On Discernment with Regard to Prayer Experiences and "the Spiritual": Making Sure these are Truly Edifying

[[But in the spiritual life, we do not need temporal justification or documentation by or of others. Consider Jesus. He did not reference or cite what temple priests, scribes or experts on Judaic law said or wrote. He referenced God the Father and the Pentateuch (the Scrolls). Consider any of the prophets. They cite God. Moses relayed what God said and did not justify his words or His Words by any other means. All this makes me ponder the more, the writings of great and holy souls in Christendom, in the Church, who have passed on to us much wisdom and guidance for the spiritual life. They do not justify themselves or their words by any other persons than The Three Persons: God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit.]] This was posted by a woman claiming to be a Catholic hermit in an apparent response to one or two posts you had put up clarifying mistakes people make in approaching mystical experiences and eremitical life:  (On Justifying Oneself ). She claims that documentation is necessary in secular matters but not spiritual ones. She also seems to believe that providing the kinds of support you did is done in an attempt to elevate oneself. Could you please comment on this?

Well, assuming as you do that this post was actually directed at me and either my recent article on eremitical life citing the Camaldolese founders and reformers or the one on contemplative prayer citing Ruth Burrows, Thomas Merton, et al, I could begin by pointing out that I am neither a great nor a holy soul, but in this case I think that is beside the point. You see this comment refers to people trying to justify or even elevate themselves and what they write in the area of spirituality by the similar positions and words of others --- except of course, God alone. The post insists that neither Jesus nor the prophets quoted anyone except God the Father and the Pentateuch. While I contend that is not actually true it is also beside the point. After all Jesus spoke with a unique authority, "You have heard it said . . . but I say. : ." while the Prophets were charged with speaking the very Word of God into their present situation. We simply don't know what else they said, nor how they supported what they had to say. The Scriptures focus our attention and accent the Prophets' authority differently than this.

But what actually is this blogger's point? As far as I can tell, she seems to believe that in the spiritual life (unlike what is acceptable in any other sphere of human endeavor) we can say anything at all about prayer, mystical experiences, eremitical life, etc., and justify it with the assertion that its source and ground is (an experience of) God: "I experienced this, it is of God because I say it is of God; nothing more needs be said. Believe me!" Do I really need to point out how specious and often destructive such a position actually is and has been in human religious history?

In any case to say that the great Saints and spiritual writers in the history of the Church do not support what they write or say by references to other great Saints, scholars, or experts is simply untrue. It would be easy to cite a paragraph or a dozen and more where the Saint or religious scholar in question cites others to support or clarify his/her position. John of the Cross, for instance cited both Latin and Greek Fathers to support and further illuminate his own positions throughout his work. It was hardly an attempt at personal justification nor was it done to elevate himself. Instead it was part of a broader conversation with the whole Church and is paradigmatic of the importance of such an undertaking. (More about this in a bit.)

Still (and meanwhile), even the assertion that great saints don't cite others is somewhat beside the point. What is more pertinent is the fact that the assertion that one does not need to cite others in support of personal spiritual experiences is nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that. In the area of religious experience it is actually more important than in most any other area of human endeavor I can think of to support what one says with the experimental findings of others in prayer. Beyond this it is critically important to justify what one says theologically and by the fruits of one's life --- not least because the sinful human heart knows many gods and the human imagination and intellect have shown time and time again their propensity to mistake the merely subjective and illusory stuff of the "false self" for objective reality and the stuff of the "true self" (which, to the extent it exists, really does know and reflect God). In other words, in the realm of religious experience human history is fraught with the mistaken, the mentally ill, the deluded, the merely sinful, the dishonest and hypocrites, as well as opportunists and flimflam artists of every kind and shade. Even when the person is acting in completely good faith we may be dealing with a bit of errant neurochemistry or neuroelectrical activity, psychological projection, or simple misinterpretation more than we are dealing with an experience of God. Does this blogger really not know this?

Prayer is our experimental means to knowledge of God and just as in other forms of human knowing which depend on the duplication of experimental results and the careful elaboration of the implications of the findings, so too do prayer experiences require something similar though, of course, not identical. (Since prayer is the activity of a transcendent and sovereign God within us, not something we alone achieve, duplication of the conditions and experience is not possible.) We have criteria for discerning the genuineness of a prayer experience (or series of experiences) and we turn to theologians and experts in prayer to explore the ramifications and implications of our conclusions. Could this have been of God? In what way is this so and in what way not (because both aspects are always present in such an experience!)? What allows me to say so? Who has known God in similar ways and what does this mean? And of course, what are the fruits of this experience? Does it result in greater life and truth, compassion and love, or does it not? These are a few of the questions personal experiences in prayer, despite the subjective certitude associated with them, necessarily call for in order that they may be edifying not only to the individual but to the entire faith community.

Again (and here we return to the reason St John of the Cross's citations of others are so important and a model for us) we are looking at a reason prayer, though profoundly and unquestionably personal, is also an essentially ecclesial reality and not merely a private one. Genuine discernment requires the wisdom of a praying community --- which, on the most immediate or individual level is what working with a spiritual director is about. Our individual prayer experiences must become the source of real wisdom and this requires reflection and conversation. Remember the citation I gave from Ruth Burrows: [[When all is said and done, the long line of saints and spiritual writers who insist on "experience", who speak of sanctity in terms of ever deepening "experience", who maintain that to have none is to be spiritually dead, are absolutely right provided we understand "experience" in the proper sense, not as a transient emotional impact but as living wisdom, living involvement. . . .So often, however, what the less instructed seek is mere emotion. They are not concerned with the slow demanding generosity of genuine experience.]] GMP, "A Look at Experiences," p 55, emphasis added.

For this to happen testing (sometimes called testing of the spirits) must also occur and this happens within the community of faith, not least including the communion of saints. As far as I can see, to be responsible for what one experiences in prayer requires one to submit her own conclusions to the "corroboration" (so to speak) --- or, perhaps better put, to the reverent attention and consideration of other faithful, especially those experienced in the ways of prayer. One does this so that one's own experience may become a source of genuine wisdom in a way which builds up the whole community. One does so in order that others may truly benefit from God's interaction with humanity in Christ as mediated in one's own prayer. This is precisely the way we believe and truly honor our very personal prayer experiences. Merely privatistic experiences, especially when they are eccentric or mainly rooted in the false self are not only not edifying, they are disedifying or downright destructive both of the individual and of the believing community as well.

Merton, TS Elliot, The Apophatic Way and My Own Contemplative Life

Dear Sister, I like the posts you have put up with the picture of the monk and the quotes from Merton and T.S. Elliot. I hope you continue these. Is Merton a favorite writer and spiritual teacher for you? I ask because some people have written that he went kind of awry or was "off" in his later years and was discredited as a Catholic monk. I don't mean you shouldn't read him but I wondered why you liked him and if you thought that was true.]]

Hi there. Thanks for your comments on the posts. I do plan to continue these. Not only do I love the picture -- which for me sums up so much of the eremitical life -- but I think these posts provide a way of giving a small but significant taste of various authors on the contemplative journey from time to time. When I first thought of combining the picture with a single quote I was thinking that visually and otherwise it would present as a kind of contemplative moment within the blog itself; I thought that might be really attractive to folks who come here. I haven't decided how often I want to put these up -- not TOO frequently of course --- and I think I also need to title them similarly so they stand out as a regular feature of the blog, but those logistical matters aside, yes I will continue to put them up.

As for Thomas Merton, yes, he is a favorite writer and spiritual teacher (or mentor) for me though until very recently it had been some time since I had actually read him. I was saying to a friend earlier today that I have just recently come back to Merton and am beginning to reread him with new eyes. I first picked up his stuff in the late 1960's or early 1970's. Later, in the 1980's I read some of his work on eremitical life. Along with Merton's own stuff I am looking again at the work of William Shannon. The latter's revision of The Dark Path (his new book is called Thomas Merton's Paradise Journey) is really exciting because in it I am reading again about something I once felt called to and with which I resonated to some limited degree, but now recognize as profoundly descriptive of my own spiritual journey and contemplative experience. You see, Merton's approach to contemplation and my own are the same (which is hardly surprising!); we both were called to the "apophatic" (a-poh-FAT-ic) tradition or way --- the way of darkness and denial. (It comes from the Greek word apophasis (uh-POF-uh-sis) which means negation or denial, ("God is not. . ."). It's opposite is the kataphatic or affirmative way (kataphasis [keh-TAF-uh-sis] means affirmation); it is a way of doing theology which proceeds by way of analogy and makes affirmations about God both in terms of similarity ("God is like. . .") and even greater dissimilarity ("but God is even more unlike . . ."). It does not, by definition, penetrate to the deepest essence or heart of God)

Apophatic Tradition in Contemplation

Apophatic contemplation, which is a way built on "experiencing" God directly, thrives on paradox and I have been turned on by paradox and especially by the paradoxes of Christianity from the moment my first major professor explained the difference between the way Greek thought tends to proceed and the way Biblical thought works. (The first moves from thesis to antithesis and then comes to rest in a synthesis which often is a kind of golden mean. Biblical thought, on the other hand, is at home with paradox --- a kind of both/and approach to thought and reality which often says things like "Dive into the emptiness and there you will find real fullness," "In losing yourself you will find yourself,"  "God's mercy IS his justice", and so forth.) For the contemplative knows that even though many of us are driven to write many words about prayer, spirituality, or theology, none of them even comes close to describing God or the experience (or non-experience!) of prayer. At the same time we know that the tensions of paradox come closest to conveying the truth about God and God's dealings with us --- though many would call them senseless babblings. Thus God is a light we only perceive as darkness or a darkness which illuminates, an emptiness which is fullness, the nothing which is all, so that faith and prayer involve a vulnerable leap (which we both must make and actually cannot make ourselves!) into a void in which we find (or rather are found by) total security. You get the idea I think.

Ruth Burrows (Sister Rachel), the Carmelite nun and specialist in Teresa of Avila whom I have also cited recently and like very much is a contemplative in the apophatic way and this is one of the reasons she so rejects the sense experience so many mistakenly associate with an experience of God in so-called "mystical states". Meister Eckhart, also a proponent of the apophatic way, agrees with Ruth Burrows in this and writes in typical paradoxical form: "Seek God so as never to find him". Both agree with Merton that when, through some experience in prayer, one "seems to have found God," they have NOT found God -- or that "once one seems to have grasped God, God has eluded one". As William Shannon (writing in a way which echoes what I have said here any number of times) explains, "God is not an object or a thing alongside of other objects and things: God is the All whom we can discover only in the experience of not discovering." The Apostle Paul described the same experience when he spoke of "coming to know/grasp God, or rather, being known/grasped by God." Paul Tillich's theology, which I focused on in both my senior year of college and later in doctoral work reminds me very much of this because he defines faith as, "the state of being grasped by an unconditional concern" and is emphatic that God is not A being, but instead the ground of being and meaning out of which all that is exists (ex-istere, out of - to stand up).

Of course the really big name in the apophatic way is John of the Cross (The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Living Flame of Love, ). Meanwhile, T.S. Elliot may also have been "schooled" in the apophatic tradition because in true apophatic style he speaks of coming again to the place where he began and knowing that place for the first time. In Little Gidding V Elliot piles paradox upon paradox but he begins with the following one: [[We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.]] This really is the experience of contemplative prayer, the experience of seeking and exploring that which in some sense we know and desire profoundly as our source and starting place only to come to "know the place for the first time." Merton comes at it from the other way around and says it this way, [[[Contemplation] strikes us at once as utterly new and strangely familiar. . .Although we had an entirely different notion of what it would be like, it turns out to be just what we seem to have known all along that it ought to be. . .We enter a region which we had never even suspected, and yet, it is this new world which seems familiar and obvious.]] Seeds of Contemplation pp 144-145

Thomas Merton, A Brief Evaluation:

All of which brings me back to Thomas Merton and your questions. (Really!!) You see, this is the nature of my own contemplative experience and for that reason I know Thomas Merton to have been the real deal. So much of what he writes resonates with me and my own experience in prayer, but also with the "greats" like John of the Cross, the author of the Cloud of Unknowing, many of the Greek Fathers, et al. But besides that, I think I largely owe him for my eremitical vocation. You see when I read canon 603 for the first time it was intriguing to me personally and suggested a way all the dimensions of my life could be rendered coherent (that is, made to hold together in meaningful whole). However, I also doubted such a vocation could be anything but selfish. (Contemplative life struck me that way; eremitical life was far worse --- it seemed a kind of epitome or summit of selfishness!) I then read Dom Jean LeClercq's Alone With God which intrigued me; I liked it very much though I had no idea the Camaldolese existed. Still, I had doubts about the value of the life. Then I read Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action. As I have written here before, it electrified me because it showed eremitical life as valid and more, as a significant gift of God to the Church and world. Later I read his "Notes on a Philosophy of Solitude" in Disputed Questions and that became a new favorite -- but by that time I was already a  hermit and had been for more than twenty years.

Some suggest he was not a true monk or that he had confessed upon walking into a library with shelves of his books that much of it was crap (I think he said B.S.). I have already written about those things in this blog and will link you to it here: Defending Thomas Merton . Bear in mind that for the apophatic contemplative words ALWAYS not only fall short of but also betray God. We are nonetheless compelled to write about God and prayer but with an awareness that when what we write is compared to the God who grasps us in prayer, the judgment must always be what it was for Thomas Merton, Thomas Aquinas and so many others: this is as straw, it is a load of refuse, BS, etc. Further our work is always also our very own and reflects not just our virtue, our knowledge, and our union with God but our limitations and even our sinfulness or estrangement from that same God and our truest selves. Thus when Merton looked upon the newly published Seeds of Contemplation, for instance, he remarked, "Every book I write is a mirror of my own character and conscience. I always open the final printed job with the faint hope of finding myself agreeable and I never do" He goes on to say both sincerely and perhaps with more than a little contemplative irony (or all-too-human hyperbole), "There is nothing to be proud of in this one either. : ."

Meanwhile, as someone associated with the Camaldolese as an oblate, I know that many Christian Contemplatives read, study, and regularly meet and discuss with contemplatives of other religious traditions. Some of my Camaldolese brothers and sisters in particular are specialists in other contemplative traditions and the New Camaldoli hermitage hosts inter-religious meetings of such contemplatives regularly though not frequently. We (contemplatives from various religious traditions) have a lot in common precisely because the God we meet transcends words and descriptions --- and also the limits of our own religious traditions. (Sometimes our own clinging to these limits represents what Mary Magdalene did with the Risen Christ and we need to remember that while we are to honor these traditions appropriately for all they truly reveal/mediate to us, they must not cause us to cling to a yet-unascended Jesus nor to limit the reach of the Holy Spirit.)

Though aware of all this (and paradoxically too, because of it) Merton never ceased to be a Christian and a Cistercian Monk.  Because his own life reflected the paradoxes and tensions of the contemplative who is drawn beyond more usual borders and boundaries I understand why what he wrote was uncomfortable for some of his confreres and others. Of course, I also know he was a flawed human being; his unacceptable behavior with the nurse he met during his stay in hospital was unjustifiable -- though he tried pretty hard (and pitifully) to do this in what I read of his last journal. Still, my own judgment on Merton is favorable. He was and remained a Catholic Christian, Trappist Monk, and true contemplative who was also a contemporary hermit and a fine writer. I am grateful to God for his life and more than a little sorry for his premature death because I would have liked to have known him.

On the Prayer Lives of Hermits

[[Dear Sister, I have a question regarding the prayer life of a hermit. Do all hermits pray the Liturgy of the Hours? And if so, do they say the Roman Office or do they pick an Office that reflects their spirituality (ie. a Benedictine arrangement)?  Since hermits make a formal commitment to the Church, I'm sure saying the public prayer of the Church is essential to their vocation.  Finally, are hermits required to say all the Offices of the day and when not saying those fill their day with other devotions?

When I look at the horarium of hermit religious communities they seem full of private devotions on top of the full breviary. For example:  Carmelite Hermits. I'm wondering how a hermit develops his or her prayer rule and how a hermit discerns a balance between laxity and following one's personal tastes in prayer on the one hand a rigorous that is so difficult as to be impossible to fulfil. ]]

Several really good questions, thank you! Regarding the Liturgy of the Hours the simple answer is no, strictly speaking these are not required by canon 603 nor any other canon unless the hermit is also a priest. I know at least one diocesan hermit who does not pray them at all. I know of another diocesan hermit, now deceased, who did not pray the LOH (Liturgy of the Hours) or even have some sort of general horarium. (I cannot tell you how much I advise against this and find it a terribly imprudent practice for an eremitical life! Besides, it is contrary to the requirements of canon 603 itself.) That said I don't know any other hermits who do not pray some portion of the LOH each day. I also suspect that most Bishops would require the hermit who did not pray them to have a pretty convincing reason for not doing so; I am pretty certain the majority of Bishops would be unlikely to profess someone for whom the LOH was not at least a significant part of their prayer. After all, they are the prayer of the Church and my vocation, as you note, is an ecclesial one.

Still, the hermit is required to live a life of assiduous prayer and penance. Nothing in that phrase specifies what that means. Thus, what that looks like in each life will likely differ. It is part of the freedom of the hermit to listen and respond to the Spirit as she will. In my own Rule and life I only include 3 or 4 of the hours of the LOH. I also use the Camaldolese Office book because it is singable with musically interesting but simple psalm tones;  I also complement it with the Roman LOH, especially at times when I cannot sing or if I am going to do the Office of Readings, etc. Any hermit is free to do something similar.

While I need the structure these provide as well as the content itself and the tone the major hours set for the time of day or week or season, I find praying the little hours fragments my day and generally speaking, doing so actually detracts from my prayer. Again, as I have said before, as I understand this vocation, hermits generally are about praying, and more, about becoming incarnations of God's own prayer in this world, not simply about saying prayers. That is the way I understand "pray always." Clearly that differs from some conceptions. That said, I do find some devotions helpful, especially when things in my life make prayer difficult. During times of illness I use rote prayers or Taize chants to assist me. I  may also use the little hours as well as shortened versions of the major ones in the LOH. When traveling I use a bead bracelet and pray the Jesus prayer for the people around me. I may also read a single psalm very slowly and meditatively at such times. During walks I may do something similar for the people in my life or pray a rosary.

Otherwise, however, my own prayer tends to quiet prayer outside of Mass and the LOH (though I allow for periods of contemplation during the LOH as well as after it and also during Communion services). Similarly the practice of vigil replaces the saying of vigils (Office of Readings) for me so that the period from 4:00-8:00 or 3:00-8:00 am is ordinarily a period of vigil. While I sing Lauds during this time I also spend at least an hour in quiet prayer and another in writing --- usually journaling but also blogging on something like the daily readings or a topic I have been thinking and praying about.

Recently, for instance (during the Easter season), that included work on the Ascension and the Bridal imagery of the Scriptures which is tied to our understanding of the dynamic of divine descent and ascent --- so this topical approach tends to reflect an ongoing focus in my meditation and theological work. About 8:10 am I leave for Mass if I am going there and that is usually the end of a period of quiet for me until I return to the hermitage for Scripture, lectio, quiet prayer and then dinner (lunch). You see, for me personally, filling the day with devotions is a real distraction. This is not so much a matter of personal "taste" in prayer as it is a matter of discerning the kind of prayer God is calling me to at this stage in my life. I work out what forms of prayer are lifegiving to me and what forms really contribute to the silence of solitude which is the environment and goal of my life.

One of the reasons a hermit petitioning for profession under canon 603 requires years of living as a lay hermit before doing so is precisely so they can have a sense of what prayer is best for them and when. My own sense is that filling the day with devotions is a beginner's strategy. It may be fine before a person really develops a contemplative life and matures into quiet prayer, etc but at some point the person really does have to stop, sit in silence, and confront the voice of God in her own heart. While I know they want a balance in each hermit's life between prayer, work and leisure, I suspect that some communities use devotions as ways of being sure a hermit in cell is never plagued by empty time. But for the contemplative "empty time" is precisely where one turns to God in silent faith. It may also be a way for communities to cut back on the diversity hermits may enjoy in their time in cell and to increase the uniformity of the life.

The Camaldolese as a group, for instance, do not structure their lives in such a way as the link you provided though of course they are free to do so individually. Though they come together regularly for liturgical prayer and for sitting in silence as well, the hermit is free in cell to pray as he is called to and this can certainly mean additional devotions as well as periods of rest and recreation not only so that God may speak differently to the hermit, but so "the bow is not always kept taut." Cf Hermits and Vacations for the Desert Father story taken from John Cassian's Conferences. I recall that one of the best pieces of advice I was ever given was after Dom Robert Hale, OSB Cam read the Rule I proposed to submit to my diocese prior to solemn eremitical profession. He was complimentary but also said he hoped I would not forget to build in sufficient time for rest and recreation. In some ways that has made a huge difference in the quality of my contemplative life, and mainly for the better.

How does one determine all this? Well, one certainly learns (becomes familiar with) all the prayer forms one can and tries them to see which are lifegiving and in what ways and at what times. One journals and talks with her director to see if she might be using one form of prayer to avoid something else --- that profound listening that requires one be in touch with her deepest heart, for instance, or monastic leisure and letting go of the need to "produce" or do rather than be. These latter difficulties are or can be reflections of the worldliness that follows us into the hermitage so we must not simply slap a pious practice over it and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing. (It is the case that even certain practices in prayer, certain affectations or attachments may be more worldly than not.) In any case, one pays attention to how prayer affects one. Has it ceased nourishing one as it once did? Does it not seem to fit new circumstances? Is it irritating or disquieting and why? Does it reinforce worldly attitudes and values -- doing over being, experience and superficial emotion over self-emptying (which will involve more profound emotions) and a commitment to love God for God's own sake? (Depending on the answer to these latter questions one may discover one is called to jettison the practice or to continue and deepen it.) One goes slowly and listens carefully. One moves step by step over a period of time and with the assistance of her director and others.
 

I hope this is helpful.

Question on Religious Poverty and the Diocesan Hermit

[[Dear Sister, Can a hermit own her own property? In particular I was thinking if it was small and only sufficient for her needs. What is your status with regard to your hermitage? How does this line up with your vow of poverty?]]

Please do check other posts on poverty since I have written about this before (one link is included at the end of this post). Yes, hermits may certainly own their own hermitages. So long as they can maintain the property and care for themselves this is probably the best way to go. Remember that diocesan hermits are required to be self-supporting so although they live very poorly and in some cases have executed a cession of administration as part of their vow of religious poverty, poverty for the solitary hermit does not involve a vow which prohibits them from owning anything. That is more fitting for a hermit who belongs to a community which provides for their care and ordinary needs.

I rent the place where I live. Since my vow of poverty is in line with a Benedictine conception of poverty as well as with the requirements of canon 603 I own a number of things a Franciscan hermit might not, for instance, nor someone living in community where the congregation shares some essentials and have physical facilities which support the common life. I have a significant theological library and a good spirituality collection besides because I need these for my own work and spiritual nourishment as well. (These are pretty standard in community of course.) I own a computer which allows me to write and serves as a window on the world around me --- but also allows limited contact with others in case of need or question. I own the wherewithal to listen to liturgical music -- thus iPod, CD's, CD player, etc. I maintain the necessary accouterments for a small chapel where Eucharist is reserved. Further, the expenses which fall to me additionally include: rent, utilities,  cable/phone, insurance, food, education, retreat, spiritual direction or supervision, transportation, clothing, recreation, and health/exercise needs.

My own vow of poverty reads as follows: [[I recognize and accept the radical poverty to which I am called in allowing God to be the sole source of strength and validation in my life. The poverty to which my brokenness, fragility, and weakness attest, reveal that precisely in my fragility I am given the gift of God’s grace, and in accepting my insignificance apart from God, my life acquires the infinite significance of one who knows she has been regarded by Him. I affirm that my entire life has been given to me as gift and that it is demanded of me in service, and I vow Poverty, to live this life reverently as one acknowledging both poverty and giftedness in all things, whether these reveal themselves in strength or weakness, in resiliency or fragility, in wholeness or in brokenness.]]

You see, the heart of religious poverty for me is dependence upon God which issues in a reverence for all that is part of my life. This attitude shapes my approach to owning and spending, to using and having, to acquiring or giving back, but it also shapes the way I see myself and others. Because God is first and last in importance, because he is the source of my life's meaningfulness and richness, and because I am committed to allowing that to be more and more true as life goes on, this means that I really have less need to own things, less need for novelty instead of the real newness God brings to everything and less need to shore up my own poverty and brokenness with "stuff." In any case, you might want to look at the following article as well on the matter of religious poverty: Eremitical Poverty and the Diocesan Hermit

Achieving Purity of Heart: Leaping into the Abyss of God's Love

As I noted on Monday the contrast we feel between the Easter season culminating in Pentecost and the immediate shift to ordinary time is mirrored in the readings which remind us that after the giving of the Spirit Jesus was driven into the desert where he had to come to terms with the temptations his own identity as Son brought to him and consolidate or claim that Sonship more fully and radically. On Monday we were told the story of Elijah fleeing to the desert where he is fed by ravens --- one of the paradigmatic stories hermits claim as part of their own desert tradition. We also heard the beatitudes, that paradoxical charter of Christian living which reminds us that in want, those who have faith are filled, in hunger they are nourished, in grief they are consoled and in all kinds of darkness persons of faith find God as their light. This too is the essence of desert living, the essence of the contemplative and Christian journey where overwhelming light is experienced by faith as darkness and darkness is the occasion of an unquenchable and eternal light.

This paradoxical theme of fullness in emptiness, consolation in grief, etc, continued in the readings on Tuesday. Yesterday the widow overcame her fear of  having nothing, she relinquishes a certain kind of security, in faith gives all she has to Elijah and truly discovers as she embraces this particular emptiness that she is entirely safe in God's hands; besides that her jar of flour will not go empty nor her jug of oil run dry. ("Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added or given to you as well.") The Gospel reminds us that a light hidden under a bushel basket (this describes an attempt to hoard it and keep it as one's own)  is useless (in fact if the light is not quenched entirely by such an act it is apt to set fire to everything and destroy it) but if it is shared with others, if it is set on a lampstand where the entire household -- often consisting of several families -- can share it and live in light of it God will be glorified (revealed).

The hinge on which all these things turn is the purification of our hearts so that we not only truly let go of or relinquish that which provides temporary and partial security, but we also truly entrust ourselves to the One who is the ground and source of reality and so too, of absolute security. Unfortunately, some seem to do the first (the work of renunciation) without ever being able to do the second (the leap of faith) while most folks try to do the second (entrust themselves to God in faith) without ever doing the first (letting go of all except God)! This, by the way, is the reason Luke tells the story of the house which is cleaned out of demons but is left vacant and therefore comes to an even worse end! It is never enough to relinquish everything except our fear of emptiness and nothingness; we must also cast ourselves completely into God's hands in faith. But this act too has a paradoxical quality. It is a final and wholehearted act of renunciation where we consciously embrace the fear we have held at bay in one way and another, let go of our distrust (of reality, of God, etc), and leap -- fear pulsing against our breast -- into the void. In that leap we entrust ourselves to God because there is literally NOTHING else. Either God IS that void, that abyss, or he is not. It is the ultimate act of risk --- and the ultimate occasion of security.

Looking ahead to Friday's readings we are again faced with a radical choice so typical of desert spirituality; Jesus' words help us to see how truly radical this choice is, how profoundly our hearts need to be remade! [[If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna.]]

I admit I can no longer hear this reading without thinking of the story of Aron Ralston as well as the OT command from the beginning of Lent, "Choose Life!". You will remember  Ralston as the hiker who was trapped when a boulder he was climbing in a canyon in Utah was dislodged and his arm became wedged between it and the canyon wall. Mr. Ralston tried several times over the period of 127 hours to amputate his arm but was thwarted by the inability to cut the bones with the tool he had. He made superficial attempts in the effort to get his courage up. Finally, when his food and water were gone and it was clear that the choice was do it or die, he levered his arm in such a way as to break both bones in his forearm and took an all-purpose tool and severed the arm from his body. He then rappelled down a cliff and several hours later was rescued. Ralston was clear that if he had cut his arm off sooner he would have bled to death before being rescued and if he had waited any longer the rescuers would have found him dead and still-trapped. At great risk and embracing terrible fear and pain Aron chose life.

The choices we Christians are called to make in order to truly be Christian are every bit as radical  than the choice Aron Ralston made. The choices, both renunciations and affirmations,  involved in opting for the life of God rather than a superficial and domesticated Christianity are momentous and difficult. It is the purification of our hearts that is needed so we look on others with the love of Christ rather than the lust of a divided and selfish heart.  Our tendency to do what is lawful rather than what is right points similarly to a heart that needs to be remade by God's love so that it may really risk the vulnerability and generosity all true faith requires. Most importantly our choice of  God before, after and underlying every other choice we make requires amputations and adaptations every bit as costly as Aron's. The choice Jesus faced in the desert was to really BE God's own Son or to exploit the power and authority that were his by virtue of the Spirit's gifts demanded he face and renounce those things which tempted him to something less than and other than this; it is essentially the same choice we are presented with in this week's post-Pentecostal readings.

Whether it requires the lopping off of a sense of entitlement, a tendency to see others as expedients to our goals, the insecurities and other passions that cause us to see and value ourselves and others less than (as) true daughters and sons of God, any tendencies to selfishness, fearfulness, addiction, or whatever it is that makes our own hearts less than pure and open to love, we are called to do whatever it takes to choose life, abundant life in Christ. God calls us to holiness rather than mere respectability and that means a host of choices more radical than our culture or mere institutions impose on us, or (with the exception of the Church) even allow us. After all, it is through our choices for God that purity or singleness of heart is achieved and even greater choices for God are put before us. It is only as we both let go of the securities we cling to in the world we know apart from God AND leap further into the abyss of his love that our hearts are truly remade into those of daughters and sons of God.

A Contemplative Moment: On the Experience of Existential Dread

Existential Dread

Dread is an expression of our insecurity in this earthly life, a realization that we are never and can never be completely "sure" in the sense of possessing a definitive and established spiritual status. It means that we cannot any longer hope in ourselves, in our wisdom, our virtues, our fidelity. We see too clearly that all that is "ours" is nothing, and can completely fail us. In other words, we no longer rely on what we "have," what has been given by our past, what has been required. We are open to God and his mercy in the inscrutable future and our trust is entirely in his grace, which will support our liberty in the emptiness where we will confront unforeseen decisions. Only when we have descended in dread to the center of our own nothingness, by his grace and guidance, can we be led by him, in his own time, to find him in losing ourselves. . . .This deep dread must be seen for what it is: not as punishment, but as purification and grace. Indeed it is a great gift of God, for it is the precise point of our encounter with his fullness.

Thomas Merton, OCSO, Contemplative Prayer 

On Dynamic Equivalence, the Beatitudes, and Being Driven into the Desert by the Spirit

One form of translation of the ancient (or really any) text is called dynamic equivalence. This means that rather than formal equivalence where a translator simply plugs in the proper word in English for the original Greek word as literal translations do, the translator opts to try and go the further step of giving us a translation which also conveys the idiomatic quality of the original. It is a form of translation in which the living character of the language is respected as well as the formal dimension. In today's gospel lection we hear the  good news of Matthew's version of the Beatitudes. Unfortunately, it is one of those texts we know so well we might never truly hear it in a way which challenges and transforms. At my parish our pastor also provided us with a contemporary "dynamic equivalency" translation of the lection as part of his homily. It is wonderful in the dimensions of the text it opens up to us and in its ability to allow us to hear with new ears. I wanted to share it here.

Matthew 5:1-12
from The Message, Eugene H Peterson

[[When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said.

"You're blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
You're blessed when you feel you have lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You're blessed when you are content with just who you are --- no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves the proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
You're blessed when you get your inside world --- your minds and hearts --- put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's Kingdom.

Not only that --- count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me.  What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens --- give a cheer, even --- for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.]]

Throughout the following couple of weeks we are going to be initiated into a vision of "desert spirituality" --- that spirituality associated with prophets, hermits, and even the occasional (and genuine) messiah; we will find it to be central to Israel's own identity, to those of her greatest leaders, and of course, to Jesus himself and the God he reveals in kenosis. It is that spirituality associated the Holy Spirit's impulse in our lives, with the opportunity to cast ourselves entirely on the Lord and the abundant nourishment, strength, and refreshment God faithfully provides so that we can become true daughters and sons of God.

During this time the basic struggle in the OT readings is between two forms of Kingship, two worlds or perspectives on reality, two different sets of values. The entrance to the reign of God, the values of his Kingdom and true discipleship is always through the desert. Elijah, in a paradigm of desert life, is fed by the ravens and drinks from living springs of water. In today's Gospel lection the Beatitudes are presented as the paradigmatic code or charter of desert spirituality and this new Kingdom. It defines what it means to be Jesus' own "apprentices," "the committed" -- as Peterson describes those who actually climb the mountain with Jesus. Throughout this post-Pentecost period we will find the Spirit of Pentecost is driving us each into the desert in these readings, into, that is, the privileged place where Jesus himself was driven by the Spirit, plumbed the depths of his own heart, and claimed and consolidated his own Divine Sonship while rejecting the temptation to exploit and distort it represented by Satan and the "other kingdom". Thus, we will find God calling us to do the same with our new gifts and Spirit-renewed identities.

See also, Driven into the Desert by the Spirit of Sonship

Pentecost!!! Come Holy Spirit!!!

I have written in the past about a significant prayer experience I had where I had the sense I had God's entire attention, where God was absolutely delighted that I was "finally" there, and where I was completely assured in some indefinable way that, paradoxically, the rest of God's creation enjoyed his entire attention as well. I have also written that from time to time I return to this prayer experience to tap into it again, to drink from its living waters, and to breathe in the strength of its Spirit. I do this because it still lives inside me; it is part of my living, daily memory and has not yet and (I strongly suspect) will never be exhausted of its riches. It serves still as a gateway to a "place" where God is waiting with much to show me and thus, as a gateway to real wisdom. More, it serves as a gateway to that "place" where God is allowed to be completely attentive to me, the place created when he loves me as he wills to do and I am truly myself. And yet, for all of our clamoring and self-centeredness, our love of being at the center of attention and acclaim, it is hard to let ourselves be the center of God's attention because it is hard to let God himself be the center of our own attention.

Over the past weeks I have been thinking about the part played by Jesus' Ascension in our faith. It has been enriched by a focus on the Bridegroom's return to his Father's home to prepare a place for all of humanity in his Father's own life. Especially I have come to see more clearly how it is that through the mediation of his Christ God not only comes to dwell among us exhaustively but that he also opens his own life to us; Divine descent is balanced or matched by Human ascent.

This means that in Christ humanity and all of the experience of humanity including death itself is taken up into the life of God and yet does not destroy God. It also means that the Spirit which hovered over the waters in creation, while not a different Spirit, is also not precisely the same Spirit that exists after the Christ Event and the Ascension of Jesus. The Risen Christ and the Eternal Son are now entirely one. The Spirit (as was always true) is the single eternal Spirit of love that courses between Son and Father; still, because of the Christ Event, including the Ascension of Christ, the Spirit whose coming we celebrate today is not only the Spirit of Divinity, but also the Spirit of authentic humanity. The courage, wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, reverence for God, etc, which come to us today and everyday are also the courage, wisdom, understanding, etc of Jesus' himself --- the one who has suffered our pain, borne the burden of our sinfulness, felt the frustration of our weakness, celebrated the same joys and loves which we do, and persevered in prayer and his acceptance of his Father's commission as he grew to the fullness of "grace and stature" in the power of the Spirit.

But it really is hard sometimes, I think, to be wholly and exhaustively loved by God. It calls for our whole selves to be illuminated by that attention and healed by that love so that we may truly be human beings who center our lives on God's own life.  And yet, this is one piece of today's Feast. Today God showers us with gifts and they are the gifts of God's very self but also the gifts of Jesus and our own truest humanity. God in Christ gives us his full attention and pours out upon us all the riches that attention implies so that we ourselves might likewise give God and his Reign in our midst our full attention.

Today God empowers us with the gifts which make us truly human and commissions us individually and communally to be his People in a world which hungers for this desperately. As a part of this feast it is personally important for me to tap into that prayer experience again as I must do from time to time so that it may continue to renew me. In doing so I am not merely indulging a past memory of something that took place 30 (or so!) years ago nor do I either need nor try to feel what I once felt there; those things are mere shadows of the reality itself. Instead it involves opening myself to a continuing reality which enlivens, nourishes, inspires, challenges, and commissions right here and now. It is to open myself to an experience of God where there is a genuine forgetfulness of self and what delight there is is living delight in God's own delight.

I am reminded in all of this that Sister Rachel, OCD (Ruth Burrows) strongly affirms that the real experience of mystical prayer is always far broader and deeper than the mere (and often misleading) things we feel, hear, see, etc in such prayer; the real "experience" of prayer, the true mystical grace, is the wisdom that grows in us as a result of God's work within us,** the authentic humanity and capacity for all those gifts of the Spirit that not only allow us to grow in grace and stature as Jesus did, but to grow more and more into the image of Jesus who gave himself completely to and for others and thus discovered and embraced his truest home in the very heart of God. We ask that God open us to this fire that burns beneath and beyond all the transitory and illusory things we feel or see in prayer so that one day that same God might, in the power of His Holy Spirit, be all in all. Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in us all the fire of your love!
_____________________________

** In Guidelines for Mystical Prayer Ruth Burrows writes:  [[When all is said and done, the long line of saints and spiritual writers who insist on "experience", who speak of sanctity in terms of ever deepening "experience", who maintain that to have none is to be spiritually dead, are absolutely right provided we understand "experience" in the proper sense, not as a transient emotional impact but as living wisdom, living involvement. . . .So often, however, what the less instructed seek is mere emotion. They are not concerned with the slow demanding generosity of genuine experience.]] GMP, "A Look at Experiences," p 55, emphasis added.

Followup on the Paradox of Canon 603

[[Sister Laurel, are you saying in your post on the paradox of canon 603 [Paradox of Canon 603] that lay or non-canonical hermits should  have the same kinds of structure built into their own lives as canonical hermits? I don't mean they should exist in law (de jure) but that they should have people who fill roles similar to those your Bishop and delegate fill for you?]]

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I don't know anyone, especially those trying to live contemplative lives in the depths of both their own heart and God's own heart who can do this without the checks and balances provided by relationships like those with a spiritual director, pastor, friends, and church more generally. It becomes even more important for those proposing to go off on their own in relative isolation from others. As Dom Jean LeClercq (20C.) notes in Chapter III of Alone With God, [[There must be a vocation. To recognize it, we must know what it is not. The illusion of false vocations is by no means unreal.]] Nor are these less unreal in our own century!

Even with authentic and carefully discerned and formed vocations one piece of wisdom the Church has shown for centuries in her approach to actual recluses is that they are only allowed within certain established Orders or Congregations --- and those with a healthy and long eremitical history. The vocation is encouraged in these congregations, as are other forms of greater solitude which do not rise to the level of actual reclusion, but those allowed to become recluses are "vetted" for spiritual as well as psychological health and maturity. The actual call to reclusion is mutually discerned with the leadership of these congregations according to guidelines established in their own proper law. In the Camadolese constitutions part of the section on reclusion reads:

By the unity of faith and charity, the recluse remains in community with his fellow monks and with all: "The Church is at the same time one in all and all in each; simple in plurality by the unity of faith, multiple by the bond of charity and the variety of gifts; because from the One come all" (St Peter Damian's letter #28 sometimes called "Dominus Vobiscum", section 11) . . .The prior is to prudently ascertain whether the monk who requests this permission has the necessary human, psychological, and spiritual maturity. 

The experience of reclusion shall be granted at first for determined, brief periods of time; however, the reclusion can be suspended when the recluse or the prior finds there are legitimate motives for doing so. The prior shall show fatherly concern for the recluse by assisting him with frequent personal visits and guaranteeing him the necessary quiet. For his part, the recluse must know he remains always united to the father of the community by obedience. Constitutions and Declarations of the Camaldolese Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict pp 25-26

In the history of eremitical life Paul Giustiniani (Camaldolese) once determined that because the Church had changed her own praxis regarding reception of the Sacraments and participation in ecclesial life solitary eremitical life could no longer be considered legitimate. Dom Jean LeClercq cites Giustiniani: [[The second kind of hermits are those who, after probation in the cenobitic life, after pronouncing the three principal vows and being professed under an approved Rule [note well the structure and formation required here], leave the monastery and withdraw to live all alone in solitude. . .Such a life. . . is more perfect than the cenobitic but also much more perilous. It permits no companionship but requires that each be self-suficient. Therefore it is no longer permitted in our day. The Church now orders us to hear Mass often, to make our confession, and to receive Communion. None of those can be done alone.]] LeClercq, Alone With God, "Forms of Hermit Life"

Instead Giustiniani called for the establishment of lauras of hermits, colonies of hermits whose individual hermitages were linked by paths (hence the name lauras) whereby the dangers of solitary eremitical life could be avoided and the benefits of community (including Rule, superiors, vows, liturgy, etc) could be shared. Centuries before, the Camaldolese founder, St Romuald, traveled around the countryside where, according to the sound of some accounts, he found "hermits" behind every bush or in every cave mostly doing their own thing without benefit of Rule, vows, or superior (mentor, director, etc). He was appalled by what he found, not only because of laxness or its similarly unhealthy counterpart in penitential rigor, but because of the individualism and eccentricity which was so very prevalent in such instances and many others. One of the primary efforts Romuald made was to bring hermits together or at the very least to establish them under the Rule of Benedict according to the example of his own life --- something which will have far-reaching consequences in the regulation of their lives.

You see there are two distinct dangers to the eremitical life prevalent throughout this history and the whole history of eremitism itself. The first is that eremitical life will be swallowed up in community life. This is largely what happened as cenobitism replaced the life of the desert Fathers and Mothers. Later cenobitism came to distrust the impulse to eremitical solitude. The second is that eremitical life will merely become an instance of individual pique, whim, distortion or delusion that separates itself off from the vision and life of the church in any sense at all, etc.

We see this in hermits who reject the necessary ecclesial dimension of this vocation and buy into a "do-your-own-thing" kind of "spirituality" --- whether they do so as progressives, conservatives, or eccentrics more generally. SS. Romuald, Peter Damian, Paul Giustiniani all dealt with both of these dangers and so has the church throughout her history in statutes established more and less locally by dioceses throughout the centuries to clarify and protect the vision of eremitical life she perceives as a gift from the Holy Spirit.. In the contemporary Western Church canon 603 is the contemporary solution to this problem codified in universal law --- at least insofar as people determine to live, whether de jure or de facto according to the church's own vision of what eremitical life means and entails.

It seems to me that those who do not seek to become canonical hermits, to whatever extent they desire to live eremitical life within the Church as true daughters and sons of the Church, will structure their lives according to the single norm for eremitical life that exists in universal law. While they may not have legitimate superiors they will have spiritual directors and pastors to help them journey safely and profoundly into the depth of their own hearts and the heart of God. They will have a few trusted friends who will confront, console, and challenge them with the truth they see in their lives. They will participate in and make integral to their lives the Church's own Sacramental and liturgical life. They will have some sort of Rule as well as an understanding of and commitment to the elements of canon 603 that pertains to all eremitical life in the Church.

Especially they will avoid the individualism so decried by the Camaldolese founders and reformers mentioned here and honor the fact that an authentic vocation to solitude depends on community even as it is cautious not to be swallowed up in it. Similarly they will acknowledge and honor the flip side of that coin, namely, that community requires solitude and the Church needs those living a solitary life. Hermits cannot be healthy or authentic without the Church nor will the Church be healthy without hermits. This too is an implication of the passage cited from St Peter Damian's letter, Dominus Vobiscum above. Paul Giustiniani says the same thing; it is cited in LeClercg's essay on "The Hermit's Vocation: Role in the Church" in Alone With God.

The Paradox of Canon 603: Structure in the Service of Life With and In God Alone

[[Dear Sister, because you are professed under a Bishop does this make you a kind of quasi religious order? Does a lay hermit have to go more their own way than a canonical hermit or do they have to do without a "middleman" like you have? Is it more a matter of launching into the unknown than with the canonical hermit?]]

Thanks for the questions. I think I know what you are trying to ask with the second and third questions but let me suggest that the answers you are seeking (and the questions you are asking in these) are a bit too black and white, too desirous of a yes or no response. Back to those in a moment.

The answer to your first question, however, is no, diocesan hermits are not some sort of a quasi religious order constituted by Bishop and hermit. They are simply religious and represent a change in the way that term is used in the Roman Catholic Church precisely because they do NOT belong (via public profession) to an Order or congregation. One of the reasons I use the term "solitary eremitical life" to describe this (and one of the reasons the Church herself uses it more and more in profession formulas of diocesan hermits) is to indicate that it is NOT a matter of belonging to or constituting a religious order, quasi or otherwise. While the Bishop is my legitimate superior and while my delegate (or any delegate really) serves in a capacity as the hermit's superior or quasi superior on both the hermit's behalf and that of the diocese, and while my vocation is both profoundly and formally ecclesial, I remain a solitary hermit whose eremitical course is charted in the dialogue between myself and God alone.

The paradox here is real and acute. Of course both my Bishop and my delegate (as well as Vicars for Religious, et al) are privileged to share in some parts of that dialogue and are responsible for keeping their fingers on the pulse of my vocation just as I am responsible to listen carefully to them, but generally there is nothing intrusive, presumptive, or overbearing in their place in this dialogue. They are actually called to and responsible for mediating God's own call as well as my own response, but for that very reason, as I understand the term anyway,  they are not "middlemen" in my relationship with God --- no more than, for instance, my pastor proclaiming the Word of God is some sort of middleman between me and that same Word. In any case, despite some overlap in common usage, I think there is a far more significant difference between a mediator and a middleman in these cases so I don't accept its use here.

This anticipates your second question. What gives me pause there  is precisely the use of the term "middleman" which makes it sound as though the vocation is not also and always a matter of what happens between the hermit and God alone. But perhaps your usage here is a consequence of my recent stress on the ecclesial and normative nature of the vocation. If so let me clarify the picture a little. While the reality of ecclesial mediation is a strong one in terms of the call to an ecclesial vocation, that does not detract from the fact that very much like the lay hermit the essence of the canonical hermit's life is the dialogue that occurs between herself and God alone. There is a paradox here, an emphasis on both/and rather than on either/or.

It is a bit like  the dynamics of spiritual direction where part of the director's primary obligation is to stay out of the Holy Spirit's way;  the Spirit, after all, is the "real" director! The spiritual director may assist a directee in her own hearkening to the Spirit in her life and will actually mediate or participate in the mediation of God's word to the directee --- even, and often especially, in her silence and listening --- but in doing this she gives the Spirit the sacred space to work! The Church mediates the call (and the hermit's definitive response) to an ecclesial vocation but at the same time this means her job is to allow God to be the source, ground, and goal of this vocation --- and therefore, to give God space to work in both the hermit's life and in her own as well! To the degree the director or superior, for instance, do this they will truly mediate God's own voice to the hermit. After all, they are not merely reporting what God says to them --- as, on the other hand, a middleman  might. Except in the most general sense they are unlikely even to know what God is saying/doing in the hermit's life at this particular moment! But of course, that is not their responsibility. Instead they are mediators and the hermit listens to the God who comes to her and to all of us in this or similar ways.

You see, with regard to your third question, every hermit's life is a matter of launching out into the unknown --- or rather, into the infinitely mysterious depths of life in God. But no one can do this without some degree of structure and/or established context. No one can do this without significant help charting and navigating their course. No one --- not even the truest mystic (and maybe especially the true mystic!) --- can do it without the mediation of the Church and her people! What canonical standing does is create a stable and legal context for this journey or voyage where shipwreck can be avoided, whether it occurs in the deep waters of contemplative prayer, is occasioned by the seduction of sirens we all too-easily mistake for the voice of God, or is (the far more likely) foundering that regularly occurs in the doldrums or on the shoals of the journey.

Because every true eremitical call is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church intended for the praise of God and the salvation of others the entire Church has a stake in each one. In and with her canonical vocations she will signal to everyone the place of the church in supporting, nurturing, and governing all eremitical vocations. The Church similarly signals especially to all hermits (both non-canonical and canonical)  that the eremitical vocation is not a way simply to do your own thing or to validate mere eccentricity --- including "spiritual" eccentricity! This is particularly important in an age seemingly ruled by individualism and even narcissism. While she does this by means of canonical standing more generally she also does so in terms of and by the existence of canon 603 itself.

Canon 603 is Normative of the Eremitical Life in the Church for ALL hermits:

Remember that the first part of this canon applies to every hermit in the Church because it defines the Church's own vision of the shape of this particular (eremitical) journey into God --- the dimensions of it, that is, that she can see and which are necessary on the part of ANY person claiming to be a serious voyager in this eremitical way: assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from those things which are resistant to Christ as well as some very good aspects of God's own good creation, the silence of solitude, a Rule or Plan of Life, the evangelical counsels, and a healthy life within the Church itself. While not every hermit will be given (nor desire or petition for) standing in law, canon 603 signals that eremitical vocations are genuinely inspired or charismatic realities in our contemporary day and age and further, that every authentic Christian eremitical vocation will be shaped accordingly and be an ecclesial reality in at least the most general sense of that term. 

What I mean is that, each one, when authentic, will be lived within the Church, be nourished by her Sacra-mental life, be fed by her Word, be sensitive to and participate to some degree or way in her missionary and evangelizing impulse (which, after all, is the very impulse of God!), and finally, CAN only exist in relation to and with the "assembly of called ones" the church is. At the same time each authentic eremitical life will involve a launching out into the unknown or at least the unplumbed depths of life in and with God.

This is, in fact, what canon 603 makes possible for both canonical and lay hermits simply by its existence within the Church! Again, it is the freedom the constraints of this canon permit whether de jure or simply de facto, that is, whether the hermit exists in law or simply in fact. What is up to every authentic hermit, non-canonical or canonical is that they allow themselves to live out both parts of this paradox in the way God calls them to. In other words, whether she is canonical or non-canonical, every hermit sharing in the vision of authentic eremitical or anchoritic life the Church has actually codified in canon 603 will also share in the this-worldly dimensions of the Church that allow such a voyage into the depths of God to be more safely made and the delusions and illusions so common to some "spiritualities" to be avoided. Neither is called to "go their own way" but rather God's --- and both are called to do so according to the vision and understanding of eremitical life the Church has codified in canon 603.

Diocesan Hermits as Hothouse Blooms?

You may remember that once I wrote a post contending with the assertion that canonical hermits were "hot house blooms" nurtured and cultivated while non-canonical hermits were wild roses trying to survive on their own without assistance, etc. In that post I listed the similarities that exist between non-canonical and canonical hermits. It might be a good idea to link you to that post here for a discussion which also takes into account the difficulties of living as a lay or non-canonical hermit but paves the way for this post as well. (Thus please see: Diocesan Hermits as Hothouse Blooms?)

Dimensions of the Ecclesial Nature of the C 603 Vocation

[[Dear Sister, I too am grateful for what you have written recently about the ecclesial and normative nature of the vocation of diocesan hermits. I was one of those who thought the emphasis on law was sort of pharisaical and I wondered why it was really necessary. Like the person who thought the Holy Spirit could just "raise up" such vocations and that canon law was unnecessary, I thought the same thing. After all you have said yourself that some dioceses tell those interested in pursuing profession under canon 603 to "just go live in solitude; it is all one needs." I guess even the institutional church can think this way! I wonder if some dioceses really believe canon 603 adds nothing at all to this vocation or is unnecessary? Aren't most of the people dealing with vocations canonists?? 

This leads me to two questions. First, do all dioceses recognize the importance of the ecclesial nature of this vocation? And second, when you speak of the ecclesial nature of the c. 603 vocation it seems to mean several different things. For sure it means more than just "of the church', right? I understand it means that the vocation is discerned by both the Church and the hermit. I also understand it means the vocation is normative. Can you describe all the things you mean by the term ecclesial?]]

Yes, sure. Let me start with the second question first. Over the course of the last few years I have described the ecclesial nature of the vocation to diocesan eremitical life in the following ways including those two primary ones you mentioned. All of them have to do, as you say, with the profound ways the vocation is "of (and for) the Church":

Dimensions of the Ecclesial Nature of the C 603 Vocation:

1) The vocation is formally and legitimately established and lived in the name of the Church. Hermits who are publicly professed and consecrated are Catholic hermits in the proper sense of that term. We also call them diocesan hermits, c 603 hermits, canonical hermits, etc. While the hermit does not "speak" on behalf of the Church she is commissioned to live her own eremitical life in the name of the Church.

2) The vocation is mutually discerned. A person does not assume it on her own nor the rights and obligations associated with it. It, along with these rights and obligations, is entrusted to her by the Church on behalf of the Church's very life as well as on behalf of the living eremitical tradition; she embraces this ecclesial trust as a part of what it means to respond to God's own call.

3) This call is mediated by the Church. Both the individual’s profession and their consecration by God are mediated by the Church through c 603 in the hands of the diocesan Bishop. Moreover through legitimate superiors this call continues to be mediated to the hermit by the Church just as the hermit's response to this call is a continuing reality mediated to and through canonical relationships and structures.

4) Canon 603 is normative for eremitical life in the Church. While not all hermits are canonical, c 603.1 describes the essence of the eremitical life as the Church herself understands and esteems it. What is generally true is that all hermits in the church measure and mature in their lives according to the central elements of this canon whether they are established in law or not. In other words the first part of the canon especially is the norm by which both canonical and non-canonical hermits shape their lives according to an ecclesial vision of eremitical life. The c 603 hermit, however, is bound publicly and legally to live a life which is consistent with this ecclesially normative vision of the solitary eremitical life "for the praise of God and the salvation of the world".

5) C 603 life constitutes a dimension of the Church’s own holiness.

6) The c 603 vocation is a public one with public rights and obligations. It implies necessary expectations on the part of the whole Church for the one professed accordingly.

7) The vocation is charismatic in the truest sense; it is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and world mediated as already noted.

8) The hermitage itself represents, as the hermit herself does, an “ecclesiola” in the language of St Peter Damian. It is an extension of the Church in prayer or worship and an expression of the same. Elements supporting this understanding include allowing the reserved Eucharist which is an ecclesial act commissioned by the Church. Communion services are extensions of the Church’s public worship as is the Liturgy of the Hours.

9) The canon 603 hermit and the Church in the person of the local Bishop are charged with protecting and nurturing not only the hermit’s individual vocation but the solitary eremitical vocation itself. Public commitment establishes and expresses this mutual responsibility. Both bishop and hermit are responsible for a living eremitical tradition whose roots began in the OT, was epitomized in Jesus' own life of kenosis (of which his 40 days in the desert is a paradigm), and continued with the Desert Fathers and Mothers, medieval anchorites, and others.

10) The lives of canon 603 hermits are themselves a ministry of the Church. While hermits pray, more importantly they ARE embodiments of prayer, and in this way represent a significant incarnation of the Church’s own faith. It is no overstatement to say that hermits exist at the heart of the Church; within the silent life of God where faith is the lifeblood and prayer the very heartbeat of the Church, hermits represent a significant instance of the Church at prayer.

11) This vocation represents a stable ecclesial and consecrated state of life. It participates in and depends upon those governing and supporting relationships established publicly in law through profession and consecration.

Do all dioceses recognize and appreciate the nature and significance of this vocation as ecclesial?

I think the answer, unfortunately, has to be no, they don't seem to. It seems to me that to say a vocation is both ecclesial and normative is to ascribe a very significant and particular kind of value to it. But some dioceses, or at least some personnel within these dioceses, seem not to esteem eremitical life at all. Partly this is a function of not understanding it or the gift it is; sometimes this stems, understandably,  from associating it with stereotypes based on kernels of truth found throughout the history of eremitical life. Here, conceiving of the vocation in terms of eccentricity, individualism, misanthropy or anti-social tendencies, a desire to go one's own way in the Church (whether as a progressive or as a traditionalist) prevent these folks from esteeming the vocation appropriately.  Partly too, I think, for some this has to do with esteeming active ministry over the contemplative life.

In all these cases, to  1) move beyond misconceptions, biases, or over-generalizations and 2) take the added step of esteeming the vocation as an ecclesial one which is a gift of the Holy Spirit mediated in and by the Church is just too big for these dioceses to accomplish. Still, it is necessary if canon 603 is to truly function as it is meant to within the Church. One of the most significant reasons for writing about the ecclesial nature of the vocation is because it is critical that dioceses (and those seeking admission to profession!) understand this vocation as a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and world. One of the reasons for treating c 603 as an essential piece of legislation and writing about its normative character from within the vocation itself is precisely so dioceses and the people that constitute them can come to recognize a vocation which is not only charismatic but contrasts sharply in every way with the common stereotypes and distortions of authentic eremitical life.

A Contemplative Moment: The Still Point

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. 

T.S. Eliot

RC Hermits vs Episcopal Solitaries, Followup

I have written recently that I had begun to think perhaps Episcopal solitaries were not always identical to Catholic hermits because the term hermit is a richer or at least a much more specific and demanding one than solitary and implies desert living and spirituality. The Rule of an Episcopal Anchorite confirmed this for me but today in response I also received an email from an Anglican solitary living in the UK. signed, ____ ,SCL (single consecrated life) writes:

[[I am an Anglican Consecrated Woman living in the UK (Single Consecrated Life; SCL).  I am sometimes referred to as a "solitary" because I live on my own, but in reality I am more like your Roman Catholic Order of Consecrated Virgins; OCV's.  I work. . . to provide for myself. . . . I was professed in the Single Consecrated Life and I've been in life vows for over 10 years.  My spirituality is Carmelite and when I am not obliged to work or go to Mass I remain in my little "enclosure", my very ordinary house and garden. (Ellipses used to maintain privacy) 

Many of those who are "solitaries" are NOT hermits.  There are quite a few retired professionals who have become SCL's and who like to think they are hermits because they live on state pensions and no longer have to work for their living!  I would say that probably only 1 or 2 out of twenty Anglican "solitaries" are REAL hermits. [These others are] People who go driving round to religious communities, the latest conferences and get-togethers and announcing they are "hermits".........!  ]]

So, many thanks for that response. It helps clarify wonderfully not only why canon 603 spells out the normative requirements of an eremitical life but why I have often commented that a lone pious individual is not necessarily a hermit. Eremitical solitude is a different animal than the solitude of  social isolation or the solitude associated with bereavement, retirement, prison, etc. While these can be transformed or transfigured into eremitical solitude, and while that solitude certainly can build on these, they must not be mistaken for it. Moreover, as a consequence of the original question, I have now been able to read some terminologically confused blogs by Episcopal solitaries who fail to adequately distinguish between being a solitary religious and being a hermit. The Roman Catholic canon 603 does indeed serve to protect a tradition and vocation; it is not merely about professing and consecrating individuals who neither can nor perhaps desire to be part of a Religious Institute. It is about professing solitary hermits, not individuals who desire to simply "do their own thing" for instance.