"Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage" by Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio

I am pleased to be able to post the following article from Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio. Rachel is a good friend who also "does Christology from below;" her life is focused on Jesus in the extraordinary ordinariness of hermitage life. It was a blessing to have discovered this article in The Merton Journal last night after I posted Why I do Christology from Below. Rachel gave her permission to use this article, and I am ecstatic to share it with readers here!

Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage

I am a canonical hermit, originally of the diocese of Nottingham UK (professed 2006), currently of the diocese of Hallam UK: Hermits are eclectic and catholic in nature – we each do our own thing! I write from my own experience of hermitage, though I hope there may be common themes here which will resonate more widely.

Some questions from the beginning of the penny catechism:
1. Who made you?
God made me.
2. Why did God make you?
God made me to know God, love God and serve God in this world, and to be happy with God for ever in the next.
3. To whose image and likeness did God make you?
God made me to God’s own image and likeness. 1

As we draw towards the end of this Year-of-Covid, I have been curious to notice the priorities of the Church in supporting her members and the wider populace. Within local parish communities there has been much evidence of ongoing support for each other and for the most needy, finding innovative ways to celebrate and to support. But the ecclesial headlines appear to have focused quite specifically on the re-opening of church buildings for private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and thenceforward for the physical participation of the faithful in the celebration of the Eucharist.

When I was consecrated as a canonical hermit, I was offered the privilege of having the Blessed Sacrament reserved within my hermitage. I gave the invitation much prayerful consideration, but eventually decided against it. My understanding and experience of hermitage is that the whole of the hermitage is sacred space; the whole of the hermitage is tabernacle, the place where the hermit meets Christ. Hermitage is, for the hermit, the sacred space of God-with-us. This understanding and experience is a step beyond the foothills of the God-is-everywhere theme of childhood lessons. This is the confidence that, by God’s grace, simply to embrace and live out my humanity in the place and circumstance I find myself, is the fullest possible expression of my relationship with God during my life on this earth.

Deep within the paragraphs of Vita Consecrata (an encyclical on the consecrated life which is adopted by canonical hermits on their profession) there is hidden a quite audacious phrase. It describes Jesus’ life on earth, his humanity, as the expression of his relationship as the Only-Begotten Son with the Father and with the Holy Spirit 2 .

Being human is 'the expression' of Christ's love within the Trinity. 

We have been taught, perhaps too often, that Jesus’s humanity is a belittling, a humbling of his deity, as if it were second-best, dragging him down to our own “wretched” state. But if we ponder the statement above prayerfully, we can perhaps begin to trust that being human is, in and from the beginning, the most perfect way that Christ participates in being God – that Christ being the Word, Christ being human is the event of God speaking; as the encyclical states, it is “the expression” of Christ’s love within the Trinity. In the desire to most fully express the love of the Trinitarian Godhead, in the Word being spoken, Christ wondrously brought about, for Christ-self, the state of being human. Christ is human first, before anybody else was even imagined, right from the beginning!

And for ourselves, being human is Christ creating us upwards into the ecstasy of the Trinity. Christ’s undiminished humanity is the ecstatic love that we, and all of creation (because it is all spoken), are invited to share in our living today. Each one of us is created in the image of Christ’s humanity – in the image of the fullness of this unbounded expression of Trinitarian love. As a hermit, I witness that I am called to make manifest Trinitarian love, through my own humanity – of Christ – in my daily life; that the call to being human in Christ, and in imitation of Jesus, makes manifest in me, too, the fullness of our relationship, in Christ, in the Trinity.

So how does that work in practice? The heartbeat of my hermitage is its sacred ordinariness. It is an experience, in silence and solitude, of total immersion in the humdrum of daily life. A hermit is one who has, perhaps, become so overwhelmed by the immensity of the privilege of sharing Jesus’ humanity that she chooses to spend her whole life contemplating the mystery and manifestation of that gift in the most simple and ordinary form of living. A hermit lives out the mystery of the Incarnation in her own body, her own blood. A hermit says, “Christ, from the beginning of time, and in the fullness of time, chose being Jesus, being human, as the best way of expressing the love of the Trinity. Living in Christ, under the action of the Holy Spirit, and totally dedicated to God who is supremely loved 3, I will now do likewise”.

Because of the relentless ordinariness of her life, there is very little of worth that can be written about a hermit and her hermitage which cannot be written about every individual and community on the earth. That participation in the mystery of Christ’s humanity in Jesus is the focused privilege of the hermitage, but it is the lodestone of every human life. The hermit inhabits the tabernacle of her hermitage, but all people wait and attend in the tabernacle of the world. Christ is close to us when we are kneeling directly in front of the Blessed Sacrament in a church, but just as close when we are sitting in the pews at the back, or standing at the boundary wall outside locked doors, or at any moment in any place when we attend inwardly to the presence of God.

Lockdown in the hermitage was not a time of greater separation, but a time of dwelling deeper within the mystery. Now, as the churches tentatively regroup and are re-inhabited, as people kneel directly in front of the tabernacle, and celebrate Eucharist together in each other’s company, we are able to express more publicly again the community which is Christ’s self-manifestation and revelation to the world. In this time of Advent, of waiting, of expectation, and from the solitude and silence of my hermitage, I like to stand with the Church and the whole of humanity, bereaved, grieving and masked, together-yet-apart before the altar of God.

God is with us.

1. Opening phrases of the penny catechism.
2. Pope John Paul II, 1996, Vita Consecrata. 18
3. Code of Canon Law: Part III Institutes of consecrated life.

 Canon 573 i

Sister Rachel's website is found at, St Cuthbert's House.

Remain in your Cell and your Cell will teach you Everything

[[ Sister O'Neal, what seems particularly unfair to me in the situation you have described over the last weeks, is the fact that Cole Matson is able to use this vocation to do the kind of active ministry he really feels called to while other hermits have had to relinquish such forms of ministry so that they could live c 603 life as the Church called them to do. . . .]]

I agree with you. Hermits often have to relinquish some very special gifts in order to live c 603 in a normative and edifying way. Limited ministry is possible, but the degree to which Matson's own life is given over to this is not simply unusual, it is an unprecedented violation of the spirit and letter of the canon. Most bishops would not permit it and would not profess someone under c 603 if they indicated this degree and type of active ministry was essential to being who they really are. Matson has been clear in conversations we have had that the work he does and will continue doing in theatre is essential to being the person he is. As I told him in 2022, if that is the case, then he needs to understand that faithfully living c 603 would require he relinquish certain gifts he considers essential to being himself. Of course, I fully expected Bp Stowe would not use the canon in a frudulent way in this and would act to protect the integrity of the vocation it defines.

There is a serious degree of injustice being perpetrated in the Lexington situation. Canon 603 hermits truly embracing this specific call will continue to struggle with the question of limited ministry vs contemplative life in hermitage, knowing full well that Cole's gifts, while undoubted, are no more real or significant than the gifts they are being called to relinquish. Others will have to live with the fact that their own bishops have interpreted c 603 appropriately and refused them admittance to profession under c 603 because they must work outside the hermitage --- even though that work takes the form of the lonely cleaning of office buildings in the middle of the night. Still others will come to doubt the importance of the eremitical vocation itself because it does not depend on active ministry in the way most things in the church do; these folks may well determine they cannot persevere or that they need to find a different bishop to profess them --- the need to do active ministry seeming to be too great. While some of these candidates or novice hermits may be correct that they are not called to eremitical life, others may be misled by the situation in Lexington and, as a result, may never be able to entrust themselves to the life of c 603 as fully as it requires to be uniquely fruitful.

We hermits live our lives in the silence of solitude for the sake of others, and that includes for the sake of other hermits also being challenged by the countercultural nature of the vocation and the great need for active ministry in every part of  our church and society. We support one another, most often in our hiddenness, but also directly as we meet by ZOOM or correspond with one another regarding this vocation with which the church has entrusted us. In the past 7-8 weeks I have heard from several diocesan hermits sharing their own feelings about the situation in Lexington. There was a general sense of pain expressed; diocesan hermit Rachel Denton said it this way.

[[The hurt is that c603 is taken so lightly. An administrative tool to “ratify” those of a religious inclination who are not suitable for community living. C603 when it is explored and lived-in-deeply is a wondrous expression of the eremitical life. It is unreasonable to expect bishops and other clerics to understand this fully as they have never lived it – I still don’t understand it fully myself! – But I would hope that they would refer to the experiences of those who have lived it, at length, when they are thinking to wield its authority.

Rachel continues:

An eremitical vocation is a very particular thing (though lived very differently by individuals). It is about a compelling need, an unabated longing, to find God in the silence of solitude. It is not about wanting (or being able) to live a solitary life; it is not about enjoying a bit of peace and quiet; it is not about living in remote and lonely places (though it could be all those things – God redeems everything!). It is about looking for God, and realising the only place to look is in this place, and finding, in your searching and solitude, that the whole world is here in this place with you.]] Rachel Denton, Er Dio (Diocese of Hallam, UK) Emphasis added.

But, you see, growth in the ability to perceive what Sister Rachel is referring to here takes time and commitment to life in the silence of solitude. Her perspective on this is precisely the perspective of someone living this vocation faithfully over long years. Her correlative commitment to creating community from the hermitage has been similarly formed and informed. What she has affirmed strongly echoes the classic desert wisdom, [[Dwell (or remain) in your cell and your cell will teach you everything!!]] That affirmation is the essence and gift of the eremitical vocation to the rest of the Church. It is something those entrusted with this vocation are called to live and proclaim with fidelity even (or especially) when it means relinquishing other God-given gifts and greater active ministry.

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (Reprise)

Today we celebrate a feast that may seem at first glance to be irrelevant to contemporary life. The Feast of the Sacred Heart developed in part as a response to pre-destinationist theologies which diminished the universality of the gratuitous love of God and consigned many to perdition. But the Church's own theology of grace and freedom points directly to the reality of the human heart -- that center of the human person where God freely speaks himself and human beings respond in ways that are salvific for them and for the rest of the world. It asks us to see all persons as constituted in this way and called to life in and of God. Today's Feast of the Sacred Heart, then, despite the shift in context, asks us to reflect again on the nature of the human heart, to the greatest danger to spiritual or authentically human life the Scriptures identify, and too, on what a contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart might mean for us.

As I have written here before, the heart is the symbol of the center of the human person. It is a theological term which points first of all to God and to God's activity deep within us. It is not so much that we have a heart and then God comes to dwell there; it is that where [and to the extent] God dwells within us and bears witness to himself, we have a heart. The human heart (not the cardiac muscle but the center of our personhood the Scriptures call heart) is a dialogical event where God speaks, calls, breathes, and sings us into existence and where, in one way and degree or another, we respond to become the people we are [and are called to be]. It is therefore important that our hearts be open and flexible, that they be obedient to the Voice and love of God, and so that they be responsive in all the ways they are summoned to be.

Bearing this in mind it is no surprise that the Scriptures speak in many places about the very worst thing which could befall a human being and her spiritual life. We hear it in the following line from Ezekiel: [[If today you hear [God's] voice, harden not your hearts.]] Many things contribute to such a reaction. We know that love is risky and that it always hurts. Sometimes this hurt is akin to the mystical experience of being pierced by God's love and is a wonderful but difficult experience. Sometimes it is the pain of compassion or empathy or grief. These are often bittersweet experiences, but they are also life-giving. Other times love wounds us in less fruitful ways: we are betrayed by friends or family, we reach out to another in love and are rejected, and a billion smaller losses wound us in ways from which we cannot seem to recover.

In such cases our hearts are not only wounded but become scarred, indurated, less sensitive to pain (or pleasure), stiff, and relatively inflexible. They, quite literally, become "hardened" and we may be fearful and unwilling or even unable to risk further injury. When the Scriptures speak of the "hardening" of our hearts they use the very words medicine uses to speak of the result of serious and prolonged wounding: induration, sclerosis, becoming calloused. Such hardening is self-protective but it also locks us into a world that makes us less capable of responding to love with all of its demands and riskiness. It makes us incapable of suffering well (patiently, fruitfully), or of real selflessness, generosity, or compassion.

It is here that the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' is instructive and where contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart can assist us. The Sacred Heart is clearly the place where human and divine are united in a unique way. While we are not called to Daughterhood or to Sonship in the exact same sense of Jesus' (he is only "begotten" Son, we are adopted Sons --- and I use only Sons here because of the prophetic, countercultural sense that term had for women in the early Church along with its derivative nature --- whether male or female we are sharers in Jesus' own Sonship --- we are meant to be expressions of a similar unity and heritage; we are meant to have God as the well spring of life and love at the center of our existence.

Like the Sacred Heart our own hearts are meant to be "externalized" in a sense and (made) transparent to others. They are meant to be wounded by love and deeply touched by the pain of others but not scarred or indurated in that woundedness; they are meant to be compassionate hearts on fire with love and poured out for others --- hearts which are marked by the cross in all of its kenotic (self-emptying) dimensions and therefore too by the joy of ever-new life. The truly human heart is a reparative heart that heals the woundedness of others and empowers them to love as well. Such hearts are hearts that love as God loves, and therefore which do justice. I think that allowing our own hearts to be remade in this way represents an authentic devotion to Jesus' Sacred Heart. There is nothing lacking in relevance or contemporaneity in that! 

Special feastday wishes to all those who have opened their hearts to me throughout this year especially to all those Sisters of whatever congregation, but especially to Sisters Norma and Christine, who were my Sisters in the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart. We have gone different directions (Christine is still OSF) but I think we remain FSSH to one another in Spirit. 

On Hermits, Home Visits, and "Appropriate Topics" for Conversation

[[Hi Sister Laurel! Happy Easter!!!  I wondered if you go home for Easter or what you do? If you are with your family or friends I wondered how that works. Do you just talk God-talk or do you talk about other things? Do you have to pretend not to be a hermit or need to "live a double life"? I'm asking because I heard someone saying they had to do that with her family --- I guess she is not Catholic. Is your family Catholic? Does being a hermit mean you only talk about "spiritual things"? You can tell I don't have any idea about this kind of thing so could you tell me a little bit about how you spend holidays and visits with friends and family?]]

Hi there and Happy Easter to you as well!  Good to hear from you again. Christ is risen, Alleluia!!

I know I have answered similar questions before so while I will write a new answer for you I hope you will look at On Family Visits and Visits With Friends and perhaps Visiting Family and friends: Followup Question. There are a couple of other posts under the label "Family Visits" which might be edifying, especially as they distinguish being an authentic hermit (that is, being oneself) versus being a stereotype or some sort of imagined "hermit" type. But to answer your questions directly,  I don't ordinarily go home for Easter. My liturgical life is centered on my parish and I need to be able to participate there for the sake of my prayer life more generally. Moreover the parish is my faith family so sharing with them to the extent I feel called to do that during any given year is important for the quality of my eremitical life. I might choose to go on retreat during Holy Week and the Triduum, but a home visit is not usually something I would do during this specific time.

But during home visits the one thing I do not do is pretend not to be a hermit. While my family is not Catholic, I do not live a double life at such times --- or at any other time for that matter. I am myself and while I don't expect my family (or my friends) to accommodate me in terms of prayer, liturgy, silence, solitude, meals, etc., I am myself and do not pretend otherwise. To do so is contrary to my vocation and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is contrary to God's reconciling love and will to being and doing the truth within and through me. But consider that neither does this mean I play at some sort of role or adopt the pretense of this or that eremitical character. I am a hermit; I do not play at being one. This means I bring the silence of solitude and eremitical prayer to whatever situation I find myself in. Sometimes (rarely with family) that may mean explicit God-talk (good term, by the way; one I also use) --- as when I am with certain high school friends or Sister friends. But most times it will mean talking about the profoundly human in thoroughly human and everyday terms. After all, that is the way the Spirit works to sanctify any reality, no?

 So, during infrequent home visits or time away with friends, conversations revolve around our lives, our dreams, those we love, and those we struggle to love, the work and relationships which gives our lives meaning, failures, successes, memories, and (sometimes explicitly) the grace of God in all of this. There are walks and shared meals (including grace), remembered past times together, sightseeing, window shopping, and exclamations over shared experiences of beauty and the talent of artisans, lots of laughter, and often serious conversations as well. Is any of this "profane" (outside the precincts of the sacred)? Does any of it fall outside the realm or movement of the Holy Spirit? I don't think so. The compartmentalization of reality (and conversations about reality) into spiritual things and non-spiritual or profane things, especially in light of the Incarnate Christ who tore asunder any veil distinguishing the sacred from the profane, shows a profound misunderstanding of what an authentic spirituality looks like.

If someone you read claims to be a hermit and said they would only talk about spiritual things with relatives or friends I would suggest the following are true: 1) they are not truly a hermit -- though they may well be an isolated individual playing at being a hermit, 2) they are not possessed of a genuine or at least a mature spirituality, and 3) they are not particularly loving or open in the way they relate to others! Imagine demanding relatives and friends only talk about football, or politics because those dominate your life, or, more specifically, that they never mention the things which really move or excite or concern them because it does not fall within your own narrowly defined "spiritual" bailiwick? This demand limiting what folks can talk about with one is a false attempt to control reality while pointing to one's own supposed "spiritual status" or expertise; it is an implicit and illicit judgment on those whose spirituality may actually be more wholesome and integral than one's own. It certainly seems less pharisaical than a supposed "hermit" who can tolerate nothing but specifically "spiritual" conversation. Hermits live in and towards the silence of solitude but they are not hot house plants that cannot tolerate a more ordinary environment. To the extent they are authentic hermits I think just the opposite is true; they see and hear God everywhere and locate the Divine presence in almost every conversation or relationship even when that presence is not made explicit. After all, the Incarnation reveals how profoundly the ordinary belongs to and mediates the extraordinary reality we call God. Hermits should be capable of perceiving this Presence even in obscurity and profound brokenness.

One of the things we grow in as we grow spiritually is in our sense of how profoundly like as well as unlike others we are. Though our lifestyles, life experiences, and vocations may differ one from another, we come to see that we have the same yearnings, dreams, desires, needs, failings, limitations,  potentials, etc., as the persons all around us. We also come to be able to hear the deep questions, concerns, and doubts, and perceive the transcendent potential living deep within each person. In all of this are the roots of authentic spirituality and a compassion and love which marks such a spirituality. None of these need be dressed up in pious language --- though sometimes specifically theological language can be helpful in expressing these deep realities. Still, the authentically spiritual is profoundly human just as it is profoundly divine.

Thus, it seems to me that a hermit should certainly be able to negotiate the real world without the compartmentalization described in your question  or a similar fragmentation which seems to me to be more typical of sinfulness (alienation) than human wholeness and relatedness! After all, eremitical life humanizes us; it strips us of pretense and allows us to stand secure as our truest selves in the love of God. If a "hermit" cannot relate to others without the pious role-playing described in your question, then better she have nothing to do with family and friends! If she cannot relate to them in genuine love, sincere interest, empathy, and compassion without playing a role or donning some sort of silly stereotype as the "character" friends and family are supposed to indulge, then she had best stay in her "hermitage" without contact with others --- and I say this not only for the sake of these same others, but for the sake of the eremitical vocation this "hermit" claims to represent!

Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio

Let me clarify one thing; I don't expect hermits (whether canonical or non canonical) to be perfect (teleioi) in living their lives though I do expect them to be on the way towards the telos/goal of their lives. Still, at the same time neither do I have sympathy for those who are really little more than walking stereotypes! There is little throughout the history of eremitical life that has been more harmful to the hermit vocation than creation-hating, misanthropic eccentrics styling themselves as hermits and expecting others to somehow kowtow to their supposed "superior spirituality". I am reminded that Jesus was criticized by religious leaders of his day as a drunkard and glutton (i.e., a party animal!) who ate with and hosted the poor and sinners. Jesus who was a paradigm of contemplative prayer, was, precisely for that reason, one who was entirely comfortable not only with God but also with others whether he was in the fields, apart with his disciples on the sea of Galilee, teaching in the Temple, resting and eating in the homes of tax collectors, walking amongst, healing, and exorcising the marginalized anawim, or praying in the wilderness. The folks he really did not get on with, however, were those he called hypocrites --- those whose behavior did not match their inner states, those who Lorded it over others as "spiritual leaders", or placed needless religious burdens on the shoulders of those who could not bear them.

I hope this is helpful. It's clearly something I feel passionately about!