Made in the Image of God

A number of weeks ago in the book of Wisdom the author affirmed that we are made in the image of God and that we are, in fact, imperishable. Above all the writer wished us to be consoled and encouraged by these truths and our hope "be full of immortality".  He contrasted the shortness of our lives of suffering, the limitations in our seeing and understanding, the narrowness, that is, of our finite perspective with that of our Creator and Sustainer.  For the author of Wisdom, the symbols "imago dei" and "imperishabilty" are the symbols of our hope, but they function in this way precisely because they point less to us than they do to the unceasing faithfulness and love of God. My sense is that in the history of theology we have not always allowed them to do this as clearly or powerfully as we might. Two ways of looking at these things contrast in significant ways; thus, as we prepare for Christmas and the nativity of the One who will fully reveal what it means to be human as well as what Divinity truly is it is Jesus who shows us the nature of "imago dei" and real "imperishability". Because Jesus' revelation of both humanity and divinity accent relationality when we contrast a relational sense of both "imago dei" and the nature of our soul's imperishability  with an older and more substantialistic notion of these, we will find the former more compelling.

The Substantialistic Approach:

The first is a "substantialistic" way which tends to focus on human beings alone, gifted by God, yes, but still on the human being alone.  This way tends to be rather static and it looks at realities like imago dei or imperishability --- linked to an immortal soul --- as possessions we have --- fixed endowments or characteristics which exist in us. The most common of these have traditionally been identified as rationality, free will or volitionality, a moral sense, and a spiritual dimension or "component" (immortal soul, etc). As significant as these dimensions of the human being are this approach also has draw backs.

Sometimes they are seen as ends rather than means. They are spoken of to underscore our uniqueness and dignity but without a correlative sense of mission. They can be used to compartmentalize us and the idea of imago so that imago is linked to various dimensions within us but not to our humanity per se. Speaking of imago in this sense can tempt us to see ourselves as superior to the rest of creation and lead to a theology of isolated or estranged dominion over creation rather than of stewardship in collaboration. It can even lead to a theology where those who are more intelligent, more logical,  (or whatever the characteristic chosen) are seen as superior to those who are less intelligent, and so forth.

Another drawback is that this approach can make God seem to be the sum of certain human characteristics writ large. If we are rational, then God is supremely so; if we are a being, then God becomes a supreme being, and so forth. While it is true that God is rational, moral, etc in some sense, it is also the case that God is wholly other than these characteristics as embodied in human beings. God is their source and ground but he is not them merely writ LARGE. God is Being itself, rationality itself, meaning and beauty themselves; he is the ground and source of all of these but he is not A BEING, not even a supreme being. We cannot forget this. And finally, this approach to imago dei treats or tends to treat these elements or dimensions as possessions rather than as graces. Especially this approach tends to leave us speaking of imago dei as an entitlement and source of other entitlements rather than a vocation and mission to be lived for the benefit of creation.

With regard to immortality this same substantialistic approach treats our own imperishability similarly. We think of ourselves as HAVING an immortal soul --- a possession which, to some extent seems to us to be independent of God's continuing act of being God, God's continuing sustaining action. We think of our bodies as ceasing but our souls as continuing because they themselves are immortal. In the past this distortion of Scriptural theology has lead us to a dualism which demeans and discounts the human body or rejects the nature of human beings as embodied spirit; it also led to an at least implicit questioning of  the nature of and need for resurrection. (If our souls, which are the (supposedly) "really essential part of us", are immortal, then why do we need resurrection? If resurrection is merely a reuniting of body and soul, then how is it also an even in which death and sin are destroyed?). In turn this led to a whole host of difficulties including taking seriously life on earth, speaking rightly about the symbols heaven and hell, accommodating a Church and Gospel which are engaged in social justice, the problem of moving folks away from individualistic notions of spirituality focused on "getting (their souls) to heaven, " etc.

The Relational Approach:

But there is a second way of approaching both the symbol imago dei, and the reality of human imperishability or immortality. It is a relational way of seeing the human being as such, and therefore too, these two central dimensions of human dignity. It says clearly that we are made in the image of God only to the degree we are in relationship with God and it notes that our imperishability comes to us moment by moment and is entirely dependent on God's unceasing faithfulness and love for us.

Jesus is the clearest model of what it means to be imago dei.  He demonstrates to us that imaging God is precisely what human beings are called to do. Throughout his life we are told that Jesus grew in grace and stature --- meaning that  through the grace (very presence) of God he grew more and more into a human being who exhaustively revealed God to and within the world. Throughout his life Jesus becomes more and more transparent to the One he calls Abba. (For Jesus and for each of us this is what it means to be human and to glorify God.) Throughout the Gospels we see him choose to let go of those things which are an assertion of self or otherwise are obstacles to revealing (in all three senses!) God clearly. Think especially here of his relinquishing of family (both primary and secondary) and claiming as his true Mothers and Brothers and Sisters those "nobodies" and "outcasts" who see God in him. Think of his time in the desert when he lets go of ambition, personal power, and  the limited security that comes from these to rely wholly on God; think of his continued clashes with Judaism or the surrounding honor/shame culture when he embraces the insecurity of one who trusts whole-heartedly and ultimately in God. And of course, consider his final trial, passion, and death when he becomes the epitome of human failure and shamefulness, and instead is and remains entirely helpless and exhaustively open to God being the sole source of life and meaning.

Throughout his life Jesus grows more and more into God's own counterpart. He reveals in his own humanity both what it means to be human and who God is. Where God seeks to love, Jesus allows it and lives from it so that we all might do  the same. Where God desires to enter exhaustively into every moment and mood of our world, including sin and godless death, where he seeks to turn a human face to us Jesus is open and responsive to this desire. Where of course Jesus shows us a capacity human beings as human have to reveal God he more clearly demonstrates to us that imago dei is a calling we are entrusted with and a mission we have been created to carry out in relationship with God. In Jesus' life it is the combination of human openness to God and God's love for his creation which together constitute the great grace we call the image of God. (Paul's version of this is summarized in 2 Cor 12:9 when he reprises God's self revelation, "My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.") What Jesus models for is is the truth that imago dei is the call entrusted to human beings to be wholly transparent to God in all the ways God desires.

Immortality is also Relational

Just as imago dei is a relational term referring to the reality that comes to be when we are open and responsive to the love of God, so too is immortality a relational term. We are imperishable only because and insofar as God loves us.  Though he was speaking of something else at the time, Dom Robert Hale, OSB Cam once said: "God sustains us like a singer sustains a note." I have come to understand this as an image of the nature of the human person and the human soul's immortality.  What is so striking for me in this statement is the way both human and divine are inextricably wed as well as how dynamic an image it is. There is no way our being becomes a static possession --- and neither is there any way we can understand humanity apart from relatedness to God. Similarly, our spirits or souls possess immortality because they are of God --- not in a kind of indirect or derivative way and especially not of themselves, but because they are his continuing, unfailing activity within us.

For the New Testament writers, and especially for Paul, death is a power which needs to be brought under complete subjection. Our hope is in the resurrection because it proves for us God's power over death in his commitment to us --- sinners whom he loves with an everlasting love. Any victory that death wins in this life is temporary --- for God will neither forget us nor cease from breathing us forth. We have immortality because God is immortal and because our own existence is wholly dependent on God. We are immortal to the extent we are in relationship with God --- and fortunately for us, God is at work in Christ reconciling us to himself so that that relationship will never cease.

Being What we Are Called to Be, the Counterparts of God

Christmas is about what happens when people accept God's invitation to be his coun-terparts in significant ways and especially it is about the birth of the One who would be God's counterpart in an exhaustive and definitive way. Joseph, Mary, Jesus, John the Baptist, Anna, Elizabeth --- all of these persons allow God to speak through them in significant ways; they allow the breath of God to take form and expression in their very lives. They become these expressions, these words or language events. As a result we have births summoned out of barrenness, fullness of life called to be from virginity, muteness and paralyzing fear transformed into canticles of joy and hope, and human beings who become more and more transparent mediators of the very Spirit of God as they hearken to God's will to love them into wholeness and to bring the whole of creation to fulfillment through them.

The climax is the Word made fully incarnate in the man, Jesus who is God's counterpart in a way which is paradigmatic for the rest of us. In other words with Christmas we celebrate the stories of a God who seeks to find in his creation a counterpart, one who would be responsive to and share his love in every moment and mood of his existence. We also therefore, celebrate the stories of a chorus of people who themselves prepare for this event by allowing God to sustain and shape them as a singer sustains and shapes a note. The paean of praise that results, both individually and collectively,  is also the revelation of what it means to be imago dei and truly imperishable. In short, it reveals the vocation of every human being to be a Word event continually enlivened and empowered by the eternal breath of God.

Followup Questions: Too Sinful for Christmas?

[[Dear Sister, I know in your last post you don't say that mortal sin does not exist, but it sounds like you come dangerously close to doing so. If you are not merely being sneaky or dishonest in this, aren't you sugarcoating things for the person you answered? Do you believe in a sin which can be serious enough to deprive us of the friendship of God or not? ]]

Thanks for your questions. In my last post I was very careful to address misperceptions the term "mortal" could lead to and not to deny the reality of "mortal sin" itself. It is true I prefer the term grave sin to mortal sin, but that is not necessarily the same as denying the reality of it is it?  So to answer your question I must first point out not only what the Church generally teaches about the nature and effects of mortal sin, but also speak a little of the nature of friendship with God --- which is, of course, a relationship involving ourselves and God.

It is significant that in the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) the entire section on sin begins with a discussion of the mercy of God. The mercy of God revealed (made known and made real among us in the Christ Event) clearly has priority in the discussion and the Church has actually chosen to cite St Paul at this point, "Where sin abounded (or increased) grace abounded all the more." (Rom 5:20) At this point the Church makes clear our own responsibility to cooperate with or receive grace, both to uncover sin and to move beyond it. She quotes John Paul II's comment on conversion and notes a double gift of grace: 1) to illumine our sinfulness and empower us to make a good conscience judgment in its regard, and 2) "the [objective] certainty of redemption."

I note all this because in the post which raised your questions the person I was addressing had clearly received grace in the first sense: that is, he knew his sin and the seriousness of it; he had repented and repented again and again. What he seemed to me to NOT be aware of was the second element JPII mentioned, the second element in Paul's statement in Romans, namely, the certainty of redemption --- the surety that wherever sin abounds, in Christ grace abounds all the more. This is something which detracted from allowing his acts of repentance being all they might have been and all they might have become or matured into. It is not sugarcoating the matter to emphasize there is another and even more critical element in the equation of divine-human friendship, or in the situation of human sin than the sin itself. The grace of God empowers awareness of sin; it allows us to stand outside sin to some extent in recognizing and claiming it. However it ALSO assures us that the power of God's love has conquered sin. Both dimensions must be present for us if we are to repent and move into the future created by that Love.

In other words, until the person I wrote to or any of us realize that our sense of sin and our remorse for that is also the fruit of God's grace and that God absolutely desires and does not cease trying to bring us even further than this we will be stuck in the rut of trying to change our own hearts, trying to pull ourselves out of the muck we have often fallen into --- all by our own power. We will confess and confess but never move beyond that sin. [I should say here that what may need serious healing is not guilt per se but the shame which can attach and likely has done in cases where we cannot accept forgiveness or "forgive ourselves''.] We must ALSO believe that God's love is freely given and that it and it alone is capable of bringing us further. When we believe in this unconditional gratuitous love we will begin to give that love room to operate and the more we give it room to operate the more we will come to believe in it and live in light of it. The focus of our lives has to change, however. We cannot be wholly mesmerized by our sinfulness; we must instead become entranced by the love of God and who we are in light of that. When that happens we will not only recognize and confess our sin, we will begin to experience more fully Christ's victory over sin gained by the mercy of God.


Let me also note that what we are told is that mortal sin deprives us of friendship with God. (Please note the CCC does NOT explain things in these terms.**) However, there are two ways of hearing that phrase, "deprives us of friendship with God." It can mean that we cease to be active partners in the friendship. It can also mean that God does, that he is so offended that he turns away from us until we grovel to him in abject misery. Finally it can refer to a mutual rejection of friendship. What my post to persons concerned with mortal sin said is that deprivation of friendship with God NEVER means that God rejects us; it never means that he withholds his love from us or that he ever ceases to think of us or call us to truly be his friends. God does not WAIT for us to find our way back. We cannot do that after all. He seeks us out in our sinfulness.

If it is anything Christmas proclaims it is this. That is one reason Luke's parable of the prodigal son is also the parable of the prodigal (extravagantly loving) Father --- the one who runs out against all custom and propriety to meet his younger son and welcome him home; the one who redefines repentance in terms of allowing oneself to be made Son/Daughter and feasted because of God's over-joyousness at our return. On the other hand, to no longer be in a state of grace means to no longer be one who lives from that grace. It means instead that we have taken something else to be the focus and foundation of our lives. We have journeyed to a far place alone and left the Father grieving, waiting, and watching the horizon for the slightest glimpse or hint of our return. It means that through our own actions we may well have lost or critically injured our own friendship WITH God but we have not lost the friendship OF God. This is the truth I believe in and I believe it completely.

** The CCC in par 1855 notes in explaining the gravity of mortal sin: [[Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.]] N.B., It does not say that God turns away from us, for instance, nor that he ceases to love us or offer us grace (his very life). In fact, in 1861 it notes that "although we can judge that an act is itself a grave offense, we must entrust judgment of persons to the justice and mercy of God." It is good to remember this in our own cases of grave  (or any) sin as well --- and likewise entrust ourselves to what the CCC refers to as the [objective] certainty of redemption. 

Am I too sinful for Christmas?

During seasons like Advent we prepare ourselves for the coming of God anew. We celebrate that he has come into our sinful world and will come again and again into sinful lives to renew our hearts, to open pathways within them that have become narrowed or distorted and which therefore prevent God from flooding our lives with his love. During this time those who find themselves beset by serious sin may make the fundamental mistake of believing that God will not be present to them until they repent, that he will not draw close until they can purify themselves. And this is especially true if the person's sin has been grave or "mortal". In Christ we find ourselves the subjects of an incredible paradox --- that we are both graced and sinful at the same time; we are held in existence by God while still separated from him; we have a continually God-breathed soul, and a heart in which God resides even while we reject God and refuse to reside in him.

The language of mortal sin reveals the urgency and gravity of the situation of sin but it can, unfortunately, also contribute to the problem mentioned above. It may lead some to think of themselves as too sinful for Christmas. But Christ is born in a space for animals and laid in a feeding trough. God comes to be with us IN our sin even as he frees us FROM our sin; such humility is his very nature and we must take that side of the equation seriously as well.

The following is typical of questions I have received over a number of years, but which come up more frequently during holiday times and seasons like Advent and Lent : [[Dear Sister, I am dealing with a recurring mortal sin. I have tried to develop a prayer life but then I go back to this sin and it prevents me from succeeding in that. I have had many people pray for me and have even had an exorcism prayed over me; I have fasted, used a discipline [a small scourge], but still I return to this sin. I am writing to ask if you will pray for me? Thank you.]]

I will certainly pray for you, but I need to suggest to you that you may be allowing the term "mortal sin" to prevent you from praying and developing a prayer life --- or from believing that you can do so. While it is good to have people pray "over you" or for you the simple fact is that the only real cure for our own sin is developing a relationship with God (and probably with others) despite our sin. At some point you need to  be able to stand before God and trust God working in you and loving you in spite of your sin. In other words, continue to pray no matter what. God has not left you even if you turn from his life. He is always there knocking, waiting, offering his love (his very Self in act), and holding you in existence. Serious sin is certainly a significant concern but the term "mortal" can be misleading and cause us to believe God is not present to or within us, or that he ceases to love us while we are in such a state. Neither of these things is true --- not even in the state of "mortal sin." (Were they true, then repentance would be something we would have to come to on our own power.)

In Jesus' day certain illnesses were considered the result of demonic possession. When the disciples could not heal one of these, could not "cast out" the spirits involved, they asked Jesus why not. He answered that this kind of thing could only be done by prayer. The prayer was his own, but it was ALSO the prayer of the person who had turned to him (since turning to Jesus IS one dimension of prayer). Paul wrote that Jesus died for us (that is, God showed the absolute depths of his love in reaching down to us) "while we were yet sinners." Paul also was very clear about the conflict he found inside himself when he wrote, "The things I would not do I do and the things I would do I do not do." He then cried out in great anguish, "Who will save me from this body of death?" He uttered this as a man of sin AND prayer and his answer was a cry of gratitude to Christ and the God who worked to love him into wholeness in spite of (or even in light of) the great division in Paul's very self.

 By the way, since you mention taking the discipline I want to say that personally I find that a typically masculine and frankly wrongheaded way to deal with some sins, but especially with sexual sins. (I do not know what your sin is, so forgive my assumptions here.) I once answered questions online with a number of other Catholic leaders. I found the priests there often counselled an approach resembling "going mano a mano with the sin" or "beating the sin (or our bodies) into submission." My own approach is very different. You see, unfortunately, with things like taking the discipline what is far more likely to happen is pain and pleasure become more and more closely associated in the person's mind (one's thoughts, images, fantasies) and brain (one's neurochemistry, neural pathways, etc) and one will begin to include or build sadistic or masochistic elements into one's compulsion. (I use this term because your own situation sounds like it has a strong aspect of compulsion.) This only complicates matters and makes things harder to deal with. It is far more helpful to be sure one's own life is full, balanced,  marked by love (both given and received), and that it is  "penitential" in more everyday ways which temper our appetites more generally while fulfilling true needs. (For instance, eating healthily, getting enough and regular sleep, taking time for exercise and other forms of recreation -- including reading, conversations with others, hobbies, etc --- can be considered penitential practices and have benefits which are wide-ranging.)

 Finally, I would ask you to examine the orientation and thrust of your entire life. You may sin mortally (that is, gravely, or seriously), but it sounds like more fundamentally you are ALSO making decisions for God, that you yearn for God, etc. If that is the case then realize what is more fundamental in your life than even this compulsion and build on that. More, allow God to build on that with you. You cannot be making choices for life, for love, for the prayer of others, nor struggling against sin if God is not also alive within you and if you are not graced in an evident and real way --- and I suggest that it is evidently the case for you.

While this does not mean serious or grave sin is okay of course, nor that we can blow it off as nothing of real consequence, it does argue that you are a good deal more than this one sin and that you do NOT need to allow it to dominate your life. Of course, other things must do so instead ---- especially a life of prayer. Though I can make some suggestions here, in the main I would encourage you to find a good spiritual director who can help you in this; after all a prayer life is much more than a life of saying prayers. Not least, a good director can assist you in healing from the woundedness (including a woundedness sometimes of will) which may lead to behavior which is unworthy of being chosen. I would also suggest that you allow the focus in your own attention to move away from this sin (which is really a way of being focused on yourself) and onto the love and graciousness of God. Pay some attention to the ways in which you have to be thankful, the ways love is real in your life. Act out of that sense; celebrate the sacrament of penance out of that awareness rather than simply out of guilt and shame. In other words try to develop an attitude of gratitude and hope  rather than one of shame, guilt, and even subtle despair. In my own experience real remorse with a true purpose of amendment stems from a sense of gratitude and the responsiveness it empowers more readily than it does from guilt or sorrow alone.

Thanks for your patience with this long reply. If it raises questions for you, or if you would like to write again in the future, please feel free to do so. I would ask that if you write again you actually name the sin you are speaking of. As you can imagine, it makes some difference in tailoring comments, for instance, if a person is dealing with the compulsion to masturbate as opposed to the compulsion to be a serial killer. (By the way, the element of compulsion itself is something which can mitigate the seriousness of the sin, but I have chosen not to discuss that here. That is so not only because I assume you have accurately described the gravity of your actions but because the resolution of the situation still requires attending to God's action in our lives and the development of an attitude of gratitude, etc.)

Dolphin Turns to Divers for Assistance

Human beings are called to be stewards of the earth. We are meant to use our intelligence to allow the entire cosmic drama to come to articulateness. The more we understand and participate in the world in this way, the more creation achieves fullness. We have evolved to understand that there is dialogue even between vastly different species and we also know that this dialogue may itself contribute to continued evolution. During a season when we prepare for the Word assuming flesh it is good to remind ourselves that the Logos of God is the basis of ALL creation and all creation is groaning for the fulfillment coming to us in Christ.

Christmas is a cosmic feast, an event affecting the whole of creation; it is an event which is not only focused on the salvation of human beings and deliverance from their sin, but instead on creation coming to a fullness which allows God to find a true counterpart. I found this video to be a remarkable snapshot of a theology which is more prevalent today (though present in Paul's theology or that of Origin, Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure) than it has been in the past. How many such overtures to genuine stewardship and compassionate dialogue do we miss or dismiss in our own lives?

What Hermits do to "Relax"

Of course I don't know what hermits in general do to relax but here is one of the things I do for recreation. On November 24th the Oakland Civic Orchestra opened this season with a program including the following along with the Tchaikovsky waltz from Eugene Onegin and Brahm's 4th Symphony. As I have noted before, we rehearse one evening a week and are an all amateur orchestra with folks from all walks of life. This concert was especially challenging, not only for Brahm's 4th, but because we were accompanying such a fine young musician in a movement from the Dvorak cello concerto in B minor. Accompanying well requires a very different skill set in some ways than does playing a piece written primarily for orchestra. We all continue to learn --- and especially we learn to listen so that together we might make music. In its own way it is a very Benedictine practice.

Tchaikovsky's Polonaise from Eugene Onegin. Conducted by Jason Oestenstad (associate conductor)


Dvorak's Concerto for Cello in B minor, Movement #1. As noted, we are playing with an amazing soloist --- high school senior Jasper Hussong. Conducted by Marty Stoddard (Artistic Director and Conductor) Jasper is in the midst of applying to colleges and sending in audition tapes. Someone will be lucky to get him!

The Gifts We Bring

At a time when we consider receiving and giving gifts, especially the gift God gives and the gift we make of ourselves in return, this is a pretty fantastic video. Enjoy.

On Canon 603 Hermits and Some Supposed Drawbacks of Canonical Standing

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I saw two videos on You Tube from someone called "J__H__" (name omitted by Sr L.). She writes against canonical status for hermits and says it is not necessary even though it may have been thought to be necessary by some well-intentioned Bishops. She also complains that there are all kinds of rules and laws coming to be about hermit life which in her opinion seem to trespass against the individuality of the hermit. I felt she believed that canonical hermits were at the mercy of their Bishops too. She gave the example of a young woman living a reclusive life according to the will of her Bishop and said that if another Bishop came in the young woman might find him changing her life from reclusive to something else. Is this true? I am sending you the links for the videos I watched. There are a number of others too.]]

Thanks for your questions. I am personally sorry to hear these videos are still available. (Yes, I was already aware of them.) I have received questions about them in the past -- though I knew of them anyway -- but nothing recently. I found that the videos I saw, which included the ones you linked me to, were full of misconceptions about canon 603 life, the history of canon 603, the reasons for the existence of the canon, etc. The questions you are asking touch on some of these issues.

The remarkable Balance of Canon 603:

To be honest I think canon 603 does an amazing job of protecting the individuality of  hermits professed under it. While it is true that there are non-negotiable elements which are part of the canon, namely a publicly vowed** and consecrated life of stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, all carried out under a Rule the hermit writes for herself and lives under the supervision of her Bishop --- it is also the case that the Rule the hermit writes ensures that the non-negotiable elements as well as anything else which the hermit considers critical for her life are combined in a wholly individual constellation. These are then lived out under the supervision of the Bishop and (ordinarily) with the assistance of a delegate (a quasi superior) either the Bishop or the hermit chooses for this service role.

This combination of non-negotiable elements, individual experience and needs, along with supervision which is geared entirely towards assisting the hermit in these things, is an aspect of true brilliance in the composition of canon 603. It manages to allow for serious and mature individuality while protecting the very nature of eremitical life itself and the charisma it is for the contemporary Church and world. In other words, it protects the authentic freedom of the Holy Spirit and the Tradition that Spirit is inspiring now as a gift to the life of the Church --- just as the Spirit also originally was 1700 years ago and has done throughout the centuries.

When New Bishops Come into Office:

Regarding your question about new Bishops, I have received similar questions in the past so you might want to look those up as well. The basic answer is that a new Bishop will not unilaterally make serious changes in the hermit's life or Rule because that Rule has been approved canonically by another Bishop. (On the day of profession the hermit's Rule is given a Bishop's Declaration of Approval because it becomes legally binding on the hermit.) If, for example, after meeting with the hermit, a new Bishop believes she needs to be seeing more or less of  her family, or needs to be either more or less reclusive generally, or any number of other things,  these beliefs would have to be based on serious concerns about the hermit's well-being and that of the vocation itself for him to demand changes. In such a case, especially if the hermit disputes these opinions, there will be continuing conversations with the hermit, as well as a conversation with her delegate; others might also be involved: Vicars for Religious who might know and have worked with the hermit, the hermit's pastor and, conceivably, the Bishop in whose hands she was originally or perpetually professed and under whose supervision she had been living for some time.What does not (and I would think, cannot) happen is that a Bishop who believes that all hermits should (or should not) be recluses (or whatever) can change the character of a hermit's Rule and life by mere fiat.

Your question had another problem (or constellation of problems) embedded in it. It seemed to indicate that the hermit is living a certain way because her Bishop demanded she do so in the first place --- possibly in order to be professed at all. In the video you referred me to JH did indeed seem to indicate that a young woman embraced this form of eremitical life because her Bishop mistakenly believed it was the only way to live an eremitical life. Assuming JH has her facts right, then a new Bishop, especially if he was more knowledgeable about the diversity and continuity of eremitical life, could indeed open up new possibilities for this hermit. Were he to sense that the young woman (assuming she truly made her vows freely) was living a Rule, elements of which she felt forced to embrace despite her own experience and discernment, the new Bishop would need to assist her to find a better expression of it. The same conversations mentioned above would need to take place and the diocese (perhaps through the assistance of the delegate) would need to work with the hermit to be sure she rewrote her Rule in a way which best suited her own unique call even as it protected the essential nature of the vocation and the non-negotiable elements of canon 603.

But let me be clear about two things: first, unless the hermit herself decided she was no longer called to live as a hermit and requested dispensation from her vows, the resolution of the situation comes from the hermit's own revision of her Rule so that it better reflects what is healthy for her AND for her vocation. Second, if the original Bishop was merely demanding the essential living out of the non-negotiable elements of the canon in ways which are typical of diocesan hermits everywhere with reasonable accommodations for home visits, contact with friends, horarium, prayer styles and patterns, etc, then the question would become one of whether or not the person was really called to this vocation. Here we have another reason dioceses should be sure candidates for profession have sufficient experience before writing a Rule which will bind them in law as well as a reason which argues against a Bishop being the one to author the Rule himself. It also argues for temporary professions as a matter of course *** and different Rules at each stage of the individual's growth in becoming a diocesan hermit.

Resolving Problems related to a Hermit Who is not living her Rule or the Elements of the Canon:

Let's also look at a similar question which might indeed come up when a new Bishop comes on the scene. If, after 2-3 meetings with the hermit, at least one of which has to do with the contents and living out of her Rule, and perhaps a subsequent clarifying conversation with the hermit's delegate, such a Bishop decides a hermit is not living her Rule with sufficient seriousness or integrity, then he has every right to explain the matter to her and demand that she make appropriate changes. If she is truly being lax then she will need to take necessary steps to resolve this; if changes in her physical health or other changes in her spirituality or her more general situation have led to parts of her Rule no longer working for her, then  she must write appropriate alternatives into the Rule and have these approved by the Bishop. The delegate may again have a significant role in assisting both the Bishop and the Hermit in such a situation. She may have a sense of resources the hermit needs to live her Rule with fidelity or be aware of concerns the Bishop is not; she can also assist the hermit to articulate the ways in which she will revise her Rule if that is part of the solution. (It is possible the new bishop perceives the Rule itself is not strict enough. That is a different situation and in such a case the bishop himself may benefit from education and more contact with the hermit involved.)

The point, however, is that in this situation as with the others mentioned, canonical standing sets up a series of relationships meant to allow the individual hermit to truly respond to her vocation as is best for her and as God truly wills. Canonical standing ("status") does not mean a position of privilege or superficial "approval". Instead it means that the persons involved have been granted legal rights and accepted legal obligations as well. This is not about legalism. The prudent use of law is simply the way genuine freedom is exercised and protected in both Church and society. Canonical standing protects the Church from the eccentricities and destruction of narcissism or excessive individualism of loners seeking to call themselves "Catholic hermits" while it protects diocesan hermits from the whims of those who neither understand nor approve of the vocation. Contrary to the points made in the videos you referenced, it is precisely the individual nature of eremitical life that calls for Canon 603. In this way the Church makes sure traditional eremitical life itself (and not some form of self-indulgent isolation or misanthropy) is being lived while making sure that the individual hermit has the support and genuine freedom required to do so.

** Some canon 603 hermits use sacred bonds other than vows just as Canon 603 allows for.
*** Individual cases may allow for perpetual profession without temporary vows preceding this commitment, but this will be a rare situation and this option is usually inadvisable.

A Little Child Shall Lead Them (Reprise)

This morning (1st Sunday of Advent) I served as an EEM for one of the Masses. It is something I usually only do to fill in when someone else can't come for one reason and another, but I love doing it because of the unique dynamics of sharing and worship involved. Today a Father and Daughter appproached me, and the child was too young for Communion so she expected a word and gesture of "blessing". As I smiled at her and reached down to do that she slipped a small folded square of paper into my hand. Surprised and touched I looked at it very briefly, thanked her, wished her a wonderful season, and put the paper in the pocket of my habit beneath my cowl. I gave her Father, who smiled as he watched all this, Communion, and finished with the rest of this service.

Before I went back to my place though, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little square of paper. For the first time I saw that it had "Jesus" printed on the front. This little girl clearly knew who THIS was supposed to go to and I guess she figured I could deliver it! When I opened it I saw that the she had drawn a picture of herself smiling with arms outstretched. In approaching God's altar she had brought herself as a gift. It was the most incredible little "love note" I have ever seen, and it is precisely what Advent (or Christian life more generally) is all about.

When I got home I looked ahead to Tuesday's readings [we have the same readings this Tuesday, 2013] because we will have a Communion service that morning due to our Pastor's need to celebrate a funeral Mass elsewhere and the illness of our other resident priest. Imagine how I felt when I saw that Tuesday's Gospel was from Luke (Lk 10:22) and is the continuation of the passage where Jesus criticizes trusting the intelligence and sophistication of the world and tells his disciples they should become as little children! "The things of God are hidden from the wise and learned and revealed to the childlike."

Well, the miracle I had just experienced is what he is speaking of: namely, coming to Jesus without self consciousness, aware that anything is possible (including a hermit delivering a child's love note to Jesus!), and ready to give oneself and one's gifts, no matter how humble or silly in worldly terms, to become Christ for others, part of the Cosmic Christ no matter our apparent insignificance: it is to these that God's power will really be revealed. It is these IN WHOM God's power will be revealed to us! Afterall, we are the ones who celebrate that God himself could and did reveal himself exhaustively to us in human flesh. We are the foolish ones who believe that evident in the infant Jesus is the awesome power of a love which dwarfs and overcomes all other powers in our world and will indeed heal and perfect the whole of creation! We are the ones who believe that our's is indeed a God whose power (i.e., his sovereign, merciful, and infinitely creative love) is perfected, not mitigated, in weakness.

Now, before I received this precious love note we had just listened to a homily on being open to God acting in awesome and surprising ways and at unexpected times. The presider and homilist encouraged us to set aside our agendas and, as the Scriptures asked, to be aware and watchful: expect the unexpected, be open to the sovereign Creator God who comes in surprising ways and meets us in the unexpected place. Well, I had expected to meet God there in the Eucharist, but I had not expected to receive a small and wonderful miracle like this: a living homily, an enacted parable, which itself was far more powerful than the priest or any theologian, with all their theological learning and sophistication could have given. As Jesus implicitly asks of us on Tuesday, setting the tone and agenda for Advent, "become as little children" for, as Isaiah tells us in the first lection, "a little child shall lead (us)". I encourage you to let the image of THIS little one in Christ -- lead you. It is certainly what I am going to do. After all, she writes love letters to Jesus and approaches God's altar to faithfully entrust  herself through them to hermit nuns for delivery when she is not yet even allowed to receive Communion! She understands Christmas and the reason for Advent completely. She embodied it perfectly at that moment. Standing before the altar of God she WAS the gift she was made to be; is there any doubt that God was absolutely delighted as he contemplated this pure instance of his Kingdom fulfilled right here and now?

P.S. the note resides in the Tabernacle here at Stillsong for the time being. My littlest homilist and living parable wanted it delivered, and, in more ways than this of course, delivered it has been!

Advent Reading

 I wanted to recommend a book for Advent this year, especially since we are using Matthew's Gospel. It is Pagola's The Way Opened Up by Jesus, a Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.

While the book does function as a commentary it is also very fine for lectio and could be used profitably during this season by anyone desiring to learn to know Jesus a little better while preparing to hear the daily Gospel passages proclaimed at Mass. Pagola writes in a way which opens our hearts to the truth of God revealed in the Son.

For each of us Christmas is a time when we commonly decry the fact that Jesus and the Way he proclaimed and made possible is not at the center of our holidays; instead we get crass commercialism, greed, selfishness, the exacerbation of social isolation and family difficulties, etc, etc. The problem  of course is that what Christmas does do is lay bare the fact that too few of us truly allow Jesus Christ and his "Way" to occupy the center of our own hearts. Pagola's book can help in this. (Get it soon, there are few copies left on Amazon!)

For those who would like to focus instead on the Sunday readings Pagola also has three slender volumes for each of years A, B, and C. Each is entitled Following in the Footsteps of Jesus with the appropriate year completing the title. Each is a selection of meditations on the Sunday Gospels. I would also recommend Pagola's Jesus, a Historical Approximation, but I think it is even harder to find than his commentary on Matthew. (Amazon was selling a used copy for more than $4,000! I have never seen anything like it, especially since it was originally published in only 2007! If you can find a library copy though, please do give this a read.)

Next, I recommend Pope Francis's Open Mind, Faithful Heart.  Another collection of meditations on Scripture Francis invites us to do lectio with him and to enter into significant prayer and discipleship more generally. Each meditation is profoundly Scriptural and shows both an extensive and intensive familiarity with these. Prayers accompany the meditations, some of which are really beautifully written and all of which invite us to personally claim as our own the way of Jesus Christ. I have found it a book one best works through slowly and reflectively.

And finally, for both Advent and Christmas reading I suggest two books. The first is Illia Delio's Humilty of God.  Sister Delio is a Franciscan Sister, well-known for her work on the way the new cosmology challenges and informs contemporary spirituality. Building on the work of Bonaventure and Francis, Sister Illia gives us an amazingly contemporary understanding of the humility of God which illuminates the mystery of the Trinity, the sacramentality of our world and selves, and of course, the essence of what we prepare to celebrate during Advent and Christmas, namely a God whose ineffable greatness is exhaustively embodied and revealed (that is, glorified) in the life of a human being. Sister Delio is completely comfortable with the paradoxes at the heart of our faith and is able to illuminate them so they are seen clearly and have a chance of taking hold of us.

While the writing is accessible and often beautiful, one line in the first chapter struck me especially when I first read it: [[If we could only see that God is there in the cracks of our splintered human lives we would already be healed. The humility of God means acceptance --- God accepts ordinary, fragile human flesh to reveal his glory so that we in turn may accept others as the revelation of God. Christ discloses the beauty of the world as the radiance of God. . . . The humility of God is not an abstract concept. It is how God expresses himself in concrete reality.]] This is a very rewarding book both theologically and spiritually.

The second book is Ruth Burrows', To Believe in Jesus. There are many fine book on Jesus out there and I could easily list half a dozen I have found excellent over the years, but this slender but rich volume is packed with material one can consider, pray over, grapple with and generally be delighted and nourished by. Sister Rachel puts knowing Jesus Christ (or, rather, being known by him) at the center of her spirituality, her theology of prayer, her notions of holiness, and so forth. This book is a profound meditation on many passages of Scripture (though they are usually left implicit). Her first chapter begins compellingly: [[ Do you believe in the Son of Man? To this question addressed by Jesus to the man he had cured of blindness, I am sure each of us would reply with a hearty 'yes'. We would be sincere, but we would not be speaking the truth.]]

During Advent it seems to me that one of the questions we must surely ask ourselves is this one --- and one of the answers we must also hear is Sister Rachel's. I have written before that each of us are always beginners in the arena of prayer, not least because God is eternal and therefore ever-new even while he continues to remake us into something new as well. The Humility of God spoken of by Sister Illia Delio is best matched by our own humility; Sister Rachel's book can help us with that! I highly recommend it!!

Eremitism: A Life of Constant Vigil (Reprised)

Perhaps it is the focus of Advent with its emphasis on preparation and waiting, but I came today to see my life specifically and eremitical life more generally as one of vigil --- and continuous vigil. Whether the time in cell is obviously fruitful or marked by darkness and seeming emptiness, whether one turns to prayer with joy and enthusiasm or with resistance and depression, one waits on the Lord. One spends one's time in vigil.

Now this is ironic in some ways because despite loving prayer at night the Office of Readings which is also called "Vigils" has never been my favorite hour and this last two years I have substituted another way of spending the time before dawn which has been very fruitful for me (and, I hope, that means fruitful in terms of what God wills!). The time from 4:00am to 8:00am has been one of vigil but it consists of quiet prayer, Lauds, and writing with some lectio. A Camaldolese nun mentioned her own monastery (and the one I am affiliated with as an Oblate) treating these same hours as a time of vigil and I very much liked the idea. I did not know that it would define both my day and my life, however.

There is something amazing about living in a way which is not "just" obedient (open and responsive) to the Lord, but which is actively awaiting him at every moment.(Yes, these are intimately related, but not always practiced that way.) The heart of Benedictine spirituality is the search for God. When candidates for Benedictine monastic life arrive at the monastery, the goal they are expected to affirm is the search for God. This is the defining characteristic of the authentic monastic life and a significant point of discerning a vocation. We can hear that phrase as emphasizing an active, even desperate attempt to find something that is missing from our lives, or we can hear it as a process of preparing ourselves to find the God who is immanent in our lives and world at every point. In the latter case our lives become a vigil to the extent they are transformed into something capable of perceiving and welcoming this immanent God.

Another central Benedictine value is hospitality, and there is no doubt it plays a very significant part in this perspective. While we ordinarily think of hospitality as offering a place for guests who come to the monastery or hermitage in search of something, we should extend the notion to God. All of our prayer is a way of offering hospitality to God; it is a way, that is, of giving him a personal place to stand in our lives and world. While God is omnipresent and the ground of the truly personal, he does NOT automatically have a personal place in our lives. Like someone whose name we do not know, he may impinge on our space, but until we call upon him by name and give him a place he cannot assume on his own, he will remain only impersonally there. And so, in prayer we call upon him by name ("Abba, Father"), we carve out space and time for him, we give him permission to enter our lives and hearts and to take up more and more extensive residence there. We offer him friendship, hospitality, and we structure our lives around his presence. We continually ready ourselves and look for him just as we look for a best friend we expect any time and thus our lives become a vigil.

For hermits, whose whole lives are given over to God in a focused and solitary way, vigil is simply another description of the environment, goal, and gift (charism) of eremitical life we refer to as "the silence of solitude." Those four hours before Mass or Communion in my daily horarium define the characteristic dynamic of the whole of my life --- at least when it is lived well! It is a vigil which requires the silence of solitude (i.e., external and internal silence and solitude), leads to the silence of solitude (i.e.,communion with God), and gifts the world with it and all it implies. During Advent especially I think the call to make something similar of our own lives is extended to every one of us in a special way.

Questions on Solitude: Both a Universal and a Rare Vocation?

[[Dear Sister, you write about eremitical solitude being a rare vocation. yet you also said that it is the most universal of vocations. So which is it? How is it that human beings can be such social animals and yet you can talk about solitude as a universal call. It sounds confused to me.]]

Three Main Forms of Solitude:

Thanks for your questions. The answer to your, "Which is it?" is not either/or but, as with so many things in Christianity, both/and. Part of what seems confusing is the use of the term solitude. It has a variety of meanings and these can especially differ if one is using it to speak of solitude in a world where the Christian God is real. Three main meanings in particular are important here. I therefore refer in a lot of posts here to physical solitude, existential solitude, and eremitical solitude. In the statement you are referring to I said that solitude itself was the most universal of vocations but it is the call to eremitical solitude which is very rare.

"Solitude" can first of all be used to speak of physical solitude, the state of being physically alone. I think this is often the meaning most folks attribute to the word. A hermit, who distances herself from so much sometimes called "the world" of people and events is certainly usually alone in this sense, but so are many others.

Secondly, "solitude" can be used to speak of the individual' s relationship to the world and its creator in the more existential sense; that is, it can point to the fact that we are each and all of us ultimately alone in this life and isolated from all others despite there being many people in our lives. Theologians speak of one aspect of solitude in this sense as the result of human sinfulness and therefore, as a result of estrangement or alienation from our deepest selves, from God, and so too from others. However, another, more positive side of it is our call to grow as individuals; especially in community we are not spared this call to individuation, this call to stand as integral and independent human beings. Still this existential solitude can be painful for it highlights both our most fundamental potential and deficiency.

Each of us knows this kind of solitude which is most intense when, for instance, we have acted wrongly, we are misunderstood, have been betrayed, feel alone or separate in a crowd, or simply have something too deep, or wonderful, or simply too difficult to share with anyone else; we know it especially when we consider death and the inevitability of dying alone. Even those we love profoundly and by whom we are are loved in the same way cannot entirely relieve us of either the challenge or the burden of this kind of solitude. In fact, the paradox of this kind of solitude --- whether as a call to individuation or as the burden of separateness --- is that it is often set in most vivid relief when we are with and are loved by others. In other words, this form of solitude is both most challenging and most painful because we are made for communion with others but are ultimately separated from them.

There is a third sense however which both includes these first two forms and mitigates the ultimacy of the second meaning. It is the notion of solitude which witnesses to the fact that we are not truly (or ultimately) alone because we are made for and in fact most essentially ARE a relationship with a God who is part of us and will never forget or abandon us. While one part of the paradox of eremitical life is that we are each ultimately alone with this God and called upon to live our lives in light of this foundational "transcendental" of our existence, the other is that this ultimate communion for which we are made is the reason for our community with others. Others, as well as our solitary prayer, mediate the love of God to us and in various ways introduce us to this ultimate form of communion.

Hermits especially, embrace a life of  physical solitude which sharpens our existential solitude so that we may live a contemplative life in the eremitical solitude of conscious communion with our God; the hermit knows this form of solitude as one which encompasses, but also transcends, and finally makes an ultimate sense of the first two senses of the term solitude. Because the hermit knows union with the God who grounds the existence of all creation, she also exists in communion with all those others in some incomplete or proleptic sense. When I have written about this before I have spoken of it as a solitude which redeems isolation and which provides hope to others that their own isolation can be transformed and transfigured, and so forth.

Communion is always implied by solitude and vice versa in human relatedness:

I would ask that you notice in each of these forms of solitude the reality of community exists at least implicitly --- even if it is present as an inescapable longing and potentialilty in loneliness. Similarly, in each experience of community that we know this side of death, there is also separateness we often call "solitude." Both poles are present in every experience of relatedness or unrelatedness we know. (Communion without solitude dissolves into a loss of identity; solitude without communion is isolation. Both are inhuman.) In physical solitude community exists as something from which we are separated for whatever reason. In existential solitude community is something we yearn for, something the memory or promise of which inspires and strengthens us in our aloneness, something to which we look forward to achieving or returning to, etc. The point is that in all human relatedness community exists even in its relative absence just as while in community we stand in a kind of solitude as individuals nonetheless.

Vocations accent either side of the paradox of human solitude/communion:

The Church has a number of vocations each of which highlights a side of our call to community (as you say, our social nature) and our solitary nature as well. Marriage and most forms of Religious life point primarily to the importance of community in coming to human wholeness. Each, however also witness to the fact that ultimately it is the human relationship with God which is of deepest significance. In marriage it is the case that each person is meant to bring the other to union with God; each person mediates the Love of God to the other in ways which allow them to come to human fullness and fruitfulness together. (This is why sexual intercourse is the ultimate symbol of marital love and is open to procreation.) In religious life community exists only to the extent that each Sister or Brother is faithful to prayer and all of the other things required by a solitary relationship with God. Moreover, community empowers faithfulness to this solitary relationship. The Church herself is this kind of reality of course. She is not simply a group of people brought together in some sort of club because of similar interests. She is Church only to the extent each of her members fulfills his or her own vocation to life with God just as she is Church only to the extent she empowers and inspires this. In each of these realities community and solitude exist but the accent in each is on community.

In vocations to eremitical solitude the focus is different. It is on the solitary side of the equation. Most human beings are called to achieve human individuation and wholeness in communion with God through community with others. While hermits have already achieved an essential individuation before becoming (or even seeking to become) hermits (they could not embrace such a vocation otherwise) their growth in human wholeness and holiness occurs in eremitical solitude --- a solitude lived in communion with God for the sake of others. Very few human beings are called to achieve human wholeness and holiness in this way. Even so, they remind all persons of 1) their existential solitude, 2) the foundational communion with God which grounds and completes all human existence, 3) the place of community in even the most solitary of lives, and 4) the possibility of the redemption and reconciliation by and to God of even the most marked isolation or estrangement. At bottom then, this will always be a rare vocation and certainly always much rarer than vocations to marriage and community life.

While this answer may be longer than you expected, it is still quite a simplified presentation of the nature of solitude and especially of eremitical solitude. I hope you find it helpful in answering your question.

2015 Devoted to Consecrated Life

The news is Pope Francis has decided 2015 will be devoted to consecrated life. It will be interesting to see what comes of this, especially as we still have no word on the investigation of US apostolic congregations of  Women Religious nor any further action regarding the LCWR. I suspect (and I sincerely hope) that this year will allow us to see clearly the development of new forms of religious life which have come to be in the past 50 years, recognize the new forms of consecrated life which few are aware of (Consecrated virgins living in the world, diocesan hermits), and generally come to revalue the presence and work of religious men and women who tend among members of the church to be derided for their commitment to Christ because in embracing a call to ministry in the post Vatican II Church they climbed down from an ultimately demeaning pedestal they neither deserved nor wanted.

I am personally convinced that some of the sentimentality we see today about "Traditional" religious women stems from the fact that so long as we perceive these women as called to a higher vocation, a more life-enveloping spirituality than the average Christian, a more intimate relationship with God etc, we are freed from the demand to embrace these things ourselves. So long as the mystique of religious life is preserved the profound mystery into which we are each called is made corellatively less demanding or compelling. It is time to look consecrated life full in the face and honor it for what it is, not for sentimental incarnations some major aspects of which have been outgrown and even countered by the Church's own teaching. Further, the Church as a whole needs to "catch up" with the developments which have come in the past decades. It is not just the laity who often do not understand these, but the hierarchy as well. Consecrated life generally serves as an icon of life in Christ we are all called to in some way; I am very grateful Pope Francis has chosen to honor and celebrate it.

Feed from Pope Francis' Visit to the Camaldolese Nuns in Rome: VESPERS

As noted earlier this week, today is the the Feast of the Presentation and "pro orantibus" (i.e., "for those who pray") day --- the occasion on which the Church especially recognizes and honors the vocations of contemplative religious. In light of that Pope Francis is visiting the Camaldolese nuns on the Aventine in Rome where they will sing Vespers and spend some time in silent prayer. Francis will also tour the monastery and the cell of Sister Nazarena (cf, Pope to visit Camaldolese Nuns).



The Camaldolese chant (the music is Camaldolese as is that of the psalms) sung at the beginning of Evening Prayer is well-known to all Camaldolese in the US (though we sing it in English); typically it is sung at the beginning of Sunday or Festal Vespers. We pray that our prayer may rise to God like incense. The cantor appropriately raises her arms to God in the Traditional symbol of prayer within the Church as she sings, "Like incense, let my prayer come before you O God, the lifting of my arms like an evening oblation."

The above feed includes a period of silent adoration following Vespers accompanied by Benediction. I invite you to take the time to truly enter into the silence (the organ music will signal the end of this period so you will hear when it is time to bring this part of your prayer to an end); allow yourself to be accompanied into that silence by the prayers of contemplatives everywhere. This is, after all, the essence of our lives and the gift we bring to the Church and world.

New Pastor Proves his Congregation: A Contemporary Parable

This is one of those stories we all need to hear from time to time. It has the power to shine a light into our own hearts and communities and call us to something more. Among other things it asks us what, after all, is the difference in being a Church of disciples and an elite club which meets on Sundays? The story was published in TruthSeekerDaily.com. (Please see note at bottom of story.)


[[Pastor Jeremiah Steepek transformed himself into a homeless person and went to the 10,000 member church that he was to be introduced as the head pastor at that morning. He walked around his soon to be church for 30 minutes while it was filling with people for service, only 3 people out of the 7-10,000 people said hello to him.

He asked people for change to buy food – no one in the church gave him change. He went into the sanctuary to sit down in the front of the church and was asked by the ushers if he would please sit in the back. He greeted people to be greeted back with stares and dirty looks, with people looking down on him and judging him. As he sat in the back of the church, he listened to the church announcements and such.

When all that was done, the elders went up and were excited to introduce the new pastor of the church to the congregation. “We would like to introduce to you Pastor Jeremiah Steepek.” The congregation looked around clapping with joy and anticipation. The homeless man sitting in the back stood up and started walking down the aisle. The clapping stopped with all eyes on him. He walked up the altar and took the microphone from the elders (who were in on this) and paused for a moment then he recited,

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’‘The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

After he recited this, he looked towards the congregation and told them all what he had experienced that morning. Many began to cry and many heads were bowed in shame. He then said, “Today I see a gathering of people, not a church of Jesus Christ. The world has enough people, but not enough disciples. When will YOU decide to become disciples?” He then dismissed service until next week. Following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ should be more than just talk. It ought to be a lifestyle that others around you can love about you and share in.]]

N.B: Someone sent me an email today (11/19) suggesting the story was a hoax and it well may be. (The picture is certainly not of anyone named Jeremiah Steepek; that has been established.) I continue however to think it is believable and significant  in the ways parables are always believable and significant  -- even if Pastor Steepek and this specific congregation are fictional. Especially I think this is a good example of an "enacted parable" which can help us hear and challenge us directly to decide for or against dimensions of the Gospel reading we will be proclaiming on Friday. All too often our congregations mistake respectability for the holiness we are truly being called to. All too often our churches are merely outposts of our culture and its values instead of radically countercultural instances of the Kingdom of God.  It would, I think, be a shame to dismiss this story simply because it is a contemporary parable and not literally true.

Being Grasped by Beauty, a Critical Means to Faith

In today’s world there are several kinds of hermits. Most live in wilderness areas of great beauty --- deserts, mountains, redwood forests, and so forth. They choose these areas because they are isolated from people, relatively silent except for natural sounds, and of course, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Then there are hermits like myself. We are called urban hermits not only because of where we live but because we are concerned with witnessing to the redemption of what Thomas Merton once called the “unnatural solitudes" of cities. Even so, as persons of faith, and therefore of prayer, we are necessarily concerned with the ways beauty works in every person’s spiritual life.

You see, the truth is that Hermits living in natural wildernesses tell us something profound about ourselves, and about natural beauty and its relation to faith. It is a piece of what the author of the book of Wisdom is concerned with today (Friday, 15 November), namely, that before faith is our own act of knowing, or trusting, or professing our belief --- and certainly before it is an act of ministering to others, it is about being grasped or taken hold of by something larger than we are. Paul Tillich, a 20C. theologian called faith the state of being grasped by an ultimate (as opposed to a less than ultimate) concern --- where God is identified with such ultimacy and concern is a form of existential seriousness related to the promise and demand of that reality which has taken hold of us. Similarly Saint Paul tells us that in faith and prayer it is not so much that we know God but rather that we are known or comprehended by God.

We have all had this experience ourselves. Though it occurs for many most fully and explicitly in quiet prayer or in hearing a bit of Scripture that truly speaks to us, most often it occurs whenever we encounter beauty. It might be the beauty of nature or of a great symphony or other piece of music. It can be a great work of art or a piece of pottery or sculpture. It might be a work of literature which captures our imagination and inspires us to greater humanity --- but when it happens there is just no doubt that it comes from beyond us and is larger than the single instance of beauty we have just encountered. Something transcendent has taken hold of us. We even say about a piece of art, or whatever the source of beauty is: “It really grabbed me!” When this happens we will also find that it may have shaken or troubled us, surprised or shocked us, delighted or otherwise consoled us --- but always that it has inspired and inevitably enlarged us.

We need these experiences of beauty because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to the ultimate beauty and source of all lesser beauties which we call God. We need these experiences because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty, are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a profound dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to Ultimate Beauty --- the source and ground of all lesser experiences of beauty which we call God.

The author of Wisdom also asks that we do this. Implicitly he knows that faith is about being grasped whether by depth, or meaning, or beauty. And like St Paul and Tillich he knows that this experience raises questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness which invite us to live life seriously. He also has a warning: don’t mistake the beautiful tree or the lightening, or the fire for gods. We call that religious mistake pantheism. God transcends these things because he is their source and ground. Today the author of Wisdom’s warning would more likely take a different form for us: don’t mistake beauty, especially that of nature, for “all there is”. This mistake (the religion --- for it IS a belief system --- known today as “the new” atheism!) also diminishes nature and its wonder precisely in denying its source and ground. The form of atheism today known as “naturalism” or “scientific naturalism” is actually a refusal to allow the transcendent beauty of nature to take hold of us with the power to awe, shake, and transform which is so truly characteristic of it. This form of  less-than-truly-scientific endeavor generally seeks only to grasp, and comprehend, while in its arrogance it refuses to be taken hold of by something infinitely larger than it is.

The pres-
ence of beauty in our lives, our regular seeking it out and celebrating it and the One who is its source and ground, is imperative for our spirituality. Hermits know that unless one does this regularly in some significant way our capacity for faith can be stunted. Today’s reading for us is therefore a challenge to make sure we submit ourselves to the power of beauty --- that we allow ourselves to be grasped and illumined by it in whatever ways we choose --- music, literature, the arts, nature, etc. Our ability to be taken hold of and awed by beauty is, before anything else, a critical way to and preparation for genuine faith.

Pope Francis to Visit Camaldolese Nuns in Rome

Recently I wrote about the importance of contemplation, both in itself and as the foundation for any genuine ministry or apostolate. I have also written several times here about the Camaldolese "triplex bonum" or "threefold good" in which solitude, community, and evangelization or mission are combined in unique ways. You can read about that in articles here labelled "Camaldolese charism" and you will find a brief article about the nuns at St Anthony's under "Camaldolese nuns."

I mention all this because I just heard that Pope Francis will be visiting the Camaldolese Sisters at St Anthony the Abbot this coming week (November 21st) because of the unique way in which they (and all Camaldolese really) relate the contemplative life to active ministry. (The day is known as "pro Orantibus" and honors those who give their lives to prayer, especially then, contemplatives. For the feed of the visit, cf .Feed of Pope's Visit to Camaldolese Nuns.) The Camaldolese nuns on the Aventine are "rigorously contemplative" as one monk described them, and yet they are involved in feeding the poor in a kind of soup kitchen. It may also be that Francis has marked the 1000 year anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese last year and too, that he knows that the Camaldolese generally have a high regard for interreligious dialogue --- especially among contemplatives of all religious traditions. (Despite undoubted Christocentric faith lives, Camaldolese routinely participate in dialogues with contemplatives from Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, etc. One volume celebrating such a formal dialogue is Purity of Heart, A Monastic Dialogue Between Christian and Asian Traditions. The papers in this collection come from a week long symposium at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California in 2000; participants included monastics from Benedictinism, Camaldolese Benedictinism, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism along with specialists in Confucianism like Sister Donald Corcoran, OSB Cam.)

While Francis will stop there to pray I am sure he will also tour the monastery and see the soup kitchen linked to it. Perhaps he will also be able to visit the former cell of Nazarena, the Camaldolese recluse and anchoress whose story is truly fascinating. An incredibly gifted American woman, Julia Crotti, tried religious life in the Carmelites but truly felt called to even greater silence and solitude. I can't recall the exact details right now but I believe she left the Carmelites just before making solemn vows. Eventually she was allowed to live a completely reclusive and anchoretic life at St Anthony's. (The two things differ because an anchoress lives a very strict form of physical stability; she never leaves her cell; a recluse, on the other hand, might roam the countryside and still be a recluse.) Nazarena was not even allowed to speak to the Sisters there and originally was not Camaldolese nor allowed to become Camaldolese. Only over a period of 45 years did this change.

Unfortunately, but also understandably, the Church neither esteemed nor much trusted vocations to absolute reclusion; it was not easy, even within Camadolese "culture" (which does indeed allow for reclusion), to be allowed this grace. (With regard to Nazarena, Fr Thomas Matus tells the story of the time when one New Camaldolese Prior --- mistakenly --- assumed that Sister Nazarena would naturally become prioress and novice mistress for a new foundation in Korea. Sister Nazarena found herself caught between the demands of obedience to external authority and those of her own inner voice regarding her vocation.) Sister Nazarena died in 1990 with the Camaldolese nuns present during the last hours. (If you haven't read her story, I highly recommend it. cf. Nazarena, an American Anchoress by Thomas Matus, OSB Cam.) Again, it is these three elements, community, solitude, and evangelization or mission which constitute the dynamic known as the Camaldolese charism. The nuns' monastery in Rome witnesses to this in a uniquely vivid way.

So, we of the Camaldolese family are proud to be recognized for the unique charism with which we have been entrusted by God and the Church and pleased to offer Camaldolese Benedictine hospitality to Francis --- whose namesake, St Francis, is also said to have actually spent some time in a Camaldolese house in his day. All of us hold both Francis, the Sisters at Sant' Antonio's and those they minister to in our prayer.  (Again, for the feed of the visit, cf .Feed of Pope's Visit to Camaldolese Nuns.)

On the Value of Contemplation

[[Dear Sr. Laurel, I have a question that has been nagging at me for some time.  . . . There is one funda-mental slant/ viewpoint/ position/ conception which may well underlie much of what you say, but nowhere have I yet found it expressed explicitly, and it is this:  what is the value of contemplative prayer?  Why should a life of contemplation, which is open to the hale and hearty as well as the feeble, aged, sick, sinful, fearful, disabled, and everybody else, be worth just as much as, say, the builder of homeless shelters, the missionary, the priest?

An image which speaks to me was called "God's Transmitters" by Hannah Hurnard, an eccentric but apparently sincere and certainly devoted lover of God.  As I understood her simile, the contemplative just stands there like an electrical transmitting tower, taking in and sending out signals.  One of the transmitters' most important functions is NOT to move around and try to accomplish anything.  Just being there, by remaining faithful to its "vocation" as a transmitter, can it do what it was made to do. . . . What do you believe about the per se value of prayer, with no "works" to accompany it?  No publicity, no recognition?  The Jewish belief that there are a certain number of people who hold up the universe just by existing?  Moses "standing in the breach?" This may not make any sense!  I'm sorry to bother you, but this is a fundamental question to me:  what is the absolute value of prayer FOR THE WORLD?]]

Thanks for your comments and questions. I think I have answered this question in part, mainly by talking about why this vocation is not selfish or by referring to the gift quality genuine solitude is in a world fraught with isolation and alienation or by writing about the vividness with which the chronically ill are called to proclaim the Gospel. All of these are attempts at answering your questions though from differing perspectives or vantage points. The basic answer or the common thread in each of these is that human beings are truly human only insofar as they are in relationship with God, and only insofar as they in their weakness and dependence allow God to be the ultimate source of validation and meaning in their lives. Contemplative prayer is simply the purest expression of this dynamic, I think. I guess, as you say, I have just never said that explicitly.

    A contemplative is authentically human. She also mediates God's presence in the act of being human because this (mediating God's presence) is what it means to be human. It is the very nature and vocation of our humanity. We do this in the very act of BEING human. We speak, for instance, of human beings as imago dei and in doing so we point to the call and mission with which human beings are entrusted and which defines humanity itself. The contemplative lives out this vocation in a way which is clear and vivid. While I have heard the Jewish saying about pillars, I don't know if this is what they are referring to;  I personally dislike the additional  transmitter image immensely. It seems to me to need to make prayers into "do-ers" more than "Be-ers" simply sustained by the love of God. Still, if it is an attempt to speak of mediation, I can appreciate it.

Also, in my eremitical world the redemption of isolation and the reconciliation of estrangement is a ministry --- a share in the ministry Christ gave us all to hand on. We do that first of all by being reconciled and witnessing to its possibility at a more foundational level than that of "works" or social justice and pastoral ministries, etc. In a sense then, contemplatives witness to the truth others are trying to proclaim and accomplish in all the standard pastoral ways but they do so at a different  or more fundamental level. (I suspect too this is why Religious congregations generally and the Dominicans more explicitly, for instance, describe their ministries or apostolates as rooted in contemplation.) Contemplatives also serve to check on or "criticize" these  and any ministries; they encourage or even demand that they really flow from a deeper reality.

Prayer is a work, but primarily it is always and everywhere the work of God. Most fundamentally it is not a human work at all. For that reason it reminds us that none of our own works --- no matter how sincere or well-meant --- are the most essential and absolutely they are never the primary thing. Apostolic or ministerial folks remind us that faith always issues in works of love and compassion. Contemplatives remind us that faith, which is the state of being grasped by God's wonder, beauty, truth, love, etc, must ground all ministry. Hermits go a step further and remind us additionally that our most foundational community is with God and, paradoxically, that isolation is inhuman and individualism is destructive of humanity. Additionally of course, contemplatives witness to a number of other values, not least persistence, faithfulness, simplicity, etc. Each of these reflect a continuing, ever-renewed commitment to allow oneself to be loved and to love in response in season and out. It seems to me that a life lived in this way is an immense gift to the world, not least because it witnesses to the great dignity and challenge of the communion we identify as human life.