Writing a Rule: Vision Before Legislation (part II)

 [[Hi Sister, you said recently that a Rule is about a vision of eremitical life before it is about legislation. I wondered if you could say more about this. I think it is easy in some ways to make a Rule a long or complicated to-do list but how does one make it into a vision one lives for the rest of one's life?]]

Thanks for this question, in the last years I have worked or am working with people approaching admission to profession according to C 603. In each case, I said I hoped the Rule they are or were writing would truly become an embodiment of the way God has been working in their lives and speaks to them in this canon. After all, the Canon describes a way of life where God is central, where everything is focused on letting God be God, and particularly, focused on letting God be God-With-Us in the silence of solitude through assiduous prayer and penance, etc. 

As I have written before, the Rule should reflect not only the letter (the literal terms) of the Canon but the singular lived experience that stands at the heart of the life it governs. This experience of letting God be God is the essence of what it means to be created, called to be, and made truly human as imago Christi. The solitary hermit in the consecrated state perceives and commits to the truth that this best occurs for her according to the terms and conditions that define her vocation canonically and without the community context that requires Rules (or Constitutions) to be shaped more generically.

I think this means that the solitary hermit's Rule should also reflect what it means for this particular person to have such a vocation and be called by God to be created and shaped by, as well as to be one who witnesses to and even mediates God's love in the really unique way her/his vocation makes possible and necessary. Such a person's Rule should convey something of what it means for them to be called by God not only to be a hermit, but to be a solitary canonical hermit whose commitments are made and whose life is lived, for God's own sake and for the sake of the salvation of others as well. Because this is not a Rule guiding and inspiring a community but an individual, because the charism of the vocation is discerned as part of a singular dialogue between Canonical requirements and the signal graces God has gifted this hermit with during her life, I am convinced the personal dimension of one's own story cannot and must not be omitted from the Rule of a C 603 hermit. To do this, to omit this personal dimension, is to turn the Rule into what I referred to in an earlier post as "an out-sized to-do list" that speaks to no one, perhaps not even the one who wrote it.

So what does this mean concretely? I think first of all it means constructing a Rule which tells (both you and others) not only what you will live but why you will and in fact, do commit to living this. For instance, besides an introductory section that summarizes some of my own story very generally, I will write about the specific elements of the canon and how I understand them. When I write about an element of the Canon like the silence of solitude, I do it from the perspective of someone who has experienced isolation and knows that the redemption of isolation is found in solitude. In fact, it is recognized as solitude. The achievement of God's redemption of isolation occurs for the hermit when she comes to genuine solitude. The details of one's experience of isolation is unlikely to be directly pertinent to one's Rule itself, but the sense of what isolation causes in us, how it affects our relationship with God, our faith, etc., could be helpful in spelling out the nature of the redemption achieved in solitude. This, in turn, will affect the way we think, pray, and write about solitude (and other elements as well!), how we protect and live these out, what conflicts with it (or them), impacts it, yearns for it, transforms it from curse to blessing, and so forth. 

Likewise, the way we see and write about "the silence of solitude" will be affected by all of this. In this term are we speaking merely about the absence of sound (like that which comes from turning off -- or throwing out -- the TV, etc), or are we speaking about something deeper as well --- the absence of woundedness and the resulting varied "cries" for comfort or attention that lead people in all kinds of unworthy or obnoxious directions, the effects of forgiveness and healing, the cessation of tendencies toward self-assertion, the quieting of fear and insecurities of all kinds --- that come when we stand strong as ourselves in the power of God's love? By extension then, are we also talking about the kind of silence that allows the deepest cries and yearnings of our heart to sound out clearly, to be heard and attended to? Yes, of course, the silence of solitude means first of all a physical silence and solitude associated with being alone (with God). That corresponds to my understanding of the silence of solitude as the context for eremitical life. But because of the life experience I bring to the hermitage and this context, that is only the beginning of the way I understand this central element in the Canon governing my life. Thus, besides treating the silence of solitude as context for eremitical life in my Rule, I also include "the silence of solitude" as goal (telos), and then as the charism of my eremitism and life. 

When I write (indirectly) about these personal things in my Rule, it is because I have a vision of the solitary life that appreciates both the silence of solitude and eremitical life together as a gift of God for myself, and for far more than myself! In a world fraught with isolation, woundedness and trauma, division, and noise on every level and of every possible type, a hermit living and exploring "the silence of solitude" as part of what it means to be truly or authentically human becomes a gift to that same world. More immediately, the hermit's Rule becomes the story of God working in her life and provides the outline of a vision of how to continue participating in that story! It is a vision she commits to grow into with God wherever this takes her. 

Canon 603 has a number of other requirements and each of them needs to be addressed in a similar way. These need to 1) imply one's own story with God, and 2) provide a vision of the life that may serve others who are searching and waiting to hear the Gospel as the answer to their own journeys --- even if they never step anywhere near a hermitage. What is absolutely critical is that in some way the hermit writing the Rule combines the requirements (central elements) of Canon 603 with her own life story, not because she cannot let go of her life before the hermitage, but because in every way, the Rule she is proposing to live indicates the continuation and fulfillment of a long journey towards redemption by God's love. It spells out a coherent way of living out the victory of that redemption as it has unfolded to bring her here and still continues to unfold in this new context and commitment. This is what it means to have a vocation; this is the vision she must hold onto when living that vocation becomes especially difficult or demanding. It is who she needs to be as she determines what she will also do to witness and continue responding to that Divine call.

As something of an aside, when I submitted my first Rule to my diocese back in @1984, it was sent off to a canonist to read and approve. She had a couple of comments regarding theology and then an observation about the nature of the document as a whole. She noted that it had a rather personal feel to it "but that in Rules of this sort" that was perfectly acceptable. Still, I remember feeling like her approval on this point was not unalloyed.  When I look back at that Rule today, I find it kind of laughable; it was certainly inadequate. The irony is that that personal tone and nature, something that was pretty new at that time (since such documents and the Canon that called for them were pretty new at this time) later was perceived as a key to discerning such vocations and providing a way of working out the formation of c 603 hermits.

What are Signal Graces?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, can you tell me what a "signal grace" is? Does it mean God is sending us a "signal" like an image of Jesus pointing the way or causing a bell to ring or something? Thank you.]]

Sure. A signal grace is a grace which is exceptional and stands as the "originating grace" for many others. Thus, for instance, in my own life the chance to attend Mass with a high school friend was a signal grace which led to my first vision of what the Church is as well as to my catechesis, baptism, and conversion. The opportunity to study theology under John Dwyer was not simply a grace, but a signal grace which became the source and even foundation for many, many other graces --- not least my love for Scripture or the ability to reflect theologically on things (like c 603!), and especially Paul's theology of the cross -- which has allowed me to live my entire adult life in light of God's promise of new life. The prayer experience I have described here which occurred @ 1982 at the prompting/invitation of my director was a signal grace as was my director's consent to act as my delegate with and for the Diocese of Oakland. My stumbling across canon 603 in 1983-84 while checking out the Revised Code of Canon Law was a signal grace which led me to eremitical life and all the graces that have come from this --- not least the recent work I have undertaken with the assistance/accompaniment of my director or some work I am currently doing re canon 603 itself. And finally, of course, eremitical profession itself has been a signal grace along this same stream of graces for which I thank God daily.

Signal graces are not usually actual signals like a vision of Jesus literally pointing to a door or causing a bell to ring as a signal to us. (Though if either of these were to happen to us they could also be signal graces in the accepted sense used in this post. Merton, for instance, once had a dream in which he heard the bell of the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani; that dream was a signal grace for him, possibly in both senses.) In this post's (and ordinary) usage, however, "signal" is an adjective meaning notable, as in a signal event or achievement. Theologically we extend this definition and see it as an "originating" grace. Given this meaning we look back at the stand-out graces in our lives, the really pivotal graces that represent a kind of turning point leading to innumerable other graces we might otherwise never have known. Each of the graces I mentioned above represented a turning point, a grace in light of which I and my life would never be the same. Each led to further graces (further experiences of the powerful presence of God),  and a kind of fruitfulness that can only be described in hindsight. (We might or might not know a grace is significant at the moment it occurs, but signal graces are recognized in hindsight as we look at the subsequent pattern of graces associated with or originating from them.)

I hope this is helpful.