Another Look at Eremitical Silence and Solitude in Light of "Ponam in Deserto Viam"

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I don't want to start a fight, but when c 603 talks about the silence of solitude, isn't it talking about being quiet, not speaking or listening to music, or watching TV and worldly things like that? [One online hermit] says that the idea of solitude means being alone, and like that, the word silence is simple and is about being silent and living in silence. . . .What's hard about that? But when you write about these things, you make them way more complicated than that!. . . I think you are trying to talk around the simple meaning of the words and [the online hermit] does too -- though I am not trying to speak for her! . . . My question is, where do you get the idea that silence means more than being silent and living without sound? Why doesn't "the silence of solitude" mean the silence that happens when there is no one else there?]] (Questions redacted by Sister Laurel)

Thanks for your questions.  Over the years, I have written a lot about "the silence of solitude," and I indeed understand both the term silence and the term solitude to mean more than the absence of sound or the absence of company, even though it may begin with some form of these. (Note well that sometimes we will have a deep insight that then calls us to external or physical silence and solitude to truly hear this insight, but in the main, our ability to truly listen to our own hearts requires external silence and solitude.) Moreover, I understand the silence of solitude as the state of inner quies (rest or peace) or hesychia (stillness) that obtains when one is not merely living alone, but, more primarily, is living with and in (or at least toward!) union with God. It is about the journey to become who we are made by God to be. This state of solitude is not simply about being by oneself with and in God, but necessarily implies the community of the Church and of the world of God's creation as well. The relationships implied are the result of our being in and with God as ground and source of all being and meaning, and therefore, with all of creation that is also related to God in some degree of communion. It is in exploring what it means to be in communion with God that I have come to understand the fundamental terms of c 603, but especially terms like silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude.

What you are asking about is what seems to you to be an idiosyncratic usage of such terms, no? I know that some have taken exception to the way I understand such terms and they have continued to object to this through the years. Thus, the question of where I get the ideas I write about is also a question about how I justify my literally eccentric (out of the center) usage and the way I live my eremitical life itself. I want to spend a bit of time then, trying to respond to that specific question.

There are three pieces to my answer. I depend upon, 1) personal experience in prayer and the silence of solitude, which especially leads me to a sense that silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude are richer and more complex realities than your friend (and many non-contemplatives) seems to allow for, 2) the insights and experiences of other hermits (both canonical and non-canonical) who have also explored these terms and found them to be similarly rich and multivalent, especially from contemplatives and monks and hermits like Cornelius Wencel whose book, The Eremitic Life is so well-done, or like Thomas Merton who speaks of solitude herself, "opening the door" to the hermit; and 3)  the Church's thought on eremitic life itself, particularly in what it writes of the c 603 vocation in its recent (2022), Ponam in Deserto Viam, (The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church), CICLSAL or DICLSAL (Congregation (now Dicastery) of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life).

Let me focus here on a couple of passages from Ponam to give you a taste of the rich sense in which the Church understands eremitical silence and solitude, and more specifically, maybe, the silence of solitude.  The first passage is from paragraph 14. Ponam explicitly identifies silence in a way very far removed from those who would like it to refer to a single, narrow meaning. It denies outright that it can be identified with external silence associated with physical or psychological isolation:

The term silence of solitude cherished by the Carthusian tradition, emphasizes that the hermit's silence does not consist in the absence of voices or noises due to physical isolation. Nor can silence be an outwardly imposed condition. Rather,  it is a fundamental attitude that expresses a radical availability to listen to God. Silence is a total focus on the search for union with Christ and open to the attraction of the Paschel dynamic of his death and resurrection. Silence is the experience of the mysterious fruitfulness of a life totally surrendered. Paradoxically it is also an eloquent witness when inhabited by Love. (Emphasis added)

(By the way, I would argue a bit with this last sentence and assert that the silence of solitude referred to in the canon only exists when inhabited by Love -- at least in the life of someone the Church would recognize as living an eremitic life; when Love is absent, Silence or the silence of solitude cease to be all the things this passage affirms.) It seems to me that this passage supports the contention that the silence of solitude is not only the environment in which the hermit lives her life, but even more importantly, that it is both the goal and charism of the solitary eremitical life. This underscores the idea that silence, especially the silence of solitude in c 603, does not merely refer to an external state of silence, but an inner state of relatedness and journeying with, to, and in God, which one undertakes not only for one's own sake, but for God's sake and the salvation of others. The emphasis on witness is very welcome here.

 The second passage is from paragraph 15, where Ponam is speaking of Peter Damian's observations on radical solitude, a reality that defines the ecclesial role of the hermits' way of life. In exploring this idea, Ponam says, Hermits are like a microcosm of the world and the Church in miniature (an ecclesiola). Therefore, they cannot forget the Church and world they represent in their totality. The more one is alone before God, the more one discovers within oneself the deeper dimension of the world.  While this quoted passage doesn't speak to the idea of eremitical silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude directly, it does imply a journey into a multivalent reality with various depths the hermit is called to explore and represent. When we think of the Church and world in their totality, we also must think of the way God's realm interpenetrates our historical reality, and that means looking at the hermit as a symbol of this interpenetration.

What paragraph 15 thus says here is that the hermit as a historical reality living in communion and towards union with God, stands at the heart of the Church and world, and reveals that same deepest reality to both the Church and the world itself. In this way, the passage begins to introduce us to the idea that the journey into the silence of solitude reveals the hungers of the human heart for communion with God (and all that is of God) and resting in the fullness of being and meaning which that communion entails. This is so even when this is experienced mainly in terms of hunger or yearning. (Cf. articles on existential solitude in the past several months.)  In another place, Ponam calls the hermit an ambassador of hope for both the Church and the world. She reminds the Church and world that one's true identity (and all authentic hope) are found only in God; for those hermits who choose to reject the larger world or who really just use the term hermit as a synonym for misanthropy, Ponam affirms, [[True identity is rooted in a vital tradition that neither excludes nor rejects, but includes, integrates, and reconstructs.]] (par 16).

All of this implies that silence, solitude, and the silence of solitude, canon 603 sees as fundamental to the eremitical life, are most significantly not external states of the absence of noise or companionship, but rather, are rich, multivalent inner realities. Because, in part, they help form the context for one's journey to God, they include the external silence and physical aloneness you refer to, but they are also the goal of one's journey with, to, and in God. This is what Ponam is talking about when it reflects on Peter Damian's letter, Dominus Vobiscum, and speaks of achieving what is one's truest identity in God, or refers to the hermit being a microcosm of both Church and world, and revealing the nature of this journey into God to both. Finally, as I have written here over the years (and observed in my own Rule in 2006), the silence of solitude is the gift or charism that this vocation offers both the Church and the world so they might see themselves clearly, worship God appropriately, and glorify (reveal) him and the hope that is rooted in him in all they are and do.