these --- or anyone with strong strands of these running through them! Further, stereotypes notwithstanding, life in solitude is simply not a "normal" life and, as already noted, eremitism is a very rare vocation. Dioceses with no experience of professing hermits will rightly look for the best qualifications they can find, the strongest and most healthy candidates in order to explore the vocation in their dioceses --- and they may put off people (and rightly so) until they are sure they are not acting precipitously in professing them even temporarily. Those with experience might well be open to professing a somewhat broader range of candidates, but they will also know what age and experience requirements MUST be adhered to generally. Especially, it will need to be clear that they are not doing you (or the vocation of the solitary hermit itself) an injustice in professing you to a life vocation which is rarely the way to human wholeness or holiness.

So, a few more questions I would want to ask you --- not because I expect answers to them, but which I hope you will seriously consider and work through with your director perhaps: If someone else your age came to you and said they wanted to become a diocesan hermit, what questions would you want answered? Realizing the answer may well be "no", are you willing to live as a lay hermit for the next 7-10+ years (that is until you are 31-34+ years old and have lived as a solitary for some time) until your diocese is clear that they should or should not profess you? If not, why not? What deficiencies in your own formation for any form of consecrated life are you aware of and how will you remedy these? (Here I am thinking of the demands in human maturation which anyone your age needs to negotiate to live a disciplined, productive, compassionate, and gospel-centered life.) What deficiencies have you already worked to remedy and how did you become aware of them? How about deficiencies which make waiting for 7-10+ years without a certain answer very difficult or impossible?

More, what personal strengths does solitary life allow you to live well and how have you come to that conclusion? Are there better contexts for living these gifts? Do any of the stereotypes I mentioned earlier apply to you in ANY way whatsoever? How will you remedy this? Is there any reason to think that solitude for you is something which is (or should be) transitional? How do any of these questions tie in to writing a Rule of Life? If you are unsure about how to write a Rule or what should be included, why do you think that is? If you have read the posts I put up which refer to areas which should be included, are there any which you feel unequal to writing about? How will you remedy the situation and how long do you think it might reasonably take?

I expect you found many of these questions, especially when taken as a group, overwhelming and impossible to answer. The reason is many of them take age and experience to be able to answer and clarity about all of them certainly does. Most of them require working with a spiritual director for some time to discover or work out the answers to. Many can only be answered by extended time in solitude, reflection, and serious prayer. While I don't mean to discourage you unduly, I do want you and others to understand why this vocation is often a second half of life vocation and why younger persons approaching eremitical life via eremitical communities is a better approach for everyone involved. I do wish you well and hope you will write occasionally to let me know how things are going. All my best.

On Lemons and Lemonade Revisited

[[Sister Laurel, Your posts on the time frame for becoming a hermit (On Lemons and Lemonade, etc) seem to be saying that young candidates for eremitical profession and consecration need not apply. Is that true? Canon 603 doesn't say anything about age, does it? Are there age requirements with regard to profession under Canon 603? How old were you when you considered you had such a vocation?]]

No, I am not saying that exactly, but there is no doubt that I believe it will be a rare young person from an exceptional life situation that would discover such a vocation at their own relatively young age. It tends to be recognized that eremitical vocations are associated with the second half of life. However, some of the things that affect us in the second half of life and suit us for eremitical solitude, or suggest that the door of solitude has indeed been opened to us as an invitation to enter do happen to young adults. When this is the case a young person might well find themselves called to eremitical life. In such a case, eremitical life in community (Camaldolese, Carthusian, etc) may NOT be open to the person, and solitary or diocesan eremitism might well be the avenue they should pursue.

Canon 603 per se does not mention age at all, however other canons do deal with age requirements (how old MUST one be at least --- there is no maximum age limit) for admission to vows and these would apply to the case of someone approaching a diocese for admission to vows under Canon 603. The point at issue is not chronological age really, but life experience and circumstances sufficient to nurture a vocation to genuine eremitical life. One should be an adult and capable of sustained self-discipline. One should have acquired sufficient education and religious formation to be able to educate themselves further in whatever way they need as well as to sustain them in the day to day tedium of solitude. One should be self-motivated and independent, and I think, one should not be in the blush of "first" conversion to Christ. Faith should be mature, a way of life for the person --- growing and developing still of course but --- not a new experience and especially not untested by the exigencies of life.

When I first considered that perhaps God was calling me in this way I was @34 years old. I had done most of my academic theological work and had been finally professed in Community for 8 years. I had lived with intractable chronic illness which was medically and surgically uncontrolled and chronic pain for at least 16 years, and I had worked in various ministries including hospital chaplaincy as well as in clinical lab and neurosciences. Getting all this to fit together neatly was not easy and was mostly a struggle. In 1983 the Revised Code of Canon Law came out with Canon 603. For various reasons it intrigued me, but I knew very little of eremitical life and frankly esteemed it even less. I began reading about it though and one of the first books I read was Dom Jean LeClercq's Alone With God. It was helpful in convincing me that eremitical life was something valid and even quite special --- even in the contemporary world. It also kept me reading. I then read Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action and was electrified by it and his vision of eremitical life. I began to live consciously as a hermit as a result, read and learned more about it, wrote about it, continued growing in it, and 24 years later was perpetually professed as a diocesan hermit under Canon 603. I celebrated my 58th birthday the day before that profession.

So, while I thought of myself as young at 34 yrs, I suppose I was not really so young. I do believe that solitary eremitical life is not generally a vocation for young persons. Circumstances can make for exceptions, of course, but by definition such a vocation would then be "exceptional". One should note that I have referred throughout here to the solitary eremitical vocation. The vocation of the religious hermit, that is the hermit who lives and is formed in community, is a different matter and probably admits of more young vocations than diocesan eremitism. I hope this helps.