Witnessing to the God who Saves: On Eremitical Hiddenness and Interiority

[[Sister Laurel, when you write, "in every person's life God works silently in incredible hiddenness," I wonder. Is this what the followers of Francis de Sales mean by "interiority?" I spoke with [a Sister friend] a few months ago - and she asked me "How is that interiority coming?" I didn't know how to answer her, but I thought it might be something like this.]] (There were other questions included in this email about the distinction between being the gift and using gifts. Some reflected on the idea of merely being present to others and being gift in that way. I focus on those here as well.)

 

While it is true I am saying the hermit is a gift simply in being present to others, I am saying more than that as well because quite often (in fact, most of the time) a hermit is present to no one but God. Before you go out and do, before you are present to or for others in any way at all, and even if you never go out to others, I am saying that God is at work in you healing and sanctifying. That, as I understand it,  is the witness of the hermit life. That is its special gift or charism.  We say this with our lives; whether we ever speak to a living soul, pray for another person or not (though of course we will pray for others), whether we ever write another word, or paint another picture, or use our individual gifts in any way at all, we witness to the Gospel  and to the God who makes us whole and holy simply by being ourselves as redeemed.

Extending this to you and all others it means that should you (or they) never take another person shopping, never make another person smile, never use the gift you are in any way except to allow the God who is faithfulness itself to be faithful to you, THAT is the hiddenness and the gift I am mainly talking about. Yes, it involves the hiddenness of God at work in us but that is the very reason we are gift. We witness to the presence of God in the silence of solitude, in the darkness, in the depths of aloneness, etc. We do that by becoming whole, by becoming loving (something that requires an Other to love us and call us to love), by not going off the rails in solitude and by not becoming narcissists or unbalanced cynics merely turned in on self and dissipated in distraction. We do it by relating to God, by allowing God to be God.

Cultivating this sense of God at work in us, emptying ourselves (or being stripped by circumstances and learning to see this as an incredible gift) so that we only witness to God, allowing ourselves to let go of anything but God as the source and validation of our lives is, I think at least, the heart of cultivating a sense of interiority. Interiority itself is our life of Communion with the God who is the creator, source, and ground of that same life. It’s focus is God and includes his redemption of us, his healing, sanctification, and intimacy. When I wrote here before about developing a spirituality of discernment I was also writing about cultivating interiority. That is why resisting discernment while speaking constantly about “discerning” is actually a resistance to the development of interiority; if one cannot deal with one's feelings and all that is going on within them, then neither can one claim to be a discerning person with a healthy interiority.  If and to the extent one does not see the whole of reality from the perspective of the light and life of God, then to that extent one has not developed a genuine interiority. (I will have to ask my pastor about St Francis de Sales' own take on interiority! I simply don't know Francis well enough.) 

Most of us witness to all of this by using our gifts. Hermits (and especially recluses) do it by flourishing in an environment which really does say God alone is enough. In this environment the gifts we have possessed from birth and for whose development we have often spent time, money and effort in education and training may well be largely irrelevant. When I speak of us being the gift I mean that the hermit's very life and capacity for love says God is real, faithful, and an intimate, integral, and even inalienable part of our deepest reality. My eremitical life is not about me, my intelligence, my persistence (and stubbornness!), my creativity (or lack thereof), my musicality, or any other specific talents which may also be present. It is about God as source and ground, God as faithful lover, friend and sovereign, God as redeemer who will never let go of us but instead transfigures us so we truly image God. That is what makes my life a gift --- even, and maybe especially, when I do not touch anyone directly, even when I reject the role of "prayer warrior" (which seems to me to emphasize a kind of worldly perspective on the primacy of doing over being), even when chronic illness allows for no ministry at all but only my own hungry and even desperate openness to God in weakness and incapacity.

The church that professed and consecrated me under a new and largely unprecedented canon witnesses to this truth. The existence of canon 603 itself witnesses to this eremitical truth and describes the gift it represents under the heading “the silence of solitude”.  My bishop and delegate witness to this by coming to know me and the way God has worked in my life, as well as by professing me and continuing to allow me to live this life in the name of the Church. This witness to the providence of God at work in the silence of solitude is why canonical standing and the relationships established there in law are so vital. The church continues to esteem eremitical life as a pure, even starkly contemplative instance of the abundant sufficiency of God. God is the gift this life witnesses to precisely as it turns its back on --- or is stripped of --- every gift it otherwise ‘possesses’.  And of course, this is also why c 603 must not be misused or abused as a stopgap solution for those with no true eremitical vocation. To do so is, for instance, to risk honoring selfishness and spiritual mediocrity ("lukewarmness") or institutionalizing cowardice and misanthropy. The eremitical life is a generous one of giving oneself to God for the sake of others. But it is also rare to be graced or called to witness in this particular form of stripping and emptiness (kenosis).

As I noted here recently, I once thought contemplative life and especially eremitic life was a waste and incredibly selfish. For those authentic hermits the Church professes and consecrates, and for those authentic lay hermits who live in a hiddenness only God can and does make sense of, the very thing that made this life look selfish to me is its gift or charism. It is the solitude of the hermit's life, the absence of others, and even her inability to minister actively to others or use her gifts which God transforms into an ultimate gift. Of course, in coming to understand this, it is terribly important that we see the "I" of the hermit as the "We" symbolized by the term "the silence of solitude". It is equally important that we never profess anyone who does not thrive as a human being in this very specific environment. In other words, my life, I think, is meant to witness starkly and exclusively to the God who makes of an entirely impoverished "me" a sacramental "We" when I could do nothing at all but allow this to be done in me.

More on the Hiddenness of the Hermit Vocation

[[Hi Sister Laurel, thank you for telling your story from the perspective of using gifts vs being the gift. Two things surprised me a little. The first was the idea that the hiddenness of the eremitical life has to do mainly with the work God is doing within the hermit. This really is the vocation of the hermit and where else can it happen but in hiddenness? The second was that in letting go of a concern to use the gifts God has given us and instead focusing on the gift God makes of us we are involved in what the Gospel calls "dying to self"! I had never thought about it that way but this is the sense it made to me. The motto, "Let go and let God" fits here doesn't it?]]

The Hiddenness of the Hermit Vocation:

Thanks for writing. You got it exactly right with regard to the hiddenness of the eremitical life!  I especially liked your rhetorical question, ". . . where else can it happen but in hiddenness?" Most of the time when hermits speak about the hiddenness of their lives they speak about people not knowing they are hermits or doing things anonymously. Others speak of not wearing habits, not using titles or post-nomial initials and the like lest the hiddenness of the vocation be betrayed. I have written several times now about the tension between the hiddenness of the vocation and its public character --- its call to witness to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church in this way of life. All of these have some greater or lesser degree of validity but I think that when we recognize that eremitical life is about letting God do God's own silent and solitary work in the hiddenness of the human heart as we move more and more toward dwelling within his own heart in Christ, we have put our finger on the heart of the matter of eremitical hiddenness.

It seems to me that in every person's life God works silently in incredible hiddenness. The hermit commits her entire life to allowing this and witnessing to it. The very fact that she retires to a hermitage witnesses to her commitment to and faith in this hidden work of God. The fact that she embraces a life of the silence of solitude is a commitment that witnesses to it. Those of us who wear habits, use titles and post-nomial initials that prompt people to ask about our lives are a commitment and (paradoxically) witness to this incredible hiddenness. It is always striking to me that when people learn I am a hermit they tend to be completely off-footed. I noted that recently I played violin for a funeral held in our parish and that this was well-received. People understood this use of gifts and they wondered what I did here at the parish; they expected that I taught, perhaps music, or that I was a liturgist or any number of other things but they looked a bit stunned when they heard I was a hermit and rarely played violin this way. No one actually said, "Oh what a waste," of course; surprise and maybe puzzlement was what was generally expressed. I am hoping folks realized that the violin expressed and reflected what happens to my own heart in the ordinary silence and solitude of my hermitage.

In any case, the gifts we occasionally use and those we relinquish in the name of our lives as hermits witness to the essential hiddenness of those lives and of the God powerfully at work there. We know that God works this way in every person's life but it seems to  me that relatively few people actually commit to revealing this by embracing an essential hiddenness. Cloistered nuns and monks do so, hermits do so; it is a witness our world needs --- and one that throws folks off-balance when they meet it face to face. The Kingdom of God comes in this way. It grows silently in the darkness and night when we can do nothing but trust in the One who is its source. It bursts forth when we have reached the limits of our own patience, when we have finally relinquished any pretense of control or even understanding. It comes in victory at the same time we admit defeat and steals upon us -- gently silencing the prayer that storms heaven so that heaven can simply sing within us.

 Prayer is certainly the hermit's main ministry but only if it is genuinely the work she allows God to do in, with, and through her, the work which allows her to set her own concerns, frailties, strengths, and even her talents and gifts aside so to speak so that the hidden work and presence of God may flourish within her. I have written before that it is the hermit's very vocation to become God's own prayer in our world; in fact, that is really the fundamental vocation of every person because it is the thing which characterizes authentic humanity. Hermits, it seems to me, undertake this with a special dedication in a way which is largely stripped of the activities and ministries which, while usually revelatory, may actually distract attention from that foundational presence at work in the solitary silence of every human heart. See also, Essential Hiddenness: A Call to extraordinary ordinariness for a post on the universality of this call.

God-given gifts and Dying to Self:

Ordinarily we speak of dying to self in terms of using our gifts generously and selflessly. This is an entirely valid and critical piece of what dying to self really means. However, I think the idea of letting go of significant gifts God has given us so that who we are ourselves, that is, so that we are who God makes us to be most fundamentally, is the real witness of our lives; it is a special and even more radical kind of dying to self peculiar to the eremitical life --- though we find suggestions of it in old age, chronic illness, etc. This really is a new insight for me --- one, that is, I have only just begun thinking consciously about in connection with the idea that the hermit's life is an essentially hidden one. It is a paradox because at the same time we let go of those gifts we become freer to use them without pressure or self-consciousness should appropriate opportunities arise. Even so, we are not our gifts, not most fundamentally, nor is our life ultimately about a struggle to protect or even to use those gifts.  And when we are deprived of those gifts or of the ability to use them by illness or other life circumstances the deepest or foundational meaning and mystery of our lives can become clear. This too is a form of dying to self --- perhaps the most radical form short of the physical death of red martyrdom.

I think hermits have known this right along.  It is what allows them to use the term "white martyrdom" for their lives. I have written here that I once thought of contemplatives and hermits as selfish rather than selfless. Back then I was thinking of the multitude of wasted gifts and of some sort of failure to honor them but I was not thinking of a life which explicitly honored the giver of all gifts in a more transparent way or was a naked expression of (dependence on) that giver and the redemption he occasions in us. At the same time I was very young; I had not really faced a situation where my own God-given gifts were either unusable or where, in my brokenness, emptiness, and incapacity, I knew more fully and clearly my own need for radical redemption --- much less had I come to actually know that redemption.

Only as I came face to face with these and the immense question "WHY?!" that drove me did I begin to sense that eremitical life could "make sense of the whole of my life." My sense of this, however, was still inchoate; it was as unformed as my own eremitical identity for I was not, in any sense of the term, a hermit. In time, and especially in the silence of solitude, God did with my life what the Gospel promises and proclaims. He loved me into wholeness and continues to do so. That hidden, unceasing, and unconquerable redemptive Love-in-act is what my vocation witnesses to. Hermits have seen right along that their witness is more fundamental and radical than even the use of God-given gifts for the sake of others can make clear.

One of the reasons the hermit life will always be rare is because we need people who use their God-given gifts in the multitude of ways which enrich our lives every day. In no way am I suggesting that such gifts are unimportant or, generally speaking, should not be used in assisting in the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is the usual way we cooperate with God and reveal God's life to others.

But at the same time there will always be a few of us who have come to a place where chronic illness (or whatever else!) made this impossible; and yet, through a Divine mercy and wisdom we can hardly believe, much less describe, we have been redeemed and become gifts more precious than any or all of the individual talents we once carefully developed and shepherded. Through a more radical and counter-cultural kenosis (self-emptying), in the hiddenness of a life more fundamentally about being made gift than about using our talents, hermits are called to witness to the inexhaustible, transcendent, and redemptive reality dwelling in the very core of our being -- the infinitely loving source and ground of our lives. Those redeemed and transfigured lives say, "God alone is enough!" With St Paul (who himself was stripped and emptied by life's circumstances and who spent time in the desert learning to see the new kind of sense his life held in light of the crucified Christ), we proclaim in the starkest way we can, "I, yet not I but Christ within me!"

On the Distinction Between Using Gifts and Being the Gift

[[Hi Sister. I've been reading what you wrote on chronic illness as vocation. I wondered why God would give a person gifts they could never really use.  And if their gifts can't be used then how do they serve or glorify God? I mean I do believe people who can't use God-given gifts still serve God but we are supposed to use our gifts and what if we can't? Since you are a hermit do you ever feel that you cannot use your gifts? Does it matter? Does canonical standing make better use of your gifts than non-canonical standing? I hope this is not gibberish!]]

These are great questions and no, not gibberish at all. The pain of being given gifts which we may not be able to use because of chronic illness or other life circumstances is, in my experience, one of the most difficult and bewildering things we can know. The question "WHY?!!" is one of those we are driven to ask by such situations. We ask it of God, of the universe, of the silence, of friends and family, of books and teachers and pastors and ministers; we ask it of ourselves too though we know we don't have the answer. In one way and another we ask it in many different ways of whomever will listen --- and sometimes we force people to listen to the screams of anguish our lives become as we embed this question in all we are and do. Whether we act out, withdraw, retreat into delusions, turn seriously to religion or philosophy, resort to crime, become workaholics for whom money is the measure of meaning, create great works of art, or whatever else we do, the question, WHY?! often stands at the heart of our searching, activism, depression, confusion, and pain. This is true even when our lives have not been derailed by chronic illness, but of course when that or other catastrophic events occur to us the question assumes a critical importance. And of course, we can live years and years without finding an answer. I think you will understand when I say that "WHY?!" is the question which, no matter how it is posed throughout our lives, we each are.

One thing I should be clear about is that God gives us gifts because he wills us to use them and is delighted when we can and do so. I do not believe God gives gifts to frustrate us or to be wasted. But, as Paul puts the matter, and as we know from experience, there are powers and principalities at work in our world and lives which are not of God. God does not will chronic illness, for instance. Illness is a symptom and consequence of sin --- that is, it is the result of being estranged to some extent from the source and ground of life itself. Even so, though God does not will our illness, he will absolutely work to bring good out of it to whatever degree he can. Especially, God will work so that illness is no longer the dominant reality of our lives. It may remain, but where once it was the defining reality of our lives and identity, God will work so that grace becomes the dominant theme our lives sings instead; illness, though still very real perhaps, then becomes a kind of subtext adding depth and poignancy but lacking all pretensions of ultimacy.

This is really the heart of my answer to your questions. Each of us has many gifts we would like to develop and use. I think most of us have more gifts than we can actually do that with. For instance, if I choose to play violin and thus spend time and resources on lessons, practice periods, music, and time with friends who also play music, I may not be able to spend the time I could spend on writing or theology, or even certain kinds of prayer I also associate with divine giftedness. This is a normal situation and we all must make these kinds of choices as we move through life. Still, while we must make decisions regarding which gifts we will develop and which we will allow to lay relatively fallow there is a deeper choice involved at every moment, namely, what kind of person will we be in any case? When chronic illness takes the question of developing and using specific gifts out of our hands, when we cannot use our education, for instance, or no longer work seriously in our chosen field, when we cannot raise a family, hold a job, or perhaps even volunteer at Church in ways we might once have done, the question that remains is that of who we are and who will we be in relation to God.

The key here is the grace of God, that is, the powerful presence of God. Illness does not deprive us of the grace of God nor of the capacity to respond to that grace. In my own process of becoming a hermit, as you know, I had had my own life derailed by chronic illness. Fortunately, I had prepared to do Theology and loved systematics so that I read Theology even as illness deprived me of the possibility of doing this as a profession. I was also "certain" that I was called to some form of religious life; these two dimensions were gifts that helped me hold onto a perspective that transcended illness and disability, and at least potentially, promised to make sense of these.

My professors (but especially John C Dwyer) had introduced me to an amazing theology of the cross (both Pauline and Markan) which focused on a soteriology (a theology of redemption) stressing that even the worst that befalls a human being can witness to the redemption possible with God. In Mark's version of the gospel, the bottom line is that when all the props are kicked out, God will bring life out of death and meaning out of senselessness. In Paul's letters I was reminded many times that the center of things is his affirmation: "My (i.e., God's) grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness." Meanwhile, at one point I began working with a spiritual director who believed unquestioningly in the power of God alive in the core of our being and provided me with tools to help allow that presence to expand and triumph in my heart and life. In the course of our work together, my own prayer shifted from being something I did (or struggled to do!) to something God did within me. (This shift was especially occasioned and marked by the prayer experience I have mentioned here before.) In time I became a contemplative but at this point in time illness still meant isolation rather than the communion of solitude.

All of these pieces and others came together in a new way when I read canon 603 and began considering eremitical life.  The eremitical life is dependent upon God's call of course, but everything about it also witnesses to the truth that God's grace is enough for us and God's power is perfected in weakness. When we speak about the hiddenness of the life it is this active and powerful presence of God who graces us that is of first concern. I have many gifts, but in this life there is no doubt that they generally remain hidden and many are even entirely unused while the grace of God makes me the hermit I am called to be. Mainly this occurs in complete hiddenness. I may think and write about this life; I may do theology and a very little adult faith formation for my parish; I may do a limited amount of spiritual direction, play some violin in an orchestra, and even write on this blog and for publication to some extent --- though never to the extent I might have done these things had chronic illness not knocked my life off the rails. But the simple fact is if I were unable to do any of these things my vocation would be the same. I am called to BE a hermit, a whole and holy human being who witnesses to the deepest truth of our lives experienced in solitude: namely, God alone is sufficient for us. We are made whole and completed in the God who seeks us unceasingly and will never abandon us.

So you see, as I understand it anyway, my life is not so much about using the gifts God undoubtedly gave me at birth so much as it is about being the gift which God's love makes of me. Who I am as the result of God's grace is the essential ministry and witness of my life. Answering a call to eremitical life required that I really respond to a call I sensed from God, a call to abundant life --- not the life focused on what I could do much less on what I could not do, but the life of who God would make me to be if given the ongoing opportunity to shape my heart day by day by day. Regarding public profession and canonical standing under c 603, let me say that it took me some time to come to the place where I was really ready for these; today I experience even the long waiting required as a gift of God.

Paradoxically a huge part of my readiness for perpetual eremitical vows was coincident with coming to a place where I did not really need the Church's canonical standing except to the extent I was bringing them a unique gift. You see, I knew that the Holy Spirit had worked in my life to redeem an isolation and alienation occasioned mainly by chronic illness. THAT was the gift I was bringing the Church, the charism I was seeking to publicly witness to in the name of the Church by seeking public profession and consecration. That the Holy Spirit worked this way in my life in the prayer and lectio of significant solitude seems to me to be precisely what constitutes the gift of eremitical life.  (Of course canonical standing and especially God's consecration has also been a great gift to me but outlining that is another, though related, topic.)

Thus, when I renewed my petition to the Diocese of Oakland regarding admission to perpetual profession and consecration in the early 2000's, eremitical solitude had already transformed my life. I was already a hermit not because of any particular standing but because I lived the truth of redemption mediated to me in the silence of solitude. I sought consecration because now I clearly recognized this gift belonged to the Church and was meant for others; public standing in the consecrated state made that possible in a unique way. I was not seeking the Church's approval of this gift so I could be made a hermit "with status" so much as I was seeking a way to make a genuine expression of eremitical life and the redemption of isolation and meaninglessness it represented better known and accessible to others. That, I think, is the real importance of canonical standing, especially for the hermit; it witnesses more to the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church, more to the contemplative primacy of being over doing, and thus, less to the personal gifts of the person being professed and consecrated.

By the way, along the way I do use many of the gifts God has given me to some extent. Yesterday, for instance, I was able to play violin for a funeral Mass. I don't do this often at all because I personally prefer to participate in Mass differently than this, but it was a joy to do for friends in the parish. (A number of people who really do know me pretty well commented, "I didn't know you played the violin!") Today I did a Communion service and reflection as I do many Fridays during the year. Often times, as I have noted here before, I write reflections on weekly Scripture lections, and of course I write here and other places and do spiritual direction. This allows me to use some of my theology for others but even more fundamentally it is an expression of who I am in light of the grace of God in my life. Even so, the important truth is that the eremitical vocation (and, I would argue, any vocation to chronic illness!) is much more about being the gift God makes of us  --- no matter how hidden eremitical life or our illness makes that gift --- than it is a matter of focusing on or being anxious about using or not using the gifts God has given us.

In other words my life glorifies God and is a service to God's People even if no one has a clue what specific gifts God has given me because it reveals the power of God to redeem and transfigure a reality fraught with sin, death, and the power of the absurd. A non-eremitical vocation to chronic illness does the same thing if only one can allow God's grace to work in and transfigure them. We ourselves as covenant partners of God in all things then become the incarnate "answer" to the often-terrible question, "WHY?!!"  In Christ, in our graced and transfigured lives, this question ceases to be one of unresolved torment; instead, it becomes both an invitation to and an instance of hope-filled witness and joyful proclamation. "WHY??" So that Christ might live in me and in me triumph over all that brings chaos and meaninglessness to human lives. WHY?1! So that the God of life may triumph over the powers of sin and death in us, the Spirit may transform isolation into genuine solitude in us, and the things that ordinarily separate us from God may become sacraments of God's presence and inescapable, unconquerable love in us!

I hope this is helpful and answers your questions.

Followup to Questions about the Value vs the Utility of Eremitical Vocations

Dear Sister your last post on the diocesan eremitical vocation was very positive compared to what I wrote you about [two weeks ago]. (cf, On Maintaining the Distinction between Utility and Value) I am guessing you would disagree with this [included] take on your vocation as well. Could you comment? I believe the immediate context is that this person has petitioned her diocese for canonical status and had not received a response yet (this was written several years ago and she wrote them [her diocese] a couple of months prior to this post). S/he says the vocation need not be credible and is for "good-for-nothings".

[[The hermit vocation is a veritable non-entity in the views of most, of nearly all, even in the Church. Yes, it is written in the Catechism, there is a Canon Law that is applicable, there are saints who have hermit status, and there are a minutia of canonically approved, known hermits in the world. But the remaining souls who are called to the life are veritable non-entities in the non-entity status of their vocation. It is such a non-entity that a response to a request is long in coming, if it ever arrives in the post. An appointment to discuss the vocation, is not of much consequence or importance to the degree that it keeps being put off until "sometime". Yes, we can talk about it "sometime". Now, this may to some in the vocation seem like an insult or a negativity. It is not! It only verifies all the more the vocation for what it is: non-entity status. A hermit's life is so hidden, so undefinable, so inconsequential, so non-this and non-that as to be nothing and worthy of only good-for-nothings.]]

Certainly it is true that this vocation is little known and little understood in today's Church. That is one of the reasons some diocesan hermits have blogs. It is also true that the vocation is counter-cultural and stands in opposition to many of the ways our world measures productivity and status. Hermits, at least among those who do not know them personally, may be thought to be folks who have failed at life, dislike people, are pathologically introspective and many other similar stereotypes. However, the post you are citing from is written by someone waiting for word from her diocese on whether they will work with her to discern a vocation to diocesan eremitical life. The idea that the vocation is undefinable and inconsequential is certainly a misrepresentation which someone petitioning her diocese for admission to canonical standing should not make. Further, she seems upset that she has not gotten a fairly immediate response to her request to do so (she has gotten a response but it seems not to be permission to make vows). In any case, I don't think she is speaking about the counter cultural nature of the vocation itself; rather I think she is feeling dismissed by the diocese and may be being ironic (and perhaps hyperbolic) in this response. (In other words she may be guilty of dealing with disappointment by throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.)

 I say that because it is sometimes hard to wait for a diocese's response to one's initial request to be considered in this way. However, presumably this difficulty stems from the fact that one really understands that the diocesan eremitical vocation is a significant one and genuinely believes one is called to it by God. It is awfully hard to believe someone who felt the vocation is worthy only of "good-for-nothings" would desire canonical standing or seek to live such an ecclesial vocation. For that matter it is hard to understand why the Church would esteem or VALUE such a vocation enough to recognize and govern it canonically or in this way link it to public rights and obligations as a witness to the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the difficulty in getting oneself professed is ordinarily a sign of the value and esteem with which the Church regards this vocation. Only in a handful of situations has it been tied to members of the hierarchy's denigration of the vocation. It does seem to me that this person is speaking of being treated by her diocese like a "good-for-nothing" because they are not responding to her query quickly enough to suit her or because she is "only" a lay hermit. It's a bit hard to tell from this passage if she believes canonical vocations are esteemed while lay eremitical vocations are not. For that reason I checked the post and found the following passage which clarifies a bit more what she is actually saying. She continues:

[[It is the life and work of a slave to a servant. There is no need to rise up in ire, to take offense, to counter that there is worth and value and to try to make the world, even the Catholic world see and understand and validate the vocation. There is no reason to "fight" for status, canonical or non-canonical, either one. There is no need for a support team to encourage sticking with trying to be made "credible" in the eyes of anyone on earth. What is the point? This is not part of the vocation, for the vocation itself is hidden in God through dying into nothingness. The status is thus as a non-entity which is no status at all. And this is a positive.]]

I may have answered a similar question several years ago and what I wrote just a few days ago on the distinction between utility and value and the importance of maintaining that certainly reiterated my disagreement with the exaggerated conclusions arrived at in the cited post. First, canonical standing is not about status in the common sense of prestige or social privilege. As I have written many times here, it is about standing in law as well as in the consecrated state of life, both of which are linked to public rights and obligations the Church entrusts to the person; the person assumes these in the act of professing vows and accepting consecration in the hands of her Bishop. Since it is both a new and an ancient vocation which had effectively died out in the Western Church, it is appropriate that diocesan hermits make this vocation known --- not least so it can be understood and witness in ways which are important to the Church and world. In other words, it is an important way of living and the Church recognizes that by linking it to profession and consecration. Lay eremitical vocations are also of great value; their counter-cultural nature coupled with the fact that they witness generally to the call of all the Baptized to assiduous prayer and genuine holiness is striking.

Secondly, while I agree that perseverance and patience are both necessary, one must recognize that canonical standing IS part of the vocation of the solitary consecrated hermit and is not extraneous to it. When one enters the consecrated state of life that state of life is constituted by the rights and obligations one embraces and is entrusted with. Thus, as I have noted before, while one can never change the fact that one has been consecrated, while consecration per se can never be dispensed, one can leave the consecrated state of life. Unless one decides one is not truly called to this one petitions for admission to vows and participates in a mutual discernment process because one feels called by God to embrace an ecclesial vocation. It is true that if a diocese has never professed a diocesan hermit before, or if they have not had suitable candidates they will seek to be very sure the person petitioning has clear signs of maturity and sufficient experience of eremitical solitude to be professed. The process can be a long one and, again, requires perseverance but generally people (candidate and diocesan curia) work together in a way which is relatively transparent even as it tests the candidate and her patience, her sense of eremitical call whether or not canonical standing is in her future, her ability to deal with uncertainty in solitude, etc.

It is also true, however, that diocesan personnel can certainly receive a petition from someone they almost immediately and clearly feel is not suited to this life and does not have such a vocation. In such cases the diocese may seek to find a pastoral and sensitive way to share their conclusion; this too can take time and give the impression that they are not being completely transparent or are dragging their feet. Sometimes a diocese will say, "Continue living as you are living now" in order that the fruits of that way of living can become more evident in time. In such cases they are usually open to reconsidering a petition in several years. Sometimes they will say pretty immediately, "We believe you should be more involved in your parish," or, "this does not seem to us to be the best way of using your God-given gifts," or even, "eremitical solitude seems to be unhealthy for you!" I suppose one way of rationalizing such rejections is to tell oneself the diocese does not understand or value the eremitical vocation but generally my experience is that dioceses DO value this vocation and seek to profess those with clear vocations who are both healthy, genuinely happy, and show signs that eremitical solitude is the context in which they have most clearly matured spiritually and personally.

Thirdly, while the vocation is one of essential "hiddenness from the eyes of men"  neither Canon 603 nor the CCC speak of dying into nothingness. Of course there is a significant dimension of dying to self (meaning the false or ego self!) but one does NOT become a non-entity in the process; one embraces anew the incredibly significant status of daughter or son of God in Christ (and brother or sister to all others) just as one did in Baptism and therefore comes to represent a vocation which has significant value for men and women living in the 21 C! Not least hermits proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the life and meaning which he brings to even the least and most lonely of us. It is a rich life, a joy filled one of profound (and incredibly paradoxical) relatedness to all of creation which would be meaningful simply because God calls one to it! Even so, it is significant to others and MUST be credible to others (no matter how paradoxical or counter cultural such credibility is)  because it is a proclamation of the Gospel and the redemption connected with that. The God it witnesses to must be the God of Jesus Christ who redeems the most death-dealing or isolating circumstances human beings know.

I have known (usually -- though not only -- through their writing) several so-called hermits that were either no such thing or, at best, were pretty disedifying examples of the vocation. While all of us struggle at times to live our lives well and with integrity, and while none of us are likely paragons (Merton warns about believing hermits should be perfect examples of their vocation), there are those who justify isolation or an inability (or refusal!) to take part in normal society because of mental illness, spiritual and personal eccentricity (or outright weirdness!), misanthropy, judgmentalism, individualism, self-centeredness, etc, by applying the term "hermit." But in some of these cases the impression they give in adopting the term is that solitude is really nothing more than isolation, that the only real joy found in the eremitical life is that of suffering and struggle, that the spirituality appropriate to such a vocation is some sort of pseudo-mystical misery willed by a sadistic God who may reward such pain with occasional "consolations", and that attempts to find or worship God in the ordinary world of time and space is "unspiritual". As far as I can see there is nothing of the good news of Jesus Christ in any of this and nothing credible much less exemplary therefore in such lives.

I am sorry when persons are not admitted to profession as a diocesan hermit or even to an extended period of discern-ment with their diocese; I know the pain it occasions. But at the same time I am sorrier still when those with no true vocation call themselves hermits (much less Catholic Hermits) and give scandal by living a life which is far from healthy and thus, even farther from being Christian or genuinely eremitical. Because diocesan eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation this means it must witness to the Gospel of God in Christ in the name of the Church. Standing in law, credibility, even "approval" by the hierarchy of the Church and those who benefit from the witness given are a necessary part of this vocation and its accountability to God and God's Church --- essential hiddenness notwithstanding. After all, credibility is part of ANY Christian vocation; we live our lives in response to this call so that others "may believe in Him whom you have sent." (John 6:30) If our lives and vocations lack credibility in the profound sense of imaging God's redemption, especially in the midst of suffering, then they are not Christian; they are not of God.  It seems to me, that the pious language of "being nothing" aside, only one who fails to understand the true nature, value, and responsibility of such calls could suggest otherwise.

The Silence of Solitude: Goal and Charism of the Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I am trying to build more silence and solitude into my life so that I can become a hermit. You and canon 603 speak of the silence OF solitude though. What is the difference? Does this have to do with what you mean when you refer to having become a hermit in some essential way before contacting my diocese?]]

Relatively speaking I have written a lot in this blog about the silence of solitude as context, means and goal of the eremitical life. I have tried to convey how and why the phrase "the silence of solitude" an originally Carthusian term means so much more than silence AND solitude, especially merely external silence and solitude. Your question helps me build on the blog article I wrote a little while back on why my vocation is not the personification of selfishness. (cf, Notes From Stillsong, A Vocation to Selfishness?) Especially it lets me add  to what I have already said about this defining element of canon 603 and the charism of the vocation. Thank you for that. As your question notes, the silence of solitude is indeed a key to understanding what I mean when I say that someone must become a hermit in some essential way before approaching their diocese with a request to be admitted to a process of discernment, much less to public profession of eremitical vows.

I have cited the following paragraph a couple of times here:  [[As a hermit I am not silent (or solitary) for instance, because woundedness and pain have rendered me mute and cut off from others, but because silence and solitude are the accompaniment and context for profound speech and articulateness. Silence is part of the music of being loved completely by God; it is a piece of allowing the separate notes of one's life to sound fully, but also to be connected to one another so that noise is transformed into a composition worthy of being heard and powerful and true enough to be inspiring to others. It is an empowered silence and solitude, the silence of solitude, which finds its source in God's love and reflects relatedness to God and others at its very core. Something similar could be said of all of the elements which comprise the life described in Canon 603. The eremitical life, especially in its freedom, is one of relatedness and love in all of its dimensions.]]

The silence of solitude is what results when we are loved profoundly by God and are healed sufficiently to love ourselves, God, and all who are precious to God as well. When this is the case an individual stands silently alone with God, at peace, herself, free of  bondage or destructive enmeshment. She is herself but that self is a covenantal or dialogical Event with God as ground and counterpart because that is the very nature of the human self.

To understand this I think we might start by reflecting on the fact that eremitical solitude is a torment for the person who cannot love herself and therefore cannot trust or must continually contend with the inescapable love of God. Unfortunately, this is such a prevalent affliction, that the early Desert Fathers and Mothers battled demons --- usually the demons of their own hearts --- in a way which made doing so emblematic of desert spirituality. Every hermit I have ever read or spoken to knows that the torment of the hermitage stems from our own inability to love ourselves or exorcise the resultant demons of our own hearts. Whether we are speaking of the need for distractions, the inability to pray, actual violations of our vows, deviations from our Rule or excesses in penitential practices, bitterness and misanthropy, or even narcissism, the source is some form of discomfort with ourselves which, often, is a form of self-hatred. In such instances we are isolated or solitary, but the silence of solitude is far far from us.

On the other hand, every hermit I know, have read, or have spoken to, every hermit who is "the real deal" also knows in the depths of their souls that to the extent these battles have been won and their demons exorcised by the grace of God (that is, by the powerful presence of God in their lives), the silence of solitude is the result. One image of this reality comes back to me again and again. It was a picture I cut out during initial formation of two young girls sitting side by side on a curb. They were quiet, sitting in the sun, simply enjoying the brilliant day and each other and there was an aura of quiet joy about the picture; they were also sharing a Popsicle and one was handing it over to the other for her turn. For me this typifies "the silence of solitude" as well as does an image, say, of a person reading quietly or sitting silently and gratefully at a hermitage window while taking their noontime meal. In the hermit's case, however, the second young girl is God and more occasionally anyone who is precious to God.

When I speak of being a hermit in some essential sense then, I mean that one is a person who has, to some real extent, come to this quies or peace of heart marked by compassion, generosity, and relative selflessness. Further, they have been brought there by living a life of physical silence and solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, poverty and chastity, all geared to hearkening to the Word of God and they feel called to continue living in this way for the glory (revelation) of God and the salvation of others. Silence and solitude are elements contributing to a person's coming to and living out the silence OF solitude but it is the silence OF solitude which is especially characteristic of the eremitical life; it is the charism or gift hermits in particular bring to the Church and world. One may build  all kinds of silence and solitude in the physical and external senses into one's life, but it is the silence of solitude rooted in communion with God for the sake of others which is the goal and defining characteristic of the genuine hermit.

Questions on Solitude: Both a Universal and a Rare Vocation?

[[Dear Sister, you write about eremitical solitude being a rare vocation. yet you also said that it is the most universal of vocations. So which is it? How is it that human beings can be such social animals and yet you can talk about solitude as a universal call. It sounds confused to me.]]

Three Main Forms of Solitude:

Thanks for your questions. The answer to your, "Which is it?" is not either/or but, as with so many things in Christianity, both/and. Part of what seems confusing is the use of the term solitude. It has a variety of meanings and these can especially differ if one is using it to speak of solitude in a world where the Christian God is real. Three main meanings in particular are important here. I therefore refer in a lot of posts here to physical solitude, existential solitude, and eremitical solitude. In the statement you are referring to I said that solitude itself was the most universal of vocations but it is the call to eremitical solitude which is very rare.

"Solitude" can first of all be used to speak of physical solitude, the state of being physically alone. I think this is often the meaning most folks attribute to the word. A hermit, who distances herself from so much sometimes called "the world" of people and events is certainly usually alone in this sense, but so are many others.

Secondly, "solitude" can be used to speak of the individual' s relationship to the world and its creator in the more existential sense; that is, it can point to the fact that we are each and all of us ultimately alone in this life and isolated from all others despite there being many people in our lives. Theologians speak of one aspect of solitude in this sense as the result of human sinfulness and therefore, as a result of estrangement or alienation from our deepest selves, from God, and so too from others. However, another, more positive side of it is our call to grow as individuals; especially in community we are not spared this call to individuation, this call to stand as integral and independent human beings. Still this existential solitude can be painful for it highlights both our most fundamental potential and deficiency.

Each of us knows this kind of solitude which is most intense when, for instance, we have acted wrongly, we are misunderstood, have been betrayed, feel alone or separate in a crowd, or simply have something too deep, or wonderful, or simply too difficult to share with anyone else; we know it especially when we consider death and the inevitability of dying alone. Even those we love profoundly and by whom we are are loved in the same way cannot entirely relieve us of either the challenge or the burden of this kind of solitude. In fact, the paradox of this kind of solitude --- whether as a call to individuation or as the burden of separateness --- is that it is often set in most vivid relief when we are with and are loved by others. In other words, this form of solitude is both most challenging and most painful because we are made for communion with others but are ultimately separated from them.

There is a third sense however which both includes these first two forms and mitigates the ultimacy of the second meaning. It is the notion of solitude which witnesses to the fact that we are not truly (or ultimately) alone because we are made for and in fact most essentially ARE a relationship with a God who is part of us and will never forget or abandon us. While one part of the paradox of eremitical life is that we are each ultimately alone with this God and called upon to live our lives in light of this foundational "transcendental" of our existence, the other is that this ultimate communion for which we are made is the reason for our community with others. Others, as well as our solitary prayer, mediate the love of God to us and in various ways introduce us to this ultimate form of communion.

Hermits especially, embrace a life of  physical solitude which sharpens our existential solitude so that we may live a contemplative life in the eremitical solitude of conscious communion with our God; the hermit knows this form of solitude as one which encompasses, but also transcends, and finally makes an ultimate sense of the first two senses of the term solitude. Because the hermit knows union with the God who grounds the existence of all creation, she also exists in communion with all those others in some incomplete or proleptic sense. When I have written about this before I have spoken of it as a solitude which redeems isolation and which provides hope to others that their own isolation can be transformed and transfigured, and so forth.

Communion is always implied by solitude and vice versa in human relatedness:

I would ask that you notice in each of these forms of solitude the reality of community exists at least implicitly --- even if it is present as an inescapable longing and potentialilty in loneliness. Similarly, in each experience of community that we know this side of death, there is also separateness we often call "solitude." Both poles are present in every experience of relatedness or unrelatedness we know. (Communion without solitude dissolves into a loss of identity; solitude without communion is isolation. Both are inhuman.) In physical solitude community exists as something from which we are separated for whatever reason. In existential solitude community is something we yearn for, something the memory or promise of which inspires and strengthens us in our aloneness, something to which we look forward to achieving or returning to, etc. The point is that in all human relatedness community exists even in its relative absence just as while in community we stand in a kind of solitude as individuals nonetheless.

Vocations accent either side of the paradox of human solitude/communion:

The Church has a number of vocations each of which highlights a side of our call to community (as you say, our social nature) and our solitary nature as well. Marriage and most forms of Religious life point primarily to the importance of community in coming to human wholeness. Each, however also witness to the fact that ultimately it is the human relationship with God which is of deepest significance. In marriage it is the case that each person is meant to bring the other to union with God; each person mediates the Love of God to the other in ways which allow them to come to human fullness and fruitfulness together. (This is why sexual intercourse is the ultimate symbol of marital love and is open to procreation.) In religious life community exists only to the extent that each Sister or Brother is faithful to prayer and all of the other things required by a solitary relationship with God. Moreover, community empowers faithfulness to this solitary relationship. The Church herself is this kind of reality of course. She is not simply a group of people brought together in some sort of club because of similar interests. She is Church only to the extent each of her members fulfills his or her own vocation to life with God just as she is Church only to the extent she empowers and inspires this. In each of these realities community and solitude exist but the accent in each is on community.

In vocations to eremitical solitude the focus is different. It is on the solitary side of the equation. Most human beings are called to achieve human individuation and wholeness in communion with God through community with others. While hermits have already achieved an essential individuation before becoming (or even seeking to become) hermits (they could not embrace such a vocation otherwise) their growth in human wholeness and holiness occurs in eremitical solitude --- a solitude lived in communion with God for the sake of others. Very few human beings are called to achieve human wholeness and holiness in this way. Even so, they remind all persons of 1) their existential solitude, 2) the foundational communion with God which grounds and completes all human existence, 3) the place of community in even the most solitary of lives, and 4) the possibility of the redemption and reconciliation by and to God of even the most marked isolation or estrangement. At bottom then, this will always be a rare vocation and certainly always much rarer than vocations to marriage and community life.

While this answer may be longer than you expected, it is still quite a simplified presentation of the nature of solitude and especially of eremitical solitude. I hope you find it helpful in answering your question.

Why isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified?

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I have long thought the hermit vocation is a selfish one. I have read blogs by so-called hermits and they seem to be completely self-centered --- I am not speaking of yours here, but if you google "hermit blogs" or "Catholic hermit" blogs you will find blogs by "hermits" whose entire focus is on how much they suffer and their own growth in holiness. It's all "me, me, me." You claim that the vocation is essentially one of love, but how do hermits really love others if they are living in solitude? You also claim that your vocation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but isn't this just a way of excusing selfishness? Anyone can say they are doing something because of "love" but the proof of that is in the pudding, as the saying goes. How does the church figure out whether someone is saying they are called to this as a way of loving others instead of just being selfish? It seems like a really easy lie to tell yourself and your diocese.]] (Redacted to shorten email)

You know, these are terrific questions. They are really excellent because they go to the heart of the matter of discerning, choosing, and living this life well; they also reprise a position that even a few great Church Fathers have held. Sometimes it is monastics more generally that are accused of selfishness. It is all that "fuga mundi" (flee the world) stuff (which is entirely valid and laudable when understood properly) coupled with a theology of consecrated life that strongly disparaged lay and secular vocations. We, as the People of God, are still outgrowing a lot of that but have begun making serious inroads thanks to Vatican II's emphasis on the universal call to holiness. Progress here is also due to the fact that we are becoming more sensitized to the place of active ministry in our world as well as to the importance of secularity and mission. Even so, we also are coming to a greater awareness that being has priority over doing, that mission depends upon the impulse and assistance of the missionary God empowering us, and that loving others is not possible unless we have been loved ourselves. This means there will always be a place for contemplative and even eremitical vocations which witness to this foundational relationship and need.

I have seen at least some of the blogs you seem to be speaking of and there is no doubt that if one is looking for self-centeredness one can find it by googling the terms you have cited. I have written about such supposedly "eremitical" lives in the past along with posts on hermit stereotypes and misunderstandings, inadequate reasons for seeking to live an eremitical life, the counter cultural nature of the vocation --- especially in a world which is strongly individualistic and even narcissistic, as well as on the charism of the vocation which presents genuine solitude as a form of communion which represents the redemption of individualism, isolation, and alienation. Recently I read an article called " The Urban Hermit Abnormal Personality" which takes some of what you have noted and a lot of what I have written against and identified it with the "urban hermit personality" in today's society. (To be honest, it is not clear the author is actually referring to urban diocesan hermits at all in this piece. While he might well think of these as selfishness personified AND institutionalized, he may merely have been giving a colorful name to misanthropes, and walking wounded who choose to live as isolated loners.)

The problem is that some "hermits" provide grist for this author's mill and, because they are truly seeking to validate as well as excuse their own self-centeredness, they do the vocation no favors when they write about being or becoming a hermit. (N.B., validation goes beyond excusing self-centeredness and is therefore more problematical.) So how is my vocation (both my own vocation and the vocation more generally) one which is founded on love then? How can a vocation which is more about being than doing really be loving in the way we usually associate with the lives of Religious? These are the ways I would restate your question, "How do hermits really love others?" and the approaches I would like to use to begin to respond to it.

Rooted in a Necessary Selfishness:

First of all, my vocation is grounded in the love of God. God has called me to it, that call has been validated and in fact mediated to me by the Church and I trust it. This means that I trust it is not merely selfishness masquerading as something worthy, much less something Divine or sacred. For me this is a piece of things I had not really appreciated sufficiently until after perpetual eremitical profession when several concerns and sources of anxiety dropped away. It is part of the freedom I experienced and have spoken about when I described not having to worry any longer about whether I was really called to something else, or whether I should be conforming my life to the expectations and norms of the world around me --- including the world of apostolic or ministerial Religious and the church more generally. Further, God continues to call me in this way on a daily basis and my own engagement with God in prayer and everyday living attests to growth in this love.

It is this growth which points to a necessary and entirely graced "selfishness" in answering any call. I have responded to God and done so out of love for God and his People but there is no doubt that I have also found this the means to personal healing and growth in human wholeness and holiness. I continue responding to God day by day. You see, my own life was once dominated by chronic illness. I have done a lot in spite of it (education, work, ministry) but even so most of the time achievements were hard-won things and often the illness itself "won out." As a result I was once simply unable to serve in the way I felt called to serve, whether that was directly because of the illness or because of the human brokenness, limitations, and incapacity which accompanied it. More fundamentally, my illness prevented me from being the human being I felt called to be, from relating to others or loving in the ways I thought (knew) I should love; it was a dominating, sometimes all-consuming reality and it crippled me on every level. Not least it prevented me from truly loving myself, and therefore, from effectively loving anyone else in the radical way Christ calls us each to do. It is at this point that eremitical life enters the picture and becomes important.

The first time I read canon 603 I realized that if this really pointed to a vital form of Christian life it could well provide the context for a life in which illness was deprived of its power to disrupt, dominate, and even define me. In other words it could provide a context in which every aspect of my life could make sense and thus become fruitful in some yet-to-be-defined sense. There is a selfishness involved here, a fundamental concern with the sense of one's own life, yes; it is a necessary form of selfishness which requires we love ourselves (and I mean truly love ourselves!!) in order that we may love our neighbors AS ourselves. In other words, I had to find a way to live a responsive and covenantal life with God in which God's grace could actually triumph over powers of darkness and death as they manifested themselves in my own life and heart. I had to find a way to deprive illness of its power to dominate and define, its ability to foster self-hatred in me. Solitary eremitical life provides the God-given context and means for that for me. In answering any divine call this particular form of "selfishness" will be present, and I would argue it must if we are to love others as we are truly called to do. This "truly loving oneself" is the necessary and graced form of selfishness on which the Great Commandment is based.

The Primacy of Being over Doing:

I think this points to a certain primacy of being over doing. We really must be persons who love ourselves in the power of God's love if we are to love others as God calls us to do. Of course we cannot omit the whole "going out and doing" dimension, but what I have found is that if  we touch others FROM a place of essential solitude (which means from a place of  personal communion with God) our very lives will be ministerial --- whether or not we are otherwise engaged in apostolic or ministerial activity. In other words what we do must and can only truly be a reflection of who we are; activity must and can only flow from contemplation; being must have priority so that it may define and guide whatever it is we do. More, it must be our primary ministry. This may sound counter cultural or contrary to the emphasis of so much  which is prevalent in our church and world today --- and it is! But it is also valid and an important lesson or witness our world and our Church needs.

Both our Church and our world often seem to preference doing over being, so much so that folks are out doing (teaching, ministering, etc) in all kinds of ways long before they have achieved the degree of human wholeness and wisdom necessary for that. (The stereotype of the psychologically wounded or crippled psychiatrist is a good symbol of this. So, unfortunately, is the image of the predatory priest turned loose to minister again because of a dearth of priests. So, for instance, is the glut of self-help books on the market offering instant wisdom and expertise for the price of a paperback, the "advanced degrees" which can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, or the prevalence of cheating and plagiarism in today's world!) While to some extent we all learn by doing, and while we all need to be interns and novices at various stages in our lives, my point is we tend to preference doing over being in ways which can be destructive.

But if the priority of being over doing is a profound truth which is in danger of being lost sight of today it is the very thing hermits and other contemplatives remind our church and world of --- and doing so is a profound act of love which, potentially at least, may leave no one untouched. For solitary hermits in particular, I think we witness to the profound sense life makes in communion with God, even when that life cannot issue in active ministry to others. For this reason I have written a lot in this blog about the witness we give to the chronically ill, the isolated elderly, the bereaved, and even to prisoners. I have spoken of it as the unique charism or gift quality of the hermit's life. As I have also noted here, all of these persons are marginalized, not least by the fact that they cannot measure the value and fruitfulness of their lives in the terms so prevalent today. They cannot compete in terms of productivity or various kinds of achievement (academic, political, etc). They cannot be terrific consumers or measure their lives in economic terms; often they require the assistance of others and government subsidies and aid even to live. But the hermit, and indeed all contemplatives say that such lives are infinitely valuable nonetheless.

And yet it is the Gospel message that we are justified (made right and truly human as part of a covenant relationship with God) through the gratuitous grace of God, not through any works of our own. By extension that message is also the message that our lives are of infinite worth simply because we are who we are, not because of what we do. Hermits proclaim that message with their lives in a unity of being and doing. I don't mean to suggest that others do not  act out of such a unity; I know they do. However, for hermits, our only role in the church is to be ourselves in God alone --- no one else. (It is this reason failing as a hermit is so easy, and trying to live as one is so risky. It is this reason mediocrity is so easy. Hermits do not tend to have active ministries they can use to distract from who they are first of all. They cannot use the roles they fill to soften the fact that they are not really WHO God has called them to be.) Who they ARE in God IS their ministry, and the fact that this happens by the grace of God in the silence of solitude IS their message. They can fall back on nothing else. (This too is one reason hermits are not called to active ministry and must be careful in even the limited amount in which they might engage. Their vocation really is to BE themselves in God alone. Their primary (or only) ministry really is in being and in calling folks to the primacy of being, not in doing.)

How does the Church Discern authentic vocations?

There is one main way the Church discerns the difference between inauthentic and authentic vocations. She demands that authentic vocations are vocations of love which contribute to the salvation of the world and praise and glorify God (make God manifest). One way of doing this is to look at the place of God in the hermit's life and discourse. While some self-proclaimed hermits do write about "Me, me, me" so that even their writing about spirituality becomes only secondarily about God, the genuine article makes it clear that they are who they are and do what they do only because of God.

So, for instance, if chronic illness is a piece of the hermit's life it is no longer the dominant or overarching theme; instead, what God has done (or does day by day!) in their lives both in spite of and with the illness will be the dominant theme. As a person matures even the illness may be seen as a genuine grace --- not articulated in some pious pretense of medieval mystical misery, but in the sense that this has brought the person to God and allowed God both a unique entry into her life and the achievement of a unique voice which will be mediated to others through both strength and weakness. That life then becomes "a silent preaching of the Lord" --- just as the CCC refers to in par 921. In other words, what God's grace makes possible in terms of human wholeness and holiness is their main focus and the key in which all else is set. The person becomes something very much greater and more articulate than a cry of anguish; she becomes instead an expression of the Gospel and an embodied reflection of God's own Logos. None of this means that the person cannot occasionally talk about themselves or their illness, sinfulness, brokennesses, etc, but it does mean that doing so occurs mainly in order to illustrate the grace of God's love and in contrast to the wholeness that grace has achieved in the person's life.

Thus, I would suggest that it is really not all that easy to lie about this matter. It is true that one can cover misery and brokenness with all kinds of pious platitudes, but the real person always shines through. More, the real God shines through in a compelling way when the hermit is authentic. The blogs you refer to affirm this in a kind of via negativa. Even for hermits in the early stages of grappling with this vocation and their own growth in it what comes through is their hope, their hunger to respond generously and wholeheartedly, their desire to give God free reign to work in their lives as God will. There will be some sense that this is primarily and sincerely done for God and those precious to God. Dioceses that take time to really listen to the candidate and get to know them will see clearly who has priority in their lives, even when the healing is partial or the grip of illness is still quite strong. On the other hand, I would agree with you that it is much easier to lie to oneself and I would note that this is one (but only one) of the reasons dioceses turn away FAR more applicants than they accept or eventually admit to temporary much less perpetual profession.

In my own experience dioceses usually look carefully at who the person is in light of their life of the silence of solitude. If they see increased growth in human maturity, wholeness, and holiness, if they see a greater capacity to love themselves and others, then they have reason to believe that the person is truly called by God to this. If they do not see this, or if the person seems to become more miserable or eccentric while living in this way, more isolated and alienated, or if they become more and more strident and bitter about not being admitted to vows, more critical of the vocation itself, etc, then the diocese is probably justified in their decision not to profess or even to admit them to serious discernment --- at least for the time being.

The Bottom Line in Discerning Eremitical Vocations:

At bottom there will always be questions of love: Is the person motivated by love? Does she love God and seek to respond wholeheartedly to God's love? Does she show signs of truly loving herself because of what she has experienced of God's love (especially) in solitude? Does she understand that simply living her life alone with God with the graced (in-Spired) integrity she is called to is an act of profound love the world desperately needs? And, finally, does she undertake (or desire to undertake) and embrace the WHOLE of this life, its discipline, monotony or tedium, sacrifices and rewards, occasional desolations and enormous consolations,  because she recognizes the gift (charism) it is not only to herself, but to the church, and to the world? Does she do so, in other words, on their behalf as well as on her own, and maybe better said, does she do so for them because that truly fulfills her as well? Again then, contrary to your own opinion I would argue that it is pretty difficult to fake convincing answers to these questions, especially as a vocation matures. A diocese whose vocational personnel are careful and discerning will recognize a life in which God (love-in-act) is glorified (made manifest), just as they will recognize its opposite.

By the way, this is a piece of why such vocations must be mutually discerned and why the Church reserves the term Catholic hermit for someone living the life in her name.  Hermits and other contemplatives tend to speak of themselves as living at the heart of the Church. This saying has a number of levels or dimensions but above all it means that the hermit represents a vocation to love which both precedes and grounds all apostolic activity. The journeying in the wilderness and the battling with demons a hermit does is mainly the sojourn she undertakes deep into her own heart and the heart of God so that love may truly predominate in all things. When I speak of taking on the rights and obligations of the eremitical life as a diocesan hermit I am speaking in large part of assuming the burdens and joy of these "bottom line" questions and this pilgrim role in a conscious and public way in the name of the Church and her Gospel.

Becoming a Hermit in the silence of solitude: Living the mystery of God's Good Time and God's own Purposes

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, if a diocese is unwilling to form me as a hermit, then why should I try living in solitude on my own? I read your post about dioceses not forming hermits after I spoke with them but it seems pretty unreasonable of them to expect me to just go off on my own and live as a hermit if there is no insurance that they will profess me in a couple of years. I mean c'mon, when one enters a religious community one looks forward to becoming a novice and then to profession. That is just normal! It helps the person get through formation. No one expects someone to give up three or more years without some assurance that they will be professed. Why can't a diocese set up a similar program for those desiring to become diocesan hermits?]]

Thanks for your questions. You have managed to mention most of the troublesome issues with regard to a lack of understanding of canon 603 that I have spent time writing about here. Perhaps the only ones you didn't explicitly refer to are the ideas of having someone else write your Rule for you, the eremitical life as one of misanthropy and isolation, or planning on going off and establishing a community as soon as you are professed under c 603!!

To be very frank, let me say that it really simply does not make sense that you are contacting your diocese to ask them to form you as a hermit if you do not feel called to live in solitude on your own. You see, hermits are formed in solitude --- and ordinarily in a number of years of solitude rather than the time frame you have spoken of! If you are not already living this life, at least in some rudimentary way, and doing so in a way which attests to its place in making you whole and holy, one wonders how your diocese is supposed to discern a vocation to solitude in your life?  Despite the fact that you have read what I have written on the diocese not forming hermits I think you may not have understood me. You still have the cart before the horse and even yet misunderstand the nature of eremitical formation.

The questions any diocese will ask you (or look for signs of the answers to in you) right from the beginning are "are you a hermit in any essential sense or are you just a dilettante or merely curious about it? Do you sincerely think God is calling you to live an eremitical life (and why is that) or is this really just a way to get professed because other avenues are not open to you, for instance?" (Remember that if other avenues are closed to you this can still occasionally mature into a true call to eremitical life, but rarely.) "Most importantly, can and will you follow this call whether or not your diocese decides to profess you in the future?" If your answers to all of these (or the answers your life embodies) are positive, then perhaps your diocese will (or at least should) be open to professing you one day. However, if you answered no to any of these questions (or your life suggests this was perhaps only a stopgap way of getting professed) the chances of your having a vocation to eremitical life drop quite significantly. Again, this is because hermits hear, respond to God's call, and are thus formed in solitude; this whole process is, more than anything else, a matter of the dialogue between the hermit and God in the silence of solitude. Nothing can substitute for this or replace it as primary. For this reason  if you truly feel there is no reason to live in solitude unless there is some promise the diocese will profess you, then there is something really and seriously amiss here.

Since something about the vocation intrigued you enough to go to your diocese I can't say the chances of your having an eremitical vocation drops to zero but depending upon what intrigued you that still might be true. (For instance, if it was the garb, the title (Sister, Brother, etc), the potential right to reserve Eucharist in your own place, the idea of being a religious without the complexities, demands, and challenges of community life, or if you thought this was a cool way to watch TV (or paint or whatever) all day and not be thought a colossal layabout while people treated you with the deference given to Religious then the chances do hover at nil.)

On Stages in Religious Life and the Absence of Assurances:

Before I respond  concerning the nature of eremitical life specifically, I guess I should also note that you are mistaken in your assumptions about those entering religious life. The majority of persons today do in fact live the life in initial formation for up to three years without ever being professed and without any assurance they will be professed, much less perpetually professed. Most leave before making first vows. Formation certainly does prepare a person for vows but it remains mainly a period of discernment as does the period of temporary profession (the period of up to six years in temporary vows). A congregation or an individual may well decide such a person does not have a call to religious life at any point along these nine years.

At each stage a person petitions the community to admit her to the next step: a postulant or candidate asks to be received into the community and begin a novitiate; a canonical or second year novice petitions to be admitted to first vows; these may be renewed in several different ways (for instance, yearly or  every two or three years) and each renewal requires the Sister petition and receive the permission of the congregation; finally, after six years of temporary vows, this Sister petitions to be admitted to perpetual profession. Although as time goes on it becomes less likely a person will leave (or not be admitted to the next stage of commitment) I have known people to leave just before perpetual profession. Again, there are no assurances that if one puts in x time and jumps through y hoops one will be professed. A vocation is more than this. One risks the time and effort because one truly believes God is calling one to this. Meanwhile, in some ways formation is more akin to Michaelangelo's idea of freeing and bringing to clarity or articulateness the obscure form within the marble than it is about creating a vocation out of a shapeless lump of raw material.

The Eremitical Vocation is Truly Heard and Responded to in Solitude

With hermits the situation is even more complicated or hard to reduce to a single program or time frame. Solitude itself can be temporary, transitional, maladaptive, or even dysfunctional and situations where any of these are the case do not equate to a call to live one's life as a hermit. Being a lone individual and somewhat pious, or even very pious, is also not the same as being a hermit or being called to be one. (cf. Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits as Desert Dwellers) Nor is merely needing some peace and quiet to do one's own intellectual or artistic work --- though true hermits tend to do both as part of their vocations. All of this takes varying amounts of time to discern. Presuming a true call to a life of solitude (what I qualify as "eremitical solitude"), even if a diocese sets up guidelines for all of its own diocesan hermits the individual hermit  in this local church will live out her vocation with reasonable flexibility and creativity.

She responds to a call which is altogether individual and the Rule she writes, even when taking account of diocesan guidelines, will reflect this. Because the eremitical vocation is so truly individual I don't think any "program" of formation can be set up which specifies exact time frames or stages. Once a person has become a hermit in some essential or fundamental sense rather than being merely a lone or isolated individual (and, again, this happens in solitude), a diocese might well determine a general set of parameters for temporary profession  prior to perpetual profession (3-5 years is not unusual, and this is often preceded by another period of at least five years without public vows), but otherwise, set periods really don't work too well.

The Eremitical Paradox: Only in God's Good Time and at God's Pleasure

Additionally, the eremitical vocation, especially the solitary eremitical vocation lived under canon 603, requires the individual's ability to respond to God on a day by day basis. She really must have a strong sense of initiative and be able to act, grow, and mature in all the ways anyone must, but with much less supervision or ability to check in with folks for immediate feedback, etc. Beyond this she must have a sense of the gift-quality of her life whether or not the Church ever admits to canonical standing or not.

It is only in light of such a sense of the value of her life to God and a world that is largely oblivious to her that she will be able to persevere in solitude. (That the world is largely oblivious, and that the church too may be oblivious in this case or that, is part of the essential hiddenness of the eremitical vocation.) It is true that canonical standing affirms this value and that it is helpful in this task of persevering, but my own experience says that the proven capacity to persevere in the silence of solitude apart from and prior to admission to public vows is essential to the vocation. (And here an aspect of the silence of  solitude is the absence of external verification or affirmation of value.) The somewhat difficult paradox operating here is that one must demonstrate to the diocese that one is committed and able to live this vocation without canonical standing and the relationships that come with this before one can show them one actually requires canonical standing and the relationships which are part of such standing.

 This last piece of things is one of the more important reasons a diocese cannot set up a formation program for diocesan hermits. The competence, available time, resources, willingness, etc of the diocesan personnel notwithstanding, a diocese can only recognize a vocation that stands in front of them; such vocations are formed in solitude and will persevere in solitude even without canonical standing or they are likely not authentic eremitical vocations. Once the vocation is truly discerned --- and this means once a person has responded to God's call in and to the silence of solitude and established a life characterized by this same charisma (gift) --- she (and the church as a whole) may find there are good reasons for public profession and canonical standing (not least that this gift c 603 calls "the silence of solitude" needs to be brought more consciously and mutually into the heart of the church). However, in my opinion this direction cannot really be reversed. The Church (meaning here a diocese's chancery and formation personnel) does not form hermits. Only God in solitude does that and this only in God's good time and according to God's own purposes and pleasure. This is an essential part of the vocation and  a central piece of what the hermit witnesses to with her life.

Looking at the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard from a new Perspective:

This asks that we see the parable of the laborers in the vineyard from a different perspective than usual -- from the perspective of those who were only hired quite late in the day. We hermits usually come to this vocation late in life or at least in the latter half of life. Sometimes we come to this vocation via years of chronic illness and often we have to wait long years for the Church to admit us to public profession (if that happens at all). There can be a sense that time is being wasted, that a life is being lost and opportunities for formation and ministry are tragically being missed; it may even seem that we are hanging about town waiting for an opportunity to be put to good use and that in the end our lives will return void to the God who created and sent us into the world. But the truth is quite different and is symbolized by the fact that in the parable all laborers are given the same wage (are valued the same).

At the same time we find that the laborers who came late to work in the vineyards had learned to wait on the Lord. Their own sense of poverty was profoundly honed during this time of waiting and they are open to God calling them and gifting them in whatever way God proposes. They are a countercultural witness because they have become someone very different in all of this than they might have been otherwise. But one comes to find it has all been done according to God's own time and purposes, that God has brought great good out of all this seeming emptiness and waste and the result is God's own gift to Church and World. Those proposing they be admitted to public profession as diocesan hermits need to have acquired a sense of all of this apart from canonical profession. I think it is the way to the essential formation of the hermit heart and can only come in the silence of solitude where one learns to wait on the Lord in radical poverty and dependence.

(Also cf: Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits as Desert Wanderers and Dwellers)