Using Internet Wisely: Some Distinctions Between Hiddenness and Privacy

[[Sister Laurel, I have been watching videos by [an online Christian hermit] and reading your blog for some time. You have such different approaches to eremitical life. I have been interested in the distinctions. One of these is about the hiddenness of the hermit life. Recently, [this hermit] put up several posts while running errands in B____, and today she put up one showing herself in a medical waiting room dressed in scrubs as she waited for an MRI. What has me feeling confused and often uncomfortable is how she complains that [despite your supposed hiddenness], you use the title Sister and wear a habit, while she puts up videos of herself shopping, going to the doctor, lying in bed in pain, and so forth, while identifying herself as a hermit to those watching such videos. The videos are becoming more frequent, and it seems like everything, even family fights and details of her physical and emotional condition, is fair game. It's as though everything she does has to be video'd for her viewers while boundaries are forgotten. Yet she goes after you for using her name and not being anonymous yourself. How can any of this be considered consistent with eremitical hiddenness?]]

Thanks for your questions. Let me talk about eremitical hiddenness and also the value of privacy. I have no intention of speaking about this specific hermit's praxis because she no longer presents herself as a Catholic Hermit, something I very much appreciate.  Your comments still raise the more general question of eremitical hiddenness and possible inconsistency, and would do so no matter the hermit involved if they have an online presence. My own blog does that, for instance. What you say about the increasing frequency of videos, along with their content, could also raise the question of an incipient or more developed failure to respect appropriate boundaries. What is true, of course, is that every hermit must answer such questions when they decide to post anything online, and they must continue to raise these questions over time. It seems to me that this is particularly true if they are also publicly critical of another hermit's supposed "lack of hiddenness". Bearing that in mind, let me move on to these more general topics.

Anyone posting online will find that the internet encourages a dissolution of our sense of privacy and of appropriate boundaries. This can be gradual or not. The hermits I know mostly have internet, and we use it to communicate in a variety of ways, to come together in a virtual laura over huge geographical and temporal distances, to post about this vocation, to sell what we make, make doctor's appointments, and things like that. My sense is we each take care with our use of such media. Additionally, some of us have been called upon to do interviews for journalists, authors, radio broadcasters (or podcasters), and the like, but in doing these, there always remains a significant caution that honesty and transparency do not transgress appropriate boundaries. 

Journalists give us the draft of what they want to publish, and we go over these to be sure we are comfortable with everything in the interview, article, book chapter, or whatever. There is no sense ever that this media piece is going to transgress upon our essential hiddenness or the personal boundaries most people have no right or need to see beyond. We don't do the interview, or give permission for its publication, etc., if we cannot be certain of these limits. (Granted, this doesn't prevent all errors, but it does tend to work for boundary issues.) But on the internet, people post or write and put up pictures and videos of themselves that reveal far more of themselves than they realize. It takes real care to use media appropriately while ensuring the hiddenness or privacy necessary to the hiddenness of an eremitic life.

Some things never show up in the interviews or articles I do. While I do indeed mention the chronic illness and disability that are part of my own call to eremitical life, the details of those realities,  especially on a day-to-day basis, are private. Not only are they generally unhelpful to folks reading this blog, but they cross boundaries, both my own and those of my readers, which are better maintained intact. In some ways, "putting it all out there" is uncharitable and can lack respect, both for myself and for the reader. Similarly, some will know I have a sister, a niece, and may even know their first names, but that is ordinarily the limit of things. I once asked for prayer for my sister due to some surgery she was having. I have posted on the occasion of the anniversary of my brother's death. But the ins and outs, ups and downs of relationships (which are pretty much the same as anyone else's) is simply not helpful to anyone reading this blog, and not my right to post about. But let me be especially clear, this kind of thing is not about the hiddenness of my life. It is about the right that my family and I both have to privacy despite the public nature of my vocation.

Hiddenness has to do with the intimacies of my (or any hermit's) life with God, the existential solitude that my life possesses and seeks as an essential dimension of an authentically human life. And, paradoxically, I am called to witness to this hiddenness. Imagine that! In my life, every day of my life, I live a communion or union with God that no one else can enter, see, touch, or know. They can know all of this themselves in regard to their own relationship with God, yes, but they cannot enter, see, touch, or know my own solitude with God. And yet, at the same time, I am called to witness to this inviolable, ineffable, and sacred reality with my life. Sometimes, because I write about the nature of c 603 eremitic life, I am also called to write what I can about this relationship, and yet, a good deal of it (when I can find the words for it) will remain entirely private except to spiritual directors, my bishop and/or confessor, and those very rare (and very good) friends with whom I share this vocation.

Here is where titles and habits can be helpful. They are an outer sign of this inner reality. They immediately signal something existing that otherwise people will not have a way into. Of course, my own qualities and characteristics as a person also reveal the presence and nature of my relationship with God (and are more important in doing so than any habit!), but the all-consuming focus of my life and the total nature of my commitment can be indicated by title and habit. These are signals to an intimacy with God every person is invited to experience and explore for themselves, and which I have said yes to in public vows and consecration. They are also things I have adopted with the permission of the Church as part of an ecclesial vocation. I don't usually know why others wear habits, or, often the more neuralgic question, why many do not, though I understand and respect the decisions made by those I do know. In terms of my own religious life, however, the habit serves as a signal to something hidden and holy --- a journey which differs in some ways from that of most people and is undertaken on their behalf. At the same time, though it is helpful to me, it is less about me than it is about signaling the potential within each one of us, especially within a faith community, to make the kind of journey I have been writing about lately, and that I have mentioned indirectly through the years in terms of "inner work". Today, because they are less common, habits invite questions, and questions invite witness and encouragement of others regarding the journey they, too, are called to make in their own way.

In terms of your questions, what I find fascinating is how apparently easy it is for someone to mistake anonymity for hiddenness or even for privacy. What adds to that fascination is my awareness of how, on the other hand, it is possible to write publicly and talk about the inner journey hermits are called to make, to wear a habit, use the title Sister (or Brother), and maintain the hiddenness of the vocation and the privacy necessary for self-respect and the respect of others. There are paradoxes here that I think are important, and hermits certainly need to be aware of these. Sometimes writing or filming something in the name of sharing, openness, or transparency erodes essential boundaries and potentially involves the reader or viewer in a form of voyeurism. Here is one of the places where the internet's tendency to count visitors coming to the site can be deceptive or misleading. It doesn't always indicate one's writing, for instance, is edifying or even interesting. Hermits need to ask themselves if they are getting the readership (or viewership) they are (especially when that readership spikes upward or drops off precipitously), not because what they write is truly of interest or edifying to others, but because it is fascinating like a train wreck, car crash, or streaker in a park full of people is fascinating.

The potential for misuse of media and the subtle,  even surreptitious, and always surprising ways the use of media can lead to the gradual or even more immediate transgression or erosion of appropriate boundaries for the writer or videographer and reader or viewer alike is important. This is another place where external solitude and silence help protect existential solitude, and where respect for oneself flows over into respect for others as well. That said, let me be clear that I believe videos, vlogs, and blogs can be used appropriately, and that certainly includes those done by hermits. I have posted examples of that several times, including hermits, monks, and cloistered nuns.  Even so, the use of media must be undertaken with caution and careful discernment. 

I would like to leave readers with the observation that privacy and hiddenness, like external and existential solitude, while related, are not the same things. Hermits' hiddenness has to do with their existential solitude and their journey to God and Self. Privacy helps ensure that the journey to the depths of oneself in existential solitude can be, and is, undertaken with focus and integrity. What one reveals publicly is a matter of judgment and respect for oneself, one's vocation, and one's readers or viewers. When we conflate such terms, we tend to make sure that the vocation and the inner journey to which it witnesses are misunderstood. That does not serve God, the Church, or anyone else well, and it contributes to the stereotypes and misapprehensions that plague the word "hermit".

Pope Leo's Address to the Media

 

 As Pope Leo spoke, I thought about something happening in most every religious congregation I know, namely, the conscious choice of non-violent speech. This is something Sisters, in particular, have taken time  and made special efforts to learn. In the Pope's address he gives journalists a sense of their true vocation and how truly he esteems that. There was no doubt that Leo appreciates the importance of the vocation of the journalist and especially in its relation to conveying truth so that peace may prevail. In the above address Leo stresses the importance of journalists not giving themselves over to ideological and partisan language or language marked by hatred, etc. It was wonderfully refreshing to hear the press being called to represent something our world truly needs from them, while honoring them for precisely this vocation.

Pope Leo on Media and Evangelization: Discovering the Mystery of Who God is

I am very excited to hear Leo XIV speak, not least because theologically we speak the same language. I love to hear him speaking with real experience of media in the modern world, the need for critical thinking and its relationship to formation, of the need for really good preaching, a better approach to adult education, and just generally finding ways to assist people to really hear the Word and come to know the Mystery of Jesus Christ. And of course, it was really wonderful to hear his comments on the importance of the consecrated life and charismatic gifts in the Church today. I think many of us will feel we are much more completely understood by Leo XIV.

Habemus Papam!! Text of Pope Leo XIV's Urbi et Orbi Address

Peace be with you all!! Beloved brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for God's flock. I too would like this greeting of peace to enter your heart, to reach your families, to all people, wherever they are, to all peoples, to the whole earth. Peace be with you! This is the peace of the Risen Christ, an unarmed and disarming peace, humble and persevering. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally. We still have in our ears that weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis who blessed Rome!

Allow me to follow up on that same blessing: God cares for us, God loves all of us, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God's hands. Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and among ourselves, let us move forward. We are disciples of Christ. Christ goes before us. The world needs His light. Humanity needs Him as the bridge to reach God and His love. Help us too, then help each other to build bridges - with dialogue, with encounter, uniting all of us to be one people always in peace. Thank you, Pope Francis!

I also want to thank all the fellow cardinals who chose me to be the Successor of Peter and to walk with you, as a united Church always seeking peace, justice - always trying to work as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, without fear, to proclaim the Gospel, to be missionaries. I am a son of Saint Augustine, (an) Augustinian, who said: "With you I am a Christian and for you a bishop." In this sense, we can all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.

To the Church of Rome, a special greeting! We must seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges (and) dialogue, always open to receive (people), like this square, with open arms - everyone, all those who need our charity, our presence, dialogue and love.

(Switching into Spanish) And if you allow me also, a word, a greeting to all those, and particularly to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied their bishop, have shared their faith, and have given so much, so much to continue being a faithful Church of Jesus Christ. (Switching back to Italian) To all of you, brothers and sisters of Rome, of Italy, of the whole world, we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks [with one another], a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close, especially to those who suffer.

Today is the day of the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii. Our Mother Mary always wants to walk with us, to stay close, to help us with her intercession and her love. So I would like to pray together with you. Let us pray together for this new mission, for the whole Church, for peace in the world, and let us ask for this special grace from Mary, our Mother."

Habemus Papam!!!

Well, we have a Pope!!! Everyone I know was incredibly surprised not only by the choice, but also that there was a choice at all. I heard about the fact of the election just a few minutes before a Scripture class, and as more information trailed in, class shifted back and forth between a discussion of Acts of the Apostles to the choice of Robert Prevost as the first American Pope. I went to lunch with a parishioner and to run a couple of errands. In the bank two people wished me "Congratulations" and one of these (who is traveling to Rome this weekend) asked about what was required to elect a Pope (simple majority, unanimous vote, etc) and I explained a bit about election (2/3 majority plus 1) and the added element of discernment with everyone coming together at the end under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. At UPS another woman knocked on the car window and said, Congratulations!! Exciting, isn't it?" I agreed.

I think everyone has a sense of Leo XIV's commitment to synodality, to the universality of everyone under the gospel of Christ, to the missionary task entrusted to every Christian, to social justice, building bridges, and especially to the centrality of Christ. The difference between Leo and Donald J Trump and the worldview they each hold, could not be more antithetical. I would say that Leo would resonate with the homily given by Bp Marianne Budde (Episcopal) at the National Cathedral when she made her plea for mercy to President Trump and his administration. And in all of this, we should remember that Pope Leo XIV is a registered Republican and holder of dual citizenship; he comes from an ethnic background including Creole with ancestors who were kept as slaves!

As we attend to Abp McElroy in Washington DC and Leo XIV, we will be more able to gauge in time how things will go with the Vatican and the US government. One area in which I am particularly interested is the separation of Church and State and the destructive impulses of "Christian" Nationalism. The new Office of Faith in the White House, and the "pro-Israel" way anti-semitism is now being defined, makes me concerned that "eliminating anti-Christian bias" may also morph into a crackdown on any version of Christianity that is not in accord with "Christian" Nationalism. Freedom of Religion means freedom of ALL religious belief, including all versions of Christianity. Similarly, will any criticism of Churches, clergy, Religious, etc., translate into anti-Christian bias? 

A second concern is current immigration praxis and the Biblical imperative that we make neighbors of all people. A third is the fact that we live in a world where what is true and just is guided by Paul's wisdom from Galatians, "For you are all Sons of God in Jesus Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, all are one in Christ Jesus." Within the Church itself, a Pope who will continue to move us along the road of synodality to a Church that is truly synodal at its roots, sounds like something Leo XIV is committed to. And how will that work out for the current administration?

In any case, I think we Catholics have reason to be encouraged! I believe the Holy Spirit was truly active in this election, both through Pope Francis' preparations for this day, and in the conclave itself, so I too am excited that the Roman pontiff really is committed to building bridges (the very meaning of the word "pontiff") in a world calling us to move forward, not back to the 19th century as the present American government administration seems to desire,  or to a pre-Vatican II Church as some bishops seem wont to push us!! All I can say today is, "Thanks be to God"!!!

A Contemplative Moment: Interior Solitude

 There is no true solitude except interior solitude: 'The truest solitude is not something outside you, not an absence of men or of sound around you: it is an abyss opening up in the center of your own soul.' (Merton, Seeds of Contemplation) The person who has discovered that solitude and been discovered by it, is always solitary, that is, he is always alone with God, even in the midst of a crowd and the rush of a city. Place and circumstance are less important to the person who dwells in peace at the center of his being. It is, however, difficult to imagine how a man could develop a deep interior solitude without a certain amount of stepping back from the crowd in order to glimpse its illusions and diversions, and without some silent time in which to get in touch with himself.

"Not all men are called to be hermits, but all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally. When the inner voice is not heard, when man cannot attain to the spiritual peace that comes from being perfectly at one with his own inner self, his life is always miserable and exhausting. For he cannot go on happily for long unless he is in contact with the springs of spiritual life which are hidden in the depths of his own soul.

Richard Anthony Cashen, Solitude in the Thought of Thomas Merton quoting Merton, The Silent Life

On Vatican II and the Value of Contemplative and Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, it seems to me that Vatican II asked Christians to turn toward the world in service. In this way, we got a lot of service from the laity, which was very good. What I wondered was what that did to the contemplative life and even to esteem for contemplative prayer amongst the laity? Did it have an effect, or was it all kind of neutral? I am asking because you said few people understand your vocation, and I wondered if Vatican II had a part in causing that. For instance, you write against a notion of fleeing from the world when world means God's good creation, and I think I understand this, but how does contemplative life serve the world? Did Vatican II sort of cut the legs out from under esteem for the contemplative life?]]

What really great observations and questions! While some, including Thomas Merton, suggested he perceived a developing "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness leading Christians 'to repudiate all aspiration to personal contemplative union with God and to deep mystical experience, because [among other things] this is a pagan evasion, [and] an individualistic escape from community, '" others point to the very strong statement of Vatican II, "The contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church's presence" as part of their disagreement with Merton's position. Vatican II also took steps to preserve papal cloister and in the document on Religious Life supported contemplative life while asking that outdated customs and practices be pruned from the life. On balance I would say that Vatican II preserved contemplative life and required attention to what would invigorate or reinvigorate it, even as the Church, in response to the entirety of the council's writings and thrust, took a different and more incarnational perspective on the nature of the secular world.

Some of the Contributions of Vatican II

I do agree that while Vatican II wrote in ways that would preserve and stress the Church's esteem for contemplative life, the accent on apostolic service or ministry had consequences that were not wholly anticipated. So did the accent on a (sacred) secularity that reflected God's incarnation in Jesus. This supported the potential sacramentality of the created world and invited humankind to honor the sacred nature of creation, and it softened the gulf between heaven and earth, thus allowing people to think in terms of the new heaven and new earth being established right here and right now in light of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. Heaven and earth were seen by Scripture scholars and theologians to interpenetrate one another, and this implied letting go of a focus on "getting to heaven" while "fleeing the world"; it meant embracing more of what Rahner called a mysticism of ordinary life. This shift changed approaches to contemplative life to some degree,  but my sense is that it led to healthier and less elitist notions of contemplative and eremitical life.

It is true that Vatican II was confronted with specific interventions on behalf of eremitical life, and while the council did not establish eremitic life directly as a state of perfection as Bp Remi de Roo called for, the revised Code of Canon Law, which was also part of the council's mandate, made room for this with c 603. Still, while Vatican II did not take a direct stance on eremitical life, it did considerably strengthen the Church's dependence on Scripture, and this implied not only a recovery of the desert tradition and its strong accent on encounter with God in the silence of solitude, but also the importance of a deep prayer life accompanying and underpinning any active ministry. Jesus' own life, especially as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, gave us a strong theology of hospitality, including the importance of hospitality to the God who would be Emmanuel in silent and individual prayer. This strong emphasis on the importance of Scripture in the life of the Church also gave us the robust incarnational theology noted above.

Even Thomas Merton's criticism of Vatican II's influence was countered by his "turn to the world" and his reworking of the way the contemplative or the solitary life is related to and serves the world --- itself a clear theme at Vatican II. That was anticipated and prepared for by Merton's epiphany at 4th and Walnut on the streets of Louisville just a few years before the council. This epiphany was the root of his turn to the world, his rethinking of vocations to the silence of solitude, and his appreciation of the universality of calls to contemplation. It just took some time for this new plant to blossom, but my sense is it flowered in the soil of Vatican II, which, in her appreciation of the goodness of God's creation and in her universal call to holiness, did indeed take a new and non-dualistic view of "the world". For all these reasons, I would have to say Vatican II's esteem for and protection of contemplative life more generally, and eremitic life more specifically, though often accomplished indirectly, is well established. 

Justifying the Existence of Contemplative and Eremitical Life:

In other words, I would suggest that any failure to esteem contemplative life generally and eremitical life more specifically comes from somewhere other than Vatican II itself, and that makes me wonder if contemplative life hasn't always been misunderstood in some significant ways, not least by drawing a hard line between heaven and earth and treating the world outside the monastery or hermitage as profane. In any case, I would argue that the reasons for this are not due to Vatican II itself. So, how does contemplative life generally, and solitary eremitical life more specifically, serve the Church and the larger world? How can we justify its existence, especially if it is not escapist or individualistic? I have been writing about this under the label, "existential solitude", or interior solitude,  and the call to explore this, so let me just summarize my position on this here.

Every human being is constituted in a state of existential solitude. This solitude is inviolable, and no one can enter into it with us, no matter how close our relationship with them is. This state of existential solitude means that at the depths of our being, in the very center of our lives, we exist alone with God (though most people may be consciously unaware of God dwelling in the depths of their being). Whether we are consciously aware of this or not, this is how we are constituted as human beings, and it is in coming to terms with this specific solitude that we become authentic human beings capable of loving God, ourselves, and others. (By the way, this foundational relationship, which is intrinsic to human existence, is the source of the Church's teaching on the inviolability of conscience.) Contemplatives, and especially hermits, are committed to plumbing the depths of this existential solitude, to finding God there where he resides closer to us than we are even to ourselves, and witnessing for the sake of others to both God and the nature of authentic human being. 

When Benedictines, for example, enter a monastery, they do so to "seek God". They do this not because God is not "out there" in the world, or because God is tucked away here in this monastery, needing to be found in the sacred place rather than the profane world! No! In light of the Christ Event, both the monastery and "the world" are sacred places! Instead, people come to the monastery to seek God because he is within us, deep, deep within us, and because the journey to the depths of ourselves takes time, patience, courage, determination, encouragement, and thus, various forms of structure and support. In particular, it takes the faith community and sacramental life of the Church along with the canonical structures, which provide for a stable state of life in which this journey to the depths of our being may be securely undertaken. The Church serves the c 603 hermit in this way so that s/he may undertake this journey that reveals human beings (and God as well) for who they really are. 

There are so many sources of (mis)understanding regarding what constitutes truly human existence in our world today. The hermit and contemplative life provide one radically countercultural definition. This vision stresses every person's existential aloneness and, at the same time, the communal nature of every human life. Merton was worried Vatican II would destroy any sense we each have that the inner journey to the center of ourselves must be made by every person in whatever state of life they live their humanity. When he used terms like, "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness", he was concerned individuals would no longer see the quest for union with God as essential to every Christian life, no matter the value of their active ministry. My sense is that Vatican II gave us a more robust access to Scripture and to a Jesus whose humanity was rooted in faithful prayer (i.e., dialogue with God at every level of his being) and expressed in his active ministry and life with others, as well as in his regular turn to solitude. Both of these revealed Jesus' union with God and the nature of divinity and humanity. Contemplatives, and especially hermits, live our lives dedicated to the dialogue with God that constitutes the core of authentic humanity. We each make this profound and profoundly humanizing journey over long years, and witness to this constitutive relationship for the sake of all of God's creation. That is the primary value of our lives.

Third Sunday of Easter: Made Fully Human in Dialogue with God in Christ

Sunday's Gospel includes the pericope where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. It is the first time we hear much about or from Peter since his triple denial of Christ --- his fear-driven affirmations that he did not even know the man and is certainly not a disciple of his. After each question and reply by Peter, Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." 

I have written about this at least three times before. About four or five years ago, I used this text to reflect on the place of conscience in our lives and a love which transcends law. At another point, I spoke about the importance of Jesus' questions and of my own difficulty with Jesus' question to Peter. It was in light of that reflection that I came to see that we love God as the commandment calls us to do, by allowing God to love us fully and exhaustively! We love God by letting God be the One he wills to be for and with us! Then, several years ago, at the end of the school year, I asked the students to imagine what it feels like to have done something for which one feels there is no forgiveness possible and then to hear how an infinitely loving God deals with that. The solution is not, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have termed it, "cheap grace" --- a forgiveness without cost or consequences. Neither is it a worthless "luv" which some in the Church mistakenly disparage because they hear (they say) too many homilies about the God of Love and mercy and not enough about the God of "justice". Instead, what Jesus reveals in this lection is a merciful love which overcomes all fear and division and summons us to incredible responsibility and freedom. The center of this reading, in other words, is a love which does justice and sets all things right.

But, especially at this time in the church's life, today's Gospel also takes me to the WAY Jesus loves Peter. He addresses him directly; he asks him questions and allows him to discover an answer which stands in complete contrast to and tension with his earlier denials and the surge of emotions and complex of thoughts that prompted them. As with Peter, Jesus' very presence is a question or series of questions which have the power to call us deeper, beyond our own personal limitations and conflicts, to the core of our being. What Jesus does with Peter is engage him at a profound level of heart --- a level deeper than fear, deeper than ego, beyond defensiveness and insecurity. Jesus' presence enables dialogue at this profound level, dialogue with one's true self, with God, and with one's entire community; it is an engagement which brings healing and reveals that the capacity for dialogue is the deepest reflection of our humanity.

It is this deep place in us that is the level for authentically human decision making. When we perceive and act at this level of heart, we see and act beyond the level of black and white thinking, beyond either/or judgmentalism. Here we know paradox and hold tensions together in faith and love. Here we act in authentic freedom. Jesus' dialogue with Peter points to all of this and to something more. It reminds us that loving God is not a matter of "feeling" some emotion --- though indeed it may well involve this. Instead, it is something we are empowered in dialogue with the Word and Spirit of God to d,o which transcends even feelings; it is a response realized in deciding to serve, to give, to nourish others in spite of the things happening to us at other levels of our being.

When we reflect on this text involving a paradigmatic dialogue between Peter and Jesus, we have a key to understanding the nature of all true ministry, and certainly to life and ministry in the Church. Not least, we have a significant model of papacy. Of course, it is a model of service, but it is one of service only to the extent it is one of true dialogue, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with all others. It is always and everywhere a matter of being engaged at the level of the heart, and so, as already noted, beyond ego, fear, defensiveness, black and white thinking, judgmentalism, or closed-mindedness to a place where one is comfortable with paradox. As John Paul II wrote in Ut Unum Sint, "Dialog has not only been undertaken; it is an outright necessity, one of the Church's priorities, " or again, "It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. . .any display of mutual opposition must disappear." (UUS, secs 31 and 29)

But what is true for Peter is, again, true for each of us. We must be engaged at the level of the heart and act in response to the dialogue that occurs there. Because of the place of the Word of God in this process, lectio divina, the reflective reading of Scripture, needs to be a part of our regular praxis. So too with prayer, especially quiet prayer whose focus is listening deeply and being comfortable with that often-paradoxical truth that comes to us in silence. Our humanity is meant to be a reflection of this profound dialogue. At every moment we are meant to be a hearing of Jesus' question and the commission to serve that it implies. At every moment, we are to be the response that transcends ego, fear, division, judgmentalism, and so forth. Engagement with the Word of God enables such engagement, engagement from that place of unity and communion with God and others that Jesus' questions to Peter allowed him to find and live from. My prayer today is that each of us may commit to be open to this kind of engagement. It helps us realize our dialogical nature and leads to the full realization of that New Creation which is truly "not of this world" but instead is of the Kingdom of God --- right here, right now.

Another Look at Virtual Lauras

[[Hi Sister, I was wondering if you have the sense that a laura (lavra?) is a better way of being a hermit than being a solitary hermit. My diocese is not open to professing solitary hermits, but they may be open to hermits living in a laura. I'm not sure how that works since the diocese has no hermits at all; how can we wait until there are several solitary hermits if there is no openness to professing them one by one? I wondered, though, if being part of a laura is a better way of living as a hermit? Do you have experience with this? Thank you!]]

 Good questions! I love the implied chicken or egg analogy with solitary hermits and lauras. You are correct in wondering how this is possible if there is no openness to professing solitary hermits in the first place. Lauras grow out of the need for professed solitary hermits to have some mutual support with others making the same journey. Unfortunately, most dioceses have no genuine hermit vocations at all, and those who do have c 603 hermits have only one or two. If there are to be lauras, they cannot usually be what my delegate calls, "local lauras".  Instead, they will need to serve solitary hermits for mutual support and love, even while geographically distant from one another. I am part of such a "virtual" laura, a group of four c 603 hermits from different geographical regions in the US and England. It is on the basis of this experience that I can try to respond to your questions.

The first thing to see is that the answer to your question is not either/or but both/and. Each of the hermits in this laura is a solitary hermit perpetually professed under c 603. We each live alone and are otherwise about as different from one another as one can imagine. We have different educations, different experiences of religious life, different theologies and faith languages, different favorite authors, different limited ministries and relationships with parishes, different horaria, ways of praying, etc. At the same time, the relationships we have formed and are forming are incredibly profound, intimate, and sustaining. We generally come together regularly (monthly) via ZOOM to discuss a book on eremitical life (or related texts), and sometimes individually for other purposes. While we use the text as a focus, the discussions tend to be about eremitical life and each of our experiences in coming to, living, and growing in that. Canon 603 and what it means for each of us and our place in the Church and world is important for each of us, and we each share a commitment rooted in our gratitude to God for the existence of this canon. 

What is most important for us, besides the chance to learn from one another, is the chance to share our journeys with one another. The fact that we each have experienced the larger Church's lack of understanding of our vocation is an important piece of this, and while this is sharpest in our relationships with parishioners, it also happens with pastors, some bishops, and other religious as well!  (That said, I do find other religious tend to understand us better than most)! Still, we don't tend to commiserate with one another on this except to establish we each share the experience; instead, we mainly share the inner journey and joy of eremitical life and how it is that what we live every day is critical for the life of every Christian and the Church herself. Thus, when we read something like Cornelius Wencel's Eremitic Life, we explore it from within the eremitical life itself and our personal experience of that. Mostly, we know what Wencel is talking about, and whether we agree, disagree, or are simply sometimes surprised by what he writes, Wencel serves as a fellow traveler and a kind of elder who is part of the formative dialogue of our lives. For that matter, we serve in the same way for and with one another, and the time we spend together gives us some of what we need in living our vocations faithfully. We are both solitary hermits and those who "live community" in different ways. The (virtual) laura is one of the most critical of these.

Today, while I would not say living in a laura is the better way of being a solitary hermit, I understand the importance of having some experience of what a laura represents while one continues to live as a solitary hermit. Personally, I would not want to miss such an experience, and my eremitical life would be poorer without it. Of course, my delegates understand me and my life (sometimes better than I do!!), and others respect me and this vocation. But being able to share with other c 603 hermits who know the challenges, commitments, loneliness, hungers, graces, joys, etc., of this life is a blessing. That is especially true because the inner journey, the exploration of existential solitude within an eremitical context, defines this vocation even more than external solitude does. No one can make the inner journey to the depths of ourselves for us, but the sense that we are not alone in this critical life exploration, and that some of the folks who pray, laugh, and learn with us have made (or are making) the same journey themselves, and need our support too, is an unalloyed blessing. 

As I have written in the past, all of this reminds me of the following quotation: [[What we alone can do, we cannot do alone.**]] Of course, in the eremitic vocation, the hermit and God are the primary referents in such a quotation, but throughout the history of eremitical life, Christian solitary hermits have recognized the need for community, especially with others making the same eremitical journey they are. Unfortunately, this essential need has often tended to morph into established or juridical communities whose hermits cease being hermits and become cenobites. (A variation on this is c 603 "hermits" who really have a cenobitical call and want to found communities. These individuals do not have eremitical vocations but seek to use c 603 as a stopgap means to establishing communal life.) At the same time, solitary eremitical life can also tend to isolationism and individualism. When the pendulum swings to either of these extremes, eremitism ceases to be what it is meant to be and, to some extent, is lost to the Church. When that happens, the Church is less the community of faith God calls it to be.

The Fathers who wrote c 603 did their best to establish and codify the nature of a healthy solitary eremitical life in the life of the Church. While not mentioned in the canon, lauras are allowed (according to the Dicastery on Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, DICLSAL) and can certainly enrich and help protect the vocations of solitary eremitism. Bishops who might sense this are correct. Still, as you pointed out, the ability to establish local lauras when one has only a single solitary canonical hermit (or none at all!!!) is non-existent. More importantly, lauras are composed of solitary hermits who come together with other professed and consecrated hermits for support in living solitary eremitical life. In other words, there must be solitary hermits living this vocation before there can be a need for a c 603 laura, and lest a juridical community is established instead. 

I sincerely believe that the solution to how we create lauras when the vocation to solitary eremitism is so rare today is to establish intentional (and optional!!) virtual lauras connected by computer and ZOOM (or a similar service).  This solution protects and even strengthens the solitary eremitical life not only by encouraging the existential journey to meet God and Self in one's depths, but by preventing both individualism and isolationism, as well as providing an authentic experience of community that eschews those non-hermits who would like to use c 603 as a disingenuous way to establish a religious community!

** Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light

Forever was Never Until Now

 Hi Sister, I have been meditating on the e e cummings' poem you recently posted. This is the first time I have tried to do this. I wondered how you understand the line "forever was never until now"? If you understood it in terms of God and knowing or being known by God, would this change the meaning? Would you mind sharing that?

Thanks for the question. What I can do is to outline what meanings this line suggests to me. I hope that is sufficient. The first thing I will say is that as I focus on it, it seems to have several different but interrelated meanings or layers of meanings. So, the basic situation is that cummings (or someone he is writing about) has fallen in love and his entire world has been turned upside down while his life makes an entirely new kind of sense. This causes him to write: 

. . .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. . .

The first impression the last line gives me is that cummings has a sense of eternity that was not possible before. Maybe that's because he only had access to "book learning" up until now, and maybe it's because love gives him access to eternity. What cummings seems to be saying to begin with is that nothing was lasting for him until this new experience and relationship. everything was finite and limited. Being was temporary at best, meaning was provisional or partial, while in the present, even the smallest thing in creation explodes with larger and cosmic meaning or import (so world is a leaf, so tree is a bough). This meaning is potential within each and every part of creation. It is realized in love.

The second impression this line gives me comes when I look at the word never a little more closely: "forever was never. . .". It could mean cummings believed there was no such thing as forever, or it could mean that his life had been marked by constant negativity: "not possible", "it''ll never happen", "not for me", and these would especially apply to the eternal, to love, to meaningful relationships, to belonging or being free, etc. If I read this theologically, I hear: "A God of love? Nonsense!" or "A God who loves me in and beyond even sin and death? Absurd!" Whichever of these is the case (if either), what does seem clear to me is that Cummings is saying that before this experience of loving and being loved, life held no real possibilities, no future, no meaning. It was limited and closed off from transcendence, much less the Transcendent. 

And then there is the word now. Now is a place where cummings stands in light of loving and being loved. It is a place where time and space open up into eternity. It seems to mean being at home in space and time. Book learning, as the source of ultimate answers and wisdom, be damned; love turns even the laws of physics on their head. He explains, 

                                   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

At the center of the universe there's a we calling, a we that symbolizes the fulfillment of one's greatest capacities as a human being --- the capacity for truth and love and compassion, for transcendence and intimacy, for personal growth and wholeness. A while back, I posted a piece using the quote, "What only I can do, I cannot do alone!" and I hear that quote in all of this. It is here that God assumes (his) most important place in our lives. St Catherine of Genoa once said that "the deepest ME is God". I have written here before about each human person being a dialogical event, and it is in that dialogue that human beings participate in the eternity of God's own life. Most commentators I have read on this poem reflect on the fact that cummings fell in love with a woman, but I don't think there is any reason we couldn't read this poem as speaking about what happens when one discovers God (Love itself) at the center of one's life! 

Doesn't cummings capture the joy and new orientation of a life given over to God and, therefore, to Love-in-act? What God does with our lives when (he) is allowed to grasp us is unimaginable and indescribable. We are freed to be our true selves, freed to live our lives for God's sake and the sake of others, freed to make significant commitments for the sake of the Kingdom of God in this world, and freed to write poetry like e e cummings does! My own experience is that this Love-in-Act frees one to live in the present moment, and thus, too, to "know forever" (or eternity, which is the fullness of being and meaning) in a way one had not and could never have truly known it before this.

I hope this is helpful.

Second Sunday of Easter: Thomas's Doubt, What's That Really All About? (Reprise)

A little late, but last Sunday's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, and especially, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. In other words, it is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we, precisely as embodied persons, will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls that are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul (and in fact, the whole of creation is meant to be renewed)!

The scenario with Thomas continues this theme but is contextualized in a way that leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith --- as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt (or whose demands!) SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is often perceived to be that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.

What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. I think Thomas knows, on some level anyway, that insofar as the resurrection really occurred, it does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead, it renders permanently valid what was revealed (made manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding that could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead, it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked and revealed in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.

Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law, and it was the Law (combined with human sinfulness) that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc., on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to have him crucified not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify (or have him crucified) to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.

There are many gods and even very many manifestations of the real God available to us today (many partial, some more or less distorted), and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets (and false "messiahs") showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.

In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way, (and only in this way!) their own discipleship could and would come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.

Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence on seeing the wounds and putting his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect instead, he was the most astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.

We should not trivialize Thomas's witness by transforming him into a run-of-the-mill empiricist and doubter (though doubting is an important piece of growth in faith)!! Instead, we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes and the lance wound inflicted by the world of power and prestige. Everyone should be checked for signs that this God is capable of, as well as generous and merciful enough to assume such suffering on behalf of a creation he would reconcile and make whole. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the God of Easter, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place; only this God is the One who makes all things new by loving us with an eternal love from which nothing at all can separate us.

Becoming all Fire (Reprised from 2018)

 In the apothegmata (sayings) of the Desert Fathers and Mothers there is a famous story. It was rooted in the personal experience of these original Christian hermits but it resonated with a line from today's reading from Paul's second letter to Timothy:  [[For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.]] A young monk, Abba Lot, came to an elder, Abba Joseph, and affirmed that he had done all that he knew to do; everyday he did a little fasting, praying and meditating. He maintained hesychia (stillness) and purged his thoughts to the best of his ability. He wondered what else he should be doing. The story concludes, [[Standing up, the elder stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire; and he said to him, "If you are willing, you can become all flame!"]]

I suspect most of us have experienced the formal laying on of hands that occurs during the reception of some sacrament or other. If we are not ordained we would still have experienced this at confirmation and during the reception of the anointing of the sick. Some of us who were baptized as adults may have experienced this during our initiation into the Church. In every case the laying on of hands signifies the gift of the Holy Spirit and the mediation of a kind of vocational event, a call to discipleship in and of the love and presence of God in Christ. (The sacrament of anointing has been called a vocational sacrament to be sick in the Church, a call to proclaim the Gospel of God's wholeness and holiness in and through the weakness and even the relative brokenness of illness. cf. James Empereur, Prophetic Anointing) And of course there are all the other ways God lays hands on us as "his" love comforts, heals, and commissions us to God's  service. I wonder if we realize the invitation these occasions represent, the invitation not merely to be touched and enlightened in so many ways by the love and presence of God, but to be so wholly transformed by him so that we become "all flame"!

This is another way of describing the coming of the Reign of God among us. In today's readings the Kingdom of God is not so much a place as it is an event. Jesus described it this way: [[Go and tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.]] (Matt 11:4-5) And we know that beyond this, the coming of this mysterious event often involved the healing of those with inexplicable illnesses and forms of unfreedom or outright bondage, victims of the demonic in human hearts and the world at large. According to tomorrow's readings the seeds of  this event are planted deep within us, a potential harvest which is natural to us and whose fullness we cannot even imagine. With every encounter with Jesus, every encounter with the Word of God, every direct or mediated experience of the love of God, this human and vocational potential is summoned or drawn to fruition.

One of the privileged ways this encounter occurs just as it did in Jesus' time is through Jesus' parables. These are stories which quietly draw us more and more into the world Jesus calls home, the world of friendship with God, the countercultural world whose values and life we call prophetic. I have written about parables here before --- about their power to summon us out of this world, to empower us to leave our baggage behind and to embrace the newfound freedom of an enlarged and hallowed humanity. It is a world which, through the narrative power of the Word made flesh, transforms and commissions us to return to that same world we left and act as Christ-for-others --- in the world but not of it. Jesus says, "the Kingdom of God is like. . ." and our minds and hearts alert to the promise and  challenge of a reality we cannot explain, a mystery we cannot comprehend unless, until, and to the extent it takes complete hold of us.

This gradual but continual process of call, encounter, response, and missioning is the way the event we know as the Kingdom of God comes, first to us and then to others we meet and minister to, then to the whole of creation. And it is what the Gospel writers are calling us to today. May we each find ourselves grasped and shaken, comforted, healed and commissioned, disoriented and re-oriented by the Word of God that comes to us in Christ. And may we each come to know and believe the truth of our own potential and call --- that we are not merely meant to be touched here and there by the fire of God's love and presence, but that we are made, called, and commissioned to "become all flame" in and through that love. Amen.

We Are Pioneers! Part 2, Being Part of a New and Ancient Vocation!!!

[[Hi Sister, I loved what you wrote about being pioneers, but I was surprised you didn't speak of c 603 hermits specifically as pioneers. After all, it is the new vocation "on the block." Aren't you a pioneer in living c 603?]]

Thanks for this question! It is a good one and one I have been discussing a little with other c 603 hermits. Yes, you are correct; because c 603 is a new norm defining consecrated solitary eremitical life, and because every diocese that chooses to implement the canon is also doing something quite new, every c 603 hermit is a pioneer in this sense as well; it is a very new thing to have hermits living as integral members of parish communities and doing limited ministry besides being a contemplative at the heart of the local Church, and what this means to and for everyone is something we are all exploring together. However, I wanted to write about the heart of the adventure, the inner journey, before I spoke about this other central way c 603 eremitical life involves being a pioneer.  I did mention the dimension of ecclesiality, which is central to canonical vocations, and that anticipates this second post. 

So, yes, besides the inner journey that makes hermits explorers in profound and extensive ways, there is the whole outer dimension of being representatives of a "new" (and ancient) vocation in the Church itself. I'd like to look a little at that in this post, because it comes up indirectly every time someone asks one of us "what order are you?" or any time a potential candidate for profession and consecration contacts their diocese seeking to become canonically what they are already living non-canonically. In each of these situations, one needs to be prepared to speak of the new thing God is doing with one's life, and to do so in a way that allows people unprepared to hear this to truly hear it. That takes enormous preparation and courage (in the case of the diocese, for instance), and a sense of who one truly is (in either case).

It isn't enough for the Church to have created c 603. She must implement it and implement it wisely. This means hermits must come to their dioceses with sufficient preparation and a strong sense of God's call, and they must do so after some years working with a good spiritual director. And even then, the hermit does not know that she will be professed and/or consecrated. She responds to God's personal call to her, and after some years, she approaches the Church to submit to a mutual discernment process. If this goes well, the Church will call her to profession and then, to consecration as a diocesan hermit --- a hermit with an ecclesial vocation. But there are no guarantees in any of this. The solitary hermit has no community to fall back on should the diocese decline to profess her. Unless the diocese gives her substantive reasons to move in another direction, she will continue living as a hermit because she knows it is God's call to her. Perhaps she will contact the diocese again in another five or ten or twenty years, but whether she does or does not, she is a pioneer living the loneliness of every true pioneer.

For those hermits the Church does profess and eventually consecrate, the pioneering is still not over! In some ways it has only just begun. The journey one now makes is not only a solitary one for oneself and God, but becomes an explicitly ecclesial one lived for the sake of the Church and her own embodiment of Christ. The c 603 hermit reminds contemplative religious of the primary relationship their lives are really about, and she reminds apostolic religious of the relationship and depth of prayer necessary for all truly fruitful apostolic ministry. She reminds married persons of the faithfulness to one another and to God that is so essential to their vocation. She reminds the single person that even in their loneliness, there is Another who is always present, and always seeking to be heard and to hear, to love and be loved. 

She, especially if she is chronically ill or disabled, reminds the chronically ill that they are called to an essential wellness that is possible in spite of illness, and that their lives can be full and fruitful as one learns to live and witness to this essential wellness and the one who makes it possible. And, paradoxically, she reminds everyone in whatever state of life they are called to wholeness, that human life, even in its deepest physical solitude, is essentially communal or relational, that escapism and individualism are antithetical to the humanity to which we are each called by God, and that learning love and compassion are the work we are each called to if we wish to be truly human and "successful." The eremitical life is human life stripped of everything but the essentials (because it focuses on the one thing necessary for every life), and so, it witnesses in a universal way so long as it is truly eremitical and not simply idiosyncratic or "bizarre". The authentic hermit is a prophetic voice motivated by hope and love, and she serves in that way wherever the Spirit moves her.

But none of this happens without the hermit learning these things herself in her own relationship with God, and then in relating and speaking as needed to the people of her parish or diocese or larger world! Every step reflects a yet-untraveled path that only the hermit can take. No one can do it for her, for it is her knowledge and wisdom that is called for. Yes, mentors can help here, especially if they have been pioneers themselves, but again, the path being taken is the hermit's own, and she trusts in herself and the grace of God that she can be successful in this. And, after a decade or two, a diocese that has taken a chance on professing and consecrating this hermit will come to understand that the risk was a fine one and entirely justified. They may, therefore, be open to professing other candidates in the future.

For diocesan hermits are also largely responsible for the future of this specific vocation. If dioceses are not careful in who they admit to profession and eventually, consecration, and if they do not do all they can to be sure the person can live eremitical life for the right reasons and with the right spirit, for instance, they may well find other dioceses responding by saying what I once heard one Carmelite Sister being told. She was approaching her diocese regarding becoming a c 603 hermit and was told by the Vicar General of the diocese, "They are telling me to stay away from that!" Again, this vocation is made up of pioneers, and the responsibility of each one of us to live this vocation as well as we can is very weighty indeed. (By the way, this also means that bishops and diocesan personnel may be required to do some pioneering work themselves if they wish to have healthy hermits representing the diocese! Sometimes this doesn't work out, and hermits might do better to seek standing under c 603 in another diocese.)

There is so much more to say about this pioneering dimension of the solitary eremitical vocation, but I have gone on for a while here. I am sure I will return to this theme in the future, and I want to encourage readers to ask questions that push me to be more detailed in my explorations of the topic if it seems that it will be helpful. Thanks for doing that.

We Are Pioneers! The Goal and Witness of Eremitic Life

 I have always been a fan of Star Trek and its spin off series. Some I have liked more than others, but all of them have engaged me on some level. I am finding Strange New Worlds especially wonderful, not only because of the exploration being done in each episode, but because of the rich characterizations, the struggle each player has to be their best selves, and the ethics of equality and compassion that permeate the show. In all of these aspects, Star Trek generally, and in Strange New Worlds specifically, reminds me of a world we have the potential to be as part of a universe we can hardly imagine yet.

As a hermit, I don't imagine I will ever explore outer space! But I, and other diocesan hermits, are excited by the prospect of exploring inner space, the realm of life with God, and with living on the frontiers of eremitical life with our canonical commitments. More, we do this as part of our ministry to and within the Church, precisely so the Church can be alive in the way she is called to be. This is also essential to the health and well-being of the world around us, and integral to God's own will for the whole of his creation. We are pioneers of sorts, and we struggle in the ways all pioneers struggle, first to live our lives with an integrity that is true to the solitary eremitical tradition we represent, and secondly, to be open to whatever new the Holy Spirit wills to do in and with our lives. That makes our lives a strange mixture of old and new, inner and externalized, traditional and novel, profoundly personal and expansively cosmic, all at the same time. Like many who have gone before me, and numbers of others journeying in the same way today, I think this is what it means to be a contemplative and to live in the present moment!! 

It is also what it means to live in and from the Risen Christ, who abides at once in heaven and on earth. He is the one in whom the interpenetration of these realities is made real. In all of the Scripture I have done in the past years, two themes are newly important for my understanding of the nature of eremitical life and the journey I have been called to make. The first is the affirmation that God is the One who, from the beginning, has willed to be Emmanuel, an image of God that affirms his desire to be with me (and the whole of his creation) in every moment and mood of my life. Emmanuel is the name in which heaven and earth are drawn together to make the whole of God's dwelling place. The second theme that affirms this same will of God is that Jesus is the new Temple. A temple is not merely a holy place set apart for God or for worship of God. It is the place in which heaven (God's realm) and earth (creation's realm) are quite literally drawn together. Jesus as the new Temple becomes the One in whom heaven and earth interpenetrate one another, and the renewed world becomes God's own once again. 

Into this incredibly weighty story I have been born and born anew, and what I also know now for the very first time, is that both I and this solitary eremitical vocation were made for times like these. It is something of a truism to say that eremitic life tends to reappear or flourish during difficult times. But here we are, just 42 years into the life of the canon 603 vocation, and our world faces crises on every front. The US is facing a Constitutional crisis and the endangering of our democratic society on numerous fronts; our people need to be able to hold onto hope, and religious freedom needs to be protected, especially from "Christian Nationalism" and the assault on religious freedom that represents.  At the same time, the Catholic Church has just lost Pope Francis, one of our strongest voices for human rights, social justice, the threat to our environment, as well as to the place of a synodal Church in establishing and maintaining a just and compassionate Church and world. We look to the election of a new Pope and the renewal of the Church's mission, especially in the face of growing fascism, oligarchies, "Christian" Nationalism, and factionalization throughout the Church and the World.

I have written on this blog for almost twenty years about the task to become the person God calls each of us to be. A vocation is a means by which we achieve this task and goal. An ecclesial vocation also means being part of those directly responsible for allowing the Church to be the Church God calls her to be. As a part of this task and goal, I have worked with a highly skilled spiritual director during this entire time, and together we have explored the ins and outs of my own journey to growth, healing, and union with God. It has been surprising, at times gratifying, at others exhilarating, and at other times (though especially the past nine years) extremely difficult. In the main, just as it is for every hermit, it has been a journey of love --- loving, being loved, learning to be loved, and learning to trust and love more fully in return. This has meant exploring the depths of myself, learning what it means to be true and, through the love and mercy of God and others, to be made true and whole.  

In all of this, our relationship with the creator God is so central to our lives, so constitutive of who we are, that we can say we ARE this relationship, and like any relationship, it is both demanding and fulfilling. This is the inner world the hermit explores, commits to allowing being enlarged and deepened even to the limits of her human weakness and the darkness of personal alienation and fragmentation. The desert Abbas and Ammas spoke of doing battle with demons, and the vivid pictures they sometimes painted reflected the awesomeness of this same inner world. It was sometimes terrifying, always challenging, and, so long as one persevered, inevitably exhilarating in the victory of love over personal woundedness and brokenness. This is true of contemporary hermits as well. This victory culminates in union with God and the certain sense that one's life is given to God so that He may be the Emmanuel He wills to be, even as he makes of us those we are called to be, too. 

No, this isn't the final frontier of a Star Trek program. But it is every bit as exciting an adventure, and of much greater moment! At a time when truth is generally neglected and betrayed, when personal truth is sacrificed for the sake of inhuman disvalues like greed and power, when Christianity itself is betrayed by a "prosperity gospel" with no room for the Cross or the authentic grace of God, when individualism replaces the commonality of brothers and sisters in Christ, hermits explore and witness to this deepest of truths, namely, to the extent we are truly human and live this with integrity we ARE a relationship with God in which we both fulfill the telos of our lives and participate in the fulfillment of the whole of God's creation. This is the source of all hope in our world, and it is the one thing hermits are called to witness to with their lives. As Strange New Worlds might describe this vocation, Ad astra per aspera: Through difficulties to the stars!!

Easter Homily, Bishop Marianne Budde

 

Bishop Budde breaks open the Word of God for us. She does a really fine job with the otherness of the resurrection and the style of the narrative. Of course she balances this with a wonderful treatment of God's new presence in our everyday world! Finally, she treats the center of our Easter Hope. I hope you enjoy this!