Postscript to i am a little church(no great cathedral)

Apparently, in an attempt to "truth check" me Joyful Hermit has apodictically claimed Peter Damian never called hermits "ecclesiola" (little churches).Cf., Joyful Christian Hermit (beginning around 10:24) I would ask Joyful to please be more careful in her "Truth Matters" videos. No one can read everything out there on Peter Damian's ecclesiology (at least not in a single afternoon!) but to pronounce unequivocally that he never said something based on a quick Google search while implying someone else made the matter up is both irresponsible and uncharitable. (This is really akin to declaring that references to Zebras are not found in an encyclopedia because one looked for them in volume A, while then blaming the authors for lying because they claim the encyclopedia has a great article on Zebras.) Though I have posted this before here (cf., Feast of St Peter Damian), here is the most pertinent passage from Damian's letter # 28 (Dominus Vobiscum), section 25:

[[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola),. . . because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 par 23 (Belisle marks this par 23 but the CUA edition differs with par 25). Trans. Peter-Damian Belisle, OSB Cam, Camaldolese Spirituality, Essential Sources p 191 (A similar translation is also found in Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, The Letters of Peter Damian 1-30, Letter #28 par 25) CUA Press, p 270 of pp 255-289.

Followup on Why God Wills Many Forms of Hermit Life in the Catholic Church

 [[Sister Laurel, you wrote that there will always be non-canonical hermits and that they would likely always outnumber canonical hermits. What makes you say that, especially about the numbers of them?]]

Thanks for following up. I say what I do in part because I know in my own diocese the number of people they get (or have gotten in the past) petitioning for admission consecrated eremitical life under c 603 is many times the number of c 603 hermits we have (a ratio of about 120 to 1). I also belong to a couple of groups of hermits online, the majority of members of which are lay or non-canonical. The membership of one of these groups is more than 300 -- though I would guess about half are just curious about hermits or maybe "wannabes". Even so, that leaves @150 lay or non-canonical hermits in the group. The second one is drawn from Catholics and I am not sure of the number of members, but several hundred -- only a handful of which are canonical. The first group mentioned above then, are from a single diocese in this country, and the second group is drawn from many dioceses from more than one country. That alone suggests to me that there are far more lay hermits out there throughout the world than there are consecrated hermits and that the numbers will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Partly my guess in this comes from the rarity of consecrated diocesan hermit vocations. Dioceses, rightly I think, don't profess everyone who comes in the door seeking to be professed. There are many reasons for this. Most are valid while some few are not. Many of those refused admission to profession will continue to live as hermits in the non-canonical state; it is what God calls the person to be. Some of these will re-petition in several more years, after living the life and gaining the experience needed to live this vocation in the name of the Church; they may be granted admission to profession at that time; others will remain lay or non-canonical hermits for the rest of their lives --- that is, they will be hermits living this life by virtue of their baptism and standing in the baptized (lay) state, without admission to a second consecration (or to standing in the consecrated state) as the language goes today.

I also know because I hear from non-canonical hermits mainly in the US and Great Britain or, because I see the numbers of non-canonical hermits from all over contributing to publications like Raven's Bread. Some dioceses don't profess c 603 hermits, but they do allow non-canonical hermits to commit or dedicate themselves at Mass (Archdiocese of Seattle is one of these and may be a pioneer in this arrangement). Regina Kreger, whom I've written about in the past is a non-canonical hermit who writes some beautiful reflections. Joyful Hermit, with whom I have mainly disagreed over the years, is also a known dedicated lay hermit with private vows and a significant online presence. For every canonical hermit I meet or hear of, I meet or hear about several, even many, others who are non-canonical. Thus, I believe there are more lay or non-canonical hermits out there than canonical ones --- and after all, that is how it has always been, particularly since the days of the Desert Abbas and Ammas!!

Finally, because I know eremitical life to be a significant and prophetic vocation that militates against the individualism epidemic in our time and speaks in a particularly vivid way to the chronically ill, disabled, or those who are otherwise marginalized, I believe that God calls people to it in real numbers and in every state of life (except marriage). A tiny minority of these are c 603 hermits, and that is as it should be. There "must" be a greater number of lay hermits, not least because the lay state is so critical for the healthy and vibrant life of the church, but also because rare as hermits are, the vocation is radically Christian and every state needs the modeling hermits provide! It is a rare and focused vocation, but it is not meant to be an esoteric or an elitist one!! This is one reason I was very pleased to hear what the Archdiocese of Seattle is doing with lay hermits there! When I answered your original question, I remarked on the appropriateness of God calling people to be hermits in lay, consecrated, and clerical states. I definitely find that fact both inspiring and humbling! Those c 603 hermits I know personally, feel similarly.

Postscript (04 October): please note that non-canonical does not mean illegal or that one is an illegal hermit!!! No one baptized as a member of the Church is illegal!! Non-canonical is a shorthand way of saying that one is not bound by additional canon laws beyond those that come with baptism. This is especially the case when there is the possibility of canonical solitary hermits. When a person becomes a c 603 hermit, new canons (norms) apply to them that did not apply simply because they were baptized. When a person becomes a religious or priest, new canons apply to their life that did not apply to them in their baptismal state alone.  The same is true of hermits now under c 603. These persons have been granted and embraced rights and obligations a person does not have by virtue of baptism and the other Sacraments of initiation alone.

Also, please note well, being non-canonical as in a "non-canonical hermit" especially does not mean that one is not a hermit and cannot call oneself (or be!!) a Catholic. It does mean that one cannot call oneself a Catholic Hermit (i.e., a hermit living this life in the name of the Church) because the Church has not called and professed her to do this. Instead, one remains a Catholic AND (is also) a hermit. For those looking for language to describe this identity, we say one is a non-canonical or a lay hermit. This causes no difficulties in being understood by other Catholics and makes no unwarranted claims! cf Illegal or Illicit? Canon 603 is normative of solitary consecrated eremitical life in the Church, but (as the above post demonstrates) one can be a hermit in the baptized or lay state as well. Just ask the Archdiocese of Seattle!!!

Uncomfortable Questions and Answers!!

[[Dear Sister Laurel, why is it you don't want a bishop or priest supervising or directing you? If canon 603 says that you are to live under your bishop's direction then why don't you let him to do that? Why do you use a woman from a dissident [religious] community as a spiritual director? You write a lot about c 603 but how can you do that if you don't live the canon yourself? I want to support Joyful Hermit because she suffers so much and all for the love of God. She hasn't even been approved by the church like you have and lives a heroic hermit life. You should be ashamed for harassing her!!]]

Thanks for writing. I've decided to post your questions and answers because I keep getting similar ones. They require more than a private email response if others are going to stop writing me with the same kinds of questions. However, let me say that if you are a friend of Joyful's, or if you want to support her, I would encourage you not only to learn the truth yourself but that you help her to face (and tell) the truth as well. Because asking me directly is the first step toward this goal, I want to answer your questions but let me ask you some questions as well. For instance, what besides what you have heard from Joyful makes you think I do not want my bishop to supervise me? Have I ever said or written such a thing? The answer to that is of course not! I am a c 603 hermit and I have committed to live the canon as fully as I can. That includes accepting diocesan bishops' supervision of my life. That said, let me point out that neither I nor any other c 603 hermit can control our bishops and the way they supervise or fail to supervise this vocation!! If Joyful ever truly becomes a c 603 hermit, she will not be able to do that either.

Remember, when one's bishop retires or is moved to be made an Archbishop, for instance, they are replaced by someone who may not be prepared to supervise a hermit, and some bishops are simply unwilling or unable. My own diocese was very wise in requiring me to choose a delegate who would work with me on behalf of my bishop. (And no, the chancery did not require that this person be a priest!) As already noted, Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF, serves both the diocese and me in this way and so does my co-delegate, Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF. Both are qualified to do this for me and for the sake of this vocation in ways most bishops cannot even imagine doing themselves. I have written about the competence and quality of both of these Sisters recently, so feel free to look those posts up if you are interested in the truth about them. It is not as Joyful has imagined it. But to be blunt, very little of what Joyful has imagined (i.e., fantasized!) about me or others she has maligned in her videos, is anything even remotely near the truth. 

As I have written now several times, a bishop is not asked to be a c 603 hermit's spiritual director but to supervise her living out of her vocation. If the word director is used in a translation of c 603, it does not mean spiritual director. Since a c 603's bishop is the hermit's legitimate superior, he, in fact, cannot be her spiritual director. That would lead to conflicts between internal and external fora. Instead, he is asked to supervise this ecclesial vocation and there are no rules specifying how that supervision must be carried out. In the arrangement my own diocese specified, I think I am better served than if I had only been supervised by the bishop.

As I have also written several times now, the use of a delegate who has a closer relationship with the hermit works very well for both the diocese and the hermit; it also maintains the distinction between internal and external fora. Joyful has a single narrow idea of what the canon means by supervision or direction, and if a diocese uses a different understanding of supervision, she declares this to be evidence the hermit is not following the canon. But let me again be frank. Joyful also does not demonstrate any real understanding c 603 --- not the reasons for its existence, not its nature, not the language it uses, and not the life it defines and governs.  She has never met me, nor corresponded with me regarding the supposed issues with me she raises and she claims she does not even read this blog. She doesn't know me nor understand my life nor how I live it; all of that and more means she is in no position to say I don't live the canon (nor most of the other things she claims about me).

You are correct that Joyful has not been approved for admission to c 603 profession. She is not a consecrated or Catholic Hermit, despite what she claims. That takes the church's admission to profession and consecration and commissioning to live the vocation in the Church's name. While Joyful has petitioned that this standing be granted to her, it has not happened yet, and may never happen. (Here I have to ask you, if Joyful is already a consecrated Catholic hermit, why would she seek admission to profession and consecration under a canon she reviles as inadequate ("full of loopholes") and a destructive influence on traditional eremitical life?) 

And if she is never admitted to c 603 standing then where's the harm?  She does not truly feel called to this specific vocation or even believe in its value; it should not be a great disappointment or source of suffering if she is not admitted to profession. Perhaps more importantly, she can continue living as a non-canonical hermit and write about it in a more compelling way than she could ever do with c 603, the canon she so reviles. Granted, to do this effectively and credibly, she would need to adopt the Church's own distinction between consecrated (canonical) and non-canonical eremitical life, and she would need to espouse this as a significant lay vocation in her case. (For priests it could be a significant clerical vocation.) As Joyful's friend or supporter, you could assist her with that. 

Beyond that, though, the best way any friend or supporter could help Joyful, I think, is to get her to stop drawing gratuitous conclusions about peoples' motivations, presumed behavior, faithfulness to their vocation, state of their soul, etc. She does not and cannot know these things without the person sharing them with her or confirming them for her. If she has questions about how someone understands or lives eremitical life, or why they do what they do, then please encourage her to write that person directly and ask them as you have done to me!! You see, while I find your questions somewhat rude and entirely spurious (they are rooted in untrue assumptions), I absolutely respect that you posed them directly. Thank you for that.

On Chosing Transparency

[[Dear Sister, it's me again! if someone wanted to live as a more physically hidden hermit than you do, maybe even as an anonymous hermit, would they be able to do that as a diocesan hermit? Would it be wrong to "out" them? I heard someone who is seeking canonical approval say they thought maybe they could do this to raise the falling standards of eremitic life. They said that would include being anonymous because that is a much more humble and hidden way of living the life. I wondered if that would be okay, partly because of what you have written about this vocation being a public one. Do people become hermits to show others how to do it? That just seems like a crazy idea to me --- not that someone shouldn't do their best, but become a hermit to show others how to live this vocation? Nope, that seems crazy to me.]]

Thanks for your questions. Canon 603 hermits write their own Rules of Life and in doing so they are the ones who define how they will live the elements of c 603. If a diocesan hermit wants to live a very strict hiddenness, if she believes this is what God is calling her to, she would make that clear in the Rule she submits for approval. The diocese would need to read and "vet" this Rule to see if it is truly liveable and consistent. If the life it describes seems unbalanced, for example, the formation team might ask the hermit to change that in some way; they will certainly pay attention to whether or not the person is capable of living a healthy eremitical life that is both in touch with, and capable of truly speaking to, the contemporary world. What you describe in the second part of your question is a known phenomenon with some folks entering religious life, but it doesn't really work there as a reason to enter, nor would it work with c 603.

Anyone who has been in religious life is apt to know someone who entered the community with the sense that they are going to change things. Usually, these are young adults "feeling their wheaties" (so to speak) after having been to college and/or graduate school and being stuffed full of new ideas on what community life should be and not be, how liturgy is to be celebrated, styles of leadership that are preferred, and any number of other things theological or spiritual. On the other hand, some may enter with the thought that they will single-handedly drag the community back to the "more traditional" way of life, their eyes fixed too exclusively on centuries past. 

Ordinarily, the candidate and then the novice (this happens especially during novitiate!!) comes to find out how little she has understood from the outside, how much she has to learn from those who have lived and sometimes struggled with the tension between contemporary life and tradition while listening deeply to the voice of God in the present, and how truly transparent a life of prayer requires one to be. Some of these folks make significant adjustments and do very well. Others find the learning curve too steep and leave after a relatively short time in formation because they lack the humility, flexibility, or docility the vocation requires. Should someone really try becoming a diocesan hermit to show others how to live as a "real hermit," I personally doubt any diocese would accept them, not least because the person would not be able to enter whole-heartedly into a substantive discernment/formation process. If anonymity is part of what they are trying to show others constitutes the "real hermit" way, the motive could be far removed from true humility!! Dioceses know how to look for motives and what drives the person to petition as they have.

You see, with c 603 life, the situation is somewhat different for at least three reasons: 1) the canon is not written in absolutes but, at least in certain ways, in relative terms (for instance, stricter separation from the world is not absolute separation from the world, nor does it refer first of all to the material world that is God's good creation); further, therefore, the terms of the canon don't usually have a single or univocal meaning, instead they embody not only differences but varying depths and degrees of meaning; 2) the vocation is a solitary one, not meant for a community of hermits; elements of the canon will be conditioned by the person's own history (and vice versa!), and 3) The Holy Spirit works with each hermit to inspire them in the way God wills. Since the hermit reveals the heart of the Church to the Church and the world, each hermit may do this in a different way to be effective. What is lifegiving and a means to genuine freedom for one hermit may not work well for another hermit. N.B., these points also provide the reasons the Church asks each diocesan hermit to write her own Rule of Life. At the same time they are implied in the church's position on c 603 vocations not being allowed to create a religious community of c 603 hermits while allowing them to come together in a laura that respects each hermit's own Rule of Life and individual eremitical path. 

The question regarding anonymity is one I have written about just lately so please check recent posts for more than I provide here. Yes, a diocesan hermit can remain hidden and very strictly so, however, if she should try to maintain a public presence of sorts (like I do with this blog), she will be required to provide a name and the diocese that professed and is responsible (or to whom she is accountable) for her hermit life. She is accountable not just to her diocesan leadership, but to the entire People of God for what she writes and says as a diocesan hermit -- so long as she claims publicly to be this. The choice is either to remain entirely hidden and anonymous or to claim one's identity fully and openly because this is a public vocation and folks touched by this life have a right to know who this supposed "Catholic Hermit" is. I'm not sure what you are imagining when you speak of "outing" someone, but I can imagine situations where someone is aware of the identity of a person who claims to be a Catholic Hermit and who might be obliged to provide at least the name of the hermit's Diocese so long as she is insisting on remaining anonymous. Of course, one would speak directly to the hermit before doing that!

As I have already noted then, this has to do with accountability for the vocation.  If one wishes to participate online, for instance, and does so while identifying herself as a consecrated Catholic Hermit, then she cannot remain anonymous. If one identifies oneself as a diocesan hermit, for instance, or desires to legitimately call oneself a Catholic Hermit, one is also obliged to identify oneself sufficiently to be accountable for the vocation and to the people to whom one is ministering because she ministers in the name of the Church. Anonymity and the public claiming of a consecrated ecclesial vocation cannot be exercised simultaneously. To the degree one makes such claims, one must be open about one's canonical identity.

 Speaking to parish at Mass during pandemic

There is a risk in this, of course, but those of us who maintain a public presence as diocesan hermits have weighed the costs and found them worthwhile in being true to our vocations,  to the Church who consecrated us, and the God who calls us to this life. For instance, five years ago a person writing under the Catholic Hermit designation (Joyful Hermit's profile and blog list) called my diocese and accused me of crimes. Her call was handed around to several people who neither knew me nor knew of me and then, she apparently received a return call informing her that I was indeed a diocesan hermit in good standing and if she really felt she had a case against me, she should take me to court. (The diocese is not responsible for me in those terms,*** but I also believe they knew Joyful had no true grounds for legal action.)  

I first read about this situation (and more as you will see!) in one of Joyful's blog articles. Here is one place that occurred (I am not sure now if it was the first place I read this in Joyful's blog but it is a main one.) I apologize for the ugliness of the speculation in this citation. A link is provided in case there is a concern I have twisted what Joyful actually said, or quoted her incompletely or out of context.

But I have not met anyone as persistently evil. hateful, and miscreant as this one who by trickery got me to email her over 16 years ago, and who since has been a nasty, derisive, and detracting, public voice ever since. We have so much not in common, sadly, but that could shift if not for the devils' influence, and a sickness of pride, presumption, and envy that has known no ceasing for over 16 years. No amount of prayers or various techniques offered to psychologically or spiritually get an alliance with her, for there is evil and hate in that person, a particular animus against me that has settled in the person. Her main beef seems my writing as a Catholic hermit, of which I am, of course. But she has a need to be superior, seems to resent competition of another Catholic hermit writing, or so say others who have observed this unChristian situation over the years.

But as had been my lived experience, Catholics tend not to stand up against such type of evil as they fear the devil to turn on them as well. Even her Vicar General who her Bishop's office (said they had never heard of her as a canonical hermit in their diocese!) did not want to intervene, not even find out who she is and guide her to not dox nor harass me using internet, given they are penal codes in her state. They suggested I take civil legal action against her.... So much for diocese hermits being directed and supervised by their bishops (or as she has added, by a "designee" and not needing to be a priest....

If not for the Catholic and hermit reality, I still think this person who represents so many Catholics, especially women, would continue the ugliness regardless, as long as I keep writing, for she uses what I write as her foil often enough, as her fodder to come up with a platform to "preach" and try to be "someone with status," thus her inventing precedents and giving herself impetus and note to what ought to be a hidden life of a hermit. So she puts me down publicly in order to try to build up what seems a spiritual emptiness, or a lack of inner security or healthy love of how God created her, or whatever issues going on--perhaps envy that I am heterosexual and have had a family, that I am educated with higher degrees, or that I'm a persecuted, suffering mystic and victim soul.  (Seeking Kind Catholics) 

Joyful (who has never met me personally, nor contacted me directly about her 16+ years' worth of concerns with me) is still telling that story about my diocese disavowing me, not only on her more recent blog (cf above link) but in her recent videos on Joyful Hermit Speaks, though without making clear the diocese's clarification that they do know me. (For example, Having Trouble, Moving On (cf, 20:51ff, but the whole video gives context.) Originally, it seems to me she wanted to call my credibility into question; most recently she has used the story to call into question the wisdom of c 603 and the fidelity of responsible bishops. I find (and, for a number of years, have found) the situation irritating, occasionally infuriating, and almost always deeply perplexing because of the groundless speculations that are thrown up as truth. At the same time, I have chosen to be present online in a transparent way and that means that, unfortunately, my diocese may occasionally get a phone call from someone like Joyful Hermit. That is the choice I made in identifying myself online as a Diocesan Hermit of and for the Diocese of Oakland, and as I look back at the past 17 years and the good that has come from them and as I move toward the anniversary of my consecration on 02. September, I would say that even in light of these kinds of personal attacks, my decision was a good one, and I am grateful to God for the way God has led me!

*** As noted before, on the day of her consecration (the day of her perpetual profession,) a diocesan hermit signs a waiver of liability so that should she leave the consecrated state she cannot sue the diocese for past wages, etc. As I have said before, I suppose that this waiver could also cover things like bail and fines, etc should a hermit get into legal trouble, but it is not primarily about that.

Another Look at the Divinization of our World: Anticipating Life after Life after Death!!

[[Hi Sister, I wondered if you had noticed that Joyful Hermit is beginning to talk about "spiritualizing the temporal" (see: Spiritualizing the Temporal). . . . Is "spiritualizing the temporal" a good way of talking about the Christian mission to help bring the Kingdom of God? My own SD reminds me that no reality is ordinary in light of Christ's death and resurrection. What you wrote in your response to my two other emails reminds me of the same insight.]]

Hi, and thanks for connecting again! No, sorry, I haven't seen the video you noted here, though I am interested in hearing if its maker has made the fundamental theological change involved in the title you referenced. I sincerely hope she has! As I noted in my earlier post, an absolute dichotomy or antithesis between the temporal and the spiritual is a dualism typical of Gnosticism, a movement alive since before and certainly during Jesus' time. Scholars note that traces of it can be found in the Gospel of John (written around the end of the first century), though this may have more to do with John's countering Gnosticism through the Incarnation and all implied by that.

A shift to the idea of the spiritualizing of the temporal is absolutely foundational to Christianity and is a dynamic captured in sayings like, [[God became man so that man (human beings) could become gods!]] so, if she has made this shift, good on your videographer!! The Eastern Church's theology of "divinization" or "theosis," is a wellspring of Christianity's rejection of Gnostic Dualism. The same shift is critical to our own theology of the Incarnation including the way the Cross works to destroy sin and godless death as well. (If God is implicated by Christ in these realities, they cannot be godless any longer, can they? That is part of the radical shift in the whole of reality we know in light of the Christ Event.) It is also part of "the scandal of Christianity" because our God is found in places where religion often says God does not belong --- in the spatiotemporal, for instance. But in the Christ Event, our God reveals himself fully in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place (like a sinful world or on a criminal's Cross and in Jesus' "godless" death).

 In a piece I put up just last night on the dual context of eremitical life the last line from DICLSAL, noted, [[Thus, hermits are aware that the present and eternity no longer follow one upon the other but are intimately connected.]] This is the same theology once again; it reminds us that the reality of space-time and eternity interpenetrate one another leaving neither of them unchanged. The temporal is precisely where the eternal has taken up residence, and, as noted earlier this is why we call God in Christ, Emmanuel (God with us). As you say, it is very much part of speaking of the coming of God's Kingdom both in the way some commentators refer today as the Kin-dom or extended family of God, and in the more original Sovereignty or Reign of God right here on earth in space and time. Personally, I think hermits are especially called to affirm the world around us in this way -- another reason the piece I put up last night speaks of the world as a significant (and positive) context in eremitical life.

Your SD is definitely on the same page with his/her observation about ordinary vs extraordinary. In New Testament terms we say we are part of a new creation and of course, what we mean is that we are now part of an extraordinary reality where God has revealed his will to become all in all, and where that project is well underway!! When we speak of the world around us as sacramental, or celebrate the presence of the Holy Spirit within ourselves and in our midst, when we recognize that we are adopted Daughters and Sons of God and Imago Dei and Imago Christi, when we recognize that despite the limitations and even the distortions in our world, it is shot through with the power, presence, and glory of God, we are saying what your spiritual director says. There is nothing ordinary in our world, it is all extraordinary and becoming more extraordinary as time goes on -- not because of some sort of natural progress or evolution, for instance, (though we do believe in an evolutionary and unfinished universe) but because God is at work within us and in the whole of reality making it God's very own!

I am reminded that in our Bible class, we decided to use the Summer to read something a little different before we begin Galatians sometime in the Fall. We are now working our way through Tom Wright's Surprised by Hope, Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. NT Wright reminds us that heaven is not our final or ultimate destination, but rather, what we truly anticipate is the new heaven and earth that will come in fullness with final judgment when God becomes All in All. (Tom Wright calls this, "not life after death, but life after life after death!") He teaches powerfully about the job of Christians to work towards this reality -- even beyond death as part of the Communion of Saints (in part, this is what he is referring to by the phrase "the mission of the church").  He captures this idea by calling us Christians, "Citizens of heaven, colonizing the earth."

In the piece I put up last night, the Church in Ponam in Deserto Viam recognizes hermits similarly as "sentinels of hope," precisely because hermits see this intimate relation between heaven and earth that exists everywhere we look! I love that characterization of the hermit's vocation!! We do not write off the spatial-temporal world, nor condemn it categorically, nor do we flee it as though our destiny is a disembodied heaven. Instead, we love it into wholeness in the power of the Holy Spirit. Or, we help make of it the new Temple of God in Christ by allowing and assisting God, in the language of your videographer, to "spiritualize the temporal!" 

Clarifying Misconceptions and Wholecloth-Untruths From "Joyful Hermit"

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I discovered your blog through the You Tube videos of Joyful Hermit. She has been pretty critical of "a lady hermit in California who has been stalking and harrassing her for 17 years" and recently recorded a long tirade commenting on OSV and how they used quotes from your blog without taking time to vet you or be sure you are who you say you are. cf: Joyful Hermit Speaks Tirade [the pertinent section begins around 28:40 in this video and continues throughout the rest, Sister Laurel]. It wasn't hard to make the connection from the OSV articles and your name, diocese, blog, etc.!!! Joyful hermit claims your diocese doesn't know you and wants no responsibility for you. She also says that your bishop doesn't supervise you because you don't want that and that you have a "girlfriend" instead (sorry, she didn't explain  or nuance that at all) who is apparently a Sister from a rabble-rousing community that is not approved by the Vatican. 

She complained that you have no right to write about the situation in KY because you don't follow c 603 yourself. And she claims that you objected to the vows of the hermit in KY because he spoke out instead of remaining hidden as hermits are supposed to do. Pretty sure there are other things I have missed but these are the ones I remember from this week. So, since you take questions, could I please ask you what parts of all  this are true? I ask this partly because while checking out your blog to try to see who you are and what you write about, I was surprised to find something very different from what I had expected. I have read several of your posts from the last month or more and I think I understand why you are involved in the Cole Matson situation. It had little to do with him speaking out contrary to the hiddenness of the hermit vocation, did it?  I also looked for posts referring to Joyful Hermit and didn't find what I had been led to expect. No where near! I'll leave this for now and come back if I think of more that needs sharing and clarifying.]]

Wow! First, thanks for taking the time to look me up (or track me down) --- though it does seem that Ms McClure (Joyful Hermit) made that pretty simple; thanks also for taking the time to read some posts from this blog and perusing it more generally. Several others did some of that this week. Some just wrote snarky letters with "How dare you. . .?" kinds of questions. You are the first to simply ask me what is true, so thank you for that. I will try to lay out the major points here one by one. I hope that will be helpful to you and to others who are now writing me because of the video you referred me to. Unless there are remaining questions for you, for instance, I don't plan on addressing these issues again.

Ms McClure aka Joyful Hermit aka Catholic Hermit aka Complete Hermit, aka Victim Soul, etc. has been blogging about eremitical life for 18-20 years, from before I was perpetually professed. She first wrote me @ 17 years ago before my perpetual profession and after I had begun this blog to ask about becoming a professed and consecrated hermit and congratulating me on my upcoming consecration. I wrote her back and checked out the blog she linked me to or told me about (not sure which it was now). When I was consecrated  McClure wrote about it in her then-current blog, The Complete Hermit. She clearly knows I am a diocesan hermit for the Diocese of Oakland and has known that for 17 years: (cf The Complete Hermit) 

• [[Part of the day has been spent in watching. . . Sr. Laurel's final profession of vows in a Mass for her consecration as a Diocese hermit in CA. It is lovely! I know I have been questioning if the public vows are necessary, and if it is too much hoopla for a hermit, but I find it all necessary especially for a healthy hermit or at least those more healthy than this one. More active hermits can better interface with people, and people, being comfortable with them and helping in matters of the soul, are part of a hermit's call. In that, Sr. Laurel's life and her blog site are very beneficial for the hermit vocation in general. 
• I was particularly taken by her Bishop's warmth and gentleness, his being so comfortable with her vocation and in consecrating her soul to the eremitical life. As for this hermit, my diocese milieu and circumstances thus far are not heading in such a warm and embracing event. But, one cannot know what God will do in future. . . . By watching the Mass celebrating Sr. Laurel's final vows, I did see that there would be built-in support and positivity in public vows, in people knowing, in the Bishop making his approval known. It creates a certain validity for the hermit, in an outer way, and of course is supernatural in the graces of the interior. It builds the Church with another dimension.]]

Accusations of stalking, etc. Please note that Ms McClure has had public blogs focusing on eremitism and put up public videos about hermit life in the past 17+ years. Note the word PUBLIC here. Moreover she has allowed subscribers or followers on/for these sites and the name Joyful Hermit has been linked to LinkdIN and Facebook pages with detailed profiles (given name, education, locations, etc.). Initially, she invited me to read her blog and over time I discovered newer blogs because I do indeed google hermit-related topics and follow public blogs on the topic (that is especially true when these are linked together on Blogspot under the same owner). That is especially true when someone writes about c 603 or c 603 vocations. McClure did that routinely during at least 14 of those years. Yes, I often criticized what she wrote in this venue because she was frequently mistaken and was apparently misleading readers about c 603; (a couple of these wrote me in pain because they had followed Ms McClure's directions on becoming a Catholic Hermit and been corrected by their pastors or chancery.) Moreover, she often misconstrued what I had written. At first, I was simply trying to assist her to come to greater understanding of things she didn't seem to know; I attributed this to the fact that she was a convert and I assumed she would accept the information. In time her misrepresentations became more complex and intransigent and it became personally important that I not let her misrepresent or demean a vocation I both live and love. 

Today I tend not to read Ms McClure's stuff. I know she has been posting videos on YouTube again (I discovered this a couple of months ago when a video popped up on my YouTube feed in the middle of the night); I also watched the one you referred me to (Joyful Hermit Speaks Tirade )  and read some of the coments. Otherwise, they are of no interest. What I would hope Ms McClure would come to understand is that so long as blogs and videos are public and invite subscribers or followers, following the author of these from one blog to another, or responding to one's video feed to public videos, etc., is not stalking. Commenting on what is written or said in such venues is not harassment, particularly when those criticisms involve a topic the listener is publicly committed to representing. I have not commented on Ms McClure's posts in some time except when they have concerned canon 603 or the issue of becoming a consecrated hermit; I criticized the problem of counterfeit hermits, but what was on my mind then was the situation in Lexington beginning in 2022, so I wonder if Ms McClure mistook those conversations as being about her. The bottom line here is that so long as she is silent about me and c 603, I tend not to speak of her at all.                                                               

Supervision by a Bishop: It should go without saying that not every bishop desires to supervise a hermit, nor are some gifted with either the time or expertise. (And, since he is her legitimate superior, it especially goes without saying that c 603 does not expect a bishop to be a hermit's spiritual director!!) Some do not believe in or understand the vocation or c 603 itself and yet, they "inherit" hermits professed before their own tenure began. To assist with all of that, my diocese asked me to select a delegate (their term, along with "quasi superior") to serve me when bishops were unavailable or could not do so. Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF, who has a strong background in personal and religious formation and spiritual direction, has served as my delegate since perhaps a year before I was finally professed. In the last few years, Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF has agreed to serve as co-delegate (she prefers the term Advocate) and is mainly available to me and my diocese should Marietta not be. Both Sisters belong to canonical congregations and both have served in leadership. Susan is doing so currently, not for the first time! Sister Marietta's congregation is of Pontifical right. I think the same is true of Sister Susan's since it is an international institute (Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Christian Charity). 

This arrangement has been very effective for continuity in supervision considering we have had 5 bishops since I began living as a hermit. The first three (Cummins, Vigneron, and Cordileone) were more accessible to me, Archbishop Burnett was an interim whom I met and joked with a bit, but whom I never met with --- instead I met with the Vicar for Religious (Rev Robert Herbst, OFM, Conv) per the former bishop's instructions (unfortunately, Rev Herbst left Oakland for the Diocese of Las Vegas in 2018) --- and Michael Barber,SJ, whom I first met in the sacristy of St Perpetua parish during his first visitation, has been less accessible, but I have been (and remain) a diocesan hermit in good standing in my diocese under competent Direction all these years. 

To repeat, throughout these years and any changes in diocesan leadership, Sister Marietta has consistently served both me and the diocese as my delegate. Sister Susan was Vicar for Religious or Vocations Director for the Diocese of Oakland when I first started becoming a diocesan hermit; she worked with me for five years; then, though the diocese and I had begun trying to regularize my situation before Bp Cummins actually retired, and though Susan was now in Santa Barbara, she wrote a letter of recommendation for perpetual profession in 2007 to Bp Vigneron. She continues to assist me in this vocation but now mainly from the position of a good (dare I use the word?) friend. Please recognize that Ms McClure casts aspersions on these Sisters, their competence and fidelity to their commitments when she trash-talks me. That is particularly upsetting to me because I know how they have poured out their lives for Christ and so too, for me. Meanwhile, the comment that Sister Marietta is my "girlfriend" is unworthy of even a response.

OSV and the Lexington Situation: The OSV did not cite my blog. They interviewed me directly, as they say quite clearly in the article itself. Gina Christian (Gina Christian) and I had nearly an hour-long initial conversation via ZOOM, and follow-up phone calls and email exchanges to help flesh out the story so it was complete and transparent. How OSV found me or got my contact info I don't know. I assume they took all the usual steps in checking me out before printing anything I had to say. They also had copies of letters sent to Bishop Stowe and other churchmen where I was identified by name, diocese, date of profession and consecration, etc. If any of these people (not just reporters but bishops and the Papal Nuncio) had doubts about me or needed to verify my identity and standing in my diocese and vocation they could well and easily have done so at any time from July or August of 2022 on. Given the seriousness of my concerns, I feel confident they did verify my bona fides. That said, let me point out that the Diocese of Oakland is, relatively speaking, a big place; there is turnover in staffing with every new bishop, just as one would expect; not everyone knows me or even knows of me so ordinarily it might take a day or so for people to verify I am a diocesan hermit in good standing with the Diocese of Oakland. (Given the notoriety of the situation in Lexington, I suspect it would not take that long presently.) Also, please be aware, apart from acknowledging I am a hermit in good standing, they would give no other information.

The situation in Lexington, KY, and the USCCB's complaint about Cole Matson is not primarily about eremitical hiddenness, nor even about the fact that Cole spoke out about his transgendered status. It is about 1) the fact of his transgendered status and how that cannot work with consecrated life and its call to authentic manliness or womanliness, and 2) (my own focus) the validity of his vows for the additional reason that he explicitly claimed to be using c 603 as a stopgap when he did not really feel called to eremitical life but could not find another way to become publicly professed. These are the issues the USCCB will be addressing. I believe they are also likely to address concerns that Matson's work in the theatre and outside the hermitage conflicts with the vocation of the canonical hermit, not because it involves theatre per se, but because it involves both afternoons and evenings away from the hermitage in an active and highly social context. I don't see how anyone could have misunderstood the situation so thoroughly as Ms McClure seems to have done.

PART II 

[[Sister Laurel, here is some of what I forgot in my first email. Joyful Hermit also writes that you don't write spiritual articles on your blog and that you are only into power, prestige and precedent-setting while trying to make an authority of yourself. She seems to believe that you have skewed the traditional historic hermit way and influenced c 603 single-handedly by developing precedents that are contrary to hermit life because they "temporalize it". She says your life is too public or not hidden enough because you wear a habit, work as a pastoral associate in a parish, and use a title you have no right to because you do not belong to a religious order. She also claims you wear a Franciscan habit despite not having been a Franciscan yourself and that you believe only c 603 hermits are valid ways of living an eremitical life despite c 603 saying "besides non-canonical profession". Again, let me ask the same question, what of this is true? Thanks very much.]]

First of all, I have skewed nothing. Ms McClure's take on eremitical life is limited, and unfortunately, one-dimensional. In my opinion, she has an even less adequate understanding of c 603 eremitical life. She fails to appreciate that in various ways throughout the centuries hermit life has been regulated by the Church (usually via the local church and ordinary) and that without regulation (or despite it) what Ms. McClure calls, "tried and true" or labels "traditional" or "historic," eremitical life through the centuries has been punctuated by nutcases, individualists, and eccentrics that lived fairly disedifying hermit lives and became the source of stereotypes most folks today would, unfortunately, immediately associate with the word "hermit". Since the third century in the church, there have always been a variety of ways to live an eremitical life; during some periods of the church's life, episcopal supervision and permission was typical. Ponam in Deserto Viam (DICLSAL's Guidelines on the c 603 vocation, 2021) reminds us that this kind of oversight was codified as early as the canons of the Council of Chalcedon (451).

Three or four main ways of living eremitical life are evident throughout history: 1) semi-eremitical where hermits live alone (in a separate hermitage) but within a community context. (This includes Carthusians, Camaldolese, some Carmelites, et al), 2) solitary canonical eremitical life (often under a bishop's authority), this includes anchorites, hermits who wished to wear a hermit's tunic or preach in a town and received episcopal permission, and today -- centuries later --- consecrated diocesan hermits who are consecrated by God via the Church's mediation in the hands of one's bishop, 3) lauras of hermits (both canonical and non-canonical), colonies of hermits which do not rise to the level of a juridical community, and 4) solitary non-canonical hermits. Of these, #2's diocesan hermits came into existence in 1983; Canon 603, the canon governing the life, replaced all the various statutes and disparate diocesan attempts to regulate hermits, as part of the revised Code of Canon Law of the entire Roman Catholic Church. It did not replace non-canonical eremitical life and, in part, had its origin in the Vatican II intervention of Bishop Remi de Roo who saw great value and the gift of God in the eremitical vocation. (Please note, c 603 does not refer to non-canonical profession, not least because profession is always a public (canonical) act. It does refer to institutes of religious life and says c 603 establishes the hermit life besides these.)

I have written many times over the years that there are three main ways of living eremitical life. All are valid and each is valuable: 1) solitary consecrated eremitical life, 2) consecrated semi-eremitical life, and 3) non-canonical eremitical life. I have never suggested non-canonical eremitical life is invalid, nor have I ever said diocesan hermits are the only valid way of living solitary eremitical life. Still, numbers 1 and 2 above are normative of eremitical life in the Catholic Church, that is, they are canonical forms of life. All three forms are licit either because of baptism or because of additional canons and a "second consecration", still, to the extent they are prudent, all three will measure themselves, at least in part, according to c 603. 

We all, I think, want to make a return to God and the Church for the ways God called us to himself and redeemed us. One of the ways I do that is by exploring and reflecting on c 603. Over the years this blog has taken on a weight and seriousness I never imagined or expected. Many diocesan hermits have begun blogs; as far as I know, mine is the only one that has remained active through the years. (Perhaps I can ask other Diocesan hermits to contribute here, as Rachel Denton did recently?!) Generally, I try to write about c 603 and the life it defines and governs. "How shall I make a return to the Lord?" Canon 603 has been a very great gift to me and, I believe, to the church. I try to honor that, learn and educate about it, and assist the church in implementing it prudently. Over the years I have experienced and learned a lot about this. I am grateful for that and have no reason to be apologetic about my interest. It means I spend long hours every day praising God for this vocation, for the beauty of c 603, and the excitement it can bring to some as they begin to explore its depths.

Temporal vs Spiritual? Ms McClure's take on the temporal vs the spiritual is Gnostic***, not Christian. The center of the Christian faith is a God who chose to dwell with us in space and time and who promises in Christ to create a new heaven and a new earth (a single reality) through this Incarnate One. In the Lord's Prayer, we find this key petition, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," meaning, "May you, God, be sovereign in this spatio-temporal realm just as you are in your own divinely eternal realm, may you be glorified in all of it"! Jesus incarnated the word of God in his life and became the New Temple of God here on earth meaning he is the place where heaven and earth come together or definitively interpenetrate one another. Christians are called upon to participate in this same dynamic in Christ.This is our vocation. In our own lives we are to allow heaven to interpenetrate ourselves and the world, and thus, to divinize the whole of creation ever more fully. In this way, God is and will be fully revealed and glorified. This is the theological perspective from which I live my life and approach my vocation. It is both profoundly sacramental and eschatological. I am clear that what I write is generally done under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. That is the very definition of something being spiritual.

Pastoral Associate? Nope, Ms McClure got that wrong as well. I've never been a pastoral associate in any parish and never claimed to be. I was a pastoral assistant for St Perpetua's Catholic Community for about 14-15 years (until about a year ago). There is a big difference between these two positions, but one pertinent one is the fact that the assistant's realm of activity is more focused, or specialized, and so, less involved with people in a general way.

Sister? Wearing a Habit? Just noticed I omitted this. Regarding being called Sister and wearing a habit, Ms McClure apparently opines I ought not be allowed to do so because I am no longer part of a religious institute. Let me point out, as I have done in my blog several times (cf. Notes From Stillsong), that, [[The Handbook on Canons 573-746 in the section on norms common to Institutes of Consecrated Life, canonist Ellen O'Hara, CSJ writes regarding canon 603 specifically, "The term "religious" now applies to individuals with no obligation to common or community life and no relation to an institute." Thus, the same canonical [rights and] obligations regarding garb [and other matters like title] witnessing to consecration and religious [life] can be applied to diocesan hermits.]]

Setting Precedents? Seeking to be an Authority? Truly, Ms McClure way overestimates my influence!! I am responsible for establishing one precedent, namely the post-nomial initials Er Dio (and variations) which (then) Bishop Vigneron approved on 2.Sept.2008; a number of bishops in the US and other countries have subsequently approved these initials for hermits in their dioceses. Otherwise, this is a really small blog in a tiny niche area of interest. These days it receives an average readership of slightly more than 100 persons a day (though yes, this includes someone or several someone's from the Vatican from time to time). Still, I doubt bishops generally read this blog unless someone specifically brings it to their attention; moreover, if it is as flawed and "unspiritual" or ego-driven as Ms McClure claims, why would they pay attention to what they do read here anyway? 

At the same time, I do write about what works or doesn't work regarding c603 and try to supply theological underpinnings wherever necessary; thus, I certainly hope it has some influence and helps both dioceses and candidates for c 603 life. I did not establish this blog to assert or pretend to have authority but to explore and educate because of my own experience. I do recognize, however, that I have slowly become something of an authority during these last 17-41 years and again, I am grateful to God and gratified to be of assistance where I can!

Ruth Burrows, OCD

Franciscan habit? Although formerly a Franciscan, I do not wear a Franciscan habit. Today, however, many of us Sisters wear the same or very similarly uniform clothes we call a habit. We don't wear identifiable garb unique to one institute or another. (What tends to be identifiable is our jewelry, viz., our crucifix and ring; even our cowls tend to be generic.) Partly this is because most congregations no longer wear habits, and also because there are very few makers while those few that still exist sell the same styles (mostly caps and veils) to everyone buying from them. Diocesan hermits, however, generally take care not to wear proprietary habits. They do not have the right to wear proprietary habits nor does (or can) their bishop give them this right. (That right only comes from the institute whose habilt is at issue.)

Hiddenness: I have written some about hiddenness recently and won't repeat it here. Clearly Ms McClure and I disagree on the place, importance, and even the nature of eremitical hiddenness. Of course, I embraced public rights and responsibilities when I was professed and consecrated so there is some tension between hiddenness and the responsibility to witness to the Gospel of God in an ecclesial vocation. I believe it is an incredibly creative tension and try to accept it obediently. I would suggest you look up other posts on eremitical hiddenness here and then get back to me again if the way I conceive it needs clarification.

PART III

Sister, what do you mean by the term Gnostic above?***

To clarify, my use of the term, Gnosticism is a variegated form of belief present in the ancient world when Jesus lived and continuing forward; it is present in some approaches to Christianity even to this day. 

It has a number of characteristics but generally is seen as a danger to authentic Christianity. One central idea was that salvation would be had by deliverance from imprisonment by the material world. Others include various dualisms, temporal vs spiritual, matter vs spirit, light vs dark, good vs evil, etc. Much of it can be linked to Platonism or neo-Platonism where only the spiritual is considered really real and the material is unreal or less than real.

As you can likely see, much of this is in complete contrast with a God whose entire creation is good and who wills to be Emmanuel, God with Us. It is antithetical to the Incarnation where God is fully and definitively revealed in human flesh. And it is antithetical to what is revealed in Scripture as our ultimate goal and destiny --- not disembodied existence in heaven, but re-embodied existence as part of a new creation involving "a new heaven and earth together". (This is a single reality where God is all in all.) I  posit that Ms McClure embraces a version of Gnosticism because she writes and speaks consistently about the evil of temporality or the temporal world (including the church) and contrasts that with the spiritual; but sacramentality involves the transformation of the temporal with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. We do not reject the temporal; we allow it to be transfigured by God.

Response to Joyful Hermit's Post: Non-Canonical does NOT mean Illegal!!

[[It does seem that I should either be a legal hermit or remain an illegal hermit, and if that, to very much acknowledge that I am an illegal hermit, even if God chose me for the hermit life.  Even if Scripture states in various ways and verses of books in the Bible, that God's law is superior to man's law.  St. Paul is reminding of that reality, in that he was not sent by man or men, but was sent by God as an apostle. Illegal Catholic Hermit?]]

So wrote Joyful Hermit yesterday in her current blog. There is, it seems, a sad and apparently painful dimension to things for her and I wanted to address it directly and apart from the questions that have already begun to come in. I know I once answered a question about so-called, "illegal hermits" before but I don't remember how long ago, why it was posted or if it is relevant. Perhaps I need to reprise it. In any case, it is a mistake to use the term "illegal" of what is a significant vocation in the Church many have embraced, and for that reason, it sounds to me to be a somewhat self-pitying or just intransigent choice of self-designation when there are two perfectly good and more accurate choices from usual Catholic usage, neither of which are in the least denigrating or derogatory.

The first available term is non-canonical. Some way of living or some enterprise not yet granted a particular canonical standing beyond baptism, or those who live a particular way (as a hermit, for instance) but do not choose to be canonical when there is such an option are simply described as being non-canonical: they choose not to live according to the canonical form of the life. A second alternative --- as Joyful looks for a way to describe her state and the state in which her form of eremitical life is lived is --- lay hermit. (I mean this throughout this piece in the vocational, not hierarchical sense of the term "lay"**.) I did not make these terms up. Joyful is a baptized person living in the lay state; she is a Catholic living privately vowed hermit life from an impulse of her baptism in the lay (non-canonical) or baptized state. Most hermits in the Church have always been and will always be lay hermits without benefit of a "second consecration" and its initiation into the consecrated state of life because either it did not exist as an option, they thereafter chose not to seek this, they were somehow discerned by diocesan personnel to be unsuited to it, were not canonically free to do so, and so forth. Still, they lived and do live eremitical life within the Church. We therefore do not call them illegal hermits or illicit hermits, nor any other derogatory term. They are in the baptized state and live from the inspiration of God which is fundamental to that state of life.

In fact, we are trying to find ways to appropriately encourage and honor these hermits in the lay (non-canonical) state, to recognize them and write about it so that it becomes a fully known and esteemed vocation. This is one of the reasons I put up the post on Felicity Kreger, OblSB recently. I have said many times that I believe in vocations to chronic illness and the potentially eremitical life some of these as well as among isolated elderly might have. I have also written about the way my own canonically consecrated life might make it harder for me to witness to such people. After all, they will likely never be canonical hermits (and most have no desire for this) but they might well be called to live as lay hermits, hermits in the baptized state. So, how wonderful it could be if Joyful Hermit worked through her difficulties in all of this and accepted ordinary Catholic usage (non-canonical or lay hermit) and the wonderful gift such a life could be for the whole church! How incredible it could be if she became not a paean of pain but a significant example of edifying Lay eremitical life!!

Early on I was concerned for Joyful's own well-being when she posted the following dialogue ("the hermit" refers to the blogger herself, not to hermits in general): [[The hermit still did not have a PLACE. But the hermit is part of the laity--that is the place for the hermit. No, the hermit is not really part of the laity. The hermit is irregular. The hermit blurted out, finally, that there is no room for a mystic in the Catholic Church. But the confessor said of course there was and has been through out the history of the Church. Well, this hermit, this mystic hermit, has no place.]]The Complete Hermit, September, 30, 2007

I felt concern. This sense of being nothing and having no place is a terrible sense of unfreedom, of not belonging, of being ineffective and entirely disregarded. Joyful, according to her blog. was trying for consecration under canon 603 and apparently that was not going to happen. Though fairly newly baptized (a few years) as a Catholic, she apparently had not come to sufficiently appreciate that being laity definitely gives one a place and private vows in that same state were still tremendously significant. And so I wrote about the importance of the lay state and the reality of lay hermits. Earlier in response to her questions (she wrote me prior to my perpetual profession), I responded directly to Joyful and suggested she begin thinking about herself as a hermit and about private vows. And I blogged. I couldn't see another way to assist her in my writing. But of course, it has to do with more than Joyful's own feelings and needs; there are vocations involved. To see the Lay Vocation as bereft of significance in the church is to fail to understand the nature and dignity of baptism as foundational of the Church, the lay state grounds every other state in the Church. Occasionally I hear from others who feel as Joyful does. This has to be countered; it certainly mustn't be worsened with terms like "illegal", "illicit", or "undocumented," on a public blog.

Joyful also writes [[A legal Catholic hermit who also writes blog posts, has written eloquently of why CL603 makes a hermit "free." While I do not want to seem ubiquitously irritating, I immediately ask the question, "Were not any or all of the holy, even canonized saint Catholic hermits prior to 1983, then, free? It would seem not. Definitely in today's Church, they would not be legal hermits, and not recognized by the Church as hermits. Was John the Baptist not free? Were not St. Paul the First Hermit, St. Antony of the Desert, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Sarah of the Desert, St. Benedict (the three years he was a hermit), St. Bruno, St. Romuald, St.Godric, St. Nicholas of Flue, St. Seraphim, St. Charbel--and so many more--not free?]]

Actually, I wrote very specifically that for those called to it (and therefore, to the state it constitutes) Canon 603 provides a realm of freedom --- but it is not the only state in the Church, and not the only way to live as a hermit. It would not provide a realm of freedom for one not called to it any more than I would be able to find the same freedom in the clerical or married states. I am called to neither. I lived as a lay hermit for a while when my diocese determined they would not profess anyone under Canon 603. During that time I continued to grow in my eremitical life and in time I learned I had something unique or at least significant to bring to the Church as a hermit and I sought again to be admitted to canonical standing under c 603; this seemed the responsible way forward for me to live my life in Christ to its fullest ecclesial potential. Though I lived freely as a non-canonical hermit, nonetheless I truly felt called to eremitical life in the consecrated state. A number of persons discerned that with me, and though it took time, we were correct. I experience greater freedom as a diocesan hermit than I did even as a hermit in the lay state. In some ways c 603 represents the norm defining a realm where the associated constraints become freeing; some don't understand this paradox. That's okay; they aren't called to this. One wrote recently he didn't see the benefit in consecration; that's okay, apparently he's not called to it at this point. Their freedom apparently lies elsewhere within the lay state.

One can and many do experience freedom in living as lay or non-canonical hermits. Think of all the norms that help define the lay state, all the rights and obligations associated with it when these are taken seriously. None of the people Ms. McClure listed who were actually Christians felt (I truly believe) unfree because they took their lay prophetic vocations very seriously. (There was no canonical option here.) John the Baptist did it in a Jewish prophetic context. The Desert Abbas and Ammas lived the gospel as fully as they could in the desert and did so in direct contrast to a post-Constantinian Church. They lived from the Spirit and Word of God within the Church they helped constitute, but also against its tendency to accommodate itself too freely to the world of power and privilege. They were lay hermits in the main. Others like St Romuald lived under the Benedictine Rule, and traveled to bring others (those hermits who were lone, unaffiliated, and sometimes, simply lost) under the Rule of Benedict as well. It provided order, inspiration, and a way of seeing one's solitary eremitical life as integral to the life of the Church. Benedictinism is a living thing represented by those who live his Rule in faithful and intelligent ways.

St Bruno established what would become a canonical congregation beginning slowly with a group of friends living lay (or possibly clerical) eremitical life together and ending with a canonical congregation that has been (and remains) paradigmatic of a form of consecrated semi-eremitical life. They lived God's will as the Church context made possible (and sometimes necessary). Their lives were creative and pushed boundaries. But yes, at the same time there were lone individuals calling themselves or being called hermits, validating failure by being "hermits", giving scandal and otherwise denigrating the very term "hermit,"  with their lives. The church had no canonical definition of the term for solitary hermits, but these were not John the Baptists or St Romualds. They were eccentrics, and the desert/wilderness was not profoundly humanizing for them. St Romuald's efforts to bring together the hermits scattered throughout Italy was not entirely successful and the disordered and disedifying "hermits" continued to exist as lone individuals and often nothing more than misanthropes, the badly wounded, individualists, etc. Were these individuals free? Not insofar as they were not driven and empowered by the Gospel to do what they were doing. Not insofar as they lived this terrible solitude in the name of woundedness, illness, alienation, or bitterness and not in the name/power of the God of wholeness and freedom. They were not free nor were they hermits --- at least not in the way the Church now defines that and actually, has always understood it through orders and lauras and anchorites who were under their bishop's protection and supervision.

What the Church has never truly esteemed or recognized --- and never adequately assisted us to even understand enough before 1983 --- is the solitary eremitical life lived in the heart of the Church. This vocation comprises both those in the Lay and the Consecrated states (it includes --- though very rarely --- those in the Clerical state as well). Canon 603 is used to consecrate those called to live solitary eremitical life in the name of the Church. At the same time, it outlines the essential elements that define a solitary eremitical life -- no matter one's state of life. By professing and consecrating solitary hermits with clearly discerned vocations, it recognizes solitary eremitical life in law for the first time in the Church's life. But it is important to realize this works paradigmatically, not exclusively. What I mean is it establishes a call to a relatively small number of hermits who will live this life so that the whole Church can begin to accept the solitary hermit life in whatever state eremitism is lived as positively significant. Before this happened in the Western Church, solitary hermit life had died out and semi-eremitical life continued; it was accepted but remained a bit of a curiosity. Canon 603 establishes solitary eremitical life as a viable, contemporary, important example of a spirituality of wholeness in the silence of solitude; it establishes this life for the witness it represents, and (despite what folks might have thought) shows it is still a vital form of life present in some few responding to the Holy Spirit.

I am truly glad to hear Joyful Hermit struggling in the way she is to accept and embrace the truth. I am especially glad she has people to work with whom she trusts in this process. What she is doing is not easy and takes courage, but if she persists it can be incredibly life-giving. I accept gratefully the kind words she has written recently about my blog. I sincerely hope she hears what her once-diocesan-Bishop and parish Rector and others (including myself in our brief email correspondence) were trying to explain about living as a lay hermit according to her baptismal consecration, or about not needing a declaration of nullity if she lives eremitical life in this state. I am sorry she was misled or left uncorrected on the use of the designation Catholic Hermit, though I am very glad that in those early years, she had blogged about a canonist who told her several times about the link between canon 603 and "living as a hermit in the name of the Church." One sincere hope I have is that she can accept the language of "lay state" and "non-canonical" to distinguish her eremitical life from those in the consecrated state if that is ever necessary. There is no need to denigrate such a calling with labels like illegal, illicit, or undocumented. No one should do so!!

Joyful and many others besides her are "documented"; she (and they) are Catholics and have a baptismal certificate and likely one for confirmation and other Sacraments of initiation as well! Again, except for a few centuries of monastic ascendency, lay eremitical life has always been the most prevalent and possibly the most prophetic way of living the eremitic vocation in the Western Church. That has not changed with Canon 603. Perhaps what has changed with Canon 603 is the possibility for all hermits, of whatever state of life, to live edifying eremitical lives that will build the church with its witness to the gospel and be recognized for their place in that. I sincerely hope so!

** lay has two senses, one a vocational sense and the other a hierarchical one. In the first sense, we identify members of the lay, consecrated, and clerical states of life. In the second or hierarchical sense, we identify folks as either clerical or lay. In the hierarchical sense, any hermit who is not a priest is a lay hermit. In the vocational sense, hermits may be members of the lay state, the consecrated state of life, or the clerical state of life. The use of the term lay hermit can be confusing and non-canonical or canonical can be used to clarify matters.