Showing posts with label asceticism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asceticism. Show all posts

02 August 2022

More Questions on Inner Work and Becoming Transparent to God

Sister, when you write about stricter separation from the world does the inner work you have been doing have a place in it? As I read your last post entitled, "Why isn't it enough?" I thought I got, just for a moment, a glimpse of why that would be important not only so you could live as a hermit, but also as an integral part of the eremitical life. This glimpse came and went in a flash so I can't say more about what I mean but maybe you know just what I am trying to say here. I know you have been criticized by readers in the past for needing to do such work and that you wrote it was integral to your vocation. I think re-reading your last post helped me understand this a little better because I saw you, and myself, and everyone else as having been distorted by the world and needing to do the inner work you speak of to become more clearly ourselves. That was the glimpse I got while reading what you were saying. I don't know if this is something you could write about, but my question is do I have this right? Does the inner work you speak of allow you to become "transparent to God" (your phrase) as you become more truly yourself?

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I definitely think you got it!!! The post you referred to re criticism of my own engagement in what I call "inner work" is found here: On Justifying Inner Work and it contains other links to related articles. It was also prompted by my discovery that the inner work I had been doing for a couple of years at that point might have shown me I had made a mistake in my discernment of an eremitical vocation; instead it affirmed this vocation again and again. And regarding your second question, YES!!! Absolutely, the inner work is part of what allows me to become transparent to God as I become more truly myself. This transparency to God is the very nature of what it means to be truly human, so the more truly human I become, the more transparent to God. 

We speak about this phenomenon of transparency in a number of ways. The main ones affirm us as imago dei, and incarnations of the Word of God -- especially to the extent we live in light of and through Christ!! I believe the story of Jesus' Transfiguration is a story of his (eventually!!) perceived transparency to God by the chosen disciples. Recently Sister Susan gave me a mirror medallion developed by Richard Rohr. I believe that this too reflected (no pun intended) the notion of becoming transparent to God. It also reminds us that others are, to varying degrees, also transparent to God. The side of the mirror medallion facing one's own heart/self has a symbol of the Trinity on it; it represents the gaze of God and the way God sees us at every moment; the side facing outward is a plain mirror reflecting everything as it is without distortion or judgment. Rohr had experienced the Trinity as a dynamic reality moving through him --- in and out. This experience developed into a practice of receiving beauty and breathing it back out to others. I recognize it as a symbol of transparency to God and to being the imago dei to others, one who sees as God sees and also one who is seen as God sees.

Transparency is something that happens, something we become as more and more we become persons who allow the presence of God to be mediated through and in us. Transparency is a means of revelation, but also of standing truly and honestly as our deepest selves. God seeks to reveal Godself at every moment and mood of our lives and in many ways, we occlude or distort that revelation. Part of all of that "occlusion" comes from our own woundedness and the resulting fear of allowing God (and sometimes, anyone at all) to love us and fill us with God's life and light. Sometimes we have lost so much in trying to be open and trust or love that we cling tightly to the superficial image of who we truly are, even when that "self" is but an echo of who we once were and a shadow of who we are truly called to be. Letting go to allow something so marked by newness, dynamism (change!!), and Mystery, is simply terrifying. And so, when people look at us, they mainly see echoes and shadows, scars, woundedness, and diminishment because that is all we feel free enough to allow ourselves to reveal.

Pope Francis Says Vespers with the
Camaldolese Nuns and Monks in Rome
Sometimes our failure to allow the transparency and revelation God yearns for with each of us comes from other forms of rigidity and arrogance. We believe we know who God is because we were taught about who God is in religion or theology classes. We take refuge in formulae and rituals which at least as easily distance us from the real God as they draw us closer. We have learned these things, sometimes with great effort, and we feel safe with them where the "living God" is more Mysterious and awesome even while he is also intriguing to us (mysterium tremendum et fascinans); they are therefore hard to let go of and can occlude the revelation of the living God we are meant to become. It is the "inner work" I have written about several times now that allows the necessary healing and strengthening of ourselves so that we can live from our deepest potential and love as we are meant to love.

Because God is the source of the potential I am speaking of, and we are the persons who are created as we listen to and respond to that source. We are never ourselves alone (except to the extent we are sinners or impaired by the sin that has touched us) because God is a constituent dimension of who we are. The more truly ourselves we become, the more clearly and truly present God becomes within us. We become more and more transparent to the God who is, as Tillich put the matter, the ground and source of our being. God is not alien to us, nor is God some sort of weird or supernatural parasite within us. When we speak of God dwelling within us, we are speaking of something that is most deeply and truly an essential or fundamental part of ourselves. We cannot be "us" (or even alive at all) without this presence and the opposite is also true: the more we become our truest selves, the clearer and stronger this presence within us becomes. We are truly ourselves, truly holy and truly human when people look at us and see God in everything we are and do. This is what revelation is about and it is what transparency is about. 

The inner work I and others do and that I write about here, allows this to be realized in our lives and all we touch!! It allows us to be healed of all of those forms of woundedness that cripple or otherwise limit us and it opens us to the deepest potential that is ours so that we can live from that for the sake of others. Once I thought of this work as something I could do and finish with so that I could live my vocation as I am called to do. Now I understand that this inner work is part of the "asceticism" or even "penance" that necessarily accompanies my prayer and is essential to my vocation. In other words, I will not finish it -- though I will move through different stages of this work at various times throughout my life; instead, I will continue doing it as a foundational part of my life because in conjunction with prayer, as you say, it is essential to my vocation and does indeed allow me to become transparent to God ---  which is the very meaning of eremitical hiddenness, and the goal of my call to holiness and creation as imago dei.

29 August 2018

Followup Question: Ancient and Contemporary Hermits, Ancient and Contemporary Asceticism

[[Dear Sister, in the history of hermit life isn't it true that hermits went out into the wilds without ways to support themselves and often had to live barebones, subsistence lives? Are hermits today not allowed to do this? I am asking because you have criticized the living arrangements of a lay hermit who seems to have taken on a project much like ancient hermits might have done and had no one to assist her. I think of some of these hermits as heroes and find their motivation completely inspiring, especially if they felt drawn into the desert by the Holy Spirit and were faithful to that call. So what is the difference between the situation you wrote about recently and these more ancient vocations? Isn't this kind of asceticism acceptable any longer?]]

Thanks for your questions and your very good points. First, let me say I generally agree with you about the ancient hermits you refer to. That is especially true if we are talking about folks like the Desert Mothers and Fathers from @ the 3rd-4th Centuries, the original Carthusians, the Camaldolese, etc. All of these hermits lived eremitical lives of serious asceticism and poverty. The deserts they entered required they make do with what they had at hand and that they live their faith commitments in and through such circumstances. Today the Carthusians continue to live similar lives --- though ordinarily in established Charterhouses with the basic means for healthy lives given to God alone. While people reading the stories of these hermits today might not understand what motivated or motivates them, I think most would find the accounts of their lives and foundations to be powerful witnesses to being driven by something greater than ordinary life seems to provide. One may not understand what moved these hermits but I think most would admire their courage and persistence.

What moves me most when I read or read about these ancient and contemporary hermits is that the hardships they lived, the asceticism they undertook all fade into the background in light of the reasons they undertook these things and their accounts of what they found in their quests. Specifically, the circumstances in which they found themselves did not detract from their eremitical lives, nor were they the focus of these lives; they were a part of the soil in which these lives were fruitful. As a result these hermits (or those who author the accounts we have of their lives) write not primarily about the difficult, even miserable conditions in which they found themselves but about the God who held them securely in spite of these conditions and the struggles they required. More, they do so in ways which are coherent and compelling. In other words, they lived lives faithful to their sense of God's call; they prayed assiduously and worked and grew in their gratefulness to God. They assisted one another, were faithful to a call to solitude and, when a situation was truly unlivable or manifestly unhealthy, they moved on and lived their call elsewhere. So, while asceticism was essential and sometimes simply unavoidable anyway it was the eremitical or "desert life" itself in which one is fulfilled in God which was the focus of their efforts; it is this redemptive content that is the compelling and clear center of their witness --- their living, writing, apothegms, and the accounts of those who write about these hermits.

The questions I had been asked earlier focused on the role of the diocese in allowing a diocesan (solitary consecrated Catholic) hermit to live in uninhabitable, and even harmful situations or circumstances. What I tried to stress was that a diocese will allow a hermit she has publicly professed to purchase and remodel a house in order to have a hermitage, but that it cannot become a fulltime project which detracts from the hermit's ability to live her Rule or to live a fully and abundantly human life --- especially in the long term. Dioceses can and do allow hermits to build hermitages but they also require prudence in the details. This is only appropriate. Remember that dioceses have to discern the nature and quality of the vocation in front of them; beyond this they must supervise, protect, and nurture such vocations. If an individual is going into substantial debt, living a more and more isolated life, and injuring themselves or exacerbating existing conditions and illnesses needlessly all in the name of creating this "hermitage" then something has gotten skewed, namely, the living of a healthy eremitical life itself has lost its priority and been replaced by concern for one's hermitage itself.

A hermit can make a hermitage of almost any habitable dwelling place. I am thinking now of a chapter written by a Trappist hermit at the Abbey of Gethsemani in KY. (Paul Quenon, OCSO, In Praise of the Useless Life, A Monk's Memoir) In this section devoted to the "Our Golden Age of Hermits" at the Abbey, the author describes the great variety of hermitages found on the Abbey grounds in the years following Thomas Merton's death. Besides Merton's own cinderblock hermitage, hermitages were built in a variety of places out of a variety of materials. Fr. Flavian's was built of cedarwood and was small and isolated but with large small-paned windows taking up most of a couple of walls; Dom James' hermitage (which was designed and built for him after his years of service as Abbot by one of the brothers) was constructed with three wings constructed of steel and glass and cantilevered from a concrete base. The base contained the kitchen, bedroom, and bath, while one wing was the chapel, another a porch and entrance, and a third a living room. As one approached the hermitage from the Abbey all one could see was a pyramid of stone with a slot for a window. (Dom James retired to this hermitage that was a 30 minute drive from the main abbey buildings. He was notably frugal in terms of heating and other expenses, including food; later he was assaulted by intruders and moved back to the abbey infirmary where he would be safe from additional harm.).

Br Odilo built a hermitage from scraps from other projects; some monks lived in trailers, one in an old "pig house"; Brother Rene's 16'X8' hermitage was made from the scraps of wood left over after the abbey monks made cheese boxes and it was roofed with corrugated metal; it had neither electricity nor running water but it provided the place where Br Rene could pray and rest in solitude as his own life required. His regular physical needs were taken care of in the abbey itself so the extreme poverty of the hermitage was not problematical in this way. I am also reminded of a contemporary Camaldolese who, in setting up a solitary hermitage, decided to convert a utility shed of the type used today for tools, etc. He rents living space from another person, but the shed is his hermitage and allows him time and space in privacy and solitude; it is snug and comfortable for this use, but it is not habitable and he will spend no time making it so.

Folks hearing the story of any of these hermits would rightly wonder if that story focused on the details of the hermitage, the struggle to build it, the terrible expense and injuries incurred in its building, the hermit's exacerbated chronic pain and illness occasioned by the conditions of his solitude. The point, of course, is that the hermitage itself was of less concern than the call to the silence of solitude and the life of solitary prayer. People find or build a place they can live such a life, but they do not give over years of their lives building the hermitage at the expense of their health or the life they are committed to live in the process. A diocesan hermit's diocese/bishop would never allow this, nor should they I think.

Simplicity? Sacrifice? Asceticism? Frugality? Yes, of course. But these will necessarily involve limitations on the time and energy spent on the hermitage itself. If versions of these are embraced in a way which detracts from one's ability to live the very life they are committed to living, no diocese would or should permit it. Similarly, I also think it is prudent of dioceses to insist that diocesan hermits have a reliable way to support themselves. Dioceses may (but are not required to) assist in times of emergency and temporary need but it is important that the hermit be responsible for her own support and legal decisions --- not least so dioceses are not to be left liable for expenses, injuries,  etc., when something untoward happens.

Again, this is all about living and protecting a vocation which is a gift of God. Not all historical forms of asceticism have been edifying, nor have all forms of suffering or isolation. It seems to me that we are more sensitive today to what are healthy forms of these, or what are forms which speak primarily of redemption rather than of sin/brokenness; it also seems to me that the Church, in approving certain eremitical vocations and disapproving others demonstrates this sensitivity and insists that canonical or public eremitical vocations witness to the redemption that comes to each of us through and in Christ.  I hope this is of assistance to you.

14 June 2016

Followup Questions (and Objections) on Sources and Resources for Inner Work

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, I read your article on what you call "inner work" and I have to say that I wonder what it all has to do with a hermit's vocation to union with God and the cultivation of personal holiness. Shouldn't you be praying instead of reading books by atheist psychologists and doing New Age psychobabble like PHR (sic)? Besides if you need that much help how can you claim to have a vocation anyway? Does your spiritual director push this bizarreness off on you? . . . That's why I would want a priest as a director. . .  Also, your personal notion of penance seems really strange to me. You don't mention fasting or asceticism but you mention this "inner work" and journaling. Is this part of an approved Rule of Life?]]

WOW! I hope you've said all you felt you needed to. Your first question is actually a really good one. The rest --- well, I'll take all that as I feel it is or at least might be helpful to other readers --- and as my own irritation subsides. The piece I put up on inner work was pretty clear I think. We are called to personal wholeness and holiness by and in God. Prayer is a huge part of that, of course, but spiritual direction and some forms of inner work can be incredibly important, even indispensable. They can also be forms of worship or prayer. God comes and calls to us in many ways. The yearning for wholeness, for fullness of being is the very essence of that call. Our response may require 1) assistance (as in spiritual direction), and 2) methodical inner work (as in PRH, etc.) as part of that. We use the gifts God gives us. Since we are relational or dialogical at our core those gifts will often include avenues (including significant persons) which help God foster holiness and wholeness in us. If I find a methodology or approach to living life fully, a methodology which allows me to live the silence of solitude more deeply, intensely, and extensively, then I am going to consider using that and I will do it for the greater glory of God!

Your own opinions to the contrary my vocation is not in question --- not with God, the Church, myself --- not with my superiors nor anyone at all who actually knows me, and certainly not because I am still growing and/or healing (meaning coming to wholeness and holiness in Christ). A vocational call is not issued once, answered with definitive profession and then left behind as a done deal. Such a call is issued every single day, sometimes many, many times a day and the dedicated response we call obedience is given in a similar manner --- usually with greater and greater perception and integrity as we grow in wholeness and holiness. No one with any vocation is without need for healing or growth. Holiness may be real without being exhaustive. It is true that I advise someone seeking to live a canonical eremitical life to have their healing mainly in hand before doing so. I believe that and followed that advice myself -- despite discovering continuing needs for healing later on. But my vocation IS a call to holiness and to union with God; both of those things mean reconciliation with all the parts of myself which may not have been appropriately recognized or honored throughout my life. Some of those parts may even be deeply wounded and require healing but it is because I am essentially whole and secure in my vocation that this kind of work would actually be undertaken at this point in time and, in fact, would be able to be undertaken. This kind of work, for instance, is part of my response to this vocation, something I commit to in order to live and to live it more fully.

Eremitical life (like any form of religious life) takes strength, personal integrity, and flexibility. It demands profound listening and the ability to be at home with God and with oneself --- for generally one lives with oneself with and in God alone. The inner work I described, whether that associated with spiritual direction, with Jungian analysis, or with PRH, for instance, help foster those things. They serve God, myself, and my vocation. I believe they serve my relationships in this stable state of life and the eremitical vocation more generally as well. Could I be wrong? I suppose. But given the fruits of the work I have done and am committed to continuing, fruits I will continue to attend to, I think it is extremely unlikely. And of course I would not be recommending inner work to others if I felt it conflicted with an essentially Christian and/or consecrated state of Life.

By the way, it's probably never a good idea to suggest one's spiritual director is foisting stuff off on a directee in a way which infringes on her freedom or judgment unless you truly know it to be the case.  You are, like anyone else, certainly free to go to a priest for spiritual direction but the simple fact is that most priests are not spiritual directors and are not trained to do direction. (On the other hand I suspect there are a number of priests  trained to do PRH should you ever want to try it.) In any case my director is really fine and has NEVER worked in a way which infringes my freedom or my judgment --- quite the opposite in fact. PRH is not something we use much in ordinary direction --- at least not in an explicit way --- but we do turn to it from time to time (e.g., for discernment) and we use it in an explicit and more or less intensive way for growth and healing work. (I use some PRH tools frequently in my own personal work and in preparing for direction but the dynamics of spiritual direction per se are similar but not identical to the dynamics of PRH accompaniment, for instance. (Both are focused on attentive listening and PRH can hone this ability to a very fine capacity.) In any case, a good director, whether skilled in PRH or not listens and helps one to listen deeply to the voice of God and the call to abundant Life both within and around one. At all times my own director works to honor (and enhance!) my own freedom and judgment in Christ. This is what spiritual direction should be and do. Thus too, as I have noted several times before, if a spiritual director tries to "bind in obedience", routinely commands the directee to act in one way and another, or otherwise fails to enhance her freedom and judgment in Christ, then one should probably look elsewhere for a competent director.

On Asceticism and Penance:

No, I didn't mention either fasting or asceticism --- but I might well have. The work of personal growth in wholeness and holiness, what I called inner work, is precisely what the desert Fathers would have recognized as "ascetical" and fostering the work of ascesis. Remember that ascesis is a matter of "training" --- training the heart, mind, and body to act with a single focus or "purity". (I think the word harmony also works well here.) The disciplines associated with the forms of inner work I mentioned are explicitly involved with this kind of training. The difference is the impulse which unites and purifies, which makes single in God, comes from within, not from without. There is external discipline involved --- for instance the discipline associated with doing the writing or paying attention as one learns and is vowed and obligated by Rule to do, etc. Still, it is from the inner yearning, need, and Divine call to be whole that everything proceeds and which everything else serves. One comes, over time to attend carefully to the mind, heart, and the body in a way which serves God's will to reconciliation and holiness; the training in this "way of responsive attentiveness"  (obedience)  is profoundly ascetical.

I know you think my notion of penance is a strange one (yes, it is part of an approved Rule of Life; Archbishop Vigneron approved it in 2007 with a formal "bishop's decree"), but, again, the inner work I am describing is ascetical in the best way possible. Meanwhile, what I describe as penance always refers to the tools and activities that serve prayer --- especially in the sense of allowing me to become the prayer God made me to be. Penance and asceticism are so closely related as to be indistinguishable to my mind. You may certainly object, but substantive questions might better help to clarify things instead.