On Woundedness, Healing, and the Vocation to Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, When you write about the inner work you have been doing and the healing it has caused it makes me wonder if you are thinking of leaving your vows as a hermit. I am not quite sure how to ask this but you have written that hermits need to be well to make vows. Do you still hold this? Were you well when you made your vows or did you become a hermit because you were not well? (Please don't get me wrong. I love your blog and I wouldn't have thought of asking about this except for your raising the issue yourself!!!) You have also said that with this inner work you have come to stand in a place where you have never been before (I think I got that right) so could this mean you might be happier doing active ministry and not living as a hermit?]]

Really important questions. Thank you for them and don't worry, I think I understand why you asked them. Thank you also for loving my blog; it has grown into something I never foresaw and most of the time am rather proud of. Let me begin my response by saying I think you may have missed a recent post I put up on "Creating the Heart of a Hermit" (that's  not the exact title). In that post I affirmed that in the work I have been doing what became clear to me was that God has been preparing me for this vocation throughout the whole of my life. By that I don't mean that God planned the events which tended to isolate me or keep me feeling profoundly alone (I could never love or serve such a God), but rather, that God was continually present, unceasingly calling me by Name to live freely and fully in communion with (Him) and loving me in a way which empowered me to realize the potential God endowed me with.

The movement of God in my life was constantly about the transformation of isolation into authentic solitude and I grew to love solitude as an expression of community even if it is rarely understood in this way by non hermits. In other words, God does not will isolation but solitude is one form of the redemption of isolation, a redemption marked by reconciliation with one's deepest self, with God and with others. It is marked by the healing of woundedness; as one grows in what I refer to in the language of canon 603 as "the silence of solitude" so too one may experience deeper healing and the call to this. Thus, I believe that my heart IS the heart of a hermit and that this heart has been formed both implicitly and explicitly over a period of almost seven decades by the love of God. In other words, I am not leaving my vows or this life. I am called to it by God through the mediation of (His) Church and I am surer of that today than I was even on the day I  made definitive profession.

But this leaves some of your thornier questions untouched, doesn't it? Let me give them a shot. First, the questions about wellness. What I have said in the past is that while the environment of the hermitage allows personal healing work to be undertaken it is better to take care of such matters before making any public commitment. I have also written that eremitical life is not the life for folks with serious mental illnesses, especially those with thought disorders or disorders with religious ideation. But the fact is that many people may function very well, have sound spiritualties, well-developed theologies, and be essentially well despite deep woundedness from this or that trauma. Their woundedness may be the basis of their turning to God long before they learn faith or the love of God. It may also be a major source of their capacity for compassion and service or ministry. I believe this describes my own journey to and within eremitical life --- I was profoundly wounded but essentially well as well as capable of and committed to a growing wholeness and holiness in the silence of solitude.*** It is important to remember that in Christianity we refer to wounded healers and a Divine power made perfect in weakness for a reason! We proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and we know that this good news can ONLY be truly heard and embraced by those who have come to know their own sinfulness and/or woundedness.

However, I am not talking about serious mental illness when I refer to woundedness and eremitical life specifically and I continue to believe those who have serious mental illnesses should ordinarily not be admitted to profession or consecration as hermits. But I do believe that some persons may be profoundly initiated by their woundedness into both the physical isolation which is central to eremitical solitude and the yearning for the love of God which can help redeem and transfigure isolation into authentic solitude. When this happens such a person may find that they are well-prepared temperamentally and perhaps  psychologically if not in other ways (intellectually and spiritually, for instance) to embrace a call to eremitical life so long as that life is well and competently directed and the person's commitment to growing in wholeness and holiness are strong. Remember that Thomas Merton rather famously is reported to have said that "Hermits are made by difficult Mothers" and his own youth and adolescence were marked by significant loss and aloneness. The result was a sense of existential emptiness  --- wonderfully chronicled and analyzed in Gunn's Journeys into Emptiness --- which, through long formation, was transfigured in his monastic and eremitical life into a solitude defined in terms of communion, love, and remarkable fruitfulness.

One of the reasons eremitical vocations must be carefully discerned over a period of time and require recommendations by longtime spiritual directors, Vicars for Religious, pastors and others, sometimes including psychologists and physicians, has to do not only with the eccentricity of the vocation and the rarity of someone being meant to live a fully human life in the silence of solitude, but with the need to be sure the person's capacity for living this vocation in a healthy and fruitful way is certain. This was one of the first questions my own diocese and Vicar had to ask when they began considering professing me or anyone else under canon 603. Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF (Vicar for Religious and Director of Vocations at the time) travelled to New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur with another Sister to question the prior about this particular question: What did the Camaldolese look for in discerning candidates who could live healthy eremitical lives? Every diocese that has proposed to profess anyone under c 603 has had to deal directly with the same question, not because eremitical life is unhealthy but because it is extremely rare and eccentric.

Personal woundedness can cut two ways: it can make a person absolutely unsuitable for this vocation and require they discern a different call which is really their personal way to wholeness and holiness, or it can actually shape a person's heart and psyche in ways which would then make this call a gift of God  that is especially tailored to the person's fulfillment in Christ and the context for a journey to genuine wholeness and holiness. Which way the person's woundedness will cut takes time to become evident; it will need ongoing work with a director, the discernment of a number of qualified people, and commitment to the life itself (prior to vows as well as thereafter) to reach clarity. Those who are dismayed that the time frame for becoming a diocesan hermit is long and individualized, or that it requires significant evidence of the candidate's capacity to make the commitment required and to thrive in light of this commitment (something evident with temporary vows in those eventually admitted to perpetual profession) probably have not adequately appreciated the various reasons for and types of solitude, or the distinction between being a hermit, especially one living eremitical life in the name of the Church, and being a lone individual who is pretty much simply "doing his/her own thing".

I think I have answered all of your questions. If I missed something, or if my responses raise more questions for you please get back to me. Your questions were really excellent and drew from several of my posts or positions written over a period of time; I enjoy responding to those kinds of queries and usually see no reason at all to take offense. For the most part they help me come to greater clarity on things I might never consider directly on my own, so again, thank you. I really want you to feel free to follow up if that is necessary.

*** when I speak of essential wellness here I am not speaking about physical health. As readers tend to know, I have struggled with chronic physical illness my entire adult life. This was a factor in my discernment of eremitical life but was not the defining element. Today it is even less influential in regard to my vocation while remaining something I struggle with. Many diocesan hermits have similar concerns with health issues and these may have played a part in discerning a vocation to solitude rather than to apostolic religious life; even so, none of those I know became hermits because of illness. Instead illness may have been a large part of creating a desert context which intensified or sharpened our search for God just as it deepened our meeting with God and our embrace of the gratuitous love offered to us in this "wilderness."

Choose Life, Only That and Always (Reprise)

When I was a very young Sister, I pasted the following quotation into the front of my Bible. It was written by another Sister, and has been an important point of reference for me since then:

Choose life, only that and always,
and at whatever risk. . .
to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere
passage of time,
to withhold giving it and spending it
is to choose
nothing. (Sister H Kelly)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Am I Doing for Lent?

[[Hi Sister, I wondered what you are doing for Lent. Thank you.]]

Hi and thanks for the question. I seem to get this question most years and I am never really happy with my answer. That's because my choice during Lent is to do something which impacts on the whole of my life in solitude rather than doing one extra thing here or there; when I try to explain this it sounds complicated when it is really not. So, I am going to try again and point to a few things I am doing during Lent. I hope it is helpful.

First, I am continuing the inner work I began on June 1st. We have reached a new stage in this I think and it will require more writing, journaling, drawing, and other work on my part. In particular I want to work on a timeline of the work we have done over the past nine months which is sort of a special project. It will allow me to revisit areas of healing and growth, deepen these if necessary (places requiring healing often need to be revisited, sometimes many times) and generally integrate more fully the work we have done during this time. This is an intensification of work I do anyway but some parts of it will be new and Lent seems like a good time to be sure I am fully on track with this; in this way I think in the following months we may move forward even more fruitfully. This work will impact all other parts of my life (work, rest, prayer, parish life, other lifestyle issues) so this is the most far-reaching thing I will do this Lent.

Second, I am rewriting my Rule in part. I did a more significant rewrite several years ago but parts of it need to be revised and one critical section needs to be added. This means I will be spending more time studying, reflecting on, and praying about a couple of sections of the Rule, especially stricter separation from the world and on the nature and praxis of the hiddenness of the solitary eremitical vocation. Some minor work needs to be done on the section on the diocesan delegate and probably on a few other sections but those will not require the same kind of preparation or attention. This is an evolving vocation and I am growing in it as well. Rewriting sections is something which is natural every few years (5-10) or so but attention to my own growth is what drives such a project.

Third, I am spending a week with a Sister friend at her congregation's house in Tahoe next week. We have done this before and the time, though part of my friend's Spring break (she teaches math at Dominican University) usually serves much like a retreat. While there will be time for recreation in the afternoons, mornings tend to be spent together doing our own work and praying as we each need. (I haven't decided which project I will work on here; besides my Rule I will bring materials for two other projects, one for something I hope to offer my parish and one for dioceses on canon 603 and formation of hermit candidates. I also have some violin parts to learn --- glad I have an effective practice mute!! The house is not a large one!)

We each "fend for ourselves" for breakfast and lunch and though we are usually together, mornings and afternoons tend to have a more solitary flavor. Evenings begin with shared prayer, daily readings, and Communion and then centers around dinner in front of the fire talking. We tend to continue this until we crash. (We ordinarily have wine for dinner and my own tolerance is slight so I am apt to crash first!) Since I am not much of a cook and my friend is a fantastic one (she has a genuine "rep" in this!) she will do all the dinners this time (I may make soup one night) but she will also make me her sous chef and teach me (a little of) what I don't know! That's exciting and a little scary. I got a lot of flak from readers the last time I wrote about going on a similar trip ("What do you mean you're a hermit going on vacation --- and during Lent???!!!" " How dare you call yourself a hermit???!!!") so I hope that is not repeated! For me this week tends to be both retreat and vacation; it is one of shared solitude and it is extremely life-giving; it should help set the tone for the rest of Lent.

Fourth, I am continuing reading in a couple of areas. The first is on the gift of tears. The second is Andre Louf's book Tuning into Grace which is on continuing conversion. (Both of these are focused on metanoia and tie into the work I am doing with my director as well. The reading is meant to support this work and help extend it where that is possible.) The third is something I always reflect on during Lent, namely the Theology of the Cross. I am reading NT Wright's  book, The Day the revolution Began --- something I began a couple of months ago and got away from. The way the cross works generally and the way it works in my life specifically effects every part of my life.

In my original interview regarding admission to perpetual eremitical profession with Archbishop Vigneron, he asked me about my favorite Saint in a kind of ice-breaker question. (We had only met briefly at my parish when he made sure I was on his calendar.) I said Saint Paul was my favorite and then explained the place of his theology of the cross in my life; I also found myself babbling a bit and saying, "If I could spend the rest of my life coming to understand his theology of the cross I would be a happy camper!" Well, that has not changed over the last ten years; it has only become a clearer need and stronger desire. This too ties into the inner work I have been doing and may lead to some writing or drawing which illustrates this period of my life.

Mainly though, in all of this I am doing what I always do while paying special attention to how the inner work changes things. It is all about continuing to become the person God calls me to be and living my life with greater fullness and integrity. Lent seems to me to be a period where we focus even more specifically on conversion  (the change of our minds and hearts in ways which allow them to reflect the mind and heart of Christ) and responding to our vocations (responding to Christ's call) with new and renewed vision; we do this, I think, so we can celebrate the victory over sin and death achieved in Jesus' death and resurrection in greater depth and joy. We do this so we can live (fully embody or incarnate) the Gospel of God in Christ. That has been the purpose and thrust of the work I have undertaken these past nine months too so in some ways this Lent is the period where I focus on consolidating what has occurred there so that I can approach Easter and, like the whole of God's creation post-resurrection, I can truly be "in a place" I have never been before.

A Contemplative Moment: On the Essence of Spiritual Direction

 

To “listen” another’s soul
into a condition
of disclosure and discovery
may be almost the greatest
service that any human being
ever performs for another.
 

by Douglas Steere in

 Gleanings, A Random Harvest

New Camaldoli Hermitage Requires and Requests Assistance

I received the following email this evening from the Prior of New Camaldoli Hermitage. Because of some really terrible storms here in California New Camaldoli has been particularly badly hit and are cut off in a number of ways. They are requesting aid. The need is real, the cause a good one. Please read the following and help if you can!

 

thanks,

Sister Laurel, Er Dio

 

To our community of oblates and friends, far and wide:

 

as you have read in the news, Big Sur has been hit by a series of historic winter storms that have devastated the communities and highways of this beautiful coast. The Hermitage has suffered great damage to our road as well. Because of highways blocked by slides and damaged bridges, the monks and staff are cut off from normal deliveries of supplies, and we have had to close our doors to guests and visitors. Our main avenue of supporting ourselves has been taken away for the near future.

 

We firstly and most importantly ask for your prayers: prayers that those whose lives have been altered by these storms will have the courage and heart to carry on; prayers that the crews working feverishly to repair broken highways will be safe and not lose hope as slides continue to rain down; prayers that we all have the faith and courage to fulfill God's will, and use this catastrophe to grow in love and support of each other and our environment.

 

Secondly, we ask for any financial support you may be able to afford and to spread this request to your network of friends and family so that we can overcome the financial and physical damage done to the Hermitage by these storms (which are not over yet).

 

This winter damage is turning out to be the single biggest challenge to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in its 59-year history. We are the keepers of this beautiful and sacred land and hermitage, and now more than ever before we need help to bring it back to safe and operational condition. We are stranded, between broken bridges and broken highways. Our phones do not work. We have limited fuel and even more limited funds. But we are not broken in spirit; we refuse to leave, to give into these storms, while there is still a chance to remain and repair damages.

 

If you can help financially, please visit our disaster relief site athttps://www.gofundme.com/Newcamaldolirelief

Your donations are tax-deductible. Your support, in any form, is gratefully received. Please consider passing this message on to your networks. And blessings to you.

Monks and friends of New Camaldoli.

Feast of St Peter Damian (reprise)

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

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

Or again: [[Just as in Greek man is called a microcosm, i.e., a little world (cosmos) because in essential physicality the human being consists of the same four elements of which the whole world is made, so also each one of the faithful [including hermits, Peter Damian's special interest in this letter] is a little Church (ecclesiola), as it were, because without violating the mystery of her inner unity, each person also receives all the sacraments that God has given the universal Church. . .]] Dominus Vobiscum, Letter #28 sec 25. (Emphasis added)

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection, Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell have functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

Oakland Civic Orchestra: Winter Set: The Bach Double

Every violinist in this (or any) orchestra has played this double violin concerto (universally known simply as "the Bach Double") --- and usually more than once so one plays both first and second violin at some point. Usually it is one of the first concerti violinists learn once they have moved beyond first to third and fifth positions. We don't all get to play it with an orchestra but we all tend to get to play it with our teachers or a mentor or friend at some relatively early point in our violin careers. And yet, like all such things it is an incredibly demanding concerto, not technically perhaps, but emotionally and musically. When violinists return to it as adults (if they have played it as younger students) they find a "new" piece entirely. What is most striking is the way the voices are so incredibly balanced as well as how they echo, blend, intertwine, and hand off passages. The second movement in particular remains the most beautiful I know for two violins.

When I prepared this movement with my own teacher --- after we had gotten all the fingerings and bowings down (for I had not played this as a younger student so it was all new) --- we moved onto the task of  "making music" of the notes. The approach reminded me of some of the dimensions of spiritual direction and/or growth work. First we went through the entire movement deciding on what emotion we would like each passage or section to express, what emotions or feelings the passage evoked in us and those we wanted to evoke in listeners, where it changed in intensity and how abruptly, what it changed to, where we were in tension with one another, where in union, and so forth. Though the musical term for much of this is "dynamics" our vocabulary was first of all that of feelings and nuances of feelings. Then we went through the music again and, as we stopped at the places we had noted emotions, each of us privately made a note about some memory which clearly evoked those feelings for us. The memories remained private but the awe or tenderness or pain or determination --- or whatever it was we personally poured into this music and expressed through it was communal; the intimacy of the experience was and still is hard to describe. (Check the looks exchanged by the two soloists at the end of the third movement in the above video; through all of their own rehearsals and especially in this performance Christina and Thomas have shared something both transcendent and ineffably intimate. They are not merely demonstrating that they are relieved or pleased with the technical performance --- though both of these might also be true.)

At every point my teacher and I had to listen and listen profoundly in attempting to interpret this piece of music --- not only to be faithful to the truth Bach captured there in the manuscript itself, but to our own hearts and the hearts and voices of one another as we attempted to come together in a single unified performance. a single unified heart and voice. In the language of the Camaldolese we were "alone together" in this amazing process.  This was one of the most transcendent experiences I have ever had apart from formal prayer periods --- and one of the most potent experiences of the paradox of solitude in community.  In  some ways I am sure my own sensitivity to the communal nature of eremitical solitude is formed or at least heightened by my experience of learning and playing this concerto.

______________________________________________

A note on the video: In the performance by the OCO and soloists Christina Owens and Thomas Chow you might note that Christina is playing in the Baroque style as violinists would have played Bach's music. She uses little or no vibrato creating a characteristic sound. Thomas tends to be using a more contemporary style with less than usual vibrato but still using it in many instances. Both are also using modern violins and modern bows rather than Baroque instruments or bows. Finally the orchestra is taking their cues by attending to the soloists; there is no conductor. I can't remember another time OCO has played a piece in this manner --- also pretty typical of the Baroque approach to string orchestras and soloists.

Followup Question on "Canonical Obedience"

[[Hi Sister! In your last post on canonical obedience are you saying that those with canonical vows are no longer free in the sense other Christians are free? If canonical vows mean one is no longer called to Christian freedom then why should anyone desire to make canonical vows? I am sure I must've misunderstood you somehow!]]

Thanks for this latest question! I tried using the phrase, "qualified but undiminished" to indicate I was not speaking of Christian freedom versus something else. Instead I was trying to describe an expression of Christian freedom that differed from expressions linked to the baptismal state and bonds alone. Remember that Christian freedom is always the power to be the persons we are called to be and it is that in spite of and sometimes even through the constraints which limit our lives. That is true whether one lives one's life in terms of baptismal bonds alone or whether one embraces additional canonical bonds. The essential point is that those admitted to canonical vows, to the public rights and obligations of such vows, are called to the same authentic freedom as any other Christian. However, they have participated in a mutual process of discernment and been formally and publicly admitted to a profession and consecration which involves elements defined by canon and proper law which further specify their baptismal commitment and the shape of their freedom.

We might consider these elements to be constraints on the individual's authentic freedom but this is not so. Because the Church herself along with the candidate has mutually discerned  the presence and nature of the call involved, both Church (hierarchy or congregational leadership) and the one petitioning to be admitted to public profession and consecration have determined as best they are able that such admission actually serves the candidate's authentic (Christian) freedom. While discernment processes may sometimes be mistaken it is critical that we understand the point of mutual discernment in ecclesial vocations is the determination of what is truly and Divinely ordained as a source of freedom for the candidate and a gift of the Holy Spirit to and for the whole Church. Private vows may be both or neither but this is not ascertained by the Church because such a dedication is an entirely private act. Even when such private vows are both a source of freedom for the person making the vows and a gift to and for the Church, the private nature of the act means this cannot be adequately discerned or celebrated --- much less extended to others in what must be a mutual act of discernment.

For some the constraints of public profession, canonical structures like vows, a Rule and constitutions, canonical relationships like legitimate superiors and congregations or communities along with the public expectations associated with these will really constitute an impediment to authentic freedom. For the one called to these things they will instead help to create the space for the perfection of authentic freedom and true selfhood. My own life, for instance, is constrained in many significant ways by the requirements of canon 603 (the silence of solitude, stricter separation from the world, etc.) and my public profession and consecration; at the same time these constraints generally create the circumstances necessary to empower me to be the person God calls me to be. Should I have moments when I doubt this is true I can fall back to some extent on the discernment of the Church and my relationships with legitimate superiors for reassurance or encouragement. This also means, however, that should I begin to seriously question if I am insufficiently free in this way or that, I will need to discern whether I am perhaps mistaking license for authentic freedom in the given instance and what I need to do at this point in order to embrace authentic freedom.

Another look at Canonical Obedience

Several weeks ago or so I was asked about a private vow of obedience that was described as one of "canonical obedience" and I wrote that this was an incoherent usage, an usage which literally "does not hold together or cohere" when applied to private vows. There is such a thing as canonical obedience. It is obedience professed and rendered generally and ecclesially meaningful according to specific canon laws. It is obedience defined by and associated with certain canonical rights and obligations which apply to those admitted publicly to canonical vows but not otherwise. On the one hand one may make a private vow of poverty which does not bind under penalty of canon law and which does not share the same rights and obligations as a public vow, for instance, or on the other hand, one who is admitted by the Church through various canonical avenues, may make a canonical (public) vow which obligates in specific ways under penalty of law. Of course canonical vows are also protected and nurtured under law; they are supported by other canonical structures and supervised by legitimate superiors because they are public and not private bonds. Meanwhile, legitimate superiors are also bound by canon (and often by proper) law in specific ways to supervise those under their authority by virtue of these persons having made and been allowed to make canonical vows in the legitimate superior's hands.

I don't think this is hard to understand: those who make canonical vows are bound by (additional) canon law(s) in ways those who make private vows are not. Neither do the canon laws applying to such things apply to most Catholics. There are sections of the Code of Canon Law which apply to all baptized persons (cc204-231 and sections of the code on sacraments, on liturgy, etc.) but there are many more that apply to more specific segments of the Church: to clergy, to the married, to institutes of consecrated life and in some ways to canonically consecrated hermits, to consecrated virgins, to the teaching office of the church, etc, etc.  Not every section of the law is of interest much less do they actually apply to every person in the Church. So imagine my surprise when the person who claimed a private vow of obedience was one of "canonical obedience" wrote the following:

[[A hermit colleague was upset by my mentioning that I render canonical obedience. Yes, I do. Any practicing Catholic ought render obedience to the various and multitudinous Canon Laws developed over the years. At least we ought to try just as we try to be obedient to civil laws on the books. Why not? The inclusion of my being obedient to my bishop in whatever diocese I may reside and to obey canon laws should not be a source of upset to others. Rather, we should rejoice at our human and flailing attempts to canonical obedience but even more so to obedience to Jesus' precepts, particularly that of God's Law of Love.]]

Of course "canonical obedience" does not mean simply being obedient "to the various and multitudinous Canon Laws developed over the years" (were that even possible or reasonable). It means being bound by the specific canons applying to those admitted publicly (i.e., canonically) to a vow of obedience. No more, no less. Those with private vows do not owe and are not bound by the canons applying to those with canonical (public) vows anymore than those publicly professed as religious are bound by the canon laws applying to marriage or vice versa. For that matter diocesan hermits are not (generally speaking) bound to obey canons applying to priests, or even all of those canons which apply to religious. Similarly, apostolic religious (again generally speaking) are not bound by canon 603 any more than they are bound by the canon law that applies to priests, those that apply to married persons or those that apply to bishops, to theologians, etc., etc. 

Beyond the issue of canon law per se, every Catholic owes obedience to their diocesan bishop in a general or Scriptural sense of the term. This means they are required to listen to their bishop, to consider what he has to say and to act in ways which honor what he teaches and wills just as they would any pastor. However, this is NOT what has been called "canonical obedience". In such a case the bishop is NOT the legitimate superior of any persons except those who are specifically and canonically vowed (to him) in religious obedience --- nor can he expect or attempt to require such obedience from the majority of those in his diocese. The specific nature of Christian freedom and the obligations to personal responsibility in these other vocations DO NOT ALLOW THIS. 

The bishop is the legitimate superior of diocesan priests and diocesan hermits, for instance, because a qualified but undiminished expression of Christian freedom which is spelled out in both canon and proper law (e.g., the hermit's Rule) and which each has publicly embraced in either the rite of ordination or religious profession, exists between them. It is together that they will do the will of God within a specifically ecclesial vocation. Because there is no carefully delimited and mutually defined relationship where rights and obligations are similarly spelled out (in Rule and/or Constitutions) and embraced via public rite, the bishop is not the legitimate superior of lay members of the diocese and is not owed "canonical (or religious) obedience", nor should he be. This is so because such carefully limited and explicitly defined public relationships do not come to be through baptism alone, not even when entirely private vows are added to the mix.

 To summarize the point here then, one cannot simply pretend to be bound to religious or canonical obedience in this way by referring either to the common obedience owed to one's bishop or to a host of laws one neither understands      and which do not even apply to their lives. These members have the right and obligation to honor Christian Freedom in any way they discern in good conscience and so long as they do not transgress into areas of the Church which bring them under the direct purview of the bishop's authority, they are obligated to do so without the permission of the bishop or someone he delegates to oversee their activity. They have an obligation to submit their own wills to Christ's but neither is this is canonical obedience because these persons are NOT canonically vowed to the specific expression of Christian freedom and responsibility associated with public profession. To call it canonical obedience is analogous to calling a year of some sort of initial formation in a non-canonical community a "canonical year".  In either case this usage is mistaken and literally incoherent.

The Relevancy of Canon 603:

Ms Joan McClure, the author of the position being discussed here and a privately vowed hermit and (vocationally as well as hierarchically speaking) a lay member of the Archdiocese of S______, does not owe Archbishop S______ "canonical obedience" and I am sure he would be the first person to explain to her that she does not. Ms McClure also wrote about my response regarding "canonical obedience": [[ If we get upset over desire to obey laws of the land and laws of the Church, or laws of God especially--this upset is an example of not letting Christ's peace control our hearts.  I do not think the person who was upset by my mention in my professed eremitic vows to include canonical obedience fully understood but rather got the meaning and intent confused with canonical approval of hermits by one's specific diocese bishops according to Canon Law 603. ]]

The Church's own position on the difference between public profession (which includes a canonical vow of obedience) and private dedication and vows is clear: the first involves additional canonical rights and obligations beyond those granted with baptism, the other does not; the first thus means the individual embraces canonical or religious obedience, the other does not; the first means that the person so professed acquires certain legitimate (canonical) rights and obligations which play a part in publicly defining the person's life and Freedom (ecclesially approved Rule, legitimate superior(s), etc.), the other does not. Profession under Canon 603 (or profession under the canons applying to religious life more generally) are specific instances of these general distinctions. Both differ from the private dedication of the lay or clerical hermit in all of the ways just listed, but canon 603 professions are particularly illustrative of these distinctions. Thus, when a Bishop admits an individual to canonical profession under canon 603 he admits the person to an ecclesial vocation which further specifies the way their freedom must be lived out  and he does so on behalf of the entire Church, not as an instance of his own private desires or individual eccentricity.

 In such an act the subject making their profession becomes a "Hermit of the Diocese of x_________" and they do so not merely because they are a hermit living in that diocese but because they represent the eremitical life in the name of both the local and the universal Church. With private vows --- which, again, do not rise to the level of profession as the Church understands this term --- the hermit involved does not become a "Hermit of the Diocese of x____" and is not bound to canonical obedience despite the fact that she may live eremitical life in that diocese. It is too bad some with private vows feel a need to conflate these with canonical vows. It is always important that those with canonical vows do not embrace a notion of superiority vs inferiority when comparing public profession to private dedication, but at the same time it is crucially important that those who are privately dedicated do not mislead or confuse by misapplying terms like "canonical" when characterizing their own vow of obedience, etc. This is a source of serious confusion and does not serve the Church or the differing expressions of the eremitical life particularly well.

Creation of Adam, Chartres: Image of the Desert Vocation to New Creation (Reprise)

 A friend returned from a trip to France (etc.) with about 32 other Dominicans from various congregations and brought me a picture of this statuary from Chartres Cathedral. It is a favorite of hers and is called God Creates Adam; it is a small piece, only about a foot and a half or two feet high and is located on a Northern portal to the cathedral.

While I had never seen it before, I loved it instantly. It recalls for me so many prayer times when I had the sense of having God's entire attention or of being held securely and loved into wholeness. It speaks to me of the place of God in each of our lives --- even when we fail to realize how inextricably wed our lives are with one another. There is an amazing combination of strength and gentleness, quiet joy and determination, as well as dependence and independence here. God looks completely sure of himself and quietly pleased. Adam --- who looks neither male nor female to me --- looks content and at peace.

I hear an invitation here: "Give yourself over to me; let me make you my very own creation, my very own image and counterpart! Let me truly make you what you are!" --- as God reminds me of the dignity and nature of my original creation and all the potential it holds. There have been times I have not known or remembered that God's creative presence was at work in me calling into existence, healing, molding, shaping, and summoning me into the absolute future of God's own life; there were times when I thought all potential had been spent or was lost forever. Yet I know very well now that this is an image of every day of my life as well as a picture of  the covenant reality I am most truly meant to let myself become. For me it is a wonderful image!!

Memorial of St Scholastica

On this Memorial of St Scholastica I think it is timely to remind readers of the famous story of St Scholastica and her brother St Benedict. That is especially true given the conversation here on the gift of tears  In the following account of this story the description of Scholastica's prayer when she is in need of profound consolation is particularly apt. In the meantime my very best wishes to all my Camaldolese, Cistercian, and Benedictine Sisters and Brothers on this feast!
 

[[Scholastica, the sister of our venerable Father Benedict, who was dedicated to the Lord Almighty from her infancy, was wont to come visit her brother once a year. The man of God went to her not far from the gate (of his monastery), at a place that belonged to it. Once, she came according to her custom, and her venerable brother with his monks went there to meet her, and they spent the whole day in the praises of God and spiritual talk, and when it was almost night, they dined together. As they were yet sitting at the table, speaking of devout matters, and the hour grew late, the holy nun, his sister, entreated him, saying, “I ask you not to leave me this night, that we may speak of the joys of the heavenly life until morning.” To which he replied, “What are you saying, sister? In no wise can I stay outside my cell!”

 

The final meeting between Ss Benedict and Scholastica, depicted in a 14th-century fresco in the Sacro Speco of Subiaco.   

At that time, the sky was so clear that no cloud was to be seen. The holy nun, hearing this refusal of her brother, joined her hands together, laid them on the table, bowed her head on her hands, and prayed to almighty God. And when she lifted her head from the table, there fell suddenly such a tempest of lightning and thundering, and such abundance of rain, that neither venerable Benedict, nor his monks that were with him, could put their heads out of doors. The holy nun, having rested her head on her hands, poured forth such a flood of tears on the table, that she transformed the clear air to a watery sky.

After the end of her devotions, that storm of rain followed; her prayer and the rain so met together, that as she lifted up her head from the table, the thunder began. So it was that in one and the very same instant that she lifted up her head, she brought down the rain. The man of God, seeing that he could not, in the midst of such thunder and lightning and great abundance of rain return to his Abbey, began to be heavy and to complain to his sister, saying: “God forgive you, what have you done?” She answered him, “I desired you to stay, and you would not hear me; I have desired it of our good Lord, and he has granted my petition. Therefore if you can now depart, in God’s name return to your monastery, and leave me here alone.” But the good father, not being able to leave, tarried there against his will where before he would not have stayed willingly. By that means, they watched all night and with spiritual and heavenly talk mutually comforted one another.

The next day the venerable woman returned to her monastery, and the man of God to his abbey. Three days later, standing in his cell, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he beheld the soul of his sister (which was departed from her body) ascend into heaven in the likeness of a dove. Rejoicing much to see her great glory, with hymns and praise he gave thanks to almighty God, and imparted the news of her death to his monks. He sent them presently to bring her body to his Abbey, to have it buried in that grave which he had provided for himself. By this means it fell out that, as their souls were always one in God while they lived, so their bodies continued together after their deaths. (From the Second Book of the Dialogues of St Gregory the Great, chapters 33 and 34, read in the Roman Breviary on the feast of St Scholastica.)]]

On the Desert Vocation to Metanoia

Jesus Meets His Mother**
 by Bro Mickey McGrath OSFS

[[Hi Sister, when you refer to inner work or the personal growth work you are doing with your director I wonder how this fits in with the life of a hermit. I also wondered if the tears you experienced were really less the "gift of tears" which is bestowed by the Holy Spirit and more the result of some therapeutic process involved in the inner work. No offense of course!]]

No offense taken; your questions are natural and good ones. I'm pretty sure I have spoken of the focus of the inner work I am doing with my director right now but let me restate it as I understand it in case some have not read past posts --- or in case I am mistaken!

We are made in the image of God but in our lives that image is sometimes distorted, often crippled, and almost invariably prevented from unfolding in all its glory due to our own woundedness. We are marked and marred by sin (a state of alienation from God, self, and others) and we ratify that sin ourselves -- often as we meet and react to the sin of others; and all of this has an effect on our being able to be our true selves. The project of our lives, the journey we are making is the journey to the revelation or realization of our true selves which only occurs to the extent we exist in communion and union with God. The goal of this ongoing journey is to become the covenantal persons, the relationship with God we truly are and in which our genuine individuality consists. In Christ, the One who is the very definition of union with God, we are called to become imago Christi: persons who are truly, fully and exhaustively human, and who thus reveal God (Love-in-Act) to the world.

The task before us is, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to work through anything that prevents our communion and union with God. In the language of the desert and of monastic life in particular this is the life of repentance, of metanoia. As Hunt notes in Joy-Bearing Grief,  [[The experience of the desert monk is his most active work. "It is a contract [covenant] with God for a second life." according to Klimakos. Through it [the monk] takes responsibility for the exercise of his free will, the working out of his divinely given humanity. . . . The flight to the desert has at its heart relationships, primarily, those between the individual and God and the individual with him/herself. The physical journey may [and is meant to] give way to an interiorized one. . .]]

This approach to the desert rests on the profound relationship between repentance and prayer. The two are inextricably wed in a single dynamic towards authenticity which the Rule of Benedict and monastic and eremitical life more generally call "seeking God". In my own Rule I stress this sense that prayer and repentance are so closely allied in the journey to becoming the person we are called to be that they rely on one another and cannot be easily teased apart. Repentance is empowered and accompanied by prayer just as it also prepares for prayer. The task before the hermit is to become a person of prayer (a person in whom God is powerfully active and who is open to allowing this to be exhaustively true in every dimension of her life); this will also mean participating every day in a process of metanoia, of repentance and conversion. The inner work I have spoken of is one of the principal forms of embracing metanoia and becoming the person I am called to be; it is so central to my vocation that it is actually written into my Rule. It focuses in very specific and powerful ways on the imago dei which exists deep within and on the process of recovering and realizing the potential of that imago in order that I may actually become imago Christ.  

When you ask how inner work fits into the hermit life this is the answer. The hermit seeks God, she gives her life over to this seeking and to God's intimate seeking of her. She realizes she will only be the person she is called to be if her life is lived in obedience (open responsiveness) to the call of God. She is committed to embodying call and response in the single self who is a covenant with God. Only God can complete her. Only God is the source and ground of her human life. She is made in God's image and likeness, made to be a relational being just as the Trinity is relational in every sense. She is thus called to become imago Christi and this means living a life of prayer and repentance or metanoia.  Inner work is an integral part of responding to this vocation.

The Gift of Tears:

I am not sure it is possible to entirely tease apart or distinguish the gift of tears from "ordinary" tears that are the result of the inner work. Both are therapeutic; both can come from the deepest places within us and both are gifts of God. But, there is, I think, also a qualitative difference between "ordinary" tears and the gift of tears. I suppose that at this point --- with what is very limited experience --- I would say that "ordinary" tears are healing in ways which allow us to continue functioning as the persons we are; they express and ease our suffering, they express our joy.  The gift of tears functions to transform us and our hearts in more profound and extensive ways, and it does more as well. This gift opens our hearts to the presence and power of God in ways more "ordinary" tears do not. In a single moment it touches every part of our lives, memory, history and selves --- body, spirit and mind and results in their reconciliation, healing and integration. These tears make us into whole and holy human beings who, in Christ, are instances of embodied spirit, incarnations of the Word of God. My own sense is that the inner work I am doing, for instance, heals and opens me to the deep reality of God alive and yearning to live within me. The paradox here is that I am truly myself when God is allowed to live exhaustively in and through me. Perhaps what I am saying similarly then is that our "ordinary" tears reach their own fulfillment or perfection in what has been called "the gift of tears."

This is a very provisional and clearly basic answer on my part. As with all things, this gift will be measured by its fruits --- and, while some will be immediately evident, fruits also take time to grow. I believe I have experienced something singular. I feel sure it is a charismatic gift in line with the penthos (weeping) and katanuxis (compunction) which are central to the desert tradition. I also feel sure that receiving this gift in fullness is something that takes time and that it will come. However, if it is the gift of tears it will need to do the kinds of things the desert tradition says such tears do; it will need to transform my heart into one entirely measured in terms of compassion and the courage, generosity, and self-gift compassion makes possible; in short, it will need to allow me to see and relate to the world as Christ sees and relates to the world. It will need to help transform me from imago dei into the historical embodiment and expression of the Risen Christ we know as imago Christi. It will need to empower me to see and love with Christ's own vision and love. By their fruits, we shall know the gifts of God. I am reminded of a passage in Soul Making, The Desert Way of Spirituality. In this work, Alan Jones distinguishes the gift of tears from ordinary tears when he writes,

 

[[The "gift of tears" is concerned with something much more radical, threatening, and life-bearing than the occasional and necessary release from tension that "having a good cry" affords. The tears of which the desert bears witness are not tears of rage, self-pity, or frustration. They are a gift and their fruit is always so. . . Tears flow when the real source of our life is uncovered when the mask of pretense is dropped. . .[and as Andre Louf writes] "Tears come when we begin to live more and more out of our deepest longings, our needs, our troubles. These must all surface and be given their rightful place. For in them, we find our real human life in all its depths.. . "]]

The inner work I have spoken of (part of my own work of spiritual direction) gives the Holy Spirit space to work in my life. This is another reason I am reticent to entirely distinguish between "ordinary tears" from those which are more clearly charismatic. As noted, I feel both are empowered by the love of God, both are the work of the Consoler. Finally, we often and too easily distinguish the "ordinary" from that which is "super ordinary" or even extraordinary. The truth is that all too often we miss the God who comes to us in the ordinary so this is something I bear in mind as well.

** N.B. The picture of Jesus meeting his Mother is Bro Mickey McGrath's painting of the Fourth Station of the Cross. It is available in many different formats from Trinity Stores.

A Little Bit of Lectio (reprised)

The following thoughts were written several years ago but have clear resonances with recent posts and concerns published here. The nature of theology, the importance of it being rooted in out experience of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the notion that those who disavow the importance of the intellect are also doing some form of theology, etc. are all present here.

I was reflecting about tomorrow's first reading. It is the part of the Genesis account where Eve is seduced to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, where (perhaps at her urging and perhaps not) Adam does the same thing, and where "their eyes are opened" as a result. Of course this opening of their eyes is a form of self-consciousness which is rooted in only a partial truth about themselves, namely, that they are naked before God and each other. But it is a self-consciousness which blinds them to the greater truth of who they are with and through God, namely, persons of infinite worth with the very breath of God sustaining them at every instant --- even in their sinfulness.

From here my reflections moved in the direction of humility. I came to think that what passes too often for genuine humility is precisely the partial truth occasioned by alienation from God and the resulting self-consciousness that blinds us to the whole truth. What passes for humility is often nothing more than a self-centered view of our "nakedness" but without the broader perspective granted us by our relationship to and with God and the incredible worth that affirms. Without this other piece of the picture, we know only our own unworthiness, our own poverty and incapacity --- and we will rightly come to despise ourselves. Of course Adam and Eve fail at humility in other ways. They grasp at a knowledge they are not made for, they fail to trust a God who has given them no reason to fail in this, and they hide from him taking refuge in shrubbery and stuck-on fig leaves! But most fundamentally in all of this, I think, they only look at (or accept) part of the truth of who they are in relation to God and, for that very reason, fail in humility.

But my reflections also went in another direction (though I am pretty sure they link up at some point; it is just that my lectio has not gotten me to that point yet!). I was thinking about something Walter Brueggemann said about the hugely "over-interpreted" serpent in this narrative, namely, that he was not a symbol of Satan or evil, but a neutral character used to move the story along. This led me to think of the serpent as an externalization of what Eve comes to think in her heart --- a debate she has with herself, really: that God has somehow not told them the truth, that she knows what God is really like, that she knows what is best for her own life and is capable of determining what is good and what is not without reference to God!

Part of this sense that the serpent is the externalization of Eve's own thought processes were occasioned by something else Brueggemann said, viz, that the speech made by the serpent, indeed the whole conversation, is a matter of "theologizing" and that the serpent is the first "working theologian"!!! (I admit, I found this point really funny --- but because it was strikingly "right." It reminded me of the fear I felt regarding presuming to speak about God with any authority early in my years of studying theology. Somehow, doing "theology" seemed to be oxymoronic to me. Arrogant perhaps, probably presumptuous, and at least awfully risky. It is a fear which has never completely left me, and I mainly know it now as a kind of awe that I am a theologian.) Perhaps I need to recover some of that original "fear"! (Ah, can you sense these directions in my lectio beginning to link up?) At the same time then, it recalled the stress in Eastern Christianity on theology as an act of prayer, or at the very least, something which is never to be divorced from prayer.

But in tomorrow's reading, that is exactly what happens. As Brueggemann notes, no one is speaking to or with God in this section. They are speaking about him, and in doing so they even distort (or lie to themselves about) what they were told WHILE they were speaking with him and he them. How often this happens in our own lives! Whether we are professional or academic theologians or the armchair variety, how very often we speak about a God we really don't know or allow to know us all that well! How often our speech about God, our theologizing, has nothing whatsoever to do with prayer! It neither stems from prayer, adverts to prayer in gratitude or supplication, nor moves us to return to prayer! And how often it distorts, subtly or otherwise, the truth about God which he himself has revealed to us. Much of our religion is (or has been) built upon such distortions!!

It occurred to me that if we were speaking without reticence about science, or economics, or child-rearing, or any number of other things without first hand knowledge OF the thing being talked about, people would laugh us out of the room. And rightly so! Consider how truly stupid we would be and seem if we spoke about a person as though we knew them first hand and were instead required to confess to listeners that we had never actually met this person face to face! And yet, how often we characterize people, speak of their motives, etc without ever having met them! Why is it that with theology we don't get uneasy in attempting to speak about God and the other ultimately important dimensions of life which are tied to faith in him apart from a first-hand knowledge of God??? (Here I am thinking of suffering, death, illness, evil, and more --- and about all the really silly and even offensive things people say about them and about God when they wax on about such things.) Of course, it is true that the truly first rate theologians never lose perspective like this (or not for long!!) and that their theology is a function of their prayer lives. But for most of us, we rarely talk to or with God before we presume to talk about him, and as a result our theologizing is as blind, self-centered, and distorted as in today's first reading. . . .

A Little on Paul's Law of the Mind and the Demands of Doing Theology

[[I was informed that a hermit colleague has been blessed with a spiritual gift, a spiritual phenomenon.  I am rejoicing over this news!  This particular hermit has in the past has seemed more leaning to the laws of minds; thus I have been praying for some time for the Holy Spirit to reach into the hermit's soul and inflame it with a touch of God's law of love, of the supernatural realities which soften us and remind us that the temporal is passing but the realm of the Spirit is eternal. . .]] cf.,. . . Hermit Rejoices for entire post.

I always gratefully accept prayer on my behalf and thus count on others to hold me in prayer. Beyond that it is always good to hear that my life has brightened someone's day in some small way. Still I admit I am stunned when someone presumes to pronounce on the state of my soul and though this occurs much less rarely, I am surprised when anyone's spirituality involves anti-intellectualism. When they misinterpret my own definite intellectual bent as being somehow opposed to a vital spiritual life which is relatively untouched by God's "law of love" even as they try to justify these errors in religious terms my surprise is compounded. What I sincerely hope readers recognize is that such anti-intellectualism is incapable of dealing adequately  with reality. This is so precisely because it is incapable of loving in the "shrewd but gentle" and compassionate way the Gospel calls for! That is especially true when St Paul is misread in the process -- as the above post does and as its author has consistently done in the past when commenting on Paul's "law of the mind" or his teaching on law and Gospel.

What is the Law of the Mind according to Paul?

Paul refers to the law of the mind in Romans, but we must be very clear that it is 1) in the singular (it is not "laws of the mind" or laws made up by human minds!) and 2) that it is not something Paul criticizes. It is, in fact, an enemy of the law of sin: [[For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my  members.]] (Romans 7:22-23) The law of the mind which Paul refers to is that deepest and truest reality within us that says we are made for God. It is the truest inner moral compass and drive which contends with the more superficial law of sin dwelling in our members. Together with the will it is that dimension of our existence deep within us that is linked to our natural impulse to love God. As Paul says above, it is the "law of the mind" that actually delights in the law of God because, of course, it delights in truth and meaning and beauty! It is this fascination by and delight in truth, beauty, and meaning which opens each of us to fuller expressions of the law of God, the law of Love.

It used to be kind of faddish in spirituality to encourage people to "get out of (their) heads and into (their) hearts." (Let me be clear: there were and are excellent reasons for this too, but it was sometimes encouraged by directors whose strongest function was not their intellect and who may even have distrusted it to some extent.) Because my own intellect is an especially intensely pivotal dimension of the way I relate to God and his entire created reality I am very fortunate to have a director who understands the importance of a strong intellectual life and knows full well what it means to have God reveal Godself via a person's intellectual life.

Consequently, one of the most important truths I have had reaffirmed throughout the inner work I have done over the past 8 months or so (I am in the 9th month of that work) is the fact that my intellect is a precious gift of God and the faculty through which God most often graces and has graced me with his self-revelation. Does my mind require the love of God to truly function well? Of course! It is MADE FOR the love of God! It is empowered to function rightly through the grace of God! So of course my intellect and the law of the mind is God's good gift to me (indeed, to all of us) and it has been a source of awesome nourishment to me --- and to those I minister to.
 
Trusting the Process and Doing Theology:

That said I should also emphasize that of course our intellects are not the whole of the way we relate to God or receive God's revelation of Godself. The law of love is imprinted on intellect, will, spirit and sensibility --- all of them. And all of them are meant to function together accordingly in what constitutes what the NT calls a purity or singleness of heart. I have reported here that quite often in these last months my director has encouraged me to "trust the process". Trusting the process did not mean the intellectual pieces of things could be demeaned or ignored -- nor did this ever happen ---but that in some things it takes the intellect time to catch up with the other pivotal centers of human functioning and that can be challenging for me. More, the intellect needs to build on human experience and be grounded in it while human experience needs to be rendered articulate in the various ways this occurs and to the extent this is possible, through the work of the intellect.  While all this can be challenging for one who depends on a strong intellect anti-intellectualism is ruled out of court.

The bottom line here is that far from being something that draws me away from God it is and has always been the activity of "doing theology" --- and here I mainly mean academic and systematic theology --- which most often brings these three dimensions of my being together; it is thus the "place" where I am most profoundly touched by the Word of God or the presence of the God who speaks to my heart from within. Many people fail to understand that doing theology in a serious way is never "merely" an intellectual exercise. That is true because doing theology means being a person of prayer as well as of study, a person of compassion as well as of the capacity for intellectual insight and systematization, a person of heart as well as mind. It means being a person who loves God and the mystery of God's creation, being fascinated with these realities, concerned for them and in fact responsible for the struggle to understand and to articulate their truth for those who need it. It also means knowing from the very first day one walks into a theology class (and possibly before one even does this) that one's efforts will always fall short and quite often fail very badly.

On the Holocaust and Doing Theology:

This was brought home to me in my first introductory course in theology. Not only were we faced with the rock bottom theological datum of a literally incomprehensible and ineffable God (the infinitely fascinating and awesome Mystery around whom we literally cannot get our minds and hearts) but our professor pointed out emphatically that anyone wishing to do serious theology needed their work to be capable of doing justice to the tremendum we call the Holocaust or their theology was, at best, unworthy of the name. In this latter case we cannot do this unless theology engages and depends on one working with their whole self! Moreover it will not happen unless our theology is profoundly historical and critical, not only in our reading of Scripture but in our approaches to doctrine, law, and anthropology as well. Again, our approach to theological and spiritual realities must be informed by both our hearts and our intellects. Jesus, of course, said the same thing when he counseled us to be gentle as doves and shrewd as serpents. And yet again, we know that our efforts will ultimately fail because of the incomprehensible Mystery which is the focus of our efforts and the finite nature of our own minds and hearts. This does not mean we are relieved of the necessity of doing theology; instead it spurs theologians to humility in an enterprise they are summoned and even impelled by God himself to undertake for the sake of his People but also for the sake of his entire Creation.

Paul's "law of the mind," again, is that deep and dynamic reality which delights in and is profoundly fascinated by the law of God. It does not in the least allow the kind of anti-intellectualism present in the post cited above. Faith requires both our heads and our hearts together; it cannot exist otherwise precisely because as Paul Tillich insightfully characterized it, it is a centered act of the whole person and a state of being grasped by an ultimate concern. Such a state of being grasped means being taken hold of in our entire being so that every locus and focus of human functioning (intellect, will, spirit and sensibility) is empowered by and responsive to the God who demands our whole self and promises us everything we need for the completion we and our world are made for.

N.B., The painting (print) above is one I got for Christmas this year. It is Brother Mickey McGrath's, Madonna of the Holocaust and is something that moved me profoundly not only because of conversations I had with Brother Mickey on the Theology of the Cross while he was here on sabbatical in November, but because of the story I told above about my intro to NT course and the challenges of doing serious theology. I think it is an awesome symbol of an historical-critical theology which is a matter of both heart and mind.