[[Sister Laurel, I wondered how it is you encourage civic activism if you are living solitude. How can you be engaged in this if you are called to be a hermit? The two things just seem to me to be incompatible and I wonder what you say to others who feel called to solitude but not to be engaged in the concerns of our country or the world around them?]]
Thanks very much for these questions. From something I read recently, I know that hermits and solitaries are asking the same questions. Some want to withdraw into solitude and not be engaged with the larger world or the politics of this country. Some likely feel differently, and more as I do. So let me tell you how I approach the issue. There are two main and interrelated pieces to my thinking. The first is the way I regard and think about my responsibility to citizenship in this country. The second is the commitment I have made to God and to God's Church and world to live in and towards the silence of solitude under c 603. Both of these, as you can see, involve significant commitments and sets of obligations.
I am a citizen of the United States. The freedom I have to practice my faith, to live as I am called by God, to be able to do so in relative security, and to pursue my prayer life, writing, limited teaching of Scripture, etc., are all due to rights the Constitution of the United States has granted me. I fulfill the responsibilities of a United States citizen, including paying taxes, voting, staying informed about current events and issues, and speaking out when I believe it is right to do so in good conscience. I sign petitions, write postcards (sometimes), and very occasionally, I will blog about something that seems really critical to me. I don't consider myself an activist, but neither do I take my citizenship for granted. In recent politics, some issues are very concerning to me and I will definitely speak out on those, not least, the gutting of the rule of law (which includes the way immigrants are being treated and the President's tendency to authoritarianism), moves that endanger religious freedom (like gutting the Johnson Amendment, setting up a US President as an "anointed leader", or creating an office for religion in the White House and fostering so-called "Christian" Nationalism on the way to some form of "theocracy"). As a Catholic Christian, I am beholden to this nation for extending the rights it does to me, and I extend my gratitude by exercising those rights intelligently and faithfully.
The second set of commitments is related to the fact that the Church called me to profession and consecration as a solitary hermit under c 603. My vocation is an ecclesial one, not only because it originates in the patrimony of the Church and her eremitical tradition, but because it makes me responsible for contributing to the Church's own holiness and ministry. Thus, I try to live my vocation well and faithfully. The silence of solitude is a central element and can even be considered the charism of this vocation; I understand this element of the vocation -- including the ways it differs from most people's sense of what it means and requires of a hermit. Initially, what is especially surprising to some people is that the silence of solitude, coupled with stricter separation from the world, does not make the hermit a recluse. Moreover, it is not another name for isolation. Instead, it allows the hermit to be prudently and responsibly engaged with the larger world outside her hermitage, but (and this is really critical) without becoming enmeshed in it! In my experience, eremitical solitude is the redemption of isolation; it is also a form of freedom from enmeshment. As I understand it, eremitical solitude is a rare form of community. One lives it with God in the context of the local Church, precisely so one can live it for God's own glorification and for the sake of others' wholeness and holiness. (This includes, by the way, living our lives responsibly for the sake of the eremitical vocation itself; because it is a gift of God to the Church and larger world, hermits do what they can to ensure the gift continues to be available in the way it is needed.)
I recognize that I need greater and lesser degrees of reclusion at various points in my life, but even when I am more fully reclusive, I depend upon others and do what I do for the sake of others, first God and God's Church, but also for this country, and the whole of God's creation. I am struck by the fact that the Church has only allowed two congregations to have recluses, the Camaldolese and the Carthusians. As I have noted before, the recluse depends mightily on his/her congregation, not only for material support, but for spiritual nourishment and more general fraternal and sororal understanding as well. For the non-recluse, for the more usual diocesan hermit, the dependence we have on those around us is at least as great. At the same time, while people may not understand how the hermit contributes to their own well-being or the well-being and holiness of the Church, the Church is clear about the matter, and it is something hermits take seriously.
All of this (and I have not even mentioned the Church's teaching on social justice!) indicates a real, though often missed, interrelationship between the hermit and her Church, country, and larger world. Not least, it does so because the hermit's vows commit her to cherish all that is cherished by God. (This is an explicit obligation in my own vow formula, but I don't know any hermits who would reject it as part of their ecclesial obligation.) None of this requires that I become an activist in the sense many people mean that word, but it does mean that I must do what is appropriate to my own commitments to God, my country, and the Church. At this point in the United States' history, I see things that endanger the very freedom I have been granted to pursue my vocation faithfully. To neglect doing what I can within the legitimate (civil, canonical, and personal) constraints of my life to assure the continuing ability of every person to pursue their God-given vocation would be no less faithless and irresponsible than abandoning my prayer life and my engagement with Scripture or the Sacraments, for example.
If I were to push this answer further, I would need to discuss the innumerable and consistent choices Jesus made for the Kingdom of God in the face of empire and culture, the way he asserted and allowed the revelation of God's sovereignty in everything he said and did, even though it got him crucified. After all, I am his disciple! I would need to discuss the Church's teaching on social justice, the Biblical admonitions to love our neighbor as ourselves, the call to make neighbors of the alien and friends of neighbors, and so forth. Eremitical solitude does not allow misanthropy or quietism. It is a commitment to love, first God and then all that God loves in the way God loves it. After all, eremitism is about a commitment to journey with God through the whole of one's life to greater and greater union with God. This is the essence of the Christian notion of authentic humanity. How can one do that while completely turning one's back on the very things God loves and is acting to love into wholeness? So, engagement, yes. Enmeshment, no. That's how I (begin to) think about these things.
What I say to other hermits (i.e., consecrated hermits with canonical vows, and thus, public ecclesial commitments that are binding in law and recognized in civil law as well) is to consider these points and act in good conscience. I cannot say that what I choose is the right thing for every hermit discerning what God is calling them to, but I can say that it is what God calls me to for several substantive reasons. Neither I nor other hermits can live our lives with integrity and compromise our eremitical vocations. At the same time, the meanings of the constitutive elements of the c 603 vocation are more flexible and often richer than stereotypes or common misconceptions allow for. For those hermits who are not bound by legitimate public (canonical) commitments beyond those of baptism (i.e., non-canonical or lay hermits), I would urge them to consider not just the points I have raised, but their baptismal promises, and, again, that they act in good conscience.
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