On Diocesan Hermits and Ordinary Visitations

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I hope this finds you doing well. I came across this entry on your blog about having hermitages and hermits' prayer spaces blessed. It brought to my mind a question about visitations. How do diocesan hermits handle canonical visitations? Or is it an issue at all?]]

Hi there. All is well so thanks for asking. Your question about visitations is a good one and one I have never been asked until now, so thanks for that too! As you likely know, canonical visitations are undertaken by the Bishop each year because every three years he is expected to meet with every parish, religious house, and other institution in his diocese in order to gauge their health and take what pastoral steps are necessary to improve or optimize this. Hermitages would fall under this requirement unless there is some other way of securing the necessary information and implementing the necessary pastoral actions if there are any.

My own sense is the Bishop may have a better sense of a hermit's wellbeing than he does of any other house, parish, or convent in the diocese. This is because besides meeting once a year or so with the bishop, in some dioceses diocesan hermits are supervised by a delegate who serves the Bishop and the hermit in ensuring the health of the hermit's vocation.  The delegate meets with the hermit more frequently than the Bishop can and quite often, knows more about religious life as well. So, for instance, I ordinarily meet with my delegate at least three or four times a year; in the last year and a half, because of special inner work we are doing together, we have met at least every two weeks (last year it was closer to once a week). Because the Bishop can simply speak with the hermit's delegate at any time to determine how things are going for the hermit, and because the bishop also meets with the hermit once a year or so, a formal visitation is not usually necessary.

I don't have any information on other hermits and visitations but most of the hermits I know meet regularly with their bishop and for that reason he sees them more frequently than he sees others living under his purview. (Some religious, for instance, never see or speak to their bishop; after all, he is not their legitimate superior as he is for diocesan hermits. Meetings with laity are even less frequent or likely.) I would think visitations with these hermits is also seen as relatively unnecessary.