Eschatological or Sacred Secularity: An invitation not to Respond

Therese Ivers has written a couple of posts contending with my arguments that the CV vocation for women living in the world represents a new and important form of secularity, namely an eschatological or sacred secularity the Church and world seriously and urgently needs. They may be found here: Secular Institutes and Sacred Secularity and here: Not Sacred Secularity! She has also asked that I not respond to those posts until she has more time to engage in a discussion of the matter. Fair enough. She is working hard on her dissertation, so I am not going to respond fully at this time; still, I do need to say she has either misunderstood or simply mischaracterized my position in significant ways. For that reason, perhaps it will help if I "outline" what I have already written and make explicit what I mistakenly thought was clear in my posts. 

1. My interest in CV's living in the world stemmed from a sense the vocation lacked substance and I found no one speaking of that substance, if it existed. Upon attending and/or writing about the consecration of friends I was embarrassed that all I could say about this vocation involved what it was not (not a Sister, no vows, no wearing of a habit, bishop is not the legitimate superior of -- you get the idea) and I was searching for better ways to say what this new and ancient vocation was about in the midst of all the things it was not. (By the way, I think the vocation's ancient quality might also be a key to understanding it as a significantly qualified form of secularity, because the early church did not yet neatly divide vocations into religious and secular; they lived in light of a fresh and compelling sense of eschatological secularity as a result in the Incarnation, Passion/Resurrection of the Lord, and resultant New Creation -- the now coming to be New Heaven and New Earth.)
2. I read an article by Sharon Holland, IHM suggesting CV's consecrated under canon 604 (I thought nuns were consecrated in this way under other norms) had a significant vocation which was secular. Because I was doing theology on Christ's transformation of the world in his passion, death and resurrection, and because "secular" has always been a kind of slur or reference to a second or even third-class vocation, the idea that the Church had chosen those living secular lives for consecration as Brides of Christ/CV's was exciting. More, Sister Sharon's article helped make a significant, if paradoxical, sense of a vocation I thought lacked "a job description" as I first put the matter, or a raison d'etre, as I might say today.
3. I also read the Rite of consecration and the homily associated with it and discovered a significant reference about virgins being "apostles in the Church and in the world, in the things of the spirit and the things of the world." (Sharon Holland, IHM had also referred to this significant characterization in her article.) This characterization clearly speaks of a secularity re the vocation (i.e., those CV's living in the world), but one now qualified by consecration. Because it reflects the new creation achieved in the death and resurrection of Jesus, a new creation where heaven has broken into our ordinary world, I called this eschatological secularity. Often I have used an alternative term, "sacred secularity," for this expression. Whichever term I have used, I am convinced of two things in its regard: 1) the CV vocation needs this secularity if it is to make sense and be influential for sake of the Gospel in our contemporary world, and 2) CV's, because they are not religious with the vows of religious, could serve the Church and world as genuine apostles of the Gospel if and only if they whole-heartedly embrace the witness to eschatological secularity our world needs so very urgently. (We don't think of them as instances of religious life-lite; this means they live a secularity but significantly qualified by their consecration.)
4. I have not been concerned with the nuns who receive the consecration of virgins (if they are going to receive this consecration they do so after solemn profession in which the usual prayer of consecration is not said; it is delayed and replaced by the prayer of consecration in the Rite of Consecration of Virgins during this celebration). Rightly, they receive only one form of consecration and of course, it is not to any form of secularity. Since they are essentially irrelevant to my position on eschatological secularity, I have mainly not included them in any reference to CV's or CV's living in the world.
5. I am concerned with understanding and perhaps providing the beginnings of a theology which allows the consecration of a woman living in the world to be a Bride of Christ to be theologically meaningful for the whole Church. I am concerned that without this the vocation will itself be irrelevant, elitist, and have no sense of mission or charism. (Until CV's themselves provide a theological apologia for their vocation which is relevant, prophetic, and truly ministerial or pastoral in some clear way, the consecration of women living in the world as Brides of Christ is a quaint, but anachronistic adaptation of a once-meaningful (!!!) vocation in the early Church.
6. At present there are two forms of the CV vocation, one secular in the significantly qualified way I have been speaking of, and the other religious. (Emphatically, these two forms are not religious and religious-lite!!!) I have generally only been speaking of the first. That is not the same thing as saying the CV vocation per se is secular. Thus, I have tried to be clear I am writing about women living in the world as CV's. Unless I specifically refer to nuns who receive this consecration, I am not including them in any references to sacred or eschatological secularity. (Again, since nuns were receiving the consecration before the Church promulgated c 604, I assumed they were not covered in canon 604 and would be able to be consecrated as CV's even had c 604 only spoken of the significantly qualified secularity I am mainly interested in.)
7. I recognize that the continuing admission of nuns to the consecration of virgins is a problem in several ways and I believe the solution would be to cease admitting nuns to this consecration. It is superfluous, confusing, and to some extent, anachronistic. However, again, my real concern is with the relevance and nature of the CV vocation for women living in the world and that is what I have been writing about. Therese appears to have missed that point, for whatever reason (perhaps I was unclear), and as a consequence, she significantly mischaracterizes my positions or affirmations in her blog posts.

The church has failed to honor secularity and secular vocations for too long but in reintroducing this truly ancient vocation she seems to me to have provided a means or occasion of developing an eschatological view of the world that does justice to the new creation achieved in the life, death, resurrection and ascension and the way heaven interpenetrates created reality. She could do this if CV's living in the world are seen as called to a significantly qualified secularity (though she could do it without them as well). Without CV's embracing and witnessing to this qualified secularity, however, it is the CVs' vocation that will suffer for the eschatological secularity is a new reality established by God in light of the cross. If the Consecrated Virgin living in the world does not witness to this new reality, and do so in particularly focused ways, she has to face a real danger of being irrelevant, powerless in terms of charism or mission, and anachronistic.

Entirely secondary to this is my interest in the question whether all religious women (and men) are brides of Christ or not. It is not a question for me. I know the answer, and my own experience. My Sisters in religion know the answer. (As one said about a month and a half ago, "Until I read your blog I didn't even know it was a question!!") The tradition is clear about this in many ways, and the Rite of Profession of Religious Women is clear about it as well; it leads to the application of the principle, [[As we pray, so do we believe. . .]] in this specific matter. If the promulgation of c 604 and the Rite of Consecration changed that, the Church will need to explicitly announce this, change her Rites of Profession -- at least for Religious Women, and develop a truly compelling apologia on why this shift has occurred and is valid and necessary. Even were she to do this it would be an uphill battle to have this teaching received by the whole church --- and reception would be necessary. 

While I am waiting to read Therese's yet unfinished and thus unpublished dissertation (which she "cautions" me to read in the posts linked below!), I should also note that one dissertation, no matter how compelling or brilliant, will not change the minds and hearts of all the faithful or of most religious women in this matter, nor will it compel the changes I have noted would be necessary (e.g., in the Rite of Profession of Women Religious). So, for the time being, I won't be responding to Therese's posts on this matter. However, since my own interest is in the Church's approach to secularism, and because I do have a concern with the coherence and genuine relevance of the struggling** consecrated virgin vocation for women living in the world, I will continue to answer questions and write about those topics. Recent posts on this matter include:  Are Consecrated Virgins Alone Brides of Christ? and On the Need for Serious Reflection

On my use of the word "struggling":

** I use the word struggling not because of numbers (those are up), but because of the lack of significant work on the vocation being done by CV's do not seem to be able to do much more than thump their breasts while proclaiming, [[I am a Bride of Christ, I am a Bride of Christ!!]] No one, so far as I know, is contending with this, and most of us want to celebrate with them. However, in parishes all over the world the response among clergy and the faithful to these assertions is something like, [[Okay. And. . .?]] or, [[Sure, if you say so. . . YAWN!]] Were such women to write about the witness of consecrated virginity and the paradigmatic womanliness associated with it in a world where sexuality is routinely trivialized and womanhood along with it, for instance, people might start perking up at the idea. Were they to embrace in a really wholehearted way the eschatological secularity CV's living in the world are called to witness to because their vocation effectively shows that heaven and earth now interpenetrate one another, the faithful might become downright excited by the vocation. But, so long as the accent is on proving and praising what sounds like the elitist identity of such women especially because it is thus coupled with depriving others of long established and cherished identifications, the vocation will continue to struggle not only for recognition among Catholics, but for real understanding and esteem.

That said, I believe the work of Therese Ivers (whom, again, I consider a friend --- at least when she is not taking gratuitous potshots at me on her blog!) is more nuanced than this in at least some ways because she builds on the idea that CV's are called to be Mothers of Souls. But again, if this descriptor is used in a way that attempts to deprive religious Sisters who have long mothered children and adults in every way one might think of but one, such a designation will be doomed to failure. Once again, in this matter too it is the eschatological secularity such a vocation would be associated with which would make such Mothering a unique charism or mission of CV's rather than an exclusive possession of the vocation.

A Note on Definitions and Misunderstandings:

(I suspect one thing that might help with misunderstandings is my defining pivotal terms more frequently than every few posts on this topic, particularly the word secular which is the adjectival form of the noun saeculum or age --- thus, for instance novum saeculum originally referred to the new age (and world) which was inaugurated by the Christ Event. I specifically identify an eschatological secularity with witness to this novum saeculum and the way heaven or eternity and our created world now interpenetrate one another. It is related to the at-least-potential sacramentality of our world and to the continuing Incarnation of God in our midst. For this reason, my usage differs in some ways from that which simply identifies the secular with the profane or simply counters secular with religious. But more about this when I also have time to write about this topic again.)

Pentecost: Witnessing in the Power of the Holy Spirit (Reprise)

One of the problems I see most often with regard to our Christianity is its domestication, 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 both morally and canonically 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, though these folks may not know authentic freedom at all --- and is marred by the dominion 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 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.

Camaldolese Chant and Office Book

[[Sister Laurel, do you have any examples of Camaldolese chant? Do you recommend the Camaldolese Office book?]]

Yes, there are some CD's available with chants from Sunday and daily offices, for instance, though I can't produce those here. They include Lord Open My Lips, and O Day of Resurrection.

Do I recommend the Office book? Yes, very much so. It is divided into two-week sequences of Lauds and Vespers with Compline as well, and the chants are provided above each psalm in 3 or 4 sections with the notes, key signature, etc. Each section is labeled A,B,C, or D and each line of the psalm verses are similarly labeled. What I like most about them is that they are simple to sing as well as musically interesting without the tedious or repetitive sing-songy quality other books (some with only an A,B, A,B, A,B, A,B format) tend to have. Fathers Thomas Matus and Cyprian Consiglio are mainly responsible for the music in this book.

The book itself is beautifully done. A maroon color, it has relatively heavy off-white pages, the New Camaldoli logo is imprinted on the front board, heavy ribbons (they could have added a fourth but still they are really nice), and the print is readable with a sense of space on every page. The hermitage itself provides a weekly sheet for the daily psalms being used for each hour (it can be downloaded and printed easily) as well as a similar ordo for Vigils each day over a several week period. Check out the Camaldolese website at www.contemplation.com for both the store (Office Book) and access to the weekly ordo (under the learning tab then prayer requests).

The Desert Fathers and Mothers on the Hermit's Need for Human Relationships to Achieve Holiness

[[Sister Laurel, you wrote once about hermits not separating themselves from people to pursue personal holiness, but I thought that was what being a hermit was all about. Could you address this question again or repost what you wrote?]]

Sure, I can repost one of the articles I have written on this; I think it is the one you are asking about. It was based on two things, 1) a quote from the Desert Abbas and Ammas, and 2) a central element of c 603 that says we live this life for the sake (salvation) of others. Together they provide a perspective on eremitical life that precludes selfishness even in the name of seeking personal holiness, and which contributes to notions of eremitical solitude as a unique but very real form of community. Here is that post. If it leaves you with questions, please get back to me.

[[When one desert father told another of his plans to “shut himself into his cell and refuse the face of men, that he might perfect himself,” the second monk replied, “Unless thou first amend thy life going to and fro amongst men, thou shall not avail to amend it dwelling alone.”]] (Sayings of the Desert fathers and Mothers)

I think this Desert Father and Mother apothegm is fascinating and especially important because it explicitly forbids one to move into solitude and away from others merely in some attempt to perfect oneself. This flies in the face of the way many conceive of eremitical life as well as the way some would-be-hermits describe the vocation. But it should not surprise anyone who carefully reflects on the Great Commandment and the interrelatedness of its two elements, love of God and love of neighbor. Especially it should not surprise those who live eremitical life in the name of the Church; we know the communal nature of our eremitical solitude --- nuanced and rare as it may be. 

We know too that our formation as hermits generally comes after (and requires) years of life in community, whether religious or parish (along with all of the other forms of community we experience throughout life). Similarly, ongoing formation requires personal work with directors and delegates --- and usually some degree of life in a parish community. It can certainly and especially benefit from extended periods in a monastic community whenever that is possible. (As I have written here before, actual eremitical reclusion today (reclusion is a much stricter solitude than most hermits are called to) is allowed by the Church in only two congregations: Camaldolese and Carthusian, and even in these very rare cases it is important to recognize the community context, supervision, and support this vocation requires and implies.)

The genuine human perfection we call holiness is the wholeness of the reconciled and integrated person who is therefore alive in God and the fullness of his or her personal truth. This implies reconciliation with God, with self, and with all else in God. It implies a profound capacity for compassion, for the ability to see Christ in others, and the willingness to spend oneself for the sake of others while becoming more and more completely dependent upon God as the source of our Selves. Desert elders knew the desire to seek perfection in physical reclusion by simply turning one's back on people was doomed to failure; it is frequently badly motivated, is paradoxically guided by a spirit of perfectionism and competition which is a betrayal of genuine humility and can lack the preparation necessary for becoming a hermit and moving into, much less sustaining a healthy eremitical solitude. They knew that solitude is a demanding and dangerous environment and particularly so for those unprepared for or not called to it. Even in those who are called to it eremitical solitude can be the source of illusory and delusional thinking and perceptions -- especially about oneself and God. Thus, the requirement for ongoing direction by experienced spiritual directors and the supervision by bishops and/or their delegates.

The desert Fathers were convinced that the way human beings come to achieve the necessary experience leading to repentance for sin and amendment of life is through one's ordinary interactions with other human beings. Contrary to popular opinion perhaps, the authentic eremitical vocation is not one where an individual moves into the desert merely to pursue personal or "spiritual" perfection in some sort of "solitary splendor" or in an interpersonal and relational vacuum. One moves into solitude 1) because solitude has truly opened her door to one, and 2) because with the church one discerns this is what God is calling one to and is prepared to live for the whole of her life as the fulfillment of the Great Commandment. Discernment that one is called in this way will include a sense that one is healthy in terms of interpersonal relationships and that one has achieved relative maturity in one's spirituality and Catholic identity. This is a traditional stance. St Benedict, for instance, affirms that hermits must have lived in community for some time and, of course, not be in the first blush of conversion.

I want to emphasize the place of discernment here, not only the discernment we each do on our own but the discernment we do with the Church itself in the person of legitimate superiors and directors, i.e., bishops, vicars of religious, delegates, et al. Part of this discernment, and indeed initial and ongoing formation is meant to ensure that the hermit or hermit candidate's motives are not selfish or otherwise misguided and that solitude has indeed herself opened the door to this vocation. What this means is that the hermit/candidate is responding to a Divine call; the Church will also make sure the hermit/candidate is prepared not only to live in solitude but more, that she will grow and thrive in it in ways which will be a gift to the Church and thus, to others. There are subtleties involved here and nuances which the hermit/candidate may not appreciate until much later and may not be able to determine on her own. It is also important to remember that since a hermit does not do apostolic ministry** the ways she lives her solitude and the meaning her life embodies within and as a result of this solitude are themselves the gift God gives the Church through the hermit. Supervision and discernment (mutual and otherwise) are required not only early on for a candidate not yet admitted to profession but throughout the hermit's life. ***

One of the reasons I stressed the need for supervision and discernment and the way they are ensured is because they are a part of the hermit's integral need for others in her life. Whether we are hermits or even recluses we need others who know us well and are capable of assessing in a continuing way the quality of our vocational life, as well as encouraging and assisting us to grow in our responsiveness to God's call to abundant life. Canonical (consecrated) hermits are called to ecclesial vocations and the Church has the right and obligation to oversee these just as she expects us to continue to grow as human beings; canonical hermits have accepted the obligation to grow and participate in those "professional" relationships which help ensure that. Yes, hermits do grow in light of their experience of the love of God; they grow in authentic humanity and as hermits through their experience of Christ in the silence of solitude and the disciplined and attentive living of their Rule and horarium, but what growth there is in these things is often dependent on the hermit's work with her director and delegate, and also with her interactions and relationships with folks from her parish and/or diocese.

In eremitical (or any other) solitude it is simply too easy to say, "God wills this," or "God is calling me to that," when discernment is done by the hermit alone. In such a situation the temptation is to canonize or apotheosize one's own opinions, perceptions, tendencies, and so forth as the movement of the Holy Spirit. God does not literally speak to us as human beings do but instead does so through Sacred texts, sacraments, prayer, and the fruits of our choices and actions; since we learn to love and be loved in our connection with others, hermits must 1) be well-formed in learning to hear (discern) and respond to God in authentic ways, and 2) they must be adequately supervised and directed in this. This does not mean one meets every week or even every month with one's delegate, or spiritual director. "Adequate" means whatever is sufficient to allow the hermit/candidate to grow in her vocation first as a human being called to live from and mediate the love of God (and others) and to do this as a hermit in the silence of solitude.

** Hermits may do some very limited apostolic ministry but are not and cannot be identified in terms of this ministry as are apostolic or ministerial religious. The silence of solitude is always primary and definitive for the hermit's life. Still, while the hermit will certainly seek her own maturation in holiness, she will do this for the sake of others, not as a selfish quest for isolated personal perfection (itself an impossible and self-contradictory quest). 

*** Some have written that the need for direction and supervision cease to be important when the hermit has lived the life for some time. I believe this is a false conclusion. It is true that the nature of direction and the supervisory relationships change with time and maturity, but it seems to me they may become even more critical over time. Whether that is generally true or not, the need for ongoing formation and discernment continues through the whole of the hermit's life. Given the thin line drawn above between an isolating, selfish quest for holiness and what is instead an other-centered maturation in holiness, the need for a good spiritual director is actually urgent for a hermit her entire life.

Feast of the Visitation: On Spiritual Friendship, Formal and Otherwise (Updated)

Jump for Joy  by Eisbacher

Today's Gospel is wonderfully joyfilled and encouraging: Mary travels in haste to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth and both women benefit from the meeting which culminates in John's leaping in his mother's womb and prophetic speech by both women. The first of these is Elizabeth's proclamation that Mary is the Mother of Elizabeth's Lord and the second is Mary's canticle, the Magnificat. Ordinarily homilists focus on Mary in this Gospel lection but I think the focus is at least as strongly on Elizabeth and also on the place the meeting of the two women has in allowing them both to negotiate the great mystery which has taken hold of their lives. Both are called on to offer God hospitality in unique ways; both are asked to participate in God's mysterious plan for his creation despite not wholly understanding this call and it is in their coming together that the trusting fiats they each made assume a greater clarity for them both.

Luke's two volumes (Luke-Acts) are actually full of instances where people come together and in their meeting or conversation with one another come to a fuller awareness of what God is doing in their lives. We see this on the road to Emmaus where disciples talk about the Scriptures in an attempt to come to terms with Jesus' scandalous death on a cross and the end of all their hopes. They are joined by another person who questions them about their conversation and grief. When they pause for a meal they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread and their entire world is turned on its head. That which was senseless is on its way to making a profound sense which will ground the existence of the church. Peter is struggling with the issue of eating with the uncircumcised; he comes together with Cornelius, a Centurion with real faith in Christ. In this meeting Peter is confirmed in his sense that in light of Christ no foods are unclean and eating with Gentiles is Eucharistic. There are a number of other such meetings where partial perception and clarity are enhanced or expanded. Even the Council of Jerusalem is a more developed instance of the same phenomenon.

On Spiritual Friendship, both formal and informal:

I personally love Eisenbacher's picture above because it reminds me of one privileged expression of such spiritual friendship, namely that of spiritual direction. I can remember many meetings with my own director where there was immense surprise and joy at the sharing involved, but one time in particular stands out --- especially in light of today's Gospel. I had experienced a shift in my experience of celibacy. Where once it mainly spoke to me of dimensions of my life that would never be fulfilled (motherhood, marriage, etc), through a particular prayer experience it had come to be associated instead with espousal to Christ and my own sense of being completed and fulfilled as a woman. 

As I recall, when I met with my director to share about this experience (c. 1983), I spoke softly about it, carefully, a little bashfully --- especially at first; but I also gained strength and greater confidence in the sharing of it. (I was not uncertain as to the nature of what I had experienced, but sharing it allowed it to claim me more completely and let me claim a new sense of myself in light of it.) My director listened carefully, and only then noted that she had always prayed for such a grace for all her novices (she had been novice director for her congregation); she then excused herself and left briefly. When she returned she had a CD and CD player with her. Together we sat quietly, but joyfully and even a bit tearfully celebrating what God had done for us while we listened to John Michael Talbot's Canticle of the Bride.

New This Year:

This year, the Feast is again marked by what I have shared a little about this past week, an experience of travelling distances over the years and finally coming together again, reconnecting, with members of my class in the Franciscans. One celebrated her jubilee in the congregation in 2019, and the other, now a Mom with a grown Son, had left the congregation some years after I did. I have already written a little about what reconnecting has meant to me with regard to Sister Christine, but that, and actually being able to reconnect with Norma as well, has caused new life to "leap within me". We are such different people and our spiritualities and histories are very different as well. But God has been working faithfully in our lives and we too have been faithful to our God. As a result, the ability to come together in our differences after years of journeying and growing in our relationship with Christ, to delight in each other in both similarities and differences, and especially, to find that fundamental commitment to love one another was strongly present, affected me in some indefinable way. I felt that something really essential had been returned to me, a part of myself whose loss I had not even known how deeply I suffered.

Several years ago I shared that my director brought me the following poem. It reminds me of the joy of sharing in spiritual direction (accompaniment), but this year it takes on as well the rich resonances of conversations, emails, MP3 files (songs), and pictures exchanged as three undoubted sisters-in-Christ reconnect, fill one another in on who we are today, and share (or begin to share) to some degree how God has been working in our lives since we last saw or spoke to one another:

As Mary faced

        her unexpected future

And hastened to Elizabeth,

        who was similarly expecting,

and shared with her

        her hopes,

        her dreams,

        her concerns,

        her fears;

spoke frankly as sisters

        about their love of God,

        about their future,

        about  their commitment

        to God's mission,

so we two come together today,

        speaking the truth

        in love and faith,

       and God is with us.

Summary:

 

Elizabeth and Mary come together as women both touched in significant ways by the mystery of God. They have trusted God but are not yet completely clear regarding the greater mystery or how this experience fits into the larger story of Israel's redemption. They are both in need of one another and especially of the perception and wisdom the other can bring to the situation so that they can truly offer God and God's plan all the space and time these require. Hospitality, especially giving God hospitality, takes many forms, but one of the most important involves coming together to share how God is active in our lives in the hope of coming to a greater and more lifegiving perspective, faith, and commitment. It is in coming together in this way that we clarify, encourage, challenge and console one another. It is in coming together in this way that we become the prophetic presence in our world God calls us to be.  The gift of being able to "speak frankly" as sisters (and brothers) is an inestimable gift of God. Let us all be open to serving as friends to one another in this sense. It is an essential dimension of being Church and of the coming of the Kingdom of God.

"Happier Hermit" Reflects on Freedom from "Masking"

In January of 2020 I posted an article about Regina Kreger, a lay hermit who unofficially took the name Felicity upon making private vows as a lay hermit. Fittingly, Regina/Felicity has a blog called Being a Happy Hermit, and yesterday she posted an article there entitled "Happier Hermit." It is one of the best posts I have read illustrating what hermits recognize life in a hermitage makes possible, namely, the absence of masking (no, not physical masking due to COVID!) --- where "masking" is something Felicity points out we all do at least from time to time, and especially in certain situations.

 While hermitages are not the only place or situation in which an absence of masking is made possible, their essential nature is defined in terms of this phenomenon. Even the idea of a "stricter separation from the world" is about the absence of masking or the transparency that life in a hermitage makes possible. Thomas Merton referred a number of times to the same experience in eremitical life when he wrote of the lack of pretense, or even the bone deep sanity one finds there. Some readers might remember that he wrote about the impossibility of remaining insane (and here he was speaking about all the forms of pretense and personal dishonesty life ordinarily allows or even demands) in the face of the deep sanity of the forest or desert. I more routinely use the term "transparency" or even humility (a form of loving honesty) to speak of this significant form of sanity. It is an important expression of authentic freedom, namely the freedom to be ourselves and to take the same kind of delight in our own and others' truth that God takes.

Felicity, a fine writer (and authentic hermit it seems to me), illustrates the meaning of all of these terms and descriptions in her post: Happier Hermit. She routinely posts thoughtful and profoundly insightful posts illustrating significant dimensions of eremitical life. For instance, on the occasion of the renewal of her vows this month she posted about why eremitical life is not a stopgap or fallback calling for her in: Solitude. She summarizes this by saying loudly and proudly, "I'm NOT settling!!" I recommend folks give her blog a second and third look (and a first, of course, if you haven't done that yet)!! Meanwhile, my congratulations to Felicity/Regina on the renewal of her vows and best wishes and prayer as her eremitical adventure continues, (soon to be) "somewhere" in Europe instead of Maryland, USA, or even in Spain.

Why is imagining Star Trek Stories Easier than Imagining the Ascension?

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your post on the Ascension you said that it was difficult for us to believe that Jesus was raised bodily into "heaven". You suggested it might be easier to imagine the Star Trek story as true instead. I wondered why you said that. Thank you.]]

I appreciate your question. Thanks. We humans tend to draw distinct lines between the spiritual and the material and often we rule out any idea that has the two interpenetrating the other or being related in paradoxical ways. We simplify things in other ways as well. For instance, do you remember when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited earth and made a pronouncement that he had now been to space, had looked and looked for God and did not find him? The notion that God's relation to the cosmos was other than as a visible (and material) being among other material beings present in "the heavens" was completely beyond this man's ideology or imagination. The idea of God as Being itself, a being that grounded and was the source of all existence while transcending it all was simply too big an idea for this Cosmonaut. Imagine what he would have done with the notion that everything that exists now exists or is on its way to existing within the very life of God! (Gagarin is now said never to have affirmed this; instead Soviet authorities did and used his flight to do so.)

Another example might be better. When I was young, I went to a Christian Scientist Church and Sunday School. There, every Sunday we recited what was called, "The Scientific Statement of Being". It was a bit of neo-Platonic "dogma" written by Mary Baker Eddy. It was the heart of the faith: [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] By the time I was seven or eight I was questioning what it meant to say matter is unreal (or, more often, how could I be asked to deny the truth of matter's reality). Imagine what it was like to fall off your bike and tell yourself the blood and pain was "unreal" --- only Spirit is real. 

The answers never satisfied, but I think you get the point. The human mind has always had difficulty not drawing a distinction between the material and the Spiritual even to asserting the two things are antithetical --- even to the extent of denying either matter or spirit actually exists at all.  (Christian Science said matter was unreal, not just in the Platonic sense of being less real than the ideal, but in the sense of asserting that materiality is delusional; on the other hand, contemporary science often says anything except matter is unreal.) An incarnate God, or a God who would make room within his very life for embodied existence like ours (in whatever form that embodiment occurs) would be anathema and literally inconceivable to either of these! So yes, we often suspend disbelief in reading science fiction or fantasy literature in order to enter deeply into the story. But what is also true is that we need to learn to suspend disbelief in intelligent ways in order to appreciate the Mystery of God and the cosmos; we need to do this in order to enter deeply into this great drama. Star Trek's stories may seem easier to believe than stories of the Ascension because the Mystery we call God is greater than anything we can create or even imagine ourselves.

One last point. When I was studying theology (either BA or MA) my professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing then than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 7 or 8 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was strong and sufficient. 

I now know that learning to trust (and to be open to Mystery) in the way John described is both more difficult and more intelligent than any cynical skepticism scientific materialism offers us today. And one grows in faith (thanks be to God)! I have experienced things in my life which God alone could do, and I recognize the wisdom (and the humility!!) of John Dwyer's advice to students believing they were atheists or that faith was naive, namely, that they suspend their disbelief, open themselves to new ways of seeing, and see what happens. Of course, this specific form of suspension of disbelief would result in a vocation to commitment to a world itself called to be something ever greater than even the limitations of science can imagine. What is often difficult for us is to understand is that this specific suspension of disbelief is more profoundly wise than science itself can know, or our often-earth-bound imaginations can create.

 Authentic faith, (which, again, is not the same as naive credulity), is something different, and in some ways, both more challenging and compelling than the more superficial suspension of disbelief we adopt when we read science fiction or fantasy literature. The essential difference, I think, is that the first type of suspension of disbelief is a form of chosen naivete adopted temporarily for the sake of recreation and enjoyment; it allows us a vacation from reality, while exercising imagination in the service of creativity. This certainly enlivens us. The second type of suspension of disbelief, that of faith, while also exercising imagination in the same service, requires more than our imagination. It is neither naive nor credulous and requires the whole of ourselves in a more direct commitment to enlivening others; as a result, faith opens us to a more intense and extensive commitment to reality itself and is simply more difficult.

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Ascension: Seeing Our New Creation with the Eyes of God (Reprise)

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 to "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.

On Wednesday evening 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, 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.

In Honor of Laudato Si!!! John Haught and "God After Einstein"

This morning I was sent a video used at a prayer service in honor of Laudato Si. It was beautiful but unfortunately, I can't post it here. Still, the link is as follows: John Rutter. 

As I watched it, I was led to think of one of the most interesting books I am reading currently reading: viz., John Haught's God After Einstein: What's really Going on in the Universe? The basic idea is something Haught has raised before in several books, namely, that our universe is unfinished (no surprise there but, man (!), the theology that needs rethinking in light of this is huge!!); that universe is also coming to awareness in us as part of the evolutionary process. In this drama, the meaning of everything is only gradually revealed (just as in any drama). Haught accounts for the order in the universe, but also immense amounts of time, and chance --- elements of all good dramas --- and he counters scientists who reiterate affirmations of the meaninglessness of the universe or of human life. This book, like others he has written is rooted in hope as we look with anticipation towards an absolute future we know as God. 

Haught's most sustained effort at recasting theology in light of what science has established as an unfinished universe is his book Resting on the Future: Catholic Theology for an Unfinished Universe. Here Haught treats God as absolute future (cf. Ted Peters, God the World's Future). In all of these works Haught understands God creating by summoning reality out of nonbeing and chaos into existence and then into greater and greater coherence and fullness of being. It is not the case, Haught understands, that creation was perfect and that human beings messed that up somehow, but rather, that stories like those of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden in Genesis tell us about a reality which is up ahead of us, not in our past. This is consonant with the theology of others who are rethinking approaches to original sin which honor both the complexity of an evolving universe and the way in which human beings ratify estrangement from a God who can only be received as gift in our lives. (In other words, we each and every one of us** mess things up, but the story is more complex than Genesis may, even in its mythic narrative power and depth, have allowed or been capable of allowing for.)

Haught really praises Laudato Si and the sophistication Pope Francis' theology holds in regard to nature so it seemed to me that during this week, where some are celebrating Laudato Si  with videos like the one linked above, it was a good time to remind folks about the kind of work theologians are doing with regard to nature, and especially re: the new cosmology. Haught writes in God Beyond Einstein, [[The Laudato Si encyclical of Pope Francis is one among many encouraging signs that Christians are beginning to experience a new relationship with the natural world. Our caring for nature is not simply a matter of saving ourselves and other living beings, or of ensuring fertility of life, or of practicing faithful stewardship in obedience to God. All of these are good reasons to care, of course, and Christian theologians are right to keep looking into the Scriptures in search of a doctrinal foundation for supporting the ecological movement. But is that enough?

. . .After Einstein, however, we have a whole new way of looking at our ecological predicament --- an unprecedented cosmological point of view. . . . This new perspective gives us, I believe, a fresh set of incentives with which to approach the present crisis. What is at stake is not just the well-being of life on our planet but, in a way, the future of the universe. If the universe is a drama of awakening, as I have proposed, then the existence and flourishing of life and other emergent outcomes on planet Earth are not just a sideshow. The future of life is a cosmic, not just a terrestrial, concern.]]

I'll just say if you are intrigued, please get the book!!! Haught writes in direct opposition to the scientists who say matter is all there is and a meaningless universe is all we have (scientific materialism) --- much as he argues against this and scientism in Is Nature Enough? Moreover, for "Christians" who believe the world is dispensable because, "we are going to heaven, so what does it matter," Haught's work is far more in line with St Paul, the Gospel proclamation of a New Creation in Christ, and the book of Revelation's new heaven and new earth in which God will be all in all.

** I am not including Jesus in this, nor Mary, so please don't write me objecting about that!!!

On The Holy Spirit, the Hospitality and Vulnerability of Friendship, and the New Life Eastering in Us

 The last few days have been full of God's surprises, "gifts beyond imagining", as my director might say! Everything has been about the deep bonds we form, sometimes lose touch with, and then discover again or reestablish in a new way. While these days have meant renewed relationships with friends and Sisters once grown distant in time and space, they were especially informed by the readings for two Communion services I did and the reflections I offered on those readings. On Friday we looked at the Gospel reading about Jesus calling us friends and the shift from the bonds of law that held Israel together making one People out of disparate tribes to the bonds of love which motivate (or are called to motivate) Christians. We also reflected on the challenge Jesus calls us each to, namely, that, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we allow him to be a friend to us and that we respond as those who would be friends to him and all he delights in. In particular, in Friday's reflection I spoke of sin as falling short (hamartia), not of the demands of the law, but of our own true humanity while the bonds of love animate and empower us to fulfill this God-given potential. This is our most fundamental vocation.

Communion Services and Readings:

On Monday I enlarged on the idea of this challenge and the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives because the readings focused on the sending of the Holy Spirit to open our hearts and make us hospitable. I reminded the assembly that the term "heart" is a theological term which refers first of all to God and I noted something I have written about here, namely that is it not so much that we have a heart and then God comes to dwell there, but that where God comes to dwell in us (and where we open ourselves to that more and more in the power of the Spirit) we have a heart!! "Heart" is defined in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament as the place where God bears witness to Godself. Hospitality is the key to understanding what it means to be truly human.

But hospitality is also the key to understanding what it means for God to be truly God. While we have grown up with the omnipotent, immutable, impassible God of Greek philosophy, that is not the God Jesus reveals to us. Instead, Jesus reveals (both shows and makes real in space and time) a God who has chosen not to remain alone, a vulnerable God who loves and suffers, and opens his own heart to us, a God who, in Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit has determined to take humanity (and perhaps the whole of creation) into Godself. Ours is a vulnerable God, a God who, though he might have been entirely self-sufficient and alone, has chosen not to remain so. And so Jesus will go to prepare a place for us within God's very life; he will share with us that deep bond of love that obtains between himself and his Abba and, in that Holy Spirit, animate and empower us to be Friends of God and all of God's creation.

What struck me most in Monday's readings was that as Jesus shows us who we are and he shows us who God really is, the key word defining the situation in either case is "hospitality." The Holy Spirit opens our hearts and makes us vulnerable and, in the same way, that Spirit opens the heart of God to us and makes God vulnerable to God's own creation. In all of this I was reflecting on what I first referred to a few posts ago as "bonds of being" --- those deep bonds which link us to others in the power of the Spirit. These are the bonds that animate and empower us to be truly human, to come to perfection, completion, or fulfillment. And they are the deep bonds without which we live superficial lives which, in one way and another, "miss the mark".

Renewing and Strengthening Deep Bonds --- Camaldolese and Franciscan:

And in the midst of all this reflection I was renewing or strengthening the deep bonds of my own life, first with the Camaldolese, especially the monks and oblates of Incarnation Monastery and New Camaldoli Hermitage. And then, I was led to a link regarding the Jubilee celebration of a classmate of mine from the Franciscans. I watched the video and there Sister Christine was! But she looked frail and where I have been aware of her from time to time over the years, I never contacted her; but here, because I felt concerned, I determined I would contact the Mother House and see if she was okay. Sisters in the MH sent my note to Sister Christine and she contacted me; we began emailing last week. Yesterday we met via ZOOM and caught up some on our own lives and then the lives of our original classmates!! 

The sharing we did was a complete joy! We talked about and compared things we had forgotten or never known about one another including the fact that we were both born prematurely at almost identical weights in the very same hospital in So CA!!! We were equally premature and spent the same amount of time in incubators. We were also both converts to Catholicism with families who, at least in the beginning, did not approve our conversion (I did remember that Christine was from a Methodist family but she had not recalled I was also a convert to Catholicism).  It turned out our lives were full of such similarities we had been unaware of all those years ago. Some of them, more contemporary, significant, and surprising similarities, very much define who we are today.

But what was really most wonderful was the way Sister Christine caught me up as best she could on what happened to herself and other classmates once I had left the Franciscans and opened herself to knowing me in a new way. There were deep bonds formed (and forming) 50 + years ago, though I had not appreciated that sufficiently; there were deep wounds as well (it is never easy leaving a congregation, I think). I experienced a new sense of healing and wholeness from this renewed connection, and I look forward to wherever it takes us. I came away from all of this aware that God has been working overtime in my life these past weeks reminding me of all the ways we are made for hospitality and all the ways we need it if we are to be our truest selves. I had a sense of "coming home" when I visited New Camaldoli a couple of weeks ago, and I had a sense of "coming home" yesterday as Christine and I met by ZOOM. In all of that I experienced the gift of the Spirit Eastering in us ---empowering and animating deep bonds that transcend time, and space, and (as Jesus reminds us) even death --- gifts beyond imagining! Thanks be to God!!

Stopgap and Fallback Vocations: Similarities and Distinctions

[[Hi Sister Laurel, what do you mean when you use the term stopgap vocation? Is this the same as the term "fallback" vocation?]]

Thanks for the questions. I know I have used both terms in regard to c 603 and solitary eremitical vocations over the years. I am not sure I have ever defined them specifically and especially I am sure I have never distinguished the two of them in the way you are asking about. Definitely my bad! The questions are good and helpful, so again, thanks.

A fallback vocation is a term sometimes used for cc 603-604 vocations by chancery and other personnel who don't believe these are valid vocations, either because they are not good fit for the individual seeking consecration under these canons, or because the chancery does not esteem or believe in the vocations more generally (that is, no matter who is seeking consecration in these ways). It also has the sense that one would not seek out consecration under these canons unless one failed at religious life and can't really handle that "failure". In such a case the person uses either c 603 or c 604 as a "fallback" vocation.

When these canons were newly promulgated (October 1983) and for some years thereafter the Archdiocese (and Region) of Los Angeles refused to consecrate or profess and consecrate anyone at all under either canon reasoning that these persons were merely attempting to get consecrated in whatever way they could while unsuitable for life in a religious community. The essential problem with such a position is that while a diocese (and candidate) ought certainly to be aware of the temptation to use these canons in this way and discern whether or not they are doing so, one cannot simply conclude the vocations themselves are fallback vocations, or, correlatively, that religious life is the only valid form of consecrated life. By refusing to profess and/or consecrate anyone at all under these canons the Archdiocese of LA proclaimed both vocations per se to be invalid. More, in doing so it is to reject the Universal Church's perception and insight in this matter and judges negatively a diocese's capacity to carefully or accurately discern such vocations.

The additional problem with LA's (former?) position is that it fails or failed to regard the fact that if one is called to a rare and little-known or understood vocation like solitary eremitical life, they are apt to try more common and well-known vocational options first and only in time and with experience, discover the vocational path they are truly called to. This is not a matter of settling for a fallback option, but rather of needing the time and other resources and opportunities necessary to truly discern one's true vocation. Related to this is the fact that simply because of one's own vocational maturation one may grow into eremitical life (for instance) over time. (Monks often saw eremitical life as the summit of monastic life.) To label c 603 vocations "fallback vocations" is to prematurely rule out of court these kinds of vocational situations as well.

While in some ways the term "stopgap vocations" could be used synonymously for fallback vocations, I use it on this blog to mean a vocation or path to profession and consecration which itself has no canonical framework or process of implementation (or which some find too onerous to adhere to). So, for instance, some people determine that going through the ordinary canonical process for forming a community is too burdensome and time-consuming for them; it is seen to have too many procedural hoops to jump through and (often) to require too-assiduous supervision. Instead, they seek to be professed and consecrated under c 603, and once that is done, they seek to create communities of "hermits" also professed/consecrated under c 603 despite the fact that c 603 was not meant to be used in this way. Let me be clear, these folks have not discerned a solitary eremitical vocation and in fact, do not feel called to one, but are using c 603 as a stopgap. Others do not want to live in community (nor are they really hermits) but wish to be considered religious (mainly to dress the part, style themselves as Sister or Brother, reserve Eucharist in their own places, find validation in the Church, etc) and they seek to "stop the gap" in canon law regarding professing individual religious (the Episcopal Church has a canon professing individuals as solitary religious who may or may not be hermits; the Roman Catholic Church does not).

The root of both of these terms involves a failure to esteem the nature and charism of the vocations defined and rendered canonical by canons 603 and 604. Sometimes the diocese is culpable in this way, sometimes the individual seeking consecration is culpable in this way and sometimes both are culpable in this way, but the roots are the same and include a failure to actually discern the vocation involved. There are a number of variations on the examples I have given which make vocations either fallback or stopgap. Authentic vocations are neither!!

I hope this is helpful.