On the Importance and Contemporaneity of the Eremitical Vocation (Part 2)

 [[Hi Sister Laurel, I was surprised to find your blog. To be totally honest, I thought that hermits died out a long time ago. It is not that I don't believe someone should be able to go and cut themselves off from the world of relationships if they want to. I believe everyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as no one is hurt, but why would the Catholic Church elevate something like this to the point of consecration? I am sure that most people I know would be quite surprised to find out people choose to live as hermits today, and even more surprised to hear the Catholic Church supports and even celebrates such a choice. After all, the church is about community, and a hermit's life is not, right? So my questions are about whether or not eremitical life is anachronistic. Doesn't it really belong to another time, but not to the 21st Century? Is it meaningful (is it relevant)? Does it have anything to offer the non-hermit (or those who seek to become hermits) besides an escape from everyday difficulties --- if it even does that!? Can eremitical life be justified? Should anyone (you) even try?]]

I sincerely hope the first part of this answer (Importance and Contemporaneity of Eremitical Life) was generally helpful. What I tried to do was to outline the way in which I and the hermits I know or have read regard this vocation and its general importance in the 21C, or any century really. What I would like to say more about here are the questions of this vocation's justifiability and ecclesiality, whether or not it is escapist, and in what senses that word might or definitely does not apply. I also want to say something about the notion of freedom you raise in your questions, and whether hermits cut themselves off from the world, or from the world of relationships, and in what sense those actions are true. Many of these have been addressed in other posts over the years, and I'll try to add some links where I can, but perhaps it will be helpful to write about these again within the context of your basic questions about eremitism's justifiability and contemporary relevance.

I have argued that this vocation is not only not anachronistic, that is, it doesn't only belong to past centuries in terms of relevance, but that it is an important and, in fact, a prophetic vocation for the contemporary Church and world. The Church herself recognized this when, in response to Bishop Remi de Roo's intervention at Vatican II it revised the Code of Canon Law and added canon 603, thus allowing for the first time in universal law, the vocation of the solitary hermit as an ecclesial vocation and call to the consecrated state of life. In your question, you recognized the significance of such a move on the Church's part when you asked why the Catholic Church would raise eremitical life to such a place in the Church's life. 

Bishop de Roo had been the bishop protector for about a dozen hermits in British Columbia. These men had left their various monasteries and accepted laicization after many years in solemn vows because they experienced a call to greater solitude and had to leave their monasteries to follow this call. (Let me be clear; these men were often leaders in their monasteries and were not unhappy with monastic life, their vows, monasteries, or anything of the sort. They simply had experienced a call to greater solitude, and found that this call could not be accommodated under the monastery's own (or proper) law. Eventually, they formed a laura or colony of hermits. Because Bishop de Roo knew these men, their motivations, sensibilities, theologies, and vocations, he eventually wrote an intervention at the Second Vatican Council listing the important positive reasons the church should recognize this vocation as a state of perfection. The reasons he provided in his intervention are listed in, Visibility and Betrayal and at least one earlier blog post in late 2006 or 2007. 

Canon 603 and Ecclesiality:

One way of summarizing all of this history and its meaningfulness, is to point out that c 603 governs a form of life that is ecclesial; that is, it is a form of life that is not only part of the Church's patrimony, but is part of the Church's own holiness and contributes to the Church's health, both generally and specifically in terms of her prayer life, religious life, mission, and ministry. The canonical hermit's life reminds the Church and other religious (especially those in apostolic congregations) that before active ministry there must come a profound relationship with God. It is this relationship that allows the religious man or woman to love others as they ought to be loved in the midst of apostolic ministry. It is also this specific relationship that is mediated along with any other forms of giving that the religious does. The hermit's vocation does the same for cloistered religious and reminds them of the real witness of their lives, namely, a life in community lived for the sake of God and God's place in this world. And of course, the hermit does this for the entire Church, reminding us all that God comes first and can fulfill lives that are not wealthy, powerful, or possessed of much prestige in worldly terms. As I have noted recently, while the hermit may do some limited apostolic ministry, it is the inner journey to union with God that is essential to and definitive for the vocation.

Ecclesial vocations aren't simply lived within the Church; they are also lived for the sake of the Church, that it might truly be the church Jesus calls it to be. Those hermits who accept canonical standing with public vows and consecrations mediated by the local Bishop also embrace this dimension of the eremitical vocation in a public way. Non-canonical hermits live their vocations within the church, but they do not necessarily accept this dimension we call "ecclesiality" in the same way. Canonical eremitism, of course, is not the only ecclesial vocation in the Church, but the emphasis on the inner journey made possible by assiduous prayer, penance, stricter separation from the realm that is resistant to Christ or to Truth, and by the silence of solitude, sets eremitical life somewhat apart from the others, and allows it to emphasize something the others accentuate to a lesser degree or in a different way. As noted in earlier posts, it is the inner journey that allows us to confirm that the Gospel of Jesus' resurrection and God's unconditional Love, from which nothing including sin and godless death can separate us, are real and encounterable today. This allows canonical eremitical life to serve these other vocations and the Church as a whole. When we speak about the relevance or contemporaneity of the hermit today, ecclesiality is an important way of describing this.

Eremitical Life and Freedom:

In your question, you said you believed that anyone should be free to do whatever they felt like, so long as no one was hurt in the process. I believe that is the notion of freedom many people in today's world have. Let me point out that this is not the idea of freedom Christianity understands or embodies. Instead, Christianity defines freedom as the power to be the persons God calls us to be. This, in turn, is made possible by the Holy Spirit and God's unconditional love for us. Hermits live a regular life of prayer and penance, study, lectio, and limited ministry because they live a life focused on their relationship with God and on becoming the persons God calls them to be. One of the most important witnesses the hermit gives others is the fullness of life that is possible whenever God is put first. Some who read here know that one of the persons I have contended with most often over the years is an online self-designated hermit who calls herself a victim soul and writes almost interminably about the suffering she is experiencing. I have sympathy for her, but it is my understanding of eremitical life that it is not about suffering or being what has sometimes been called a victim soul. It is about living life with God. Yes, there will be suffering, just as there is with any life in this world, but eremitism is not a life OF suffering; it is a life of joy, meaning, and fulfillment --- countercultural as each of those actually is.

Canonical hermits (and likely all authentic hermits) are truly free. They are not free to do anything they want, of course. Their lives are constrained by vows involving the main areas of life, including wealth, power, and sex, and still they live lives I recognize as fulfilled because they are full of life, love, and meaning. They live according to a daily schedule, maintaining regularity and balance. They live a stricter separation from "the world," which includes but does not primarily mean separation from much of God's good creation; and yet, they are interested in, committed to, and engaged with that world for the sake of its well-being and the furtherance of God's Kingdom, nonetheless. All of these point to a fundamental freedom the hermit has to live a life as full and meaningful as possible within the framework of a desert context. Freedom, from this perspective, is definitely not about doing whatever one likes so long as no one is hurt. It is about living a responsible freedom where one's life is not only received daily as a gift of God, but also is given daily for God's sake and the sake of all that God loves and holds as precious.

Relationships, Escapism, and Eremitical Engagement:

Most hermits are not recluses, and even recluses in the Catholic Church are only allowed to be so within the context of a loving religious community that provides for such unique vocations. (The last I heard of recluses, only the Camaldolese and the Carthusians were allowed to have recluses. The last Camaldolese recluse I know of died a number of years ago in Big Sur, while the most famous might be Nazarena, a recluse living with the Camaldolese nuns in Rome.) All human beings need to be loved and to love, and for that reason, we all need others in our lives. We hermits say that "God Alone is Enough" for us, and we mean that in two related ways. First, only God is capable of completing us as human beings. Only God is sufficient for this. We are made for God, who is the ground and source of life, love, meaning, truth, beauty, and truly personal existence. Secondly,  our openness to and need for God make us open and responsive to all that mediates God to us in the incredibly varied ways the created world and other beings do that. What this saying does NOT mean is that human beings do not need other human beings, or can become truly human in complete isolation from others. Eremitical life has never meant to affirm such a notion of human being or of the nature of eremitical solitude. 

In my writing on this blog over the past 18 years, I have always drawn a clear line between isolation and solitude. I distinguish these two because one is life-giving and the other can deal death to the human being. I am personally sensitive to the distinction between these two and associate isolation with alienation and forced separation from the community of others. Hermits are more or less physically isolated from others; eremitical solitude requires this in order to spend time with God and the inner journey to healing, wholeness, and holiness we are each called to. However, we are not usually personally isolated from others, though we may not be as social as most people or able to spend much time with the people who are important to us. We are assisted in living this solitude by the Church and her liturgical and sacramental life, by spiritual directors, pastors, members of the larger community of faith, family members, physicians, and many others. I include among this significant group of people, especially other religious, and members of the virtual laura I am part of, as well as those I do spiritual direction with. It is not that I interact with these people every day or even every week or month of my life, but they are all a significant presence, and each one helps to focus my life on the defining relationship with God that makes me who I am and who I am called to be.

You suggested not only that a hermit's life is cut off from the world of relationships, but that it is not about community. I would argue that it is about community, though it is lived in eremitical solitude. In fact, I would argue (and have often done that here) that eremitical solitude is a rare and unique form of community dedicated to building the human family and the community of faith from the most important and original relationship extant, namely, that between the human being with the rest of creation and God. As for escape from everyday difficulties, there is no way c 603 life allows for or encourages that. The (canonical) hermit is self-supporting, publicly responsible, committed to the Church and society, and engaged on their behalf. She lives with the same limitations any other person does and perhaps a few more besides. What is most important to remember about this vocation is that it is identified by the Camaldolese in terms of the Privilege of Love. Indeed, I am not going to run for political office or travel to (or even stay home to do) a job forty hours or more a week, but, because I am called to stricter separation from "the world" in the specialized way c 603 uses that term**, it also means I am committed to God's will for the whole of this larger world. Thus, I stay updated on current events, work to ensure my education remains up to date, and I engage in whatever ways I can within the limits of my state of life to make our world all that God calls it to be.

So, this is the second part of my answer to your question. I hope it clarifies some things and raises more questions for the future. As always, if I have been unclear, please feel free to get back to me with comments and questions. Again, thanks for your questions. I enjoyed thinking about them freshly. I will post this before adding the additional links, so in the meantime, you can look at the list of topics on the right-hand column of the blog for additional information. All my best.

** The Church recognizes that "the world" in the c 603 phrase, stricter separation from the world, refers to that which is resistant to Christ, and not first of all to the larger world we identify with God's good creation. As a result, while the hermit is thus more strictly separated from aspects even of God's good creation, she is also well able to engage with and on behalf of that world within the limits of her state of life.

On the Importance and Contemporaneity of the Eremitical Vocation (Part 1)

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I was surprised to find your blog. To be totally honest, I thought that hermits died out a long time ago. It is not that I don't believe someone should be able to go and cut themselves off from the world of relationships if they want to. I believe everyone should be able to do whatever they want so long as no one is hurt, but why would the Catholic Church elevate something like this to the point of consecration? 

I am sure that most people I know would be quite surprised to find out people choose to live as hermits today, and even more surprised to hear the Catholic Church supports and even celebrates such a choice. After all, the church is about community, and a hermit's life is not, right? So my questions are about whether or not eremitical life is anachronistic. Doesn't it really belong to another time, but not to the 21st Century? Is it meaningful (is it relevant)? Does it have anything to offer the non-hermit (or those who seek to become hermits) besides an escape from everyday difficulties --- if it even does that!? Can eremitical life be justified? Should anyone (you) even try?]]

Thanks for your questions. I once said almost exactly the same thing about hermit life having died out. Similarly, I once thought that contemplative life, more generally, was a "waste of skin." Clearly, I am in a much different place today! In much of what I have written over the past two or three months, for instance, I have tried to maintain a balance between a potentially disedifying focus on personal details and the way my own experience illustrates the more universal meaning and significance of the eremitical vocation in today's Church and world. My own eremitical journey, my own journey with and to God, especially in the inner work required by, and associated with personal growth and healing, is at the center of everything I have written, and what is remarkable to me is the way that experience comports with that of contemplatives, hermits and mystics throughout the centuries. In some ways, that journey is precisely what makes me a contemplative and hermit. The nature of it is what also makes my journey a mystical one

But why is this important? You are correct in posing the question of a hermit being anachronistic (i.e., displaced in time). This is the overarching question posed to contemporary hermits by the 21st Century generally -- both by the Church and the larger world. It is the basic argument I hear reflected in others' questions (and my own as well): "If your vocation is anachronistic, then it is meaningless, irrelevant, and has no place in today's world and Church." Of course, most people never actually say this or ask the question outright. They tend just to look puzzled as I explain I am a consecrated (or a Catholic) hermit, and you can see them trying to work out what I have just said in terms of the church and world they know and understand. Usually, the next question I get after explaining I am a hermit is a disbelieving, "So (pause), what is a hermit?"--- as if the two of us can't possibly be thinking of the same reality, not in today's day and age!! (I can imagine them thinking, "Maybe the meaning of this changed with Vatican II or something!!")

And so, I explain a bit of the history of the hermit life and the establishment of c 603 within that. And I wait for other questions. "What do you do all day?" is usually one of the early ones. "Wouldn't you rather...?" tends to be another, along with, "How many of you are there?" once the conversation actually gets going. And it is a deep hope of mine that such a conversation will get going. After all, if, on the other hand, this vocation is meaningful and has a place in today's Church and world, that means it is meaningful not only for the hermit, but for God, for the Church itself, and for God's larger creation as well." Unfortunately,  most people tend to smile politely and move to other topics. So, I am really grateful you have asked what you have, because as I understand things, it is up to the hermit to explore the eremitical life and these associated questions as we come to a coherent sense of their answers. No one but the hermit can do this in quite the same way!

Most hermits I know firmly believe their vocations are important, not only for what they mean for the hermit him/herself, but for the way they witness to others in our Church and world about really foundational human and societal questions and needs. Merton once wrote that hermits say something fundamental about the relation of nature and grace, and I think he was exactly right. The fundamental truth that human beings are made for God and that God wills to dwell with and within us is the truth Merton was speaking of. He recognized that human beings have a "made-for-God" quality that is rooted in God's own will for creation and for Godself. In other words, human beings are incomplete and less than truly human without God. At the same time, God has chosen to turn to us so that his love might be known and fulfilled in this way. Using an older language to say this, nature is perfected in grace, and grace intends to reveal itself fully, even exhaustively, in nature. 

In a Church where apostolic ministry is (quite rightly) esteemed, and the relevance and value of the contemplative calling is, at least tacitly, questioned by even some of the highest up in the Church, eremitical life is, again, a radically countercultural vocation. In a world where individualism reigns, consumerism is rampant, and, far too often, the accumulation of wealth and privilege are supposed to be the marks of real success, the eremitical life again stands as a radically countercultural witness and challenge. The same is true in a world where privacy and discretion are sacrificed on the altar of superficial "belonging" via "friending" or vlogging and blogging. This means that the eremitical vocation, besides being countercultural, is a prophetic calling; it witnesses to deep truth in a world hungry for it, and in need of the wisdom derived from it. At least that's what I and the other hermits I know believe. To apply an observation St Paul made in another context, if the hermit vocation to witness to God and the human seeking of God is not truly serious and seriously true, then we hermits are the greatest fools of all!

Hermits' lives are not meaningful merely because we pray for others, though undoubtedly we do that, and yes, that (we claim!) is significant. Hermit's lives are meaningful because they are dedicated to seeking God and living with, in, and from God, and moreover, they are meaningful because this seeking is engaged in for the sake of others (first of all for God's sake and then for that of the whole world) as well as for the hermit's own sake. What we say to others is that every prayer, every act of attentiveness and responsiveness to life and love, every gesture of generosity, or decision leading to self-sacrifice. and service, every moment spent by anyone in this world cultivating the values at the heart of the Gospel, making neighbors and friends of those distant from or "other" than we are, is meaningful and contributes to the sovereign life of God-With-Us we Christians call the Kingdom of God. Hermits (authentic Christian hermits) say with their lives, that God wills to dwell with us here and now and that where that is allowed and even seriously pursued, human life becomes what it is meant to be, joyful, fulfilled, simple, loving, free, hopeful, and engaged for the sake of the whole of God's creation.

And hermits witness to more than this as well.  In the inner journey we make while seeking God, we explore the questions of meaning and meaninglessness, the existence and nature of the God we seek to know and be known by, questions about prayer and suffering, the nature of the human person, the importance of relationships in every life, personal integrity (or holiness), etc. --- questions every serious person asks in varying ways throughout their lives. We don't ordinarily do this in the formal academic way theologians do (though some of us may also do that); we do it experientially. Recently, a couple of diocesan hermits responded to an observation I made about my blog and the questions I get. "You write about the same things again and again, but you [continue to] do so from a[n ever] deeper place (or in a deeper way)." I sincerely hope that is true because if it is, it means this blog is a witness to the nature of my own journey with, in, and for God and what is precious to God. In any case, the inner journey is a journey of profound questioning; it poses the question we human beings are as well as those we pose. It is the journey of faith and doubt, woundedness and healing, despair or near despair, and ultimate hope. Hermits make this journey with Christ into the darkness of sinful (godless) death and the blazing light of resurrection. We seek God in every dark and wounded place, especially within our own hearts and minds, our own memories and deep aspirations, and to the extent we do this and find (or are found by!) God in our searching and hunger,  we proclaim, with St Paul et al., the truth of the Christian Gospel, namely, there is no place and nothing at all that can separate us from the love of God.

Individuals within the Church have always made this journey. Lay persons, religious, priests, contemplatives, hermits, mystics, have all made this inner journey with Christ into darkness and death, and discovered the reality of Jesus' resurrection and the truth of Romans 8:31-39. I would argue that there is nothing whatsoever to justify such a journey, or such vocations, apart from this seeking of God and the truth of the Gospel. At the same time, I have to note that making this journey so that others can know the truth of Jesus' resurrection and the depth and expansiveness of God's love, not as a matter of doctrine but as one of personal experience, is imperative for the vitality of contemporary faith and the life of the Church. So, when you ask what the hermit does for the non-hermit, I would need to say that all of this is applicable. I don't know a single person, believer or non-believer, who doesn't wonder if their life is meaningful, if they are loved or really capable of loving, if "this is all there is," or how is it one lives life in a way that truly honors who they are most fundamentally. The hermit says with her life that even when stripped of the various things the contemporary world believes make our lives meaningful (health, wealth, prestige, power, appreciated societal and service roles, etc), our lives can be full, truly free, given for the sake of others, and ultimately meaningful. Moreover, such stripping can lead to persons with the perspective needed to move our world forward into God's own future.

I'll return to your comments and questions (especially the nature of freedom, on escapism, and on the creation of eremitism as an ecclesial vocation) with another post. Consider this the beginning of an answer on the meaningfulness of the eremitic vocation. If it raises different questions for you, please get back to me as soon as you can. It would be helpful for the way I put together a second post.

Once Again, On Whether Bishop Stowe Believes Cole Matson Has a Vocation

[[Sister Laurel, why would you say that Bishop Stowe seemed not to believe Cole Matson/Brother Christian had any real vocation at all? He professed him as a diocesan hermit! Doesn't that indicate a belief in a vocation?]] 

Thanks for your question. I had hoped this was clear from several different posts, but let me try and explain it a bit better. God calls each of us to do something unique, something only we can do because only we will meet the needs of the situation with the self we are. (God may call many individuals to do a larger work, but in every case, the vocation a person answers is their own individual and unique vocation.) Moreover, God calls each of us to a vocation where we ourselves will be fulfilled in the way God wills for us and in the way the Church and world really need.  This unique call is our vocation.

When Cole Matson convinced himself he was called to public vows rather than to the vocation he had described to me in terms clearly empowered by the Holy Spirit, and when he determined to use c 603 as a means to public profession despite the fact that the Church does not recognize any such vocation, Cole let go of his God-given vocation and substituted something else, and something far less worthy in its place. Tragically, Bishop Stowe colluded in this, and by affirming Cole in a vocation he claimed not to be called to, Bp Stowe seemed to indicate he really didn't care that Cole's true vocation was going unanswered. He may even have demonstrated he believed there was no such true vocation. Of course, Bp Stowe also indicated not only an ignorance of the nature of c 603 vocations, despite having been written about this to some extent by a diocesan hermit,  but he indicated he may not care about these vocations themselves.

When bishop Stowe described why he decided to (attempt to) profess Cole Matson it was a particularly anemic statement in terms of vocation. If you recall, he spoke mostly about what the vocation did not involve (ordination, sacramental ministry). He said, [My willingness to be open to him is because it’s [note the objectifying lack of personal pronoun] a sincere person seeking a way to serve the church,’ Stowe said of Matson. ‘Hermits are a rarely used form of religious life … but they can be either male or female. Because there’s no pursuit of priesthood or engagement in sacramental ministry, and because the hermit is a relatively quiet and secluded type of vocation, I didn’t see any harm in letting him live this vocation.’ . . .]] In other words, [[Whom could it hurt? It's not like s/he was asking to be made a priest! Hermits are tucked away from anything really central in the church, so what difference could it possibly make?]]

While technically true in several ways, all of this manages to misunderstand the nature and significance of the solitary eremitical vocation, the reasons discernment and formation of such vocations require real diligence, knowledge, and focused care, and it misunderstands especially the place they serve in the life of the Church. The idea of professing someone who does not honestly claim to feel called by God to this specific vocation, and who in fact, claims to feel truly called to another vocation entirely, does a disservice to the vocation and the person involved. Especially, eremitical life is not meant as a way of preparing one for the ministry apostolic religious are mainly involved in. For instance, eremitical solitude, in particular, is not about relaxing in one's hermitage or recharging one's spiritual batteries so one may minister elsewhere, like the theatre, where Cole Matson's main energies go for the majority of the day and evening.

The solitude of the hermit is the context of her main work, namely prayer. Moreover, it is an intensely demanding reality, not least because human beings are social creatures and are not ordinarily meant to come to human wholeness in solitude, but also because when this is the nature of one's solitude, it will be about meeting oneself and becoming more and more profoundly truthful with oneself about who one is and is called to be. One will deal with past woundedness, personal sin, frailties, limitations of all sorts, and the way one colludes with untruth and death even in a vocation given over to life and the very Source of Life we call Abba. Sister Jeremy Hall (Silence, Solitude, Simplicity: A Hermit's Love Affair with a Noisy, Crowded, and Complicated World) spoke of the desert as the place of encounter; above all, that means living towards, for, and from one's maturing encounter with God, but at the same time, it means living in light of a continuing encounter with oneself, a coming to terms with all of that, and, an integration of one's whole life in terms of these continuing forms of encounter. It is this integration that we call holiness while growth in this is what we call sanctification (but also humanization and divinization).

Most people have regular avenues of escape or at least significant relief from this kind of intensity of encounter. But not the hermit. Even her recreation serves the quality of her commitment to this paradoxical vocation of encounter. Witness to this encounter, an encounter that is meant to be at the heart of every Christian vocation, is the actual mission of the hermit. Yet, in Bishop Stowe's approach to and description of c 603 life, one would never imagine such an intense process lay at the heart of the vocation. The approval Stowe gave Matson to spend more than two-thirds of his day in the theatre underscores both parties' ignorance of this foundational dynamic of eremitical life; for Bp Stowe, this ignorance points to a failure to perceive Cole Matson as having been called to it as well. (If you don't understand it exists, how can you recognize someone is called to it? More, how can you affirm them in this vocation?) The tragedy of all of this, however, lies not only in the misrepresentation of this vocation (though I admit that tragedy is significant, indeed), but also in the failure involved by not finding (or creating) a more appropriate avenue for Cole to respond to his true vocation, which itself argues that perhaps Bp Stowe doesn't truly believe in Cole Matson's true vocation.