Why isn't your Vocation Selfishness Personified?

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I have long thought the hermit vocation is a selfish one. I have read blogs by so-called hermits and they seem to be completely self-centered --- I am not speaking of yours here, but if you google "hermit blogs" or "Catholic hermit" blogs you will find blogs by "hermits" whose entire focus is on how much they suffer and their own growth in holiness. It's all "me, me, me." You claim that the vocation is essentially one of love, but how do hermits really love others if they are living in solitude? You also claim that your vocation is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but isn't this just a way of excusing selfishness? Anyone can say they are doing something because of "love" but the proof of that is in the pudding, as the saying goes. How does the church figure out whether someone is saying they are called to this as a way of loving others instead of just being selfish? It seems like a really easy lie to tell yourself and your diocese.]] (Redacted to shorten email)

You know, these are terrific questions. They are really excellent because they go to the heart of the matter of discerning, choosing, and living this life well; they also reprise a position that even a few great Church Fathers have held. Sometimes it is monastics more generally that are accused of selfishness. It is all that "fuga mundi" (flee the world) stuff (which is entirely valid and laudable when understood properly) coupled with a theology of consecrated life that strongly disparaged lay and secular vocations. We, as the People of God, are still outgrowing a lot of that but have begun making serious inroads thanks to Vatican II's emphasis on the universal call to holiness. Progress here is also due to the fact that we are becoming more sensitized to the place of active ministry in our world as well as to the importance of secularity and mission. Even so, we also are coming to a greater awareness that being has priority over doing, that mission depends upon the impulse and assistance of the missionary God empowering us, and that loving others is not possible unless we have been loved ourselves. This means there will always be a place for contemplative and even eremitical vocations which witness to this foundational relationship and need.

I have seen at least some of the blogs you seem to be speaking of and there is no doubt that if one is looking for self-centeredness one can find it by googling the terms you have cited. I have written about such supposedly "eremitical" lives in the past along with posts on hermit stereotypes and misunderstandings, inadequate reasons for seeking to live an eremitical life, the counter cultural nature of the vocation --- especially in a world which is strongly individualistic and even narcissistic, as well as on the charism of the vocation which presents genuine solitude as a form of communion which represents the redemption of individualism, isolation, and alienation. Recently I read an article called " The Urban Hermit Abnormal Personality" which takes some of what you have noted and a lot of what I have written against and identified it with the "urban hermit personality" in today's society. (To be honest, it is not clear the author is actually referring to urban diocesan hermits at all in this piece. While he might well think of these as selfishness personified AND institutionalized, he may merely have been giving a colorful name to misanthropes, and walking wounded who choose to live as isolated loners.)

The problem is that some "hermits" provide grist for this author's mill and, because they are truly seeking to validate as well as excuse their own self-centeredness, they do the vocation no favors when they write about being or becoming a hermit. (N.B., validation goes beyond excusing self-centeredness and is therefore more problematical.) So how is my vocation (both my own vocation and the vocation more generally) one which is founded on love then? How can a vocation which is more about being than doing really be loving in the way we usually associate with the lives of Religious? These are the ways I would restate your question, "How do hermits really love others?" and the approaches I would like to use to begin to respond to it.

Rooted in a Necessary Selfishness:

First of all, my vocation is grounded in the love of God. God has called me to it, that call has been validated and in fact mediated to me by the Church and I trust it. This means that I trust it is not merely selfishness masquerading as something worthy, much less something Divine or sacred. For me this is a piece of things I had not really appreciated sufficiently until after perpetual eremitical profession when several concerns and sources of anxiety dropped away. It is part of the freedom I experienced and have spoken about when I described not having to worry any longer about whether I was really called to something else, or whether I should be conforming my life to the expectations and norms of the world around me --- including the world of apostolic or ministerial Religious and the church more generally. Further, God continues to call me in this way on a daily basis and my own engagement with God in prayer and everyday living attests to growth in this love.

It is this growth which points to a necessary and entirely graced "selfishness" in answering any call. I have responded to God and done so out of love for God and his People but there is no doubt that I have also found this the means to personal healing and growth in human wholeness and holiness. I continue responding to God day by day. You see, my own life was once dominated by chronic illness. I have done a lot in spite of it (education, work, ministry) but even so most of the time achievements were hard-won things and often the illness itself "won out." As a result I was once simply unable to serve in the way I felt called to serve, whether that was directly because of the illness or because of the human brokenness, limitations, and incapacity which accompanied it. More fundamentally, my illness prevented me from being the human being I felt called to be, from relating to others or loving in the ways I thought (knew) I should love; it was a dominating, sometimes all-consuming reality and it crippled me on every level. Not least it prevented me from truly loving myself, and therefore, from effectively loving anyone else in the radical way Christ calls us each to do. It is at this point that eremitical life enters the picture and becomes important.

The first time I read canon 603 I realized that if this really pointed to a vital form of Christian life it could well provide the context for a life in which illness was deprived of its power to disrupt, dominate, and even define me. In other words it could provide a context in which every aspect of my life could make sense and thus become fruitful in some yet-to-be-defined sense. There is a selfishness involved here, a fundamental concern with the sense of one's own life, yes; it is a necessary form of selfishness which requires we love ourselves (and I mean truly love ourselves!!) in order that we may love our neighbors AS ourselves. In other words, I had to find a way to live a responsive and covenantal life with God in which God's grace could actually triumph over powers of darkness and death as they manifested themselves in my own life and heart. I had to find a way to deprive illness of its power to dominate and define, its ability to foster self-hatred in me. Solitary eremitical life provides the God-given context and means for that for me. In answering any divine call this particular form of "selfishness" will be present, and I would argue it must if we are to love others as we are truly called to do. This "truly loving oneself" is the necessary and graced form of selfishness on which the Great Commandment is based.

The Primacy of Being over Doing:

I think this points to a certain primacy of being over doing. We really must be persons who love ourselves in the power of God's love if we are to love others as God calls us to do. Of course we cannot omit the whole "going out and doing" dimension, but what I have found is that if  we touch others FROM a place of essential solitude (which means from a place of  personal communion with God) our very lives will be ministerial --- whether or not we are otherwise engaged in apostolic or ministerial activity. In other words what we do must and can only truly be a reflection of who we are; activity must and can only flow from contemplation; being must have priority so that it may define and guide whatever it is we do. More, it must be our primary ministry. This may sound counter cultural or contrary to the emphasis of so much  which is prevalent in our church and world today --- and it is! But it is also valid and an important lesson or witness our world and our Church needs.

Both our Church and our world often seem to preference doing over being, so much so that folks are out doing (teaching, ministering, etc) in all kinds of ways long before they have achieved the degree of human wholeness and wisdom necessary for that. (The stereotype of the psychologically wounded or crippled psychiatrist is a good symbol of this. So, unfortunately, is the image of the predatory priest turned loose to minister again because of a dearth of priests. So, for instance, is the glut of self-help books on the market offering instant wisdom and expertise for the price of a paperback, the "advanced degrees" which can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, or the prevalence of cheating and plagiarism in today's world!) While to some extent we all learn by doing, and while we all need to be interns and novices at various stages in our lives, my point is we tend to preference doing over being in ways which can be destructive.

But if the priority of being over doing is a profound truth which is in danger of being lost sight of today it is the very thing hermits and other contemplatives remind our church and world of --- and doing so is a profound act of love which, potentially at least, may leave no one untouched. For solitary hermits in particular, I think we witness to the profound sense life makes in communion with God, even when that life cannot issue in active ministry to others. For this reason I have written a lot in this blog about the witness we give to the chronically ill, the isolated elderly, the bereaved, and even to prisoners. I have spoken of it as the unique charism or gift quality of the hermit's life. As I have also noted here, all of these persons are marginalized, not least by the fact that they cannot measure the value and fruitfulness of their lives in the terms so prevalent today. They cannot compete in terms of productivity or various kinds of achievement (academic, political, etc). They cannot be terrific consumers or measure their lives in economic terms; often they require the assistance of others and government subsidies and aid even to live. But the hermit, and indeed all contemplatives say that such lives are infinitely valuable nonetheless.

And yet it is the Gospel message that we are justified (made right and truly human as part of a covenant relationship with God) through the gratuitous grace of God, not through any works of our own. By extension that message is also the message that our lives are of infinite worth simply because we are who we are, not because of what we do. Hermits proclaim that message with their lives in a unity of being and doing. I don't mean to suggest that others do not  act out of such a unity; I know they do. However, for hermits, our only role in the church is to be ourselves in God alone --- no one else. (It is this reason failing as a hermit is so easy, and trying to live as one is so risky. It is this reason mediocrity is so easy. Hermits do not tend to have active ministries they can use to distract from who they are first of all. They cannot use the roles they fill to soften the fact that they are not really WHO God has called them to be.) Who they ARE in God IS their ministry, and the fact that this happens by the grace of God in the silence of solitude IS their message. They can fall back on nothing else. (This too is one reason hermits are not called to active ministry and must be careful in even the limited amount in which they might engage. Their vocation really is to BE themselves in God alone. Their primary (or only) ministry really is in being and in calling folks to the primacy of being, not in doing.)

How does the Church Discern authentic vocations?

There is one main way the Church discerns the difference between inauthentic and authentic vocations. She demands that authentic vocations are vocations of love which contribute to the salvation of the world and praise and glorify God (make God manifest). One way of doing this is to look at the place of God in the hermit's life and discourse. While some self-proclaimed hermits do write about "Me, me, me" so that even their writing about spirituality becomes only secondarily about God, the genuine article makes it clear that they are who they are and do what they do only because of God.

So, for instance, if chronic illness is a piece of the hermit's life it is no longer the dominant or overarching theme; instead, what God has done (or does day by day!) in their lives both in spite of and with the illness will be the dominant theme. As a person matures even the illness may be seen as a genuine grace --- not articulated in some pious pretense of medieval mystical misery, but in the sense that this has brought the person to God and allowed God both a unique entry into her life and the achievement of a unique voice which will be mediated to others through both strength and weakness. That life then becomes "a silent preaching of the Lord" --- just as the CCC refers to in par 921. In other words, what God's grace makes possible in terms of human wholeness and holiness is their main focus and the key in which all else is set. The person becomes something very much greater and more articulate than a cry of anguish; she becomes instead an expression of the Gospel and an embodied reflection of God's own Logos. None of this means that the person cannot occasionally talk about themselves or their illness, sinfulness, brokennesses, etc, but it does mean that doing so occurs mainly in order to illustrate the grace of God's love and in contrast to the wholeness that grace has achieved in the person's life.

Thus, I would suggest that it is really not all that easy to lie about this matter. It is true that one can cover misery and brokenness with all kinds of pious platitudes, but the real person always shines through. More, the real God shines through in a compelling way when the hermit is authentic. The blogs you refer to affirm this in a kind of via negativa. Even for hermits in the early stages of grappling with this vocation and their own growth in it what comes through is their hope, their hunger to respond generously and wholeheartedly, their desire to give God free reign to work in their lives as God will. There will be some sense that this is primarily and sincerely done for God and those precious to God. Dioceses that take time to really listen to the candidate and get to know them will see clearly who has priority in their lives, even when the healing is partial or the grip of illness is still quite strong. On the other hand, I would agree with you that it is much easier to lie to oneself and I would note that this is one (but only one) of the reasons dioceses turn away FAR more applicants than they accept or eventually admit to temporary much less perpetual profession.

In my own experience dioceses usually look carefully at who the person is in light of their life of the silence of solitude. If they see increased growth in human maturity, wholeness, and holiness, if they see a greater capacity to love themselves and others, then they have reason to believe that the person is truly called by God to this. If they do not see this, or if the person seems to become more miserable or eccentric while living in this way, more isolated and alienated, or if they become more and more strident and bitter about not being admitted to vows, more critical of the vocation itself, etc, then the diocese is probably justified in their decision not to profess or even to admit them to serious discernment --- at least for the time being.

The Bottom Line in Discerning Eremitical Vocations:

At bottom there will always be questions of love: Is the person motivated by love? Does she love God and seek to respond wholeheartedly to God's love? Does she show signs of truly loving herself because of what she has experienced of God's love (especially) in solitude? Does she understand that simply living her life alone with God with the graced (in-Spired) integrity she is called to is an act of profound love the world desperately needs? And, finally, does she undertake (or desire to undertake) and embrace the WHOLE of this life, its discipline, monotony or tedium, sacrifices and rewards, occasional desolations and enormous consolations,  because she recognizes the gift (charism) it is not only to herself, but to the church, and to the world? Does she do so, in other words, on their behalf as well as on her own, and maybe better said, does she do so for them because that truly fulfills her as well? Again then, contrary to your own opinion I would argue that it is pretty difficult to fake convincing answers to these questions, especially as a vocation matures. A diocese whose vocational personnel are careful and discerning will recognize a life in which God (love-in-act) is glorified (made manifest), just as they will recognize its opposite.

By the way, this is a piece of why such vocations must be mutually discerned and why the Church reserves the term Catholic hermit for someone living the life in her name.  Hermits and other contemplatives tend to speak of themselves as living at the heart of the Church. This saying has a number of levels or dimensions but above all it means that the hermit represents a vocation to love which both precedes and grounds all apostolic activity. The journeying in the wilderness and the battling with demons a hermit does is mainly the sojourn she undertakes deep into her own heart and the heart of God so that love may truly predominate in all things. When I speak of taking on the rights and obligations of the eremitical life as a diocesan hermit I am speaking in large part of assuming the burdens and joy of these "bottom line" questions and this pilgrim role in a conscious and public way in the name of the Church and her Gospel.

It is only with the Heart that One sees Rightly

In one of the best selling books of all time, The Little Prince, there is a dialogue between a fox and the Little Prince. It occurs over a period of time. The Fox begins by explaining about what it means to be "tamed,"  and he notes that it involves forming ties with others. He begs the Prince to "tame him" and over time (the prince agrees to "waste time" in this way!) the Little Prince does so while the Fox allows himself to be tamed; in other words the Prince works to become the Fox's friend and the Fox becomes his. As a result the most mundane parts of reality are also transformed. Golden fields of wheat which hold no interest for the Fox ordinarily (he eats only chickens!) now remind the Fox of his friend's golden hair and occasion joy. When the time comes for the Little Prince to leave the Fox is sad, and then he gives the Little Prince his most precious secret, a secret he says most men have forgotten: [[It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.]]

In last Friday's Gospel story Jesus knows that there is more than one way of "seeing" and he equates one of these with a destructive blindness which will lead everyone into the pit together. He warns that an untrained person is apt to harm someone and needs to get proper training before trying to act as a teacher. And he reminds us via this story that we ourselves are often afflicted with a beam in our own eye but that we are equally often one who blindly criticizes and offers to extract a splinter from another's eye. We hear one of Jesus' most damning judgments as he says: "You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from in your brother's eye!"

Jesus clearly understands several things; he knows what the fox reminds us most "men have forgotten": First, that seeing rightly (compassion) is something we do with our hearts and this requires a kind of training. It is the kind of training one does when, over time, one helps (trains) a child to grow in a certain way. It takes years to "train" a child's ability to stand upright, to help them become persons who love themselves and others, who are capable of giving themselves to the world in a way which makes it better, richer, more holy. It takes years to help a child become responsible for their own hearts as we ourselves are called to be responsible for our own hearts Our hearts are, as I have said here a number of times, the places where we meet and respond to God, but they are also those places within us where obstacles to this meeting reside; for this reason they need to be "trained" (formed, healed, nurtured, strengthened, aided) to see rightly. The responsibility for forming our hearts, for taming them (what Christians call growing in holiness), is a lifelong process of being made capable of compassionate seeing.

Secondly then, he knew that the way our attention is avidly drawn to the splinter in another's eye SHOULD lead us to suspect the beam in our own; that is, we should suspect the real obstacles to accurate vision, to compassion, exist in our own hearts. They represent ways of seeing we have made our own whether they have come from our culture, from peer pressure, from our own needs, successes or failures, from the hurts of childhood, or wherever. Because of this I think Jesus understood very well that we ordinarily operate from habitual ways of seeing and behaving which are less than Christian; we operate from characteristic attitudes of the false self that serve as lenses which distort our own vision and prevent us from seeing rightly or compassionately with the heart. In terms of the Gospel, and the story of the Little Prince, they are the lenses which prevent us from making neighbors of those we meet or know, the lenses which prevent us from loving others, from letting others "tame us," and therefore from becoming friends.

 Two pieces of monastic truth:

Monastic life encapsulated Jesus' teaching in a number of ways, but there are two pieces which are especially important here. The first is the monastic teaching on what are called "the passions."  The passions are obstacles to humility, that is, they are barriers to recognizing and celebrating the truth about who we are in regard to God and others. Thus they are also obstacles to compassion, to seeing others with the same kind of loving truthfulness. They are most often the beams in our own eyes and hearts which cause us to overreact to the splinters in our brother's or sister's eyes. They are the symptoms of woundedness and disease in our own hearts which cause us to project onto others and fail to love them as we ought and as they deserve. As Roberta Bondi reminds us, "a passion has as its chief characteristics perversion of vision and the destruction of love." (To Love as God Loves)

Common passions we are all too familiar with include perfectionism, a kind of habitual irritation with someone or some situation, anger, envy, depression, apathy or sloth, gluttony (which often has more to do, Bondi points out, with requiring novelty than it does with eating), irritable or anxious restlessness, impatience, selfishness, etc. In each, if we consider their effects, we will notice these habitual ways of relating to ourselves and our world cause us to see reality in a distorted way (this is one of the reasons we think of seeing reality through the green haze of envy, or the red film of anger, or the black wall of depression, and so forth). Further, they get in the way of being open to or nurturing the truth of others --- that is, they are obstacles to love.

Similarly they are destructive of sight and love because they cause us to project onto others our own flawed expectations, values, failings and woundedness.  We know this by its psychological term: Projection. It is a serious disease Jesus apparently understood well, a result of our own brokenness and sinfulness, and it assures not only that the person being projected onto CANNOT be heard or seen for who they are, but also that the one doing the projecting becomes more and more locked into their own blindness and inability to love the other as neighbor. The wisdom of Jesus' admonition, "Remove the beam from your own eye before you attempt to remove the splinter from your brother's" as well as the appropriateness of his anger in calling others on their hypocrisy is profound.

The second piece of monastic wisdom here we should remember, and one which is closely related to the importance of dealing with our passions has to do with the nature of really seeing another truly. In our own time we are very used to acting as though we only know someone really well when we see their flaws. We approach people and things "critically," searching out their failings and weaknesses and when we have discovered them, we believe we have discovered their deepest truth. How often have we heard someone say something like: "I thought I knew him, but the other day, he acted to betray me. Now I really know who he is!"

But monastic wisdom is just the opposite of this notion of knowing. It is strikingly countercultural and counterintuitive. In monastic life we only really know someone when we see them as God sees them: precious, sacred, whole, and beautiful. We only see them rightly when we look past the flaws to the deep or true person at the core. We only see them truly when we see them with the eyes and humility of love. As we were reminded by Saint-Exupery and as tomorrow's Gospel implies strongly, "It is only with the heart that one sees rightly," --- and only once we have removed those distorting lenses monks call passions, that is, only once we have removed the beams from our own eyes will we be able to do this!

Introduction to New Camaldoli Hermitage

The video here is an introduction to New Camaldoli Hermitage, the main house in the United States of the congregation with which I am affiliated as an oblate. While I am associated with a different house, I am, of course welcome at all Camaldolese Houses ands especially at New Camaldoli. In this video you will hear references to the "threefold good" or the "triplex bonum" just as you will hear Dom Cyprian Consiglio (prior) refer to the unique blend of solitude and community which is characteristic of the Camaldolese charism. Of course readers of this blog will recognize the former term from posts I have put up here, not least: Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Camaldolese Triplex Bonum. Enjoy this brief portrait of New Camaldoli.

Parable of the Merciful Father (Reprised)

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



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

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

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

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

Prayer and Fasting for Peace in Syria

My pastor gave a terrific homily on Sunday based on an event that occurs when Paul is in prison; he sends Onesimus back to his Master --- but sends him not as a slave but as a brother Christian. Summarizing this very briefly (and inadequately) , Father John spoke of the dominant narrative of the time, and the fact that Paul's action was a way of overturning that dominant narrative by challenging Onesimus' master to receive him as a brother in Christ. The question is how will Onesimus' master actually respond to the invitation and new Christian truth. He very effectively tied this into the situation in Syria at a number of points -- not least by noting we Christians are called to subvert the master narrative of violence calling for violence in our world. Will we have the courage to change the way we do business or not?

Francis, Bishop of Rome, used the story of Abel and Cain in his own comments: [[“And God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25). The biblical account of the beginning of the history of the world and of humanity speaks to us of a God who looks at creation, in a sense contemplating it, and declares: “It is good”. This, dear brothers and sisters, allows us to enter into God’s heart and, precisely from within him, to receive his message. We can ask ourselves: what does this message mean? What does it say to me, to you, to all of us?

Francis at Prayer during Vigil

1. It says to us simply that this, our world, in the heart and mind of God, is the “house of harmony and peace”, and that it is the space in which everyone is able to find their proper place and feel “at home”, because it is “good”. All of creation forms a harmonious and good unity, but above all humanity, made in the image and likeness of God, is one family, in which relationships are marked by a true fraternity not only in words: the other person is a brother or sister to love, and our relationship with God, who is love, fidelity and goodness, mirrors every human relationship and brings harmony to the whole of creation. God’s world is a world where everyone feels responsible for the other, for the good of the other. This evening, in reflection, fasting and prayer, each of us deep down should ask ourselves: Is this really the world that I desire? Is this really the world that we all carry in our hearts? Is the world that we want really a world of harmony and peace, in ourselves, in our relations with others, in families, in cities, in and between nations? And does not true freedom mean choosing ways in this world that lead to the good of all and are guided by love?

2. But then we wonder: Is this the world in which we are living? Creation retains its beauty which fills us with awe and it remains a good work. But there is also “violence, division, disagreement, war”. This occurs when man, the summit of creation, stops contemplating beauty and goodness, and withdraws into his own selfishness.

When man thinks only of himself, of his own interests and places himself in the centre, when he permits himself to be captivated by the idols of dominion and power, when he puts himself in God’s place, then all relationships are broken and everything is ruined; then the door opens to violence, indifference, and conflict. This is precisely what the passage in the Book of Genesis seeks to teach us in the story of the Fall: man enters into conflict with himself, he realizes that he is naked and he hides himself because he is afraid (cf. Gen 3: 10), he is afraid of God’s glance; he accuses the woman, she who is flesh of his flesh (cf. v. 12); he breaks harmony with creation, he begins to raise his hand against his brother to kill him. Can we say that from harmony he passes to “disharmony”? No, there is no such thing as “disharmony”; there is either harmony or we fall into chaos, where there is violence, argument, conflict, fear ....

Bishops come together to pray during Vigil for peace

It is exactly in this chaos that God asks man’s conscience: “Where is Abel your brother?” and Cain responds: “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9). We too are asked this question, it would be good for us to ask ourselves as well: Am I really my brother’s keeper? Yes, you are your brother’s keeper! To be human means to care for one another! But when harmony is broken, a metamorphosis occurs: the brother who is to be cared for and loved becomes an adversary to fight, to kill. What violence occurs at that moment, how many conflicts, how many wars have marked our history! We need only look at the suffering of so many brothers and sisters. This is not a question of coincidence, but the truth: we bring about the rebirth of Cain in every act of violence and in every war. All of us! And even today we continue this history of conflict between brothers, even today we raise our hands against our brother. Even today, we let ourselves be guided by idols, by selfishness, by our own interests, and this attitude persists. We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death!

After the chaos of the flood, when it stopped raining, a rainbow appeared and the dove returned with an olive branch. Today, I think also of that olive tree which representatives of various religions planted in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in 2000, asking that there be no more chaos, asking that there be no more war, asking for peace.3. And at this point I ask myself: Is it possible to walk the path of peace? Can we get out of this spiral of sorrow and death? Can we learn once again to walk and live in the ways of peace? Invoking the help of God, under the maternal gaze of the Salus Populi Romani, Queen of Peace, I say: Yes, it is possible for everyone! From every corner of the world tonight, I would like to hear us cry out: Yes, it is possible for everyone! Or even better, I would like for each one of us, from the least to the greatest, including those called to govern nations, to respond: Yes, we want it! My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross. How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment!

Faithful in St Peter's Square during Vigil

There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken. This evening, I ask the Lord that we Christians, and our brothers and sisters of other religions, and every man and woman of good will, cry out forcefully: violence and war are never the way to peace! Let everyone be moved to look into the depths of his or her conscience and listen to that word which says: Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart, overcome the indifference that makes your heart insensitive towards others, conquer your deadly reasoning, and open yourself to dialogue and reconciliation. Look upon your brother’s sorrow – I think of the children: look upon these… look at the sorrow of your brother, stay your hand and do not add to it, rebuild the harmony that has been shattered; and all this achieved not by conflict but by encounter! May the noise of weapons cease! War always marks the failure of peace, it is always a defeat for humanity.

Let the words of Pope Paul VI resound again: “No more one against the other, no more, never! ... war never again, never again war!” (Address to the United Nations, 1965). “Peace expresses itself only in peace, a peace which is not separate from the demands of justice but which is fostered by personal sacrifice, clemency, mercy and love” (World Day of Peace Message, 1975). Brothers and Sisters, forgiveness, dialogue, reconciliation – these are the words of peace, in beloved Syria, in the Middle East, in all the world! Let us pray this evening for reconciliation and peace, let us work for reconciliation and peace, and let us all become, in every place, men and women of reconciliation and peace! So may it be.]]

A Place in the Choir

As a piece of my recent marathon birthday celebrations (they went on for more than a week! --- an embarrassment of riches), my director brought this video to our appointment-and-dinner time together last Thursday. We watched it together a couple of times, laughed a lot, and just generally found it delightful. I hope you enjoy it. (Just "clap your hands, or paws, or anything you've got now. . .")

LCWR Statement on US Action in Syria

[Silver Spring, MD]  We, the members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, are compelled to work toward a world where reverence for all living beings finds expression in an approach to life free from violence. We stand in solidarity with the victims of violence everywhere, with a majority of the American people, and with the leaders of our Catholic Church as we heed the Gospel call to peace, reconciliation, and universal love.

Like so many, we are horrified at the violence we witness in our world and appalled by the continued carnage in Syria. We wholeheartedly condemn the use of chemical weapons along with the indiscriminate killing of civilians, and other violations of international humanitarian law.  In the face of so much pain and suffering; confronted by so much evil and immorality; we know that we must act.

However, we reject the false choice currently being offered by our political leaders in Washington, DC.  We need not choose between military action and doing nothing.  Like Pope Francis we know that, “Never has the use of violence brought peace in its wake. War begets war, violence begets violence.” Only aggressive diplomacy and deliberate dialogue can end the violence and bring about peace in Syria.

We urge the US Congress and the President, working with the international community at the United Nations to provide the leadership necessary to:

• De-escalate the violence by stopping the flow of arms to all sides and seeking a ceasefire.
• Provide humanitarian assistance to the millions of Syrians forced to flee their homes by the continuing violence.
• Pursue a just political settlement with all of the stakeholders including members of civil society.
• Bring to justice those responsible for these egregious violations of international law and crimes against humanity.

We will act to stop the killing and end the violence. We join with Pope Francis in appealing for an end to violence everywhere and calling on all people of good will to observe a day of prayer and fasting for peace on September 7. Let us pray for the grace to respond to violence, conflict, and war, with the power of dialogue, reconciliation, and love.

Parable of the Ten Virgins: Paradigm of Prayer

Last Friday's Gospel was the parable of the ten virgins waiting for the Bridegroom. Five are wise and five are foolish. While all of them fall asleep at some point after the bridegroom is delayed, half of them are still ready to greet him when he comes and also to serve him as they are meant to. Their lamps are full. The other half have not prepared so their lamps are either out or running out of oil. They ask the "wise" virgins to share oil with them, but are told  that if they were to do that they too might run out. The "foolish virgins" are sent out to buy some oil (it is after midnight, remember). In the meantime, the Bridegroom comes, the doors are locked, the party begins, and the foolish virgins are left out in the cold with the Bridegroom declaring, "I never knew you!"

Parables have a unique capacity to take us where we are and lead us to Christ. It doesn't matter that we are all in different places. We enter the story and thus enter a sacred space where we can meet God in Christ ourselves. For this reason, although I have written about this parable before, it had a freshness for me on Friday. Themes may remain similar (waiting, covenant, consummation of a wedding, faithfulness, preparation, celebration, future fulfillment, etc) but what the parable calls for today differs from what it personally entailed for the hearer yesterday. What I was hearing Friday was a description of the nature of a life of prayer, a life given over to another so that his own purposes may be fulfilled through our relationship. It is the story of a life given over to waiting; it is a waiting of disciplined preparation and attention, but it is also, for that very reason, waiting which is joyful and full of promise and hope. It is the kind of waiting which signals a life where, in terms of today's story, one especially prepares oneself to be surprised by the Bridegroom's promised and inevitable coming and by all he has done to prepare for us as his bride.

The Nature of Jewish Marriages in Jesus' Day

Jewish weddings took place in two stages. First came the betrothal in which the two were joined in a covenant of marriage. This was more than an engagement and if it was to be sundered it could only occur through processes called "divorce". After the betrothal the bridegroom went to his family home and began to prepare for his bride. He ordinarily began building an addition to the family home. It was understood that he would provide better accommodations than his bride had had until this point. (We should all be thinking of this situation when we hear Jesus say, "I go to my Father's house to prepare a place for you.) Meanwhile the bride also begins a period of preparation. There is sewing to do and lessons in being a wife. There is preparation for the day her bridegroom will come again to take her to his home where the two shall become one (in ritual marriage) and where the marriage will be consummated.


At the end of about a year (the groom's  Father makes sure his Son does not do a haphazard job on the new addition just so he can get to his bride sooner!), on a day and at an hour the bride does not know, the groom comes with his friends. They bear torches, blow the shofar, and announce, "The Bridegroom comes" --- just as we hear in Friday's Gospel. The bride's attendants come forth with their own lamps and, with the entire town, accompany her to her new home. The marriage of this bride and groom symbolizes (in the strongest sense of that term) the marriage of God to his people achieved on Sinai. Thus, the service the bridesmaids and groomsmen do for these friends is also a service they do for Israel and a witness to God's ineffable mercy and covenant faithfulness.

On Waiting and preparing to be Surprised: The Life of Prayer

We are each called to be spouses of Christ. Christ has gone to his Father's house to prepare a place for us and we are called to spend the time between our betrothal and the consummation of this marriage in joyful preparation and waiting for that day. In other words, everything we do and are is to be geared to that day. One response to this reality is to develop a prayer life and commit to a life of prayer. (I would argue we are all called to this but that a solid prayer life and even a life of prayer looks different depending on the context and our state of life. For instance, a life of prayer in a family looks differently than a life of prayer in a hermitage.) This parable describes very well for me the dynamics of a life of prayer. Simultaneously it describes the nature of genuine waiting because prayer implies both waiting for and waiting on.

We all know both kinds of waiting. Neither is always easy for us. We wait for our moment before the cashier in grocery stores lines and are unhappy we have to be there. We look at magazines in the nearby racks, shift restlessly from foot to foot,  fall prey to impulse buys of small items located in front of us for precisely this reason, and get more irritable by the moment. We tell ourselves we have better things to do, that our time is important -- often more important, we judge, than that of the person standing in front of (or behind!) us. We fill our time, our minds and our hearts with all kinds of things to distract us from waiting; at the same time we thus prevent ourselves from being open to the new and unexpected.

Similarly waiting on others is not always easy. Wait staff in restaurants sometimes resent the very guests they are meant to serve; work keeps them from their "real  lives". And some of these wait staff take it out on those they are meant to serve. Whether this means allowing some to go unserved while waiters talk on cell phones, arguing with and blaming customers, or actually doctoring the dishes served at the table, putting nasty comments on the bill, etc.waiting on others can be challenging and demanding; our own inability to wait on God is an important reason we fail to pray as we are called to.

Again, in prayer we both wait for and wait on God. We wait for God and allow him the space to love and touch us as he will. We wait in the sense of the bride, knowing both that she is betrothed and thus wed to her groom while recognizing and honoring as well that the consummation of this relationship (and the proleptic experiences we occasionally have while waiting) come to us inevitably but at moments when we do not expect them. The temptation of course is to do as we do in the Safeway checkout line: fill our time with unworthy activities, seek distractions which relieve the tension of waiting, allow impulsivity to replace patience and perseverance. But when we do not succumb to temptation, in prayer we wait for God. We wait in the sense of those preparing for something greater which we cannot even imagine. In other words, we wait as persons of hope whose ultimate union with our beloved is already begun and remains promised and anticipated in everything we say and do. We wait to be surprised by the one we know will come.

At the same time we wait for God in Christ, we wait on God. Our prayer is not merely a matter of seeking God, much less of asking God for favors --- though it will assuredly and rightly include pouring out our hearts to him. Still, we are called to leave behind the prayer that is self-centered and adopt that which is centered instead on God's own life and will. Mature prayer is first of all a matter of making ourselves available to serve God so that his own love may be fulfilled, his own plans realized, the absolute future he summons all of creation to may culminate in him and the Reign of sovereignty he wills to share with us is perfected. Again, in prayer we prepare to be surprised by that which we already know most truly and desire most profoundly.

In the life of prayer and discipleship both waiting for and waiting on God take commitment, diligence, and attentiveness. Both require patience and persistence.  It is to this we are each and every one called. No one can do this for us. The fuel and flame of our hearts and prayer lives is something only we can tend, only we can steward in patient and joyful preparation for our Bridegroom's coming. It is in this that the foolish virgins failed and the wise virgins succeeded. The question Jesus' parable poses to us is which will we ourselves be?

What Features are Essential in a Hermitage?

Example of Small home from Tumbleweed Homes

[[Dear Sister, [I am sending you links to a site that sells small houses that I couldn't help thinking would be perfect for hermits.] What advice would you give in setting up a hermitage? What features are essential? What advice would you give to someone in selecting a place to live as a hermit? What should be in a hermitage? Do you think urban hermit life has different considerations than suburban or country living? Your insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.]]

Thanks for the link and for the questions. It is good to hear from you again. In the rest of this post I am going to focus on the "What should be in a hermitage" question and leave aside the questions about setting up a hermitage, etc. That one and the other questions open up a lot of significant facets which can be explored in future posts.

Cottage from Tumbleweed

I have seen this site before and have had others suggest the houses would be perfect for hermits as well. While these homes might well work for some hermits what is true is the cottage type would be better for solitary hermits while the very small ones like that shown above are better for hermits who live in a laura with others and have other buildings as part of an eremitical campus as well (e.g., space for a library, chapel, chapter and/or dining room, space for meeting with clients or guests, storage for pantry and other necessities, and a laundry with space for sorting, sewing/tailoring, and ironing, etc.). Some monasteries have such set ups with individual dwellings (or paired dwellings) for the nuns which are somewhat similar to the one pictured. There is a single room with additional bathroom and a loft area above the bathroom some use for sleeping. Still, much of the rest of the Sister's living is done in other monastery buildings. The "cell" is a kind of private space for sleeping, bathing, some private prayer and personal work, etc. Hermits living on retreat house property are in a similar situation.

Because solitary hermits do not have a monastery (etc) to draw on and also must support themselves, I generally think that they tend to need two or three rooms besides a kitchen/dining area. They must be able to accommodate a small library (this will differ in size depending on the reasons for the library), a chapel or oratory with tabernacle (if permission for this is granted), a space for meeting with clients or working (writing as well as other kinds of work) -- which can combine with the library, and an area for dining either alone or with at least one other person (the occasional guest, diocesan delegate, spiritual director, etc). (Of course this latter area can be used as a work or writing table at other times, and, depending on its location, can also serve for Mass if one's pastor (et al) comes occasionally to perform that service for the hermit.) If possible, the oratory, especially if Eucharist is reserved there, should be separate from the area in which one meets with others. It should  also be separate from work, and eating areas as far as possible. (This is especially true if one uses a computer and the internet for research, connecting with others, etc. Computer and meeting space needs to be separate from the prayer space and place of reservation.)


One thing I suspect most folks don't consider is that a hermit must also be able to do some physical exercise in her hermitage. How ever one accommodates this need, one may need space for a piece of gym equipment or some other kind of aid in this as well. (If one is not an urban hermit, one may meet one's need for physical exercise by walking, chopping wood, gardening and physical upkeep of the hermitage.) Urban hermits walk, of course, but there is no doubt that living in an urban or suburban setting militates towards staying in more than is true for hermits living in rural and isolated hermitages. Further, the poverty embraced by diocesan hermits also means that a majority of them will not have homes where they can set up workshops, vegetable gardens, etc. They will probably not be signing up for gym memberships for instance so, while a hermit will be creative here, this is assuredly a need which must be addressed in some sense.

In terms of general physical necessities, it seems to me that a hermit's dwelling needs to be sufficiently comfortable to live a contem-plative life and work in relative comfort. What I mean is it should provide sufficient protection from the cold and heat that one can pray and work without the weather being an unnecessary distraction. Personally I think there should be a sense of spaciousness and light. Partly this will be achieved by the simplicity of the furnishings and lack of clutter, but in part it really does mean that one's physical environment is not cramped. Cabin fever and the noonday devil (acedia) are real temptations in eremitical life and one does not want to exacerbate the situation with a place which is dark and unnecessarily crowded. A Beauty expressed in simplicity and order is therefore also important in my opinion (I don't always entirely succeed at this myself!); it contributes to one's inner life, but also reflects that as well. Finally, anything necessary for ordinary daily hygiene is not a luxury but a necessity. We are, after all, speaking of practicing, praying, loving hermits who are instances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a contemporary world, not primitive or self-hating stereotypes.

Another company (sorry, I forget their name) makes units which can be linked to one another with small pre-fabbed connectors and I think in some ways these would work as well as or better for solitary hermits than the Tumbleweed houses and cottages. Shaped like half a dodecahedron or something similar they are also similar in their small footprints and eco-sensitivity, and because they are modular, they can accommodate several different spaces for work, prayer, meetings or hospitality, etc. I also really like Edward Blazona's modular approach to this topic because he does a lot with spaciousness, light, and clean lines, and because the combinations possible are seemingly infinite. Anyway, this should serve as a beginning of a conversation. If it raises questions, please send them on!

Francis asks for Prayer and Fasting for Peace in Syria

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday condemned the use of chemical weapons, but he called for a negotiated settlement of the civil war in Syria, and announced he would lead a worldwide day of fasting and prayer for peace there on Sept. 7. Francis abandoned the traditional religious theme of the weekly papal appearance to crowds in St. Peter's Square and instead spoke entirely, and with anguish, about Syria.

"My heart is deeply wounded by what is happening in Syria and anguished by the dramatic developments" on the horizon, Francis said, in an apparent reference to the U.S. and France considering a military strike to punish the Syrian regime for a chemical weapons attack. Francis reiterated previous appeals for all sides in the civil war to put down their arms and "listen to the voice of their conscience and with courage take up the way of negotiations."

With tens of thousands of people in the square applauding his words, Francis delivered his strongest remarks yet to express his horror at the use of chemical weapons. "With utmost firmness, I condemn the use of chemical weapons. I tell you that those terrible images from recent days are burned into my mind and heart," the pope said, in an apparent reference to photos and TV images of victims of chemical weapons in Syria.

"There is the judgment of God, and also the judgment of history, upon our actions," he said, "from which there is no escaping." Usually soft-spoken, Francis raised his voice as he declared, "War brings on war! Violence brings on violence."

His admonishment against resorting to arms as a solution recalled the repeated emotional implorations a decade ago by the late Pope John Paul II in a vain attempt to persuade the U.S. administration then led by President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq. The deteriorating drama of Syria inspired Francis to set aside Sept. 7 as a day of fasting and prayer for Syria. Francis invited Catholics, other Christians, those of other faiths and non-believers who are "men of good will" to join him that evening in St. Peter's Square to invoke the "gift" of peace for Syria, the rest of the Middle East and worldwide where there is conflict. "The world needs to see gestures of peace and hear words of hope and of peace," Francis said.

He said the prayer vigil in the square will last from 7 p.m. until midnight. (A note for those in SF Bay Area, Rome is  9 hours ahead of us, so if we want to fast and pray in solidarity with those in Rome, we would be looking at 10:00am-3:00pm on Saturday. Others can adjust their own calendars accordingly.)

Questions on Male version of Canon 604

[[Dear Sr. Laurel, I was wondering if you could answer a question for me. I know about Canon 604 and how certain women can be consecrated virgins, and this consecration can never be dispensed with. But can laymen be consecrated celibates? Is there such a thing? Or would they just make a private vow of chastity? E.g., I know someone who was promiscuous for a number of years, came back to the Church, and made a private vow of chastity. I don't know if he took it a step farther and went through any ceremony with a bishop or priest, but he is a layman and not married, and plans on remaining unmarried. He refers to himself as a "consecrated celibate."]]

The answer to your first question is no. At this point in time there is no vocation for individual lay men who would like to be initiated into the consecrated state in a way similar to consecrated virgins. Rome is said to be talking about reprising the vocation which existed in the early Church (men consecrated in this way were generally called Ascetics), but as far as I know, no steps have been taken to do this. (By the way, a similar vocation has been proposed for widows, and a few Bishops have "consecrated" Widows in this way, but as yet, the vocation has not been ratified by Rome and c 605 which refers to new forms of consecrated life and  demands Bishops' openness to these requires that this ratification occur before it can be considered a new form of consecrated life. Until it does, we do not have consecrated widows either.) Canon 603 governs eremitical life and it is possible for a single lay man to discern an eremitical vocation, but again, this would be vastly different from the vocation of canon 604 or that of ascetics in the early Church. It is emphatically not, as some have reportedly said, the male counterpart to c 604.

If a person decides to remain celibate they may make a private vow. In such a case, they are, for the length of time the vow is kept, dedicated celibates, but not consecrated ones. Despite the wide misuse of the terms consecration or consecrate today as actions referring to one's self-disposition, it remains the case that only God consecrates, only God makes holy or sets aside as holy, only God through the public mediation of the church initiates one into the consecrated state of life. Vatican II was very careful to refer to the human action in profession with terms like dedication, etc and reserved the term consecration for the divine action in such a commitment. Additionally, therefore, its usage is reserved for initiation into the consecrated state of life. To use it otherwise is confusing at best. You see, since initiation into the consecrated state implies public rights and obligations along with new legal relationships as well as necessary expectations on the part of the whole Church (this is one of the reasons this is considered a public commitment), it is unhelpful to use it to refer to someone who has not been formally and publicly called to or accepted those rights and obligations. (By the way, it can and has been argued that no consecration can be dispensed, but the public obligations, rights, and legal relationships attached to the vows and to the consecrated state of life can be dispensed.)

Finally, your friend might have had a priest or Bishop witness his private dedication (or even receive these vows AS PRIVATE), though this is not strictly necessary,  but there is no provision in canon law for the public reception of such a vow by an individual. For this reason, their presence would not change or have changed the entirely private and dedicatory nature of the vow itself. It remains a significant but still-private act of personal dedication.

I hope this is helpful.

Questions on Formation, Flexibility, and Providing Space for the Holy Spirit

[[ Sister Laurel,  I would like to become a diocesan hermit, but I can't go away to a monastery or anything like that. How would I get the formation you say I need? Also, do you know the newsletter, Raven's Bread? There are a lot of people on that and they live as hermits without formation. Some are married and claim their spouses understand their need for solitude. They just seem a lot more flexible than you do on some things.  . . I wonder if you allow enough room for the Holy Spirit to work however he will in a person's life. . .  I think I am already a hermit, but it sounds like you might not.]]

Formation is not an Added Burden but a Means to Freedom

Thanks for your comments and questions. One of the things I have tried to make clear in what I have written about formation is that it occurs in the silence of solitude under the hermit's own initiative and the grace of God. It is not a formal program put together or administered by a diocese, nor does it consist in formal stages like postulancy, novitiate, and so forth. It does, however, involve stages of growth, and these chart the  person's movement from lone person to hermit. If one is seeking to be professed under canon 603 and a diocese believes they might be suitable for this, a diocese will monitor a candidate's own formation, her own growth as a person and transformation into a hermit as part of a process of discernment; the diocese may thus decide that certain experiences are important for the hermit's own growth and the diocese's own discernment, but this is not the same as creating and administering a formation program.


The second thing I have tried to make clear is that ANY form of life involves formation; to the extent we want to do something well and authentically there must be training, education, perseverance in the disciplines these require, and so, conversion and growth in these. Eremitical life takes skill and discipline; the solitude it demands is dangerous to those not called to it and risky even for those who are --- especially in an urban setting which militates against it at every moment. As already noted, I really believe that only the truly naive could think otherwise. While people approaching dioceses are surprised to hear a diocese won't simply admit them to vows as a hermit without a period of discernment (personal formation in living the life is implied here), I wonder if these same folks would be very surprised were they to imagine knocking on a convent door only to be told this is not how it works;  they won't be professed there simply because they walk in off the street and request it! I doubt they would be surprised at such a conclusion. My insistence on the need for formation, as I have said before, is not meant to lay unnecessary burdens on the candidate, but instead to make sure they provide for ways to grow in the skills and discipline (which lead to the freedom) necessary to live 1) a paradigmatic life of assiduous prayer and penance 2) in the silence of solitude 3) on God's behalf and on behalf of all those precious to him.

You see, one problem I run into all the time is that few people today really know what it means to live the silence of solitude. This is much more than living silence and physical solitude though it depends on these. Even fewer know what it is to live a life of assiduous prayer and penance, or really, what it means to be a desert dweller. Beyond this, still fewer imagine doing these for God's sake or the sake of others. As I have said many times, there are many forms and degrees of solitude; very few are eremitical. Stereotypes aside, whether it is email from people who cannot turn off their TV sets or disconnect from their cell phones and iPods, those who prefer not to live alone (some actually cannot do this and this is often, though not always, a different matter), folks who believe the eremitical life means simply being a lone person and doing whatever it is they can or desire to do by facile appeals to the "call of the Holy Spirit," correspondents who are married but believe that God is calling them to be hermits and celibates nonetheless, or from those who believe ANY degree of solitude in their lives means they are hermits, I am afraid I hear a lot from people who are entirely naive of the demands of the canon or who are seeking more to justify an individualistic bent and lifestyle rather than from folks who are hermits or who may ever really discern an authentic call to this.

Why Spend Time in a Monastery?

With this in mind, let me explain how one of the elements I have suggested can be really helpful to diocesan hermits or candidates and why I encouraged it. I have suggested that candidates without the benefit of religious formation especially, but not only, would benefit from extended time in a monastery. I have done this because the silence and solitude in a monastery (especially smaller monasteries that accept retreatants) is of a different character than most people have ever experienced. It is lived with and for others and this is a significant quality which the hermit's own silence of solitude must also have. In a monastery it becomes very clear that the silence of solitude is there to allow God space and a continuing opportunity to reveal himself in each Sister's life and in the community as a whole. One guards both silence and solitude here so that others can seek God, find, and be found by him in the profoundly intimate ways he desires. One guards these then for God's self , for one's Sisters and also for the larger world --- some of whose inhabitants may come here hungering for a silence and solitude (or the silence of solitude) the world generally has lost entirely or cannot provide for.

There is no way to replace this experience I don't think. In Stillsong I live it in a similar but not identical way because I am alone with God for others, but not together with others. (The Camaldolese describe the experience I am speaking of as living alone together.) In the monastery what I experience is a shared reality and because it is shared and nurtured together (anyone eating  in silence or praying silently for an hour with a dozen others will know this), it can be an intensely educative, re-vitalizing, and affirming experience for the hermit --- and I think especially for the urban hermit or the hermit who, for instance, must live with a caregiver and needs to know what is really possible to expect when people live together. So I encourage this as part of the hermit's own formation and discernment because she must be able to live something very similar in her own hermitage. She can't do this if she doesn't even know it exists or if she thinks the silence of solitude merely means the absence of external noise and closing the door on others. Additionally of course, it is really helpful to know others who are living as one does and who embrace the same values, schedule (generally speaking), praxis, etc. When one believes one is doing something strange or singular it becomes very much harder; when one knows others who are faithful to the daily discipline and praxis one is also committed to it is empowering and sustaining.

Allowing Room for the Holy Spirit:

While I am not referring to you here, your comments remind me of those I have received from others. I am surprised when I hear from folks evincing interest in profession under c 603 or in living as a hermit yet who resist making concrete commitments to regular prayer, penance, silence, solitude, or a schedule which calls for disciplined living because they "need to let the Holy Spirit guide them as to what to do". I wonder if we are speaking about the same Holy Spirit. You see, I have found that the Holy Spirit speaks to us in both the successes and failures we have in living our commitments, and less so in the absence of these and similar commitments. In other words, in my experience the Holy Spirit reminds me of how my commitments serve my vocation or not, how they allow me to grow or not, how they empower me to function or not. It is not the case that the Holy Spirit speaks out of a vacuum or like a bolt from the blue --- at least not in my general experience..

I think that suggesting commitments and structure will get in the Holy Spirit's way (which, right or wrong, is what I do hear you saying) is analogous to someone saying, "Oh I don't need to practice the violin to play it, I'll just let the Holy Spirit teach me where my fingers should go (or any of the billion other things involved in playing this instrument)." "Maybe I'll play scales if the HS calls me to; maybe I'll tune the violin if the HS calls me to. You mean I can't do vibrato without practicing it slowly? Well, maybe I will just conclude it doesn't need to be part of MY playing and the HS is not calling me to it." What I am trying to say is that if someone wants to play the violin they must commit to certain fundamental praxis and the development of foundational skills; only in so far as they are accomplished at the instrument technically will they come to know how integral this discipline and these skills are to making music freely and passionately as the Holy Spirit impels. Otherwise the music will not soar. In fact there may be no music at all --- just a few notes strung together to the best of one's ability; the capacity for making music will be crippled by the lack of skill and technique. In other words, the Holy Spirit works in conjunction with and through  the discipline I am speaking of, not apart from it.

More, my own experience is that one learns that appropriate flexibility is rooted in a disciplined life. Without the foundation I am speaking of we are not talking about flexibility but instead disorder and relative laxness and fruitlessness. Regularity does not mean rigidity, but in my own experience, one has to commit to prayer, lectio, an essential silence and solitude, regular rest, rising, recreation, meals, etc if the Holy Spirit is going to have a chance of being heard. If your criticism has to do with the fact that I am clear that married people cannot be hermits (by definition they are not solitaries), or that canon 603 grew out of Bishops' experiences with experienced monastics with significant formation who grew into an eremitical vocation and that its structure and requirements implicitly include significant formation, I plead guilty! We can all use words in any way we like, but too often doing so carelessly or without real knowledge simply empties them of meaning; in the case of the term "eremite" (or hermit), using this for any lone person (or anyone who spends any time at all in physical solitude) ensures not only that the word will be emptied of meaning but that the truly isolated and alienated have no one to look to as a sign that such isolation can really be redeemed and transformed into the silence of solitude.

If Time in a Monastery is Not Possible:

While the experience I am thinking of is not easily replaceable, one can break aspects of it down into significant elements and try to build one's life around those. What I would suggest you consider doing is to read about life in a monastery, and especially that you take note of the elements which monks and nuns speak about that are elemental to their lives. In order to build a life around these you will need to change the way you relate to others and the world around you in some fundamental ways. You see, I am not speaking about building IN a little silence or a little solitude or a bit of prayer or penance here or there. I am not suggesting that doing lectio once or twice a week is identical to building one's life around this, for instance. The first thing a stay in a monastery occasions in our lives is a break with our ordinary environment. To some significant extent you will need to achieve that on your own and construct a life around the elements which are central for a monastic or a hermit.

There are certain central pieces of such a life in which you may need actual instruction. Office or Liturgy of the Hours is ordinarily one of these --- especially if you choose to sing it. Just finding your way through the book can be daunting without help. (At the same time, once you get it down fundamentally you may experiment with it in many many ways and pray it in ways which are truly the fruit of the Holy Spirit.) Lectio is another and your spiritual director may be able to help you with this. Still, actual instruction in Scripture is also crucial. Quiet prayer may be something you are already skilled at, but if that is not the case, you might find a group near you that prays silently together. Doing this as a group is amazingly nurturing and supportive. Even if you cannot spend an extended period of time in a monastery, you might well manage three or four full days at a time after you get to know the community and they agree to assist you. (If you are serious about becoming a diocesan hermit your diocesan Vicar for Religious or Delegate for Consecrated Life might be able to aid you in making the connection needed and also recommend you be allowed to participate more or less fully in their daily lives for limited periods of time every few months or so --- if initial experiments in this go well.)

Difficulties With Silence

[[Dear Sister, I try and try to keep silent, but I just can't seem to do it! I talk and sing, I call my friends, I turn on the TV or play a CD. When I do manage to stay silent or keep from talking I am a mess inside and even my insides feel like they want to yell out! Even when I pray all I want to do is talk to God. I want to tell God how much I love him. That's okay, isn't it? At the same time though how do I learn to keep silent?]]

What I am going to talk about briefly here is both external silence and the more difficult inner silence. Both may be a source of difficulty for you. Ideally this is something you would work on with your spiritual director so if you have not got one it is something I would suggest. In the meantime let me talk a little about what is difficult for me with regard to silence.

Have you ever had a good friend who simply gave you space to be yourself? This is someone you can be silent with, sit in the quiet of the sun's warmth and simply feel gratitude with and for.  Perhaps it is someone you have taken a long drive with or sat silently in a hospital waiting room with and only spoken to occasionally throughout --- because you don't need to do any more than this. Perhaps the two of you prayed silently while waiting and simply reassured one another of your love through your presence. My experience of God is like this most times. He knows me so well (certainly better than I know myself!) there is rarely anything to tell him --- and my words always fall short anyway! Similarly, God rarely uses words to speak to me. He is present in silence; his silence is communicative. It is loving and spacious and forgiving, and it allows me to find and see myself clearly there.

But sometimes I don't want to be found like this. Sometimes I want things on my own terms; I am not comfortable always with a God whose very self is an abyss of living silence or who makes room within himself for the WHOLE of myself. While words may serve as a prelude to entering this space, too often I use words at these times to distance myself, to "reveal" small parts of myself and to withhold others, to affirm my love for God at the same time I am afraid of giving myself over to him completely. Most often I do it without even realizing I am doing so. It is simply hard to believe God loves me as exhaustively as he does or to allow God to reveal himself on his own terms as the loving God he is . This is one reason silence can be difficult for me.

Another main and correlative reason silence is difficult is because I am not comfortable with myself or with something that is going on within myself. It may be the result of work I am doing in direction, or something that came up in dreams or in prayer. It may be the result of something someone said to or about me, or which triggered memories I have either forgotten or avoided. It may be my own sinfulness. It may be that God is calling me to something that frightens me or challenges me in ways I want to resist (the day's Scriptures are excellent for this!). But whatever the reason, at these times it is easier to turn on a movie or a CD, or to grab a book (especially fiction!) than it is to remain silently with myself and simply rest in God. Let me be clear though, it is not always wrong to avoid silence for these reasons so long as we are aware of them and take the time and use the tools we have to work through them. At these times we can use words to signal our own reluctance and resistance and to find ways to approach entering the silence we most need. They can be a kind of temporizing, but they will also lead to insight. Besides prayer, journaling and spiritual direction are the best ways for me to do this. If you have not adopted the practice of journaling or, again, if you are not yet working with a spiritual director, I would recommend both.

When you describe your insides wanting to yell out, these two reasons are the ones I most associate with that. Sometimes I also feel tremendously excited and want to shout something from the rooftops. It needs to be shared and shouts out for that. I felt that way after retreat this last week. It took me three days to actually quiet down sufficiently to attend properly to what I was feeling and yet, when I journal about things or email someone about some aspect of my time in Santa Barbara, the same excitement is stirred up again. One thing that may differ from what you describe is that I know silence is the only way to hold everything I am excited about; it is the only way to really honor it, to share it with the God who is its source and to thank him for it. Thus, at the same time I want to shout from the mountain tops I want to sink into a deeper silence which can do justice to everything --- and that desire grows progressively more intense or pervasive as I practice it.

You also describe talking and singing, etc. I wonder if this means you are not allowing sufficient time and place for both of these. For instance, I sing several times a day and what I sing has different moods. It depends upon the hour and the tenor of the prayer. If you have a real need to sing, then I would suggest you find legitimate ways to meet that need. The same is true with talking to others. Build some time in for that and then, the rest of the time silence might be easier for you. Silence is a living reality and it takes time to establish a relationship with it. It also takes time to break habits which simply don't honor silence --- for instance, turning on the TV or CD player automatically when one walks in the door or gets up or something similar.

Most folks aren't silent during meals, for instance, and wouldn't know what to do if they couldn't watch TV, talk to someone, etc. We really do need to learn to be silent and to simply be present. The only way to do that is to practice external silence and work on those things which cause us to be internally noisy or which prevent us from loving or accepting ourselves. You can do that during walks, by setting aside time for working on hobbies silently, spending time in other silent pursuits (and refusing to be disturbed during these), turning off media of all kinds during certain hours, and journaling (as well as praying) about the things that present obstacles to silence. The bottom line is we need to work on both pieces of silence if we are to come to rest in and really hear what it communicates.

I am hoping that some of this is helpful to you. It is very general, but then I don't really know you or why silence is difficult for you. If it raises more questions for you or is confusing, please do get back to me.

Returning from Retreat

Walkway beneath my room

Well. last week at this time I was on retreat at Old Mission Santa Barbara. It was a sort of amazing time --- unlike any retreat I have ever made before --- and full of coincidences, unexpected synchronicities, and the like.

I ran into a Sister I had known from graduate school in the 1970's but had not seen since; she now lives and works where I grew up --- a place very few people I know are familiar with. I was able to catch up with a Sister friend who worked with me as Vicar for Religious (Vocations Director?) when I first was becoming a diocesan hermit, and in a number of ways found threads and notes from my entire life coming together in new ways. She was celebrating the 46th anniversary of her first profession the day we got together; I was celebrating the 46th anniversary of my baptism that same day. There were innumerable other coincidences. Most were not significant by themselves but together they were something else! One prayer period, because of the little coincidences and "returns" of pieces of my life, all I could do was laugh and say to God, "I don't know what you are doing, but I know it is something big and I am definitely along for the ride!"

Window of my room is second from right

One of the things it was nice to do was to spend time in a Franciscan house once again. I learned that Sisters from the congre-gation I joined in the late 60's were actually buried at the Mission and was able to visit that private burial space as well as that of the Friars. There are highs and lows in this living Franciscan tradition and there were highs and lows associated with the Old Mission --- just as there are highs and lows in my own history.

In this retreat I was reintroduced to all of these --- from the residuals of the problem of sexual abuse at an associated seminary (there is a memorial to victims on the property now), to the treatment of the Chumash Indians "in the name of proclaiming the Gospel" and the story of the lone woman of San Nicolas Island (who was brought to the Mission and died within two months after surviving 18 years on her own --- she had been abandoned there when all the Chumash were relocated), to praying at the crypt of an old friend, to re-meeting an aging theology Professor of mine at St Mary's, Moraga (he's still writing books and has one coming out in December), to spending time with a Sister who strikes me as Franciscan to her bones and exudes both the joy, the honesty (transparency), and the pervasive and profound prayerfulness I associate naturally with Franciscanism.  I also met several Friars I had not met before, a couple of whom were simply delightful and most all of whom were tremendously welcoming. (If you ever get a chance to meet Fr Joachim, give him a hug for me.)

The Eucharistic liturgy at the Mission was wonderful. Sunday was especially beautiful and the small choir added two significant hymns to the hymns the entire assembly sang. It was very well done, and the cantor (part of the choir) was really stunning. Fr Larry gave a homily partly in the form of a poem he wrote; he also expanded on it in his comments. We had a chance to talk afterwards (lunch) about the way writing a poem demands and assists one to get right to the heart of the reading. I was surprised to hear he had come to writing poetry just a few years ago, because he is certainly accomplished. Daily Mass was held in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel and, since I was up at 4:00am anyway, I was also able to go over to the Poor Clare monastery a block or so from the Mission for a slightly earlier Mass if I desired. (Another coincidence --- because they keep coming even now that I am home --- a hermit I know, herself a former Poor Clare, made her retreat prior to perpetual vows as a diocesan hermit at this same house!)

One drawback I found was having tourists on the grounds at the same time retreatants are there. It can be noisier than some might like. At the same time it is a living Mission after all, and that is something that I found very cool even so. Private areas have gates and ropes to mark them off, but  to move from my room to the Blessed Sacrament Chapel (where I most liked to pray), for instance, meant moving through some public areas/walkways. Unfortunately, folks thought I would know where various statues and other things were located. Wrong! It took me a full day to find out where the front of the Mission was --- I discovered I had been within ten feet of it several times (once I was within 3 ft of it) and had not even known that! By the third day I was a little less clueless --- and then there was a power outage which meant needing to find a new route to my room. (I used the wrong staircase to get downstairs and though I set off no alarms, I did have to get someone help me lock that stairway door again!) But next time I go to Old Mission Santa Barbara, I will be an old hand and know the whole layout and schedule --- and a lot of the people as well!

I have been reading Ilia Delio's The Humility of God  as a piece of this time and am a bit surprised by how profoundly Franciscan my own theology is --- ordinarily I think of it as Pauline or Markan, and of course it is definitely that. In any case, the darker moments of Franciscan history aside, it is wonderful to find lived examples of the paradox of Franciscan (or Christian) joy at the heart of a faith rooted in the crucified One. I am resolved to do more reading in specifically Franciscan authors! Delio's work is something I have read while working through theologians on the relationship of faith and religion, but I have not really read her specifically Franciscan stuff. Time to rectify that!

Meanwhile, back at the hermitage; it has taken me time to catch up with my life here again, or at least to begin to catch up! The first day back I simply slept a lot. Friday I did a service at the parish, gave a reflection on the Gospel from the day before (All (made up of the many) are called, few allow themselves to be chosen!), and had clients in the afternoon. I am almost up to speed again but there is still SO much to process!! As I wrote to my delegate Thursday, the bottom line in all this is that nothing is ever really lost; God simply does not allow that, Jesus testifies to it, and the Gospels remind us, [[Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you. . ]]. Finally, thanks to those who emailed me about the blog or with questions regarding discernment and formation of diocesan hermits. If I haven't already answered you, I will be doing so soon.

Bernard of Clairvaux (Reprised)

Often I get emails from folks which never show up on this blog. Sometimes they have personal questions about prayer, mysticism, contemplation, etc. Recently I received a series of emails which involved questions regarding experiences of God in contemplative prayer. While the person did not desire these experiences for their own sake, she did wonder if perhaps their absence indicated something was missing from her contemplative praxis. About a week or so after answering her questions in terms of listening for God's voice in a different way, I came across the following quotation from Bernard of Clairvaux. I share it not only because it speaks to this person's questions, but because it is appropriate on this, St Bernard's Feast Day:

[[I want to tell you how God's Word [Jesus] has come to me, and come often. As often as he would enter into me, I didn't perceive the different times when he came. Now and then I would be able to get a premonition of his coming, but never perceive it, nor sense when he left. When the Word entered into me from time to time, his coming was never made known by any signs --- by word, or appearance, or footstep. I was never made aware by any action on his part, nor by any kinds of motions sent down to my inmost parts. As I have said, it was only from the motion of my heart that I understood he was present.]] Sermon on the Song of Songs.

Sister Anne Marie signs her solemn vows

In the Gospel for today a young man is asked to go beyond externals, beyond law, beyond all the things he "owns" and/or clings to, and to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. He is asked, in other words, to make discipleship a matter of attending to the motion of his own heart --- a matter of being moved by Jesus' life and living similarly, of being motivated by Jesus' prayer and praying similarly with a kenotic faithfulness even when God seems absent, of loving as Jesus loves and emptying himself of anything but love of God and compassion for the other. Contemplatives live from the motion of their hearts. They are folks who have learned to attend to these because the human heart, by definition, is the place where God bears witness to himself in all of life's ordinariness. Jesus revealed it in the 1st century; Bernard affirmed it in the 11-12th centuries. It is as true today.

My very best wishes to all Cistercians, Trappists and Trappistines today, especially to the Sisters at Redwood Monastery (Abbey) in Northen California on this feast of one of their Order's founders.