Holy Week Meditation from Sister Thea Bowman FSPA

Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA

The following Holy Week meditation comes from Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA through the Sisters of Social Service.

"Let us resolve to make this week holy by claiming Christ’s redemptive grace and by living holy lives. The Word became flesh and redeemed us by his holy life and holy death. This week especially let us accept redemption by living grateful, faithful, prayerful, generous, just and holy lives.

Let us take time this week to be present to someone who suffers. Sharing the pain of a fellow human will enliven Scripture and help enter into the holy mystery of the redemptive suffering of Christ.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by participating in the Holy Week services of the Church.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by sharing holy peace and joy within our families, sharing family prayer on a regular basis, making every meal, where loving conversations bond family members in unity.

Let us resolve to make this week holy by sharing holy peace and joy with the needy, the alienated, the lonely, the sick and afflicted, the untouchable. Let us unite our sufferings, inconveniences and annoyances with the sufferings of Jesus. Let us stretch ourselves, going beyond our comfort zones to unite ourselves with Christ’s redemptive work...

The Crucified God: Emmanuel Fully Revealed in the Unexpected and Unacceptable Place (Reprise)

 Several years ago, I did a reflection for my parish. I noted that all through Advent we sing Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and pray that God will come and really reveal Godself as Emmanuel, the God who is with us. I also noted that we may not always realize the depth of meaning captured in the name Emmanuel. We may not realize the degree of solidarity with us and the whole of creation it points to. There are several reasons here. 

          + First, we tend to use Emmanuel only during Advent and Christmastide, so we stop reflecting on the meaning or theological implications of the name. 

          + Secondly, we are used to thinking of a relatively impersonal God borrowed from Greek philosophy; he is omnipresent -- rather like air is present in our lives and he is impassible, incapable of suffering in any way at all. Because he is omnipresent, God seems already to be "Emmanuel," so we are unclear what is really being added to what we know (and what is now true!!) of God.  Something is similarly true because of God's impassibility, which seems to make God incapable of suffering with us or feeling compassionate toward us. (We could say something similar regarding God's immutability, etc. Greek categories are inadequate for understanding a living God who wills to be Emmanuel with all that implies.) 

          +  And thirdly, we tend to forget that the word "reveal" does not only mean "to make known," but also "to make real in space and time." The eternal and transcendent God who is revealed in space and time as Emmanuel is the God who, in Christ, enters exhaustively into the most profoundly historical and personal lives and circumstances of his Creation and makes these part of his own life in the process.

Thus, just as the Incarnation of the Word of God happens over the whole of Jesus' life and death and not merely with Jesus' conception or nativity, so too does God require the entire life and death of Jesus (that is, his entire living into death) to achieve the degree of solidarity with us that makes him the Emmanuel he wills to be. There is a double "movement" involved here, the movement of descent and ascent, kenosis and theosis. Not only does God-in-Christ become implicated in the whole of human experience and the realm of human history, but in that same Christ, God takes the whole of the human situation and experience into Godself. We talk about this by saying that through the Christ Event, heaven and earth interpenetrate one another and one day God will be all in all or, again, that "the Kingdom of God is at hand." John the Evangelist says it again and again with the language of mutual indwelling and union: "I am in him and he is in me," "he who sees me sees the one who sent me", "the Father and I are One." Paul affirms dimensions of it in Romans 8 when he exults, "Nothing [at all in heaven or on earth] can separate us from the Love of God."

And so, in Jesus' life and active ministry, the presence of God is made real in space and time in an unprecedented way --- that is, with unprecedented authority, compassion, and intimacy. He companions and heals us; he exorcises our demons, teaches, feeds, forgives, and sanctifies us. He is a mentor, and brother, and Lord. He bears our stupidities and fear, our misunderstandings, resistance, and even our hostility and betrayals. But the revelation of God as Emmanuel means much more besides; as we move into the Triduum, we begin to celebrate the exhaustive revelation, the exhaustive realization of an eternally-willed solidarity with us whose extent we can hardly imagine. In Christ and especially in his passion and death, God comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Three dimensions of the cross especially allow us to see the depth of solidarity with us that our God embraces in Christ: failure, suffering unto death, and lostness or godforsakenness. Together they reveal our God as Emmanuel --- the one who is with us, as the one from whom nothing can ever ultimately separate us because in Christ those things become part of God's own life.

Jesus comes to the cross, having apparently failed in his mission and shown his God to be a fraud. (From one perspective, we could say that had he succeeded completely, there would have been no betrayal, no trial, no torture and no crucifixion.) Jesus had spoken truth to power all throughout his ministry. On the cross, this comes to a climax, and in the events of Jesus' passion, the powers and principalities of this world appear to swallow him up. But even as this occurs and Jesus embraces the weight of the world's darkness and deathliness, Jesus remains open to God and trusts in his capacity to redeem any failure; thus, even failure, but especially this one, can serve the Kingdom of God. Jesus suffers to the point of death and suffers more profoundly than any person in history we can name --- not because he hurt more profoundly than others but because he was more vulnerable to it and chose to embrace that vulnerability and all the world threw at him without mitigation. 

Suffering per se is not salvific, but Jesus' openness and responsiveness to God (that is, his obedience) in the face of suffering is. Thus, suffering even unto godless death is transformed into a potential sacrament of God's presence. Finally, Jesus suffers the absolute lostness of godforsakenness or abandonment by God --- the ultimate separation from God due to sin. This is the meaning of not just death but death on a cross. In this death, Jesus again remains open (obedient) to the God who reveals himself most exhaustively as Emmanuel and takes even the lostness of sin and death into himself and makes these his own. After all, as the NT reminds us, it is the sick and lost for whom God in Christ comes.

In perhaps the most powerful passage I have ever read on the paradox of the cross of Christ, John Dwyer (my major professor until doctoral work) speaks about God's reconciling work in Jesus --- the exhaustive coming of God as Emmanuel to transform everything --- in this way:

[[Through Jesus, the broken being of the world enters the personal life of the everlasting God, and this God shares in the broken being of the world. God is eternally committed to this world, and this commitment becomes full and final in his personal presence within this weak and broken man on the cross. In him the eternal One takes our destiny upon himself --- a destiny of estrangement, separation, meaninglessness, and despair. But at this moment the emptiness and alienation that mar and mark the human situation become once and for all, in time and eternity, the ways of God. God is with this broken man in suffering and in failure, in darkness and at the edge of despair, and for this reason suffering and failure, darkness and hopelessness will never again be signs of the separation of man from God. God identifies himself with the man on the cross, and for this reason everything we think of as manifesting the absence of God will, for the rest of time, be capable of manifesting his presence --- up to and including death itself.]]

He continues,

[[Jesus is rejected and his mission fails, but God participates in this failure, so that failure itself can become a vehicle of his presence, his being here for us. Jesus is weak, but his weakness is God's own, and so weakness itself can be something to glory in. Jesus' death exposes the weakness and insecurity of our situation, but God made them his own; at the end of the road, where abandonment is total and all the props are gone, he is there. At the moment when an abyss yawns beneath the shaken foundations of the world and self, God is there in the depths, and the abyss becomes a ground. Because God was in this broken man who died on the cross, although our hold on existence is fragile, and although we walk in the shadow of death all the days of our lives, and although we live under the spell of a nameless dread against which we can do nothing, the message of the cross is good news indeed: rejoice in your fragility and weakness; rejoice even in that nameless dread because God has been there and nothing can separate you from him. It has all been conquered, not by any power in the world or in yourself, but by God. When God takes death into himself it means not the end of God but the end of death.]] Dwyer, John C., Son of Man Son of God, a New Language for Faith, p 182-183.

Palm Sunday: Death as the Last Enemy (Reprise)

[[Dear Sister, I read something you wrote about God not willing the torture and death of Jesus. (I'm sorry for being vague here; I can't cut and paste from your blog.) That was not what I was taught. In fact, I was told when at different times two of my children died of serious illness that God "had taken them" and also was reminded that I should not be angry with God because after all, "he had not spared his only begotten Son." Are you saying that God does not will our deaths either? That God did not take my daughters from me? And if God did not do this, then where are my children? What hope do any of us have??!!]]

First, I am terribly sorry for your loss!! Please know I will hold you in my own heart and prayer. Meanwhile, yes, I have written that Jesus' torture and death by crucifixion were not willed by God; these were inhuman acts dreamt up and made as sophisticated and ingenious a way of killing someone in horrendous torture --- i.e., in as unspeakable degradation, pain, and shame, as was (in)humanly possible. The first thing I think we must accept is that our God is a God of love and life and that, as Paul tells us, death is the last enemy to be brought under God's feet (1Cor 15:25-26). What God is is Love-in-Act and what God wills is life, abundant, integral life in dialogue and union with Himself. He does not will the sinful death of anyone, including his only begotten Son,  though, as we will affirm, Jesus' choices do lead to this.)

The second thing we must see and embrace, then, is a somewhat different way of understanding Jesus' prayer and God's silence in the Garden of Gethsemane. Remember that there Jesus prays three times that his Abba allow this cup to pass him by. He does not pray that the cup not be given him by his Abba, but that God would remove it if possible. It is possible here to hear Jesus struggling in the presence of the One he loves and is loved by best --- the One who always hears him --- to find another way forward, another way to live his life and vocation with integrity without running headfirst into the powers that will kill him --- and this includes not only the religious and political authorities, but the powers of sin and death as well. But God does not remove or take from Jesus the cup of integrity --- the cup of a life lived with integrity in dialogue with God (and also with the world in which we live) for the sake of others and drunk to its very dregs. 

Did God will Jesus' horrendous and shameful death by torture and/or crucifixion? No. We can't accept he does nor does any text say this specifically is the will of God. To believe it is the will of God is to accept as well that those who betrayed, rejected, lied about, abandoned, spat upon, tortured, and executed Jesus were fully cooperating with the will of God. That is simply impossible, and if true, would give us a God few of us could believe in or trust. Where is the "good news" in that? To struggle in the way Jesus does in Gethsemane is to engage with God in order to come to terms with God's actual will; here Jesus struggles to come to clarity about and embrace fully what it means to live one's life and vocation with complete and exhaustive integrity --- especially when that life/vocation is defined in terms of dialogue with and complete dependence upon God. Jesus' life certainly is about this and our own lives are meant to be the same. It is not Jesus' torture and death that God wills but his absolute integrity and exhaustively authentic God-dependent humanity. This is the cup God cannot, and will not remove from him. And this is the cup Jesus says yes to, wherever it leads.

In Jesus' passion, we must learn to tease apart the things that are of man, and especially of man's inhumanity versus what is authentically human, and those which are truly of God or are the will of God. What I find of God in the crucifixion is the affirmation and reassurance that God, the One Jesus calls Abba, does not despise even the most godless of situations, places, persons, and events. Our God is the one is who absolutely determined to be found in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place. Jesus, precisely as truly and authentically human, reveals this God to us and in the power of the Holy Spirit lives his life and speaks truth to power in a way which means that God does not despise the godless places in our lives, even godless death; they are, in fact, the places God chooses to reveal his love and mercy most exhaustively.

Regarding the things of mankind, there are two aspects we must be able to see in Jesus' passion and death: first, there are the inhuman or less than truly human actions and attitudes of most of the actors in the narrative. These have to do with all the things I mentioned above in the second paragraph and several more besides -- the hunger for power and the correlative thirst for control at the expense of others, the fear associated with life in such a society for those who are diminished, oppressed, and exploited, the tendency to join in when a mob yells angry, bloodthirsty, and thoughtless slogans because otherwise we feel powerless, have no true sense of ourselves or of genuinely belonging, and believe we can achieve these things by joining ourselves to such groups even when that leads us to harm others. All of these tend to dehumanize us. The instances of inhuman and dehumanizing behavior and attitudes in the passion narratives are legion. 

Secondly, there are examples of true or authentic humanity, human humility, integrity, faithfulness, generosity, and courage. Jesus is the primary exemplar here, but the beloved disciple, Jesus' Mother, and a few other women along with Joseph of Arimathea and the Centurion who proclaims Jesus the Christ/ Son of God, are also participants modeling these virtues and dimensions of authentic humanity. What is especially true of authentic humanity is the way it is entirely transparent to God --- something I believe Catholic Christological dogma tried to express in the non-paradoxical language of hypostases, etc. So, the more truly human one is, the more transparent to God. And because this is so, when we see Jesus' helplessness, weakness, shame, brokenness, and so forth, we should also be able to see the paradoxical power of love that does not despise weakness, brokenness, or anything else that might once have been a sign of God's disfavor and absence. Instead, in the crucified Christ, God makes these his own, and there on the cross and beyond it in godless death, heaven and earth are drawn together in the very heart of Jesus precisely as crucified. (cf. 2 Cor 12:8-9 "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness.") 

The Good News of the Cross

For purposes of this essay, again, it is critically important to remember that death is not some sort of weapon God wields to punish, but again, is an event linked consequentially to estrangement and alienation from God, self, and others.  As noted above, it, along with Sin, is a power or principality which is a consequence of human sinfulness, which Paul identifies as the last enemy to be put under the feet of God. It is imperative that we understand death, and especially what the NT calls "eternal death,"  "sinful death," or again, "godless death," as something linked to sinfulness with which God contends. God does this throughout the history of Israel's struggle against idolatry and he does it in Jesus' miracles, exorcisms, and in every other choice for life and love which Jesus makes on God's and others' behalf.  

What Paul also tells us is that the cross is precisely the place where God's ultimate victory over the powers of sin and death is won. It is the place where human beings do their worst to an innocent other, and it is a place where authentic humanity is made definitively real in space and time in Jesus. This happens in spite of the very worst human beings can do and experience. Finally, it is the place where God's love is revealed in its greatest depth and breadth; here we see God revealed definitively (i.e., made definitively real and known in space and time) as Emmanuel and so, the One who will not allow the isolation nd alienation of sin or death to have the final word or be the final scream or silence. Here on the cross, Jesus remains obedient (that is, open and attentive) to the God who wills to be present to, with, and for us without condition or limit. This, too, is God's will, or better said, perhaps, this is what the will of God to be Emmanuel looks like. In other words, despite so much that is not the will of God in these events, here in Christ on the Cross, heaven and earth come together as God has always willed, and as a result, there is no place where God is not personally present. Through Christ's death, there is no truly profane or godless place left in our world.

Paul says it this way: [[Very rarely will someone give his life for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God proves his love for us in this: While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,]] and again, [[God was in Christ, drawing all [creation] to Himself,]] and too, [[Jesus, the Christ was obedient unto death, even (godless, sinful) death on a cross."]] In all of this, God is at work bringing a new heaven and a new earth into existence where God will be all in all. Moreover, God does this for us so that, as my major theology professor used to put it, human beings might "live in joy and die in peace."

Your Questions:

So, with all of that as preparation, let me try to respond to your questions more directly.  Yes, in light of this theology of the cross, I am saying that God does not will Jesus' death or the death of any other person. Our God, the God and Abba of Jesus wills life --- full and abundant life, not death. He wills that Jesus live his life "abundantly" and with integrity and that he bring God's love to the whole sweep of human existence, every moment and mood of it. This is Jesus' vocation and the way he proclaims the coming of the Reign of God. The Father wills that Jesus oppose Sin -- that state of estrangement and alienation that occurs whenever human beings fall short of their truest humanity and choose idols instead of God. But death itself is not "of God," and godless, final, or eternal death is even less so. The truth is that while death invariably intervenes in and destroys life in a bewildering variety of ways, God, in and through Jesus and his cross, intervenes in death and brings eternal life, meaning, and hope out of that. Tragically, Death did indeed take your daughters, but in Christ, God has taken death into himself and transformed it entirely with his own presence, life, and love. In so doing, he rescues your daughters from death and welcomes them into his own very life. The hope this makes possible extends to all of us in Christ.

Your children are well and entirely safe in God as well --- not because God took them from you, but because he rescued them from the power that did. That is the hope that we all share because while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us all. God in Christ loves us so exhaustively and effectively that he will allow nothing to stand in the way of this love, not sin or death, not anything created or supernatural. We are made for God, and nothing at all can prevent us from reaching that goal. Again, to quote Paul, [[Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No. . .For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.]] (Romans 8: 35-39)

I sincerely hope this is helpful! It is meant not only for you but for any who have been taught some version of God using death as "punishment" or, when this doesn't fit the context, that he "calls us home" by causing our death. God calls us to himself, always and everywhere, including in our godlessness and relative inhumanity (sinfulness), but death is not his weapon or instrument in this; rather, it is the enemy that he vanquishes in Jesus' own obedient death, so marked as it is, by openness to God.

A Contemplative Moment: Divine Light Experienced as Darkness

                                                                                  

"We travelers, walking to the sun, can't see ahead,

but looking back the very light that blinded us

shows us the way we came,

along which blessings now appear,

risen as if from sightlessness to sight,

and we by blessing brightly lit,

keep going toward that blessed light

that yet to us is dark."

Wendell Berry

When I try to articulate something of the experience I have had through the past year and a half (and more) culminating in the post I put up at the end of March, (The Paradox of Prayer and Ever-Deepening Hunger) I am aware that it is a difficult paradox. After all, how can an experience of yearning be the presence of the source and ground of the thing hoped for? Similarly, how can an experience of abject loneliness and darkness be an experience of the Light that God is? During the past month, I have spent time "unpacking" this experience with my director, and it is this quote from Wendell Berry that comes back again and again to help explain things. 

I am pretty sure that John of the Cross would have recognized the way the Divine Light blinds and leaves us in darkness; at the same time, it allows us to look back at where we have been to see everything with a new kind of clarity and meaningfulness, a new wholeness and holiness. I am also reminded that John of the Cross admired the hermit vocation as an outward sign of an interior state, namely, the union with God to which every person is called. We hermits journey toward that union, "toward that blessed light/ that yet to us is dark." The joy of this darkness, despite the pain and struggle we also continue to experience, is awesome. That is the sense with which I enter Holy Week this year.

Almost twenty years ago, then-Bishop Vigneron asked me who my favorite saint was. It was a way of breaking the ice at our first full conversation on my petition to be admitted to perpetual profession as a c 603 hermit. I answered "St Paul," and then burbled on about how much I loved his theology of the Cross, declaring, "If I could spend the rest of my life coming to truly understand that theology, I would be a happy camper." (Yes, those were my exact words!) Well, be careful what you ask for!! I have continued to learn Paul's theology of the cross, not just academically, but existentially. It is another way of describing the journey I have been making, and the very heart of this eremitical vocation. That way or via crucis, is precisely the path, [[along which blessings now appear/ risen as if from sightlessness to sight,/ and we by blessing brightly lit,/ keep going toward that blessed light/that yet to us is dark.]]

Followup on the Relation of Physical Solitude to Existential Solitude

[[Sister Laurel, I was really struck by your assertion that eremitical solitude involves but is not about physical solitude, that it is about the existential solitude of the journey to the center of our being, where we meet ourselves and God. I was also struck by the way that ties in with the hiddenness of the hermit vocation and how it is that whether you are with people or not, your real vocation is solitary and hidden. I don't mean any offense, but have you written about this before this last month, and if not, why not? (Maybe it would be better to ask you what made it possible for you to write in this way now!) 

Other hermits I have read or heard have stressed how someone is no hermit if they are known by others or spend time with them, or wear a habit, or use a recognizable title, and so forth. They stress the externals a lot, and for them, physical solitude is the key to determining whether someone is really a hermit or not. But you have sliced through all that in a couple of sentences in your last post. Is it your opinion that a hermit must be measured by the inner journey they undertake, rather than the degree of physical solitude they live? That's what I hear you saying. ]]

What excellent questions! Your first one about why I am writing this way now is probably not one I can answer to your satisfaction because it involves a personal experience that happened at the beginning of Lent, and I am not yet sure what I can or want to say about that. You'll need to be patient with me regarding that part of things. Still, I have tried to write about the essential hiddenness of this vocation and also to distinguish between physical solitude and a more existential solitude from fairly early on. I first used the term existential solitude around 2013, at least as part of a piece that includes that label. And earlier than that, I wrote about the quest for authentic selfhood, and the inner journey one is called to make, even if I failed to use the actual term, " existential solitude". As I looked over the articles with the label "essential hiddenness", however, the things I have been writing about this past month are present, but without the clarity of my recent posts. And that makes sense because sometimes we can only see things clearly or have the freedom to say what we need to once we have travelled beyond the struggle to a new place and perspective.

I don't want to undervalue the importance of physical solitude to the hermit vocation. The past year and a half, especially, and to a somewhat lesser degree the time since the pandemic, has been marked by very significant degrees of solitude of this type. To varying degrees, it is a prerequisite for the inner journey the hermit is called to make. Even so, physical solitude is not the reason for the vocation and must not be absolutized as some seem wont to do. As I noted in my last post, [[The eremitical vocation requires physical solitude, but it is not primarily about physical solitude, nor does it exist for the sake of physical solitude. Similarly, the hiddenness of eremitical life is not about external hiddenness, anonymity, etc., though it may benefit from these. Instead, it is about the hidden journey to the very heart of our being. This journey continues in one way or another, whether I am with others or not, and it is hidden from everyone, even those whose place in my life makes them a privileged sharer in this journey.]] Physical solitude can sharpen our existential solitude, but so can being with people. I think physical solitude, however, is the privileged servant of the existential solitary journey and is essential to authentic eremitism.

I understand what you mean when you write about reading and hearing other hermits making physical solitude the key to the eremitical vocation, though. I agree that some seem too taken with externals (this includes those who criticize these) and even seem unwilling to look at the inner journey as the heart of the vocation. I absolutely believe the eremitical vocation and the authenticity of the hermit herself can only be measured in terms of the inner journey they have undertaken. Many people have embraced the newish phenomenon called "cocooning." Many others are misanthropes and agoraphobics, while in many prisons, criminals are locked in their individual cells for 23 hours a day. All of these and many, many more live physical solitude and are NOT hermits. 

The examples could be greatly multiplied with scholars, artists, writers, the isolated elderly,  many chronically ill, and others who live and work alone. Some try to validate their relative isolation by calling themselves hermits. Some of these even embrace some degree of piety and prayer. A small percentage of these may discover a genuine call to eremitic life. Even so, what tends to be missing for the majority is the intense, serious, and sustained inner journey to the depths of one's being involving an engagement with existential solitude.

The Church professes and consecrates c 603 solitary hermits and has done so since Advent of 1983. Some argue that canonical standing is not necessary. I differ because I understand how difficult the inner journey I am speaking about actually is, and how much support it actually requires. Generally speaking, in the process of discernment and (initial) formation, those working with the candidate have a sense of the person being about this inner journey, or they do not admit them to profession or consecration. The outer signs of this vocation remind the hermit of the inner journey to union with God they are supposed to be about. These things remind the Church itself that it has such persons in its midst. At the same time, admission to profession and consecration (when these are legitimately pursued and granted to the hermit), says to the hermit in the midst of this journey that the Church recognizes she is called to this vocation, and helps empower her to stay the course! So does the supervision of the local ordinary and/or his delegate and the spiritual director.

Of itself, living entirely alone is not all that important. It might even represent a failure to live with others or to be adequately socialized (remember those misanthropes and criminals!). But living alone or perhaps with one or two others in a laura, 1) with the approval and assistance of representatives of the Church, 2) within a local faith community, 3) all for the sake of an inner journey to union with God in, 4) a divine vocation that is, 5) paradigmatic of the ultimate call of every person that exists or will ever exist, is incredibly important. The externals of this vocation (including physical solitude) point at once to its ecclesial nature and remind us of its essential hiddenness. Even so, it is the inner journey to the depths of one's being and an active seeking of union with God that is the very heart of the call and justification for everything else, especially every sacrifice the vocation requires from us. It seems to me that a life committed to this particular journey is the only thing that actually merits the name "hermit".

On the Relation Between Physical and Existential Solitude

[[Dear Sister, I think I understand the place of physical solitude in assisting someone to encounter and journey to the depths of existential solitude. You seem to take a more flexible view on the requirement for absolute physical solitude than some hermits do. If physical solitude is so helpful in this, then why would you allow a hermit to ease it? Wouldn't that be an obstacle to going to the depths you have been talking about?]]

Great question and timely because I was thinking about doing just such a post! Thank you!! The interesting thing about existential solitude is that while physical solitude is critically important in helping us get in touch with this, being with other people in some instances can be similarly helpful. You remember I used the image of being more alone in a crowd than we are when we are by ourselves? This is an instance of being with others as a situation that also puts us in touch with our existential solitude. Remember that existential solitude is defined as that solitude that is intrinsic to being a human being. We are born alone, live alone, and die alone in this existential sense. There is always going to be a gap between ourselves and any other person. No one really knows our hearts or minds completely. We are always, at least partly, unknown and unknowable to others, as they are to us. That creates a sense of existential loneliness or solitude that only God overcomes.

In conversations with other hermits, we have spoken of this sense. It turns up for us most poignantly, I think, because each of us have very few people with whom we can discuss our lives with the expectation that they will understand what we are and why we do what we do. I have said before that usually folks think of hermits in some stereotypical way, probably because it is easier than having some huge cipher or question mark hovering over the word "hermit". Others narrow down the way they understand this vocation to "prayer warrior" --- a phrase I detest, not because I don't pray or because I don't, in fact, do significant battle with the demons of this world and my own heart, but because it is reductionistic, too belligerent, and contrary to the essence of this call. People in my parish are comfortable thinking of me as a religious, even a contemplative --- though here we are beginning to move close to being more than a bridge too far for them! Hermit is definitely beyond the usual bounds of understanding.

On the other hand, we hermits have each other, and it is incredibly important that we do. Existential solitude can be very painful; to have others who are on the same journey, who know what you are feeling and how important it is, is incredibly critical to living this vocation well. What I find is that my time with those who haven't a clue about what I live or why often sharpens my sense of existential solitude, while my time with my Sisters in c 603, or my Director, my spiritual director, and a handful of others, encourage and accompany me in my journey even though it is one I must still make alone with God. I believe that for established hermits (less so for beginners), the time hermits spend with others will not detract from the journey into their inmost depths that they are called to. These times can actually sharpen, intensify, or otherwise enhance the journey, though in different ways, depending on the relationship.

Physical solitude is absolutely critical, not only for getting in touch with one's existential solitude, but for learning to become aware of the deep hunger and thirst we have for wholeness, and thus, too, for God. However, sometimes physical solitude, when combined with the anguish or even the more tolerable pain of existential solitude, needs to be eased if we are to remain fully committed to the journey to the depths of ourselves, where we meet God and our truest self at the same time. The eremitical vocation requires physical solitude, but it is not primarily about physical solitude, nor does it exist for the sake of physical solitude. Similarly, the hiddenness of eremitical life is not about external hiddenness, anonymity, etc., though it may benefit from these. Instead, it is about the hidden journey to the very heart of our being. This journey continues in one way or another, whether I am with others or not, and it is hidden from everyone, even those whose place in my life makes them a privileged sharer in this journey. Granted, I try to share what the journey involves, to whatever extent is appropriate, but it remains essentially hidden, just as it remains essentially solitary.

On Respecting and Honoring Eremitical Life and Associated Questions

 [[Sister Laurel, did you say canon 603 came into being because hermits needed to force the church to respect hermits? I am quoting someone here: [[this other person has written that it is because the hermit they needed to force the church to recognize and respect Hermits that they hadn't been recognized and respected enough in other words to have a place or a position and I think that that's probably from the hermit's perspective why a few of them got a certain Bishop a Bishop de Roo to sponsor and to Lobby this for them with the Bishops and he they got it through in 81 it got included in the updated version of the canon law codex of canon law of the Catholic Church. ]] Did hermits lobby for this? Why would they do this?

She also said, [[so I see a good purpose for it as far as the Bishops are concerned but there's nothing mentioned about publicizing  yourselves or wearing a habit or having a title of your name or or postnominal letters after your name Er Dio or having a public Mass when you do your vows or a reception or a videotape of it that you put online none of that it's it's not really something we need to promote if God's calling Hermits he'll call them and they'll know it it's not like a matter of oh let's get the word out and recruit people to be canon law Hermits so that we can develop a movement and get some respect around the Catholic church and have a place and a position of prestige and status and power .]] 

And also when speaking of the Church not really needing c 603, because hermits are supposed to be humble, she said, [[what's the point of having the law then really because Hermits don't need to be recognized and don't need to be respected and don't need to have a place of honor in the church we're nothing to God's all of any vocation we are the least we are the least and the to be the most hidden and the most um obscure and humble . . .]] I think you are clearly the person she is referencing in these comments.]]

Yes, I agree, I am the one being focused on in these comments. I have written about the reason for c 603's establishment and the intervention by Bp Remi de Roo after serving as Bishop Protector for a colony of hermits who were required to leave their solemn vows in order to live as hermits. I am also the one who wrote about the need to honor the eremitic vocation, but not individual hermits --- I said nothing about that, and I certainly never used the idea of "forcing" the church in any of this. Neither did I speak about hermits gaining a position of power and prestige or starting a movement and recruiting people. When I have spoken about status, it has been about status in the sense of legal standing, which is granted to hermits in ecclesial vocations who assume additional canonical rights and obligations beyond those of their baptism. I have also spoken about mentoring those discerning and forming such vocations and working with their dioceses to assist in an area few have real experience of. This has nothing to do with recruiting and I think characterizing efforts to serve the Church and c 603 vocations in this way is offered in bad faith.

I am sorry the person you are quoting has not managed to accept the fact that c 603 hermits are recognized as women and men Religious despite the fact that they do not belong to a religious institute. I have cited canon lawyers' opinions on this matter, and of course, bishops and dioceses regularly approve the wearing of habits, prayer garments, cowls, rings, etc., and grant permission for use of the title Sister or Brother. They mark these things in profession liturgies, in fact. In a Church marked by new kinship and service of one another, the importance of such titles has less to do with prestige and power than it does with commitments to fostering the Kingdom of God as a countercultural reality. Post-nominal initials are common in consecrated life and tend to mark not only membership in specific institutes, but charisms, and even the shape of one's consecrated life. Diocesan Hermits use a number of recognizable post-nominals. Er Dio (for eremita dioecesanus, or diocesan hermit) seems to be best known. Such initials indicate a public, consecrated, and ecclesial vocation with public vows. They represent a life commitment and allow us to drop the title (Sister, Brother, or Father), especially in correspondence and publishing.

Finally, I have written in the past regarding the reasons Bishop Remi de Roo intervened at the Vatican II Council to argue for the making of eremitical life a state of perfection in the Church. He had worked with about a dozen hermits who had made exceptional sacrifices in order to live a call to eremitical solitude, and, highly aware of their character and the history of the vocation, recognized that in the Church's failure to recognize eremitical life in this way, it had done a disservice to a significant vocation without which the Church actually could not be the ecclesia God calls her to be. While these hermits would have understood the importance of keeping their monastic commitments, I don't know that they actually lobbied for canonical recognition. Given what I have written about existential solitude and the vocation of the hermit, I suspect that Bishop de Roo was at least somewhat sympathetic to an observation made by Thomas Merton. Along with pointing out that the Fathers of the Church had assigned hermits a high, even the highest place among Christian vocations, "because hermits aspire more than anyone else to perfect union with Christ in contemplation", Merton said: 

[[the exigencies of Christian life demand that there be hermits. The kingdom of God would be incomplete without them, for they are [persons] who seek God alone with the most absolute and undaunted and uncompromising singleness of heart.]] Disputed Questions, p 166

Most Religious I know today would not buy into the "higher, highest" way of appreciating vocations (I reject it entirely), and most hermits I know would be pretty uncomfortable viewing eremitism in this way. Still, we do recognize the uniqueness of a vocation that serves as a paradigm of the universal quest for authentic Selfhood with God and the place of both existential and physical solitude in that quest. If the Church values eremitical vocations for the place and role they hold in the very life of the Church itself, then I can't see where marking that with respect offends against humility. In fact, I experience such recognition, especially in relation to an ecclesial vocation, as an intensification of my own call to humility. Paradoxically, it is one's failure to respect oneself and one's vocation, or to recognize the fundamental Christian values of dignity, respect, and honor deserved by every person and every vocation that truly offends against humility!

Series on the Desert Abbas: Become who You Are

Greetings during this fifth week of Lent! I must begin my comments with a reminder of the quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer I have used many times, "Not everything that happens is the will of God, but inevitably, nothing that happens, happens outside the will of God." It is critical that we understand the suffering we do not as the will of God, but that we remain consoled that all of our suffering can and will be used by God for good. God will bring good out of everything for he is greater and encompasses it all with his will to be Emmanuel! In the above video, this is one lesson we hear as Bishop Eric Varden, OCSO summarizes the life of Antony, the Desert Abba. 

What we also hear is what can happen to us as we reach the bottommost depths of our hunger and yearning for both God and our own wholeness, our own Self. It is there, in that place of deepest solitude, that we meet both God and our truest Self. This is what I have been writing about for the past weeks in terms of the experience of existential solitude and penetrating this reality deeper and deeper until, finally, we come to a degree of wholeness or holiness we have never known before, and the I we have been becomes a we. E E Cummings, whose poetry I have used to help me write about this process, also wisely says, "it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." For that too describes this journey to the depths of existential solitude. It is about growing up and becoming who we truly are.

This was Antony's quest and task, ultimately accomplished by the grace of God, even in the terrible loneliness and darkness of a death-and-demon-haunted cemetery,  and then, in the deeper solitude of the inner (physical) desert where Antony spent another 20 years. Whatever our vocational path, we are each called to negotiate our existential solitude and to do as Antony did and become "really real", or, in other words, to become who we really are in and with God. After all, as e e cummings also reminds us, "there's nothing as something as one." The language of oneness and union, the paradox that we are only truly One when we become a "We" with and in God, may seem hard to understand but it is really just a way of talking about what it means to believe in a God who has chosen from the beginning to be Emmanuel and who, in turning to us in search of a counterpart, will allow nothing, including death itself, to come between us and his love. 

At the same time, Antony's story reminds us that the journey to the depths of our being, that place within us beyond all woundedness and brokenness, takes real courage and an energy we might often fear is insufficient or altogether lacking. But it is in the depths of our hunger and abject weakness that we discover God drawing us to Himself and thus, to our truest Selves. Our hunger does not mark God's absence; rather, it is the presence and power of God at work within us. Here, in our weakness where God's power is truly made perfect, that is, where it achieves its goal or telos (2 Cor 12:9), we find real peace and a sustaining hope as, free of all striving and ego, we allow God to embrace and raise us to new life as the persons we really are.

Followup on "if everything happens that can't be done"

[[Hi Sister,  I have always liked ee cummings' poetry, but I haven't always been able to make sense of it. In "if everything happens that can't be done",  what is the point of the parenthetical sections about books? Is cummings anti-intellectual? Do you think that e e cummings was speaking about God (like the "we" of the Trinity), or was he describing a mystical experience of union with God, or something else? Could the poem be interpreted in more than one way?  Also, you wrote, And sometimes, as mystics tell us, we can know and be known by God in such a way that together we become the "We" we are meant to become. I am not sure what it means to be a "we" or to be called to be a "we". Is this a mystical experience you have had?]]

Great questions, thanks!! I love ee cummings' poetry and did my first published article on his "what if a much of a which of a wind" in the Explicator, a journal for the explication or interpretation of poetry. I had also done a college presentation on that poem and "if everything happens that can't be done" and my professor worked with me on writing it up for the journal. I learned more about the incredible depth of cummings' poetry, and about writing in general, in the next weeks of rewriting and rewriting for Jeanne Nichols than I had throughout school until that point. It takes time to fully see what cummings is doing in the sections of his poems; setting off sections in parentheses from those outside the parentheses is something he loves to do. So, returning to these poems is a complete joy for me, especially since I had not done even my bachelor's in Theology, much less my graduate work (Systematic Theology) when I wrote that first article!! To return to him now, after 42 years as a hermit reflecting on God and the nature of eremitical solitude is to realize even more clearly how profound cummings' theology was right from the get-go all those years ago.

So, regarding your questions, if you read the whole poem again and then focus on the parenthetical section dealing with books in each stanza, what you will see is that cummings is setting "book learning" off against an almost ineffable experience of two people profoundly in love with one another. What he tells us is that book learning couldn't have planned this or instructed one in "how to" here. A loving relationship is a living, growing thing, and even the smallest bud falls outside the scope of book learning; books, after all, "don't grow". They are not alive. But relationships and those that enter into them are living things, as is love; these grow, falter, wither, die, and sometimes blossom in fullness. One cannot capture or come to know love in or through a book, not love's wisdom, beauty, challenge, joy, or its meaning. Books are meaningful, yes. Cummings affirms this, but at the same time, the "we" he is celebrating is far more full of meaning and life than any book could ever be. One learns to love only by loving, and when two people come together in this way, it is meaningful and joyous beyond imagining or telling.

I don't think e e cummings is anti-intellectual; at the same time, he understands the place of the intellect and the ways life and love surpass it. He writes consistently in many of his poems about the ineffable nature of the person who is truly alive. Being truly alive, and so, an individual, conflicts with those who are merely "everyones" or "anyones".  Similarly, I don't think cummings was describing a strictly mystical experience of union with God, though I have to say that his sense of what happens when two persons come together physically as well as psychologically and spiritually in love is very consistent with what happens when a person experiences union with God. Cummings's work is about love and coming to fullness through love. While that is true of human relationships, it is even more true of the Divine/human relationship. Thus, even if cummings was "merely" writing of human love, his poetry can also be used to reveal the telos or goal of Divine/human love.

What it means to be a "we" is that to be a complete human being, a human person who is known by and knows God, implies being united with God. On some very foundational level, God and the human person are indivisible. Being one and being a we coincide. When I write about the silence of solitude as goal, this is what I am talking about --- a human person coming to fullness of being and meaning, who is therefore living out the joy of a loving union with God. Solitude here involves oneness of being, meaning one is whole, complete, and holy because one lives in union with God. The potential for this is always present within us, just as God is always present within us. We can learn and choose to be those "going it alone" or standing without God, or those who are truly dependent upon God. The paradox is that true individuality means existing in, from, and for God and those God loves, while standing without God has to do with being individualistic, egoistic, and isolated or even alienated from our deepest self and others, including God. 

For the hermit, then, there is a vast difference between individualism, egoism, isolation, and individual wholeness or holiness, theonomy, and solitude. I think cummings captures these two with his contrast between an I that stands yearning and apart from others, and a "we", where we become fully ourselves only in a relationship constituted by love. The height of this latter state is found in the "we" of union with God. I suppose that my own experience could be called mystical, yes, since it is the fruit of an experience of the profound Mystery that lives at the core of my being and created the universe. In this coming to be our truest selves, there is certainly a union involved ("we're wonderful one times one"). At the same time, I know from past prayer experiences that there is a good deal more in front of me. This recent experience is full of peace, hope, and promise ("there's somebody calling who's we") -- though I cannot begin to imagine it, of course.

There's Somebody Calling Who's We

I recently posted a footnote to an article I put up recently on chronic illness and the eremitical vocation. In responding to a canonist's comment about the way illness shapes our responses to vocation, I suggested that chronic illness and disability were a substantive part of my eremitical vocation. I said that God called ME to this vocation, not me sans illness, or even me sans sinfulness, but the whole of me, and that included chronic illness and disability. I also suggested that God did not mean to celebrate these things, but they are still intrinsic to MY vocation. In the footnote, I wanted to clarify that God does indeed celebrate ME and my life, and I came to a greater sense that this meant celebrating the fact that the "I" that I am is really a "we". As I wrote that, I was reminded of an e e cummings poem I have loved since the late 1960's, "if everything happens that can't be done".

 if everything happens that can't be done

(and anything's righter

than books

could plan)

the stupidest teacher will almost guess

(with a run

skip

around we go yes)

there's nothing as something as one

one hasn't a why or because or although

(and buds know better

than books

don't grow)

one's anything old being everything new

(with a what

which

around we come who)

one's everyanything so

so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough

(and birds sing sweeter

than books

tell how)

so here is away and so your is a my

(with a down

up

around again fly)

forever was never till now

now i love you and you love me

(and books are shuter

than books

can be)

and deep in the high that does nothing but fall

(with a shout

each

around we go all)

there's somebody calling who's we

we're anything brighter than even the sun

(we're everything greater

than books

might mean)

we're everyanything more than believe

(with a spin

leap

alive we're alive)

we're wonderful one times one

When I think about existential solitude, or times of great loneliness and suffering, I am aware now of the line in the poem that says, "there's somebody calling who's we". I have never had the experience of being abandoned by God, though I have been aware of feeling God's remoteness at times. In my young adult to adult life, I have lived in light of the sense that I am a dialogical reality, constituted by an ongoing conversation with God, who is the source and ground of being and meaning. Similarly, I have long had the sense that we are each called to be united with God. In this sense, each one of us is called to be a "we." In this union with God, we become most truly ourselves, and God becomes most truly the One he wills to be, Emmanuel. We also move further away from isolation and individualism in the process. Mostly, we know shadows and echoes of this "we" as we fall in love with other people, live with them, accompany them, celebrate, and grieve with them. And sometimes, as mystics tell us, we can know and be known by God in such a way that together we become the "We" we are meant to become.

For the hermit, this "we" defines the hidden heart of eremitical solitude. Coming to and witnessing to the universal call to become a "oneness" (a unity marked by wholeness and holiness) that is also a "we" is the work and mission of the hermit's vocation. It is the reality that constitutes both the anguish and the unalloyed joy of her life and calling. While I don't think e e cummings was a mystic -- at least not in the usual sense -- there is no doubt that he understood love and what happens when a person comes to fullness in themselves in relationship with another. I especially love the way Cummings creates a kind of breathlessness and topsy-turvy quality in his imagery of what happens when the impossible is actually realized. I am struck by how well he captures the joy of union undimmed despite allusions to moments of incompleteness, yearning, and searching. Cummings' journey is one where he moves from merely "believing in" love to actually knowing the fullness of being and meaning associated with an I becoming a We. 

This is another way of talking about dying to self (i.e., dying to the I of individualism, egoism, and isolation) and becoming the one (whole and holy) who is fully alive in the "we" we each are potentially. "(with a spin/ leap/ alive we're alive)". This is what it means to love and be loved, especially by God. It is more than Cummings could have imagined (he says so clearly in the poem), nothing he could have learned in books, or been taught by even the wisest of teachers (who, like even the dumbest of teachers, know better than to try!). For Christians called to live our lives toward union with God, it is also more than we can imagine. And maybe that is also why the hermit vocation is so little understood today. Union with God is something we are each made for. That God is called and wills to be Emmanuel tells us this. The anguish and yearning of existential solitude tell us this. The fact that the Church needs, professes, and consecrates hermits, who say this with their lives, tells us this. For each of us, "there's somebody calling who's we".

A note on the image: I received this image (A girl joyfully embracing and being embraced by the universe or, perhaps, by God) from a friend in Milan (Parabiago), Italy. Luisa was an AFS foreign exchange student when I was in high school. She was a senior when I was a sophomore and we became friends. She remains a friend and the occasional source for great music, art, etc. In any case, I love this picture and thought it was perfect for this reflection.

On Monastic or Eremitic Stability

[[Hi Sister Laurel, in the video you put up yesterday and the reference to the classic "Remain in your cell and your cell will teach you everything," is this all part of the reason monastics make a vow of stability?]]

Thanks for your question! Yes!!!! You are exactly right that the video and especially the reference to the Desert Abbas' apothegm crystallizes the value of stability in monastic life. Though I have heard some misunderstand the meaning of stability when used in this regard, it does not refer to emotional stability, or "stabilizing one's emotions." Instead, it refers to the practice of monastics to make profession in one monastery and commit to staying there for the rest of one's life unless one is sent to help found another monastic house.

The fundamental spiritual insight into this value is rooted in the recognition that while one remains in the same place or continues the same basic rhythm and patterns of behavior (horarium) day in and day out, one will go deeper and deeper in one's relation to one's true self and one's relationship with God. Those who profess (or otherwise practice) monastic stability are convinced that everything they truly need is found here in this monastery. The monk binds himself to this faith community and to learning to love in concrete ways, to forgive oneself and one's confreres both often and completely, and to allow himself to be shaped by his brothers' needs and concerns just as Christ did. When coupled with the other vows and values of monastic life, the monk or hermit is led more and more to attend to God as the one reality necessary for the fulfillment of every dimension of a truly human life --- every relationship, every aspiration, everything one is and does.

A hermit practicing this form of stability in her hermitage can go a couple of different ways. The first is not the way the hermit is meant to go, but it can happen without competent spiritual direction and appropriate initial and ongoing formation. This is the way of self-centeredness and dissipation. In the search for God (seeking God), one can find oneself unable to focus and turn to book after book after book (for instance) without going particularly deep into any of them. Bishop Varden speaks about this in his series on the Desert Abbas. When the monk treats the monastery library (or the books in one's cell or hermitage) as a kind of casual buffet and nibbles at every author, every Church Father, or Doctor of the Church, but truly fails to drink deeply from or be profoundly fed (much less inspired, challenged, and changed) by any of them, he is betraying or failing in his commitment to stability -- among other things. 

Similarly, someone whose eremitical life is inauthentic can focus on this external fault or flaw and then another one and then another one, without ever truly seeking the reason for the fault or flaw that resides much deeper within the person. It is possible to "paper over" one's deep woundedness or illness with confessions of one's more superficial faults and then celebrate God's (unfortunately) equally superficial forgiveness when, instead, authentic eremitical life calls us to a much deeper engagement with both our own brokenness or woundedness and the grace of God. What is sometimes missing, then, is a deep engagement with or resulting understanding of the texts themselves, their still-unfamiliar authors, or the God the texts sought to consider, put one in touch with, and celebrate. This kind of superficially engaged approach to monastic or eremitic life is a form of dilettantism antithetical to monastic life and its commitment to stability.

The second way a monastic or hermit embracing stability can go within their monastery or hermitage is deeper, ever-deeper. While one is apt to read widely as a monastic or hermit, one is also apt to become very well-read and relatively expert in a particular period of history, specific authors, certain topics, etc. In my own life I can look at several topics that have interested me for decades now: chronic illness as vocation and sometimes as eremitical vocation, the redemption of isolation which we then recognize as "the silence of solitude," c 603 as an ecclesial vocation, the discernment and formation of such vocations, and the Theology of the Cross and God's will to be Emmanuel -- God With Us. These are related topics (the last two function as keys to or even "keystones" in this relatedness), and each tends to call for and lead, at least indirectly, to greater depth of understanding in the others. Even more importantly, however, they are significant signposts of my own inner journey and the nourishment and theological content I have needed in order to go deep -- through and beyond my own woundedness, to the God of Life who dwells in that paradoxical place of existential loneliness and betrothal. Thus, when I am occasionally criticized for continuing to spend time writing here about c 603 as though I am "unspiritual", too "coldly intellectual," and "obsessed with law" rather than gospel, for example, it hardly matters!

One of the reasons I insist on the need for hermits (including very experienced hermits) to work regularly with a competent spiritual director is precisely to prevent one's eremitical life from assuming the first pattern as things get difficult, or tedious, or even apparently absurd -- and when things are sailing along and looking fine as well! When darkness obscures the path, when God is silent (as God mostly is!), when suffering kicks up clouds of doubt and tempts to despair, or when none of these things are happening and all goes well, working with a director can help one to stay the course and go deeper. A good director can also ask the questions needed or suggest the journaling and Scripture reading (etc.) that will help to get us back on our path when we have stepped off course or seem to have stalled in our journey. 

Conversations with such persons can help us express both the darkness and light we experience, articulate the struggles we must negotiate, and share the failures and successes that mark and move us from faith to faith. Similarly, they can help us learn to listen to both ourselves and God in ways that will allow our journey to continue toward genuine wholeness and holiness. This kind of ongoing reflection, encouragement, and wisdom is critical in such a perilous and significant undertaking. It is indispensable for eremitic stability and thus, for a life that is not to be wasted in some form of self-centered dilettantism. Remaining in one's cell can, unfortunately, mean learning nothing and failing to grow as a truly loving person (a danger for every hermit), while pretending both to oneself and others to be living a demanding, authentic eremitical life. On the other hand, it can introduce us to the encounter and engagement with existential solitude so essential to our humanity and to learning everything "the cell" (stability) has to teach us. 

Remain in Your Cell: From the Desert Abbas by Bishop Eric Varden

 

 Remain in your cell and your cell will teach you everything. This is a key piece of desert wisdom, and it is key of all spiritual growth. In this presentation, we have a nuanced interpretation of this saying, namely, we seek a single-minded focus on God and we do so for the sake of others, whatever "cell" is in our own life and call. Especially important is the focus on the cell as a place where we come to know ourselves and God intimately. It is in the cell that physical solitude gives way to existential solitude and one does battle with the demons of one's own heart. I hope this taste will cause you to look for the rest of the series.