19 March 2020
Feast of Saint Joseph (Reprise)
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:06 AM
17 March 2020
How Do I Deal With Enforced Solitude During this Time?
Great questions. Thanks. What is striking to me, and has been striking to those I am in touch with, is what this Lenten season has plunged us into. We begin Lent with stories of Jesus being driven into the desert (wilderness) by the Spirit, and of the fundamental choice we are each called to make again and again, not only during this season -- choose life not death! And we are still in Lent -- a Lent which is being deepened and will be extended beyond what we ever expected. I say this because my first suggestion is to stay in touch with this season; it will help contextualize the situation in which we find ourselves and even normalize it to some extent. Above all it will provide a perspective which is more familiar and can make some sense of the novel and unfamiliar circumstances we are now experiencing. Allow the things we talk about all during Lent to be the categories through which you view what is being asked of you by this pandemic: fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.
Fasting will take many forms as your normal routine and the normal ways of making sense of your life are taken away from you. If you are used to thinking of fasting in terms of food, that may still work, but it will be extended to time with friends, social activities, the availability of necessary items, etc. Prayer will also be extended and deepened for many people in light of the circumstances. I would certainly encourage this in your own daily life. It may be difficult to spend time in quiet prayer if you are not used to it (though I encourage you to try this by starting with limited periods (15 minutes) of simply being quiet with God), but you can sit and consider those people you most love, those you would be spending time with, family, etc and simply allow yourself to be with them as a supportive presence. Let whatever feelings you have for these people come up, let yourself love them, feel grateful for them and all they are for you, and ask God to be with them as they also are suffering in various ways. Almsgiving is certainly something we can deepen and extend during this Lenten period (and beyond it). One way is by refusing to become greedy or engage in hoarding or gouging behavior. Another is by doing errands for those who cannot get out or don't have transportation. Another is by giving what we can to those without housing, adequate heat, food, or hygiene. In suggesting these kinds of things I am aware I am really suggesting nothing more than the Church asks from us every Lent. The Pandemic is not the will of God, but at the same time it can be used as an opportunity for the Spirit to work in our lives.
Yes, sometimes I feel anxiety in solitude, though not usually because of the solitude itself. I expect a lot of people are going to be experiencing cabin fever. I would urge you to find indoor activities you can get truly engrossed in. If you are a reader then do more of that, if you like puzzles, set a table aside for this and begin a large puzzle you've been waiting on. If you keep a journal (or if it is time to start one!) consider doing that and write about your experience. How about coloring or painting or some other thing you've been wanting to try? What about an online class in something that interests you? There are many of these available including languages, Scripture, history, DIY projects, etc. And, speaking of DIY projects, I should definitely mention those big time cleaning and culling projects we all put off! Most of us have activities we complain we don't have time for. Well, now is the time. Please don't expect to ease all of your anxiety; if you can allow yourself to feel this is normal, uncomfortable as it is, do that. If you need to distract yourself in some way (taking a solo drive* or walk, or a walk with a single friend, watching TV, etc) then do that. Add these things to the essential Lenten elements mentioned above. Some of these can easily become prayer: simply ask God into whatever activity you are undertaking. Do this in a conscious way and renew the invitation or your thanks to God for being with you in this occasionally throughout.
And of course, find ways to maintain contact with friends, Skype, Zoom, or Facetime conversations, phone calls and texting could be very helpful here. Schedule some of these so you have something to look forward to. Expectations are an important piece of dealing with solitude, especially when one is not used to it. (In prayer it is important not to have expectations re what kind of experience it will be, for instance, but at the same time it can help to build in things you really enjoy at specific times so you can look forward to them as you move through the tedium of the day.) I should add here that it is often mainly the tedium of days in solitude which really gets to folks**; we all experience this. Sometimes we forget that our need for novelty does not satisfy our need for genuine newness. What monastics/hermits know is that our lives with God are filled with genuine (qualitative) newness each day even when there is not a lot of novelty. That requires real patience and trust in God. I have written about this in the past so you might check for articles on this if you are interested. cf., Always Beginners as a start. Getting used to fasting from novelty and opening ourselves to qualitative newness is something this time might allow you (and others) to do -- something that is especially important given the fact that this situation is going to be longer-lasting than we have yet let ourselves realize. As time goes on I may suggest other things to assist with enforced solitude. For now I sincerely hope this is helpful.
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*Except for necessary trips such drives are not allowed in the SF Bay Area. (I admit I don't understand this limitation if one is alone.)
** Though I have not written about this before, I should mention that another issue in solitude is finding that one simply doesn't like oneself very much. I can't address that here of course, but it is something folks should be aware of since it raises all kinds of feelings, irritation, fear, anxiety, anger, etc. For those who simply don't trust themselves or their own inner resources in such a situation as this pandemic, solitude can also be quite difficult. Again, these folks can use this period as a Lenten period of growth and new experience calling for patience and trust. Whether we like ourselves well or not, we will need to trust that our own inner capacities and resources are greater than we might have imagined otherwise. Above all we trust in the love of a God who accompanies us in everything.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:31 AM
Labels: Cabin fever, enforced solitude, fasting, fasting and savoring, Lent, Lenten Praxis, newness (Kainotes), novelty vs newness, Pandemic
16 March 2020
Oakland Diocese Directive: the New Normal in a Global Community
Just received a copy of the new directive from Bishop Barber for the Diocese of Oakland. All public Masses, both daily and Sunday are suspended. All other activities, classes, etc are also to be postponed, suspended, or cancelled until further notice, Those who can work remotely are to do so. The chancery is closed. Those who cannot work remotely are to stay in touch with their team leader or supervisor. All are being compensated as normal. Priests are receiving special directions for administration of Sacraments, weddings, funerals, etc. Churches are to remain open for prayer, solace, etc. Social distancing is to be observed.
I suspect this is typical of what is going to be happening all over the world but seeing it in black and white hits me hard. I am not touched as much as some will be, of course. I have classes I cannot teach, services or homilies I won't be able to do, but my Director (and many other Sisters, et al) are planning personal retreats or "mini-vacations" and will have time to do some reading, writing, study, and prayer, we don't have time for usually -- at least until we see what the next weeks look like. I will continue to work with several clients online, but suspend face to face meetings. My trip has been cancelled so I won't be attending the profession I wrote about at the beginning of Lent. That is a real disappointment but I am also at peace in this regard. Traveling at this time is simply imprudent at best, careless and uncharitable at worst.
Should anyone have doubted we are a global community, should anyone have thought we could wall ourselves off from the world around us COVID19 certainly reminds us of the truth. We have all heard stories how the movement of butterfly wings in the Southern hemisphere can lead to a major storm in the Northern hemisphere. It sounds ridiculous to us, but here we are. The analogy is compelling. In the middle of what will be a long term situation begun in a wet market in China and contact with a single bat and is now a raging pandemic, we have to find our way together! We must find ways to protect and support one another. Here in the SF Bay area and the Diocese of Oakland we are beginning to do that in new and challenging ways. I hear the question, "How will you be Church?" It will take all our creativity and courage, all the compassion and charity we can muster, but especially it means keeping our eyes focused on the truth of our membership in a global community.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 6:58 PM
15 March 2020
In Gratitude and Requesting Prayers
Also, I wanted to thank several others who have written about becoming solitary Catholic hermits and/or lay hermits recently including one who will make private vows after Easter, another who will make profession on March 25, and another who is just beginning his journey in the UK and who struggles with chronic illness. I am grateful for your trust and that you have found this blog a significant resource. I sincerely hope readers will keep each and all of you in prayer.
Additionally, during this COVID 19 pandemic some of us with chronic illnesses are praying our lives remind people of what can be done when they are forced to a solitude which is (at least initially) not very comfortable! Solitude and solitary lives of prayer and penance are a significant part of Christian life; learning to be in community at the same time is challenging but something the world is looking to be able to embrace just now. Hermits are a resource in several ways, but especially by their abilities to live profoundly ecclesial lives in the silence of solitude -- lives which are full, marked by happiness and focused on God while being lived for others. Let us pray for our world and that it may truly become a global community. Protect us from selfishness, greed, and any sense that we are entitled to do as we wish while others look out for one another. After all, whatsoever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, that we do unto Christ.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 6:42 PM
12 March 2020
Catholic Sisters Week
I should have posted this earlier, but we celebrate Catholic Sisters this week as part of Women's Week. The Church we know today would be vastly different without the influence of Religious Women, their love, commitment, fidelity, compassion, and leadership. If you are in contact with Sisters this week (or, if you have been out of touch for a while), please thank them for their lives and the gift they make of them for the whole world and Church! Thanks!
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 8:39 PM
11 March 2020
From Humiliation to Humility: Resting in the Gaze of God (Reprise)
[[Hi Sister Laurel, I was intrigued by something you said in your post on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, namely, that our senses of worthiness and unworthiness are not even present until after shame enters the picture. If that is so then what are we to make of all the writing in spirituality that stresses our unworthiness of God's love or the extensive literature on humility that associates it with the sense of being "nothing" or with practices of humiliation? A lot of this was written by saints and spiritually gifted people. Is your observation about worthiness and unworthiness based on the readings from Genesis alone or does it comes from other places too?]]
Several really great questions! Let me give them a shot and then perhaps you can help me follow up on them or clarify what I say with further questions, comments, and so forth. Because shame is such a central experience it truly stands at the center of sinful existence (the life of the false self) and is critical to understanding redeemed existence (the life of the true self). It colors the way we see all of reality and that means our spirituality as well. In fact, this way of seeing and relating to God lies at the heart of all religious thinking and behavior.
But the texts from Genesis tell us that this is not the way we are meant to see ourselves or reality. It is not the way we are meant to relate to God or to others. Instead, we are reminded that "originally" there was a kind of innocence where we knew ourselves ONLY as God himself sees us. We acted naturally in gratitude to and friendship with God. After the Fall human beings came to see themselves differently. It is the vision of estrangement and shame. This new way of seeing is the real blindness we hear of in the New Testament --- the blindness that causes us to lead one another into the pit without ever being aware we are doing so. Especially then, it is the blindness that allows religious leaders whose lives are often dominated by and lived in terms of categories like worthiness and unworthiness to do this.
The language of worthiness and unworthiness has been enshrined in our religious language and praxis. This only makes sense, especially in cultures that find it difficult to deal with paradox. We are each of us sinners who have rejected God's gratuitous love. Doesn't this make us unworthy of it? In human terms which sees everything as either/or, yes, it does. This is also one of the significant ways we stress the fact that God's love is given as unmerited gift. But at the same time, this language is theologically incoherent. It falls short when used to speak of our relationship with God precisely because it is the language associated with the state of sin. It causes us to ask the wrong questions (self-centered questions!) and, even worse, to answer them in terms of our own shame. We think, "surely a just God cannot simply disregard our sinfulness" and the conclusion we come to ordinarily plays Divine justice off against Divine mercy. We just can't easily think or speak of a justice that is done in mercy, a mercy that does justice. The same thing happens with God's love. Aware that we are sinners we think we must be unworthy of God's love --- forgetting that it is by loving that God does justice and sets all things right. At the same time, we know God's love (or any authentic love!) is not something we are worthy of. Love is not earned or merited. It is a free gift, the very essence of grace.
Our usual ways of thinking and speaking are singularly inadequate here and cause us to believe, "If not worthy then unworthy; if not unworthy then worthy". These ways of thinking and speaking work for many things but not for God or our relationship with God. God is incommensurate with our non-paradoxical categories of thought and speech. He is especially incommensurate with the categories of a fallen humanity pervaded by guilt and shame; yet, these are the categories with and within which we mainly perceive, reflect on, and speak about reality. In some ways, then, it is our religious language which is most especially problematic. And this is truest when we try to accept the complete gratuitousness and justice-creating nature of God's love.
The Cross and the Revelation of the Paradox that Redeems
On the cross the worst shame imaginable is revealed to be the greatest dignity, the most apparent godlessness is revealed to be the human face and glory of Divinity. These are made to be the place God's love is most fully revealed. In light of all this, the categories of worthiness or unworthiness must be relinquished for the categories of paradox and especially for the language of gratitude or ingratitude --- ways of thinking and speaking that not only reflect the inadequacy of the language they replace, but which can assess guilt without so easily leading to shame. Gratitude, what Bro David Steindl-Rast identifies as the heart of prayer, can be cultivated as we learn to respond to God's grace, as, that is, we learn to trust an entirely new way of seeing ourselves and all others and else in light of a Divine gaze that does nothing but delight in us.
This means that, while the tendency to speak in terms of us as nothing and God as ALL is motivated by an admirable need to do justice to God's majesty and love, it is, tragically, also tainted by the sin, guilt, and shame we also know so intimately. It is ironic but true that in spite of our sin we do not do justice to God's greatness by diminishing ourselves even or especially in self-judgment. That is the way of the false self and we do not magnify God by speaking in this way. Saying we are nothing merely reaffirms an untruth --- the untruth which is a reflection of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is the same "truth" that leads to shame and all the consequences of a shame-based life and is less about humility than it is about humiliation. God is ineffably great and he has created us with an equally inconceivable dignity. We may and do act against that dignity and betray the love of our Creator, but the truth remains that we are the image of God, the ones he loves with an everlasting love, the ones he delights in nonetheless. God's love includes us; God takes us up in his own life and invites us to stand in (his) love in a way that transcends either worthiness or unworthiness. Humility means knowing ourselves in this way, not as "nothing" or in comparison with God or with anyone else.
Contemplative prayer and the Gaze of God:
My own sense of all this comes from several places. The first is the texts from Genesis, especially the importance given in those to the gaze of God or to being looked on by God vs being ashamed and hiding from God's gaze. That helps me understand the difference between the true and false selves. The focus on shame and the symptoms of shame (or the defensive attempts to avoid or mitigate these) helps me understand the development of the false self --- the self we are asked to die to in last Friday's Gospel lection. The second and more theologically fundamental source is the theology of the cross. The cross is clear that what we see and judge as shameful is not, that what we call humility means being lifted up by God even in the midst of degradation, and moreover, that even in the midst of the worst we do to one another God loves and forgives us. I'll need to fill this out in future posts. The third and most personal source is my own experience of contemplative prayer where, in spite of my sinfulness (my alienation from self and God), I rest in the gaze of God and know myself to be loved and entirely delighted in. While not every prayer period involves an explicit experience of God gazing at and delighting in me (most do not), the most seminal of these do or have involved such an experience. I have written about one of these here in the past and continue to find it an amazing source of revelation.
In that prayer, I experienced God looking at me in great delight as I "heard" how glad he was that I was "finally" here. I had absolutely no sense of worthiness or unworthiness, simply that of being a delight to God and loved in an exhaustive way. The entire focus of that prayer was on God and the kind of experience prayer (time with me in this case) was for him. At another point, I experienced Christ gazing at me with delight and love as we danced. I was aware at the same time that every person was loved in the same way; I have noted this here before but without reflecting specifically on the place of the Divine gaze in raising me to humility. In more usual prayer periods I simply rest in God's presence and sight. I allow him, as best I am able, access to my heart, including those places of darkness and distortion caused by my own sin, guilt, woundedness, and shame. Ordinarily, I think in terms of letting God touch and heal those places, but because of that seminal prayer experience, I also use the image of being gazed at by God and being seen for who I truly am. That "seeing", like God's speech is an effective, real-making, creative act. As I entrust myself to God I become more and more the one God knows me truly to be.
Over time a commitment to contemplative prayer allows God's gaze to conform me to the truth I am most deeply, most really. Especially it is God's loving gaze which heals me of any shame or sense of inadequacy that might hold me in bondage and allows my true self to emerge. Over time I relinquish the vision of reality belonging to the false self and embrace that of the true self. I let go of my tendency to judge "good and evil". Over time God heals my blindness and, in contrast to what happened after the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, my eyes are truly opened! This means not only being raised from humiliation to humility but being converted from self-consciousness to genuine self-awareness. In the remaking of my mind and heart, these changes are a portrait of what it means to move from guilt and shame to grace.
So, again, the sources of my conviction about the calculus of worthiness and unworthiness and the transformative and healing power of God's gaze come from several places including 1) Scripture (OT and NT), Theology (especially Jesus' own teaching and the theologies of the cross of Paul and Mark as well as the paradoxical theology of glorification in shame of John's gospel), 2) the work of sociologists and psychologists on shame as the "master emotion", and 3) contemplative prayer. I suspect that another source is my Franciscanism (especially St Clare's reflections on the mirror of the self God's gaze represents) but this is something I will have to look at further.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 10:12 AM
Labels: humbling vs humiliation, Humility a Paradoxical Reality, Humility and the Refusal to Judge, raised to humility
08 March 2020
On Transfiguration and Authentic Humanity
During Lent our focus tends to be more on the penitential, on our own sinfulness or "falling short" of the great potential and call that does exist at the core of our being than it is on that potential itself. We locate God outside of ourselves as judge, but can neglect the truth which the human heart reveals, namely that the human heart is the privileged place where God bears witness to Godself, and that the source and center of human life is divinity itself. During Lent then, while we attend to a need to do penance, to pray more regularly, and to develop the generosity of those who are loved unconditionally by God, we must not neglect the underlying conviction of the season, namely, we do these things because the person we are most truly shines like the sun and mediates the life and light of God to our world. Lenten penance is not merely about tidying up our moral lives or cleaning up the minor deficiencies or failings which mark and mar those lives; it is about getting in better touch with the incredible potential we carry within us and are called to embody exhaustively for God's sake and the sake of his entire creation.
To be a human being is to be the image of God. To be authentically human is to become imago Christi --- not as some pale reminder of a distant historical figure we admire a bit (or even love a lot), but as those who allow him to become the very shape and quality of the way we think and feel, approach and act towards our God, ourselves, and others. When the original disciples looked at Jesus they saw the Kingdom of God alive in our world; in him they saw human freedom as the counterpart of divine sovereignty and divine power made perfect (fully realized) in weakness. When we look at one another we should see the very same things. In Christ we see God, in ourselves we should see Christ. Transfiguration is at the heart of Lent, not only because conversion from sin is necessary, but because our deepest, truest selves yearn to shine through and remake us from our hearts outward. Transfiguration reveals what is truest, deepest, and lives right in front of us in every person and in ourselves all the time; it is a synonym for the conversion and reconciliation (the healing) of ourselves so that the divinity we know as "Love-in-Act," shines through and illuminates the whole. That is the essence of authentic humanity.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 1:03 PM
Labels: Authentic humanity, Transfiguration Second Sunday of Lent, vocation to authentic humanity
07 March 2020
Second Sunday of Lent: The Transfiguration of Jesus (Reprised)
Transfiguration by Lewis Bowman |
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 10:10 PM
05 March 2020
Clarification: Are you Saying We must Deny our Suffering?
Yes, I read Joyful Hermit's blog and if she is referring to my position on the place of suffering in a hermit's witness, she seems to have seriously misread or misunderstood it. In any case, I am certainly not saying one must hide or deny their illness and suffering --- although there will assuredly be times when revealing these is not helpful and may even be harmful or destructive to the witness one is called to give. One must know (discern) when such times are and be able to act appropriately. What I have said very clearly instead, is that one's illness must not define them. It will condition or qualify everything but it cannot be allowed to dominate (note the link to lordship or sovereignty in this word). I have also said that one's illness or suffering must become transparent to the love and life of God. In part this means a hermit's illness or suffering will not obscure the witness to the life and love of God a Canon 603 hermit will give to others. In part, it means it will remain unseen and unspoken of until and unless it can serve the witness to the mercy, love, and life of God we are each called to manifest to others. And in part, it therefore means learning to witness to realities that allow us to transcend our suffering, not by leaving it behind or denying it, but by allowing it to be transfigured in light of the grace and mercy of God. Please note the distinction between sovereignty (defining) and servanthood (conditioning) in these two manifestations of illness or suffering.
We read accounts of the Risen Christ's appearance to others after Jesus' passion and death. We use images of the risen Christ on crucifixes today. Both of these are important in understanding what this learning will look like. Consider that when Jesus appeared to his disheartened and terrified disciples he was not without wounds and scars, even in his risen state. Thomas was invited to put a hand in Jesus' side. Even so, it is not the wounds and scars that dominate the picture. When we look at a crucifix with the risen Christ, the cross and all it represents is clearly present, but it does not dominate what we see or what we are called to believe. In each of these examples of Christian suffering and redemption, it is life, love, and joy that are dominant. The cross conditions everything and, as it should for Christians, it will always do so; after all, with Paul, we believe in a crucified Christ as the source of authentic life and hope. But the cross does not define who Jesus was nor who he is today as God's own Christ. In all of this, the cross is a servant of God's life and love, and it is this life and love which is dominant.
Illness is an incredibly important reality that we must learn to live with and accommodate appropriately, while not allowing it to swallow us up in the process. One of the crucial ways of doing so is by learning to live from and for the life and love of God. This is a difficult process and takes time to achieve. Anyone with a chronic illness knows the ways we learn to accommodate (and, alternately, sometimes even collude with) it. Illness limits but we anticipate these limits and the disappointments that accompany them and, unfortunately, over time we may even begin to limit ourselves. Illness does not do this; we do. Eventually, we will have a whole host of limitations associated with illness and suffering --- many of which can be unlearned and transcended. But it takes something really powerful to encourage and enable us to do this. In my experience, it is the unconditional love of God mediated to me by others as well as in prayer which makes this possible. Yes, there will be significant work in spiritual direction and perhaps even in therapy or in the kind of inner work (PRH) I have spoken of before, but more and more, one's suffering assumes the place of the cross in representations of the risen Christ --- important ("critical" -- pun intended!) but not dominant. A hermit's vocation (and there are a number of us with chronic illnesses!) is to make evident this kind of transparency to the love of God.
I do hope this helps to clarify my position for anyone for whom I failed to be clear. Let me know if it raises more questions.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 7:42 AM
Labels: chronic illness and eremitical life, chronic illness as vocation, countercultural witness, eremitical witness, Validation vs redemption of Isolation
04 March 2020
On the Motivations of Those Assisting in Discernment
Difficult and good questions. I have participated in a number of discernment processes, both my own and those of others, and always, I think, they cause some anxiety. But discernment processes ordinarily occur over some time and that means that the person whose vocation is being discerned will have the chance to get to know the people involved in making decisions in their regard. When everything works well, trust builds between those involved and generally speaking, the discernment will be more or less mutual. Of course sometimes decisions have to be made before a candidate, novice, or other, is ready or can agree with the wisdom of the decision. These are very painful times for both formation personnel and for those in discernment. I think it is the case that we may not understand the pain formation personnel also experience but it would be a mistake to believe such folks are uncaring.
The idea that one is being personally judged needs to be shaken off. Ordinarily what folks are looking for is the way of life that truly is best for the person in discernment; a;so, formation/discernment personnel are specifically called to demonstrate a concern for the vocation itself. Remember that vocations (both individually and collectively) are gifts of God to the Church and larger world; we want to be sure they remain gifts of real value in this way. Vocations can't be trivialized. Eremitical life especially cannot be trivialized and discernment cannot be treated as a meaningless, pro forma, or legalistic matter; the history of hermits is too fraught with counterfeits, rebels, nutcases, and eccentrics whose lives have more to do with individualism and self-centeredness than with answering a call of God to love others and witness to the Gospel of Christ in the silence of solitude. So, the health of the person discerning and the healthy embodiment of a specific vocation which will be truly edifying to others are the primary motivations for personnel doing formation and/or discernment. Discernment is not ordinarily about personal judgments or criticism -- though in a situation where the discerner has been disingenuous or uncooperative there may be elements of personal criticism. Still, this is not what discernment is ordinarily about and it is important to remember this.
These are the foundational concerns motivating a person to assist in a process of discernment. Speaking for myself I can say that one appreciates that God is working in the Church in a unique and significant way through this vocation, that one has found great joy and wholeness in the vocation, and that because of these things one wants others to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit in this way. I want to serve God and the Church. I want to serve in the proclamation of the Gospel and one way to do this is to be sure candidates to ecclesial eremitical life demonstrate the indicia characteristic of such vocations. Moreover, I want others to know the kind of fullness of life I know, something they can know if they are truly called to this. It is clear to me that those who are not truly called, those who are inadequately or inappropriately motivated, those who cannot seem to love fully in this way, those for whom eremitical life seems to exacerbate their isolation (by which I mean not just physical solitude, but an emotional estrangement and self-absorption marked by an incapacity for compassion and community), these persons will never be truly happy as hermits. To allow such a person to live their isolation, as well as a fundamental untruth and unhappiness "in the name of the Church", would be to act in a way seriously lacking in charity which betrays the God of Life.
Your own questions about hermits not being involved in active ministry, not needing to live harmoniously in community, etc., seem to me to indicate you really do not understand the vocation or see its value, especially (as you say explicitly) in proclaiming the Gospel. That's actually not unusual and I do appreciate your honesty here, but I hope you see that the attitude your questions betray is precisely a very good reason to be sure that discernment of eremitical vocations are more rather than less carefully and competently done. You see, hermits do engage in ministry. Even when they do not do active ministry or do very little of this, their lives as hermits are ministerial per se. Hermits live alone with God for God's own sake and the sake of others. That is the nature of their vocation.
When one looks at such a life one should find relative wholeness or personal completion in God, the capacity for love and a continuing maturation in these; one should find a manifestly happy person --- not a Pollyanna-ish life (there will be suffering, of course) but one that is truly happy nonetheless, deeply comforted and enriched by God, profoundly compassionate and connected to others. Though, as Thomas Merton reminded us in word and (unfortunately) in deed, hermits are not perfect, one should still find someone whose life speaks of what we proclaim is possible when human beings live for, in, and through God. It will not be a life defined by unhappiness, isolation, self-centeredness, or something other than the love and life of God and all that is precious to God. Such radically Christian lives have witness value; they are very specifically a proclamation of the Gospel of God in Christ which others need so badly. To be this for others is the essence of Christian ministry.
Those discerning such vocations or assisting others to discern them, will look for hermits whose very lives are (or have the clear potential for being) ministerial in this sense. At bottom discernment is an act of love and ministry which serves God and God's Church by attending to a "candidate's" capacity to love and minister in the silence of solitude simply by being her truest self.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 5:20 PM
03 March 2020
What One Looks for When a Hermit is Chronically Ill
Great question, thanks! Generally speaking I (or those discerning such vocations) look for the same things I/we look for in any putative eremitical life. It becomes especially important though to see an essential wellness in a hermit who is chronically ill, I think. Because illness itself isolates us from others and may result in a life which is seriously cut off socially, it is critical that one shows evidence of truly being called by God to eremitical solitude, and thus, to the redemption of the isolation caused by or a consequence of chronic illness. Chronic illness and the isolation it occasions must not be mistaken for eremitical solitude or a call to this. The situation is more complex and requires significant, careful (and often lengthy) discernment,
At the same time I need to say that chronic illness should not be used as an excuse to live a mitigated eremitical life or profess and consecrate someone as a hermit. It is true that the eremitical life of one who is chronically ill will be shaped differently than the life of one who is not, and one can only do what one can do, but the central elements of canon 603, for instance, will still be lived in clear and recognizable ways. It will still be a life of assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, the evangelical counsels, a Rule the hermit writes herself, and supervision by the bishop and those he delegates to serve in this way. Chronic illness will touch (condition) everything in such an eremitical life but it will not define it nor the person called to it!! When a person is defined by their illness, when what is supposed to be a divine call and witness to Divine Life and wholeness is overshadowed by physical or mental illness and this is all the person can speak about, we can conclude the person has not (or at least not yet!) been called by God to live eremitical life in the name of the Church and her Gospel.
Over the past few years I have stressed the importance of a redemptive experience being at the heart of any authentic eremitical life. It is absolutely critical that someone already isolated from others because of illness experiences such a redemptive "moment". Characteristically we will see isolation transfigured into solitude, a solitude which is marked by community and grounded in a lifegiving relationship with God in Christ. It will also be a solitude open to the pain of others and capable of speaking a word which heals and inspires. I have known this because of my own experience with both chronic illness and eremitical life, and also because of theology and the witness of Scripture. It has also been underscored by examples of its antithesis --- examples of counterfeit hermits whose lives do not edify in the way a hermit's must. When a person and all they say and do is defined by their illness, not simply qualified or conditioned by it, when their life is mainly a plaint or paean of pain, such a person is not credible as a hermit. What must dominate in spite of very significant pain and suffering is the person's essential wholeness and happiness in God.
My own motto and guide for what I believe one should see when discerning such a vocation in oneself or in others is Paul's, [[My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness,]] If we are ill then the power of God's own love and holiness must shine through in a way which transfigures our illness and allows it to become transparent to this greater truth. I certainly don't mean that we must deny or hide our illness or that we cannot mention it. I have spoken here a number of times about 1) my intractable seizure disorder and chronic pain, and 2) the inner healing and growth work I am doing with my Director; but what I think is true and I hope is evident from this blog, is that significant as these things are, they do not define me. Rather it is the grace. love, and life of God that define me. (This is something most folks with chronic illness have to deal with. Paul's insights into the paradoxical nature of Christian life are very helpful here.) So, again, I personally look for the same things in a "candidate" for profession or someone seeking to become a hermit whether they are chronically ill or physically well; because a hermit serves by the witness they give to the healthy and even the redemptive nature of solitude, it becomes much more critical that essential wellness is the dominant reality when one is dealing with someone who is chronically ill.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 9:44 AM
Labels: chronic illness as vocation, discerning c 603 vocations, discerning eremitical life, redemption of isolation, Validation vs redemption of Isolation
02 March 2020
Keeping Lent 2020
[[ Hi Sister, how do you keep Lent? Do you keep greater silence, eat differently, or do you do something else?]]
Good question and one I tend to get each year. Also, this morning I heard from another hermit who was checking in on me because she had not seen much new activity on this blog. She assumed I was keeping greater silence but was also a bit concerned. But this year is a bit different and Lent will look very different than usual. Two things have kept me busy recently and will probably continue to do so during the rest of the season. The first is the inner work I have been doing with my Director over the past 3 and 3/4 years. We have reached a new stage in this work and that will mean some work consolidating what occurred recently and over the past years, as well as assessing the inner freedom that is its consequence. In this regard I actually feel like Lent has just ended and Easter occurred last Friday -- just two days after Ash Wednesday! At this point I am a little off-balance but off-balance because of the grace of God. Almost everything looks and feels new to me. The second thing I have been busy with is Scripture. The class I have been teaching on 2 Corinthians has taken me to places I never expected theologically and personally. Pastorally it is challenging and has become a source of formation for the participants. We will continue until the week prior to Holy Week so a lot of my time will continue to be dedicated to study, prayer, and thinking about Paul and the community in Corinth --- and of course, my own class members and parish community.
Meanwhile, class will go on nonetheless as will my personal work and meetings with my Director; I have class and an appointment with Sister Marietta on the day after I return from the profession! The same is true for a Communion service that morning. So, prayer, study, writing, and time with Scripture will continue even during the week I am away from Stillsong. While none of this may sound very Lenten it all depends on attending to the Holy Spirit in new and challenging ways. Because I already keep significant silence and times of prayer it seems to me that day by day all I can do for Lent or for every other Season is to be faithful to the One who calls me to Himself and love as he empowers me. At the same time, because I am a voracious reader and can work on several books at a time (or move through them very quickly), one very small thing I am doing is "fasting" by making sure I stay with a single book I am using for lectio for as long as needed to truly appreciate all of it. This is something I always wish I did better at so I will focus some energy on it during Lent.
Posted by Sr. Laurel M. O'Neal, Er. Dio. at 11:16 PM