The Eschatological Nature of the CV's Betrothal

[[Dear Sister, are you saying that consecrated virgins are not married to Christ? Also you claim to have a spousal relationship with Christ. Can you truly say your first experience of being with Christ once you were espoused to Him was not a unique experience for you? How can you say this was not dependent on your own virginity? My impression is that women DO image the relationship of bride better than men. I think the Church teaches this, doesn't she? Women are receptive and a CV images the receptivity required by the Church as a whole. Plus we DO refer to the Church as "she" don't we?]] (Questions culled from longer email)

Mary Magdalene

Thanks for your questions. First, in Notes From Stillsong: On Consecrated Virginity and the Nature of this Espousal I am not saying CV's are not espoused to Christ. Instead I am saying it is the risen and ascended Christ to whom they are espoused, not to the historical Jesus. For this reason I am also saying that we cannot speak of an "experience" which is directly analogous to the consummation of a human, historical marriage. The Christ to whom Religious men and women as well as CV's are espoused is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father and whose bodiliness is qualitatively distinct from anything we have known or can describe. We do not experience it in the same way as did the disciples who were privileged to experience the risen but unascended Christ, much less the historical Jesus. One clue to this is found in the Gospels themselves when Jesus warns Mary Magdalene not to cling to (or touch) him for he is not yet ascended to his Father. I believe this is applicable to each of us in our faith journey and reminds us that the Lord we put first in our lives is completely consistent with the Jewish Jesus of history, but that he is also very different than that; it therefore occurs to me that it just might have a particular application to CV's today who speak as the CV in the passage the questioner last quoted and I responded to. In other words, we who are espoused to Christ as Religious or CV's must not cling to the unascended Jesus and our espousals must not reflect such a temptation.

What I have therefore argued is that the CV's espousal is eschatological. It is real, of course, but it must not be narrowed or trivialized by romantic or sentimental notions of what such an espousal will be like in an overly-simplistic similarity to the historical marriage of man and woman. Remember that the CV is supposed to serve as an icon of the Church as Bride of Christ. The CV lives this out in space and time, but this does not lessen the transcendent nature of the ascended (and cosmic) Christ or the espousal itself. Every person is meant to assume a place in the very life of God. Every person is meant ultimately to live a spousal union with God. The Church as (literal!!) Body of Christ reminds us of this destiny, where her true life is in God and God is in her. Consecrated Virgins are a special gift to the Church because they remind us all of this eschatological destiny and call. They are paradigms of it and reflect the graces which are especially characteristic of such a Church, namely, that it is maternal, virginal, and spousal. that its Lord is Jesus Christ and that it lives these realities out proleptically here in space and time. For a single vocation to be an icon of such a calling I think is pretty awesome.

Because the Church is not really female, because throughout her history male as well as female religious have also  been espoused to Christ, because God is the source and model of both Fatherhood and Motherhood (God's Fatherhood is maternal as well as paternal), and because this espousal is eschatalogical and reminds us of a "time" beyond time when men and women will not be given in marriage nor be embodied as they are historically, I can't agree that women image this identity as "Bride of Christ" better than men. It is not that CV's represent human marriage pushed to the nth degree; rather it is that human marriage is a more or less limited reflection of the Divine espousal and fecundity in God which all are called to. We risk getting this all backwards if we start speaking of women as imaging the Bridal identity of the Church better than men do.  There have certainly been statements about the special fitness of women to image this Bridal identity better than men but my own sense is this does not rise to the level of Church teaching.  Again, the Church is not female, nor is the Kingdom of God, while Brides of Christ (or those espoused to Christ) are both male AND female.

Finally then, as far as my own experience of espousal goes, I honestly don't know how to speak of my "first being with Christ" after consecration (espousal) being any more unique than any other experience of Christ. This is partly because there is always newness about this relationship; it always brings me in contact with the eternal and ever-new (kainotes) God. Similarly, I gave my entire self to God in Christ and continue to grow in that giving. There was certainly a moment of definitive profession and consecration. Still, in this perpetual profession and consecration I gave myself to Christ as I had done in preparing for this moment and he gave himself to me in the same way he had always done so that together we might be a continuing gift to the Church and world. In fact I have to say that it is Christ's self gift to me that enabled my own profession; that self-gift did not only come after definitive commitment. None of this, I don't think, would have been different if I had once been married or once lived in a public state of unchastity. What differed significantly was the public nature of the mutual gift, the assumption of new rights and obligations, the establishment of other life and legal relationships which would guide and govern my vocation. In other words, I had been given and accepted a new ecclesial identity which colored the way I related to everyone and everything. Though part of that "everything" is the Body of Christ (the Church), of course, my own  personal experience of Christ was the more familiar still point in all of this.

I sincerely hope this is helpful.

Feast of the Ascension: The Scandal of the Incarnation of God Continues in the Ecclesia as the Body of Christ (Reprise)

A couple of years ago I wrote about a passage taken from one of the Offices (Vigils) on the Feast of the Ascension. In that passage we hear the remarkable statement that, [[It is he who gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers in roles of service for the faithful to build up the body of Christ, till we become one in faith and in the knowledge of God's Son, AND FORM THE PERFECT MAN WHO IS CHRIST COME TO FULL STATURE.]] It is an image that has intrigued me since, and of course, one that I hear and reflect on again each Ascension Day. Imagine that it is we-as-church who quite literally make up the body of Christ and who one day will be taken up into the very life of God just as Christ was --- and that in this way, Christ will have "come to full stature." He will live in us and we in him, and all of us in God as God too becomes all in all. (Sounds very Johannine doesn't it?)

When I was an undergraduate in Theology (and through a lot of my graduate work as well), the Ascension never made much sense to me. It was often mainly treated as a Lukan construction which added little to the death and resurrection of Jesus, and if my professors and those they had us reading felt this way, I didn't press the issue --- nor, at least as an undergraduate, did I have the wherewithal TO press the issue theologically. It didn't help any that the notion of Jesus' bodily ascension into "heaven" was more incomprehensible (and unbelieveable) than resurrection, or that I understood it as a kind of dissolving away of Jesus bodiliness rather than a confirmation of it and continuation of the Incarnation. (The notion that a docetist Jesus had just been "slumming" for thirty-three years, as one writer objects to putting the matter, and that Ascension was the act by which he shook the dust of humanity from his sandals when his work was done, was probably not far from my mind here.)

Finally therefore, it was really difficult to deal with the notion that Christ, who had been so close to us as to appear in his glorified body with which he walked through walls, ate fish, allowed his marks as the crucified one to be examined, etc, was now going to some remote place far distant from us and would be replaced by some intangible and abstract spiritual reality. Of course, I had it all wrong. Completely. Totally. Absolutely wrong in almost every particular. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that most Christians have it wrong in all the same ways. And yet, it is the passage from Ephesians which is one key to getting it all right, and to rejoicing in the promise and challenge that Jesus' Ascension represents for us.

What actually happens in the Ascension? What about reality changes? What does it mean to say that Christ ascends to the right hand of God or "opens the gates of heaven"? The notion that Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension changes reality is novel for many people. They may think of redemption as a matter of changing God's mind about us, for instance, appeasing divine wrath, but not really changing objective reality. Yet, on the cross and through his descent into the very depths of Godlessness (sin and godless or sinful death), as I have written before, Jesus, through his own obedience (openness, and responsiveness) opens this realm to God; he implicates God into this realm in definitive ways. God's presence in all of our world's moments and moods is, in light of the Christ Event, personal and intimate, not impersonal and remote. And with God implicated in the very reality from which he has, by definition, been excluded, that reality is transformed. It is no longer literally godless, but instead becomes a kind of sacrament of his presence, the place where we may see him face to face in fact --- and the place where being now triumphs over non-being, life triumphs over death, love triumphs over all that opposes it, and meaning overcomes absurdity. This is one part or side of Jesus' mediatory function: the making God real and present in ways and where before he was not. It is the climax of God's own self-emptying, his own "descent" which began with creation and continues with redemption and new creation; it is the climax of God first creating that which is other so that he might share himself, and then entering into every moment and mood of creation.

But there is another aspect or side to Christ's mediatory activity, and this is made most clear in the Ascension. The language used is not descent, but ascent, not journeying to a far place, but returning home and preparing a place for those who will follow. (Yes, we SHOULD hear echoes of the parable of the prodigal Son/ merciful Father here with Christ as the prodigal Son journeying to a far place.) If in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, the world is opened to God, in Jesus' ascension, God's own life is opened definitively to the world. In Jesus' ascension, the new creation, of which Jesus is the first born and head, is taken up BODILY into God, dwells within him in communion with him. In Jesus we meet our future in the promise that this will happen to us and all of creation in him.

When Paul speaks of God becoming all in all he is looking at the culmination of this double process of mediation: first, God entering the world more profoundly, extensively and, above all, personally in Christ, and second, the world being taken up into God's own life. When he speaks of Christ coming to full stature, he is speaking of the same process, the same culmination. When theologians speak of the interpenetration of heaven and earth, or the creation of a new heaven and a new earth they are speaking again of this process with an eye towards its culmination at the end of time. The Ascension marks the beginning of this "End Time."



It is important to remember a couple of things in trying to understand this view of ascension. First, God is not A BEING, not even the biggest and best, holiest, most powerful, etc. God is being itself, the ground of being and meaning out of which everything that has being and meaning stands (ex-istere, i.e., "out of - to stand"). Secondly, therefore, heaven is not merely some place where God resides along with lots of other beings (including, one day, ourselves) --- even if he is the center of attention and adoration. Heaven is God's own being, the very life of God himself shared with others. (Remember that often the term heaven was used by Jews to avoid using God's name, thus, the Kingdom or Reign of Heaven is the Sovereignty of God) Finally, as wonderful as this creation we are part of is, it is meant for more. It is meant to exist in and of God in a final and definitive way. Some form of panentheism is the goal of reality, both human and divine. Jesus' ascension is the first instance of created existence being taken up into God's own life (heaven). It is the culmination of one part of the Christ event (mediation seen mainly in terms of descent and creation/redemption), and the beginning of another (mediation seen in terms of recreation/glorification and ascent).

When the process is completed and God is all in all, so too can we say that the God-Man Christ will have "come to full stature," or, as another translation of today's lection from Ephesians reads: [[. . .in accord with the exercise of his great might: which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.]]

For those who have difficulty in accepting God's assumption of human flesh and revelation of himself exhaustively in a human life -- most especially in the weakness and fragility of such a life, Jesus' ascension offers no relaxing of the tension or scandal of the incarnation. Instead it heightens it. With Jesus' ascension the Godhead NOW has taken created reality and bodily existence within itself as a very part of God's own life even while He transfigures it. This is what we are meant for, the reason we were created. It is what God willed "from the beginning". If, in the Christ Event human life is defined as a covenantal reality, that is, if our lives are dialogical realities with God as an integral and constitutive part, so too does the Christ Event define God similarly, not simply as Trinitarian and in some sort of conversation with us, but as One who actively makes room within himself for us and all he cherishes --- and who, in this sense and because he wills it, is incomplete without us.

Human being --- created, redeemed, recreated, and glorified --- assumes its rightful and full stature in Christ. In the acts of creation, redemption, and glorification, Divinity empties itself of certain prerogatives in Christ as well, but at the same time Divinity assumes its full stature in Christ, a stature we could never have imagined because it includes us in itself in an integral or fundamental way. Whether this is expressed in the language and reality of descent, kenosis (self-emptying), and asthenia (weakness), or of ascent, pleroma (fullness), and power, Christianity affirms the scandal of the incarnation as revelatory of God's very nature. We should stand open-mouthed and astounded in awe at the dignity accorded us and the future with which we are, and all of creation is "endowed" on the "day" of Christ's Ascension.

Hermits, Blogs, Publicity, and the Dynamic of the Camaldolese "Triplex Bonum"

[[Dear Sister, it still seems to me to be a conflict for a hermit to have a blog. I appreciate that you have reconciled this in your own mind and I understand your diocese is comfortable with it, but isn't this 21st C development out of sync with the history of eremitical life in the Church? Now you are featured in an article in the Saturday Evening Post and it is clear from that article that others have the same questions I do. Not all of them are asking these because they are victims of [believing] stereotypes, are they?]]

Many thanks for these questions. They are significant and point directly at the tension or dynamic that is at the heart of my own life, the life of Camaldolese monks, nuns, and oblates, and I suspect, the life of any truly healthy hermit with a strong sense of the Gospel and their own place in the heart of the Church. I am going to answer all of your questions by referring to the Camaldolese charism and also to the history of Camaldolese life in the Church with special reference to both SS Romuald and Peter Damian. My own sense, and something I have written here and spoken about before on A Nun's Life (In Good Faith podcast), is that this specific charism is profoundly ancient and equally contemporary. It reprises the dynamic which is present for anyone exploring the nature of  --- much less justifying --- a life of "the silence of solitude," and which I personally find especially appropriate and empowering for the life of the diocesan hermit.

First, is this dynamic of an eremitical solitude which also reaches out to others to proclaim the Gospel of God in Christ and the redemptive nature of solitude (because that is what I am concerned with in this blog) out of sync with the history of eremitical life? My answer is no. I can point to three significant historical instances or paradigms of eremitical life here to justify that response: 1) the desert Fathers and Mothers, 2) the anchorites and especially the "urbani" of the medieval period, and 3) the Camaldolese (in particular the Benedictine Camaldolese) and their founders, especially SS Romuald, Peter Damian, and Paul Giustiniani (a Saint at least to the "Order"!). Each of these had a significant degree of interaction with the world around them and for each of them the notion of witness (sometimes called evangelization or martyrdom) was central.

Sister Donald Corcoran, OSB and Dom Robert Hale, OSB Cam

The desert Fathers and Mothers left a too-worldly expression of Church to live Gospel lives in nearby deserts. They were committed to a form of witness now called "white martyrdom" to replace the red martyrdom associated with the persecutions of early Christians. They lived lives of solitude rooted in Gospel values but did so on the margins of society. They modeled agrarian practices for their neighbors, bought and sold (mainly sold!) goods in local markets and are famous for the hospitality they embraced as a central value.  Anyone showing up on their doorstep was welcomed as Christ. They were fed, questions were answered, what we would today call spiritual direction was given, so that in example, word, and deed the Gospel was thus proclaimed and Church was lived out. Did they also live a significant solitude? Of course, but at the heart of their lives was their own negotiation of the very dynamic or tension my own life, for instance, attempts to negotiate and embody.


The medieval anchorites, also called "urbani" because they lived eremitical lives in the midst of towns, villages, and cities, mirror the same dynamic in a different way. Anchorites practice a stricter physical stability because they remained in a single small dwelling and were sometimes even walled into or locked within an anchorhold. However, such anchorholds which were adjacent to a church generally had a window opening onto the altar, another opening onto the main square of the village or city, and a third entrance or window through which food and other necessities could be passed back and forth by those who served the anchorite. Townspeople often stopped to talk with the anchorite; it was the medieval equivalent of a counselling or spiritual direction center. There was danger of abuse and distortion of the life in this, of course, and some Camaldolese writers and others wrote scathing pieces on those who abused the practice of converse with others. Still, the dynamic and the tension were present as an integral part of the life.

Finally there is the Benedictine Camaldolese model of eremitical life and the example of its founders. The Camaldolese live the charism referred to as "triplex bonum" or "the triple good", namely, solitude, communion, and evangelization or martyrdom (witness!). Thus, their lives include each of these in a dynamic tension and they have both monasteries and hermitages as a result. Further, there is a strong component of hospitality involved here while monks will travel and sometimes live apart from the monastery/hermitage in order to accomplish a particular ministry. It is not only that some monks live in monasteries and some live in hermitages. Rather what is true in the Camaldolese life is that, again, each monk or nun lives the dynamic of a solitude rooted in community and issuing in ministry or witness in various ways. (The Monte Corona Camaldolese differ in that they only have hermitages, but I would suggest the same dynamic is present.)

Dom Robert Hale, OSB Cam, assuming role as Prior

Saint Romuald is known for his extensive travels in order to reform monasticism, extend the Rule of Benedict to free-lance hermits, and proclaim the Gospel. His own eremitical identity is sometimes questioned as a result, but the Church does NOT question it, nor do the centuries of monks, nuns, and hermits who followed him as Camaldolese. It is significant that the single piece of writing we have from him is his "Brief Rule" which is probably the most paradigmatic Rule ever written for the eremitical life. In it two elements are especially prevalent: 1) the need to sit silently and patiently in one's cell waiting only on the Lord, and 2) the place of Scripture, especially as source of and impetus for the assiduous prayer of the solitary life. Again, the combination is a form of witness to the Gospel because the life (and ANY Christian life) demands it.

St Peter Damian's life was also not stereotypically or even typically eremitical. He was engaged throughout his life with the reform of the Church and religious life. He was a Cardinal, papal legate, theologian, spiritual director, hermit, writer, etc. He carried on an extensive correspondence with many people to address the needs of his day and there is hardly a pressing topic he did not address with astuteness and flexibility. (His view of the laity, by the way, is also startlingly contemporary for he believed profoundly in the spiritual equality of all, eschewed notions of a spiritual elite, and would have rejoiced at Vatican II's proclamation of "the universal call to holiness" or the council's affirmation of the laity's right and even obligation to criticize the hierarchy [cf Letter 10 to Emperor Henry III].) He struggled with the question of vocation: "Should I be a hermit or a preacher?" His "starting point" regarding either vocation was the Scriptural imperative of extending Christ's salvation to others. Damian was particularly critical of a solitude focused only on saving oneself.

This led directly to the dynamic tension every Christian and certainly every Camaldolese and every diocesan hermit knows well: how do I honor my call to solitude and also carry out my Baptismal commission to proclaim the Gospel of Christ? As a symptom of this tension and much as Thomas Merton anguished nine centuries later, Peter Damian struggled with his vocation as a writer which, because it was so profoundly engaged with the Church and  World on so many issues and levels seemed to threaten his life as hermit-monk; he once said (in a letter to the current Pope), "I would rather weep than write," and he was well aware that his own hermit and monastic life was not the norm. Even so, in the end we regard Peter Damian profoundly and sincerely as a hermit-monk for whom all else was an extension of that call.


So, to return more directly to your own questions, no I do not believe it is a conflict for me to also have a blog. I believe it reflects a well-established dynamic and imperative in the history of eremitical life, namely the dynamic of solitude-community-witness, and the imperative that one proclaims the Gospel so that others might be saved by God in Christ. I do try to make sure that I maintain what is called "custody of the cell" (where cell is both my hermitage, a life of essential solitude, and my own hermit heart). There would be no witness, indeed, no capacity for witness without this; further, it itself IS a witness to the Gospel!! But to be very honest, like Peter Damian, I believe that if eremitical life is not generally constituted or profoundly informed by this dynamic in some substantial way (and this is true even for the complete recluse!), it ceases to be Christian. Remember that before I  had read much about eremitical life, much less before I ever considered becoming a hermit, I thought that at best it was a selfish and wasteful way of life. I certainly could not regard it as truly Christian. It took some reading by hermits (not least, Thomas Merton) and of work on Camaldolese life to convince me otherwise. My reading (and living!!) has continued and I am more convinced than ever that authentic eremitical life involves the dynamic/tension mentioned above and embodied by the Camadolese as the charism or gift-quality defining their lives.

Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (Reprise)

Image from Saturday Evening Post article

In the current (May/June 2013) issue of The Saturday Evening Post there is an article on "The New Urban Hermits" for which Jack El-Hai interviewed Karen Fredette (former hermit and, with her husband Paul, editor of Raven's Bread), Roger Cunningham (former Buddhist hermit), and myself. There are a couple of factual inaccuracies which make me sound like a vowed Camaldolese rather than a vowed diocesan hermit and Camaldolese Oblate but generally I think the article is really well done and that Jack El-Hai got his head and heart around something few people really understand. He deserves real credit for that.

One of the fine points Karen Fredette  makes is that hermits are about doing ordinary things with an extraordinary motivation.  I made a similar point used later in the article which, when taken with Karen's comment, suggests hermits experience this as the sustaining "glue" and heart of a vocation to contemplative life including eremitical solitude. It is certainly fundamental to Benedictinism and Camaldolese Benedictinism. I can't post the article here (I don't have a copy to do that with anyway) but I can reprise a post I put up here five years ago on living "an extraordinary ordinariness." Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness (05. June.2008) Too often people think of hermits or their essential hiddenness as abnormal. This blog post spoke to these things; for those who are coming to this blog because of the SEP article, Welcome! I think you will find this post is a good introduction to the heart of eremitical faitfulness.

On Essential Hiddenness and the Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness

[[Thank you for answering my questions about the hiddenness of the hermit life. What you write about its "essential hiddenness" sounds like the same "hiddenness" which is true of the lives of many people living in the world. You and other hermits seem to make a virtue of this, but isn't it pretty ordinary?]]

Yes, it is very ordinary, and in fact, that is precisely its virtue. As I mentioned in my earlier post, the hermit is meant to witness to those whose lives are ordinary in ways which may cause them to question the meaning and value or significance of  those lives. I have written about those in unusual circumstances (chronic illness, disability, etc) who are called upon to witness to the Gospel in vivid and poignant ways, but I have not really said much about those who work day in and day out at menial jobs and who see their lives as essentially meaningless or unimportant. I think the hermit can remind us each that every life, no matter how apparently unproductive or ordinary, is really (or is certainly meant to be!) part of a profound dynamic where the Kingdom of God comes to be realized more and more fully in our world. That happens, for the most part and for most persons, in the perseverance and day by day faithfulnesses exercised in ordinary life.

There is nothing spectacular or even very remarkable about the hermit's life in the ordinary sense of those words. It is very much a life of day to day faithfulness to the call of God and that call summons the hermit to prayer, work, study, and (sometimes) even some degree of outreach or evangelization every day in a way which repeats again and again. No one much recognizes what happens here in the hermitage as special, and from one perspective, there is nothing special about it. It is completely ordinary whether one is writing an article, doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom, praying Office, doing personal work, studying, or meeting with occasional direction clients. Even contemplative or quiet prayer is pretty ordinary stuff from one perspective. From another perspective, of course, it is all very special, because it is all done in and with God, and in order to foster the coming of his Kingdom. When the ordinary is undertaken with and in the grace or presence of God it always becomes extraordinary, and yet, no one is likely to see that really. When I wrote in my earlier response that even my telling you what I do during the day would leave the essential mystery of the life intact, that is what I meant.

The challenge to each of us is to undertake the ordinary in a way which is attentive and sensitive to the presence of God. It is the challenge to undertake these things with a care and even love which, through the grace of God, transforms them into something extraordinary. This is basic spirituality and it is this which the hermit's day to day life accepts and affirms as infinitely valuable. I can say without question that although I do not know how it happens, I know without a doubt that my life in this hermitage, my daily perseverance in cell, my faithfulness to prayer, work, study, and the ordinariness of life, allows for God's Kingdom to be more fully realized right here and right now. I know without question that Stillsong Hermitage is a small bit of leaven in the loaf that is my community and the world, and that it contributes to the transformation of that whole even though I may never really understand that or see it realized in my lifetime.

Personally, I believe that every person is challenged to embrace his or her life in this way, especially in its ordinariness. God transforms everything he is allowed to touch with his hallowing love, and our job is to let that happen in all the ways day to day living puts before us. If we can do that, and to the extent we do it, again, the ordinary will be transformed into something extraordinary because each task and moment becomes the occasion where God's grace is allowed to enter in and to triumph. That is the very essence of affirming the goodness and sacramental nature of all reality. So, in each and everything we undertake, we strive to be attentive, aware, care-full, loving, and (describing all of these together) truly present. Nothing in this life is really ordinary unless we allow it to remain that by foreclosing it to our own conscious presence and the effect of God's grace. On the other hand, the really extraordinary in our daily lives is likely to remain hidden from most people for the whole of our lives.

I am thinking of the husband or wife who cares for his or her sick spouse day in and day out for weeks, months, or years, for instance. The most mundane act is transformed when carried out with loving awareness, attentiveness, and openness to God's grace, and yet no one sees this or thinks much to remark on it. It is unspectacular in many ways, but clearly extraordinary at the same time. And yet it is essentially hidden from the eyes of the world. So much of our lives really is hidden in this way.

It takes the eyes of faith to see as the hermit or other contemplative sees! I think the hermit witnesses not only to this essential hiddenness, but to the humility and faithfulness that is so necessary in a world where everyone seems to need to make a name for him or herself --- even if the only name they can claim is that of victim --- a thriving category of dubious "achievement" in the contemporary world! The hermit witnesses to how truly extraordinary is the life of "ordinary" faithfulness, "ordinary" perseverance, ordinary "heroism," and "ordinary" love undertaken in God. After all, this is precisely what Jesus' life was about; it is precisely who Jesus was and what Jesus revealed true humanity to be. It is therefore unsurprising that Jesus' miracles were, in the end, insufficient to really reveal the Kingdom of God except as a testimony to the fact that that reign comes to us and is made manifest in ordinary faith! The hermit witnesses to how infinitely meaningful is the life that our contemporary world dismisses as trivial and insignificant -- if it is lived in and through the grace of God.

Addendum, July 2013: The article is now available on the Saturday Evening Post website:  May/June 2013 | The Saturday Evening Post

On Consecrated Virginity and the Nature of this Espousal

[[ Dear Sister, in writing about the vocation to consecrated virginity one CV argued the following in order to establish the importance of physical virginity. [[Only a virgin can treasure her first experience with her spouse. A non-virgin or a reformed sinner who has regained spiritual virginity – although never second-class in God’s eyes , will never be able to receive that same gift . This could be the reason why Physical virginity is essential for the vocation of Consecrated virgins.]] You wrote that in the early church consecrated virginity was not only associated with physical intactness. Does [the above] argument make sense in light of that? ]]

Well, I do have problems with the quote you provided but it does not have to do with the felt need for physical virginity being required to become a CV per se --- at least not primarily. It has to do with the assertion that only a virgin can "treasure" her first experience with her spouse." In fact this is untrue when we are speaking of Christ as spouse. What is true is that a virgin who is physically virgin can only give herself to another human being (and receive their mutual gift of self) in this particular way (sexually) "for the first time" once. But in this case we are speaking of the risen Christ; a person gives him or herself entirely to Christ, body and soul, heart, mind and spirit, as part of any consecration by God. 

More, one wonders what can be meant by suggesting only a (physical) virgin can treasure her first experience with her spouse when that spouse is the Risen and ascended Christ? What "experience" is being referred to here? Is it the fresh wave of gratitude one feels for being called to serve in this way? After all there is NO competition for one's heart involved, no diminution in giving of self even if the person was married before. (Or are we truly supposed to think that Christ gives himself more fully or more intimately to a woman who is physically virgin than to one who has been married, for instance?) Neither is there a similar physical (or sexual) experience in such giving of self or receiving the Risen/Ascended Christ as spouse "for the first time" despite the erotic imagery some mystical experiences utilize. Despite the common language of betrothal or espousal there are serious qualitative differences between the gift of virginity (or the "experience" of Christ as spouse) in this situation and what occurs in a literal and temporal human marriage. But THIS espousal is an eschatological one; it occurs on a different level than human marriages. We must keep that qualitative distinction very much in mind or theologically we will be spouting romantic or sentimental nonsense which, beautiful as it initially sounds, can only serve to distort and disedify.

Consecration Always Involves the WHOLE Self:


Your related point therefore is a good and important one. The early Church did NOT always require physical intactness in those she considered consecrated virgins (or "virgin martyrs") and she never spoke of these persons as though their experience of Christ was different or somehow less significant or less total than those whose virginity was also physical. I do personally believe that requiring physical virginity today is an important part of the counter-cultural witness of this vocation, especially in a society like our own which often seems sex-saturated and capable only of trivializing sexual love.

Still, this qualitative difference (eschatological betrothal v temporal marriage) is being obscured at points in what you have quoted. For instance, as you noted at another point in your email, the person you cited also wrote: [[The virgin’s body is constituted as sacred /set apart exclusively for Jesus Christ in His divinity and humanity as affirmed by the Fathers of the Church. It is a marriage covenant between Christ and the virgin and is essentially indissoluble and ordered to the spiritual growth of the Church in Christ’s salvific paschal mystery.]] To my mind this reference to the body being constituted as sacred and "set apart entirely for Jesus. . in his humanity," is really problematical not least because again, in any consecration (including the consecration of religious men, women and hermits) it is the WHOLE person who is set aside by God as sacred; there is no dividing body from soul. One could never say, for instance, that a CV's body is sacred while that of a religious (or anyone else for that matter) is not sacred or is less so. Further, one must never engage in the kind of dualism implied here by suggesting something other than the whole person is consecrated in ANY ecclesial profession and/or consecration. A related second problem then, namely, the narrowing of the transcendent and eschatological witness and meaning of espousal which occurs in such dualism, will be discussed below. First, however, we need to make a necessary detour to prepare the way.

Excursus: The Meaning of Being a "Sacred Person"

When we speak of a person becoming a sacred person we are speaking of their lives being made uniquely symbolic or sacramental of the grace (the sacred presence and power) of God. We are also speaking of their obligation to be such a sacramental sign or symbol in an exhaustive way. We are speaking of them being given to the purposes and Gospel of God in a similar way and serving as a paradigm of some dimension of the church and her relation to Christ for others and for the vocation to holiness to which all are called. In other words we are speaking of persons who have been commissioned to SERVE others in unique and visible ways. We are NOT speaking about someone being automatically made subjectively more holy than the next person or who should be treated as though their bodies are objectively more holy than the next person's. While growth in personal holiness (one certainly hopes) should and probably will come in time, and while the reception of God's consecration (God's setting apart in this way) always graces the recipient, being made objectively more holy than the next person is not what consecration or becoming a "sacred person" actually means.

Your question about the comments on the literal bodily/sexual virginity making sense in light of the early Church's varied use of the term "virginity" --- sometimes for a person who has given themselves entirely to Christ even if they have been married and borne children is also a very good one. The early practice of the Church was not univocal and it can help us to avoid the kinds of dualism found in the quotes included here, especially that between body and spirit or soul. It certainly precludes an understanding of a consecrated virgin's experience of Christ's self gift (or his acceptance of her own self gift) as differing qualitatively from another woman's if the CV, unlike this other woman, has never been married or is merely physically intact. Likewise the usage demands we be cautious about certain kinds of literalism  What I mean here is that this practice  of considering women like St Perpetua a "virgin martyr" and image of the consecrated virgin because she gave her entire self to Christ in martyrdom makes it clear that we are dealing with espousal on a whole different level than that of literal human marriage. Our language of espousal is being stretched here to speak to a transcendent and eschatological reality just as is the case in calling the Church the "bride of Christ."

Import of the Narrowing of the Original Meaning of Consecrated Virginity:


Today the Church requires the physical virginity of women being admitted to the consecration of virgins  (except in cases of rape) and this makes sense, especially, as I already noted, in our sex-soaked-and-trivialized culture. The ability to make a life commitment, to love another exhaustively in God, along with the corresponding capacity to wait until one is ready to do this, is critically important to our world. So is responding to the call to give the whole of oneself (not just one's soul or one's body), to stand symbolically or sacramentally for a transcendent and eschatological reality which demands the whole of oneself while also promising complete fulfillment. The associated capacity and commission to remind all persons of their own vocations to a similar and exhaustive holiness is itself hugely important. But this contemporary requirement also represents a narrowing of the early Church's own usage and it has drawbacks and dangers for this reason.

For instance, it currently limits the consecration to women despite the fact that men were similarly consecrated in the early church (they were far fewer and were sometimes called ascetics but they existed nonetheless); it tends therefore to reinforce certain relationships in the church as feminine and certain roles as masculine despite Paul's theology in Galatians 3:26 and the praxis of the early church where both males and females were espoused to Christ and symbolize the whole church as bride. (The idea that a woman images the Church as Bride better than a man does is a serious theological misstep; when carried to its logical conclusion it unravels Paul's theological insight as well an ecclesiology which recognizes and celebrates the fact that the capacity of human beings to be Church is based on our baptism, not on gender.) In the present context it especially draws or tempts some to have their attention drawn away from the transcendent and eschatological nature of the espousal.

When this happens a body/soul dualism, an accent on physicality and gender, along with simplistic or this-worldly notions of marriage (for instance, speaking in ways which focus on a wedding to a temporally delimited Jesus as opposed to an eschatological espousal to a risen AND ascended  or "cosmic" Christ) can supplant the notion of CV as paradigm of the universal call of the whole Church and a Kingdom in which no one will be given or taken in marriage. This, again, is a serious theological misstep and is the second problem I have with the focus of the comments you quoted on "marriage to Jesus in his humanity" and the virgin's "body being made sacred." Meanwhile, the Church has spoken seriously of reprising the vocation for men in some way and this could go a long way in undoing any untoward narrowing or attenuation of the eschatological nature of the vocation.

Rev Michael Barber, SJ Named New Bishop of Oakland

In yet another surprising move Francis has named a non-Bishop to succeed Abp Cordileone as Bishop of Oakland. Father Michael Barber will be ordained as Bishop and installed as Bishop of Oakland later this month (25th May).

From the Fort Mill Times

OAKLAND, Calif. --

Pope Francis has named Reverend Michael Barber, SJ, 58, as the Fifth Bishop of Oakland. Fr. Barber until now has been Director of Spiritual Formation at St. John’s Seminary, Archdiocese of Boston. His installation as Bishop of Oakland will take place at 11:00AM on May 25 at Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light.

On July 27, 2012, Oakland’s Bishop Salvatore Cordileone was appointed Archbishop of San Francisco and was installed in that office on October 4, 2012. At that time Pope Benedict appointed retired Archbishop Alex Brunett to act as Apostolic Administrator in Oakland, to manage day-to-day business of the Diocese until a new bishop was named.

Archbishop Brunett will introduce Fr. Barber at a news conference on Friday, May 3, at 10AM at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. Media should enter through the main conference center entrance at 2121 Harrison Street, Oakland.

Fr. Michael Barber, SJ.

Fr. Barber was born in 1954 in Salt Lake City, where his parents were on temporary assignment with the company his father worked for. He has deep roots in the Bay Area, where his parents were born and where he was raised. He entered the seminary of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1973, received his undergraduate degree at Gonzaga University and his graduate degrees in theology at Regis College and the Gregorian University in Rome.

After being ordained a priest in San Francisco in 1985, Fr. Barber continued his studies in Rome and at Oxford University. In 1991 he became a commissioned officer in the United States Naval Reserve and achieved the rank of Captain in 2012. He has served as Group Chaplain for the Marine Aircraft Group, as Deputy Division Chaplain for the 4^th Marine Division and Deputy Force Chaplain for Reserve Affairs for Marine Forces Pacific, among many other assignments.

Locally Fr. Barber has been Director of the School of Pastoral Leadership in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. From 2002-10 he taught at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and was Director of Spiritual Formation there. Presently he is Director of Spiritual Formation at St. John’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of Boston.

(Insert) In an interview given for Legatus a while back, Fr Barber responded:

           You are also a Navy chaplain.

Yes. I was attracted to the Naval Reserves when I was stationed in Rome. They invited me to celebrate Mass in 1991 on an American warship coming into Naples during the first Gulf War. I spent the weekend visiting with the sailors. As I was leaving the ship, the captain said to me, “We’ve got to get you some gold stripes to put around your sleeves.” So I asked permission to join the Navy reserves. I heard that sailors were attending Protestant services because there were no Catholic priests available. More than anything that inspired me to volunteer.

How has your Navy service affected your priesthood?

With the military you get a direct cross-section of America — a lot of the young people who wouldn’t have the tuition money to go to a Jesuit school. I like that. It’s a little more rough-and-tumble than you would encounter in a refined schoolroom atmosphere. You also meet many unchurched kids. I am their chaplain whether they like it or not. I go around the whole ship to all the Marines in the whole unit. I speak to them about moral issues or give them briefs about religious culture.

I’ve also made friends with chaplains from other faiths. I’ve known one for 18 years, and I’m like an uncle to his kids. I would never be that close to a Southern Baptist in normal life.

Diocese of Oakland (Back to original article)

As Bishop of Oakland, Fr. Barber will be the chief shepherd for over 550,000 Catholics who reside in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. The Diocese of Oakland was created in 1962 and is comprised of 84 parishes within those counties. The First Bishop of Oakland was the Most Reverend Floyd Begin who served from 1962 until his death in 1977. He was succeeded by Bishop John Cummins who retired in 2003. Archbishop Allen Vigneron and then Salvatore Cordileone were the Third and Fourth Bishops of the Diocese.

Becoming a Hermit in the silence of solitude: Living the mystery of God's Good Time and God's own Purposes

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, if a diocese is unwilling to form me as a hermit, then why should I try living in solitude on my own? I read your post about dioceses not forming hermits after I spoke with them but it seems pretty unreasonable of them to expect me to just go off on my own and live as a hermit if there is no insurance that they will profess me in a couple of years. I mean c'mon, when one enters a religious community one looks forward to becoming a novice and then to profession. That is just normal! It helps the person get through formation. No one expects someone to give up three or more years without some assurance that they will be professed. Why can't a diocese set up a similar program for those desiring to become diocesan hermits?]]

Thanks for your questions. You have managed to mention most of the troublesome issues with regard to a lack of understanding of canon 603 that I have spent time writing about here. Perhaps the only ones you didn't explicitly refer to are the ideas of having someone else write your Rule for you, the eremitical life as one of misanthropy and isolation, or planning on going off and establishing a community as soon as you are professed under c 603!!

To be very frank, let me say that it really simply does not make sense that you are contacting your diocese to ask them to form you as a hermit if you do not feel called to live in solitude on your own. You see, hermits are formed in solitude --- and ordinarily in a number of years of solitude rather than the time frame you have spoken of! If you are not already living this life, at least in some rudimentary way, and doing so in a way which attests to its place in making you whole and holy, one wonders how your diocese is supposed to discern a vocation to solitude in your life?  Despite the fact that you have read what I have written on the diocese not forming hermits I think you may not have understood me. You still have the cart before the horse and even yet misunderstand the nature of eremitical formation.

The questions any diocese will ask you (or look for signs of the answers to in you) right from the beginning are "are you a hermit in any essential sense or are you just a dilettante or merely curious about it? Do you sincerely think God is calling you to live an eremitical life (and why is that) or is this really just a way to get professed because other avenues are not open to you, for instance?" (Remember that if other avenues are closed to you this can still occasionally mature into a true call to eremitical life, but rarely.) "Most importantly, can and will you follow this call whether or not your diocese decides to profess you in the future?" If your answers to all of these (or the answers your life embodies) are positive, then perhaps your diocese will (or at least should) be open to professing you one day. However, if you answered no to any of these questions (or your life suggests this was perhaps only a stopgap way of getting professed) the chances of your having a vocation to eremitical life drop quite significantly. Again, this is because hermits hear, respond to God's call, and are thus formed in solitude; this whole process is, more than anything else, a matter of the dialogue between the hermit and God in the silence of solitude. Nothing can substitute for this or replace it as primary. For this reason  if you truly feel there is no reason to live in solitude unless there is some promise the diocese will profess you, then there is something really and seriously amiss here.

Since something about the vocation intrigued you enough to go to your diocese I can't say the chances of your having an eremitical vocation drops to zero but depending upon what intrigued you that still might be true. (For instance, if it was the garb, the title (Sister, Brother, etc), the potential right to reserve Eucharist in your own place, the idea of being a religious without the complexities, demands, and challenges of community life, or if you thought this was a cool way to watch TV (or paint or whatever) all day and not be thought a colossal layabout while people treated you with the deference given to Religious then the chances do hover at nil.)

On Stages in Religious Life and the Absence of Assurances:

Before I respond  concerning the nature of eremitical life specifically, I guess I should also note that you are mistaken in your assumptions about those entering religious life. The majority of persons today do in fact live the life in initial formation for up to three years without ever being professed and without any assurance they will be professed, much less perpetually professed. Most leave before making first vows. Formation certainly does prepare a person for vows but it remains mainly a period of discernment as does the period of temporary profession (the period of up to six years in temporary vows). A congregation or an individual may well decide such a person does not have a call to religious life at any point along these nine years.

At each stage a person petitions the community to admit her to the next step: a postulant or candidate asks to be received into the community and begin a novitiate; a canonical or second year novice petitions to be admitted to first vows; these may be renewed in several different ways (for instance, yearly or  every two or three years) and each renewal requires the Sister petition and receive the permission of the congregation; finally, after six years of temporary vows, this Sister petitions to be admitted to perpetual profession. Although as time goes on it becomes less likely a person will leave (or not be admitted to the next stage of commitment) I have known people to leave just before perpetual profession. Again, there are no assurances that if one puts in x time and jumps through y hoops one will be professed. A vocation is more than this. One risks the time and effort because one truly believes God is calling one to this. Meanwhile, in some ways formation is more akin to Michaelangelo's idea of freeing and bringing to clarity or articulateness the obscure form within the marble than it is about creating a vocation out of a shapeless lump of raw material.

The Eremitical Vocation is Truly Heard and Responded to in Solitude

With hermits the situation is even more complicated or hard to reduce to a single program or time frame. Solitude itself can be temporary, transitional, maladaptive, or even dysfunctional and situations where any of these are the case do not equate to a call to live one's life as a hermit. Being a lone individual and somewhat pious, or even very pious, is also not the same as being a hermit or being called to be one. (cf. Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits as Desert Dwellers) Nor is merely needing some peace and quiet to do one's own intellectual or artistic work --- though true hermits tend to do both as part of their vocations. All of this takes varying amounts of time to discern. Presuming a true call to a life of solitude (what I qualify as "eremitical solitude"), even if a diocese sets up guidelines for all of its own diocesan hermits the individual hermit  in this local church will live out her vocation with reasonable flexibility and creativity.

She responds to a call which is altogether individual and the Rule she writes, even when taking account of diocesan guidelines, will reflect this. Because the eremitical vocation is so truly individual I don't think any "program" of formation can be set up which specifies exact time frames or stages. Once a person has become a hermit in some essential or fundamental sense rather than being merely a lone or isolated individual (and, again, this happens in solitude), a diocese might well determine a general set of parameters for temporary profession  prior to perpetual profession (3-5 years is not unusual, and this is often preceded by another period of at least five years without public vows), but otherwise, set periods really don't work too well.

The Eremitical Paradox: Only in God's Good Time and at God's Pleasure

Additionally, the eremitical vocation, especially the solitary eremitical vocation lived under canon 603, requires the individual's ability to respond to God on a day by day basis. She really must have a strong sense of initiative and be able to act, grow, and mature in all the ways anyone must, but with much less supervision or ability to check in with folks for immediate feedback, etc. Beyond this she must have a sense of the gift-quality of her life whether or not the Church ever admits to canonical standing or not.

It is only in light of such a sense of the value of her life to God and a world that is largely oblivious to her that she will be able to persevere in solitude. (That the world is largely oblivious, and that the church too may be oblivious in this case or that, is part of the essential hiddenness of the eremitical vocation.) It is true that canonical standing affirms this value and that it is helpful in this task of persevering, but my own experience says that the proven capacity to persevere in the silence of solitude apart from and prior to admission to public vows is essential to the vocation. (And here an aspect of the silence of  solitude is the absence of external verification or affirmation of value.) The somewhat difficult paradox operating here is that one must demonstrate to the diocese that one is committed and able to live this vocation without canonical standing and the relationships that come with this before one can show them one actually requires canonical standing and the relationships which are part of such standing.

 This last piece of things is one of the more important reasons a diocese cannot set up a formation program for diocesan hermits. The competence, available time, resources, willingness, etc of the diocesan personnel notwithstanding, a diocese can only recognize a vocation that stands in front of them; such vocations are formed in solitude and will persevere in solitude even without canonical standing or they are likely not authentic eremitical vocations. Once the vocation is truly discerned --- and this means once a person has responded to God's call in and to the silence of solitude and established a life characterized by this same charisma (gift) --- she (and the church as a whole) may find there are good reasons for public profession and canonical standing (not least that this gift c 603 calls "the silence of solitude" needs to be brought more consciously and mutually into the heart of the church). However, in my opinion this direction cannot really be reversed. The Church (meaning here a diocese's chancery and formation personnel) does not form hermits. Only God in solitude does that and this only in God's good time and according to God's own purposes and pleasure. This is an essential part of the vocation and  a central piece of what the hermit witnesses to with her life.

Looking at the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard from a new Perspective:

This asks that we see the parable of the laborers in the vineyard from a different perspective than usual -- from the perspective of those who were only hired quite late in the day. We hermits usually come to this vocation late in life or at least in the latter half of life. Sometimes we come to this vocation via years of chronic illness and often we have to wait long years for the Church to admit us to public profession (if that happens at all). There can be a sense that time is being wasted, that a life is being lost and opportunities for formation and ministry are tragically being missed; it may even seem that we are hanging about town waiting for an opportunity to be put to good use and that in the end our lives will return void to the God who created and sent us into the world. But the truth is quite different and is symbolized by the fact that in the parable all laborers are given the same wage (are valued the same).

At the same time we find that the laborers who came late to work in the vineyards had learned to wait on the Lord. Their own sense of poverty was profoundly honed during this time of waiting and they are open to God calling them and gifting them in whatever way God proposes. They are a countercultural witness because they have become someone very different in all of this than they might have been otherwise. But one comes to find it has all been done according to God's own time and purposes, that God has brought great good out of all this seeming emptiness and waste and the result is God's own gift to Church and World. Those proposing they be admitted to public profession as diocesan hermits need to have acquired a sense of all of this apart from canonical profession. I think it is the way to the essential formation of the hermit heart and can only come in the silence of solitude where one learns to wait on the Lord in radical poverty and dependence.

(Also cf: Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits as Desert Wanderers and Dwellers)

Feedback on Hermits and Vacations or Home Visits

Many thanks for those persons who responded to my request for feedback on the issue of hermits and vacations or home visits. I received a number of replies from both hermits and non-hermits. They pushed my thought in directions it had not gone with fresh insights and I am very grateful.

The questions I asked in Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Hermits and Vacations were "What images comes to you when you hear "a hermit takes five days away from hermitage" or some combination of the words "hermit" and "vacation" or hermit and "home visit"? Why is it such an oxymoron or such a passion-stirring thing do you think?"

Introduction to the Comments:

All of the responses I received referred in some sense to treating hermits (or Religious more generally) as different than the rest of humanity. (Stereotypes are part of this as is the notion of "higher" and lower vocations.) This difference has (as reflected in these comments) two general effects: 1) it causes people to think of Religious as living a higher life, and therefore paying a higher price for it (home visits or time with a friend is part of the price), and 2) it allows those who are not called to Religious or eremitical life to feel exempted from making the WHOLE of their own lives one of prayer and holiness. If we can compartmentalize God's calls and say that some are higher than others, we can also compartmentalize God's call in our own lives and leave some parts of those lives untouched by the demands of prayer and holiness. To put it another way, if we can put hermits and religious up on pedestals, then we (who do not live on pedestals) can live free of the higher demands associated with that life ourselves.

Thus, when a hermit says she takes vacation time or time away from the hermitage with a friend, the "boundaries" between the hermit life and normal everyday life "are breached" some. Folks used to compartmentalizing their spirituality from the rest of their lives are challenged at a very profound level; if we have to admit that the hermit needs time for some relaxation and that this too is called to be part of a life given over entirely to God in prayer, then we also will have to admit that perhaps we are more like them and we too are called to a LIFE which is prayerful or a life which is prayed no matter where or who we are. In other words we are invested in hermits being completely different than we are and when this proves untrue the demands on us for integrated lives seeking true holiness are less easy to avoid or categorize as belonging to "others."

One set of comments spoke beautifully of the difficulty human beings have in harmonizing work and relaxation and noted that many no longer see relaxation as necessary to living a fully human life. His comments drew on the Benedictine monastic life and the balance built into Benedictine lives. Another person (a lay hermit) spoke of the difficulty of lay folks relaxing or taking full vacations themselves today which can lead to resentment, etc. Two people spoke of jealousy and resentment (which again related to "having a higher vocation"), and one person spoke of hermits "having their cake and eating it too."  Here are some of those comments which have been cut because of length:

Some of the Comments Submitted

(From a hermit-monk in France) [[Firstly, some of these reactions may be explained, I think, by the incredibly "romantic" conception many people have - at least in my experience - of hermits. One of my confrères, who is also a hermit and who leads an extremely austere existence in the south of France, was more or less rebuked once by a visitor for living in a house of stone, instead of a cave! Well, at least *he* has a long beard, which I do not - thus causing disappointment to more than one person who comes to see me... It is obvious that a relaxing hermit is completely incompatible with these people's mental images of the eremitical life.

 Secondly, and more profoundly, these reactions may reflect modern man's inability to relax, to incorporate rest and recreation harmoniously into one's life. I don't know if I express myself clearly, but it seems to me that many people live their vacation periods as temporary interruptions of "ordinary" life, as a necessary concession to their weakness, perhaps, which, alas, does not permit them to be "active" and "productive" all the time. I guess not a few persons may actually feel a little guilty during a prolonged break, unable really to enjoy themselves. On the contrary, one of the things monastic life has taught me is not to separate "otium" and "negotium", but to live both as means of giving glory to God and to grow in humanity. Perhaps part of the nasty remarks you received can be explained by some people unconsciously projecting their own feelings of culpability on you? In any case, I am convinced that monastic life and eremitical life, besides being a school of the Lord's service, are also a school of genuine humanity, including the art of relaxation.  ]] 

Interestingly, both this monk and I were given similar instructions at some point in our eremitical lives by hermits or former hermits. As I was getting ready to submit my Rule to the Diocese for approval a Camaldolese monk read and commented on it first. One of the pieces of advice he gave me was to be sure to build in sufficient time for relaxation and recreation. It remains one of the best pieces of advice I was given. Fr B was told by the nun who helped him in his discernment of a call to solitude (she herself had lived a year in complete solitude) urged him to take one day "off" each week. He writes: [[ At the time I thought that was slightly exaggerated, and I could not imagine the need for such a regular break in solitary life. . .Now I know she was absolutely right! The constant effort to maintain the vigilance of heart, as well as trying to be really available to persons who come for confession and spiritual aid, is very energy consuming.]]

Aspiring Episcopalian Solitary (Hermit) United States: 

[[My guess is that [known hermits serve as icons]. Do you suppose St. Peter ever just up and went home to spend some time with his wife, go fishing to keep the family from starving, and act like a normal human being? Of course he did, but he was SAINT PETER! Imagine St. Paul's visits home! He had never married, no children, turned on the values of his parents (one assumes. It is never told whether they were among his converts!), gave up a promising career in Phariseeism, and probably brought intense shame upon his folks. Who ever thinks about SAINT PAUL as a family member?

Do the stars get tired of shining? Flowers decide not to bloom? Well, flowers sometimes take a little time off, as a matter of fact, and many fruit trees take a year off now and then, or even alternate years, and while their owners might be filled with dismay, that's just the way life is.]]

Catholic Married Woman (United States):

[[I think that people resent your having any "normal comforts" because they see you as having a "higher place" than they and thus you should have to "pay" for it. They like to think of themselves as owing less and thus being more independent and "safe" from God's demands. They don't like the idea that "all is grace." They resent their radical poverty and want to deny it. So, what they see as a higher place must cost more. They resent the generosity of God. It takes away the feeling of control and safety. They can obscure this by believing that we are in a position to negotiate with God and set boundaries and prices. If your life somehow seeps into the same arena as theirs, the safe boundaries are breached.]]

Lay Hermit (United States):

[[I think people have in mind Hollywood versions of the lives of the saints and monks in European Abbeys of the Middle Ages where the inhabitants were miserable folks doing horrible penances and did not enjoy life at all and tried desperately not to. That at least is my take on it and I could be wrong.

The perception of religious life in general is one that makes [people uneasy] because their lives [the lives of religious] are perceived to be so different and so austere that to even see a religious wearing a habit makes them [most people] nervous by calling their own state in life into question. Then too, they [non-religious] may feel as if they will be condemned when they die for having sinned so grievously as they think they have. They don't see religious as anyone who has a right to vacations or any of the pleasures that they take for granted, and that religious are supposed to be super-humans.

. . . There should be nothing strange about a religious having a vacation. But from my reading, Americans will forego a full vacation for fear of losing their jobs or displeasing the corporation they work for, and they probably think that a religious or a hermit in particular are not in the same category and are not entitled to or allowed a vacation or family visit.]]

Conclusion:

Again, my thanks to those who contributed their thoughts on this. I was totally unaware that some are afraid to take vacations for fear of losing their jobs, but the inability to actually relax or to live the balanced life of a monastic is something our workaholic world reflects all the time (as does a world where the poor cannot take time for vacations and lack the money to do so; too many of the working poor have several jobs and have neither time nor money for adequate relaxation on a daily or weekly basis).

One of the real benefits of contem-plative life, one of the values it models, as Fr B made very clear, is the balance of recreation or relaxation (leisure --- often called holy leisure) and work. We need both to be completely human and the balance of these is a sign of authentically human life. I suspect that many of the times Jesus went apart to be with his Father or partied with others were exactly these kinds of times. We don't reflect often enough that Jesus' life showed a dynamic balance between ministry, prayer, friendships, and recreation (or that his own prayer was recreative in a more immediate sense than our own sometimes is) but my sense is it did manifest this as a piece of what it means to be authentically human in communion with God.

By the way, this helps clarify for me why some folks believe hermits taking a vacation is a kind of oxymoron. Fr B above spoke of it as being seen as a temporary interruption of "ordinary" life. If that is the way folks see vacations, rather than as a normal part of ordinary life, and if they have the sense that contemplative life is, by its very nature, a balanced life of work and leisure, then time off and away from the regular horarium, etc might well seems like adding leisure to leisure. One solution is to point to the intensity of the contemplative life as well as to the tedium of aspects of the monastic or eremitical horarium , etc, and I have referred to things in this way in the past. Another, however, is to point to the need for time away, time for new and recreative relationships and activities in every life (including prayer in new contexts and forms), whether contemplative or apostolic/active, cenobitical or eremitical. I have done this in the past in writing about the need for friendships in the eremitical life but the comments others sent in have underscored this for me as has renewed reflection on the multi-faceted nature of Jesus' own life.

Benedict, Scholastica and "Home Visits"

A friend and I were talking about the importance of home visits for hermits in light of my recent posts and she urged me to post the story of Benedict and his twin sister Scholastica. I am sure you have heard it.

At the time of this story Benedict and Scholastica lived nearer one another than they had in the past and were able to visit one another fairly regularly (Benedict would come to Scholastica's monastery)

Scholastica had been ill and Benedict recommended she relax some of the strictures of her life so she could get stronger. She did so and was looking much better on this trip. However, as night began to fall she and her brother sang evening office together, ate an austere supper, and then talked until fairly late. When it came time to leave (Benedict's Rule strictly forbade staying away from the monastery in this way overnight) Scholastica said to her brother: [[Please do not leave me tonight. . .Your presence brings me such comfort, and I hate to let you go. Stay with me, talking about the joys of heaven, until the sun rises in the morning.]]

Benedict was surprised she would ask him to break the Rule and told her that her request was completely impossible. Scholastica broke into tears and while weeping prayed about the matter. Immediately a storm began with rain so hard that Benedict and his companion monk could not even step outside. Benedict was angry at first and using the language of Adam to Eve in Genesis, demanded, "Woman, what have you done?" --- as though she had caused serious temptation to sin as Eve had done.

Scholastica answered her brother, " When I appealed to you you would not listen to me. So I turned to my God and he heard my prayer. You see, you cannot leave me now even if you still wanted to!" Benedict realized he must have made a mistake and then spent some time wondering why God would will he honor Scholastica's whim over his own greater duty. When he reflected on all of this he realized that staying truly was God's will and that his own heart was cramped by duty in comparison with her heart moved by love. They stayed together that night, kept vigil, and Benedict's own heart was changed by all they shared. Scholastica died just a few days later.

We can draw a number of lessons from this story, but the primacy of love over duty is one of the more important ones. Meanwhile I have received a number of responses to my request for feedback on the question of hermits and home visits and will be posting those in the next day or so. The responses are wonderful and freshly insightful!

"All My Dear Falsehoods" (Rachel Srubas)

The following poem is taken from the book Oblation, Meditations on St Benedict's Rule (Paraclete Press) by Rachel Srubas. I have used some of Rachel's stuff before here and highly recommend this book of poetry. Published in 2007 it is available on Amazon for as little as $1.27. Don't let that fool you regarding its quality! Rachel is both a Benedictine Oblate and a Presbyterian clergywoman. The poem is a reflection on the passage from St Benedict's Rule that reminds the monk:  The second step of humility is not to love having our own way nor to delight in our own desires. (RB, Chapter 7)

I am the road that will guide you to God.
I unravel lies that seduced you.
I am the life you still try to elude.
When you abandon me, 
I wait for you. When you return,
I embrace you.

Some days I prefer
to ignore your assurances,
pave my own path, lose my own way,
cross quicksand if I have to ---
anything but
relinquish my will.

Remember the blistering, narcissistic desert,
the devil who taunted you there?
You know it well --- the desire, the drive
to conceive and control, predict and prevail.
You, too, have wrestled the egoistic impulse,
the credit-hoarding greed of spirit
that flares within and keeps me,
on some days, from offering praise,
stops me from seeking your face
or following your excellent way.

I'm left to my own echoing solitude,
murmuring my own name.

Jesus, teach me to pray. Lend me your hand.
Talk to me of forgiveness until
all my dear falsehoods fall away.
Mend the cracked compass of my mind,
and guide me to my true desire.

Request for Input on "Hermits" and "Vacations"

I have to say that I am really surprised by the reactions I have received about a couple of topics in particular, namely, vacation time and home visits. I do receive what one person referred to as "snarky" emails occasionally on various topics and I have received a number of emails quoting others who have made nasty (angry and judgmental) comments about the hiddenness of hermits, the arrogance of those who seek canonical standing as opposed to the humility of those who do not, accusations of legalism as opposed to being concerned with Christ and the mystical life, and so forth, but none of these have surprised me as much as the comments and questions regarding vacations and home visits.

So, although I have responded to these emails already I am trying to understand where these folks are coming from; I have been thinking a lot about that. What is it about hermits taking time for a visit with their family or, as I have done twice in the past several years, taking a week away from the hermitage for time with a friend --- time spent mainly in shared solitude, prayer, shared meals, and recreation? Why do people react so strongly to this idea and what needs to be clarified about the eremitical life to help resolve this?

I definitely think I understand SOME of this, but only SOME. I would really like to hear from readers regarding what they think about this if they have ideas or have run into something similar. What images comes to you when you hear "a hermit takes five days away from hermitage" or some combination of the words "hermit" and "vacation" or hermit and "home visit"? Why is it such an oxymoron or such a passion-stirring thing do you think? Please let me hear from you and please be honest. Just email me with something recognizable in the subject line. Thanks!