Living Solitary Eremitical Life in the Name of the Church

[[Dear Sister Laurel, do you write what you do in the name of the Church? Do other hermits have that authority? When you use the phrase, "in the name of the Church" what do you mean?]]

Hi, and thanks for the question. The answer is simple and very straightforward. No, what I write is my opinion, though I certainly strive to be sure that those opinions are well-informed and accurate in theological, pastoral, and ecclesial terms. Neither I nor any other hermit has the authority to write in the name of the Church unless this authority is specifically granted in the giving of what is called a mandatum. However, what I and other canonical hermits have been given is the authority (and more fundamentally, the obligation) to live solitary eremitical life in the name of the Church. To some extent that implies the authority to explore this vocation, to grow and mature in it, for instance, and even to share what we have come to understand with others, but it does not mean that I, for instance, write or speak in the name of the Church. Of course not.

Remember that c 603 is the universal Church's norm for solitary eremitical life. (Other canons apply to hermits living their vocations within a communal context.) It describes a vision of this form of eremitical life and adds to that the requirement that the c 603 hermit writes her own Rule of life based on her experience, education, and training. The diocesan hermits I know take this vision seriously and (to greater and lesser degrees) share with one another so that day by day we may grow in our embodiment of the vision c 603 represents. I tend to share based upon my own experiences, education, training, etc., on this blog and that means that what I write is a reflection of what I have come to know about this vocation and the way I am called to live it. Still, while what I write may be helpful to some folks (including members of the hierarchy or canonists reflecting on this vocation), it does not mean what I write itself is necessarily normative, authoritative, or done in the name of the Church.

The phrase, "in the name of the Church" comes from the idea that the Church commissions people to act in certain ways on her behalf and thus, with the Church's authority. Just as Kings, for instance, charged ambassadors with tasks to carry out in the King's name in various foreign kingdoms --- meaning where the ambassador spoke or acted according to orders, the King himself spoke --- so too does the Church commission each of us to proclaim the Gospel in ways that are appropriate to our own state of life. In fact, each of our lives is meant to be an embodiment of such a commission. Thus, each of us at baptism assumes the name Catholic. We are Catholics who live our vocations in the name of the Church. Those who are married in the Church are also commissioned to live married life in the name of the Church and to do this faithfully -- a rather important charge or mission! Religious do the same with religious life. And so forth.

The shorthand way of pointing to all of this is to say of someone, [[X is a Catholic nun (or priest), or is part of a Catholic (or Sacramental) marriage.]] I am a Catholic (diocesan) hermit, which is the shorthand way of saying the Church has commissioned me to live this specific vocation in her name. I do this in faithfulness to c 603, its traditional context, and the larger context of eremitical life. Simply to say one is a Catholic is to claim to have been commissioned to live a foundational vocation to discipleship in the Church's name. That commission was associated with our baptism and is renewed at every Mass as we are nourished in our faith and then sent forth as Christ's own disciples. Beyond baptism, however, we may be called to religious life (including semi-eremitical life), consecrated life as solitary hermits or virgins. These are ecclesial vocations which the Church herself directly entrusts to individuals through a second consecration and commissioning to live in the Church's name. Thus, these persons are Catholic hermits, nuns and brothers, and virgins, not merely Catholic AND a nun, brother, etc.

We see something similar when a theologian is given a mandatum by the Church to teach and do theology in the Church's name. In order to do this, a theologian must do their terminal degree at a pontifical institution and be granted the authority to call themselves a Catholic theologian. This authority can be withdrawn by the Church as well, something that once happened to Hans Kung. Note well, however, simply because a theologian cannot call themselves a Catholic theologian, this does not mean that person's theology is not faithfully and exhaustively Catholic. The same is true of non-canonical hermits. While they cannot call themselves Catholic hermits (i.e., because they are not authorized to identify themselves as living a normative (canonical) vocation), this does not necessarily mean the person is not faithfully Catholic. It simply means the Church has not authorized her to live eremitical life in her name.

Given your questions, what might also be clearer to people reading the posts on this blog over the past couple of months is precisely why I might be upset at someone calling themselves a "hybrid hermit" and not taking as seriously as the Church expects, the commission associated with being admitted to profession as a diocesan hermit under c 603. Acceptance of profession under this canon is associated with an acceptance of a commission to live the terms of the canon as faithfully and fully as one can. The vocation is not an excuse for doing active ministry. The central elements of the canon are normative for this life. If one lives a c 603 life honestly, then they will be hermits, not some form of "hybrid hermit" or "hermit monk". Yes, in time, they will grow into this life more and more deeply if they have truly given themselves over to the vocation the canon describes and defines, but they will never be (called to be) something other than a hermit. If one cannot answer this call or accept this commission to live this vocation in a normative way in which both the hermit and c 603 life itself thrive in them, then one will naturally (and rightly) conclude they are not called to this vocation.

On the Diocese of Lexington and the Setting of Problematic Precedents Under c 603

[[Dear Sister, you wrote: "I have to ask Cole [Matson] if he really believes his vocation is more real than the hundreds of those whose dioceses turned them away when they wanted to use c 603 as the "only available canon" to become publicly professed despite not feeling called to be a solitary hermit? That is simply the height of arrogance." I haven't heard anyone else raise this question. Have there really been hundreds of persons turned away from dioceses who were seeking admission to profession under c 603? Why is it so many people are turned away? Has Bishop Stowe turned others away? Will he feel compelled to profess anyone who comes to him with this petition? It seems to me that Bishop Stowe kind of cut the heart out of the c 603 vocation.]]

Thanks for your questions. Several of them I really can't answer (I can't read minds, including that of Bishop Stowe) but here is what I know. Yes, there have been hundreds and hundreds of persons turned away from profession under c 603 throughout the country and many times more than that throughout the world. In my own diocese, I know from a meeting with the Vicar for Religious about 10 years after my consecration (meeting was @2017) that they had seen a steady stream of people seeking to be professed in this way during this time. The estimation was an average of 1/month for a period of @10 years. So, in my diocese alone at least 120 persons besides myself had sought profession under c 603 through 2017. If we extend that for the next 7 years, that's another @84 persons which is @204 persons in a single diocese in the US. What Father Robert Herbst (OFM Conv) said at the time was that none of those had gotten as far as I had. That means that the diocese did, in fact, give some serious time in discernment to some of them depending on the case. 

There are 176 dioceses in the US. If even only half of these received a similar number of persons seeking profession under c 603 in the diocese of Oakland, that would still be a huge number of people seeking profession. If we divide that number into half again in the interests of conservatism, that is still almost 10,000 persons (though I personally find this number hard to believe). Let's divide this by 50% (simply because I really do find it difficult to believe!!). Also, we must recognize that some dioceses and regions do not entertain petitions for c 603 profession so if we divide the number in half yet again to account for these, we still come up with 2,500 persons petitioning their dioceses over four decades in the USA alone. Of this number, only a fraction might be thought to have a genuine eremitical life; many of the others sought to use the canon as a stopgap way to get themselves professed and consecrated and were rightly refused admission to profession.

Since there are only about 100-150 diocesan hermits (fewer than 1 per diocese) in the US, it is clear that most candidates (@ 24 out of 25) do not make it very far towards perpetual profession and consecration. Still, we believe that the majority of these 100-150 persons are living authentic eremitical lives and a significant number of those turned away by their dioceses truly believed they had genuine vocations to solitary eremitical life. We can put that last number at several thousand. So, yes, even if we minimize the numbers in every way possible we are still looking at a rare vocation where hundreds and hundreds have been turned away from admission to profession and eventual consecration.

Why People are Turned away from Profession and Consecration under c 603

People are turned away from canonical profession for many reasons. Sometimes dioceses have a sense the person cannot really live this vocation in an exemplary way; sometimes the person cannot support themselves adequately without working outside the hermitage. Sometimes physical and mental illness have suggested dioceses ought not profess the person --- and sometimes these conclusions were sound. (At other times they demonstrated a faulty sense of the solitary eremitical vocation or the desert context illness can provide.) 

Candidates have been refused because their spirituality is unsound, because they don't have sufficient background in (practical) theology, prayer, or eremitical and monastic life which means they either don't understand what they are asking, or will not be able to live it fruitfully in a healthy way. Some candidates are refused because they are grieving some significant loss, have just left religious life for reasons other than feeling called to solitude, and so forth. These persons still need to transition to life outside marriage or religious life in community before seeking to be professed in a new vocation. (Sometimes bishops may underestimate the degree of transition between life in community and solitary eremitical life. In my experience, it is as significant as moving from secular life to solitary eremitical life.) And as noted, a number of dioceses refuse to implement c 603 (or c 604) simply because they believe these are stopgap or fallback vocations.

While I cannot answer the question about others being turned away from profession under c 603 in the diocese of Lexington in the past, and while I don't know what Bp Stowe will feel compelled to do in the future, the question of genuine discernment and formation of such vocations are a burning question for every diocese, but particularly now for the diocese of Lexington. One of the things that comes up again and again with candidates is the question of precedents. For instance, a candidate may want permission to reserve Eucharist before being admitted to profession, much less to consecration. But this would set a precedent for others seeking admission to profession in this and other dioceses we can argue we ought not establish. Thus, ordinarily, dioceses ask candidates to wait until they are admitted to perpetual profession for this permission (not least because life in cell/hermitage without reserved Eucharist is typical of eremitical life through the centuries, and also because the hermit needs to be able to clearly discern and affirm the presence of Christ in all of the ways Christ is present in the hermitage, particularly in the Word of God). The precedents now set in the Diocese of Lexington are significant. They include:

• Professing a transgendered person because they are transgendered and (in light of a continuing church position on this issue) have not been able to enter religious life before this.
• allowing reservation of Eucharist despite not having been consecrated nor even having discerned this vocation,
• allowing c 603 to be used in a stopgap way as a framework for non-eremitical vocations and then calling them "hybrid hermits" or "diocesan monks" or some such vacuous designation.
• entertaining agendas (rather than vocations) as a sufficient reason to admit to an ecclesial vocation.
• Calling a biological woman "Brother" and clothing her in a male habit.
• Allowing (or providing) a so-called diocesan hermit a place to reside on monastery grounds. (While this is something a candidate or diocesan hermit can arrange for themselves, it usually happens only after the person has lived eremitical life for some years and has a longstanding relationship with the monastery. In any case, this establishes a precedent for candidates to c 603 life and others might be allowed to expect similar living arrangements being made available.)
• Allowing a so-called diocesan hermit to work both afternoons and evenings outside the hermitage in a highly social job. (One also assumes the diocese has approved a Rule of Life that established this as "eremitical".)
• Allowing a candidate's profession without a history of living eremitical life in any capacity and in ways that make genuine discernment and formation with diocesan personnel and mentors unnecessary. 
• (A corollary to this is allowing someone being professed to have someone else write their Rule, or at least significant parts of their Rule for them because they don't have the experience to be able to do it themselves.) The ability to write a liveable Rule requires one to have the experience, education, and training that allows such a significant piece of writing. Assistance in this is important, even indispensable, but this does not mean the Rule can be written in part or in whole by someone else, particularly a non-hermit.
• Professing someone who can afford extended stays in monasteries to get some exposure to religious life. (Most candidates will not have this ability. On the other hand, if the diocese paid the expenses of such stays, it sets the precedent that the diocese will do so for every candidate for profession under c 603 with insufficient background to live eremitical life.) In either case, a precedent has been established that needs to be made available to other candidates for c 603 profession at various points along their journey.
• Professing someone whose life contradicts what the church considers normative for consecrated life and so too, is attempting to live this contradiction "in the Church's name". (A vow of obedience becomes doubtful, at best, in such a situation.)
• Professing a person who rejects her biological sex, and letting her make a vow of chastity in celibacy --- a vow promising to live her vocation to authentic womanliness as fully and exhaustively as a chaste woman can and should do despite an inability and unwillingness to live such a vow is a potentially disastrous precedent. It implies a change in the church's theology of the vows or, at the very least, a faulty understanding of the nature of chastity in celibacy.

Questions Raised by Such Precedents:

Each of these precedents in the Diocese of Lexington raises questions there and in other dioceses. But concerning the Diocese of Lexington, the question raised at the bottom is this: Who may not expect to be professed as a c 603 hermit in the Diocese of Lexington if they seek it? What is a good enough reason to deny profession to anyone seeking that under this canon? As you have affirmed yourself, Bp Stowe's actions with regard to Cole Matson did indeed cut the heart out of the vocation. It can now be said that in the Diocese of Lexington (and as they thus at least implicitly recommend to every other local church), one does not even need to be a hermit to be professed and consecrated as a hermit. Anyone wanting to be professed, any person saying they have always desired to become a religious and claims they were "unjustly" refused (whatever this means), can now approach the Diocese of Lexington and ask them to profess them with the same justification that Cole Matson did. 

Meanwhile, the defining characteristics of c 603 may be dismissed as mere "guidelines" rather than defining characteristics if they are not simply jettisoned altogether. Beyond this, Bishop Stowe might reasonably be approached by anyone with a normal prayer life for permission to reserve Eucharist in their own homes. He might now be asked to give permission for anyone wishing to wear a habit or to style themselves as Brother x or Sister y and expect others to to recognize them as such. All they have to promise, it seems, is that they have always desired this but were turned away in the past (or in other dioceses), and that has been terribly painful. If someone else can write them a Rule of life, then even better.

As I have written before, when most of us c 603 hermits approach our dioceses to profess and consecrate us under this canon, it is after we have lived solitary eremitical life for at least several years (many of us have lived it at least a decade or two before our diocese will admit us to profession). We recognize that canonical standing entrusts us with additional rights and obligations beyond those of baptism, and also, at least some of us understand that we return to the Church with something special, even unique, that we gained in the silence of solitude and give the Church in return. In other words, we recognize that God has been working in our lives in a special way in the silence of solitude, that God transfigures our lives in this way, and because of that, we seek to live eremitical life in the name of the Church. This makes us able and ready to proclaim the Good News of the God of Jesus Christ, and again, it is only possible because we embraced eremitical life honestly and exhaustively looking to it and the God who is its author to make an ultimate kind of sense of our lives. So what happens to that witness in light of the Cole Matson situation? It has certainly been threatened and definitely will be lost if Bishop Stowe's precedents are treated as valid or allowed to become commonly practiced by other bishops and dioceses.

Living in the Name of Emmanuel: Embracing Lives Empowered and Made Fruitful by the Resurrection

I noted in preparation for the Triduum that during these days our God would reveal Godself as Emmanuel in an exhaustive way; he was the One who took the entire scope of human existence into himself in Christ, including its greatest darknesses and senselessness, and made these the places and ways of God. Then, as the days of the Triduum came in their turn I asked on Good Friday and Holy Saturday whether Jesus was  madman or a Messiah. I said we waited in the darkness to learn the answer to that question. Was our God really one who would be with us even in sin and death and abject lostness or could these separate us from God eternally --- thus revealing God (or his "Christ") as a powerless fraud or fiction?

The liturgy of the vigil of Easter answers this question with the lighting of the new fire, the paschal candle, singing of the Exultet, and the proclamation that Jesus is Risen from the dead. In all the symbols we have, light, warmth, community, song, prayer, and even darkness, it proclaims Jesus as the one who was completely vindicated by God, the One whose revelation of God as Emmanuel is entirely, even exhaustively true. This God is the One from whom nothing at all can separate us, not sin, not death, not even the depths of lostness or hell. He has made these his own and in Christ they therefore become sacraments of his power and presence which, rather than plaints of grief and loss, can occasion the cry Alleluia. He is risen, alleluia! Paul says the same when he translates this affirmation into a triumphant and rhetorical question, "Death where is thy sting?"

The readings during this first week of Easter focus on the change that took place in light of the fact that Jesus did not simply stay good and dead, that God's love did not allow our sin or even godless death itself have the final word or become a final silence. They focus on the changes that took place when the disciples encountered the risen Lord who had taken these things into himself and remained open to the Love of God at the same time. There is some indication of the struggle involved in understanding the fact of resurrection as contrasted with ghosts and other common explanations of their experience of this risen Christ. The timing is truncated, abbreviated, and we have no idea how long it actually takes for the disciples to process all of this --- though the Scriptures give us the impression that the change that occurred in the disciples was fairly immediate and even miraculous. The focus is not on the disciples' internal struggle so much as it is on the transformation occasioned by their meeting with the risen Lord.

Today's readings center attention on a particularly powerful way of speaking of this transformation. The first is through reflection on the name or powerful presence of Jesus, In the first reading the disciples who engage in a healing ministry  do so in the name of Jesus and affirm they are doing so when the source of their authority is demanded of them by the high priests and member of the high priestly class. The shift from being frightened, helpless, and powerless disciples of a fraudulent messiah crucified for blasphemy and treason by the religious and political powers of his world to being disciples of that same one now "risen from the dead" and showing his presence through their powerful works is compelling; thousands of people are baptized and added to the rolls of Jesus' disciples. What is critical to this story is that the disciples are very clear they do not act in their own names, nor in the name of Judaism, but instead in the name of the rejected and crucified Jesus and the God he revealed through his sinful and godforsaken death. They act in the name of the God who is Emmanuel and stands in solidarity with us in our most abject lostness and incapacity.

The responsorial psalm and antiphon help interpret this first reading: the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Now, cornerstones or foundation stones established the pattern and foundation of the entire edifice. As the cornerstone went, so did the entire building. If the placement was off, the strength of the stone deceptive or the stone flawed, etc, then the building itself would be flawed and potentially at least dangerous. In Middle Eastern (and later European practice as well), sacrifices were buried under cornerstones or the blood of offerings were poured upon the stones to imbue it with power and stability. (Later practices could involve taking the measure of a person's shadow, an effigy of the person, and burying that in place of the person or the person's shadow or soul.) Frazer (2006: p. 106-107) in The Golden Bough charts the various propitiatory sacrifices and effigy substitution such as the shadow, describes the practice as follows:

[[In modern Greece, when the foundation of a new building is being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram, or a lamb, and to let its blood flow on the foundation-stone, under which the animal is afterwards buried. The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and stability to the building. But sometimes, instead of killing an animal, the builder entices a man to the foundation-stone, secretly measures his body, or a part of it, or his shadow, and buries the measure under the foundation-stone; or he lays the foundation-stone upon the man's shadow. It is believed that the man will die within the year.]]

(Remember that in speaking of the notion of the shadow as an effigy of the person and actually possessing the power of the person the Acts of the Apostles (5:12-16) tells the story that when Peter and the other Apostles were coming by in the Portico of Solomon folks lined up all the sick on palettes and cots so the even "just the shadow of Peter might fall upon" at least some of them and they would be healed by its touch.)

[[The Romanians of Transylvania think that he whose shadow is thus immured will die within forty days; so persons passing by a building which is in course of erection may hear a warning cry, Beware lest they take thy shadow! Not long ago there were still shadow-traders whose business it was to provide architects with the shadows necessary for securing their walls. In these cases the measure of the shadow is looked on as equivalent to the shadow itself, and to bury it is to bury the life or soul of the man, who, deprived of it, must die. Thus the custom is a substitute for the old practice of immuring a living person in the walls, or crushing him under the foundation-stone of a new building, in order to give strength and durability to the structure, or more definitely in order that the angry ghost may haunt the place and guard it against the intrusion of enemies.]]

Something new has come to be, a new edifice, a new Temple  and Kingdom is being established upon the life, death, and resurrection of the Crucified One. A stone marked by abject weakness, and godlessness, a stone rejected as entirely unworthy of such an edifice is now the foundation stone. Everything Jesus' disciples do which is dependent on this cornerstone will succeed with the power of that stone and the resurrection life with which it is imbued. Yesterday's and today's Gospel readings both affirm that this has nothing to do with ghosts or crude superstitions but instead with an entirely new and puzzling form of life or presence, namely, the resurrected Lord who lives and mediates the  powerful presence of God to our world just as he takes the whole of human experience into the very life of the Eternal and Living God (him)self. The temple that will be built on this foundation will be built with living stones, stones which are themselves empowered by a life and love proven stronger than sin and godless death.

Today's Gospel also refers to the nameless disciple whom Jesus loved, the nameless one who believed when he saw the empty tomb or who stood at the foot of the cross with the women. Some commentators believe the point of this namelessness in the Gospel of John is to invite each of us who are called by name by the risen Lord to take our places in the continuing story we know as the Christ Event. I find that suggestion compelling but today I think we also have to hear the fact that we are called to live our lives in the name of Christ, not in our own names; we are called to live our lives in the power of the living God who makes living stones of us and gives us fleshly hearts to replace the stony, hardened hearts of the past --- not in our own power. 

This God has made even our alienation and godforsakenness his own and now empowers us to make his ways our own. As a result, we will say by our lives, then, that Jesus was Messiah rather than madman. We will say by lives founded on the Cornerstone we know as the Risen Christ and lived in the name of Emmanuel that our God does indeed draw all things to (him)self. He is indeed the one Paul proclaimed in Romans 8:37-38  as the One from whose love neither life nor death, neither heavenly or earthly realities, nor powers or principalities, nor things present or future, nor anything at all can ultimately separate us. Established in the strength and authority of the risen Christ we will become fishers of men and the living stones of the new Temple of God's Kingdom; established in the strength and authority of the God who in Christ reveals Godself exhaustively as Emmanuel, lives which are empty, absurd, and fruitless apart from Christ's resurrection are entirely transfigured to become mediators of this very same God. That is, after all, what it means to live our lives in the name of this God rather than in our own names.