Eremitical Vocations and Their Place in the Life of the World

 [[Sister Laurel, I wondered if you ever feel called to greater degrees of ministry? You have a good education that could help the church and parishes and you must have been preparing for ministry, so do you ever feel like you should be doing more than you are? When I think of hermits the life doesn't make sense to me, not in a world that is in such awful shape as ours is. We need all the ministers we can get! I'm not so sure we need hermits!! (I don't mean to offend you, but I hope you hear what I am saying!!) I guess what I am also asking is if you are completely comfortable with your choice to be a hermit. Don't you sometimes want to do other things to help the world instead of separating yourself off from it?]]

Thanks for your honest questions!! I think you have captured the doubts of most people when they hear the word "hermit."  Most folks, if they have any positive idea of what a hermit is, will refer to us as prayer warriors. I have to say, while I agree that a hermit is first of all a pray-er and will pray for the well being of the world and everyone we know, and while we will "battle demons" (usually those of our own hearts), the phrase "prayer warrior"is one I personally really dislike and that for three reasons: 1) the term is too pugnacious for me, too bellicose, too adversarial, 2) it turns the hermit life into one that is first of all about doing rather than being, and 3) it identifies prayer as my doing, not what God does within me (as though I storm heaven to get God to respond when the situation is quite the opposite).** But most people do not even have this sense of who a hermit is. They tend to echo your questions about the meaningfulness and place of eremitical life in the overall scheme of things and come up with unconvincing answers.

And these are important questions!! I recently told the story of how I came to this vocation. I said that upon reading c 603, I had the sense that it could make sense of (that is, make meaningful) my entire life: richnesses and poverty, talents and limitations. In doing this it could cause my entire life to hang together (cohere) in Christ. At other times I have written about how a hermit must give up some of those discrete gifts she has been given to instead herself become the gift God wishes her to be for the church and world. Both of these are highly countercultural and even counterintuitive insights that are central to eremitical life. In living as a hermit I struggled for some time to "balance" ministry with my inner life and life in the hermitage. Eventually, I learned it was not precisely about balancing these,  but letting active ministry, to whatever extent there would be any, flow from the silence of solitude and call for it as well. I still do some limited active ministry including teaching Scripture and some faith formation, spiritual direction, mentoring, consulting on c 603, and growing this blog. 

But what you and others don't see and what is really primary to and defines my life is the inner work and prayer that help make me into the person God calls me to be. This is my primary ministry because what a hermit's life is all about is witnessing to what is possible when one allows God to love one as God wills to love us. Allowing God to love me as profoundly and unconditionally as God does, is "work" because so much militates (or did militate) against that. Hence it requires persevering prayer and penance -- though what counts as "penance" might surprise you! There is an amazing paradox involved here. When we think about what it means to love another person, we realize it means finding ways to allow them to be those they are meant and called to be. To reiterate, to help others to be themselves as truly as possible is what it means to love them and the same is true of loving God. To love God with our whole self is to allow God, who is Love-in-act and who has willed not to remain alone, to be God for us. We allow God to love us as wholly and fully as possible --- this is our vocation. To be persons who let God be God is a good summary of what c 603 hermits are commissioned, first of all, to be and then, to act from.

While that is a wonderful thing to focus our lives on, it is also not something that comes easily to us.  And for some, it can be more difficult than for others, of course. But what a hermit witnesses to, and in fact, what she gives her life over to is the completion or fullness of life that is ours with and in God. As I have written before, she reminds us all that [[we are made whole and holy by God. We are incomplete without God and our lives will not be truly human unless we are in a vital relationship with God --- and when we are, well, WATCH OUT, for then life and meaning will explode within us and everyone will know it! Part of the witness we give is to the possibility of every person living joyful and fruitful lives despite all of the various forms of poverty we also know well. My sense is that we give this witness, especially to those persons who, for whatever reason find themselves on the margins --- of society, of family, of meaningful community. We say this to the chronically ill and disabled, to those who have never been loved as they are meant to be, to the littlest, the least, and the lost.]]

All of this is the reason hermits, at least in the main, give up apostolic ministry. They commit to allowing God to do for them what is promised to everyone, including or maybe especially those who have only God to depend on. What we say to others, is much the same except we try to remind them of how critically important God is to each of us, to what it means to be truly human. Hermits say to each of us that prayer, which is God's work within us, is critical to being human; it is what Love does within us if we are merely able to open ourselves to that. For most hermits I know, there is still some limited active ministry. It flows from their lives of the silence of solitude and leads back to it. As I noted above, for me that includes a bit of teaching, and spiritual direction. Occasionally, I also work with candidates for c 603 profession and consecration for dioceses that consult in this, and I am working on a guidebook to assist dioceses in the process of discernment and formation of c 603 hermits. That is about the limit of what I can do while maintaining my prayer life --- a prayer life that is necessary as much for God's sake and for myself as it is for others.

I don't separate myself from the world exactly. I live within it in the silence of solitude precisely so I can love the world into wholeness. It would be a crucial mistake to think I am not engaged with the world and especially that I am not engaged on its behalf. I agree that this cannot be seen or even easily understood; it is what the catechism refers to as the hiddenness of the eremitical life, but it is real nonetheless. The difficulty of pointing to something I do directly for others is, I think, one of the reasons people insist on identifying intercessory prayer as the heart of the vocation. That too is a very significant part of this vocation, I agree, but more foundational or basic is living the whole of one's life so that God may be God and complete and perfect one as a human being because we are his very own, that God might affirm our lives as meaningful despite limitations and poverty of every sort, or, in other words, that God might be God with and in and through us. Will this spill over and change the face of the world? I can only trust that it will!***

In thinking about this hiddenness, I think it is important to remember c 603 reads stricter separation or withdrawal from the world; it does not read absolute isolation or strictest separation (reclusion) --- though some few may be called to that. World in this canon means, first of all, that which is contrary or resistant to Christ and only secondarily the larger world of God's good creation. The hermit's life involves withdrawal (anachoresis) from both but in differing ways and degrees. I feel called to a life of withdrawal from the world so that I am more capable of loving that same world as Christ loves. I can understand why the hermit life does not make sense to you; I struggled to understand it myself and especially to understand why it was not a selfish way of life. What I have come to know profoundly is that it is an intensely generous life when lived well (and thus, for the right reasons). I hope this is a fair summary of my perspective and the way it differs from your own. Please get back to me if it raises more questions.

**  I hold this despite what St Peter Damian says about this in Letter 28:46. Hermits in a colony are soldiers and their cells are their place of bivouac. I like Peter Damian in some things and I understand this image. It is cogent and has merit but I still dislike the phrase prayer warrior!

***  (I say this because two weeks ago my director shared a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, [[“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”]] We were talking about trusting that the eremitical life (or, in Sister Marietta's case, the apostolic religious life), for all its littleness and limitations in what we can do in the face of such great need, will become a flood that transforms the world. For me, this also recalls the motto of my eremitic life and consecration: "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:9)

Feast of Saint Peter Damian (Reprise)

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person [Ecclesiola] and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Or again, [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell has functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

Eremitism as a Vocation that Belongs to the Church: Sources of this Position

 [[Hi Sister! Thanks for your recent posts on reclusion and the relatedness that is part of that vocation. I read your post on Sunday obligations for hermits last year (I think it was last yea) so I realized that reclusion is more dependent on others than we often think but there was something new in the idea that the recluse reflects the interrelatedness of all of creation. I think you were also clearer about the idea that such a vocation "belongs to the Church", not to the individual. Can I ask what the sources of your ideas on this are? Your emphasis on community is so strong that sometimes I have to remind myself you are speaking about eremitical solitude or even reclusion. Does this come from your reflection on canon 603?]]

Thank you for the question and the observations. If there is greater clarity about the idea that vocations to eremitical solitude and even to reclusion "belong to the Church" and not to the individual, it is because I am coming to greater clarity myself. I spoke recently of the spiral movement of thought -- you know, where the same points come up but each time a bit closer to the center and deeper as well. I think this is mainly something similar. When I first got some clarity on the nature of  ecclesial vocations (about 20 years ago) I knew I had come to a realization that would change a great deal in my own perceptions and understanding. I had no idea I would be exploring the meaning of the term in one way and another for the rest of my life! And yet, this is precisely what has happened --- and I think will continue as a focus for my own reflection.

(By the way, I should note here that in this post I use the term ecclesial vocation in two senses. The first is general, less usual, and means any vocation that "belongs" to the Church, is an expression of Church, or necessarily serves the Church and the world through the Church. The second sense refers to "ecclesial vocations" in the proper sense of the term. This usage is much more specific and besides everything just mentioned refers to those vocations which are mutually discerned by the individual and Church leaders and are mediated juridically by the Church in rites of profession, consecration, and ordination. Ecclesial vocations in the proper sense are governed by canons beyond those associated with the lay state of life. They are public vocations, not private ones and involve public commitments and commissioning, not private vows or the lack of specific commissioning. Consequently, they result in necessary rights, obligations, and expectations on the part of the whole Church, and often the public at large. I have ordinarily only spoken of ecclesial vocations in this proper sense.)

Something similar to what I experienced with regard to the notion of ecclesial vocations happened 40 years ago with the work of theologians Gerhard Ebeling and Ernst Fuchs and the notion of the human being as a "language event" --- which ties in here because this idea too stresses the interrelatedness of all life and the embedded nature of all vocations; people come to be in being addressed and called to be by others. They come to be in responding to these words and in addressing others. They are mutually responsible in these and other ways. Thomas Keating, as I have noted here before, calls human beings "a listening". Scripture speaks of the Christ Event, the fullest revelation of both God and Mankind as incarnate Word. Ecclesia (the Greek word for Church) is the reality of those called together to witness to the Word. Because of the theology of "language events" I came to see more clearly that none of these things exist in isolation; they cannot. It is not their nature. In any case I am coming to greater clarity regarding the profound relatedness of eremitical solitude and the vocation to reclusion myself so there is little surprise that it shows up here on this blog.

Your question is about the source of all this and I think there are five main 'streams': 1) theology (both systematic and historical theology including reflection on canon 603 and its history), 2) personal experience (including ongoing reflection on living canon 603), 3) sociology, 4) science (especially in regard to contemporary physics and biology), and 5) an increased sense of the prevalence of stereotypes and distortions of the truth. Not to worry, I am not going to list all of these in detail, but I do want you to see that each of these areas provides a kind of stream that feeds my own posts here. Sometimes I will focus on the theology involved, sometimes, on the counter cultural nature of the vocation, sometimes on the stereotypes I have encountered or the distortions of the eremitical vocation as the Church understands it, and so forth, but whichever the focus for the moment the other streams are also prevalent and feeding my thought.

A little more about canon 603:

You ask specifically about reflection on canon 603 and here I have to say that is a really great and terrifically perceptive question. You see, the one place where all the other bits come together, the one reality which combines all of these streams or threads is precisely canon 603 itself so it makes sense that it would become a kind of structural or formal center which demands a person eventually look at all these dimensions. Canon 603 is a norm for the solitary eremitical vocation in the Church. It is a bit of codified (normative) wisdom which is theologically compelling, culturally challenging, open to the findings of the behavioral sciences, and immensely respectful of the needs and experience of both the believing community and the person called to live this vocation in the name of that community.

Up until now I have said that this canon is an amazing blend of non-negotiable elements and flexibility. I hope I have conveyed that it is an amazing combination of formal structure and charismatic energy. (How often can we say a church law is an inspired gift of the Holy Spirit? I don't know -- I am no canonist! Neither am I generally tempted to approach canon law in this way but I definitely believe it is true in this case.) In any event, yes, more often than not it is my reflection on canon 603 that has been the source of insight into the eremitical vocation. At the same time that is because this canon is sort of lens which both reveals and reflects all these other streams and sources in a coherent illuminating and life giving beam.

For that reason my own experience and theological reflection, along with the lives and theological (or canonical) reflection of others illuminates this canon so that its depths and hidden contours, colors, and capacity can be more readily appreciated. If instead we see it only as a constraining norm, a law which is merely superficial or extraneous to the vocation it defines and governs, or if we treat it as a legalistic imposition which supposedly stifles the eremitical vocation, we will have failed to appreciate the nature and function of the canon itself and probably the vocation it codifies.

Personal sources, Theology:

I don't want to go into the theology involved at any length here since I think it is something I write about all the time. It is true that because I am a systematic theologian I look for the deep connections and theological underpinnings of a reality. That is just natural for me. With regard to the eremitical vocation and the call to solitude, both creation (where God is meant to be sovereign) and ecclesiology (the theology of Church) itself are foundational here. We talk of the Church as the Body of Christ and of this body having many members, all important, all necessary, all interrelated. It is hard to believe that God would call people to eremitical solitude or even to reclusion (as you say) if it meant truly being cut off from the Body of Christ in some significant way.

While it is true the relatedness between hermit and community is sometimes obscure there is no doubt it is real and critical --- just as so many of the life processes of the human body are hidden but real and critical nonetheless. This dimension is foundational and must be protected. Paul's theology of the charisms of the Holy Spirit and the way they serve and complete one another is also foundational here. We do not have people speaking in tongues without those God inspires as interpreters. We do not have individuals called to symbolize the Church at prayer without them being integrally related to that same Church. Meanwhile, as important as individual salvation and perfection might be the ministry handed onto the Church by God through the Christ Event is the "ministry of reconciliation". Through this ministry all people but also all of creation is to be brought to perfection (maturity and fullness) so that God is all in all. In all of this eremitical life is a gift of the Spirit to the Church and it is up to the Church to mediate God's call to those who live this vocation in the name of the Church. Of course Lay hermits too participate in the Church's ministry of reconciliation in this paradoxical vocation --- though as hermits they do do so in what might be called "ecclesial vocations" in the much more general sense of the term.

Personal Experience:

I have known both times when I was unable to participate effectively in church and her ministry due to illness and times when I was able to participate fully. I have lived as a hermit during both of these and there is no doubt in my mind that the first period was also one where something crucial was missing from my eremitical life while the second involves a richer and more paradoxical sense of the silence of solitude. This sense is a large part of what informs my reflections even though it is usually only implicit in my posts. Especially here, I believe the time of enforced separation due to illness made me more aware of the ecclesial or communal dimension of the eremitical life -- and particularly of the need to be able to participate in some way in the liturgical and other communal life of the Church if one is to live consecrated eremitical life in the Church's name.

Reflection on canon 603 is something I have done in both periods of my life but the relational and ecclesiological sense of each of its elements was something I resisted (it was painful to embrace completely) so long as illness prevented my own participation in parish life. My relational standing in the People of God has helped me appreciate the history of the canon, the place of community in the growth of a call to solitude, the relational nature of the vows,  and the distinction between the isolation or estrangement of sin and the engagement with God on the part of others (and in limited ways, with them as well) which is so characteristic of the silence of  eremitical solitude in an ecclesial context. One can live as a hermit both ways but there is no doubt in my mind that alienation and estrangement --- even that occasioned by illness --- only allows for a partial and somewhat distorted understanding of the canon 603 vocation.

In particular this can become clearer once the Church has admitted one to profession and consecration, when she has, in fact, entrusted one with the canonical responsibilities and obligations connected to the public form of this vocation. At that point one acquires a profound sense of being part of the handing on of a living Tradition. One acquires a more explicit sense of mission which differs significantly from mere purpose and this happens as the result of being publicly and canonically consecrated and commissioned by the Church. This is vastly different, and in some ways, a vastly richer experience of the ecclesial nature of an eremitical vocation than simply living as a hermit because one has discerned one is called to be a hermit apart from the Church's active ministry in mediating this call. My experience in this also leads me to say that in the case of lay hermits, I think there must be a strong ecclesial dimension to their lives and though this is not as clearly established as it is in the case of the canonical hermit, it must exist and be nurtured and protected by the hermit in whatever ways are possible.

Culture and the History of Eremitical Life:

Both the nature of our culture and the history of eremitical life underscores the importance of understanding eremitical life and even reclusion as relational vocations which in significant ways "belong" to the Church. Eremitical life has always been a prophetic way of life speaking the will of God into the contemporary situation with a uniquely arresting kind of power and vividness. In the days of the Desert Mothers and Fathers hermits reminded the Church it had allied itself too closely with the political and cultural environment and called it to conversion.

Today hermits remain a counter cultural reality in a world marked and marred by individualism (often expressed in materialism and consumerism) so long as solitude is understood in terms communion with God and all that is grounded in God. If solitude is defined in terms of estrangement and alienation eremitical life becomes complicit in these and betrays its own roots and nature. Similarly, to some extent eremitical life reminds religious men and women that though communion with those in the saeculum does not allow for a simplistic division between the spiritual and the secular or the sacred and profane, neither can religious buy too completely into the world of the saeculum; they must maintain an eschatological perspective and orientation even as they participate profoundly in the saeculum.

The place of stereotypes and frauds in affirming this vocation belongs to the Church:

Skipping for now the place of the sciences, there are stereotypes and those who would distort eremitical life in ways which are obstacles to understanding the profoundly ecclesial and relational nature of eremitical or reclusive solitude. Stereotypes come to life in real people today and those who represent distortions of eremitical life make it much harder for others to leave stereotypes behind. This in turn could mean that eremitical life will continue to be neither understood nor appropriately valued by the majority of our Church and world. It can also mean that for those rare persons who have such a vocation, an eremitical life will be harder to consider seriously and harder for the Church to deal with. Prelates who are charged with discerning these vocations may instead dismiss them as too bizarre, too troublesome and time consuming, too difficult to discern, and too contrary to the Church's understanding of herself or her communal life to be considered healthy. This means especially that the major expressions of disaffected human existence today (misanthropy, narcissism, isolationism, etc) will be (or continue to be) more easily labeled "eremitical" despite the fact that they are realities which are antithetical to the real thing.

Tom Leppard (see articles)

In instances where the Church's own vocation to the consecrated eremitical life is misrepresented by actual frauds this situation is exacerbated and those without such a vocation may well be misled to unknowingly adopt an equally inauthentic version of this vocation. What is especially difficult about these fraudulent vocations is the disparaging way the ecclesial dimension is treated. I believe there are relatively few outright frauds out there but because they write and otherwise represent disingenuous or perhaps "merely" delusional nonsense which is disedifying and seductive for those seeking a way to validate individualism and narcissism, they can cause significant mischief in people's lives and in the life of the Church itself. Moreover they can do so in ways far more powerful than lifeless stereotypes (which are powerful enough in themselves) can do.

I do feel real sympathy for those I am aware of --- and in some cases I feel or have felt significant pain -- both because of and for them. I sincerely believe these persons began pursuing eremitical life in good faith but failed in solitude and came to reject the Church's role in governing ecclesial vocations precisely because of individualism, illness, and sometimes, outright narcissism. It is these cases especially that underscore for me the importance not only of humility in this vocation, but of a vital embeddedness in the faith community with competent direction and regular oversight. In the cases I am aware of some do seek admission to profession under canon 603 but when they are discouraged from this, or actually refused admission, their disappointment has sometimes hardened into despair and disaffection. Once this occurs their relationship with the Church can weaken and sometimes is transformed into actual disregard for her teaching, praxis, and members. These persons may then strike out on their own while yet representing themselves as Catholic Hermits --- hermits living eremitical life in the name of the Church. I do understand the pain of such disappointment; it is terribly painful to sustain what can feel like a personal rejection. But I also understand that one's identity as an integral part of the Body of Christ is too precious to jeopardize in this way. Certainly it cannot be replaced by this kind of pretense.

The tragic irony in such cases is that the eremitical life that could have healed one's self-centeredness and transfigured one's marginalization itself becomes a victim of these. What could have been a path to significant integration, reconciliation, and fruitfulness becomes instead an example of a withered fig tree which may have lost any possibility of a verdant future. Once again though, this underscores the ecclesial nature of the authentic eremitical vocation. Such vocations, whether lay or consecrated, "belong" to and must be overseen by the Church. They are a signifcant part of her living Tradition, her Patrimony. In what may be the vocation's most significant paradox these persons demonstrate that authentic Catholic Hermits are never those who attempt to go it alone.

One final source, Camaldolese Spirituality:

Let me note briefly here that a final source of my own conviction about the notion that eremitical vocations "belong to the Church" is my own relationship with Camaldolese and Cistercian spiritualities. Any Congregation or Order comprised of hermits or allowing for hermits constitutes an ecclesial context which assures the health or vitality of the individual vocation concerned and of the eremitical vocation more generally. One of the more significant contributions St Romuald made (besides founding the Camaldolese Benedictine Order!) was bringing isolated hermits together or at least under the Rule of St Benedict --- moves which helped curb tendencies to destructive individualism, provided discipline, and related these vocations to the larger Church. Centuries later it was Peter Damian, Camaldolese monk and prelate who referred to the hermit in (her) cell as an ecclesiola ("little church") --- not because one can be church by oneself, but because an individual who is properly professed and/or integrally related to church, represents or symbolizes the whole. One of the phrases characterizing Camaldolese life is "Living Together Alone". There is no doubt I am significantly influenced by Camaldolese thought, spirituality, and praxis in this matter.

N.B., for those interested in reading about Camaldolese spirituality generally or the phrase, "living together alone", please see The Privilege of Love, and especially Brother Bede Healey's "Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone". Also important here are Dom Robert Hale's "Koinonia: The Privilege of Love", and Dom Cyprian Consiglio's, "An Image of the Praying Church: Camaldolese Liturgical Spirituality."