Looking Back and Ahead with Vocation Questions: What God Has Done and is Doing With My Life

This week I am looking back to a kind of summing up of who I am and why, and I am looking forward to the combined anniversaries of my birthday and my hermit consecration on Sept 1st and 2nd respectively. As a central piece of this, I spent time this last weekend answering questions about eremitical life, not from those who read and contribute their queries to this blog, but from Our Sunday Visitor's "Fall Vocations Guide". I was asked to do the section on the (solitary) canonical eremitical vocation. The editor who contacted me asked some really good questions, not only why and how I came to this vocation, but what I wanted people to know about it, what advice I might give to someone interested in the calling, what my days look like, and am I lonely?

The timing of this request was what my director and I call "sacrednicity", something I have shared here before. Not only was I given the chance to consider the whole of my life and the way God brought me to this vocation and supported my perseverance in it, but in saying directly what I wanted people to know about this calling I got in touch with why I am passionate about it, why, when someone misrepresents it or simply trash talks it without real understanding, it bothers me so much. Much more importantly though, I got freshly in touch with my sense of why God called me to this vocation and why I have chosen to write about c 603 even while some online characters treated this as an unhealthy obsession and advised me to write about "more spiritual things"!! 

The truth is, this supposed obsession, has been something of a vocation within a vocation; God called me to it, I think there is no doubt about that. It is part of the way my solitary eremitism benefits the Church, and part of the way I fulfill the commission extended to me at my consecration, namely, to carry on the ministry God has entrusted to me as a solitary hermit. Answering the questions this editor put to me got me in touch with all of this and I am grateful to God for that. I will continue to be grateful for this even if they don't use half of what I have written!! 

And, because it is highly unlikely they will be able to use even half of what I wrote, I am posting the questions and answers here, just as I might for any other questions I receive from readers. I sincerely hope you all will find the answers helpful or at least interesting in some way. I doubt regular readers will be surprised, but neither do I think I have written responses to these precise questions before.

1) What is a solitary canonical hermit? 

A hermit is, by definition, a desert dweller, one who lives a life of the silence of solitude and persevering prayer and penance in stricter withdrawal from the world (that is, that which is resistant to Christ) so that she might encounter and entrust herself entirely to the Love that is God. A solitary canonical hermit is one who has been entrusted with this vocation by the Church for the sake of others and their own encounter with God and the Gospel of God in Christ. The Church has discerned this vocation with her, professed and consecrated her, in the conviction that this call is not only the way she will mature and thrive as a human being, but also effectively proclaim the Gospel to others as she is now commissioned to do in the Church's name.

The solitary canonical (or diocesan) hermit makes public vows of the Evangelical Counsels, writes her own (liveable) Rule of Life rooted in her lived experience and understanding of c 603, and lives this life under the supervision of her bishop and/or the delegate she selects to help accompany her in this journey.

2) What led me to become a solitary canonical hermit?

First, I am a convert to Catholicism and was baptized the Summer after high school graduation. I began working with the Sisters of Social Service at the same time and felt called to religious life. I entered the Franciscans where, though I had expected to teach, I became a phlebotomist in a clinical lab. Unfortunately, despite this background and later undergraduate and graduate education in systematic theology, I was required to leave religious life and was unable to teach as I had been prepared to do because I developed an adult-onset seizure disorder that proved both medically and surgically intractable. This was complicated by a diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. In early 1984, not too long after beginning to work with my current spiritual director I read c 603 in the newly Revised Code of Canon Law and had the deep sense that perhaps this could provide a context that would make sense of my entire life, both gifts and limitations.  As Paul writes to the Colossians, I had the sense that in Christ via this way of life and canon 603, everything, including chronic illness and disability which are themselves desert experiences --- could cohere or hold together in a meaningful way! 

But of course, that sense was not yet a well-discerned vocation! I began living as a hermit, studying about it, and eventually even discovered it was driving my writing (e.g., an article for Review for Religious on "Chronic Illness and Disability as Vocation” ---  and potentially an Eremitical Vocation) I petitioned my diocese to be professed under c 603, but, after several years meeting with the Vicar for Religious, it turned out that the current bishop, like many bishops in the country and world, had decided not to profess anyone under c 603 for the foreseeable future. It was too new, too little understood, and often seen as not a genuine vocation anyway. And yet, it was the means to a profoundly coherent and meaningful life for me!

And so, I decided to continue living as a non-canonical or lay hermit. It was the way of life in which my vows were reshaped with a new vitality and poignancy, my experience of celibacy matured into a nuptial relationship with Christ, my contemplative prayer life deepened, and, despite still being non-canonical, I began to perceive c 603 as incredibly beautiful and valuable in the way it combined essential elements and the hermit's experience and freedom to shape the life according to the way God worked in her life. This combination of non-negotiable elements and inspired flexibility allowed the canon to define an eremitical life that avoids the pitfalls of individualism and made it a supremely countercultural vocation that can speak profoundly to our contemporary world. Given my background in theology as well as my own disability and insight into that as a desert vocation, I came to realize I had something to offer the Church in terms of solitary eremitical life lived under this canon. Thus, before the bishop retired in 2003, I renewed my petition to be admitted to profession. Four years later and after Bishop Allen Vigneron had replaced Bp John Cummins, on September 2, 2007 I was admitted to perpetual profession and consecration as a diocesan hermit. From the day I knocked on the chancery door, so to speak, until the day I was consecrated took 23 years. I was 35 or 36 when I began this journey and 58 when I was consecrated. And yet, the adventure was just beginning. 

The last 17 years have been marked by continuing growth, intense inner work, a spiritual direction practice, life in a parish community as a pastoral assistant who led Communion services in the absence of a priest and still teaches Scripture, a small but gradually more influential blog dedicated to exploring c 603 life, the deepening of all of the insights that led me to this vocation in the first place, and the development of a process of discernment and formation designed for candidates and their diocesan formation teams to assist them to understand, appreciate, and implement c 603 wisely and effectively. At every point my life with God has deepened, my sense that this is the way he has called me to become fully human (our fundamental vocation!) and to proclaim the Gospel has been reaffirmed. There was no one point when I knew this was my vocation; instead, there have been many of them.

3) What do I want people most to know about this vocation?

I suppose I want people to know that this is a genuine, public and ecclesial, vocation and is motivated by love, not by escapism, hatred for God's good creation, or isolation and alienation. I would like them to know that stereotypes, misanthropes, and nut-cases need not apply to any diocese for admission to this vocation (though some persons with some forms of mental illness might do well in it).  I want people to understand (and I especially want bishops to understand this!) that solitary eremitical life is a gift of God to the Church and world; it is both deeply conservative and radically charismatic, and is not to be used as a stopgap means to profess some problem child without such a vocation. I especially want these same people to know that this vocation says to the marginalized, to the chronically ill, the disabled, and otherwise isolated, that eremitical solitude represents the redemption of isolation and alienation. Eremitical solitude is about being alone with God for God's sake, for the sake of one's own wholeness, and for the sake of others --- in a way that gives hope and promises a full and meaningful life --- so long as one is truly called to this!!

4) What does your day look like?

Each day is mainly divided into three parts with a period of quiet (contemplative) prayer in the morning and evening, and often one in the middle of the night as well. Those periods tend to be accompanied by some lectio and some writing.

Mornings, from rising at 4:00 or 5:00 to about 11:00 am also involves a period of vigil, journaling, morning prayer and either the daily Scriptures and Communion, or daily Mass. Occasionally (@ every other week) I will meet with a client in the late morning. Thursdays I teach Scripture.

Afternoons (from @ 1:00 pm and after lunch) are given over to different activities including household chores or shopping, clients, appointments outside the hermitage, study or writing, and sometimes additional sleep. This is the most variable and flexible part of my day when I catch up on what is most needed.

Evenings (after dinner) include a brief walk or some in-home exercise, evening prayer, study, class prep, or writing (including blogging), an occasional client or quiet prayer, and night prayer.

Nights: Bed at @10:15 or 11:00. Often, I am up in the middle of the night because of pain. I may spend time doing some chores and will do a shorter period of quiet prayer before returning to bed.

5) How often do I interact with people? Am I lonely?

I see people every Sunday for Mass, and I teach Scripture every Thursday morning via ZOOM so that too involves interaction. I meet for spiritual direction most Fridays, a very profound form of interaction, and I tend to meet with several of my own clients (also via ZOOM) once every couple of weeks or once a month. I meet with one client weekly and often get together with a small group of parish daily Mass participants for coffee on Friday mornings. I also get together with fellow diocesan hermits for book discussions or other conversations and consultations about once a month or so. Generally, that is about it.

Am I lonely? I have heard folks say or write hermits are never lonely, and there is a sense in which that is true since God is always present and so are those to whom one is linked in God by bonds of love. But loneliness is also something we experience because we are called to share our lives and in this sense, yes, I am sometimes lonely. I may read something I would love someone to hear, or experience something in prayer I long to share. I may desire a closer relationship with God or need God's comfort or assistance, or I might want the same from a friend. I think that too is called loneliness. I used to say I don't feel a malignant kind of loneliness where every tendril of what one feels seeps into and distorts everything else with its emptiness, darkness, and fear. In the main, except during occasions of deep inner work, I never feel that kind of loneliness, but the loneliness that says I am made for the fullness of love, for both giving and receiving love, yes, that kind of loneliness I feel often.

6) Was figuring out finances and health insurance difficult?  

Dioceses do not materially support diocesan hermits in any way, and it is important for people to realize that. For most hermits, these are truly fraught issues, but they have not been in my situation. Because I am disabled, I qualify for both financial assistance and (Medicaid) health insurance. I also have qualified for Section 8 housing assistance. Some things remain problematic. What to do about final expenses? Because I receive assistance, I cannot save up sufficiently to take care of something like that. (I receive about $1200 a month, and as soon as I save more than $2000 (no matter if I save it out of the money I qualify for or not), it must be paid back dollar per dollar to the government (or simply spent down below the $2000 limit) since, I was told, this ability to save suggests I don't really need the money I have not spent!) Similarly, I tend not to be able to pay for an annual retreat or programs that would enrich my spiritual life, and I find that difficult. Even so, no, I have not had the same financial difficulties most c 603 hermits have. 

7) How would I describe the central purpose or mission of the canonical hermit in the Church and in the world?

Some of this has been captured in the section on what I want others to know about this vocation, I think. Still, it seems to me that the mission of the c 603 hermit is to remind us all that we are completed and made whole and holy by God. We are incomplete without God and our lives will not be truly human unless we are in a vital relationship with God --- and when we are, well, WATCH OUT, for then life and meaning will explode within us and everyone will know it!

Part of this message is the witness we give to the possibility of every person living joyful and fruitful lives despite all of the various forms of poverty we also know well. Hermits do not go out much to proclaim the Gospel as do apostolic Religious; instead, we are called into the hermitage to become the very message we witness to and proclaim. Some like to say the hermit lives in the heart of the Church; I have begun to say the hermit reveals the Church's heart to both the Church and the world.

8) What advice do you have for those considering this vocation?

First, I would remind them that the church considers this a second half of life vocation. If one is a young adult, I would encourage them to consider entering an eremitical community where they can get the education and religious and personal formation necessary for this life. Secondly, I would remind them not to expect a diocese to make one into a hermit. Only God with our cooperation, the accompaniment of a good spiritual director, and perhaps some mentoring from another hermit can do that.  If this does not discourage you but you find yourself intrigued and even excited by the image of c 603 life I have drawn here, then find a good spiritual director and begin doing all you can to learn about and experiment with life with God in the silence of solitude! Pray, read, study, consult, and do it all again and again (cf the accompanying picture!)!  If you are chronically ill or disabled, remember that not all dioceses will accept you for consecration or even a mutual discernment process; many still need to learn that illness itself is a desert experience that can sometimes predispose one to an eremitic vocation. If this is you, I encourage you to try and keep trying so long as you thrive in an eremitical setting. In time you may educate your diocese on this unique desert call. Many c 603 hermits today live with chronic illness and disability. As a result, they witness with a special vividness to the power, peace, and good news of God’s love lived in the silence of solitude.