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. 

Touching the Wounds of Christ: Proclaiming a Power Perfected 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. 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.

______________________________________________________

[[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.

Does God Will or Need Our Suffering?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, does God will our suffering? Does he need it? Does he even send it?? I have been thinking about what it means to unite our sufferings with those of Christ. I can understand that as being about uniting ourselves with the God you write about --- the One who wants to dwell with us in everything, but I can't get my head around God needing me to suffer for some reason. Hasn't there been enough suffering? Isn't Jesus'  death supposed to have destroyed death and overcome sin"? One person I talk with occasionally has told me that we must suffer to make up for what was lacking in Christ's own sufferings but were his sufferings really inadequate?

I was recently diagnosed with a degenerative neurological disorder that has changed my life. The diagnosis was a relief in some ways (at least this has a name and is not about it being psychogenic or something like that!) but on the other hand, it has begun to hit me that this is going to get worse, not better. I know you have a disability and live with chronic pain as well so I wondered how you manage it all? How do you make sense of your illness? Is it about uniting your suffering with Christ's? Do you use medications for pain or seizures and if so, why do you do that if it's really all about uniting your sufferings to Christ? As you can tell, my mind is racing, I am angry and frightened, and I am thinking about things I have never thought about before. Can you help me?]]

Thank you for your questions and for the way you poured them out! Let me say that God, as I understand the question, does not will our suffering any more than he willed Jesus' torture and death by crucifixion. What God did will in that case was that Jesus continued living his life with integrity and faithfulness even in the face of serious threats and terrible danger. Jesus was to continue proclaiming the Kingdom of God in communion with the One he called Abba, but the actual torture and death perpetrated in the supposed name of God by idolatrous leaders was not the will of God. For most situations involving suffering that I can think of, the truth is the same. What God wills for us is that we live with integrity and faithfulness, in freedom and truth, empowered by God's love, and that we do this, sure of the value of our lives no matter the degree of our suffering, disability, illness, etc. We are to be people who live and thus proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the reality of the Kingdom (sovereignty) of God that gives our lives meaning despite and even in and through our suffering.

God does not need our suffering. What is true, however,  is that we need God's grace and must come to depend completely upon that grace. This requires a serious learning curve, including an inner conversion process if our dependence is to occur with the necessary depth, fullness,  and maturity. Suffering can help us grow in the various ways we must grow to truly depend on God to the extent Jesus demonstrates (reveals) is proper to authentic humanity. Even so, while suffering can assist in this necessary growth by helping to wean us from an overweening self-dependence or individualism, this does not translate into God sending or needing our suffering. God needs human beings to "let him in," if he is to be Emmanuel, God With Us. He does not, however, force himself on us in any way; God uses circumstances to find and create openings to our hearts and minds. While we can say that godless death has been destroyed and Jesus has won the decisive victory over sin, we still live in a world where sin and death have some power. We look ahead to the day when heaven and earth completely interpenetrate one another and are one. On that day, there will be no death or sin, and no suffering because we will enjoy fullness of life and communion with (life in) God.

The idea of making up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ is not about Jesus' suffering or death being objectively inadequate to redeem creation, but about the need for us to allow the fruits of Jesus' objective victory to become the subjective truth of our own lives. Sin and godless death have been overcome and transformed by the presence of God, the ground and source of being and meaning. Jesus' openness to God and the depth of his "taking on" sin and death for our sake opened these realities to God's presence more profoundly than we ever could, but at the same time, God does not force his way into our lives. Only we, empowered by the Holy Spirit, can allow that. When we open ourselves to Jesus and all he accomplished objectively, then subjectively speaking, we are "making up for" what was lacking in Christ's suffering and death.

You ask how I manage the suffering in my life, or how I make sense of my illness, and so forth. First of all, I do not manage by assuring myself that any of this (illness, suffering) is the will of God. It is not, and believing it was would distort my theology and prevent me from believing in God at all. What I know is that while suffering is real, it is not the only, much less the deepest or most meaningful reality of my life. There IS what God truly wills as well, and it is that which I believe we each must hold fast to in faith, hope, love, and real joy! 

Our God is the One who wills to live with us, to walk beside us in every situation, to accompany, love, and strengthen us in any way we need. This is the God who wills fullness of life for every person and the abundance of love, meaning, and fruitfulness that characterizes such a life. Through and very much despite my suffering, this is the person God calls me to be. Jesus' story is the same. He was called to allow God to be Emmanuel, and he did this openly and exhaustively --- even in the presence of and despite his sufferings. Do I unite myself to Christ's sufferings? Yes, but not only and not even primarily to those. I also unite myself with Jesus' mission, with his abiding will to be the One in whom God is truly revealed (made known and made real) as Emmanuel. I unite myself with his compassion and amazing thirst for life. I unite myself with his courage and faithfulness in the power of the Holy Spirit, not just with his sufferings. (And maybe this is the only way to truly unite myself with Jesus' sufferings in any case: Become compassionate as he is compassionate, faithful as he is faithful, and transparent to the God of life and love that he so fully reveals to the world --- unite myself with these and any suffering that comes my way will be united with his as well!)

While suffering is difficult (and sometimes it is especially so!), I try to keep this second constellation of things in mind. I try to remember who God calls me to be, who God has made me, and the mission in which I share. Suffering will inevitably come, but in the way I live my life, it must be secondary to the vocation and mission that God has entrusted to me in Christ. My suffering is thus contextualized within this larger and more powerfully sustaining reality. It becomes meaningful only in light of this larger context. Spiritual direction reminds me of who I am, and my director encourages me to stay in touch with the deep truth and potential of that identity. To be frank, it is either that or it is to allow myself to be swallowed up by the suffering. I must not let that happen! 

When I have written about a vocation to chronic illness, it is a way of maintaining the same perspective I have been outlining here. I have stressed, even in the work on chronic illness as vocation, that God does not call anyone to be chronically ill. Instead, he calls us to be ill within the church and Gospel so that we witness to Christ's love and compassion, and the possibility of essential wholeness even in the presence of various forms of brokenness or illness. Especially, I remind myself that we are all pilgrims on a journey to a time and place where God will be all in all, and there will be none of the struggle or suffering that exists today.

Yes, I take meds for medically and surgically intractable seizures, chronic pain (CRPS), and several other things as well! (I am getting older, after all!) I do it because, as I said above, my own calling as a Christian (not to mention as a Catholic Hermit) is the witness to the truth of a larger reality and context than my own suffering per se. Medications help me in this, and I honestly couldn't function, much less be or become fully human without them. Instead, the suffering would have swallowed up my life and any larger vision of its meaning or mission I might have had. This larger context doesn't make it impossible for me to suffer with Christ, but it does help me to live with and in him. It also allows even the suffering I experience to be transfigured into a source of grace. For me, it is critical that, as much as possible, one not focus on the suffering per se, but instead on the larger mission and vocation, both ours and Jesus' as well. Of course, it is important that we not deny or diminish our suffering either; still, we must not allow it to become the whole or even the predominant story of our life. Unfortunately, I have seen some people do this with their own suffering; they have no story to tell apart from their own conversations about their suffering. It is my sense that we are each called to much, much more than our sufferings, even when these sufferings predominate. (Certainly, this is what is revealed in Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension!!)  I believe that keeping suffering contextualized in this way is the very best way to suffer well!

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. At least, that is what I try to do myself.

I sincerely hope this is helpful!!

On Time Frames in Discerning and Forming Solitary Eremitical Vocations

[[Dear Sr Laurel, your post on chronic illness stressed the mutual nature of the discernment process between the diocese and candidate for canon 603 profession. You said something about time frames not being fixed under Canon 603. What did you mean here?.... Then can dioceses take as long as they want in making a decision about admitting someone to profession? How about the candidates, can they draw out the process as long as they want? (I don't mean there's any sneaky motives going on here. I hope you understand my meaning.) . . .What is a reasonable time frame and does this differ with someone with a chronic illness or disability than with someone who is entirely well?]]

Thanks for the follow up. With religious life canon law specifies the amount of time given to candidacy (a formal period in initial formation unlike the way I use the term with regard to c 603), novitiate, temporary profession, and the outside limits beyond which one must either be perpetually (or solemnly) professed or dismissed from the institute. Because of the nature of formation in community and the degree of oversight and direct supervision involved, these time frames are pretty well fixed and well-recognized as prudent and also as charitable. The eremitical life differs both in kind and in the nature of its formation and degree of oversight and direct supervision allowed. As a result the time frames for discernment and formation mainly do and must also differ. While it is possible to read even very current works by canonists today who affirm that one can simply borrow the canonical regulations for life-in-community and apply them without customization to eremitical life, such an application is naïve at best and dangerously destructive at worst. Eremitical life is neither discerned nor formed in the same way cenobitical life is; to expect it to conform to the same temporal parameters is wrong-headed.

I believe this is especially true when one is trying to discern and evaluate the vocation, formation, and even readiness for profession of the chronically ill or disabled hermit precisely because one must take the time to distinguish between isolation and solitude, and also, even within this distinction, one must understand the various kinds of isolation and solitude which may be (and are likely) involved. Chronic illness always isolates in varying ways and to varying degrees. Some of these are pathological; some are not. Some may predispose to eremitical solitude, some to temporary or transitional solitude; some speak clearly of personal disintegration or decompensation while for some this very decompensation occurs as part of a radical conversion process involving self-emptying and if given appropriate spiritual direction and support in accepting the grace of God, eventual healing and reintegration of the person's core identity. But this type of process is messy and time-consuming. It does not fit in the neat canonical boxes associated with socialization and formation in community of someone in fine physical health.

Moreover, the process being discerned is about hidden dynamics because it occurs in the silence of solitude. One must look specifically for the grace of God at work in this person's life and that means looking for the paradoxical presence of grace --- wholeness revealed in brokenness, power in weakness, strength in helplessness, and independence in dependence, for instance. One must learn to look for the Life of God within the imperfect life of one whom those in non-eremitical religious life (life in community) might well reject as "unsuitable". This takes time, courage, imagination, and a well-tempered faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the hiddenness of the eremitical life. The authors did not merely mean it all happens alone (with God) behind closed doors --- though of course it mainly does this; they knew that the real fruit and processes of eremitical life (and thus, of eremitical formation and discernment) have to do with the processes of the human heart being redeemed and transfigured (made whole and holy) by the invisible God within the context of silence and personal solitude in an intimate relationship which is mainly invisible and ineffable.

Imagine this!! Read the sentence ending in "ineffable" again! THIS IS what hermits witness to. THIS is the Gospel they proclaim with their lives and very much less so with any limited ministry they may also do. Assessing this is the key to discerning an eremitical life so it is no wonder some dioceses eschew accepting anyone for a process of mutual discernment leading to admission to canonical commitment. On the other hand maybe this is better than what often happens: it is scandalous, I think, that dioceses demand hermits live this kind of hiddenness while also expecting to discern or form such vocations on the basis of criteria culled from canon law geared to the dynamics of active religious lives which are mainly not particularly hidden.

In the Letter to the Hebrews we read that Abraham trusted the promises, no matter how unbelievable they seemed, because the One who made them was trustworthy. Vicars for Religious must be open to trusting that God is at work in the individuals that come to them and allow him the time to do the kinds of miracles only he can do. After all, God is the trustworthy one here, not the time frames culled from centuries of dealing with cenobitical religious formation. Of course this also leads directly to your questions about reasonable time frames and the drawing out of processes of discernment and formation. If the usual parameters (6-12 months candidacy, 1 year pastoral novitiate and 1 year canonical novitiate, followed by temporary profession for no more than 6 years and then perpetual profession and consecration) don't work well for hermits (and especially those who are chronically ill), then what time frames are reasonable and how does one proceed in truly discerning what is happening with the hermit's formation or growth? Is canon 603 itself helpful here or, if other canonical requirements are not helpful, are we left with nothing at all to go on?

While canon 603 does not specify time frames for discernment and formation leading to profession and consecration in the ways Canon Law does for cenobitical vocations, I believe canon 603 includes the key to both quality and flexibility here in its reference to a Rule of Life the hermit will write herself. It takes time and genuine formation in the eremitical life to be able to write a liveable Rule which is authentically eremitical and faithful to one's experience of God in the silence of solitude. This is because such a Rule involves not just a statement of ways one will live the central elements of canon 603, but also relies on and articulates the hermit's own sense of the vision and spirit which drives such a life in the 21st century. 

Thus, it is also possible to use the Rule a hermit writes (and conversations about the process of writing such a Rule) as a key to discerning the quality of the vocation standing before the diocese with a petition for profession and consecration. For this reason, after a hermit has lived eremitical solitude for several years I have proposed that only then do dioceses ask the hermit to begin constructing a liveable and normative Rule. They will then allow for the project to take several years (this is much more likely than not)! Subsequently, diocesan staff may meet with the hermit and discuss the project a couple of times a year or so to help with matters of both discernment and formation, using the Rule in its various incarnations (expect several!!) to help determine readiness for profession and consecration. Remember, the task is to write a liveable Rule rooted in the hermit's experience of the solitary eremitical life, not simply to churn out a list of do’s and don’ts

In this way, the discernment and formation process can be individually tailored and freed from the arbitrary constraints of cenobitical canonical time frames. I believe this would be particularly workable for solitary hermits, but especially for those with disabilities and chronic illnesses. Time frames would not be extended arbitrarily nor shortened in a similar way. (The period and process of discernment would need to show signs of ongoing growth in eremitical life and increasing readiness for a real and lifegiving commitment; so long as it does this the process allows for prudent patience.) Using the developing capacity to write a personal Rule in this way would mean that personnel discerning the vocation would have something objective to consider; moreover, conversations with candidates could be much more fruitful and free of bias (or the perception of bias). Meanwhile careful and judicious consideration of the work of spiritual directors, delegates, and others (including physicians and psychological screening -- if seen as helpful because of real concerns) could be used to inform a diocese's decisions in conjunction with the diocese's conversations with the hermit herself.

Gaudete Sunday and the Sacrament of Anointing

 Each year on this Sunday we celebrate the Anointing of the Sick; we did so this morning. I am always really moved by it as we each come forward and stand in a semi-circle in front of the whole assembly while facing the altar as Father John moves to each of us, lays on hands, prays, and then comes to each of us again anointing us on forehead and hands. I ordinarily come forward because I struggle with chronic illness and because I want to remain open to God bringing good out of whatever suffering is involved --- including whatever deep healing (he) will accomplish within me.

This year I felt keenly my need for healing, but too, my compassion for all those who stood in front of our brothers and sisters in Christ and implicitly proclaimed our vulnerability and need for one another and the prayers of each and all. We each have our own story of personal suffering, brokenness, illness, and neediness --- but we also have our significant stories of the Christ who comforts and strengthens us in every difficulty. I don't know the details of all of these stories -- though yes, I know a few, but I know how moving it is to witness to the Gospel in weakness and brokenness and how inspiring to stand silently with others who, though tacit about what the details of their vulnerability involve,  say clearly with their presence that they trust in God, trust in the Sacraments, trust in the support of the ecclesia and cannot, in fact must not, do otherwise.

We each come to this Sacrament looking for God to work miracles -- "acts of power" as the NT puts it ---  whether or not there is physical healing. We come as supplicants looking for God to transform our weakness into a complex canvas at once flawed and sacred, a Divine work of art, Magnificats proclaiming the One who is sovereign and victorious over the powers of sin and death even as (he) embraces and transforms them with his love and presence. It is especially significant that we do this on the day proclaiming the greatness of JnBap who is the greatest of "those born of women" and who prepared the way of the Lord who, [[Strengthen(s) the hands that are feeble, (and) make(s) firm the knees that are weak, say(s) to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong, fear not! Here is your God, he comes with vindication; with divine recompense he comes to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf be cleared; then will the lame leap like a stag, then the tongue of the mute will sing.]] (Isaiah, today's first reading.)

Through the years I have written of a vocation to chronic illness -- a vocation to be ill within the Church, to bear our illness in Christ and (thanks to James Empereur, sj) of the sacrament of anointing as a prophetic sacrament of commissioning and call. This is what we celebrated today at St P's: brothers and sisters in Christ who came forth together in their vulnerability and need in order to be strengthened in our witness to Christ and help inspire the faith and prayer of the entire assembly. Physical healing is not necessary for the effectiveness of this sacrament (though we certainly open ourselves to it) but the increasing ability to bear our illness in Christ --- the ability to trust in and witness to the God whose power is perfected in weakness and who puts an end to fear and deep insecurity is the real vocation here. As Isaiah reminds us, such trust can lead to strong hands capable of touching others with compassion and gentleness; likewise it can result in "knees" that support us as we try to stand tall in our own truth and the ability to dance and sing our lives with a joy which comes when we truly know and trust in the love of God.