Common Reasons Dioceses Decline to Profess Candidates Under Canon 603 (Reprise)

[[ Dear Sister, what are some of the reasons a diocese would decide not to profess someone as a diocesan (c 603) hermit? What happens if the hermit disagrees with the decision?]]

I am reposting an answer I put up about eight years ago. I think it will answer your question in an initial way. If it is insufficient or raises more questions please just let me know and I will follow up. That is especially possible with regard to what to do when one disagrees with the decision a diocese makes because I have posted several times on this topic.

[[Dear Sister, I don't think you took into consider-ation the very real possibility that those "discerning" a person's vocation may have let personal prejudice creep into their ultimate decision. If a lay person who has lived their vocation as a lay hermit as long as the writer has, is rejected, I have to question whether they really ever wanted to conclude in favor of the petitioner in the first place. Sometimes it is not the person's deficiency; sometimes it is a problem with people disliking the person under scrutiny. Your advice could be very healing for such a terrible moment in a person's life.]]

Many thanks for your comments. I admit I have not run into such a situation myself, and though I agree it is possible, I honestly don't think it is all that common. However, let me discuss it directly after I mention some of the more common reasons lay hermits (or those calling themselves lay hermits) are denied admittance to canonical profession/consecration. I think this will help demonstrate what in most cases is far more often apt to be at work than simple prejudice. (Let me be very clear, none of these examples should be assumed to apply to the original poster's situation!! Neither do any of these necessarily make the very real difficulty of diocesan denial of one's petition any easier to bear.)

The Problem of Self-Identification

First of all, generally speaking, the problem with lay hermit vocations is the IF in your conditional sentence, "If a lay hermit has lived this vocation. . .for such a length of time. . .". This is, unfortunately, a VERY big IF. One problem with self-designations is that one can call oneself a lay hermit without any checks or balances and be something other than what the church recognizes as a hermit, lay or otherwise. Obviously, this can come from many causes -- including a simple lack of adequate spiritual direction or other challenging feedback, and a lack of access to others who can educate one regarding the meaning of terms like "silence", "solitude", "the silence of solitude", "the world", "stricter separation from the world", etc. 

But whatever the reason, self-identification is a problematic practice and may or may not represent the truth of the situation. One of the reasons I have written recently about the hyperindividualism and even narcissism of our culture is to indicate that this is a real danger in discerning true eremitical vocations. One of the reasons I have distinguished between just living a pious life alone and living eremitical solitude is because this is true. Not everything that goes by the name "hermit" is authentic. (Remember the story I posted here re Tom Leppard?) Sometimes the application of the term "hermit" is a way of trying to validate isolationism, misanthropy, narcissism, social failure, as well as a piety which is more than nominal Christians live, but which falls far short of the eremitical life required and marked by canon 603. Unfortunately, such reasons are not uncommon.

In such cases, these people are not truly hermits. The designation "hermit" is self-assumed and neither the church nor society approves nor monitors the way they live their lives nor calls them directly to do a better job of it! Private vows are significant personal commitments but they are private in every way. Neither the church nor the persons witnessing such vows have a role in supervising these commitments to see how well the person is living them. Thus, there is simply no way to easily verify 1) if the person lives what Canon 603 describes as essential to the eremitical life, nor 2) what the designation "hermit" really means on a daily, year in -- year out, basis. While some have contempt for the legal aspects of canonical standing, accountability is a big piece of standing in law and the church tends to make publicly accountable those who demonstrate they have been faithful to and accountable for a genuinely generous eremitical vocation without canonical standing. Unfortunately, when dealing with non canonical hermits, sometimes the diocese in question simply cannot establish this to their own satisfaction.

Making the Transition to Hermit Life

Others not only do not live, but do not even want to live an eremitical life; they simply want to be able to wear religious garb and be called "Sister" or "Brother"; canon 603 seems the easiest way to do that as a lone person. (For every person who genuinely wants to live a canonical eremitical life, there are dozens who approach canon 603 as a stopgap measure only.) Such persons typically never make the kinds of breaks with their former way of life which are necessary to eremitical life. When I speak of people living pious lives alone rather than living an eremitical silence of solitude I sometimes am referring to these kinds of people. Some watch several hours of TV a day (or participate similarly in some other personal activity or hobby (even those with significantly more value than TV) in ways which make these the defining activities of their lives) while they add in an hour of prayer here or there, and so forth; the basic approach here means that the radical break with the world (especially as it is represented in their very selves and living space) is not made. Such persons may even be fine writers, artists, etc, but this does not of itself make them hermits in the church's sense of that term.

Tweaking one's prayer and penitential life here or there is not what is called for. Stricter separation from the world (that which is resistant to Christ and not yet under his sovereignty), as I have said a number of times, does not mean merely closing the hermitage door on the world outside oneself while one continues the life one lived before. I recall my former Bishop in his homily at my perpetual profession referring to my giving over of my living space to this call. At the time I had not thought of what I was doing in these terms, but he was exactly right. The giving over he was speaking of represents part of the "stricter separation from the world" the canon calls for. While such persons are perhaps learning to live as lay hermits they are not, or at least are not YET, good candidates for canon 603 profession. If the motivation and effort to move beyond such lives into real eremitical silence and solitude, assiduous prayer and penance is not evident, then a diocese may simply be dealing with a person who wants a diocese to rubber stamp a lone, perhaps pious, but non-eremitical life and give them the permission they desire to dress and style themselves as religious. In such cases dioceses will rightly decline admission to profession/consecration.

Simply not Called to Public Profession

Beyond this, there are people who MAY indeed have lived faithfully as lay hermits for some period of time who are simply not equipped to represent the eremitical tradition in some public or normative way. While one would never want to deprive them of the designation lay hermit (something they are free to explore and live or at least try to live by virtue of their baptism -- and which itself is a source of our eremitical tradition), neither would one be able in good conscience to admit them to public vows. In one case I am aware of, for instance, a lay hermit regularly and publicly expresses contempt for canon 603 and all he mistakenly feels it stands for. While he is willing to "turn in (his) paper work" occasionally to see if his Bishop "desires to have (him) professed", it is his stated feeling that canon 603 is actually a betrayal of the church's eremitical tradition. This person has been denied admittance to public profession once or twice in the past and, it seems very likely to me, this had nothing to do with simple personal prejudice on the part of those discerning these vocations for the diocese.

Some are not good candidates for consecration and public vows for different reasons: Perhaps they are seriously mentally ill or significantly personality disordered; perhaps their theology is so off-the-wall, or the "rule" by which they live so inadequate and eccentric that canonical standing (which makes of the Rule a quasi-public document via Bishop's decree) would set a precedent which is detrimental to the vocation generally and may cause problems for other dioceses dealing with similar situations and persons. Some lay hermits have notions of obedience which are far from those more healthy ones used today in the contemporary church with regard to public vows; they require permission for even the smallest decision or change in daily living, and show a concerning lack of autonomy in their capacity for discerning and implementing God's will. One person has joked that they suspect these persons would put their Bishops on speed dial if they allowed it! For such persons, admission to vows and the legitimate superior-subject relationship with one's Bishop and/or delegate which this establishes can be truly detrimental for the person and for the c 603 vocation. At the very least it does not represent the mature obedience of vowed life.

Physical Incapacity

In the absence of such difficulties there are persons who are simply physically incapable of living the life outlined in canon 603. Certainly one does not have to be completely well and one could well be a hermit with chronic illness and conceivably even a caregiver, but one does need to be able to live a disciplined life of assiduous prayer, penance and eremitical solitude without turning, for instance, to hours of various distractions from the symptoms of one's illness.

While it is personally difficult for me to suggest that some persons' illnesses apparently prevent them from living an eremitical life, it does happen. In my experience, sometimes physical illness can be a dominating reality to such an extent that one is unable to live an eremitical life effectively. This can certainly change, but what I am suggesting is that so long as illness is the defining (not just an important and influential) reality in one's life, one may not be ready to live canon 603 life. In such a case it would be important to clarify with the diocese that they will look at one's petition down the line should the nature of illness change. (Note well, I am not suggesting that the illness itself needs to change or be healed but that the way one lives with this illness has to do so if that is possible. In some way God and all of the fruits which life with God produces --- including the silence of solitude and the other-centered, generosity and compassion that result from it --- must become the defining realities of one's life, not one's illness. Ordinarily this occurs in some essential way during the period of lay eremitism one lives before petitioning the diocese for admission to profession but there must be signs of it happening before one is admitted to vows and it should be very clearly established by the time of perpetual vows.)

Steps usually taken in the process of discernment of canon 603 vocations which help insure the wisdom and objectivity of the process.

To be honest I think these cases are far more prevalent than instances of unfounded or merely personal bias on the part of diocesan personnel. With regard to the way discernment of eremitical vocations is carried out in dioceses I am familiar with, here are some of the steps usually involved: 1) a more or less loosely supervised period as a lay hermit with regular spiritual direction, involvement in a parish, and (later on in this period) regular meetings (including home visits) with the Vicar for Religious or Consecrated Life; 2) psychological screening when this seems prudent or helpful (occasionally dioceses do this routinely for c 603 aspirants, just as congregations do for their own aspirants), 3) time for the writing of a Plan of Life or Rule based on lived experience of eremitical life and preparation for living the vows, 4) submission of the Rule to canonists (usually third parties outside the diocese, especially those who specialize in c 603 or consecrated life) who will critique and make suggestions for such a document, 5) assembling of various recommendations (pastors, spiritual directors, physicians, psychologists, former Vicars of Religious, or others who have dealt with the individual), 6) usually concurrent assembling documents of Sacramental history in the Church including the Sacrament of matrimony and decrees of nullity, 7) a period of discernment beyond all of these perhaps leading to a recommendation to the Bishop to admit to profession, 8) a personal meeting with the Bishop who (in my own experience) only then reads all that has been submitted, whether by the petitioner or others, meets with the aspirant several more times, and does his own separate and final discernment in the matter.

I should note that a person's admission to temporary profession is actually a continuation of the discernment process, though this occurs in a different way. Still, temporary vows are made for a certain period of time and during this time the hermit will meet with her Bishop, regularly with her delegate, and regularly with her spiritual director; she will petition for renewal of vows or admission to perpetual profession near the end of this period and another process of decision making rooted in discernment will occur at the diocesan level. Changes in the Rule may be needed, and this again may be submitted to canonists for approval. Another period of temporary profession may be requested of the hermit by her diocese. Discernment --- so far as the diocese is concerned --- ceases only with perpetual profession.

What Should a Person do if they are still convinced they are the victim of prejudice in the diocese's decision?

But what should a person do if they are convinced that they cannot get a fair hearing from diocesan personnel? This is a tough question actually. The first thing, however, is to ask to speak to whoever has been dealing with one's petition directly. Ask the same kinds of questions I have already noted in earlier posts. See if there is anything which could cause a change in one's opinion in this matter. Ask if there is any single document or recommendation which is the sticking point and speak again to that person --- open to having them be honest with you --- hard as that might be. If the Bishop has not yet received the case (or has not received a positive recommendation) write him a direct letter and lay your concerns and perception of the situation before him. If the Bishop is the source of the negative evaluation then still try to see him for a clarifying conversation. This could be one of those rare situations where someone should consider moving to a new diocese and trying again --- but one should contact the new diocese beforehand to see if they would look over your documents and consider ANY petition to be professed under canon 603.

Another reader made an additional suggestion which could be helpful for both the individual and diocese. They suggested that a "come and see" period at a contemplative house or monastery might be helpful in clarifying issues and concerns. This could provide a more objective source of discernment for either the diocese or the individual. I don't know how common are houses which would participate in such a project, and certainly some individuals would not be able to leave their homes to try such an extended (say, a month  or two long) period, but for those able to do so, this could really be helpful. The community would need to be willing not only to welcome the candidate into their daily lives, but also assist in their acclimation and (in the person of their superior or formation director) meet with both the candidate and the diocese to frankly assess the experience. This could either be affirming for the individual and reassuring for the diocese in ways which allow it to adjust its thinking, or it could confirm all of the reservations the diocese has already.

I have personally suggested such periods are important for candidates for canon 603 profession given our culture which shuns solitude and is allergic to silence. We have candidates who think that silence is turning off one's iPod while leaving the TV on (an exaggeration in most cases, but a good illustration of the general problem nonetheless)! In such cases an extended period in a monastic community where one meets true silence --- as well as the solidarity of love in solitude and what canon 603 calls the silence of solitude --- lived by a number of healthy people is extremely helpful. However, I had not thought about these other aspects before. I am grateful to the reader who wrote me about this.

My experience is that generally diocesan personnel work very hard at discerning such vocations. They serve the church and those in positions dealing with discernment are usually pretty savvy in their regard. They are ordinarily good enough at their jobs and their people skills not to fall into the trap of rejecting an individual vocation out of mere prejudice (rejecting the eremitical vocation itself is a little more common unfortunately). Of course this does not mean it cannot and does not happen --- only that in my estimation it is far less prevalent than other common causes of refusal of admission to public profession and consecration.

Pentecost: A Tale of Two Kingdoms (Reprised)

 One of the problems I see most often with Christianity is its domestication (not to be confused with domestic churches!!), a kind of blunting of its prophetic and counter cultural character. It is one thing to be comfortable with our faith, to live it gently in every part of our lives and to be a source of quiet challenge and consolation because we have been wholly changed by it. It is entirely another to add it to our lives and identities as a merely superficial "spiritual component" which we refuse to allow not only to shake the very foundations of all we know but also to transform us in all we are and do. 

Even more problematical --- and I admit to being sensitive to this because I am a hermit called to "stricter separation from the world" --- is a kind of self-centered spirituality which focuses on our own supposed holiness or perfection but calls for turning away from a world which undoubtedly needs and yearns for the love only God's powerful Spirit makes possible in us. Clearly today's Festal readings celebrate something very different than the sort of bland, powerless, pastorally ineffective, merely nominal Christianity we may embrace --- or the self-centered spirituality we sometimes espouse --- in the name of "contemplation" and  "contemptus mundi". Listen again to the shaking experience of the powerful Spirit that birthed the Church which Luke recounts in Acts: 

[[When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.]]

Roaring sounds filling the whole space, tongues of fire coming to rest above each person, a power of language which commun-icates (creates) incredible unity and destroys division --- this is a picture of a new and incredible creation, a new and awesome world in which the structures of power are turned on their heads and those who were outsiders --- the sick and poor, the outcast and sinners, those with no status and only the stamp of shame marking their lives --- are kissed with divinity and revealed to be God's very own Temples. The imagery of this reading is profound. For instance, in the world of this time coins were stamped with Caesar's picture and above his head was the image of a tongue of fire. Fire was a symbol of life and potency; it was linked to the heavens (stars, comets, etc). The tongue of fire was a way of indicating the Emperor's divinity.  Similarly, the capacity for speech, the fact that one has been given or has a voice, is a sign of power, standing, and authority.

And so Luke says of us. The Spirit of the Father and Son has come upon us. Tongues of Fire mark us as do tongues potentially capable of speaking a word of ultimate comfort to anyone anywhere. We have been made a Royal People, Temples of the Holy Spirit and called to live and act with a new authority, an authority and status which is greater than any Caesar. As I have noted before, this is not mere poetry, though it is certainly wonderfully poetic. On this Feast we open ourselves to the Spirit who transforms us quite literally into images of God, literal Temples of God's prophetic presence in our world, literal exemplars of a consoling love-doing-justice and a fiery, earth-shaking holiness which both transcends and undercuts every authority and status in our world that pretends to divinity or ultimacy. We ARE the Body of Christ, expressions of the one in whom godless death has been destroyed, expressions of the One in whom one day all sin and death will be replaced by eternal life. In Christ we are embodiments and mediators of the Word which destroys divisions and summons creation to reconciliation and unity; in us the Spirit of God loves our world into wholeness.

You can see that there is something really dangerous about today's Feast. What we celebrate is dangerous to a Caesar oppressing most of the known world with his taxation and arbitrary exercise of power depending on keeping subjects powerless and without choice or voice; it is dangerous if you are called to live out this gift of God's own Spirit as a prophetic presence in the very same world which kills prophets and executed God's Anointed One as a shameful criminal --- a traitor or seditionist and blasphemer. Witnesses to the risen Christ and the Kingdom of God are liable, of course, to  martyrdom of all sorts. That is the very nature of the word, "martyr", and it is what yesterday's gospel lection referred to when it promised Peter that in his maturity he would be led where he did not really desire to go. But it is also dangerous to those who prefer a more domesticated and timid "Christianity", one that does not upset the status quo or demand the overthrow of all of one's vision, values, and the redefinition of one's entire purpose in life; it is dangerous if you care too much about what people think of you or you desire a faith which is consoling but undemanding --- a faith centered on what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace". At least it is dangerous when one opens oneself, even slightly, to the Spirit celebrated in this Feast.

A few years ago my pastor (John Kasper, OSFS)  quoted from Annie Dillard's book, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It may have been for Pentecost, but I can't remember that now. Here, though, is the passage from which he quoted, [[Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.]] Clearly both Fr John and Ms Dillard understood how truly dangerous the Spirit of Pentecost is.

We live in a world where two Kingdoms vie against each other. One is marked by oppression, a lack of freedom --- except for the privileged few who hold positions of wealth and influence --- and is marred by the domination of sin and death. It is a world where the poor, ill, aged, and otherwise powerless are essentially voiceless. In this world Caesars of all sorts have been sovereign or pretended to sovereignty. The other Kingdom, the Kingdom which signals the eventual and inevitable end of the first one is the Kingdom (Dominion) of God. It has come among us first in God's quiet self-emptying and in the smallness of an infant, the generosity, compassion, and ultimately, the weakness, suffering and sinful death of a Jewish man in a Roman world. Today it comes to us as a powerful wind which shakes and disorients even as it grounds and reorients us in the love of God. Today it comes to us as the power of love that does justice and sets all things to right.

While the battle between these two Kingdoms occurs all around us in the way we live and proclaim the Gospel with our lives, the way, that is, we worship God, raise our children, teach our students, treat our parishioners, clients, and patients, vote our consciences, contribute to our society's needs, and generally minister to our world, it is our hearts which are ground zero in this "tale of two Kingdoms." It is not easy to admit that insofar as we are truly human we have been kissed by a Divinity which invites us to a divine/human union that completes us, makes us whole, and results in a fruitfulness we associate with all similar "marriages". It is not easy to give our hearts so completely or embrace a dignity which is entirely the gift of another. Far easier to keep our hearts divided and ambiguous. But today's Feast calls us to truly open ourselves to this union, to accept that our lives are marked and transformed by tongues of fire and the shaking, stormy Spirit of prophets. After all, this is Pentecost and through us God truly will renew the face of the earth.

Skills for the Pandemic: Waiting and the Present Moment

[[Dear Sister, during the lockdown many of us are living now, I know we're all struggling with the same kinds of things. How do we learn to wait for the end to all of this pandemic awfulness and the time when we can resume our normal lives? I've never been all that good with waiting anyway and now as things stretch on without a foreseeable end I think I've lost any ability I ever had to wait!! I just don't feel patient at all. How do you do this? Is it different for you than it is for non-hermits?]]

Thanks for your questions; they are important and I agree that everyone is probably struggling with these or similar questions. This may sound strange but I am convinced that the key to waiting comes from not misunderstanding its nature. I think that rather than waiting for the end to this lockdown and return to normal --- both of which we want but cannot even be sure will happen --- we have to learn to live the life we have this day, this hour. We wait well when our attention is not on the future possibilities (no matter how probable or improbable), but on the present moment right in front of us. There is a paradox here --- as in so many things associated with the Gospel. We wait best when we live our lives right here and right now and allow the "waiting" piece of things to drop away.

Consider Sunday's Feast/Solemnity of the Ascension. The readings were full of references to "Jesus' return" and to the promise of the fulfillment of this New Creation at some unknown time. And yet, the disciples' attention had to be drawn away from the skies and a sense of what would happen one day in some unknown way, and brought back to the world around them where Jesus would surely be found as the one now exalted to the right hand of God.  The language of leaving and returning helps us ready ourselves for a change that has actually happened and can be perceptible with the eyes of faith. What will one day come to be in fullness can only be seen, and in fact, only "waited for" by attending to it now while appreciating its proleptic or very real but also anticipatory quality.

The correlative paradox is that we cease to wait as soon as we begin to look away from the present moment. Think what it is like to wait for a doctor's appointment or in the check-out line in the supermarket. Imagine someone waiting patiently (which really just means waiting). They watch people, perhaps pray for them, allow themselves to take in all of the sights and sounds around them, quietly recheck their list to make sure they have included everything they 1) wanted to talk about or 2) needed to purchase, and then continue on being entirely present to the present moment. Then consider someone "waiting impatiently," (no one  actually waits impatiently; impatience means one has ceased to wait altogether). They wonder what is taking so long, imagine all kinds of reasons, dream about where they might otherwise be, consider how much more important they and their time are than this silly delay seems to indicate is appreciated, etc, etc. This person is not merely impatient with the situation and the world around them (which perhaps goes unnoticed and is certainly unappreciated); they have ceased to live the present moment almost entirely. They no longer wait in any meaningful way.

So what does this mean for those on lockdown or "shelter in place"? To whatever extent you can make future plans, do that, but after you have done that, let yourself live your life as it is in the present. Make sure there is regularity about your days, sufficient rest, work, prayer if that is important to you, and recreation. Limit your consumption of news (and anything else you are tempted to overindulge in!)  If you have time to take on a new project, piece of learning, or hobby, by all means do that. Honor your commitments as best you can. But again you only truly wait by being fully present to the present moment. That's how any meaningful future comes to us, and in fact, it is the way we honor and welcome the future, paradoxical as that seems. This is why we have the sense of the "future" sneaking up on us and waiting taking no time at all when we are engaged in the present. 

All of this is how it is for a hermit or contemplative of any stripe. I admit that in most ways the shelter-in-place has been easier for me than for most because I already live this kind of ""stability". But that is about living in the silence of solitude. Waiting is the same for me as for anyone; there is no special trick here that hermits-only know. Yes, I do try to practice living in the present moment as best I can --- which likely makes waiting easier for me in some ways. I hope this is helpful.

Two Were Bound For Emmaus

About a month ago I wrote a homily for my parish community for the Sunday using Luke's story of the Road to Emmaus. Both spending time with Luke's text and writing the reflection were very important for me personally (cf back around 28.April for this piece), and it has stayed with me throughout the Easter season. Tonight I heard the hymn, Two Were Bound for Emmaus.  There was one line that reminded me of what I wrote for yesterday's Feast of the Ascension as well: "Love unknown then walked beside them." So much of our own faith lives is about learning to "see with new eyes" because Love-in-Act walks right beside us, accompanying, comforting, consoling, inspiring and bringing us home.This has been the challenge for us all during Easter and continues now with a special urgency and new difficulty after the Ascension. I loved this version of the story we embody ourselves. Enjoy!

Reflection for Solemnity of the Ascension: Seeing our New Creation with the Eyes of God

In one of the Star Trek Next Generation episodes, Commander Geordi La Forge and Ensign Ro Larren are caught in a transporter accident. While returning to the ship, a surge of power or radiation causes them "materialize" back on the Enterprise in a way where they cannot be seen or heard. The transporter pad looks empty; they seem to have been lost. Neither can they interact in their usual way with the ordinary world of space and time; for instance, they can walk through walls, reach through control panels or other "solid" objects, and stand between two people who are conversing without being perceived. The dimension of reality Geordi and Ro now inhabit interpenetrates the other more everyday world of space and time, interfaces with it in some way without being identical with it. In other words, their new existence is both continuous and discontinuous with their old existence; Geordi and Ro are both present and absent at the same time. In Star Trek parlance this new way of being embodied is called, ”phased” -- because it is a presence slightly “out of phase with our own”. While their friends believe that Geordi and Ro are gone forever and begin to grieve, Geordi and Ro are still vitally present and they leave signs of this presence everywhere --- if only these can be recognized and their friends empowered to see them as they are.


Especially, I think this story helps us begin to imagine and think about what has been so important during all the readings we have heard during this Easter Season and is celebrated in a new and even more mysterious way with the feast of the Ascension. In these stories Jesus is present in a way which is both like and unlike, continuous and discontinuous with, normal existence; it is a presence which can be described as, and even mistaken for absence. Today’s first reading from Acts describes a difficult and demanding “departure” or “absence” but one which has the disciples misguidedly looking up into the skies --- something the angels upbraid them for. Meanwhile, the consoling and hope-filled word we are left with at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel conveys the promise of an abiding presence which will never leave us. Jesus affirms, [[And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.]] In these readings, absence and Presence are held together in a strange tension.

We know that Resurrection itself represented the coming of something new, a new kind of expanded or less limited incarnation, a new embodied presence or materiality where Jesus can be encountered and recognized with the eyes of faith. What is made clear time and again as Jesus picnicked on the beach with his disciples, invited them to touch him, or even when he warns Mary of Magdala not to cling to him in this form, is that his resurrection is bodily. Yes, it is different from the kind of materiality Jesus had before his death. He is no longer mortal and so we are told he walks through walls and breaches locked doors or otherwise comes and goes without anyone seeing how. The gospel writers want us to understand that Jesus was not merely "raised" in our minds and hearts (though we will certainly find him there!); neither is the risen Jesus disembodied spirit or a naked immortal soul. Finally, he has not relinquished his humanity. God has raised the human Jesus to a new bodily life which is both earthly and heavenly.

Only in Luke’s version of the story is Ascension spoken of directly or treated as a separate event occurring 40 days after the resurrection. (Mark's Gospel originally ended short of the Ascension story.) Here Luke shifts our attention from Jesus’ continuing earthly but mysterious presence to his having been “taken up bodily into heaven”. But how can this be? We might be forgiven for thinking that surely the Star Trek story is easier to believe than this fantastical and incredible tale on which we base our lives! So, what is Luke doing here? What are we really celebrating on this feast?

What Luke and his original readers knew was that in the Scriptures, "Heaven” is a careful Semitic way of speaking about God’s own self --- just as the presence of clouds in today’s reading from Acts refers to the mysteriousness of God’s presence. Heaven is not a remote location in space one can locate with the proper astrometric instruments and coordinates; nor are unbelieving cosmonauts and hard-nosed empiricists the only ones to make such a mistake. After all, as we hear today, even the disciples need to have their attention drawn away from searching the skies and brought back to earth where Jesus will truly be found! Heaven refers to God’s own life shared with others.


Luke is telling the story in a way which helps us see that in Christ God has not only conquered death, but (he) has made room for humanity itself (and in fact, for all of creation) within (his) own Divine life. Christ is the “first fruits” of this new way of existing where heaven (Divine Life) and earth (created life) now interpenetrate one another. God is present in our world of space and time now in a way he could not have been apart from Jesus’ openness and responsiveness (what the Scriptures call his “obedience”), and Jesus is present in a way he could not be without existing in God. Jesus’ own ministry among us continues as more and more, Jesus draws us each and all into that same Divine life in the power of the Holy Spirit of the Father and Son.


St John uses the puzzling language of mutual indwelling to describe this reality: "The Father is in me and I am in him" . . ." we know that we abide in him and he is in us." When theologians in both Western and Eastern churches speak of this whole dynamic, their summary is paradoxical and shocking: [[God became human so that humans might become gods]]. And as one contemporary Bible scholar puts the matter, “We who are baptized into Christ's death are citizens of heaven colonizing the earth.” As such, we are also called on to develop the eyes of faith that allow us to see this new world as it is shot through with the promise of fullness. Some of us experienced what this means just this week.

Three years ago, in a visit to my parish, Bro Mickey McGrath, osfs, gave us a virtual tour of his Camden ‘hood by sharing the work he had drawn and painted from Holy Week onward during his own sheltering in place. Many of us got a chance to see through his eyes, that is, through the eyes of faith and love. What Bro Mickey showed us was not an idealized Camden without violence, poverty, suffering or struggle; those were all present. But through his eyes we saw the greenhouse cathedral of a neighborhood garden, the communion lines  and eucharistic Presence of the community food pantry, the way of the cross of a crippled man as he limped up the street, a broken and bold statue of Mary standing as a symbol of perseverance and hope despite everything, and another more contemporary version made even more beautiful by a prostitute's gift of a single flower. And everywhere reality that could have been accurately drawn in harsh tones of pain and struggle were more accurately shown awash with life, beauty, and hope splashed in colors of brilliant orange, and purple, and gold, and green --- the colors of life, royalty, holiness, newness and potential. 

Today’s Feast is not so much about the departure or absence of Jesus as it is his new transfigured, universal, and even cosmic presence which in turn transforms everything it touches with the life of God. The world we live in is not the one that existed before Jesus’ death, and resurrection. Heaven and earth now interpenetrate one another in a way which may sound suspiciously to some like bad science fiction. We know its truth, however, whenever we can see this New Creation with the eyes of faith and love --- that is, whenever we can see ourselves and the world around us with the very eyes of God. It is the only way we will become disciples ourselves --- or truly make disciples of all nations.

She Just Wants to Help

I have been working on a homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension and struggling with it some. Part of what I am trying to convey is that Luke's way of telling the story with its various stages, time frames, and images of leaving, absence, and eventual return are a paradoxical way of speaking about  a new and challenging Presence in a new and sacramental world --- if only we have the eyes of faith to see it! In the midst of this work I received the above picture with a brief note from my Director. 

One can see a foolish child, mistaken in what she sees, misguided in her futile attempts to assist with something she would be too small and insignificant to help with even if this weren't a statue --- and maybe allow "how cute" such foolishness is! Or, one can see what it means when Jesus says we must become like little children and view the world with the eyes of faith. Yes, this is a tableau of Jesus' way of the cross, not merely because of the suffering, struggle, and failure associated with the scene, but because it is simultaneously a tableau of two hearts, blind to their very human limitations, and united in their alertness to the infinite potential of Love. 

This "little one" may not have moved this statue but there is no doubt in my mind she moved God with compassion and delight --- and deeply touched the hearts of whoever has seen this. 

On the Performative Nature of Profession and The Prayer of Solemn Consecration

[[Dear Sister, I've read your last couple of pieces on the profession and consecration of hermits. You are saying these things are more than some kind of official recognition by the Church, aren't you? Would this be like ordination is more than a kind of official recognition of a priestly vocation or of a person? Is this why you use the word performative or speak of a "making real" quality? If a bishop said that profession and consecration was just a form of official recognition he would be incorrect wouldn't he? Because you write that neither the canonical nor the non-canonical hermit vocation is better than the other why is it a problem if someone contends they are canonical when they are not?]]

Yes, you've gotten it. The term performative is used about language events and means that something comes to be or is "realized" in the very act of speaking. We all have a slight sense of this from when we finally put obscure feelings into words and sense they are suddenly more real. But consider, when a judge pronounces a jury's finding of "guilty" the person is guilty under the law and convicted --- even if they did not commit the crime. When the pronounced judgment is "not guilty" the person IS acquitted even if they committed the crime. When an umpire calls a person "safe" they ARE safe; they become so at the moment of the call. On a more significant level, vows work this way as well. They are performative: in the pronouncing of one's vows one becomes bound by them and committed in a way one was not prior to making such vows.  Marriage vows are exchanged and in the process of this exchange a couple marries one another; something comes to be that was not a reality before this and the bonds are unbreakable. If one is admitted to religious profession with public vows, what comes to be is a complex set of relationships, rights, and obligations that did not exist before this, because these vows have implications for more than the person making them. Meanwhile, the prayer of solemn consecration prayed over the person by the bishop mediates God's own consecration where someone is actually set apart in the consecrated state.

Yes, though the two are not identical, there is some similarity between consecration and ordination in the sense that something comes to be that was not before.  Some write that in consecration a person is set apart as a "sacred person". Whether we speak of it this way or not (I tend not to do so) this consecration cannot be undone. While one can be removed from the consecrated state of life (meaning one can be deprived of the rights and obligations associated with this state) consecration itself is an act of God and cannot be undone.  With ordination one is admitted to a Sacrament which also changes one in a lasting way. Those who are ordained are ordained forever (their souls are marked and they are made capable of or ordered to ordained ministry) though they too may be deprived of the rights and obligations associated with their priestly state and returned to the lay state. What is important in all of this is hearing why it is the Church is as careful as she can be in admitting to ordination or, for that matter, to consecration. There are elements of both that, once done, cannot be undone and this makes both very significant acts. Again, there is something involved in each which is God's own doing and is far more than official recognition. Even in terms of the Church herself there is more involved than official recognition including supervision, governance, and mediation.

No Roman Catholic bishop would ever say profession and consecration are merely forms of official recognition because he would have to be ignorant of (or actually denying) the Church's own theology of profession and consecration to do so. Thus, you are correct: were a bishop to say this seriously he would be incorrect. At the same time, if he is trying to assist someone come to terms with the fact that they are not called to a vocation to the consecrated state, but wishes to encourage them to continue to live as a hermit in their baptized state if they feel so called, I can understand him adverting from what public vows and consecration signify within the church. This cannot mean using an actual untruth, however. I tend to think it is important to state the whole truth and to point out that while different from one another neither being a hermit in the lay state nor being one in the consecrated state is better than the other. They have different rights and obligations yes, and they speak to different people in different ways, but neither is "better" than the other, neither is a "higher" vocation than the other.

Even so, the fact that neither is better than the other or higher than the other does not mean they are identical either. Again, the rights and obligations associated with each differs. For instance, diocesan hermits live eremitical life for the sake of others in the name (authority) of the Church and they take on the rights and obligations of someone specifically called to and made responsible for that. They are Catholic hermits because they are explicitly authorized by the church to live this life and because these vocations are specifically governed and supervised under canon law by the local ordinary who is also doing this in the name of the church. Hermits in general may not need such governance and supervision, but those who call themselves Catholic Hermits, who claim to be consecrated, who wear habits to signal this, who reserve Eucharist in their hermitages, and who, on behalf of others they serve, assume other titles like Sister or Brother, DO require canonical standing and episcopal/diocesan supervision. At bottom this is about truth. It is about being the person one says one is -- and being the person God has called one to be. It is about not participating in pretense but instead treating others with charity by telling them the truth.

By the way, a variant of this is the purported assertion of a bishop that canon law (c 603) "does not speak to the validity of a vocation." This was recently posted in the blog Catholic Hermit and I cannot verify either the context or the text of the exact assertion; for this reason the meaning is entirely unclear as well. Even so, the given statement is true if the vocation being spoken of by the bishop is a non-canonical vocation lived in the lay state. After all, there is nothing about canon 603 that says a non-canonical eremitical vocation lacks validity, nor does anyone I know contend this.  On the other hand, does canon 603 "validate" or "speak to the validity"  of consecrated solitary eremitical lives? Yes, of course. The canon establishes in law and in fact allows for solitary eremitical life to be validly lived as an instance of consecrated life for the first time in the universal Church. It serves to establish, measure, and govern vocations precisely as valid vocations. Does this mean such vocations will be lived well? No, c 603 cannot do this, but it does say to the extent everyone involved is acting in good faith the vocation is a divine one recognized as valid (well-founded and legally established with corresponding rights and obligations) in and by the church.

A Contemplative Moment: The Lightest Touch

THE LIGHTEST TOUCH

by David Whyte

Good poetry begins with

the lightest touch

a breeze arriving from nowhere,

a whispered healing arrival,

a word in your ear,

a settling into things,

then like a hand in the dark

it arrests the whole body

steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows

a great line

you can feel Lazarus

deep inside

even the laziest, most deathly afraid

part of you,

lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

On the Paradox of Externals and the mediation of Spiritual Reality

[[Dear Sister, it seems contradictory or maybe it's just paradoxical that a vocation as profoundly spiritual and countercultural as hermit life should have to depend on canon law and other externals.  isn't there a conflict here or at least a danger that a hermit living her life under canon law will lose focus on the spiritual?]]

Excellent questions and also an excellent move from "contradictory" to "paradoxical" instead. That was the exactly right shift and the key to understanding the importance of structures and canons in ensuring or helping to ensure the spiritual and countercultural nature of the consecrated hermit's vocation.

Let me ask you some questions which should help me make my point: have you ever tried to nail jello to a wall? Ever tried to drink or even pour a cup of coffee without the cup? Have you ever tried to deal with mercury outside some kind of container or sleep on a feather "pillow" without the sewn encasement? Ever tried to live a productive life without a schedule, or a place to live or work or tools to work with? How about trying to live as a Christian without benefit of baptism or attempting to ensure a strong sacramental life without depending on "externals" like water, oil, unleavened bread, Scripture, or ordained ministry? Ever tried to take a long journey while avoiding the use of "externals" like roads, maps, gas stations, restaurants, or food stores? How about crossing a busy street at rush hour safely without regard to traffic signals or when there are no traffic laws? How about playing a violin sonata without the violin or the sonata or the technique and musical structure and rules for doing so? Similarly, have you ever tried to cook a complex meal without recipes, timers, utensils, or a stove providing assured temperatures (how about by using sticks and leaves over a campfire)? How did that work out for you? Better than it did for me, I hope!!

A few more questions: have you ever tried to live a consecrated life without being consecrated by God, or a married life (with all the rights and obligations intrinsic to this state of life) without being married? How about raising healthy children without rules or consistent norms; how would that work out do you think? And how does one play games with one's children and have fun doing it if the game has no rules or norms and play itself is "anything goes"? Finally, what would happen if I tried to grow vines without a trellis, the proper soil, water, and other nutrients, or taste/feel the effervescence of CO2 without a liquid in which this occurs? In other words, where do externals stop being merely external to something and instead become necessary for and sometimes even intrinsic to the thing itself? The simple fact is the more precious and fragile or frangible an activity or thing is, and certainly the more important, the more dependent it is on established norms, customs, rules, structures and "containers" of all sorts. Similarly, because we are embodied (historical) beings living our lives in space and time we need these "externals" for protection and health.

The dichotomy being drawn between externals and the spiritual in your own question is largely a false one. You see, in my life I need certain structures, relationships, and laws as well in order to live this vocation fully and faithfully. Others need some of these same things so they can truly benefit from this vocation, but also sometimes, truly serve it. These "externals" are not really merely external; instead they are part and parcel of the vocation itself. I am not merely called to be a lone individual, but a hermit and this requires I stand in the tradition of eremitical life known throughout the history of humankind. But beyond this I am also called to be a hermit living this life in the heart and in the name of the Church and for that reason certain "externals" like consecration, public profession, canon law, legitimate superiors and the ministry of authority, a Rule, and so forth are necessary for and also an intrinsic part of this vocation. All of these things serve this vocation and the God who is its source and ground. Can one be a hermit apart from these things? Yes, or at least yes to some of them. But one cannot be a hermit living this vocation in the name of the Church without them.

The thing is none of these supposedly "external" realities get in the way of the spiritual dimension of my vocation any more than the cup gets in the way of a cup of coffee, or a pillow encasement gets in the way of the feathers. Instead they make these things possible -- and capable of benefiting others. Just like I need a violin and the music for a sonata if I am to play a violin sonata, so too does a call to be a diocesan or canonical hermit require the church, canon law, and the mediation of both the call and the response. There is no call to such a vocation apart from these. My vocation was not a call I heard once in my mind, and responded to similarly once and for all. It is a call I heard, responded to in a definitive way and continue to respond to day in and day out in an embodied way. Canon 603 and my own prayer, work in direction, and life within the Church, sacramental and otherwise, continues to mediate that call to me and to receive my response. Not everyone needs all of this to live as a hermit, of course, but to live as a hermit in the name of the Church and with the rights and obligations which allow that vocation to take concrete shape in my life and the life of the church, one needs these things. Again, they serve this vocation and I am glad for their service.

Our God reveals Godself exhaustively as incarnate. God is exhaustively revealed (made known and made real in space and time) in an embodied way in the person of Jesus. Jesus' humanity does not get in the way of this revelation; it serves it!! It makes it possible! It is an incredible paradox, and something theologians throughout our history have struggled with. So too it is with the  supposed "externals" of canon law, church, ministry of authority, liturgy of consecration and profession, vows, Rule, etc. These allow the call of God to be revealed day in and day out, not only to the hermit, but to all of those the hermit's life touches.

These things shape my life in significant ways, yes, but they are also shaped by my life and reveal the way God is at work in it. Canon 603 isn't merely an external for me but rather something essential to mediate the voice and presence of God --- and thus, intrinsic to it. The same is true of the relationships I have with my Directors, my local parish, diocese, and so forth. These help create a realm of profound freedom infinite in its capacity to allow my exploration of life with God alone. To remove them is like sleeping night after night with one's head in an unconstrained pile of feathers. While this analogy fails like any analogy, it would not be long before the pile would cease to be and the feathers would be lost entirely through my own movement, and sweeping, bedmaking, laundry, an open bedroom window or door, and 1,001 other things which are part of everyday life.