Who Do You Say That I Am?

Tomorrow's Gospel is always an incredibly challenging one for me. In Luke's version of the story Jesus is engaged in solitary prayer and enquires of his disciples, who have accompanied him, who people say that he is. The answer is various: Elijah, John the Baptist, or one of the ancient prophets. Jesus then sharpens the question and ups the ante considerably. He asks who his disciples themselves say that he is, and Peter responds (apparently on the group's behalf), "The Christ of God." Jesus is said to then rebuke them directing them not to tell this to anyone. He then says that the Son of Man must suffer greatly, be rejected by the scribes and pharisees (the religious establishment), be killed, and raised on the third day.

On the face of it the reading is the story of Jesus beginning to redefine in a literally crucial way what being a messiah, God's own Christ, really means. The disciples have come to a sense that Jesus speaks and acts with an unusual authority and a significant relationship with God (the reference to solitary prayer as the context for this story helps establish that part of the picture at this point). They have considered him a prophet and now have come to regard him as God's Christ, God's anointed One. And yet, Jesus knows that they do not understand what being such a one really means. They expect a gloriously victorious and heroic figure who will stand in complete harmony with the religious establishment (Judaism), defeat the Empire, and bring an end to the People of God's exile.

But Jesus makes it clear that his Messiahship is not such a one -- not quite anyway. Instead, despite (and also because of) his continuity with figures like Elijah, John the Baptist and the ancient prophets, he will be rejected and killed by the powers of this world (including the religious establishment) and be vindicated by God in resurrection. Despite so much in Jewish history regarding the rejection and difficulties faced by prophets, the reality of a suffering servant (Israel herself), the disciples are not prepared for a messiah who will suffer scandalous and shameful death, who defines divine power in terms of weakness and kenosis, or victory in equally paradoxical ways as actual participation in our sinfulness and brokenness. They are not prepared for a different end to exile, a defeat of the powers of the world which is far more radical than leading Judiasm from under Rome's boot.

But there are other currents in this reading. One central one is the demand that the disciples move beyond accepting common notions of Jesus' identity (or traditional ones of the nature of messiahship) and state clearly for themselves, for Jesus, and for the world who they know him to be. (The prohibition on telling others is not a prohibition to follow Jesus or to act as those who know personally who he really is; it is not a prohibition of discipleship! It is a post-resurrectional theologumenon (or theological construct) which Mark developed and Luke borrowed which is geared instead to allow Jesus to live out completely his Messiahship in a way which redefines it in terms of suffering, weakness and self-emptying, and which also allows others to come to a point of faith or rejection of that without prejudicing them with preconceptions, etc.) There is no doubt tomorrow's Gospel challenges us each to move beyond the definitions and traditional identifications the Church has given us ABOUT Jesus, and come to a clear sense of who Jesus is for us personally.

Of course we may well agree completely with who others (the church Councils, for instance, or the catechism which outlines this) say that Jesus is, but we must also speak clearly with our lives (and sometimes in words!) what that means in concrete terms for ourselves and our world. So, for instance, Protestants often speak of having a personal saving relationship with the Lord, while Catholics commonly speak of believing certain things about Jesus as Savior. Tomorrow's Gospel regards both as necessary but challenges us to allow the traditional things we know about God's messiah to become realized or embodied in our own personal commitment to the risen Christ. We must know who others say that Jesus is, but we must also attend to and answer with our lives the question he puts to us each day, "Who do YOU say that I am?"

Secondly then, Jesus' question, "Who do you say that I am?" is another way of asking, "Who do I, Jesus, say that you, Laurel (et al), are?" or even, "Who will you say with your life that you are?" It is something I was reminded of recently by a friend who prayed with this text and found herself writing about this second question. It is also rooted in the sense that Jesus defines and reveals not only who God is, but that he does the same with authentic humanity. For that reason, when we affirm the truth of Jesus' identity we affirm and commit ourselves to living the truth of the selfhood he calls us to as disciples of his. Once again Jesus' question takes us far beyond creedal formulations in posing this question. He does not ask us to affirm him verbally as consubstantial with the Father (though we may well want to do so), but he does ask us to allow him to be God's own Word of address, challenge, and healing in our own lives.

One of the things which stands out in Luke's version of today's events is that all of this occurs within the context of prayer, both Jesus' own, and the disciples'. Luke reminds us that we learn and affirm who Christ is and who we ourselves are in prayer. We might also say that wherever we affirm these things with our lives this IS prayer in the broadest sense of the word. Still, it is in praying regularly, deeply, attentively and responsively that we are confronted again and again by the questions, "Who do you say that I am?" "Who will you allow me to be?" and "Who will you say that I am with your very life?" In narrower and broader senses it is in prayer that we engage these questions, and Luke saw this clearly and challeges us to recognize and order our lives around this truth.

Question on a Post on Detachment

[[Would you develop on your your meaning of the following extract from your paper on Detachment in July 2008, please?

Quoting St Paul you state that everything does work for good for those who love God (i.e. those who let themselves be loved by God) italics are yours. Letting oneself be loved by God or anyone is a life-long journey and struggle (in my experience) unless one has known the secure love of a parent or some significant other in early life. Your piece implies that only if we are confident enough to surrender to Infinite Love (God) will our lives and our stuff be resolved satisfactorily. But I feel certain that you mean something other than this interpetation of mine and I'd be very glad to hear what you had in mind when you wrote that paper.]]


Hi there. Thanks for the question. In that post I reprised both a definition and a poem my pastor used for a homily, and I made two main, but related points: 1) that detachment is first of all about appropriate attachment and only secondarily about the stripping away of inappropriate or less worthy attachments --- though the reality assuredly involves both, and 2) that if one can just allow God to love them (a central sense of what it really means to love God -- selfish as that might first sound), then all things will work towards good in one's life (another way of saying everything will fall into place). The definition of what I called detachment was, "having found a love so great that everything else falls into place," and the poem, which illustrated this, I thought, was from a confederate civil war soldier and read as follows:


[[I asked God for strength, that I might achieve,
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.

I asked God for health, that I might do great things,
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.

I asked for riches, that I might be happy,
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men,
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life,
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.

I got nothing that I asked for
- but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am among men, most richly blessed.]]

At the time of that homily I found myself fingering my final (eremitical) profession ring with its motto: "My power is made perfect in weakness," and knowing that what this soldier described was the truth in my life as well. In particular what I have come to know is that if we allow God to love us, and if we act in and from that love, our lives will begin to make an almost infinite kind of sense and be fruitful in ways we never imagined (or prayed for!). But I certainly don't mean to suggest that allowing God to love us, and coming to see ourselves as God does (good, precious, loveable despite our brokenness and sin, and full of infinite promise despite these things as well) is something easy or quickly achieved. As you note yourself, it is a lifelong journey --- but also one that has stages or signposts including a fundamental if vestigial acceptance of God's love for us, even as that fundamental acceptance continues to grow the remainder of the journey.

Faith is a matter of trust. We entrust ourselves to God. We trust that what God says about us in the Scriptures and through the Christ Event especially is the truth. We trust that if we learn to see ourselves as God does (even as impaired as our vision still is), we have come to see ourselves rightly. And we trust that if we are able to behave as people who know ourselves in this way, our lives will be fruitful rather than barren in the ways Christ's was fruitful, in the ways Mary's and the Saints were fruitful, in the ways Elizabeth's and so many women throughout Jewish-Christian history's lives were fruitful. Finally, we trust that even in the face of life's meaninglessness, cruelty, betrayals (our own as well as others'), and other evil (none of which God wills!), our God wills to and is capable of bringing good out of all this. Even when we cannot quite believe any of this, faith can involve an acting as if it is true --- and if we can, with the grace of God, do just that much, we will find in time that the risk was worth it and the truth was as we hoped in the deepest parts of ourselves it would be.

But everything depends on allowing God to love us ever more deeply and completely and living from and in light of that love. Everything depends on entrusting ourselves to this love despite everything we have been taught (and often mistaught!) by others about such things. You write, [[Your piece implies that only if we are confident enough to surrender to Infinite Love (God) will our lives and our stuff be resolved satisfactorily.]] Partly. Let me give you an example which may clarify my point.

Let's say that a person is abused as a child and the result of that abuse is a kind of crippling of the potential of her life. She will, if she is able and motivated, spend a lot of time healing from the abuse and that means that this is time that might have been spent otherwise. One of the things which can aid this healing greatly besides the consistency of a good therapist is the conviction that God loves us no matter what, and that we need do nothing at all to earn this love. The fact of God's love does not take away the abuse or its effects, nor does it eliminate the need to heal and grow beyond all of this, but it CAN allow a person's weakness and brokenness to become a sign of God's powerful love --- a love which can bring good out of even the tragedies of early life. God's love does not wipe away the past, for instance, but it does create a future where perhaps it seemed like there really was none.

Similarly, let's say a person is chronically ill and this also cripples her life in many ways. She will spend a great deal of time coming to terms with all the ways her dreams cannot be met or achieved. But, if she can allow God to love her as she is and without a need to make herself acceptable to God, then what she is apt to find is that God's love will bring life out of death here and again, make of her life something of almost infinite worth. Worth is not calculated in terms so precious to the world: productivity, competitiveness, and the like, but instead in terms of what God says is true about us --- how truly good and precious and lovable we are to him! When we come to accept this basic truth (and commit to allowing it to be more and more the guiding truth of our lives) we will find that in our lives all things will work for the good. All things will serve to witness to that essential life and sense-making truth, and this will be true no matter the evil that befalls us because it is a love which transcends these things.

I hope this helps a little. If I haven't quite caught your question or objection please get back to me.

Followup Question on Non-Hermits Writing Eremitical Rules

[[Dear Sister, Thank you for your response to my question on writing a Rule of Life. What about a person who proposes to live as a hermit and needs a Rule to do that? Can't a person who has not lived as a hermit write such a Rule? By the way, wasn't the charge of fraud and hypocrisy in your response pretty harsh?]]

Let's consider the person who has determined s/he wants to be a hermit and is beginning to live the life in some conscious way. Wouldn't it help to write a plan of life to get one started? Could it be just a working-paper kind of thing? Yes, and so long as we are clear that these are NOT the Rules of Life called for by Canon 603, but merely ideas to get the new hermit-candidate started, such a practice would be fine. (I don't entirely see the need for a formal plan of life to begin living a solitary eremitical life. Some guidelines are important though (especially regarding TV or other distractions and entertainments) and over time, and with some judicious experimentation, writing one would be advantageous.)

In such a case, as I have noted in other posts, a person would be well served to write about what practices in particular keep them healthy and centered in their spiritual life in the present. But note well, they will not be writing about being a hermit at this point --- merely what unofficial Rule of Life they have already been keeping in terms of personal prayer, liturgy, work, study, lectio, ministry, spiritual direction, journaling, etc.

As the person begins to live in solitude this "Rule" will change. The hermit candidate (for, assuming she has made the transition from isolated person, she is now a hermit living in solitude, though still very much a novice!) will begin to reflect on the life God is calling her to live, what values or elements in particular that life reflects, how these are best embodied in her daily routine and circumstances and the like. The hermit will begin to read more and study about eremitism, the vows, the history of monasticism, various rules written by hermits through the ages, forms of prayer, spirituality, and a lot else as well.

She will begin to think about her relationship to the local church and parish, how her life does and can serve them as an eremite, and how they do and will support her in her vocation. She will deal with problems in prayer, difficulties with silence, solitude (and the silence OF solitude), finances, work, maintaining one's balance (or centeredness), contact with others, hospitality, ministry besides prayer, the ingrained habits and thought which constitute "the world" in her own life etc, and with the help of God and her director she will find ways to resolve all these things. As she does her Rule will become clearer in her own mind and heart and over a period of months or more she will approach the time when she really needs to work out a cogent and coherent vision of her life. It will be time to write a draft of a Rule of Life which might one day serve as part of the basis of her vow of obedience for Canon 603.

What I have tried to make clear is that there is a difference between a non-hermit writing a Rule she THINKS a hermit should live by, and a hermit writing one a hermit can and will live by (and perhaps even will publicly VOW to live by). The first one is an exercise in fantasy and is simply not rooted in reality. No good spirituality is based in fantasy rather than reality! The second is a matter of attentiveness to what is real. It takes cognizance of ideals, etc, but does so with an eye to real life. It cares deeply for eremitical life per se, but it does so not only with an eye to the tradition she wishes to represent officially but with an eye to the needs of the contemporary church and world as well. Obviously such a thing can only come in time from WITHIN the eremitical tradition/life.

So yes, begin with a draft "rule" of what is essential to your prayer and spirituality outside the eremitical life, and when you have begun to live in solitude, allow that to shape your sense of what is NOW essential, what no longer works, etc. In time you will be able to write an EREMITICAL rule which serves both your own eremitical life, and the contemporary church as well. It will be capable of speaking to individuals in situations of isolation --- unnatural solitudes, as Merton put the matter --- who are looking for a way to redeem their aloneness and isolation. It will also be able to speak to other hermits who recognize the lived-wisdom of it. And it will be able to assist the Church in evaluating Rules of Life submitted to them by candidates for profession under Canon 603 as well.

As you can tell, I don't believe a person who has not lived as a hermit can write a Rule which can effectively inspire, guide, or govern their own or anyone else's eremitical life. For that reason, except in the sense I defined above --- a tentative working-draft kind of Rule --- (or perhaps in the case of some Saint or spiritual genius!) no, a non hermit cannot write a Rule which is deeply wise in the lived experience of eremitical life. As for my conclusion that a Rule based on imagination and complete fiction is both fraudulent and hypocritical being a bit harsh, perhaps it is, but I would say it is also justifiably so. That is so because I believe the notion of writing a Rule AS THOUGH one is a hermit when one is not can be both essentially dishonest, and seriously lacking in humility. This is especially true if one were to submit such a Rule to one's diocese as though it were the basis of lived experience for approval and discernment of the vocation in front of them! So yes, the description (which was of the practice in general, not of any one person's) was harsh, but I think it was reasonable too. My apologies if I offended.

Questions on Writing a Rule of Life: Can I Write One Before I live as a Hermit?

[[Dear Sister, I would like to become a diocesan hermit in the future, but am not living alone presently and have not been able to do so yet. I would like to write a Rule of Life for that future time. I dream about it a lot. For example, I imagine what the life must be like and think I could do a good job of describing it and writing a Rule to reflect that. What do you think?]]

Hi there! This is a really important question. It is, surprisingly, also actually the third time this month I have been presented with a similar problem or scenario. One person, for instance, wrote a Rule of life a couple of months ago and only then started living as a solitary person according to this Rule; she wanted to know if it was time to approach her diocese at this point to petition for admission to profession. Another person began writing a rule of life as though he was already set up in a hermitage as a lay hermit (he does not have a hermitage, is not a solitary person, and will not be for some time); he wrote about what the ambience of the place would feel like and how he would feel walking in the door and into the silence and solitude, etc. And now you have written a question about the same kind of thing. The reason these scenarios and the questions which they ask are important is because they fail to understand how a Rule functions, how much life experience must exist before one can write one effectively, and finally, they are actually contrary to the very nature of contemplative life itself -- not least eremitical life!

It is true that Canon 603 says nothing about all this stuff and so is not clearly helpful. It simply lists a series of qualifications for admission to Canon 603 profession. Still, what is implicit in Canon 603 is the required experience of living a "Rule" to some significant if completely informal extent before one wrestles with it consciously and attempts to codify it in writing. It is easy to look at Canon 603 and think: what parts of this can I get out of the way so I can approach a diocese with my petition? The answer which comes, unfortunately all-too-easily is, "I can write a Rule of Life. That sounds the easiest!" (The same is a temptation for diocesan officials who look to the one concrete requirement in the Canon, and who then tell a person they need to write a Rule or Plan of Life; it is easiest to deal with this dimension of things whether a person is ready to write such a thing or not!) And then one looks to others and the Rules they have written, one copies from them (or is strongly tempted to!), borrows their ideas and theology, mimics their content and horarium, and passes it off as the fruit of one's own experience when one's diocese requires one submit a Rule that will pass canonical muster. The problem is that this is not based on lived experience and for that reason it does not indicate one's own hard-won wisdom (for one's Rule must reflect this even when it is consistent with the Rules of others). It is, to put it bluntly, fraudulent and hypocritical. If it occured in some other way, we would recognize immediately why such a thing would not work.

Let's say for instance that I decided I wanted to write a Rule of Life for married persons. I imagined myself as married, I imagined the way the house would be set up; I imagined the way it would feel when my husband came in through the door at the end of his work day. I imagined the love that would fill the house, the sounds that would and would not be there, the way we would pray together, our schedules and how we would live out our lives together, the problems we would have and how we worked through them, the strengths and weaknesses in the relationship and how we addressed and expressed those, etc. And then I wrote a description of all of that as though it reflected my own lived experience and described what was necessary for this to be true. Let's say I then submitted this to my diocese as a plan or guide to how married people (especially I and my "someday-husband") should live their vows. What is wrong with this picture?

Another example. Assume I have wanted to be a parish priest for as long as I can remember (this is actually NOT the case -- emphatically not!!--- but it's a good illustration). I imagine how I will deal with parishioners, how I will celebrate the Sacraments for them, how I will balance ministry with prayer, what training I will need and what reading I will have to do for continuing education, what I will wear and when, etc. I spend a lot of time dreaming and reading about what I think this vocation is about and I decide I had better write a Rule of Life for myself for when this becomes a reality. I address all the issues mentioned and many more. I describe what I imagine the problems and concerns a parish priest meets daily to be; I contruct a daily schedule which I believe will work for me in such a life. I even go so far as to describe the character of the priest's residence, what it will feel like to enter the door after being out, how this prayer or that devotional will comfort and soothe or strengthen and challenge me in given circumstances, how often I meet with a support group of other priests or spiritual directors and why it needs to be this way rather than another. I then submit this to the church as a guide or Rule for myself and for parish priests more generally. Should the church listen to me? Should they give the guide to diocesan priests as something they might use effectively or even normatively? Should they ordain me on the basis of this Rule? Again, what is wrong with this picture?

Would you credit (that is, treat as credible) a user's guide written by someone who had never used the product? Would you adopt a guide to spiritual direction or marriage, or brain surgery by persons who have never done spiritual direction, never been married, never been to medical school (much less through all the specialty training in neurosurgery)? Would you discern that someone has a calling to live these or an eremitical life if they write a completely fictional account about what these vocations or life in the hermitage will be like? I doubt it. The problem with all these examples of course is that they are built on complete fiction; they are based on imagination and dreams, not reality and lived experience.

When a hermit writes about the silence of solitude it is about living the reality of that --- not some abstract notion of what it WILL be like and mean. The same is true of the other foundational elements of the life, poverty, consecrated celibacy, stricter separation from the world (what IS that and what is it emphatically NOT!?) assiduous prayer and penance, the relation between solitude and ministry or evangelization, the shape of hospitality, the degree of reclusion one needs for healthy solitary life, etc. How do these take shape in THIS person's life? How do they differ from stereotypes? How do they challenge a person, foster growth, create problems? How must classic formulations within Eremitical Rules change in THIS individual's life and in today's church and world? The questions one must consider are raised by the life itself and by the individual's embodiment of the correspondence (and conflict) between an ideal (or traditional) version of that life and the concrete circumstances in which she attempts to live it. One cannot simply imagine all this and write a cogent Rule; to do so in this way is a self-contradiction, an oxymoron in fact.

Rules of Life are not, as I have mentioned before, just lists of what one does or does not do. They do indeed list what practices are essential to the life one lives, but they include sections on theology, reflection on the nature of the essential elements of the life, sections on the nature and content of the vows, Scriptures that are especially inspirational to one personally and which may have been fulfilled in unique ways in coming to live this vocation. They serve to remind a person what they should be doing and why (and in fact, what they are bound to in obedience), but more than that they function to convey a vision of the vocation which continues to inspire not only the hermit's perseverence, but the church herself because this document was born in the conjunction of the Holy Spirit and the person's lived experience. Especially they are not documents reflecting romanticized versions of eremitical life or of the practices and promise which are part and parcel of it. A document with vision and a romanticized fictional version of a reality are not at all the same thing!

All of this implies that the writing of a Rule of life takes some years of experience, research (on all the elements of the canon, on eremitical and monastic life, on spituality, and lots else), reflection, and then the hard work of putting it all in words --- writing and re-writing, and re-writing again --- expressing the way God really works in solitude, silence, poverty, etc, and what is necessary to allow him to work thusly in YOUR own life. And of course, this is as it should be for a contemplative committed to attentive life in the present moment. Such a life is a reflective life rooted in the reality of the present flavored always by hope which itself is not a matter of wishfulness or fantasy but rather of certainty and promise functioning in the present moment.

What I would suggest you do with regard to this Rule of Life you propose to write is to write it on the basis of who you are right now. What is necessary for you to be healthy? What vision inspires you today? How do you pray now and how does that affect your own maturation and growth in holiness? What does holiness look like to you right here and right now? How do you embody the essential values of the eremitical life? How do they challenge you? What do you sense you NEED to live all these even more fully and why? Don't touch on the things you know nothing about yet. Make notes about needing to reflect on them, read about them, find ways to live them, but especially do not make a Rule of Life into a fictional account of someone who has not yet drawn breath!

In time you will revise this. Perhaps you will do so several times as you continue to read, reflect, pray and LIVE the life. As you grow in your vocation it too may become the document the church envisions in Canon 603, both completely personal and capable of guiding and inspiring you and others in the real living of the life. Only then will it be a document the Church can look to for her own edification and guidance. Only then will it be a Rule of Life which the Church can use to help her discern the nature and reality of true eremitical vocations --- first your own, if that is the case, and then those who follow you seeking admission to Canon 603 profession. This Rule of course will be yours, but it will also become the Church's and part of the tradition of eremitical life in the church. For all these reasons it is imperative it be based on lived experience and not a hermit candidate's imagination or romanticized ideas of what it will all be like.

Remove the Beam from Your Own Eye: On Passions and Projection!

I saw a TV program a couple of years ago where a brilliant eye surgeon became schizophrenic soon after finishing his residency and establishing initially himself. His symptoms included visual hallucinations and an extensive delusional system so, delusional and in denial about his own illness, he attributed his symptoms to a mysterious eye problem which he decided to research and work out a treatment for. Most of the research involved taking poor and disabled persons in halfway houses and convincing their caregivers that they required SIGNIFICANT eye treatment including multiple laser and other surgeries. He sincerely believed that this work was helping people and that it would save his own life and career (this was all part of his illness afterall), but what he did was both criminal and destructive. Minor all-too-usual untreated eye-problems in the poor were magnified in the doctor's mind and became the justification for sadistic and careless experiments which always did more harm than good and were often irreversible. In a way it illustrates what happens to all of us in smaller and less floridly psychotic ways with regard to our own faults and the faults of others, and especially it reminds me of tomorrow's parable from Luke.

Jesus reminds us that a blind person who tries to lead others will lead everyone into the pit. He notes that an untrained person is apt to harm someone and needs to get proper training before trying to act as a teacher. And he reminds us via this parable that we ourselves are often afflicted with a beam in our own eye but that we are equally often one who blindly criticizes and offers to extract a splinter from another's eye. We hear one of Jesus' most damning judgments as he says: "You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from in your brother's eye!"

Jesus clearly understands several things: First, humility is the opposite of hypocrisy rather than of pride, just as Matthew told us a few months ago. Secondly, he knew that the way our attention is avidly drawn to the splinter in another's eye SHOULD lead us to suspect the beam in our own. And thirdly, I think Jesus understood very well what became the monastic teaching on the passions: namely, that passions are those habitual ways of seeing and behaving, those characteristic attitudes of the false self that serve as lenses which distort our own vision and prevent us from seeing rightly with the heart.

We use the term passion today very differently than 3rd and 4th Century monastics, and very differently from the use of the term in monastic literature generally. For us passions are strong emotions or desires: we say John has a passion for social justice, Ted has a passion for health care reform, Mary is passionately in love with her husband, Nadja has a passion for playing the violin like no one you have ever seen, etc! But monastics use the term in a different sense. Passions in this literature are invariably negative and need not involve strong emotion. In fact they may prevent us from feeling emotions which are really one way of perceiving and appreciating the world around us.

The passions are obstacles to humility, that is, they are barriers to recognizing and celebrating that loving truthfulness about who we are in regard to God and others. They are most often the beams in our own eyes and hearts which cause us to overreact to the splinters in our brother's or sister's eyes. They are the symptoms of woundedness and disease in our own hearts which cause us to project onto others and fail to love them as we ought and as they deserve. As Roberta Bondi reminds us, "a passion has as its chief characteristics perversion of vision and the destruction of love." (To Love as God Loves) Common passions we are all too familiar with include perfectionism, a kind of habitual irritation with someone, anger, envy, depression, apathy or sloth, gluttony (which often has more to do, Bondi points out, with requiring novelty than it does with eating), irritable or anxious restlessness, impatience, selfishness, etc. In each, if we consider their effects, we will notice these habitual ways of relating to ourselves and our world cause us to see reality in a distorted way (this is one of the reasons we think of seeing reality through the green haze of envy, or the red film of anger, or the icy wall of depression, and so forth). Further, they thus get in the way of being open to or nurturing the truth of others --- that is, they are obstacles to love.

Similarly they are destructive of sight and love because they cause us to project onto others our own failings and woundedness. Recently I had the experience that what I wrote on a listserve was misinterpreted negatively. Even the way I punctuated posts was taken to mean something completely negative as was my writing nothing at all! (For instance, because I rarely mentioned God in my posts on eremitical life, I was considered to have no genuine spiritual life or be inadequately centered on God. When I noted that my writing (or anyone else's) should be read without attributions of negative motives and attitudes, something I considered possible because I had not written them with those motives or attitudes, I was instructed that my conscious motives were one thing, subconscious ones were another --- as though the reader could claim to know these better than I did myself! Projection. It is a serious disease Jesus apparently understood well, a result of our own brokenness and sinfulness, and it assures not only that the person being projected onto CANNOT be heard or seen for who they are, but that the one doing the projecting becomes more and more locked into their own blindness and inability to love the other as neighbor. The wisdom of Jesus' admonition, "Remove the beam from your own eye before you attempt to remove the splinter from your brother's" as well as the apropriateness of his anger in calling hypocrisy just that is evident.

There is also a bit of monastic wisdom here we should remember which is closely related to the importance of dealing with our passions. In our own time we are very used to acting as though we only know someone really well when we see their flaws. We approach people and things "critically," searching out their failings and weaknesses and when we have discovered them, we believe we have discovered their deepest truth. How often have we heard someone say something like: "I thought I knew him, but the other day, he acted to betray me. Now I really know who he is!" But monastic wisdom is just the opposite of this notion of knowing. It is strikingly countercultural and counterintuitive. In monastic life we only really know someone when we see them as God sees them: precious, sacred, whole, and beautiful. We only see them rightly when we look past the flaws to the deep or true person at the core. We only see them truly when we see them with the eyes and humility of love. As we were reminded by Saint-Exupery and as tomorrow's Gospel implies strongly, "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly," --- and only once we have removed those distorting lenses monks call passions, that is, only once we have removed the beams from our own eyes!

Secularism, a Disease of Heart and Vision

I was most struck by today's first reading (Col 3:7-13) and its relation to what Pope Benedict has described as a crisis of our world --- rampant secularism. It is common to think of secularism as an inordinate esteem for the profane, something that reaches idolatrous proportions at times. But contrary to part of this analysis I think that at its root secularism has more to do with the failure to regard reality, ALL reality, as fundamentally sacred, as gift of God, as that which is to be honored and regarded in light of the One who grounds and gifts it. Secularism occurs precisely when we compartmentalize reality into the sacred and the profane. It occurs when we refuse or are unable to see the innate tendency of all things to reveal to us the God who grounds them, or to participate in and contribute to the goal of human and divine history: that God might be all in all. In short, it is a failure to take a sacramental view of reality.

Once the sundering of reality from its ground occurs, once that is, we begin to divvy things up into sacred and profane`we actually ensure that secularism can gain the ascendancy. Religion occupies a compartment of our lives, business another. Prayer and worship occupies a piece of our lives, sex (or food, or relationships, or material goods and our relation to them) another. And on it goes through all the dimensions and activities of our lives. But the fundamental truth for Christians is reflected in yesterday's Gospel. Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. In him the veil between sacred and profane has been rent in two and the distinction no longer holds. As Paul is at pains to convince the Colossians in today's first reading, in Christ all things are reconciled to God. In principle nothing is profane or "outside the temple". In him God (will be) all in all!

Evenso, we are called upon to make this truth real in our own lives, to embody it as fully as we are able. Secularism begins with the divisions in our own hearts, and the end to secularism comes only as we allow God to heal the divisions there and begin to see with the singleness and purity of what the Gospel writers call "new eyes" or with what Paul calls the remaking of our own minds -- eyes and minds sensitized and commited to honoring the sacredness of all of reality.

As Paul turns to the new church in Colossae he advocates "putting to death" all those ways of immorality which were so common as a piece of putting on Christ and becoming the imago christi baptism makes possible. His list of sins fall into two broad areas, sexual sins and sins of the tongue, or affective and expressive sins. What Paul knows I think is that there are two broad dimensions to us which are uniquely human. They are central and pervasive, and they distinguish us from mere animals and constitute us as reflective of the divine. Both are relational dimensions of our existence; they constitute us as capable of loving others, of giving ourselves and receiving the love and being of others in a way which creates abundant and expressive or revelational life. These two dimensions, the sexual and the expressive or verbal, symbolize the whole human being.

What seems clear to me from the list of sins Paul compiles, whether they belong to the dimension of speech or of sexuality is that none of them would exist if we were truly able to regard ourselves, others, and our world as essentially holy. How often sex is used in ways which trivialize it and those who engage in it! How often it is used to demean, exploit, punish, etc. The same is true with speech. How often we trivialize it, distort it, use it to separate, exploit or punish or demean! Our world is innundated in torrents of meaningless "speech," instead of speech which creates community and gives others a place to stand in our world and God's Kingdom; this grows more catastrophic almost daily as people simply treat everything as important to say --- and lose sight of the significance of real speech (not to mention the context required for this which is silence!). Beyond the actual trivialization of speech we have Slander, lies, rage. And yet, how possible would these be if we truly regarded reality, ourselves and others as fundamentally sacred?

Secularism is indeed a crisis today. The solution is what Paul calls putting on Christ, allowing our hearts to be remade, allowing our eyes to see as God sees, acting towards the world, ourselves, and others as they truly are in their profoundest reality. It was the answer and the challenge when Paul wrote from prison to the Colossians. It is the answer today as well.

Question on the Education of a Diocesan Hermit

I have written that diocesan hermits are expected by dioceses to acquire a certain degree of education and formation if they are ever to be professed as a Canon 603 hermit, and that most of this will be expected to happen before a candidate approaches a diocese with their petition. This is a position I agree with. The Diocese of La Crosse has a rather clear list of expectations in this area which includes (but is not limited to) the nature and content of the vows, the nature and history of eremitical life, theology, Vatican II, spirituality, etc. The idea that dioceses expect hermits to have much of this formation/education under their belts before they petition for admission to profession (which usually means before they approach the diocese in re to C 603 at all) raises questions for some. I received the following recently:

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, How would you compare [what you say about hermits educating themselves as part of preparation for profession] to a person entering a monastery? For example, one feels a call...visits a few places....then finds one that is "home." And then visits a few more times before entering. But, they don't enter with full knowledge of theology and monastic history, for example. For a much better term, they learn "on the job." So, just wondering your explanation on the difference.]]

As I have noted before, it is important to remember that dioceses do not form diocesan hermits. They discern the nature and quality of vocations that stand before them, and also evaluate the readiness of the person involved to take on the rights and responsibilities of public profession and consecration. There is no FORMAL entrance, novitiate, juniorate or scholasticate as part of Canon 603 even though one will move through various stages of discernment and formation before making a formal commitment of any kind, and, if candidates are admitted to vows at all, they will generally make temporary profession for three years prior to perpetual profession. Because of this the individual needs to take responsibility for a lot of the education and formation which would be part and parcel of communal formation and education. No one else will do it for a hermit candidate (though the diocese MAY point to some resources one may avail oneself of on their own once one is recognized as a strong candidate) and the Church (rightfully I suggest) expects it of those who would be professed as Canon 603 hermits.

Beyond this, there are many reasons solitude may call to one. The rarest and most radical involves a call to a life of eremitical solitude, but every Christian life and vocation involves some requirement for solitude. Unless an individual takes the time to understand themselves, the vocation to eremitical life, the nature of monastic and vowed or consecrated life more generally, and uses that time to experiment with eremitical life and explore the various ways solitude may and does call one and why, one may make a serious mistake in concluding one has a call to hermit life. For instance, one may be comfortable or "at home" with solitude at various points of one's life and not actually have a call to a life vocation as a hermit. These points in one's life may be transitional, the result of grief or loss, or even represent less legitimate desires for disengagement with others and one's ordinary world. They may stem from health or unhealth and it is only through time and serious learning, reflection, and discernment that one can come to clarity on these things. This is one of the reasons dioceses expect C 603 candidates to live for several years as a lay hermit before approaching a diocese re profession. Only in this way can one determine that eremitical solitude (not any other form or either legitimate or illegitimate need for solitude or withdrawal) is really the essential call one has experienced.

Education in the areas mentioned earlier can assist one in understanding and discerning the nature of her own call as she comes to appreciate the variations, challenges, responsibilities, and nature of eremitical life. If one spends time living as a lay hermit and educating oneself in theology, spirituality, church history, Vatican II and its challenges to the contemporary church and the modern world, as well as the nature and history of monastic and eremitical life (etc), one will learn much of the theology one needs to 1) write a Rule of Life, 2) understand the nature, content, significance, and challenge of the vows within a post-Vatican II church, 3) embody the eremitical life (lay or consecrated) in a way which speaks clearly to the contemporary church while it is consonant with the history of monastic and eremitical life through history, 4) engage in the limited ministry one MAY be called to do as either a lay or diocesan hermit, and (if called to consecrated eremitical life) 5) prepare for a future representing as fully as possible a rare and wonderful ecclesial vocation. Alternately, if they determine they are NOT called to life as either a lay or diocesan hermit they will still be better-prepared for ecclesial life in active ministry whether as lay persons or as religious.

There is a certain amount of learning "on the job" in every vocation, and eremitical life is no different. This learning never ceases and one never has a "full knowledge" as you put it; but unless one enters religious life to accomplish the basic education and initial formation required --- as well as undertake in a supervised and disciplined way the discernment they require --- then one has to provide for all this for oneself. There are no shortcuts, no alternatives with Canon 603 for those who do not come to it through monastic or religious life. Consider that all of this independent learning is a kind of variation on the old saying, "dwell in the cell and the cell will teach you everything." The eremitical life will involve independent study, lectio, solitary liturgical prayer, quiet or contemplative prayer every single day year in and year out, and in all these things it will also involve an initiative and capacity for independent work and direction. In some ways this is all part of the ongoing formation of a hermit; (this is the reason I suggest it is a variation on the more central meaning of the desert saying about dwelling in the cell). Dioceses rightfully expect to see that a person has developed such a capacity and has the initiative and independence which are so characteristic of diocesan hermits before they seriously consider admitting that person to profession.

Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins

Today's Gospel is one of the "parables of judgment." And in this context it is judgment in the uniguely and interrelated Christian senses of 1) harvest, and therefore 2) something which is not punitive, but merely involves a recognition of and commitment by God to the truth of what is. Evenso, as a story of an awful judgment, it is chilling too, for at the end the bridegroom will not unlock the door for those knocking NOW to be allowed in, but responds instead, "No, I did not know you." We have heard similar stories of course: apostles are sent out to proclaim, "The Kingdom of God is at hand," and are told to shake the dust from their sandals and leave the town, still saying, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." What was a tremendous opportunity becomes an awful judgment and moment of failure for those addressed by them. Similarly then, in today's parable what is meant to be the wedding feast becomes a moment of rejection, exclusion, and terrible judgment for some even while it is one of great rejoicing for others.

Where is it the foolish virgins fail in this parable? What is it they cease doing, for instance, which causes them to come under such a chilling judgment? At first it looks like they are guilty merely of failing to be prudent; they have lamps with insufficient supplies of oil to refill them should the bridegroom be delayed. But one might also ask "what kind of wedding is held at midnight" or "why should virgins be prepared for ANY eventuality, no matter how remote?" No, simple prudence is not their failing eventhough the wise virgins were MORE prudent than the foolish ones. Next it looks like perhaps they are guilty of falling asleep while the wise ones stay awake, but no, ALL the virgins, wise and foolish, fall asleep, so that is not the failing either. Instead, as far as I can tell, the foolish virgins really fail to wait for the Lord and the wise virgins continue to wait for him no matter the time or season. While it is unclear what the foolish virgins have begun to do instead, it is clear to me that they fail to wait for him.

If I am correct about this it opens to way to understanding "waiting" -- and particularly waiting for the Lord -- as something tremendously active and demanding, not passive or lacking in challenge. I suspect it is also something most of us are not very good at, especially in terms of the coming of the Lord! So what does waiting mean and involve? According to today's parable waiting involves the orientation of our whole selves towards a reality which is still to be fulfilled in some way. It means the ordering of our lives in terms of promise, not merely of possibility, and it means the constant reordering of our lives accordingly as time goes on. Waiting involves the acceptance of both presence and absence, reality and unreality, already and not yet, and the subordination of our lives to the dynamics these poles point to or define.

For those of us living in California we understand this kind of waiting because we live in earthquake country. At our parish school for instance we have supplies for all the students, et al, and these are stored away for the time when they WILL be needed. This is not merely a possibility, but an eventuality. Further, it is not enough to simply lay the supplies by and forget about them. They must be changed periodically, updated, modified, and so forth so that they reflect genuine preparedness. Families often do the same thing in their own homes --- and of course, some simply allow their supplies to expire or never get around to taking care of the need for such things at all. Real waiting is an active process of attentiveness and orientation. Filling our lamps, bringing extra flasks of oil, trimming the wicks, and all these actions symbolize the ongoing and ever-new ordering of our lives to the coming of the Lord.

Unfortunately, I suspect that most people's spiritual lives (and I include myself here!) are similar to either those foolish Californians who never set aside or fail to update necessary supplies for the eventuality of the "Big One", or to those foolish virgins who were unprepared to enter into the wedding feast with their bridegroom when he arrived. We may be baptized, confirmed, etc and consider that "that is enough." We may try to get by on prayer lives that were sufficient for us 20 years ago, but no longer. We may attend Mass once a week, and lull ourselves into believing that we have really ordered our lives in a way which is truly prepared for "the coming of the Lord." Similarly we may say to ourselves, "I prayed the night before last; I can skip it tonight!" -- or something like this with regard to quiet prayer, journaling, or other spiritual practices until without even realizing it we have failed to pray much at all for a week or two (or more)! And we may be comfortable letting things slide in this way --- as some are wont to do in their own marriages or other "significant" relationships, for instance! Until, that is, we find ourselves being told (with its exaggerated semitic emphasis), "I never knew you!" and have to recognize that indeed, yesterday's prayer prepared us for yesterday and was a response to yesterday's love. Yesterday's relationship with Jesus prepared us for yesterday's coming of the Lord. What is required is the active and complete ordering of our lives TODAY in a way which allows us to really say, "I am waiting for the Lord!" and allows Jesus to say, "Yes, you are my bride; I know you well. Welcome!"

Some commentators have remarked about the apparent "unChristian" (read selfish and even cruel) attitude of those virgins labelled "wise" in today's Gospel. Afterall, shouldn't they have lent the oil to those without? How silly (and even dangerous!) to expect the others to travel abroad to buy oil from merchants at midnight, especially just when the bridegroom is arriving! But the wisdom at work here is simple. Some things can only be done by us. No one can do them for us. Allowing the establishment and growth of a relationship with Christ is one of those things. Christ will always take the initiative, the Holy Spirit will always empower our assent to such a relationship, but no one can take on this responsibility for us. Only we ourselves through and in the grace of God can truly "wait on the Lord" as today's parable calls upon us to do. And only we can embrace a relationship which is vital and expectant, or succumb to one which stagnates and fails in hope and genuine love. Only we can become the human beings whose lives are centered on Christ today and provide a welcome place for him in this world; no one can do this for us.

May we each truly learn to wait on the Lord as the wisest of virgins, day by day and moment by moment! Only then will God's judgment be the harvesting of rich and abundant fruit rather than the rejection of something that withered on the vine days, weeks, months, or even years ago.

Question: Are Sisters (or Diocesan Hermits, etc) Part of the Laity?

[[Dear Sister, you write about the diocesan hermit and the consecrated state and also about lay hermits, but aren't Sisters (I assume that includes hermits) members of the laity? My understanding was that Vatican II said there were just two groups, clergy and laity and that if one was not a priest, then one was laity. Doesn't this addition of the consecrated state suggest that this is a different and higher state than laity, including lay hermits? Seems elitist.]]

Thanks for your questions. They are actually quite important because the state of the discussion is pretty muddled today, not least by religious who consider and assert they are only part of the laity as though their state of life is in no way also distinct. I hear a lot from both religious and laity that religious are laypersons (this is completely true) and I have made the same statement myself in the past based (accurately) on just the two-fold hierarchical division from Vatican II which you mention. But this is only one division; another, for instance, is in terms of theological or vocational states of life and when this division is the one governing the discussion, religious (or diocesan hermits) are not laypersons though they are very much part of the people of God. Unfortunately this often means that when a Sister writes about the consecrated state they DO belong to and compares it to the lay state (which includes lay eremitism) in some way, they are almost inevitably accused of elitism. This absolutely need not be the case.

First what Vatican II said. Vatican II affirmed the hierarchical nature of the church and did so by distinguishing those who were ordained (clergy) from those who were not (laity). In terms of hierarchicalization or "class distinctions" in the church these are the only divisions affirmed by the Council. Thus, in terms of THIS DIVISION ONLY, religious women and non-ordained male religious are laity because they are not clergy.

However, this fundamental division is not the only one the Church uses. There are two others which overlap one another: Canonical standing and theological (states of life). When looked at from a canonical perspective religious women and men, and those who are consecrated virgins or diocesan hermits, clearly have rights and obligations which flow neither from clerical standing (if they are men) nor from the lay condition. With regard to life in the church then, when defined in terms of canonical rights and obligations, religious life (or consecrated virginity and diocesan eremitism) do not belong to either laity or clergy. Yet, neither are they hierarchically distinguished as some sort of middle ground between clergy and laity --- though given the strong hierarchical perspective even of VII and the church in general, it is very hard to keep this in mind. Vocationally they are a distinct group from laity, and in THIS SENSE, neither lay nor clerical. As Canon Law clearly states: Canon 588: the state of consecrated life by its very nature is neither clerical nor lay.

When approached from the theological perspective there is a third but related and also overlapping way of looking at life in the church which is also non-hierarchical. Through the Church's mediation some vocations initiate one into or admit one to the consecrated state where state refers to a stable form of life with canonical rights and obligations. (You can see how this overlaps or even coincides with what I have said thus far.) Here God himself sets the person apart for himself and his service in a special way through this mediation. The person dedicates herself to God (ordinarily with public vows), but God consecrates the person both in the very calling, in the acceptance of vows (etc), and in the prayer of consecration (with solemn or perpetual profession, or in the Rite of consecration of Virgins). Again, this distinct setting apart and constitution in a new state of life is not part of the hierarchical division of the church (clerical or lay) and therefore does not mark the consecrated state as a third way standing hierarchically between clergy and laity. Evenso, it remains the case that religious men and women, consecrated hermits, or consecrated virgins are not laypersons when viewed from this perspective either.

Because the consecrated state is not part of the hierarchical division of the church, affirming that one is called to the consecrated state or comparing it to the lay state does not constitute elitism (or at least it SHOULD not!). Instead, for instance, with regard to diocesan hermits in comparison with lay hermits, it points to a different way of living the same fundamental elements (e.g., silence of solitude, stricter separation from the world, and so forth) and especially the same foundational consecration of baptism. Neither way of doing so is better than the other, but they differ nonetheless.

I hope this helps.

Married Diocesan Hermits?

[[ Dear Sister, Recently I read a book on "contemporary eremitical life" and it mentioned the existence of married hermits several times. I also heard of a married couple who are seeking to become canonical or diocesan hermits according to Canon 603. Is this possible? Hermits can live in communities, so presumably they could be married.]]

There is a recent new book out on contemporary hermit life which does this, yes. I read it in July. The problem however is that the book, which is quite good in some ways and problematical in others -- especially the following -- relies mainly on anecdotal descriptions taken from a survey of many who are self-described lay hermits. It therefore does not address or really attend to the theology of either marriage or eremitical life and how these apply to the notion of married hermits per se. The book is descriptive of any number of people who consider themselves hermits, but it is not always adequately prescriptive (normative) of eremitical life or indicative of what it entails or disallows. In my estimation, it especially fails in regard to the notion of "married hermits". Thus, while some married couples may consider themselves hermits I think that serious questions about eremitical solitude in particular, not to mention those around eremitical poverty, and chastity (celibacy or continence), have to be raised and adequately answered before lay persons in such circumstances can be called lay hermits. The situation is even more dificult with the second situation you describe because here there is a couple, both of whom are seeking to become consecrated or diocesan hermits.

It is my own opinion that married couples cannot live the same kind of solitude hermits are called to live. They are one flesh and they come to God together through their marriage, not in the way a hermit actually does. This means that even if they build in a good deal of physical solitude, they remain sacramentally ONE with each other, and because of this, they simply cannot live the kind of inner solitude, much less the silence of solitude a hermit must come to live, cultivate and witness to. It is hard for me to describe this, but an example from this Summer's retreat might help you to see what I am trying to convey.

A Desert Day and a Gesture of Affection from One's Spouse

During the latter part of the week we had a desert day, just as would happen in a monastic setting. Everyone went off for more solitude during the majority of the day and returned to celebrate Vespers and dinner together in silence. As we gathered there were a number of nods and smiles to one another, but one couple took each other's hand as they approached the refectory and the wife rested her head on her husband's shoulder very briefly. No one broke the silence, but it was very clear to me that despite the fact the these two (a truly lovely couple!) had spent their day physically apart from one another and in prayer, etc, their solitude was of a different quality than mine or others there who were unmarried -- much less than that of professed hermits, monks, or nuns. No one broke silence, but the silence of solitude (more about this below) was another matter.

Now let me be clear. This is AS IT SHOULD BE, and the brief physical gesture was apropriate and lovely to see. It was touching and inspiring. I doubt anyone who attends this retreat regularly does not feel blessed by this couple's love for one another. But, were they to start calling themselves hermits because of a certain degree of physical solitude built into their lives together, I think they would be deluding themselves and forgetting the experience of solitude which is characteristic of genuine hermits and how it differs from their own, even if those hermits exist in community. Consider, for instance, the import of the brief physical gesture I mentioned. Wasn't it the reestablishment or confirmation of a profound and sacramental link that exists all the time? Isn't it likely to have mirrored the gestures offered one another as they went their separate ways on this desert day? Both persons have profound prayer lives, I have absolutely no doubt of that, but despite its depth and the existential aloneness with God they may each find in that prayer, they do not go to prayer --- or anywhere else --- truly alone really unless the marriage fails in some critical way. With whom does a solitary or religious hermit share such a bond? God alone.

Solitude is a state of Communion and for the hermit it is a state of communion with God alone. This does not mean that the hermit does not carry others (often MANY others) in her heart within her solitude, but it does mean that she approaches this relationship without the bond (or the comfort of that bond) which married persons have. If prayer is, at times, marked not only by peace but by darkness or loneliness (something which can happen despite a continuing knowledge that God is there) or longing for a physical touch or an audible word, there is simply no way such a hermit can mitigate or soften this by remembering or looking forward to her later time with her husband --- at a mutual meal or when both come together and greet and share with each other after their own prayer periods, for instance. No, this Communion is sometimes marked by such darkness, etc and it calls for even greater faith and trust, and -- paradoxically -- greater physical solitude. Further, for the hermit there is no sharing of this prayer as there might be for married persons who come together after such a period. One moves from the prayer period to (perhaps) a silent meal fixed for oneself alone and shares even the darkness and loneliness (and all else that is in one's heart) with the One whose silent presence both comforts and sometimes exacerbates that darkness and loneliness. This is part of the meaning of Canon 603's phrase, "the silence of solitude" which is foundational to the eremitical life. It is far more profound and disturbing at times than simply refraining from turning on some music or filling the silence with some other distracting noise.

Eremitical Loneliness is the Loneliness of  Communion

It is also really important to realize that I am not describing some terrible or malignant loneliness here. Instead I am describing an aspect of communion and eremitical solitude itself, a dimension of the relationship with a transcendent God for one who still lives apart from him in many ways and gradually grows closer and closer even in and through such periods. Eremitical solitude includes darkness and loneliness not only because of yearnings for touch or audible communication, but because there is a longing for greater communion with God as well. Since God is the one the hermit is vowed to love as she would someone in marriage, and because she does indeed love others only THROUGH this love, even moments of darkness and loneliness are expressions of a call to ever greater Communion with God and ever greater solitude (and the silence of same) --- sometimes to the point of actual reclusion. Though their love and commitment are wonderful things which open a world of life and family to one another, a married couple are constrained by their commitment to one another and the demands of sexual/marital love from responding to or realizing this natural and inner dynamism of the solitary eremitical life.

Mission Impossible: A Couple Seeking Profession Under Canon 603

Regarding your second question, and the couple who were each seeking to become diocesan hermits, one must take all that I have just said and add to that the obstacles existing because Canon 603 eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation which must be carefully discerned by both individual and church over a relatively long period of time. Significantly it also involves public profession of the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity or consecrated celibacy, obedience) BECAUSE it is one way of achieving admission to the consecrated state.

Let's start with this last element: admission to the consecrated state. The consecrated state is, by definition, characterized by consecrated celibacy. It celebrates a life of celibate love, NOT a life of sexual love and, as just mentioned, married love is ALWAYS a celebration of sexual love, even if the couple no longer has sexual intercourse; married love recalls this ultimate expression of total self-gift, is always an extension of it, always tends towards and anticipates it. While in the not-so recent past some persons were allowed to live as sister and brother (or to leave a marriage for religious life of some sort), this generally occurred during a period when the nature of married love was simply not so highly esteemed as it is today. Married life is a consecration of a life of this kind of love. In terms of church teaching and theology, it is mutually exclusive with admission to the consecrated state marked by celibate love. Today the Church does not encourage married couples to forego the highest gift and expression of the married state to live together as sister and brother; similarly, she does not admit married persons to profession and consecration under canon 603. Instead marriage --- even one marked by divorce but not annulled --- is ordinarily considered an impediment to such consecration just as it would ordinarily be an impediment to another marriage.

But this aside for the moment (and the vows of poverty and obedience as well!), consider the difficulties of a married couple trying to both become diocesan hermits. The discernment process is individual AND ECCLESIAL meaning the individual him/herself alone does not discern such a vocation. There is simply no way the Church can automatically admit both (or either) to profession and consecration on the basis of them announcing what is in their hearts. It is not, after all, a package deal. How would the church even begin to openly discern one spouse's vocation while the other spouse goes through a separate and equally honest (and often lengthy) discernment process --- either of which may end in the individual's determination as unsuited to or simply not called to this vocation? Does one spouse (or both) say to their diocese -- even implicitly -- "Don't consider professing me unless you agree to profess my spouse"? And yet, in coming to a diocese as they have, this is actually one message they probably DO give. Or, could a diocese admit one to temporary or even perpetual vows while making the other wait another several years or even eventually finding the other unsuited to such vows? No, it is a completely unworkable situation and I admit I don't see how any diocese would even begin to consider it precisely because neither person is truly solitary or free to discern the matter alone (individually) with the Church. Once we add back in the definition of the consecrated state or the content of the vows themselves and consider the church's responsibility with regard to sacramental marriages the whole notion becomes completely impossible.

I personally wonder what motivates the couple you mention or why they would seek such profession and consecration. They have their marriage vows and consecration. They are already called to this by God and it is a critically important and worthy vocation. Married people need to realize this and also realize that they are called to come to God together in the married state, through married love. If this means building in more physical solitude at some point, then they should do this, but not because they are called to be hermits. While every couple is called to prayer and penance, they are NOT called to the silence of solitude in an eremitical sense, or to celibacy, etc. And yet, these things DEFINE the hermit, whether lay or consecrated and whether the hermit is a solitary one or lives in community.

Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard

Today's Gospel is one of my all-time favorite parables, that of the laborers in the vineyard. The story is simple --- deceptively so in fact: workers come to work in the vineyard at various parts of the day all having contracted with the master of the vineyard to work for a day's wages. Some therefore work the whole day, some are brought in to work only half a day, and some are hired only when the master comes for them at the end of the day. When time comes to pay everyone what they are owed those who came in to work last are paid first and receive a full day's wages. Those who came in to work first expect to be paid more than these, but are disappointed and begin complaining when they are given the same wage as those paid first. The response of the master reminds them that he has paid them what they contracted for, nothing less, and then asks if they are envious that he is generous with his own money. A saying is added: [in the Kingdom of God] the first shall be last and the last first.

Now, it is important to remember what the word parable means in appreciating what Jesus is actually doing with this story and seeing how it challenges us today. The word parable, as I have written before, comes from two Greek words, para meaning alongside of and balein, meaning to throw down. What Jesus does is to throw down first one set of values -- one well-understood or common-perspective --- and allow people to get comfortable with that. (It is one they understand best so often Jesus merely needs to suggest it while his hearers fill in the rest. For instance he mentions a sower, or a vineyard and people fill in the details. Today he might well speak of a a CEO in an office, or a mother on a run to pick up kids from a swim meet or soccer practice.) Then, he throws down a second set of values or a second way of seeing reality which disorients and gets his hearers off-balance. This second set of values or new perspective is that of the Kingdom of God. Those who listen have to make a decision. (The purpose of the parable is not only to present the choice, but to engage the reader/hearer and shake them up or disorient them a bit so that a choice for something new can (and hopefully will) be made.) Either Jesus' hearers will reaffirm the common values or perspective or they will choose the values and perspective of the Kingdom of God. The second perspective, that of the Kingdom is often counterintuitive, ostensibly foolish or offensive, and never a matter of "common sense". To choose it --- and therefore to choose Jesus and the God he reveals --- ordinarily puts one in a place which is countercultural and often apparently ridiculous.

So what happens in today's Gospel? Again, Jesus tells a story about a vineyard and a master hiring workers. His readers know this world well and despite Jesus stating specifically that each man hired contracts for the same wage, common sense says that is unfair and the master MUST pay the later workers less than he pays those who came early to the fields and worked through the heat of the noonday sun. And of course, this is precisely what the early workers complain about to the master. It is precisely what most of US would complain about in our own workplaces if someone hired after us got more money, for instance, or if someone with a high school diploma got the same pay and benefit package as someone with a doctorate --- never mind that we agreed to this package! The same is true in terms of religion: "I spent my WHOLE life serving the Lord. I was baptized as an infant and went to Catholic schools from grade school through college and this upstart convert who has never done anything at all at the parish gets the Pastoral Associate job? No Way!! No FAIR!!" From our everyday perspective this would be a cogent objection and Jesus' insistence that all receive the same wage, not to mention that he seems to rub it in by calling the last hired to be paid first (i.e., the normal order of the Kingdom), is simply shocking.


And yet the master brings up two points which turn everything around: 1) he has paid everyone exactly what they contracted for --- a point which stops the complaints for the time being, and 2) he asks if they are envious that he is generous with his own gifts or money. He then reminds his hearers that the first shall be last, and the last first in the Kingdom of God. If someone was making these remarks to you in response to cries of "unfair" it would bring you up short, wouldn't it? If you were already a bit disoriented by a pay master who changed the rules of commonsense this would no doubt underscore the situation. It might also cause you to take a long look at yourself and the values by which you live your life. You might ask yourself if the values and standards of the Kingdom are really SO different than those you operate by everyday of your life, not to mention, do you really want to "buy into" this Kingdom if the rewards are really parcelled out in this way, even for people less "gifted" and less "committed" than you consider yourself! Of course, you might not phrase things so bluntly. If you are honest, you will begin to see more than your own brilliance, giftedness, or commitedness; You might begin to see these along with a deep neediness, a persistent and genuine fear at the cost involved in accepting this "Kingdom" instead of the world you know and have accommodated yourself to so well.

You might consider too, and carefully, that the Kingdom is not an otherwordly heaven, but that it is the realm of God's sovereignty which, especially in Christ, interpenetrates this world, and is actually the goal and perfection of this world; when you do, the dilemma before you gets even sharper. There is no real room for opting for this world's values now in the hope that those "other Kingdomly values" only kick in after death! All that render to Caesar stuff is actually a bit of a joke if we think we can divvy things up neatly and comfortably (I am sure Jesus was asking for the gift of one's whole self and nothing less when he made this statement!), because after all, what REALLY belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God? No, no compromises are really allowed with today's parable, no easy blending of the vast discrepancy between the realm of God's sovereignty and the world which is ordered to greed, competition, self-aggrandizement and hypocrisy, nor therefore, to the choice Jesus puts before us.

So, what side will we come down on after all this disorientation and shaking up? I know that every time I hear this parable it touches a place in me (yet another one!!) that resents the values and standards of the Kingdom and that desires I measure things VERY differently indeed. It may be a part of me that resists the idea that everything I have and am is God's gift, even if I worked hard in cooperating with that (my very capacity and willingness to cooperate are ALSO gifts of God!). It may be a part of me that looks down my nose at this person or that and considers myself better in some way (smarter, more gifted, a harder worker, stronger, more faithful, born to a better class of parents, etc, etc). It may be part of me that resents another's wage or benefits despite the fact that I am not really in need of more myself. It may even be a part of me that resents my own weakness and inabilities, my own illness and incapacities which lead me to despise the preciousness and value of my life and his own way of valuing it which is God's gift to me and to the world. I am socialized in this first-world-culture and there is no doubt that it resides deeply and pervasively within me contending always for the Kingdom of God's sovereignty in my heart and living. I suspect this is true for most of us, and that today's Gospel challenges us to make a renewed choice for the Kingdom in yet another way or to another more profound or extensive degree.

For Christians every day is gift and we are given precisely what we need to live fully and with real integrity if only we will choose to accept it. We are precious to God, and this is often hard to really accept, but neither more nor less precious than the person standing in the grocery store line ahead of us or folded dirty and dishelveled behind a begging sign on the street corner near our bank or outside our favorite coffee shop. The wage we have agreed to (or been offered) is the gift of God's very self along with his judgment that we are indeed precious, and so, the free and abundant but cruciform life of a shared history and destiny with that same God whose characteristic way of being is kenotic. He pours himself out with equal abandon for each of us whether we have served him our whole lives or only just met him this afternoon. He does so whether we are well and whole, or broken and feeble. And he asks us to do the same, to pour ourselves out similarly both for his own sake and for the sake of his creation-made-to-be God's Kingdom.

To do so means to decide for his reign now and tomorrow and the day after that; it means to accept his gift of Self as fully as he wills to give it, and it therefore means to listen to him and his Word so that we MAY be able to decide and order our lives appropriately in his gratuitous love and mercy. The parable in today's Gospel is a gift which makes this possible --- if only we would allow it to work as Jesus empowers and wills it!

Congratulations, Therese Ivers, Consecrated Virgin!!

Today, on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, Bishop Paul J Swain, Ordinary of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, consecrated Therese Ivers (JCL) according to Canon 604.

Dressed in a white wedding dress and carrying a small gold lamp, symbolic of the Matthean Gospel passage regarding the wise virgins keeping awake and their lamps ready for the coming of the Bridegroom, Therese was accompanied by several other Consecrated Virgins including Judith Stegman, president of the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins.



Therese was given a wedding ring marking her new standing as Bride of Christ and a volume of the Liturgy of Hours. As noted in the post regarding the consecration of Catherine Wright, consecrated virgins as such do not make vows and are not nuns or Sisters,nor do they use initials like OCV after their names. They resolve in a formal way to remain virgins and give their lives to Christ as members of the consecrated state. The Rite by which they are consecrated marks one of the oldest vocations in the Church and is rich in bridal symbolism; it can be used either for nuns after/at solemn profession (Carthusian nuns use this routinely) or for women living in the world. Consecrated virgins living in the world have a unique and warm relationship with their Bishop, though they are not bound by a vow of obedience nor is he their legitimate superior.



Therese and other consecrated virgins







Bishop Swain Blessing the book of the Liturgy of the Hours

Therese, as noted above, is a Canon Lawyer (JCL) and she works for the diocese of Sioux Falls both in this capacity and as vocations promoter. Her specialty as a canonist is consecrated life. She will continue this ministry as a consecrated virgin. I ask for your prayers for Therese and extend congratulations both on the gift of consecration she has received, and the gift of self she has made.


Therese prostrates herself before the altar during the Litany of Saints in preparation for the actual consecration.

Creature of God by Jessica Powers (Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit, OCD)

That God stands tall, incomprehensible,
infinite and immutable and free,
I know. Yet more I marvel that His call
trickels and thunders down through space to me;

that far from His eternities He shouts
to me, one small inconsequence of day.
I kneel down in the vastness of His love,
cover myself with creaturehood and pray.

God likes me covered with my creaturehood
and with my limits spread across His face,
He likes to see me lifting to His eyes
even wretchedness that dropped His grace.

I make no guess what greatness took me in.
I only know, and relish it as good,
that I am gathered more to God's embrace
the more I greet Him through my creaturehood.

Feast of the Transfiguration

Throughout the past few weeks the daily readings, especially in the Gospel of Matthew have echoed the refrain: "And there is something greater here than (Solomon, the Temple, Moses, Elijah, etc). . ." whenever Jesus speaks of himself. In today's Gospel we have an illustration of this refrain when Jesus is transfigured in front of some of his disciples (Peter, James, and John). Following this Elijah and Moses appear and converse with Jesus. Peter, terrified and "hardly knowing what to say" exclaims, "Rabbi, it is good that we are here!" and then suggests that they make three tents, one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Following this suggestion the mountain is covered by cloud, and there is a voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him." Moses and Elijah have disappeared and we are told that the disciples "no longer saw anyone but Jesus alone with them." They are warned to say nothing of these events until after the resurrection from the dead, and though they do not really understand what resurrection means --- or even who Jesus really is in all its implications, they do indeed understand that right here with them in One who, though continuous with the rest of their history, is greater than Solomon, the Temple, Elijah, Moses, etc.

The ability to see what is really present despite outward appearance is a challenge to all of us. To see Christ in the neighbor, sometimes to see Christ in ourselves, to see the presence of God in a world it is much easier to castigate as evil or profane, to find that ours is a creation where heaven and earth interpenetrate one another in a significant way especially in light of Christ --- all of these are parts of the challenge today's Gospel puts before us. Further, to see that our God comes to us in weakness and ordinariness is part of that same challenge. And yet, we are a people called to recognize and embody this presence wherever we go. These are the two sides of the command to obedience: recognize (hear, see, taste, etc) and embody this for others. Rooted deeply within us by virtue of our baptism, there is something greater here than Solomon, Moses, or the Temple or the Decalogue --- a Wisdom and Love which transcends them all and marks us as disciples. If we can take seriously the vocation to live this out in a way which allows our more prosaic existence and being to be transfigured in the power and presence of God, we will begin to understand the challenge and imagery of today's Gospel: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him!"

My best wishes especially to my Camaldolese Sisters at Transfiguration Monastery in Windsor, NY. on this Feast Day. As Benedictines they take seriously the call to obedience as the challenge to recognize and embody God in the ordinariness of every day which epitomizes Christian Life.

Followup Question on Lay and Diocesan Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister, you wrote awhile ago that someone preparing for consecration and profession as a diocesan hermit should live for some time as a lay hermit "in some essential way" before approaching the diocese to request admission to profession. But recently you also wrote that the call to be a diocesan hermit was a "new and different call" and a completion of the call the hermit felt in her heart. If that is the case then why should one wait to approach a diocese if one thinks one has such a call?]]



Dear poster,
your question is a good one, not least because it points up a place where I have apparently not been clear in what I have already written. Also, it points up one of the important aspects or dimensions of discerning a vocation to diocesan eremitsm, namely whether one is called to this or to life as a lay hermit. (These are the two forms of solitary eremitical life in the church today.) Dioceses often ask the candidate for Canon 603 profession why they are seeking admission to the consecrated state in this way (rather than religious life or consecrated virginity, for instance), but the question I think they need to ask, and the critical question a candidate needs to be able to answer is instead (or additionally). "Why are you not seeking to live the eremitical life as a lay hermit?"

One major point I made in past posts was that one cannot make vows (whether temporary or perpetual) without preparation. For that reason public eremitical vows require the preparation of eremitical life. Lay eremitical life ordinarily forms the context for one's study of, reflection on, and practical living out of the content or values associated with vows. (If one lived them in a different context they would look differently than they do in an eremitical context.) Since dioceses do not actually form hermits, but rather mainly discern the presence of a vocation and readiness for profession, one really needs to have this part of the process accomplished before one approaches a diocese or one risks being dismissed as a serious candidate for public eremitical profession and consecration.

A second point I made but did not really elaborate on was the more important one for the purposes of your question, namely, one needs to discern whether one is being called to lay eremitical life or life as a diocesan hermit. Because one feels called to the eremitical life does not mean one is called to the consecrated state or to the responsibilities and rights of public profession and consecration. In fact, as I have said before the majority of hermits are lay hermits and will likely always be lay hermits. Their vocations are especially significant in urban settings where so many people live in unnatural solitudes (Merton) and require lay prophets who remind them that such solitudes can be redeemed. One needs time and experience to explore this specific vocation because there is no doubt that God is calling people to this form of eremitical life. Our world needs it badly and one needs to have thought about it seriously BEFORE one petitions for admission to public profession and initiation into the consecrated state. Unless one has considered this calling, I suspect one's discernment of a vocation to diocesan eremitism is also incomplete and inadequate. For this reason a diocese considering someone as a candidate for Canon 603 profession will require (as well they should!) evidence of serious consideration of a vocation to lay eremitical life as well as alternate forms of consecrated life!

Now all of this is really foundational for answering your question, for the call to diocesan eremitism builds on this vocation, learns from it and from this initial discernment. What I wrote recently was that God's own call to life as a diocesan hermit did not come only in the privacy of one's heart (though it will first and continue to be heard there) but is itself mediated publicly and liturgically through the official actions of the Church. The Church not only discerns the reality of the vocation but she mediates what, in many ways, is a new and different call with new and different responsibilities, a new perspective on reality, a new context for living out one's call, etc.

While the vocation is new and different in many ways, it is anticipated in the call to lay eremitical life. Further it shares many of the same characteristics and sensitivities: stricter separation from the world, assiduous prayer and penance in the silence of solitude, a life of essential poverty of spirit, obedience to the Word of God and chaste (celibate) love. For this reason I said that the call to diocesan eremitical life was paradoxically (rather than absolutely) new and different despite all the elements it shares with lay eremitical life. I also noted that the call was new and different because of what such profession opens up to the diocesan hermit (something that happens even when the person has been living as a lay hermit for some time). Still, the simple fact is that unless the person is moving from vowed religious life to eremitical life, lay eremitism is the natural and necessary preparation for consecrated eremitical life. Lay eremitism is also a complete and significant vocation in itself and one which should be considered by both diocese and candidate before admitting to profession under Canon 603. After all, one cannot easily move in the opposite direction (from consecrated eremitical life to lay eremitical life) as this would require dispensation from vows. Such an arrangement would also be far from ideal because, while a person can relinquish the responsibilities, perspective, and commitment specific to diocesan hermits, a consecration cannot be undone.

I hope this helps. As always, if something is unclear or raises additional questions, please get back to me.

Some Pictures From Retreat (Benedictine Experience)

The following pictures are from the sculpture "Cristo" which is new (and not yet finished) at Bishop's Ranch in Healdsburg. We took a trip up to the site on our desert day, left messages and prayers on the peace pole, and then took pictures here.

Personally, I love the way the light breaks through the sculpture, and the cross blends with the rest of the environment. Christ as Lord of creation and mediator of light comes to mind when I see these pictures.




The cross as the center of creation, and the place where divine and human lives are reconciled and destinies are inextricably wed.



It is hard to say how much I love this face. It captures so much. There is peace and pain, sadness and determination, and there is dying and living. There is absorption and detachment also as Christ models the work of being human. Above all it is the face of love and reflects the very human face of God-with us! I think it is just wonderful!