Showing posts with label urban hermits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label urban hermits. Show all posts

09 July 2013

The Urban Hermit, Saturday Evening Post



Recently parts of an interview I did over a year ago for Jack El-Hai and The Saturday Evening Post was published in an artcle on Urban Hermits. I noted it here in early May. You can now find that article on the SEP website (until July the May/June issue itself was not available online) The New Urban Hermit | The Saturday Evening Post ; there is also now a related video provided above. Apparently staff at the SEP thought about what they needed to do to "unplug and unwind" as a result of the piece. I will note that despite the article stereotypes of hermits continue even in the comments of the editorial director (I, for instance, do not live "off the grid") but it was nice to see the article stimulating folks to think about their own lives and excellent of course to have anyone interested in writing such an article at all. Check it out!!! May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post. Please also read, Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: A Call to Extraordinary Ordinariness, a summary of what it means to live an "ordinary life with extraordinary motivation".

05 May 2013

Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (Reprise)

Image from Saturday Evening Post article
In the current (May/June 2013) issue of The Saturday Evening Post there is an article on "The New Urban Hermits" for which Jack El-Hai interviewed Karen Fredette (former hermit and, with her husband Paul, editor of Raven's Bread), Roger Cunningham (former Buddhist hermit), and myself. There are a couple of factual inaccuracies which make me sound like a vowed Camaldolese rather than a vowed diocesan hermit and Camaldolese Oblate but generally I think the article is really well done and that Jack El-Hai got his head and heart around something few people really understand. He deserves real credit for that.

One of the fine points Karen Fredette  makes is that hermits are about doing ordinary things with an extraordinary motivation.  I made a similar point used later in the article which, when taken with Karen's comment, suggests hermits experience this as the sustaining "glue" and heart of a vocation to contemplative life including eremitical solitude. It is certainly fundamental to Benedictinism and Camaldolese Benedictinism. I can't post the article here (I don't have a copy to do that with anyway) but I can reprise a post I put up here five years ago on living "an extraordinary ordinariness." Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (05. June.2008) Too often people think of hermits or their essential hiddenness as abnormal. This blog post spoke to these things; for those who are coming to this blog because of the SEP article, Welcome! I think you will find this post is a good introduction to the heart of eremitical faitfulness.

On Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness

[[Thank you for answering my questions about the hiddenness of the hermit life. What you write about its "essential hiddenness" sounds like the same "hiddenness" which is true of the lives of many people living in the world. You and other hermits seem to make a virtue of this, but isn't it pretty ordinary?]]

Yes, it is very ordinary, and in fact, that is precisely its virtue. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the hermit is meant to witness to those whose lives are ordinary in ways which may cause them to question the meaning and value or significance of  those lives. I have written about those in unusual circumstances (chronic illness, disability, etc) who are called upon to witness to the Gospel in vivid and poignant ways, but I have not really said much about those who work day in and day out at menial jobs and who see their lives as essentially meaningless or unimportant. I think the hermit can remind us each that every life, no matter how apparently unproductive or ordinary, is really (or is certainly meant to be!) part of a profound dynamic where the Kingdom of God comes to be realized more and more fully in our world. That happens, for the most part and for most persons, in the perseverance and day by day faithfulnesses exercised in ordinary life.

There is nothing spectacular or even very remarkable about the hermit's life in the ordinary sense of those words. It is very much a life of day to day faithfulness to the call of God and that call summons the hermit to prayer, work, study, and (sometimes) even some degree of outreach or evangelization every day in a way which repeats again and again. No one much recognizes what happens here in the hermitage as special, and from one perspective, there is nothing special about it. It is completely ordinary whether one is writing an article, doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom, praying Office, doing personal work, studying, or meeting with occasional direction clients. Even contemplative or quiet prayer is pretty ordinary stuff from one perspective. From another perspective, of course, it is all very special, because it is all done in and with God, and in order to foster the coming of his Kingdom. When the ordinary is undertaken with and in the grace or presence of God it always becomes extraordinary, and yet, no one is likely to see that really. When I wrote in my earlier response that even my telling you what I do during the day would leave the essential mystery of the life intact, that is what I meant.

The challenge to each of us is to undertake the ordinary in a way which is attentive and sensitive to the presence of God. It is the challenge to undertake these things with a care and even love which, through the grace of God, transforms them into something extraordinary. This is basic spirituality and it is this which the hermit's day to day life accepts and affirms as infinitely valuable. I can say without question that although I do not know how it happens, I know without a doubt that my life in this hermitage, my daily perseverance in cell, my faithfulness to prayer, work, study, and the ordinariness of life, allows for God's Kingdom to be more fully realized right here and right now. I know without question that Stillsong Hermitage is a small bit of leaven in the loaf that is my community and the world, and that it contributes to the transformation of that whole even though I may never really understand that or see it realized in my lifetime.

Personally, I believe that every person is challenged to embrace his or her life in this way, especially in its ordinariness. God transforms everything he is allowed to touch with his hallowing love, and our job is to let that happen in all the ways day to day living puts before us. If we can do that, and to the extent we do it, again, the ordinary will be transformed into something extraordinary because each task and moment becomes the occasion where God's grace is allowed to enter in and to triumph. That is the very essence of affirming the goodness and sacramental nature of all reality. So, in each and everything we undertake, we strive to be attentive, aware, care-full, loving, and (describing all of these together) truly present. Nothing in this life is really ordinary unless we allow it to remain that by foreclosing it to our own conscious presence and the effect of God's grace. On the other hand, the really extraordinary in our daily lives is likely to remain hidden from most people for the whole of our lives.


I am thinking of the husband or wife who cares for his or her sick spouse day in and day out for weeks, months, or years, for instance. The most mundane act is transformed when carried out with loving awareness, attentiveness, and openness to God's grace, and yet no one sees this or thinks much to remark on it. It is unspectacular in many ways, but clearly extraordinary at the same time. And yet it is essentially hidden from the eyes of the world. So much of our lives really is hidden in this way.

It takes the eyes of faith to see as the hermit  or other contemplative sees! I think the hermit witnesses not only to this essential hiddenness, but to the humility and faithfulness that is so necessary in a world where everyone seems to need to make a name for him or herself --- even if the only name they can claim is that of victim --- a thriving category of dubious "achievement" in the contemporary world! At the same time though, she witnesses to how truly extraordinary is the life of "ordinary" faithfulness, "ordinary" perseverance, ordinary "heroism," and "ordinary" love undertaken in God. She witnesses to how infinitely meaningful is the life our contemporary world dismisses as trivial and insignificant, if it is lived in and through the grace of God.

Addendum, July 2013: The article is now available on the Saturday Evening Post website:  May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post

19 October 2009

Question on Chronic Illness and Urban Eremitical Vocations


[[I have degenerative disc disease, diabetes and asthma. I spend most of my time at home (alone) and use a wheelchair when I go out. Could you please elaborate on the relationship between chronic illness and the life of an urban hermit?]]

Thanks for the question. Please do look up earlier posts on this topic, especially the original article published in Review For Religious. I think those will really help you. You can do that by looking at the labels listed in the upper right sidebar and clicking on the appropriate links. Those posts will flesh out the brief response below.

For most people chronic illness results in some degree of dislocation and isolation. Sometimes this is extreme, sometimes not, but the basic root of the problem is the same in any case: the rest of the world simply does not move to the same tempo or rhythm nor do they share the same concerns or limitations. Further we live in a world in which worth is measured by productivity, what we do, what we earn, how successful in these terms we are, how educated, how active in civic and church affairs, et cetera. Because a person with chronic illness often simply cannot measure her life in these terms (or does so and comes up only with "failure" as the mark received) this also is especially isolating.

Now, isolation is not the same as solitude but it does call for redemption. It is meant to be transformed (at least in many cases and in the life of the hermit) into solitude. What I mean by this is that one central reality that remains to all of us when life robs us of other values, abilities, activities, relationships, and so forth is our God and the possibility of a relationship with him. That relationship is capable of redeeming all other loss and completing us as human beings; it is, afterall what we are made for. If we enter into that relationship wholeheartedly what was isolation becomes transfigured into solitude. Solitude is an expression of communion with God and eremitical solitude (a solitude which is more radical and extensive) is something that chronic illness can predispose us to embracing.

Likewise, the gospel gives us a set of values which are countercultural. Not only does Scripture teach us that we are precious to God no matter our success or failure in worldly terms, but discipleship is marked by "the great reversal" --- that is, what the world values is not the same as what is valued in the Kingdom of God. Success in the Reign of God is measured differently and not in terms of productivity, earnings, power, prestige, etc, as it is meaured instead in terms of self-emptying and one's faithfulness to God's call. Even more it is measured in terms of God's grace, freely given and received. The first shall be last, the last first. Those who allow themselves to be gifted by God will be first and richer than those reject God's gifts and attempt instead to wrest things from God's hands by the measure and tools of the world's judgment and success. Few people are in a better position to give the countercultural witness of the disciple of Christ than the chronically ill are.

What I am talking about here is not eremitical life, however. It is a vocation to be chronically ill within the church and world, a prophetic witness that human beings are precious for who they are, not for what they do, how much money they make, how much power they accumulate or exercise, etc. I believe that all chronically ill are called upon to give this kind of witness and that they can do it with a vividness and depth which few others can match. However, of these people who are chronically ill, SOME will also be called to eremitical life. These persons will, in their relationship with God, allow isolation to be transfigured and transformed into genuine solitude and the silence of solitude which serve as the context, goal, and charism of their lives. They will witness to all the things any person with a vocation to chronic illness with witness to and additionally they will say with their lives that "God alone is enough for us." They will witness to the essential wholeness and abundant life that comes from communion with God in Christ, and they will remind the rest of the church and world with a special clarity and power that we are all on a journey towards something far more lasting and fulfilling than this world with all its seductions and false promises --- and also, of course, that this reality is present and accessible to some extent right now interpenetrating our world with its presence.

Chronic illness is not ordinarily part of the eremitical life per se but for a relative few I believe that chronic illness will point to and predispose a person to embrace an eremitical call. In terms of urban eremitism this will specifically be a call to witness to the redemption of those unnatural solitudes which so characterize life in cities, the life of illness, bereavement, and old age marked by separation and lack of connectedness. Urban hermits (whether lay or consecrated) will witness to the redemption of such unnatural solitudes generally, but the hermit who is also chronically ill will do so, again, with a greater vividness and depth.

I apologize for the brevity for this response. It is more an introduction than anything else. Still, I hope it does help and even that it will raise more questions for you!

23 November 2008

Followup Questions: Urban hermits and married hermits

[[Do your last two posts mean that you don't believe a person living in a city can live as a hermit? And why can't married people be hermits?]] (cf Married Diocesan Hermits and Nicolas of Flue)

Thanks for the questions. Let me see if I can clarify what I have written already. Regarding the first query, no, not at all. I have written about urban hermits in the past, about the unnatural solitudes of the cities Thomas Merton referred to and I believe very much that one can live as a hermit in such solitudes. (Of course I do that myself so it would be hard to believe it could not be possible.) In fact I believe it is important to do so so that people who have no choice BUT to live in such places and alone in all the ways cities and contemporary life imposes, can have a sense that such aloneness can be redeemed. That said, let me point out once again that some hermits DO believe that the term urban hermit is an oxymoron, and while I understand why they say so and agree that certain elements of the natural wilderness cannot be replicated here, I continue to disagree with their basic conclusion. My choice of setting in the stories I told in the other two posts was made simply to make it easier to illustrate a point. I could have used an urban setting, but it would have made the illustration more difficult.

Remember that I began discussing whether there could be part-time hermits. By that I did not mean someone who lives in solitude for a number of weeks or months and then travels to give retreats or something similar for a while, and who then returns to solitude. Neither did I mean hermits who may come together to pray Office, or celebrate Mass with others in their community during their day only again to return to their hermitage between times. These are both true expressions of eremitical life. What I was referring to by "part-time 'hermits'" were people who build a degree of solitude into their day, or week, but whose identity is not defined by that solitude, either because they are wives and mothers (or full-time teachers, etc), or because they merely go off to solitude "on holiday" at the end of the week or something similar --- and yes, I have heard both kinds of people describe themselves as hermits and insist they are right to do so.

What this discussion led to was a description of the difference between an experience of the desert and a true desert experience (there is a spectrum here, by the way). It also led to the assertion that a hermit is by definition a solitary, one who ultimately has only God to depend on and who chooses this identity because it is the way to human maturity and wholeness for her. Now, it may be that the urban hermit lives in a comfortable apartment, with books and stereo and maybe even a TV and computer. However, to the extent these are distractions or hinderances to her solitude, she will either forego or get rid of them. The urban solitary is always open to being called to greater poverty, greater reclusion, greater inner and outer solitude. She makes the renunciations required to be truly alone with and dependent upon God, and also to grow as profoundly as God wills and invites. But one must be a solitary. This is the sine qua non of hermit life, even life in a Laura or under the mentorship of an elder hermit. In contrast, it is not possible to renounce one's children or husband when one has a vocation to marriage and motherhood, nor to change the relationship to one of "just" two monks sharing their solitude, etc. Husband and Wife are one flesh, and the children are the fruit of that marriage; nothing changes that.

In pointing to married people becoming "one flesh" we have pointed out what defines them as people --- as "for others". By definition they are NOT solitaries. They give themselves totally to one another, body and soul out of love. They come to God together, and are called to bring one another to God. In all things they belong to one another, and are meant to. This is their God-given vocation and it is of immense significance and value. As noted, their children, if they have children, share in the dynamic of unity and themselves are brought to God in this way. The members of the family will certainly have desert experiences throughout their lives together, times of illness, dysfunction, bereavement, loss, but they are ALL in this together and that remains true even while one is off at work, or others are off at school. Thus, they will fall back on one another, and yes, on God, but they are not solitaries --- as lonely as they may feel from time to time. They live from, with, and for each other, and their relationship with God is a part of the way in which they are from and for one another. They share a family life and that remains true no matter if mom spends solitary prayer time during the day, dad spends solitary prayer time in the evening, or kids spend solitary time in their rooms or out in the driveway playing basketball.

As I suggested before, every person SHOULD build a certain degree of solitude (both inner and outer) into their days; that is only normal and good for personal and spiritual growth. Simply because a person does this does not make her a hermit, however. In the situation I am describing this person has wedded another, created new life with that person, and lives with and for her family. Even her time in solitude anticipates their return or includes them in ways that differ from people in the parish she may hold in her heart. The chores she does she does for and --- even if they are not physically present -- with them; the errands she runs she runs for and with them --- even if she is physically alone or prays and offers all this for various intentions. And of course, this is as it should be for this IS her vocation. Just as I have renounced certain things in order to truly be a hermit, so a woman who embraces marriage gives up certain other vocational possibilities as well: eremitical life is, by definition, one of these.

The hermit is in a very different position. Yes, she ordinarily has a parish community, and yes, they do indeed support her in her vocation. She may have relatively close friends in this parish (though no one she can actually hang out or spend extended time with), and the parish may certainly be "family" in the usual way we use that term of communities. But, when she leaves Mass, or the Cinco de Mayo parish dinner, or the Confirmation celebration, she returns to the hermitage where she is alone with God, and where she will sink further and further again into that special aloneness which constitutes the eremitical life. She continues to hold all the parish in her heart, and she replays and reflects on shared events in her mind to share with God, or she journals about them because they touched her and challenged her, but, apart from Christ, there is no spouse nor are there children to truly share her heart with in an ongoing way --- or in the way children natually occupy a Mother's heart. She has given up the right to these and this renunciation is part of her desert or solitary experience. If she is ill, she deals with this herself, if errands need running in the main she does the same again because this is who she is and who she has chosen to be. If it sounds lonely, in some ways it is, but it is never a malignant loneliness, never an anguishing to be with others, etc, for the truth is God is there, always and everywhere, and the hermit knows this and is consoled by it even when she does not experience God's presence.

Again, there are MANY MANY people in this world and in our church who live alone. Their spouses have died, their children have moved away, illness isolates them even further and claims more and more of their energy and time while as a result their lives seem to make little or no sense. These people have no choice about their solitariness. Nor is it a part-time or casual reality, but instead is something impacting them at every moment of the day and night --- even when they are visiting others. For these people the eremitical life might be really significant as a way to redeem their isolated solitariness (that is, with God's grace it can be a way of transforming this into a meaningful wholeness and communion). Solitude is not the same as isolated solitariness, although it might start there. But for this redemption to happen, we cannot allow the vocation to be co-opted and effectively emptied of meaning by those who are not even single, much less solitary --- those who still have a husband with whom they are raising a family, for instance. We cannot allow the term to be co-opted and thus emptied of meaning by those who are weekend-'hermits' in the same way there are "weekend-contemplatives," or "weekend parents" and thus empty the terms contemplative or parent of meaning.

I know I have repeated myself in this post, and perhaps it is simply redundant, but I don't know how to make the point clearer. Perhaps it would help if I described more what solitary existence is like and how it differs from marriage. Perhaps I need to go further into the theology of marriage vs the theology of solitary (eremitical) life --- especially in terms of eschatological significance. I suspect I really need to say more about contemplative life per se and too about how it is that the eremitical life culminates in a nuptial or spousal relationship with God that really does not allow for marriage to another. Finally, I have not really written at all about the dangers of using solitude to escape from the demands of community --- something hermits living in community recognize as a significant danger (as is using community to escape the demands of solitude --- something I have referred to already in recent posts); I suspect it is an even more acute danger in marriage. I will think about that. In the meantime, I hope this helps with your questions. Please get back to me if it does not help or raises more queries.

13 November 2008

On the Importance of Lay Hermits and the Lay Hermit Vocation

I know I have written a lot in this blog about the significance of the call to diocesan eremitism and about the theology of the vocation to the consecrated state, the importance of canonical status, etc. Thus, while I believe strongly in the importance of the lay vocation, it is not always one which I can convincingly argue for as a diocesan hermit myself. However, the truth is that in our church and world, the majority of hermits will always be lay or "non-canonical" hermits, not those called to consecrated life (i.e., the consecrated STATE of life), but called to a dedication of self rooted in their baptismal consecration and every bit as real and demanding.

Because I belong to a listserve of those interested in becoming hermits, or in aspects of the life for other reasons, the whole question of approaching dioceses for admision to canonical profession and consecration comes up often. In the last few days however I received letters from 1) a priest who had decided NOT to seek canonical "recognition" because of something I had written (I put the word recognition in quotes because it needs to be seriously qualified to be used), and 2) a woman living as a hermit who had found some of what I had said on this matter helpful; she may seek canonical approval and standing, but then again, she may not. Both reminded me that the lay hermit has really significant witnesss and encouragement to give to this world, and to our church as well. Because of this, I wanted to post some of what I wrote recently in response about the lay hermit vocation. It is similar to a post I put up recently on the notion of becoming living temples of the Holy Spirit/God. The letter I am responding to is included in italics and emboldened. I have not included the entire text here.

[[May God Bless you for your wonderful replies. I can not tell you how much you have helped me in this understanding of different, yes, but yet not. How often I have read this law, and so often lost some part, an important part of its beauty and grace and open call to us all so inclined to give our lives in holy consecration and celebration of God with us in the ordinary of life now.
In my own part of the country there is little understanding of Canon Law 603. I have been living my life as one of the "non"s for some time, several years - ten years with spiritual direction and a rule of life, waiting on the Lord for the "recognition" from the church ( I have not made "final vows, in the wake of scandals and finance problems and illnesses we have gone through a few Bishops in our post in very recent years and those who have come are not as familiar with this calling as it would be in your country.


Well, don't be too sure there is a huge familiarity in the US either! There is some, certainly, but Bishops remain hesitant and some are suspicious. My own journey to perpetual eremitical profession (I was already finally professed otherwise) took almost 25 years precisely because my (former) Bishop had reasons to back off from professing ANYONE under Canon 603. Thus, Vicars accepted candidates -- only later (several years down the line) to learn there would be no professions. Others on this list have similar stories in terms of length of time (17 years, etc.) to perpetual profession. There remain dioceses that either have never had strong candidates or who continue to have no experience of the Canon for other reasons -- including a refusal to use the canon at all.

It is quite common to hear stories from persons approaching dioceses wishing to be professed as diocesan hermits who are told, "just go off and live in solitude; that is all you need" or who run up against Vicars who neither understand nor see the importance of the life. I think it is a huge responsibility for a Bishop to take on a person in the way Canon 603 envisions (not that it is an onerous one though!), and many seem resistant to this for one reason and another as well. Anyway, what some of us have found is that dioceses across the board need education, resources, and assistance in understanding the vocation and how Canon 603 plays out on the ground. It is more unusual to find a Bishop open to Canon 603 and willing to accept responsibility for diocesan hermits than not.

[[However, I have a very close relative who is "recognized" and this has been a great support to me and my own journey. I know too my own efforts to authentically live this call and service has encouraged her too...she often considers herself an urban hermit - one who lives in an urban area ( there really is no official title as such is there?) where as, I live in a very rural and secluded area. There have been times I have felt real persecution by those who were "really consecrated". I have been told that I was a "pseudo-hermit" and "not real", or not deserving of the same benefits and graces of this special call.]]

One of the things hermits generally know is that whether canonical or non-canonical, consecrated or lay, the eremitical life is a significant one which speaks in different ways to different segments of the church and world. The Church wants so much to truly esteem the lay vocation today and eremitical life lived apart from Canon 603 is one of the really significant ways the Holy Spirit is working in our church today. The notion that someone who is not Canon 603 is not a ""real hermit" or is "pseudo" is plain nonsense and must be combatted. One of the ways that will happen is if people get on with living eremitical lives without worrying about consecration and profession or the legal rights and responsibilities which come from these things. Some will discover they actually require the canonical standing and structure -- and are called to take on the added responsibilities of this state, but others --- MOST others --- will begin to discover the mission and vocation to lay eremitical life which is capable of speaking so poignantly to a world in need of this witness. Whether canonical or non-canonical the call is real and significant. I personally think it is important to know that experientially BEFORE one approaches a diocese for admission to public profession, and that requires time.

I also am an urban hermit. It is a term I first heard used by Thomas Merton when he reflected on the need for hermits in the unnatural solitudes of the cities. However, there were a kind of hermits in the Medieval Church in Italy known as urbani, so the term is not novel with Merton. It is an historical term, not merely a neologism, therefore, a designation which contrasted with hermits living in other situations. Evenso, the idea of urban hermits is one which some hermits reject because the idea of wilderness is being defined so differently than they are used to. However, I cannot tell you the number of ill and elderly who live lives of what could well become eremitical silence and solitude in these places (eremitical, that is, instead of isolated) --- eremitical vocations we have only just begun to recognize and understand.

For these people in particular, people who have no choice about physical solitude or leaving it for weekends, etc, the witness we hermits each give is that such unnatural physical and emotional solitudes can be redeemed and become true oases in the desert. That is, what is physical and emotional isolation can be transformed into genuine eremitical solitude. And, while I am consecrated under Canon 603 and very glad of it, I realize that it is the lay hermit who would witness more powerfully for these people. Yes, I have things to say with my life to such people because of my own circumstances, but in some ways my consecration ALSO distances me from the witness I could give them, for they know they will never seek such standing in Law (they do not FEEL CALLED TO THIS) even while they yearn to know that the lay vocation they are living right now is ultimately meaningful. A cloud of lay hermits in the church could do that and I pray that it happens in the 21st century as it did in the 3rd and 4th (etc), or the 10th and 11th C.!!

We need laity living eremitical solitude faithfully to speak in the ways only they can. It is SO very important, and actually not something I realized I would be definitively distancing myself from in various ways until after it had happened. In any case, hermits are hermits, and whether consecrated (made part of the consecrated state by God through his Church) or lay, both are real, both are significant and inspired, both speak to our world and church in their own ways. Part of the problem is that we really still are suffering from the failure to esteem the lay vocation. We misunderstand the notion of states of perfection and refer to some vocations per se as higher than others --- again misunderstanding and misconstruing what SHOULD REALLY be meant by such feeble and dangerous language. The Church has not completely managed to free herself from this tendency, or from associating the notion of status with higher and lower levels of contribution to the life of the Body of Christ and to the world. If we do manage to free ourselves from these things I predict it will be non-canonical or lay hermits who are pivotal in the achievement. But that means, at the very least, refusing to buy into the notion that Canon 603 eremiticism is better or more genuine than non-canon 603 eremiticism. It is different in its responsibilities and witness, but not better.

[[I thought it was a strange mentality to have towards others, it was wounding and hurtful to me and for a number of years I considered not living this call on my heart for fear of their words being true and I was not worthy to be mimicking others in such a way or worse, that I was offending in some way Our Holy Mother Church by my actions!. Your words are surely Spirit led, especially in these times of changes and concerns, where there sometimes seems to be more church closings than vocations.]]

There seem to be more church closings than new RELIGIOUS vocations, which is what I know you meant, but vocations per se? Not at all. Again, as I posted a few days ago, we are so used to associating the term vocation with religious vocations or vocations to the priesthood that we do not adequately esteem what it means to be called to LAY life. And again, apart from Vatican II, the Church hierarchy has not always been helpful in correcting or rectifying this lack. Instead she has underscored it and we are reaping the harvest of that as we speak. She has also contributed to the mistaken idea that only religious with vows of celibacy, etc., REALLY live lives of prayer, of wholehearted generosity and self-gift. Most of us are called to lay vocations, and that means most hermits as well. It would be wonderful to see the widespread recognition that this is a HUGELY significant vocation and to watch it flourish.

Many thanks for your kind words. They mean a lot to me. Continue to take hold of your eremitical vocation and see where the Holy Spirit leads. The need for hermits in our contemporary world cannot be overstated but only a few of these will be called to the consecrated state of life. After all, that is not really where the need is most outstanding, I think. Wherever the Spirit leads it is to a REAL vocation and REAL eremitism. There is no doubt about that.

Sincerely,
Sister Laurel, Er Dio
Stillsong Hermitage

25 July 2008

More on Diocesan Eremitism: Charism, Stability, Authenticity of Eremitical Life

The relationship between the Benedictine vow/value of stability and the diocesan charism of the canon 603 hermit brought some comments from a friend and diocesan hermit from New Zealand. Now, in her spirituality, she is Carmelite; she has a keen sense of the diocesan charism I have been mentioning in this blog and she reminded me of some basic facts about being a diocesan hermit that underscore this charism. Noting that diocesan hermits are built right into "the texture of their dioceses," she affirmed that while a diocesan hermit might live temporarily in another diocese for some good reason they couldn't simply pick up and go." Also, she noted that if a diocesan hermit wants to transfer to another diocese not only must she secure the permission of both Bishops involved in the move, but ordinarily the receiving diocese will demand a period of discernment before accepting her commitment or transfer. I have read in the past that the position of the diocesan hermit is akin to that of an incardinated priest, and I was aware of one hermit who had once transferred her vows to another diocese, but I was unaware of the details involved. They don't surprise me however. The canon 603 hermit (with these exceptions in mind) belongs to the diocese in which she makes her profession. After all, she has made those vows in the hands of a particular Bishop and his successors. As my friend noted, this was all something she thought Benedictine monasticism could really resonate with!! No doubt at all!! Benedictine stability understands this concept very well indeed.

At the same time my friend asked if I had written anywhere at greater length about the apparent oxymoron some think the term "(sub)urban hermit" is. In fact I have not. It is true I have mentioned the problem here a few times because some hermits really denigrate the idea of such an animal. They object that one must go off into the true (physical) wilderness apart from all others if one is to really embrace solitude and silence, prayer and penance in the way the desert fathers and mothers once did. I should point out that first of all the church disagrees with this position. More, the church is in touch with what Merton once referred to as the unnatural solitudes of the cities, and urban hermits themselves --- at least those I know --- are also very sensitive to these unnatural solitudes and the need to redeem them.

I think of the older people in my community who no longer drive, are often too infirm to get out much (sometimes even to church!), have lost spouses and sometimes all other family, whose incomes are fixed at barely subsistence levels quite often, and who struggle to come to terms with their lives and live them worthily despite their isolation. Can one really seriously suggest that they do not live in an unnatural solitude which is one an urban hermit can and should embrace? Would they be any more isolated in a desert or mountain wilderness? Do they really have more company and resources than did, for instance, the desert Fathers and Mothers in the "desert cities', Franciscan hermits who, with two or three other Friars fell under the care of a superior who acted in the role of "Mother," an anchorite nun shut up in a room in a convent who is supported by her Sisters, or hermit monks who depend upon their communities to support them in their vocations, provide food and shelter, participation in liturgy and the like? In fact, it seems to me they often have far fewer or less.

I have spoken in the past of diocesan hermits witnessing to the redemption and transfiguration of such "unnatural solitudes." I have also mentioned what Thomas Merton said about these and witnessing to what is possible for human beings when Divine Grace is allowed to work to transform their circumstances. I have spoken of the Benedictine value/vow of stability and the correlative commitment to find God in the ordinary circumstances of life, and how that affects me particularly as a diocesan hermit. I have also mentioned the true nature of human freedom and its relation to what Jung called "Fate" --- the power to be the persons we are called to be not only in spite of the non-negotiable elements of our lives, but through them as well. Finally, I have mentioned a number of times the fact that the eremitical life is motivated by love and solidarity with others, and that the contemplative life often (always!) drives a person back out of strict solitude to love their sisters and brothers in some concrete way, shape, or form. Christian love is never a mere abstraction. All of these are basic Christian values or dynamics, and the hermit is called upon to embrace and embody them. Wouldn't it be ironic if she could not do so unless she lived in a natural physical solitude?

It should go without saying that genuine solitude is an inner reality as well as an outer one. We cultivate it by cultivating a relationship with God that transforms our isolation and estrangement into singleness of heart and a burning love for God and all he cherishes. We cultivate it by allowing God to live fully in us not only as source and ground of all we are, but as goal as well. Does it help one to spend time in the natural solitudes our world offers in order to allow God to achieve this? Absolutely. But unnatural solitudes drive us within to seek God with a hunger and intensity I think is unrivalled even by natural solitudes. Grief, illness, poverty, loss, alienation, abuse, all these and many more are the caves and deserts occupied in our contemporary world. Do we really want to argue that God cannot be found in these places or embraced as fully as is the case in the physical desert or mountain? And while we must recognize the myriad ways one might distract oneself from genuine eremitical life in such a context, do we really want to say an authentic eremiticism can only be lived in natural solitudes? I don't think so. However, I personally have to do some more thinking about all this before I can write about it at length. It is a huge part of the charism of the diocesan hermit however; about that I am absolutely clear.

In raising some of this herself, and in commenting on my own personal work in translating a classically Franciscan vow formula into more strictly Benedictine terms, Sister ___(NZ) left me with the following thought and suggestion: [[perhaps (as) a diocesan hermit you can say that you dwell in that sacred space of solitude and apostolic love which is essential to and shared by all three traditions [(Camaldolese) Benedictine, Franciscan, Desert Fathers and Mothers] because the "heart" is the same: a solitary figure who is embraced and nurtured by the desert, in solidarity with all human beings.]] Well, Sister, I COULD say this, but, since I can't improve on your own formulation, I think I should just quote YOU!