Married Hermits?

Nicolas of Flue

[[Dear Sister, can there be married hermits? I was told it was possible if the spouse agreed and if the married couple decided to forgo marital relations. The hermit who said this is a consecrated Roman Catholic Hermit and referred to Nicolas of Floo (sic) as an illustration.]]

The simple answer is no --- at least if one means by a hermit, one who has ecclesial or canonical standing and lives the central elements of canon 603 -- the normative canon of the Latin Church on what constitutes solitary eremitical life. There are a number of reasons I say this and I would ask you to look at the labels which address the issue of married hermits for other articles on this. (cf Urban and Married Hermits? and Married Diocesan Hermits?) Briefly, married persons are not, by definition, solitaries. They are given wholly to one another and are called upon to live a life of married or sexual love in which both persons bring one another to God, create families, and celebrate the sanctity of human sexuality in a very explicit way. In the sacrament of marriage, two people become one flesh. This is their vocation, not solitude, and especially not solitude which is also vowed to consecrated celibacy. 

Once upon a time, the Church treated marriage as almost a necessary evil that was meant to save individuals from mortal sin due to sexual urges and lust. (Some suggested the sex act remained a venial sin within the context of marriage!) Marriage was, for 12 centuries, not even recognized as a Sacrament. Sex, in particular, was not seen as sacred and a commitment to married or sexual love was not esteemed. During this period of Church history it was possible to find individuals living "as brother and sister" --- meaning in celibacy, and it was also possible to find couples who went off to convents and monasteries or even separated from one another with one going off to live as a hermit. Nicolas of Flue was one of these. 

In fact, this piece of the tradition has hung on into the modern period, but as marriage is more appropriately understood and esteemed, as the sacredness of sexual love is more commonly recognized, and as the universal call to holiness becomes more profoundly appreciated, the church has moved away from approving such "brother and sister" arrangements as well as from the idea of married hermits. Today, the normative definition of the eremitical life is found in Canon 603 and this necessarily includes a commitment to consecrated celibacy. Because of this, the church requires one to be canonically free to undertake profession under c 603 and this means one may not already be bound by a life commitment to marriage, or religious life. (If one is divorced there must also be a decree of nullity to be considered free to undertake another canonical life commitment.)

Again, please check other posts on this. They will expand on the reasons given above. Meanwhile, you might contact the hermit you mentioned and let her know she is mistaken in this information. If she is a consecrated (i.e., publicly professed and consecrated) hermit who is, therefore, a Catholic hermit, then she should know firsthand that c 603 cannot be used for married persons (meaning currently married or divorced sans declaration of nullity -- or the dispensation that can sometimes be given in place of this declaration) and I would also hope she has enough theology to be aware of the theological inconsistency between solitary life and married life. In solitary or eremitical life one says with the whole of one's life/being that God alone is enough and can be known/know us in eremitical solitude. In married life, one explicitly witnesses to the fact that we come to God through the love of others --- especially through our complete mutual self-gift and reception of the gift of another's life. In other words, these two vocations to holiness accent very different aspects of the truth of the human being's relationship with God and with others; both aspects are true, but as vocations, they are mutually exclusive; that is, one person cannot simultaneously live them out exhaustively nor simultaneously witness to the truth they each uniquely proclaim.

Canon 603, a Break With the Eremitical Tradition?

[[Dear Sister,
how big a break with the traditional form of hermit life is canon 603 hermit life? Is the focus on law and rules a distortion of the simplicity of the hermit life as found throughout the history of the church until the last century? Why would the church move in this direction? One lay hermit says that the Church had canons on eremitical life in the 1917 Code of Canon Law and that the addition of c 603 in the 1983 Code was designed to curb abuses.]]

Thanks for your questions. I am not sure what you mean by "the traditional form" of hermit life unless you are referring to the most original (Christian) forms established and typified by the Desert Fathers and Mothers (they had more than one). Throughout the history of the church there have been a variety of forms of eremitical life: solitary, laura-based, religious or communal (sometimes called semi-eremitic), anchoritic, urban, reclusive, and so forth. Appropriately, all of them see themselves as carrying on the tradition and spirituality of the Desert -- the spirituality of John the Baptist, Jesus (especially in the desert), and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Today we recognize three main forms of, or avenues for living, the hermit life: 1) religious or semi-eremitical hermit life which does NOT use Canon 603 as the basis of their public profession (Carthusians, Camaldolese, etc), 2) solitary consecrated or diocesan (canon 603) life, and 3) lay (dedicated or non-canonical) eremitical life. While the desert Fathers and Mothers are the original instance of Christian eremitical life, they lived both solitary and laura-based lives as well as reclusion. So, there has always been significant diversity within several major forms, not just one or (in light of canon 603) two forms or avenues.

I think your question about canon 603 as a break with tradition though, is a question about canonical standing or the place of law in all of this, no? Your next sentence focuses on law and rules and I read it as an elaboration of this first question. Some people do assert that law in any form is not consonant with the eremitical vocation, but these generally mistake license for genuine freedom and forget that freedom is exercised in spite of or at least in relation to life's constraints. They also exaggerate the desert Fathers' and Mothers' freedom from custom, precedents, and the like and minimize the degree of communal responsibility every hermit had. Moreover, they seem to treat post-desert Father/Mother hermit life as entirely independent of the supervision of the Church and her hierarchy, laws, and customs. While there were always folks doing the equivalent of whatever they wanted and calling themselves hermits, and while there have also been true hermits who had no formalized relationship to the institutional church, the general truth is that authentic hermits have often lived in a formal, legalized relationship with the Church and even sometimes with the secular society. This has been true for the majority of the church's history. In any case then, the answer is no, canon 603 eremitical life is not a significant departure from, much less a break with, what has existed for at least the last 14-15 centuries in the Church.

The Customs of the Desert Fathers and Mothers

It is true that the desert Fathers and Mothers were part of a movement to protest the Church's linkage with the State, and substitute in some way for the loss of red martyrdom as well --- the loss of which made living one's faith a less risky or demanding business. These two changes, while certainly desirable, also made living merely as a nominal Christian very much easier. Additionally it is certainly true that the desert Fathers' and Mothers' move away from "the institutional" church led them into an area of recognizably greater freedom and individuality, but not to one of individualism or complete freedom from constraints of any kind. They were prophetic in this move, but they would have ceased to be prophetic had they not also been related to the Church and her Gospel at the same time.

As noted, there were, for instance, customs that these original hermits observed in learning their vocation; novices lived with an elder who mentored them and taught them what they needed to know. Such elders also served to help discern the genuineness of the novice's call to the desert. They taught the Scriptures, assisted the novices to learn to pray assiduously, to fight demons, to fast, to live the evangelical counsels, etc. Additionally among these thousands of hermits there were customs regarding the giving or taking away of the habit (they could not be donned on one's own authority and would be taken away if the person lived the life badly), the way one lived in one's cell, the ways one exercised hospitality, requirements for work, manual labor, time out of cell, etc. but beyond the desert Fathers and Mothers and their customs, eremitical life has always been supervised (often by Bishops) and subject to forms of legislation (established Rules, monastic constitutions, decretals, diocesan ordine, etc).

A Summary of the Relationship between Solitary Hermits and the Hierarchy in the post-desert Fathers Church

Thomas McMahon, O Carm, writes a brief general summary of some of this history and notes; [[While the early lay hermit movement [speaking of non-religious, non-ordained hermits] was very charismatic, the hierarchical Church demanded some measure of accountability. Lay hermits enjoyed certain canonical rights and protections both in ecclesiastical and civil law. Consequently one was not free to simply go off on one’s own and become a hermit. Because they often did some spontaneous preaching and often depended on the alms of the faithful for support, the bishops claimed some rights over them. While anyone was free to live a life of retirement and prayer, a man needed to seek the blessing of the local prelate before he could assume the habit of a hermit. Hermits, like canonical pilgrims, wore a tunic that fell somewhat below the knees but was not as long as a clerical gown. They belted this with a leather belt, and wore a short hooded cape. Pilgrims, in addition to this basic habit, added a purse slung from their belts in which to keep food or alms given them for their journey, and they also wore the badge of their pilgrimage such as a scallop shell for those going to the shrine of Saint James at Compostella or a palm for those going to Jerusalem. The pilgrim, like the hermit, had a right to appeal for alms.]] Emphasis added.

In a work including more detailed inventories of the legal rights and obligations of hermits (anchorites) in various countries @ 1000 AD (one essay deals with hermits @ 400 AD onwards), Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe has several essays by various authors, two of which especially make it clear that anchorites during this period were generally scrutinized by and lived eremitical (anchoritic) life under the supervision of their Bishops. While the Bishop's primary (and lengthiest) duty was to see to the spiritual well-being and maturation of the anchoress, there were established rites of enclosure, sometimes with a Mass, sometimes not, requirements regarding financial well-being, suitability of the anchorhold, etc. Some dioceses had detailed lists of statutes ("ordine") applying to anchorites and extending certain benefits to those who were their benefactors. Civil laws also were promulgated which protected the anchorites. Their lives and presence were highly valued so these statutes or ordines established formal relationships between anchorite and the society at large which protected all involved and are reminiscent of the way canon 603 functions today. (cf, McEvoy, Anchoritic Traditions of Medieval Europe.)

Canon 603 as Break with Tradition: A Serious Misconstrual of Eremitical History

All of these things and more point to the fact that it would be a serious misconstrual of the history of eremitical life to suggest there was one form in the main which existed until canon 603, and which was free of canonical or civil legal constraints and permissions. While there have always been those who went off to live lives of prayer (or those who went off to do their own thing!), those who were recognized as hermits or anchorites and wished to minister in the church through or in light of their solitude have generally been licensed (yes, actually licensed!) or "approved" by their Bishops and thus bound by a variety statutes or lists of statues and canons established diocese by diocese. Canon 603 is unique because for the first time ever it provides for hermits to assume standing in universal law and for that reason, and to some extent, it cuts through all of the varying diocesan regulations which governed this life through the centuries.

By its establishment Canon 603 continues and renews a tradition of dialogue between  church and hermits where the church accommodates the authentic call to solitude in various ways while the hermit herself accepts the relationships and commitments established in law to assist her in this. Hermits have always been dependent in some way on those around them, whether it is their town, their community, their parish, diocese, or the church at large. Even the largest numbers of the desert Fathers and Mothers lived on the edge of the desert rather than alone in the deep desert and were accessible to those in the nearby towns and villages. In later centuries it was expected that some situation like this would exist for the mutual benefit of all concerned; total solitude was not only impossible, but undesirable. (cf Mari Hughes-Edwards, "Anchoritism: The English Tradition", p146, op cit.)

What law does, and, apart from heavy-handed abuses or mere attempts at control, what it has always done, is establish stable ways this dependence can be worked out for the benefit of the whole church. Canon 603, for instance, does away with some of the instability which can obtain from diocese to diocese, parish to parish and village to village by establishing this vocation in universal law and locates the hermit in the heart of both the local and universal church. (Calling the hermit forth from the parish or cathedral community and publicly professing her in the parish or cathedral church underscores this traditional understanding of the mutual relationship between hermit, community, and Bishop. Yet, each hermit, et. al. will work this out individually as best suits her vocation.) What it also does is provide for a vocation which requirements for participation in the sacraments and an essential ecclesiality once made illegitimate. Paul Giustiniani (Camaldolese) called for laura-based eremitical life and an end to solitary eremitical life when these requirements were codified. Now, once again, because of canon 603, the church is recovering the solitary eremitical vocation and providing norms which remind us these vocations are 1) ecclesial rather than individualistic, and 2) despite a rich diversity, marked by specific non-negotiable elements.

Reasons Canon 603 was Promulgated (yet again!)

As for the reason canon 603 was established then, it is much more positive than an attempt to deal with abuses. I have told this story at least twice before so please do check labels on the history of canon 603 (cf canon 603 --- history) for a more complete account. As you can see from the terribly abbreviated snapshot of historical conditions above, while law did prevent abuses its more important raison d'etre was the protection and nurturing of a very unusual or uncommon, fragile, and significant vocation. Candidates needed to be checked out (not everyone can live this life!), they had to be provided for, whether by their town, by other benefactors, or --- when these failed --- by the anchorite's own Bishop. Without the protection of law the existence of hermits becomes a very iffy thing, which means that without the protection and requirements of law and the relationships legal standing helps establish and regulate, a Divine vocation can be lost.

Canon 603 serves to replace, or at least subordinate to universal law, any diocesan schema used to legislate hermits from diocese to diocese. It calls all dioceses and all Bishops to reflect on the essential nature and value of the eremitical life and be sure that candidates for this life live these central elements with fidelity and even prophetic power. It allows for collaboration and learning from one another regarding successful and unsuccessful examples of this vocation in our own day and age and helps the entire Western Church to be on the same page in approaching such vocations. At the same time it does not level out or destroy legitimate individuality. It allows for and, in fact, requires the hermit's own Rule or Plan of Life which she writes herself and which reflects her own individual lived expression of the essential elements of canon 603 in dialogue with both the eremitical tradition more generally and the contemporary world. If a country has 100 diocesan hermits, it also has 100 individual expressions of this life. At the same time all of these hermits are publicly covenanted (vowed) to live the same essential elements. This is the pattern of all authentic eremitical life --- a pattern of individual creativity and faithfulness to the central elements and values of a given tradition in conjunction with the hermit's own world, and in response to the Holy Spirit. Canon 603 helps ensure this authentic pattern.

Finally, though I have said this in this article and many times in this blog over the past several years, let me reiterate: Canon 603 is absolutely new in universal law. There has never been such a canon affecting the universal Church before in the Western Church. The 1917 Code had nothing in it addressing eremitical life. (As I understand it, a 1911 draft version of such a canon did not ultimately find its way into the 1917 Code.) This was left up to the proper law of religious congregations --- that is, to the constitutions of religious congregations (many of which had no provision for such a call to solitude!). Neither was c 603 developed primarily because of abuses. This had been necessary in the past when hermits were numerous, but in the modern era Religious hermits were governed by proper law and solitary lay hermits (of which there were few beyond the middle ages and almost none in the contemporary period) lived privately committed lives and most people did not know of their existence.

Neither did canon 603 come to be because hermits wanted some kind of social privilege or status. It came to be because religious who discovered a call to solitude late in their vowed lives were often required to leave their communities and vows and become secularized to try and live out such a call. (Again, often the congregation's proper law had no provision for hermit life and there was none in universal law -- i.e., the 1917 Code of Canon Law.) Meanwhile eremitical life --- at least as an institution --- was called upon to exercise a place in a more public dialogue with and prophetic or countercultural witness to the contemporary world --- even if the individual lives of hermits were essentially hidden. Bishops recognized the gap in law here based on the significant pastoral inadequacies of the situation, and pressed for the Church to recognize the eremitical life as a state of perfection. In any case, "canonical status" does not refer to this kind of status (that of social privilege) but to standing in law as well as to initiation into what the church refers to as a (stable) status or "state of life." After all, as I have also noted before, one does not correct a badly lived lay eremitical life by granting the hermit admission to public vows and canonical standing. While such standing emphatically does not mean the canonical hermit has a higher vocation nor necessarily is a better hermit than her lay counterparts, it does mean she accepts public responsibility for the eremitical vocation generally and her own call specifically. It makes little sense to extend such responsibilities or the rights that go with them to one who has shown they live the life badly, especially when their existence is hardly known.

Summary: Canon 603 a Continuation and Renewal of Tradition

The bottom line in all of this is that canon 603 is entirely consistent with the history of the way eremitical life has been lived in the Western Church throughout the centuries. It is not a break with that tradition despite the fact that it is also new in some significant ways. Instead it recovers something that was lost in the Western Church, especially after the Middle Ages --- namely, solitary eremitical life lived in dialogue with the Church especially in the person of the diocesan Bishop. In response to the needs of the church and world, it also makes of diocesan eremitical life a "state of perfection" and allows for public vows (or other publicly embraced sacred bonds). This means that the "religious state" is no longer only associated with public vows made within the context of a religious community. (Cf, Holland, Sharon, IHM, Handbook of Canons 573-746 especially p 55, O'Hara, Ellen, CSJ, Norms Common to all Institutes of Consecrated Life,), but again, these new elements are lived out by virtue of the traditional dialogue/relationship between individual hermit and the local Bishop common throughout the history of the life.

I hope this helps.

Blog, a solitary enterprise? (Pun Intended!)

[[Hi Sister Laurel,

Do you write this blog alone? I haven't seen a sign that posts are written by anyone other than yourself but there is another name on the blog. Thank you.]]

Yes, this blog is entirely mine. There is another name on it because a friend in another part of the country has graciously agreed to take care of things should anything ever happen to me. In such a case, she would notify readers and so forth. However, she does not access the blog otherwise and does not write for it. So, the blog is definitely a solitary enterprise (in several different senses of the term "solitary") but I do count on a friend to step in when I am unavailable.

There is no reason to think that anything is going to happen to me, of course, but since I am a hermit and sometimes spend periods in which I do no blogging, it seemed like a good idea to ensure that people could be notified should something other than my normal circumstances be at play. I have been meaning to say something about this since the arrangements were made because early on I received a couple of emails wondering if I was both screenames, for instance. That seemed a bit strange to me considering the vast difference in our profiles, but it occurred nonetheless, so I am happy to finally clarify the matter .

Allow me to clarify one other point that comes up with regard to this blog, namely, I do not write in the name of the church. I live eremitical life in her name and I certainly try to post quality material here, but this blog is my own. My bishop and delegate know of it while my delegate sometimes receives posts from it but neither she nor my bishop et al., directly supervise my writing here.

Public vs Private Profession or Profession vs Commitment: Followup questions

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, As a lay person who has made Simple, Personal Vows to God which were witnessed by the parish priest, and as a lay person who has written and observes a personal Rule, it seems that my actions are strictly between myself and God, and that no special obligations or relationship exists between me and any official part of the Church, and in no official capacity, and that even though my vows were witnessed by the priest, I have not accomplished a "Profession". Am I correct? It would seem I am truly on my own, and not obligated to the Church in any official way, which leaves me free, but obligated to live a good and moral life and loyal to the Church. I hope to have the help of the Church, certainly Her prayers and blessings as I may have the good fortune to receive them, but that I am not in a "consecrated STATE" as far as the Church is concerned.

Thanks very much for your questions. I realize asking them indicates both understanding and substantial personal pain. I am breaking them up and placing them throughout this post, but let me try to answer in a way which brings out not only the distinctions involved between public and private profession (or, what some, more accurately, call profession vs dedication) but also the seriousness of what you have indeed committed to.

As noted in the last post, Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, defines profession as a formal, solemn, and public act by which a person undertakes a state of life, and when looked at that way, your vows are indeed a dedication but not a profession. In what I have written on this blog I have tended to a usage which distinguishes between public and private professions while implicitly linking these to differing states of life. Sister Sandra's usage in making state of life an explicit part of the definition of profession is less ambiguous and for that reason, perhaps significantly more helpful than my own in avoiding misunderstanding and the obscuring of important distinctions; still, I think we are in essential agreement. Your vows are private and that means that while they are a personally significant expression of your baptismal consecration (for you are indeed consecrated in that way), you remain in the lay state to live out that expression. As is true of any person in the church, you, as baptized, are obliged to live out the evangelical counsels in some way in that state and your vows express this explicitly. What remains true is that the Church which you help constitute both needs and expects you to live out any commitments you make with integrity and seriousness. She has affirmed that baptism constitutes a universal call to holiness and that holiness is no less exhaustive or significant than the call experienced by someone in the consecrated or ordained states.

It is true that, as you say, your private dedication of yourself via these vows does not cause you to enter the consecrated state of life and does not lead to the same kinds of legitimate (canonical) relationships an ecclesial vocation with public vows does. You do not have legitimate superiors, for instance, do not belong to a congregation or religious community by virtue of this commitment nor do you enjoy additional rights, obligations or protections which are part of such relationships in order to support the stable state of life for which they exist. While you are expected to live out your baptismal vows (the laws which bind every Catholic are indeed binding on you and hold you accountable for this) you have assumed no additional legal rights or obligations nor entered into the additional legal (canonical) relationships which obtain in public profession. However, the values you live out in those vows are personally binding on you nonetheless because they are real specifications of your baptismal consecration. Your dedication (i.e., your private vows) commits you in a serious and real way until you discern either that you are no longer called to this or until you determine you need no additional vows to live out your baptismal consecration and act to have these vows dispensed by your pastor, for instance.

The Importance of Private Commitments

[[This is an important distinction because there actually would seem to me to be a consecration of sorts present by virtue of trying to fulfill what I believe to be God's desires in my life; it would seem necessary in order to fulfill them. I am obligated to obey the Church by the wording and intent of the my (sic) vows, as much as I am obligated to fulfill my vows to God to whom I made them, and a blatant refusal or deliberate failure to do so would be a sin. I had the intent of living by the vows I took forever, but it seems the Church does not see my vows that way in spite of what I may have intended. Which makes me wonder then, what is my obligation to my Lord if having made vows with the intent of permanency and solemnity the Church does not see things that way? If I were a younger person it might be easier to resolve the issue by entering a religious order or lay institute and making profession; unfortunately, it seems that time is past.]]

Both God and the Church expect you to live out the private vows you have made as part of a significant Christian commitment, and to do so with integrity. The Church expects you to lead others in taking their own baptismal commitments with absolute seriousness as well. She also takes your private vows seriously --- which is one reason she provides for their dispensation by your pastor, Bishop, or others designated to do so in case you discern you are called to something else (c.1196), for instance. She does not simply say, "Oh, just move on --- forget about them! They are insignificant" They are not. They are significant commitments to God. However the church, who had no part in discerning the wisdom of or mediating your vows, does regard them as private commitments which can be dispensed without additional legal steps and without directly affecting your relationships with others in the church should you discern that is the right course of action. (For instance, when a religious seeks dispensation of her vows this affects others in direct and significant ways, whether they are her superiors who participate in what is often a painful process of discernment and cease to be legally responsible for her or her vocation), her community more generally (who love her and, though retaining profound friendships, lose her as a Sister in religion and important member of the community or congregation), or the church as a whole (who now welcome her as a lay person), etc.) Should you ever seek dispensation of your vows others are not similarly affected because your commitments, while personally significant, are private and made privately to God.

Even so, what does not change in all of this for you is your baptismal consecration and your responsibility to live out an exhaustive holiness accordingly in ways which are paradigmatic of and for the lay state. This IS a formal, solemn, and public sacramental consecration for you and affects many people and the life of the Church more generally. It is the power of this consecration which I believe is behind your sense that some consecration is necessary to live out your own private commitments. Your baptismal consecration grounds and empowers your living out the will of God in your life.

A larger question regarding the place of private vows for the baptized or married

Whether this applies in your specific case or not, one of the issues your questions raise is the remaining effects of a theology of religious life and vocation which effectively treated baptism as an entry level position in the church and other vocations as higher levels and more exhaustive forms of holiness. We have to encourage people to take their lay (baptismal) consecration and commitments with absolute seriousness. We have to be clear that every Christian is called to the evangelical counsels in some sense and we have to find ways to communicate that. Too often people seek to make private vows in an attempt to express their sense they are called to a self-commitment and holiness "more" exhaustive than their baptismal consecration involves.

For instance, they may make a vow of obedience as "listening" and commit to reading the Bible or listening to the Word of God in other ways when in fact these are generally things EVERY Christian is obliged to by virtue of their identities as Christians. They may make a vow of poverty in terms of a simplicity and detachment which are themselves something every Christian is obliged to by virtue of their baptism.

Sometimes, as I have mentioned before, I hear from married persons seeking to make additional vows --- usually of poverty and obedience, though sometimes also of chastity. When we talk about the matter and examine why they feel this way and what it is their marriage vows call them to in this place and time, there is usually no need for additional vows. Further, given the relationship between wife and husband there is usually no real place for vows which are private and bind only one of them. What was needed in such cases was a clearer idea of how significant and demanding are the public vows (baptism and marriage) they have already made. The significance and nature of these vows as public vows which are a means and call to achieving holiness and union with God, and in the case of marriage vows, a call to such holiness and union through this union with another, had slipped from sight. So had the need to reflect on and grow in their understanding and living out of these vows --- just as Religious routinely reflect on and grow in their their own.

The Church has contributed to this problem through the centuries. Vatican II took a decisive step away from the theology which engendered and exacerbates it. But we have a long way to go in implementing Vatican II in our lives and allowing it to guide our theologies, especially in this area. While wonderful and essential, it is not enough that lay people are moving into areas of ministry that were closed to them before. A fundamental change in our appreciation of what the lay vocation is and demands is still necessary so that people do not continue to feel they have only been called to an entry level vocation and cannot give their whole selves to God in this way.

Mutual rights and obligations: The relation to Profession and Vows

[[Hi Sister,

when you speak of the relationships that obtain from public profession, and the mutual rights and obligations which result, do you mean that your vows bind someone else in some way? You can't be meaning your Bishop is bound to poverty, chastity, or obedience, by your vows can you?]]

Ah, good question and one which requires greater clarity of language than I have achieved, apparently. The answer is, no. A vow obligates only the one making it. (c.1193) But profession is not the same thing as vows even though it most often occurs by means of vows. Sister Sandra Schneiders, IHM, defines profession as "the formal, solemn, and public undertaking of a state of life." Such an act and undertaking rests and builds upon the fundamental commitment of baptism both "specifying that original commitment and giving it a characteristic 'shape'." (Schneiders, New Wineskins, p. 57)

Thus, I alone am obligated to poverty, chastity, and obedience. These are my vows and no one else can fulfill them or is obligated to do so. However, in the act of profession made in the hands of my Bishop a series of ecclesial relationships are set up that did not exist before and these relationships include mutual rights and obligations. Thus, I am vowed to obedience to God but this is symbolized and especially expressed in my relationship with Bishop as legitimate superior and those he delegates to act in this regard. Meanwhile, the church as a whole is also a participant in and mediator of mutual rights and obligations and is allowed because of this formal, solemn, and public act of profession to hold certain necessary expectations of me and in varying appropriate ways to assist and hold me to accountability in regard to this vocation.

The state of life entered at (public) profession is the religious or consecrated state. There are attendant obligations but, as Schneiders points out, the obligations do not exhaust the meaning of profession. For instance, for the diocesan hermit these obligations can include the evangelical counsels, the requirements of her Rule, and so forth. But the profession itself is broader than these. It is the act of total or exhaustive self-gift which, in the case of religious or diocesan hermits, includes an openness to being consecrated by God through the mediation of God's Church as a part of the entire act--- no matter whether vows are used in the expression and explicitation of this self-gift or not. It is the person's profession and the church's reception of profession which results in mutual or related rights and obligations. The vows per se are binding only on the one making those vows.

Ecclesial Vocations and the importance of canonical standing --- a matter of stable relationships

Dear Sister O'Neal, what you have written about the relationship that obtains from public profession is helpful in under-standing more of what it means to have an ecclesial vocation [isn't] it? I have read what you have written on this before but I was not so clear about legal standing creating particular binding relationships which involve the Church herself. That seems to be an important distinction between public and private commitments. It also seems light years away from legalism --- and I know you have been accused of this in the past. Have some also criticized you regarding the idea of the "security" which is built into canonical standing in regard to the eremitical vocation? Thank you for saying more about this.]]

One of the really good things about blogging and answering questions is it helps clarify and expand my own understanding of various things. Sometimes it pushes my thought in directions I might not otherwise have gone. It also means that others can help me in evaluating the conclusions I reach. Had people not written me about what they perceived as legalism, I would not have explored matters in quite the same way I have. Of course, the heart of this particular exploration stems from my own lived experience of the differences between living an eremitical life apart from canon 603 and living such a life under canon 603; still, the criticisms you mention are actually very helpful to me in reflecting on and articulating what is an amazing and paradoxical reality. I should also mention that sometimes I hear far more friendly comments on all of this from Sisters and others who really can't imagine my binding myself to a code of canons in order to live what is a very free and flexible life. Of course, they know first hand and can reflect on the place of legally binding relationships in their own lives and see how these serve to free them for ministry, education, and vocation more generally as well as how they may be constraining in ways that chafe.

Yes, the accent on the stable, legal relationships which obtain from canonical standing help to understand what ecclesial vocations are all about. Diocesan eremitical vocations are ecclesial vocations, vocations which are discerned, mediated, nurtured, and governed by the church. The point I usually accent is that of mediation because such vocations are not a matter of the person alone determining they have such a call, nor can a person receive such a call ONLY in her own heart. Such vocations, as I have written before, are mutually discerned, and further, they are mediated to the individual by the Church in the person of a legitimate authority who intends to do this in a public act of the whole Church. 

The dimension which I had not focused on particularly or adequately was the dimension of the continuing stable relationships which obtain once the call (a continuing reality) is definitively mediated to the person. (Definitive mediation occurs in the rite of perpetual or solemn profession, for instance, and includes a definitive response to this call.) Not only do these relationships (with diocese, legitimate superior, monastery, community, congregation, etc) reflect the new state and relationship that exists between the individual and God, but they ensure that God's own call is a continuing reality in her life. Likewise they provide the structure necessary to allow the person to continue and grow in her response.

At the same time, a call is not heard once, answered once, and then treated as a past reality. One does not merely live from the memory of this past and already-answered call. Instead calls are continuing realities which evolve and in ecclesial vocations the call and the person's response are mediated in a continuing way through the stable relationships set up by the definitive act of perpetual or solemn public profession and/or consecration. The voice of God comes to us anew every minute of every day and the several relationships which obtain canonically in public commitments made in the hands of a legitimate superior are one of the significant ways this occurs. In a way, I have to say not that I have answered a call mediated by God's Church, but rather that I am answering a Divine call which God's Church continues to mediate to me -- though it is also true that I have answered in a definitive way at perpetual profession. The stable public relationships are meant to allow and assist me in this. This is true whether I am speaking of my relationship with canon law, with my legitimate superior, with my delegate, my parish community, or my diocese and the universal church as a whole. Like all relationships these are demanding and constraining. But they are also freeing.

In any case, what I have written about canonical standing is not driven by legalism. A focus on law for the law's own sake is legalism; a focus on law and standing in law in order to express and look carefully at the stable relationships which obtain and which allow for ecclesial vocations being lived with seriousness, integrity, and accountability is not. I would agree that these two things are light years apart, though they do have law in common. It is because of this that when people speak of the "mere formality" of canonical profession as though this is merely an "official" stamp of "approval" on a privately discerned vocation, or something with which a hermit seeks to have some kind of privileged social "status," I think it is a clear sign they have not yet understood either the purpose or the nature and significance of canonical standing.

The criticism about the security involved in the diocesan eremitical vocation (which is actually not one I hear very much) has to be answered in light of these realities. Stable, secure relationships like those I have mentioned are part of the necessary context for exploring a life which is responsible and witnesses publicly to everyone that God alone is capable of completing and redeeming one. For the hermit in particular, they help ensure her ability to proclaim the gospel message associated with the redemption of isolation into authentic solitude. They are a way to help ensure the continuing vitality of a vocation which is God's own gift entrusted to the Church for her own well-being. In my own experience, one enters into such relationships on behalf of God and the Gospel which one's vocation represents and reveals. In any case, as already noted, the insecurity of the diocesan eremitical life is substantial; the security which obtains is at the service of God and his own purposes and does not necessarily diminish the radical insecurities which are part and parcel of the vocation. This is part of the reason, I think, that dioceses do not support c 603 hermits throughout their lives, provide residences, etc.

Having said that it should be clear that the line between the two (radical insecurities and securities) is quite fine and at points becomes somewhat artificial. Further questions need to be raised about older diocesan hermits who are ill or frail and are publicly and perpetually professed. It may well be that the radical insecurity of their vocations can be assured and still allow greater assistance from their dioceses, etc, but this is a different topic. With regard to what you have asked about however, the security of an ecclesial vocation and the relationships which are part and parcel of that serve not so much the hermit's personal security, but rather the hermit's vocational security and that of the Church's own patrimony.

Prayer: Concerning ourselves with God's own Self and Destiny (partial reprise)

Tomorrow's Gospel includes Matthew's version of the Lord's Prayer. As we continue to focus on the basic themes of Lent it is only appropriate that the Church looks at what prayer is and reminds us of Jesus' own instruction in it --- what was primary and what followed naturally. In Lent one of the things we attempt to do is die to self in ways which make us more open to God's presence, God's Word, God's own hallowing of his name within us and in our world. We fast in ways which help us set aside our more superficial needs; we open ourselves to the love of God which we allow ourselves to savor so that we might be profoundly nourished and God's own will be done, God's own life be fulfilled in and with us. Our Lenten journey reminds us that genuine spirituality is forgetful of self, that it "gets out of the way" and lays aside self-consciousness. In tomorrow's gospel, Jesus (via Matt) provides a model of prayer which assists in this. It is a model of prayer in which we concern ourselves first and last with God's own needs, and with being there FOR HIM! We know it as the Lord's Prayer

In the first three petitions (and the invocation too, though that is a topic for another time!) we concern ourselves with God's very self (holiness and name refer to God's own self, not to mere characteristics or tags); we ask that he might be powerfully present in our world (because both name and the hallowing he is refer to a powerful presence which creates and recreates whatever it is allowed to touch and make holy). With the second petition especially, we open ourselves to his sovereignty, that is, to his very selfhood and life as it is shared with his creation. God assumes a position of sovereignty over that creation when his life is truly shared and that creation achieves genuine freedom in the process, but the reign or kingdom of God refers to God's own life once again --- this time as a covenantal or mutual reality. And, with the third petition in particular, we open ourselves to the will of God --- to the future and shape of a reality which is ordered by his sovereignty and fulfilled by his presence.

Now, it is true that God possesses what is called aseity. That is, he is completely self-sufficient and in need of nothing and no one. But that is only one part of the paradox that stands at the heart of our faith. The other side of the paradox is that our God is One who has determined to need us; from the beginning, indeed, from all eternity, God has chosen not to remain alone. He creates all that is outside himself and he summons it (continuing the process of creation) to greater and greater levels of complexity until from within this creation comes One who will be his true counterpart and partner in creation. At bottom this is a call to share in God's very life. In fact, it is the ground of an existence which can only be fulfilled when it shares in the Divine life and God himself becomes all in all!

All of Scripture attests to this basic dynamic, whether cast in terms of creation or covenant. All of Scripture is about God's determination to share his very life with us, and his creation's capacity in the Spirit to issue forth in, or become his own unique counterpart in the fulfillment of this plan. When God's plan is fulfilled, when his very life is shared to the extent he wills, everything he creates reaches fulfillment as well, but it is the human vocation in particular to allow this to become real in space and time. And afterall, isn't this what prayer is truly all about: allowing God's plans to be realized in his creation; cooperating with his Spirit in ways which let his own life be made PERSONALLY real here and now so that EVERYTHING acquires fullness or completion (perfection) of life in God?

Unfortunately, one of the most pernicious problems I run into, whether in myself or in my work as a spiritual director is the occasional inability of myself or of directees to "get out of the way" of the Spirit or to "forget self" in prayer. Prayer seems always to be about us, our problems, our sinfulness, our needs and concerns in ways which sometimes contribute to our own self-centeredness. While I am NOT suggesting we neglect this side of things in our prayer, I am suggesting that there are ways to pray these concerns which are NOT self-centered. (Note, the key here is in praying these concerns rather than merely praying about these concerns. Sometimes we have to silence conversation about concerns and simply live them in our prayer as we give our whole selves to God for his own sake.) I think this is part of what Jesus is getting at in tomorrow's gospel when he reminds us that God knows what we need before we ask him! It is certainly mirrored in the form of the Lord's prayer and the priority of the invocation and petitions. If we open ourselves humbly to God in prayer, the sinfulness, needs, concerns, etc will be part of that but the focus will not be on these.

Because of this, one of the most significant questions we can ask ourselves in checking in on our prayer occasionally is, "what kind of experience was this for God?" Ordinarily this puts a full stop to the sometimes- problematical self-centered focus and chatter about ME in prayer which can occur and puts the focus back where Jesus clearly lived it himself --- on God and the way in which God wills to be present to and for us. What today's Gospel gives us in this model of prayer is a sense that contrary to much popular thought and practice otherwise, prayer is really the way we give or set aside our lives for another, namely, for God and his own Selfhood and destiny. And while it is absolutely true that in the process of giving ourselves over to God's own purposes our own hearts will rightly be opened up, poured out, and our own needs met (as Isaiah reminds us in the first reading, God's Word will not return to him void!), prayer is first of all something we are empowered to do for God's own sake!

First Sunday of Lent: Driven into the Desert by the "Spirit of Sonship"

I really love today's Gospel, especially at the beginning of Lent. The thing that strikes me most about it is that Jesus' 40 days in the desert are days spent coming to terms with and consolidating the identity which has just been announced and brought to be in him. (When God speaks, the things he says become events, things that really happen in space and time, and so too with the announcement that Jesus is his beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased.) Subsequently, Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Sonship, to explore that identity, to allow it to define him in space and time more and more exhaustively, to allow it to become the whole of who he is. One of the purposes of Lent is to allow us to do the same.

A sister friend I go to coffee with on Sundays remarked on the way from Mass that she had had a conversation with her spiritual director this last week where he noted that perhaps Jesus' post-baptismal time in the desert was a time for him to savor the experience he had had at his baptism. It was a wonderful comment that took my own sense of this passage in a new and deeper direction. Because of the struggle involved in the passage I had never thought to use the word savor in the same context, but as my friend rightly pointed out, the two often go together in our spiritual lives. They certainly do so in hermitages! My own director had asked me to do something similar when we met this last week by suggesting I consider going back to all those pivotal moments of my life which have brought me to the silence of solitude as the vocation and gift of my life. Essentially she was asking me not only to consider these intellectually (though she was doing that too) but to savor them anew and in this savoring to come to an even greater consolidation of my identity in God and as diocesan hermit.

Hermitages are places which reprise the same experience of consolidation and integration of our identity in God. They are deserts in which we come not only to learn who we are in terms of God alone, but to allow that to define our entire existence really and concretely -- in what we value, how we behave, in the choices we make, and those with whom we identify, etc. In last year's "In Good Faith" podcast for A Nun's Life, I noted that for me the choice which is fundamental to all of Lent and all of the spiritual life, "Choose Life, not death" is the choice between accepting and living my life according to the way God defines me or according to the way the "world" defines me. It means that no matter how poor, inadequate, ill, and so forth I also am, I choose to make God's announcement that in Christ  I am his beloved daughter in whom he is well-pleased the central truth of my life which colors and grounds everything else. Learning to live from that definition (and so, from the one who announces it) is the task of the hermit; the hermitage is the place to which the Spirit of love and Sonship drive us so that we can savor the truth of this incomprehensible mystery even as we struggle to allow it to become the whole of who we are.


But hermitages are, of course, not the only places which reprise these dynamics. Each of us has been baptized, and in each of our baptisms what was announced to us was the fact that we were now God's adopted beloved daughters and sons. Lent gives us the space and time where we can focus on the truth of this, claim that truth more whole-heartedly, and, as Thomas Merton once said, "get rid of any impersonation that has followed us" to the [desert]. We need to take time to identify and struggle with the falsenesses within us, but also to accept and appreciate the more profound truth of who we are and who we are called to become in savoring our experiences of God's love. As we fast in various ways, we must be sure to also taste and smell as completely as we can the nourishing Word of God's love for us. After all, the act of savoring is the truest counterpart of fasting for the Christian. The word we are called to savor is the word which defines us as valued and valuable in ways the world cannot imagine and nourishes us where the things of the world cannot. It is this Word we are called both to struggle with and to savor during these 40 days, just as Jesus himself did.

Thus, as I fast this Lent (in whatever ways that means), I am going to remember to allow myself not only to get in touch with my own deepest hungers and the hungers I share with all others (another very good reason to fast), but also to get in touch anew with the ways I have been fed and nourished throughout my life --- the experiences I need to savor as well. Perhaps then when Lent comes to an end I will be better able to claim and celebrate the one I am in God. My prayer is that each of us is able to do something similar with our own time in the desert.

Merton quotation taken from Contemplation in a World of Action, "Christian Solitude," p 244.

Is your life as a diocesan hermit jeopardized by a new Bishop coming in?

[[Dear Sister Laurel,

Are the rights and obligations you accepted with public profession in jeopardy should another Bishop come in? What I am thinking is what happens if a bishop comes in who doesn't believe there should be diocesan hermits? Would you lose your vows or your relationship with the Bishop?]]

No. While the more personal dimensions of the relationship between hermit and superior might be less than ideal in such a case --- especially in the beginning before the two people know each other better or, in particular, have had a chance to meet with each other one on one to discuss the vocation and how things are going with it, the hermit's vocation or vows are not in jeopardy simply because a new Bishop is installed. In my last post I noted that one of the relationships established in public vows was established between the Bishop, his successors, and the hermit. It is the office of Bishop in this specific diocese acting in the name of the whole Church which assumes a relationship of specific rights and obligations with regard to this hermit while the hermit herself assumes specific rights and obligations in regard to the local ordinary of this diocese via public vows --- whoever he is in the future. Should this Bishop move or retire, the rights and obligations of the hermit continue and the new Bishop assumes his predecessor's place in the legal (that is, canonical) relationship.

The hermit in perpetual vows, then, is not at risk of ceasing to be a diocesan hermit each time a new Bishop is installed. This is so even if that Bishop does not believe in the vocation and so forth. The situation with temporary vows differs somewhat, so let me make a bit of an excursus here. In such a case, there is a chance that the new Bishop would choose not to renew these vows once they had expired; temporary vows are made for a certain period of time and this remains a time of discernment for all involved. Should a new Bishop decide the vocation is wrong for the diocese at this time, find the person is not really called to either renewal of temporary vows (whether now or for some time period,) or to perpetual vows, then he has the right to refuse admittance to these and, when the vows expire, the person will cease to be a diocesan hermit. They would probably choose to remain a lay hermit in such a case, difficult as this might be for them in some ways but they would need to discern this step afresh. Also, one would hope that a Bishop coming into a diocese where there are diocesan hermits in temporary canonical (public) vows would himself act out of true discernment, and not out of bias of course, but the latter does remain a possibility.

My own vows however are canonical, perpetual, and were made to God in the hands of the Bishop as representative of the Church. He was acting in her name in receiving those vows, and so, his act binds the Church and the hermit in a new legal and public relationship. (At profession besides a copy of the vows signed and witnessed during the ceremony, I received a notarized statement verifying the public and perpetual nature of these vows signed by both the Bishop and the Vicar for Religious and Ecclesiastical notary.) Only the canonical dispensation of my vows for significant valid reasons can alter the relationships, rights, and obligations which obtain in public profession. Your question is really a good one because it helps outline the relative security of the relationship per se, as well as illuminating a piece of what we mean by initiation into a state of life. The Church defines consecrated life in part as involving initiation into the consecrated state achieved in a definitive (permanent, solemn, or perpetual) act --- that is, into a stable and lasting state where one dedicates oneself, is set apart (consecrated) by God and acquires rights and obligations which do not themselves flow directly from one's Baptism. Once this occurs, all parties are obligated to respect the relationships, rights, and obligations which obtain. In regard to your question this means any future Bishop coming into the diocese as pastor.

Your question also helps illuminate the importance of canonical standing (standing in law) for those called to it. In the case of diocesan hermits, the hermit does not, at least, have the insecurity of wondering if she will continue to be able to live her vocation freely or explore the frontiers of solitude in God as she has covenanted to do on behalf of others and in the name of the Church simply because the diocese is going to experience a change in personnel. There is plenty of insecurity in the diocesan eremitical life just as there is in any eremitical life, but this one particular bit is not an issue. The Church itself is bound to assist the hermit in this and bound in specific legal ways. Standing in law is not a bit of mere formality or icing on the eremitical cake; it sets up stable and lasting relationships which all involved are bound to observe for the good of the vocation generally, the person called to this vocation specifically, and the church herself.

What we must remember is that law is meant to serve love; it is also meant to provide freedom, because constraints can serve genuine freedom. In other words, canon law sets up a number of constraints for the diocesan hermit, but these tend to serve her well in freeing her to live a life of solitude without being concerned with explaining herself to those around her, or being threatened with the fear that perhaps she has mistaken how she is to participate either in the world around her or the life of the church. Law's obligations assist the hermit in living her life, not just moving through day by day wondering if she has yet discovered what that life is actually meant to be. It outlines and binds the hermit to a life of the evangelical counsels, to a Rule she herself writes and a Bishop officially decrees is acceptable for living this life, and to a number of other canons which apply to anyone with public vows, but the realm it sets up in doing so is one of life in God. While the parameters may function as constraints in one way, they are precisely the things which help the hermit to go deeper and to explore this particular country as freely and exhaustively as possible.

In a sense this is an outline of what monastic stability means. Monastics relinquish the right to simply go wherever the grass seems greener at the time in order to live as fully as possible with the grace of God right here in this place. Married persons do something of the same. They bind themselves to the constraints of a commitment to this other, this family, these specific needs, the potential and limitations of this series of relationships at this time and in this place so that they can live out this love as fully and exhaustively as possible in the way they feel called to by God --- something which must often be distinguished from what a person merely WANTS to do. It is the role of civil and canon law to protect this possibility. It is ironic that this freedom comes with the imposition of constraints, but that is always the way of true achievement and true freedom. Writers are bound to the constraints of language to produce something which is truly transcendent. Musicians are bound to the constraints and capacities of instruments, music notation, physical abilities of musicians, etc in order to do likewise. Canonical hermits have their call and response mediated by the Church and that mediation includes the establishment of parameters and constraints which free for genuine transcendence.

In any case, the answer to your question is no, diocesan hermits' vocations/vows are not in jeopardy merely because of changes in episcopal personnel precisely because the vows are public. The related canonical relationships are established with the Church as a whole but through the office of Bishop within a specific diocese. (Should the hermit desire to leave the diocese, she must receive approval from her own Bishop and the Bishop in the diocese she proposes to move to. The new Bishop must specifically agree and act to take on the rights and responsibilities of legitimate superior to the diocesan hermit and do so on behalf of his successors as well. He must agree to receive vows in his hands --- or the canonical or functional equivalent.) If a Bishop refused to do so and the hermit moved to this diocese anyway, the new Bishop would indeed be her Bishop, but he would not be her legitimate superior and she would not be a diocesan hermit (her vows would cease to be binding due to the substantial change in circumstances and could be formally dispensed by her former diocese). The two relationships (pastor vs legitimate superior) obviously differ in significant ways. 

To summarize then, the act of making vows in the hands of her Bishop binds both the hermit and the Church as a whole in a constellation of mutual rights and obligations which differ from those which obtain at Baptism. Together, serving one another in a legitimate (that is, legal) relationship, they free the hermit to live the life she is called to and help ensure the eremitical life itself continues to be a vital and integral part of the church's patrimony.

Reception vs Witnessing of Vows: Is there a Difference?

[[Sister Laurel,

What is the difference between private vows that are witnessed by a priest or even a Bishop, and vows that are received in the name of the Church by a priest or Bishop? I have heard someone with private vows say her vows were received by a priest. But were they?. . .]]

There are two ways of thinking and speaking about this. The first (and I would argue, the mistaken way) says all vows which are made to God in the presence of someone in the Church, usually a priest but sometimes a spiritual director, etc, are received but do not necessarily set up a legitimate relationship between the one receiving the vows and the one making them.  In such a case they may be private vows marking a private act of commitment or dedication and the person 'receiving' the vows does not become responsible in any way for the continued living out of these vows. The second and correct way of speaking reserves the use of the term received for those vows which are public, are received by a legitimate superior in the name of the Church, and result in public rights and obligations as well as establishing a legitimate relationship between the one making the vows and the one receiving them. For private vows which do not do this, the term witnessed is used instead.  Speaking in this second way distinguishes between receiving vows as a person acting in his/her own name because s/he does not have the intention or the authority to receive public vows in the name of the Church (which it calls witnessing these vows) and the act of one who has both the authority and the intent to receive these vows publicly in the name of the Church. In either case the real distinction is between private dedication and public profession and the shift in usage to the second way of speaking is meant to underscore this.

When one makes public vows one does so literally in the hands of a legitimate superior (a superior in law). This is reminiscent of the more ancient feudal oaths of fealty sworn by the subjects of Kings and other nobles in the hands of their superiors. The Lord/King received such an act of fealty and was bound himself by it. Such an act set up a mutual relations

In terms of public vows of religious/consecrated life, the act of profession/consecration sets up a similar relationship between the church in the person and office of a legitimate superior and the one making vows/being consecrated. Thus, for instance, the diocesan hermit has a right to certain expectations of her Bishop in assisting her to live out her vocation in the name of the Church, and the Bishop representing the Church as a whole has similar rights and expectations of the hermit. He commissions her to live out her vocation in the name of the Church. The reception of vows means that they are in this together: hermit and Bishop (and his successors) each with their own rights and obligations --- unless the relationship is substantially changed by the expiration, cessation (due to material changes in the situation) or the dispensation of vows. There is a mutuality of rights and obligations involved in reception of vows. In religious congregations individuals making public vows in the hands of a legitimate superior have the right to expect the superior (and his/her legitimate successors) to act in ways which nurture and protect the person/vocation, while the one making vows acquires rights and responsibilities she did not have before profession.

When vows are witnessed by priests, directors, or even Bishops, none of this occurs. One has committed a private act which is personally significant, but there is no explicit and mutual relationship set up in which both parties are responsible for the vocation being mediated, ratified, and lived out. Witnesses do not receive vows. Neither is there a correlative commissioning of the person to act in the name of the church. We see this kind of situation all the time in the execution of legal documents, etc. For instance, a person witnesses a will. In doing so they do not become part of a mutual relationship with regard to this will. They are not responsible in any way for the carrying out of the terms of the will because while they witness to the FACT of the will they are not a party to the actual legal arrangement being made. If the person executing the will never sees the witness again it is inconsequential to the nature of the document or the legal obligations which obtain. When a person makes public vows witnesses also sign the profession formula, but they do so as witnesses to the relationship and the rights and responsibilities entered into by individual and church in the act of profession. They do not themselves become part of the relationship or complex of mutual rights and obligations extended to or accepted by the one making her profession and the one in whose hands the profession was made.

By the way, it really does not matter if the witness is the Pope himself so long as he is not acting specifically and intentionally to receive these vows in the name of the Church and to enter into a relationship which both extends public rights and responsibilities to this person and accepts a legitimate place in the carrying out of these. But if the vows are private, then this intention (and often, the actual authority to act in this way) is absent. Conversely, if the intention and/or the authority to act in this way are absent, the vows are private. (An ordinary parish priest cannot receive public vows except when authorized to do so by a legitimate superior who may delegate this authority.) If the vows are public then this intention (and the authority to act in this way) are a part of the public nature of the vows themselves --- that is, these are part of what makes these vows public as opposed to private. Since the person you describe self-reported she made private vows, i.e., vows which were personally significant but issued in no legal rights or obligations beyond those already embraced in and mediated through Baptism and no differing legal relationship with her Bishop the second way of speaking would hold these vows were not received, but witnessed.
 

I hope this helps.

Choose Life, Only that and Always. . . (Reprised)

When I was a very young sister (actually, a postulant), I pasted the following quotation into the front of my Bible. It was written by another sister, and has been an important point of reference for me since then. It is the clarion call of Lent and we hear it tomorrow as the heart of our first reading:

Choose life, only that and always,

and at whatever risk. . .

to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere

passage of time,

to withhold giving it and spending it

is to choose

nothing. (Sister Helen Kelly)

The readings from today both deal with this theme, and each reminds us in its own way just how serious human life is --- and how truly perilous!! Both of them present our situation as one of life and death choices. There is nothing in the middle, no golden mean of accomodation, no place of neutrality in which we might take refuge -- or from which we can watch dispassionately without committing ourselves, no room for mediocrity (a middle way!) of any kind. On one hand lies genuine "success", on the other true failure. Both readings ask us to commit our whole selves to God in complete dependence or die. Both are clear that it is our very Selves that are at risk at every moment, but certainly at the present moment. And especially, both of them are concerned with responsive commitment of heart, mind, and body --- the "hearkening" we are each called to, and which the Scriptures calls "obedience."

The language of the Deuteronomist's sermon (Deut 30:15-20) is dramatic and uncompromising: [[ This day I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents shall live,. . . for if you turn away your hearts and will not listen. . .you will surely perish. . .]] Luke (Lk 9:22-25) recounts Jesus' language as equally dramatic and uncompromising: [[If you would be my disciples, then take up your cross daily (that is, take up the task of creating yourselves in complete cooperation with and responsiveness to God at every moment). . .If you seek to preserve your life [that is, if you choose self-preservation, if you refuse to risk to listen or to choose an ongoing responsiveness] you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and then lose or forfeit the very self s/he was created to be?]]

I think these readings set out the clear agenda of Lent, but more than that they set before us the agenda of our entire lives. Our lives are both task and challenge. We do not come into this world fully formed or even fully human. The process of creating the self we are called to be is what we are to be about, and it is a deadly serious business. What both readings try to convey, the OT with its emphasis on Law (God's Word) and keeping that Law, and the Gospel with its emphasis on following the obedient Christ by taking up our lives day by day in response to the will of God, is the fact that moment by moment our very selves are created ONLY in dialogue with God (and in him through others, etc). The Law of Moses is the outer symbol of the law written in our hearts, the dialogue and covenant with God that forms the very core of who we truly are as relational selves. The cross of Christ is the symbol of one who responded so exhaustively and definitively to the Word of God, that he can literally be said to have embodied or incarnated it in a unique way. It is this kind of incarnation or embodiment our very selves are meant to be. We accept this task, this challenge --- and this privilege, or we forfeit our very selves.

God is speaking us at every moment, if only we would chose to listen and accept this gift of self AS GIFT! At the same time, both readings know that the human person is what Thomas Keating calls, "A LISTENING". Our TOTAL BEING, he says, IS A LISTENING. (eyes, ears, mind, heart, and even body) Our entire self is meant to hear and respond to the Word of God as it comes to us through and in the whole of created reality. To the degree we fail in this, to the extent we avoid the choices of an attentive and committed life, an obedient life, we will fail to become the selves we are called to be.

The purpose of Lent and Lenten practices is to help us pare down all the extraneous noise that comes to us in so many ways, and become more sensitive and responsive to the Word of God spoken in our hearts, and mediated to us by the world around us through heart, mind, and body. We fast so that we might become aware of, and open to, what we truly hunger for --- and of course what genuinely nourishes us. We make prayers of lament and supplication not only so we can become aware of our own deepest pain and woundedness and the healing God's presence brings, but so we can become aware of the profound pain and woundedness of our world and those around us, and then reach out to help heal them. And we do penance so our hearts may be readied for prayer and made receptive to the selfhood God bestows there. In every case, Lenten practice is meant to help us listen carefully and deeply, to live deliberately and responsively, and to make conscious, compassionate choices for life.

It is clear that the Sister who wrote the quote I pasted into my Bible all those years ago had been meditating on today's readings (or at least the one from Deuteronomy)! I still resonate with that quote. It still belongs at the front of my Bible eventhough the ink has bled through the contact paper protecting it, and the letters are fuzzy with age. Still, in light of today's readings I would change it slightly: to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to refuse to receive it anew moment by moment as God's gift, to withhold giving it and spending it is to refuse authentic selfhood and to choose death instead.

Let us pray then that we each might be motivated and empowered to chose life, always and everywhere --- and at whatever risk or cost. God offers this to us and to our world at every moment --- if only we will ready ourselves in him, listen, and respond as we are called to!

Feast of St Peter Damian, Reprised

Tomorrow is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love, so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church canbe found in one individual person and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated persons. In the latter part of the letter Damian praises the eremitical life and writes an extended encomium on the nature of the cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell have functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here.