On canon 603 and Herding cats

[[Hi Sister Laurel, in a blog with a long article about Roman Catholic Hermits one writer notes that  "defining Canon Law for Hermits is as practical as herding cats". I think the comment was meant facetiously since the article is a positive one. The author said it was a topic he would return to but I'm not sure whether he has done that. What do you think about the comment? Is canon 603 impractical?]]

Hi and thanks for the question. I am familiar with the article you mentioned, partly because the author referenced something I wrote here on the issue of supposed drawbacks of canon 603. The article you cited is a fine blog introduction to the state of hermits in the Roman Catholic Church today and can be read here: The Hermit in Roman Catholic Canon Law. I have read other articles in the blog occasionally and I definitely recommend it. Unfortunately, I don't know either whether the author followed up on the "herding cats" comment. On one hand it certainly makes me laugh in recognition. Anyone trying to achieve consensus with even a handful of other hermits can assuredly relate. Even so I think the image is flawed. Keeping that in mind, my initial response is that the truth or falsity, the accuracy or inaccuracy of the statement really depends upon at least two things.

The first is the purpose of canonical legislation; if Canon Law is meant to create an exhaustive and detailed norm or set of norms to which every hermit must be conformed without exception or flexibility then the statement is entirely true. No such law or canon could be composed, much less enforced. Such a project would be futile. However, if canon law is meant to set up a general norm by which the movement of the Holy Spirit can be discerned and responded to in significant ecclesial ways then the statement is false. That is, in such a case the project would not be nearly so futile as the comment might suggest. The second thing upon which the truth or falsity of the statement depends is whether and in what sense we consider hermits "individualists".  I am not sure how most folks regard canon law generally, but I would be VERY surprised to hear any authentic hermit living the nuts and bolts of an eremitical life who would consider canon 603 to be an attempt to impose an unnatural uniformity on genuine hermits much less on individualists who merely want to do what they want when they want to do it. I honestly believe that any authentic hermit, whether canonical or non-canonical, reflecting seriously on the nature of canon 603 will recognize the gift it is to both the Church and world in defining the essential nature of Christian eremitical life and freedom.

I have reflected on the nature of Canon 603 in a relatively focused or persistent way for the last 10-11 years and again (in my introduction to this canon) more superficially from about 1983-1989. Today, of course, I look at it from from the inside, as someone professed accordingly, and as I have written before here (cf Supposed Drawbacks of Canon 603) I find it to be an amazing blend of certain non-negotiable elements and the flexibility (also a defining element in authentic eremitical life) which comes from the experienced hermit writing her own Rule. Together these serve the eremitical tradition and the individual hermit's authentic freedom to explore and embody this vocation in contemporary circumstances. More, because the canon understands that genuine Freedom is lived within historical constraints the Canon defines and codifies those elements necessary to allow the Holy Spirit to move and guide a hermit in her exploration of the undefinable depths of solitary life with God and to do so as part of a living tradition.

Canon 603 does not attempt to define every particular of the hermit's life. Neither do bishops nor delegates responsible for supervising the lives of diocesan hermits. To do so would "cripple" the Holy Spirit and curtail human freedom necessary for and a sign of spiritual growth rather than establishing a context which helps ensure these. It DOES seek to differentiate, I think, between individuality and any exaggerated individualism however. One of the really popular conceptions of the hermit is the consummate individualist. They are, stereotypically, the persons who eschew community,  reject peer pressure, and go their own way. They are seen as persons who march to their own drummers, who live off the grid, who are often self-centered, curmudgeonly, anti-institutional, antinomian or anarchical, and anti-social. This means that quite often we have called such persons hermits. It is a common and legitimate usage for the term "hermit" but it is not what the Church means by the term. Rather than a definition that centers on individualism, the Church recognizes eremitical life as a unique expression of the covenant life which issues in true individuality. Hermits, in ecclesial terms, are individuals who live a solitude which both fosters and witnesses to the foundational relationship with God every person IS.

Canonical Hermits MAY be (or at least begin as) individualists, but their vocation calls them to allow this to be tempered and channeled by their dependence on God and their openness to God's will and purposes within the context of the faith community we call church. In time the individualist is transformed into a contemplative individual whose heart, mind, and spirit are inspired and shaped by the Holy Spirit to reflect the silence of solitude in an ecclesial context. As I am sure I have written here many times, one of the reasons canon 603 stresses the eremitical life is lived for the praise of God and the salvation of the world is to underscore the distinction between the covenantal life of the Christian hermit with its incredible individual integrity and authentic freedom and the self-centered license or the isolation of the individualist.

This conversion from autonomy to theonomy, that is from being a law unto oneself to being moved by and obedient to the sovereign will of God in a desert context, is an aspect of what I have identified here before as the necessary and essential transition from lone individual to hermit which must precede the possibility of admission to even temporary profession. The Holy Spirit has worked in this way within the Christian tradition for two millennia and given the epidemic of ego-centric individualism in today's culture I think it is important to understand eremitism as something fundamentally different than a call to individualism or even as a call which accommodates individualism. Perhaps it is one of the rare and paradoxical ways in which God combats an individualism which drives so much worldliness and its need for reconciliation. In the case of canon 603 the church has found an effective if imperfect way of codifying the elements essential to an inspired (charismatic) and consecrated eremitical life.

At bottom the truth is that while every hermit is different from every other hermit, what it means to be an eremite in terms of canon 603 is not defined by these differences but by the significant similarities recognized and forged by the constitutive elements of ecclesial eremitical life. In other words eremitical life as understood by the Church is something individuals are formed in by the love of God through stricter separation from the world, assiduous prayer and penance, the evangelical counsels, and the silence of solitude in an ecclesial context according to a Rule the Hermit writes herself. The Canon recognizes and affirms this in a normative way.

The dynamic involved in its creation is an example of the wisdom we hear in tomorrow's Gospel lection: The Sabbath (or the law) is made for man, not man for the Sabbath (or the law) . In approaching the Church's creation of canon law for hermits we must understand that the law (canon 603, etc) is made for the sake of the vocation, not the other way around. As a result we must understand that not every "hermit" in the common (individualist) sense of the term will either desire or be able to live in this way for the sake of God and others. But then, not every "hermit" in the common sense of the term will have been called by God to human wholeness and completion via this specific route. In fact, history tells us very few will. In creating canon 603 the Church is not attempting to herd cats; instead it is attempting to characterize, nurture, protect, and govern a vocation which some relative few in humanity's immense "clowder" will embrace obediently and wholeheartedly to best fulfill God's own purposes for their lives and his Kingdom.

A Contemplative Moment: Sabbath

The Sabbath Soul

We live in a world dominated by speed and distraction, with demands for our attention at every turn. We are conditioned to approach time as a reality to be managed for optimal productivity; often we rush about our weeks with the frenzy of accomplishing and earning, worshiping the idols of egotism, pride, and greed. We are so consumed by that hunger for acquisition and expedition that we frequently forget the restorative blessing of stillness, our desperate need for rest. I speak not only of a rest from physical and emotional exhaustion --- a rest that aims to recharge us for greater productivity and speed --- but also a rest that brings us back to the center of existence, a calm that allows us to reconnect with the divine breath at the soul of All. It is a spirit that we feel when we are in tune with the rhythms of our own breath. It is the Sabbath, the seventh day.

On the day of rest we are liberated from our enslavement to multitasking, from all the electronic communication that pervades the six days of work. Unplugged from the world of commerce and the forms of connection that keep us at a remove from the living voice of the other, we are released into a zone of quiet and reflection --- a time in which the calm of solitude can find perfect balance with the community and relationship of Sabbath life. That is the true mystery of the Sabbath --- the sublime secret that so many religious people already know intimately.

On Shabbat, the world around us becomes still --- all the demands and the heaviness that we carry are released. They will return soon enough, but on Shabbat we are able to step back, to look at our lives from a protected distance, from the warm interior of sacred time. It is the twilight glimmer of the sun in descent --- the otherworldly texture of a time that is neither day nor night. The ancient rabbis called this moment "bein ha-shemashot" --- literally, "between the suns" --- an instant that stands both within the arc of earthly time and decidedly beyond it. . . .It is a time that whispers of mystery and redemption, a corridor within the hours that transports us to a new level of feeling and thought.

from The Sabbath Soul: Mystical Reflections on the Transformative Power of Holy Time

by Eitan Fishbane, PhD

Supporting Oneself with Cottage Food Operations

[[Dear Sister,
      If I wanted to support myself as a hermit here in. . . by selling food items I make here in my hermitage could I do that? I am an excellent baker and candy maker. Have you ever considered doing this? Do you know anyone who does?]]

Thanks for the question. It got me reading and asking questions in areas which are definitely new to me!

The answer is yes, you probably could try doing that but, according to my quick research, you would definitely have to jump through some hoops in order to do so safely and legally. Here on the West Coast there are cottage food operations laws in CA, OR, and WA which are very clear about what may be sold and what may not. AK also has a similar set of regulations which is less restrictive than these first three. Further, in your own state a business license followed by a floor plan of your hermitage, an inspection of same, approval of your physical set up, sanitation, food and ingredient storage (which must be in the hermitage itself, not in a garage, shed or other outbuilding), recipes and labeling approval (including the actual address of the kitchen (no PO boxes), all ingredients by weight and a notification about use of a home kitchen) must be undertaken before one is given a cottage food operation permit.

Generally cottage operations allow one to sell 'safe' foods; across the board they prohibit certain kinds of foods to be made under their norms. These are considered unsafe because of the high risk of bacterial growth, development of toxins, etc. For instance, certain fruit butters are not safe (some are allowed but have to be checked in a laboratory for pH levels etc.) and candies made with alcohol or liqueurs are considered "adulterated" and cannot be made as a cottage product. Some baked goods using liquor (rum and bourbon, for instance) can be made in some states but actually require a license from the liquor control commission (etc.) which also requires an inspection of the maker's premises. You would need to do your homework to see what is feasible for you.

Also, in all the states I looked at one may NOT sell cottage foods online (though you may advertise them on your own website if you have one); neither may you have them delivered via USPS, UPS or any other third party. What I thought was really interesting was that all the states I looked at required you deliver your products yourself  "face to face" so a relationship between you and the customer is established and s/he has the ability to speak with you about any concerns. (S/he may come to you and pick up the food but s/he must pay you directly.) So, no third party deliveries, no mail or PayPal payments allowed! Another requirement I found across the board was that in a cottage operation no interstate sales were allowed. You must sell what you make in your own state alone. This might make the entire enterprise less than feasible for a hermit --- though you could certainly set hours when you open your hermitage in a limited way to guests coming for this specific purpose!

The whole process of getting a permit, however, is relatively inexpensive. The initial inspection, approval process, business permit and license, etc costs about $200- $250 depending on the state (some are free of licensing requirements); yearly renewals are less than this. Of course in some states one needs to be in compliance with all the laws and regulations or one is subject to fines. If you have a pet -- as many hermits do -- you will need to work out ways of keeping him/her out of the food preparation and storage area. The same is true for unlicensed persons or children (which is probably not an issue for you). You will also need to allow not just for cleaning but for sanitizing the food preparation area and all utensils used. For detailed requirements check your state's "Cottage Food Operation requirements" to see what rules apply to you. CA and WA have similar norms, for instance, though they are not identical. Of the relatively few states I compared FL seems to be the least restrictive but this was just an impression.

Since you are not (or not yet anyway!) a diocesan hermit (that is, since you are not publicly professed as a Catholic Hermit under c 603) you will also need to be careful about the way you advertise or present yourself. In CA, for instance, any fraudulent claims in advertizing can lead to legal action and fines. If you wish to sell products across state lines and/or have them delivered by third parties you will need to jump through some other hoops regarding facilities, recipes, labeling, and licensing.  In that case you would no longer fall under the cottage food operations category. (Diocesan hermits who have gone non profit (501c3) no longer fall under this category either.) To determine what is necessary in such a case you should probably contact your own state's Food and Drug Administration or equivalent governmental agency. Once you get all the facts you can determine whether this is something that will work for you.

Regarding whether I have ever thought about doing this myself, the answer is a definite no. A number of monasteries and hermitages I know do this but they have separate facilities and a bit more labor than I could supply as a solitary hermit. Some have tried doing this and found the legal requirements too onerous. (This should not surprise considering some of the specifications listed above -- though these mainly applied to cottage operations.)  I do know someone who bakes as part of a cottage operation one or two days a week and who is a wealth of information both for CA and for MI. In any case, while it is something I might enjoy helping with if I were living in one of these places, it is not something I have thought of doing myself, especially with the limitations on storage space and delivery modes. Too, it would probably be neither time nor cost effective for me.

For a list of all states covered by cottage and other similar home kitchen laws as well as pertinent links to the regulations themselves check this site. Bringing Home the Baking

Sabbath: Striving to Enter into God's Rest

In tomorrow's first reading we are exhorted to try and enter into God's own rest. The basic idea is that in Christ, through his life, death and resurrection  the world has changed. Every story of Jesus' healing, exorcism, or justice-making authority witnesses to this. Heaven, which is the realm of God's sovereignty has interpenetrated this world and is accessible to us by faith.  Faith is an act of trust. It involves not only letting God grasp us but also letting go of our own grasping, controlling, and driven ways; it involves detaching ourselves from all that holds us in bondage, all that prevents us from simply being ourselves. While the Christ Event has changed reality in ways which essentially set us free from death, meaninglessness, and the fear of these which leaves us either anxious and driven or, alternately, despairing and paralyzed, we must still make choices for the new reality and for the God revealed there. In other words we must not just celebrate the victory of the past but we must let it be real in our own lives and allow God to extend God's sovereignty as we can. We focus our lives on receiving the gifts of freedom and peace which God gives us. In the paradoxical words of Hebrews we are called to strive to enter into God's rest.

One of the most powerful symbols of and means to this is an observance of Sabbath. Today we are apt to associate this practice with attending Church but we may also think of blue laws and other puritanical concerns which set unnecessary and even scrupulous constraints on the lives of many. Others will associate it with obsessive participation in professional or collegiate sports, shopping, over-scheduled playdates, etc etc. It hardly seems an important, much less a powerful symbol of freedom. But Sabbath observance grew directly out of the Hebrew's bondage to Pharaoh and the validating gods of the Egyptians. It is a central piece of the Hebrews' liberation from that and their own faith in the God who rests and gives rest.

Consider what life was like under the Pharaohs after Joseph. Fear and Greed drove the Pharaoh. The Hebrews worked under taskmasters. What they grew was stored in cities made for the purpose. The more they grew and harvested, the larger the cities had to become. The Hebrews were responsible for making the bricks out of which the cities were constructed. When Pharaoh was concerned the Hebrews might leave Egypt he required they gather the straw needed to make the bricks and he maintained the same quota of bricks. His reasoning? In this way the Hebrews would be so overwhelmed by their workload, they would not be able to consider the fundamental dishonesty or injustice (Exodus reads 'deceit') at the heart of this system.

The system fostered a demeaning mindlessness and the Hebrews were forced to define themselves mainly in terms of the dynamics of exploitation, production, etc rather than as precious individuals or even members of a family or Tribe. Especially they had neither the time nor the space to offer sacrifice to their own God nor to fully understand themselves in terms of this God. It was a life of continuous toil, not simply of the labor associated with human dignity and worth. More, it was a restless and anxious life, insecure, oppressed, subject to ever-increasing demands made not on the basis of need but on whim, pique, greed and the insecurity associated with greed. Finally, it was a life where the rich got richer on the backs of the poor who only got poorer while leisure or time to simply rest or cultivate mindfulness was associated with the oppressors, not the oppressed. It was a "Sabbathless" world.

The world created by Pharaoh should remind us of our own. Like ours it involved a market ideology of production and consumption. We live in a society where the more we have the more we want and where we are driven by peer pressure, advertising, etc to own more, use more, eat and drink more, and so forth. There are a number of symbols of this world-dynamic: workaholism, multi-tasking, mindless gaming, texting, shopping, or hoarding -- to name a few. Addiction to sport, to competition, or to always having the newest gadget are others. This dynamic even infiltrates our school system where instead of inculcating the value of wisdom or teaching to genuinely form and educate, we teach to test. Similarly we now give "advanced degrees" as a commodity. Such degrees can be bought and sold and their sole purpose in some places seems to be to make someone capable of earning more and more money and standing out from the crowd --- not being their best selves or giving back to society. In fact, this approach exacerbates the rich get richer and the poor get poorer dynamic and underscores the difference between elites and the underclass already so prominent in our contemporary culture.

Sabbath is the way members of the Judeo-Christian tradition practice standing in time as ourselves, hands and hearts open to the gift God gives. It is the way we distance ourselves from a culture that exploits, divides, and distorts us. In Judaism the Sabbath is celebrated by cultivating a host of ways of resting mind, body and spirit. No work is done, money cannot be handled without desecrating the day, families celebrate together and there is a kind of leveling in society; on the basis of Sabbath observance on the Sabbath there are no have or have nots, nor is there competition or drivenness. All stand as human beings loved by and delighted in by God. The various seductions and addictions of contemporary society are left aside as are any sources of competition, elitism, etc. Sabbath creates a society of neighbors. It is a primary way we break the chains of bondage and gain some degree of independence over the culture which pressures, defines and even alienates us from one another in every way.

Walter Brueggemann identifies it as an act of resistance to such a culture and an alternative to "the demanding, chattering, pervasive presence of advertizing, liturgy of professional sports" and other seductions "that devour all our rest time." Sabbath is the way we regain an appropriate stewardship over our world rather than exploiting it in ways which produce ever greater dysfunction and anxiety. Above all, it is a powerful way we assert our trust in the new world Jesus has made real amongst us and in the God who is its creator and Lord. By giving ourselves over in this way we participate in God's completion of the work of new creation which has yet to be brought to fulfillment. Genuine Sabbath celebration requires tremendous commitment and discipline but it is something we need to recover. After all, it is a huge piece of what it means to trust in and praise God. It is the countercultural praxis of entering into God's rest so that his will may truly be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (Reprised)

Of all the feasts we celebrate, this Sunday's feast of the baptism of Jesus is one of the most difficult for us to understand. We are used to thinking of baptism as a solution to original sin instead of the means of our initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, or our adoption as daughters and sons of God and heirs to his Kingdom, or again, as a consecration to God's very life and service. When viewed this way, and especially when we recall that John's baptism was one of repentance for sin, how do we make sense of a sinless Jesus submitting to it?

I think two points need to be made here. First, Jesus grew into his vocation. His Sonship was real and completely unique but not completely developed or historically embodied from the moment of his conception; rather it was something he embraced more and more fully over his lifetime. Secondly, his Sonship was the expression of solidarity with us and his fulfillment of the will of his Father to be God-with-us. Jesus will incarnate the Logos of God definitively in space and time, but this event we call the incarnation encompasses and is only realized fully in his life, death, and resurrection -- not in his nativity. Only in allowing himself to be completely transparent to this Word, only in "dying to self," and definitively setting aside all other possible destinies does Jesus come to fully embody and express the Logos of God in a way which expresses his solidarity with us as well.

It is probably the image of Baptism-as-consecration and commissioning then which is most helpful to us in understanding Jesus' submission to John's baptism. Here the man Jesus is set apart as the one in whom God will truly "hallow his name." (That is, in Jesus' weakness and self-emptying God's powerful presence (Name) will make all things Holy and a sacrament of God's presence.) Here, in an act of manifest commitment, Jesus' humanity is placed completely at the service of the living God and of those to whom God is committed. Here his experience as one set apart or consecrated by and for God establishes God as completely united with us and our human condition. This solidarity is reflected in his statement to John that together they must fulfill the will of God. And here too Jesus anticipates the death and resurrection he will suffer for the sake of both human and Divine destinies which, in him, will be reconciled and inextricably wed to one another. His baptism establishes the pattern not only of HIS humanity, but that of all authentic humanity. So too does it reveal the nature of true Divinity, for our's is a God who becomes completely subject to our sinful reality in order to free us for his own entirely holy one.

I suspect that even at the end of the Christmas season we are still scandalized by the incarnation. (Recent conversations on CV's and secularity make me even surer of this!) We still stumble over the intelligibility of this baptism, and the propriety of it especially. Our inability to fathom Jesus' own baptism, and our tendency to be shocked by it  because of Jesus' identity,  just as JohnBp was probably shocked, says we are not comfortable, even now, with a God who enters exhaustively into our reality. We remain uncomfortable with a Jesus who is tempted like us in ALL THINGS, and matures into his identity as God's only begotten Son.

We are puzzled by one who is holy as God is holy and, as the creed affirms, "true God from true God" and who, evenso, is consecrated to and by the one he calls Abba --- and commissioned to the service of this Abba's Kingdom and people. A God who wholly identifies with us, takes on our sinfulness, and comes to us in smallness, weakness, submission and self-emptying is really not a God we are comfortable with --- despite three weeks of Christmas celebrations and reflections, and a prior four weeks of preparation -- is it? In fact, none of this was comfortable for Jews or early Christians either. The Jewish leadership was upset by JnBp's baptisms generally because they took place outside the Temple precincts and structures (that is, in the realm we literally call profane). Early Christians (Jewish and otherwise) were embarrassed by Jesus' baptism by John --- as Matt's added explanation of the reasons for it in vv 14-15 indicate. They were concerned that perhaps it indicated Jesus' inferiority to John the Baptist and they wondered if maybe it meant that Jesus had sinned prior to his baptism. And perhaps this embarrassment is as it should be. Perhaps the scandal attached to this baptism signals to us we are beginning to get things right theologically.

After all, today's feast tells us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a ritual washing, consecration, and commissioning by God which is similar to our own baptismal consecration. The difference is that Jesus' freely accepts life under the sway of sin in his baptism just as he wholeheartedly embraces a public (and one could cogently argue, a thoroughly secular) vocation to proclaim God's sovereignty. The story of the desert temptation or testing that follows this underscores this acceptance. His public life begins with an event that prefigures his end as well. There is a real dying to self involved here, not because Jesus has a false self which must die -- as each of us has --- but because in these events his life is placed completely at the disposal of his God, his Abba, in solidarity with us. Loving another, affirming the being of another in a way which subordinates one's own being to theirs --- putting one's own life at their disposal and surrendering all other life-possibilities always entails a death of sorts -- and a kind of rising to new life as well. The dynamics present on the cross are present here too; here we see only somewhat less clearly a complete and obedient (that is open and responsive) submission to the will of God, and an unfathomable subjection to that which human sinfulness makes necessary precisely in order that God's love may be exhaustively present and conquer here as well.

"Trust the Emptiness"

There is always a paradoxical truth when we come to those points of personal poverty which cause us to feel empty or to doubt our own capacities and gifts. Namely, God dwells within us and even more, is the ground and source of life and creativity that is both our very own and yet is the ultimate gift which transcends us and our own poverty. When we feel we have reached the limits of our own self, the task of prayer is to enter into and move through our own poverty, entrust ourselves to the apparent emptiness, and open ourselves to the God who is a constitutive part of ourselves --- deeper than any personal shallowness, any brokenness, emptiness, or woundedness --- and to let him show us what is truer, more profoundly "us" and even more "real" than any of these other things. In the transcendent God who is also the deepest core of our own hearts we are always more than we ever imagined we might be.

Video, Martin Hurkens of Holland

Questions on the Relation of Committed Singleness to Diocesan Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and that the New Year will be truly blessed. 

The other day I was having coffee with a friend of mine and I was speaking with him about the call to single life (as the Church envisions it). I know that this is my calling (whether it leads to a fully eremitic vocation has yet to be seen). In the course of our conversation he said that the single vocation is a tough one because unlike marriage, priesthood and even religious life; the call to single life is very hidden and often misunderstood. It inherently includes much solitude. 

After the conversation with my friend, I was wondering if the single life has as its base the eremitic life. Could it be that it is the eremitic ideal and its pillars that are the font of spirituality for the committed Catholic single? [After all] The single life (in a Catholic sense) involves active service but also a more contemplative life of prayer in worship of God and intercession for the Church and others. In addition, single life involves much solitude and a unique hiddenness not found in other vocations (even marriage). Even though I am busy at work; at the end of the day, when everyone goes home to their families, I'm on my own (I don't think this is a bad thing by the way).  This means that a large portion of my life is spent in solitude. This solitude is a blessing as it leaves me more time for prayer and lectio than my married counterparts (or even parish priests and active religious as many of their meetings take place in the evening).

Thus, I see a great convergence between the eremitic vocation and the Christian single vocation as many of its key pillars are plentifully present in how a committed single Catholic lives his/her life (prayer, lectio, solitude, hidenness etc.). In fact, due to the large amounts of solitude I think hermits and singles might even have more in common than even contemplative or cloistered religious as they usually live in community. I would welcome your insights on this. Do you think my thoughts are correct or do they demonstrate a misunderstanding of these two vocations? Also, what special insights do you think the eremitic life can give to committed people living the Catholic understanding of the single vocation. Should committed Catholic singles look to the hermit vocation for their sustenance and spiritual baseline or touchstone? Thank you again for your important presence on the Internet! :)]]

Thanks for writing again. I hope your own Christmastide is going well and that this year is a blessed one for you. I will answer your questions referring to committed singleness (sometimes just "singleness") throughout.  I am assuming in the rest of what I say here that "committed singleness" is unmarried lay life with a private dedication to celibacy (that is, a private commitment to remain unmarried) for  the sake of the Kingdom. If I do not think of it this way I have a very hard time thinking of it as a true vocation at all. (I will hold my doubts about this for another time I think.) When I speak of eremitical life here I will mainly be speaking of diocesan or other consecrated (canonical) eremitism unless I specify lay eremitism.

Regarding your specific suggestions and questions I think you have the relationship between the two realities backwards and are also generalizing too readily from your own experience. First of all eremitical life builds on single life, not the other way around; it presupposes singleness and both specifies and transforms that in a nuptial relationship with Christ. Secondly though, there is nothing that says a committed single person needs to live an essentially contemplative life nor that they need to have lots of solitude, much less that solitude needs to be a defining characteristic of their lives. (All people need some degree of physical solitude for spiritual health, but ordinarily one's life is not defined in these terms.) A committed single may well be something of a loner, but this is not essential to the life. Further, committed single persons are not simply living eremitical-life-lite nor is their spirituality necessarily a desert spirituality at all. Your own spirituality may be such a spirituality and you may actually be called to be a hermit, but that form of life is not typical of the majority of persons living singleness, committed or otherwise. In any case, even if your own life evolves into an eremitical one, it will have grown out of your singleness, not the other way around.

What you may be sensing is that there is a similar underlying (natural) foundation for both vocations (and for any other). As I have written elsewhere, [[Solitude is the most catholic of vocations, and a specifically eremitic vocation to solitude serves to remind us of its basic importance in the life of every person, not only as existential predicament,  but as Christian value, challenge, and call.  All of us struggle to maintain an appropriate tension between independence and committedness to others which is characteristic of truly human solitude.]] ("Eremitism: Call to the Chronically Ill and Disabled", Review For Religious, vol 48, num 2, March/April 1989) Most fundamentally we are each and every one of us, no matter our vocational path, a covenantal or dialogical relationship with God. It is not simply that we have such a relationship but more that we, to the extent we are truly human and truly individuals, ARE this relationship and are called more and more to be this relationship. This is a profound paradox. In the NT Paul expressed it this way, "I yet not I but Christ in me." We are most truly ourselves to the extent we are an intimate relationship with God and bear witness to God's presence in us. We are most truly ourselves (and most truly free) to the extent God is sovereign (theonomous) in us. (It is Baptism that restores the "theonomy" we each are and opens us more fully to this sovereignty. It consecrates or sets us apart for God and in God and thus frees us to be more truly ourselves.)

Out of this fundamental solitude with its dialectic of aloneness and community grow both cenobitism and eremitism. Because of human solitude's very nature, singleness, marriage, consecrated celibacy, consecrated virginity, ordained life, cloistered and ministerial religious life, secular life and life withdrawn in and for the silence of solitude, all have their roots therein. I think you are trying to get to this underlying foundation which grounds both the eremitical and the single vocation (no matter what form the latter takes). I would also suggest that all vocations are only more or less understood --- though some may be rarer and more misunderstood of course. The existence of stereotypes of marriage, singleness, hermit life, priesthood, religious life, (consecrated) virginity, etc all argue for the truth of this suggestion. In any case, being misunderstood is not an essential characteristic of any vocation itself.

But hiddenness is an essential characteristic of the eremitical life. This hiddenness is specifically tied to anachoresis, a purposeful and deliberate withdrawal from that which is contrary to God and the eyes of others so that one might live in communion with God. This anachoresis is not simply the quest for privacy or discretion though it also involves these. (I suspect privacy is really a more apt term for what your friend was trying to describe than "hiddenness" per se. Hiddenness is hardly an essential characteristic of singleness itself or of the commitment to remain unmarried for the sake of the Kingdom.) Neither is the anachoresis of eremitical life simply about being alone or remaining unmarried. Instead it is about being alone WITH God for the sake of others including for God's own sake. The hermit lives her life, therefore, in a way which witnesses to the truth that God alone is enough. She withdraws from much of the world (including much that is very good and of God) in order to explore a deeper dimension of the world which is often ignored and these days frequently explicitly denied and rejected. It is this positive dynamic which constitutes the cause of both eremitism's hiddenness and its tendency to be misunderstood.

At bottom eremitical life is rooted in, dedicated to, consecrated or set apart by and for God and God's purposes; it is defined by and responsible for witnessing to the hidden foundational relationship which is the ground of creation and the source of every human life in its poverty and in its greatness. This relationship is the sufficient reason for human life, the thing we strive to embody and share with others. It is the source of all creativity and generativity and, in fact, is the aim or telos of creation. Moreover, just as God is the ground, source, and absolute future of all reality, our participation in this foundational relationship relates us to all others as well and witnesses to this often-forgotten truth. It could be argued that this participation is really the entire work of the hermit, the whole purpose and essential ministry of her life and that it MUST occur in the hiddenness of solitude. After all, this is an essential part of the witness the hermit seeks to give. She grows to human fullness and comes to love more fully and authentically because of a relationship which is both hidden yet pervasive in all of creation. In this way she reveals to everyone the hidden and living mystery which is the foundation of their own lives and the source of the hope proclaiming the ultimate future of the entire creation.

Your observation that committed singles may have more in common with hermits than even cloistered Religious do because these Religious live in community leads to a couple of thoughts on the nature of eremitical solitude. As I have already noted, eremitical solitude is not merely about being alone but being alone with God for the sake of others. External or physical solitude is only the tip of a very big iceberg. It is important but exists for the sake of the deeper solitude of one's relationship with God. Many people live alone, many either do not have familes or no longer have spouses. Only a minority dedicate themselves entirely to the deeper solitude of one's relationship with God and fewer still to a desert spirituality. Cloistered religious live in community but community itself is lived in order to foster and nurture this deeper solitude. While communities may certainly differ, if you have ever spent time in a Camaldolese house or some Trappist houses you will know what I mean. In the Trappistine monastery I am familiar with, for instance, while there is a strong and joyful community there, each person maintains an essential silence which protects the foundational solitude each Sister is called to and from which genuine community grows. Work and Meals mainly occur in silence. Recreation is regular and scheduled. Community is not merely about living together any more than eremitical (or monastic) solitude is merely about being alone. Community is established for the sake of God and members' life in God just as Eremitism is.

Given this analysis I am suggesting that contemplative Religious who live in community may well have a good deal more in common with hermits than with those who simply live alone even if they are committed Christian singles. With contemplative religious who share a desert spirituality and the silence, solitude and penance that implies, a significant prayer life structured similarly to that of a hermit (or vice versa!), vows which incarnate and express the same values or counsels, and a commitment to community based on each person becoming their truest selves in communion with God (something a diocesan hermit is certainly committed to in her parish and ministry), we are describing lives whose every aspect will resonate with those of the hermit.  This would be much less true of committed Christians choosing to remain unmarried; generally they share relatively few of these characteristics. There are many entirely valid and meaningful ways to live a Christian life as a committed single. Living alone, even with a commitment to remain unmarried, is simply not enough to establish the kind of affinity or kinship you have suggested exists between such a person and a hermit. All of this is one of the reasons I write again and again that a hermit is not simply a lone pious person but is instead a desert dweller.

Finally, you asked if committed singles should look to hermits as their spiritual baseline or touchstone. I would say that generally the answer is no except to the extent the hermit reminds them of the foundational solitude and need for community which exists for every person. While hermits can also remind committed singles that their prayer lives can be both profound and versatile without demanding a community with whom one can pray Office,  this reminder to foundational (and dialogical or covenantal) solitude is the main thing hermits image for others. Most singles will be called to far greater levels of active ministry, greater degrees of direct community and an essential and meaningful secularity. Hermits will serve as an adequate paradigm for very few committed singles and for those they do I would recommend they become lay hermits in an explicit and conscious way. What is true is that every vocation reminds us of a particular aspect of what it means to be a committed Christian. Committed singles generally need to draw on the lessons of every vocation including marriage --- not least (though not only) because there is no overarching picture of what such a vocation looks like nor single description of its essential nature.

I hope this is helpful.

Questions On "Craziness", Solitude, and the Possibility of Healing

[[Hi Sister, in a question you answered for Nun's Life Ministry you said that though healing could happen in solitude you thought it best that someone needing healing mainly have that taken care of before trying to live as a hermit. But you have also quoted Thomas Merton where he says that a person cannot be truly crazy in solitude since real craziness requires other people and solitude can bring one to drop pretensions. It sounds to me like these two positions are in conflict. Why should a person have their healing "well in hand" before trying to live as a hermit? Do you agree with Merton as much as you seemed to when you quoted him?]]

Thanks for the questions. You've been doing some back reading it looks like. So, let me explain what I said in the three part Q and A Sister Julie initiated. It is true that healing can certainly be accomplished in solitude. In fact, for the personal healing sometimes necessary, especially that associated with bereavement and grieving, solitude can be a powerful context and catalyst for healing. In The Values of Solitude, John Barbour notes that healing is one of five major reasons people seek solitude and, in some cases anyway,  may live in extended physical solitude. But what is also true about solitude, and especially about eremitical or more absolute solitude which is a silent solitude, is that it breaks down and does so before it builds up.

Ordinarily, with temporary or transitional periods of solitude this is relatively gentle and limited, not least because it is "controlled" by the prospect of leaving the silence of solitude. But with eremitical or more absolute and permanent forms of solitude the absence of this same prospect actually intensifies the effect of physical solitude. The consoling and edifying power of solitude and its related silence may not be experienced sufficiently to offset this or to establish the full dialectic of solitude. If one is psychologically fragile or actually ill the results can be destructive. Moreover, even if one is entirely healthy, if one does not have a mature and balanced spiritual life which is focused on and allows for the metanoia of the whole self, such solitude can open one to the more destructive portions of one's own psyche. Thus, I believe that a person needs to have their own healing well in hand before choosing to live as a hermit.

You see,  if one does not proceed in this way a couple of things can happen: First, because the "tearing down" that happens in eremitical solitude is more intense and extensive than in occasional solitude,  it may morph into psychological decompensation.  One simply may not have the psychological health to defend oneself sufficiently, much less live without defenses, in this new and relatively alien context. When this happens, because one is alone one may not really appreciate the degree of decompensation occurring. This is especially true when psychological symptoms are covered by naive readings of traditional eremitical stories and justified with simplistic notions of spirituality which are themselves unhealthy or unbalanced and destructive in isolation. Secondly, one may actually be tempted to turn in a naive way to traditional stories about early hermits and stereotypical notions of the eremitical life to justify and/or deny the decompensation.

Merton's Comments on "Real Craziness"

My sense is that Merton's references to "craziness" and "real craziness" is not so much to mental illness per se, but to the "craziness" associated with a culture which is individualistic, geared to competition, social climbing, consumerism, and the constant need to do rather than be --- among so many other "dysfunctions" of our society. These ensure the development of the false self, a concept we also largely owe to Merton, and that kind of spiritual schizophrenia is the epitome of "craziness" for a monastic.

The pressure for all of these comes from other people and our tendency to measure ourselves accordingly. In this context Merton's comments about craziness needing other people and how real craziness cannot be sustained in the face of the sanity of trees and mountains make perfect sense and I agree completely. If we interpret his meaning to refer to actual diagnosable mental illness as found in the DSM V then his comments make less perfect sense. For instance, in some forms of mental illness isolation (physical solitude) will exacerbate the illness whereas significant contact with others will mitigate it. Merton's comments would be mistaken in such cases. That said, I can't be sure what Merton's intention actually was; I don't know of another place he spoke in the same way and clarified his terminology.

Breath of Heaven, Amy Grant

Christmas extends to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Like other pivotal seasons of our faith it gives us a chance to ponder, pray with, and digest the call to enter into the mystery it represents, not only in the lives of Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon, John and Jesus, et al, but in our own as well. The dimension of reality we know as Word or Spirit, that dimension of mystery that permeates, enlivens, and grounds all of reality is ever-dynamic and seeks ways to become more articulate within creation. It seeks to "overshadow" each of us so that we may each truly become God's word made flesh, a new creation, the imago dei we are made to be.

There is an immensity in this call, an incommensurability when measured against our own weakness and personal poverty and we each meet it with a variety of emotions, concerns, and attitudes as we seek to bring our whole selves to it -- just as Mary (or so many of the other participants in the story of Christmas and Christianity) did. The journey we make to answer this call is necessary and the impulse for it comes from deep within us. But this journey is also frightening, even terrifying, because we know we are not strong enough to accomplish it all by ourselves and yet, it is our journey to make. Amy Grant's "Breath of Heaven" captures all of this so very well!!

Lay Hermits, In What sense Public or Private Vocations?

[[Dear Sister, isn't it true that a lay vocation is a public vocation in the Church? If that is so then why wouldn't living as a lay hermit be a public vocation too? I am wondering how my lay state can be a public matter but my privately vowed eremitical life cannot. Thank you.]]

Good question. Remember that public in the sense I have used the term, and the sense the Church uses it with regard to vocations,  means the assumption of legal or canonical rights and obligations; these are extended to the person (and accepted by them) through the formal mediation of the Church. The lay state, which is the result of baptism, is indeed a public vocation and state of life with commensurate canonical rights and obligations --- just as is the case with any other state of life in the Church. However, if one wants to be a lay hermit and makes private vows as part of this personal commitment or dedication (one does not have to), this portion of one's life remains private rather than public in the canonical sense; that is, it does not add legal/canonical rights or obligations to those that come from Baptism alone.

In the consecrated state of life such rights and obligations are added to those assumed in Baptism. The same is true with the ordained state. Moreover, a priest making private vows of whatever sort remains in the ordained state and the vows are a private matter despite the public nature of the priest's vocation. Also, when vows are public others have the right (and possibly the obligation) to hold certain expectations of the person in this regard. This is not the case with private vows. Further, public vows of poverty, chastity or obedience as well as being publicly (canonically) bound to a Rule of Life mean that one cannot break these vows with impunity or live contrary to her approved Rule and say, "Oh, it's a private matter! People should mind their own business!" Neither can one do whatever one likes and call it eremitical solitude or healthy spirituality. One is accountable in specific and concrete ways for the public commitments one has made.

While some dimensions of these things will certainly be private in the sense that few will know of them, one's commitment as a whole is not; one has assumed an ecclesial vocation which one is commissioned to live in the name of the church and for that reason the People of God have their own right to be concerned that such commitments are lived faithfully. Serious breaches can have ecclesial consequences which can include dispensation of one's vows and loss of the rights and obligations which are part and parcel of the consecrated state of life. (Consecration per se cannot be undone but one does not remain in the consecrated state of life in such a case.) With private vows none of this is the case. They represent just what they say, namely, a private dedication of self which builds on and may be an important specification of the public vocation and (in your own case) lay state of life. They are an added dimension to one's state of life but they do not change this nor do they become a public matter (a matter of public rights and obligations) themselves. Thus, they can also be dispensed without significant formality nor does their dispensation change the person's state of life.

Christmas Greetings From New Camaldoli Hermitage

Father Cyprian and Brother Cassian, OSB Cam sing a Christmas greeting to all friends of New Camaldoli Hermitage. Cyprian's message read, [[This is what we offer to our Incarnate Lord, Word-Made-Flesh; it is also what we offer as a gift to you, revered friends. We are always so aware of how much you support us and how much our life means to you. And you mean so much to us too.

We are all well, thanks be to God, as 2014 ends, and we pray the same for you. A thousand blessings on you and all you love, all your dear ones and everything you hold dear. A blessed Christmas and grace and peace on the new year.]] I wanted to pass this on.

Introducing "Coffee With Sister Vassa": Christmas Programs

 A few months ago a friend introduced me to the ROCOR* ryassophore** nun, Sister Vassa Larin and her weekly "coffee break"! The program (Coffee with Sister Vassa) has been a delight --- not only because of Sister's education (She has a PhD in Orthodox Theology -- specialties in historical and/or liturgical theology -- and is a Professor of Liturgical Studies at the Catholic Faculty of the University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria) but because Sister Vassa's sense of humor is wonderful --- and more than a tad understated. (Personally I suspect the ROCOR has a bit of a tiger by the tail with Sister Vassa; her more academic comments on Tradition and the way contemporary perspectives and needs (history) and revealed content (mystery) are interrelated and stand in tension with one another might tend to shake some up!)

But back to the real topic, her "Coffee With Sister Vassa" programs.  Each 10 minute program provides a wealth of information (all bite-sized and accessible to everyone) and finishes with a significant piece of spiritual wisdom.This tends to be sandwiched between stories about her "crew" which skate seamlessly between fact and fantasy recounted with Sister's trademark straight-faced expression; thus Sister Vassa invites us into a new world, a world where we suspend disbelief and simply delight in a bit of profoundly serious stuff seasoned with a pinch of the ridiculous. If you have very little time and can't watch "Coffee With Sister Vassa" look for her briefer "Coffee Break" programs. I hope you will check out more of Sister Vassa's videos on You Tube and become one of the "special group" of regular listeners Sister Vassa calls "Zillions". (For a brief introduction to Sister Vassa's sense of humor, etc, please check out the following video on St Basil the Great.)



* ROCOR stands for Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
** Ryassophore stands for "robe-bearer" and is the stage of monastic life following novitiate. As I understand it, a ryassophore nun has not yet made vows as would have already been done in the Roman Catholic Church where temporary vows follow novitiate and initiate into the juniorate,  but is tonsured and obligated to the same values nonetheless. She is a not a novice monastic. The next stage is stavrophore or "cross-bearer" and follows after some years as a ryassophore.

Merry Christmas!

It is hard sometimes to remember that the power of God's love is constantly present, constantly seeking a way to break through and overshadow us and the whole of creation. We can look at ourselves and our world and forget that it is meant to be a Sacrament which is transparent to the Ground of love, meaning, and being we know as God. Tonight we celebrate the birth of a child in whom this Sacramental Mission will be exhaustively accomplished as God comes to us in smallness and ordinariness. The truly wise of the world will bow down before him who is the answer to all they truly seek. Throughout the centuries Hymns will be sung to celebrate this One and his transparency to God. The following is one of those.



All good wishes to those who read this blog. As a gesture of my very best here is a video of one of my favorite Advent-Christmas hymns done by Chanticleer. I hope it gives you joy and invites you to say yes to the God of Grace and Beauty how ever s/he enters your life this day.

Christmas Greetings from the Dominican Sisters in Iraq

The following message is from the Prioress of the Dominican Sisters of Catherine of Sienna and on their behalf. I ask that you remember them this Christmas.

 [[“And she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.” (Luke 2: 7)


Mary and Joseph are still on their way…in an exhausting and toilsome journey…and Mary is pregnant. When they arrive in Bethlehem, Jesus is born as a stranger in his homeland. He has no place, and no one to rejoice his birth.

On their footsteps, we have set out to start a painful, hard, and bitter journey when we were forced to leave our towns.  We walked, and still walk, worried, tired, and confused. We were displaced and overnight most of us found ourselves homeless, scattered, and unwelcomed.  We were like waves of people filling the streets, humiliated and oppressed; crying for what we have left behind: our beautiful houses, our money, our belongings and most of all our dignity, and our pride.

Jesus is born in an empty gloomy crib…in foreignness. Heaven is praising: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.” (Luke 2: 14)

Where and how are we going to be born in this tough crisis in which we live? 

JESUS IS BORN –this is the Good News! Jesus is born in our life, and set His tent among the tents of displaced people. He is among us, one of us.

We fear not, He is our saviour! We join the Angels and sing with them: Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth… a saviour is born to us. He is the Christ, our LORD. Alleluia. 

Sr Maria Hanna OP
Prioress of Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena -Iraq

22nd of December 2014

May a Diocese take a "More Private Path" to Consecrating Hermits?

Dear Sister O'Neal, I am confused by something I read online about hermits and private consecrations. You have given the impression that if a Bishop receives a person's vows as a hermit, he will do so under canon 603. You have also said that c 603 is a universal law which replaces any specific diocesan statutes on eremitical life locally. Is it possible for a diocese to decide not to go along with canon 603 but to use private vows instead? What I read is this: [[ I also respect the reasons and desires for those who God wills to have very private consecrations, even if their Bishops have received their vows privately or held by designes [sic, designees] in the Diocese. God and each hermit, and each hermit's Bishop and spiritual guides, ascertain the chosen path, through God's will. . . . My Diocese takes more the private route, and this is not that they do not go along with Church law which provides for a public profession. Their view of hermit life is that of the more private path. I am in this Diocese, and I have no need to move to find one that is otherwise; both forms are valid and credible.]]

There are some inaccuracies and possibly even attempts at misdirection in what you have cited so let me try to clarify the basic choices in front of a diocese and candidates for eremitical life. First, there are four options for such a person: 1) publicly professed and consecrated (canonical) eremitical life in community (semi-eremitism), 2) publicly professed and consecrated (canonical) solitary eremitical life under canon 603, 3) privately dedicated eremitical life whether in a non-canonical community or as a solitary lay hermit, and 4) solitary lay hermit without private vows or dedication.These four options include two public eremitical vocations (one solitary and one communal) and two private eremitical vocations (one with private vows and one without). A diocese per se ONLY deals with public or canonical professions and consecrations. Private acts of dedication do NOT involve the diocese per se.

Given this basic outline, I understand the confusion you experienced. You see, what you quote makes it sound like the Church consecrates hermits and does so either publicly or privately. It seems to be saying there are two routes to consecrated eremitical life in the Church and that dioceses may choose one or the other. But this is simply not the case. If one is consecrated as a hermit (that is, initiated into the consecrated state as a hermit with an ecclesial vocation) it will ALWAYS occur at a public (that is, a canonical) rite of perpetual profession and consecration. If there is no public rite, and the vows are a private act of devotion and dedication, then one does not become a consecrated person in the church nor a religious or religious hermit. One (presumably) remains called by God to live their eremitical life as a lay person witnessing to the richness of lay life (which also specifically and assuredly resonates with the spirit of the desert elders of the 4-6th centuries) in the Church.

A lot of the confusion in the above quoted passage is rooted in the use and misuse of the term "private". While the common meaning has to do with lack of notoriety, when we are speaking of vows as private we mean vows which do not imply the extension of legal (canonical)  rights and obligations to the candidate beyond those of baptism. These would be private vows and a private act of the individual. The Church as such neither approves nor disapproves such actions per se. When we are speaking of a public profession we are referring to vows via which the Church extends additional legal rights and obligations to the candidate which are assumed by her in her profession.  Private vows do NOT involve the extension or assumption of legal rights. Public vows do. There can be lots of notoriety or none at all. This does not change the nature of the profession. Perhaps the following will make some of this clearer. Let's say, for instance, that a diocese wants to profess and consecrate someone in a country where this ecclesial action  could get that person killed or otherwise make them a target for persecution; in such a case, the rite of profession might be held privately (that is, quietly and without notoriety) but it remains a PUBLIC (canonical) RITE of profession and consecration. 

In other words. to speak of public vows is to mean the persons professed become "public persons" in the Church and representatives of the consecrated (and religious) state even if this is lived out in hiddenness. (Hermits do so with the eremitical life.) With private vows or the dedication of self (popularly referred to as consecrating oneself) no new state of life is assumed nor are the correlative legal rights and obligations which are part and parcel of a new state. The reference to "those whom God wishes to have very private consecrations"  confuses public in the sense of notoriety (or that which is contrary to hiddenness) and public in the canonical sense of "assuming public rights and obligations".

Thus a person who claims their diocese wants to use a more private route than canonical (public) profession in an attempt to suggest they choose their consecrated hermits to be more hidden has either got something wrong somewhere or is trying to obscure the difference between lay and consecrated vocations. A diocese wishing to have only lay hermits (that is, no consecrated solitary or diocesan hermits)  may well decide it is unwise to profess anyone at all under canon 603 but this means they simply allow individuals to pursue eremitical life privately and as lay persons. No diocesan approval or permission is implied in such a case. The lay hermit is doing privately what she has every right to do as a Catholic lay person. Similarly, the use of the term "private consecrations" is also mistaken. The proper term is "dedications". If a diocese decides there will be no public professions and consecrations under canon 603, then private dedications which the person makes herself are the only option. These are not consecrations in the sense that public rites of consecration are because with a private dedication one does not enter another stable state of life; again such acts of dedication are an entirely private matter which do not involve the Church in the public mediation of the call; neither do these result in the individual's profession, consecration by God, or any associated assumption of legal rights and obligations --- which are always publicly mediated by the Church.

To summarize: While some dioceses may refuse to use c 603 yet, NO dioceses as such takes "the more private path" because there is no "more private path" for a diocese as such TO take. Either a diocese will profess persons they discern are called to this canonically (publicly) or they will not do so at all. Those who are not admitted to public (canonical) profession may make private vows and live eremitical life privately. Private vows are always the act of an individual acting independently of the diocese per se. It is an important dedication of self but it is one in which the person is not initiated into the consecrated state nor does one's Bishop (or one's spiritual director) choose this for the person or give one permission for this.

Diocesan Hermits and Episcopal Visitations

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I know you were not subject to the Apostolic Visitation of US Women Religious because you are a contemplative and because you are a hermit but I was wondering, are you subject to visitations? The report on the visitation said this is a normal instrument of governance and major superiors are required to regularly visit those under their jurisdiction. Does this also apply to you?]]

What an interesting couple of questions! I suppose that yes, I am as subject to the requirement as any religious. For instance, c 397.1 says, [[Can. 397 §1. Persons, Catholic institutions, and sacred things and places, which are located within the area of the diocese, are subject to ordinary episcopal visitation.]] Since the Bishop is my legitimate superior there is no doubt he could arrange such a regular visitation any time he desired. Ordinarily in my experience, the Bishop, as a matter of practicality, does not do this with diocesan hermits. (We live alone, so it is not like visiting a house of religious or a parish or something whose members one would never see otherwise. Instead what happens is that about once a year I make an appointment to meet with the Bishop at the chancery and we talk about how I am living my life in various areas; if there are matters of concern --- not usually a problem --- those are communicated to me and possibly to my delegate. She and I, to whatever degree that is appropriate or helpful, will then deal with things and communicate the details to the Bishop.)

Remember, as I have noted before I also have a delegate who serves as a "quasi-superior"on my behalf and on behalf of the Bishop and Diocese. We meet regularly (more frequently than I could meet with the Bishop) and ordinarily she comes here to the hermitage. In this way she keeps her finger on the pulse of my life and helps me to be sure I am living it well. Even so,  I have never been "visited" by the Bishop nor do I tend to consider my delegate's meetings with me here "visitations." Those are, to my mind, an altogether more formal matter --- though while formal, ordinary visitations are also usually truly like the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth. The point is that while the Bishop could decide on a formal visitation, in the case of a diocesan hermit there are other more practical ways to achieve the same results and deal with the same concerns. In far flung dioceses it is pastorally and administratively important that a Bishop gets to all the religious houses, parishes, etc, so he really knows his own diocese and those who make it up. The regular episcopal visitation is a significant part of the way this is achieved. Because a diocesan hermit's legitimate superior IS the Bishop he will already tend to know her and see her regularly making a visitation less necessary.

A few Thoughts on the "Final Report"

So, the Final Report on the Visitation of Apostolic Religious Women in the US has been published, a press conference held, the positive parts of things emphasized --- especially what women religious made of the really awful fact of the Visitation and the terrible assault on their fidelity and lives of generous service it represented. I could not have been more impressed with Mother Clare Millea and the job the visitators did under her direction despite the roots of and stated reason for the Visitation --- at least from the stories I have heard. Neither could I have been more impressed with her presentation yesterday (not least for the solidarity evidenced) nor that of Sister Sharon Holland either. Both were trying their best to focus on the positive, to build bridges, to foster reconciliation. They were, to put it frankly, doing what women religious have been doing or trying to allow God to do in the face of this CICLSAL "action" right along: namely, allow God to bring good from evil, life from death. and meaning from senselessness so that everyone can move forward with their real mission and lives. Moreover, they were doing it together. But despite the concerted and determined effort to put this behind the Church and get on with the business of proclaiming the Gospel in word and deed, I wonder if I am the only one who felt dismayed by the disingenuousness of parts of this report?

One example. The body of the report begins: "Visitations are a normal instrument of governance in religious life. Major superiors are required to regularly visit those religious under their jurisdiction as an essential part of their loving service of their brothers and sisters. In addition, the Apostolic See regularly authorizes Apostolic Visitations, which involve the sending of a Visitor or Visitors to evaluate an ecclesiastical entity in order to assist the group in question to improve the way in which it carries out its mission in the life of the Church." Well, yes. This is true as far as it goes. Even so, is anyone under the impression that this visitation was a normal instrument of governance, an act of loving service carried out in a regular (and therefore mutual and anticipated) manner? Of course it was not; it was not "this kind" of visitation! So why begin in this way unless one desires to obscure the facts and, perhaps, justify otherwise unwarranted actions? This visitation was an Apostolic Visitation, one supposedly regularly authorized by the Apostolic See to "evaluate and assist in the improvement of mission". But that was hardly the reason this Visitation was undertaken nor does it do justice to the nature of such visitations in the history of the Church; these are ORDINARILY occasioned by serious problems in and even malfeasance or infidelity within the organization visited.

Similarly, the report speaks of the visitation as a caring, respectful process of support undertaken like the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, a sister-to-sister dialogue. But in the Scriptures both Mary and Elizabeth are uncertain of what is happening, what the "big (Divine) picture" really is. Of course they know that God has intervened in their lives, the Spirit has overshadowed both of them in different ways and the result is new and prophetic life, but what is occurring is also a new thing and the plan of God is still hidden from them. They come together as peers celebrating a mysterious fruitfulness which awes and overjoys them both; they meet as women who TOGETHER will discern and more completely commit to what God is up to in and through them and through the new life each one carries.

While there were moments in which Visitators did indeed learn from the institutes they visited, and while bridges were built between the Sisters whose lives were being examined and those doing the examining as well as between the Sisters themselves, the process was hardly analogous to one between two women (or peers) both of whom were collaboratively seeking the plan of God in everything. Moreover, no one aware of the way in which the Visitation came about can honestly speak of its initiation as motivated by respect or "caring support". Sisters and their missions (along with their commitment to Vatican II and all the difficult and demanding reform undertaken in its name) were questioned, maligned, and condemned.

If the Visitation was truly transformed into more and other than this it was through the fact that 1) the Sisters/Congregations visited refused to allow themselves to be victimized and spoke transparently from and for their own profound faithfulness and integrity while 2) Visitators sought to make of the process (or allowed it to become) something other than the initiators originally envisioned. A third factor is, of course changes in CICLSAL and the Vatican itself which fostered a less authoritarian approach to the matter. So, to some extent the final report is a sign of where we are today; it indicates there might be a commitment to truly DIALOGUE with Sisters BEFORE taking unilateral action to search for evidence to support an already decided verdict of infidelity and betrayal. It surely indicates a kind of peace (or truce) between the Vatican and contemporary women Religious along with a desire to proceed differently from this point on. For this we should be profoundly grateful and celebrate.

Still, as an ending or "resolution" it is inadequate at best. What are we to think of the claims by the instigators and their supporters that Women Religious had essentially gone off the ecclesial rails, that they were more committed to radical feminism than to Christ, that through their rampant secularism they are responsible for the awful decline in vocations and diminishment of many institutes, and so forth? I suppose these matters will be covered in the private letters going to congregations which raised concerns! (The report did devote one or two sentences to this ominous fact.) It was refreshing, of course, to hear this Vatican dicastery plainly admit the huge number of vocations in the 50's and 60's was anomalous or to hear a moderated reference to (the new) cosmology instead of a fearful and theologically unnuanced rant, but what of the accusations made against most congregations of Women Religious as a whole? The supposed "finality" of this report begs the question. Were the accusations (along with all the time, expense, trauma and heartache this "unprecedented" Visitation involved) justified or are abject apologies warranted?

Perhaps today's report and press conference is a beginning point, a place to start. The invitation to do so is present in every paragraph of the report and in the comments of those representing CICLSAL and the leadership organizations of Ministerial Women Religious. Pictures of Pope Francis and Sisters Sharon Holland, Clare Millea, and M Agnes Donovan marking this day image a new tone and direction. Meanwhile, the manifest desire to move forward on behalf of the whole Church is undoubted on all sides. The Gospel imperative to do so is equally clear and compelling. However, if there is ever truly to be dialogue between Women Religious and Vatican dicasteries like that between Elizabeth and Mary, if the Church is truly to move forward from this point, the fact that the report obscures the Visitation's own origins, motivations, implicit and explicit accusations, highhandedness, and the fundamental disrespect which occasioned it is not something we can wisely, prudently, nor in genuine humility or charity, forget or ignore.

Report on Congregations of US Women Religious

The Vatican's report on US apostolic congregations of women religious was presented from Rome today. The press conference began at 11:30 am on the 16th Roman time. That was 2:30 am here at Stillsong and 5:30 am EST. The actual report can be found at: Final Report on the Visitation to Apostolic US Women Religious. While generally very positive one commentor said there were barbed criticisms therein.

In the press conference itself Mother Mary Clare Millea stressed several times that every religious institute will find things they can improve on and  eschewed any tendency to divide congregations along leadership conference lines. She was visibly moved by the pain the visitation had caused so many Sisters and overall gave a sense of solidarity --- one Sister among other Sisters. Sister Sharon Holland also spoke of the positive experience the visitation became as the visitators approached congregations with an open, sensitive, and listening tone. All were, Holland said, able to regard one another as Sisters (or fellow religious). Sister M Agnes' presentation struck a somewhat different and, I think, lamentable tone as she focused on the "essential elements of religious life" and spoke of the hope for the future of religious life CMSWR congregations represent. While it was understandable and appropriate she would speak of the CMSWR experience of the Visitation, the remainder of her comments and their entire thrust struck me as unnecessarily competitive, self-serving, and divisive.