On Encouraging and/or Discouraging Canon 603 Vocations

[[Sister Laurel, do you encourage people to pursue eremitical vocations or do you discourage them? For instance, you criticized members of [name of project] for using the Canon for diocesan eremitism as a "stopgap" or "fallback" position. Shouldn't we be happy to have as many people pursuing this vocation as desire to do so? There are so few diocesan hermits, and so few religious vocations today that I am surprised to find people discouraging others from pursuing these.]]

You are correct about my "Canon 603-as-stopgap-measure" criticism and I will explain that in a bit. Surprisingly (for I was surprised by the fact), I have found that I do generally discourage people from pursuing vocations to Canon 603 eremitism; that is, of the people who contact me curious about this as a vocational path I encourage only a fraction to pursue it and tend to suggest other vocational paths for the majority. I have recently looked at my own motivations for this reticence and I think they are worthy reasons. Let me explain, for I think it is a piece of the answer to your questions.

Throughout history there have been hermits from all religious traditions. At some points in this long story there have been more hermits and at other points fewer, but always the vocation has been recognized as a relatively rare one. I don't think this is generally because of undiscovered vocations or human cowardice, resistance, etc, but because of the very nature of both the human being and of the call to eremitical solitude. Human beings are social beings; ordinarily we grow to maturity and achieve individuation only through our relationships with others. The need for community is a part of our very nature. Our hearts are "dialogical realities" as Benedict XVI reminds us, and the God we image is himself a community of love. At the same time we are constituted in dialogue with God not only directly (as the deepest dynamic of our hearts) but through the mediation of and in relationship with other people. This communal dimension of our lives is essential. It cannnot be dispensed with, even for the genuine hermit, and ordinarily its requirements militate against a call to a life of physical solitude. Authentic calls to eremitical life are exceptions to the rule, and therefore, are both relative rarities and paradoxical in that they actually foster or enhance the dialogical character of one's life in these particular cases.

In Christian eremitical life, these insights are reflected in the characterization of eremitical life as the summit of monastic life, and by the insistence of people like St Benedict that those seeking to live in solitude should be well formed in their monastic lives, and no longer in the first flush or fervour of conversion. [[The second [kind of monk] are the anchorites, hermits --- that is those who, not in the first fervour of religious life, but after long probation in the monastery, have learned by the help and experience of others to fight against the devil; and going forth well-armed from the ranks of their brethren to the single-handed combat of the desert, are now able to fight safely without the support of others, by their own strength under God's aid, against the vices of the flesh and their evil thoughts.]] (RB 1) Benedict, who had lived as a hermit understood the vocation and his cautions and qualifications are as valid today as they were when he wrote his Rule.

While the language of combat with demons may seem a bit dated and off-putting for many today, the seriousness (and genuineness) of the enterprise it underscores should not be missed or minimized. One goes into the desert in response to a call to a hard-won conversion and humanization which is accomplished in dialogue with and through the grace of God alone. There is no room for mediocrity here (though there is assuredly great temptation to this!!), no sense that eremitical solitude, for all the joy and peace it possesses (and these are indeed substantial), is merely a pleasant time apart to recharge depleted batteries or balance the activity in one's life. Neither, as I have written several times before, is it a way to indulge one's selfishness, over-developed individualism, insecurities, lack of ambition or success at life, or misanthropy. What is at stake in a call to eremitical solitude is one's very humanity, nothing less. Further, it is a humanity at the service of Church and World, or it is not eremitical life.

For the hermit this is THE WAY to more complete healing, wholeness, and holiness, the way her ability to love others is perfected, the way she is most clearly made into imago Christi in service to others. If one misses the demanding and extraordinary character of this solitariness, one has missed something essential to the eremitical vocation. Above all one should not forget that relatively very few people are called to achieve the goal of their own humanity in this way. For most, the desert as a life choice would actually hinder growth as a person and prevent individuation or the achievement of true holiness. For most, this would be a destructive choice leading to actual dehumanization and illness. For the hermit, on the other hand, it is the necessary or indispensible full-time environment and occupation which God in his mercy and compassion calls them to so that they might achieve fullness of authentic humanity.

At the same time I argue the relative rarity of this vocation then, I recognize that among some groups of people there may be more vocations to diocesan or to lay eremitism than has been appreciated heretofore. The chronically ill constitute one of these groups, as do the bereaved and isolated elderly. So too, as I wrote just recently, may some prisoners in the unnatural solitudes of our nations's prisons. In each of these cases diocesan or lay eremitical life may be ways of redeeming the isolation, bondage, and brokenness of these situations and transfiguring them into genuine solitude thus making them occasions of essential wholeness and freedom. So, while I am convinced vocations to solitary (diocesan) eremitical life are rare, I am more than open to encouraging exploration of this call by those whose life experiences may suit them to such a call apart from monastic formation and life. For those who are younger and can enter a congregation which is eremitical or semi-eremitical to get the formation and challenge which life in community allows, I recommend this option rather than Canon 603.

Contrary to the way your questions are framed, this is not about numbers. It is especially not about finding a canonical alternative to an individual's inability to be professed in some other way to get the number of vocations to the consecrated life up, nor is it a fallback position for those seeking to enter religious life or to found a community only to find either that they are unable or that no one else joins them in their project! My criticism of the project you mentioned was rooted in these two concerns. When Canon 603 (which is meant to address and foster SOLITARY eremitical life, not communal or religious eremitical vocations) is used in this way the person doing so apparently demonstrates little or no sense of the nature or significance of this specific vocation, little or no respect for the unique charism it represents especially for our church and world, no real sense of what it truly means to discern a LIFE VOCATION, and a lack of respect for the actual divine vocations the persons being funneled into Canon 603 life are really called to. Add to this an overriding concern with trappings and externals, and other forms of fundamental dishonesty on the part of the head of the project (the specific topic of a previous post) and you have a more complete picture of the basis for my criticism.

While it is common to hear people bemoaning the dropping numbers of religious vocations today, what we should be hearing more of is an accent on authenticity. In the wake of Vatican II we recognize the universal call to holiness and have come to esteem the lay vocation and the vocation to marriage in ways we had not done adequately. Our ecclesiology (i.e, our theology of church) is much improved with decreased clericalization (including no longer treating religious as a semi-clerical caste which can do things lay persons cannot!). Further, we are coming to be increasingly aware that many in religious life prior to Vatican II may not have had genuine vocations, but also had no way to fulfill their needs to minister, etc apart from religious life. The lower numbers of religious vocations today may simply indicate that these remaining and contemporary vocations are mainly authentic and that the desire to serve or minister (an important but secondary concern) is now better met for most persons in other ways. Canon 603 eremitical life is a significant (that is, meaningful and important) vocation with the capacity to witness to aspects of the Gospel in ways other vocations may not do as vividly. It serves (and should serve) the church and world in redeeming unnatural solitudes and in humanizing and sanctifying a rare number of people --- and in witnessing to many many more. We cannot empty it of this significance or witness value by turning discernment into a piece of a numbers game (which is always more apt to be of men than of God) or refusing to wait for genuine (relatively mature, life-tested, and divinely inspired) vocations to walk through the chancery door.

I hope this answers your questions. You might want to check past posts on the unique charism of the diocesan hermit, as well as those on abuse of Canon 603 or the "Lemons and Lemonade" series of posts, for a more expanded discussion of some of the issues that fueled my criticism of the use of Canon 603 as a stopgap measure or fallback position. Articles on the time frames for becoming a diocesan hermit (also cf the "Lemons and Lemonade" series) might explain better the idea that this is generally a vocation for the second half of life. As always, if this raises more questions for you or is unclear in some way, I hope you will get back to me.

Do You Want to Be Well? (Reprised)

Today's Gospel is one of those intensely intriguing ones where the reader plays a huge part in determining what actually happens in the story (because the story is not a matter merely of the past; the Gospel writer very much WANTS it to draw us in as well). I once remarked in an earlier blog entry that some of Jesus' parables are rather like Thematic Apperception Tests, and today's Gospel strikes me very much that way --- there is much left undefined or ambiguous, lots of room for projection, for implicating ourselves in the story and interpreting the questions, responses, followup behavior, etc. For those unfamiliar with the TAT, this is a psychological test often given to candidates for religious life, seminary and priestly ordination, etc. During the test the client is shown a series of pen and ink drawings, ordinarily a series of ambiguous pictures, and asked to tell the stories of the characters and scenes depicted there. S/he is asked to characterize the situation in each drawing, narrate how it came to be, and also give the story some sort of an ending. It is quite an enjoyable test UNTIL one realizes that the ONLY thing exposed for the tester is the inner and psychological life of the client!!! THAT is laid bare with incredible clarity! Well, today's gospel reading can function that way for us today, and would be wonderful for lectio.

By way of summary, several things struck me right away. First, the reference to multitudes of sick, crippled, etc, in the temple area, but somehow also separated from the very life of the Temple. Second, Jesus' question to the one man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (a whole generation is signified here): "Do you want to be well?" --- certainly an intimate question which also retains complete respect for the man's freedom and innate dignity. Thirdly, the man's not-so-direct answer: "I have no one to put me in the water, and before I can get there, someone else has already entered." Fourthly, there is the exchange between Temple officials and the healed man who is walking and carrying his mat on the Sabbath. Both sides of this exchange are interesting: the officials' for their blindness and lack of priorities (legalism), and then for their focused hostility, and the response of the healed man who says he does not know who healed him or commanded him to take up his mat. And fifthly, after meeting Jesus again later on, and being challenged by him to not fall into sin so that something worse than paralysis befalls him, the now-healed man runs back to Temple officials to inform them that it was Jesus who healed him on the Sabbath!

The reference to multitudes of sick and crippled underscored for me a sense I already had, namely, that this gospel addressed all of us as sick or crippled in some way. When coupled with Jesus' very direct question, "Do you want to be well?" I think only a person who has never realized how it is we each come to terms with our various forms of unwellness, how we collude with them, struggle against them, accommodate them, and eventually accept them as more or less natural, would think Jesus' question a strange or completely obvious one. Afterall, after 38 years of illness most of us would have built our lives around the illness in some way which allows us a more or less comfortable accommodation to its limitations and demands --- even if this process is never perfect! To get well after 38 years of illness is no less a dramatic change than becoming seriously ill in the first place. Physical ailments are one thing, and they typify all the various ways a person can come to terms with something that is not natural or fully human --- and accommodate these things we certainly do!! But during Lent, the focus is more on our spiritual illness or lack of wellbeing, and there is nothing obvious about the answer to the question, "Do you want to be well?" Indeed oftentimes we have ignored the illness and have no awareness healing is necessary, much less at hand! Furthermore, when we ARE aware of the illness, we may not want to be healed really, just improved on a little! We don't want to commit ourselves to REAL spiritual healing. That, afterall, goes by the name of holiness, and who in the world REALLY seeks to be holy today???

I was struck by the paralyzed man's response. He does not say, "Yes, I have been waiting here for almost 4 decades. I want to be healed more than anything in the world!" Neither does he recognize that Jesus is actually the true living water and source of his healing as others have already done. His response COULD be a kind of blaming of others, or it COULD be an indictment of the religious system of his day which isolates those who are ill or crippled from the life of the Temple. It COULD be the cautious answer of one who is just now considering the idea that PERHAPS he COULD be healed and is beginning to get his mind (and heart!) around the fact that today might be the day. It COULD be the resigned response of one who has given up and knows that he will never be the first in the pool, and probably would not be healed there even if he were first! It could even be the response of a person who would like Jesus to be a little more realistic and see what the paralyzed man is really up against! (See what I mean about projecting ourselves into the story? It's terrific for uncovering our OWN hidden and not-so hidden motives and attitudes toward healing!)




Following his healing (an act of God which still requires trust and courage by the formerly paralyzed man; he still MUST pick up his mat and walk, afterall!), there is the rather chilling encounter with the temple officials. How many of us identify with their inability to see what is REALLY right in front of them, their lack of perspective, their legalistic attitudes, or their focused hostility at Jesus? And yet, how many of us have approached liturgy, for instance, with the very same mindset and condemned some breach of the rubrics when what was far more important was the healing of a fellow Christian in some major way, shape, or form we failed even to see? None of us like to see ourselves as scribes or pharisees, but all of us have a bit of closet temple-official locked inside our hearts, I am afraid! For some, it has become the primary attitude with which they approach their parish liturgy: what can I find wrong today? What breach of the Sabbath (e.g., Mass rubrics) can I point out today? How many unorthodoxies can I locate in Father's homily?" And of course, liturgy is not the only area in which such an attitude can be operative. How often do we notice someone did not follow the rules or "draw inside the lines", so to speak, in our daily lives --- while completely neglecting the fact that the person has ACHIEVED something they had been unable to perform until this point? If one walks away from this story without seeing something of themselves in this exchange between temple officials and healed paralytic, or fails to be challenged, I would be amazed!

Then there is the encounter with Jesus later in the story, after the man has been challenged by the Temple officials for carrying his mat. Jesus affirms his new condition "See, you are well!" and challenges him not to sin, lest something worse result. Does Jesus buy into some naive linkage between sin and illness? Is he asking us to do so? If so, how so? What IS the linkage REALLY? Is Jesus saying that sin can lead to worse things than physical illness? Is he reminding the man that he must commit himself to something besides his illness or his heart will be filled with something unworthy? And then there is the man's response: he runs back to the Temple officials to tell them the healer's name! Is he consciously betraying Jesus (we have been told in this and earlier readings that Jesus is staying away from crowds which are now dangerous to him)? Is he merely trying to tell the officials the simple answer to what they asked, naive of any awareness that this constitutes a betrayal of his healer (afterall, he has been on the margins of what has been happening due to his illness)? Is he trying to fit into the Temple from whence he has been ostracized for so long? Is he trying to curry favor, in other words, or simply trying to show how responsible he can be now that he is well? What illnesses still afflict him? Blindness? Insecurity? And what kind of blindness then? Ingratitude? What is it that motivates this man? Once again, we can read critically, exegetically, of course, but to some extent, I think we will have to project ourselves onto or into the text to answer many of these questions, and to really HEAR the text. So long as we are clear this is what we are doing, in this way we will learn more about ourselves than we will ever learn about the man in the story!!

For me personally, healing stories are always difficult, but this Lent, where the focus is not on chronic physical illness, but rather on all the failures in humanity which regularly plague us, Jesus' question, "Do you want to be well?" hits hard. It hits hard because it presupposes an awareness of being unwell in fundamental ways which require a healer, a messiah of Jesus' caliber and character. It presupposes the ability to say, "Yes" not only because I am unwell, but because I have colluded with the dominant culture so much that I often have remained unaware of my basic unwellness and suppose I am essentially fine --- just a "bit of a sinner" you know! And of course, it commits me to picking up my mat and walking on with it, right in the midst of all those who will be offended by the act! For a monastic and a hermit, this picking up my mat and walking with it will look differently than it will for some, but in this day and age, the call to holiness is no more acceptable for hermits than it is for businessmen or housewives, parents, professionals, etc. Do I want to be well? . . . I think the answer really must be, "Yes, no matter how much admitting and accepting my own brokenness and embracing genuine holiness scares me!" For many different reasons I may be more comfortable with a divine king than a divine physician, but this is Jesus' own question to me in this season of my life --- it is not projection on my part!! Of that I have no doubt at all. So, then, how is he speaking to you?

The Three Faces of Prodigality: Which will we Choose?

Commentators tend to name today's Gospel parable after the Merciful Father, because he is central to all the scenes (even when the younger Son is in a far off place, the Father waits silently, implicitly, in the wings). We should notice it is his foolish generosity that predominates, so in this sense, he too is prodigal. Perhaps then we should call this the parable of the Prodigal Father. The younger son squanders his inheritance, but the Father is also (in common terms and in terms of Jewish Law) foolish in giving him the inheritance, the "substance" (literally, the ousias) of his own life and that of Israel. His younger Son treats him as dead (a sin against the Commandment to honor Father and Mother) and still this Father looks for every chance to receive him back.



When the younger son comes to his senses, rehearses his terms for coming home ("I will confess and be received back not as a Son, but as a servant,"), his Father, watching for his return, eagerly runs to meet him in spite of the offense represented in such an act, forestalls his confession, brings his Son into the center of the village thus rendering everything unclean according to the law, clothes him in the garb of Sonship and authority, kills the fatted calf and throws a welcome home party --- all heedless of the requirements of the law, matters of ritual impurity or repentance, etc. Meanwhile, the dutiful older son keeps the letter of the law of sonship but transgresses its essence and also treats his Father with dishonor. He is grudging, resentful, angry, blind, and petty in failing to recognize what is right before him all the time. He too is prodigal, allowing his authentic Sonship to die day by day as he assumes a more superficial role instead. And yet, the Father reassures him that what is the Father's is the Son's and what is the Son's is the Father's (which makes the Father literally an "ignorant man" in terms of the Law, an "am-haretz"). Contrary to the wisdom of the law, he continues to invite him into the celebration, a celebration of new life and meaning. He continues to treat him as a Son.

The theme of Law versus Gospel comes up strongly in this and other readings this week, though at first we may fail to recognize this. Paul recognizes the Law is a gift of God but without the power to move us to act as Sons and Daughters of God in the way Gospel does. When coupled with human sinfulness it can --- whether blatantly or insidiously --- be terribly destructive. How often as Christians do we act in ways which are allowed (or apparently commanded) by law but which are not really appropriate to Daughters and Sons of an infinitely merciful Father who is always waiting for our return, always looking for us to make the slightest responsive gesture in recognition of his presence, to "come to our senses", so that he can run to us and enfold us in the sumptuous garb of Daughterhood or Sonship? How often is our daily practice of our faith dutiful, and grudging but little more? How often do we act competitively or in resentment over others whose vocation is different than our own, whose place in the church (or the world of business, commerce, and society, for that matter) seems to witness to greater love from God? How often do we quietly despair over the seeming lack of worth of our lives in comparison to that of others? Whether we recognize it or not these attitudes are those of people motivated by law, not gospel. They are the attitudes of measurement and judgment, not of incommensurate love and generosity.

At the begining of Lent we heard the fundamental choice of and in all choices put before us, "Choose life not death." Today that choice is sharpened and the subtle forms of death we often choose are set in relief: will we be Daughters and Sons of an infinitely and foolishly Merciful Father --- those who truly see and accept a love that is beyond our wildest imaginings and love others similarly, or, will we be prodigals in the pejorative sense, servants of duty, those who only accept the limited love we believe we have coming to us and who approach others competitively, suspiciously and without generosity? Will we be those whose notions of justice constrain God and our ability to choose the life he sets before us, or will we be those who are forgiven to the awesome degree and extent God is willing and capable of forgiving? Will we allow ourselves to be welcomed into a new life --- a life of celebration and joy, but also a life of greater generosity, responsibility, and God-given identity, or will we simply make do with the original prodigality of either the life of the younger or elder son? After all, both live dissipated lives in this parable: one flagrantly so, and one in quiet resentment, slavish dutifulness, and unfulfillment.

The choice before those living the latter kind of Christian life is no less significant, no less one of conversion than the choice set before the younger son. His return may be more dramatic, but that of the elder son demands as great a conversion. He must move from a quiet exile where he bitterly identifies himself as a slave rather than a free man or (even less) a Son. His own vision of his life and worth, his true identity, are little different than those of the younger son who returns home rehearsing terms of servility rather than sonship. The parable of the merciful Father puts before us two visions of life, and two main versions of prodigality; it thus captures the two basic meaning of prodigal: wasteful and lavish. There is the prodigality of the sons who allow the substance of their lives and identities to either be cast carelessly or slip silently away, the prodigality of those who lose their truest selves even as they grasp at wealth, adventure, duty, role, or other forms of security and "fulfillment". And there is the prodigality of the Father who loves and spends himself generously without limit or condition. In other words, there is death and there is life, law and gospel. Both stand before us ready to be embraced. Which form of prodigality will we choose? For indeed, the banquet hall is ready for us and the Father stands waiting at this very moment, ring, robe, and sandals in hand.

Cloister Outreach, CAVEAT EMPTOR!

[[Dear Sister Laurel,
I have been following the Internet activities of a woman who. . . runs a large, labyrinthine web site called "Cloister Outreach." On this site, as well as in other Internet forums, she claims to be founding many new religious communities under the aegis of the Diocese of Charlotte. . . . Unfortunately, [the founder of this website] also seems to be attracting people with the promise that they can become religious by Internet correspondence. Some of them even have a sort of "habit." I don't believe she has real diocesan approval. What is your view of this?]]

First let me say that I am all for anything that fosters genuine vocations. I am also quite sympathetic with those who are trying to find ways to live a dedicated life if they are older or have other difficulties which seem to rule out established canonical communities. Experimentation, non-traditional approaches, etc, are often very good ways to go in such cases, though one needs to take care in doing so. In terms of eremitical life, the need to be flexible and think outside the box is helpful in some ways --- so long as one is careful and respectfully rooted in living tradition! Lay eremitical life itself is supremely flexible and need not be legitimated beyond the individual's felt sense of call --- and this is a good thing. However, in terms of the organization you mention this is not the first time I have heard (or had) this question asked and I have had similar concerns myself over at least the past couple of years.

Because of this, and because the person who runs "Cloister Outreach" has said many times and in various places on the internet (precisely in response to such questions) that people should verify her claims to be supported by her Bishop and supervised by a canonist, a couple of us decided it was finally important to do just that. The delay in acting on our concerns came because until recently we thought perhaps no one serious about, or suited to, religious life would link themselves to any of the listed projects ("communities", "charisms"), but that changed especially when we realized some people who might have genuine vocations were not looking into established communities or vocations to the consecrated life because they had "joined" Cloisters Outreach. Thus we became concerned for people unknowingly getting sucked into something fraudulent or at least misleading and perhaps entirely factitious. There was also concern for the professional reputation of the canonist referred to and the prudence of the Diocese in this matter.

And so, as a result of our inquiries (about three weeks apart), we received responses from two members of the Charlotte chancery. First, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Charlotte, Msgr "Mo" (Mauricio) West who simply said the diocese had no knowledge of the person mentioned (". . .is unknown to the diocese."), and secondly (because the name provided is not the legal name of the person running Cloister Outreach, as well as because chancery departments can fail to communicate with one another in larger dioceses), we spoke by phone with Sister Sheila Richardson, ESA, hermit-canonist on the Tribunal who is supposed to be guiding these projects (but especially the eremitic expression) "every step of the way".

She did know the person in question but clearly disavowed any support for her, or the projects mentioned; In fact she is not in contact with the person running the Cloisters Outreach (Cloisterites) website at this time and seems not to have been for a while now. More bluntly put, perhaps, Sister had been contacted a couple of times by this person and cut off contact after just a couple of visits!). Given this state of affairs, which is hardly one of active supervision in service to the Bishop or diocese, it becomes hard to understand how the Bishop of the Diocese may be said to be supporting or "encouraging" this enterprise. We should remember that contact with a diocese regarding dreams or ideas does not constitute support for those ideas or dreams, nor far less does it constitute approval. Neither does the fact that a diocese fails to step in and stop a project even if to them or others it seems ill-advised, imprudent, eccentric, etc, constitute tacit approval. While the diocese may be taking a Gamaliel-like approach, the likelihood is more often that the diocese does not even know about the project.

Finally a glitzy website does not constitute legitimacy. Of course qualified (or unqualified!) individuals may begin such projects (private associations of the faithful) at any time and the support or approval of a Bishop is not required to do so. Still, moving beyond a private association to one with a public identity, especially as a religious institute DOES require the knowledge and approval of the local Ordinary. In any case, merely imagining a community or charism does not constitute such a thing in reality; those wishing to "join up" without serious research and verification should take seriously the old adage, "caveat emptor!" Meanwhile one should not claim to be under the supervision of a diocese if one really is not. In this case, the bottom line is that, Cloister Outreach or any of its projects (e.g., Cloisterites) are NOT SUPPORTED or supervised by the Bishop or Chancery personnel of the Diocese of Charlotte. Any assertions to the contrary are, for the moment, simply false.

This raises a lot of questions, I think --- especially about fledgling congregations, and becoming a religious or, if one really feels called to solitude, a diocesan hermit: how should one go about these things, who should be responsible for formation, and in fact what IS formation and how does one participate in it effectively, why habits are worn and what they mean (and how it is we empty them of meaning), how does one discern an ecclesial vocation in the church and under whose guidance, etc, but these can be dealt with later. At this point in time it is important to simply note that, all these issues and others aside and especially the motivations for the project notwithstanding (for these motives might be stellar), claims to have the support of the Bishop of Charlotte or to be (and have been) under the supervision of the hermit-canonist associated with the diocese, especially with regard to those living as anchoresses or hermits in "formation" with (some project of) Cloisters Outreach, are currently verifiably untrue. (Should this change, and I am made aware of the matter, I will be more than happy to report that it has!) Notes From Stillsong Hermitage: Cloister Outreach, CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Choose Life, Only That and Always. . .

(Reprised from another Lenten season!)



When I was a very young sister, I pasted the following quotation into the front of my Bible. It was written by another sister, and has been an important point of reference for me since then:



Choose life, only that and always,
and at whatever risk. . .
to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere
passage of time,
to withhold giving it and spending it
is to choose
nothing. (Sister Helen Kelly)

The readings from today both deal with this theme, and each reminds us in its own way just how serious human life is --- and how truly perilous!! Both of them present our situation as one of life and death choices. There is nothing in the middle, no golden mean of accomodation, no place of neutrality in which we might take refuge -- or from which we can watch dispassionately without committing ourselves, no room for mediocrity (a middle way!) of any kind. On one hand lies genuine "success", on the other true failure. Both readings ask us to commit our whole selves to God in complete dependence or die. Both are clear that it is our very Selves that are at risk at every moment, but certainly at the present moment. And especially, both of them are concerned with responsive commitment of heart, mind, and body --- the "hearkening" we are each called to, and which the Scriptures calls "obedience."

The language of the Deuteronomist's sermon (Deut 30:15-20) is dramatic and uncompromising: [[ This day I set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendents shall live,. . . for if you turn away your hearts and will not listen. . .you will surely perish. . .]] Luke (Lk 9:22-25) recounts Jesus' language as equally dramatic and uncompromising: [[If you would be my disciples, then take up your cross daily (that is, take up the task of creating yourselves in complete cooperation with and responsiveness to God at every moment). . .If you seek to preserve your life [that is, if you choose self-preservation, if you refuse to risk to listen or to choose an ongoing responsiveness] you will lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it. For what does it profit a person to gain the whole world and then lose or forfeit the very self s/he was created to be?]]

I think these readings set out the clear agenda of Lent, but more than that they set before us the agenda of our entire lives. Our lives are both task and challenge. We do not come into this world fully formed or even fully human. The process of creating the self we are called to be is what we are to be about, and it is a deadly serious business. What both readings try to convey, the OT with its emphasis on Law (God's Word) and keeping that Law, and the Gospel with its emphasis on following the obedient Christ by taking up our lives day by day in response to the will of God, is the fact that moment by moment our very selves are created ONLY in dialogue with God (and in him through others, etc). The Law of Moses is the outer symbol of the law written in our hearts, the dialogue and covenant with God that forms the very core of who we truly are as relational selves. The cross of Christ is the symbol of one who responded so exhaustively and definitively to the Word of God, that he can literally be said to have embodied or incarnated it in a unique way. It is this kind of incarnation or embodiment our very selves are meant to be. We accept this task, this challenge --- and this privilege, or we forfeit our very selves.

God is speaking us at every moment, if only we would chose to listen and accept this gift of self AS GIFT! At the same time, both readings know that the human person is what Thomas Keating calls, "A LISTENING". Our TOTAL BEING, he says, IS A LISTENING. (eyes, ears, mind, heart, and even body) Our entire self is meant to hear and respond to the Word of God as it comes to us through and in the whole of created reality. To the degree we fail in this, to the extent we avoid the choices of an attentive and committed life, an obedient life, we will fail to become the selves we are called to be.

The purpose of Lent and Lenten practices is to help us pare down all the extraneous noise that comes to us in so many ways, and become more sensitive and responsive to the Word of God spoken in our hearts, and mediated to us by the world around us through heart, mind, and body. We fast so that we might become aware of, and open to, what we truly hunger for --- and of course what genuinely nourishes us. We make prayers of lament and supplication not only so we can become aware of our own deepest pain and woundedness and the healing God's presence brings, but so we can become aware of the profound pain and woundedness of our world and those around us, and then reach out to help heal them. And we do penance so our hearts may be readied for prayer and made receptive to the selfhood God bestows there. In every case, Lenten practice is meant to help us listen carefully and deeply, to live deliberately and responsively, and to make conscious, compassionate choices for life.

It is clear that the Sister who wrote the quote I pasted into my Bible all those years ago had been meditating on today's readings (or at least the one from Deuteronomy)! I still resonate with that quote. It still belongs at the front of my Bible eventhough the ink has bled through the contact paper protecting it, and the letters are fuzzy with age. Still, in light of today's readings I would change it slightly: to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to refuse to receive it anew moment by moment as God's gift, to withhold giving it and spending it is to refuse authentic selfhood and to choose death instead.

Let us pray then that we each might be motivated and empowered to chose life, always and everywhere --- and at whatever risk or cost. God offers this to us and to our world at every moment --- if only we will ready ourselves in him, listen, and respond as we are called to!

"Ephphatha!": Obedience as the Dynamic of Authentic Humanity

Tomorrow's lections bring us face to face with who we are called to be, and with the results of the idolatry that occurs whenever we refuse that vocation. Both issues, vocation and true worship are rooted in the Scriptural notion of obedience, that is in the obligation which is our very nature, to hearken --- to listen and respond to God appropriately with our whole selves. When we are empowered to and respond with such obedience our very lives proclaim the Kingdom of God, not as some distant reality we are still merely waiting for, but as something at work in us here and now. In fact, when our lives are marked by this profound dynamic of obedience, today's readings remind us the reign of God cannot be hidden from others --- though its presence will be seen only with the eyes of faith.

In the Gospel, (Mark 7:31-37) A man who is deaf and also has a resultant speech impediment is brought by friends to Jesus; Jesus is begged to heal him. In what is an unusual process for Mark in its crude physicality (or for any of the Gospel writers), Jesus puts his fingers in the man's ears, and then, spitting on his fingers, touches the man's tongue. He looks up to heaven, groans, and says in Aramaic, "ephphatha!" (that is, "Be opened!"). Immediately the man is healed and "speaks plainly." Those who brought him to Jesus are astonished, joyful, and could not contain their need to proclaim Jesus and what he had done: "He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

I am convinced that the deaf and "mute" man (for he is not really mute, but impeded from clear speech by his inability to hear) is a type of each of us, a symbol for the persons we are and for the vocation we are each called to. Theologians speak of human beings as "language events." We are called to be by God, conceived from and an expression of the love of two people for one another, named so that we have the capacity for personal presence in the world and may be personally addressed by others, and we are shaped for good or ill, for wholeness or woundedness, by every word which is addressed to us. Language is the means and symbol of our capacity for relationship and transcendence.

Consider how it is that vocabulary of all sorts opens various worlds to us and makes the whole of the cosmos our own to understand, wonder at, and render more or less articulate; consider how a lack of vocabulary whether affective, theological, scientific, mathematical, psychological, etc, can cripple us and distance us from effectively relating to various dimensions of human life including our own heart. Note, for instance that physicians have found that in any form of mental illness there is a corresponding dimension of difficulty with or dysfunction of language. Consider the very young child's wonderful (and often really annoying!) incessant questioning. There, with every single question and answer, language mediates transcendence (a veritable explosion of transcendence in fact!) and initiates the child further and further into the world of human community, knowledge, understanding, reflection, celebration, and commitment. Language marks us as essentially communal, fundamentally dependent upon others to call us beyond ourselves, essentially temporal AND transcendent, and, by virtue of our being imago dei, responsive and responsible (obedient) at the core of our existence.

One theologian (Gerhard Ebeling), in fact, notes that the most truly human thing about us is our addressiblity and our ability to address others. Addressibility includes and empowers responsiveness; that is, it has both receptive and expressive dimensions. It is the characteristically human form of language which creates community. It marks us as those whose coming to be is dependent upon the dynamic of obedience --- but also on the generosity of those who would address us and give us a place to stand as persons that we cannot assume on our own. We spend our lives responsively -- coming (and often struggling) to attend to and embody or express more fully the deepest potentials within us in myriad ways and means; we spend our lives calling others to this same embodiment and expression.

But a lot can hinder this most foundational vocational accomplishment. Sometimes our own woundedness prevents the achievement of this goal to greater degrees. Sometimes we are not given the tools or education we need to develop this capacity. Sometimes, we are badly or ineffectually loved and rendered relatively deaf and "mute" in the process. Oftentimes we muddle the clarity of that expression through cowardice, ignorance, or even willful disregard. Our hearts, as I have noted here before, are dialogical realities. That is, they are the place where God bears witness to himself, the event marked in a defining way by God's continuing and creative address and our own embodied response. In every way our lives are either an expression of the Word or logos of God which glorifies (him), or they are, to whatever extent, a dishonoring lie and an evasion.




And so, faced with a man who is crippled in so many fundamental ways --- one, that is, for whom the world of community, knowledge, and celebration is largely closed by disability, Jesus prays to God, touches, and addresses the man directly, "Ephphatha!" ---Be thou opened!" It is the essence of what Christians refer to as salvation, the event in which a word of command and power heals the brokennesses which cripple and isolate, and which, by empowering obedience reconciles the man to himself, his God, his people and world. As a result of Jesus' Word, and in response, the man speaks plainly --- for the first time (potentially) transparent to himself and to those who know him; he is more truly a revelatory or language event, authentically human and capable, through the grace of God, of bringing others to the same humanity through direct response and address.

Our own coming to wholeness, to a full and clear articulation of our truest selves is a communal achievement. Even (or even especially) in the lives of hermits this has always been true insofar as solitude is NOT isolation, but is instead a form of communion marked by profound dependence on the Word of God and lived specifically for the salvation of others. In today's gospel friends bring the man to Jesus, Jesus prays to God before acting to heal him. The presence of friends is another sign not only of the man's nature as made-for-communion and the fact that none of us come to language (or, that is, to the essentially human capacity for responsiveness or obedience) alone, but similarly, of the deaf man's total inability to approach Jesus on his own. At the same time, Jesus takes the man aside and what happens to him in this encounter is thus signalled to be profoundly personal, intimate, and beyond the merely evident. Friends are necessary, but at bottom, the ultimate healing and humanizing encounter can only happen between the deaf man and Christ.

In each of our lives there is deafness and "muteness" or inarticulateness. So many things are unheard by us, fail to touch or resonate in our hearts. So many things call forth embittered and cynical reactions which wound and isolate when what is needed is a response of genuine compassion and welcoming. Similarly, so many things render us speechless: bereavement, illness, ignorance, personal woundedness, etc. As a result we live our commitments half-heartedly, our loves guardedly, our joys tentatively, our pains self-consciously and noisily --- but helplessly and without meaning in ways which do not edify --- and in all these ways therefore, we are less human, less articulate, less the obedient or responsive language event we are called to be.

To each of us, then, and in whatever way or degree we need, Jesus says, "EPHPHATHA!" "Be thou opened!" He sighs in compassion and desire, unites himself with his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, and touches us with his own hands and spittle. May we each allow ourselves to be brought to Jesus for healing. May we be broken open and rendered responsive and transparent by his powerful Word of command and authority. Especially, may we each become the clear gospel-founded words of joy in a world marked extensively and profoundly by deafness and the helplessness and despair of noisy inarticulateness.

Feast of the Conversion of St Paul

Tomorrow is the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, and my own feastday as well. We know Paul's story well. A good Jew, indeed, a scholar of the Law who saw the early Church as a distortion and danger to orthodoxy, one who understood that a crucified person was godless and shameful and could in no way be a faithful Jew or prophet, much less God's anointed one, persecuted the Church in the name of orthodoxy and for the glory of God. In sincere faithfulness to the covenant Paul hounded men, women and children, many of whom were his own neighbors. He sent them to prison and thence to their deaths. He, at least technically And according to Luke's version of things), colluded in the stoning of Stephen and sought to wipe Christians from the face of the earth.

While on a campaign to Damascus to root out and destroy more "apostates" Paul had a dramatic vision and heard someone call out to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Paul inquired who this voice was and was told, "I am Jesus whom you persecuteth." In that moment everything Paul knew, believed, and practiced, was turned upside down. God had vindicated the One whom Paul knew to be godless acording to the Law. He was alive rather than eternally dead, risen through the power of God as the Christians had claimed. For Paul nothing would ever be the same again. So it is with conversions.


Perhaps it is a matter of faulty perception on my part, and if so, I apologize, but it seems to me that conversion is not something most Catholics regard as pertinent to their lives. Conversion is something non-Catholics do when they become Catholics (or vice versa!). It is a onetime event that those "born into the faith" don't (it is thought) need to worry about! Those "born Catholic" may think in terms of "growing in their faith" or "becoming a better Catholic" (and there is certainly nothing wrong with thinking this way!) but "conversion" seems to be a word that is simply little-used for these processes. Somehow (perhaps because of the story of Paul!) conversion is too dramatic and messy a process it seems. It disrupts and is marked by difficult and abrupt discontinuities and conflicts or tensions. It demands a spiritual praxis which sets one apart from the norm, a prayer life which is central, engagement with the Word of God which is profound and more extensive than usual -- not minimal or nominal, and a faith life which does not tolerate compartmentalization. Growth, becoming, etc, are safer words --- demanding, yes, but somehow less total and more socially acceptable than references to "conversion."

In monastic life, and especially in Benedictine monastic life the primary vow is to conversion of life. This vow includes those ordinarily made in religious life, the vows of poverty and chastity. One commits oneself to continually allow God to remake one into the image of Christ (and into one's truest self). There is a sense that such conversion is a gradual and lifelong process of growth and maturation, yes, but there is also an openness to conversion as dramatic and all-consuming. Here conversion is something which does not allow the monastic to divide their lives into sacred and profane or to compartmentalize them into the spiritual and the non-spiritual. Here the Word of God is expected and allowed to convict, challenge, transform, and empower. Here the Spirit of God is accepted as the spirit which moves within us enlivening, edifying, consolidating, and purifying --- the Spirit which humanizes and sanctifies us into the covenant reality we are most truly. It is a pattern which should be true of every Christian.

Paul's initial conversion experience was dramatic by any standards, but drama aside, it did for Paul what encounter and engagement with the Word of God is meant to do to any of us. It caused him to see his entire world and life in terms of the risen and Crucified Christ. It put law completely at the service of love and made compassion the way to accomplish justice. It made human weakness the counterpart of divine strength, mercy and forgiveness the way God's will is accomplished, and in every other way turned the values of this world on their head. May each of us open ourselves to the kind of conversion of life we celebrate today.

Feast of St Anthony (or Antony) of Egypt

Lots (relatively!) of hermits in the calendar these days. Today would ordinarily be the Feast of St Anthony of Egypt (251-356 -- no, no typos in that date), one of the best known hermit Saints. It is also the feastday of the Motherhouse of the women's congregation of Benedictine Camaldolese located in Rome --- the house where, some may recall, Nazarena, an American recluse and anchoress lived out her life. It follows just two days after the feast of St Paul the Hermit, recognized as the first hermit in the Catholic Church. The following brief biography of Anthony is taken from "Saint of the Day" by St Anthony's Messenger.

The life of Anthony will remind many people of St. Francis of Assisi. At 20, Anthony was so moved by the Gospel message, “Go, sell what you have, and give to [the] poor” (Mark 10:21b), that he actually did just that with his large inheritance. He is different from Francis in that most of Anthony’s life was spent in solitude. He saw the world completely covered with snares, and gave the Church and the world the witness of solitary asceticism, great personal mortification and prayer. But no saint is antisocial, and Anthony drew many people to himself for spiritual healing and guidance.


At 54, he responded to many requests and founded a sort of monastery [Laura or Hermitage] of scattered cells. Again like Francis, he had great fear of “stately buildings and well-laden tables.”

At 60, he hoped to be a martyr in the renewed Roman persecution of 311, fearlessly exposing himself to danger while giving moral and material support to those in prison. At 88, he was fighting the Arian heresy, that massive trauma from which it took the Church centuries to recover. “The mule kicking over the altar” denied the divinity of Christ.

Anthony is associated in art with a T-shaped cross, a pig and a book. The pig and the cross are symbols of his valiant warfare with the devil—the cross his constant means of power over evil spirits, the pig a symbol of the devil himself. The book recalls his preference for “the book of nature” over the printed word. Anthony died in solitude at 105.

Those interested in knowing more about Anthony of Egypt should check out his rather "stylized" (it is typically hagiographical) biography by Saint Athanasius, The Life of Anthony. It is available in a number of editions and online as well. A book which is not about Anthony only, but which is fascinating in light of his (and others') well-known battles with demons, and which might interest some readers, is David Brakke's, Demons and the Making of the Monk, Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity. Chapter 2, however focuses on St Anthony (via St Athanasius', Life of Anthony) and references to him occur throughout. As an aside here because of recent questions and posts --- Brakke notes that the tension between solitude and community, desert and city, informs the entirety of Anthony's demonology, and less so Athanasius' work on Anthony, but it is not absent from his Life. Finally, not least for Nazarena's link to St Anthony's of Egypt (Camaldolese) monastery, readers should definitely check out Fr Thomas Matus' (OSB Cam) biography of Nazarena's life in reclusion, Nazarena, An American Anchoress.

Meanwhile, all good wishes to Camaldolese women everywhere, nuns, hermits, oblates! Prayers especially for the community at St Anthony's of Egypt in Rome.

The Master Beggar by Jessica Powers

The tragedy in Haiti can leave us stunned, speechless, and inarticulate -- especially as we try to relate or mesh the glory of Christmas recently celebrated with such devastation. We find ways to help because there is where we are especially to bring Christ, and also where we find Him in a privileged way --- our God who reveals himself exhaustively in human flesh. Meanwhile, poets find ways to express the truths involved in this --- and the challenges of the Incarnation more generally. My prayer is that this awful event will trouble each and all of us for our human heart.

The Master Beggar

Worse than the poorest mendicant alive.
the pencil man, the blind man with his breath
of music shaming all who do not give,
are You to me, Jesus of Nazareth

Must you take up your post on every block
of every street? Do I have no release?
Is there no room of earth that I can lock
to Your sad face, Your pitiful whisper, "Please?"

I seek the counters of time's gleaming store
but make no purchases, for You are there.
How can I waste one coin while you implore
with tear-soiled cheeks and dark blood-matted hair?

And when I offer you in charity
pennies minted by love, still, still, You stand
fixing Your sorrowful wide eyes on me.
Must all my purse be emptied in Your hand?

Jesus, my beggar, what would You have of me?
Father and Mother? the lover I longed to know?
The child I would have cherished tenderly?
Even the blood that through my heart's valves flows?

I too would be a beggar. Long tormented,
I dream to grant You all and stand apart
with You on some bleak corner, tear-frequented,
and trouble mankind for its human heart.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), 1937

The Silence of Solitude (#2)

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, When you write about the silence of solitude it sounds pretty grim. Do you mean to give that impression? Also, where does the term come from? I also thought Canon 603 specified silence AND solitude and was surprised to read that you thought the silence of solitude was something different.]]

Dear poster,
I suppose that the two times I have written about "the silence of solitude" it has seemed a pretty negative reality, mainly because of the contexts. However, I carefully qualified the negativity in the last post (and may have done in the other) by referring to the richness of this reality. Anyway, let me try to be a little clearer because "the silence of solitude" embraces the gamut of experiences and realities involved in everything from profound unitive experiences with God to the physical isolation and challenges one faces as one comes to terms with one's own sinfulness without distraction, or even the desolation one may feel from the relative absence of others in one's life or from the felt absence or withdrawal of God. One really cannot point to a wider range of experience.

It seems to me that Jesus' own life was one which, despite the activity and contact with others, was consistently marked by the silence of solitude --- whether we are speaking of the times he was off alone praying, ministering in crowds, talking or disputing with Jewish officials, teaching his ordinarily obtuse disciples, standing before Pilate (a particularly poignant moment revealing the silence of solitude), or facing betrayal by his followers and "abandonment" by God in the passion. All of these moments and his whole life was lived for God alone and with a sense that God alone was enough. Similarly every moment was lived with a profound sense of God's presence and power within and without him. (The single exception was, I would suggest, the experience of abandonment on the cross.) Even while this united him with all of humanity it separated or marginalized him as well. Jesus' grounding in and relationship with God related him intimately with everyone God loved, and at the same time set him apart as a complete and unique individual --- in many ways incommunicable to them. To the degree he was embodied Word he, modelled "the (paradoxical reality we call) silence of solitude." (Another dimension of this I have to wonder about here is Jesus's ability to share with others. He gave of himself completely, and it is clear he had those who loved him especially and whom he loved as friends, but generally, I wonder how much sharing of his own deepest self he could do. That inability is a piece of the silence of solitude I think.)

The term, "the silence of solitude," so far as I know, is a Carthusian one, coined by Carthusian hermit monks to describe a reality which includes both silence and solitude and yet goes beyond both of them. (Sorry, despite having read a number of books by and about Carthusians, I cannot refer you to the text where this phrase occurs, nor can I explain what the author himself meant by it therefore with the following exception. Apparently "the silence of solitude" was meant to distinguish it from the physical silence of cenobitism, and was to be ensured through physical isolation.) However, Fr Jean Beyer, sj, a canonist, writes, "It unites these values. . . referring not merely to the external [physical] silence of the desert but to a profound inner solitude found in communion with God, who is the fullness of life and of love. It implies a lifetime striving towards union with God, a state which causes the one who becomes silent in this divine solitude to be alone with God alone. Such silence of solitude requires other silences --- of place, of surroundings, of action --- all that furthers the solitude and distances one from anything which could disturb it, from all which does not enhance the solitary mode of life." (Beyer, The Law of Consecrated Life: Commentary on the Canons 573-606)

Note that because solitude is defined in terms of communion with God both as goal and reality, Beyer affirms that other silences are required which support and flow from this communion. The other silences are usually what we are thinking of when we suggest the Canon is speaking of silence and solitude. Really though, Canon 603 spells out the goal and essence of eremitical life in this phrase, whereas silence and external or physical solitude are means to achieving this. Genuine solitude is always a communal reality because true individuality is always such a reality. We are constituted as human beings by our relatedness with God (and so with those he loves --- especially as we come to know them in him). We are not unrelated or isolated monads, but instead are "dialogical" at the very core of our being. Physical silence serves the realization of this nature. So does physical or external solitude. But they are not to be mistaken for it. For this reason among others I suggested in my earlier post (Prisoner Hermits) that the "silence of solitude" was a reality even when in the midst of a noisy crowd. This is somewhat different than Beyer describes, and it differs from the narrower Carthusian sense, but I think it is in line with these as well.

The heart of "the silence of solitude" is communion with God. Nothing grim about that! At the same time, while this communion is wonderful and sustaining (even when we don't experience ecstasy or some remarkable prayer experience), and while it unites us to those God loves in mysterious and real ways, it establishes us more fully as individuals and wraps our lives in silence at many levels. Consider how it fosters one's need for environments most people shun. Consider how it sets one's life apart from the normal rhythms, values, and activities of most lives. Consider how incommunicable it truly is, and how truly incommunicable it makes our authentic individuality --- our solitude. So, no "the silence of solitude" is not a grim reality; is a wonderfully, ineffably, positive experience, but it carries with it dimensions of suffering and marginalization as well.

I only just began really thinking about this element of Canon 603 in a conscious way this Summer so I doubt this is really clear yet.(Until then I spent more time thinking about silence AND solitude.) However if it raises questions for you, do get back to me. The questions help me think through what I often know on a more intuitive level. Thanks.

Feast of the Baptism of Jesus

Until I can write a separate reflection for today's feast I am reposting this one from a couple of years ago. Sorry for the inconvenience! I hope everyone's Christmastide has been wonderful!



Of all the feasts we celebrate, the baptism of Jesus is the most difficult for us to understand. We are used to thinking of Baptism as a solution to original sin instead of the means of our initiation into the death and resurrection of Jesus, or our adoption as daughters and sons of God and heirs to his Kingdom, or again, as a consecration to God's very life and service. When viewed this way, and especially when we recall that John's baptism was one of repentance for sin, how do we make sense of a sinless Jesus submitting to it?

I think two points need to be made here. First, Jesus grew into his vocation. His Sonship was real and completely unique but not completely developed or historically embodied from the moment of his conception; rather it was something he embraced more and more fully over his lifetime. Secondly, his Sonship was the expression of solidarity with us and his fulfillment of the will of his Father to be God-with-us. Jesus will incarnate the Logos of God definitively in space and time, but this event we call the incarnation encompasses and is only realized fully in his life, death, and resurrection -- not in his nativity. Only in allowing himself to be completely transparent to this Word, only in "dying to self," and definitively setting aside all other possible destinies does Jesus come to fully embody and express the Logos of God in a way which expresses his solidarity with us as well.

It is probably the image of Baptism-as-consecration then which is most helpful to us in understanding Jesus' submission to John's baptism. Here the man Jesus is set apart as the one in whom God will truly "hallow his name". Here, in an act of manifest commitment, Jesus' humanity is placed completely at the service of the living God and of those to whom God is committed. Here his experience as one set apart for God establishes him as completely united with us and our human condition. And here too Jesus anticipates the death and resurrection he will suffer for the sake of both human and Divine destinies which, in him, will be reconciled and inextricably wed to one another. His baptism establishes the pattern not only of HIS humanity, but that of all authentic humanity. So too does it reveal the nature of true divinity, for our's is a God who becomes completely subject to our sinful reality in order to free us for his own entirely holy one.

I suspect that even at the end of the Christmas season we are still scandalized by the incarnation. We still stumble over the intelligibility of this baptism, and the propriety of it especially. Our inability to fathom Jesus' baptism, and our tendency to be shocked by it, just as JohnBp was probably shocked, says we are not comfortable, even now, with a God who enters exhaustively into our reality. We remain uncomfortable with a Jesus who is tempted like us in ALL THINGS, and matures into his identity as God's only begotten Son. We are puzzled by one who is holy as God is holy and, as the creed affirms, "true God of true God" and who, evenso, is consecrated to the one he calls Abba and to the service of his Kingdom and people. A God who comes to us in smallness, weakness, submission, and self-emptying is really not a God we are comfortable with --- despite three weeks of Christmas celebrations and reflections, and a prior four weeks of preparation -- is it? And perhaps this is as it should be. Perhaps the scandal attached signals to us we are getting this right theologically.

Afterall, today's feast tells us that Jesus' public ministry begins with a consecration. His public life begins with an event that prefigures his end as well. There is a real dying to self involved here, not because Jesus has a false self which must die -- as each of us has --- but because his life is placed completely and publicly at the disposal of his God, his Abba. Loving another, affirming the being of another in a way which subordinates one's own being to theirs --- putting one's own life at their disposal always entails a death of sorts -- and a kind of rising to new life as well. The dynamics present on the cross are present here too -- complete and obedient (that is open and responsive) submission to the will of God, and an unfathomable subjection to that which sin makes necessary so that God's love may conquer precisely here as well.

Prisoners as Hermits: Another look at the Redemption of Unnatural Solitudes (#1)

[[Dear Sister, I am sorry to keep bothering you because of an article or two on the internet, but I also read there about the idea of "criminals" being hermits, and the suggestion that perhaps they were "better hermits" than the professed and consecrated ones. What do you think about this idea?]]

Hi again! As for whether convicts can live as hermits, I actually think this is a great idea, and very edifying in many ways. I have noted before a number of times that urban hermits live in what Thomas Merton called the unnatural solitudes of the city -- that is, in situations that really isolate, alienate, and fragment --- situations that militate against community and wholeness. The job of the urban hermit is to allow and witness to the redemption of these "unnatural solitudes." They are called to allow the grace of God to transform that which isolates and fragments into a place of genuine solitude where the individual grows to wholeness and holiness, and the crowd of the city is, in whatever mysterious way this can occur, drawn into or permeated by the reality of God's Reign.

Until now, I have written about bereavement, chronic illness, and isolated old age as possible instances of "unnatural solitudes" which lead people to discover eremitical calls, but there is no doubt that one of the most radical and intense solitudes that exists today --- and one of the most clearly unnatural --- is the world of the supermax prison. Prisoners in these prisons or in segregated cellblocks of less secure prisons spend 23 hours a day in their cells, often with little to distract or entertain them, much less enrich or challenge them to grow as human beings. Even recreation is a completely isolated activity. On the few programs I have seen about these institutions, the incidence of serious mental illness is terribly high, and all of it is exacerbated (when it is not caused) by the terrible toll this unnatural solitude takes.

I have read, fairly recently in fact, of some prisoners thinking of themselves (and living their lives) as part of a new monasticism. My sense is many could find themselves challenged and fulfilled if they were able to similarly approach each day as part of the eremitical life. Remember that there are distinct external similarities between life in prison and the routinized, often tedious horarium of monks and nuns. Further, they are all lives of hiddenness, and too, lives which society may discount as fruitless or non-productive. In many ways they are penitential and poor lives without access to luxuries, varieties of food which do more than simply nourish, and their cells are often much more austere than the cell of almost any monk or nun. On a more profound level, perhaps, hermits are called to live on the margins as countercultural realities and witnesses, and especially they are called to live a life of esential freedom in spite of limitations and constraints. This is the very nature of authentic Freedom, and certainly therefore, the nature of the freedom Christ brings. How clearly prisoner hermits would represent such a vocation both to their fellow prisoners and to the rest of society!

In considering this possibility it reminds me that Canon 603 binds a diocesan hermit to, "the silence of solitude" --- not as I once misread, "silence and solitude." It seems to me that while physical silence is an important aspect of eremitical life (and contemplative life in general), the reality of the "silence of solitude" is often quite different. This, though also quite rich and marked (in fact, defined) by communion with God and others, is the silence of loneliness (or at least of aloneness even in the midst of a crowd), the silence of the celibate who lives without community, the sometimes painful and difficult silence of life within and from one's own heart from which one seeks not to be distracted. It includes physical silence, yes, but it is more than this, and sometimes exists even without it. It is marked more by one's confrontation with oneself, and by the prayer which accompanies it and in which one brings all this before God. Prisoners often live in the midst of continuing noise, sometimes deafening, but in many (maybe all) prison situations, they can also still live in the silence of solitude. Usually in a prison environment this is clearly unaccompanied by external silence, and this is unfortunate because such silence is ordinarily so necessary, but the challenge of the reality remains (or could remain) as it does for any hermit.

Whether such men and women would be "better" hermits than those canonically professed and consecrated is a relatively meaningless question, I think. Certainly it does not advance the discussion in any subtantive or edifying way. It is true that the witness of these person's lives could speak to some better than other hermits might be able. The contrary is also true. Hermits come in all shapes and sizes and all forms of eremitical life (lay, religious, diocesan) are significant and should be esteemed. So long as each hermit lives the foundational elements of the life and in the particular shape s/he is called to, s/he is as good a hermit as any other. The roles each plays may differ but it does little good to suggest that the diocesan hermit is a "better" hermit than the lay hermit in the next state, or that the prisoner is a better hermit than one who is consecrated according to Canon 603. What IS true is that each hermit will challenge and support others to a truer living out of their individual call, no matter the state of life or the shape of the eremitism involved. Casting the whole matter in terms of better or worse tends to shortcircuit that whole far more healthy dynamic.

I think this whole notion of prisoner hermits needs to be explored in more depth. I also think that looking at what prisoners live daily can assist hermits in clarifying the meaning of the terms and foundational elements of their lives. For instance, looking at the question today has helped me move a little farther along an understanding of the term "silence of solitude" just as did a brief gesture by a married couple at the end of a desert day during my last retreat. The original casting of the idea in qualitative terms is not particularly helpful, but the idea that prisoners might, even temporarily, well be called to be hermits in the midst of one of the world's most difficult and radically unnatural solitudes is a terrific one. Thanks for posing the question!

Postscript. Recently a hermit friend noted that some are called to eremitical life, and others are "only" called to practice an eremitical spirituality. I have not thought enough about the distinction of these two; at times I think the distinction is completely valid and significant, and other times I just don't see it clearly. However, it would be good to see more reflection on the latter (eremitical spirituality) since prisoners in particular could be introduced to this without the onus of labels. At the same time, I think that some very few of those prisoners who are truly going to be in prison for the rest of their lives, for instance, might well represent instances of the hermit vocation which the church would eventually wish to recognize and even celebrate under Canon 603. The majority (however small a number this would be) would remain lay hermits (and still be cause for ecclesial celebration)! Again, hermits are made from the combination of the exigencies of life and the grace of God. A free choice, formation, and commitment would be required --- and I think very great care in discernment necessary, but prison does not exclude this any more than it excludes the grace of God.

The Role of the Diocesan Delegate: Just another Layer of Bureaucracy?

[[Dear Sister, can you say more about the [role of a] "diocesan delegate"? Not only have I never heard of it, but it seems to me this adds another layer of bureaucracy to something that is really defined much more simply in terms of Canon 603 or the Catechism. The person I quoted before cautioned about allowing this kind of thing to happen. What is it? How does it work?]]

Now this is a great question because although the "requirement" of a "diocesan delegate" (if one's diocese goes this direction) does add another level of bureaucracy, it is bureaucracy at the service of the individual hermit, her freedom, individuality, and simplicity --- the characteristics of eremitical life mentioned in your other post.

In my situation the diocesan delegate serves both the diocese and myself to foster the living out of my vocation with integrity and with attentiveness to both individual and ecclesial needs/requirements. The delegate is a superior or quasi-superior who, at the behest of the diocese, assumes this role in a way which allows me regular contact, discussion, discernment, sharing, etc, and which frees the Bishop up for less frequent meetings, consultation in more significant matters only, and so forth. It should go without saying that while Canon 603 specifies the "supervision of the local Bishop" it is a rare Bishop who is able to meet formally more than once or twice a year with a hermit, much less spend regular time hearing how life is going on a day to day basis.

A delegate on the other hand can meet with the hermit regularly, (approximately every couple of months or so depending on schedules), deal with regular issues of discernment or problems which arise, communicate with the diocese in case of need for consultation (in either direction!), and just generally be a more immediate presence whom the hermit can turn to between meetings with the Bishop, et al.

Canon 603 has non-negotiable elements (silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, evangelical counsels, Rule of Life lived under the supervision of the Bishop) but how all these work in the life of an individual hermit (including the shape they assume in her Rule) must be discerned on an ongoing basis which is quite individual. Major changes in the Rule may require the Bishop's authorization (the Bp publishes a decree of approval for the Rule as such), but working all this out over time, dealing with issues of ongoing formation and education, determining what needs to go to the Bishop, and just sharing the joys and struggles of everyday life in solitude in a way which enhances one's accountability for all these is something (at least in my life) one needs and turns to a delegate for. (I suppose in some delegate-hermit relationships the hermit might turn to the delegate for more routine "permissions," for instance, but this particular way of approaching matters is probably very uncommon today and not particularly desirable except by way of exception). So, yes, from one perspective the diocesan delegate is another layer of bureaucracy, but it is a layer which allows for effective interplay between the non-negotiable and more individual elements of the hermit's life. It does not hamper this but encourages it.

By the way, cautions are well and good, but it helps to understand that Canons and Catechism provide the essentials (the legal nuts and bolts) in the Case of CL, or a kind of summary of a situation (or of a teaching, for instance) in the case of a Catechism definition or paragraph. Life is probably never so simple as law codifies, nor a catechism definition or description summarizes.

Followup on the Institutionalization of Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, what I hear you saying is that hermits and their superiors are leading the way in the increased institutionalization of eremitical life and are doing so cautiously and only because lived experience leads to this. You said that love is prior to law. Is that right? Doesn't increased institutionalization endanger the hermit vocation? Is it really necessary to have public vows, rituals, religious and special garb, rings, initials after one's name, etc? Isn't all this elitist and doesn't it conflict with the individualism, simplicity, and hiddenness of the vocation? Also, is it the case that female hermits are forming clubs or groups which maybe they will allow male hermits to join? What is this all about?]]

Thanks for writing again. Yes, you heard me correctly regarding institutionalization (although I don't agree there is really much "increased institutionalization" going on). What there always is is reflection and dialogue about the nature of the vocation and how best to protect, and encourage its authentic growth. What I would stress again in regard to the issue of institutionalization though, increased or otherwise, is the need to maintain a balance between codification and individuality, etc. Generally Canon 603 does this by setting forth the essential characteristics of the life: silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, lived under the supervision of the local Bishop --- as well as mandating a Personal Rule or Plan of Life written by the hermit herself, and all of this for the praise of God and the salvation of the world. (Note therefore that the Canon itself protects the individuality and freedom of the vocation!)

Beyond this, as already mentioned then, individual hermits'(or their Bishops' and dioceses') lived experience continues to inform the contemporary approach to Canon 603, problems will arise, particularly helpful practices or guidelines will be developed, and other things will need to be addressed with norms or precedents (discernment, initial formation and its length, ongoing formation, ministry, etc). Most of these things are simply reflections of what is generally necessary for any person wanting to live healthily and fruitfully as a hermit. The solution to the tension between institutionalization and individual freedom continues to be the interplay between Canon 603, and the individual's own Rule as these are supervised by Bishop, and worked out with one's delegate, spiritual director, etc.

What we are speaking about on a deeper level in these questions is balancing the profoundly ecclesial or communal nature (koinonia) of the eremitical vocation with individual gifts, sensibilities, practices, weaknesses, and desires, or better stated perhaps, finding appropriate and effective ways a very individual vocation's ecclesial nature is best protected and expressed. In turn, this will help the individual and it will assist others in discerning such vocations. Additionally of course, it will ensure that an individual is living a vocation which truly contributes to the salvation of the world --- which is the very heart and reason for the eremitical vocation as it is for any other authentic vocation.

Throughout the history of eremitical life some degree of institutionalization has been necessary to prevent this vocation from becoming merely a refuge for excessive individualism and personal eccentricity, and to ensure that it retains the ecclesial dimension any truly human life or vocation always has. It is further necessary to ensure adequate formation, both initial and ongoing, and to make sure that vocational discernment is seriously undertaken by both the individual and the church. To mention a tiny part of eremitical history which I have noted before, the founder of the congregation I am associated with as an Oblate, St Romuald, was known as a reformer who went around sometimes gathering individual hermits into Lauras, generally giving them the Rule of Benedict to live under, and otherwise making sure they were living genuine eremitical lives and not eccentric, overly-individualistic ones.

Later (again to repeat history I have noted before) other Camaldolese like Peter-Damian continued reforming and reflecting on the ecclesial dimension of all hermit vocations. Sensitivity to koinonia was at the heart of their efforts. Even later, Paul Giustiniani determined that since the establishment of the Church's requirements that all faithful have regular access to the sacraments and so forth, solitary hermits living essentially cut off from these were now invalid. He saw the formation of Lauras as the best solution. Though Giustiniani's concern seems legalistic, it represents increased reflection on the ecclesial underpinnings of any vocation, but in particular, the eremitical call. Bl Paul saw the formation of Lauras as the best solution because Lauras could be established far from inhabited centers protecting solitude and at the same time these would serve to curb all the dangers that beset solitary eremitical life. They provided the mix of community and solitude so essential to even the vocation of the recluse. Throughout the history of the Church the tension between institutionalization and individual freedom has existed. At many points institutionalization served to protect the vocation itself, especially in its communal or lived-within-the-church and for-others dimensions. Once again koinonia is at the core of these hermits' concerns and sensitivities.

Canon 603 is an option which allows hermits the same standing as others with public vows, etc, but without demanding they give up their solitary hermit existence. It seeks to balance both dimensions precisely so hiddenness is eremitical hiddenness and not something else. It consecrates lives marked by the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, etc while it ensures they are instances of authentic and ecclesial vocations. Further, with some of the symbols you mentioned (ring, garb, ritual), it makes it clear that such vocations are lived in the heart of the church today witnessing to others. Of course it also makes clear that such calls come out of the church's own life, that they are mediated to the individual through God's church and not otherwise.

Certainly there are other options for living the eremitical life in the church today. Religious hermits (Camaldolese, Carthusians, Brothers and Sisters of Bethlehem, some Carmelite foundations, etc) are wonderful examples of one option. And of course, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church makes clear, lay eremitical life is always an option, and one which is less institutionalized than diocesan eremitism. For those who believe that "institutionalization" taints the purity or simplicity of the eremitical life, rather than protecting and enhancing it, this is certainly one way to go. From my own perspective such a path is at times more difficult than diocesan eremitism (especially in terms of perseverence and the freedom fostered by obedience), and in other ways (especially in terms of accountability on many levels), far less demanding. However, both are valid and significant ways to live an eremitical life today.

As for your last question, I really don't know what this refers to. Hermits don't have "clubs" nor are they generally or as a group given to gender bias. If you can clarify the reference for me it would help. Regarding elitism linked to rings, initials, rituals, etc please see other posts I have put up here on these. If these are inadequate, feel free to get back to me.

On the Growing Institutionalization of Eremitical Life

Well, Christmastide is almost over (marked by the Baptism of Jesus) and it is time to get back to some of the more regular things I need to do. Writing here is one of those (writing generally is one of those!), and responding to questions is a piece of that. One person writes as follows,

[[Sister Laurel, I read the following online . . . and wonder if you would comment on the growing institutionalization of eremitical life.]]

[[. . . has noted from internet blogs, articles and updates, that there is a growing trend among some hermits, mostly the canonical approved variety, that some through much wordage and repetition, based upon assumed authority, or even stated expertise, have begun to make regulations by setting precedence. What can evolve are rules, laws, set ways of how this or that must be done, called Precedent Law. Noticed a few Dioceses have bought into it, adopted the regulations and are imposing them. Perhaps without even knowing from whence they came. . . . is reminded of childhood. Something innate in little girls to want to organize, set up and play house, make a club. Sometimes they can find a little boy or two to come and play with them. Tell him what to do, and some do it. He is the daddy or baby brother to the little girls' house roles. Lots of rules. Do this. Do that. I'm the mommy. Do as I say.]]

My first response is this is a pretty cynical and simplistic (not to mention offensive) way of looking at what is happening in terms of eremitical life, and in particular, diocesan eremitical life. It reflects a rather common notion of the way law is related to life which should NOT be carelessly generalized. So, is there growing institutionalization? Yes, perhaps, but it is neither extensive nor particularly intensive at this point. If it exists it is also quite slow-growing, which I consider a good thing in the main. Canon 603 and the life it describes is an instance of this. Bishops have been, and continue to be, cautious with this vocation and that is generally a good thing. Do hermits themselves contribute to it to some extent? Yes, but usually with gritted teeth, ample cautions regarding the freedom and diversity of eremitical life, and with heels dug in to prevent these from being seriously transgressed against by over-legalizations and codifications. Most hermits will completely resonate with Dom Jean LeClercq's definition of the hermit life, "the hermit is the person who, in the church, is united to God with a minimum of structure." With canon 603's creation and implementation the trick was and still is to allow for sufficient institutionalization (which helps ensure a genuinely ecclesial vocation) while allowing for the simplicity and essential freedom of the life itself; everyone I know (of) is aware of and careful of this. So where does this move towards "greater institutionalization" currently come from --- at least as far as I am aware?

It seems to me the Church is beginning to have a larger number of canonical hermits with lived experience of Canon 603, its strengths, weaknesses, and essential values as lived out in the contemporary church and world. Because of this lived experience hermits inform their Bishops (or, if they have other ways of communicating, others who are concerned with consecrated life in the Church) of what is working, what is not and how things can be improved upon, what is absolutely necessary for the life, what variations are legitimate, which variations seem to be illegitimate in a general sense, what is prudent or not, etc. For the most part all of this comes from what the hermits themselves have found to be the case, what they are actually living on the ground, and particularly what they are living with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and the Church's own monastic and eremitical traditions in dialogue with the 20 and 21st centuries. It does not, on the other hand, tend to come from Rome, or from the hierarchy more generally as an imposition from above or outside the life itself. It certainly does not come from women hermits needing to be "Mom" or to fulfill "house roles", etc!

One area that comes to mind which seems to call for greater institutionalization or formalization (though cautiously, VERY cautiously), and one I have written on before is that of formation of hermits. I have said that hermits are made out of the exigencies of life and the grace of God (remember Merton said hermits are made by difficult Mothers and the grace of God). However, a part of both of these is the personal formation an individual is responsible for getting or participating in on a lifetime basis. What I have noted about this in the past is that dioceses do NOT form hermits. They recognize and evaluate (discern) vocations when they come through the door of the Office of the Vicar for Religious, et al. They may also assist a person in getting further formation by referring them to communities who have agreed to help, seminaries who provide such, spiritual directors, etc, but in no case that I know of do dioceses take a complete novice to eremitical life and "form them" as hermits. Again, what dioceses tend to find (and something I have written about from my own experience) is that in some essential sense the person must be a hermit when she walks through the chancery door to petition for admission to vows under Canon 603.

Because this is the case, lots of questions are raised. Some include: what formation is necessary? Can anyone be a hermit even without formation? How does an individual achieve the necessary formation? (Must they be part of a religious community for some time, for instance?) What is required? Where is it best achieved? Who pays for it (the answer is ALWAYS the hermit herself unless she is part of a congregation for some of this time)? What happens if a person has no resources available to them? What is adequate formation for eremitical life and what is not? What happens to needs for therapy (if this is an individual need), direction, etc and how do these figure into the discernment of a vocation? To discernment about the quality of continuing in this vocation? How about ministry in the limited ways hermits may undertake ministry apart from their life of prayer: what constitutes adequate formation here and how is it undertaken? Who oversees all this: before profession? After perpetual profession? What is the Bishop's or diocese's role in all of this? What role does a "diocesan delegate" serve and is it a necessary role in assisting both hermit and diocese in fulfilling the demands of Canon 603 and this vocation?

Note well though, again, all of these questions are imposed or raised in the living of the life itself. They are not imposed or raised from the outside as though they are not intrinsic to the living of the life, or as though they reflect some legalistic or disciplinary mindset which merely likes to multiply requirements, for instance. Further, no diocesan hermits themselves are imposing such "regulations" on anyone. Hermits and their Bishops find that given certain prudential practices the hermit vocations they have experience with are good (exemplary, joyful, etc), and that without taking the time to be certain of these prudential practices or requirements, the vocations that have resulted can be a greater cause of scandal and disappointment.

Another area that comes to mind is length of time required before first profession or until perpetual profession. What is really generally necessary because of the nature of the vocation itself? How will this differ from person to person and why? The Canon does not spell this out and the canons for religious life do not fit eremitical vocations as neatly as one might wish --- though they are important considerations. Therefore, in general, what is a reasonable period of time for 1) living as a lay hermit before petitioning for profession? 2) temporary profession, 3) preparing in a conscious and discerning way for perpetual profession? Lived experience says that some dioceses have not allowed enough time in this entire process and so, have been imprudent, while others, for various reasons, have extended the time frames inordinately and perhaps harmed or at least endangered vocations in the process. Because of this it is true that hermits inform their Bishops (et al) regarding their own experience in this, while dioceses assess their own experience, and the result may be a precedent being set as a general guideline. Again though, the precedent stems from lived experience; it is not merely imposed from outside by someone with a bent for control, etc.

A third area that raises questions and calls for Bishops and Hermits both to answer on the basis of lived experience is ministry (or work) outside the hermitage (or apart from the strictly legislated elements of the vocation). Everyone needs to know that eremitical life involves a spectrum from complete reclusion to limited ministry and even work outside the hermitage. However, what is really legitimate and what is not if a person is to truly be and remain a hermit? Precedents are set here on the basis of a lived experience of hermits who grow in their appropriation of their vocation, or who caution against certain things because it really does seem to hinder or prevent such growth. Precedents are not set arbitrarily by lawyers or hermits with a penchant for legalism or control.

For instance, the Canon (603) defines the vocation in terms of "stricter separation from the world." It does not say absolute reclusion. It does not say, "no outside ministry." At the same time, it does recognize that the silence of solitude is primary and that this along with stricter separation from the world and assiduous prayer and penance demands one actually be open to being called to greater and greater degrees of reclusion, if God wills that at any point. Because of this a diocese might adopt the precedent that all outside ministry should be evaluated regularly to be sure the hermit's life is truly one where the silence of solitude and stricter separation from the world (etc) are foundational and not secondary to ministry. It is lived experience which serves as the basis for such a precedent.

Finally, it should be noted again that hermits also make sure their Bishops hear what is necessary to ensure the flexibility and freedom of the hermit life. What should NOT be legislated? What cannot be effectively legislated except in the hermit's own Rule or Plan of Life? Where should rules (as opposed to a Rule or Regula) give way to lived experience in a way which leads to exceptions being made? What are common instances of this? Again, as I have written before, ordinarily in the Church law serves love ---- or is certainly meant to serve love. This means love of God, love (in this case) of the eremitical vocation and tradition, love of the Church as People of God, love of consecrated life and the vows that serve freedom in this life. It is generally up to diocesan hermits and their superiors to determine law which works in this way and no other. At least with regard to Canon 603 the precedents I have seen and heard hermits speak and write about tend to be guided by this concern and this priority --- which translates into a concern for the integrity and charism of the vocation. In any case, control (or, as your poster noted, "an innate [desire] to organize," etc) is usually pretty far from the hermit's heart and mind.

I hope this helps. If it raises more questions or is unclear I hope you will get back to me.