Another Look at the Divinization of our World: Anticipating Life after Life after Death!!

[[Hi Sister, I wondered if you had noticed that Joyful Hermit is beginning to talk about "spiritualizing the temporal" (see: Spiritualizing the Temporal). . . . Is "spiritualizing the temporal" a good way of talking about the Christian mission to help bring the Kingdom of God? My own SD reminds me that no reality is ordinary in light of Christ's death and resurrection. What you wrote in your response to my two other emails reminds me of the same insight.]]

Hi, and thanks for connecting again! No, sorry, I haven't seen the video you noted here, though I am interested in hearing if its maker has made the fundamental theological change involved in the title you referenced. I sincerely hope she has! As I noted in my earlier post, an absolute dichotomy or antithesis between the temporal and the spiritual is a dualism typical of Gnosticism, a movement alive since before and certainly during Jesus' time. Scholars note that traces of it can be found in the Gospel of John (written around the end of the first century), though this may have more to do with John's countering Gnosticism through the Incarnation and all implied by that.

A shift to the idea of the spiritualizing of the temporal is absolutely foundational to Christianity and is a dynamic captured in sayings like, [[God became man so that man (human beings) could become gods!]] so, if she has made this shift, good on your videographer!! The Eastern Church's theology of "divinization" or "theosis," is a wellspring of Christianity's rejection of Gnostic Dualism. The same shift is critical to our own theology of the Incarnation including the way the Cross works to destroy sin and godless death as well. (If God is implicated by Christ in these realities, they cannot be godless any longer, can they? That is part of the radical shift in the whole of reality we know in light of the Christ Event.) It is also part of "the scandal of Christianity" because our God is found in places where religion often says God does not belong --- in the spatiotemporal, for instance. But in the Christ Event, our God reveals himself fully in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place (like a sinful world or on a criminal's Cross and in Jesus' "godless" death).

 In a piece I put up just last night on the dual context of eremitical life the last line from DICLSAL, noted, [[Thus, hermits are aware that the present and eternity no longer follow one upon the other but are intimately connected.]] This is the same theology once again; it reminds us that the reality of space-time and eternity interpenetrate one another leaving neither of them unchanged. The temporal is precisely where the eternal has taken up residence, and, as noted earlier this is why we call God in Christ, Emmanuel (God with us). As you say, it is very much part of speaking of the coming of God's Kingdom both in the way some commentators refer today as the Kin-dom or extended family of God, and in the more original Sovereignty or Reign of God right here on earth in space and time. Personally, I think hermits are especially called to affirm the world around us in this way -- another reason the piece I put up last night speaks of the world as a significant (and positive) context in eremitical life.

Your SD is definitely on the same page with his/her observation about ordinary vs extraordinary. In New Testament terms we say we are part of a new creation and of course, what we mean is that we are now part of an extraordinary reality where God has revealed his will to become all in all, and where that project is well underway!! When we speak of the world around us as sacramental, or celebrate the presence of the Holy Spirit within ourselves and in our midst, when we recognize that we are adopted Daughters and Sons of God and Imago Dei and Imago Christi, when we recognize that despite the limitations and even the distortions in our world, it is shot through with the power, presence, and glory of God, we are saying what your spiritual director says. There is nothing ordinary in our world, it is all extraordinary and becoming more extraordinary as time goes on -- not because of some sort of natural progress or evolution, for instance, (though we do believe in an evolutionary and unfinished universe) but because God is at work within us and in the whole of reality making it God's very own!

I am reminded that in our Bible class, we decided to use the Summer to read something a little different before we begin Galatians sometime in the Fall. We are now working our way through Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope, Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. NT Wright reminds us that heaven is not our final or ultimate destination, but rather, what we truly anticipate is the new heaven and earth that will come in fullness with final judgment when God becomes All in All. (Tom Wright calls this, "not life after death, but life after life after death!") He teaches powerfully about the job of Christians to work towards this reality -- even beyond death as part of the Communion of Saints (in part, this is what he is referring to by the phrase "the mission of the church").  He captures this idea by calling us Christians, "Citizens of heaven, colonizing the earth."

In the piece I put up last night, the Church in Ponam in Deserto Viam recognizes hermits similarly as "sentinels of hope," precisely because hermits see this intimate relation between heaven and earth that exists everywhere we look! I love that characterization of the hermit's vocation!! We do not write off the spatial-temporal world, nor condemn it categorically, nor do we flee it as though our destiny is a disembodied heaven. Instead, we love it into wholeness in the power of the Holy Spirit. Or, we help make of it the new Temple of God in Christ by allowing and assisting God, in the language of your videographer, to "spiritualize the temporal!" 

Consumed by the Temporal or in Love With the God Revealed as Emmanuel?

Sister, do you understand the following passage? Could you please explain it? [[To be consumed with the temporal world--even the temporal world of humankind's temporalization of the Church by the human-created laws which involve yet more temporalization of one's existence in what is a temporalized church--then God's Law of Love is lost to those temporal humans. This includes the path of life upon which God sets each of us, in whatever format that may be expressed in words. Those who are so temporal as to not be able to envision a life lived in the Love of the Holy Trinity are not of those of temporal nor spiritual association.]]

From this excerpt and my own reading of other passages and blog posts, I believe I understand where this writer is coming from yes, and I personally disagree with both her premises and her conclusions. I believe that theologically she has moved away from authentic Christianity while claiming to be a Catholic Christian, and so I am critical of what she writes. In any case, what she seems to be saying is that living life in space and time (i.e., life in the spatiotemporal realm) and being concerned with things of space and time (like canon laws that help mediate God's will) obviates one's ability to be ultimately concerned with God's law of love. It's an exaggerated version of, "If you concern yourself with the things of this world, you can't attend to God's Law of Love or even envision a life lived in God's love," and thus, has both theological and spiritual implications.

Much of what this writer opines seems clearly based on an exaggerated division between the temporal and the eternal (or even the spiritual). From my own perspective, she seems unaware of God's determination to be Emmanuel right here in space and time or God's realization of that determination in the Incarnation. In this way (that is, in Jesus' incarnation of the Word throughout his life and into death itself) the eternal breaks into the temporal and is at work divinizing it. This results in a kind of paradox of which your writer seems unaware, namely, while not forgetting contemplative prayer and mystical experiences of God, it is in truly attending to the everyday "ordinary" reality in which we live, that we meet God and God's mercy and love all the time!!! God is eternal, yes, AND God has chosen to become Emmanuel right here and right now. We do not despise the spatiotemporal; we recognize that our world is now a sacramental reality with the capacity to reveal God in life's every moment and mood.   

I am not sure what your writer means by the temporalization of the Church. The Church is temporal by its very nature, just as all Sacraments are temporal even as they mediate the eternal. It is not plopped down full-blown from heaven but Divinely called and breathed into being from earthly roots. At the same time, the Church mediates the power and presence of God just as all sacraments do. The Church, however, is not the Kingdom of God though she prepares the way for God's Reign. While she serves the eternal in this sense and has a definite mystical dimension, she is not eternal; she remains a temporal reality meant to sanctify the realm of space and time by assisting in its divinization. In Christ, chronos becomes kairos --- time shot full of futurity. One of the ways the Church assists this to happen is with canon laws like C 603 which allow for and govern Divine vocations in the very midst of space and time. 

There seems to be a degree of unwarranted judgment in this writer's approach to canon law --- especially with canon 603 and those like myself who concern ourselves with exploring it and the life it describes and prescribes. Because someone like myself lives and explores the terms of the canon by allowing them to serve as doorways into the depths of Mystery or the Transcendent, this does not mean one is incapable of concern with God's law of love. Just the opposite. Neither does one's exploration of this canon and work on applying it creatively for solitary eremitical vocations mean one is somehow cut off from the Holy Spirit. Absolutely just the opposite!! It is one small way some of us living life under this canon serve others and the Church itself. We do that precisely because the Love of God moves us to do so; God works in and through Canon 603 for those called to live and/or explore this life. Unfortunately, the tendency to judgmentalism seems to prevent your writer from reading what I actually write about the canon and what it makes possible in terms of the power and presence of God. I am sorry that is the case.

Please note: I chose the pictures I did for this piece because each one is concerned in its own way with God's Love/Presence breaking into and transfiguring the ordinary realm of space and time. The first and third pictures remind me of what we miss when we denigrate the world around us or forget where God is truly found --- namely, in the unexpected and unacceptable place. The third also reminds me of what it means to see as a child sees and love as a child loves when everything (even a painted "plaster" figure) is allowed to mediate the love of God.

My sincere apologies, if the writer mentioned above, heard me saying she is not a Catholic Christian.  (Cf. On Sinful Judging Take Two)  I believe it is clear for most folks that, in fact, it is because she is a Catholic and a non-canonical hermit and blogger who often writes antagonistically about c 603 and those so professed, that I am concerned with her writing about canonical (consecrated) eremitical life. I think it is very likely the reason folks comment on or ask me about what they read on her blog(s).

On Eremitical Life and Honoring Creation

[[Hello Sister,  First, I wish you an happy easter in the joy of the risen Christ ! I have questions for you. You're an urban hermit, if I understand well. I was wondering if sometimes you missed contemplating the Creation ? As a lay cistercian. . . I need the nature to pray - walk in the woods, animals, etc... (See Laudato Si : When we can see God reflected in all that exists, our hearts are moved to praise the Lord for all his creatures and to worship him in union with them" n°87) Do you pray for the Creation, if yes, how ? Also, if there's urban hermit, are they hermits who are called to live closer to nature, in a rural setting ? Do you think it can be a part of the vocation of an hermit ?]]

Hi there. A wonderful Easter to you! Yes, I am an urban hermit but in my case I live in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a relatively affluent town built in the East Bay hills. While I live in the middle of town there are lots of tress, walking and bike paths, creeks, a reservoir with lots of wildlife, as well as access to nearby State and other parks. However, if I was able to do this, I would enjoy living in the deeper silence of a more rural and even remote area. One place I go for retreat is Redwoods Abbey on the Lost Coast of California; you'll recognize it as a Trappistine Abbey. On those occasions I love the profound silence not only of the surroundings, but the silence cultivated by Sisters (and guests) for one another.

One of my fantasies is to live in a Tree house built by someone like "the Treehouse Master" in our Pacific Northwest so I would live in a canopy of trees and perhaps even feel the motion of the wind to some extent, etc. It would allow for a simplicity of dwelling, sufficient space for oratory, small library, and living area, as well as being ecofriendly. However, this is not really feasible so I am happy enough using my patio with redwood and other trees nearby in order to pray, read and write during the late Spring and Summer. I especially love doing this at night and early mornings. At these times there is significant solitude and silence. Living close to nature, especially in a silence which opens one to a world of natural sounds has always been seen as an ideal for hermits. God does not merely dwell in silence and the natural world, He is the abyss and ground of silence. The hermits I know build in as much access to the beauty and silence of nature as is possible for them; it is a privileged environment for meeting God and oneself without distraction or distortion.

Do I pray for creation? I am not exactly sure what you mean by this question. I try to honor creation. I think of our world as suffering serious depredations at the hands of human beings, as being God's own, and as requiring much better stewardship by all of us. I pray, as I pray for all things which concern me/the Church. In terms of theology I read and am reading more extensively as time goes by on the intersection of science and faith, evolution and the coming to be of a "new heaven and earth."  I completely reject the simplistic dichotomous treatment of the temporal and eternal, earth and heaven, and I write consistently about the interpenetration of heaven and earth, the bodiliness of resurrection, and the God who one day will be all in all. These are theological pieces of regarding the whole of God's creation as a sacramental reality and they are a significant part of the theological underpinnings which make honoring creation imperative and part of every person's calling.

Not sure I have answered your question but I hope this is helpful. If this raises more questions for you please get back to me. In the meantime all good wishes for the season!

When Concern for the Temporal is also Engagement with the Eternal

Dear Sister, you write a lot about temporal things, laws, requirements, the contents of a lay hermit's prayer space, habits, titles, and things like that. One blogger has opined that hermits grow beyond such concerns as they become more spiritual. She wrote recently: "How long did this hermit remain more or less in place, discussing or thinking about--or maybe thinking it had the responsibility to write about temporal matters such as what does a hermit wear, or eat, or daily routine, or title, or rule of life or what prayers, or what degree of solitude, and what does its hermitage look like? . . .Do we outgrow, or should we outgrow, the temporal aspects of our lives as we progress in life, and spiral more upward--or deeper in--and seek the spiritual aspects that our souls truly desire and actually need?"

Before I ask my questions I wanted to say I am grateful to you for your blog. I think it is probably helpful to people considering becoming hermits and for those of us with questions about spirituality generally. I also love that you share things like what gives you pleasure or post videos of your orchestra. Those posts reveal a lot about yourself and I personally enjoy that. My question is whether you see yourself growing out of a concern with temporal things or writing about these things? The other blogger thought these reflected a newly-wed stage of life; she also suggested that the concern with the temporal had a link with the US as opposed to other countries. I guess her blog readers come more from other countries and are not as interested in some of the questions you deal with. I don't see how she could know what countries your questions come from though.]]

Thanks very much for your comments and questions. No one ever asked me about what gives me pleasure before; I am sure at least some think there is nothing edifying about the experience of pleasure! As though the mere experience of pleasure implies one is a hedonist! Others have asked me to say more about my everyday life but I have not been able to do that; these questions seemed sort of invasive and also were a little hard to imagine what to say. Anyway, I enjoyed that question and I hope one of the things it indicates is the profound happiness associated with this vocation. Every aspect of it can be a source of real joy and yes, "pleasure" or gratification because it all reflects life with God and the quality of that. To some extent that anticipates your questions!.

I may have told this story before, but I was once working with a hermit candidate in another diocese and he asked me how I balanced "hermit things" and "worldly things" in my life. When I asked him what he meant by worldly things he listed things like grocery shopping, doing the dishes and laundry, scrubbing floors, cleaning the bathroom and things like that. When I asked about "hermit things" he referred to prayer, lectio divina, Office, Mass, and things like that. In other words, he had divided the world neatly into two classes of things, one having to do with what most folks call "worldly" or "temporal" and those most folks refer to as "spiritual" or "eternal." What I had to try and make clear to this candidate was that to the extent he really was a hermit, everything he did every day were hermit things, everything he did or was called to do was to be an expression of the eternal life he shared in by virtue of his baptism and new life in Christ.  A neat division into spiritual and temporal simply doesn't work with our God. The incarnation rules that out.

Instead we belong to a Sacramental world in which the most ordinary and ephemeral can become the mediator of the divinely extraordinary and eternal. We see this every day in our own worship as wine wheat, water, oil, and wax among other things mediate the life and light of God to us. Even more, we belong to a world which heaven has begun to interpenetrate completely. It is a world in which God is meant to be all in all, a world which itself is meant to exist in and through God alone. This involves God revealing (Him)self in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place --- transforming (hallowing) them utterly with his presence. The descent and self emptying of God in creation and the incarnation is balanced or completed by the Ascension of the Risen Jesus into the very life of God. As we heard earlier this week, Christ goes to God to prepare a place for us, a place for the human and "temporal" in the very life of God (Him)self.

It is the place of disciples of Christ to proclaim the way the event of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection has changed our world and our destiny. Christians recognize that every part of our world and our lives can glorify God. That is, every part of our world and lives can reveal God to others. So, you see, I think the simplistic division of reality into temporal and spiritual is actually anti-Christian and I have said this in the past. I don't, therefore, think we outgrow our concern with the temporal dimensions of our lives. Instead, unless we refuse to allow this to occur through our all-too-human ways of seeing and thinking, they come more and more to reflect the presence of God and are consecrated or made holy by that presence and our awareness of it.  Because my own vocation is a public one I feel a responsibility to share about elements of that vocation which people raise questions about. Moreover, many of the questions I have dealt with recently are related to becoming a hermit, discerning the distinction between legitimate hermits and counterfeits, fielding concerns about distortions in spirituality which can be harmful to people, etc. I think these are important.

Especially these questions lead  to or are part of important discussions of truthfulness, personal integrity, pretense, shame, the dialogical and ecclesial nature of the eremitical vocation, the capacity of one's relationship with God to transform the deficiencies of her life into actual gifts, the nature of symbols, our faith as essentially Sacramental, the universal call to holiness and the sanctity of ALL vocations, the importance of lay eremitical life as well as of canonical or consecrated eremitical life, ministerial vs contemplative vocations, and any number of other topics. What may seem to be superficial matters, matters far removed from the "spiritual" or "eternal" tend from my perspective as a theologian, a contemplative, and a Benedictine to open unto far deeper issues. This is because they are part of an organic whole where the whole is essentially sacramental.

However, there is another perspective which I should mention. The blogger you are citing is a privately dedicated lay hermit. She is certainly called to be responsible for her vocation but not in quite the same way I am for mine. She does not share the same rights (title, habit, publicly ecclesial eremitical life) nor is she publicly responsible for things like the quality of her rule, the importance and nature of a horarium, the place of legitimate superiors and the nature of obedience, the degrees and types of solitude one is called to embrace, degrees and kinds of work allowed, forms of prayer advised, approaches to penance, the charism of the life, etc. Because of this she may not see these things or their depth and significance in the same way I do. That is hardly surprising.

Of course this blogger has every right to disagree, to weigh in on issues and give her own perspective on them, especially if she does so honestly as a woman living a privately dedicated lay eremitical life rather than a "consecrated Catholic Hermit" or "professed religious". If she so chooses she is completely free to speak only of the things she considers spiritual matters and leave all those other things up to those for whom they are more meaningful and part of a deeply incarnational spiritual life and perspective. What she is less free to do is speak with impunity about canon 603, its nature and associated rights and obligations as though she is as knowledgeable about such things as someone living them. When she does this she opens herself to discussion, debate and even correction by those (canonists, hermits, historians, theologians) who are both more experienced and more knowledgeable than she is. Granted, some of what she seems to be dismissing as "temporal" rather than "eternal," for instance are certainly things an experienced hermit does not worry about and she is correct that some of them (like habits and titles) are usually of more concern to beginners or "wannabes".

However, they are also matters which point beyond themselves to the ecclesial nature and dimension of the vocation; thus some canonical hermits honor these with their lives. Other matters are never superficial. The hermit's Rule, will help the Church hierarchy to discern vocations to the eremitical life under canon 603 while the task of writing one can aid in a hermit's formation as well as her diocese's discernment of her readiness for temporary or perpetual profession. Beyond profession it will be part of governing and inspiring her life day in and day out for the remainder of her life. She will live in dialogue with it and with God through it so long as she lives. My own Rule is something I make notes in, reflect on, and revise as my own understanding grows and life circumstances change. Among other things it helps me to discern the wisdom of increased active ministry or greater reclusion, review the overall shape of my life, reflects the nature of my prayer and growth in this, and can even reflect the quality of my physical health and call attention to problems I might not be aware of otherwise.

Another matter which is never merely superficial is the way a hermitage or one's prayer space looks. Here appearance and function are profoundly related. Canonical hermits are publicly responsible for simple lives of religious poverty, obedience and celibate love in the silence of solitude. God is the center of their lives and their living space should reflect all of these things. What is as important --- since few people will actually come into hermit's living or prayer space --- is that a hermitage with too much "stuff" can be an obstacle to the life a hermit is called to live. I have been doing Spring cleaning off and on these past two weeks or so and that means getting rid of the accumulation of a year and more. This accumulation occurs partly because I don't drive and cannot simply take stuff to used book stores, thrift stores, the salvation Army, etc. Papers and books especially accumulate. Once the "stuff" is gone, even though the place was neat anyway, the feeling is simply much different. I personally feel lighter, happier, more able to "breathe", work and pray.

Further, the way my hermitage looks tends to be a good barometer of how well I am living my life. For me the richness and vitality of one's inner life is reflected in simplicity, beauty, light, and order. The opposite of these things can say that I am struggling --- sometimes spiritually, sometimes physically, and sometimes both; they may also cause me to struggle. On the other hand some specific forms of clutter and accumulation are associated with productive work and are a sign of the vitality of my inner life. In any case these "superficial" or "temporal" matters are a clue and key to attending to the state of my inner life with God and with others. I think a lot of people experience something similar. Again, we are talking about an organic whole in which inner and outer are intimately related and mutually influential.

The simple fact is that in our incarnational faith concern for and engagement with the temporal is the means by which we are engaged with the Eternal and the ordinary way the Eternal is mediated to us. Resurrected life is Bodily existence and though we can hardly imagine what this means we must continue to hold these two things together in our understanding just as we hold the temporal and the spiritual together in our appreciation of reality as sacramental.

Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (Reprise)

Image from Saturday Evening Post article

In the current (May/June 2013) issue of The Saturday Evening Post there is an article on "The New Urban Hermits" for which Jack El-Hai interviewed Karen Fredette (former hermit and, with her husband Paul, editor of Raven's Bread), Roger Cunningham (former Buddhist hermit), and myself. There are a couple of factual inaccuracies which make me sound like a vowed Camaldolese rather than a vowed diocesan hermit and Camaldolese Oblate but generally I think the article is really well done and that Jack El-Hai got his head and heart around something few people really understand. He deserves real credit for that.

One of the fine points Karen Fredette  makes is that hermits are about doing ordinary things with an extraordinary motivation.  I made a similar point used later in the article which, when taken with Karen's comment, suggests hermits experience this as the sustaining "glue" and heart of a vocation to contemplative life including eremitical solitude. It is certainly fundamental to Benedictinism and Camaldolese Benedictinism. I can't post the article here (I don't have a copy to do that with anyway) but I can reprise a post I put up here five years ago on living "an extraordinary ordinariness." Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (05. June.2008) Too often people think of hermits or their essential hiddenness as abnormal. This blog post spoke to these things; for those who are coming to this blog because of the SEP article, Welcome! I think you will find this post is a good introduction to the heart of eremitical faitfulness.

On Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness

[[Thank you for answering my questions about the hiddenness of the hermit life. What you write about its "essential hiddenness" sounds like the same "hiddenness" which is true of the lives of many people living in the world. You and other hermits seem to make a virtue of this, but isn't it pretty ordinary?]]

Yes, it is very ordinary, and in fact, that is precisely its virtue. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the hermit is meant to witness to those whose lives are ordinary in ways which may cause them to question the meaning and value or significance of  those lives. I have written about those in unusual circumstances (chronic illness, disability, etc) who are called upon to witness to the Gospel in vivid and poignant ways, but I have not really said much about those who work day in and day out at menial jobs and who see their lives as essentially meaningless or unimportant. I think the hermit can remind us each that every life, no matter how apparently unproductive or ordinary, is really (or is certainly meant to be!) part of a profound dynamic where the Kingdom of God comes to be realized more and more fully in our world. That happens, for the most part and for most persons, in the perseverance and day by day faithfulnesses exercised in ordinary life.

There is nothing spectacular or even very remarkable about the hermit's life in the ordinary sense of those words. It is very much a life of day to day faithfulness to the call of God and that call summons the hermit to prayer, work, study, and (sometimes) even some degree of outreach or evangelization every day in a way which repeats again and again. No one much recognizes what happens here in the hermitage as special, and from one perspective, there is nothing special about it. It is completely ordinary whether one is writing an article, doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom, praying Office, doing personal work, studying, or meeting with occasional direction clients. Even contemplative or quiet prayer is pretty ordinary stuff from one perspective. From another perspective, of course, it is all very special, because it is all done in and with God, and in order to foster the coming of his Kingdom. When the ordinary is undertaken with and in the grace or presence of God it always becomes extraordinary, and yet, no one is likely to see that really. When I wrote in my earlier response that even my telling you what I do during the day would leave the essential mystery of the life intact, that is what I meant.

The challenge to each of us is to undertake the ordinary in a way which is attentive and sensitive to the presence of God. It is the challenge to undertake these things with a care and even love which, through the grace of God, transforms them into something extraordinary. This is basic spirituality and it is this which the hermit's day to day life accepts and affirms as infinitely valuable. I can say without question that although I do not know how it happens, I know without a doubt that my life in this hermitage, my daily perseverance in cell, my faithfulness to prayer, work, study, and the ordinariness of life, allows for God's Kingdom to be more fully realized right here and right now. I know without question that Stillsong Hermitage is a small bit of leaven in the loaf that is my community and the world, and that it contributes to the transformation of that whole even though I may never really understand that or see it realized in my lifetime.

Personally, I believe that every person is challenged to embrace his or her life in this way, especially in its ordinariness. God transforms everything he is allowed to touch with his hallowing love, and our job is to let that happen in all the ways day to day living puts before us. If we can do that, and to the extent we do it, again, the ordinary will be transformed into something extraordinary because each task and moment becomes the occasion where God's grace is allowed to enter in and to triumph. That is the very essence of affirming the goodness and sacramental nature of all reality. So, in each and everything we undertake, we strive to be attentive, aware, care-full, loving, and (describing all of these together) truly present. Nothing in this life is really ordinary unless we allow it to remain that by foreclosing it to our own conscious presence and the effect of God's grace. On the other hand, the really extraordinary in our daily lives is likely to remain hidden from most people for the whole of our lives.

I am thinking of the husband or wife who cares for his or her sick spouse day in and day out for weeks, months, or years, for instance. The most mundane act is transformed when carried out with loving awareness, attentiveness, and openness to God's grace, and yet no one sees this or thinks much to remark on it. It is unspectacular in many ways, but clearly extraordinary at the same time. And yet it is essentially hidden from the eyes of the world. So much of our lives really is hidden in this way.

It takes the eyes of faith to see as the hermit or other contemplative sees! I think the hermit witnesses not only to this essential hiddenness, but to the humility and faithfulness that is so necessary in a world where everyone seems to need to make a name for him or herself --- even if the only name they can claim is that of victim --- a thriving category of dubious "achievement" in the contemporary world! The hermit witnesses to how truly extraordinary is the life of "ordinary" faithfulness, "ordinary" perseverance, ordinary "heroism," and "ordinary" love undertaken in God. After all, this is precisely what Jesus' life was about; it is precisely who Jesus was and what Jesus revealed true humanity to be. It is therefore unsurprising that Jesus' miracles were, in the end, insufficient to really reveal the Kingdom of God except as a testimony to the fact that that reign comes to us and is made manifest in ordinary faith! The hermit witnesses to how infinitely meaningful is the life that our contemporary world dismisses as trivial and insignificant -- if it is lived in and through the grace of God.

Addendum, July 2013: The article is now available on the Saturday Evening Post website:  May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post

Sister, Why are you Personally Interested in the vocation of CV's living in the World?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, while I appreciate what you have written about canon 604 vocations, I wonder why it is of such interest to you. You are not a CV, nor discerning a vocation to this. Why are you continuing a conversation which does not personally interest you?]]

Thanks for your questions. I have written about this before a little more than a year ago so I would suggest you look at the posts on consecrated secularity and CV's from that time. Even so, I can summarize my concerns and interest for you. It begins with the fact that this vocation made NO sense to me either theologically or pastorally until I read Sister Sharon Holland,. IHM's essay on the place of the Consecrated Virgin in today's Church. As I wrote a year ago, before that I felt it was a reality "in search of a job description" or "raison d'etre", neither fish nor fowl --- rather like secular institutes sometimes seemed, but without the benefits of community life, vows, or a Rule of Life. It was the secularity, and especially the consecrated or eschatological secularity of the vocation which allowed its charismatic import as gift of the Holy Spirit to become theologically clear to me. Once this happened I could see this was not some half-hearted vocation for those unwilling or somehow unable to adopt the whole reality of religious life (what the LA Province called a "fallback vocation"), but instead a whole-hearted and very challenging call to a qualified (specifically, an eschatological) secularity the world is destined for. When I ask myself what allows me to understand this vocation as a gift of the Holy Spirit and to explain the vocation positively rather than in terms of what it is not, this is the primary element which allows me to do that.

So, to summarize the important elements of my PERSONAL interest:

1) Contrary to what some argue, consecrated secularity is hardly common or as natural as breathing. The Church has a long history of esteeming consecrated life but not so of secular vocations which have been seen as profane and hardly a way to holiness. This changed with Vatican II and the Church still needs a holiness which is modeled by those leading thoroughly or radically secular vocations which are ALSO radically and consciously consecrated. These vocations contrast belief in a God who ultimately makes a Sacrament of this world with secularism so we need people who embrace such vocations and make the distinction clear with their lives. I am completely committed to Vatican II and to its recovery of this  eschatologically secular vocation and the theology of a universal call to holiness.

2) Some are arguing that making this vocation a quasi-religious vocation (vows, distinctive garb, titles, post-nomial initials, etc) is actually a deepening of it and that younger CV's are thus doing this when older CV's have lived a mediocre consecrated secularity. I argue that this is instead a betrayal of the vocation as the Church clearly understands it, and that if these changes are made the vocation will cease to be meaningful, much less truly charismatic, and speak to no one. (These women will not speak to religious --- who would thus live a more radical religious life than CV's, nor would they speak to secular members of the Church who are called to embrace and witness to the Kingdom of God within the world in all of its everyday dimensions. Both the Church and the WORLD needs this  radically eschatological AND radically secular witness desperately because what VII called everyone to was an exhaustive holiness wherever their vocations were lived. This is still not well understood in terms of secularity.)

3) The arguments the Church uses are historical, theological, liturgical, pastoral, canonical, etc and because of this these reasons for calling the vocation a form of sacred secularity are interesting to and rightfully addressed by theologians. It is neither appropriate nor accurate to neglect the historical contexts pertinent to this vocation's nature and significance (Vatican II  and Centuries 1-12 especially, but also the reality of consecrated virginity as it existed BEFORE the Church hierarchy began to control it in the second century)  and then argue this is a "proto-religious" vocation or "more radical" than what women have lived for the past 30 years. Unfortunately, this is what I have heard some CV's without apparent theological, historical, or pastoral sophistication doing. (Part of this involves ignoring the variety of authoritative ways the Church teaches and only paying serious attention to de fide statements, for instance. Part of it involves suggesting a witness to sacred or eschatological secularity is not even needed by today's world. Someone with theological training and a personal acquaintance with consecrated and Religious life needs to counter these tendencies.)

4) Thus, I am concerned with this issue because the vocation was actually subverted in the past when it became associated with ONLY its religious (cloistered) expression and the original secular expression was wholly lost in 1139. This should not be allowed to happen again, especially when the vocation which reprises the original secularity of the call is only 30 years old. I am concerned with this because as a hermit I deal with world-hating (and world-demeaning) language all the time. I am in a unique position to reflect on the meaning of the term "the world" both exegetically, canonically, experientially,  and theologically and too, on the significance of secular vocations. Similarly, I am concerned with any notion of vocation which ignores the development of Vatican II and its universal call to exhaustive holiness along with the clear teaching that ALL the baptized are called to live some form of the evangelical counsels and are encouraged to pray the Liturgy of Hours.

Pastorally I have dealt often, and even regularly with the pain of those called to lay (and/or secular) vocations who mistakenly think they must make private vows to embrace a radical discipleship or aspire to authentic holiness. (Instead they need to specify the demands of their baptismal consecrations and/or marriage vows regularly. Too few have done this because they don't see Baptism as a call to radical discipleship.) It is a VERY common thing to hear lay people who are, almost by definition, usually called to secular vocations (lay hermits are different) to complain they feel called to a third class or entry-level vocation which makes them called but not really "chosen." It is similarly common to hear these same people asking the related question of whether the Church REALLY esteems secular vocations or has merely thrown them a few crumbs in revising their roles during liturgy. The theology supporting such notions is abhorrent.

5) Finally, I have the sense that SOME of the younger CV's are unclear on their own motivations in all of this. I think there is too much accent on NOT being mistaken for laity or members of secular institutes, or on separating oneself from them in visible ways. I believe some of these CV's have bought into a very worldy misunderstanding (worldly in the worst sense) of Thomas Aquinas' teaching on the objective superiority of religious vocations and that they demean or denigrate secular vocations in spite of VII or the call to a New Evangelization. I believe that some of these women are resistant to thinking paradoxically as the Gospel requires of us and therefore are fostering a way of thinking which is fundamentally Greek and pagan rather than truly Christian. I also believe that some of these women do not really understand the import or content of religious poverty or religious obedience and the very different freedom that issues from these as opposed to properly secular expressions of the evangelical counsels. Like others, I wonder why these women did not simply pursue religious life if they truly believe the secularity of the original call which persisted for more than 11 centuries side by side the religious expression was wrong or somehow immature and in need of deepening.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Minimized Secularity: A Legitimate Development for CV's?

[[Dear Sister, Wouldn't it be possible for the Church to discover that the vocation of consecrated virgins living in the world has developed in a way which requires the kinds of things you say separate Religious from aspects or dimensions of the world? I understand your argument that this would mean the Church was wrong for 30 years, but vocations DO develop. Why couldn't a mitigated secularity (your words) be a development?]]

That's a good question and I am pretty sure it is precisely what the minority of CV's who desire the separating trappings of Religious life would argue. When I spoke of being free to experiment in my own vocation in order to discover the shape of eremitical life in the 21st Century I was referring to this question indirectly. You may remember that what I said there is that any experiments I might do would be limited by the nature of my vocation. For instance, I can't make it a secular vocation when part of the canon reads "stricter separation from the world" --- and so, defines this as even more intensely non-secular than other religious vocations.  I can't do this when the liturgy by which I was professed stressed this separation at every point (official liturgy is normative as law is normative). Once my own vocation becomes secular it ceases being eremitical.

There is no calling it secular in the "weak sense" because I don't live on monastery property or out in the boonies, or in a literal desert for instance. It is eremitical because it is defined in terms of the central elements of canon 603 and the Rite of Profession we used, or it is not eremitical at all. Further, these elements are always the ones which guide my implementation of various practices; thus, if I am called on to do some limited ministry at the parish I have to be sure my life is still clearly eremitical in terms of stricter separation, assiduous prayer and penance, and the silence of solitude. I cannot begin to define my life as "less eremitical" or eremitical in the weak sense, or even as "more ministerial" --- as good as any of those things are generally. I am committed to keeping its essential nature or I will lose it altogether.

In canon 603, for instance, "stricter separation from the world" clearly does not refer to a physical place. It means non-secular. For that reason Bishops profess urban hermits as well as those living in more natural wildernesses. It seems reasonable that when canon 604's Rite of Consecration refers to women "living in the world" then, it is not referring simply to physical location.  It is referring to something more essential and fundamental on which all else is therefore built. This conclusion has to be buttressed with the other things I have mentioned, including the fact that canon 604 CV's are said to be called to serve in the things of the spirit and the things of the world (cf homily from Rite of Consecration), the fact that it is women living thoroughly secular lives who are irrevocably consecrated, the historical and theological context of the vocation which underscores a recovery of a secular vocation lost in the 12th Century when the vocation became the sole property of cloistered nuns, the fact that ministerial or apostolic religious who are virgins do NOT receive this consecration as they surely should if the vocation is not truly secular, the important emphasis of Vatican II on the universal call to holiness, and finally the New Evangelization's emphasis on a new missiology which esteems the secular while struggling against secularism.

 While I have referred to canon law history, the theology of consecrated and religious life, Christology, ecclesiology, liturgy, and a few other things in various posts on this, my basic concern and argument is pastoral. The bottom line for me is that unless this is a thoroughly secular vocation (consecrated life though it is) it does not make sense; unless it is truly secular it will remain a somewhat half-baked, less than radical vocation (neither secular nor religious), and will be incomprehensible and inspiring to neither those living secular lives nor to those living as Religious.

Only if it is a truly secular vocation is it truly charismatic since charisms come from the interaction of the world's need and the influence of the Holy Spirit; only then will it speak relevantly and prophetically to a world-at-large which is called to live the life of the Kingdom in the state of secularity. (I firmly believe this world does NOT truly need yet another vocation which suggests secularity is NOT a call to a radical, exhaustive holiness!) I simply don't believe turning the vocation into a quasi-religious vocation will inspire most people to live an eschatological or sacramental secularity. While my own vocation can summon people to build silence, solitude, and prayer into their lives to a greater degree, and while it can remind them that it is God alone who completes us and is sufficient for our needs, there is also the danger that I give the signal one must leave the world to be a person of prayer, silence, or genuine solitude. I may, unfortunately, give the mistaken signal that one needs vows or special garb or legitimate superiors, to be called to or become holy. And so forth.

Referring only to the fundamental nature of consecrated virginity and not to its special graces, a vocation called secular and given to others "in the things of the world" as well as those of the Spirit is a gift to the secular world in particular for it says that holiness is possible without the separation adopted by religious. It was once taken as common truth that such separation was required for genuine holiness. But this is, of course, no longer the case. Vatican II stressed the universal call to holiness and in light of that vocations to secular institutes as well as the recovery of the consecration of virgins living in the world have become significant calls to a secularity which leads to genuine holiness. Meanwhile the New Evangelization calls for the Church to proclaim a Gospel which transforms all of reality. It hardly seems reasonable to me then that turning the vocation into a quasi religious vocation or otherwise mitigating its secularity so that it is no longer the gift the post-Vatican II Church and the New Evangelization require can be called a development --- at least not a legitimate or positive one.

One final point. The ancient vocation  to consecrated virginity went through a development which saw it used more and more exclusively for women entirely separated from "the world" and cloistered in monasteries and convents. This is now seen as something which turned the nature of the vocation on its head. (cf,  Holland, Sharon, "Consecrated Virgins for Today's Church") Eventually, even the remaining secular expression of the vocation was lost (around 1139). It is the case that this loss corresponded to a time of decreased esteem for the secular and the association of the call to holiness with religious and priestly life alone. This development contributed to the hardening of divisions between sacred and profane, religious and secular, which was destructive of dimensions of the spiritual life of the Church and represented a kind of class-ism which is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Vatican II worked mightily to move past this in what she taught and the revival of the secular consecrated virgin vocation developed as a piece of this. I would therefore be chary of any suggestions that CV's wishing to recapitulate this original development from secular to cloistered in some way is a good thing. Moving away from the thoroughgoing and sacred secularity of the vocation seems to me to be doing just that.

On Consecrated Virginity, "Hairsplitting" and "nitpicking"

[[Dear Sister, I see that you got hassled for "hairsplitting" and "nitpicking" in the distinctions you drew in Phatmass discussion on Consecrated Virginity of Women living in the world. Like you I believe that words have meaning and it is a sign of respect for meaning and truth to take care with language. I don't mean to ask you to repeat all you have written here about the vocation to sacred secularity which c 604 represents but I wonder if you have an explanation of why people so object to someone being clear about how the Church uses language?  With regard to c 604 and consecration why does this seem to be so do you think? Why is the secularity of the vocation such an issue? Also, why do people seem to need to say "My consecration is better than yours!!"?]]

Yes, I did get in a bit of  difficulty for making sure folks were using a basic vocabulary correctly. (One person even suggested Jesus would be weeping over all this hairsplitting! I agree he is likely sighing in forebearance, but not because of my concern over significant nuances.) For instance, one person said CV's made vows to their Bishops. I pointed out not only that CV's do not make vows at all, but that all vows are made to God alone, not to human beings. When someone complained that after all this was not heresy (and so, she implied, not all THAT important) I pointed out that it could be heresy and was, at the very least, blasphemy since making vows TO a person rather than in their hands arrogates to them a dignity which is due God alone. The content and dynamics of a vow of obedience would be quite different if one was vowing this TO a person rather than doing so in a way which commits BOTH persons to discern together what the will of God would be in any given situation. I also spoke of the distinction between receiving and witnessing a vow, and I pointed out that Vatican II assiduously kept the distinction between consecration (an act of God) and dedication (the human side of the commitment) so that we should not speak of consecrating ourselves to God, but of dedicating ourselves.

So, why are folks so careless with language, and more, so upset when one insists that words have meanings and that in canon law and theology people are very careful about nuances? Good question. I am sure simple ignorance is a big part of this. We aren't always used to using language accurately and in this world of instant electronic contact where letters replace words and acronyms replace actual sentences, taking care to actually learn and respect the nuances of usage or to reflect on the importance of these is becoming less and less common.  Unfortunately, another piece of this ignorance is an unawareness of the significant implications of usage. For instance, as noted above there is a BIG difference in living the content of promises made to a person and living the content of vows made to God. Vows bind both the subject and the superior in an ecclesial relationship as mutual discerners of God's will, and does so explicitly. It also makes clear that this is not blind obedience and that while the two persons are not peers, an individual, for significant reasons, may indeed disagree with a superior's judgment and be truly obedient to God nonetheless. Similarly there is a big difference between a legitimate superior receiving one's vows (an act done in the name of the church and resulting in legal relationships and obligations) and simply witnessing them (not done in the name of the Church , etc.) or between either eschewing (or embracing) secularism and eschewing (or embracing) a secular vocation.

But where vocations come into play being accurate is threatening to some. For those still wed to the notion that a lay vocation is an entry-level vocation and "lower" than a supposedly "higher" vocation like "consecrated" life, to point out that specifications of baptismal commitments with private vows are acts of dedication, not consecration or that these leave the person in the lay state, is something which threatens their view of themselves and others. Here the Church has simply done a very poor job in effectively teaching Vatican II's universal call to holiness, catechizing on the nature of Baptism, or on being clear how exhaustive the discipleship demanded of EVERY Christian is --- especially in light of a past Tradition that seemed to speak of things rather differently and which has never been adequately translated for contemporary church life.


With regard to c 604 and secularity we run into the same problems, and they all come to a head in this vocation's charism and importance. There are several problems: 1) people don't distinguish between the secular and secularism, though these are two very different things. Secularism treats the secular as the ultimate reality determining their actions and values; often they even worship it. Secularity, on the other hand, treats the everyday world of space and time (saeculum) as the potential sacrament of God's incarnational presence, honoring it appropriately as mediatory and charisma (gift); 2) people still distinguish a secular vocation as "lower" than a religious vocation despite the fact that both represent calls to exhaustive holiness, one a call lived in the world, and the second a call marked by degrees of separation from the world. (Thus the second has distinctive garb, and vows which qualify one's relationship to the central worldly dimensions of wealth, power, and relationships where the former does not.) 3) there remains a tendency to equate secularity with the profane (that which is "outside the temple"), and thus to denigrate it while equating consecrated life with the sacred (that which is of or within the Temple.)

When women consecrated to the sacred secularity of canon 604 argue against this secularity they tend to be unable to embrace the paradox here and continue to try and stress one element (sacredness or secularity) over the other. Thus, if one is consecrated the conclusion is they can't be secular and if one is secular the conclusion is one cannot be living a consecrated life (that is, in the consecrated state of life). But, the Incarnation modeled by Jesus tells us this is exactly wrong and so does what authoritative writers (including a Pope or two) have written about the vocation to consecrated virginity of women living in the world. It is hard to let go of the either/or, higher/lower mindsets so typical of the world's ways of evaluating things and to adopt the ways of the Reign of God. (None of us are far from being the disciples clamoring to know who is higher or who would be sitting at Jesus' right hand!) And yet, letting go of these ways of valuing reality is precisely an aspect of the vocation to consecrated virginity lived in the world that is its truest charism or gift to the Church and World. It is in regard to this Kingdom message that CV's are apostles and prophets with a countercultural truth.

There is two further reasons this is all so difficult: 4) we are actually asking CV's under c 604 to adopt another theological context for understanding the eschatological nature of their vocations. If heaven is a  merely otherworldly reality (what is sometimes referred to as pie in the sky by and by) then it is true there is no reason to accept the call to be apostles of a Kingdom which interpenetrates this one and transfigures it into the Sacrament of God's presence. (For that matter there is little reason to invest in this world at all, whether in ministry, medicine, politics, education, or anything else.) But to be truly meaningful canon 604 requires CV's to recognize and embrace the truth that Paul, John,  and the early Church more generally spoke of heaven or eternal life in terms of the reconciliation and transformation of the saeculum in a way which looks forward to God one day being ALL in ALL. That is a huge theological step away from what so many believe today about heaven or the secular and a very demanding theological context to ask CV's to embrace and be clear about with their lives. Even so, it is a fundamental part of the theological context which undergirds the paradoxical sacred secularity of the call to consecrated virginity and allows it to be precisely the kind of gift our world yearns for so desperately.

The vocation is easily misunderstood and distorted without or apart from this context. After all, what the world does NOT need is another vocation which seems to say the secular cannot be embraced as the place God is made fully manifest, a vocation in which some dimension of the incarnational God we call Emmanuel is embarrassing or scandalous, a vocation which fails to embrace a thoroughgoing secularity vividly proclaiming the truth of Vatican II's universal call to holiness.

And this raises the final related reason all this is so difficult: 5) this is a "new" (recovered) vocation in search of its truest meaning after having been partly subverted by cloistered life and disappearing altogether in the 12th Century. The original consecrated virgins as a whole were not proto-nuns. They were secular women consecrated to serve the Church in every sphere of life and this vocation continued into the 1100's. But for centuries the only consecrated virgins have been cloistered nuns in solemn vows. With the promulgation of c 604 the Church has recovered the secular vocation which is to stand side by side the cloistered vocation in equal dignity. Unfortunately, the church and world have not yet come to understand or esteem this vocation properly, and neither have some CV's. Thus, some women consecrated under c 604 see themselves as quasi-nuns rather than secular women who are also consecrated.

The upshot of this is the vocation is usually defined in terms of what it is not rather than what it is (it is not religious life, these women are not nuns, do not have vows, are not called Sister, are not secular in the "strong sense", are not laity, etc). Such a vocation does not speak positively or prophetically to anyone. It is still in search of itself, and still struggling for recognition equal to that given to nuns, Sisters, canonical hermits, etc. I sincerely believe that until CV's consecrated under c 604 wholeheartedly adopt the SACRED SECULARITY of their vocations this struggle will continue and so will the vocation's inability to speak to anyone effectively (pastorally) much less prophetically.

As for your last question, why is there such a need for people to say essentially that, "My conse-cration is better (more lasting or eternal, more spousal, more God-given, etc) than yours"?  I guess everything I have spoken of up until this point is a piece of the answer, but the more general response would need to be, "Sin." Human sin is the reason for this. Sometimes it is evident as a lack of humility or desire for status along with a failure (or refusal) to see that every consecration, from Baptism onward, is an eternal act of God and a unique gift to the recipient, to the Church, and to the world more generally; but it is also true that in treating some vocations as superior and others as inferior the entire church has colluded in this situation. It is understandable that a person who believes they are called to an exhaustive discipleship and holiness would not believe an "entry level" vocation is sufficient.

Much of the time however, the answer to your question really has to do with our inability to think paradoxically --- another symptom of human sinfulness or estrangement from God, I would suggest. In fact, I would argue that our disregard or disdain for language and nuances of meaning is similarly rooted; so too is the  anti-intellectualism which seems to believe that someone who is trained to take these things seriously and honor truth in this way, is merely saying they are "better" than the next person. We do tend to judge what gifts of God we will accept and which we will not; anti-intellectualism clearly rejects certain gifts out of a false humility, a superficial sense of equality, and more importantly perhaps, a lack of appreciation or gratitude for truth.

I hope this is helpful.

An Open Letter to Consecrated Virgins on Sacred Secularity

The posts I put up on the significance of the secularity of Consecrated virginity for women in the world (C 604) have evoked some interesting correspondence. In one exchange a Consecrated Virgin from India (I will be happy to include her name if she gives permission) made two points in the main: 1) secularity is not part of the Charism of the CV under Canon 604 because the reference to "in the world" in the Rite was merely an "add-on"; the original vocation was not secular in any sense, and 2) in her own country the emphasis on the secularity of this vocation has resulted in the destruction of the vocation's actual charism. Consecrated virgins in India find themselves regarded as having second rate vocations at best and essentially unrecognized or slighted while Religious were given preference for positions like EEM, etc. In celebrations of the day devoted to Consecrated Life, CV's were not included. Thus, this CV posited that the solution to the problem was ignoring the secularity of the vocation and emphasizing its nature as consecrated.

Since I think her her problem is not completely unique, and since I find her solution really exacerbates the problem, I want to post an open letter to all CV's (edited here and originally sent to this individual), but especially to those Consecrated Virgins who feel sympathetic to the solution she suggests. In this letter I address the second point above. I will post my response to the first point separately.

Poignantly, she writes: [[ I come from a real life context where the focus on secularity has caused a rupture from the original charism. A context where consecrated virginity is treated as the vocation to be a pious single lay woman subordinate to clergy and religious and called to be hidden leaven in the world. A temporarily professed religious is given preference over a consecrated virgin when there is need of a Eucharistic minister. Consecrated virgins are not called for Church celebrations of the Day of Consecrated life on February 2.The focus on secularity is killing the charism. Ignoring the secularity which comes by default seems more helpful in living the original charism of this recently rediscovered vocation in the church.]]

Identifying the Problem, Finding the Real Solution

Dear [Consecrated Virgin],
I sympathize with your situation but I think you have misdiagnosed the problem and have the solution backwards. The only way to get people to honestly regard your (plural) vocation is to cease pretending to be something you (consecrated virgins generally) are not, namely quasi-religious whose relationship to the world is less than integral, and to live out a call to sacred secularity as radically as you (plural) can. Of course, and very unfortunately, a church which does not adequately regard secularity will treat Religious with greater regard. This is a long established bit of ecclesiastical dysfunction rooted in a distorted theology of secularity which must be combatted. Further, you come from a country where priests in some Rites are associated with a particular caste, and where people are still dismissed or esteemed on the basis of castes. I think this makes dealing appropriately with the class-ism of the church much more difficult. Neither your local ecclesiastical nor your cultural situation (both of which involve a denigration of groups of people, which, in one case, is Seculars or non-Religious) is resolved by denying the dignity and importance of secularity.

For you are a consecrated virgin sent as an apostle proclaiming the gospel which says there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. It is not acceptable in light of this to treat any form of consecrated life as better or lesser than any other. For that matter it is not acceptable to treat any divine vocation as greater or lesser than another. While I think you both know and agree with these assertions, what I think you have missed seeing is that if you ignore or treat secularity as secondary or merely an "add-on" indicating simply that you do not live in a monastery, you will actually be supporting the very problem you decry. Yes, you must fight to be understood as consecrated women, but you cannot and must not do this by denigrating (even subtly or implicitly) lay or secular vocations in the process. To emphasize one's consecrated state at the expense of secularity or the laity (which is what I hear your statements doing -- though inadvertently, I am sure) is as illegitimate theologically and pastorally as what is being done to consecrated virgins in your country. In the end you are actually denying the truth and effectiveness of your own consecration. It is somewhat analogous to denying one's femininity while asserting (or trying to assert) one's humanity because men are esteemed where women are not. In doing this one ends up actually denigrating what is the essence of one's own humanity, one's womanliness, and becomes a parody of what one is made and called to be. In essence, in fighting for the regard which is rightfully yours as consecrated women in the Church, you have joined the "enemy" (i.e., a worldly mindset which judges worth based on classes, etc) and denigrated the laity and secularity in the process. This, as I am sure you well know, is emphatically NOT what Vatican II intended.

Neither is it the solution to your predicament, for I believe you have lost sight of (or chosen to ignore) precisely the element which allows your vocation to make profound and challenging sense in today's Church and which would be a key to resolving this predicament for so many others --- not least those who find themselves resenting that they are "only" called to be lay persons (called to the extraordinary dignity and challenge of baptismal consecration) and/or those whose main arena of activity is the saeculum. This is one of the places the power of paradox becomes so very evident --- along with so much of Christian theology which stresses the subversion of the status quo and dominant paradigms by self-emptying, losing one's life, the perfection of power in weakness, a foolishness which is far wiser than the wisdom of men, becoming a fool for Christ, etc. In every way, Christianity is countercultural and those who wish to serve as icons of the body of Christ need themselves to truly be countercultural in the same way.

Implications for Consecrated Virgins Living in the World

What this means for Consecrated virgins is the assertion, not the denial of their secularity. When I say this I don't mean one should downplay one's consecration but rather assert it precisely IN its secularity. The two are NOT opposed any more than Jesus' divinity is opposed to his humanity or his Mother's consecration by God requires she retire from or denigrate the world in which she works out her motherhood. (Do we really think Mary was not an essentially contemplative and completely involved presence in her world? Do we not hear when she is given as a Mother to all of us that she is a Mother in and to the world? Even while she is a model to Religious, is she not also, and perhaps more poignantly, a model to Seculars?? Would she have been offended if told her vocation was to one of sacred secularity?) I don't think so, but the point is that these two things (consecration and secularity) do not conflict because the world is essentially good and holy, and because it is meant to be Sacrament of God's presence. Undoubtedly it takes workers within it to help recover its wholeness and holiness in God and bring it to fulfillment; it takes workers within it who truly believe that heaven and earth are called to interpenetrate one another and that God is meant to be all in all. This is the vision of reality which underlay Vatican II's insight and insistence on a universal call to holiness --- a vision which does not allow us to denigrate, even implicitly, ANY vocation by treating others as superior.

The consecrated virgin living in the world must be committed to the subversion of any other notion of heaven and earth, reality essentially divided into sacred and profane, etc. Instead she must embrace a Sacramental view. She must also, I think, be committed to the subversion of schema of the world which sees some vocations as higher than others, some as "only" that of a devout layperson, some vocations (assuming they are lived well!) as more closely following Christ than others, some as secular when that means opposed to the sacred. (It is one thing to say that one practices a poverty or chastity that is more literally like that practiced by Christ and another thing entirely to say that one vocation follows Christ more closely (is more an instance of discipleship) per se. The first describes the way one expresses one's discipleship, the second refers to discipleship itself.) There is absolutely no reason to necessarily see Religious as better disciples of Christ than those living in and committed to the world (seculars), and consecrated virgins living in the world are meant to help the Church and world realize (come to know and make this real) as acutely and thoroughly (radically) as they can.

On Hierarchies and Anti-Hierarchies: "The first shall be last and the last shall be first."

One of the ironies of the Church, I think, is that she is hierarchical and actually prepares the way for a Kingdom which is anti-hierarchical. Too often, however, the hierarchical nature of the Church has been nothing more than an echo of the very worst class distinctions (and correlative denigrations) of the world. Your own local Church seems to do this by echoing the class structure of the surrounding society --- it continues to be a church which does not effectively value the lay vocation or even the consecrated vocation to a sacred secularity. (Unfortunately, your own offense at a temporarily professed Sister taking precedence over a consecrated virgin is also an instance of this, I think. It is interesting and disturbing to me that you would actually distinguish this religious as "temporary professed" for instance --- as though there would have been no (or at least less a) problem if she had been perpetually professed.) Vatican II was a step (a quantum leap in fact) away from the values of the world and towards those of the Kingdom of God. Consecrated virgins living in the world are called to implement this subversive vision in the most radical way possible ---- by reminding us all that the world is meant and called to be paradise, and that the Kingdom is NOT hierarchical as we so often see in a fallen world, but is instead the place of "the great reversal" where all of our worldly values (including hierarchy of every kind) will be turned on their heads. (I believe this is what Jesus was saying with, "the first shall be last" --- not that he was positing a new kind of hierarchy. Rather I think he was saying. "The kingdom will be unimaginable" --- for a world in which the last would be first was truly unimaginable.)

This is truly challenging even in a culture not structured on castes, but, I can see where it would be far more challenging for the CV living in such a culture itself. Still, Christ was a countercultural presence (and was despised by both the Romans, Greeks, and Jewish leaders because of it). He did not cave in to the values which surrounded him, but lived and died with integrity in the face of them ---- and redeemed them through that living, dying, and rising. Consecrated virgins are called to no less. Jesus did not retire to the desert for the whole of his life, but worked out his own vocation in the world in a way which did not leave the world unchanged. Consecrated virgins are called to no other, and, in their own way, no less.

A final Plea

I implore you (again, plural) then not to accent consecration to the exclusion or denigration of secularity. Embrace secularity as the means for your consecration to be truly meaningful. Make it clear to those whose values you decry that the universal call to holiness is both truly universal and a call to exhaustive holiness. Do not let your consecration as a virgin living in the world make second class (or less) the consecration to baptism which is the fundamental vocation grounding all others, nor (even implicitly) let it denigrate the saeculum which you are called to remind both Church and world is the Sacrament of God's Incarnational presence. Also, do not fear being a more or less hidden leaven. Let your consecration be evident in the graces of spiritual motherhood and spousal love revealed (realized) in the world. Let it be evident, that is, in its proper secularity. I promise you that if you do that, you will shine as brightly and be as extraordinary and as clearly set apart for God as anyone (and especially as God or his Church) could wish. Embrace the radical Christian vocation of Sacred secularity, not hierarchy or the Greek version of compromise, and the literal mediocrity of what is called the middle way.