I go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and the Imagery of Jewish Marriage (Reprise)

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. The Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

Once Again on the Varying Lengths of Time to Discern, Form, and Perpetually Profess c 603 Vocations

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I wondered why it is that c 603 vocations can take varying lengths of time to discern and be formed when it is not that way in life in community. You have stressed that the process can take some time, anywhere from five to twelve years or more. I am assuming you are not just making up the numbers here, so where are you getting them, and why have you changed them from time to time?  I think you should know. I was listening to a video by someone who said you were making things up, . . . and that some dioceses profess c 603 hermits after a very short period of time so you're wrong in what you say about this; it doesn't take such a long time to be approved by a diocese.]] 

Thanks for your questions. Regarding the various time frames I have referred to here over the past 18-19 years, those are drawn from several places and also try to reflect both the individuality of specific cases and the ways dioceses differ in handling petitions re canon 603, the standard time frames (3-9 years) for moving from temporary to perpetual profession and consecration in religious life (norms which only partly apply to c 603), and my own shifting understanding of the discernment and profession process over the years. Also, as the canon has become more familiar to Bishops and diocesan staff, and as mentoring by competent hermits becomes available, time frames have been affected as well. It is significant that c 603 neither provides any recommended or required time frames, nor does it depend on the canonical time frames required for members of institutes of consecrated life; the c 603 life is an individual one with its own unique demands and must be dealt with on a case by case basis.

I have had several different concerns in opining about necessary time frames. These have included: 1) a desire to help candidates understand the weightiness of the step they are proposing to take, 2) a wish to encourage them to patience because there is no cookie-cutter temporal framework in establishing readiness for profession and/or consecration under c 603, 3) the need to remind them if the process takes a long time, they will continue living as a hermit in any case, and nothing will be lost in the meantime, and 4) a concern to underscore that the formation required for this vocation is significant and takes time to secure. (A person seeking profession can make many moves to secure this formation themselves; they need not and probably should not depend on their diocese alone for this since most diocesan teams do not have the time or the expertise to do this. The hermit must show initiative in this and many other matters.) Finally, there is the fundamental lesson that it is the journey (to wholeness and holiness in union with God) that is crucial, not the destination (where destination is admission to profession and consecration); if candidates for c 603 can commit to the journey and keep their perspective in this, their eremitical vocation will also be well-served whether or not it is or becomes a canonical vocation.

Generally speaking, those seeking to be admitted to profession and eventual consecration under c 603 should understand that the process is neither quick, nor is it as relatively "rote" as it can be in a religious institute. There is no year of candidacy, no canonical year of novitiate, no apostolic year, and no period of 4-6 years of juniorate (during or after each of which stages the congregation may cut one loose as unsuitable). There is ordinarily a period of 3-5 or more years once one makes first vows and before they are perpetually professed; this is up to the diocese and the individual hermit's readiness to make a definitive commitment. Growth in the hermit life cannot be assessed in the same way it is for someone living in community under relatively continuous observation and supervision for initial formation. It is very much more individualized than this (and more individualized than even some of the newer approaches to formation in community). Even so, there are some givens in determining how much time admission to first profession will take. 

Some Bishops say they will not even consider professing a c 603 hermit for 5 years after the person contacts the diocese. Dioceses depend, though not exclusively, upon the quality of the Rule written by the hermit and the evidence it provides of 1) lived experience and understanding of the eremitical life (which is a good deal more than simply living alone), 2) knowledge and appreciation of c 603 itself, 3) the quality of the candidate's sacramental life, 4) ongoing competent and regular spiritual direction, and 5) provision for self-support, limited ministry, study, etc. Underpinning all of this must be a sound theological grounding and personal maturity. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the candidate's written rule or plan of life in determining a lot of this. When combined with regular meetings with diocesan staff to discuss all of this, a diocese can get a very good idea of the quality of the vocation they are dealing with and what deficiencies still exist.

Securing all of this takes time, and it is especially time-consuming for those working with the candidate to get to know them beyond superficialities. I have always been grateful that my diocese sent someone to my hermitage to meet with me over a period of several years. Solitude comes in several "flavors," and some are healthy while others are not, some are transitional, and others are not. A diocese needs to understand why the hermit has embraced solitude and how healthy that solitude is. They need to be able to see the quality of the journey the hermit is engaged in with God and assess that in terms of c 603 and the eremitical tradition. Again, this takes time, patience, and serious attention. Spiritual directors, pastors, physicians, and (sometimes) therapists all have to provide letters of recommendation that clearly show a strong sense of who the candidate is, the quality of her or his faith life (if they are competent in this area), perseverance in prayer, faithfulness to vows (if professed as a cenobite or apostolic religious) or evangelical values (if not vowed), etc. All of these must be considered and discussed with the diocesan formation team and the candidate him/herself. 

Allowing a person to make public profession whereby they take on the canonical rights and obligations of an ecclesial vocation is simply imprudent and uncharitable if the person is really not ready to do so, and while no one wants to string a person along, making sure they are ready to assume the obligations and rights of this vocation is not ordinarily done in a handful of months. If the candidate has already made a life commitment (marriage, religious profession, ordination) then the diocese must understand what happened with this commitment and assure the person possesses the canonical freedom and maturity to undertake another life commitment with c 603. For instance, someone who was once married and divorced, but without a decree of nullity, is not canonically free to make eremitical profession under c 603. Similarly, if a person has tried to get professed in other dioceses (or in a religious congregation) and was unsuccessful, the current diocese will want to understand what reservations the diocese or religious institute had that prevented them from professing the person. Sometimes this has nothing to do with the quality of the vocation being considered, but sometimes it does.

We are talking not about whether a diocese approves of a person in a general way or not. We are talking about taking the time to carefully discern and help form or oversee the formation of a solitary eremitical vocation and an ecclesial one at that! I have worked with several serious candidates at this point, and the time frames this took were different in each case. Only one of these persons made perpetual profession in less than five years, and she was an exceptional candidate. Another candidate awaiting admission to temporary vows is also exceptional in many ways. She has used this "waiting" time well, shown persistence despite speed bumps with her diocese, and docility to the Holy Spirit. She has shown great initiative in providing for her own spiritual and physical needs, worked to make connections she will need to live a healthy and fruitful, specifically ecclesial, eremitic life. When her diocese is ready to profess her, they will be gaining an exemplary c 603 hermit. Most candidates have nowhere near the preparation, experience, seriousness and diligence of these hermits, and thus, their discernment and formation processes take correspondingly longer. 

To summarize, it makes sense that someone approaching a diocese and petitioning for admission to profession under c 603 can anticipate the process from the time they first approach the diocese to the admission to perpetual profession, taking anywhere from 5-12 years. And this is true when there are no exceptional circumstances to consider!! By the way, I would argue that if a diocese does not take candidates and this vocation seriously enough to truly discern and give necessary time for the formation needed for this vocation, they ought not profess anyone at all. Dioceses that professed people after knowing them less than a year may exist, but they are not typical nor is their example worthy of being followed. Again, such praxis is not only imprudent, it is also uncharitable; further, it dishonors a vocation possessing tremendous value to the life of the Church and endangers its ongoing existence in the faith community. All of that said, none of this is carved in stone, at least the numbers are not, but all of it is rooted in experience and wisdom gleaned from that by bishops, diocesan personnel, and other c 603 hermits.

Another Look at Existential Solitude and the Call to Authentic Humanity

[[Dear Sister, I have struggled with what you wrote about existential solitude. I am not sure I even know how to ask about it I struggled that much! But you said you had an experience of hunger, and it was a hunger for being and meaning. In another place, you said it was a hunger for wholeness. I am not sure what that means. I also don't understand how hunger for those things could lead to an experience of God and your deepest or truest self. Isn't hunger for these things a sign of their absence? You know, I never thought a hermit would have anything to offer me, your life seems so different from mine, but I have become aware that what you write about is exactly what I struggle with every day. Do you think therapists "pathologize" (your term) existential loneliness when it is really just basically human? I thought maybe you were saying that. If that's true, it could help me come to terms with my own experience of loneliness and that would mean you have taught me something I never expected to learn from a hermit. Thank you.]]

Really good questions! Thank you. Before I try to answer you, let me say a little about the most basic definition of God I use. When I speak of God, I recognize that (he) is the ground and source of all being and meaning (everything that exists and is meaningful depends upon something outside itself for these qualities). God is not a being among other beings; (he) is not even the biggest and best being among other beings, some kind of supreme being, for instance. Instead, God is the reality out of which everything that has existence "stands". The word existence literally means to stand up (-istere) out of (ex-) this reality.  God grounds our existence and is its source as well. In the same way, God is the ground and source of meaning. To the extent something has existence and meaning, it is grounded and has its source in God. I also believe that God is the ground and source of personhood, of the truly personal. This means that God is not impersonal despite not being A being. In meaningful existence and personhood, we are grounded and have our origin in God. We are, in the language of theology, contingent, and without God, we would simply cease to be.

With all of that in mind (at least in the back of our minds), let me try to answer your questions. How does hunger for being and meaning, or for wholeness, lead to an experience of God? By definition (as noted above), God is the source and ground of our existence. By itself, that says that our yearning for being and meaning is rooted in the very thing we are hungry for, that is, it is rooted in and points to God, who is the source of eternal or abundant and meaningful life. Wholeness or holiness has to do with being intimately and exhaustively related to God so that being and meaning are gifts from God and represent a share in God's own life.

Think of it this way: if I tell you that I yearn for a glass of ice-cold milk this means two things, 1) I already know what ice-cold milk tastes like and the way it satisfies certain needs and hungers, and 2) some form of void or lack has caused me to want or need that glass of ice-cold milk. There is a lack of something (in this case,the milk) that is experienced as a thirst, hunger, or yearning. When I write about yearning for wholeness or holiness and all that implies, it also points to both the presence of an intimate form of knowing (I know what it means to exist, and I know what it means for my life to be meaningful or purposeful); likewise, I am aware of some lack of these things (I can die; I need more of the life and meaning I already know intimately; I hunger for abundant or eternal life). Since God is the ground and source of all being and meaning, my very hunger for this is an implicit awareness of God's presence in my life, just as my awareness of thirst allows me to become aware of already knowing the nature and power of a glass of ice-cold milk on a hot day. (If that knowing was not there, if there was no such thing as ice-cold milk or I had never felt and tasted it, I could never have become aware of wanting or thirsting for it.)

In a similar way, when I get in touch with that profound yearning for wholeness, I become aware of what I am made for, what I have the potential for, who I am in light of these forms of hunger or yearning. I understand this as also being an awareness of my truest and deepest self, my most authentic identity and foundational humanness.  My sense is that this experience means transcending the ego self and any distorted senses of self or of God we might hold (or be held by!). One journeys to the depths of oneself and discovers both God and oneself in the process. When one embraces this true self, one becomes more whole and holy. One is grasped by God and begins to truly grasp who one is most fundamentally. That is the task of all spirituality, all prayer, and it is explicitly the goal and challenge of monastic and eremitical life.

I did allude to the fact that our society tends to pathologize all loneliness, yes. If we rule God (and perhaps the true self) out of the picture (as all forms of scientism do today), so do we rule out a central explanation for what I, Merton, and others call existential solitude. I am aware today of some really fine therapists whose spirituality (both Christian and Buddhist) allows them to avoid this tragic error, but in the main, it seems to me that the tendency to pathologize any uncomfortable experience, but particularly that of a deep and foundational loneliness and solitude still dominate the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. This means that people are often discouraged from admitting, much less expressing, their experience of existential solitude, or the exemplary nature of a search for God and one's truest identity. In such circumstances, they can even be convinced to medicate themselves against such an experience. This situation in science and therapy can actually contribute to a sense of shame that one experiences loneliness when, in fact, this specific experience of hunger or yearning is evidence of the fact that we are made to be the very image of God in our world.

I hope this makes sense to you. Thanks very much for your comments on my experience and its helpfulness to you. So often we think of the hermit life as a selfish one unless it is redeemed in terms of intercessory prayer. What I have been affirming during the last two months is that the hermit vocation is a truly significant human vocation that illustrates the universality of the call and nature of the solitary journey to God and authentic selfhood.

Why is Star Trek Easier to Imagine than the Ascension? (Reprise)

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

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

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

Donna Korba, IHM

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

One last point. Early on in my studies of theology (probably during my BA work), my major professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John Dwyer responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed or embraced this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 8 or 9 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was relatively strong and sufficient. 

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

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

Seeking God and Learning to See with New Eyes

[[Hi Sister Laurel, it wasn't until I read your comment on Benedictines entering a community "to seek God" that I realized I had always thought of God as missing somehow, or maybe just remote -- maybe too far away to really be concerned with me. I didn't think of him as absent exactly, but so much of prayer seemed to be calling on God to come and act, so that there was a sense that God was absent and had to be coaxed to come near and do what I prayed for. If God wasn't remote like that then why hadn't he already done whatever we prayed we needed?!  

It was frustrating, and I think that sometimes I failed to pray at all or even to believe in God's caring for me or those I love, because I had learned to pray as though God was distant. It is really different to think of God as right there, dwelling with and in us. But what do I do with the idea of asking God to take care of this or that situation, or to rescue me from whatever I need rescuing from? Does that also have to change? As I thought about everything you wrote, what most hit me was the way the idea of "seeking God" had changed and changes everything else. It is almost like the childhood game, "hide and seek," except that I began to see that God does not hide himself. We just need to find him.]]

Many thanks for your comments and sharing. I love your image of the childhood game; I think it works particularly well for us human beings who would like to believe sometimes that we can hide from God. Let me suggest a different and similar game that works especially well in helping us understand the idea of seeking God in the ways I spoke of in my last post, namely, "find the hidden objects". I am sure you know the game. A room or other setting is filled with all kinds of ordinary and extraordinary stuff, and one has to find the objects being named. They are present in plain sight, but they are also often difficult to spot. We have to learn to see them, learn to stop looking past them, for instance, and recognize them when they show up in the unexpected place,  as an unusual variation, or in a surprising orientation. I think seeking God is a lot like that game. Remember that the Gospels call us to see with new eyes. When our eyes are opened in the ways that occur when we are loved and love as God creates us to be and do, we can begin to see as the Gospels affirm is necessary and appropriate to human beings truly made in the image of God.

At the same time, seeing in this way takes practice, and often the hard work of learning to be attentive to the signs of truth, beauty, goodness, integrity, potential, holiness, and so forth, even or especially in the most ordinary aspects of reality. We learn to let go of and heal older ways of seeing (for instance, ways that are unduly biased, rigid in our expectations, lacking in generosity, or ways that are judgmental and otherwise lacking in love and humanness). We do the same with ourselves as we meet ourselves again and again in our confrontations with others, in prayer, in lectio and the inner work and conversations associated with spiritual direction, etc. The reading of Scripture as we pay attention to the ways Jesus sees and treats others can help us learn to be attentive in the ways we need to be, and these examples encourage us to see others and the whole of God's creation differently than our contemporary consumerist and deeply transactional world often encourages us to do.

You ask specifically about what you should do with a notion of God rescuing us from particular situations, because you have a sense that that, too, has to change. I agree that it does, but some of what you already do will remain the same. The fundamental thing to change is your sense that God is remote from you or may not even care about you. In part, this will mean embracing a God who protects your freedom and God's own, even while He offers to be your God and to embrace you as God's very own.** I can assure you (yes, this is my experience as well as that of Saint Augustine and many many others!) that God is closer to you than you are to yourself, and also that God delights in you, loves you with an everlasting love, wants the very best for you (better than you can ever imagine for yourself), and accompanies you wherever life's journeys take you. As Romans 8 reminds us, nothing whatsoever can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. 

So, by all means, pour out your heart to him; pour it all out to God, no matter how joyous or despairing, how apparently faithful or lacking in trust it is. Be open to becoming aware of God's presence and the fact that you are ultimately not alone in this or in anything at all! Ultimately, the darkness cannot win out; the oppressive silence that seems to mark absurdity and emptiness will become the backdrop for everything that sings God's praises, while tears of pain and the anguish of hopelessness will be transfigured into tears of joy and the consoling solidity of meaningfulness and hope. It is God's presence that changes everything.  If you can be assured of God's presence and practice attentiveness, not living in an idealistic or unrealistic way, but in light of what we are promised because of the fact and truth of Jesus' Resurrection, Ascension, and sending of the Spirit as well, and if you can begin to find God both in the world around you, and in yourself, you will gain greater and greater ability to see clearly with the new (and very generous) eyes God gives and the Gospels call for from us. 

By the way, when I have played the "Find the hidden objects" game, I find that I get really tired and, after a time of intense focus, am unable to see what is right in front of my eyes. I would encourage you to be patient with yourself in this journey of learning to seek God, rest as necessary, take breaks, and turn your mind and heart to something else for a while (recreation is a critical spiritual practice), and then come back to it all again when you are fresh. Just remember to remind yourself that God is there with you in your recreation as well! Welcome him and let him be Emmanuel in this, too! God has waited an eternity for this opportunity to celebrate life with you!! Glorify him! Practice allowing it!!

** Please see other articles here on the nature of authentic human freedom. The Christian sense of this reality is countercultural and thus vastly different from common notions of freedom. 

The Two Main Pathways to Seeking God

[[Hi Sister Laurel,  if one cannot make the journey into existential solitude hermits are committed to making, does this mean they cannot seek God? This sounds elitist to me. I am not able to live as a hermit or to make the kind of inner journey you do. I have other responsibilities, including a full-time job and a family to raise.]]

Important questions. Thanks for these! While recently I have written mainly about this journey into the depths of existential solitude, I have not meant to exclude the other ways we are called to seek God. Whether we are Benedictines or others who make this the focus of our lives or not, we are each called to seek God. It seems to me that there are two main (and interrelated) pathways to doing this. The first is to seek God outside of ourselves; the second is to seek God within ourselves. I think all of us are called to undertake both of these ways of seeking God, though not in the same way monastics or eremites might do this. This is not a problem since every human journey towards fullness of meaningful life is also a life in search of God.

The first way or route to seeking God, it seems to me, is about being open and attentive to the world around us. We seek God in the ordinary events, places, activities, and people of our lives. We may also, therefore, seek God under other rubrics or names: truth, beauty, integrity, order, spontaneity, life, love, faithfulness, courage, and so many others. This extraordinary or "sacred ordinariness" is something I have written about many times here, and it is something my friend, Rachel Denton, Er Dio, wrote about when she said, [[The heartbeat of my hermitage is its sacred ordinariness. It is an experience, in silence and solitude, of total immersion in the humdrum of daily life. A hermit is one who has, perhaps, become so overwhelmed by the immensity of the privilege of sharing Jesus’ humanity that she chooses to spend her whole life contemplating the mystery and manifestation of that gift in the most simple and ordinary form of living. A hermit lives out the mystery of the Incarnation in her own body, her own blood. A hermit says, “Christ, from the beginning of time, and in the fullness of time, chose being Jesus, being human, as the best way of expressing the love of the Trinity.]] Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage 

I think Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio, expresses a mature, exemplary, and accessible approach to this first dimension of the eremitic journey. It is a dimension that every person, and certainly every Christian, should recognize as central to the human task of "seeking God" and the Divine task God sets us of becoming more fully and authentically human. In this way, Rachel's life is an exemplar of what each and all of our lives can and should reflect.

The second route or dimension of the search for God is the inner one, the path of existential solitude (for only we can make this journey into the depths of our own being, though again, we tend not to be able to do this alone). At the same time, I want to reiterate that even hermits, who undertake this journey in a more focused and exclusive way, do not do this by themselves. They have a spiritual director, a delegate or superior, and sometimes other hermits to assist them in assuring they do not lose their way or stray from their ordained path to fullness of life. At the same time, neither do hermits undertake this journey only for themselves. We do it because God, through the ministry of the Church, calls us to do it, yes, and we do it for the sake of the Church's proclamation of the Gospel and the salvation of the whole of God's creation.  I want to repeat what I wrote recently because it affirms the universality of this need to engage with and explore existential solitude.

Redwoods Abbey Altar during Tenebrae

[[. . .for some, the hunger for fullness of being and meaning, the yearning to be whole or holy and to allow God to be Emmanuel as fully and exhaustively as he wills, both for one's own sake and for the sake of others, will demand a different kind of commitment, a deeper and more exhaustive engagement with and in existential solitude. Some of these persons are called to be hermits.  Consecrated eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation undertaken for the sake of God's call to fullness of life. [The call to an engagement with existential solitude] belongs to each of us and to the Church itself. The hermit embraces the call and journey she does to witness to the God who is the ground and source of abundant life, meaningful life, eternal life, LIFE in relationship!! She explores the depths of herself and discovers that God is truly present, reaching out with love and mercy at every moment and mood of her journey -- even in the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. ]]

Every person is called to seek God and their truest self in existential solitude. Some become aware of this call during periods of illness or bereavement. Some will do so when they are thrown back on their own resources in some other way and experience their own weakness and incompleteness. Others will come to a moment of conversion occasioned by some special experience of transcendence and the Transcendent and begin to seek God and their own truest self in a more explicit way. (This could be an experience in Church, a visit to someplace stunningly beautiful, an experience of accomplishment or self-discovery that surprises and puts one in touch with themselves in a new way, etc. The possibilities are almost infinite.) Each of these persons and the events that mediated this need and desire to engage with and explore their own inner solitude, can look to the hermit (and often to other religious and monastics) and be reassured that their journey is not an empty one, no matter how difficult the circumstances that lead them here or how dark and treacherous the inner depths they will traverse. This is part of the "for others" character of the eremitic life. 

If we really understand this (and if those seeking to be hermits today truly understand it), I think it will make clear the eremitical journey is not an elitist one, but one made on behalf of others so they may have faith and hope rooted in the fact that, whether we discover God in the sacred ordinariness of our everyday lives, or in the challenging depths of even sin and death, the One Jesus called Abba comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place.

On the Presence of Loneliness in the Eremitical Vocation

[[Dear Sister, when you were a new hermit for the Diocese of Oakland, there was an interview with a spokesperson for the Diocese, a priest, and he said something about you being joyful or happy all the time. He asked, "Can you imagine spending all of your time with the Lord and not being happy?"  or something like that. Do you remember that? Did you know him? I'm asking because from what you've written recently about existential solitude and loneliness, and everything, I am wondering what you thought about that comment of his!]] 

LOL!! What a great question!!! Thanks for asking! No, I did not know him, had never spoken to him, and I believe that the journalist who also interviewed me must've commented to him on my being a happy person or some other comment like that. That's the only thing I can think of that might have prompted such a response, given we had never met. At the time, I remember thinking, "Yes, I am really happy, and yet, here's another hermit stereotype that must be countered." It's not the first time I have heard something like that either. Early on after perpetual profession and consecration, I went on retreat at Bishop's Ranch, the Episcopal retreat center in Northern California's wine country. During one of the presentations in preparation for a desert day everyone was going to observe during that week, the priest speaking to everyone decided to encourage us retreatants not to worry about being lonely during a full day of solitude. He explained about hermits and how they were never lonely because they always had God with them. I was more than a little irritated by his comments and (though I should have remained silent) said so to Sister Donald as we left the chapel and started back toward our rooms.

Some have a sense that being lonely is unhealthy or even somehow pathological,* and that when one is living in eremitical solitude, God's presence prevents one from feeling lonely, for example. But sometimes loneliness is the face love (and the fact that we are made for love) wears in eremitical (or existential) solitude. Sometimes loneliness is the feeling most associated with our hunger for God and for wholeness and holiness, while that hunger is a sign of our knowledge of these realities as well as of our lacking them in some sense. Years ago, I began to distinguish between the loneliness I associated with wanting to share with others and a kind of "malignant loneliness" that is darker and (perhaps) deeper as well. In my mind, this latter form of loneliness was unhealthy and a symptom of an unhealthy existential condition, while "ordinary" loneliness was not. I was still struggling with the sense others had given me that hermits should never be lonely because they dwell with God. It took some time to shake that false generalization off completely.

Sr M Beverly Greger, Marymount Hermitage, Idaho

For most hermits, time in physical solitude is wonderful and something we love. We have the time for prayer and lectio, for writing or whatever ministry we might also take on, as well as for recreation and inner work. The existential solitude we live is also something we generally experience as positive, even joyful, and something that draws us in. When Cornelius Wencel speaks about that, he describes it in terms of two freedoms meeting each other.  It is what we human beings are made for, and most of the time it is experienced as consoling, creative, and a source of deep peace, abundant life, and gladness. What I have written about recently is merely one dimension of that same journey into existential solitude, but it is still an undeniable part of that journey.  In other words, loneliness, too, is part of the eremitical journey and wears different faces depending on the reasons for its existence. In a life of continuing communion and even union with God, this is still, or perhaps especially, the case. It is not necessarily a signal that anything is wrong. Instead, it reminds us that we are each social, communal, relational, or "dialogical" realities, made for love, as is our vocation. (It is striking to me that the Camaldolese Benedictines write about their lives and vocations as "the privilege of love." Eremitical Solitude itself is a communal reality, something we only experience within and in light of our truly belonging to and living our lives for God, the ecclesial community, and the wider world. 

While we are made for love and, as is true of every human being, are each relational to our core, we hermits forego many of the relationships and activities that are literally fulfilling for most people; we do this because God calls us to underscore the fact that every person is made for life with and in God. This is the source of the affirmation, "God alone is enough for us," not because we do not need other people, but because only God truly completes any person as a human being. This side of death, our sense of that "made-for-ness", our hunger for it, and the One who is its ground and source, can certainly be associated with feelings of loneliness, even to the point of great anguish. What hermits reject are the almost infinite ways human beings find to distract themselves from such loneliness. In fact, as I have been writing recently, we commit to journeying ever deeper into our existential solitude for the sake of seeking God, and an affirmation of the truth that God both is and most desires and wills to be Emmanuel (God with us).

* Some forms of loneliness are indeed unhealthy, and chronic loneliness, especially when it is rooted in childhood loss or trauma and associated attachment difficulties, is linked to serious health problems in later life. These include all manner of common ailments, including chronic pain, depression, anxiety disorders, and many others. I am not speaking of this kind of loneliness as intrinsic to eremitical life, although for some, it can certainly color, complicate, and perhaps also motivate a focused and deep journey into existential solitude.

Why is the Journey of and into Existential Solitude Sometimes Frightening?

[[Dear Sister, your [response to the questions on Jesus' abandonment by God] was dense but wonderful. I really had not thought of things in this light at all, and I am still chewing on it. Thanks for that. I wondered if you could say more about this part of my original question: [[Hi Sister, is the inner journey you speak about under the name "existential solitude" frightening? Maybe that's a weird question, but you have said that everyone hesitates to undertake this journey even though it is necessary in order to be truly human. Why is this form of solitude so scary, or why do people want to avoid it? ]] I like being by myself and don't find solitude scary, so I wondered why existential solitude is so frightening to people. I got a sense that your own journey and Merton's were dark and terrifying at times, but why is that? Thanks for letting me ask again!]]

No problem with asking your questions again. I really appreciate it. When I start writing a reply, it's not the same as writing an academic article, for instance. I typically follow my thoughts until I have developed an answer to at least some part of the question, and that means I don't always get to all parts of it; usually, that leaves some important bits out of the picture. Sorry for that!! I am grateful you returned to keep me honest! So why is the journey I have spoken of frightening? Why do people avoid it? I will also add the question about why I undertook it and, in fact, committed my life to it in a search for God and to allowing him to be the One He willed to be for me and our world. After all, given the seriousness and danger of the journey, there must have been some even stronger reasons to undertake it.

All human beings grow up recording everything that happens to them.  We "remember" things because of our brain's capacity to store these in long-term storage to be accessed as needed, but we also remember things in our bodies and nervous systems more generally. Even when our memories are not conscious, they are stored somewhere within us and can influence who we are, how we behave, how we respond or react to current events, etc. Beneath all of this is our deepest self, the self God calls us to be in, through, and sometimes despite all the rest of it. Beneath all of this is also God, who dwells in our depths and summons us to life, to the decisions we will make in affirming life, to our vocation, etc. 

Unfortunately, some of these stored memories are associated with a personal woundedness that can block our access to God and our truest self. They can lead us to build up defenses to the pain associated with these memories, and prevent the kind of openness needed for union with God and our deepest self. At the same time, these defenses can prevent us from functioning at our fullest capacity in the present. Perhaps trusting others is difficult for us, or we are plagued by a tendency to withdraw. Perhaps we develop a bad self-image, an overweening self-critical voice, some degree of perfectionism, and so forth. Sometimes they will cause disproportionate recurrent reactions --- reactions that are either completely inappropriate or that are too little or too much to be a response to the present situation alone, because they are linked to what I describe as pools of suffering or woundedness carried deep within us. (Think of someone who "goes off" on folks at the smallest provocation, or someone who refuses to go out of their house for fear of everything, and think of all the variations and degrees of these things you have met in your own life.) We all have these "pools" of pain, just as we all have sclerosed or "scarred" and hardened patches within our own hearts.

In learning to listen to God who is deep within, and to realize the potential of our truest, deepest selves, the inner journey we are asked to take will mean "remembering" (and often reliving in some way!), and expressing the memories our body and mind have stored within us. Depending on one's life experience, such a journey will mean encountering darknesses (our own and others') and suffering we may only partly remember consciously. Similarly, it will mean dealing with and working through the deeper injuries we might never have suspected having sustained. The image I have used to describe this is one of a peach that is bumped on its way to or from the store. Imagine that this bump leaves a slight mark on the surface of the peach. If you were to peel the skin off at that place, you might be surprised to discover a larger area of injury, and if you slice off a layer of peach at that point, you may find an even larger area of woundedness. Were you to continue slicing off layers of the fruit, what you could find is a much deeper and more extensive area of bruising or woundedness than the surface disfigurement gave any real hint of. Our own woundedness can be like that, and the journey to the depths of ourselves will only gradually and surprisingly uncover this. 

The process of facing ourselves and our own history (because even without difficult memories, we each have a shadow side) can thus be painful and frightening. Merton's description here is a good one that his personal history and vocation made possible and necessary. You can imagine what it might be for someone with a different history than Merton's, a history of varying grief and trauma, for instance. But this process is also the way to healing because it means gradually reclaiming our whole selves, healing what can be healed, and accepting the limitations that cannot be changed, even as we also embrace with a new energy the potentialities that have lain undeveloped and waiting within us. (These are as much a source of our hunger for fullness of life as our woundedness is.) It requires working with someone who can support, encourage, and guide one with real understanding and expertise. It requires an experience of such a person's love (agape) and consistency, as they accompany and truly listen to us. And of course, it requires faith and some degree of hope on both persons' parts, because God is summoning one to undertake this journey and the healing it leads to; here it is especially true that what only one can do, one cannot do alone.

Not everyone can, or will, undertake such a journey, especially in the focused, committed way a monk or hermit is called to do. Most people will undertake the journey of existential solitude only to the degree required to function well in everyday life. After all, it takes time and real energy to undertake such a healing journey, so not everyone is free or able physically or psychologically to do this. Sometimes, though, even physical solitude is something folks will embrace only occasionally for retreat, or when life circumstances like illness or bereavement require it. Most people surround themselves with people, activities, noise, and distractions of all kinds to prevent themselves from facing themselves and what is buried deep (or sometimes not so deeply) within. 

But for some, the hunger for fullness of being and meaning, the yearning to be whole or holy and to allow God to be Emmanuel as fully and exhaustively as he wills, both for one's own sake and for the sake of others, will demand a different kind of commitment, a deeper and more exhaustive engagement with and in existential solitude. Some of these persons are called to be hermits.  Consecrated eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation undertaken for the sake of God's call to fullness of life. That call belongs to each of us and to the Church itself. The hermit embraces the call and journey she does to witness to the God who is the ground and source of abundant life, meaningful life, eternal life, LIFE in relationship!! She explores the depths of herself and discovers that God is truly present, reaching out with love and mercy at every moment and mood of her journey -- even in the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. This is the fundamental way the hermit comes to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the sake of God, God's Church, and God's entire creation.

As always, I hope this is helpful, and if it is unclear or raises more questions, feel free to get back to me! I am serious about that. When you do, it is helpful to me and likely to others reading here as well!

Followup Comments on Respect for Oneself, Others, and our use of the Internet

[[ Hi Sister O'Neal, what you wrote about the internet and privacy applies to more than hermits. I have wondered about the effect of the internet on everyone's sense of privacy and the way that diminishes our ability to respect ourselves and others. You said something like this in writing about hermits. It's almost as though people don't have a sense of their value anymore. What you wrote about your own "inner journey" recently interested me a lot because you were talking about something very intimate and personal, but you didn't let it all hang out there either. You had a clear reason for saying what you did, and I thought you did it for the sake of your vocation. I also thought that was risky and it made me ask if you were doing the opposite of what you had said you or any hermit should, but in the end, I thought you pulled it off.]]

Hi there, yourself! Thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree with you 100% regarding the internet and privacy issues. Thank you also for commenting on what I call a paradox, namely the need to write about certain deeply personal dimensions of my life while being appropriately discreet and so, without "letting it all hang out there" as you put it! I have done that because I think the inner journey I wrote about is the very heart of the eremitic vocation, and because I think it is only in making that clear that we can finally begin to lay to rest some of the stereotypes associated with the idea of hermits. It also provides a central core of content for those trying to discern and live this vocation or, perhaps, to discern another's eremitic vocation. This would apply to diocesan personnel and other c 603 hermits who might be assisting a diocesan team in accompanying or mentoring candidates or discerning this kind of vocation.

Once the emphasis is put on this kind of journey, many things fall into place in considering a call to this vocation. These include, but are not limited to, distinguishing between anonymity and hiddenness or privacy and hiddenness,  recognizing that physical solitude is not the measure of eremitical life while existential solitude is, recognizing the distinction between praying for others (important) and the deeper journey of prayer a hermit is called to make. (As I have written before, I dislike the appellation "prayer warrior", not because I don't think intercessory prayer is important (it is), or because hermits are not called to do battle with the demonic (they are), but because the term is bellicose and puts the accent on individual things the hermit does rather than on the unifying, meaning-imbuing journey the hermit is called to make.)

As I have said many times, that journey is a profoundly human and humanizing one undertaken not only for the sake of the hermit's own wholeness or sanctity, but for God's sake and the sake of the Church as Christ's own Church. (God wills to be Emmanuel, God with us, and we are committed to God's accomplishment of that will.) This journey is not only a universal one (i.e., every person is called to undertake it in some way appropriate to their state of life), but it is the highest act of charity we can offer God, because it is about providing (under the impulse of the Holy Spirit) the opportunity for God to truly be the God he willls to be for, with, and in us and God's Church. It is also an act of charity for ourselves since this is a profoundly humanizing process and commitment.

When you spoke about the effect of the internet and its potential to diminish our ability to respect ourselves and others I was aware of thinking that the internet tends not only to diminish our ability to respect social boundaries, but as part of this, it also fails to recognize the sacred and inviolable character of the human person. The Christian Scriptures remind us not to cast pearls before swine lest they be trampled underfoot. It seems to me that some of what I have seen on the internet is precisely about doing something very similar. While I don't believe persons are "swine", I do believe that if we put the genuinely holy out there as though it is just another bit of data about ourselves and our world, we invite people to become as swine and trample those sacred pearls underfoot as they root around searching for something more immediately appealing or "tasty". Acting in this way fails to recognize that these realities are deserving of protection and a sort of personal "tabernacling" --- if you can see what I mean. (In Judaism and in the Catholic Church, we reserve the holiest instances of God coming to us in a tabernacle. )

For Catholics, this idea of tabernacling refers primarily to God tabernacling with us and, in a related way, to the reservation of the Eucharist in an appropriate "tabernacle". However, the Church also reminds us that we are each tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, the sacred "places" where God himself abides inviolably. The way we treat our most precious journey with God should reflect the same kind of care we take with the Eucharist. We offer it freely to anyone in need of and truly desiring its nourishment, and at the same time, we take care that it is not profaned. We handle it with real care or devotion, signal in different ways that it is holy, and reverence it appropriately. This protects not only the Eucharist itself, but the person who might be ignorant of its true nature and thus, whether inadvertently or not, profane it and themselves at the same time. Similarly, the very intimate personal inner journey we each make with God as we seek wholeness, healing, and Divine "verification" or "verifying" (i.e., being made true in our "dialogue" with the love and mercy of God) is a sacred journey made by sacred and potentially holy persons; it should be treated that way. Otherwise, everyone involved, even if they are only casual observers, can be demeaned and profaned in the process.

One of the strongest points of division in today's world is between those who fail to regard the dignity of every person versus those who regard some people as having dignity and others, tragically, as less than human. The requirement that we treat each and every person with the same inherent dignity has already been mentioned several times by our new Pope Leo XIV, just as it was a serious refrain in the writings and homilies of Francis, Leo's predecessor. When we fail to truly respect ourselves (and that means failing to see ourselves as and acting as sacred, as imago dei), so too will we fail to respect and denigrate others who are equally sacred and imago dei. The converse is also the case: when we fail to truly regard others as sacred (as imago dei), we will fail to appropriately regard ourselves as sacred (as imago dei). 

This means maintaining boundaries and taking care with what we put up on the internet. In your experience of the internet and in mine as well, we recognize the fascinating quality of some videos, podcasts, or writing, and we are apt to recognize that as we allow ourselves to be captured by these, we have become less than our truest or best selves. When I wrote earlier, I mentioned becoming voyeurs in such a process, despite never having intended this. Those of us who write or put up videos on the internet, especially while representing ourselves (or our Church) as hermits, must observe appropriate boundaries especially assiduously. Doing so means "tabernacling" the inviolable core of ourselves, and opening the doors to that tabernacle reverently and with real care and discretion, not in an elitist way (everyone, not just a limited few, should be able to benefit from our sharing), but in a way which ennobles those privileged to engage with us in this way. 

On the Question of Despair as Mortal Sin: Looking Again at Dimensions of my Journey into Existential Solitude

[[Sister Laurel, in your recent post, you seemed to be saying that God would be present even if one reached a point of despair and committed suicide. I thought despair was always a mortal sin, and it never occurred to me that Jesus had reached a point of despair because he never sinned. If you reached a point of despair, then didn't you also commit a mortal sin?]]

Thanks for your question. It is important to distinguish between the feeling of despair or hopelessness and the act of despairing or giving up all hope. We also need to be clear that we take seriously what the Church teaches today, and not only in the past regarding despair and suicide. Remember that the Church has always been explicit about the voluntary character of despair as a mortal sin. She said, essentially,  [[Despair (Latin desperare, to be hopeless) is ethically regarded as the voluntary and complete abandonment of all hope of saving one’s soul and of having the means required for that end. It is not a passive state of mind: on the contrary, it involves a positive act of the will by which a person deliberately gives over any expectation of ever reaching eternal life.]] 

This definition stands, and at the same the Church today has a greater sensitivity to the psychological conditions that can eventuate in acting out of despair. After all, most people who are truly despairing are so because they have been overwhelmed by circumstances and can no longer see clearly or act freely. They feel despair, which is not what the Church considers a sin. Remember that Par. 2282b  of the CCC reads as follows: [[Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.]]

In relation to the post you reference, I am thinking of what the Church teaches about suicides here as she approaches, cautiously and prudently, the ultimately reassuring conclusion I wrote about in light of Jesus' cry of abandonment.  What I said was,  [[(Hermits) make this choice [to make this inner journey] so that they might experience genuine hope rooted in God and the Christ Event for the sake of God's Kingdom and Gospel. Doctrine, per se, while important, is not enough for the life of the Body of Christ. Interpretations of the cross by others are a critical start, but what is essential if one is to really witness to the truth of the Gospel to others, and bring them to genuine hope, is the truth of our own experience -- even, and perhaps especially when that experience is one of journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. Recently, I said to my director, "I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone!"  

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Par 2283), we also hear: [[We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide for the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for those persons who have taken their own lives.]] While I was not suicidal in the personal journey I referred to in my earlier post, because of the nature of that journey and its roots in past trauma and the search for healing, it definitely happened in incredible anguish and the shadow of death and despair or "near-despair". My sense is that Jesus' journey to Golgotha and beyond took him beyond this experience of mine into godless death itself, and still he remained open to God. 

The words of the catechism's reassurance is rarely far from me: "In ways known to Godself alone. . .." These words apply to so many things that seem absurd, incomprehensible, or overwhelming to us! They were also consciously present to me some of the time during the journey I have referred to; at other times, I now believe, they were an unconscious and strengthening pedal tone that made the journey possible at all. Even more strongly with me was Paul's similar assurance from Romans 8:37-39: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, 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.

In other words, I did not lose hope (though sometimes what I felt made it seem a very near thing indeed!). Instead, I both drew on hope and sought it out in a deliberate search for healing. The irony or paradox here is that faith and hope are required to undertake and engage in such a journey to the depths of darkness and hopelessness in search of God, of one's truest self, and for the greater faith, hope, and abundant life to which this leads. 

Another way of saying this is to affirm that such a journey requires the trust of faith and the courage of hope to look despair full in the face, experience the pain and anguish of that reality as it may have existed in one's past, grieve it, reconcile oneself with it, and find both God and one's deepest self in the process. As I understand it, this inner journey is an essential part of the hermit's asceticism and "dying to self," albeit the "false self" that so distorts and limits our true humanity. Again, I am grateful to God for inspiring this journey and for sustaining me (and those accompanying me in various ways) throughout it. As noted above, I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone! It was not anathema (a curse) but truly a blessing.