Living the Questions: Journeying into the Shadows of Death, Despair, and Meaninglessness

[[Sister Laurel, in your piece on Hiddenness and witnessing to the journey to deeper union with God, you quoted Merton on journeying in the desert area of the human heart. I wonder if you could say more about that? I was especially interested in Merton's description that he has been called to explore places most people were not able to visit except in the company of one's psychologist, and that they studiously avoid except in their nightmares. Is this the way you understand your vocation? Can you say more about this? I also wondered what Merton meant by saying that one cannot truly know hope unless one has found out how like despair hope is. Do you understand that?]]

These are particularly good questions, and I appreciate you asking them. Merton's quote here is dense and incredibly significant. It corresponds to the inner journey made by many contemplatives and hermits, and yes, I think I can explain some dimensions of it based on my own experience. Let me quote the entire passage and then comment on it in terms of two things: 1) becoming Emmanuel (God with Us) as we allow God to be Emmanuel, and 2) learning to be one who "lives the questions". These are two of the ways I understand the nature of eremitical life. Merton's passage reads:

When I first became a monk, yes, I was more sure of  'answers'. But as I grow old in the monastic life and advance further into solitude, I become aware that I have only begun to seek the questions. And what are the questions? Can man make sense out of his existence? Can man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life? My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit --- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by specters which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area, I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.

Sinful human beings are profoundly (existentially) alone and threatened by death and meaninglessness. Moreover, because of sin, we also experience estrangement from God even when personal sin is not a particular problem. (We experience this estrangement as a yearning for both being and meaning. This means we are hungry for and seek an ever fuller existence that is full of value and purpose.) We are taught that our lives are meaningful and precious, that we are made in the image of God, and so, that we are called to union with God. We are taught by Scripture (cf. Romans 8:26ff) that nothing at all can separate us from the love of God, and that the hope we are called to live is rooted in the Christ Event and the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Every religion or theology class we may take or have taken throughout our lives, every homily we hear, every conversation we may have with spiritual directors, every book or article on the Gospel we have read, serves in some way to affirm the truth that God is the ground and source of our lives and that ultimately, we cannot be separated from him. This means God is the ground and source of every potentiality, every talent, and gift we have. Further, God transcends any threat to being or meaning we might experience. All of this also means that the anxiety associated with the fact that our lives are marked and marred by finitude and sin (separation from God as ground and source of being and meaning), though these are real and a source of suffering, can be transformed into the peace of God whenever God is allowed to be Emmanuel.

The fact that we are made by and for God also means that without God, we are incomplete. The ways sin, death, and meaninglessness threaten us are reminders of both our need and hunger for the God who completes and makes us whole and wholly or exhaustively alive. All of the ways we seek to give our lives purpose, fulfill them, seek meaning, and create representations of and reflections on these things testify both to what we are made for and what we yet lack. As human beings in search of a more exhaustive being and meaning, that is, as people seeking fullness of life in, with, and through God, we are like questions in search (and in need) of a completing and illuminating answer. Ironically, only once a question is paired with its truest answer can we truly see the full sense, depths, and significance of the question. Only when the answer is provided do we have a complete articulation of the truth. Similarly, it is only when we begin to have a sense of the answer that we find the courage to pose the question as radically as we really need and are called to do. And this is especially true with the question that we each are and the answer God represents.

It is in our hearts that we hear and struggle with the questions that are part of our being human and made for God. It is in the desert of the human heart that we know the questions that excite and propel us further towards transcendence and those that agonize us with apparent absurdity, loss, limitation, disappointment, contradiction, and crisis. It is in the human heart that we sin against others and, in the process, betray ourselves, those others, and our God as well. Here we make ourselves not just a question, but questionable. Here we battle with demons and seek out angels; here we embrace, then reject idols, and seek the real God even more intensely and profoundly. And in all of this struggle, seeking, and questioning, it is in the human heart that we pose the question of the truth of ourselves and of God, and eventually, that we can discover the union that exists deeper than any brokenness, distortion, or estrangement we might also know or have known.

Thomas Merton knew all of this very well, and as he journeyed more deeply into solitude, he did as every hermit is called to do and began to explore the desert of his own heart. Merton understood that most folks do not make this same journey as consistently or as profoundly as a monk or hermit is called to do. Such a journey is entirely too demanding, too painful, and in any case, everyday life and responsibilities prevent it. This is part of the reason eremitical vocations are seen as second-half-of-life vocations. They arise out of deeper questioning and seeking, out of a more profound posing of the question of self in conjunction with a relatively mature sense of the answer that (who) is God. Eremitism is embraced as a full-time commitment to seek and receive or be received by God, which also necessarily means posing the question of one's own existence as profoundly as one can while remaining open to the answer**. The question of God is not an abstract one. It is a deeply personal question requiring our entire commitment and the exploration of a whole life's experience. This is what canon 603 refers to as a life of assiduous prayer and penance. We approach this question existentially, understanding that the answer is something we must also come to know experientially. Dogma and doctrine, no matter how true and important they are, are not the answer our existence ultimately requires. Only God Godself is the true answer.

I believe that my vocation is about letting God love me as exhaustively as he wills to do. This means opening myself to and allowing God to be Emmanuel in the same way Jesus did, and doing so in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe another way of saying this and describing the self-emptying this requires is to define eremitical life as one of living the questions as deeply and exhaustively as I can. In my own experience, this involves journeying into the shadows of meaninglessness, near-despair, and death. Only the Holy Spirit, I believe, gives a person the power (courage) to make such a journey. Thus, Merton speaks of nightmares, or specters, that persons studiously avoid except, perhaps, when working with their psychologist (I would add "with one's spiritual director" here). To pose the question of oneself in all of the ways that question is raised throughout one's life, and to do so ever more profoundly, prepares us to receive God (or, more truly, to be received by God) as the answer. For that reason, it prepares us to receive the ground and source of all hope as well. I believe this is what Merton meant by saying how like despair hope really is. 

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** Here I am thinking of Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross. In this moment, Jesus posed the question he was as deeply as possible and remained open to allowing God to be the answer that He would be. On the cross of Christ, the human question (which is also the question of God!) is posed as radically as we will ever see it posed. At that moment, Jesus stood at the doorway of death, despair, and meaninglessness, and was open to God as the only adequate and completing answer. This openness is not assured in most of us, and we can struggle to "achieve" or allow it as our inner journey into the shadows and darkness deepens, but it is this openness or "obedience" that was key to (God's) transforming the cross into the very center of redemptive and revelatory history. I would not be surprised if Thomas Merton had been reflecting on the same event as well as his own profound experiences in solitude as he wrote what he did on the relation and likeness of despair and hope.

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I will need to reflect on and address this in further posts, but Merton's quotation, and my own understanding of the reason for this contemplative vocation to "live the questions," in the very heart of the Church is precisely so that the experience of God's sustaining love is witnessed to as the assured answer to the human question each of us is. Dogma and Doctrine proclaim this in many ways. The Scriptures witness to and proclaim this truth in the proclamation of a crucified Jesus' resurrection, and perhaps most powerfully in Paul's affirmation in Romans 8:31-39. Merton makes the point that sometimes this is simply not enough for those seeking being and meaning. Experience is necessary. I would also point out that the hermit makes this journey for the sake of others as well as herself, first for God's sake, then for the Church whose task is the mediation of this reality (Emmanuel) to the world, and finally, for the sake of all those whose existential questions require encouragement and, above all, a source of hope.

On Eremitical Hiddenness: Witnessing to the Journey to Deeper Union with God

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered what it is that hermits witness to, especially since they live in solitude. Do hermits witness with the hiddenness of their lives? I think you have said something like that and it sounds nonsensical to me. At least I don't get it! I mean how can someone witness to something with the hiddenness of their life? (I guess if they are witnessing to hiddenness, then they do that with hiddenness, but that seems really silly to me.) But really, what is it hermits are most concerned with witnessing to? Do you do this in your solitude?]]

Thanks for your questions. Sometimes the paradoxes involved in Christianity seem silly or absurd, at least initially. I definitely understand that. Imagine trying to explain to someone without a sense of paradox how it is that "power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9) without that leading to some kind of oppressive and dehumanizing dynamic between the weak and the powerful in the equation or relationship! Or, imagine trying to tell some folks that poverty is really a form of wealth essential to human wholeness. Understanding the truth and wisdom of such assertions requires a sense of paradox, an ability to think in terms of paradox, and the ability to live at peace with and even in it. This is so because human existence is paradoxical, and paradoxes like these are some of the most important truths we are asked to grasp and, more importantly, allow ourselves to be grasped by. (At the top of the "paradox food chain," we Christians live from the conviction that a crucified Messiah is not only NOT the height of failure, literal godlessness, and offensiveness to Divine holiness, but is instead the epitome of human integrity, commitment to meaningful life, and the glorification of a loving, merciful God.) 

At the heart of our lives,  our Christian faith and vocations, is the absolute Mystery that (or who) we cannot comprehend in the way we might other realities we know. This is Mystery that we must allow ourselves to be known by instead (cf Galatians 4:8-11). Similarly, then, the paradox of witnessing to something precisely in the hiddenness of our lives represents a profound truth that hermits allow to take hold of them more deeply, and to define their lives and vocations more and more fully and completely. So, what is it hermits witness to, and why does this happen in hiddenness? To sharpen your questions somewhat, I might also ask why it is that the real heart of an eremitical journey can never be seen by others, even when it is something a hermit witnesses to with her life? Why is it that authentic hermits affirm that no one outside this vocation can really understand it? Why doesn't the Church require anonymity from her c 603 hermits, and why does she mark them and their vocations out in the various ways she does as something to be esteemed? Or, in other words, what is the Mystery the Church so regards that stands at the heart of the eremitical vocation that requires the paradoxical description, "revealed in hiddenness"?

In the past year or so, I have written more directly about the journey or pilgrimage hermits make to union with God, or, (probably a better way of describing this journey) toward deeper union with God. I say this is the better way of describing this because in our deepest self, we are already united with God, and our pilgrimage is one we make toward not only that deepest self, but the God who is its ground and source. To speak of human beings as sinful is to affirm we are estranged from that deepest self as well as from God (and from the rest of God's creation). The hermit commits to spending her life in pilgrimage to recover and live this profound truth that stands at the heart of her being. As she does this, she gradually brings all that she has experienced and all that she is to God so that her whole self may be redeemed by God's love. This is the inner journey no one sees, the journey no one can see. It is the pilgrimage that is always only partly clear to the hermit herself, the obscure but compelling journey she undertakes in faith and response to the often profoundly mysterious call of God into Mystery itself. And, of course, it is the heart of the eremitical journey, the only thing that could possibly make sense of its solitude and other forms of asceticism, its turn from much of God's good creation and its essential renunciation (or at least the relativization) of active ministry in visible service to others and to the Church.

While it is true that the hermit witnesses to hiddenness, she only does so secondarily. What comes first is the journey itself. It is a necessarily hidden journey into the depths of human yearning and fulfillment. The same can be said for a hermit's service of God, others, the Church, and this vocation. The hermit who lives her vocation well certainly serves all of these. Her life is, avowedly, a life of service. However, it is only this insofar as it puts the hidden journey to deeper union with God first. Service to others is not unimportant in the eremitical vocation; at the same time, it is an obscure service, often neither seen nor understood by others, because its heart is the mysterious inner journey no one can see or comprehend except analogously in light of their own inner pilgrimage to redemption and deeper union with God. 

When the Church discerns the presence of eremitical vocations in myself or others, what it is looking for are signs that the person is seeking God and is capable of committing their life to this specific quest as primary and definitive. That is, it and the yearning that underlies it must come before everything else and define every dimension of the hermit's life. Additionally, the church looks to see if the person is able and committed to making this pilgrimage in and to "the silence of solitude" for the sake of the Gospel and in the name of the Church. Because the journey to deeper union with God involves the healing and redemption of the whole person, the overcoming of the estrangement of sin and growth in genuine holiness, there will be signs that such persons have turned, and continue to turn more profoundly and completely, from that which is resistant or opposed to Christ (i.e., what is often unhelpfully called "the world") and have allowed themselves to be embraced by the God of life, love, selflessness, and grace. Such a vocation is a microcosm of the foundational vocation of the Church itself, and it summarizes the nature of human existence as well. (Cf Ponam In Deserto Viam, paragraph 15 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars 920-21) Again, it is a hidden reality --- though it bears witness to itself in the fruit associated with it. 

When Thomas Merton spoke of this foundational calling, he referred to the primary responsibility of the hermit:  [[. . . to live happily without affectation in his solitude.]] Merton continued, [[(the Hermit) owes this not only to himself but to his community that has gone so far as to give him a chance to live it out. . . . this is the chief obligation of the . . .hermit because, as I said above, it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and of grace.]] (Contemplation in a World of Action, p. 242) And here, in the reference to "certain latent possibilities of nature and grace", we also see what the hermit witnesses to, namely, the potential of each and every human life to reveal the essential unity that exists between God and the human person, that is, the essential relationship that makes a human being truly human. Hermits seek deeper union with God not only because Emmanuel (God With Us) is who God is and wills to be, but because Emmanuel also defines the nature of truly human existence. 

Merton described the hermit's pilgrimage as one of a profound seeking and exploration of Mystery that can only be done in hiddenness. Because this solitude is universal (all persons exist as made for God and estranged from God at the same time), some persons are called to witness to the pilgrimage every person is meant to make so that hope may triumph over despair in every life. As I have noted before, Merton writes, [[My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become, as it were, an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit -- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.]] (The Monastic Journey, pages 169-173, section published posthumously)

And here is a central clue as to why the Church esteems eremitical vocations today. In their rarity, these vocations represent calls to authentic humanity that are lived out for the sake of others and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They witness to the universal call to union with God, and they do so with a directness and salience other vocations lack. (In saying this, I do not mean to denigrate the rich witness of other vocations that also depend upon degrees of union with God for their fruitfulness. However, it seems to me that eremitical life cannot be justified in any other way, except in terms of the universal yearning for and call to union with God, not in terms of active ministry, education, social service, pastoral ministry, direct service to the poor, etc.) Eremitical life is ALL about the mysterious hidden journey every human person is called to make to deeper union with God, and to be who we are in light of that journey with, to, and into ultimate Mystery. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, powerful or powerless, celebrated or shrouded in obscurity, every person has been uniquely gifted with this same precious identity and calling.

In (perhaps) the most direct or dedicated way possible, where contemplative lives prioritize being over doing, eremitical life witnesses to the solitary call to be truly human in and with God by allowing God to be God With Us as completely as God wills. If one wants to understand what hermits DO with their lives, what it is that makes their lives so valuable to the Church and world, perhaps the best answer is that they are persons who are singularly focused on learning to BE themselves and to let God be God. In hermits, we find an unambiguous exemplar of ordinary human life given over to union with God and leading in its own way to the healing and fulfillment of reality that can only occur in communion with the Divine. Hermits witness to this profound and foundational giftedness and task, even when so many of their discrete gifts remain (and must remain) relatively unused, undeveloped, or relinquished entirely. Moreover, it is in the complete ordinariness and inner nature of this incarnational journey that the profoundly purposeful hiddenness of eremitical life is revealed (made known and made real in space and time). It is an incredible and divinely authored paradox that reminds us of all the other paradoxes that are so central to Christianity!! In and with Christ, in the power of the Spirit, this is who the hermit is called to be.

I hope this response is helpful. As always, if it raises more questions or fails to respond adequately to others, please get back to me, and I will revisit these.

A Contemplative Moment: Everything that is, is Holy

 

"Everything that is, is Holy"

by Thomas Merton

Seeds of Contemplation

It is not true that all the Saints and the great contemplatives never noticed created things, and had no understanding or appreciation of the world and its sights and sounds and the people living in it.

Do you think that their love of God was compatible with a hatred of things that reflected Him and spoke of Him on every side?

You will say that they were supposed to be absorbed in God, and they had no eyes to see anything but Him. Do you think they walked around with faces like stones and did not listen to the voices of men speaking to them, or understand the joys and sorrows of those who were around them? Then you do not know what a contemplative is.

It was because the Saints were absorbed in God that they were truly capable of seeing and appreciating created things, and it was because they loved him alone that they alone loved everybody.

Do you think that a saint has to excuse his interest in created things by tripping himself up in his language and introducing a lot of uselessly explicit references to God whenever he talks or thinks about the world and what is in it? A saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit references to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory to God and arouses a greater love for God that the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain himself to make an arbitrary connection between creatures and God through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so stupid they make you think there is something the matter with religion.

And the reason for the difference is that the saint knows the world and everything made by God is good, while those who are not saints either think that created things are unholy, or else they don't bother about the question one way or the other because they are only interested in themselves.

The eyes of the saint make all beauty holy, and the hands of the saint consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God, and the saint is never offended by anything and is scandalized at no man's sin because he does not know sin. He knows nothing but the love and the mercy of God, and he is on earth to bring that love and that mercy to all men. . . .

The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own self-hood. (I do not say the body, because the body is God's temple and therefore it is holy), and enter by love into union with the Life Who Dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls. In His love, we possess all things and enjoy the fruition of them, finding Him in them all. And thus, as we go about the world, everything we meet and everything we see and hear and touch, far from defiling, purifies us and plants in us something more of contemplation and of heaven.

On Hermits and the Genesis 2:18 Observation That it is not Good that One be Alone

[[Sister Laurel, I wondered if anyone has ever asked you about Genesis 2:18 and the statement that it is not good for human beings to be alone? It was for that very reason that God created a woman to complete a man. How can you live as a hermit and claim to be living God's will for you if God recognized that it is not good for people to be alone? My questions also refer to making a vow of celibacy or chastity instead of getting married. Isn't it, like being a hermit, unnatural?]]

Thanks for your questions. No, I haven't written about this before, though your first question, especially, is a very good question and points to the reason there are so few hermits. This is not because living as a hermit is unnatural (solitude is really the most universal of human conditions), but because eremitic life is a unique way of revealing the nature of the human being who is both essentially solitary and made by God for community. (As I will note below, I believe the Genesis passage you refer to reflects both of these aspects of human life.) The interesting thing about eremitical life is that it is lived as an expression of one's obligations and commitments: 1) to be oneself and 2) to allow God to be God (Emmanuel) as an essential part of that. The hermit chooses to live both of these sets of obligations and commitments 3) so that others might be made whole and holy in God as well.  In other words, eremitical life is lived in relation to and for the sake of others, and, when healthy, is profoundly embedded in community --- that of the Church, of the larger world, and the whole of God's creation. Aloneness or existential solitude is experienced by every person. It is part of the way we are made, and Genesis affirms that. In eremitical life, however, though this may surprise some, there is also a strong sense of community and relatedness to others.

There is certainly a tension between being a solitary hermit and being in communion with others, but what my own experience and the writing and teaching of other hermits, both ancient and modern, tells me is that we are each of us solitary;  hermits are meant to reveal the essential nature of the human being. That includes not just our solitude, but the paradoxical fact that this solitude is lived out in relationship, first, of course, with God, and then with everyone else and the whole of creation. This means the hermit does not give up on people or the Church, nor is she doing something heroic in living a life of solitude with God. She is simply living the way human beings are born, die, and, in fact, the way most people live their lives in between these moments. Her life knows and expresses the reality with which every person struggles whenever they let go of the illusions and distractions of this world. (The illusions and distractions are a symptom of trying to escape this underlying struggle.) We are each of us solitaries. This is true even when we are married sacramentally and made one flesh!! Some, a relative few of us, are called to live an eremitic vocation in order to reveal the true nature of the human being and God. The accent in what we hermits live and reveal is on the existential solitude of the human person and the will of God to be Emmanuel, God with us. Even so, this does not allow us to omit the relational or communal nature of human being; still, the accent is not there as it is in community or married life.

When we read Genesis 2, we must see that mankind is created as a solitary creature. This is the source of what we call existential solitude. That is never changed by God. God does not decide his creation is bad and then start over again. God sees that there is something about existential solitude that needs "the other" and really cries out for community, but the substrate of existential solitude remains and conditions the whole of the human being's existence. Hermits journey to the depths of that solitude for the sake of a revelation of both human nature and the Divine will. There is a starkness about this revelation, and yet, the hermit does not disparage the need for community or live her special brand of solitude as though it is about some higher form of spirituality, some superior form of humanity in need of no one else. No. She is alone and without God, and the intimacy of that relationship, as well as the ecclesial context and the place of rare friends and colleagues, her "vocation" would indeed be an unnatural one. 

But the authentic hermit says very clearly that existential solitude is about being made for communion with God first and foremost. Secondarily, and also significantly, it is about giving ourselves for and to others who are our equals and our helpers. Isolation and even a radical uniqueness that isolates one from the whole of God's creation is not good. Eremitical solitude witnesses to all of this as it accents the existential solitude we each know and fear whenever the illusions and delusions, distractions, and comforting busyness we grasp at are stripped away from us. It seems to me that hermits confront us with the need for others in our lives in a way different from other vocations --- say those to community or marriage. Eremitical solitude is always about being alone with God, and for the sake of (along with the assistance of) others. That is why I always speak of it as the redemption of isolation.

When Thomas Merton wrote about this, he said: [[For we must remember that the Church is at the same time community and solitude.. The dying Christian is one with the Church, but he also suffers the loneliness of Christ's agony in Gethsemani. Very few . . . are able to face this fact squarely. And very few are expected to do so. It is the special vocation of certain ones who dedicate their whole lives with wrestling with solitude. An "agony" is a "wrestling."  The dying man in agony wrestles with solitude. But the wrestling with one's solitude is also a life-work -- a life "agony" (Disputed Questions, "Notes on a Philosophy of Solitude")** Merton's comments on a dying person can apply to each one of us struggling to live (or learn to live) fully and to be our truest selves, not least because doing so without the benefit of distraction, illusion, and the delusions often fostered by culture, is a central dimension of dying to self and eremitical "stricter separation from the world".

Thanks for your patience. I consider these thoughts the beginning of reflecting on Genesis 2:18. I hope they are at least a bit helpful given their still-chaotic nature! I'll come back to the question on the naturalness of a vow/life of consecrated celibacy in the next few days.

** Agonia, or agony, is actually a warm-up period before a difficult athletic contest. Jesus' agony in the garden was a period of profound "wrestling" to prepare himself for the awful contest that stood in front of him. It may involve physical and emotional pain, but this is not its first meaning, nor does the story of Jesus' prayer in the Garden imply physical agony. It is about the struggle of faithfulness and integrity in service to the will of God and God's sovereignty.

Another Look at Eremitical Silence and Solitude in Light of "Ponam in Deserto Viam"

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I don't want to start a fight, but when c 603 talks about the silence of solitude, isn't it talking about being quiet, not speaking or listening to music, or watching TV and worldly things like that? [One online hermit] says that the idea of solitude means being alone, and like that, the word silence is simple and is about being silent and living in silence. . . .What's hard about that? But when you write about these things, you make them way more complicated than that!. . . I think you are trying to talk around the simple meaning of the words and [the online hermit] does too -- though I am not trying to speak for her! . . . My question is, where do you get the idea that silence means more than being silent and living without sound? Why doesn't "the silence of solitude" mean the silence that happens when there is no one else there?]] (Questions redacted by Sister Laurel)

Thanks for your questions.  Over the years, I have written a lot about "the silence of solitude," and I indeed understand both the term silence and the term solitude to mean more than the absence of sound or the absence of company, even though it may begin with some form of these. (Note well that sometimes we will have a deep insight that then calls us to external or physical silence and solitude to truly hear this insight, but in the main, our ability to truly listen to our own hearts requires external silence and solitude.) Moreover, I understand the silence of solitude as the state of inner quies (rest or peace) or hesychia (stillness) that obtains when one is not merely living alone, but, more primarily, is living with and in (or at least toward!) union with God. It is about the journey to become who we are made by God to be. This state of solitude is not simply about being by oneself with and in God, but necessarily implies the community of the Church and of the world of God's creation as well. The relationships implied are the result of our being in and with God as ground and source of all being and meaning, and therefore, with all of creation that is also related to God in some degree of communion. It is in exploring what it means to be in communion with God that I have come to understand the fundamental terms of c 603, but especially terms like silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude.

What you are asking about is what seems to you to be an idiosyncratic usage of such terms, no? I know that some have taken exception to the way I understand such terms and they have continued to object to this through the years. Thus, the question of where I get the ideas I write about is also a question about how I justify my literally eccentric (out of the center) usage and the way I live my eremitical life itself. I want to spend a bit of time then, trying to respond to that specific question.

There are three pieces to my answer. I depend upon, 1) personal experience in prayer and the silence of solitude, which especially leads me to a sense that silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude are richer and more complex realities than your friend (and many non-contemplatives) seems to allow for, 2) the insights and experiences of other hermits (both canonical and non-canonical) who have also explored these terms and found them to be similarly rich and multivalent, especially from contemplatives and monks and hermits like Cornelius Wencel whose book, The Eremitic Life is so well-done, or like Thomas Merton who speaks of solitude herself, "opening the door" to the hermit; and 3)  the Church's thought on eremitic life itself, particularly in what it writes of the c 603 vocation in its recent (2022), Ponam in Deserto Viam, (The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church), CICLSAL or DICLSAL (Congregation (now Dicastery) of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life).

Let me focus here on a couple of passages from Ponam to give you a taste of the rich sense in which the Church understands eremitical silence and solitude, and more specifically, maybe, the silence of solitude.  The first passage is from paragraph 14. Ponam explicitly identifies silence in a way very far removed from those who would like it to refer to a single, narrow meaning. It denies outright that it can be identified with external silence associated with physical or psychological isolation:

The term silence of solitude cherished by the Carthusian tradition, emphasizes that the hermit's silence does not consist in the absence of voices or noises due to physical isolation. Nor can silence be an outwardly imposed condition. Rather,  it is a fundamental attitude that expresses a radical availability to listen to God. Silence is a total focus on the search for union with Christ and open to the attraction of the Paschel dynamic of his death and resurrection. Silence is the experience of the mysterious fruitfulness of a life totally surrendered. Paradoxically it is also an eloquent witness when inhabited by Love. (Emphasis added)

(By the way, I would argue a bit with this last sentence and assert that the silence of solitude referred to in the canon only exists when inhabited by Love -- at least in the life of someone the Church would recognize as living an eremitic life; when Love is absent, Silence or the silence of solitude cease to be all the things this passage affirms.) It seems to me that this passage supports the contention that the silence of solitude is not only the environment in which the hermit lives her life, but even more importantly, that it is both the goal and charism of the solitary eremitical life. This underscores the idea that silence, especially the silence of solitude in c 603, does not merely refer to an external state of silence, but an inner state of relatedness and journeying with, to, and in God, which one undertakes not only for one's own sake, but for God's sake and the salvation of others. The emphasis on witness is very welcome here.

 The second passage is from paragraph 15, where Ponam is speaking of Peter Damian's observations on radical solitude, a reality that defines the ecclesial role of the hermits' way of life. In exploring this idea, Ponam says, Hermits are like a microcosm of the world and the Church in miniature (an ecclesiola). Therefore, they cannot forget the Church and world they represent in their totality. The more one is alone before God, the more one discovers within oneself the deeper dimension of the world.  While this quoted passage doesn't speak to the idea of eremitical silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude directly, it does imply a journey into a multivalent reality with various depths the hermit is called to explore and represent. When we think of the Church and world in their totality, we also must think of the way God's realm interpenetrates our historical reality, and that means looking at the hermit as a symbol of this interpenetration.

What paragraph 15 thus says here is that the hermit as a historical reality living in communion and towards union with God, stands at the heart of the Church and world, and reveals that same deepest reality to both the Church and the world itself. In this way, the passage begins to introduce us to the idea that the journey into the silence of solitude reveals the hungers of the human heart for communion with God (and all that is of God) and resting in the fullness of being and meaning which that communion entails. This is so even when this is experienced mainly in terms of hunger or yearning. (Cf. articles on existential solitude in the past several months.)  In another place, Ponam calls the hermit an ambassador of hope for both the Church and the world. She reminds the Church and world that one's true identity (and all authentic hope) are found only in God; for those hermits who choose to reject the larger world or who really just use the term hermit as a synonym for misanthropy, Ponam affirms, [[True identity is rooted in a vital tradition that neither excludes nor rejects, but includes, integrates, and reconstructs.]] (par 16).

All of this implies that silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude, canon 603 sees as fundamental to the eremitical life, are most significantly not external states of the absence of noise or companionship, but rather, are rich, multivalent inner realities. Because, in part, they help form the context for one's journey to God, they include the external silence and physical aloneness you refer to, but they are also the goal of one's journey with, to, and in God. This is what Ponam is talking about when it reflects on Peter Damian's letter, Dominus Vobiscum, and speaks of achieving what is one's truest identity in God, or refers to the hermit being a microcosm of both Church and world, and revealing the nature of this journey into God to both. Finally, as I have written here over the years (and observed in my own Rule in 2006), the silence of solitude is the gift or charism that this vocation offers both the Church and the world so they might see themselves clearly, worship God appropriately, and glorify (reveal) him and the hope that is rooted in him in all they are and do.  

Looking Again at Merton's Comment on the Likeness of Despair and Hope

I have been asked by a couple of people to say more about what Thomas Merton meant by stating that hope and despair are very much alike, as I raised the question rhetorically without providing a direct answer. The original post can be found here Why does the Church Need Hermits? and includes the pertinent Merton quote.

The passage in that post that I want to write about here is the one reflecting on Jesus' cry of abandonment from the cross, because I think that it is here we see most clearly a hope that could be mistaken for despair.  What I wrote there said, "And in the very depths of Jesus' journey into the darkest absence of being and meaning, life and love, God was there. But Jesus' question in the Garden was also sharpened there on the cross: why can't you pluck me out of this situation? Why HAVEN'T you rescued me? How will you vindicate me and, more importantly, my proclamation of the truth of your Reign, your sovereignty, if sinful, godless death is allowed to win out? Don't you see, godless death is swallowing me up!! I have nothing whatsoever left to give!! My God (not the more intimate, Abba!), why haven't you rescued me?"

What I think it is important to recognize about Jesus' so-called cry of abandonment is the fact that, despite the use of a more formal, "O God, my God" rather than Jesus' more usual and intimate, "Abba" Jesus was speaking to God and remained open to God doing whatever he willed to do to vindicate Jesus and his proclamation of God's coming Kingdom. The questions I posed in the above passage were meant to reflect a sharpening of the question Jesus posed in Gethsemane, "Isn't there another way?" It was as I meditated on and struggled with Jesus' experience on the cross that it became clear to me that I might have a sense of what Thomas Merton was saying about the kinship of hope and despair. 

In my own experience, I described these two realities as being "an eyeblink apart". When I said that, I was thinking of the parallax phenomenon where we look at an object first with one eye, and then with the other, without moving our head. There is a decided difference between the two views, yet they are still views of the same reality. I think in some ways this might have been what Merton saw about the relation of hope and despair, whether the source was his own experience or his meditation on Jesus' cry of abandonment or both together (which is what I believe he was speaking of).

Imagine yourself closing your right eye and looking at the events on Golgotha with just your left eye, so to speak. Jesus had reached the end of his own resources. In many ways, his situation seemed hopeless. It was a situation that struck fear and revulsion in the hearts and minds of those who even considered such a death. Crucifixion was considered a literally godless reality, and this was true for Jews as well as for the Greco-Roman world. Jesus' cry of abandonment (or any inarticulate cry, such as Mark gives us) could well be seen as a cry of abject despair, particularly as Jesus shifts his usual Abba to O God! Everything about the situation seems worthy of despair. When someone comes to the end of their resources and their life project seems to have collapsed not only in failure, but in abjectly humiliating failure underscored by personal betrayal and rejection because that life project was built on the proclamation of a God who loved without condition or limit and willed to be with us in every moment and mood of existence, well,  this is the stuff human despair is made of.

But let's look at the events of Jesus' crucifixion from that slightly different perspective using the idea of parallax and what it might be able to show us. Imagine you now close or hold your hand over your left eye and look at the same events with only your right eye. The change in perspectives is very slight, but the shift in the image being perceived is very real. Jesus had reached the end of his resources. In almost every way, his situation seemed hopeless. It was a situation that indeed struck terror and revulsion into the hearts and minds of every person in Jerusalem that day. It was a literally shameful, godless death in Jewish theology and abject foolishness and ignominy from the Greco-Roman perspective. Jesus' cry of abandonment (or his inarticulate cry in Mark's Gospel), even if it is taken from the first half of Psalm 22, appears at first to be a mockery of the eventual vindication that comes in the second half of the psalm --- perhaps a repudiation of his faith. Yes, Jesus has been betrayed and rejected by those who most loved him, except for his Mother and a couple of hangers-on. The God Jesus proclaimed with his life is apparently powerless -- if he exists at all. This is definitely the stuff despair is made of. And yet, what you can just barely see from this slightly different perspective is that Jesus has not closed himself off to God. His cry is not just a plaint of horrific suffering. It is also truly a prayer, the giving up of the last vestige of self-defense, the whole-hearted and heart-breaking embrace of a God that is bigger than even the greatest of human resources or their loss.

From this perspective, one can glimpse more clearly than one was able from the first perspective, that Jesus knows this God whose sovereignty he proclaimed and, despite the loss of everything else that could be called a resource, Jesus has not given up all hope.  This is not failure. This is what it looks like for the one who was utterly open and transparent to God to show us precisely how far this God would journey to truly be with us in every moment and mood of our lives. And Jesus allowed this; his own journey of integrity made it possible for God to enter this darkest and most senseless of realities, and transform it with his presence.  I believe this may have been what Thomas Merton was talking about when he referred to how similar despair and hope are. It is very like what I experienced at the beginning of Lent when I realized my deepest hungers and yearnings showed me the face of God and my own deepest self as well. For me, hope and despair were only an "eyeblink apart". They were so closely related that there were times I could not (thanks be to God!) tease them apart. But it was only in entering into the shadow of death and the precincts of despair or near-despair that an even more vibrant hope was possible.

Nothing and no one but God could have redeemed my own experience, just as only Jesus' Abba could have redeemed his experience and raised him to new life. I believe Thomas Merton's own life, prayer, and human struggle for wholeness and holiness brought him to something of the same experience that led him to say, " I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is." How alike indeed! Sometimes that huge difference really is only an eyeblink apart.                                         

Why does the Church Need Hermits? On the Journey of Existential Solitude and Jesus' Cry of Abandonment

[[Hi Sister, is the inner journey you speak about under the name "existential solitude" frightening? Maybe that's a weird question, but you have said that everyone hesitates to undertake this journey even though it is necessary in order to be truly human. Why is this form of solitude so scary, or why do people want to avoid it? You also said, My sense is that Vatican II gave us a more robust access to Scripture and to a Jesus whose humanity was rooted in faithful prayer (i.e., dialogue with God at every level of his being) and expressed in his active ministry and life with others, as well as in his regular turn to solitude. Both of these revealed Jesus' union with God and the nature of divinity and humanity. But if Jesus was rooted in prayer in this way and united with God, why did he cry out in abandonment on the cross? Did God really leave him, and if he did, then how did God raise him from the dead? I have never understood that or believed that God would abandon any of us, so how could he abandon his only begotten Son? The way I have felt about this is, if God could do that to Jesus, then what chance do any of us have?]]

These are all great questions, and difficult ones. They are questions I have struggled with myself, especially in light of my own recent experience of journeying to the depths of myself and there discovering both God and my deepest, truest self. I haven't asked the questions in the same way you have. What I said to myself was, if Jesus was entirely open and attentive to God (because that is what obedience means), and if he was open in this way even unto death on a cross (even unto sinful or godless death), how could he have not been aware of God's presence unless God truly turned away from him? And yet, how can Jesus reveal God is truly and most profoundly God With Us, if he is a God who abandons us in our sinfulness? I recognize there is paradox right at the heart of this experience of Jesus, but this didn't completely resolve my own questions --- especially as I made my own journey into the center of my Self and discovered the deep darkness and hunger there.

Thomas Merton once wrote, [[My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit -- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.]] It was reflecting and meditating on that last sentence, and in conversations with my spiritual director exploring my own experience and the meaning of all that, that I came to an understanding of what Jesus' cry of abandonment both did and didn't mean.

After all, what does it mean to say that despair and hope are very like one another? This line of Merton's comments fascinated me precisely because of my own inner journey where, in the midst of darkness and anguish, I came to experience light and know hope in a new way. And yet, I also knew I had never felt abandoned by God, was never abandoned by God! So, how could Jesus have been? Was this also something Jesus' death and resurrection changed? Or, did God abandon Jesus and then come back to raise him from the depths of godforsakenness? (I admit, that last possibility didn't make theological sense to me!) Was Jesus' cry of dereliction like my own cry in the darkness of despair or near despair? Did he discover God there in that dark and anguished journey to the depths as I had recently done? But I knew that Jesus' cry was from a darker and more anguished and godforsaken place than my own could ever be precisely because Jesus had made that journey before me, and for that reason, because he implicated God in even that godless place/space/time, I truly never had experienced abandonment by God.

And this still left me wondering what abandonment meant in Jesus' cry. If he was abandoned by God, then how had God raised him from godless death? How could Jesus continue to "exist" at all? And if God continued to hold Jesus in existence in some way, then how could someone entirely open to God, as the scriptures tell us Jesus was, not sense God's presence? I won't multiply my questions further here. Needless to say, there were a number of them. So, I began at the beginning by looking up the Greek word for abandonment. What I discovered was that it is a composite word made up of three words: to leave, as in forsaken; down, as in (experiencing) defeat or hopelessness; and in, as in (left in) a set of hostile circumstances. When I put these together, I saw that "abandoned" meant "left in a hopeless set of hostile circumstances" or better, God "failed to rescue" Jesus from these circumstances. Abandonment thus meant the absence of rescue. And then I remembered several examples of someone loving me precisely in NOT rescuing me from terrible circumstances. One of these involved a story I believe I have told here before regarding my major theology teacher and a group of us undergraduates.

John Dwyer once said, "If I see you (any of you students) doing something stupid, I will not stop you! The majors among us looked bewilderedly at one another and asked, "But he loves us! How could he not rescue us??!!" John saw all this and went on, "If you are impaired in some way, yes, I will intervene, but if you are just making a stupid decision, I will not stop you!" He continued, "Let me be clear. I will always be there for you, and I will do what I can to help you both before and afterwards, but I will not rescue you from your decisions." It took me years to learn that this was what genuine love looked like!! It took me even longer to see this as the key to understanding Jesus' cry of abandonment.

Jesus "set his face toward Jerusalem". He took step after fateful step toward the authorities' violent reactions and subsequent actions as he continued to proclaim his Father's kingdom. His prayer in Gethsemane asked his Father if there wasn't another way, and, I believe that in response, his Abba asked him to continue acting with integrity,  choosing to discern and continue his vocation step by step, wherever those steps led him; I also believe he promised Jesus he would be with him -- for that was also his will. Jesus' Abba promised to reveal himself fully as Emmanuel (God with us), and Jesus continued to act with integrity and trust in his Abba's promises. God did NOT promise to rescue Jesus from the hostile circumstances his integrity led him to face. Quite the contrary. And in the very depths of Jesus' journey into the darkest absence of being and meaning, life and love, God was there. But Jesus' question in the Garden was also sharpened there on the cross: why can't you pluck me out of this situation? Why HAVEN'T you rescued me? How will you vindicate me and, more importantly, my proclamation of the truth of your Reign, your sovereignty, if sinful, godless death is allowed to win out? Don't you see, godless death is swallowing me up!! I have nothing whatsoever left to give!! My God (not the more intimate, Abba!), why haven't you rescued me? 

I don't think there is any sense that Jesus felt God turning away in a failure to love him -- and usually, it seems to me, that is what we mean when we speak of being abandoned by someone, namely, they failed or ceased to love us adequately or appropriately. God did not rescue Jesus from the depths of the darkness and anguish of his journey into godless, sinful death, but neither did he cease loving him profoundly and effectively. Neither did Jesus, for his part, close himself off from God (or from the depths of darkness and anguish). Jesus remained wholly open to God, and God continued to accompany him as Emmanuel into the farthest, most alien land we know. Here is the paradox. In his moment of deepest distress and even despair or near-despair, God was there and would bring consolation and life out of it all -- though not immediately or in the way we tend to expect or desire, perhaps. And this dark, even horrific, journey that Jesus made was made for God's sake and for ours. Indeed, it was the most human journey we are each called to make, the journey of inner or existential solitude where what seems infinitely dark and empty of either being or meaning to us, is also the place where we discover the presence of God, and so, a hope that is capable of sustaining and enlivening us in unimaginable ways.

We often want to be rescued from circumstances, and we cry out to God and others when this occurs, but God does not promise us rescue in the usual sense people mean this, I think. God's rescue means to give us the space to be ourselves and experience the consequences of our decisions (along with the consequences of others' decisions and actions as well, whether these are loving or unloving), and it means he will accompany us there. God's rescue means giving life and meaning to our circumstances, sometimes immediately, often eventually, or even only ultimately. God's rescue means transfiguring our darkness and anguish into sources of grace and hope, life and love, confidence and trust. He does this with his Mysterious presence, a presence we may not always be aware of and can never "comprehend". One point is incontrovertible: God cannot do this if he simply lifts us out of these circumstances and drops us into what is really some (or no) other person's life. That, as I eventually learned from John Dwyer's comments that day in that moral theology class, and from my spiritual director and others, for instance, would not really be loving.

The journey Jesus made, from birth right on up to Golgotha and beyond, was thoroughly human. Yes, in many ways, it was also the journey that human sin colored and made necessary. It was the journey of existential solitude, the journey we each make throughout life as we embrace death in all of its many degrees, forms, and faces so that God might redeem these with and in his life and love. Though you didn't ask about this, Merton understood that hermits (and monks and nuns more generally) make this inner journey in a way most do not because they choose and commit their lives to doing so!** They make this choice so that they might experience genuine hope rooted in God and the Christ Event for the sake of God's Kingdom and Gospel. Doctrine, per se, while important, is not enough for the life of the Body of Christ. Interpretations of the cross by others are a critical start, but what is essential if one is to really witness to the truth of the Gospel to others, and bring them to genuine hope, is the truth of our own experience -- even, and perhaps especially when that experience is one of journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. Recently, I said to my director, "I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone!" 

I think that too is reflected in Merton's comments cited above and in the following continuation of those comments, The language of Christianity has been so used and so misused that sometimes [we] distrust it: [we] don't know whether behind the word 'Cross' there stands the experience of mercy and salvation, or only the threat of punishment. If my word means anything to you, I can say that I have experienced the Cross to mean mercy and not cruelty, truth and not deception: that the news of the truth and love of Jesus is indeed the good news, but in our time it speaks out in strange places. Recently, as I think you refer to, I wrote about hermits under c 603 as pioneers and explorers. What hermits explore is the realm of existential solitude, and that brings with it both great suffering and ineffable joy. We do this because our experience here undergirds and verifies the Church's proclamation of the Gospel. We do this for her, as well as for ourselves and for the entire world. 

One person recently also asked me if I knew what I was committing myself to when I made my perpetual eremitical profession and accepted consecration. I have to say, no, not clearly. Maybe hardly at all. It never occurred to me that the darknesses and anguished places I explored along this journey could truly benefit anyone -- sometimes not even myself -- yet now I know that in that "strange place" occasioned by trauma and serious and chronic illness, that place where I faced despair and the desire for death straight on while yearning almost beyond words for life and wholeness, is a privileged place where I met God (and my truest self) and was granted the hope, joy, and healing that such an encounter brings. THAT is the journey of existential solitude, and it is also the heart of Paul's theology of the Cross that I, in my youthful "naivete", once told Abp Vigneron I wanted to explore and understand completely. 

I know this doesn't answer all of your questions, but it is already quite long, and I hope it is a good start. May the peace of Christ be with you!!

** Consider what every Benedictine affirms as their primary motivation when they enter a monastery. They declare they are here "to seek God". They do this, not because they do not know God or because God has "gone missing" from the larger world, but because they do not know themselves or God as well or as profoundly as they are called to, and because the monastery (or hermitage) is a privileged place to pursue such intimate knowing. It is this journey of existential solitude, a journey in search of fullness of life and hope rooted in God, that they enter to pursue. So too with every hermit under c 603.

A Contemplative Moment: Interior Solitude

 There is no true solitude except interior solitude: 'The truest solitude is not something outside you, not an absence of men or of sound around you: it is an abyss opening up in the center of your own soul.' (Merton, Seeds of Contemplation) The person who has discovered that solitude and been discovered by it, is always solitary, that is, he is always alone with God, even in the midst of a crowd and the rush of a city. Place and circumstance are less important to the person who dwells in peace at the center of his being. It is, however, difficult to imagine how a man could develop a deep interior solitude without a certain amount of stepping back from the crowd in order to glimpse its illusions and diversions, and without some silent time in which to get in touch with himself.

"Not all men are called to be hermits, but all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. When the inner voice is not heard, when man cannot attain to the spiritual peace that comes from being perfectly at one with his own inner self, his life is always miserable and exhausting. For he cannot go on happily for long unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own soul.

Richard Anthony Cashen, Solitude in the Thought of Thomas Merton quoting Merton, The Silent Life

On Vatican II and the Value of Contemplative and Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, it seems to me that Vatican II asked Christians to turn toward the world in service. In this way, we got a lot of service from the laity, which was very good. What I wondered was what that did to the contemplative life and even to esteem for contemplative prayer amongst the laity? Did it have an effect, or was it all kind of neutral? I am asking because you said few people understand your vocation, and I wondered if Vatican II had a part in causing that. For instance, you write against a notion of fleeing from the world when world means God's good creation, and I think I understand this, but how does contemplative life serve the world? Did Vatican II sort of cut the legs out from under esteem for the contemplative life?]]

What really great observations and questions! While some, including Thomas Merton, suggested he perceived a developing "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness leading Christians 'to repudiate all aspiration to personal contemplative union with God and to deep mystical experience, because [among other things] this is a pagan evasion, [and] an individualistic escape from community, '" others point to the very strong statement of Vatican II, "The contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church's presence" as part of their disagreement with Merton's position. Vatican II also took steps to preserve papal cloister and in the document on Religious Life supported contemplative life while asking that outdated customs and practices be pruned from the life. On balance I would say that Vatican II preserved contemplative life and required attention to what would invigorate or reinvigorate it, even as the Church, in response to the entirety of the council's writings and thrust, took a different and more incarnational perspective on the nature of the secular world.

Some of the Contributions of Vatican II

I do agree that while Vatican II wrote in ways that would preserve and stress the Church's esteem for contemplative life, the accent on apostolic service or ministry had consequences that were not wholly anticipated. So did the accent on a (sacred) secularity that reflected God's incarnation in Jesus. This supported the potential sacramentality of the created world and invited humankind to honor the sacred nature of creation, and it softened the gulf between heaven and earth, thus allowing people to think in terms of the new heaven and new earth being established right here and right now in light of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. Heaven and earth were seen by Scripture scholars and theologians to interpenetrate one another, and this implied letting go of a focus on "getting to heaven" while "fleeing the world"; it meant embracing more of what Rahner called a mysticism of ordinary life. This shift changed approaches to contemplative life to some degree,  but my sense is that it led to healthier and less elitist notions of contemplative and eremitical life.

It is true that Vatican II was confronted with specific interventions on behalf of eremitical life, and while the council did not establish eremitic life directly as a state of perfection as Bp Remi de Roo called for, the revised Code of Canon Law, which was also part of the council's mandate, made room for this with c 603. Still, while Vatican II did not take a direct stance on eremitical life, it did considerably strengthen the Church's dependence on Scripture, and this implied not only a recovery of the desert tradition and its strong accent on encounter with God in the silence of solitude, but also the importance of a deep prayer life accompanying and underpinning any active ministry. Jesus' own life, especially as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, gave us a strong theology of hospitality, including the importance of hospitality to the God who would be Emmanuel in silent and individual prayer. This strong emphasis on the importance of Scripture in the life of the Church also gave us the robust incarnational theology noted above.

Even Thomas Merton's criticism of Vatican II's influence was countered by his "turn to the world" and his reworking of the way the contemplative or the solitary life is related to and serves the world --- itself a clear theme at Vatican II. That was anticipated and prepared for by Merton's epiphany at 4th and Walnut on the streets of Louisville just a few years before the council. This epiphany was the root of his turn to the world, his rethinking of vocations to the silence of solitude, and his appreciation of the universality of calls to contemplation. It just took some time for this new plant to blossom, but my sense is it flowered in the soil of Vatican II, which, in her appreciation of the goodness of God's creation and in her universal call to holiness, did indeed take a new and non-dualistic view of "the world". For all these reasons, I would have to say Vatican II's esteem for and protection of contemplative life more generally, and eremitic life more specifically, though often accomplished indirectly, is well established. 

Justifying the Existence of Contemplative and Eremitical Life:

In other words, I would suggest that any failure to esteem contemplative life generally and eremitical life more specifically comes from somewhere other than Vatican II itself, and that makes me wonder if contemplative life hasn't always been misunderstood in some significant ways, not least by drawing a hard line between heaven and earth and treating the world outside the monastery or hermitage as profane. In any case, I would argue that the reasons for this are not due to Vatican II itself. So, how does contemplative life generally, and solitary eremitical life more specifically, serve the Church and the larger world? How can we justify its existence, especially if it is not escapist or individualistic? I have been writing about this under the label, "existential solitude", or interior solitude,  and the call to explore this, so let me just summarize my position on this here.

Every human being is constituted in a state of existential solitude. This solitude is inviolable, and no one can enter into it with us, no matter how close our relationship with them is. This state of existential solitude means that at the depths of our being, in the very center of our lives, we exist alone with God (though most people may be consciously unaware of God dwelling in the depths of their being). Whether we are consciously aware of this or not, this is how we are constituted as human beings, and it is in coming to terms with this specific solitude that we become authentic human beings capable of loving God, ourselves, and others. (By the way, this foundational relationship, which is intrinsic to human existence, is the source of the Church's teaching on the inviolability of conscience.) Contemplatives, and especially hermits, are committed to plumbing the depths of this existential solitude, to finding God there where he resides closer to us than we are even to ourselves, and witnessing for the sake of others to both God and the nature of authentic human being. 

When Benedictines, for example, enter a monastery, they do so to "seek God". They do this not because God is not "out there" in the world, or because God is tucked away here in this monastery, needing to be found in the sacred place rather than the profane world! No! In light of the Christ Event, both the monastery and "the world" are sacred places! Instead, people come to the monastery to seek God because he is within us, deep, deep within us, and because the journey to the depths of ourselves takes time, patience, courage, determination, encouragement, and thus, various forms of structure and support. In particular, it takes the faith community and sacramental life of the Church along with the canonical structures, which provide for a stable state of life in which this journey to the depths of our being may be securely undertaken. The Church serves the c 603 hermit in this way so that s/he may undertake this journey that reveals human beings (and God as well) for who they really are. 

There are so many sources of (mis)understanding regarding what constitutes truly human existence in our world today. The hermit and contemplative life provide one radically countercultural definition. This vision stresses every person's existential aloneness and, at the same time, the communal nature of every human life. Merton was worried Vatican II would destroy any sense we each have that the inner journey to the center of ourselves must be made by every person in whatever state of life they live their humanity. When he used terms like, "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness", he was concerned individuals would no longer see the quest for union with God as essential to every Christian life, no matter the value of their active ministry. My sense is that Vatican II gave us a more robust access to Scripture and to a Jesus whose humanity was rooted in faithful prayer (i.e., dialogue with God at every level of his being) and expressed in his active ministry and life with others, as well as in his regular turn to solitude. Both of these revealed Jesus' union with God and the nature of divinity and humanity. Contemplatives, and especially hermits, live our lives dedicated to the dialogue with God that constitutes the core of authentic humanity. We each make this profound and profoundly humanizing journey over long years, and witness to this constitutive relationship for the sake of all of God's creation. That is the primary value of our lives.