Followup Questions on Penance, Same-Sex Attraction, and Solitary Life

[[ Sister Laurel, are you saying that a person doesn't need to do penance if they have lived a seriously evil life? Sounds to me like you were giving the person who wrote about living a sinful life for years and years a total break by just focusing on the mercy of God. You know that God is also just, right? You also know that SSA is a sin right?]]

Thanks for writing. Please reread my response in the previous post. I did not say penance was not necessary. Instead, I said that there would be a significant amount of it in whatever way of life the individual discerned God was calling him to. Ordinarily, it takes a significant degree of penance or self-denial to fully embrace the mercy and forgiveness of God and to really live from that truth of life with and in God. However, my sense is that most folks define penance in terms of making up for the offense one gives God, a view that I believe is seriously misguided. Further, in my last post, I was mainly concerned not with what it means to embrace such a life, but with why one does so. While I did and do not know the answer to that question in the life of the person asking the question, and while I recognize he might well be being called to life as a solitary, my concern had more to do with the reasons one might wish to embrace a life of assiduous prayer and penance. Thus, I stated reasons I felt were unworthy of being chosen.

The solitary eremitical life is a rich (grace-filled) and relatively rare life lived with God for the sake of others. If this is to be true in all of its dimensions, it must be embraced for sound reasons. Among those that are not sufficient include guilt, shame, and an inability to forgive oneself for whatever sin or "evil" one feels culpable for. While this life means turning away from sin, it must be about more than this. One must be turning TO God and committing oneself to God in a more exhaustive way than this. While turning from sin is important, turning to a profoundly intimate relationship with God in order to witness to God's incredible love and mercy is the heart of the eremitical vocation. One thing I remember keenly from St Mary of Egypt's story is the way she recognized that turning from sin was only the first step in a much broader and more demanding commitment to God. Every time she was tempted to go back to the world she knew well, the world that had left her empty, her call to the desert was freshly discerned as a call to more than leaving sin behind. 

Redemption is always about more than leaving sin behind, though yes, it begins there. It always means embracing a new intimacy with God and with oneself and the whole of God's good creation as well. A solitary hermit witnesses to this incredible intimacy with her life. She says to others that the penance her life entails is part of a commitment to this intimacy and that she embraces it not because she feels guilty or ashamed or needs to make up for her sin (as if she actually could!!), but because she is in love and falling more deeply in love with the God who loves her unconditionally every day and minute of her life. In other words, penance serves the deepening of prayer; it helps to regularize, integrate, deepen and extend one's prayer to the whole of one's life, just as it did for St Mary of Egypt. It is not an end in itself.

Yes, I know that God is merciful and just. However, I also understand that divine justice is not something added to God's mercy, nor does mercy need to be strengthened or completed with divine justice. Instead, mercy is the way God does justice! I have written about this before, the last time about three years ago. You can find that post here: Moving from Fear to Love.  Another post from nine years ago reflecting on Pope Francis' motto can be found here: A Mercy that Does Justice. I think both of these would be helpful to you in thinking about the relationship between mercy and justice in God. 

Also, regarding same-sex attraction being a sin, let me remind you that the Church does not teach this. What she teaches is that acting on same-sex attraction is a sin (or as I was taught, unworthy of being chosen). Similarly, though your question didn't mention this, SSA is not a disorder like something found in the DSM V. It is considered by the Church to be disordered, that is, it is a drive, capacity, or tendency ordered to the wrong end but this is not the same as it being a disorder in the sense psychologists or physicians might diagnose a disorder. The Church considers masturbation to be disordered in the same sense and we do not say that a person who masturbates has a disorder, at least not necessarily. These distinctions are important, not only in representing Church teaching but in being able to see others as God sees them.

On Embracing a Solitary Life of Penance with Special reference to St Mary of Egypt

[[Sister, I wonder if you could be so good to comment? It may be perhaps that you have had this question before and have already answered it, in which case perhaps you could direct me to the proper place in your blog? I am currently a member of the Courage apostolate. Perhaps you know of this apostolate. I have lived with same-sex attraction all my life and am 64 now. 

 I have always been a Catholic and always been taken with the model of the saints of the desert. In the last several years as I have converted away from a gay life, I have been particularly struck by the example of Saint Mary of the desert who seems to have lived a dissolute life and then spent many years doing penance in the desert, alone. I believe that in many ways, my own life in the gay world paralleled hers prior to her conversion. 

As a consequence, I have been looking at the life of a solitary, perhaps in the world, or perhaps out of the world, as a serious recognition of my need for penance. I don’t know very much about how to discern such a thing or even if, given my past and my age, I ought to forget this entirely. I wonder if you would have any advice or comments on this question of an SSA man who has lived a very seriously evil life turning away from it, and doing the kind of penance in solitude that the fathers and others like St Mary used to do?]]

Many thanks for your questions. They are profound and probably will require the assistance of a good spiritual director if, in time, they are to be adequately answered for your own personal situation.  I want to give you my own impressions, mainly of good reasons to embrace the solitary eremitical life and reasons that I believe are unworthy of making such a choice. At the same time, I realize and must stress that each one of us embarking on such a journey will have a mixture of both worthy and unworthy reasons and only over time will these be purified and clarified so that one may live in terms of the worthy reasons. Even so, I believe that we should choose solitary eremitical life because it is the way we are called by God to become and be fully human. My response will presuppose that at every point.

If, after discerning this avenue with a competent spiritual director (a process that will take some time), you truly feel God is calling you to this, then I would say you need to try it. However, if you are choosing this because you feel ashamed, guilty, and perhaps uncertain of God's love and forgiveness, then I would say what you are considering is the exactly wrong thing. Each of us has a fundamental vocation to authentic humanity. That vocation is fulfilled for most of us in significant dependence upon relationships with others. Very few, relatively speaking, are called to the fullness of humanity through a solitary life of prayer and penance. In common language a solitary life is not healthy or capable of making a person whole or holy for most of us. We are made for society and ordinarily become holy in and with others. Yes, this includes our relationship with God, but for the majority of people, one also mainly comes to God through one's relationships with others. Even for those called to eremitical or solitary life, the Church is very clear that solitude must be defined in a nuanced way that respects plurality and multiplicity of life within a worshipping ecclesial community.

A second dimension of your question troubles me and that is your focus on the need for penance. All of us need penance, of course, but what does that really mean? Does it mean "making up for" past sins in a way which is essentially punitive, or does it mean living one's life in a full and grace-filled way which includes the discipline and work of truly forgiving ourselves, truly receiving God's forgiveness? As you may guess, for me it means the latter. I believe you have experienced a call to conversion or metanoia, yes. And I believe that that turning of heart and mind and habits, etc. requires asceticism (sometimes called penance) to carry out. But in such a case the asceticism or penance we are each called to is meant to serve the grace-filled, life-in-abundance that God offers us in his exhaustive mercy. Thus, for instance, in my own Rule of Life, I define the penance I do in terms of those things that help regularize, integrate, and extend a life of prayer to everything I am about. Here is the first part of what my own Rule says about that:

Prayer represents an openness and responsiveness to the personal and creative address of God which is rooted in and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Penance seems to me to be any activity or practice which assists in achieving, regularizing, integrating, deepening and extending, 1) this openness and responsiveness to God, 2) a correlative esteem for myself, and 3) for the rest of God's creation. While prayer corresponds in part to those deep moments of victory God achieves within me, and includes my grateful response, penance is that Christian and more extended form of festivity implicating the victory in the whole of life . . . . (Eph 1:4; Lumen Gentium 5, 48) from Canon 603 Eremitical Rule of Life, approved Bishop of Diocese of Oakland, 02. September. 2007.)

After this, I note the major forms of penance and/or asceticism that are a regular part of my life, including the inner work and spiritual direction I do regularly, but also things like fasting, simplicity of life, solitude, etc..  

When I think of Mary of Egypt (and I admit it has been some time since I read a biography of her), what I recall most clearly is the way she moved from a life that, rather than fulfilling her, left her empty in a profound way and embraced Christianity because she was moved by the Christians she saw celebrating lives of meaning and purpose, fullness and joy. She became aware that such a life was offered to her as well and she knew herself to be forgiven and more than that besides. She experienced not just the need to turn from sin, but Jesus' call to follow him. She went into the desert in grateful response to God's mercy so that his victory over sin could be implicated in the whole of herself and her life, yes, but in the desert, she discovered even more profoundly the God of love who had promised she would never be alone again, and she flowered as a person in communion with God. Penance was a piece of her life on the way to this flowering. It was difficult, but it was not punitive, nor was it about making up for sin.

If you should decide to try the solitary life I hope you will take these concerns seriously. If this is the way God is calling you, this vocation will be about fullness of life, a life of the abundance of Grace, love, meaning, purpose, and joy. I wrote recently that I do not believe God wills or sends suffering and that the suffering we each experience must be contextualized within a larger story. I wrote: 

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

I believe the basic principle at work here fits your situation as well. God HAS forgiven you. He has also placed within your own heart the Spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom with which you are called to live an abundantly vibrant and vital life with and in him. If that involves the desert and the disciplines of the desert, then well and good. If, on the other hand, you are thinking of embracing a life of solitude because of self-hatred, shame, an inability to forgive yourself or a notion that you must pay God back in this way for his abundant and unconditional love and mercy, then I suggest that is not an adequate or worthy reason to embrace this life. 

The question you must ask yourself is, "Where can I be myself most fully?" Where, in other words, does God want you to joyfully and gratefully LIVE your best and fullest life? Is it with him with others (as it is for most persons) or is it in solitude with him? Wherever he calls you will entail penance as I have defined it above, but it will not be punitive, or rooted in guilt and shame. Instead, it will be rooted in the spirit of love, gratitude, and freedom that comes from knowing one is unconditionally loved and entirely forgiven by God. The only way to truly "make up for" our sinfulness (as though we ever could!) is to allow God to forgive us and call us to abundant life in him. This truly glorifies God. Embracing life wholeheartedly as God's gift to us and those with whom we relate, will involve penance enough! I believe that is what Saint Mary of Egypt's desert life required of her and even today reveals to Christ's Church.

I hope this is helpful. If it raises more questions for you, please get back to me. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience, I am sorry it took me some time to get back to you but I really needed to pray about this.

More Questions on Inner Work and Becoming Transparent to God

Sister, when you write about stricter separation from the world does the inner work you have been doing have a place in it? As I read your last post entitled, "Why isn't it enough?" I thought I got, just for a moment, a glimpse of why that would be important not only so you could live as a hermit, but also as an integral part of the eremitical life. This glimpse came and went in a flash so I can't say more about what I mean but maybe you know just what I am trying to say here. I know you have been criticized by readers in the past for needing to do such work and that you wrote it was integral to your vocation. I think re-reading your last post helped me understand this a little better because I saw you, and myself, and everyone else as having been distorted by the world and needing to do the inner work you speak of to become more clearly ourselves. That was the glimpse I got while reading what you were saying. I don't know if this is something you could write about, but my question is do I have this right? Does the inner work you speak of allow you to become "transparent to God" (your phrase) as you become more truly yourself?

Thanks for your questions. Yes, I definitely think you got it!!! The post you referred to re criticism of my own engagement in what I call "inner work" is found here: On Justifying Inner Work and it contains other links to related articles. It was also prompted by my discovery that the inner work I had been doing for a couple of years at that point might have shown me I had made a mistake in my discernment of an eremitical vocation; instead it affirmed this vocation again and again. And regarding your second question, YES!!! Absolutely, the inner work is part of what allows me to become transparent to God as I become more truly myself. This transparency to God is the very nature of what it means to be truly human, so the more truly human I become, the more transparent to God. 

We speak about this phenomenon of transparency in a number of ways. The main ones affirm us as imago dei, and incarnations of the Word of God -- especially to the extent we live in light of and through Christ!! I believe the story of Jesus' Transfiguration is a story of his (eventually!!) perceived transparency to God by the chosen disciples. Recently Sister Susan gave me a mirror medallion developed by Richard Rohr. I believe that this too reflected (no pun intended) the notion of becoming transparent to God. It also reminds us that others are, to varying degrees, also transparent to God. The side of the mirror medallion facing one's own heart/self has a symbol of the Trinity on it; it represents the gaze of God and the way God sees us at every moment; the side facing outward is a plain mirror reflecting everything as it is without distortion or judgment. Rohr had experienced the Trinity as a dynamic reality moving through him --- in and out. This experience developed into a practice of receiving beauty and breathing it back out to others. I recognize it as a symbol of transparency to God and to being the imago dei to others, one who sees as God sees and also one who is seen as God sees.

Transparency is something that happens, something we become as more and more we become persons who allow the presence of God to be mediated through and in us. Transparency is a means of revelation, but also of standing truly and honestly as our deepest selves. God seeks to reveal Godself at every moment and mood of our lives and in many ways, we occlude or distort that revelation. Part of all of that "occlusion" comes from our own woundedness and the resulting fear of allowing God (and sometimes, anyone at all) to love us and fill us with God's life and light. Sometimes we have lost so much in trying to be open and trust or love that we cling tightly to the superficial image of who we truly are, even when that "self" is but an echo of who we once were and a shadow of who we are truly called to be. Letting go to allow something so marked by newness, dynamism (change!!), and Mystery, is simply terrifying. And so, when people look at us, they mainly see echoes and shadows, scars, woundedness, and diminishment because that is all we feel free enough to allow ourselves to reveal.

Pope Francis Says Vespers with the
Camaldolese Nuns and Monks in Rome

Sometimes our failure to allow the transparency and revelation God yearns for with each of us comes from other forms of rigidity and arrogance. We believe we know who God is because we were taught about who God is in religion or theology classes. We take refuge in formulae and rituals which at least as easily distance us from the real God as they draw us closer. We have learned these things, sometimes with great effort, and we feel safe with them where the "living God" is more Mysterious and awesome even while he is also intriguing to us (mysterium tremendum et fascinans); they are therefore hard to let go of and can occlude the revelation of the living God we are meant to become. It is the "inner work" I have written about several times now that allows the necessary healing and strengthening of ourselves so that we can live from our deepest potential and love as we are meant to love.

Because God is the source of the potential I am speaking of, and we are the persons who are created as we listen to and respond to that source. We are never ourselves alone (except to the extent we are sinners or impaired by the sin that has touched us) because God is a constituent dimension of who we are. The more truly ourselves we become, the more clearly and truly present God becomes within us. We become more and more transparent to the God who is, as Tillich put the matter, the ground and source of our being. God is not alien to us, nor is God some sort of weird or supernatural parasite within us. When we speak of God dwelling within us, we are speaking of something that is most deeply and truly an essential or fundamental part of ourselves. We cannot be "us" (or even alive at all) without this presence and the opposite is also true: the more we become our truest selves, the clearer and stronger this presence within us becomes. We are truly ourselves, truly holy and truly human when people look at us and see God in everything we are and do. This is what revelation is about and it is what transparency is about. 

The inner work I and others do and that I write about here, allows this to be realized in our lives and all we touch!! It allows us to be healed of all of those forms of woundedness that cripple or otherwise limit us and it opens us to the deepest potential that is ours so that we can live from that for the sake of others. Once I thought of this work as something I could do and finish with so that I could live my vocation as I am called to do. Now I understand that this inner work is part of the "asceticism" or even "penance" that necessarily accompanies my prayer and is essential to my vocation. In other words, I will not finish it -- though I will move through different stages of this work at various times throughout my life; instead, I will continue doing it as a foundational part of my life because in conjunction with prayer, as you say, it is essential to my vocation and does indeed allow me to become transparent to God ---  which is the very meaning of eremitical hiddenness, and the goal of my call to holiness and creation as imago dei.

What Kinds of Sacrifices are Required by c 603 (Solitary Eremitical Life)?

[[Dear Sister, I wondered what kinds of sacrifices are required by c 603. Is it all about prayer and fasting or is it something more like living in poverty and substandard housing. I think you can tell from my question that I am doubtful about what it might mean, and I hoped you could answer my questions. For instance, do you sacrifice your health in the name of penance? Do you sleep on boards and refuse to talk to people about anything but God, or maybe about anything at all? It's true, I don't understand what some people embrace in the name of sacrifice or penance, but you write about the freedom of canon 603 and the beauty of the life it defines. How do these two things go together? Sacrifices and beauty don't seem to go together to me. What kinds of sacrifices are required by c 603?]]

Thanks for your questions --- and for your humor!! We all enter adulthood with a plethora of opportunities before us and potentialities within us. Over time we make choices as we come to know our own hearts and the will of the God who dwells there. Those choices gradually close off or narrow external possibilities regarding what we do with our lives and open us to the single choice that will define us, potentially for the rest of our lives. When we make this choice wisely, discerningly, it will also open within us a richness of opportunities for achieving the deepest and truest potentialities within ourselves. It will not allow us to live all of our gifts, and certainly not in the extensive or exclusive ways we had once imagined we might do, but it will allow us to become fully human and provides ways to express our giftedness in spite of real limitations.

All of that is true for eremitical life itself, and for life under c 603 in particular. Solitary eremitical life requires that one renounce or let go of most forms of community living, even though I write about it as a unique form of community the accent is as much on unique as on community and most folks are simply not called to achieve fullness of humanity in this expression of "living together alone". So, the first sacrifice we make is that of more ordinary forms of community, dreams of community-building**, creating families, etc. The "silence of solitude" required by the canon points to both this renunciation and the goal and gift it is to the church and world. We make this sacrifice because we believe that God calls us to realize the fullness of authentic humanity in this uncommon context where we can be "alone with the Alone", as it is sometimes described.

Other sacrifices are entailed by making such a radical choice and commitment. In terms of eremitical life, for instance, one will never be able to become (or remain) a college professor or teacher, a fulltime minister or hospital chaplain. One will need to relinquish any dreams of becoming a professional violinist or playing (except occasionally) in a symphony orchestra, for example. (Fill these examples with your own dreams, gifts, serious interests, and other careers.) And there are a host of smaller sacrifices from mode of dress to the simplicity with which one lives, to the freedom one has to do what one wants when one wants to do that thing, to the ability to keep up in one's field by participating in extensive reading, colloquies, workshops, etc, to traveling, calling friends or family whenever one wants or even just going out to dinner with friends except very occasionally, to having new things on a regular basis. Examples could be multiplied of course (and many of these hold for all religious, not just for solitary hermits)!! Even so, because of some of your questions regarding health, etc., I want to emphasize again, we make these sacrifices because we sincerely believe this is the way God has called us to the fullness of authentic humanity in Him.

The other side of sacrifices like these are the commitments the life involves. A commitment to grow more and more profoundly in the truth of who one is most deeply in relationship with God in the silence of solitude is the essential commitment required of the consecrated hermit. (Again, commitment to doing so outside a community of hermits is part of the c 603 commitment.) The vows are the means or framework for the journey one is taking; they are the means to an end, not an end or vocation in themselves. (Every state in Christian life requires some commitment to the evangelical counsels; public vows, for instance, give others the right to expect one lives these in a paradigmatic way, a way which is capable of challenging and inspiring others in any state of life --- not because the vows themselves are the end, but because they help make possible receiving and vividly witnessing to the abundance, richness, and redemptive capacity of a solitary relationship with God.) Each sacrifice puts the onus on being the person we can be for others. We give who we are, not what we have (though we also are ready to give what we have because it demonstrates or witnesses to who we are and are called to be). 

I identify authentic freedom as the power to become the person God calls me to be. I recognize there is no lasting happiness or meaningfulness in any other notion of freedom because every other notion of freedom will eventually cease to be convincing (and leave us bereft of hope) as it crashes against the limits of temporal existence. If one defines freedom in terms of doing what one wants, for instance --- and this means in terms of wealth, health, youth, success, achievements, power, or even simple will, the moment debilitating chronic illness hits, for instance, or actual impoverishment, one's so-called freedom is gone, or at least severely cramped.  But this is not the case when one understands freedom as Christian theology does. There, the more I become myself, my deepest, truest self, the more truly free I am, and this freedom can increase in spite of limitations of all sorts. The vows represent sets of limits, constraints, and penultimate commitments which serve this greater freedom. Renunciation in this calculus assists us with and is necessary as part of our vocations, but is not identical with embracing our vocation per se.

All of this means that I do not sacrifice my health, for instance, in the name of penance. Though an indispensable element in my calling, penance is not my vocation.  Fullness of life achieved in union with God through assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude is my vocation. No, I don't sleep on boards --- though my mattress sits on top of the bed frame's slats, if that counts! And ordinarily I speak to anyone who wants to speak to me about anything they want to talk about --- with the general exception of telemarketers whom I give a couple of chances to listen to me and then hang up on without apology. Yes, my life is about prayer, and whatever penance helps to regularize, extend, and even intensify my prayer life, but substandard housing or penance for penance's sake? No, not at all! Nor is religious poverty about actual impoverishment. I live comfortably --- (though it's true, my furniture is usually at least second hand or DIY pressboard stuff; the exception is a couple of pieces of bedroom furniture friends bought me new more than forty years ago. The mattress I now have is newer than that, but came to me when a local retreat house was closing and disposing of furnishings. The Sister making the gift went around to all the rooms and lay on the mattresses to find the best one --- an image I found both funny and very touching; it is an image I still appreciate because she chose very well!) --- and, generally speaking, I have what I need to live my commitment to God and to be brought to the fullness of humanity to which God calls me.

** A c 603 hermit can and usually does belong to a parish and she will ordinarily be an integral part of this faith community and participate in community-building as a member. Similarly, she can be an oblate with a Benedictine House, for example, and participate in some degree of community-building among oblates. But c 603 is not meant for use by communities of hermits; it is about solitary eremitical life and is meant for those who have discerned this very rare vocation.

I sincerely hope this helps!!

Questions on Prayer, Penance, Eremitism as Heroic and the Writing of One's Rule

[[Dear Sister, Given the fact that the full time "job" of a consecrated hermit is to offer prayer and penance on behalf of the Church and world, should the "plan of life" or "rule" of a consecrated hermit be that much more intense than that of your average devout lay person?

The history of eremitical life is full of ascetic feats. While one should not be masochistic about it, it seems to me that the hermit should push him or herself a far more than a devout lay person since a hermit does not have to put up with the daily mortifications that come with everyday life (i.e. Deadlines, commutes, super annoying work colleagues etc.) and they have the time to do extra in terms of prayer and penance. I think the hermit vocation should have a bit of heroism (so long as it doesn't turn into pride) in terms of the effort put forward. Otherwise, I think it could become a very self-indulgent life style (i.e. Stay quiet all day, say a couple prayers, meditate, do a little gardening or something...sounds nice...nothing wrong with it...but certainly not that big of a deal).

So my question is: when a hermit is developing his/her rule of life, what mortifications should he/she take into account? Should the hermit purposefully take on extra prayers and devotions on behalf of the Church and world? How does one discern this? Thank you. ]]

Offering prayers vs Being God's own Prayer:

Thanks for writing again. The first thing I need to say is that I personally would tend not to say the hermit is mainly meant to offer prayers on behalf of the world (though she will do this), much less penance, so much as she is called to embrace a life of prayer and penance on behalf of the world. The first is about doing things (and prayer and penance are necessary things). The second, however, is more primarily about being; specifically, it is about being someone  at once ordinary and extraordinary who is God's own prayer in our world. Hermits are more about who God makes them to be than they are persons who define themselves in terms of what they do. While we can't entirely separate these two dimensions of our lives, we do have to settle on whether we define a hermit in terms of who she is or in terms of the tools that help God achieve this in and with her.

I choose the former. This doesn't mean hermits do nothing or are called to do nothing at all, of course --- far from it! But at the end of the day I succeed or fail in this life only in terms of who I am as a result and in light of the love and mercy of God. Prayer and penance are at the heart of becoming this person but the real task of the hermit is to truly BE a person whose only salvation, whose life's only justification is God.  I am convinced that a lot of the talk of the hermit offering prayers, etc comes from either a world that esteems doing over being --- often as a distraction from the deeper questions of our identity, or from the hermit's own inability to state a deeper rational for his/her life. As I have also said to you, the Rules I see from "beginners" or those seeking to become diocesan hermits most often err on the side of cramming the horarium full of more and more prayers, etc. It seems to me these folks see praying as a matter of something they do rather than someone they are because God is allowed to work freely in them.

This doesn't mean intercessory prayer is not part of the hermit's life (As I note below it is a natural part of my own life), but it does mean this is neither the reason for her life, nor is it always appropriately motivated. A third reason, and one I will also mention below, is guilt --- guilt at the leisure of the life, at its joy and peace, guilt one is actually called to this and has been granted the freedom to follow such a call in the name of the Church. (Your last sentence, by the way, seems to resonate with a sense that surely these things couldn't be the real justification for or central characteristics of eremitical life. I'll talk about that below because I think it is very important. If we don't understand this then we don't understand eremitical life itself.)

On Comparisons and Competition:

The second thing I would say right off the top is we ought to be VERY careful of falling into the trap of comparing eremitical life with the life most folks live every day. There is no life without its mortifications and no vocation that is not called to exhaustive holiness. We need to be careful not to fall into a subtle kind of elitism here and especially not into a  (worldly) mindset which compels us to be doing things simply because we have the time to do them or (a common but hidden and often subconscious reason) because we now feel guilty we have a kind of holy leisure others do not!

It is not helpful to speak in terms of pushing oneself more than "a devout lay person" does. There are at least two reasons. First, while this life demands one's best efforts, it is not about pushing oneself to do extra feats of piety or asceticism. It is about responding fully to God's call to be loved by God and discerning the ways necessary for doing this. This takes effort, yes, but it also takes a kind of sacred leisure and a submission that is just the opposite of pushing. Secondly, neither you nor I knows what the life of this supposed "devout lay person" consists of really. Nor do we know to what God calls them or how. More often than not I am impressed with the degree of silence, solitude, prayer, penance, service, charity, Scripture reading (lectio), etc., is integral to the lives of many of the people I pray with regularly. Often it seems far more "intense" than my own life. We simply cannot judge in this way and we certainly ought not compete. Perhaps one of the real mortifications for the hermit is the recognition that in many ways, though our lives are not "cushy" (to quote Sister Victoria, OSCO), they are more ordered, qualitatively full, relaxed and leisurely than the lives of so many. But then, perhaps that is another of the things we are meant to witness to the importance of --- especially in a world so overburdened with doing at the expense of being and so incapable of genuine leisure, solitude, or silence!

Hermiting as an Heroic Vocation:

The third thing I should say is that the notion of "hermit as hero" (or eremitical life as heroic)  turns me off completely. I once read somewhere that the eremitical life is heroic (I don't remember now if it was Thomas Merton, Jean LeClercq,  Cornelius Wencel, Peter Damian, Paul Giustiniani, or just who it was who said it). I think in my early years and first attempts to write a Rule (which I guess rules Wencel out as a possible source) I may even have written the same thing. It embarrasses me today that I did that because I am now more attuned to the ways "the world" creeps into eremitical life in the heart of the hermit. It is true that we can speak of eremitical life as one of undeniable virtue, discipline, and faithfulness. One hopes that every hermit will become the whole and holy human being God calls him/her to be. That takes significant faithfulness and obedience.

If you choose to call the normal disciplines and daily faithfulnesses of an eremitical life which is truly obedient (open, attentive, and responsive) to God either inadequate or "heroic" you need to ask yourself why you find it important or necessary to do so. I remember the reasons I did the latter and they were pretty self-centered and otherwise disedifying. Now I am much more aware that the mom who gets up every day to take care of her family despite frequent migraines, or the adolescent who goes to school and studies every day despite living in a neighborhood that militates against these things in every way, seem no less heroic to me than the hermit who is faithful to her Rule.

Again, we are called and do our best to allow God to do with and in us what only God can do, no more, but certainly no less. If that is "heroic" then so be it. But more often than not, it seems to me the use of the term "heroic" in regard to this life is a way of buying into a destructive tendency to compare oneself or one's vocations with others or a way of justifying our lives to people who really might not understand or accept this vocation otherwise.

(Personally, I seriously wonder if it is ever possible to say our own vocations or lives are "heroic". The very use of the word in this way seems to imply pride (or a justification of failure and bolstering of deep insecurity). I think it is also quite often a way of justifying a vocation one may consider (or at least fear deep down is) unjustifiable otherwise, and of course, it is a way of pointing to self and the things hermits do rather than to the persons they are called to be by the power of God. After all God has called me to this and fits me for it, just as God does with every vocation he gifts us with. There is nothing heroic in becoming the persons God calls us to be with the grace (the powerful presence) of God --- and yet, in our sin and brokenness, that is often the most heroic thing of all --- whatever the vocational path involved.)

Authentic vs Inauthentic Eremitical Life:

You wrote: [[ Otherwise, I think it could become a very self-indulgent life style (i.e. Stay quiet all day, say a couple prayers, meditate, do a little gardening or something...sounds nice...nothing wrong with it...but certainly not that big of a deal)]]

I will talk about other aspects of this sentence again in another post (especially the "stay quiet all day, meditate. . ." piece of things), if you don't mind, but for now, the truth is that in some ways, many ways in fact, eremitical life is no big deal at all. We live our lives so that, as Thomas Merton once wrote, people can be reassured of certain truths about human nature and the grace of God. That is one of the truest, simplest, and most significant things Merton ever said about the eremitical life. In this observation Merton has captured the heart of eremitical life and especially in what its unique witness consists. I have either said or implied this here any number of ways: God loves with an everlasting love, we are truly human only when we allow God to be God in and through us, our freedom is the counterpart of the sovereignty of God, most fundamentally we ARE a covenant with God, our hearts ARE the places where God bears witness to Godself, we are called to be transparent to the power and presence (love) of God, the silence of solitude is about communion with God, etc. The notion that God raises us to humility is linked to this observation of Merton as well.

All a hermit can do with her life is witness to the essential truth that we are made for God, are incomplete without God, and are redeemed and transfigured by God's unfailing love. Doing so is what every person is called to but only the hermit does so in the silence of solitude; only for the hermit is this the single lesson or unique witness of her life. After all, the hermit really has no significant apostolic ministry to fall back on in this regard. Again, I think that while prayer periods and penance are essential to the life witnessing in this way, the hermit has to be particularly careful not to make these somehow extraordinary in the sense of making them especially onerous, especially uncomfortable, especially numerous, especially intense, etc. In today's world faithfulness and lifetime commitments are becoming extraordinary things. As tame and "ordinary" as this might sound when measured against the muscular asceticism of hermits throughout the ages, a lifetime of faithfulness to God in the giving of self over to God's love and purposes for the sake of others is, of itself, extraordinarily demanding.

Karen Fredette has described eremitical life as doing something ordinary with an extraordinary motivation. I have written similarly about the essential hiddenness of the vocation as a call to extraordinary ordinariness. (Cf., Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness) One of the things a hermit needs to come to terms with is the utter ordinariness of the life. The paradox is, when such a life is lived in, from, for and through God's love/self, everything about it is extraordinary. But that requires this be an authentic eremitical life where everything the hermit is and does is meant to reveal God. (After all, that's the real meaning of glorifying God.) You are entirely correct that the life is not a self-indulgent one, but not because one has substituted an arbitrary penitential practice or series of mortifications. It is not self-indulgent because one REALLY, not just nominally, lives from and for the truth that God alone is enough.

(By the way, it has often seemed to me that some lives given over to the approach which is about piling on prayers, adding "heroic" or onerous mortifications, etc are far less about truly giving themselves over to God than many folks who only say prayers "a couple of times a day"! That is because such lives are often still mainly focused on self and what more one can do, omit, sacrifice, suffer, and so forth than they are about what God is seeking from and for them. Such a life may be as inauthentic an eremitical life as that being lived by someone watching 10-12 hours of TV everyday or never praying at all!)

Approaching the Question of Prayer and Penance: 

It seems to me that in writing a Rule one has to ask themselves "what are the ways God has most powerfully and regularly spoken to or worked in my life?" The corollary here is, "What tools, or forms of penance have most assisted me in giving my entire self over to God's love?" The second corollary is, "What ways am I most unable to hearken to or in what ways am I resistant to being wholly available to God's love?" (For those who who pray  this, one asks a similar question during an examen of consciousness, for instance: "How well have I lived this part of my day and what can I do to improve that?") When one writes down the main ways God speaks one will have a pretty good sense of what prayer forms are to be included in one's Rule or Plan of Life. The first corollary gives one the primary forms of penance which are important in supporting one's life of prayer. For the hermit these may include poverty, silence (which is a good deal more than simply "staying quiet all day"!), solitude, loneliness, fasting (all kinds), a regular life, journaling, writing, study, chores, regular exercise, and so forth.

The second corollary is a way of determining what further forms of mortification are really necessary. For instance, one might like to stay up reading and then be wiped out the next day; one is thus less attentive to the various ways God comes to one that day. Leaving the kitchen a mess before one goes to bed or otherwise frequently leaving regular chores undone means being unable to enter into a new day (or part of one's day) with the freedom and freshness necessary. Being irritable or grumpy closes one off to God in several different ways. One might resist turning off one's computer or limiting the time when one can answer phone calls or emails, or insisting on the wisdom of multitasking and eating on the run or any number of other things which are SOP in our world today. In most lives these things might be okay (though I would argue against all of them) but they would seriously detract from the hermit's life.

One would therefore add some form of penance (really, some form of discipline or order) in these instances which is tailored to deal with the problem. These are minor examples, of course, but the basic truth is that penance is whatever is necessary to assist or regularize one's prayer life. It involves whatever kinds of things are part of giving one's entire self and one's entire abode over to God. There is nothing heroic about making sure the house is tidy and relatively clean before you sing Compline and go to bed, nothing heroic about getting enough rest or eating a simple but nourishing diet, and nothing heroic or even very extraordinary about journaling to work through one's bad mood or limiting one's access to computer and phones; but the commitment to these are significantly challenging for many people --- and perhaps for some hermits, especially day in and day out!

As I understand asceticism then, the kinds of things we build in as penitential need to be the kinds of sacrifices which should be organic to our lives, that is, the kinds of things which are not arbitrarily imposed and which open us to the presence of God or prevent us from being closed off from or too busy, tired, satiated, or distracted to be attentive and open to God in the normal course of our days. I think if you begin to pay attention in this way you will find the "mortifications" which are an organic outgrowth of your life will be plenty demanding! That is especially true given the stricter separation, silence, solitude, and poverty which are integral to the eremitical life already. The life itself is penitential. Moreover, these normal sacrifices will represent a true witness to the kinds of relevant sacrifices every person is called to make in order to put God at the center of our lives.

Your Questions:

Do hermits take on extra prayers and penances on behalf of the world? Should we? How do we discern this?

It seems to me your questions are different from all the comments that prepared the way for them. Divorced from that context they are straightforward. Do hermits pray on behalf of the world around us? Absolutely. We pray all the time for others, for the state of the world, for persons who come to us with requests and concerns, for God's plans and purposes, for the Kingdom which is gradually coming to be a more extensive and pervasive presence, for family and friends and enemies and strangers.

I am not sure what it means to say "extra" prayers though. My experience is these prayers are simply a natural part of a life of prayer, a natural part of concerning oneself with the life and concerns of God, a natural part of hearing the anguished cries and the deep yearnings of the world God loves so profoundly. If I watch the news I am praying, if I read the newspaper I pray for the people and situations that enter my life in this way; if I travel on a train I try to pray for those traveling with me or those standing on platforms. If you mean are these written into my Rule, they are not. While I don't consider them to be "extra" neither are they "mandatory" in the sense of being "binding in law"; they are instead, a natural and necessary expression of love of God and of those precious to God.

Do hermits do penance on behalf of the world around us? I am sure some do. I do not except in the sense that my life is one of assiduous prayer and penance and that entire life is lived for others. But note well, it is the life I live which is for others, not the discrete penances I undertake. The concept of doing penance on behalf of others does not make sense to me personally except in this indirect sense. The only discussions I have heard which treat of doing penances directly for others sees penance as reparative (offered in reparation) and I simply do not understand the place of reparative actions in light of the achievements of Christ. I can certainly see the point of contributing acts of generosity to our world but beyond that adding acts of penance besides those needed to be truly open to the presence of God in my life or truly compassionate for others makes no sense to me. I believe I have answered the question of discernment in the section above. If this is not clear or raises more questions, please get back to me.

On Penance and Penitential Living

[[Sr. Laurel, I see that you and other hermits often speak of living lives of prayer and penance. Can you explain more about what penance means to you: why we do it; what it's for; what it consists of. What are right and wrong attitudes toward penitential practices? I have read what you have said in several places about the meaning of suffering and of chronic illness. Is there a place within those circumstances where penance functions?]]

As usual, great questions. The question of penance, especially on inappropriate or false forms of penance has come up here before so please check some of the labels in the column to the right. Still, it has been some time since I have posted on this so let me reiterate some of it, and also some of what I have written in my own Rule. As you well note, diocesan hermits are indeed bound to a life of "assiduous prayer and penance" so one hopes they have a fair idea of what this term of Canon 603 means! I will make this a pretty general answer, so if it raises more specific questions you can get back to me with those.

Prayer and Penance are Linked

I think the first thing one must realize is that prayer and penance are intimately linked; they are related to one another in an integral and profound way. Penance functions to support and facilitate prayer, while prayer, and especially a life of prayer, requires penance if it is to be authentic and achieve depth or breadth in one's life. In other words, we undertake penance so that we may become people of prayer, and in fact, that we may become instances of prayer in our world. In my Rule I define penance as, "Any practice which assists in achieving, regularizing, integrating, deepening and extending our openness and responsiveness to God through the deprivation and death of the false self and attention to the genuine needs and growth of our true selves in Christ. While prayer corresponds, in part, to those deep moments of victory God achieves within me, and includes my grateful response, penance is that Christian and more extended form of disciplined "festivity" implicating that victory in the whole of life, and preparing for the fulfillment which is to be accomplished only with the coming of the Kingdom in fullness."

In the eremitical life, every hermit finds that solitude itself and all that entails is a primary form of penance --- even if temperamentally they are introverts. Solitude means not merely physical aloneness. It also means being alone WITH God and FOR others. Stricter separation from the world (i.e., from that which is resistant and antithetical to Christ), silence (both inner and outer), fidelity to the regularity and even the tedium of solitary life, and rejection of the distractions which surround or are available to most people all the time, are forms of penance. The inner work (battling with personal demons, falsehoods, compulsions, and distortions!) which silence and solitude lead to and demand is a form of penance, as is simplicity in all things. These are the most basic or foundational elements of the eremitical life which are penitential in and of themselves, and --- though this will be true in different ways and degrees --- I think they will be foundational in any disciplined spiritual life. Penance, after all is meant to assist in prayer, and in dying to self, so anything which contributes to these may be seen as penitential or forms of penance.

Thus too, I would include any forms of personal or inner work needed to deal with the false self we have developed throughout our lives (journaling, PRH -- a particular form of this work --- counseling (if needed), spiritual direction, etc) as part of a legitimate penitential life. I think this is true for anyone, hermit or non-hermit. For most people this would mean (to some extent certainly) turning off the TV, unplugging the phone and computer, committing to and maintaining a regular prayer life, creating an environment of simplicity and silence which contributes to listening to God in the depths of one's heart, and then submitting to spiritual direction or other forms of assistance which help in the accomplishment of the death of the false self and the coming to abundant life of the true self. It will mean, as part of creating and maintaining this environment of attentiveness and simplicity, some degree of fasting (or certainly a practice of mindful eating!), and so too, the disciplined use (or discriminating rejection) of the plethora of things the world offers us as fulfilling. All of these are essential to the eremitical life and I think they are required to some degree by any sound spiritual life, and all of these things may be considered penitential

The second thing I think we should understand and appreciate then is the way penance is linked with a way of life. For hermits, it is the life itself which is penitential. A hermit, for instance, does not merely build in or incorporate occasional, much less arbitrary penances any more than she merely builds in occasional silences or occasional solitude --- though she will add or intensify expressions of these elements from time to time as a way of contributing to an organic whole. Penitential living is a way of living a spiritually healthy life so the focus of everything one does and is is on living in Christ, not on "doing penances" per se. Because of this, many things we might not have considered penance or penitential really are such: maintaining regularity and balance in one's schedule and order in one's living space, being attentive to physical and emotional needs in an ongoing and thoroughgoing way, maintaining a disciplined and measured approach to work, recreation, relationships, etc, will be part of a truly penitential life.

Inauthentic Penance

Similarly, then, many things we might have thought to undertake as penances will not be authentically penitential not only because they are 1) arbitrary (which means they are not integral to one's OWN life of prayer), but 2) because they do not contribute to an authentically human life which is reverent, attentive, discerning, and ordered. Instead they may even contribute to or intensify the falsifications and distortions which are already part of our broken and alienated selves. It is this dimension which your question raises when you ask about proper and improper attitudes towards penance. We are not meant to be about hurting ourselves, playing the ascetic athlete, or buying into notions of penance which are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to control God and our relationship with God, exercises of pride, self-hatred, disdain for God's good creation, or sado-masochism. While our penance serves to underscore our frailty and complete dependence upon God, we are meant to grow as human beings through our penance; that is, we are meant to develop our capacities for discernment, reverence, compassion, humility, generosity, gratitude and selflessness through our ascetical undertakings. They, therefore should not narrow much less diminish us as human beings, nor contribute to qualities within us that are less than human.

Suffering, Chronic Illness, and Penance

Regarding suffering, chronic illness, and penance, yes, penance has a very real place in living with and through these, but it may look differently than many expect. In the main, living with and even through these realities applies all the things I have said up until now. For instance, fasting (or certainly attentive eating) when one has hypoglycemia or diabetes will look vastly different than when one is healthy. The same is true of anorexia and bulimia --- and these provide a really vivid example of the difference between authentic and inauthentic approaches to penance. Maintaining an ordered life and environment may be very difficult when one has an unpredictable neurological disorder. Chronic pain may require regular narcotic analgesia in order for the person to function well, much less to pray regularly and deeply and participate appropriately in the life of their faith community. A regular schedule of sleeping and rising, or of work, recreation, and exercise may be the most penitential thing someone suffering from clinical depression can do for themselves, especially when combined with regular medication and therapy. (For some sufferers of clinical depression, just getting out of bed each day may be a profoundly penitential reality!)

For any form of chronic illness or suffering, finding and implementing ways of combating self-pity, hopelessness, or a sense that life is not worth living can be central penitential practices. This might include any practice which puts the focus on others and the gift they are for us; it might mean cleaning the house regularly, doing laundry routinely, refusing to leave dishes sitting in the sink (or elsewhere), making our beds, getting out for walks, cultivating a hobby, working one day a week in a soup kitchen or hospital, getting to Mass more frequently, or volunteering to contact and assist people who are sicker than we are to whatever degree we are able, etc. It will also mean the inner work I mentioned above. When God is truly victorious in our lives we live fully. This does not mean lives of superfluity, but neither does it mean an austerity or enthrallment with pain which makes these rather than genuine living the focus of our efforts. Penance gives grace and God's future a chance in our lives in the present and that is the perspective I think we must cultivate no matter our circumstances.