Canon 603: A New Way of Being a Hermit?

[[ Hi Sister O'Neal, Because of the videos you have linked readers to, I have checked out Joyful Hermit Speaks. She talks about the traditional way of becoming a hermit, that is, one just goes off and does it. So I was wondering if your own vocation is a new vocation, a new way of becoming and being a hermit? Would this solve some of the arguments you have with Joyful if it were seen this way?]]

Thanks for your questions! I suppose one could say this is a different way of becoming a hermit, but only so long as we don't also affirm it is an entirely different way of BEING a hermit. What I mean is that in insisting that this vocation is public and ecclesial we begin to identify what was truest in the very best and most authentic forms of eremitical life associated with the faith. (There are other forms, of course, but I am not referring to those here.) Those associated in some way with the faith belong first of all to and/or are lived for the sake of the Church; secondly, they witness to the content and power of the Gospel in substantive ways and are therefore associated with specific rights and obligations that allow others to have meaningful expectations of the hermit.

In the very best examples of hermit life we see eremitism as an expression of faith and of the Faith. The Desert Abbas and Ammas lived what they did for the sake of Christ, his Gospel, and the well-being of a Church whose newly granted civil status led to mediocrity rather than to martyrdom. That was true of many hermits and anchorites through the centuries in the Western Church and is the reason eremitical life is associated with the label "white martyrdom". It represented a bloodless form of radical witness to the faith that challenged all Christians to live something more substantive than the mediocre Christianity acceptable to Constantine and his Edict of Milan**. At the same time, many "hermits" were the rugged and radical individualists of their day and their way of life conflicted with vocations that were at least implicitly ecclesial. Largely, this is where the stereotypes and caricatures of authentic eremitical life come from throughout history. Faith was not at the heart of these "hermits'" lives, nor were concerns with the Church or the Gospel she had been entrusted with.

Over the centuries the Church, especially via the local or diocesan Church began to take more of a hand in assisting hermits and anchorites to live authentically Gospel-centered lives. These lives anticipated and became more representative of ecclesial vocations, but without being validated by the universal Church. In other words, these vocations were, to some extent, seen as ecclesial vocations, but not with the fullness of eremitical life lived in certain Orders and congregations, or under c 603 for solitary hermits. Thus, when I think of c 603, I see the Church finally accepting God's gift of eremitical life, taking responsibility for and becoming responsive to authentic solitary eremitical vocations in a way that allows these vocations to be considered true and full expressions of ecclesiality. Implicitly, I think we can say the lives and vocations of the Desert Abbas and Ammas, for instance, "belonged to the Church" and these hermits lived their lives on her behalf --- but without the institutional Church ever truly recognizing or embracing this fact or the vocation represented. With c 603, I think we see a vocation now fully claimed by the Church in a way that allows hermits to truly be the heart of the Church and who call her to be something more than the world around us allows her to be. At the same time, c 603 leaves behind individualistic and stereotypical eccentricity and selfishness that was never truly edifying.

In this sense, c 603 vocations are ecclesial in a way that is new despite earlier anticipation of a full ecclesiality by other forms of eremitism,. For that reason, yes, they are a new way of becoming and being a hermit; at the same time, they find their roots in Elijah, JnBap, Jesus and the Desert Abbas and Ammas, and so, are quite an ancient vocation. The elements of the canon are the elements present in any authentic eremitical vocation including non-canonical expressions of the life: stricter separation from that which is resistant to Christ, persevering prayer and penance, the silence of solitude, the Evangelical Counsels, a Rule of life the hermit writes herself based on her own relationship and life with God, and a life lived for the praise of God and the salvation of others; what is added for canonical hermits is the fact that all of this occurs in the hands and under the supervision of Church representatives (i.e., the bishop and/or the one he delegates to do this service to the diocesan and universal Church). Canonical vocations are those in which the public and ecclesial dimensions of the vocation are fully realized. In this realization, the Church also embraces the fact that she is always in need of reform and conversion ("ecclesia semper reformanda est") as Vatican II clearly affirmed, and the Desert Abbas and Ammas knew!***

My sense of Joyful's take on eremitical life is that it is highly individualistic and that she believes the Church has messed with something it should not have messed with in creating c 603. I am not sure the idea of solitary eremitic life as a public and ecclesial vocation figures at all in Joyful's thought. She likes to call herself a consecrated Catholic Hermit, but until last month had relatively nothing good to say about c 603 nor, as far as I can find, has she spoken at all about the reality of public and ecclesial vocations (which means vocations lived in the name of the Church). While I understand she is now petitioning to become a canonical hermit under c 603, I am waiting for her and her theology of eremitical life to embrace these two foundational characteristics of this vocation and shift from the more typically individualistic perspective she holds. That will be necessary if she is to become a responsible canonical hermit. At the same time, unless and until that all shifts, I don't think our arguments on eremitism will begin to be resolved.

** The edict of Milan ended persecutions of Christians by declaring that it was now "permissible for Christians to be". This meant it took less courage to become a Christian, but also that faith that was demanding in its living was replaced by something that made mediocrity and merely nominal Christianity both more common. and acceptable In fact, Christianity became the state religion and with this mediocrity was almost institutionalized. This led in turn to an increase in emphasis on unhealthy ascetical practices.

*** It is thus understandable that at the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Remi de Roo made his intervention for the recognition of the solitary eremitical vocation as a state of perfection, and thus too, as an ecclesial vocation. I am unaware of anyone drawing attention to this correlation between the potential establishment of the eremitical vocation in universal law and the Council's affirmation of the Church as always in need of reform (granted, this correlation may have only been nascent or yet subconscious at the time of De Roo's intervention); still, it seems to me a significant one.