The Heart of the Church Revealed: Pope Leo Blesses Disabled Child and is Similarly Blessed

After writing last night's post referring to potential vocations to Chronic Illness and Disability, I came across this picture of Pope Leo XIV with the headline "Pope Blesses Disabled Child". What I want to make clear is that this picture is a startlingly vivid picture of the heart of the Church. If you don't see a contemporary version of the Pietà in this picture, please look again. Spend some time in lectio with it! If you want to understand the mystery of the hiddenness of the solitary eremitical vocation and its significance, consider the life of this precious child and her relationship with God. What do you think most people see in or do with this question? What do you think Pope Leo saw as he held her? 

Chronic Illness and Disability: Allowing Jesus to come to Full Stature in our Lives

[[Dear Sister, thank you for writing about diocesan hermits with chronic illnesses and disabilities. I think I am beginning to understand why hermits desired legal standing or legitimacy. When you think of being about the salvation of the world or being ecclesial, are you thinking about modeling a life where the chronically ill and disabled become central to the life of the church? I am disabled and have never thought about becoming a hermit, but for sure I know what it means to live a life cut off from the rhythm of most people's lives. Are you saying that my life can be one in which Jesus comes to full stature?? That would really be saving for me!! I have mainly thought that since I couldn't work or produce much, my life was of little or no value, and it didn't matter that I am well-educated. 

I hear you saying that by making the hermit canonical and consecrating them, the church takes lives that seem to be of little value and affirms them at the very heart of the church!!! WOW!! If that is what you are saying, then that is amazing!!! It has nothing to do with arrogance or pride, does it? . . . until I read your last post, what you were actually saying hadn't clicked with me. Too, I hadn't realized that many c 603 hermits live with disability. Am I getting what you are saying?]]

Wow!!!  Many thanks for your comments!! I am so glad you read the recent post and decided to write!!! Yes, you have really heard what I was saying. Absolutely, I believe you can become a person in whose life Christ comes to full stature. I don't know the details of your disability; however, I do believe that you can, with the grace of God, become authentically human (the universal task every person faces) and someone whose life glorifies (reveals) God as Emmanuel. While, of course, you don't need to be a hermit to do that, I believe the example of c. 603 hermits -- whether or not they are disabled --- can provide an inspiring example to those whom our world marginalizes. Hermits live apparently unproductive lives of deep vulnerability and profound existential questioning. This is the way to authentic holiness. No, it has nothing to do with pride or arrogance. Instead, it encourages genuine humility (loving honesty) and raises to God-given dignity those whose calling is to live the way of the Cross in relative hiddenness.

Long ago I wrote that while the church may do well in ministering to the chronically ill and disabled, it was not at all good at recognizing or nurturing ministry of the chronically ill and disabled. (I now think even my first conclusion is questionable.) I published a single article in Review for Religious on Chronic Illness and Disability as vocation, and potentially as eremitical vocations, but am only now returning to this theology in light of my own experience, and also as part of other writing I am doing. Thanks for the links to the post on Bishop Remi de Roo and diocesan hermits. I stopped watching Joyful's videos once she stopped calling herself a Consecrated Catholic Hermit or a Religious (cf., Diocesan Hermits as Widely Accepted Pathway). . . .. I haven't yet listened to your links. I deleted them from your post until I can do that -- probably tonight and tomorrow. If there is something I should respond to in that video, I will do so after I have had time to digest the contents. Again, thank you for reading this blog and sharing some of your own situation. Sorry this response is so brief.

Proclaiming the Cross of Christ: On the Importance of the Desert and Desert Vocations

[[Hi Sister, I wondered why you stressed that your vocation was a desert vocation. What is so important about the desert? I know that hermits get their name from the Greek for desert -- I read that here, and other hermits talk about it too- but why is that so important? You don't actually live in a desert, and you aren't in some deserted place, so you are not saying a literal desert is necessary. You don't believe that God can only be met and followed in a desert vocation, do you? Do you think that God can be followed better in a desert vocation? And that brings me back around to my first questions. Why are the desert and the hermit vocation so important?]]

Thanks for asking these questions. Because you have already read some of what I have written on this topic, it helps me to see the somewhat different direction they are leading. I appreciate that. What is most important about a desert vocation is that it represents a place where several forms of essential encounter occur and, because the desert leaves one vulnerable in a way that doesn't allow for many distractions, these encounters cannot be easily avoided or left superficial. Thus, these forms of encounter are radical, foundational, and call for a relatively all-consuming commitment from the desert dweller. In the desert, one meets oneself, both one's true and one's false self. One also meets God, and in this encounter, is called to entrust one's entire self to Him in a process of self-emptying (kenosis) and transfiguration. Finally, one meets the existence of evil, the presence of sin and death, failure, distortion, temptation, and all that can lead us to choose or turn away from God and the fullness of life he offers. The desert is the place where the fundamental choices between life and death, freedom and bondage, and despair and hope are presented to us most radically. That means that it is also the context in which the choice for or against God and one's truest humanity can be similarly made.

One way to think about this whole process, and what is at stake in desert spirituality and desert vocations, is to see it as allowing Christ to come to full stature in our lives. Likewise, it refers to us coming to full stature in Christ. As one author puts it, the desert is a "Geography of Growth," ** and as is true in Christianity generally, the Cross is the ever-present measure and standard of desert existence. It marks an event of unprecedented abjection and alienation, and at the same time, it celebrates the divinization and consequent glorification of what had previously been known as godless. This means that in the desert, as was the case with the whole of Jesus' life, hermits are those committed to a life where God's power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9), where Divine justice is done in God's mercy, and where self-emptying leads to the fullness of meaningful existence. 

In Christ, hermits are committed to posing the deepest and most searching questions of their lives. They confront and live out questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness, isolation and communion; in this way, they become those who receive and embody the answer whom God is for every human being and the whole of creation. The desert (which, in NT theology, includes mountains and seas, as well as the grassy slopes associated with the feeding of the multitude, etc.) is the privileged context in which all of this occurs. 

So, no, I am not necessarily speaking of a literal desert as the home of the hermit. Many human experiences are desert experiences and make it possible to live a desert existence. For instance, chronic illness and disability represent such an experience. So would poverty, joblessness, homelessness, and similar states of loss and deprivation. Whenever and wherever we are thrown back upon our own fragile and limited resources and are confronted by existential questions of meaninglessness and the threat of nonbeing, we have entered the desert with its critical invitation to entrust ourselves entirely to God and to allow the paradoxical Gospel of Christ's Cross to transform us into a new and truly free creation. While God can be met and embraced anywhere, I do believe that the desert, with the radical vulnerability it entails, is uniquely suited to encountering and being embraced by God at the depth that coming to radical faith and our truest humanity require. This is why the desert plays such a central role in both the Old and New Testaments.

Every vocation witnesses especially to some dimension or multiple dimensions of the Gospel. We call these dimensions "charisms" not only because they are spiritual qualities, but because they are gifts of God to us, to his Church, and to the larger world. The hermit vocation brings the desert and Christ's Cross right into the center of the Church with a unique vividness and challenge. As a result of the hermit's witness, it becomes and will continue to become more impossible to marginalize desert experiences like chronic illness, disability, poverty, etc., within the Church. This in turn means that those whom the world devalues, marginalizes, and otherwise excludes find a central place in the Church's life and proclamation of the Gospel of hope. It is no accident that many canonical hermits once considered "unsuited" for apostolic religious life because of chronic illness and physical disability found their true vocations as solitary hermits under c. 603 and identify profoundly with the Cross of Christ and the radical hope it brings to our world. 

** "Geography of growth": this characterization of the desert in the Scriptures is from The Wilderness Years by D. Michael Gross.

Why Not Describe Living With Chronic Illness More Often?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I wondered why you don't describe living with chronic illness more often. You don't give much sense of what living with intractable seizures and chronic pain is like. Isn't that important to you? Don't you think it would be important to your readers? I know you said that speaking about these things goes a long way and isn't necessary, but I am curious about how you live life as a hermit in such circumstances. I think that's important. Don't you?]]

Thanks for your questions. I am especially glad you have read what else I have already said about this, especially the part about how a little bit of this kind of sharing goes a long way and is usually not especially necessary except to signal lived experience, the need for prayer, or to indicate one might be helpful to others experiencing something similar. I do believe that the question of how one lives a hermit life in the presence of serious chronic illness is an important one. My own decision is to witness to the life I live, and to give less space to the obstacles/potential blessings that hinder and result from that life. Think of it this way. If I were traveling along a desert trackway and tripped over a rock, I might well describe how serious the fall I took was and how it changed my plans for the present. I would not necessarily speak about the rock's dimensions, color, composition, age, or rarity, and I would certainly not describe this every time I mentioned having once taken a serious fall that affected my life as a hermit.

I think that readers of this blog, and those who might be familiar with my other writing or teaching, will come to understand that over the years I have come to understand chronic illness as a potential vocational path, an example of desert existence and liminality, a way of life that marginalizes, provides unique perspective, opens one to the Gospel in significant and vivid ways, and intensifies the yearning we each have to become fully, authentically, and meaningfully ourselves in spite of our limitations. In other words, my experience of chronic illness points me directly to God and my own yearning for fullness of life with God in Christ. These are the things I write about, the things that are truly important to me and (I sincerely think!!!) to God. They are the things that allow me to write about the very full, even unimaginably rich life that c 603 involves in its hiddenness. They are the things that allow some aspects of uncontrolled seizure, the difficulty of managing medications and other treatment modalities, and the struggle associated with intractable chronic pain to assume places of grace in my life. This, in turn, opens my life to the white martyrdom (witness) of the hermit and enriches the life of the Church and others as well.

You have said you are curious. That's great. If you have specific questions about living with chronic illness, dealing with medications, or working with a huge variety of clinicians, please ask them. If you have specific needs to ask the question and understand the answer, please state those needs and ask the question!! If the question or answer violates boundaries of privacy, propriety, comfort, etc., I will be sure to let you know while saying what I can. (Mostly, of course, I'll just say what I can.) Some questions I could answer privately, but not on this blog. If that's sufficient for you, then great, ask away!! Your questions could really be helpful in indicating what would be useful for readers beyond what I have already written, and I would be grateful to you for them.

Chronic Illness as a Desert Vocation

[[ Dear Sister, what can I say to a diocese that doesn't believe that chronic illness is acceptable if one proposes to live a solitary eremitical life? The Vicar I spoke to said he thought the life is too austere for me because of my illness. He described the rigors of the life from several hermits' accounts in the early Church, and when he asked if I could live this degree of asceticism, I felt kind of ashamed and said, "No, probably not." But you know, I really think I can live as a hermit, and I believe God is calling me to do this. How do I explain things to my diocese?]]

Wonderful question and incredibly important in today's Church and world! Please look at other articles in this blog on Chronic Illness and Eremitical Life! The vocation you are petitioning to be consecrated in is first of all, a desert vocation. This means the one who chooses to live as a hermit chooses to live her life in a situation or context of liminality. She chooses to be a marginalized person living a literally eccentric (out of the center) life, and this liminality, of which her chronic illness is a major part, makes her more vulnerable and responsive to the deepest existential questions of being and meaning all human beings must contend with. Chronic illness will tend to radicalize these questions and allow the hermit to pose them with her life, and to do so with greater acuity, poignancy, and witness value than will hermits without such sources of foundational liminality.

Chronic illness represents a common desert experience. I say that because it is characterized and functions in the same way as other desert experiences. It locates the person on the margins of normal living, and makes them vulnerable as they pose the questions of being (existence) and meaning (purposeful life) as radically as they might. This is a vulnerability to God and the meaningful life God bestows on us. It witnesses to the way every prayer is answered with God's own presence. It is God's very Self that is the answer to prayers for healing, comfort, release from bondage and pain. Granted, we may not appreciate the forms in which such gifts come to us, but the hermit witnesses to this gift as she persists in living toward union with God. Desert vocations stress not only the importance of vulnerability, but the importance of encounter and relationality. 

If you can convey the powerfully vivid desert vocation chronic illness can be, you should do well in explaining your case. The rigors of eremitical life cannot be denied, but these do not have to be the same rigors the early desert Fathers and Mothers described. Anyone living with chronic illness knows how demanding such conditions can be! Each of us struggling with chronic illness is challenged to grow in patience, generosity, self-denial, openness to the will of God (who NEVER wills our illness per se, and who works to bring life and meaning out of it). As we allow God to be Emmanuel, our lives become witnesses, not to chronic illness, but to the loving presence of God that transforms us gradually and profoundly into images of his Crucified and Risen Son. This is the way the eremitical vocation works especially with those struggling with chronic illness. It is one of the most vivid expressions of and witnesses to the way God overcomes sin and death with obedient (attentive and responsive) life, and one the Church needs desperately.

You have no reason to be ashamed!! Persevere in your struggle with chronic illness and allow yourself to become more and more vulnerable to the dynamics of the desert it causes you to inhabit. I would bet that your own experience of the losses entailed by chronic illness, the loneliness it brings in its wake, the broken dreams, and marginality it casts you into, will test your faith and capacity for hope. It will be every bit as rigorous as eremitical life lived in the literal desert of earlier centuries, but in different ways!! Please remember me in your prayers and know I will do the same for you, your vocation, and your diocese whether or not c 603 is the route you decide to take!

Exploring Some Implications of the Ecclesiality of the Eremitic Vocation

 [[Sister Laurel, I was pondering something you have been writing about. What does it mean to speak of an ecclesial vocation? I understand that every vocation reflects on the Church in some important way, and I bet some do that more clearly than others. But I get the sense you are saying more than that when you use the term "ecclesial". Can you explain it to me? I remember that with your own vocation, you once said that the vocation belongs to the Church before it belongs to the hermit, and that is part of the answer, but why would it be important for a hermit to understand they are committing their lives to an ecclesial vocation? . . .Thank you for persevering in this blog. Do you get a lot of readers? I don't get here very often, and this is the first time I have asked a question, but I always go away thinking about what you write and how little I knew about being a hermit before reading your blog]]

Well, thanks for asking your first series of questions, then!! They are really very good ones and mainly about a dimension of this vocation (as you note), I am exploring currently. What I am mainly discovering, and have been looking at over the past couple of years, is what it means to say this vocation is an ecclesial one, so I may not have a complete answer for you at this point, but I will give it a shot! As you note (see the second half of your questions below), it might be very helpful to look at the way that contrasts with a vocation that is not an ecclesial one. I find that question very intriguing, but also a little tricky to answer without appearing to demean the non-ecclesial vocations -- something I definitely don't want to do. The first part of this answer explains ecclesiality itself. The second part (beginning below with the remainder of your questions) begins to look at the way the ecclesiality of the vocation shapes my life.

A Brief Summary of the Ecclesiality of the Hermit Vocation

 So, what do I mean by calling a vocation ecclesial? Most fundamentally, I mean that such a vocation belongs intimately and integrally to the Church because it reflects something critical and essential about her life in this world. In other words, this vocation reveals something central about the Church without which she would not be Christ's own Church. Ecclesial vocations may share these dimensions with one another, and at the same time, some may reveal one or more of these dimensions with greater clarity or vividness than do other ecclesial vocations. I believe that what congregations identify as their own charisms are these various ecclesial dimensions possessed of a significant vividness, personality, or unique application.** For the hermit, I believe the unique charism of his/her vocation is what c 603 identifies as "the silence of solitude", and which I recognize as context, goal, and gift of the eremitical life.

The canonical hermit, whether a solitary (diocesan) hermit, or a member of a congregation of hermits (some Carmelites, some Camaldolese, and Carthusians, for instance), lives certain elements of a consecrated life with particular vividness. So, for instance, every consecrated person prays, is committed to conversion of life, lives degrees of silence and solitude as well as some separation from that which is resistant to Christ so that encounter with Christ may have priority in their lives, but the hermit, and especially the solitary hermit, will live these elements with a radicality and vividness that is revelatory in calling attention to the hidden core or heart of their lives, namely, the redemptive journey to union with God in and with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. None of the constitutive elements of the eremitical life makes real sense apart from this hidden core or heart. At the heart of eremitical life, then, is a pilgrimage to and with Love-in-Act that is essentially freeing. This hidden journey, driven by and towards encounter with God in Christ, allows the hermit's call to authentic humanity to be realized in space and time. At the same time, it allows God to be Emmanuel, the One God wills to be with us, and has willed to be from before creation. 

The Journey of the Canonical Hermit

The journey the canonical hermit makes into the depths of self, and of Mystery we know as God, is one that the Church commissions her to make in its name. It is meant to allow her to know firsthand and to witness how faithful God is and how unconditional God's love. It goes right to the deepest, darkest depths of her own humanity. On the way, and especially as she moves to and through the apparent limits of her own life into the arms of God in Christ, she will also encounter her own brokenness and fragility, her own hungers, her most profound needs, the desire for being and meaning that colors everything else in her life, and especially, she will journey to the depths of her ultimate need to love and be loved. This most radical cry of her heart (cri-de-coeur) is the ground and reflection of all of these hungers, needs, etc., and drives her pilgrimage to encounter God in the present, God who is both its source and answer or fulfillment. 

In other words, as far as possible, the hermit sets aside everything except the ongoing dialogue with God she is most essentially and profoundly and is called to become exhaustively. In the process of an existential journey, even into the darkest depths of her own humanity, the hermit meets God and a self rooted in and made to image God that, in Him, lives beyond death, beyond despair, beyond all the brokenness, limits, and even the various forms of godlessness that have been part of her life. In short, she meets God as Love-in-Act who has desired her from before creation, welcomes her into his own life, and thus assures her of the truth of the Gospel and the offer of fullness of life that is hers in God. She lives from and for this truth and the God that is its source, ground, and guarantor.

Becoming a Microcosm of the Church and its Gospel

Where this occurs, where one becomes fully oneself in Christ, and where God becomes fully Emmanuel, there is revealed (both made known and made real in space and time) the Self as "intercessory place" where the reconciliation of heaven and earth is achieved. While this happens in a hermit's own life, indeed, in her own heart, what is revealed here is the very nature and goal of the Church itself. The Church points to and participates proleptically in the Kingdom of God. It is NOT the Kingdom of God, but it participates in God's reign, and can reveal it to the World. The hermit's life mirrors this Kingdom and the truth of the Gospel that God will allow nothing whatsoever to separate us from him. (This is, of course, the Good News of Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension, as Paul reflected it in Romans 8, and the Church is called to proclaim in season and out.) In this way, the hermit's life serves the Church and calls it to be the Church it is made to be.

Every Christian's life is meant to reflect this message and become an embodiment of its truth. Each Christian is part of the Body of Christ and called to carry on the Church's mission to proclaim Christ's liberating message of God's sovereignty. Each of us is called to be a microcosm of such a life-giving dynamic realized in space and time in our work, our families, the Church, and so forth.  Hermits and other members of the consecrated state, however, embrace (and are entrusted with) this vocation for the sake of God, God's Church (God's People), and the well-being of the entire cosmos. They will give up families, renounce marriage and children, give up certain kinds of careers, relinquish the use of many discrete talents and gifts, and undertake studies and training that serve this calling, for the sake of the Church's being Christ's own body, or again, his Bride. This, then, is not merely a vocation lived in the Church, but a vocation that is dedicated and essential to the Church being God's very own community of precious "called ones". 

[[Does it [the ecclesiality of your vocation] change the way you approach your daily life? I think I also want to know what it would look like if you were living a vocation that was NOT an ecclesial one. What would that mean? Would it mean you approach living as a hermit differently than you do now?]]

Yes, absolutely. I think it doesn't so much change what I do as why I do it! When I think about the eremitic vocation, I wonder about its importance and why it exists. What is such a life supposed to embody? What message does it give to others and call for from them? What does it matter if I don't live this life with integrity? After all, it doesn't do or produce much, and its actual heart is hidden from others! In answering these questions and a number of others, I recognize that the answers can cut in very different, even antithetical ways. One set of answers leads in the direction of personal failure, isolation, and emptiness; the other leads in the direction of Christian responsibility, abundant life, mission, and meaningfulness. Without a sense that this is an ecclesial vocation***, the answers one gives to the questions noted above can tend to cohere with answers that reflect on a human being's failure to truly be human. But, as an ecclesial vocation, each question is a challenge to both the hermit and those she encounters, to uncover (and even explore) the positive, God-centered, communal, redemptive, and lifegiving answers, rather than the ones that point to brokenness, meaninglessness, lostness, emptiness, and likely signal human failure.

One of the things that changes without the sense that my vocation is an ecclesial one, then, is my ability to pursue eremitical life with the same dedication. Does even God really need me to be a hermit? Why in the world would God need or will that? Can I ever put these questions to rest and journey as deeply into this vocation as I am really called? Unless the Church answers these questions positively, these questions perdure. Unless she recognizes the eremitic life and calls some to ecclesial eremitic vocations, what we meet head-on is not only the possible validation of personal failure, but the increased tendency of a would-be hermit to slide into individualism and selfishness. While hermits do pursue personal holiness in the power of the Holy Spirit, eremitical life in the Church is not primarily about this. This is because personal holiness serves as a witness to something more fundamental. Instead, eremitical life is about God's will to be Emmanuel, growth in compassion, and the desire to be the place where heaven and earth come together for the sake of others --- for the Church, the world, and all that is precious to God. As noted above, eremitical life, above all, models the foundation of what it means to be truly human, namely, to be not just in dialogue with God, but to be a dialogue with God that allows God's will to be sovereign. Without this larger perspective, it becomes very easy to justify whatever one thinks and does in the name of "eremitical" (read individualistic) weirdness. (This is especially evident with regard to solitude in the next point.) Unless one appreciates this larger perspective, one will especially "miss the mark" of achieving genuine holiness, because holiness is about these things.

A third and related thing that changes without the sense of eremitism as an ecclesial vocation is the tendency to struggle with culpability for the disregard and wastefulness of gifts and talents. I am dedicated to this life because it makes sense of all dimensions of my own existence. Not only my talents, but also my limitations and brokenness actually contribute to this vocation and make sense within it. Chronic illness does not take away from my ability to live a life of prayer, nor do the diverse forms of isolation it causes. Instead, this physical isolation becomes a means to explore eremitical solitude and to learn just how radically different it is from personal isolation and unhealthy withdrawal. It allows me to find a deeper relatedness to others in my life, a relatedness that illness cannot affect, except, perhaps, to make me keener in my commitment to it. When a person begins to discover this dimension of their physical solitude, they have begun to truly be a hermit. They have begun to savor the communal nature of eremitical solitude.

At the same time, in this vocation, I let go of certain discrete gifts and talents and discover that in doing so, what that makes clearer is the gift God makes of me for others (or, potentially, any other person). This is a profoundly counterintuitive way of approaching one's own giftedness, and would ordinarily seem wasteful and disparaging of oneself and of God, who is the giver of such gifts. Again, the perspective here is deeper, broader, and, to be truly appreciated in the way I believe God wants, requires one to believe in the significance of eremitic vocations in the life of the Church and world. Especially, it uncovers the truth that the person, per se, is the creation and invaluable gift of God to whom God wishes to entrust Godself, even when the person is marginalized and without apparent outstanding talents and gifts. 

I both reflect on and write about the ecclesial nature of the eremitic vocation, not because it is simply another element of the life I have discovered over time, but because it is a foundational dimension of the vocation that allows me to live it faithfully, fruitfully, and generously, even when it means letting go of every gift but the gift God alone makes of me. In turn, this will mean assisting the Church to be the Church God calls it to be, and especially, I believe, it will help individuals marginalized by chronic illness and innumerable other things to see themselves as the precious gifts of God they are made to be in our Church and world.

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** For instance, the Sisters of the Holy Family in Fremont have an emphasis on ministering to and for the lost and least. They do and have done parish ministry, catechetics,  social justice, accompanying children and families who search for ways of living more fully, etc, etc., but who they are in every form of ministry are "gleaners" and specifically, gleaners for the Kingdom of God. Other congregations do the same ministries, but the charism of SHF is their focus on the lost and least, the forgotten, and undervalued. This congregational "gift quality" or "charism" reveals something intrinsic to Jesus' life and ministry, and so too, to the life of the Church itself. Not only is the Church revealed to itself and to others in the lives of SHF, but it is challenged to be ever truer to this call. The SHF, no matter the kind of ministry each Sister undertakes, has embraced (and been entrusted with) ecclesial vocations that make the Church what it is called to be.

*** While I am mainly writing about canonical eremitical life in this piece, it is important to remember that the significance of eremitic vocations of all forms is established and witnessed to by the ecclesiality of consecrated vocations to the eremitic life. While non-canonical eremitic vocations are not ecclesial vocations per se, the fact that the Church recognizes eremitical life in law and consecrates ecclesial vocations to eremitic life underscores the value of ALL eremitical vocations, whether canonical or non-canonical. This is another example of the ecclesiality of the vocation. It indicates another way the existence of c 603 vocations serves the Church, especially since the majority of hermits throughout history and even today are non-canonical.

Touching the Wounds of Christ: Proclaiming a Power Made Perfect in Weakness (Reprise)

This post was first reprised in 04/2016. I reread it as part of my preparation for Lent and for writing a post that follows up one I posted earlier today or very late last night (03.March.2024). It also reflects a book I am reading for Lent this year, namely, The Wood Between the Worlds, A Poetic Theology of the Cross. It is a book about the way God uses Jesus' passion and death to reconcile this world with himself, thus transfiguring this world and the way we are called to perceive it.

Thus, considering the questions that follow and what I have written recently about eremitical life, I find a night and day difference between those whose illness is a sign of "the world's" power and those whose illness has truly been transfigured into a sacrament of the presence of God. Most of us with chronic illnesses or disabilities find ourselves between both of these worlds -- at least part of the time. Lent seems to me to be a good time to focus especially on the kinds of choices that allow us to stand firmly in the light of God's love so that even our illnesses and disabilities are transfigured and we come to know ourselves as precious and a delight to God. All of this is reflected in the following post.

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[[Dear Sister, if a person is chronically ill then isn't their illness a sign that "the world" of sin and death are still operating in [i.e., dominating] their lives?  . . . I have always thought that to become a religious one needed to be in good health. Has that also changed with canon 603? I don't mean that someone has to be perfect to become a nun or hermit but shouldn't they at least be in good health? Wouldn't that say more about the "heavenliness" of their vocation than illness? ]] (Combination of queries posed in several emails)

As I read these various questions one image kept recurring to me, namely, that of Thomas reaching out to touch the wounds of the risen Christ. I also kept thinking of a line from a homily my pastor (John Kasper, OSFS) gave about 7 years ago which focused on Carravagio's painting of this image; the line was,  "There's Another World in There!" It was taken in part from the artist and writer Jan Richardson's reflections on this painting and on the nature of the Incarnation. Richardson wrote:

[[The gospel writers want to make sure we know that the risen Christ was no ghost, no ethereal spirit. He was flesh and blood. He ate. He still, as Thomas discovered, wore the wounds of crucifixion. That Christ’s flesh remained broken, even in his resurrection, serves as a powerful reminder that his intimate familiarity and solidarity with us, with our human condition, did not end with his death. . . Perhaps that’s what is so striking about Caravaggio’s painting: it stuns us with the awareness of how deeply Christ was, and is, joined with us. The wounds of the risen Christ are not a prison: they are a passage. Thomas’ hand in Christ’s side is not some bizarre, morbid probe: it is a  union, and a reminder that in taking flesh, Christ wed himself to us.]] Living into the Resurrection

Into the Wound, Jan L Richardson

My response then must really begin with a series of questions to you. Are the Risen Christ's wounds a sign that sin and death are still "operating in" him or are they a sign that God has been victorious over these --- and victorious not via an act of force but through one of radical vulnerability, compassion, and solidarity? Are his wounds really a passage to "another world" or are they signs of his bondage to and defeat by the one which contends with him and the Love he represents? Do you believe that our world is at least potentially sacramental or that heaven (eternal life in the sovereign love of God) and this world interpenetrate one another as a result of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection or are they entirely separate from and opposed to one another? Even as I ask these questions I am aware that they may be answered in more than one way. In our own lives too, we may find that the wounds and scars of illness and brokenness witness more to the world of sin and death than they do to that of redemption and eternal life. They may represent a prison more than they represent a passage to another world.

Or not.

When I write about discerning an eremitical vocation and the importance of the critical transition that must be made from being a lone pious person living physical silence and solitude to essentially being a hermit living "the silence of solitude," I am speaking of a person who has moved from the prison of illness to illness as passage to another world through the redemptive grace of God. We cannot empower or accomplish such a transition ourselves. The transfiguration of our lives is the work of God. At the same time, the scars of our lives will remain precisely as an invitation to others to see the power of God at work in our weakness and in God's own kenosis (self-emptying). These scars become signs of God's powerful presence in our lives while the illness or woundedness become Sacraments of that same presence and power, vivid witnesses to the One who loves us in our brokenness and yet works continuously to bring life, wholeness, and meaning out of  death, brokenness, and absurdity.

To become a hermit (especially to be publicly professed as a Catholic hermit) someone suffering from chronic illness has to have made this transition. Their lives may involve suffering but the suffering has become a sacrament which attests less to itself  (and certainly not to an obsession with pain) but to the God who is a Creator-redeemer God. What you tend to see as an obstacle to living a meaningful profoundly prophetic religious or eremitical life seems to me to be a symbol of the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It also seems to me to remind us of the nature of "heavenliness" in light of the Ascension. Remember that one side of the salvation event we call the Christ is God's descent so that our world may be redeemed and entirely transformed into a new creation. But the other side of this Event is the Ascension where God takes scarred humanity and even death itself up into his own life --- thus changing the very nature of heaven (the sovereign life of God shared with others) in the process.

Far from being an inadequate witness to "heavenliness" our wounds can be the most perfect witness to God's sovereign life shared with us. Our God has embraced the wounds and scars of the world as his very own and not been demeaned, much less destroyed in the process. Conversely, for Christians, the marks of the crucifixion, as well therefore as our own illnesses, weaknesses and various forms of brokenness, are (or are meant to become) the quintessential symbols of a heaven which embraces our own lives and world to make them new. When this transformation occurs in the life of a chronically ill individual seeking to live eremitical life it is the difference between a life of one imprisoned in physical isolation, silence, and solitude, to that of one which breathes and sings "the silence of solitude." It is this song, this prayer, this magnificat that Canon 603 describes so well and consecrated life in all its forms itself represents.

Bowl patched with Gold

We Christians do not hide our woundedness then. We are not ashamed at the way life has marked and marred, bent and broken, spindled and mutilated us. But neither are woundedness or brokenness themselves the things we witness to. Instead it is the Sacrament God has made of our lives, the Love that does justice and makes whole that is the source of our beauty and our boasting. Jan Richardson also reminds us of this truth when she recalls Sue Bender's observations on seeing a mended Japanese bowl. [[“The image of that bowl,” she writes, “made a lasting impression. Instead of trying to hide the flaws, the cracks were emphasized — filled with silver. The bowl was even more precious after it had been mended.”]]  So too with our own lives: as Paul also said, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing power will be of God and not from ourselves."  (2 Cor 4:7) It is the mended cracks, the wounds which were once prisons, the shards of a broken life now reconstituted entirely by the grace of God which reveal the very presence of heaven to those we meet.

The Vocation to Chronic Illness (Reprise)

I received some questions about the notion of "chronic illness as vocation", and I am aware that there have been a number of visits to the article here in the blog about Eremitism as a vocation for the chronically ill and disabled. While I will write those who emailed me with questions, I thought I should also write a bit more about this idea here, not only because the Review For Religious article on Eremitism which was reprised here was a relatively brief introduction to the idea, but also because as positively provocative as the phrase "vocation to chronic illness" is, it is also easily misunderstood.

What a Vocation to Chronic Illness is NOT

First, therefore, let me say something about what a "vocation to chronic illness" does NOT mean!! In no way do I mean to suggest that God wills our suffering, much less that he calls us to this, especially in the forms of chronic illness or disability! We need to make sense of suffering, and we need to take seriously the sovereignty of God, but we cannot take these two pieces of the human puzzle, facilely slide them together as though they are related as effect and cause, and conclude that God wills suffering. In fact, I don't think we can speak of the suffering human beings endure as positively willed by God in any way, shape, or form with the single exception of Christ's own exhaustive participation in our human condition. (The permissive will of God is another matter, and, except for agreeing that it is real, I am not addressing that here.)

Our Essential Vocation: Authentic Humanity

The conjunction of human and divine often strikes us as paradoxical: expressions of brokenness, sin, alienation, weakness, hatred, untruth, and distortion stand in conjunction with wholeness, goodness, unity, power (authority), love, truth, and beauty themselves. But, to be less abstract, the human-divine equation, the community or dialogical event we are each called to be often looks to be composed of incredible contradictions: our sinfulness becomes the place where God's mercy/justice is exercised most fully; our weakness and brokenness the place where God's own strength and wholeness (holiness) is most clearly revealed; our fundamental untruth and distortion the place where God's own truth verifies and hallows us, authoring us in Christ as his own parables to speak the Gospel to a hungry world.

There are few images of human sinfulness and brokenness so vivid as that of illness, and especially of chronic illness or disability. It is not the case that the ill person is a worse sinner than others who are well or relatively well. Neither is it the case that illness is the punishment for sin, especially personal sin. Still, it IS the case that the chronically ill bear in their own bodies the brokenness, estrangement from God, and alienation from the ground of all wholeness, holiness, and truth, which are symptoms of the condition of human sinfulness. What is expressed in our bodies, minds, and souls is the visible reminder of the universal human condition. Chronic illness itself, then, is symbolic of one side of the truth of human existence, namely, that we exist estranged from ourselves, from others, and from our God. We are alienated from that which grounds us, establishes us as a unity, and marks us as infinitely precious and our lives as richly meaningful and fecund. We live our lives in contradiction to what we are TRULY called to be.

We sense this instinctively, and this is the reason, I believe, personal sin has so often been associated with illness as its punishment (rather than simply as consequence or symptom). We know that this state (estrangement symbolized by illness) is not as things SHOULD be, not as we are meant to exist, not appropriate to persons gifted in their capacity for dreaming and effecting those dreams beyond anything else known in creation. Chronic illness, in particular, is an expression of what SHOULD NOT BE. It is a metaphor for the reality of (the state of) sin; of itself, it is paradigmatic of ONE PART of the human condition, that of brokenness, alienation, and degradation. Of course, there is another part, another side to things for the Christian, especially, and it is this which transforms chronic illness into a context for the visible and vivid victory of God's love in our lives.

The Image of sinfulness transformed

Authentic humanity is modeled for us and mediated to us by Christ. And above all, it is a picture of a life which implicates God in every moment and mood of this existence. More, it is a life which is an expression of the deep victories and individual healing and unity God's grace occasions when it is allowed to reign. Whether to the heights of union with God, or the depths of godless sin and death, Christ's life is an expression of that openness and responsiveness to God which constitutes truly human being, and the supreme example of what it means for God's creative sovereignty to triumph over human sinfulness. Paul expresses the paradox in this way: "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." Jesus' entire life is an expression of the response to the vocation to allow this truth to be realized in human history in a way that makes it a possibility for all of us. It is an image of the unseen (and sometimes unfelt) God whose presence transforms human sinfulness into abundant and eternal life and wholeness. It is, in brief, what we ourselves are called to, what we yearn most deeply for, and to what those with chronic illness and disability in particular can make manifest with a unique vividness and poignancy.

During the Christmas season, there is another figure who particularly captures our attention in her own capacity to embody the paradox which Paul affirms. Mary, in her own way, is an exemplar of the dynamic of God's power, which is made perfect in conjunction with human weakness and even barrenness [especially when coupled with great potentiality and faithfulness]. The result is a fruitfulness beyond all imagining, a truly miraculous and awesome humanity, which, precisely in its lowliness, can, through the power of the Holy Spirit, spill over with the majesty of God's own life in our world. This too is what we ourselves are called to, and what those with chronic illness and disability can especially reveal with special poignancy and vividness.

What a Vocation to Chronic Illness Actually IS:

First of all, then, a vocation to chronic illness is a call by God to live an authentically human life. It is a vocation to ESSENTIAL wellness and wholeness. This will mean it is a human life which mirrors Jesus' own, as well as that of Mary, and the other Saints, in allowing God to be God-with-us (Emmanuel). Concretely, this means living a life which manifests the fact of God's love for us, and the intrinsic inestimable worth of such a life despite the ever-present values of a world which defines worth (and happiness!) in terms of productivity, earning power, wealth, health, and superficial beauty.

After all, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news that there is NOTHING we can do to earn God's love, and nothing we NEED DO except allow it! God loves us with an everlasting love, and he does so, as Ezekiel tells us, for the sake of his own self, for the sake of his own "holy Name". It is further, therefore, the very good news that with God being for us, nothing and no one can prevail against us. God has entered into our human estate and done so definitively. Objectively, there is no dark corner, no place at all from whence God is absent --- for Jesus has implicated God even into the realms of sin and sinful or godless death. In fact, these become the privileged places that reveal God's face to us, the places where he is definitively present. I personally believe we have to say the same, therefore, of illness, which is ordinarily so clearly a metaphor for human brokenness, alienation, and godlessness. For the Christian, chronic illness in particular can become a metaphor for the triumph of God's love in the face of such brokenness. It can become a sacrament of God's presence in a world that needs such sacraments so very badly.

The vocation to chronic illness or disability is, like all Christian vocations, a call not to remain alone and self-sufficient, but instead to rest securely in God and in the esteem in which he holds us so surely. Like all Christian vocations, it is a call to holiness, that is to ESSENTIAL WHOLENESS and perfection in and of God's own power, God's own "Godness". This requires that we accept an entirely different set of values by which we live our lives from those put forward so often by our consumer-driven, production-defined world. It is a call to find meaning in a life lived simply with and for God, and to carry our convictions about this to a world that is so frantically in search of such meaning.

And, it means to learn to accept the suffering that comes our way as best we can so that He may "make up what was lacking" in the sufferings of Christ and one day be all in all. (Let me be clear that in no way is Paul suggesting Jesus' death was inadequate or did not definitively implicate God into the world of sinful godlessness; however, Paul is also clear that God's victory is not yet total; God is not yet all-in-all. Each of us has a part to play in the extension of Jesus' victory into the concrete and very personal parts of our own stories, where God ALSO wills to be triumphant. While Jesus's victory makes God present here in principle, because these realms are personal, we must also allow him in to them. Even so, we do so IN CHRIST, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, so this victory is an extension of Christ's, not our own in some falsely autonomous sense.)

Christians, above all, do not suffer alone, nor are they ultimately dehumanized by their suffering. On the contrary, suffering, as awful as it still can be, now has the capacity to humanize. This is not because of some power suffering has of itself. Rather, it is because suffering opens us to rely on someone larger and more powerful than ourselves, and to allow meaning to come to us as gift rather than achievement. It can open us in particular ways to the power and presence of God because it truly strips us bare of all pretensions and false sense of self. At the same time then, suffering can humanize because ours is a God who ultimately brings good out of evil, life out of death and barrenness, and meaning out of meaninglessness. This is, after all, the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. If those with chronic illness can live up to their calls to allow these simple truths to be realized in their own lives and become clear to others, they will, in large part, have accepted and fulfilled their vocations.

Follow-up Questions on "Does God Will or Need our Suffering?"

[[Dear Sister Laurel, at the beginning of the year (January 26, 2025 Does God Will or Need our Suffering?) you wrote, "What you are looking at in your Dx is both a terrible uncertainty and an equally terrible certainty. I will certainly pray for you, and I ask that you pray for me as well. At the same time, I encourage you to do all you can to refuse to allow your diagnosis to take over your identity. This would be the worst kind of betrayal of either yourself or of God. God has made you much more than your illness and he has called you to witness to the power of his creative love. I think that is the only way to really manage serious chronic illnesses. We must find and witness to the larger hope to which we are called --- the larger life, meaning, and purpose that allows even suffering to be transfigured in Christ. " 

I wanted to thank you for this comment because I have struggled with chronic pain so much that sometimes it feels like it is just swallowing up my whole being. My doctors have urged me to not let this happen, and I have shared what you wrote about this. They agree, though they wouldn't use the language of a betrayal of God like you do. But pain has changed me, and it often seems to be the only thing I know or can see or feel. It affects everything, so how do I hold onto my identity? I am not who I once was before my Dx; I am not who I want to be or was trained to be. I think I am not even who God created me to be. How do I keep from losing my identity altogether and letting myself be swallowed up in my pain?. . .]]

Wow! Thanks for saying this yourself, and for your really excellent questions!! I understand firsthand what you are asking about and have struggled in some of the same ways. I will say that one of the ways having a spiritual director is helpful is the way they can help us maintain perspective when we are unable to see clearly because of whatever it is we are suffering or that is otherwise going on. When I work with clients, I sometimes use the image of the director seeing more of the forest when the client is only able to see the trees (or a single tree or two!). Sometimes we joke together about having one's nose stuck in a particular knothole that one can only see that much of the world around them, or themselves, for that matter! Thus, the SD can usually see the forest more clearly in some ways, and that can be immensely helpful. So let me reflect back to you some of what I see from what you have written.

The first thing I see from all you have written and in almost every sentence is the distinction between you (I, me) and your illness and pain. You have changed. Pain is almost the only thing YOU know or see. "I am not who I once was." "I think I am not even who God created me to be," etc. In each of these sentences, you stand as a person struggling with something that is an intimate and significant part of your life, but which is also NOT you. It causes you pain, yes, and it also causes you to be uncomfortable with what it is tending towards, namely, swallowing up your identity. But you see, you are uncomfortable with this and are concerned by its possibility; you are speaking about the difficulties it brings in its wake. It is NOT YOU, nor do you want to allow it to become you!! All of that underscores that your suffering is something you experience AND, at the same time, is not YOU. I think it is critical that you hold onto this piece of truth. It is fundamental and is the basis for any choice you may make in the future about yourself and who you will be despite your suffering.

The second thing I see from what you have written is some of your grief and loss. These are real and substantial, and I am really sorry that suffering has made these a reality for you. You have lost a self-image that helped you negotiate the present and determine who you would be in the future. It helped you to decide on and secure training and education. It helped you dream about possibilities for yourself and the world you touched. It was part of who you were, yes, I get that. But it was only a PART of who you were and also, as a memory, who you are now.  You still have your training and education, your memories; all of these things (and more) make you who you are in the present. You still have the values that made you seek training and/or education in the first place, for instance. You are a person who grieves the loss of important aspects of yourself in the past, yet you are more than these at the same time. The fact that you were more than these and sought them out to help you be who you were in concrete ways hasn't changed. You are still more than these things, and though you have new limits, your deepest potentialities have not been lost. Yes, you are called to live these potentialities in a different way than you once envisioned, but the potentialities of your personhood themselves have not been lost. By all means, recognize and grieve what has been lost, but don't mistake it for the deeper reality you still are and are called to live in new ways.

The third thing I see or hear from what you have written is that you are a seeker. You have faith. This means you are open to life, to newness, and to the God of life and meaning who comes new to us at every moment. In my own experience, chronic illness and pain, especially, challenge us to develop our theologies of and relationship with God. Both are critical if we are to develop the new self-image and most foundational confidence in ourselves that is rooted in God and the grace of God. If our theology is flawed, so will our relationship with God be flawed (and vice versa); if our relationship with God is flawed or inadequate, so will be our self-image or self-concept. Each of these interrelated pieces affects the other. The situation you find yourself in today requires you to develop (or adopt and personally integrate) a theology that has room for weakness, limits, and even flaws and failure, without betraying the Creator God of love or your own commitment to life in the process. 

What I am especially thinking of here is avoiding a theology where God (and/or personal sin) is/are made responsible for your illness or pain. God does not will your suffering and is not the source of it. (Unless you have done something to harm yourself as part of what you are now suffering, neither is your own personal sinfulness.) What God does will is to be present with you in your suffering in a way that can transfigure it and the whole of your life into a source of blessing and even joy. Your own faith can be a source of real comfort, consolation, and encouragement in the strongest sense of that word, but it cannot be that if God is distorted into the source or reason for your suffering. When that happens, we tend to feel an at-least-unconscious resentment toward God, and the legs are cut out from under genuine faith which is a profound form of trust. 

When you ask how you keep from having your identity swallowed up by the reality of your pain, my immediate response is to remember and keep reminding yourself who you are and are called to be, both despite and also in the pain. Your pain may be a redwood-sized tree in the middle of a forest of bonsais, but the forest is real and (forgive my mixed metaphors) while the redwood dominates everything, attention to the other parts of the forest will reveal real beauty and life you can cultivate that is every bit as valuable as any you may have lost. Also, I would really encourage you to find someone you can trust to talk with regularly, someone who can maintain a healthy perspective and help you to do the same. As noted above, if there is someone nearby who does spiritual direction, talking with them about this exact thing can be really helpful. Accompaniment, another way of speaking about spiritual direction, refers to traveling with someone on their life journey and providing ways to assist them to keep on their God-given path in spite of all of life's obstacles, limitations, and barriers.

There are many images in Scripture that are helpful to those who suffer from chronic illness, as you are. Two of my favorites include the reminder that we are earthen vessels holding a treasure. God continues to delight in you and to know the treasure you are, despite the earthen vessel's fragility and tendency to brokenness. The second is also from Paul and is something I use as the motto of my religious life, namely "My (God's) grace is sufficient for you, my (God's) power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:8-9) These are the essential truths of a transcendent God who chose incarnation as the way to reveal Godself most fully and exhaustively. They express both the value of our lives to God and the limitations to which we are subject. They reflect the lessons you are learning now and the lessons your own life will teach others as you are faithful to your call. Pain will not prevent that, or at least, it need not!

The key to remaining and growing as the person God has made you to be is remembering both parts of the various distinctions I drew above, namely that YOU are not your pain, YOU are not your diagnosis, YOU are not even your self-image, etc. You are far more than these, even when they fill your vision and your body with pain, disappointment, grief, and so forth. If the quotations I provided above are helpful in staying in touch with the whole truth, use those. Remind yourself of the various things the Scriptures also say about us, namely, that we are precious to God, that we are imago dei and Temples of the Holy Spirit. Sit in quiet prayer whenever you can do that and allow yourself to get in touch with what is deeper than the pain and loss, deeper than whatever dehumanizing seems to have occurred, deeper than any mere self-image. Traveling with and in God to these really deep places can put you in touch not only with the God who created and loves you, but with the Self you are most truly. Anything in your daily life that puts you in touch with who you really are most profoundly can also be used to empower and strengthen you if you approach it mindfully, so please let yourself do that.

One final suggestion I have has to do with the idea that chronic illness and disability can be a vocation, a call by God that serves the Church. It does this not by focusing on, or letting oneself be known mainly for the illness, disability, or associated sufferings, but by witnessing to the God who redeems these things and gives them meaning despite not having willed them in the first place. Consider that perhaps this is something God is calling you to, that is, to a life with and in God that puts the suffering in the background (or, better, in the shade!) and focuses everyone's attention on the life and meaning God has created you to express and reveal to the world in this way. This would be your unique way of proclaiming the Gospel. Your suffering is real and important, and at the same time, it needs to be redeemed, that is, given a new meaning and value by the God of life. Consider that you might be being called to do and be this for the sake of the Church. While other Scriptural texts will also speak to you, let the Beatitudes be what you try in your life to give full witness to!! Each of these really is a matter of holding both sides of the truth you have expressed together. In and despite your suffering, let yourself both be blessed by God and appreciate the blessing you are to the Church and world!

Know that I hold you in prayer. May Christ's peace be with you!!

Further on Chronic Illness and Discerning a Vocation to c 603 Eremitic Life

I wanted to continue the post I put up a couple of days ago. (cf., Followup on Chronic Illness) Specifically, I had not responded to the following affirmation: [[at the same time it is not what we bring that ultimately determines the truth of our call, even if it shapes how we may live it.]] and I want to do that. 

I tend to be in disagreement with this. I do agree that, ultimately, of course, a vocation is always a gift of God who calls as he will, but even so, I believe what we bring matters immensely to the truth of our vocation. That is because I do not believe a divine call is ever only about God alone. In this, I am thinking partly of the Frederick Buechner quotation that is so popular among consecrated women and men today: [[Vocation occurs where our greatest joy meets the world's deepest need.]] Thus, while I absolutely believe a call comes from God, I believe it is also shaped by God in the very giving of the call, both by God's awareness of our own deepest joy and the world's deepest needs.

Bearing this in mind, I believe God calls us not in spite of our weaknesses, frailties, etc., but because of them. Vocations are always a part of God's redemptive will and are always about our own redemption as well as that of others. While I don't believe God willed me to be ill/disabled, I absolutely believe he chose me to be a hermit in part because of my illness. That is, my illness is not an accident linked to the substance of my vocation, but instead is part of its very substance. What I am saying is that I believe that God called ME to this vocation, not me sans illness, or me sans my gifts and potentialities, or even me sans my own sinfulness -- though neither did God call me to this vocation to celebrate these things.** My illness and disability are part of God's own call to me within the contemporary Church because they are a central dimension of my Selfhood. As I understand it, this is a desert vocation, and chronic illness and disability are part of the desert that makes such a call possible and meaningful for me -- and also for others, of course. 

At the same time, my chronic illness and disability are indications of a profound need for God's love and life. They call out for redemption and echo the same calls from billions and billions of others in our world. They call out for being and meaning, and are a sharp reminder of my whole Self's call for these things. Likewise, when God in Christ is allowed, to redeem our lives --- to love us and be merciful to us, to strengthen us, to inspire and empower us to live truly human lives, whole and holy despite chronic illness and disability, then we will see the purpose of our vocations coming to fruition. Similarly, the world will be able to see it clearly and benefit from it. This becomes a significant part of what it means for God to will to be Emmanuel. In considering this, I also think of the gospel's affirmation that we are the clay and God is the potter. While I am not defined by my illness or disability (I, like anyone with an illness or disability, am very much more than these things!!), my illness and disability are elements of that clay, not only because they help shape the way I live this vocation, but because they are constitutive parts of the person I am.

Of course, they might not have been, they need not be, and I would continue to be myself nonetheless. Even so, they are real and currently condition my entire existence; I believe God's wisdom was shaped by considerations of these things as part of calling me to eremitic life. In part, I believe this because, while I have many gifts that I might have made use of for the sake of God's promises and plans, I also have significant frailties that cause me to seek God in an intense and more and more all-consuming way. My own illness and disability are clearly part of this. 

I cannot imagine God calling me to a more perfect vocation for all of this and, more especially, for (the sake of) his church and world. Eremitic life calls me to wholeness and holiness, it provides space for illness and disability while challenging me not to allow my life to be defined by these; it demands I develop many of the gifts God created me with while it also makes of my frailties the good ground of fruitful and compassionate ministry, and it summons me to an intimacy with God I might not have appreciated as much without illness and disability. (Especially important is the compassion that grows out of our woundedness when that is redeemed by the grace of God!) Finally, with and in Christ, it absolutely makes of my life a living incarnation of Paul's divine affirmation, [[My grace is sufficient for you; my power is perfected in weakness.]]

**While I am emphatic that God did not call me to this vocation to celebrate illness, or sinfulness, for instance, I am equally clear that God did call me to this vocation to celebrate their redemption, and I can even say that God called me to this vocation to celebrate God and who I am in Him!! God has been with me in every step of my life, and as alone as I may have felt during difficult times, it is clearer to me than ever that that "I" was and am a we! (cf e e cumings one times one: "there's somebody calling who's we". . ./we're wonderful one times one) So, while I was not called to celebrate illness or sinfulness, I am definitely called to celebrate my truest Self, and the redemption and transcendence of these lesser things in God.

Followup Questions on Chronic Illness and Discerning a Vocation to c 603 Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, I think one of the things that struck me [and raised the question about chronic illness and discerning an eremitical vocation] was somewhere you had mentioned being able to offer chronic illness as a gift in this call, and my knee jerk reaction was, "yes, we bring ourselves and our gifts, talents, sorrows, etc., but at the same time it is not what we bring that ultimately determines the truth of our call even if it shapes how we may live it." 

At the same time, as in any call, we are to bring forth our uniqueness as part of our self-gift, and disability is part of it. In other words, the truth of one's call is not determined by a unique gift one can give to God. I feared that the blog readers might use that idea of "unique" and feel inadequate in discernment. Put differently, if it takes the monumental ability to offer God disability to figure out that the eremitic life is for you, how is an able person to discern that it is for them as well because they don't have a unique gift?]]

Thanks for following up on your earlier questions. I am not sure what I actually said or what you read, so this will just have to look at the ways in which I might have been speaking about chronic illness and disability as gift. The first is the way you have taken it in your second paragraph. That's entirely valid, of course, and an important way of approaching the whole notion. We bring our whole selves as a gift, and chronic illness and disability might be part of that. However, another way of approaching it, and one I am more likely to have written about is from the perspective of allowing God to redeem chronic illness or disability, to make it a significant grace, to transfigure what was really simply a burden and personal weakness so that instead it becomes the ground for proclaiming the Gospel of God in Christ with a unique vividness and paradoxical power. 

I have no real sense of how I might be able to give God my illness as a gift, except to the extent I can allow it to become the basis of a divine victory of meaning over meaninglessness, and fullness of life over a diminished sense of living. In other words, I cannot see chronic illness being a gift unless it participates in God's promise of redemption in some way. This is the only way something so negative and life-denying could become a life-affirming gift. In part, this will depend on one's vocation and whether or not it serves to allow God to achieve the victory he does over absurdity (meaninglessness) and death (the diminishment or curtailment of life) in all the ways illness or disability cry out for. There are a number of vocations that would not have done this in my own life; instead, they would have accentuated my illness as a serious deficiency, possibly exacerbated it by judging it, but certainly have had no room for it --- or for me as one who suffers in this way. Eremitical life not only has room for chronic illness as an instance of desert experience, but it provides the space, time, and focus that brings one's entire life into a profound engagement with God so that it ALL might be redeemed and transfigured.

The motto I adopted at my consecration is from Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians: [[My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness.]] (The second half of this is engraved on my profession ring.) While I can say I am inspired by that in several ways and aspire to letting it be true in those same ways, I can also say that it is the truth of my life in terms of chronic illness and disability. The fact and fruitfulness of God's loving mercy is something I know most fully in my weakness. God's mercy is an expression of a powerful love that can redeem any negative reality by bringing good from it. When I think of chronic illness as gift, it is that set of dynamics I am thinking about. Fr James Empereur, sj, once wrote a book on the Anointing of the Sick called Prophetic Anointing, in which he wrote compellingly about a vocation to being sick in the Church. I see the Sacrament of the Sick in the same way, and I also see chronic illness and disability themselves as potential vocations, not because God wills these things (he does not), but because he wills to be God With Us in every moment and mood of our lives.

I think you can hear how eremitical life provides the context and means to allow God to redeem my illness and transform it into a grace. In this weakness, God's love and mercy are perfected. I turn to God more and more fully in part because of my illness/disability. At the same time, I do so because my eremitical vocation calls for this as well. I turn to God in this way for God's own sake, so that his will to be God-with-us can be fulfilled. In the midst of this process, God's will for me is also realized, not only despite my illness, but even in and through it. My life comes, over time, to proclaim the Good News of God's sovereignty, God's Kingdom, not only in strength, but in weakness. In other words, Chronic illness becomes a gift, not only to me, but also to the Church and even to God.

At the same time, I am not saying that chronic illness is a prerequisite for discerning an eremitical vocation. Still, eremitic life is always about allowing God to redeem our weaknesses and frailties, our incapacities along with the realization of our potentialities. We embrace the silence of solitude, stricter separation, etc., so this redemption may be sought and received with a particular focus and intensity. Moreover, again, we do so for God's sake and the sake of all that is precious to God. We do it so that God's will and gospel may be fulfilled in our world. One traditional way of perceiving eremitical life is to accent its difficulty and the need for candidates to be able-bodied, strong enough to manage the rigors of the life. I see it somewhat differently. 

While the vocation still takes strength, perseverance, and courage, chronic illness and other frailties can provide the good ground out of which hermit life and God's redemption may grow. They are part of the penitential life of a hermit when the hermit is chronically ill or disabled. At the same time, no, I am not saying chronic illness is a necessary part of an eremitical call for everyone. I am thinking of a quote by Sister Kathy Littrell, SHF, who once said, [[One does not need to be a Sister to do what I am doing, but I need to be a Sister to do what I am doing.]] A variation of this, then, is [[While most folks will not, and do not need to be hermits to live chronic illness as God wills them to, I needed to be a hermit to do so.]] Similarly, while most hermits do not need to be chronically ill or disabled to live the constitutive elements of eremitical life, I have found that chronic illness/disability, far from being an obstacle to this, allows me to live these elements more radically than most desert settings would have done.

Thanks for the opportunity to clarify some of this! I want to respond to your "kneejerk reaction" in another post and think about it a bit more before I do that.