Do Dioceses Support Diocesan Hermits?

[[Sister Laurel, does the diocese of the Canon 603 hermit support them in any way? What do you think about this? How about other diocesan hermits?]]

Really great questions, and ones which lots of people wonder about. I may have answered something similar before so please look for that as well; also some of what I say here will echo what I wrote about in regard to mediocrity as a danger to authentic eremitical life. The simple answer is no, diocesan hermits generally receive nothing from their dioceses in terms of stipends, transportation, living expenses or accommodations (place to set up a hermitage, etc), medical or other insurance, educational expenses, money for yearly or bi-yearly retreat, religious goods, books, etc. Remember that while diocesan clergy receive stipends for their service to the diocese, religious women and men usually do not unless they are contracted and work for the diocese itself. They support themselves and their congregations --- particularly their retired members and those in formation. (The idea that religious support their communities, and not vice versa is not well enough understood today.) Diocesan hermits differ from, but fall into this latter category. In fact, diocesan hermits ordinarily sign a waiver of liability (or claim) at their perpetual profession which says the diocese is not responsible for them in material or financial ways.

So, how do I feel about this? I think it is a wise policy for a number of reasons. Diocesan eremitical life does not have the kind of built in safeguards (for discernment or supervision of the motives behind and the quality of living) that life in community has. Discernment of an eremitical vocation takes time and the solitary (diocesan) eremitical vocation may require even more time. Because individuals embrace solitude for all kinds of reasons it often takes a number of years to clarify why they seek to make profession as a diocesan hermit. Unfortunately, it must be crystal clear that among these motivations the need to be cared for is not present. The tendency to run from responsibility and from the ordinary demands of life in society also must not be present. Eremitical life is a responsible life and one embraces it to give oneself in devotion and service to God, his Church, and world. Further, because the eremitical vocation is so independent, the individual and the diocese need to see signs that the hermit candidate is acting and living independently: providing for and securing education, caring for the normal needs of a deep spiritual life, independent work, taking initiative for education, etc -- all are a significant part of the eremitical life. It is simply right that a diocese expects hermits to care for these him/herself.

However, I have heard some hermits suggest that the church does not esteem the vocation highly enough and contributing in basic ways to the upkeep of the hermit would help do this. Additionally, because of the failure to provide in this way it happens that some persons who might have genuine calls to diocesan eremitical life, but who cannot find a way to support themselves which is consistent with a contemplative life, and who certainly cannot quit working their usual jobs, simply cannot be accepted for consecration under Canon 603. Also, because of this policy, hermits who have been consecrated for some time but who can no longer work, who have increasing health problems, and must provide for future burial expenses, etc, find themselves in difficulty and a dilemma. They have faithfully lived eremitical life and vowed poverty independently for years and maintained themselves in this way, but now the situation is changing. They must find a way to continue living eremitical silence, solitude, etc, because they are vowed to this (one does not simply retire from such a commitment or life), but they also may need more health care, assisted living, etc. These situations are more complex than I can discuss at this point, but they are important and give some import to the comment about the church's need to esteem this vocation in concrete and material ways.

Is there a satisfactory solution? Not at present. One possibility is that dioceses of aging hermits might provide some assistance after these hermits have lived perpetual profession for a number of years (say ten to fifteen or so (depending upon when the hermit is perpetually professed, or if extraordinary circumstances intervene otherwise). Such hermits might be included on diocesan insurance (we hear of this occasionally), be allowed to live on diocesan property without (or with nominal) rent, or be included on diocesan burial policies. However, whatever the solution for hermits in later life or which minimizes the risk that some few vocations are missed because of an inability to meet diocesan requirements, the policy dioceses have generally adopted is mainly a good one and I agree with it. Hermits themselves need to know that they are seeking profession without any ulterior motives, and they must be confident that they are able to live independently and responsibly without being cared for by the diocese before they are professed. Similarly dioceses need to know that those approaching them with petitions for admittance to profession are mature, responsible, self-sufficient, generous, and independent. They need to know these persons are not looking for a sinecure. It is simply part of discerning (and living!) an authentic eremitical vocation.

Hope this helps. As always, if it does not answer your questions, is unclear, or raises more questions, please get back to me.

Regarding Diocesan Hermits: Hoods Up or Down? And what about Apostolic Activity?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I was just reading your posts on the cowl because I have been viewing a number of videos in which monks are wearing or not wearing their hoods up. I am wondering what dictates when the hood is up or down. Also, would you comment on the apostolic activity in the life of a hermit. I think that most of us have a picture of hermits as people (usually venerable old men who live in the desert in an isolated hut) who, other than offering spiritual direction to those who come to them, have little other contact with the "outside" world. I am so drawn to your posts, and I thank you for them. They are so informative and inspirational to this closet contemplative.]]

HOODS UP or DOWN?

Good questions! Regarding the cowl and whether one wears the hood up or down there are no real hard and fast rules for diocesan hermits, despite the fact that the right to wear this garment publicly is granted to diocesan hermits at perpetual profession. (After all, not all of us are asked or choose to wear a cowl as our prayer garment, and when we are or do, we do so as individuals in our parish/diocesan community, not as monks or nuns in a monastery or congregation!) Generally if I am praying at Eucharist with the rest of the parish community I always have my hood down simply because I don't want to be or feel cut off from the rest of the assembly. This includes the penitential rite right on up to the Eucharistic prayer of the Mass (where, for instance, Bishops will remove their "skull caps" (zuchetti) and go bareheaded). However, that general rule aside, I wear my hood up on Good Friday during parts of that day's liturgy, particularly the reading of the passion and veneration of the cross, and during parts of communal penance celebrations at Advent and Lent --- in this latter situation, I do so not only to ensure my own privacy, but to ensure that of others moving up to the stations where priests will hear their confessions.

At Mass I celebrate while others receive Communion and I love to watch fellow parishioners go up to receive; I pray for and rejoice with them, but penance services with the move to the confession stations is a much different matter. I also wear my hood up during the periods of the Easter Vigil done outside, processing into the church, or where we sit in darkness hearing the Word of God while waiting for the announcement of the resurrection. At the point where the lights comes on, bells are rung, Alleluia's sound, etc, my hood comes down. At daily or Sunday Mass (before these actually) I may have my hood up if I have not yet finished quiet prayer because it tends to signal others not to approach me yet, or to help keep things quieter for a little longer. However, this is not something I prolong and it is a rare occurrence. (Remember that the hood is meant to serve as an extension of the cell.)

In the hermitage itself I tend to wear the hood up during periods of quiet prayer and some times of reading or study (especially if I am doing this outside in the evenings or night during the Summer), but not at other times (unless it is chilly and then the hood helps a bit!). Since I don't need to wear the cowl to or from chapel (or signal to others we are still in the period of great silence) there is no need to wear the hood up moving around the hermitage. Note that in communities where cowls are worn routinely there are customs which are followed, and so their practices are far more extensive and spelled out than mine; however it is a different thing when everyone wears a cowl, and not nearly so isolating or elitist-making as it might be in a parish setting where one is the only one wearing such garb. You would need to ask someone in such a religious community what their practices or customs are regarding hoods-up or hoods-down! In a parish setting it might be that some diocesan hermits signal some degree of separation from even the rest of the assembly at parish Mass by wearing their hood up most or all of the time, but, despite understanding why someone might wish to do this, I find that personally, liturgically, and theologically unacceptable.

Apostolic Activity, etc.

Regarding ministerial activity outside the hermitage (I prefer the term ministerial rather than apostolic), the fact is every hermit has to determine to what degree she will undertake this for herself in conjunction with her director, delegate, Bishop and pastor. I have written about this in other posts so I will not repeat much of it here, but generally such activity must flow from and be an expression of a solitary contemplative life, and lead one back to the silence of solitude and contemplation. This is not a matter merely of balancing the contemplative aspects of a life with the non-contemplative aspects, or balancing "hermiting" kinds of things (whatever those really are!) with "worldly" things and activities (again, whatever those really are!). It is a matter of approaching whatever one does as a hermit for whom the silence of solitude and contemplative prayer informs and dictates whatever one does.

One of the truths of genuine contemplative life is that such life spills over into life for the church and world in concrete ways. When one experiences love in the way contemplative prayer allows for, one does not merely pray, but becomes God's own prayer and for this reason, one's contemplation necessarily spills over and outward. When this happens, the activity undertaken becomes part of authentic contemplative life --- it itself is contemplative in the best sense of the word. Should it become seductive on its own behalf and lead one away from the more strictly silent and solitary, or disrupt one's ability to center in and quiet oneself more deeply for solitary contemplative prayer, then something needs attention.

As for having little contact with the "outside world", it is true that hermits have a good deal less of it than most people, and maintain such contact as they do have with a care and attentiveness which many today do not exercise, but the Canon governing diocesan eremitical life speaks of "stricter separation from the world" where "world" has a very particular meaning, namely and primarily, that which is closed and resistant to Christ. (Holland, Handbook on Canons 573-746: definition provided by Ellen O'Hara in "Norms Common to All Institutes of Consecrated Life")) We need to remember that in this sense, the "world" may mean much of what lies outside the hermitage, but also, that it applies to much within our own hearts, and so, is something closing the door of the hermitage will not shut out but rather will shut in!

For the most part I remain within my hermitage so that I can spend time with God alone, and also so he may occasion the healing and sanctification of those parts of my heart which are truly "worldly" in this primary and limited sense. This necessarily means limiting or even avoiding aspects of God's good creation as well (another Johannine meaning of the term "world"), but, I am not a recluse, nor am I a stereotype --- venerable, bearded, or otherwise! --- and so, in limited and judicious ways I participate in activities and relationships which are both an expression of, and assist me in growing as a person and therefore, as a hermit (and vice versa)! Again, each hermit will discern what is right in these regards for herself and for the vocation to eremitical life generally. Should, she find that she is called outside the hermitage too much, or that she is engaged in apostolic activity for much more than a very limited amount of her time, or even that this activity --- how ever limited (and beneficial) it may be --- is an obstacle to settling back into the solitude of the cell or hermitage, then, as already noted, something has gone awry and she needs to discern seriously what that is and where she is truly called.

On the other hand, a "hermit" who refuses to become involved in some limited degree of ministerial activity outside the hermitage because a stereotypical idea of eremitical life does not allow for it, or because of selfishness, misanthropy, lack of generosity, or a failure to discern what eremitical life needs to be in today's church and world in order to be a prophetic and contemplative presence there, may have failed her vocation every bit as much as the hermit who cannot stay in her cell appropriately (that is, as one who cannot maintain an appropriate "custody of the cell."). Clearly discernment does not cease once one has been professed and consecrated!

I hope this is helpful. Let me know if it raises more questions or is unclear in any way.

The Greatest Risk to the Eremitical Vocation?

[[Sister, what is the hardest thing for a new person becoming a hermit? You write about it as a risky vocation. What is the greatest risk do you think?]]

It seems to me that the hardest thing about becoming a hermit is making the transition from being a person who does things associated with being a hermit to actually being one in some essential sense. One approach to becoming a diocesan (or a lay) hermit seems to be that of adding in pious and devotional practices without changing one's general environment. In this approach silence and solitude, for instance, are treated as things one adds in to one's life rather than being embraced as the very environment in which one lives. But becoming a hermit is not simply about living more or less of this or that: more prayers, more silence, more time alone, less contact with family or friends, less (or no) TV, etc. It is about a life with God alone which humanizes one and makes of one's life a prophetic presence in a noisy world devoted to self, dissipation, and distraction. Nikos Kazantzakis once said that, "Solitude can be fatal for the soul that does not burn with a great passion." I think that the movement from doing the things a hermit does to being a true hermit --- and the danger of never making this transition --- is a piece of what is behind this quote.

The process of becoming a diocesan (or, for that matter, a lay) hermit involves a transition to being at home in an environment of the silence of solitude. It involves a transition from being a person who prays occasionally (or even often) to being a person who is prayer in some fundamental and conscious way. Because this transition is so all-encompassing, and because it cannot be engineered, the time frame for becoming a diocesan hermit is ordinarily lengthy and individualized. Negotiating this transition is one of the more difficult aspects of becoming a hermit, it seems to me --- particularly if one is not willing to let go of one's previous life, or, similarly, if one is trying to accommodate "hermiting" to a more normal parish or religious life. The call to eremitical life is different not simply in degree, but in kind; a candidate to diocesan eremitical life must understand and embrace this difference.

The greatest risk to eremitical life, in my estimation, is mediocrity because mediocrity is a form of inauthenticity. Because the life is so independent, because there is little direct oversight, it is easy to lose oneself in this or that distraction. No one but the hermit and God knows if the hermit lives her Rule or horarium. No one knows if she shows up for prayer or spends appropriate time in lectio or study. No one knows when legitimate recreation slides into more dangerous distraction and dissipation. And of course, even if she is dilligent in doing all the things she is obligated to in her Rule, she still may not be growing sufficiently in holiness, human maturity, and the capacity to love and serve others. This too can be a kind of mediocrity. Yes, she lives this life under the supervision of her Bishop and those he delegates to serve in this way. But in most ways these individuals cannot do other than take the hermit's word about the quality of the life she is living. (Directors and delegates can and do ask probing questions and challenge to ever-greater fidelity to God's call, but ultimately, they do not live with the hermit and cannot measure mediocrity. Only the hermit can do that.) Here Kazantzakis' quote also is helpful, for the hermit will be one with a great passion and that passion will not allow mediocrity.

This tremendous independence and inner directedness (development of a truly great passion) is also one of the reasons the period of discernment and formation for a diocesan hermit is often quite lengthy. Again,the person seeking to make and live this commitment needs to make the transition from "doing hermit things" to being a hermit in an essential way. They are persons who have come to terms with their own poverty and realized that communion with God is, for them, found only in silence and solitude. Human wholeness and the community necessary for that is for them a paradoxical reality realized in the silence OF solitude. For them the ability to love and serve others requires an unusual degree of silence and solitude, prayer, penance, personal work, etc, and they MUST be committed to that. That is, they must be embracing this vocation because they love, and are committed to loving more and more. Diocesan representatives, the person's spiritual director, et al, must come to assurance not only that all this is true for this person, but that the person is capable of living out this truth with self-discipline and integrity and that she has a track record of faithfulness to the Rule of Life which reflects the truth of her life with God.

By the way, there is no formula for what this faithfulness means in any given individual's life. Canon 603 defines the essential elements of the life but does not quantify these. It says this is a life of the silence of solitude, and that it is marked by assiduous prayer and penance, a living out of the evangelical counsels, and stricter separation from the world, all lived for the salvation of the world and according to the person's own Rule of Life. However, it does not indicate any single picture of what these things mean. Because of this one must find out what each of these terms will look like in her own call to eremitical life. Again, discovering this, building it into a life which genuinely loves and serves others, which leads one to genuine holiness, and which is also consistent with eremitical tradition takes time, discernment, and consistent and focused work.

The risk, of course, (and an ongoing, every day risk in fact) is that one will fail in some part of this challenge, whether that is by buying into a stereotype of eremitical (or contemplative) life which allows one to cease discerning how the life is to be lived lovingly and prophetically in this time and place, or whether it means convincing oneself that certain evasions and compromises are legitimate when they are not. Mediocrity can take many forms and wear many guises (some of them quite dramatic or extreme in normal terms) even once one has made the transition from doing hermit things to being a hermit in an essential sense. It has a number of roots as well: failure to love, disobedience, selfishness, various forms of fear or resistance, arrogance, complacency, etc. In any case, while it is important to deal with each of these roots, I think mediocrity itself is really the greatest overall risk that faces someone trying to live an eremitical life.

Don Porcella, In Memoriam

Don Porcella (2nd from right) with Thomas Malanca (d. 24 Dec 2008) far right, Aggie Malanca (center), Mary Jo Brady (front left), and Bill Johns (behind Mary Jo) outside the chapel at St Perpetua's where he worshipped several times a week.
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Wednesday night, April 21st, 2010, Don Porcella died from a long and courageous struggle with cancer. Don had been home from the hospital just a few days, knowing that there would be no further treatment; he died quietly shortly after 10:00 pm. His family had spent the evening with him, and friends/parishioners had been able to be present in the 24 - 36 hours preceding the death to say goodbye.

I had only known Don for a little more than four years (far too short a time!), but he will remain one of the most unforgettable, genuinely inspiring persons I carry in my heart. Don was a Catholic Christian, a husband and father, a scientist (an environmental engineer whose PhD was in environmental health), Fullbright Scholar, professor, and an amazing (and prolific!) potter as well. All of these dimensions of his life came together for me in the imagery of the verse from John 7:37-38: [[If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me as the scripture has said, 'Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive. . .]]

In his professional life Don studied rivers and lakes and developed methods for assuring their health and vitality, as Father and husband, friend and fellow Christian he was indeed a source of living water which flowed abundantly and generously from his heart. He listened, encouraged, nurtured and loved others into greater wholeness and fruitfulness. As a potter Don molded the very clay of the rivers, lakes and world he studied into amazing pieces, creating beauty out of more primal beauty. Don was always a scientist and perhaps the best that science has to offer our world. It is so common today for scientists to compartmentalize their lives so that science rules out faith or at best allows some superficial nod to religion. But not so with Don. His faith was deep and critical (and so, unceasingly curious and questioning), and his scientific work and critical approach to reality was faithful (and so, reverent, and lovingly intelligent). He had worked at and managed to integrate what for others would have been merely disparate aspects of a less genuinely intelligent life. In Christ all this came together in a humanity symbolized in the very pottery he made --- a vessel for God's own spirit and life, an earthen vessel from which flowed living water in abundance.

I will miss Don very much, his mind, his humor and impish (or perhaps roguish) grin, his slow and thoughtful speech, his gentle, generous, and loving heart, but I am very grateful to have shared in his life, and to be able to celebrate his eternal life and continuing presence in Christ.
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Services will be at St Perpetua's: Vigil 7:00 pm Monday 26.April
Mass of Christian burial, 10:30 am Tuesday, 27. April

Death as an Illusion?

The day before yesterday along with the pastor and pastoral associate from my parish I attended a workshop based on a relatively new book, The Hidden Power of the Gospels, by Alexander Shaia, PhD (clinical psychology). It was a good experience and the book is at once interesting and problematical. Some of the work was genuinely brilliant: historical accounts and details which contextualize the Gospels in ways which make them come alive with a fresh and compelling power, psycho-spiritual insights which illuminate the texts in new ways and lead to wonderful homiletic possibilities, the ability to address a wide audience despite a lack of theological training on their part, etc --- all of these are remarkable. However when the book had weaknesses (often rooted in these very same strengths!), they tended to be significant whether matters of flawed Scripture approaches, theological positions which were unnuanced or simply apparently unconsidered, or pastoral weaknesses stemming from these.

Several stood out, but one in particular raised questions, concerns and outright objections which were more profoundly affecting and emotional than the others. (For me this was underscored by finding out yesterday that a good friend of mine is dying!) Relatively fresh from a reportedly wonderful celebration of Easter, a celebration which included the chant: "Death is no more, Death is no more!" Dr Shaia looked at the Gospel of John (the only Gospel read during the early Church's Triduum) and reiterated several times, "Death is an illusion!" "Death is an illusion." And he continued, "How differently we would live if only we saw the real truth, that Death is no more, Death is an illusion." Shaia's unfortunately unqualified assertion did not go unchallenged, not only on the basis of the Gospel of John, but on the basis of Mark's and Paul's theologies as well as the pastoral experience of clergy and religious present. However, despite the proposal that this workshop was to allow for and be part of an ongoing discussion, it was not really the appropriate venue for someone from the audience outlining either the theological or the pastoral reasons such exaggerated claims were inappropriate --- even, or maybe especially for an Easter faith.

Of course neither is this the venue for doing that in any detailed way. A couple of weeks ago I reprised an article on Ministering to the Dying and Bereaved which was originally published in Review For Religious. That remains a good outline of the responsibility we have to be honest about both Jesus' victory over death, and the remaining victory which must still be achieved (by God) if God is to be all in all. As I wrote in that article, Godless death has been transformed through Jesus' obedient death and is now a more natural transitional event where we will meet God face to face. God has been victorious over sinful Godless death. He has actually taken that death into himself and not been destroyed in the process. However, death in this schema is not an illusion; it is both defeated and still with us. It is for this reason that Paul, who has noted the real "sting" of death is sin (that is, alienation from God), says exultantly, ". . .death where is thy sting?" --- an affirmation that in Christ Godless or sinful death is no more, but death as transition remains until God is "all in all".

Another point I made in that article was that death is not only something that overcomes us from without, but that it is also something that exists within us and has an affect on every dimension of our lives. As we ally and align ourselves with the powers of sin and death in this world we are changed, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically and even physically. In fact, sin and death gain more power, greater influence and malignancy in our world through these choices of ours. Despite Godless death being destroyed and a more natural or transitional death replacing it and still not having the last word, it remains a serious "dialogue partner" in our everyday lives. To treat death as an illusion neglects the very real dialogue which is still going on (and in fact SHOULD still be going on) in every human life.

This last is true because there is a positive dimension to this dialogue, a positive way of thinking about and treating with death which is especially important in rejecting the notion that death is an illusion. It involves the sense that death is an event in which we make a final decision for or against God, for or against our truest selves, for or against the Kingdom of God. Death involves a passive dimension and does indeed come upon us, often without warning, but even then we believe that death involves a final decision, that is, death is an event in which we are active participants in this positive sense as well. Death faces us with our finitude, as well as with our attachments to things which hold us here. It represents a liminal event, a boundary event which signals and illlumines the forms and various degrees of detachment we still must achieve.

The other side of detachment is attachment, and death serves to signal and illumine failures in attachment to the God who grounds and unifies all reality. It confronts us with our own lack of openness to complete dependence upon God and is the event in which obedience can be genuinely enlarged or deepened. In this sense death has a salutary role to play in our lives, and this is true whether we are speaking of the smaller deaths which mark each day or our final death this side of eternity. Beyond all this, death remains the event in which, meeting God face to face, we make a final decision and entrust ourselves to God --- or refuse to do so. Granted this dimension is ordinarily beyond anything people attending us actually can witness, but it remains a piece of the very definition of death as a human event.

We resist death. We think in terms of other people's death --- death is inevitable but not for me! One of the real lessons of Christianity and a life of prayer is the lesson of death's reality. We are Christians, not Christian Scientists or Platonists! In prayer we affirm life, but while we do that we also experience the process of dying to self and prepare for the final decisions of Death itself. We do not fear death in the way we might apart from what was achieved in the Christ Event, and we do not approach death as those for whom it has no meaning, but we do NOT treat it as an illusion --- precisely because we do believe in the resurrection! After all, it is bodily resurrection of the dead as well as a victory over Godless, sinful death.

Surrexit Christus, Cantate Domino!

Well, this is a little late, but all good wishes to everyone for this Easter Season! I am in the midst of recovering from what is fast becoming an annual post-Holy-Week event --- a bout of bronchitis, so I have not been writing much -- or doing much (literal) singing, despite the antiphon heading this post! However, I am truly fine, and am merely sorry not to have been able to share regarding the Triduum, or to have wished you all a Good Easter sooner than this!

A Theology of the Cross (Reprised)

Ministering to the Dying and Bereaved: Proclaiming a God Whose Power is Made Perfect in Weakness. Initially published in Review For Religious, January 2001



Death, and God’s relation to death is an overarching theme in human life, and certainly in the life of the Church. During Lent, for instance, we spend an entire forty days preparing to celebrate Christ’s victory over “sin and death.” During this season and others, images of these hostile forces, references to chaos, meaninglessness, and our bondage to all of them surround us. And in light of this, if there is anything we understand, (or should understand!), it is that these things are “the enemy.” During this time, for instance, we read in the Old Testament again and again that our basic choice, the really fundamental option that faces us in all of life’s moments and moods, is “choose life, not death;” and we know that these alternatives are not equivalent. After all, one is “of God” and the other is not. One is a choice for being, integration, re-creation, and meaning, while the other is a choice for diminishment, disintegration, destruction, and senselessness. One is the choice to respond to and fulfill the profound vocation to authentic existence spoken by God deep within us, while the other represents the repudiation of this summons and the rejection of our truest selves. One is, ultimately, a choice for an eternity in communion with the God who authenticates and completes us, the God who is the ground and source of life and meaning, while the other is the act by which we embrace the powers and utter emptinesses of hell.

At this time of the year in particular, we examine our lives for signs that they are marked and marred by our own alliances with sin and death, and we participate in a more focused way than usual in activities which reject such alliances, and are geared towards breaking the bonds established between us and them. We make the concerted effort to acknowledge, “we are dust, and shall return to dust,” that death is something that threatens us not only from without, but that it is also something that we carry around within us. And of course, we affirm and celebrate that for our sakes, and in opposition to our misguided, misbegotten alliances, God’s own Son has dwelt amongst us, implicating the One he called “Abba” into the whole panorama of our fragile, flawed, finite, and mortal existences, ---- up to and including his altogether humanly contrived, and godforsaken death on a Roman cross.

We observe Holy Saturday as the day when sin and death have triumphed. On this day there is no Savior, no Church, no Sacrament, and no Gospel. There is nothing to celebrate or proclaim. There is neither hope, nor freedom, nor real future. Sin and death are the apparent victors, and the present is as empty and forlorn as the desolate plaint of the enfeebled and failed messiah, whom we heard cry out from the cross just the day before. On this day we recall the original disciples --- broken by disappointment, grief, guilt, and shame, and stunned to terrified silence when the powers of the world overcame the One they called “Christ.” Their shattered hope for the definitive coming of God’s reign, and the ignominious, apparently unvindicated death of the man Jesus, stands at the center of our vision as well on this day. And in the shadow of this recollection, the bleakness of a world dominated by a power that regularly opposes and subverts the work of the Author of Life is clear. On this day, our entire horizon is death and the victory it has achieved over God’s Son, over us, and over our world.

In light of all this then, how is it we still hear from those engaged in pastoral ministry to the dying and bereaved for instance, that God is either the “author of death,” or it’s agent, or that anyone’s death (with the single exception of Christ’s own) is “God’s will”? How is it, with all the scriptural and empirical evidence otherwise, our ministers and faithful continue to present death as something other than the implacable enemy of life and the God who authors life? How is it that death is conceived of as other than an entirely alien and antithetical element in our existence, which God works continually and indeed, suffered greatly, to defeat --- an element that remains only on sufferance until “(God) is all in all”? How is it possible to hear from faithful who have been told that “God is the Lord of life and death,” that this must mean that when death intervenes, it is “God who KILLS us”? Yet, blunt and apparently absurd as this last formulation may sound to us, it is merely the clear spelling out of the implications of a flawed theology which considers death the event WITH which God punishes sin and calls us to judgement, rather than the hostile power he conquers, and the event IN which he intervenes in Christ, to raise us to eternal life.

Whether we are ministers trying to assist others with their own deaths, pastors comforting the bereaved, or simply persons who are trying to make sense of the reality of our own mortality, all too often we are burdened with vague, ill-defined, and even erroneous notions of death and the relationship between God and death. The situation is complicated by misreadings and distortions of Paul’s theology of the cross, and by fundamentalist interpretations of the creation narratives of Genesis. It is likewise made more difficult by anachronistic conceptions of the human being which see him/ her in terms of a body-soul dualism, as well as by simplistic notions of the sovereignty of God. The result is quite simply an inadequate theology that makes genuinely Christian ministry to the dying and bereaved difficult or even impossible, and caricatures God as the author of tragedy and absurdity in the process.

It seems to me therefore, that we must make a serious effort to correct our misconceptions of death, its relation to sin, and especially the relation of God to death. After all, how in the world are we to adequately celebrate God’s own triumph OVER sin and death, if we misunderstand these realities and posit God as their author? How can we make sense of the fact that God willed the suffering and death of his only begotten Son if we understand these realities as something God had complete control over in the first place? Are we really stuck with Anselm’s satisfaction theory, for instance, and the parody of God and God’s justice it is based on? And are we left only with the option of telling the dying and bereaved to whom we minister that “this is the will of God” or do we really have better answers at our disposal? Obviously, I am convinced there are far better answers available to Christians, and it is my intention to explore some of them, and their theological foundation, in this essay.

Common Misunderstandings of the Nature of Death

There are two basic misunderstandings regarding death and God’s relation to death, which seem to me to burden most Christians. The first is the notion that God is in COMPLETE control of human existence, and that because death is a part of that reality, this must mean that he is in complete control of it as well. There are various versions of this notion: “(Death) is God’s will;” “ Death is the way God punishes us for our sin” (especially original sin); “Everything that happens has a purpose;” “God gives and God takes away;” etc. Most often we hear versions of this theology from homilists and ministers trying to encourage us that God is omnipotent, and that everything that occurs, no matter how apparently senseless, is meaningful. We also hear these interpretations from ministers who believe that by affirming death is in God’s hands, by affirming it as the event WITH which he calls us home, for instance, some of the fear and sting of either dying, or bereavement is removed. Clearly, we sense that death is easier to bear if it is not simply perceived as an alien and hostile element in human existence, particularly if we can hear that it really isn’t the entirely senseless event it so often seems to be. In the meantime, however, we repress the serious theological questions such affirmations raise: Is all death and dying sent by God? Is God really their author? Are we expected to attribute instances of chance and absurdity to him as well, or are we expected to simply deny the existence of these things? Are so-called ‘acts of God’ really the work of God? Does “sovereignty” imply total control, or is the situation more complex than this? And of course, if God IS the author and agent of death as well as of life, what kind of God would such a deity truly be?

The second misunderstanding is related to the first. It is the notion that death, and here we are speaking of human death, is something that threatens us entirely from without, and so, is something which God can overcome by mere fiat. It is sometimes combined with the secular view that death is a wholly natural and neutral reality. This notion of human death fails to understand it as a partly, and indeed profoundly personal reality which is not simply part and parcel of our temporality, but is a special aspect of sinful existence. Because of this, it often goes unrecognized, much less acknowledged that God cannot force his way into this realm, nor overcome it from without. As in all else that is personal in our lives, God must be allowed or implicated into this realm if he is to bring it under subjection to himself and transform it. The logical consequences of this misunderstanding are also generally repressed, for such a misunderstanding of the relation of God to death generally raises the question: why did the Word have to become incarnate and God’s own Son suffer a torturous death by crucifixion, if God could have simply overcome sin and death by fiat?

Another Look at the Relation of Death to Sin and God

God created the world of time and space. He created it out of nothing (nihil), and it retains the ability to cease existing, to sink once again into nothingness. The created world continues to be conditioned by non-being. It is ambiguous and threatened. Non-being is an aspect of temporal-spatial existence. While created reality depends upon God for its existence, it is not simply from and of God. It is not, for instance, an emanation of God, and it does not possess its own being. It is finite and must be continually summoned and held in existence against the power of non-being also at work within and around it. Beyond this, and in part because of the presence of non-being as a conditioning element, this world also possesses potential. It has the capacity to grow and change. Non-being conditions this world as threat and as promise. It is both a condition of possibility and the condition of non-possibility.

When we consider human existence the situation becomes even more complex, because human beings are created with the capacity to reject God, and to ally themselves with that which is other than the One from whom life and meaning come, even looking to this as a source of life and meaning. Not only is human existence ambiguous in all the ways historical existence is ambiguous, but human beings can refuse to simply receive meaningful life as a gift from God. They can, as the OT puts the matter, “choose to know good and evil,” (in the very intimate way the OT uses the term knowledge), or “choose to be as Gods,” or again, they can “choose death.” Human beings can ally themselves with life and the author of life in total dependence, or (and there is no other option), they can ally themselves with the powers of non-being, the meaningless, anti-life, anti-truth, literally godless powers that are also part of spatial-temporal existence. And of course, they do. In fact they do so inevitably in one way and another. Without exception human beings embrace the powers and principalities of this world in a mistaken bid for autonomy and completion. They “live (and die) from” these powers, and in doing so give them greater standing, status, power, menace, and malignancy in the world than they would have without human complicity.



But where does non-being and the power of non-being come from in the first place? Is God its author? Is non-being a “something,” a form of matter as Manichaeism once suggested, and where else could it come from than the God who is the source of all that “is”? One of the better explanations comes from JÜrgen Moltmann in his, God in Creation. Building on a Jewish kabalistic notion , Moltmann explains:

<< God makes room for his creation by withdrawing his presence. What comes into being is a nihil which does not contain the negation of creaturely being (since creation is not yet existent), but which represents the partial negation of the divine being, inasmuch as God is not yet creator. The space which comes into being and is set free by God’s self-limitation is literally God-forsaken space. The nihil in which God creates his creation is god-forsakenness, hell, absolute death; and it is against the threat of this that he maintains his creation in life. Admittedly, the nihil only acquires this menacing character through the self-isolation of created beings to which we give the name of sin and godlessness. . . . This points to a necessary correction in the interpretation of creation: God does not create merely by calling something into being, or by setting something afoot. In a more profound sense he “creates” by letting-be, by making room and by withdrawing himself. >> (Emphasis added)

And what then of sin or estrangement from God? If non-being is a “natural” part of finite existence, then isn’t sin, which is primarily estrangement from God, also simply something natural, a part of historical existence? The answer is no. Sin, which begins as a natural separation or distinction from the God who dwells in eternity, occurs when human beings (who dwell instead in time and space) choose not to be entirely dependent upon God to save them from the threat of non-being. It occurs when human beings mistake actual independence from God for freedom, and when independence from God is pushed the further disastrous misstep, and mistaken for equality with God. It occurs whenever human beings decide that a humble response to God’s summons alone is not to be the only determinant of their lives, and align themselves with that which is not from or of God. It occurs when we make common cause with death and non-being rather than with the One who is the source of life and meaning. It occurs whenever human beings turn away from their creator toward that which is antithetical to him in acts of rebellion and apostasy, and transform a more natural separation-yet-communion into actual estrangement, alienation, and sometimes-outright antipathy. It happens whenever the “we” of our “original” state is rejected and/or betrayed, and thus transformed into the self-conscious, self-concerned, relatively isolated “I” attested to in the Genesis narratives.

Similarly then, death has also been transformed from something natural into something entirely unnatural. The death that we recognize as an integral part of human existence is something wholly unnatural. Just as human distinction and separateness was transformed into actual estrangement and alienation from God, from self, and from others, so too has normal finitude, ordinary mortality, taken on monstrous proportions in light of human sin. Human death is not simply a natural or neutral event. It is not simply the moment when non-being overcomes being, although it is certainly that as well. Human death is menacing; it is associated with human complicity and collusion with the anti-divine powers of nothingness, meaninglessness, and chaos. And of course, for this reason human death is “the wages of sin,” and implies the triumph of godlessness ---- a triumph which human beings have assisted, colluded, and become complicit in, in every possible way. Human death, apart from Christ, is a death of godforsakenness.

It is also, therefore, a death marked by the wrath of God, but wrath in the genuinely Pauline sense of the word. After all, God has created us with the capacity to choose something other than himself, or to be something other than we are created to be. And choose we do. And when we do, God leaves us to our choices. This is precisely what living under the wrath of God means. It does not mean that God is angry. It certainly does not mean that he punishes us in any way. It means simply that we are left to the choices we have made and the alliances we have forged throughout our lives. It means that, in fact, God respects (that is, he will not and cannot interfere with) these choices or alliances. It also means that those who are born into the world after us are touched by the same powers and principalities which we ourselves have elevated and magnified with our choices. Paul describes this in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans. The wrath of God implies being “given up” to the alien powers with which we have aligned and allied ourselves, and therefore, to the gradually worsening decadence and disintegration that afflict us, our society, and our world because we have made common cause with chaos and nothingness. It implies an inhuman death marked by the embrace of godforsakenness, one in which absolute godlessness triumphs. Whatever death is or would be apart from Sin, it is not this. Instead it is the enemy of sinful humankind and of God, and it is this situation which the Cross of Christ is meant to address.



The Cross of Christ and the Death of Death

There are times and situations in human life and history which demand we look again at everything we believe, every definition and presupposition we hold, every scrap of knowledge we think we possess, and every perspective which seems intelligent, or natural, or logical. The picture of reality gained from the perspective of Holy Saturday surely suggests that the cross of Christ is, at the very least, one of these events. From this perspective alone we have a picture of a failed and possibly delusional “Messiah.” After all, God’s Son had not climbed down from his cross. He had not saved himself as he had saved others, and in the process he died a completely degrading and entirely ignoble death. The one he called Abba with an unprecedented intimacy had not established his reign with a mighty and outstretched arm. The angel of death had not passed over, nor had the powers of Rome been routed in any way reminiscent of the Egyptians at the Exodus. Instead, sin and death were the apparent victors on this day, and a God whose power is, even today, mainly understood by believers and unbelievers alike in abstract, impersonal terms of omnipotence, had proved unable to deal with the consequences of human freedom and its abuses, much less with the destructive powers of the world. And yet, the Christian Gospel affirms that this evident failure was the ground of a far more awesome victory, the victory of a hitherto unknown God whose “foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men.”

So then, how is it the Cross of Christ “works”? This question is often posed “Why did Jesus have to die this kind of death?” And implicit in this query are a number of others: “why couldn’t Jesus simply have died of old age?” or, “why would his Father allow such a thing, much less will it?” or, “what kind of God would demand that his Son suffer betrayal, torture, abandonment, and even godforsakenness or hell?” and, “if God asks that of his Son, how can I believe he will have mercy on me?” These are important questions, and they are variations on the questions raised whenever God is made the author or agent of death. They are also the questions which are at least implicitly raised by notions of the cross which make it the place where an infinitely offended God is appeased or placated. And the answer to them is as simple as it is almost incomprehensible in its wondrousness. For God’s sake and the sake of a divine justice which is defined solely in terms of mercy and which seeks the reconciliation and completion of all of reality WITH God, God must overcome everything which separates him from us. For this reason, in order to implicate God into the realm from which he is by definition absent and from which he has actually been further excluded by human sin, someone sinless and therefore still entirely open and responsive to God, must die such a death.

On the one hand, this death must represent the worst death a human being may die. It must be a death marked by failure, weakness, abandonment and isolation. It must be a genuinely “inhuman” (that is, sinful) fate, the death of one whose dignity has been stripped from him, and who is left completely powerless and alone, with nothing left to recommend him to God. It, above all, must be a death where this one is given over entirely to nothingness, to the emptinesses of hell. It must be the death we each deserve --- the death that, without Christ, we each will die because of the alliances we have forged, and the choices we have inevitably made and ratified. It must be the death we each merit for ourselves, and often visit on others. And it must be that death in which the wrath of God is experienced without mitigation or diminution, precisely so that God can instead become inexhaustibly present here under the aspect of grace. At the same time, it must have been the most genuinely human death ever died. There could be nothing present in Christ which mitigated or compromised his openness to and dependence upon God, nothing which prevented the entire will of God being done in him, nothing which spoke of misguided autonomy, collusion with the powers of death and sin, disobedience, or pride. At the precise instant Jesus’ death is the most inhuman (godless) imaginable, it must also be the most human (open to God) precisely so that genuinely human existence which is defined in terms of obedience to and communion with God once again becomes a real possibility in our world. And the result is not only the possibility of genuinely human existence, but also necessarily, the simultaneous “death of (godforsaken) death.”

As we noted above, human death, the “wages of sin,” the result of our alliances with the “powers and principalities” of this world, cannot be destroyed from without, by fiat, without God also destroying his entire creation and abrogating the freedom of those who would and do ally themselves with these powers. So God chooses to become present even here in the realm of nothingness. God empties himself completely of his divine prerogatives in order to definitively reveal and assert a novel kind of divine sovereignty, an incredibly paradoxical power defined in terms of weakness. Sinful death is the ultimate enemy, and so, God chooses to be subject to it so that he might transform it entirely. Thus, Good Friday and Holy Saturday are followed and rendered permanently valid by Easter, the definitive and wholly new “Passover.” After Christ, death is no longer the godless place, and it no longer has the final word. Because of Christ, and because he chose to become subject to sin and the wages of sin out of love for his Father and us, God has become present “in the unexpected place,” and the power of death, which was the power to separate us from God forever, is definitively broken. The God Jesus reveals--- the One whose Name he makes known and real among us, is the formerly unseen, infinitely paradoxical God who, from creating to redeeming his creation, “calls into being the things that are not, and raises the dead to life.” Most significantly, he does so with a sovereignty which is worked out in self-emptying and self-limitation, a justice which is defined in terms of mercy, and a “power (which is) made perfect in weakness.”

Paul summarizes this whole theology in one statement: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” Note well that Paul does not say, “God was in Christ being reconciled to a world that offended him infinitely.” Note as well that neither is Paul concerned with a kind of justice which is either familiar or comfortable to us. This justice is neither distributive nor retributive. In no sense is this a God “who gives us what we deserve.” Instead Paul’s entire focus is on the fact that in the Christ Event, and most especially on the cross, God asserts his rights over creation, and defines justice with an exhaustively kenotic and sacrificial mercy which secures our freedom on the one hand, and which transforms the very things we choose when we abuse and misuse that freedom on the other. In this theology, God’s justice is actually expressed as his refusal to allow anything to separate us from him. Here grace and justice, are largely synonymous. If wrath means allowing us our choices out of love for us even in full recognition of our sin, grace means allowing us our choices, but, out of an unconditional love, transforming the very nature of that which we choose so that we are no longer separated from God, or broken and estranged as human beings. If wrath means allowing us to choose the godless and godforsaken, grace means the transformation of these things, and especially the transformation of sinful death into an actual sacrament of God’s presence. If sin means our separation from God and the self-assertion and ingratitude that prompts it, divine justice is God’s assertion that we belong to him no matter what, and what is ordinarily called “justification” is the reconciliation that results when God acts out this judgement in the Christ Event.

All of this, of course, is the climax of the Divine self-emptying that began at creation. It contrasts precisely with the pretensions to divinity assumed by human beings in sin --- the same pretensions that crucified Christ in a riot of religious righteousness and political expediency. This is indeed the victory of a God whose “foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men.” It reminds us that ours is a God who is folly to “Greeks” and a scandal to “Jews,” and as it does so, it calls into question everything we once held as conventional wisdom about God, his sovereignty, wrath, justice, power, and dignity, and it offers us alternative and paradoxical definitions of all of these, as well as our own notions of what constitutes genuinely human existence. What was true at the time Paul wrote about the scandal and foolishness of the cross is no less true now. For this reason we can be very sure that if the Cross has not challenged our notions of all we experience and know, we have not really understood it. Even more seriously, so long as we refuse to accept the redefinitions achieved on the cross, we make it, and what was achieved there, void. There is, I think, no place our success or failure in this has more serious consequences than in our theology of death, and our ministry to the dying and bereaved.





Implications for Our Ministry to the Dying and Bereaved

This brings to our ministry then, an alternative way of looking at death, tragedy, senselessness, and their relation to God. I believe this alternative perspective results in an altogether more extensively and intensively comforting pastoral approach, but there is no doubt that it is tremendously challenging as well. After all, it requires that both we and those we minister to, give up the facile answers and simplistic platitudes that have so long mistakenly passed for Christian faith and truth. This perspective demands then that we adopt a grammar of salvation built on the paradoxes embodied in a theology God worked out in creation and on the cross in terms of kenosis and asthenia. In this theology, the God who renounces his own prerogatives out of love for us is not in total control, but ultimately, he is the God who asserts his rights over all of creation and mercifully brings all things to fulfillment in himself. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once rightly reminded us, “Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably nothing that happens occurs outside his will.” In this theology God has willed the sinful death of only one person, his own Son, but he has done so only in order that he might defeat godless death entirely. In this theology, God gives, sin distorts, desecrates and destroys, and death takes away, but God intervenes in death and robs it of any ultimate victory. And in this grammar of salvation, not everything that happens in our world makes sense or has meaning, but at the same time it can all be the basis for celebrating a God who will bring order out of chaos, life out of death, and meaning out of absurdity if we only give him the chance, and perhaps even when we do not.

In concrete terms this means that when dying or grieving persons ask us if this human death is the will of God, we must answer no, but what God will make of it in Christ is another matter. Death is the enemy, and it is both God’s and ours, but in Christ it is also the vanquished enemy whose power, for all its awfulness, is a merely a hollow shell of what it once was. If we are asked why God does not intervene to save a dying child, for instance, we must be clear that God has intervened, but he has intervened in death to transform its very nature, and make sure it does not have the final word. And when those we minister to rightly affirm that they have sinned, and are frightened of God’s justice, or that they feel guilty as death approaches, we have to be able to remind them that God’s justice has determined they will not be separated from him. No. God has asserted his rights over all of creation, and has promised to love us with an everlasting love. Perhaps it is the case that God’s mercy assumes an awful aspect for those unprepared to be nothing but forgiven, but for those who are prepared to accept this gift, God’s justice is a source of unending joy, and its promise is still ultimately comforting. So, while we cannot minimize or trivialize the sin and guilt anyone experiences, neither can we allow it to be perceived as greater or more powerful than God’s own solution for it. The wages of sin is godforsaken death. But an innocent Christ has died our own deserved godless death, and the wages of this death is eternal life in communion with a God who refuses to allow sin and death to remain godless.

Many Christians are scandalized or frightened by the suggestion that God is not in complete control of his creation. They believe it offends against a God who is traditionally described in terms of omnipotence. But they have not been introduced to the paradoxical sovereignty of the God of Jesus Christ who defeats sin and death by participating in them. Here God’s sovereignty is exercised precisely where he dies for us. A God who is said to limit himself in creating and redeeming a free creation, is a real stumbling block to many Christians, and more than this, many are made nervous by the notion that there are things at work in the world which God neither foresees in detail, nor immediately controls. This too seems to offend against the theology of an omniscient, omnipotent God. Many will be downright angry at a notion of divine justice where people “don’t get what they deserve.” After all, a God whose judgement IS his mercy certainly is a stumbling block. But, again, God asserts his rights over us as he will and for all these people, the paradox of a crucified God whose foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men, needs to be more convincingly proclaimed and taught. While some of us find the notion of God as the author and agent of death repugnant, many others are threatened by a notion of death where God is neither the agent nor the author. At the same time however, these folks may not have been taught that through Christ’s death and resurrection sinful death is miraculously transformed into a sacrament of God’s presence. And yet, it is certainly part of an adequate ministry to the dying and bereaved to make these central aspects of the Gospel of Jesus Christ effectively known. We will have failed badly if we are unable to recognize and adequately affirm either side of the God-death equation that is at the heart of Christian kerygma.

Every human life has its Good Fridays and Holy Saturdays. There is failure, absurdity, betrayal, collusion, isolation, injustice, cruelty, torment, and death. There are times when we are simply left helpless and mute in the face of our own and others’ inhumanity, and when we are bewildered by the tragic and inexplicable circumstances of our personal and collective histories, as well as by the silence and apparent inadequacy of God at these times. In the short term Sin often does triumph and the powers of this world are sometimes immediately victorious. After all, God is not yet “all in all,” and not all that happens is either from or of him. Ministers to the dying and bereaved have to be courageous enough to admit these things without mitigation or equivocation. And yet, there is another side to all of this that must be communicated clearly and persuasively.

Death and the apparent triumph of non-being are followed by resurrection, and as a result, we really can’t look at any of reality in quite the same way again. The negativities of life are real, but so is the God who chooses to enter into them and transform them with his own life and presence. After all, ours is the God of Jesus and Paul, the God who raises the dead to life, the God whose justice is defined in terms of mercy rather than wrath, and who refuses to allow anything to separate us from his love. Ours is the God who assumes a position of impotence in order that his sovereignty might be perfected and we might be saved when we are most helpless. And he is the God who does this so that even while we face squarely the greatest tragedies and senselessnesses life has to offer, we can exultantly cry with Paul, and help those to whom we minister to do the same, “Sin where is thy victory, death where is thy sting?”

The Prodigal Daughter

The majority of active contemporary religious women come in for a lot of criticism these days. Traditionalists are upset they are not teaching or nursing, directing Faith Formation programs and the like. They are said to have lost a sense for the heart of consecrated life, to have strayed too far into the realm of the secular, to have failed to remain in their proper religious preserve, dress in their proper separating attire, and so forth. Tonight I had a soup supper with my diocesan delegate, a Sister of the Holy Family, and this picture (which I had sent to her previously) was something she referred to in terms of one of the newer (and very demanding) ministries of her congregation. One contemporary problem the SHF have taken on is that of human trafficking.



For those unfamiliar with the charism and mission of the Sisters of the Holy Family, this congregation has always had the welfare of children and families at the heart of their concerns and ministries. They are, like Ruth in the Old Testament, gleaners, those who are attentive to and solicitous of the anawim who are overlooked or discarded by our dominant and affluent society. Today, little as we might like to admit the fact, the reality of human trafficking is all-too-prevalent. It is one form of societal blindness, deafness, forgetfulness and exploitation of the least and poorest of our world, and it is a place courageous and visionary women like the Sisters of the Holy Family go to minister in Christ.

While looking at this picture of the Prodigal Daughter, Sister Marietta referred to imagining what happens to young women and children caught up in this scourge: "what do they see, what have they experienced, why did they leave, what do they need to be brought home --- really and truly brought home?" (paraphrase) The Sisters of the Holy Family are committed to accomplishing this last task in whatever ways they can. Thus, for Marietta, Mackesy's picture is a poignant reminder of what it really means to be ministers in the contemporary world, to really be GLEANERS, --- and, along with Luke's story of the Prodigal Father, how offensive this might be to those who would restrict religious women from the secular world! (The scandal of the Incarnation is an ever-present reality whenever genuine Christianity is encountered by the religious establishment!)

Charisms and missions are the deep and stable underlying realities congregations (and hermits!) live their lives trying to embody. Ministries, which are more variable than these, change as the needs of our society and church shift and change in light of these deep realities. As Marietta reminded me tonight, "Vocation is that place where our own deep gladness and the needs of society meet." (Frederick Buechner.) In this time where contemporary religious women are under fire we should thank God that they have so profoundly internalized their respective charisms and missions as to be able to adopt traditionally consistent and demanding new ministries, no matter how apparently "irreligious" or unorthodox they seem to those with different commitments (and sometimes --- maybe often) with significantly less vision!

On Encouraging and/or Discouraging Canon 603 Vocations

[[Sister Laurel, do you encourage people to pursue eremitical vocations or do you discourage them? For instance, you criticized members of [name of project] for using the Canon for diocesan eremitism as a "stopgap" or "fallback" position. Shouldn't we be happy to have as many people pursuing this vocation as desire to do so? There are so few diocesan hermits, and so few religious vocations today that I am surprised to find people discouraging others from pursuing these.]]

You are correct about my "Canon 603-as-stopgap-measure" criticism and I will explain that in a bit. Surprisingly (for I was surprised by the fact), I have found that I do generally discourage people from pursuing vocations to Canon 603 eremitism; that is, of the people who contact me curious about this as a vocational path I encourage only a fraction to pursue it and tend to suggest other vocational paths for the majority. I have recently looked at my own motivations for this reticence and I think they are worthy reasons. Let me explain, for I think it is a piece of the answer to your questions.

Throughout history there have been hermits from all religious traditions. At some points in this long story there have been more hermits and at other points fewer, but always the vocation has been recognized as a relatively rare one. I don't think this is generally because of undiscovered vocations or human cowardice, resistance, etc, but because of the very nature of both the human being and of the call to eremitical solitude. Human beings are social beings; ordinarily we grow to maturity and achieve individuation only through our relationships with others. The need for community is a part of our very nature. Our hearts are "dialogical realities" as Benedict XVI reminds us, and the God we image is himself a community of love. At the same time we are constituted in dialogue with God not only directly (as the deepest dynamic of our hearts) but through the mediation of and in relationship with other people. This communal dimension of our lives is essential. It cannnot be dispensed with, even for the genuine hermit, and ordinarily its requirements militate against a call to a life of physical solitude. Authentic calls to eremitical life are exceptions to the rule, and therefore, are both relative rarities and paradoxical in that they actually foster or enhance the dialogical character of one's life in these particular cases.

In Christian eremitical life, these insights are reflected in the characterization of eremitical life as the summit of monastic life, and by the insistence of people like St Benedict that those seeking to live in solitude should be well formed in their monastic lives, and no longer in the first flush or fervour of conversion. [[The second [kind of monk] are the anchorites, hermits --- that is those who, not in the first fervour of religious life, but after long probation in the monastery, have learned by the help and experience of others to fight against the devil; and going forth well-armed from the ranks of their brethren to the single-handed combat of the desert, are now able to fight safely without the support of others, by their own strength under God's aid, against the vices of the flesh and their evil thoughts.]] (RB 1) Benedict, who had lived as a hermit understood the vocation and his cautions and qualifications are as valid today as they were when he wrote his Rule.

While the language of combat with demons may seem a bit dated and off-putting for many today, the seriousness (and genuineness) of the enterprise it underscores should not be missed or minimized. One goes into the desert in response to a call to a hard-won conversion and humanization which is accomplished in dialogue with and through the grace of God alone. There is no room for mediocrity here (though there is assuredly great temptation to this!!), no sense that eremitical solitude, for all the joy and peace it possesses (and these are indeed substantial), is merely a pleasant time apart to recharge depleted batteries or balance the activity in one's life. Neither, as I have written several times before, is it a way to indulge one's selfishness, over-developed individualism, insecurities, lack of ambition or success at life, or misanthropy. What is at stake in a call to eremitical solitude is one's very humanity, nothing less. Further, it is a humanity at the service of Church and World, or it is not eremitical life.

For the hermit this is THE WAY to more complete healing, wholeness, and holiness, the way her ability to love others is perfected, the way she is most clearly made into imago Christi in service to others. If one misses the demanding and extraordinary character of this solitariness, one has missed something essential to the eremitical vocation. Above all one should not forget that relatively very few people are called to achieve the goal of their own humanity in this way. For most, the desert as a life choice would actually hinder growth as a person and prevent individuation or the achievement of true holiness. For most, this would be a destructive choice leading to actual dehumanization and illness. For the hermit, on the other hand, it is the necessary or indispensible full-time environment and occupation which God in his mercy and compassion calls them to so that they might achieve fullness of authentic humanity.

At the same time I argue the relative rarity of this vocation then, I recognize that among some groups of people there may be more vocations to diocesan or to lay eremitism than has been appreciated heretofore. The chronically ill constitute one of these groups, as do the bereaved and isolated elderly. So too, as I wrote just recently, may some prisoners in the unnatural solitudes of our nations's prisons. In each of these cases diocesan or lay eremitical life may be ways of redeeming the isolation, bondage, and brokenness of these situations and transfiguring them into genuine solitude thus making them occasions of essential wholeness and freedom. So, while I am convinced vocations to solitary (diocesan) eremitical life are rare, I am more than open to encouraging exploration of this call by those whose life experiences may suit them to such a call apart from monastic formation and life. For those who are younger and can enter a congregation which is eremitical or semi-eremitical to get the formation and challenge which life in community allows, I recommend this option rather than Canon 603.

Contrary to the way your questions are framed, this is not about numbers. It is especially not about finding a canonical alternative to an individual's inability to be professed in some other way to get the number of vocations to the consecrated life up, nor is it a fallback position for those seeking to enter religious life or to found a community only to find either that they are unable or that no one else joins them in their project! My criticism of the project you mentioned was rooted in these two concerns. When Canon 603 (which is meant to address and foster SOLITARY eremitical life, not communal or religious eremitical vocations) is used in this way the person doing so apparently demonstrates little or no sense of the nature or significance of this specific vocation, little or no respect for the unique charism it represents especially for our church and world, no real sense of what it truly means to discern a LIFE VOCATION, and a lack of respect for the actual divine vocations the persons being funneled into Canon 603 life are really called to. Add to this an overriding concern with trappings and externals, and other forms of fundamental dishonesty on the part of the head of the project (the specific topic of a previous post) and you have a more complete picture of the basis for my criticism.

While it is common to hear people bemoaning the dropping numbers of religious vocations today, what we should be hearing more of is an accent on authenticity. In the wake of Vatican II we recognize the universal call to holiness and have come to esteem the lay vocation and the vocation to marriage in ways we had not done adequately. Our ecclesiology (i.e, our theology of church) is much improved with decreased clericalization (including no longer treating religious as a semi-clerical caste which can do things lay persons cannot!). Further, we are coming to be increasingly aware that many in religious life prior to Vatican II may not have had genuine vocations, but also had no way to fulfill their needs to minister, etc apart from religious life. The lower numbers of religious vocations today may simply indicate that these remaining and contemporary vocations are mainly authentic and that the desire to serve or minister (an important but secondary concern) is now better met for most persons in other ways. Canon 603 eremitical life is a significant (that is, meaningful and important) vocation with the capacity to witness to aspects of the Gospel in ways other vocations may not do as vividly. It serves (and should serve) the church and world in redeeming unnatural solitudes and in humanizing and sanctifying a rare number of people --- and in witnessing to many many more. We cannot empty it of this significance or witness value by turning discernment into a piece of a numbers game (which is always more apt to be of men than of God) or refusing to wait for genuine (relatively mature, life-tested, and divinely inspired) vocations to walk through the chancery door.

I hope this answers your questions. You might want to check past posts on the unique charism of the diocesan hermit, as well as those on abuse of Canon 603 or the "Lemons and Lemonade" series of posts, for a more expanded discussion of some of the issues that fueled my criticism of the use of Canon 603 as a stopgap measure or fallback position. Articles on the time frames for becoming a diocesan hermit (also cf the "Lemons and Lemonade" series) might explain better the idea that this is generally a vocation for the second half of life. As always, if this raises more questions for you or is unclear in some way, I hope you will get back to me.

Do You Want to Be Well? (Reprised)

Today's Gospel is one of those intensely intriguing ones where the reader plays a huge part in determining what actually happens in the story (because the story is not a matter merely of the past; the Gospel writer very much WANTS it to draw us in as well). I once remarked in an earlier blog entry that some of Jesus' parables are rather like Thematic Apperception Tests, and today's Gospel strikes me very much that way --- there is much left undefined or ambiguous, lots of room for projection, for implicating ourselves in the story and interpreting the questions, responses, followup behavior, etc. For those unfamiliar with the TAT, this is a psychological test often given to candidates for religious life, seminary and priestly ordination, etc. During the test the client is shown a series of pen and ink drawings, ordinarily a series of ambiguous pictures, and asked to tell the stories of the characters and scenes depicted there. S/he is asked to characterize the situation in each drawing, narrate how it came to be, and also give the story some sort of an ending. It is quite an enjoyable test UNTIL one realizes that the ONLY thing exposed for the tester is the inner and psychological life of the client!!! THAT is laid bare with incredible clarity! Well, today's gospel reading can function that way for us today, and would be wonderful for lectio.

By way of summary, several things struck me right away. First, the reference to multitudes of sick, crippled, etc, in the temple area, but somehow also separated from the very life of the Temple. Second, Jesus' question to the one man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (a whole generation is signified here): "Do you want to be well?" --- certainly an intimate question which also retains complete respect for the man's freedom and innate dignity. Thirdly, the man's not-so-direct answer: "I have no one to put me in the water, and before I can get there, someone else has already entered." Fourthly, there is the exchange between Temple officials and the healed man who is walking and carrying his mat on the Sabbath. Both sides of this exchange are interesting: the officials' for their blindness and lack of priorities (legalism), and then for their focused hostility, and the response of the healed man who says he does not know who healed him or commanded him to take up his mat. And fifthly, after meeting Jesus again later on, and being challenged by him to not fall into sin so that something worse than paralysis befalls him, the now-healed man runs back to Temple officials to inform them that it was Jesus who healed him on the Sabbath!

The reference to multitudes of sick and crippled underscored for me a sense I already had, namely, that this gospel addressed all of us as sick or crippled in some way. When coupled with Jesus' very direct question, "Do you want to be well?" I think only a person who has never realized how it is we each come to terms with our various forms of unwellness, how we collude with them, struggle against them, accommodate them, and eventually accept them as more or less natural, would think Jesus' question a strange or completely obvious one. Afterall, after 38 years of illness most of us would have built our lives around the illness in some way which allows us a more or less comfortable accommodation to its limitations and demands --- even if this process is never perfect! To get well after 38 years of illness is no less a dramatic change than becoming seriously ill in the first place. Physical ailments are one thing, and they typify all the various ways a person can come to terms with something that is not natural or fully human --- and accommodate these things we certainly do!! But during Lent, the focus is more on our spiritual illness or lack of wellbeing, and there is nothing obvious about the answer to the question, "Do you want to be well?" Indeed oftentimes we have ignored the illness and have no awareness healing is necessary, much less at hand! Furthermore, when we ARE aware of the illness, we may not want to be healed really, just improved on a little! We don't want to commit ourselves to REAL spiritual healing. That, afterall, goes by the name of holiness, and who in the world REALLY seeks to be holy today???

I was struck by the paralyzed man's response. He does not say, "Yes, I have been waiting here for almost 4 decades. I want to be healed more than anything in the world!" Neither does he recognize that Jesus is actually the true living water and source of his healing as others have already done. His response COULD be a kind of blaming of others, or it COULD be an indictment of the religious system of his day which isolates those who are ill or crippled from the life of the Temple. It COULD be the cautious answer of one who is just now considering the idea that PERHAPS he COULD be healed and is beginning to get his mind (and heart!) around the fact that today might be the day. It COULD be the resigned response of one who has given up and knows that he will never be the first in the pool, and probably would not be healed there even if he were first! It could even be the response of a person who would like Jesus to be a little more realistic and see what the paralyzed man is really up against! (See what I mean about projecting ourselves into the story? It's terrific for uncovering our OWN hidden and not-so hidden motives and attitudes toward healing!)




Following his healing (an act of God which still requires trust and courage by the formerly paralyzed man; he still MUST pick up his mat and walk, afterall!), there is the rather chilling encounter with the temple officials. How many of us identify with their inability to see what is REALLY right in front of them, their lack of perspective, their legalistic attitudes, or their focused hostility at Jesus? And yet, how many of us have approached liturgy, for instance, with the very same mindset and condemned some breach of the rubrics when what was far more important was the healing of a fellow Christian in some major way, shape, or form we failed even to see? None of us like to see ourselves as scribes or pharisees, but all of us have a bit of closet temple-official locked inside our hearts, I am afraid! For some, it has become the primary attitude with which they approach their parish liturgy: what can I find wrong today? What breach of the Sabbath (e.g., Mass rubrics) can I point out today? How many unorthodoxies can I locate in Father's homily?" And of course, liturgy is not the only area in which such an attitude can be operative. How often do we notice someone did not follow the rules or "draw inside the lines", so to speak, in our daily lives --- while completely neglecting the fact that the person has ACHIEVED something they had been unable to perform until this point? If one walks away from this story without seeing something of themselves in this exchange between temple officials and healed paralytic, or fails to be challenged, I would be amazed!

Then there is the encounter with Jesus later in the story, after the man has been challenged by the Temple officials for carrying his mat. Jesus affirms his new condition "See, you are well!" and challenges him not to sin, lest something worse result. Does Jesus buy into some naive linkage between sin and illness? Is he asking us to do so? If so, how so? What IS the linkage REALLY? Is Jesus saying that sin can lead to worse things than physical illness? Is he reminding the man that he must commit himself to something besides his illness or his heart will be filled with something unworthy? And then there is the man's response: he runs back to the Temple officials to tell them the healer's name! Is he consciously betraying Jesus (we have been told in this and earlier readings that Jesus is staying away from crowds which are now dangerous to him)? Is he merely trying to tell the officials the simple answer to what they asked, naive of any awareness that this constitutes a betrayal of his healer (afterall, he has been on the margins of what has been happening due to his illness)? Is he trying to fit into the Temple from whence he has been ostracized for so long? Is he trying to curry favor, in other words, or simply trying to show how responsible he can be now that he is well? What illnesses still afflict him? Blindness? Insecurity? And what kind of blindness then? Ingratitude? What is it that motivates this man? Once again, we can read critically, exegetically, of course, but to some extent, I think we will have to project ourselves onto or into the text to answer many of these questions, and to really HEAR the text. So long as we are clear this is what we are doing, in this way we will learn more about ourselves than we will ever learn about the man in the story!!

For me personally, healing stories are always difficult, but this Lent, where the focus is not on chronic physical illness, but rather on all the failures in humanity which regularly plague us, Jesus' question, "Do you want to be well?" hits hard. It hits hard because it presupposes an awareness of being unwell in fundamental ways which require a healer, a messiah of Jesus' caliber and character. It presupposes the ability to say, "Yes" not only because I am unwell, but because I have colluded with the dominant culture so much that I often have remained unaware of my basic unwellness and suppose I am essentially fine --- just a "bit of a sinner" you know! And of course, it commits me to picking up my mat and walking on with it, right in the midst of all those who will be offended by the act! For a monastic and a hermit, this picking up my mat and walking with it will look differently than it will for some, but in this day and age, the call to holiness is no more acceptable for hermits than it is for businessmen or housewives, parents, professionals, etc. Do I want to be well? . . . I think the answer really must be, "Yes, no matter how much admitting and accepting my own brokenness and embracing genuine holiness scares me!" For many different reasons I may be more comfortable with a divine king than a divine physician, but this is Jesus' own question to me in this season of my life --- it is not projection on my part!! Of that I have no doubt at all. So, then, how is he speaking to you?

The Three Faces of Prodigality: Which will we Choose?

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



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

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

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

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