Called to Clap and Cheer: Embracing an Advent-Christmas Attitude toward the Future (Reprise from 2015)

In Advent: Shaping our Lives in Light of the Future I wrote that Advent is about preparing to embrace and embracing the future, especially the future revelation of God, rather than hanging onto the past as an adequate model of what will one day be. I reminded readers that our cosmos is an unfinished reality and that we are on the way to the day when Christ will "come to full stature" and God will be all in all. I also noted that theologians and exegetes today read the Genesis creation and fall narratives very differently than they once did --- not as pointing to a completed and perfected universe which then, through human disobedience or sin, fell from perfection, but instead to a perfected universe still coming to be.

Such a new reading does not leave human sinfulness out of the picture nor does it even change our definition of it much. It is still very much about an ungratefulness we link with disobedience and "falling short" of the reality God calls us to be and embrace in our loving, our stewardship of life in all of its forms and stages, and our worship of the One Creator God. Sin is still about substituting our own versions of God for the real One based on partial and fragmentary revelations and being "satisfied" with a religion whose focus is too much on the now-dead past while we resist (i.e., we fail to entrust everything in faith to) the ever-surprising God who wills to make everything definitively new. Sin is about enmeshment in this passing world and its fragmentary vision; it shows itself in resistance to the coming Kingdom (the sovereignty and realm) of God which is already in our midst in a proleptic way and seeks to pervade and transfigure all we are and know. Sin is about our resistance or lack of openness to the qualitatively new and surprising (kainetes), the reality we know as an eternal or absolute future; when we embrace or otherwise become enmeshed in that lack of openness we are left only with the world of transience and death. After all, sin and death, in all of their forms and degrees are precisely about a lack of future.

Today's readings from Isaiah and Matthew fit very well in underscoring these dynamics, both those of Advent and the futurity it inaugurates and celebrates, as well as of sin and its resistance to newness and future. Isaiah's language is classic for us. He reminds us that so long as we are disobedient to the Commandments of God we have no future; we will not prosper. I think today we need to hear the term "Commandments" as referring to those imperatives of gratefully loving, stewarding life, and worshiping God which are the keys to any authentic futurity. Obedience is a matter of hearkening to these, that is, being open and attentive to them in all of the ways and places they come to us as we embrace whatever they call us to. Obedience is the responsive behavior of those who are grateful.

The Gospel lection tells a wonderful story of prophetic and messianic gifts of God (symbolized most fully by John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth) given freely to God's People --- only to be met with narrow-minded criticism and hardhearted ingratitude. God is trying to do something new, trying to bring creation to fulfillment in a "New Creation" of freedom, holiness, and eternal life; human beings representing God's chosen people are resistant. Now John the Baptist himself had come to wonder if Jesus was really the Messiah John had prepared people for; things were looking bad for both John and Jesus and Jesus did seem to be pretty different than the One John had been proclaiming.

Jesus responded to John's questions by pointing to the things God was doing through him to give the blind and crippled a new and full future --- just as Isaiah had promised. Then Jesus uses the image of children engaged in petty bickering as they play games mimicking weddings and funerals. It is important to note that these are ordinarily the most joyful and poignant celebrations of life, love, and the hope of a future grounded in the God we know. Similarly, funerals are those moments marking the terrible sadness and grief of sin and death in separation from God --- though they too may be transformed into celebrations of an eternal hope and future. Jesus reminds the adults listening to him that --- in something that was deadly serious --- God played them a dirge (called them to serious repentance and conversion) culminating in the prophet John and a wedding hymn in Jesus his Anointed One, but they resisted and rejected both. Instead, they criticized John as a crazy person and called Jesus a drunkard and glutton. Theological arrogance, religious complacency (lukewarmness) or superiority, outright cynicism or hardheartedness --- whatever the roots of this ingratitude it gave no room at all to a faith (trust) that allowed God to do something new in and with our world.

Because Christmas and the exhaustive incarnation of God is, in some ways, not yet complete; because we look forward to the day when Christ will finally come to full stature (cf., Paul to the Ephesians), both Isaiah and Matthew are urging us to adopt an attitude of gratitude and joyful openness to the God of Newness and the future we know as life in God. It is an attitude that contrasts radically with that of the children playing their games in today's gospel or of those rejecting Jesus and John and the Kingdom they inaugurate. Harold Buetow tells the following story which captures the childlike humility, excitement, gratitude, and openness we are to have in relation to the awesome Christmas drama of the New Creation God is authoring right now in our lives and world.

[[Little Jimmie was trying out for a part in the school [Christmas] play. He'd set his heart on being in it though his mother feared he wouldn't be chosen. On the day when the parts were awarded, with some trepidation his mother went to collect him after school. Jimmie rushed up to her, eyes shining with pride and excitement: "Guess what, Mom," he shouted, and said, "I've been chosen to clap and cheer!"]]

I am especially struck by how really involved and aware, how truly attentive to and appreciative of the work occurring right in front of oneself one must be to "clap and cheer" (or to be raptly silent!) in ways which support and move the drama of God's will forward. Isn't this the attitude of praise and gratitude evident in God's followers all throughout the centuries? Isn't this the attitude merited by an unfinished universe moving mysteriously but inexorably toward the day when its Creator God will be all in all?  And isn't this the attitude of obedient anticipation Advent asks each of us to cultivate?

The story of Jimmie's call is from Harold Buetow's, Walk in the Light of the Lord, A Thought a Day for Advent and Christmastide, Alba House, 2004. (Friday, 2nd Week of Advent, p 40.)

Third Week of Advent: What Did you Come to See?

What did you come out to the desert to see? You've heard the rumors of this man named John and of me (Jesus) as well, so what did you come out here seeking? Was it a reed blowing in the wind, a so-called "prophet" moved by every cultural current and whim, or was it someone more authentic with a word that is lasting, solid, and eternal --- like the truth of God? What are you, you who are neither followers of John nor disciples of mine looking for? You heard that John in his way and I in mine proclaimed the Word of God. You heard people calling us prophets. Were you expecting us to be dressed in worldly finery and the trappings of political, religious, or ecclesiastical honor, prestige, and power? Is that what you really hoped for? Is it what you needed? Please ask yourself these questions!!! And please answer them honestly, from the depths of your hearts! What did you travel into the desert to see? What do you need?!

Today's gospel starts out this way with Jesus asking the crowd who have attended both John's disciples and his own to examine their hearts, first so they might understand their own motives in seeking him and John the Baptizer out, and then too, that they might get in touch with their truest and deepest needs and yearnings, needs and yearnings that can only be met or filled by the God who created and completes them as human beings. As it moves along, today's Gospel also promises these folks that they will be surprised and that God's answer to what they were seeking may look very different than they were expecting. And isn't this how it is for each of us whenever God reveals Godself to us? To Jesus' questions then, we might add one more that is implicit in all he says in this gospel lection, namely, "Are you prepared to be surprised by God? Will you allow that?" There is a corollary here too, "Will you receive him; indeed, will you follow him even if he comes as one whose power is manifested in weakness, his justice in mercy, and whose glory is most perfectly revealed in crucifixion and shame?

Jesus' questions are always some of the most important texts in the New Testament. They provoke, invite, and empower us to enter into a process of introspection, self-appraisal, and clarification leading to real conversion. In these few sentences in today's gospel lection, Jesus implicitly focuses us on the ways we run hither and yon looking for "something" to fill the emptiness, something to make sense of our confusion and existential lostness, something that can serve as a means to anchor our lives and still our constant restlessness. 

He calls to mind all the false solutions we substitute for the real thing: power, prestige, the favor of the powerful and honored, wealth, worldly success, etc. and reminds us of how these leave us hungry and thirsty for something more and other. At the same time, Jesus encourages us to recognize that Divine wisdom is not always clothed in the vestments of ecclesiastical or civil authority we usually submit to, for example. This, of course, is one of the reasons the Magi (who, whether they are astrologers or kings or something else entirely, are certainly symbolic representations of the wisdom and power of this world) will offer gifts and bow down to a helpless child. God comes to us in surprising ways that turn our expectations on their heads, even as he reveals and fulfills our deepest needs and yearnings.

As we journey toward the feast of the Nativity of Jesus, it's a good time to let him put his questions to us as well. It is one way the valleys and mountains of our own hearts and minds are either filled or made low and the highway of our God made straight within us --- one of the ways the Kingdom of God is brought near and an incarnate God allowed to take up residence with and within us. As we bustle around in our Christmas preparations what is it we are really preparing ourselves for? What, indeed, have we come out to see?

Happy Thanksgiving!

i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes. . .

e.e. cummings

1894-1962

This is one of those really special days for Americans, where we pause and give thanks for all that we have and can aspire to as the result of our liberty as citizens of the United States. For me, it is a joy-filled day because God has been so very good to me in so many ways. My life is rich with friends, love, meaning, fruitful ministry and work, and genuine freedom. In particular though, it is rich in the presence of God in an eremitical solitude that is full, empowering, and challenging. I am grateful beyond telling for this vocation and the freedom to respond to it. So many people have brought me to this place. . . ! I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving Day. May we celebrate well the gifts and callings we have been given by God and may we remember and help empower to celebrate those who might  have reason to doubt or be grieved by the meaning of this day.

The Gospel Call to Make Neighbors of "the other": A Post-Election Reflection and Prayer (Reprise)

I wrote the following post six years ago (can it possibly have been that long??) and today, on another election day, though there have been some changes for the better, the overall problem outlined here is even worse with increased social division, polarization, hatred, antisemitism and other forms of racism, and authoritarianism. The lesson Jesus taught us is the same as it was in his day: make neighbors of the "other" and reject attitudes that judge and demonize those who are different than we are. This is fundamental to a Gospel of reconciliation. Meanwhile, for those Christians voting today, let me remind you that Christians are never one-issue voters. Instead, we are the ones who recognize objective values and disvalues, are capable of preferencing them and then choosing them prudentially in love. If one cannot or will not do this, one is not genuinely a disciple of Christ because one would then be incapable of being church (embodying Christ) in God's wonderful and complex world.

 As we move into this new period with President-Elect Trump I have to say I am surprised, even stunned by the results of this election. Throughout Trump's campaign, I watched people being turned on by rhetoric that appealed to and perhaps exploited the very worst impulses and motives dwelling within the very darkest recesses of our hearts and minds. They are the very worst and darkest impulses of the world we occupy as well. 

One of these, and one of the most fundamental, is the impulse to reject "the other", to be frightened by those who do not think or believe or look like we do, to resent and denigrate and isolate them and ourselves. Donald Trump quite clearly and carefully tapped into that fear. He demonized folks who those living in the city may meet regularly (and may or may not have genuinely accepted), but who those living in the rural areas may never have met face to face, much less sat down next to in a restaurant or dined with at their own table. Trump touched into our often poorly-hidden fear, anger, insecurity, and even hatred and captured the minds and hearts of those who felt entirely disenfranchised by the "other" of many different stripes. In these ways, Trump capitalized on some of the motives and emotions that can and do drive us as human beings to choose that which is unworthy of us --- unworthy of authentic humanity --- and it propelled him to a win in this election. And this stuns me.

And yet, the NT tells me I should not be so surprised; there is nothing particularly new or surprising in all of this. After all, the Christian mission to proclaim the Gospel to the world is also a mandate to make neighbors of "the other." That stance and charge is only meaningful in a world marked and marred by the kinds of attitudes and divisions Donald Trump expressed and exploited in his campaign. Jesus' mission was a countercultural way to approach reality in the first century and it remains a countercultural reality whose very antithesis has apparently assumed an almost institutional validity in the United States presidential election. But for Christians this task to make neighbors of the other, to call one another "friend" in the performative, reality-making way such words of love change reality, to love as we have been loved by a God who excludes no one and who offers us citizenship in a Kingdom greater than anything of which we can conceive --- this task has become a very much more critical and difficult mission. And yet, to act towards "the other" as Jesus and his Father have called us remains the mission of Jesus Christ and the heart of a ministry of reconciliation rooted in unconditional and unmerited love offered freely to and through us. "Love one another as I have loved you" is quintessentially a call to make neighbors, fellow citizens, and friends of those who were "the other" and had no legitimate place --- whether that means in God's own life or in the world we who have been made God's own inhabit.

I am frightened right now even though I know that faith casts out fear. I am concerned, even worried though the Scriptures tell me not to be anxious. I am struggling to remain hopeful for the coming of the Kingdom --- a new heaven and a new Earth where justice is realized ---- though the reasons for hoping in the goodness and generosity of many Americans has been eroded and this new President seems to promise a "scorched earth" policy and an ethics of vengeance to anyone he deems an "other" because they don't think, speak, act or believe as he does. I am chastened because I believe in radical conversion of heart and mind even as I look at our new president elect and I think, "God forgive me, but he has shown himself to be a pathetic and unprincipled human being throughout his life and this campaign; I don't believe he will change now."

But the larger truth is that my faith does not rest on the outcome of this election, nor is my hope for a new heaven and a new earth doomed or even critically threatened by it. So yes, the task to make neighbors and friends of "the other" and to support others who have given their lives to apostolic work given over to this is made a little more challenging --- and also more urgent. And in spite of my fear I accept that challenge and know MANY others who will do the same. My commitment to a Love that does justice is also made more challenging and more urgent. And in spite of my anxiety, that too is a challenge I accept and a commitment I renew today. My share in the proclamation of a Gospel that reminds us we are all outsiders, all aliens who have been brought into the very life of God through the death and resurrection of a convicted criminal (this election campaign is not the only time we have heard a crowd of fanatics shout for the execution of someone they did not actually know or were bent on vilifying!) and a baptism we neither earned nor merited --- that proclamation has become infinitely more critical I think. I sincerely hope and pray, therefore, that I will be seeing many blogs, homilies, essays, and talks from other religious and religious leaders who remind all of us who call ourselves "Christian" of the Gospel we proclaim --- the good news of a God who makes outsiders and their world his very own despite the sacrifice this entailed.

Again, "Love one another as I have loved you" is quintessentially a call to make neighbors, fellow citizens, and friends of those who are aliens, those who are the "other" and have no legitimate place or claim --- whether that means in God's own life or in the world we who have been made God's own inhabit. May our God help us to embrace this call at a time when our country and world has perhaps never needed us to do so with greater urgency.

Another Look at Humility from the Perspective of Matthew 23:1-12 (Reprise)

I chose to repost this piece in preparation for another one I am working on re humility. Both a conversation I had with a young priest a couple of months ago regarding the distinction between the verbs "to humiliate" and "to humble," and about the idea that in humbling us God raises us up, as well as a homily I heard yesterday have me thinking about how common our misunderstanding of humility actually is. The following post suggests the antithesis of humility is hypocrisy --- dishonesty of a particular kind. It also suggests that once we know (understand and embrace) who we really are in terms of God, we will understand humility.  Best, Sister Laurel 10/24/2022

Today's Gospel presents us with an analysis of the nature of humility and a reminder of its importance. This lection is concerned with the image of authentic humanity seen in contrast with the inauthentic humanity of the Pharisees. Three things, in particular, struck me about humility as a result of today's gospel passage.

First, while most of us would say the antithesis of humility is pride, and today's gospel certainly portrays pride as a symptom of the lack of humility --- the Pharisees love their special seating at the synagogues and places of honor at the banquets as well as their titles and elaborate religious garb --- pride is an aspect of a deeper reality. That deeper reality is the real opposite of humility; it is HYPOCRISY which means play-acting, pretending, or dissembling. What the Pharisees show us is that there is a kind of forgetfulness in this hypocrisy, a willingness to ignore some aspect of the truth about themselves and others and to play up (or to deprecate) other aspects of the person, or the person as a whole. The Pharisees are indeed guilty of pride, but pride is a symptom of this deeper problem, this need to pretend and live a lie.

One thing today's Gospel makes clear (and we will hear the same thing in tomorrow's) is that this kind of pretense is always at someone else's expense. If we cannot be truthful about ourselves and accept the whole of ourselves in light of God's love for us, in light of the infinite dignity we possess as his own, neither will we be able to be truthful about others. Because we feel ashamed and threatened on some level, we will need to put others down or oppress them in some way. For the Pharisees, treating religion as a means to status for themselves also means making sure others are seen as less religious or even irreligious. The burdens they tie up and impose on others which they then do not lift a finger to help these others to bear is the burden of religious law. As a result of some of these laws, people cannot worship with their brethren, some are, by definition, unclean, etc. Their very livelihoods prevent them from being Jews in good standing, so to speak. For them, religion is oppressive and a means of disempowerment. It denigrates rather than exalting and empowering.

It follows then that one of the central signs of a lack of humility (hypocrisy, pretense, dissembling, etc) is seeing others as competitors or rivals. For this reason, Jesus directly opposes this with the notion that those who really follow him are brothers and sisters to one another, and have a vocation to serve, that is, a call to ease the burdens of our neighbors. We do that in many ways, but one of the most important is by giving these neighbors access to the life of Christ and his gospel, a life that supports them in their preciousness and allows them to live up to their potential and dignity as human beings. Ironically, the biggest bit of forgetfulness the Pharisees are guilty of is how TRULY gifted they were --- they and everyone else. That is, they forgot that where God was concerned they were truly beggars; their whole selves are gifts of God, given at every moment, inspired by his breath, sustained with his mercy and love, and given every good gift from beyond themselves. To say one is gifted requires a giver of gifts, and to acknowledge true giftedness is also to admit one's dependence on the giver.

Secondly then, it is from an examination of its opposite, and also from looking to Jesus that we come to see humility as a loving truthfulness about ourselves, especially vis-a-vis God and others. To be humble requires an awareness and acceptance of who we really are, not just in terms of limitations, brokenness, sinfulness, and the like, but our strengths, talents, and gifts as well. This is true not only because simple awareness is important in the spiritual life and pretense is disastrous, but because this kind of awareness and acceptance allows us to really live for others. For the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of our brothers and sisters, and with the knowledge that we are essentially no better nor worse than anyone else, we are free to work on our limitations, whether that be with therapy, spiritual direction, education, etc. And for the sake of our brothers and sisters and the building up of the kingdom we will be free to develop and use our gifts, talents, and strengths --- but not if we remain either reticent or embarrassed about admitting them, or if we claim them as our own possessions and the means to self-aggrandizement.

Thirdly then, we have to renounce the notion that humility is about self-denigration or self-deprecation. It is not about putting ourselves down, particularly not in hypocritical or insincere ways. Humility is not about a lack of self-esteem or feeling and operating out of a lack of personal dignity. Instead, humility is about being exalted in the truest sense, that is accepting our identities, our preciousness and dignity in God, letting him lift us up from the dust of the earth and breath into us a spirit that sets us apart from the rest of creation making us uniquely gifted for the sake of the whole of his creation. Humility allows our greatest truth to be the fact that God is continually merciful to us, continually regards us as and makes us precious, continually loves us beyond and in spite of anything unworthy of his love in a way that makes us the very result of that love.

Genuine humility recognizes and accepts both dimensions of our lives, the limitations and sinfulness, AND the giftedness and strengths, particularly since the latter does not come from us, but from the giver of all gifts. It is for this reason that other signs or symptoms of a lack of humility besides pride, competitiveness, and rivalry include false modesty, perfectionism (a lack of honesty about our own giftedness and its imperfection), a lack of self-esteem, and all the actions that come with these. Embracing the whole truth of ourselves is both freeing and empowering. Not least it opens us to accept and use God's gifts (for which we need no longer be ashamed or self-conscious) on an ongoing basis. (After all, it is not easy to be rescued or saved, but for the humble person, it is the simple fact of who they are and who they will continue to be.) Further, it allows us to accept others for who they are as well, neither threatened by their gifts nor repulsed by their limitations and weakness. This empowers us to really be brothers and sisters to one another and to serve as best we can.

We should always bear in mind that the word humility comes from the Latin, humus, which means earth, ground, or soil. Humility reflects several senses of this word: 1) it recalls that we are creatures made from the dust of the earth, but also spirit-breathed, inspired beings with an innate dignity that is literally incomparable to any other creatures we yet know. 2) humility is the soil out of which all other virtues grow. It is akin to the good soil in the parable of the soils which allows the Word of God to take root and grow deeply and lastingly without being stunted or distorted while we proclaim it boldly with our very lives, and 3) it is indeed the ground of our salvation in the sense that it is the precondition, the loving truthfulness necessary for receiving fully the gift of salvation.

One final word on the last line of today's Gospel. We might be tempted to read this line as punitive (or alternately implying reward): if we lift ourselves up, God will knock us down, whereas if we denigrate ourselves, God will exalt that and us as a reward. I think this is a serious misreading of the line. What Jesus (via Matthew) is giving us here is the PARADOX of humility: if you are honest about yourself and who you really are, God's work to gift you will bear incredible fruit. His Word within you will be ABLE to exalt you further and further and make you even more who you are called to be. You will truly be God-breathed or inspired dust of the earth, and your inheritance will be eternal. If, on the other hand, you are unable to admit or accept the truth of yourself God's loving mercy will not be able to find a place to grow in you and will not bear fruit in abundance. If, and to whatever extent you cannot be gifted by and dependent upon God, then life and death will eventually take whatever status you have enjoyed away from you, and you will return to the dust of the earth as nothing more lasting than that.

Canonical Hermits, Non-Canonical Hermits, and Humility

In light of Sunday's Gospel (re: the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in the Temple), I am pulling up some older posts on humility and maybe will write a new one as well. Peace!

[[Dear Sister, do some hermits chose not to become canonical because of their humility? I have read one hermit who chose not to do so because she wished to remain "small" and another because she wished to remain "hidden". Is there an advantage in making such a choice for these reasons?]]

Thanks for your questions. Let me define humility as I understand it and then try to answer your question about smallness from that perspective. Humility is a form of honesty, specifically, a form of loving honesty (both elements are critical here) about who one is (and who others are) in light of the way God sees us. We are humble when and to the extent we regard ourselves (or others) in the same way God regards us, neither disparaging ourselves (or others) nor engaging in self-aggrandizement. I have written here before about this and especially on the distinction between something that is truly humbling and something which is instead, humiliating. Too often in various threads of spirituality, the verb associated with humility has been mistakenly construed as 'humiliate'! But God does not humiliate --- ever! God's love humbles us. It reveals our true dignity. It raises us to the ability to see clearly and lovingly just who we and others are in light of God's own deep regard for and delight in us.

There can be many sources of the notion that canonical vocations are about pride or a lack of humility. Consider, however, that if God calls some to be diocesan hermits under c 603, it is also the case that acceptance of such a vocation might well be a wonderfully humbling experience. Surely it could be argued that God would intend any vocation to be a humbling (or humble-making) experience rooted in God's love for that person and those to whom they are called to minister in this specific way.  No? My own sense is that we tend to associate pride or arrogance with canonical standing because we often neglect to ask ourselves whether or not God calls anyone at all in this way. If a way of life represents a form of divine call, why should we assume that those who seek this specific form of life lack humility or that the way of life lacks sufficient "smallness" where another form of the vocation (non-canonical eremitical life, for instance) does not?

I participated in a couple of conversations this last couple of weeks on a list on "Hermit Vocations" --- a list apparently made up largely (but not exclusively) of self-designated hermits in the lay state. I was saddened to find the degree of judgment I did which is present regarding diocesan (c 603) hermits and the arrogance or pride they were thought to reveal simply in having sought (and been granted!) canonical standing. One opinion was that for those seeking standing in law under c 603 "was all about show" and concern with externals. It is seriously harmful to any form of eremitical life to paint them with such a cynically broad brush and I was surprised to find this response to be so immediate and, in some ways, pervasive. But, to be misunderstood is nothing new with eremitical vocations and I think the question of God's call is critical here: If canonical standing is something God wills for at least some hermits, then how can we automatically conclude that canonical standing and all it brings is something only the arrogant or prideful embrace? (By the way, please note that when folks criticize canonical hermits they tend only to criticize solitary canonical (or diocesan) hermits, not those living eremitical life in canonical communities. I wonder why that is?)

I am not certain what you are asking when you speak of advantages in making decisions in terms of "smallness", for instance, but I believe one's personal discernment can certainly benefit from being concerned with one's own personal and spiritual strengths and weaknesses and how the grace of God is working in the Church and ones own life to make the very best of these. If this means realizing that one sees diocesan eremitical life as lacking in "smallness" or "hiddenness", then it can certainly be of benefit to work through all of this with one's spiritual director. Similarly, if one is looking for a "higher" form of eremitical life, perhaps one needs to spend some time working through this aim and all that motivates it. At the same time, if one is unable to see the real value in lay (non-canonical) eremitical life, the dignity and worth of such life, then one needs to work through whatever it is that causes one to see this form of eremitical life in this way. Whenever we get into competitive ways of seeing that accent "better", "superior" or "lower", "meaner", etc, it is time to take real care regarding what is going on in our own hearts.

That said, it is important to also ask if there are ways each form of eremitical life challenges the other to greater authenticity. For instance, canonical standing calls hermits to understand that the eremitical vocation belongs to God and the Church, not to the individual. It calls hermits to find ways to embrace, live, and express the truth that eremitical life serves others from within the Church --- whether or not the vocation is technically an "ecclesial" vocation or not. Canonical standing emphasizes the place of mutual discernment and formation, both initial and ongoing, and the necessity for regular spiritual direction and participation in the sacramental life of the church. It does not allow one to substitute license for genuine freedom. It stresses the need for a Rule, a vision of how one is to live the life and a commitment which binds in conscience and as well as in law, and which affirms what is foundational and what is not. Lay (non-canonical) eremitical life reminds hermits of the roots of eremitical vocations in the life of the Church, the profound prophetic character of hermit vocations as typified by the Desert Abbas and Ammas --- and others throughout the history of the Western church. These two forms of solitary eremitical existence should be in conversation with one another, NOT in competition.

 There are temptations associated with each form of eremitical life. For instance, it is true that canonical standing can lead to the temptation to consider canonical hermits as "better" hermits than non-canonical hermits. This particular temptation needs to be assiduously eschewed and that may require one learning to see oneself merely as called to one valid form of eremitical life rather than another equally valid form. If one has a problem with pride, for example, then perhaps that is a good reason for one's diocese to require one to live as a hermit without the benefit of canonical standing until one appreciates the way God works in and through lay or non-canonical hermits. Even so, the conversations I have recently had remind me that non-canonical hermits can easily fall into the same trap -- that is, they can easily believe they are "better" hermits than canonical hermits because, for instance, they are more like the Desert Abbas and Ammas who did not have (and of course could not have had!!) canonical standing (institutional standing and support in law), or are (supposedly)  "smaller," or "more humble," or more "hidden."

But to get back to your questions and what I began this post with, namely, an understanding of humility, in all of this we need to recognize that real humility does not engage in such a competitive way of characterization and discourse. Real humility recognizes that both canonical and non-canonical eremitical life can be rooted in the call of God;  though they differ in their relative canonical rights and obligations, both have all the dignity and importance of true vocations of God and both can reveal the tremendous diversity and freedom of eremitical life. It seems to me that one could discern a vocation to hiddenness and to public vows/canonical standing. One has to be certain of one's own motives and discernment but there is no reason to necessarily conclude God cannot call one to smallness, hiddenness, AND to canonical standing. He has and continues to do so.

On the Purposes and Nature of Canon 603 (Reprise)

Dear Sister O'Neal, was canon 603 established to regularize hermits in the Western Church? Does the church refer to or have recluses any more? I am asking because of the following passage: [[It may be interesting to note that now, the Western Church has, as recently as1983, developed a means to regularize hermits (the term recluse has dropped from Church use) by creating CL603.  Thus, hermits who wish to receive bishop approval and be publicly professed under that bishop's direction within their given diocese, may do so. At this time, the canon regulization (sic) is not at all pressure upon hermits who may still prefer private profession of vows within the Consecrated Life of the Church.  Some bishops may prefer to not have hermits in their dioceses nor to deal with the regulized (sic) aspect of CL603, either; but I know of no statistics current on this point.]] I know there are problems with referring to "private profession" "within the consecrated life" of the Church so I am not going to ask you about that. Thank you.]]

No, generally speaking canon 603 was not promulgated to "regularize" solitary hermits in the Western Church. The church from diocese to diocese rather than with universal law had done (or tried to do) that in the middle ages in a number of ways. Primary among these was establishing common Rules for hermits and funneling many of them into monastic communities and such. (Remember that regularize and Rule come from the same root, regula.) As a result, solitary hermits in the Western Church pretty much died out by the 15th or 16th Century. Canon 603 was established as a way of recognizing this significant but very rare vocation in universal law for the first time and allowing it to reveal itself on its own terms with ecclesiastical supervision. This was especially desirable because, as I have noted several times here, solemnly professed monks were discovering vocations to solitude after years in the monastery but because this was not an option for them under their institute's proper law, they had to leave their monasteries and be dispensed and secularized if they were to live as hermits at all. Bishop Remi de Roo and others argued at Vatican II that such a significant and prophetic vocation should be universally recognized as a "state of perfection." This finally occurred with canon 603 and the publication of the 1983 revised code of Canon Law.

Canon 603 serves to define eremitical life (c. 603.1) in well-accepted traditional terms and to provide for living it as an ecclesial vocation in the name of the Church under the supervision of the hermit's local bishop (c. 603.2). It is important to remember that this canon expects the hermit to write her own Rule rooted in her own experience of the way God is calling her to live this life. This is a necessary piece of the Church's discernment of the vocation and of readiness for vows. The bishop does NOT write the hermit's Rule nor is she forced to adopt an already-established Rule --- as was often the case in the Middle Ages. She lives the ecclesial definition of eremitical life in her own way according to her own rhythms, gifts, and needs, but she does so with the aid of a spiritual director and also a diocesan delegate who assists the Bishop in making sure the vocation is lived well and in a healthy, representative, and edifying way. There is nothing onerous about this arrangement for one called to this vocation precisely because eremitical life is not about simply doing as one pleases, but instead about responding to an ecclesially mediated vocation in ways which are edifying to the church even as they are life giving to the hermit.

Regarding recluses, the Church has not dropped the term. She uses it mainly for those very rare hermits who belong to certain Orders and are admitted to reclusion by their communities. The vocation to reclusion is supervised and supported by the congregation, particularly by the superior of the house where the recluse resides. Only the Camaldolese and the Carthusians are allowed to have recluses today. (This includes the Camaldolese nuns who are famous for supporting the vocation of Nazarena, a recluse who lived at the house in Rome.) A diocesan hermit who desires to become a recluse would need the permission of her bishop, recommendations by her spiritual director and her delegate along with significant support by her parish or diocesan community to make healthy reclusion possible. The urgency here is to maintain a specifically ecclesial vocation in which the hermit's vocation to authentic humanity is fostered. If solitary eremitical life is rare, vocations to genuine reclusion are rare to the nth degree but neither the vocation nor the term have been dropped by the Church. Instead, the Church is careful in allowing hermits to embrace reclusion and applies the term rarely.

Because she esteems the eremitical vocation as a gift of the Holy Spirit and understands not only how rare it is but also how easy it would be for misanthropes and other eccentrics to distort and misrepresent it the Church takes care to define it in universal law and to include it as a specific and new form of consecrated life. This means that not "anything goes". Misanthropes need not apply. Lone folks who are not actually embracing a life defined by the constitutive elements of the canon and who do not show clear signs of thriving in such a situation are not hermits despite the more common usage at large in our world. Meanwhile, those who have embraced an authentic desert vocation as canon 603 defines it cannot identify themselves as Catholic hermits unless the Church herself gives them this right in an explicit and public act of profession, consecration, and commissioning. Lay hermits (hermits who, vocationally speaking, are in the lay state, whether with or without private vows) exist and these vocations should be esteemed but they are not vocations to the consecrated state of life nor are they lived in the name of the Church.

Can we speak of canon 603 serving a regularizing purpose today? I suppose if one distinguishes the usage in history, recognizes the relative dearth of eremitical vocations in the Western Church over the past 4-5 centuries, and is clear about the extremely positive way eremitical life was spoken of in the interventions of Bp Remi de Roo at Vatican II and canon 603 subsequently came to be, it is possible to think of this canonical act of defining things carefully as an act of regularizing those who call themselves hermits. After all the canon is a norm which helps prevent misunderstanding, fraud, and hypocrisy and establishes a universal standard by which the whole Church can recognize and measure authentic eremitical life --- especially vocations to consecrated eremitical life. It brings such hermits under the norms of universal law and the structures associated with consecrated life in the Church. Still, we need to be clear that "regularization" was not the original or primary purpose of canon 603, especially when it is measured against the steps taken in earlier centuries to "regularize" the relative crowds of both authentic and inauthentic hermits who peopled Italy, England, Germany, etc.

Moreover, as noted above, given the canon's requirement that the hermit write her own Rule and thus its insurance of individuality, freedom, and flexibility in fidelity to a traditional and divine calling, even now "regularization" is a word we should probably use carefully. A delegate who serves the hermit and the diocese to protect in very personal ways the legitimate rights and obligations undertaken by the hermit in profession also suggests this. In particular, any suggestion that the canon is meant to shoehorn hermits into some kind of ecclesiastical or legal straitjacket which limits their freedom (or God's!) is one we should assiduously avoid. In my experience, with canon 603 we are faced with a norm which creates a kind of sacred space where an authentic vocation to solitary eremitical life may be recognized and flourish and where authentic human freedom is enabled to reach the perfection associated with holiness and communion with God. After all, one does not "regularize" a gift of the Holy Spirit; instead, one defines or cooperates with the Spirit in defining sacred spaces and mediatory "structures" or channels where God's gift may be formally hallowed and recognized as hallowing the larger context of the Church and world. I think canon 603 functions in this way. 

Bishops and Delegates as Contrary to the "Supreme Independence" of a Hermit?

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your last post [09.September. 2022, On Needing People] the questions asked something about the supervision of the bishop being contrary to the vocation of a hermit. I don't think you answered that so let me ask it again even if it is not what the original questioner had in mind. I have always thought of hermits as supremely independent --- being able to walk away from everything and everyone to live alone, but c 603 requires one live one's life under the supervision of a diocesan bishop. You have written about having a delegate who serves you and the bishop in meeting with you regularly. Isn't all of this contrary to the supreme independence of the hermit? Thanks!!]]

Thanks for continuing the conversation and for taking it further than the original poster did. As you will no doubt guess, I am going to disagree with your position, not only because I differ somewhat (mainly in emphasis) on your understanding of hermit life but more, because I think you and I have different notions of independence.

In the first place, I don't think of a hermit as one who leaves everything and everyone "in order to be alone". I think of a hermit as having done these things to seek and live in communion with God and, therefore, to be the truest and fullest Self s/he can be. The purpose of the life is not about being alone, nor about being hidden, or poor, or any number of other things; the purpose of the life is to put God first, to allow God's will to love us fully and unconditionally to be realized in our one very singular and infinitely precious life. Yes, this will mean being alone, poor, hidden, chaste, celibate, and any number of other things, but all of those serve this foundational purpose; they must not be mistaken for it. There is a second half to this foundational purpose, namely, in real ways the hermit leaves everything and everyone and seeks to live in Communion with God and to become and be the truest, fullest, self she can be for the sake of others. 

Hermits are, first and foremost witnesses (martyrs) to the Love of God that is the deepest need of and sufficient for every person. We "leave everything and everyone" to the extent and in the way we do so in order to live in the silence of solitude (life with God alone) so that others may also know that God alone is enough (i.e., only God can create, sustain, and complete us as persons). I want to be clear that hermits are not the only ones who witness to this truth; for instance, men and women religious also do so, but they image the way that occurs in community and hermits image this truth in the vividness of the silence of solitude. (Both hermits and cenobites live community, silence, and solitude, but they do so differently with different emphases in their lives.) Again, who the hermit is and what the hermit does, is meant to be a gift and ministry to and for the sake of others; she lives her life for the sake of others -- beginning with God's own sake.

So, with that important piece in place let's think about the term independence and especially its sense in Christian theology. To be truly free is to be empowered to be the person God wills us to be. It is to be able to live authentically and fully, the potential which is ours by virtue of our creation by God. There is a "free from" dimension to this empowerment as well as a "free for" dimension. For the person who exists in and through God in Christ, and to the extent this is true, there is freedom from sin (that is, from estrangement from God, self, and others), from ego, from much of the woundedness our lives in space and time cause us. This means too then, that there is the freedom to be Oneself for God, for the sake of God's good creation, and certainly for the sake of all who are precious to God. The hermit's freedom is very much this kind of freedom in both senses and dimensions.

If what one calls independence is ruled by ego, it is not genuine freedom. If we are not free to receive our lives as gift or others in a similar way, we do not know genuine freedom. If we are not free to give ourselves generously, to love and trust others in ways that empower them similarly, we are not truly free at all. Because we are only human as part of a community, because our humanity is a gift of God which is realized in and through our love of God and others and theirs of/for us, we need these same others if we are to be free. God is a community of love and God wills to draw us into that same reality; indeed, he has made us for this. By definition, humanity itself, and human freedom therefore is defined in terms of such community.

All of this makes the solitude of the authentic hermit incredibly paradoxical. To the degree it is genuine, it will be an expression of our seeking and being in intimate community with God, with our deepest selves, and, in other ways, with others. No matter what else we walk away from, we cannot walk away from God or our deepest selves without betraying the very nature of our existence as human, and too then, our vocation and its solitude in the process. By extension, we cannot walk away from others --- though most of the time we relate to them differently than most people do.

The vocation I have begun describing here is both difficult, rare, and, as noted, incredibly paradoxical. It is easy to mistake it for the isolation and misanthropy that marks the loner in today's society because externally these two can look a lot alike. When one doesn't know that (seeking and receiving) communion with God is the primary motivation and goal of the hermit, it is easy to imagine that the vaunted "eremitical freedom" means the freedom to walk away from every relationship and responsibility and do whatever one wants whenever one wants to do it. Adding to the confusion is the fact that the word "hermit" has been used in these two antithetical ways, again based on some externals alone. But authentic eremitical life is demanding, and because communion with God (being loved and loving in return in the way God loves and empowers one to love) is a difficult goal which requires the whole of one's life, it really does require supervision and work with a skilled spiritual director, etc., to keep one moving forward in receiving and embodying one's deepest truth.

Sin is, in the way I have defined it above, easy; refusing Life, which is always a gift of God, allowing it to slip away, choosing counterfeits and substitutes is easy. Holiness (being true to God and to one's deepest self in order to love as God loves), requires discipline, patience, commitment, and love --- including the love of those who know us and God, and who can help empower us to choose and continue to receive Life at every turn. In my own life those persons are a rare and precious gift. They include those who have agreed to serve me as spiritual director, as well as Director or delegate on behalf of my bishop and diocese to be sure that this vocation is lived well and in a way which is edifying to the life of the church and the understanding of all the faithful. 

The irony is that I could never be a hermit as c 603 defines one and as Christian tradition understands us without the assistance of others. I could never live the aloneness of a hermit with an ecclesial vocation by myself. To say with my life that God alone is sufficient for us, requires not just being embedded in the People of God and in God's own life, it requires those others who mediate God's love to me and remind me of those for whom I live as well. Even as a recluse (were I to find myself called to this even rarer form of eremitical life) I would require others, and that means others to and for whom I would feel grateful, those I would pray for, come to know in one way and another, and whose lives would therefore enrich the tapestry of my life as integral threads composing dimensions of my solitude. 

I'll stop this here, because I think I could keep writing for quite a while on this critical paradox. If you haven't read the following post, you should give it a look. It approaches some dimensions of this response -- becoming human, becoming holy, etc. -- with different imagery. That might be helpful to you. Inner Work and transparency to God As always, please get back to me if you have additional questions! 

John W O'Malley, sj, Dies at 95!

John O'Malley, sj, a preeminent Catholic Historian specializing in Rennaissance Church history, Church Councils, and especially Vatican II died yesterday at the age of 95 years. Ecclesiologist Massimo Faggioli writes of him this way, [[In a unique way, O’Malley helped rescue Vatican II from oblivion but also from subtle forms of abrogation and delegitimization. He saw, before many of us, that there was a real need—if not an emergency—to make a new and different argument about Vatican II in the Catholic Church, where the memory of the conciliar event was often kept alive by those with a veterans’ mentality. This mentality was well-meant but also incapable of reaching newer generations or the peripheries of the post-Vatican II ecclesial establishment.]]

My own education in Vatican I and Vatican II is dependent on O'Malley's work in big ways, including Vatican II, Did Anything Happen?; What Happened at Vatican II; After Vatican II (with James L Heft); Vatican I; Tradition and Transition, Historical Perspectives on Vatican II; and several volumes on Trent or more general Church history. I always found him readable, funny, insightful, and balanced (whenever balance was called for!) I take this moment to celebrate a life lived for the sake of the Church and lived very well!! AMDG, indeed!!!

The Three faces of Prodigality: Which Will we Choose? (Reprise)

 Commentators tend to name today's Gospel parable after the Merciful Father, because he is central to all the scenes (even when the younger Son is in a far off place, the Father waits silently, implicitly, in the wings). We should notice it is his foolish generosity that predominates, so in this sense, he too is prodigal. Perhaps then we should call this the parable of the Prodigal Father. The younger son squanders his inheritance, but the Father is also (in common terms and in terms of Jewish Law) foolish in giving him the inheritance, the "substance" (literally, the ousias) of his own life and that of Israel. His younger Son treats him as dead (a sin against the Commandment to honor Father and Mother) and still this Father looks for every chance to receive him back.

When the younger son comes to his senses, rehearses his terms for coming home ("I will confess and be received back not as a Son, but as a servant,"), his Father, watching for his return, eagerly runs to meet him in spite of the offense represented in such an act, forestalls his confession, brings his Son into the center of the village thus rendering everything unclean according to the law, clothes him in the garb of Sonship and authority, kills the fatted calf and throws a welcome home party --- all heedless of the requirements of the law, matters of ritual impurity or repentance, etc. Meanwhile, the dutiful older son keeps the letter of the law of sonship but transgresses its essence and also treats his Father with dishonor. He is grudging, resentful, angry, blind, and petty in failing to recognize what is right before him all the time. He too is prodigal, allowing his authentic Sonship to die day by day as he assumes a more superficial role instead. And yet, the Father reassures him that what is the Father's is the Son's and what is the Son's is the Father's (which makes the Father literally an "ignorant man" in terms of the Law, an "am-haretz"). Contrary to the wisdom of the law, he continues to invite him into the celebration, a celebration of new life and meaning. He continues to treat him as a Son. 

The theme of Law versus Gospel comes up strongly in this and other readings this week, though at first we may fail to recognize this. Paul recognizes the Law is a gift of God but without the power to move us to act as Sons and Daughters of God in the way Gospel does. When coupled with human sinfulness it can --- whether blatantly or insidiously --- be terribly destructive. How often as Christians do we act in ways which are allowed (or apparently commanded) by law but which are not really appropriate to Daughters and Sons of an infinitely merciful Father who is always waiting for our return, always looking for us to make the slightest responsive gesture in recognition of his presence, to "come to our senses", so that he can run to us and enfold us in the sumptuous garb of Daughterhood or Sonship? How often is our daily practice of our faith dutiful, and grudging but little more? How often do we act competitively or in resentment over others whose vocation is different than our own, whose place in the church (or the world of business, commerce, and society, for that matter) seems to witness to greater love from God? How often do we quietly despair over the seeming lack of worth of our lives in comparison to that of others? Whether we recognize it or not these attitudes are those of people motivated by law, not gospel. They are the attitudes of measurement and judgment, not of incommensurate love and generosity. 

At the beginning of Lent we heard the fundamental choice of and in all choices put before us, "Choose life not death." Today that choice is sharpened and the subtle forms of death we often choose are set in relief: will we be Daughters and Sons of an infinitely and foolishly Merciful Father --- those who truly see and accept a love that is beyond our wildest imaginings and love others similarly, or, will we be prodigals in the pejorative sense, servants of duty, those who only accept the limited love we believe we have coming to us and who approach others competitively, suspiciously and without generosity? Will we be those whose notions of justice constrain God and our ability to choose the life he sets before us, or will we be those who are forgiven to the awesome degree and extent God is willing and capable of forgiving? Will we allow ourselves to be welcomed into a new life --- a life of celebration and joy, but also a life of greater generosity, responsibility, and God-given identity, or will we simply make do with the original prodigality of either the life of the younger or elder son? After all, both live dissipated lives in this parable: one flagrantly so, and one in quiet resentment, slavish dutifulness, and unfulfillment. 

The choice before those living the latter kind of Christian life is no less significant, no less one of conversion than the choice set before the younger son. His return may be more dramatic, but that of the elder son demands as great a conversion. He must move from a quiet exile where he bitterly identifies himself as a slave rather than a free man or (even less) a Son. His own vision of his life and worth, his true identity, are little different than those of the younger son who returns home rehearsing terms of servility rather than sonship. The parable of the merciful Father puts before us two visions of life, and two main versions of prodigality; it thus captures the two basic meaning of prodigal: wasteful and lavish. There is the prodigality of the sons who allow the substance of their lives and identities to either be cast carelessly or slip silently away, the prodigality of those who lose their truest selves even as they grasp at wealth, adventure, duty, role, or other forms of security and "fulfillment". And there is the prodigality of the Father who loves and spends himself generously without limit or condition. In other words, there is death and there is life, law and gospel. Both stand before us ready to be embraced. Which form of prodigality will we choose? For indeed, the banquet hall is ready for us and the Father stands waiting at this very moment, ring, robe, and sandals in hand.

If you need People Perhaps you are not Called to Eremitical Life!? Really???

[[Dear Sister Laurel, While I appreciated your article on the role of the bishop in supervising the c 603 hermit, and while I think I can see how it is a delegate or delegates can be of aid to the bishop and the hermit both, I was struck by a sense that this kind of institutionalization is very far from traditional hermit life. Whatever happened to "God alone is enough"? I know you have written about charges of an inappropriate institutionalization in the past, once just recently, but I hope you will renew the discussion. If you need the Sisters you mentioned, or if a bishop is not able to supervise hermits in his diocese, mightn't this indicate either 1) you are not called to the kind of solitude eremitical life requires, and/or 2) canon 603's insistence on the supervision of the hermit's life by a bishop is contrary to the life of a hermit? I have posed my questions in a deliberately provocative way, but I hope you will take them as a challenge to answer questions which might trouble some readers. Thanks!]]

I very much appreciate your clarity in the way you posed your questions. I also agree that you have asked things which others are likely troubled by. For instance, I have been reminded freshly recently that there is a strong thread of anti-institutionalization among some lay hermits and I think that comes from several places: 1) a failure to understand the eremitical vocation as specifically ecclesial, 2) an ignorance of history and the way eremitical lives were discerned and lived through the majority of church history in the Western as well as the Eastern Church, and, 3) the emergence and near epidemic instance of an individualism which neglects or rejects the essential need for human intimacy and relatedness. Yes, I have written about all of these over the past decade and a half; I can try to summarize that here and I will try to draw from the article you mentioned specifically to explain both the way I live solitude, and the way the persons I mentioned (Sisters Susan and Marietta, and (by extension) my bishop and others) contribute to that rather than detract from it. Hopefully that will answer the specific questions you posed.

The Ecclesial Nature of the Eremitical Vocation I Live:

I think it goes without saying that there are many "flavors" or "stripes" of solitude, but let me say it anyway. Some go off to physical solitude to test themselves and their own capacities. One example of this might be Richard Proenecke who, initially at least, went off to Alaska for a year, and who then found he thrived in the solitude while creatively meeting the various challenges he encountered every single day. His story is inspiring as he explores the limits and capacities of the human person alone (or nearly so since he received assistance from a friend who flew in supplies, and allowed access to a shelter which made initial survival a good deal easier). Even so, there is no doubt that Proenecke lived a clear and very significant solitude that would reduce most people to terror or functional catatonia in short order -- unless it killed them outright!

Another example I have referred to here a number of times is the misanthropy and failure to live one's life fruitfully with others represented by Tom Leppard (cf labels to right) and called eremitism by some. Tom Leppard identified others as the heart of his problems in life and hied himself off to the Isle of Skye where he could live without dealing with others often, if at all. Or, consider the solitude of the individual professed according to canon 14 in the Anglican/Episcopal Church who writes that his profession as a solitary religious was specifically meant to say he was not called to community of any sort at all; he was, he claimed, constituted by his anti-communal call and profession. Then again, recall the solitude of someone living in the wilderness of solitary confinement during a 30 year sentence in a US "Super Max" prison or the physical solitude of a child growing up with an impaired immune system who must live in a bubble, or of an elderly person who has lost all of  her family, has few remaining friends and has grown apart from the rhythms and activities of ordinary society. These forms of solitude are vastly different from one another in their shapes and motivations and they all contrast significantly with my own vocation to canon 603 eremitical life.

Finally, consider the person who embraces eremitical life because they feel God is calling them to this; they have a sense of wholeness as a human being in solitude and witness to the love of God by embracing such a call. They feel called to the desert as Jesus was called to the desert, 1) to do battle with the demonic dwelling in their own hearts and in the world around them, and 2) to consolidate their identities as Daughters and Sons of God for their own sake and, in some cases, for the the sake of others. These persons are hermits as the Church defines them generally, and this is what  I am called to as well. You can see how vastly different such vocations are from those described above. Even so, beyond this difference and further specifying it, is the single characteristic that further defines and modifies the distinctive shape and motivation of my own solitude; the very thing that makes it eremitical in a way which contrasts with all of these other forms is its ecclesiality.

Like other Catholic Hermits, I am called by God to live this vocation to the silence of solitude in the heart of the Church, both through her mediation and in her name. With her I have discerned this vocation and been professed, consecrated, and missioned (commissioned, in fact) to live eremitical life in a publicly committed way for the sake of God and all who are (and all that is) precious to God.  Unlike those who live eremitical life in the lay state, the Church directly supervises Catholic Hermits' living out of their vocations; she has allowed us to make a life commitment to this call and will help ensure it is truly a call to human wholeness which witnesses to the power of the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ. Because of this ecclesial dimension, we are empowered to live authentically human and eremitical life in a responsive and responsible way for the sake of others, and to do so in season and out, in times of darkness and of light.  It is the public and ecclesial dimension of these lives which transform and stabilize them into vocations.

"God Alone is Enough"

 So what happened to the famous (and in some senses infamous) saying, "God alone is enough?" Have canonical hermits dropped that for the sake of an institutionalization that curtails eremitical freedom and feeds the hermit's tendency to pride, for instance? I don't think so. The affirmation "God alone is enough" can be read several different ways. Two are critical for the hermit, 1) We need no one and nothing but God, 2) only God is able to complete us as human beings and we will be incomplete without God. Eremitical life has generally taken both of these affirmations to be true but recognized that the first cannot be taken literally; it is simply not true when understood literally. The second affirmation is always seen as true and most often is understood to be primary.  We take it literally. Sometimes the first affirmation has been made primary. This has happened with those who live reclusion, but it has also happened with those who criticize hermits who are active in their parishes or dioceses even when this is significantly limited in comparison to other religious or ministers.

Hermits have reached a place in their lives where they feel called to witness to the truth that only God can complete us as human beings. In fact, only God (including all the ways God is mediated to us through the lives and love of others) can call us to authentic human existence. We don't say "I don't need anything or anyone other than God" for that would be untrue and, in fact, result in a narrowed and cramped humanity, a shadow of the fullness of life one is called to in Christ. We need other human beings, friends who speak God's truth to us and call us to be our best selves, family who know us more deeply than maybe any others and who love us for who we are, superiors who allow us to be accountable for the gifts God has graced us with and who inspire us to fulfill the commitments we have made for the sake of ourselves and all those others we touch, priests and pastors, physicians, teachers, mentors, and all those who touch our lives and enrich them with their presence and the presence of God in all of the ways God seeks to come to us.

However, while we do not reject the important place of others in our lives,  we have come to a place there where we limit contact with others so we can witness in a more vivid way to the truth that without God we are less than whole, less than human, and that only God is the source of these; only God is sufficient to complete us as human beings. In that sense, "God alone is enough (or sufficient)"! (As Thomas Aquinas said, "Only God is sufficient" --- with all the rich and varied senses of "sufficient" that includes.) The solitude of the hermit says that "God alone is enough" and more, that some of the things our world counts as essential to life are simply not. It is not essential to be wealthy or powerful or to live without constraints. Freedom and well-being are defined differently for a Christian (or an authentically human being). The meaningfulness of our lives is measured in terms of love and generous service, not in terms of productivity or capitalism and consumerism. We are called to be attentive and responsive to the God who gives us life, not to the values of a world which too often defines humanity antithetically to the way the Kingdom (Family) of God defines this.

My need for others:

Your question in this assumes that eremitical requires a certain kind or degree of solitude and that my need for the mentoring, accompaniment, and supervision by others, indicates I am not called to eremitical life. in fact eremitical life has ALWAYS had such things, and required them. Ordinarily some needs have always been obviated by considering eremitical life as a "second-half-of life" vocation which builds on significant formation and assistance by others in religious life. Even so, the need for mentors was built into the Desert Abbas and Ammas lives when they moved to the desert (i.e.,  any wilderness outside the cities). Because I have written about this fairly recently I will refer you to a couple of posts which discuss this rather then repeating this material. Please see: Never Alone in This, The Place of Elders in Eremitical Life, and Religious Obedience and the Ministry of Authority See also other posts under the label, Ministry of Authority, Delegates, Spiritual Directors (or Spiritual Direction) or legitimate Superior.

What We Alone Can Do, We Cannot Do Alone (Reprise with redactions)

Today's Gospel was challenging, not least because we had children attending. They heard one of the more confusing directives of Jesus, "Unless you hate your Mother and Father, Brothers and Sisters, and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple!" Jesus follows this section of the lection with a couple of examples of why we must count the cost of things, first a parable about a man building a tower without sufficient planning and resources, and next a King with an army of 10,000 considering facing an army of 20,000. There is foolishness involved when we take on something serious and fail to count the cost. Discipleship is certainly the most serious life "project" we take on.

Folks thought perhaps I was doing the reflection today at Mass and asked that I make the context of the reading clear to the children who were coming. After all, what could it mean for Jesus to ask we love him at the expense of hating our own families and even our very selves? What kind of sense does that make, especially to children? What kind of discipleship would that be? But of course, Jesus' language is a Semitism in a language without the gradations we English-speakers and thinkers might take for granted. More, the absoluteness of this Semitism mirrors the absolute priority of loving God. Jesus is saying we must love God more than all others and really, before all others. Of course we owe God this --- God deserves this from us, but the reasons for this directive are also profoundly practical, namely we love God who is Love-in-Act by allowing God to love us and to fill us with the Divine Life that is meant to animate anyone who is truly human. 

Only then can we love anyone, including ourselves, as we really deserve and are called to do -- and this does not mean second best in some kind of worldly hierarchy, but radically, with one's entire heart and soul and strength. Love of God has a "priority" not in time, but in the geography of our hearts, that makes all other loves possible with a depth and fullness (radicality) we would not otherwise be able to achieve. The paradox that we love God by allowing God to love us, that is, by allowing God to be God and that means God-for-us, is not surprising once we consider Who and what God is. The fact that we only truly love others as radically as we are called by God to love them when we love God "first, " that is, as foundation of (and thus in a qualitatively different way than) the way we love every other love in our hearts.**

But the challenge of counting the cost of discipleship and allowing God to love and empower my love for self and others took my thoughts in the direction of my own vocation. Hardly surprising I guess. Especially it reminded me of something I read this morning early. By way of introduction, Martin Laird, OSA, has a new book on contemplation coming out in December. Fortunately, the Kindle version came out yesterday at midnight! I am already loving the book which develops themes from his first two books on contemplation and is geared to those facing expected difficulties in contemplative lives that are already-well-established. Laird does not deny we are all always beginners but he does recognize that different problems face us at different points along our journey to know or realize more fully our already-real union with God. But this morning one sentence in the first chapter struck me as wonderful and exactly right, "What we alone can do we cannot do alone"! The paradox of being truly ourselves only to the extent we are breathed forth and empowered by God --- that is, only to the extent we are a dialogical or covenant reality with God as our soul (the Divine breath that animates us), as well as only to the extent we are beings-in-relation-with-others comes up very often in what I write here (or anywhere!), and these are central to Laird's observation, "What we alone can do we cannot do alone"!

In my own life as a hermit, this is a central insight which helps determine the meaning of canonical terms like, "the silence of solitude" in canon 603. In the inner work I do with my director and accompanist it is similarly central and demands that I understand the gift of working with another is not a luxury, nor is it something which interferes with eremitical solitude. Instead, eremitical solitude is all about a relatively rare but also a universal way of "being relatedness" someone actually constituted by my relatedness to God, to others, and to all of reality. In the work Sister Marietta and I do, for instance, it is essential to being and becoming myself that I (allow myself to) be heard and find ways to express myself as well as I can --- as essential as it is that I hear God alive within me! This is absolutely critical to the effectiveness of the work I (we) do. And, though I do the majority of the work on my own, ultimately this means another person (and especially one with appropriate expertise and sensibilities!!) is also indispensable.

Even so, of course I often find it difficult to articulate what I am experiencing. Sometimes it is too vague, too visual or aural and too far from my thinking mind or the vocabulary that usually serves me so well; sometimes it is too painful or too frightening. Sometimes I know that because Marietta is compassionate and has chosen to accompany me, and because she listens so very well, my sharing will cause her some pain.  Compassion hurts; love is sometimes painful. Of course, this is her decision, not mine; only she can decide whether and how the demands of accompaniment are something she will undertake, and yet the desire to protect her comes up for me and sometimes this too prevents expression of what I am experiencing. But even at these times I am aware of her presence (and God's!) sitting near (or breathing gently and silently within), watching, waiting, praying, listening, and inviting my sharing --- for sometimes it is only her presence that gives me the courage to go deep within --- much less to share what occurs there; as I am often reminded, whatever sharing I can do is healing and strengthening. What we alone can do we cannot do alone.

And so, as a piece of genuine discipleship we count the cost. Many times over the past two years (and especially early on during this time) I have had to discern whether my eremitical life was jeopardized by the work I had undertaken with Marietta. I have noted this here before. Again and again the answer came back, "This is part of the cost of truly growing in wholeness and holiness." I know this. "It is absolutely necessary if you are to become the person (the hermit!!) I have called you from the beginning to be. Look! Look at how your prayer has been transfigured, how you have grown in freedom and how again and again your work together with Marietta deepens both your eremitical solitude and the silence of that solitude as your heart is enlarged and made more wholly My dwelling place!" I do try not to count the cost Marietta has determined she will accept and bear as part of her own vocational faithfulness; that really is something only she can and should do, just as only I can truly count and bear the cost of my own faithfulness to God's call.  After all, if I allow my own attention and discernment to be distracted, if I fail in this way to trust Marietta to do what she alone can do, I am pretty sure I "will not have the resources to finish" a process which is already costly indeed ---but even more worthwhile!!

I suppose this is on my mind in part because I continue to get questions from people who do not see how working in the way I have described over the past 2.5 years is consistent with eremitical solitude.  I do not know how to answer any better than I have in a number of posts throughout this period. But of course, ultimately, my own commitment to this work and to eremitical life as I and those mutually responsible for my vocation understand it, means I do not really have to explain further unless I believe it will be really helpful to someone. However, at bottom the work itself clarifies its own indispensable nature as it mediates God's love and empowers my own growth, healing, and sanctification precisely as a hermit living this life in the name of the Church. Those who are, to whatever extent, also responsible for my vocation see this clearly. What I alone can do I cannot do alone --- and this especially includes living into the context, charism, and goal of eremitical life c 603 hermits know as the "silence of solitude."

** I heard a homily this morning which treated hatred for Mother and Father, et al, rightly as a Semitism characterized by hyperbole in the absence of comparatives in the language. Unfortunately, the homilist went on to speak of greater love for God and lesser love for Mother and Father, et. al., as well as "detachment" from Father and Mother, et. el. Surely we have all thought and spoken about religious vocations in this way. But, it seems to me that today's Gospel reading is actually not speaking about detachment, and especially not about cultivating detachment as the means to our end, so much as he is talking about loving in and through and as empowered by the love of God which has a qualitatively different kind of priority. This is not about achieving detachment from loves or persons so much as it is about achieving the radicality of love required through the purification of our own hearts. Such purification results when Love of God (that is, letting God love us) has its rightful place in our lives; it does not mean loving anyone "less than" we once did, but rather loving them more than we ever imagined was possible.

P.S., For those interested, Martin Laird, OSA's third book in the trilogy I mentioned is called, An Ocean of Light.  While it may be helpful, one does not, Laird assures us, need to read the first two books before this one.