Another look at Pope Leo's Address to Hermits

[[Hi Sister! I heard an online hermit [name omitted] complaining that Pope Leo "left out" the "traditional historic" hermit from his recent address to hermits in Italy. She felt it was divisive and argued that c 603 hermits wearing habits and styling themselves as Sister or Brother was about mimicking genuine religious and was basically false. She also wondered if the traditional, historic hermits were no longer welcome in the Church, especially since there is such an emphasis on diocesan hermit (sic) being social when the others were not. She thought not still being in the Church was a good thing for these reasons.  On another note, I was happy to see she spoke of everyone being called to union with God, but I was disappointed to hear her suggesting there was no difference in their vocations really. I don't think she picked up on Pope Leo's reference to diocesan hermits as exemplars of what is a universal calling. Oh, she also made a point of the fact that traditional historic hermits were not limited to a single diocese, but were hermits in or of the universal Church. I think you have written about this before, haven't you? (I couldn't locate the post myself.)]]

Thanks for your email! All of these topics, except the complaint against Pope Leo, "leaving out" the "traditional historic" hermit, are things I have heard or read over the years from the person you mentioned. It is the questions that I want to deal with here, however, not their source. The complaint against Pope Leo fails to appreciate the brevity and context of his address, namely, he was making his comments to diocesan hermits who had travelled to Rome for the Jubilee. I know this because I was invited to attend with (perhaps) some small (read tiny!!) chance to speak with Pope Leo while I was there. Unfortunately, I could not attend. If one is speaking to diocesan hermits about the significance of their vocation, and the address is to be a brief one, one's comments will necessarily be limited and focused as Pope Leo's were, to diocesan hermits!! (Still, as I note below, Leo did recognize the diocesan hermit's necessary engagement with the stream of history, so that must not be missed or dismissed.)

I thought Pope Leo's comments were amazing in the way they touched on the really central aspects of the c 603 vocation. Beginning with Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman, Leo outlined the fundamental vocation everyone has to worship God in Spirit and truth. That is incredibly important and absolutely foundational for understanding the nature of eremitical life and the way it is an exemplar for every person's fundamental vocation. It was a wonderful beginning that set the stage for hearing everything else Leo spoke of and understanding the paradoxical nature of a vocation to the silence of solitude. Leo also touched on the ecclesial nature of the vocation, especially its solidarity with others (per the great quote from Evagrius Ponticus) and its open relationship with the ecclesial body and body of history. Leo captured the dialogical nature of this vocation 1) with God and one's deepest Self in the secret sanctuary of the heart, 2) with others and all of creation, and 3) with the Church itself and the eremitical tradition, which the c 603 hermit embodies.  

It is interesting (though saddening) to me that the hermit you mentioned felt it was a good thing to leave the Church in light of the Pope's comments on solidarity (the deeply social nature of hermits). This solidarity is an expression of the vocation's ecclesiality and is an essential element of the eremitical vocation as the Catholic Church understands it. To reject it and the paradoxical way the elements of c 603 must be understood is perhaps to admit one is not really a hermit, but rather, remains simply a pious loner. The essential nature of eremitical life, as Pope Leo outlined it, may surprise some, but it is exactly the profoundly and canonically ecclesial vocation c 603 outlines and codifies. In any case, c 603 does not do away with non-canonical or lay hermits, nor does it push them out of the Church. This is a kind of destructive all-or-nothing way of thinking that lacks nuance and is invalid. Much of what Pope Leo said applies to non-canonical hermits as well. But again, in his brief address, he was speaking to an assembly of c 603 hermits called and commissioned to be exemplars of the solitary eremitical vocation and the universal call to union with God. He was not excluding anyone.

As I have written before (you were correct), the diocesan hermit is a hermit in and for the universal Church, though she especially serves her local diocesan Church. S/he lives eremitic life in the name of the Universal Church and has been granted and accepted the rights and obligations associated with that place in the Church's life. However, her immediate legitimate superior is the Bishop of the diocese where she resides and in whose hands she is professed. (Delegates serve as quasi-superiors on the Bishop's and the diocese's behalf.) This is an issue of subsidiarity and an example of the effective exercise of the ministry of authority. The Church always administers or exercises such things at the most local level possible. This respects the genuinely dialogical and loving character of such ministry; after all, superiors need to know and genuinely love those with and for whom authority is exercised. They need to know the local Church in which such persons are embedded and serve. I will try to locate the post you were thinking of and link it below.

Thanks again for your outline of the online comments. They were especially helpful in providing an opportunity to look again at Pope Leo's address and consider how truly complete and well-ordered his comments therein were. It is wonderful to hear the way these resonate with my own lived and reflected experience of c 603 life, and that of others I am in contact with. I especially loved the way he begins with Scripture, draws a picture of the very core of the vocation in speaking about the human heart where worship occurs, and then draws from significant representatives of the desert tradition, in this case, from Evagrius Ponticus. What Pope Leo did in this brief address was to also capture the dialogical nature of the eremitic life in regard to its contemporary manifestation and its historical origins and foundation. He essentially affirmed that this relatively new c 603 life is authentically eremitic and reflects the desert tradition with integrity, even when that surprises people and calls for reflection and explanation. 

Moreover, Leo made very clear the way this vocation is lived for others, and serves the Church it reflects. This service is not about an occasional or limited foray into active ministry, though hermits may engage this way. Neither is it about an occasional act of charity one may do for someone who comes to one's door seeking a word, though hermits will surely do this as well. Instead, it is the service flowing from the worship occurring in the inviolable tabernacle of the hermit's heart at every moment of the hermit's life as she grows more and more transparent to God and the love and truth God is. In this way, the hermit mediates God/love/truth in and to a world badly in need. Pope Leo also addressed this point beautifully. Yes. This was truly a very fine address and a gift of God to the Church and world for the sake of this vocation and those called to live it! Or, maybe better, I should have said this was a gift of God to this vocation and those who live it for the sake of God, the Church, and God's entire creation!

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I just realized I did not address your comment regarding c 603 hermits "mimicking religious". I have addressed this before, especially on the basis of comments made in the Handbook on Canons 573-746. For the dedicated post I put up on this topic 5 years ago, please see: Are C 603 Hermits Religious?

Diocesan Hermits and Subsidiarity (This linked post was written about six years ago and can also be found under the tag, "subsidiarity".)

Pope Leo's Jubilee Year Address to Hermits (For the post with the entire address)

Pope Leo Addresses Hermits in Rome!

A link to this address was sent to me this morning. Given what I posted yesterday after almost a month of silence I have the sense the Holy Spirit was working overtime both here and in Rome! God is truly very good and it is wonderful to have Pope Leo addressing hermits and particularly diocesan hermits while stressing not only the universal yearning for God that is at the heart of every eremitical life, but the paradoxical way solitude reflects and even empowers community!! Enjoy!!

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you! Good morning to you all, and welcome!

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for being here. This meeting offers us the opportunity to reflect on the vocation of the hermit life in the Church and in today’s world.

I would like to begin with a word that the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, which we read in the Gospel of John: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him” (Jn 4:23). Yes, the Father seeks and calls, in every age, men and women to worship him in the light of his Spirit and in the truth revealed by his only-begotten Son. He calls women and men to devote themselves entirely to him, to seek him and listen to him, to praise him and invoke him, day and night, in the secrecy of their hearts. “When you pray”, says Jesus, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6). First of all, the Lord calls us to enter this hidden place of the heart, patiently delving into it; he invites us to make an inner immersion that demands a journey of emptying and divesting ourselves. Once we have entered, he asks us to close the door to bad thoughts in order to safeguard a pure, humble and meek heart, through vigilance and spiritual combat. Only then can we abandon ourselves with confidence to intimate dialogue with the Father, who dwells and sees in secret, and in secret fills us with his gifts.

You, as hermits, are called to live this vocation to worship and inner prayer, proper to every believer, in an exemplary way, in order to be witnesses in the Church to the beauty of the contemplative life. It is not an escape from the world, but a regeneration of the heart, so that it may be capable of listening, a source of the creative and fruitful action of the charity that God inspires in us. This call to interiority and silence, to live in contact with oneself, with one's neighbour, with creation and with God, is needed today more than ever, in a world increasingly alienated by the media and technology. From intimate friendship with the Lord, in fact, the joy of living, the wonder of faith and the taste for ecclesial communion are reborn.

Your distance from the world does not separate you from others, but unites you in a deeper solidarity. Evagrio Pontico writes: “A monk is one who, separated from all, is united to all” (Treatise on Prayer, 124), because prayerful solitude generates communion and compassion for all humankind and for every creature, both in the dimension of the Spirit and in the ecclesial and social context in which you are placed as leaven of divine life.

The diocesan hermit “is a figure in open relationship with the ecclesial body and the body of history” [1]. Your simple presence and your prayerful witness, through communion with the bishop and fraternal relationship with parish priests, become precious and fruitful, as they increase the “spiritual breath” of the Christian community. This is especially true in the inland areas of the country, rural contexts where priests and religious are becoming increasingly rare and parishes are impoverished of opportunities. Even in anonymous and complex urban contexts, marked by a bad kind of loneliness, hermit presences are oases of communion with God and with our brothers and sisters.

While you remain faithful to the legacy handed down by the Fathers of the Church in safeguarding the Word, through the lectio divina and the service of prayer and intercession with the prayer of the Psalms, you are at the same time called to interpret the new spiritual challenges with the creativity of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the Paraclete who opens you to dialogue with all seekers of meaning and truth, educating you in sharing and guiding their spiritual quest, often confused. All of you can encourage others to return to themselves, to rediscover the centre of gravity of the heart, as Pope Francis taught us in the Encyclical Dilexit nos. And there, in the depths of the soul, each person can discover the fire of the desire for God that burns and never goes out, as Saint Augustine teaches us: “Let us desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually” (Letter 130, 18-20). You are the guardians and witnesses of this desire that dwells within every person, so that each one may discover it and nurture it within themselves.

Dear friends, our troubled times ask you, finally, to “enter into the mystery of Christ’s intercession on behalf of all humanity, accepting to ‘place yourselves in the middle’ between creatures, fragile and threatened by evil, and the merciful Father, the source of all good” [2]. Called to stand in the breach, with your hands raised and your hearts alert, walk always in the presence of God, in solidarity with the trials of humanity. Keeping your gaze fixed on Jesus and opening the sails of your hearts to his Spirit of life, sail with the whole Church, our mother, on the stormy sea of history, towards the Kingdom of love and peace that the Father prepares for all. Thank you.

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[1] Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church. «Ponam in deserto viam (Is 43,19)». Guidelines (30 December 2021), 10.

[2] The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church, 18.