Letting go of Childish Things

Today's reading from Paul is one of the most beautiful passages about love in all of the Old and New Testa-ments. But the point of the reading is especially important for hermits who seek to live in solitude or others who find themselves otherwise isolated and alienated from the faith community of their local Church. The very first line of 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 sets the lesson: [[Brothers and Sisters: Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way!]] Paul then goes on to list a number of recognizable spiritual gifts including speaking in tongues, knowledge (including mystical knowledge), and faith (including the faith to move mountains!) but reminds the Corinthians that without love these gifts and indeed, the person herself, are nothing at all. (Despite medieval attempts to aggrandize being "nothing." Paul is clearly disapproving of being nothing here.) Paul's argument through the rest of the passage is clear, if one truly loves then one has every other thing as well; in truly loving, all the spiritual gifts, which are partial and finite, find their completion and eternity. Moreover without love these gifts are empty, void, possibly illusory (or worse), and disedifying.

One of the most salient criticisms of eremitical life is the observation that the hermit has no one around to love or be loved by in the truly demanding and concrete ways human beings require to grow in Gospel love and authentic humanity. This observation has caused some Church Fathers to deny the validity of the eremitical life. It is true that I, for instance, can write moving blog posts, articles, and chapters about eremitical life as essentially loving and about eremitical solitude as essentially dialogical or covenantal, but, as Paul clearly says, [[If I speak in human tongues or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.]] I might get some attention with and even praise for what I write, but unless it is clearly informed by genuine love, it will be empty and ultimately meaningless. Moreover, the validity or at least the quality of my vocation itself, including the mystical dimensions of my prayer, would need to be seriously questioned in such an instance. As Paul says, [[if there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing, if tongues, they will cease, and if knowledge [referring to mystical knowledge], it too will be brought to nothing for each and all of these will pass away.]]

We hermits may err in our vocations in many ways but it seems to me that given today's reading and the criticism of some Church Fathers (and the affirmations of all genuine hermits!), our focus, even in maintaining appropriate degrees of physical solitude and silence, must be on our growth in our capacity to love others in Christ both effectively and concretely --- even should we sometimes err against solitude in doing so. This tension between physical solitude and the commandment to truly love one another is always present in the hermit's life. It is certainly not acceptable to speak about loving humanity while one fails to love the individual persons sitting in the pews next to or around us --- much less claiming such a love while eschewing their company. "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand," may be darkly humorous in a Peanuts cartoon strip, but in the life of a hermit it is a blasphemy.

The emphasis on loving others in concrete ways and circumstances is one reason every hermit maintains the importance of hospitality --- whether that means opening one's hermitage to others in specific ways or participating in the local parish community in limited ways; it is also the reason hermits form lauras or are associated with parishes and communities; these are not optional but, even when necessarily limited, are essential to the eremitical life itself and certainly to the lives of those who are privileged via their professions and explicit commission by the Church to call themselves Catholic Hermits. In other words, community and the commitment to concrete forms of loving are critical dimensions of ANY authentic eremitical vocation, even those to complete reclusion; loving effectively and fully is, according to Paul, the truest sign of human wholeness and holiness, the truest sign of genuinely spiritual gifts. (The would-be recluse who is incapable of loving others effectively will be unlikely to be allowed to embrace reclusion.This is one of the reasons the Church requires serious vetting and supervision of eremitical recluses).

Part of the reason for this emphasis on concrete human loving is the especial ease with which a hermit (or other solitary person) can fool themselves about their own degree of spiritual growth or the nature of the spiritual gifts they have been given.  In today's first reading Paul has chosen not to take the Corinthians to task over the authenticity or inauthenticity of their spiritual gifts despite their tendency to self-delusion. Instead of calling them frauds he reminds them they are children. To motivate them to change and grow he speaks to and captures their attention by focusing on the thing which seems to  capture their imagination, namely, their drive and desire for more and more excellent spiritual gifts. He wants them to understand that love is the greatest divine gift, but also that it is the criterion by which all other gifts are truly measured and then brought to completion. Prophecy without love is not of God. The ability to speak in tongues without love is empty and essentially godless; mystical experiences or knowledge without the ability to love others in concrete ways is not authentic. One may have all kinds of moving and extraordinary experiences in solitary prayer, but  in terms of the spiritual life these are, at best, often "childish things" if they remain fruitless. At other times they are simply delusional:  they may simply be ordinary dreams (which can be be insightful, no doubt) treated simplistically as visions, empty visions which, tragically, lead to nothing more than self-satisfaction and navel-gazing, and the psychological projection of one's own problems, conflicts, and struggles. Spiritual maturity implies the ability to love those persons who are precious to God and to do so as they truly need! Divine gifts, whatever the type, are meant to allow us to do this.

These mystical and other prayer experiences and psycho-logical manifes-tations, like everything else in our spiritual lives, must be tested or proved --- words which mean several things including measuring, fostering maturation, and helping to make stronger and truer. They must be integrated into one's everyday life and growth; they must be transformed into personal maturity and wisdom. They must lead to or be associated with the ability to love in concrete situations and relationships. Therefore they must, to the degree they are authentic, lead to patience and kindness. They must not lead to or be associated with arrogance or rudeness nor to a sense that one's spiritual life is somehow "superior" to that of "ordinary" parishes and people! They must be associated with other-centeredness and to genuine humility and they must not allow one to brood over injuries done to one nor to rejoice when evil befalls others. Any authentic hermit, indeed any person who finds that their prayer lives (and especially what they call mystical experiences) do not lead to these manifestations of genuine love must surrender them for (or at the very least complement them with) the demands of community which do lead more surely to these manifestations. One must let go of the manifestations of spiritual childhood for the spiritual wisdom of adulthood. (cf, On Discernment With Regard to Prayer.)

Paul's letter to the (perhaps) spiritually precocious community in Corinth reminds us especially then that spirituality, even and perhaps especially eremitical spirituality, is not a "me and God" only enterprise. That is NOT what God alone is enough means! Canon 603 is very clear that hermits in the Catholic Church, particularly those that live the life in the name of the Church embrace eremitical solitude for the salvation of others. The love a hermit cultivates in the hermitage and in her relatively limited encounters with those in her parish, diocese, monastery, etc is not a facile abstraction, an exercise in empty piety, much less a matter of meaningless if superficially impressive verbal expressions, (e.g., "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" or,"in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do"). It is not enough to proclaim one's love for God or humanity while judging and despising people. What makes her vocation divine is the authentic love which motivates and empowers it. The moment a hermit forgets this or chooses isolation over eremitical solitude, she has embraced something which is not truly of God no matter how frequent or vivid the supposed mystical experiences that accompany it. Real union with God involves communion with others. It is the very nature of being a member of the Body of Christ and stands at the heart of Paul's concerns with adult faith and the community in Corinth.

On Maintaining the Distinction between Utility and Value

[[Dear Sister, do you consider yourself "useless"? I read a post by a privately professed hermit who speaks of her own life that way. She believes that "doing is useful" and "being is useless." She also divides things into "good useless" and "bad useless." I am not sure I understand what she is getting at. What you wrote about "prayer warriors" and using prayer as a worldly "productive" tool reminded me of this hermit's posts and what I thought she might be saying. I wondered if you consider prayer useless or if you think of yourself that way?]]

No, I don't think of either myself or my life and vocation in those terms. I know both monastics and hermits who do use the term "useless" in a metaphorical or hyperbolic way to make the point that our lives are of value in a completely countercultural way, but when discussing the matter they are therefore capable of and are usually careful to achieve much greater nuance I think. Perhaps the references to good and bad uselessness as well as the distinction between being and doing is this hermit's way of trying to nuance her usage in this matter. In the sense that my life is not particularly utilitarian and cannot be used by anyone to support capitalism, consumerism, or any number of other "isms" for instance it is literally "useless." However, to the degree it is one of the most valuable ways of living, one of the most vividly countercultural, and one of the most hopeful for those who are isolated because of illness, bereavement, or other circumstances which marginalize or make relatively "unproductive," it is both prophetic and extremely "useful" in today's world --- though not in this world's ordinary or defining terms.

I have written about this before. One of the posts is the following:  Why Isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified? I encourage you to check it out and if it leaves you with questions or raises more for you please do get back to me. With regard to prayer per se, no, of course I don't believe prayer is useless, but I would tend not to see it in merely or even primarily utilitarian terms. When we pray we allow God to shape and heal us, to call and commission us in all the ways God desires --- and thus too, in the ways our world really needs. Prayer is the primary way in which we become God's own persons, persons who love and speak and act as God would speak in our broken world. Even more strongly put, prayer is the way we become mediators of God's life and activity in this world. There is nothing "useless" in that but at the same time neither is prayer merely some tool we pull out of our utility drawer in order to shape and modify things (including God!) to our own specifications.

One thing I probably should comment on here is the motivation behind speaking of either prayer or eremitical life in these terms. If one really feels one's life is a waste of some sort, if one struggles with chronic illness for instance and is left feeling that her gifts are unused and her life is defined in terms of neediness while being unable to give back, then that person has to be extremely careful in the way she hears and adopts this language of "uselessness." No true monastic or eremite believes her life is valueless or worthless; instead she knows it is of infinite value -- and more, that her life is mysterious in the same way God is mysterious. She lives that life as graced and empowered response to the call of God. Even if she cannot immediately see the value of it she will trust that it is of immense value and contributes to God's overarching creation narrative.

There is no need to even see prayer or eremitic life as "useful". Because they are responses to and mediators of God's presence in our world they need no justification at all. Still, they ARE of value in our world and are gifts to it in ways and to an extent many other things are not. When a hermit like Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam, speaks of the eremitical life needing no justification he is not in disagreement with me when I stress the charism of the eremitical life for the isolated and marginalized. Instead we are speaking of two different dimensions of our lives, the first that of utility and the second that of value. (We may also both be distinguishing between treating something as utilitarian and secondarily recognizing its usefulness.) In any case, the distinction between usefulness and value is a critical distinction in our world, a distinction we must always be careful to maintain, because to confuse these two realities is at the heart of so much destruction that occurs so routinely today.

When we treat persons in terms of mere utility we often lose sight of their true value and become guilty of dehumanization (including our own by the way) and even murder --- in all the ways that can occur. This is especially a problem in societies which are capitalistic and stress consumerism, productivity, etc, but it can also happen in forms of ministry or piety when people are treated as "assignments" or "problems to solve" and their essential sacredness and mystery are forgotten in the process. The same is true when we approach those we would call "friends" in terms of our own needs and it is often true in the exploitative and utilitarian way we often approach God's creation in general. Further, when we treat tools as having some kind of ultimate value (including technology of all sorts!) then we have crossed the line into idolatry and will also find we have become incapable of seeing the world in terms of more transcendent (and fundamental) value.

When Genesis reveals mankind as stewards of creation this reveals us as those within Creation who maintain a true sense of the distinction between mere utility and true value. More, I think it reveals human beings as those who subordinate utility to value and in so doing set an example of both sacrifice and selflessness. A culture geared to utility at the expense of value is, or will inevitably become, a compassionless culture of death. One that maintains the distinction between utility and value and the priority of the latter will be and remain a compassionate culture of life and light.

Radical Individualism vs Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, what is the difference between a radical individualist and a hermit according to Catholic teaching?]]

This is a question I have touched on many times in various posts, but not a direct question I have ever received before this. There are several posts which deal with the question  but see especially Why isn't Your Vocation Selfishness Personified?  and Eremitism or Exaggerated Individualism?  The essential answer to your question is found in the canon governing this life. This would constitute "Church teaching" in the sense your question means it. It reads ". . .[this vocation is lived] for the praise of God and the salvation of the world." 

There are many reasons for embracing solitude and all of them may benefit the one doing the embracing. Some of them are mainly or primarily meant for this and others are ONLY embraced for this reason. The vocation of the diocesan hermit (and any hermit living his or her life in the Name of the Church) differs in that it is, by definition, lived for the sake of others, first of all God, then others, and only then oneself. The hermit witnesses to a life lived with God as THE covenant partner; she witnesses to the completion or redemption of a covenantal life lived in and with God and she does so so that God might one day be all in all and others, especially those who might have been isolated by the circumstances of life, may be given hope for the redemption and transformation of these same lives. 

As I have noted before there is a great difference in living in a way which suits one (for instance, because one is a writer, an artist, or even someone gifted in religious experience, as well as for more negative reasons --- failure in relationships, chronic illness, inability to live in a complex contemporary world, etc) and living in a way which suits one BECAUSE it is a way of loving and serving God and others. Hermits embrace a desert vocation for this latter reason; the former reason (it suits her) is never enough to shape one's life or justify calling oneself a hermit in the Church's sense of this term; for that reason the Church does not tend to profess and consecrate people for such inadequate reasons.

Continuation of a Conversation of the Normative Nature of Canon 603

The following post is a continuation of a conversation begun in email regarding my own online presence and the seeming harshness of my criticism a couple of years or more ago of the Archdiocese of Boston for using canon 603 as a stopgap means of professing Sister Olga Yaqob. As far as I am concerned, the discussion is not about Sister Yaqob per se (I continue to think she is an amazing person and a fine religious), but about the  appropriate implementation and meaning of canon 603. The OP's comments and questions are italicized.

Sister Olga is amazing in her willingness to plunge into work that kept her fed, and then had a chance to live in solitude on her days off. So her definition of hermit might be equally true as yours, and she carried her hermitage in her heart, as saints of encouraged. Her choices were limited.

Yes, you are correct that her choices were limited just as they are for all of us seeking to live LIVES of eremitical solitude. Canonical hermits, however cannot go out and get full time jobs outside the hermitage nor can they be satisfied with one day of contemplative prayer a week. Those too are limitations which the very nature of their lives, personal and public commitments, and the canon which governs these impose. Canon 603 hermits are not wealthy --- at least generally speaking. They do live poor lives and quite often live at a subsistence level.

They mainly work from within the hermitage (or on the property) and do a variety of things to keep body and soul together. Some do receive disability or other subsidies (depending on the country, etc) but all mainly and often only work from within their hermitage doing any number of things consistent with their contemplative and solitary life. Typically, if a person cannot do this, it is understood by dioceses as a sign that the vocation is not one they can pursue at this point in time. It is sometimes seen that they may therefore not be called to eremitical life just as it is also the analogous (though reversed) case that those who cannot work full time as religious or who are disabled, for instance, are ordinarily unable to enter a religious congregation. While it might be a good idea to have dioceses assist perpetually professed hermits to live their lives so that more folks CAN pursue a truly eremitical life (there is a debate about this among hermits and others), there is NO real debate that full time work outside the hermitage is incompatible with eremitical life as the Church understands it.

What Sister Olga saw as a valid definition of eremitical life you see is not the real question. What constitutes the normative vision of the eremitical life is defined clearly in canon 603 according to which she was (as the rest of us are) obligated to live and shape her own life. That canon is clear: a LIFE of the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, and stricter separation from the world. Canon 603 does not define an eremitism of the heart ONLY. It defines a life measured both externally AND internally, institutionally and personally in these terms. Olga's life at BU did not meet this criterion by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that she has dropped any mention of canon 603, does NOT refer to herself as a hermit, as well as the fact that her diocese has stopped referring to her profession as made under canon 603 suggests to me she knew this to be true and agrees with this assessment --- as, I think, did Boston and a lot of folks who questioned the situation --- including faithful, diocesan hermits, other Bishops, canonists, Vicars for Religious, etc. In any case she has moved on and continues to do wonderful things with her life.

I can see the unusual circumstances Sister Olga was in, and she probably felt far more solitary being in a strange country, and trying to stay close to the Church, than many other hermits. I do not think Canon 603 is necessary to protect a hermit, and the Holy Spirit can handle this without laws, and has risen up this type of vocation since the beginning of the Church, so I do not think you need to be worried about it, as you offer your viewpoint.

I agree that Sister Olga's circum-stances were difficult and the way she dealt with these is one of the things that makes her so admirable. The problem here, however, is that feeling solitary is not the same as being a hermit. MANY people today are isolated and marginalized. Many feel alone and disconnected from their families, homelands and cultures. Nonetheless the intensity of Sister Olga's feelings (or those of these many others) is somewhat beside the point; we do not call the isolated, marginalized, and lonely "hermits" unless they also ARE truly hermits, nor do we automatically profess and consecrate them under canon 603 as a stopgap solution to their situation.

One does not need to be professed as a religious (much less a hermit) in order to "stay close to the Church" (we baptized ARE Church) and there is no apparent reason Sister Olga could not, for instance, have embraced consecrated virginity for women living in the world as a way of life if she was looking for a form of consecrated life which allowed her to live fully in the world while serving the Church through active ministry --- unless of course she (and/or her Bishop) was looking, for instance, to eventually create a religious community and seek canonical standing for that. (In such a case c 604 would not have worked and c 603 was not meant for such a purpose either.) As for needing the canon or not, I have argued and continue to argue that the canon is precisely the way the Church assists the Holy Spirit to raise up authentic solitary eremitical lives. It is not that the charismatic and the canonical conflict. Instead they come together in this ecclesial vocation where law serves love.

You speak of Sister Olga as an acceptable exception to this eremitical norm. The problem of course comes when every Bishop in every diocese decides someone he knows should also be counted as an exception. Canon 603 describes a rare vocation; we must accept that fact. It also describes an infinitely valuable vocation which is a gift (charisma) of the Holy Spirit. We must also accept and honor that fact with our actions and policies. Using canon 603 to profess and consecrate exceptions to the rule is an inevitable way to empty the canon of meaning and vitiate the gift this vocation actually is. The canon is not there to accommodate folks who simply cannot be professed any other way --- unless of course they ALSO have a truly eremitical vocation; it is not there to give lonely folks a way to belong (though it assuredly often ALSO does this). It is there to profess those relatively rare instances of eremitical life raised up by the Spirit which the Church considers NORMATIVE of the living eremitical tradition.

There are probably far more personal differences and definitions than a canon law could capture, and that is where the bishop has the authority to work with it the best he can. It is wonderful the bishop gave Sister Olga a sense of belonging. I cannot imaging being in her position.

Actually, I find that the canon is beautifully written not least because it strikes an amazing balance between normativity and flexibility. It is composed of 1) certain non-negotiable elements and 2) the requirement of a personal Rule which applies or configures these elements in the way which is personally best for the hermit herself. There is a vast variety in the way c 603 hermits live the non-negotiable elements of the canon/life. The canon is thus a wonderful example of law and love combined as an expression of truly responsible freedom. Still, the point is that it is a canon; it is a norm for the way the Church understands the solitary eremitical life lived in her name. The hermits professed this way are meant to be exemplars or paradigms of a particular way of life. Again,the canon is not a stopgap way to profess anyone who cannot or will not join a congregation.

I think I can see the root of the confusion, at least mine, when you said Canon 603 was written in 1983. So this is not an ancient church law with a long history of defining it, and now you are in the arena trying to define it. You are defining it with use of the internet, while others may define it differently, not encouraging internet activity. 

Yes. Canon 603 is indeed a modern canon; there is no precedent for it in the Code of Canon Law. That means 1) that it is not the revision of something from the 1917 Code and 2) it supersedes any local diocesan statutes which may still be on the books from throughout the centuries. I believe it is clear in some ways regarding what it calls for even though it does not define these terms. For that reason although I don't need to create a definition it is often important to spell out the history of the vocation and the meaning of the terms used within it (which I think is what you mean) so that it is not seized upon as a canon which applies to just ANY lone person or just ANY isolated and marginalized life.

For instance, stereotypes of eremitical life can blind people to the fact that the life is a healthy one, or that in the main hermits have always tended to live on the margins (and sometimes in the center) of society (rather than in very deep deserts) and offered both the fruits of their skills (in agriculture, for instance), sold goods (created things, art, calligraphy, woven mats, etc), offered advice and spiritual direction (think of anchoresses and their windows which were central spiritual  hubs in medieval towns), or otherwise interacted with their culture and times in ways which 1) protected an essential and contemplative solitude,  2) witnessed to the fact that this vocation is lived in the heart of the Church as well as for the sake of others, and 3) served as a kind of prophetic presence to the Church as whole.

Similarly, because a person does not KNOW the history of the canon or is unfamiliar with eremitical life does not mean the terms of the canon can be defined anyway at all. After all, these terms really DO have meanings just as the term "Catholic Hermit" has a particular and normative meaning within the Church.

But it is understandable that people are literally ignorant of these meanings or (in less understandable and more unfortunate circumstances) choose to ignore them; for this reason it means their definitions may need to be made clear by someone knowledgeable about the eremitical tradition and especially about the history and nature of canon 603. Thus, for instance, a Bishop --- even if he is a canonist --- might not know that "the silence of solitude" is a Carthusian term with a particular range of meaning both far broader and more intensive than mere "physical solitude" and "external silence". Certainly individuals who become intrigued with c 603 as a possible way of  "getting professed while living alone" don't usually know this. Likewise, "stricter separation from the world" has a meaning but it is not "isolation," "reclusion," (at least not usually), nor "separation from and disdain for created reality as a whole."

So yes, I am doing some of this with the aid of the internet. It is a way of preserving my own eremitical life of the silence of solitude while contributing to the development (or at least the understanding of this new piece) of the living tradition I am publicly committed to. Other hermits explore the same constitutive elements of their lives (and the canon) every day; a number have blogs which allow them to share their reflections on these and other matters for the edification of the Church. Each one does so with the knowledge and approval of her superiors, and I would wager, each one does so in a careful and discerning manner because she values the gift this vocation is to the Church and world.

On Developing a Spirituality of Discernment

Occasionally the daily lections can surprise us with their relevance. I found that happening recently. Two weeks ago the readings were, in one way and another, about being discerning people who open our entire selves to the Word and will of God in our lives. In some ways what was given to us was a spirituality of discernment, that is, a spirituality which takes seriously the first word of the Benedictine Rule, "LISTEN!" or, more fundamentally, the identity of Christ as the One who was defined as obedient (that is, whose mind and heart were open and responsive to God) unto death, even death on a cross. In other words discernment is a process undertaken by one who listens with the whole of themselves to the whole of reality for the Word and will of God present and active there. A spirituality of discernment is a spirituality permeated by this same process, a spirituality of which attentive listening and responsiveness  (hearkening) is the very heart and soul.

The Challenge of Discernment: Moving through the Second Week of Christmas

Throughout the week we moved from discerning good from evil, light from dark and that which was of Christ versus that which was anti-Christ, through the challenge of discerning more ambiguous reality, and finally, to the difficulty of an even more demanding spirituality of discernment when we are asked to choose between goods. The author of 1 John sees discernment as the core and foundation of all authentic discipleship. On Monday the first lection was about "testing the spirits." 1 John saw all of reality as either of Christ or of the antiChrist and he asked us to choose Christ in everything. Our own world is less literally but no less really inhabited by such "spirits" and it is certainly no less demanding of this discernment. We are asked to pay attention with and to our entire selves --- to our feelings, emotions, bodily sensations, our dreams, imaginations, thoughts, etc, and to choose that which is God's will. This requires practice, time, and effort. It means we work at developing the skills associated with such active listening in every situation in which we find ourselves so that we can hear the Word or will of God and act on it.


On Tuesday the author of 1 John continued his exploration of this spirituality of discernment by defining for us what real love is. Interestingly he is clear that before love involves us in preaching, teaching, healing the sick, feeding the hungry or otherwise ministering to the poor it means receiving the love of God. In other words we must first of all be persons who have allowed God to love us with an everlasting and entirely selfless love before we go out to the world around us and try to love others.

Our world is marked and marred by all kinds of fraudulent and distorted forms of love. We have each been touched by these and we often continue the cycle in ways we are not even aware of  -- but which surely need to be redeemed: children who have never felt loved and have children to fill the hole while those children too are often inadequately loved, those who have been wounded by what passed for love in their families, those sold into modern slavery by human traffickers, sex billed as love, and so forth --- all of these and so many more are prevalent today. Someone must break this cycle of fraudulent and inauthentic love and we Christians believe that Christ, the preeminent "receiver" and transparent mediator of God's love has done that. Only those who know THIS love and have been made into new creations by it are truly capable of ministering to others. Breaking the cycle of fraudulent  and distorted love in Christ is precisely what disciples of Christ are called to do --- but first of all, both foundationally and temporally, we do so as receivers of God's love in Christ.

On Wednesday the author of 1 John continued his exploration of the nature of love and the demands of discernment. He reminded us that we are to abide or remain in God and explains that love casts out fear. Here he provided us with one criterion of discernment but he also prepared us for engaging in genuine ministry. How do we know the cycle of fraudulent love has been broken in us? Love casts out fear. If we abide in God his love makes us capable of giving our lives for others without hedging our bets or compromising our gift out of concern for ourselves. It makes us compassionate and generous because we are secure in God's love and fearless in these things. Others come first, no matter how wounded or contagious, no matter how needy or broken. We are ready for ministry if we are first of all people who receive the Love of God as the utterly trustworthy foundation of our lives --- and do so on an ongoing basis. Otherwise, our ministry will be unwise or imprudent, presumptuous, and perhaps even dangerous to those who need this love so badly today.

Friday's Climax: Jesus shows us a spirituality of discernment

And then on Friday the Gospel gives us a portrait of Jesus in which all this comes together in a vivid and unforget-table way. Jesus heals a leper. In a world which was terrified of the contagion of illness and evil, a world which characterized everything from mold on the sheets to actual Hanson's disease as "leprosy" and then called it all unclean and unworthy of human and divine contact, Jesus reached out his hand and touched a man suffering from leprosy and made him whole in body, mind, spirit, and in his relation to others. He restored the man to physical health and to his rightful place in his family, in his relation to God and right to worship, and with his People. More, this healing lessened the fearfulness of the world as a whole for those who had hardened their own hearts in order to accomplish and deal with the ostracism of this man. It is a wonderful story in every way.

But the lection did not end here, nor with Jesus staying around to heal those who thronged to him upon hearing of his healing of the leper. Instead Jesus withdraws to the desert to pray; despite the unquestionable need of the multitude for his healing touch and the undoubted good of remaining to minister in this way, he returns in a solitary way to the foundation of his life --- the God who is the source of his life, his compassion, and his authority to heal --- the God whom he loves in the same way he himself is loved first. There are three reasons for this I think.

First, as important as individual healings are, Jesus' mission is different than this; it is deeper and more far-reaching or extensive as well. Jesus' real mission is the healing and freeing of reality itself --- the whole of reality. He is called to reconcile all things to God and bring all things to fullness in him. This will only be accomplished by remaining obedient (open and responsive) to God even to the depth and breadth of a godlessness which permeates and distorts reality --- not by individual healings even if these number in the hundreds of thousands -- indeed, even if they included every person that  ever existed. Reality itself is estranged from God and falls short of what it is meant to be in God; the illnesses with which Jesus is confronted  in us are merely symptoms of a more profound disorder and incompleteness. Jesus' mission is twofold, 1) to deal effectively with the actual disease, not merely with its symptoms, and 2) he is called and commissioned to bring all of creation to its fullest potential in God. (Had there been no sin, Jesus' call would still have involved this second prong of his mission.)

Secondly, Jesus reminds us of John's lesson at the beginning of the week: [[this is love: that you receive the Love of God. . .]] While every homily I have heard on this lection refers to Jesus taking "time out" to pray in order to recharge his spiritual batteries and draws the lesson that ministers need to do similarly, I am convinced that true as this is, it is not precisely what the lection is getting at. That is especially true given the context in which we heard it two weeks ago when it was coupled with a series of readings from 1 John. Instead, focusing on Jesus' withdrawal to pray reminds us that more fundamentally ministry must always flow from contemplation. This is the dynamic of Dominican spirituality,  the way in which the Camaldolese especially but all Benedictines experience their call to a Gospel-centered life requiring serious silence and solitude. It is the way St Francis of Assisi and Clare experienced their own vocations and lived out their calls to evangelical poverty and today it is the explicit standard of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious). Authentic ministers of the Gospel are always those who receive God's love, live from and mediate it. As with Jesus this is primary both foundationally and temporally.

Thirdly, Jesus shows us clearly that what we rightly discerned to be good and the will of God yesterday might not be the good we are called to today. It is not enough to be people who can discern good from evil or even the less authentic and more ambiguous from the more authentic; we must also be people who can and do discern the specific good we are called to at this specific point in time. This discernment is much harder than determining or choosing good from evil. Our most difficult choices are always between what is good and what is (perhaps) better today in this new situation. For this reason, discernment must be a way of life for us  because the will of God comes to us freshly at every moment and in every new circumstance.

The relevance of all this:

As a hermit my greatest difficulty in discernment comes in determining when to say yes and when to say no to opportunities for active ministry. At first I thought this was a difficulty that would go away in time. (Maybe I just needed practice I thought!) Later I came to see it was something that would always be with me; I simply hoped discerning would become easier and be needed less frequently. But now I realize that this tension is not only going to be present for some time, but that it calls for me to see discernment not as a process I only pull out occasionally to resolve problems or make big decisions but instead as the very basis of any Christian spirituality. As I read this week in a talk by Richard Gaillardetz (Ecclesiologist), Pope Francis speaks of a "spirituality of discernment" --- which is probably typically Jesuitical of him, but also of course, profoundly Christian. I have come to see that Paul's statement about Jesus' obedience unto death could also be translated as a corollary (or its presupposition!): Jesus was discerning in all things even unto death, death on a cross.

Moreover of course, I find a lot of reassurance in what 1 John says about the nature of love: it is first of all about receiving God (Love-in-act) in our lives and only secondarily about active ministry. As contemplatives know, the command that we abide in God, that we remain in the love which is God, is the heart of our own vocations and the heart of all truly Christian life. Often the choice I have to make between active ministry and withdrawal (anachoresis) will mean withdrawal; of course that is hardly surprising. After all, this is the overarching reality and context I am called to by God and the Church, just as it is the call I have publicly (canonically) committed to for the sake of others. Thus, when the choice presents itself,  I may well have to say no to active ministry, not because it is an evil (it emphatically is not that!), but because I am called in a fundamental way to something else first.  Thus, I MUST repeatedly discern my response anew, for what was good and the will of God yesterday may be less good than the alternative and not the will of God today.

This choice will not disappear from my life anytime soon --- and that is not at all a bad thing --- for not only does it indicate new opportunities for serving God and loving others continue to come my way; it also means I must continue to develop a spirituality of discernment which itself is essentially contemplative and solitary in the best sense. The presence of this choice as part of the constant dynamic of the vowed hermit who belongs integrally to a parish and diocese  further establishes the diocesan eremitical life as one of fundamental importance in the Church. In fact, we hermits especially embody the Gospel lection from two Friday's ago in a way which witnesses to the lesson it holds for every Christian. Namely, good and imperative as active ministry is, something more fundamental in our world needs healing and that, even for those living primarily ministerial lives, requires and is truly empowered only by the habit and foundation of obedient withdrawal in prayer.

Why isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified?

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I have long thought the hermit vocation is a selfish one. I have read blogs by so-called hermits and they seem to be completely self-centered --- I am not speaking of yours here, but if you google "hermit blogs" or "Catholic hermit" blogs you will find blogs by "hermits" whose entire focus is on how much they suffer and their own growth in holiness. It's all "me, me, me." You claim that the vocation is essentially one of love, but how do hermits really love others if they are living in solitude? You also claim that your vocation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but isn't this just a way of excusing selfishness? Anyone can say they are doing something because of "love" but the proof of that is in the pudding, as the saying goes. How does the church figure out whether someone is saying they are called to this as a way of loving others instead of just being selfish? It seems like a really easy lie to tell yourself and your diocese.]] (Redacted to shorten email)

You know, these are terrific questions. They are really excellent because they go to the heart of the matter of discerning, choosing, and living this life well; they also reprise a position that even a few great Church Fathers have held. Sometimes it is monastics more generally that are accused of selfishness. It is all that "fuga mundi" (flee the world) stuff (which is entirely valid and laudable when understood properly) coupled with a theology of consecrated life that strongly disparaged lay and secular vocations. We, as the People of God, are still outgrowing a lot of that but have begun making serious inroads thanks to Vatican II's emphasis on the universal call to holiness. Progress here is also due to the fact that we are becoming more sensitized to the place of active ministry in our world as well as to the importance of secularity and mission. Even so, we also are coming to a greater awareness that being has priority over doing, that mission depends upon the impulse and assistance of the missionary God empowering us, and that loving others is not possible unless we have been loved ourselves. This means there will always be a place for contemplative and even eremitical vocations which witness to this foundational relationship and need.

I have seen at least some of the blogs you seem to be speaking of and there is no doubt that if one is looking for self-centeredness one can find it by googling the terms you have cited. I have written about such supposedly "eremitical" lives in the past along with posts on hermit stereotypes and misunderstandings, inadequate reasons for seeking to live an eremitical life, the counter cultural nature of the vocation --- especially in a world which is strongly individualistic and even narcissistic, as well as on the charism of the vocation which presents genuine solitude as a form of communion which represents the redemption of individualism, isolation, and alienation. Recently I read an article called " The Urban Hermit Abnormal Personality" which takes some of what you have noted and a lot of what I have written against and identified it with the "urban hermit personality" in today's society. (To be honest, it is not clear the author is actually referring to urban diocesan hermits at all in this piece. While he might well think of these as selfishness personified AND institutionalized, he may merely have been giving a colorful name to misanthropes, and walking wounded who choose to live as isolated loners.)

The problem is that some "hermits" provide grist for this author's mill and, because they are truly seeking to validate as well as excuse their own self-centeredness, they do the vocation no favors when they write about being or becoming a hermit. (N.B., validation goes beyond excusing self-centeredness and is therefore more problematical.) So how is my vocation (both my own vocation and the vocation more generally) one which is founded on love then? How can a vocation which is more about being than doing really be loving in the way we usually associate with the lives of Religious? These are the ways I would restate your question, "How do hermits really love others?" and the approaches I would like to use to begin to respond to it.

Rooted in a Necessary Selfishness:

First of all, my vocation is grounded in the love of God. God has called me to it, that call has been validated and in fact mediated to me by the Church and I trust it. This means that I trust it is not merely selfishness masquerading as something worthy, much less something Divine or sacred. For me this is a piece of things I had not really appreciated sufficiently until after perpetual eremitical profession when several concerns and sources of anxiety dropped away. It is part of the freedom I experienced and have spoken about when I described not having to worry any longer about whether I was really called to something else, or whether I should be conforming my life to the expectations and norms of the world around me --- including the world of apostolic or ministerial Religious and the church more generally. Further, God continues to call me in this way on a daily basis and my own engagement with God in prayer and everyday living attests to growth in this love.

It is this growth which points to a necessary and entirely graced "selfishness" in answering any call. I have responded to God and done so out of love for God and his People but there is no doubt that I have also found this the means to personal healing and growth in human wholeness and holiness. I continue responding to God day by day. You see, my own life was once dominated by chronic illness. I have done a lot in spite of it (education, work, ministry) but even so most of the time achievements were hard-won things and often the illness itself "won out." As a result I was once simply unable to serve in the way I felt called to serve, whether that was directly because of the illness or because of the human brokenness, limitations, and incapacity which accompanied it. More fundamentally, my illness prevented me from being the human being I felt called to be, from relating to others or loving in the ways I thought (knew) I should love; it was a dominating, sometimes all-consuming reality and it crippled me on every level. Not least it prevented me from truly loving myself, and therefore, from effectively loving anyone else in the radical way Christ calls us each to do. It is at this point that eremitical life enters the picture and becomes important.

The first time I read canon 603 I realized that if this really pointed to a vital form of Christian life it could well provide the context for a life in which illness was deprived of its power to disrupt, dominate, and even define me. In other words it could provide a context in which every aspect of my life could make sense and thus become fruitful in some yet-to-be-defined sense. There is a selfishness involved here, a fundamental concern with the sense of one's own life, yes; it is a necessary form of selfishness which requires we love ourselves (and I mean truly love ourselves!!) in order that we may love our neighbors AS ourselves. In other words, I had to find a way to live a responsive and covenantal life with God in which God's grace could actually triumph over powers of darkness and death as they manifested themselves in my own life and heart. I had to find a way to deprive illness of its power to dominate and define, its ability to foster self-hatred in me. Solitary eremitical life provides the God-given context and means for that for me. In answering any divine call this particular form of "selfishness" will be present, and I would argue it must if we are to love others as we are truly called to do. This "truly loving oneself" is the necessary and graced form of selfishness on which the Great Commandment is based.

The Primacy of Being over Doing:

I think this points to a certain primacy of being over doing. We really must be persons who love ourselves in the power of God's love if we are to love others as God calls us to do. Of course we cannot omit the whole "going out and doing" dimension, but what I have found is that if  we touch others FROM a place of essential solitude (which means from a place of  personal communion with God) our very lives will be ministerial --- whether or not we are otherwise engaged in apostolic or ministerial activity. In other words what we do must and can only truly be a reflection of who we are; activity must and can only flow from contemplation; being must have priority so that it may define and guide whatever it is we do. More, it must be our primary ministry. This may sound counter cultural or contrary to the emphasis of so much  which is prevalent in our church and world today --- and it is! But it is also valid and an important lesson or witness our world and our Church needs.

Both our Church and our world often seem to preference doing over being, so much so that folks are out doing (teaching, ministering, etc) in all kinds of ways long before they have achieved the degree of human wholeness and wisdom necessary for that. (The stereotype of the psychologically wounded or crippled psychiatrist is a good symbol of this. So, unfortunately, is the image of the predatory priest turned loose to minister again because of a dearth of priests. So, for instance, is the glut of self-help books on the market offering instant wisdom and expertise for the price of a paperback, the "advanced degrees" which can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, or the prevalence of cheating and plagiarism in today's world!) While to some extent we all learn by doing, and while we all need to be interns and novices at various stages in our lives, my point is we tend to preference doing over being in ways which can be destructive.

But if the priority of being over doing is a profound truth which is in danger of being lost sight of today it is the very thing hermits and other contemplatives remind our church and world of --- and doing so is a profound act of love which, potentially at least, may leave no one untouched. For solitary hermits in particular, I think we witness to the profound sense life makes in communion with God, even when that life cannot issue in active ministry to others. For this reason I have written a lot in this blog about the witness we give to the chronically ill, the isolated elderly, the bereaved, and even to prisoners. I have spoken of it as the unique charism or gift quality of the hermit's life. As I have also noted here, all of these persons are marginalized, not least by the fact that they cannot measure the value and fruitfulness of their lives in the terms so prevalent today. They cannot compete in terms of productivity or various kinds of achievement (academic, political, etc). They cannot be terrific consumers or measure their lives in economic terms; often they require the assistance of others and government subsidies and aid even to live. But the hermit, and indeed all contemplatives say that such lives are infinitely valuable nonetheless.

And yet it is the Gospel message that we are justified (made right and truly human as part of a covenant relationship with God) through the gratuitous grace of God, not through any works of our own. By extension that message is also the message that our lives are of infinite worth simply because we are who we are, not because of what we do. Hermits proclaim that message with their lives in a unity of being and doing. I don't mean to suggest that others do not  act out of such a unity; I know they do. However, for hermits, our only role in the church is to be ourselves in God alone --- no one else. (It is this reason failing as a hermit is so easy, and trying to live as one is so risky. It is this reason mediocrity is so easy. Hermits do not tend to have active ministries they can use to distract from who they are first of all. They cannot use the roles they fill to soften the fact that they are not really WHO God has called them to be.) Who they ARE in God IS their ministry, and the fact that this happens by the grace of God in the silence of solitude IS their message. They can fall back on nothing else. (This too is one reason hermits are not called to active ministry and must be careful in even the limited amount in which they might engage. Their vocation really is to BE themselves in God alone. Their primary (or only) ministry really is in being and in calling folks to the primacy of being, not in doing.)

How does the Church Discern authentic vocations?

There is one main way the Church discerns the difference between inauthentic and authentic vocations. She demands that authentic vocations are vocations of love which contribute to the salvation of the world and praise and glorify God (make God manifest). One way of doing this is to look at the place of God in the hermit's life and discourse. While some self-proclaimed hermits do write about "Me, me, me" so that even their writing about spirituality becomes only secondarily about God, the genuine article makes it clear that they are who they are and do what they do only because of God.

So, for instance, if chronic illness is a piece of the hermit's life it is no longer the dominant or overarching theme; instead, what God has done (or does day by day!) in their lives both in spite of and with the illness will be the dominant theme. As a person matures even the illness may be seen as a genuine grace --- not articulated in some pious pretense of medieval mystical misery, but in the sense that this has brought the person to God and allowed God both a unique entry into her life and the achievement of a unique voice which will be mediated to others through both strength and weakness. That life then becomes "a silent preaching of the Lord" --- just as the CCC refers to in par 921. In other words, what God's grace makes possible in terms of human wholeness and holiness is their main focus and the key in which all else is set. The person becomes something very much greater and more articulate than a cry of anguish; she becomes instead an expression of the Gospel and an embodied reflection of God's own Logos. None of this means that the person cannot occasionally talk about themselves or their illness, sinfulness, brokennesses, etc, but it does mean that doing so occurs mainly in order to illustrate the grace of God's love and in contrast to the wholeness that grace has achieved in the person's life.

Thus, I would suggest that it is really not all that easy to lie about this matter. It is true that one can cover misery and brokenness with all kinds of pious platitudes, but the real person always shines through. More, the real God shines through in a compelling way when the hermit is authentic. The blogs you refer to affirm this in a kind of via negativa. Even for hermits in the early stages of grappling with this vocation and their own growth in it what comes through is their hope, their hunger to respond generously and wholeheartedly, their desire to give God free reign to work in their lives as God will. There will be some sense that this is primarily and sincerely done for God and those precious to God. Dioceses that take time to really listen to the candidate and get to know them will see clearly who has priority in their lives, even when the healing is partial or the grip of illness is still quite strong. On the other hand, I would agree with you that it is much easier to lie to oneself and I would note that this is one (but only one) of the reasons dioceses turn away FAR more applicants than they accept or eventually admit to temporary much less perpetual profession.

In my own experience dioceses usually look carefully at who the person is in light of their life of the silence of solitude. If they see increased growth in human maturity, wholeness, and holiness, if they see a greater capacity to love themselves and others, then they have reason to believe that the person is truly called by God to this. If they do not see this, or if the person seems to become more miserable or eccentric while living in this way, more isolated and alienated, or if they become more and more strident and bitter about not being admitted to vows, more critical of the vocation itself, etc, then the diocese is probably justified in their decision not to profess or even to admit them to serious discernment --- at least for the time being.

The Bottom Line in Discerning Eremitical Vocations:

At bottom there will always be questions of love: Is the person motivated by love? Does she love God and seek to respond wholeheartedly to God's love? Does she show signs of truly loving herself because of what she has experienced of God's love (especially) in solitude? Does she understand that simply living her life alone with God with the graced (in-Spired) integrity she is called to is an act of profound love the world desperately needs? And, finally, does she undertake (or desire to undertake) and embrace the WHOLE of this life, its discipline, monotony or tedium, sacrifices and rewards, occasional desolations and enormous consolations,  because she recognizes the gift (charism) it is not only to herself, but to the church, and to the world? Does she do so, in other words, on their behalf as well as on her own, and maybe better said, does she do so for them because that truly fulfills her as well? Again then, contrary to your own opinion I would argue that it is pretty difficult to fake convincing answers to these questions, especially as a vocation matures. A diocese whose vocational personnel are careful and discerning will recognize a life in which God (love-in-act) is glorified (made manifest), just as they will recognize its opposite.

By the way, this is a piece of why such vocations must be mutually discerned and why the Church reserves the term Catholic hermit for someone living the life in her name.  Hermits and other contemplatives tend to speak of themselves as living at the heart of the Church. This saying has a number of levels or dimensions but above all it means that the hermit represents a vocation to love which both precedes and grounds all apostolic activity. The journeying in the wilderness and the battling with demons a hermit does is mainly the sojourn she undertakes deep into her own heart and the heart of God so that love may truly predominate in all things. When I speak of taking on the rights and obligations of the eremitical life as a diocesan hermit I am speaking in large part of assuming the burdens and joy of these "bottom line" questions and this pilgrim role in a conscious and public way in the name of the Church and her Gospel.

On Variety and Unity in the Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister,
[I am writing a provisional Rule of Life and the variety of hermit lives and Rules raise some questions for me. For instance] if someone is a true Christian, and who can judge that?, and says she is a hermit, lives alone sincerely giving herself to prayer, to the heart of the world and by extension and above all, to God, what makes her less a hermit? Less "worthy" (and I know how you hate that distinction) of being called a hermit?]]

Dear Poster, Thanks for your questions! If you take a look at the content of your conditional sentence above you will see that you have laid down some very stringent requirements for recognizing someone as a hermit (although I personally would switch God and world in your sentence so that the heart of God comes first and then the heart of the world by extension). Essentially you have described what I refer to as the distinction between a person merely living alone (implicit in your post) and a desert dweller or hermit (which you actually describe explicitly):

IF someone is a true Christian

IF she consciously claims the life of a hermit (desert dweller) and lets that define her (desert spirituality)

IF she lives alone (or, in cases of real need, with a caregiver who does not get in the way of her Rule and actually allows her to live it as fully as she feels called)

IF she sincerely gives herself (not just a bit of time here or there) to prayer, (add penance, silence, solitude and the silence OF solitude).

IF she lives in the heart of God (or is genuinely committed to doing so) and by extension gives herself to the world in this way. . . (all of this I refer to especially as the silence of solitude)

The devil is in the details. What does each of these mean? What does it look like? IF a person does all these things or is committed full time to doing all these things and being defined in this sense by her relationship with God, with  the Church and the world, then I would agree she is a hermit. If not, well ---  perhaps she is fooling herself, or perhaps she is just a relatively pious person living alone, or perhaps she is not sure what the term hermit means. In any case if she is not living these and other essential elements she is probably not a hermit --- badly as she might desire to be one. Meanwhile, if these (and other) essential elements are in place, a great deal of flexibility can be accommodated by a solitary hermit or variety by a number or group of hermits.

Directors, delegates, and Bishops read the Rules hermits write for themselves, talk to them about the presence of these (or other) essential elements, and CAN make an assessment about the authenticity of the vocation in front of them; in fact, it is their job and obligation to make assessments on an ongoing basis, it is because people cannot judge the heart that there are externally verifiable non-negotiables like canon 603. It specifies a life of the silence OF solitude (which is NOT the same as silence AND solitude though it includes these), assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world (both of these have inner meanings which can be assessed), evangelical counsels, all lived under the supervision of one's Bishop in accordance with a Rule the hermit herself writes. I would argue all of these are elements which protect, nurture, and express the very conditions you yourself laid down in your conditional sentence.

Merton (his "Philosophy of Solitude," which you have mentioned as speaking to you, is one of my favorite works by the way) was fairly exceptional and in some ways had the heart of a hermit while living in the midst of his monastery. Folks like Saints Peter Damian and Romuald were also exceptional. Still, they had the hearts of hermits and as much as they could lived the silence of solitude and wrote or worked in ways which allowed others to share that or live it in their own lives. Busyness per se (another thing you mention in your email) is not the question so long as the other elements are demonstrable and defining in the person's life. Even so, some would not call any of them hermits. (Having the true heart of a hermit is significant but few start here;  even so, whether one's heart has been shaped in this way or not one must also live the life itself; the alternative is to have folks thumping themselves in the chest and proclaiming themselves hermits while feeling free to do anything they really want; that way lies canon 603 as a stopgap, not to mention serious hypocrisy and betrayal of those for whom this vocation is meant to be truly pastoral.) (cf, Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Appreciating the Charism of Diocesan Eremitical Life .)

By the way, your Rule will include in some way or other the very conditions or values you yourself have set down and the ways in which you yourself guard, nurture, and live them out. That is its purpose really. In mentioning these you have set out a vision of the eremitical life as you know it. Your Rule will guide you in living these out with integrity.

Question on the Frequency of "snarky" emails I receive

[[Dear Sister Laurel, do you often get nasty or "snarky" emails ("snarky" is your word) from people? Can I ask what is the worst one you have ever received? Are these emails from people you know or are they even signed? I know these questions don't have anything to do with the usual topics of this blog but you have received a few comments I thought were pretty disrespectful so I wanted to ask about it. Do they upset you or your solitude?]]

Thanks for your questions. No, I really don't get many nasty or "snarky" emails from people. Ordinarily even those folks who disagree with me respect me and I think they know I respect them too. Thus their emails reflect that and my own responses do the same. Over the years there have been a handful or so of really rude comments but nothing recently. Usually they accompany material that would be good for me to write about so I do that. Sometimes I edit the comments so they are not so inflammatory, and sometimes I have left them as they were. Occasionally I get a comment that I don't know what to do with. The "worst" one was one of these. I still have it and a version of a response I created for this blog in draft form but never published. It (sans response) reads as follows:

[[Isn't your lifestyle rather like the bible's description of women unoccupied, gadding (sic!) about other people's business? Are you not a self seeking mind enriching glutton for self that is absorbed with as well [as] employed with the constant replenishment of your favorite thing ON EARTH ... YOU? Isn't that why you are . . . judgmental and FULL of LISTS of your so-called accomplishments? NONE of which will either GET YOU TO HEAVEN or PREVENT YOU BEING SENT TO THE END OF THE TABLE? Bragging. Degrees. Criticism of others... not CHRIST like at all. A woman without regard for headship---- uncovered TEACHING and self promoting. Pictures LINE EACH PAGE of YOURSELF. Of OTHERS WHO LIVE LIKE YOU because that further validates the most sacred thing to you - YOU. You are in the business of doing nothing.]] (Other than italics, nothing is revised in printing this post.)

In this post there are several important misunderstandings of the nature of eremitical solitude and life and I will probably write about those again at some point ---I think I have already done so indirectly and I have certainly spoken of stereotypes here. Additionally I have sometimes written about the challenges of writing or participating online or about my decision not to allow comments on this blog. In the first case we sometimes see anonymity bringing out the very worst in people; it is a tremendously disappointing phenomenon. In the second case emails such as this one reinforce my sense that allowing comments makes the boundaries between this hermitage blog and those outside it too porous. This comment is meant to disparage, to wound, to hurt, to insult; it is judgmental and generally rooted in ignorance. It was indeed anonymous (unsigned) and posted under a screename I did not know; I do find that most such comments are similarly unsigned. No real surprise there I am sure.

As for whether such comments upset me or disrupt my solitude, the answer is generally no, they don't. They do surprise and sometimes dismay --- not least because ordinarily they admit of no real response and tend to be made up of a tissue of fabrications and misunderstandings. I often wonder why someone would feel they actually knew me well enough to write such things --- or whether they would write such things to their own sister or mother for instance. But why should they upset me or disturb the silence of solitude in which I live?

Remember that the silence of solitude is a communal reality created by dialogue with and in God. It is the quies which results when one is at peace with God. It is the silence of solitude that comes from two hearts being joined in love for the sake of others. Such diatribes cannot upset or disturb this kind of peace. Well-founded criticism is a different matter --- not because it seriously disturbs peace in God, but because it must be seriously addressed and CAN be upsetting in the short term. Thus, well-founded criticism helps shatter any complacency that pretends at being true hesychia. I always listen to and consider criticism. But too often with these kinds of emails that is simply another matter. In the meantime such persons as the one authoring the above comment are added to my prayers. What more can I do?

Followup on Hermits and Home Visits (Critical questions)

[[Dear Sr,  How can it be edifying to your family if they are not Catholic if you are unfaithful to your Rule during home visits?? Its not that I think you shouldn't see your  family sometimes but I don't think the Carthusians get to go home for visits. They are the real deal. Can't your family visit you where you are?. . . I guess I wonder why do hermits need to go away to visit family and friends anyway?. . . You are vowed to a life of constant prayer and penance like the Carthusians.. . . And what about stricter separation from the world??]]

Wow, where to begin? I am not going to answer every specific question but I will give you enough to draw sound conclusions about where I stand on these things. Thus, I guess the place to start is with a post I put up about hermits and "vacations." That can be found here: Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits and Vacations but what is most important about it is probably a text taken from Cassian's Conferences which demonstrates both that there is nothing new in your own objections nor anything novel in my own need for (or practice of) time away from the hermitage and its stricter rhythms. As I cited there:

[[IT is said that the blessed John, while he was gently stroking a partridge with his hands suddenly saw a philosopher approaching him in the garb of a hunter, who was astonished that a man of so great fame and reputation should demean himself to such paltry and trivial amusements, and said: "Can you be that John, whose great and famous reputation attracted me also with the greatest desire for your acquaintance? Why then do you occupy yourself with such poor amusements?" To whom the blessed John replied: "What is it," said he, "that you are carrying in your hand?" The other replied: "a bow. "And why," said he, "do you not always carry it everywhere bent?" To whom the other replied: "It would not do, for the force of its stiffness would be relaxed by its being continually bent, and it would be lessened and destroyed, and when the time came for it to send stouter arrows after some beast, its stiffness would be lost by the excessive and continuous strain. and it would be impossible for the more powerful bolts to be shot." "And, my lad," said the blessed John, "do not let this slight and short relaxation of my mind disturb you, as unless it sometimes relieved and relaxed the rigour of its purpose by some recreation, the spirit would lose its spring owing to the unbroken strain, and would be unable when need required, implicitly to follow what was right."]] John Cassian, Conferences. Conference of Abbot Abraham, chapter XXI, but cf. chapter XX of the same book which is also very helpful in this matter.

While it is true that John was speaking of a very brief time away from his eremitical discipline (if, indeed, this was even considered time away; he seems simply to have been taking a quiet moment like I might with my cat) he raises the question of a hermit determining what is necessary for her to remain in good shape in terms of this very discipline. (The story would be equally effective if used to illustrate the principle of judging from exterior appearances.) Remember that eremitical life is intense and focused on growing in authentic holiness. Much of a day is spent in prayer and penance and that often means in doing battle with the demons of one's own heart. In other words personal growth work is demanding and tiring. One cannot keep focused on it without these kinds of breaks or changes in one's focus. Beyond this, eremitical life demands hospitality and often this ministry to others takes a form in which they are loved as they need to be loved. In my own life this ordinarily takes the form of spiritual direction. This too is intense --- though it is usually as nourishing as it is challenging. Still, every truly spiritual life demands what is often called "holy leisure"  or it really will cease to be capable of perceiving or responding adequately to its source.

After all, we are each called to discern what the Holy Spirit calls us to in changing circumstances and fresh situations. A Rule is immensely helpful in this,  but in my opinion, it really cannot spell everything out. Instead it often serves a person more like a banister on a stairway ---  helpful when the climb gets tiring or too steep, protecting us and keeping us from stepping off the treads or falling, and giving us something to hold onto as we move forward in the darkness of night, but it is not the stairway itself.  I do continue to live my Rule, or more accurately maybe, the eremitical life it defines on home visits or on visits with friends but the usual horarium is suspended.

What is Edifying to my Family and Friends?

To be very blunt, I don't think it would be at all "edifying" or upbuilding for members of my family to see me as a self-righteous prig who was incapable of loving, taking delight in them and time with them, or who is prevented from being able to be truly being present to them on a home visit. (Better one forego any visits than play the hermit during one.) For that matter I don't think my delegate, my pastor, other parishioners, the Vicar for Religious or my Bishop would find that particularly edifying either. I'm pretty sure God wouldn't care much for that arrangement! In a word, I find it offensive and pretentious. What you seem to me to be missing is that a home visit doesn't mean simply blowing off one's vocation or one's commitment to it. It means living it in different ways so the usual framework (banister or trellis) doesn't get in the way of those who want some significant share in the person WITH the vocation. In some ways I see my more usual schedule and eremitical praxis as preparing me for and being tested for its soundness by these moments, not preventing them.

Also, it is here the distinction between playing a role as a hermit and living an eremitical life becomes sharpest and most important. It is in these moments that I (and others) see most clearly the hermit I have become --- not because I do a lot of stereotypically "hermit things" or keep a detailed hermit schedule, but because at these times when the banister is removed  I live these days with the heart of a hermit for whom communion with God is an everyday reality and the silence of solitude brings something new and unexpected to my family and friends as well -- someone joyful, more whole and more loving, someone they could not have experienced in this way so clearly apart from her life as a hermit. To use another image, when a plant is given a trellis to help it grow straight and strong, removing the trellis --- at least temporarily --- can show us how strong the plant is becoming. More, it can subject the plant to new and necessary stresses and pressures which allow it to grow even stronger and more independent. Plants need this time just as they need the trellis. But most importantly these times can show us who the hermit really is and allow us each and all to take delight in one another and who God has made us.

I think it is THIS that will be edifying and even inspiring to my family (and friends) and this which will speak powerfully to them about the God I want them to know as I know him. (I accept that they know him in their own ways as well, by the way). I hope this makes some sense to you. You see, I am not trying to sell my family on eremitical life or even on the Catholic faith (though I would love for them to discover it as a way to Christ and abundant life for themselves); I want them to know the God who makes all things new and heals us of all brokenness and inhumanity. The only way that happens is by knowing the person I become in light of that God. THAT is what will be really edifying to them or to anyone.

On Carthusians, Camaldolese, and Stricter Separation from the World:

Carthusians are not the only species of the genus "hermit" to exist and I am not a Carthusian. I am Camaldolese in my spirituality and for that reason my life reflects (and I hope will do so more and more) the threefold good of Camaldolese life: solitude, community, and evangelization or martyrdom (witness). Each of these is a dimension of what is sometimes called "The Privilege of Love." All hermits who live the silence of solitude on a daily basis are the "real deal" and I would suggest that is something you need to get your mind and heart around despite your preferences for the form of eremitical life lived by the Carthusians.

Still, let me remind you, Carthusians, who are bound by cloister in ways diocesan hermits are not, have guest houses as part of their monastery and families may come there to stay to see their son/daughter or brother/sister (etc) 2 days per year. I don't have that kind of  accommodations available. Neither, unfortunately, do I see my family that often (though it would be entirely permitted). The real point however is that home visits or visits by one's family are allowed and universally seen as an important part of healthy eremitical life; they are important for the family as well. As noted above, hermitage life is not one of  "peace and quiet"  if by that one means a life where one simply kicks back and does nothing or is completely taken up with rest and recreational activities (again in the common sense of those terms).

Finally, regarding stricter separation from the world I would ask that you check the labels both below and to the right. I have written a good bit about this in the past and I am not going to repeat it here. The posts you are asking about also touched on this. I will point out that when I suggest a hermit (or anyone else) can structure home visits in a way which is best and most lifegiving for everyone that can be considered a form of "stricter separation" --- especially when "world" is seen in terms of that which is destructive, resistant to life and truth, etc. It is not its usual meaning but it comports with this nonetheless.