Again, Hiddenness and a Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, does the hiddenness of the hermit say anything to the average person? I don't mean is hiddenness important to the hermit or even what is it, but rather does it speak to the average person and if so, what should they be hearing? Also, is the difference between the way you understand hiddenness and other hermits do, the difference between inner hiddenness and outer hiddenness? I don't necessarily mean is it only one vs only the other, but more about which has priority. Thank you.]]

That's a really great couple of questions, so thanks!! One of the things recent posts have focused on has been accountability and the public nature of this vocation; it is important that diocesan hermits reflect on what their life says to others. It is meant to be a proclamation of the Gospel, of course, but how does one do this when one is largely hidden from the life of the parish community and diocese? And why, then, is hiddenness important? I continue to believe that hiddenness is a derivative value that is rooted in the more primary elements of the life, namely, stricter separation from the world, persevering prayer, and the silence of solitude --- all values that say God must come first in our lives. At the same time this does not mean hiddenness is unimportant, nor that it does not have something to say to the average person. So what is it? what about it resonates or could well resonate with most people?

I wrote a piece some years ago (2008) about hiddenness and extraordinary ordinariness. Hiddenness and living an Extraordinary Ordinariness. The essential idea there was that hermits live very ordinary lives but the reason we do that is extraordinary and further, the grace of God transfigures the ordinary into something truly extraordinary. In other words, we live what every other person lives when at home, but we do so in order that God might be allowed to be God-With-Us. Yes, the focus of our days is likely different than it is for most people (prayer, lectio, study, writing or other activities, work) but the whole of the day is pretty normal and pretty typical of living one's life alone. One cooks and cleans for oneself, does the chores necessary, sleeps, eats, recreates, all the things most people do daily. I live in a complex with seniors and I suspect that my days generally look like the days of many of those living here -- though, again, my focus is different and that transfigures the whole.

What I think the hiddenness of my own life says to others is that in their own life, as they go about the ordinary things of the day, those things can also be transfigured if we learn to "pray the day". I don't mean one needs to spend hours in prayer as a separate activity (though some formal prayer will help with the rest), but instead, practice being present to whatever it is you are doing and let God be God-With-You in that. Each of us lives a pretty ordinary life, but especially those who live alone at home. If we can let God accompany us and be open to God's presence in everything we are and do what is ordinary becomes extraordinary. The way some say this is to do everything with love. We do the ordinary with an extraordinary intention. The essence of loving God, of course, is to let God be God, and in doing so, to become truly human, so we are saying essentially the same thing. 

One dimension of the Gospel is the way God values us and our lives, the way God delights in everything about us (except perhaps our sin). Most of us would like our lives to be meaningful (significant) and even important (of import). What hermits say in their hiddenness, their embrace of extraordinary ordinariness is that living our day well and allowing God to accompany us in that is significant and possibly, it is the most significant thing we may ever do. Hermits live an ordinariness made extraordinary by the grace of God. I believe that is possible for all of us, though most will accomplish it in a non-eremitical context. All of this is a way of honoring hiddenness.

Regarding your second question, if you mean by outer things the focus on clothes, anonymity, "blending in", no public presence, and things like that, then yes, I definitely see the hiddenness of eremitical life as less about those things than it is about the dimensions of the life no one ever sees, namely, our focus on letting God be God in the every-day stuff, and thus, becoming fully human in the silence of solitude. This latter has priority for me, and I think, for any hermit. But my life, with its title, habit, cowl, and post-nominal initials also witnesses to the fact that I live this life in the name of the Church and in fact, in the heart of the Church. 

Some speak of struggling to blend or "fit in" as part of their hiddenness. I do not because I don't think I need to do that. Instead, I see myself already belonging deeply and truly to the Church and to all that is precious to God. When one belongs in this way, when one is open to all God loves, "blending in" or even acting to "fit in" is unnecessary and even counterproductive. Eremitical hiddenness involves the "outer" hiddenness you refer to, yes. Still, that is secondary; our life project, the thing we live for and from, the truly critical dynamic that defines our lives and marks our success at that life is truly hidden from the eyes of others --- except, perhaps, when grace spills over in a holiness that will help change the face of creation. 

Looking Again at Jesus' Suffering and the Notion of Victim Souls

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I really appreciated the piece you put up on suffering effectively -- sorry, witnessing effectively to suffering. I especially liked what you said about a micro drop of skunk scent and how very far it goes. I've been watching and reading a hermit whose approach to suffering is very different than yours. Not only are they always talking about how they suffer (the scent of skunk is overpowering and keeps me from watching the videos), but seems to me they believe that God sends or causes the suffering. I don't know, but even if God has something to teach us it is incomprehensible to me that God is responsible for suffering.  Besides, what I learned was that what God wants to teach us is how much He loves us. Isn't that the answer to every problem or need? So here are my other questions: Do you believe God wanted Jesus to suffer? Do you believe in "victim souls"? Is the hardest thing about being a hermit the suffering one does? If people don't understand this vocation what is the most important thing they fail to understand?]]

Thanks for your comments and questions. They come up (or used to come up) a lot, and of course, the question of Jesus' suffering is central to our faith -- and is most often misunderstood in terms of placating an angry or offended God. In that regard, I have said many times that what God willed was not Jesus' suffering but his openness to letting God be God and his integrity in the face of every trial he faces. I do completely agree with your rhetorical question, [[Isn't that the answer to every problem or need?]] We are called to witness to the Good News and a God who wills for us to suffer or who even causes that suffering is not that!!!

You might look for the posts where I looked at Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and how I understand the conversation that goes on between Jesus and his Abba. There are two links that are recent on this: Jesus' Prayer in Gethsemane and the followup to that, Jesus' Call to Integrity. I believe it all depends on how we imagine God responding to Jesus' hope that surely there is another way to live his vocation besides the path he is looking at immediately. If we imagine God saying, "it must be this way, I need your suffering so I can forgive sin," then I think theologically we are lost. If, on the other hand, we imagine God saying, "Live who you are in this as you have lived that your entire life; live your integrity and I will be with you in anything and everything," then we have begun to understand the theology of the Cross that is at the heart of the Good News upon which our lives and faith depend!!

I have also written on the concept of victim souls, which I believe has become more of a problem in contemporary society than it was in earlier times.  This is because we have become enamored of status of almost any sort at all, and for some, it is their victim status they like to flaunt. Thus, today (I am not speaking of more historic cases) you are apt to find online the self-proclaimed victim soul ensconced in their bed, huddled against their pillows speaking feebly of how God has willed their terrible pain and suffering while gaining additional strength upon speaking of how tormented and persecuted they have been by everyone in their adult lives. Now that video recording is possible, the histrionic quality of some of these portrayals can be captured with fascinating clarity. They may be temporarily seductive to some (like a freeway accident can be to those driving past), and some may be moved by compassion and compelled to try to help or give support; to others, however, as is true for you, the scent of skunk is overpowering, and the whole situation is so theologically disedifying, that one really cannot continue attempting to watch them. I first wrote a long post about this in 2008. Here is the link: Questions on Chronic Illness, Victim Souls, etc.

As you will see, I don't believe in victim souls, particularly not as a divine vocation. I note that the idea of victim souls is not official Catholic teaching but is linked instead to private revelations no one is required to believe. Suffering is, of course, very real and I do believe that chronic illness and disability can be thought of as vocational, though never in terms of God willing the person's suffering. Once we reframe the story of Jesus' suffering in the way we have done above our ability to let go of this destructive (victim soul) theology as well as concepts of reparative theology that sees what Jesus did as objectively inadequate and still requiring victim souls is greatly enhanced. 

Over the years I have watched those few in this time who consider themselves victim souls and despite all their talk of the love of God, I simply cannot shake the sense that their God is a sadist whose cruelty is underscored by a piety rooted in the subject's subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle self-hatred and inability to truly love others. Even more, I have the sense these supposed "victim souls" don't truly think anyone else suffers as significantly as they do --- or as heroically! It is tragic, really, because such persons seem to lack the humility necessary to allow God's redemption. Once we convince ourselves that God causes even our most profound suffering and wills it, we have also limited our capacity to receive God's love as fully as God wills to give it. As I have quoted several times, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, [[ Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that occurs happens outside the will of God!]] In other words, if we begin and end with the love of God even the evil that occurs (and this includes our suffering) can and will be redeemed because God has embraced the whole of our reality in Christ and made it his own.

Your last questions ask about the hardest thing about living as a hermit and what it is important for people to know about this vocation. I am not sure I can give you a single thing that is hardest about this vocation. Some things are hard during some time periods and other things are hard at other times. For instance, the meaningfulness of eremitical life is a major question hermits must come to understand and that understanding is often a struggle. We trust that God has called us to this vocation and the Church has verified that call as best they can; she has consecrated and commissioned us to live and explore it. We have to live into the truth of this and explain to ourselves and sometimes to others as well how it is our lives are meaningful and a gift to the Church and the larger world. 

Sometimes the tedium associated with this life is most difficult as we live our faithfulness in the everyday ordinary things we must do again and again. And again and again. And too, for some of us, the suffering associated with illness or disability can be significant and lonely; it is isolating in a way that militates against the silence of solitude and must be redeemed and transfigured by God's love. Finally, I find the demands of the inner work I do regularly can be very difficult, especially as unexpected depths within me open up and flood my present with pain. Ironically, with this last also come some of the most exhilarating times of grace and Divine victory so as much as I might dislike aspects of it, the work itself is compelling.

The most important thing I think people should know is that this vocation is about personal truth and transparency, living the truth of who one is while becoming ever more transparent to God (because God is a constitutive part of our existence). It is not about escape or quiet relaxation (though relaxation is very real too); it is an intense life that is constantly surprising as God draws one deeper into the Mystery He is. As I said in another post, I want others to understand this is a true (though rare) vocation. It speaks to every person about who they are, the place of God in that, and the importance of letting God be God as the priority of our lives. I think all these things are things people fail to understand about eremitic lives.

On Witnessing Effectively to Suffering

[[ Dear Sister Laurel, I noticed that you have a disability and a problem with chronic pain and that was part of what you claimed to have brought to the Church in seeking profession and consecration under c 603. You don't say a lot about this very often and I wondered why not? If suffering is important to the eremitic life, why don't you speak about your own suffering?]] 

Thanks for your questions. It has been a long time since anyone asked me a similar question. In that response I wrote the following (I am posting it again here since it was written in 2008 and has not changed much) from Personal Questions on Vocation:

[[The reason you do not hear about the personal reasons that brought me to an understanding of this vocation is that while illness or injury remain problematical on a daily basis (this is mainly true of chronic pain), they do not define who I am. Especially I am no victim. Instead, my life is defined in light of God's grace and who that has made me; I want very much for that to be clearer to readers of my posts than these other things. God wills that I live as fully and lovingly as I can in spite of them. He has (with my cooperation) brought wonderful people into my life who have assisted in this including doctors, directors, teachers, pastors, friends who accommodate me in various ways, et al. In all these cases they have helped and challenged me to grow beyond an identification with illness and pain, and into an identification with God's grace, fullness of life, and growing personal holiness. Unless that is clear in what I write, live out, or otherwise proclaim, the suffering itself is meaningless and certainly not edifying; on the other hand, if the effects of the grace of God which transfigures both suffering and life IS clear in my writing and living, then there is rarely any need to focus on the suffering, and doing so would be a disedifying distraction!

[[Do you think it is important for people to know how to suffer? Do you think you have a responsibility to teach people how to suffer or to speak about your suffering?]]

While I think it is important for people to learn to suffer, and while I think suffering well is one of the things we are least capable of today, I am of the opinion that the way to teach (model, or witness to) that is NOT by focusing on suffering itself. In particular, speaking about my own situation is rarely necessary (or helpful) except when it is important to remind someone what is possible with the grace of God. For instance, occasionally a client will wonder if healing is really possible, or if it is possible to transcend a given set of circumstances. In such a situation I will refer to my own illness or pain. Here my own suffering is important, but only so long as it does NOT dominate my life or define me, and only in order to underscore the possibility of healing, essential wholeness and humanity along with the capacity to be other-centered and compassionate in spite of negative circumstances. God's grace ALWAYS heals and brings life out of that which is antithetical to these things, so what one wants to witness to is the transformation of one's life as one moves from faith to faith and from life to more abundant life. His love ALWAYS transfigures our reality, not least because he is WITH US in ways which remind us of how precious we are to him, how much he wants for us, how much he longs to share with us, etc.

Even in situations where it is helpful to speak of one's suffering one needs to recall that it's a lot like a single microdrop of skunk spray: a very little goes a very long way and "scents" everything in its path --- for a very long time!! Also, if you think about the stories of suffering that really inspire and move you, they are ordinarily the stories where courage, patience, joy, wholeness, dignity and selflessness predominate and the pain or suffering is recognized but allowed to disappear into the background. They are the stories where humanity triumphs (and this means a person living from the grace of God); they are not exercises in navel gazing or detailed and repetitive accounts of one's pain. Suffering well is, after all, about courage, about affirming life and meaning in spite of destruction and absurdity, and especially, it is about LIVING AS FULLY as one is able. 

There is no way to do this if one focuses on the suffering per se. This kind of focus is ALWAYS self-centered and can be temptingly and distractingly so both for oneself and for others; it is ALWAYS a bid for attention to self (even when appropriately used this is the case). It is also focused on the thing which God's grace helps overcome rather than on the effects of that grace (or the one who gives it). Neither of these (self-centeredness, or a focus on evil) is generally edifying, and can be quite disedifying except in certain limited circumstances. The question is always what does one want to witness to; viz, what do you want others looking at, God's grace and the possibilities for hope and wholeness or one's own self, brokenness, and suffering? For these reasons if one MUST refer to or focus on these latter things one must ALWAYS do so rarely and briefly.

What I am saying is that in "teaching" (I would prefer to say assisting or encouraging) people to suffer well, as far as I know, the only way to do that is to teach them how to live, how to pray, how to give themselves over to God's grace, and especially how to cope so that life and not pain per se is the focus. In my experience, a sure way to FAIL to suffer well (or to fail to inspire someone to bear their own pain well) is to focus on the suffering per se. By the way, "teaching" someone to suffer well presupposes one DOES that oneself, and I wonder how many of us can say that is honestly true of us? It is another reason to focus on life, on hope (both of which are the result of God's grace), and on placing oneself in God's hands so that he may redeem and transfigure the situation as far as possible. We need this encouragement and focus on a continuing basis as much as anyone we might witness to.]] 

In Cornelius Wencel's book on the Eremitic Life, he writes: [[But the hermit's days are not free from tears, pain, and sadness. Just the opposite --- tribulation remains present in the way of eremitic pilgrimage. The Word we respond to, however, is the One who has created us and who is constantly renewing our youth with his love. So to encounter the pain of our existence is to get another impulse to search, to listen, and to respond even more actively and faithfully. In this way we can be motivated to open ourselves up even more to the radiating presence of the Lord, whose glory is fully revealed in the shadow of the Cross. The voice that calls and the answer that we give never separate us from the refreshing air of this space. In fact, the fullness of the eremitic life is nothing else but the contemplation of God's magnificence that flashes at the intersection of the bars of the Cross. Any other perspective must be incomplete and even false.]] The Eremitic Life, pp 49-50.

Like anything else in Christian life, witnessing effectively to suffering involves a paradox. It means witnessing more directly to the life, love, and joy found in God in the midst of one's suffering! It recognizes that God counters human suffering with these realities, that God does not will or send suffering per se, rather, He transforms it with His presence (that is, His grace). This does not mean denying one's suffering, of course, or that suffering can help us open to God's saving love, but the emphasis is never on the suffering per se (except, perhaps, as one works through it in the privacy of one's meeting with one's Director or in one's prayer)! And even then, the light will shine through to the extent that one's work or prayer is truly graced and God-centered. I believed this in 2008 and believe it still --- even more emphatically. I hope this is helpful.

Following up on the Hiddenness of the Eremitical Life

[[ Dear Sister, what you wrote in your last post about the hiddenness of the hermit vocation was very striking to me. Is this a new position or the intensification of one you had come to before?]]

Thanks for writing. The position is a deepening of something I have known for a while now. It looks like I began writing about hiddenness with a post in 2008 on essential hiddenness and a call to extraordinary ordinariness and followed that up with others. I began to focus on hiddenness again around August of 2014 and wrote on the difference between the value and the utility of eremitical life. I put up several posts in the Summer of 2015 so I am going to repost one of those below. All of this recent work, and some of the earlier stuff, comes from the coincidence of questions regarding anonymity, accountability, and my own continuing inner work --- what my Director might refer to as the deepening of one's participation or sharing in the Mystery of love and life ---that is, the Mystery at the heart of reality we call God.

Witnessing to the God who Saves:

[[Sister Laurel, when you write, "in every person's life God works silently in incredible hiddenness," I wonder. Is this what the followers of Francis de Sales mean by "interiority?" I spoke with [a Sister friend] a few months ago - and she asked me "How is that interiority coming?" I didn't know how to answer her, but I thought it might be something like this.]] (There were other questions included in this email about the distinction between being the gift and using gifts. Some reflected on the idea of merely being present to others and being gift in that way. I focus on those here as well.)

 

While it is true I am saying the hermit is a gift simply in being present to others, I am saying more than that as well because quite often (in fact, most of the time) a hermit is present to no one but God. Before you go out and do, before you are present to or for others in any way at all, and even if you never go out to others, I am saying that God is at work in you healing and sanctifying. That, as I understand it,  is the witness of the hermit life. That is its special gift or charism.  We say this with our lives; whether we ever speak to a living soul, pray for another person or not (though of course we will pray for others), whether we ever write another word, or paint another picture, or use our individual gifts in any way at all, we witness to the Gospel  and to the God who makes us whole and holy simply by being ourselves as redeemed.

Extending this to you and all others it means that should you (or they) never take another person shopping, never make another person smile, never use the gift you are in any way except to allow the God who is faithfulness itself to be faithful to you, THAT is the hiddenness and the gift I am mainly talking about. Yes, it involves the hiddenness of God at work in us but that is the very reason we ourselves are gift. We witness to the presence of God in the silence of solitude, in the darkness, in the depths of aloneness, etc. We do that by becoming whole, by becoming loving (something that requires an Other to love us and call us to love), by not going off the rails in solitude and by not becoming narcissists or unbalanced cynics merely turned in on self and dissipated in distraction. We do it by relating to God, that is, by allowing God to be God.

Cultivating this sense of God at work in us, emptying ourselves (or being stripped by circumstances and learning to see this as an incredible gift) so that we only witness to God, allowing ourselves to let go of anything but God as the source and validation of our lives is, I think at least, the heart of cultivating a sense of interiority. Interiority itself is our life of Communion with the God who is the creator, source, and ground of that same life. Its focus is God and includes his redemption of us, his healing, sanctification, and intimacy. When I wrote here before about developing a spirituality of discernment I was also writing about cultivating interiority. That is why resisting discernment while speaking constantly about “discerning” is actually a resistance to the development of interiority; if one cannot deal with one's feelings and all that is going on within them, then neither can one claim to be a discerning person with a healthy interiority.  If and to the extent one does not see the whole of reality from the perspective of the light and life of God, then to that extent one has not developed a genuine interiority. (I will have to ask my pastor about St Francis de Sales' own take on interiority! I simply don't know Francis well enough.) 

Most of us witness to all of this by using our gifts. Hermits (and especially recluses) do it by flourishing in an environment that really does say God alone is enough. In this environment the gifts we have possessed from birth and for whose development we have often spent time, money and effort in education and training may well be largely irrelevant. When I speak of us being the gift I mean that the hermit's very life and capacity for love says God is real, faithful, and an intimate, integral, and even inalienable part of our deepest reality. My eremitical life is not about me, my intelligence, my persistence (and stubbornness!), my creativity (or lack thereof), my musicality, or any other specific talents that may also be present. It is about God as source and ground, God as faithful lover, friend and sovereign, God as redeemer who will never let go of us but instead transfigures us so we truly image God. That is what makes my life a gift --- even, and maybe especially, when I do not touch anyone directly, even when I reject the role of "prayer warrior" (which seems to me to emphasize a kind of worldly perspective on the primacy of doing over being), even when chronic illness allows for no ministry at all but only my own hungry and even desperate openness to God in weakness and incapacity.

The church that professed and consecrated me under a new and largely unprecedented canon witnesses to this truth. The existence of canon 603 itself witnesses to this eremitical truth and describes the gift it represents under the heading “the silence of solitude”.  My bishop and delegate witness to this by coming to know me and the way God has worked in my life, as well as by professing me and continuing to allow me to live this life in the name of the Church. This witness to the providence of God at work in the silence of solitude is why canonical standing and the relationships established there in law are so vital. The church continues to esteem eremitical life as a pure, even starkly contemplative instance of the abundant sufficiency of God. God is the gift this life witnesses to precisely as it turns its back on --- or is stripped of --- every gift it otherwise ‘possesses’.  And of course, this is also why c 603 must not be misused or abused as a stopgap solution for those with no true eremitical vocation. To do so is, for instance, to risk honoring selfishness and spiritual mediocrity ("lukewarmness") or institutionalizing cowardice and misanthropy. The eremitical life is a generous one of giving oneself to God for the sake of others. But it is also rare to be graced or called to witness in this particular form of stripping and emptying (kenosis).

As I noted here recently, I once thought contemplative life and especially eremitic life was a waste and incredibly selfish. For those authentic hermits the Church professes and consecrates, and for those authentic lay hermits who live in a hiddenness only God can and does make sense of, the very thing that made this life look selfish to me is its gift or charism. It is the solitude of the hermit's life, the absence of others, and even her inability to minister actively to others or use her gifts that God transforms into an ultimate gift. Of course, in coming to understand this, it is terribly important that we see the "I" of the hermit as the "We" symbolized by the term "the silence of solitude". It is equally important that we never profess anyone who does not thrive as a human being in this particular environment. In other words, my life, I think, is meant to witness starkly and exclusively to the God who makes of an entirely impoverished "me" a sacramental "We" when I could do nothing at all but allow this to be done in me.

Eremitical Vocations and Their Place in the Life of the World

 [[Sister Laurel, I wondered if you ever feel called to greater degrees of ministry? You have a good education that could help the church and parishes and you must have been preparing for ministry, so do you ever feel like you should be doing more than you are? When I think of hermits the life doesn't make sense to me, not in a world that is in such awful shape as ours is. We need all the ministers we can get! I'm not so sure we need hermits!! (I don't mean to offend you, but I hope you hear what I am saying!!) I guess what I am also asking is if you are completely comfortable with your choice to be a hermit. Don't you sometimes want to do other things to help the world instead of separating yourself off from it?]]

Thanks for your honest questions!! I think you have captured the doubts of most people when they hear the word "hermit."  Most folks, if they have any positive idea of what a hermit is, will refer to us as prayer warriors. I have to say, while I agree that a hermit is first of all a pray-er and will pray for the well being of the world and everyone we know, and while we will "battle demons" (usually those of our own hearts), the phrase "prayer warrior"is one I personally really dislike and that for three reasons: 1) the term is too pugnacious for me, too bellicose, too adversarial, 2) it turns the hermit life into one that is first of all about doing rather than being, and 3) it identifies prayer as my doing, not what God does within me (as though I storm heaven to get God to respond when the situation is quite the opposite).** But most people do not even have this sense of who a hermit is. They tend to echo your questions about the meaningfulness and place of eremitical life in the overall scheme of things and come up with unconvincing answers.

And these are important questions!! I recently told the story of how I came to this vocation. I said that upon reading c 603, I had the sense that it could make sense of (that is, make meaningful) my entire life: richnesses and poverty, talents and limitations. In doing this it could cause my entire life to hang together (cohere) in Christ. At other times I have written about how a hermit must give up some of those discrete gifts she has been given to instead herself become the gift God wishes her to be for the church and world. Both of these are highly countercultural and even counterintuitive insights that are central to eremitical life. In living as a hermit I struggled for some time to "balance" ministry with my inner life and life in the hermitage. Eventually, I learned it was not precisely about balancing these,  but letting active ministry, to whatever extent there would be any, flow from the silence of solitude and call for it as well. I still do some limited active ministry including teaching Scripture and some faith formation, spiritual direction, mentoring, consulting on c 603, and growing this blog. 

But what you and others don't see and what is really primary to and defines my life is the inner work and prayer that help make me into the person God calls me to be. This is my primary ministry because what a hermit's life is all about is witnessing to what is possible when one allows God to love one as God wills to love us. Allowing God to love me as profoundly and unconditionally as God does, is "work" because so much militates (or did militate) against that. Hence it requires persevering prayer and penance -- though what counts as "penance" might surprise you! There is an amazing paradox involved here. When we think about what it means to love another person, we realize it means finding ways to allow them to be those they are meant and called to be. To reiterate, to help others to be themselves as truly as possible is what it means to love them and the same is true of loving God. To love God with our whole self is to allow God, who is Love-in-act and who has willed not to remain alone, to be God for us. We allow God to love us as wholly and fully as possible --- this is our vocation. To be persons who let God be God is a good summary of what c 603 hermits are commissioned, first of all, to be and then, to act from.

While that is a wonderful thing to focus our lives on, it is also not something that comes easily to us.  And for some, it can be more difficult than for others, of course. But what a hermit witnesses to, and in fact, what she gives her life over to is the completion or fullness of life that is ours with and in God. As I have written before, she reminds us all that [[we are made whole and holy by God. We are incomplete without God and our lives will not be truly human unless we are in a vital relationship with God --- and when we are, well, WATCH OUT, for then life and meaning will explode within us and everyone will know it! Part of the witness we give is to the possibility of every person living joyful and fruitful lives despite all of the various forms of poverty we also know well. My sense is that we give this witness, especially to those persons who, for whatever reason find themselves on the margins --- of society, of family, of meaningful community. We say this to the chronically ill and disabled, to those who have never been loved as they are meant to be, to the littlest, the least, and the lost.]]

All of this is the reason hermits, at least in the main, give up apostolic ministry. They commit to allowing God to do for them what is promised to everyone, including or maybe especially those who have only God to depend on. What we say to others, is much the same except we try to remind them of how critically important God is to each of us, to what it means to be truly human. Hermits say to each of us that prayer, which is God's work within us, is critical to being human; it is what Love does within us if we are merely able to open ourselves to that. For most hermits I know, there is still some limited active ministry. It flows from their lives of the silence of solitude and leads back to it. As I noted above, for me that includes a bit of teaching, and spiritual direction. Occasionally, I also work with candidates for c 603 profession and consecration for dioceses that consult in this, and I am working on a guidebook to assist dioceses in the process of discernment and formation of c 603 hermits. That is about the limit of what I can do while maintaining my prayer life --- a prayer life that is necessary as much for God's sake and for myself as it is for others.

I don't separate myself from the world exactly. I live within it in the silence of solitude precisely so I can love the world into wholeness. It would be a crucial mistake to think I am not engaged with the world and especially that I am not engaged on its behalf. I agree that this cannot be seen or even easily understood; it is what the catechism refers to as the hiddenness of the eremitical life, but it is real nonetheless. The difficulty of pointing to something I do directly for others is, I think, one of the reasons people insist on identifying intercessory prayer as the heart of the vocation. That too is a very significant part of this vocation, I agree, but more foundational or basic is living the whole of one's life so that God may be God and complete and perfect one as a human being because we are his very own, that God might affirm our lives as meaningful despite limitations and poverty of every sort, or, in other words, that God might be God with and in and through us. Will this spill over and change the face of the world? I can only trust that it will!***

In thinking about this hiddenness, I think it is important to remember c 603 reads stricter separation or withdrawal from the world; it does not read absolute isolation or strictest separation (reclusion) --- though some few may be called to that. World in this canon means, first of all, that which is contrary or resistant to Christ and only secondarily the larger world of God's good creation. The hermit's life involves withdrawal (anachoresis) from both but in differing ways and degrees. I feel called to a life of withdrawal from the world so that I am more capable of loving that same world as Christ loves. I can understand why the hermit life does not make sense to you; I struggled to understand it myself and especially to understand why it was not a selfish way of life. What I have come to know profoundly is that it is an intensely generous life when lived well (and thus, for the right reasons). I hope this is a fair summary of my perspective and the way it differs from your own. Please get back to me if it raises more questions.

**  I hold this despite what St Peter Damian says about this in Letter 28:46. Hermits in a colony are soldiers and their cells are their place of bivouac. I like Peter Damian in some things and I understand this image. It is cogent and has merit but I still dislike the phrase prayer warrior!

***  (I say this because two weeks ago my director shared a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, [[“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”]] We were talking about trusting that the eremitical life (or, in Sister Marietta's case, the apostolic religious life), for all its littleness and limitations in what we can do in the face of such great need, will become a flood that transforms the world. For me, this also recalls the motto of my eremitic life and consecration: "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:9)

Defining Canonical Freedom

[[Sister Laurel, what is canonical freedom?]]

Thanks for the question. You will find a few answers here, including discussions of canonical freedom, so check the labels (canonical freedom, etc.) to the right as well. Simply put, canonical freedom means one is free to undertake the rights and obligations of a public (canonical) commitment. This might be freedom to marry, freedom to make a religious profession or to be consecrated, or freedom to receive or be admitted to certain other sacraments like Orders.

In terms of religious profession and consecration, canonical freedom implies not merely the ability to meet physical, material, and mental standards of the vocation, but more fundamentally, it means the presence of a faith history of having received all the sacraments of initiation and Confirmation, and also the absence of bonds of sacramental marriage or (if one is looking to marry instead) bonds of religious consecration and/or ordination which must be dispensed. If one has been married sacramentally then either the spouse must be deceased, or, if the couple divorced, the Church must have granted a decree of nullity (which says there was never a sacramental bond created in the first place) before one is considered canonically free to undertake another life bond. All of these events are noted in one's Church of Baptism with one's baptismal record and are also recorded in the place where they occurred. A diocese, seminary, or religious congregation will require this record before proceeding with plans to allow one's entrance into any process of discernment or formation and will keep their own personal file for the person applying.

What the Church teaches is that when one makes a whole-hearted commitment of the entirety of one's self and life in marriage, religious life, consecrated virginity, or priesthood, one is no longer free to dispose of oneself in the same way in another state of life. The commitment one makes originally (and subsequently if free to do so) announces that God has called one to become a whole and holy human being through this specific path. It underscores not merely the importance of life commitments but also the significance of the discernment any vocation requires.

Catholic theology regards freedom as the power to be the persons we are called to be. Canonical freedom indicates freedom in law to respond to God's unique call to become whole and holy in, with, and through Him in a particular state of life. If one is not canonically free, one cannot even begin to discern or pursue a given vocational path.  It has taken some centuries for the Church to honor Sacramental marriage appropriately by not allowing married persons to run off to a monastery or hermit cave, for instance, or simply to live as brother and sister while eschewing sexual or marital love, but that is the emphasis today. Today the Church esteems married life and marital love more adequately so canonical freedom cannot so easily be achieved by dispensations instead of the necessary decree of nullity. I sincerely hope this is helpful!

Fruit of "the Accuser": On the Damage done by Anonymous Accusations

[[Dear Sister, I was thinking about the issue of anonymity and accountability and the way not using identifiable names contributes to confusion for readers. Let's say I know you are one of only two or three diocesan hermits in California and I read about a canonical hermit lady in California who is sociopathic, narcissistic, and personality disordered, for example. I would not associate you with the diagnosis and that could lead me to think perhaps the person making the accusation was talking about one of the other one or two hermits. That would hardly be fair to them, nor to me as a reader! 

What if I was considering asking one of you to work with me, either because I desired to become a c 603 hermit, or because I wanted spiritual direction? Or what if I wanted to manage my own disability and thought you had some answers I needed. It could keep me from asking you to work with me because of the uncertainties raised --- and that just might be a crucial misstep in terms of my own vocation! Do you hear what I am trying to explain? When "the Catholic Hermit," "Joyful Hermit," or "the Complete Hermit" or whoever it is is trash-talking some canonical hermit,  and refuses to say who they are by name, particularly when what is being said is inconsistent with what readers know of the person themselves it is uncharitable to them as well as to the hermits being tarred with the same brush. I don't think you have spoken about this aspect of the problem yet, have you?]]

Such a great analysis! My sincerest thanks for raising this perspective!! No, I have not done this myself before, and yes, I absolutely hear and agree with you. I have tried to approach related issues through the discussion of the nature of eremitical hiddenness and the fact that c 603 does not necessarily call for anonymity. I then broadened the answers to some questions I received to a discussion of not just the public and ecclesial nature of the c 603 vocation, but how accountability for those things can be inimical to the practice of anonymity. I probably took some persons' questions in surprising directions, but I still never managed to raise this dimension of the whole problem.

Yet, I certainly felt it! There have been several times when I have been reading something about a c 603 lady hermit writing a blog for x many years and thought, "That sounds like me (right number of years, right state, right sex!" and as I read on, the stuff there was so patently unrecognizable and inapplicable to me, that I dismissed the first thought as impossible. Anonymous accusations can be neither entertained nor responded to adequately, not by the one being referred to (whoever that is!), nor by anyone else. Eventually, people begin to doubt anyone who might be being accused, any group member (in this case, c 603 hermits), and the whole category of hermits comes under a cloud. It may well be that that is part of what the accuser really wants, that they are less concerned with discrete bad acts of a single hermit as they are out to get c 603 itself. The problem is none of this can be known because the accuser has insisted on remaining anonymous (therefore can't even be contacted for clarification), and has extended anonymity (of sorts) to others. In recent weeks one accuser began to post pieces that identified several c 603 hermits. Only a couple were praised for living their hermit lives authentically. This helped me to see that perhaps it is c 603 itself that is the target, but along with almost every c 603 hermit living consecrated eremitical life in the US as well. What had been happening by innuendo has now happened in a more open way. And yet not openly enough!!

Marymount Hermitage, Mesa, ID

Hermits have been easily identifiable by the information provided on Joyful Hermit Speaks. Several folks came to my blog that way and 2 of these asked about the truth. Several others wondered if this section of this or that video might be referring to Sister M Beverly at Marymount Hermitage, Mesa, ID (Diocese of Boise) or to the hermits in Fort Wayne (Diocese of Fort Wayne - South Bend) and asked if I had any knowledge of them or concern about them myself? (I have written about Marymount Hermitage in the past -- positively -- and have been told by a diocesan hermit I know well and trust implicitly that she personally knew one of these Fort Wayne hermits (Sister Jane Brackenbush), had worked with her in another capacity; this person affirmed that she does have a genuine eremitical vocation and that this was known years ago, but nothing more than that. So yes, writing negatively about someone anonymously (both the writer and the subject of their writing) does an injustice to readers, and to many others besides the person who was the subject of the piece. It causes doubt and confusion, creates hesitancy, and in my book, is sometimes simply dishonest. All of this reminds me of the reasons Satan is identified as "the accuser." Anonymity in all of this serves the demonic.

In your analysis and question, you addressed this from the position of a reader considering contacting one of the people who might or might not be involved in a report where the accused goes unnamed. Your question captured the vast harm that can be done by such practice, and far more effectively than I have done until now! Thanks very much for your question! It is important and one we may need to spend more time with. For instance, should canonical hermits who are mentioned on this blog be named? What about candidates who are seeking canonical standing? Should we at least name their dioceses or is all of this an invasion of privacy? How do we deal with the anonymous accusations being put up by someone on a blog or in their videos? 

A note on the accusations leveled against me: At this point I have to say my diocese has never mentioned the matter of Joyful's calls to them, neither to me nor to my Director. If Joyful ever called the Diocese of Oakland (and I believe she did because it seems she also called the Archdioceses of San Francisco and Detroit thinking I was responsible to my former bishops who had gone to those places as Archbishops) they told Joyful I am a c 603 hermit (meaning I was in good standing) and it sounds like they challenged her to take legal action if she thought she had a case. So, as far as I am concerned, the matter has been closed for five years. If Joyful continues to post on this, well, the matter is still closed insofar as both the Diocese of Oakland and I are concerned.)  Meanwhile, thanks for the challenge you have implicitly set!! I hope others will contribute their thoughts on the matter!

Once Again on c 603 and the Reasons it was Created

[[Hi Sister, why do you say that c 603 was not created to deal with abuses of eremitical life? It seems reasonable to me to create a law to deal with abuses and if there were hermits in the church I bet you there were abuses!]]

Hi there, and thanks for the question. I last referred to this idea in Should Hermit Vocations be Respected? What I said there is: [[. . . the Church chose to make the solitary eremitical vocation a canonical one. She did so because she believed it to be a gift of God to the Church and showed that she esteemed this vocation precisely as a gift of God, not because hermits were giving her problems (in fact, solitary hermits had almost totally ceased to exist in the Western Church; all the Church had to do was to ignore any that remained to ensure that death spiral was completed). Even if this was untrue, one does not give someone canonical standing simply to correct abuses. Besides, without officially recognizing (and thus, esteeming) hermit life in law, what abuses would there be?? A standard or norm must be established in law before there can be abuses.]] 

As you can see, I mainly argued canonical standing primarily had to do with the Church's esteem for the vocation. Remi de Roo had become Bishop Protector of about a dozen hermits who had left their monasteries after long years of solemn profession because their monasteries did not allow for hermit life in proper (i.e., their own congregational) law. There was no canon (universal) law on eremitical life. In the Middle Ages and some later the Western Church had hermits and anchorites and these were mainly regulated by diocesan laws administered under the local Ordinary, however, by the 16th - twentieth centuries, solitary hermits were dying or had mainly died out. (They never died out in the Eastern Church, possibly because hermits were always linked to a monastic community.) This primary reason is rooted in simple historical fact.

The notion that c 603 was created to deal with abuses only makes sense if, 1) there was a universal norm (canon) that defined the normative eremitical life, and 2) the Church was being plagued in some way by numerous canonical hermits or people calling themselves hermits and living in disedifying or destructive ways --- for instance, by preaching heresy or somehow seducing people away from the faith or their ordinary obligations. However, this was not the case. In later centuries, there were almost no or no canonical hermits while heresy was dealt with under existing canons and people who were otherwise problematical were dealt with through normal civic and ecclesiastical channels, not least the Sacrament of Penance.

It is important to ask oneself some basic questions: Without such a norm or canon, who says what is an abuse? Who says what is essential? Who defines what is healthy or witnesses to the values the Church sees as critical for such a way of life? And of course, if there is no official hermit vocation, why would the Church care if some relatively rare "weirdos" lived such an eccentric life so long as their begging, toll management, forestry, wandering, and other activities did not detract from the life of the Church? Yes, some bishops established norms in their own dioceses for local anchorites and hermits, but there was never a canon in universal law before c 603. There was no norm, no defined lifestyle, no set of defining elements, and no paradigm people needed to embrace if they were to be considered an authentic hermit. And there certainly was none that established someone in the consecrated state of life as a hermit.

Paul's insight on the fact that before the law there was no sin holds here too. Before there is a normative canon defining hermit life, there can be no abuses of hermit life. There are just a huge variety of ways of living as an individual, only some of which the Church might consider eremitical if she felt there was a reason to do so. Moreover, one does not consecrate someone who is not living their life well in order to correct the way they are living. That is simply nonsense. It's a little like taking heretics and making them Papal theologians in order to correct their theology. Not a very well thought-out  solution!  The canonist who is reported to have said c 603 originated to deal with abuses seems to have been under the impression that the 1917 Code of Canon Law provided for hermits. Had that been true his explanation might have made sense, but since there was no mention of hermits in the 1917 Code, it does not do so. Can canonical standing provide a way to deal with hermits not living their commitments (once there are such things)? Yes, of course and c 603 does that, but that was not primarily why it was promulgated, nor does it include any mention of sanctions itself.

Anniversary of Eremitic Consecration

 Today is the 17th anniversary of my perpetual eremitical profession and consecration and I am grateful to God for all he has done in and with my life. A dozen years ago I wrote here, [[It was hard to believe that the joy of that day might be eclipsed by greater joy or the life it marked could grow even broader and deeper (though I hoped!!). But that is the truth of things. I thank God for most this amazing day and for all those who today are such an integral part of its deepest meaning. . .]]

In spiritual direction, one image we use to explain a particular and common experience is that of the spiral. When someone thinks they are simply repeating things and are not growing, we may point to the idea of coming around to what seems to be the same point again, and yet, doing so on a deeper level. One traces a spiral's movement in one's growth. Today is like that for me. I celebrated my birthday yesterday with friends from the parish and will celebrate today with my Director. So much is the same as it was last year, or a dozen years ago, and seventeen years ago, and at the same time, everything is different as well. Thus, seventeen years ago at the reception following my consecration, my (then) pastor quoted e e cummings (we both love his work!). Today, for so many reasons it seems even more appropriate:

I thank you God for most this amazing
day, for the leaping greenly spirit of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any --- lifted from the no

of all nothing --- human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Some of all of this is echoed in the slide show from seventeen years ago. As I sat here today and prayed and watched the slide show, I cried and cried! The eyes of my eyes continue to open, the ears of my ears continue to be awakened. That is the promise of the Kingdom! 

My thanks to Michael and Tony for doing both the slide show and the videos of the profession. Amazing gifts I appreciate all the more every year that passes!

Profession and Consecration videos

Heart of the Profession and Consecration is videos 2 and 3.

On Chosing Transparency

[[Dear Sister, it's me again! if someone wanted to live as a more physically hidden hermit than you do, maybe even as an anonymous hermit, would they be able to do that as a diocesan hermit? Would it be wrong to "out" them? I heard someone who is seeking canonical approval say they thought maybe they could do this to raise the falling standards of eremitic life. They said that would include being anonymous because that is a much more humble and hidden way of living the life. I wondered if that would be okay, partly because of what you have written about this vocation being a public one. Do people become hermits to show others how to do it? That just seems like a crazy idea to me --- not that someone shouldn't do their best, but become a hermit to show others how to live this vocation? Nope, that seems crazy to me.]]

Thanks for your questions. Canon 603 hermits write their own Rules of Life and in doing so they are the ones who define how they will live the elements of c 603. If a diocesan hermit wants to live a very strict hiddenness, if she believes this is what God is calling her to, she would make that clear in the Rule she submits for approval. The diocese would need to read and "vet" this Rule to see if it is truly liveable and consistent. If the life it describes seems unbalanced, for example, the formation team might ask the hermit to change that in some way; they will certainly pay attention to whether or not the person is capable of living a healthy eremitical life that is both in touch with, and capable of truly speaking to, the contemporary world. What you describe in the second part of your question is a known phenomenon with some folks entering religious life, but it doesn't really work there as a reason to enter, nor would it work with c 603.

Anyone who has been in religious life is apt to know someone who entered the community with the sense that they are going to change things. Usually, these are young adults "feeling their wheaties" (so to speak) after having been to college and/or graduate school and being stuffed full of new ideas on what community life should be and not be, how liturgy is to be celebrated, styles of leadership that are preferred, and any number of other things theological or spiritual. On the other hand, some may enter with the thought that they will single-handedly drag the community back to the "more traditional" way of life, their eyes fixed too exclusively on centuries past. 

Ordinarily, the candidate and then the novice (this happens especially during novitiate!!) comes to find out how little she has understood from the outside, how much she has to learn from those who have lived and sometimes struggled with the tension between contemporary life and tradition while listening deeply to the voice of God in the present, and how truly transparent a life of prayer requires one to be. Some of these folks make significant adjustments and do very well. Others find the learning curve too steep and leave after a relatively short time in formation because they lack the humility, flexibility, or docility the vocation requires. Should someone really try becoming a diocesan hermit to show others how to live as a "real hermit," I personally doubt any diocese would accept them, not least because the person would not be able to enter whole-heartedly into a substantive discernment/formation process. If anonymity is part of what they are trying to show others constitutes the "real hermit" way, the motive could be far removed from true humility!! Dioceses know how to look for motives and what drives the person to petition as they have.

You see, with c 603 life, the situation is somewhat different for at least three reasons: 1) the canon is not written in absolutes but, at least in certain ways, in relative terms (for instance, stricter separation from the world is not absolute separation from the world, nor does it refer first of all to the material world that is God's good creation); further, therefore, the terms of the canon don't usually have a single or univocal meaning, instead they embody not only differences but varying depths and degrees of meaning; 2) the vocation is a solitary one, not meant for a community of hermits; elements of the canon will be conditioned by the person's own history (and vice versa!), and 3) The Holy Spirit works with each hermit to inspire them in the way God wills. Since the hermit reveals the heart of the Church to the Church and the world, each hermit may do this in a different way to be effective. What is lifegiving and a means to genuine freedom for one hermit may not work well for another hermit. N.B., these points also provide the reasons the Church asks each diocesan hermit to write her own Rule of Life. At the same time they are implied in the church's position on c 603 vocations not being allowed to create a religious community of c 603 hermits while allowing them to come together in a laura that respects each hermit's own Rule of Life and individual eremitical path. 

The question regarding anonymity is one I have written about just lately so please check recent posts for more than I provide here. Yes, a diocesan hermit can remain hidden and very strictly so, however, if she should try to maintain a public presence of sorts (like I do with this blog), she will be required to provide a name and the diocese that professed and is responsible (or to whom she is accountable) for her hermit life. She is accountable not just to her diocesan leadership, but to the entire People of God for what she writes and says as a diocesan hermit -- so long as she claims publicly to be this. The choice is either to remain entirely hidden and anonymous or to claim one's identity fully and openly because this is a public vocation and folks touched by this life have a right to know who this supposed "Catholic Hermit" is. I'm not sure what you are imagining when you speak of "outing" someone, but I can imagine situations where someone is aware of the identity of a person who claims to be a Catholic Hermit and who might be obliged to provide at least the name of the hermit's Diocese so long as she is insisting on remaining anonymous. Of course, one would speak directly to the hermit before doing that!

As I have already noted then, this has to do with accountability for the vocation.  If one wishes to participate online, for instance, and does so while identifying herself as a consecrated Catholic Hermit, then she cannot remain anonymous. If one identifies oneself as a diocesan hermit, for instance, or desires to legitimately call oneself a Catholic Hermit, one is also obliged to identify oneself sufficiently to be accountable for the vocation and to the people to whom one is ministering because she ministers in the name of the Church. Anonymity and the public claiming of a consecrated ecclesial vocation cannot be exercised simultaneously. To the degree one makes such claims, one must be open about one's canonical identity.

 Speaking to parish at Mass during pandemic

There is a risk in this, of course, but those of us who maintain a public presence as diocesan hermits have weighed the costs and found them worthwhile in being true to our vocations,  to the Church who consecrated us, and the God who calls us to this life. For instance, five years ago a person writing under the Catholic Hermit designation (Joyful Hermit's profile and blog list) called my diocese and accused me of crimes. Her call was handed around to several people who neither knew me nor knew of me and then, she apparently received a return call informing her that I was indeed a diocesan hermit in good standing and if she really felt she had a case against me, she should take me to court. (The diocese is not responsible for me in those terms,*** but I also believe they knew Joyful had no true grounds for legal action.)  

I first read about this situation (and more as you will see!) in one of Joyful's blog articles. Here is one place that occurred (I am not sure now if it was the first place I read this in Joyful's blog but it is a main one.) I apologize for the ugliness of the speculation in this citation. A link is provided in case there is a concern I have twisted what Joyful actually said, or quoted her incompletely or out of context.

But I have not met anyone as persistently evil. hateful, and miscreant as this one who by trickery got me to email her over 16 years ago, and who since has been a nasty, derisive, and detracting, public voice ever since. We have so much not in common, sadly, but that could shift if not for the devils' influence, and a sickness of pride, presumption, and envy that has known no ceasing for over 16 years. No amount of prayers or various techniques offered to psychologically or spiritually get an alliance with her, for there is evil and hate in that person, a particular animus against me that has settled in the person. Her main beef seems my writing as a Catholic hermit, of which I am, of course. But she has a need to be superior, seems to resent competition of another Catholic hermit writing, or so say others who have observed this unChristian situation over the years.

But as had been my lived experience, Catholics tend not to stand up against such type of evil as they fear the devil to turn on them as well. Even her Vicar General who her Bishop's office (said they had never heard of her as a canonical hermit in their diocese!) did not want to intervene, not even find out who she is and guide her to not dox nor harass me using internet, given they are penal codes in her state. They suggested I take civil legal action against her.... So much for diocese hermits being directed and supervised by their bishops (or as she has added, by a "designee" and not needing to be a priest....

If not for the Catholic and hermit reality, I still think this person who represents so many Catholics, especially women, would continue the ugliness regardless, as long as I keep writing, for she uses what I write as her foil often enough, as her fodder to come up with a platform to "preach" and try to be "someone with status," thus her inventing precedents and giving herself impetus and note to what ought to be a hidden life of a hermit. So she puts me down publicly in order to try to build up what seems a spiritual emptiness, or a lack of inner security or healthy love of how God created her, or whatever issues going on--perhaps envy that I am heterosexual and have had a family, that I am educated with higher degrees, or that I'm a persecuted, suffering mystic and victim soul.  (Seeking Kind Catholics) 

Joyful (who has never met me personally, nor contacted me directly about her 16+ years' worth of concerns with me) is still telling that story about my diocese disavowing me, not only on her more recent blog (cf above link) but in her recent videos on Joyful Hermit Speaks, though without making clear the diocese's clarification that they do know me. (For example, Having Trouble, Moving On (cf, 20:51ff, but the whole video gives context.) Originally, it seems to me she wanted to call my credibility into question; most recently she has used the story to call into question the wisdom of c 603 and the fidelity of responsible bishops. I find (and, for a number of years, have found) the situation irritating, occasionally infuriating, and almost always deeply perplexing because of the groundless speculations that are thrown up as truth. At the same time, I have chosen to be present online in a transparent way and that means that, unfortunately, my diocese may occasionally get a phone call from someone like Joyful Hermit. That is the choice I made in identifying myself online as a Diocesan Hermit of and for the Diocese of Oakland, and as I look back at the past 17 years and the good that has come from them and as I move toward the anniversary of my consecration on 02. September, I would say that even in light of these kinds of personal attacks, my decision was a good one, and I am grateful to God for the way God has led me!

*** As noted before, on the day of her consecration (the day of her perpetual profession,) a diocesan hermit signs a waiver of liability so that should she leave the consecrated state she cannot sue the diocese for past wages, etc. As I have said before, I suppose that this waiver could also cover things like bail and fines, etc should a hermit get into legal trouble, but it is not primarily about that.