Reexamining an Earlier Suggestion: On Allowing Lay Hermits to Make Private Vows during Mass

[[Dear Sister Laurel, is it possible to celebrate private vows during Mass? I thought you wrote once it was and could be done as part of baptismal renewal, but in other places I see you don't accept such a practice. Did I misunderstand you or have you changed your mind?]]

On the Reasons I have Changed my Mind:

Yes, you are correct on both counts. I have been torn in the past by some lay hermits' sense of "not belonging" or having no real "place" or "context" for their private vows. I also wanted to stress that the lay hermit vocation is a significant one which needs better recognition. Because of that I argued for the possibility of making such private vows as a hermit within Mass at a general renewal of baptismal vows --- and ONLY there (that is, at no other place within the Mass). I tried to make clear why Mass was not ordinarily the place private vows were made and eventually hedged my suggestion all around with caveats. Unfortunately, since that post it has become clearer to me 1) that liturgically this was a bad idea, and even more perhaps, 2) it could not be done without significant confusion of the distinction between private vows and public profession or between the lay hermit living her life in her own name and the Catholic hermit living an eremitical and ecclesial vocation in the name of the Church. This was especially true for the assembly in general.

You see, I have since heard of or been asked about several situations in the US and elsewhere where lay hermits who did not make vows in a public situation would use vows made during Mass (if this were allowed them) to encourage or underscore the mistaken idea that they are "consecrated" or Catholic hermits; while I can understand why this occurs and sometimes sympathize with the person, the bottom line is the Church's general practice of not celebrating or witnessing  private vows during Mass is wise and prudent. Besides lay hermits who don't always understand or (sometimes) even accept the difference between lifestyles undertaken as private commitments and vocations lived in the name of the Church the simple fact is that the laity in general (and sometimes clerics as well) don't understand the difference or its significance either. Still, there is a difference and that has not only to do with the commensurate rights and obligations which attach to public profession and consecration, but even more importantly in this context, with the corresponding expectations the Church as a whole are given the right and even obligation to hold in regard to these hermits.

The Differing Witnesses and Expectations of Public vs Private Vows:

It is important not to give the impression that a person with private vows (dedication) is bound in the same way a person who is professed and consecrated. The expectations others in the Church and society more generally have a right to hold between those with either private vows or public profession differ and it would be unfair to everyone involved to confuse the situation. That way leads to disappointment and even scandal. As I have noted before, this is so because the graces which attach to  profession and consecration and necessary for living them out differ.  (Note that "profession" is not the same as "making vows" though it ordinarily includes making vows. Profession, a broader reality than this, is always a public (i.e., a canonical) act which initiates into a new state of life. Thus, despite common usage (or misusage!) private vows do not constitute profession; they are instead an act of dedication sans consecration, sans added canonical rights and obligations, and sans initiation into a new state of life.)

Because of the differing public rights, obligations, and expectations, the Church has discerned the public or canonical vocation with the hermit herself and assured herself as best she can that this is a God-given and ecclesially mediated vocation which is a true gift of the Holy Spirit. She entrusts it and responsibility for eremitical life more generally to this person after mutual discernment and she expects this vocation to bear typical fruit not only for the hermit herself but for the whole of the Church. She expects and canonically binds the hermit to live the evangelical counsels in a way which is edifying to all who know her or otherwise hear of this vocation, and she expects all of this (and has a right to do so!) because the canonical hermit's vocation is public and lived in the name of the Church under her formal supervision.

But with individual private vows there is no actual discernment of vocation on the Church's part. The individual may certainly believe she is called by God to live this way (and she may be entirely correct in this!) but the Church as such has not discerned nor does she otherwise validate this belief. This is another reason why private vows are witnessed by someone but not "received." Reception is an ecclesial act (an act of the whole Church )which includes the public attestation that these vows are part of a truly Divine vocation the Church herself (whether through Bishops and Vicars or religious institutes and their legitimate superiors) has recognized through significant discernment and public ministry. The fact that reception binds the person professing vows as well as the one receiving these in an ecclesial relationship, while 'witnessing vows does not, is a dimension of the Church's discernment, attestation, and mediation of the presence of a Divine vocation.  Bearing this in mind it becomes even clearer that celebration within a public liturgy is not appropriate for private vows, no matter how carefully done.

Private Vows are Private Matters:

So, while I continue to believe the lay hermit calling is a significant one, and while I believe private vows are a meaningful way of structuring such a life and committing (dedicating) oneself to the freedom it entails, I do not believe it is appropriate to celebrate these at Mass. What always remains true is that private vows are a private matter. While generally trusting the maturity of a person to make such vows, the Church in no way verifies the vocational nature or soundness of such acts of dedication. Persons with such vows are neither professed nor consecrated, nor have they been extended nor accepted the rights and obligations attached to public and ecclesial vocations. To allow such (private) vows to be made in a public liturgy actually lays expectations on the person she may be neither able nor appropriately experienced, trained, or graced to meet.

Moreover, it necessarily leads members of the Church generally to see this as ecclesiastical approval of the act; it is simply too difficult, I think, to prevent people from thinking the Church has approved this "vocation"  (if vocation it actually is) or that she is professing this person and commissioning her to live the life in her name when such a celebration is done at Mass. This would be true even if it were done as part of a renewal of baptismal vows and promises and it was naïve of me to think otherwise.

Additionally there is the entire liturgical dimension which must be considered: is an entirely private act (even this act of dedication) appropriate at a public liturgy? We do not allow others making private vows to do so at Mass; why would we do so for a lay hermit? Private commit-ments do not typically belong to a public celebration. Again, doing so would invite confusion which could be harmful or even lead to offense. I don't think this could be avoided --- whether in the mind of the one making the commitment or in the minds of the rest of the assembly. Later on when the person identifies themselves as a hermit "who made her vows during Mass" there would be no way at all of recognizing the entirely private nature of the commitment and, once again misunderstanding and unreasonable expectations would be created. The bottom line here is the Church's praxis in this regard has been prudent and must be retained.

I have considered removing the earlier post. The caveats added are not sufficient, especially given the existence of lay hermits who continue to mistakenly claim they are "consecrated" and the widespread (even if understandable) ignorance of the Church's teaching on initiation into the consecrated state of life. At the same time the post reflects esteem for the lay hermit vocation and life. It also attempted to answer questions by at least two people so I think allowing those to stand is important. I am sorry though if my opinion at that point was premature or insufficiently considered, and I hope it did not mislead anyone.

Eve of Pentecost: A Tale of Two Kingdoms (Reprise)

 One of the problems I see most often with Christianity is its domestication, a kind of blunting of its prophetic and counter cultural character. It is one thing to be comfortable with our faith, to live it gently in every part of our lives and to be a source of quiet challenge and consolation because we have been wholly changed by it. It is entirely another to add it to our lives and identities as a merely superficial "spiritual component" which we refuse to allow not only to shake the very foundations of all we know but also to transform us in all we are and do. 

Even more problematical --- and I admit to being sensitive to this because I am a hermit called to "stricter separation from the world" --- is a kind of self-centered spirituality which focuses on our own supposed holiness or perfection but calls for turning away from a world which undoubtedly needs and yearns for the love only God's powerful Spirit makes possible in us. Clearly today's Festal readings celebrate something very different than the sort of bland, powerless, pastorally ineffective, merely nominal Christianity we may embrace --- or the self-centered spirituality we sometimes espouse in the name of "contemplation" and  "contemptus mundi". Listen again to the shaking experience of the powerful Spirit that birthed the Church which Luke recounts in Acts: 

[[When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.]]

Roaring sounds filling the whole space, tongues of fire coming to rest above each person, a power of language which commun-icates (creates) incredible unity and destroys division --- this is a picture of a new and incredible creation, a new and awesome world in which the structures of power are turned on their heads and those who were outsiders --- the sick and poor, the outcast and sinners, those with no status and only the stamp of shame marking their lives --- are kissed with divinity and revealed to be God's very own Temples. The imagery of this reading is profound. For instance, in the world of this time coins were stamped with Caesar's picture and above his head was the image of a tongue of fire. Fire was a symbol of life and potency; it was linked to the heavens (stars, comets, etc). The tongue of fire was a way of indicating the Emperor's divinity.  Similarly, the capacity for speech, the fact that one has been given or has a voice, is a sign of power, standing, and authority.

And so Luke says of us. The Spirit of the Father and Son has come upon us. Tongues of Fire mark us as do tongues potentially capable of speaking a word of ultimate comfort to anyone anywhere. We have been made a Royal People, Temples of the Holy Spirit and called to live and act with a new authority, an authority and status which is greater than any Caesar. As I have noted before, this is not mere poetry, though it is certainly wonderfully poetic. On this Feast we open ourselves to the Spirit who transforms us quite literally into images of God, literal Temples of God's prophetic presence in our world, literal exemplars of a consoling love-doing-justice and a fiery, earth-shaking holiness which both transcends and undercuts every authority and status in our world that pretends to divinity or ultimacy. We ARE the Body of Christ, expressions of the one in whom godless death has been destroyed, expressions of the One in whom one day all sin and death will be replaced by eternal life. In Christ we are embodiments and mediators of the Word which destroys divisions and summons creation to reconciliation and unity; in us the Spirit of God loves our world into wholeness.

You can see that there is something really dangerous about today's Feast. What we celebrate is dangerous to a Caesar oppressing most of the known world with his taxation and arbitrary exercise of power depending on keeping subjects powerless and without choice or voice; it is dangerous if you are called to live out this gift of God's own Spirit as a prophetic presence in the very same world which kills prophets and executed God's Anointed One as a shameful criminal --- a traitor or seditionist and blasphemer. Witnesses to the risen Christ and the Kingdom of God are liable, of course, to  martyrdom of all sorts. That is the very nature of the word, "martyr", and it is what yesterday's gospel lection referred to when it promised Peter that in his maturity he would be led where he did not really desire to go. But it is also dangerous to those who prefer a more domesticated and timid "Christianity", one that does not upset the status quo or demand the overthrow of all of one's vision, values, and the redefinition of one's entire purpose in life; it is dangerous if you care too much about what people think of you or you desire a faith which is consoling but undemanding --- a faith centered on what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace". At least it is dangerous when one opens oneself, even slightly, to the Spirit celebrated in this Feast.

A few years ago my pastor (John Kasper, OSFS)  quoted from Annie Dillard's book, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It may have been for Pentecost, but I can't remember that now. Here, though, is the passage from which he quoted, [[Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.]] Clearly both Fr John and Ms Dillard understood how truly dangerous the Spirit of Pentecost is.

We live in a world where two Kingdoms vie against each other. One is marked by oppression, a lack of freedom --- except for the privileged few who hold positions of wealth and influence --- and is marred by the dominion of sin and death. It is a world where the poor, ill, aged, and otherwise powerless are essentially voiceless. In this world Caesars of all sorts have been sovereign or pretended to sovereignty. The other Kingdom, the Kingdom which signals the eventual and inevitable end of the first one is the Kingdom of God. It has come among us first in God's quiet self-emptying and in the smallness of an infant, the generosity, compassion, and ultimately, the weakness, suffering and sinful death of a Jewish man in a Roman world. Today it comes to us as a powerful wind which shakes and disorients even as it grounds and reorients us in the love of God. Today it comes to us as the power of love that does justice and sets all things to right.

While the battle between these two Kingdoms occurs all around us in the way we live and proclaim the Gospel with our lives, the way, that is, we worship God, raise our children, teach our students, treat our parishioners, clients, and patients, vote our consciences, contribute to our society's needs, and generally minister to our world, it is our hearts which are ground zero in this "tale of two Kingdoms." It is not easy to admit that insofar as we are truly human we have been kissed by a Divinity which invites us to a divine/human union that completes us, makes us whole, and results in a fruitfulness we associate with all similar "marriages". It is not easy to give our hearts so completely or embrace a dignity which is entirely the gift of another. Far easier to keep our hearts divided and ambiguous. But today's Feast calls us to truly open ourselves to this union, to accept that our lives are marked and transformed by tongues of fire and the shaking, stormy Spirit of prophets. After all, this is Pentecost and through us God truly will renew the face of the earth.

Do You Love Me, Peter? Being Made Fully Human in Dialogue With God (Reprise)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abba John Colobos and the Fruit of Obedience

In the apothegmata (sayings) of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, the story is told of Desert Abba John Colobos' elder (mentor) having taken a dry stick and planted it in the ground. He told Abba John to go every day and irrigate the stick. John did so even though water was a long way away and it meant John had to travel to the spring each evening only to return hours later at dawn. For three years John made this trip every day. At the end of this time, we are told the stick turned green and flowered. John took the flowers to the Church, and shared them with his brethren saying, "Behold the fruit of obedience!" We hear in this story a clear lesson on the importance and the fruitfulness of persisting in obedience, not merely in the sense of doing what one is told, but in the very much richer and more challenging terms of entrusting oneself to the wisdom and loving mentoring of an elder in a way which, over time, produces astonishing fruit despite the evident impossibility and apparent absurdity of the project undertaken.

Variations on the Original Story:

Unfortunately, today few are familiar with the original story but many have heard scaled-down and skewed variations in which religious superiors demand something similar, usually in order to humiliate and bring to heel novices having difficulty submitting themselves to their superior's commands. In such stories, obedience is less about entrusting oneself to the love of an elder as a necessary part of long-term formation in life than it is about a blind "faith" which demands a subject check their intellect at the door or about breaking another's spirit and causing them to submit to one's will. It is less about opening oneself to a God one can trust to be present even in the darkness and more about simply saying yes to the absurd. It is far less about entrusting oneself to the wisdom of one who knows how to live eremitical life and who is immensely savvy in the ways of the human heart and far more about buying into a narrowly authoritarian notion of obedience.

It is not hard to see why believers and unbelievers alike ridicule the notion of religious obedience, and sometimes faith itself. We can hear them scoff: "Imagine someone persisting in the belief that a dead stick will one day flower! Imagine someone wasting their time, and even their entire lives in subjection to superiors (or a "gospel") that command such absurdities! Imagine such blind and entirely senseless 'faith' where someone submits to the punitive or at best, misguided commands of a superior moved by cruelty, ignorance, and even outright superstition!" We believers have not always done well with our foundational stories.

Desert Apothegm as Analogy of the Story of the Cross

I doubt that many of us today could imagine planting a wooden stick in the ground, watering it daily for years, and having anything fruitful at all come from such a project. Fewer still might listen to the story of Abba John Colobos and adopt such a stick as a symbol of profound hope, true wisdom, or supremely Good News. But it occurs to me that right at the heart of our faith is the story of a wooden stake planted in the ground and watered with blood and tears to bring forth astonishing, even measureless fruitfulness.  God takes the very symbol of barrenness, gratuitous suffering, senseless cruelty, hopelessness, and the despair of godless death and through the faithful obedience (the trusting, persevering, openness, and responsiveness) of his Son, he redeems and transforms reality. Through this event, God destroys sin and death, brings about the reconciliation of all creation, transfigures it into a new creation that shares intimately in his own divine life, and prefigures the day of fulfillment when God will be all in all. In other words, it is through Jesus' own obedience that a barren stake of death is transformed by God into what Christians call today The Tree of Life.

And yet, we have not always done well in conveying this rock-bottom foundational story of our faith either. As with Abba John's response to his desert elder, Jesus' obedience was not simply a matter of doing what he was told; it was a matter of faithfully entrusting his entire life --- every moment and mood of it --- to the One whose wisdom was greater than his own and whose powerful and kenotic love he would, over time, come to embody or incarnate exhaustively. Obedience here would mean becoming the actual counterpart of the One he called Abba just as it would mean Jesus' committing his whole self to the service of all those whom this One loved and yet loves with an everlasting love. I am sure there were many times when such openness to his Father's will tempted Jesus to see his mission as marked and marred with futility. I am positive that working with his disciples and with the religious leadership of his day felt like trying to teach brainless and heartless chunks of wood to explode in cascades of flowers and fruit. Perhaps this is part of the reason Jesus was so upset by the barren fig tree.

Over the past 40 some days we have heard a number of similar stories rooted in the power and model of Jesus. Paul's own story is one of a man converted to what must have seemed like a futile project and who persevered in his own obedience nonetheless. Certainly, some of the original Apostles in Jerusalem thought his mission to the Gentiles made as much sense as John Colobos' apparently absurd stick-watering --- especially since they lacked the roots of the Jewish Law and covenant to build on. And yet, Paul and his pastoral assistants brought incredible fruit from what was considered to be Gentile's religious rootlessness and barrenness. Paul in particular entrusted himself to the crucified Christ, rethought Judaism in light of the cross and resurrection, and forever changed the face of Christianity from a sect of Judaism to a worldwide faith with a mission to proclaim the Gospel to everyone without limits or boundaries. Every story of martyrdom, every witness to the Gospel, every call to forgive and be forgiven, every commission to minister to others in the power of the cross, reminds us that what we proclaim is a scandal to religious folks and foolishness to the wise of this world. It is our own revealed version of the stick-watering story of Abba John Colobos.

Applying the Story of Abba John Colobos Today:

In today's readings, both Paul and Jesus entrust the story of the barren-stick-turned-fruitful-bough to us. This is the proclamation or kerygma we are entrusted with by God, a bit of Christian foolishness many will simply deride, the proclamation we call Gospel. This Friday we will hear the story of Peter's "rehabilitation" by the risen Christ and his call to "feed Christ's lambs, feed Christ's sheep." Because he entrusted himself to Christ's reconciling love we have a Church whose highest leadership is summoned to be a model of obedient love and servanthood.

The mission we are given, the obedience to which we are called -- a responsive commission ratified and empowered at Pentecost ---requires perseverance and trust in a love and wisdom greater than our own.  It means being asked to do great things in our world but often it means saying a trusting yes to small, ordinary acts of faithfulness which -- at least in the short term -- seem to be worthless and of no great moment at all. Especially it means opening ourselves daily so that the Holy Spirit of both the Father and Son together may empower a responsiveness that brings life out of death, hope out of despair, and an often pervasively barren world to flower in faith and new life.

Like Paul and Peter, like John Colobos and armies of Desert Abbas and Ammas, like Christians of every age and culture we are each called to labor daily to water all of these tasks and many others with ourselves, with our tears of love, joy, grief, and sometimes even with our very blood; more, we are asked to embrace and persevere in our commitments of self-gift so that the scandal and foolishness of the Cross may continue to cause the whole creation to sing in joy, "Behold the New Creation, behold the fruit of obedience!"

Developing the Heart of a Hermit

[[Hi Sister, when you write about having the heart of a hermit and moving from isolation to solitude do you mean that someone comes to this through some form of trauma or serious personal wounding and alienation? Is this necessary? Can a person who has never been hurt or broken develop the "heart of a hermit"?]]

Hi and thanks for your questions. When I think of someone with the heart of a hermit I am thinking of someone who has entered a desert, been stripped and emptied in all the ways a desert does, and learned to depend upon God for her very life as well as for the meaning of that life. When I speak of God I mean what the Christian creeds mean, what the NT means and who Jesus reveals, but I also mean being dependent on the One Tillich called the "Ground of Being and Meaning", namely a transcendent ground which both surpasses and comprehends our own emptiness and incapacities and is the source and guarantor of life and meaning.

When I speak of a desert I mean the literal wilder-nesses we know as deserts (the Thebaid, Scetes, Mojave, Sonoran, Sahara, etc), but I also mean any extended situation which demands  or forces a person to plumb the depths of their own personal resources --- courage, intelligence, creativity, sense of security, personal  gifts and talents, sense of self, faith, hope, love, etc --- all the things we need to negotiate the world fruitfully and independently. In such a situation, which may certainly include childhood traumatic situations, a person brings all they have and know to the situation and over time are emptied or reach the limit of these resources. At the same time one can, and hopefully will, experience a sense of empowerment one knows comes from beyond themselves, sometimes radically so. When this happens such a person continues to live with a fresh courage and sense of meaning and hope. They embrace their own weakness honestly as they humbly and gratefully accept the life which is received as complete gift in such situations.

All kinds of situations result in "desert experiences." Chronic illness, bereavement, negligent and abusive family life, bullying, losses of employment and residence, abandonment, divorce, war, imprisonment, insecure identity (orphans, etc), serious poverty, and many others may be classified this way. Typically such experiences distance, separate, and even alienate us from others (e.g., ties with civil society, our normal circle of friends and the rhythms of life we are so used to are disrupted and sometimes lost entirely); too they throw us back upon other resources, and eventually require experiences of transcendence --- the discovery of or tapping into new and greater resources which bring us beyond the place of radical emptiness and  helplessness to one of consolation and communion. The ultimate (and only ultimately sufficient) source of transcendence is God and it is the experience of this originating and sustaining One who is Love in Act that transforms our isolation into the communion we know as solitude.

Thus, my tendency is to answer your question about the possibility of developing the heart of a hermit without experiences of loss, trauma, or brokenness in the negative. These experiences open us to the Transcendent and, in some unique ways, are necessary for this. Remember that sinfulness itself is an experience of estrangement and brokenness so this too would qualify if one underwent a period of formation where one met one's own sinfulness in a sufficiently radical way. Remember too that the hermit vocation is generally seen as a "second half of life" vocation; the need that one experiences this crucial combination of radical brokenness and similar transcendence and healing is very likely part of the reason behind this bit of common wisdom.

In any case, the heart of a hermit is created when a person living a desert experience also learns to open themselves to God and to live in dependence on God in a more or less solitary context. One need not become a hermit to have the heart of a hermit and not all those with such hearts become hermits in a formal, much less a canonical way. In the book Journeys into Emptiness (cf.,illustration above), the Zen Buddhist Master Dogen, Roman Catholic Monk Thomas Merton, and Depth Psychologist Carl Jung all developed such hearts. Only one lived as a hermit --- though both Dogen and Merton were monks.

As I understand and use the term these are the hearts of persons irrevocably marked by the experience and threat of emptiness as well as by the healing (or relative wholeness) achieved in solitary experiences of transcendence and who are now not only loving individuals but are persons who are comfortable and  (often immensely) creative in solitude. They are persons who have experienced in a radical way and even can be said to have "become" the question of meaning and found in the Transcendent the only Answer which truly completes and transforms them. In a Farewell to Arms, Hemingway said it this way, [[The World breaks everyone and then some become strong in the broken places.]] The Apostle Paul said it this way (when applied to human beings generally), "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness."

Hermit hearts are created when, in a radical experience of weakness, need, yearning, and even profound doubt that will mark her for the rest of her life,  she is also transfigured by an experience of God's abiding presence. A recognition of the nature of the hermit's heart is what drives my insistence that the Silence of Solitude is the goal and gift (charism) of eremitical life; it is also the basis for the claim that there must be an experience of redemption at the heart of the discernment, profession, and consecration of any canonical hermit. While she in no way denies the importance of others who can and do mediate this same presence in our world, the hermit gives herself to the One who alone can make her whole and holy. She seeks and seeks to witness to the One who has already "found" her in the wilderness and found her in a way that reveals the truth that "God alone is enough" for us.

I Go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and Jewish Marriage Imagery (Reprised)

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

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

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

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

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

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

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

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

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

Summary

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

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

The Paradox of the Prophetic Vocation to Eremitical Life in the Church

 [[Dear Sister, I wondered what you thought of the position in the following passage from another hermit; after all, you have status, position, and a role in the institutional Church, don't you? Do you feel that your own vocation is a betrayal of the traditional eremitical vocation? Can your vocation be prophetic in the way this passage suggests a hermit is meant to be?  Thank you.]]

[[Because the Hermit had (should still have) no status, position, authority, power or role in the institutional Church, and would usually be unknown by and not know those who sought her or his advice, such advice was free from any of the often complex subtexts, hidden agendas, personal preferences and prejudices, or politics that almost always intrude into conversations, especially those within institutions, and most especially within the institutional Church. The Hermit spoke freely and frankly, from the heart, always open to the guidance of the Spirit, and without (as it is often phrased) fear or favour.]] City Desert on Eremitical Service

Great question, and one I have approached here before in some ways. For instance, I have written about the supposed increasing  institutionalization of the hermit life as a possible betrayal of the vocation in On the Growing Institutionalization of Eremitical Life and about the eremitical life as prophetic in Hermit Life as Prophetic, etc. Feel free to check these out if you want. In any case, I entirely agree with the spirit of the statement as an ideal for hermits. On the other hand I don't think it is entirely accurate as far as history goes, and in fact, I think it is somewhat naïve in regard to the way anyone relates to their culture or church.

In saying this I don't mean that hermits did and do not speak freely, frankly, and without fear or favor in the power of the Holy Spirit. However, I do mean we have always addressed people with minds and hearts that to some extent are shaped by our families, culture, and general historical circumstances and that what we say and do always reflect these influences in one way and another. The Spirit frees us to speak honestly and without fear but we cannot be entirely free of the conditioning qualities and hermeneutics  which guide the way we pray, believe, think, read Scripture, relate to authority, etc. The kind of objectivity pointed to by this passage is simply not entirely possible. All reality is interpreted reality; it is always perceived through a multitude of lenses supplied by our upbringing, education, culture, and so forth. This is true even when we are speaking of spirituality or when the position we adopt vis-a-vis the Church and World is a counter-cultural one.

A second concern I have is that this passage makes it sound like the eremitical life is best lived not merely from a position of radical Christian marginality but from outside the Church. Since I don't know the context or source of the passage** it might well be the case that the author is thinking about the desert Abbas and Ammas when eremitical life was lived in a conscious opposition to the Church's too-complete accommodation of and assimilation to the culture and politics of the time. In those early centuries thousands of desert dwellers participated in a kind of eremitical protest movement and were indeed a prophetic presence challenging the Church to become her better self living in the world while not being of it. Geographically and socially this kind of movement was possible. I don't think that is true today.  Moreover I am a strong believer in the notion that authentic prophecy today is lived from a stance of profound love within the institutional Church, not from outside it. In this too the eremitical element of "stricter separation from the world" means one shuns enmeshment but remains profoundly (if uniquely) engaged; it means a kind of detachment associated with a love which is purified of inordinate attachments. (cf On attachments, Detachment, and Friendship in the Eremitical Life)

Similarly, I believe that eremitical life itself is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and world which, because it lives from and for the Gospel, must be lived from inside the Church. Unless this is the case we are dealing with neither a truly prophetic lifestyle nor one which speaks from an authentically marginal position within the Church. It will have relinquished these and the legitimate authority necessary becoming instead an ineffective gadfly committed to one's own individualist perspective. It is, after all, possible to cease being marginal and simply become an alien. The hermit, it seems to me, is called to a significant marginality from within the heart of the Church. As "ecclesiola" she accepts a very unusual status and role within the Church for the sake of the Gospel and life of the Church herself. Because I believe the Gospel can only be effectively proclaimed and embraced from within the Church I believe an eremitical life witnessing to the redemption of Christ and the Gospel of reconciliation in Christ must itself be lived from a profound place within the Church.

Still, I think the ideal articulated in this passage has to be a guide to any hermit. We must strive to be as free from the kinds of prejudices, agendas, personal preferences and politics that prevent us from seeing clearly or fulfilling the prophetic role of the eremite in today's Church and/or society. So long as the author of the passage cited was stating an ideal perspective to be undertaken from within the Church we are in essential agreement (and probably strongly so). But this requires that the hermit accept she has a role in the Church and that, paradoxically, carrying out this role (which the Church herself actually honors and may even formally commission) may require she accept some kind of standing (canonical standing for instance) and limited authority (for instance, to live this life in the name of the Church as well as on her behalf).

Profound Paradox at the Heart of Eremitical Life:

Here is one of the profoundest paradoxes of ecclesial eremitical life; it is one of the things which makes this vocation so special, so rare, and also so risky and difficult for hierarchs.  Bishops are called to profess, consecrate, and supervise individuals living a Gospel truth and freedom which may necessarily lead to an occasional "butting of heads" or, at the very least a style of obedience some may not be comfortable with. Similarly it is profoundly risky and difficult for the hermit herself. She is called by God and by the Church to act with an integrity in the Spirit that will leave no one untouched by the challenge of the Gospel. This may mean acting in ways which have the potential (remote though that may be) of leading to the eventual dispensation of her vows --- a situation analogous to Aquinas' treatment of the requirements of conscience. Remember that Aquinas said that even should acting in good conscience lead to unjust excommunication, one must act as determined and bear the excommunication in humility. The solitary hermit who takes the prophetic character of her vocation seriously may well find herself in precisely such a situation because the requirements of living the Gospel radically and because the Church's own commission (which is also inspired by the Spirit) may place her there.

Because I recognize this dynamic and responsibility at the heart of my vocation --- a dynamic rooted in love and the summons of the Church and her Lord --- I do not think my vocation is a betrayal of traditional eremitical life. I believe I have embraced an essentially prophetic call which I pray every day I may be worthy of and live with integrity. It is possible, even likely, that most hermits will never be touched by the kind of conflict envisioned here; the prophetic character of our lives will be lived out in a radical witness to what it means to be truly human and thus, in a contemplative dialogue/union with God that consoles and challenges but without serious conflict with, for instance, the institutional Church. But occasionally, precisely because our vocations are ecclesial and because our talents and training serve God and the Church, the hermit will be called by the Church herself to witness to a truth which others in the Church who ALSO have ecclesial vocations will feel they must resist or reject.

It is here that the Love which empowers these persons and the humility which comes from God alone must clearly govern matters. It is here where life experience, competent spiritual direction, and practice in discernment becomes especially critical. It is also here where the relationship between a hermit and her legitimate superiors must be grounded in and seasoned with a mutual respect and trust that allows the charitable and wise negotiation of the situation itself for the good of all involved --- including the good of the eremitical vocation itself. I am convinced that such a prophetic role will not arise for hermits who place themselves outside the purview of the Church and I am absolutely convinced that it cannot be effectively embraced by such a hermit.

** Source was provided and added after I had responded to the passage.

Eremitical Solitude: A Silent Preaching of the Crucified One

Dear Sister how is it a hermit can be a silent preaching of the Lord and at the same time be "hidden from the eyes of men"? You write about canon 603 a lot but why don't you ever write about pars 920-921 in the Catechism? They are richer than the canon I think. [[921  [Hermits] manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One.]]

I agree with you that the paragraphs on eremitical life in the Catechism are quite rich. I don't personally find them richer than the canon but my relationship with the canon is necessarily different. What I mean is that the canon is both legally and morally binding on me in a public way. I am commissioned and directly responsible for understanding and revealing its meaning with my life. The catechism, on the other hand, was actually written for bishops, theologians, and those teaching the faith. It thus presumes a broader knowledge which can adequately contextualize and inform what the CCC says in summary fashion. It is not meant to be the final word on things --- much less on things eremitical! (In this case, for instance, par 920-921 are to be read in light of the Church's theology of consecrated life --- not the other way around.) With that in mind I can say that while the CCC is profoundly instructive, and while I reflect on it as well as on the canon, it is not normative for my life in the same way. Still, if you look at the themes dealt with regularly here I think you would find par 921 is at least implicitly present in almost all of them (par 920 is essentially a reprise of canon 603).

For instance, I write a lot about eremitical life as an ecclesial vocation, a vocation which "belongs" to the Church in a formal way, the charism of the vocation (the silence of solitude where solitude is understood in terms of both aloneness and communion) which is a gift of God both to and from the Church, the hermit as ecclesiola (a la Peter Damien). This is all part of a hermit being a manifestation of the intimacy with Christ which is the interior aspect of the Church's own identity. I write very frequently about the distinction between isolation and solitude, or between silence and solitude and the silence OF solitude; this involves several of the elements mentioned in par 921 including intimacy with Christ, the silent preaching of the hermit, the hiddenness of her life, etc. When I write about the redemptive experience that must exist at the core of the hermit's life or about the theology of the cross, I am clearly writing about the Crucified One, the inner spiritual battle we are each called to participate in, and the intimacy with Christ the Hermit is commissioned to manifest. When I write about the Word Event or Language Event the hermit becomes as she is transfigured and comes to rest in the silence of solitude I am thinking again of her intimacy with Christ and of her life being a silent preaching of the Lord.

I do believe all of these fit neatly together (though not without the paradox present whenever Christianity is lived out in our world) and I believe that the hiddenness of the life is completely consistent with being a silent preaching of the Lord. You might want to look at the following article Hiddenness of the Hermit Vocation and others with the label "Eremitism and Hiddenness" for what I have written in the past years.  What is clear to me is the work of the hermit is to allow the silent and entirely hidden work of the Lord within her heart, mind, and spirit to come to fruition in her life. She witnesses to this presence and to the redemptive work of God that occurs in each and every person in the silence of solitude. No active ministry is needed here. One simply lives in intimate relation with God and is made whole and holy in the process. It is to this power perfected in weakness to which the hermit especially  witnesses with  her life.

But all of this is also implied in the elements of canon 603. Assiduous prayer and penance combined with stricter separation from the world in the silence of solitude conveys a sense of essential hiddenness and of something special happening in that hiddenness. The Evangelical Counsels and the hermit's Rule do likewise. How could she live these otherwise? Even the supervision of the bishop required by the canon and the hermit's delegate witness to this; it is, in fact, what they are called to ensure for those who never see or come to know the hermit -- and for the whole Church. I do appreciate the CCC paragraphs and I actually love the reference to a hermit as a "Silent preaching of the Lord" (or, as I tend to think of it, a silent preaching of the Crucified One).

The salvation of the world occurs  through the solitary life of the One who lives in an ineffably intimate dialogue with the Father in the power of the Spirit. While it may seem his life is filled with people and certainly filled with love, Jesus' entire life is a solitary life in the desert. He is, except for his relationship with his Abba, alone --- alone in a crowd, perhaps, but still ultimately alone with only God as the One who knows him intimately in the biblical sense and completes him. And of course, at the end of his life he experiences the absolute aloneness of even an experience of God's absence. Jesus' 40 days in the desert was, as I understand it, a snapshot of the character of his entire life. Likewise, there is no doubt in my mind that par 921 of the Catechism sees the hermit's life reprising this aloneness which is lived, as c 603 says explicitly for, "the salvation of the world", the reconciliation of all of creation.

While the two sources are complementary and while both are rich resources for reflection on the nature of eremitical life, canon 603 functions to order and govern my life in ways the CCC paragraphs neither do nor can. Also, its elements are most often misunderstood and misunderstood not only by candidates but even by professed hermits and chancery personnel. For instance, the Silence of Solitude is often misread as "silence and solitude", while the specific charismatic nature of this element is often missed. (The silence of solitude functions not only as context and goal of the hermit's life, but as the gift the hermit is empowered to bring to both the Church and World.) For that reason, because I personally need to be in touch with this notion of charisma and because misunderstanding of this element of the canon  leads to a failure to esteem to specific gift this vocation is, as well as to professions of solitary persons who are not and may never be hermits, I have spent more of my time and attention on the canon which mentions it explicitly.

Lay Diocesan Hermit???

Dear Sister, what is a diocesan lay hermit? How do they differ from conse-crated diocesan hermits?

Thanks for your question. From time to time folks search this site using various terms and one of those is "diocesan lay hermit". There is  simply no such thing. All diocesan hermits are professed and consecrated canonically under canon 603. What this means is that if one is publicly professed and consecrated as a diocesan hermit, they live as a hermit OF a specific diocese rather than living as a privately dedicated or non-canonical hermit IN the diocese. The distinction between being a hermit in a diocese and being a hermit OF a diocese may seem like a petty distinction but it really is not. It involves the difference between doing something privately within a diocese and being commissioned to do something that publicly represents the diocese and her own discernment and trust in this specific way.

For instance, I lived for many years as a hermit IN the Diocese of Oakland; only when I was admitted to perpetual profession and to consecration as a canon 603 did I become a diocesan hermit OF the Diocese of Oakland. A legal document (analogous to a sacramental certificate) testifying to this fact was issued by the diocese and given to me on the day of profession; such affidavits represent ecclesial affirmations of a public vocation and have been provided for many diocesan hermits over the years upon their admission to perpetual canonical profession.

You see, once one attaches a term like diocesan or Catholic or consecrated or professed to one's eremitical life one is necessarily talking about being a publicly or legitimately committed and commissioned hermit OF the diocese. The diocese must share in the individual's discernment and admit them to canonical profession and consecration. When this occurs the person so consecrated is a diocesan hermit, a hermit living her eremitical life in the name of the diocesan Church and too, the Church Universal. (Remember the diocese is a local Church and the publicly professed hermit lives her life in the name of the Church --- both local and universal). Through profession under canon 603 alone does one become a diocesan hermit. A lay hermit in a diocese, whether privately vowed or not vowed at all, is not a diocesan hermit. She is a hermit IN the diocese but she is not a hermit OF the Diocese of [N___].

Again,  the professed (i.e., the canonical) hermit is not necessarily better than the lay (i.e., the non- canonical) hermit. However, they differ in the rights and obligations they have assumed. Both live their baptismal promises in the silence of solitude. A canonical or consecrated hermit --- whether under c 603 or professed as part of a congregation (or institute) like the Camaldolese or Carthusians, for instance, --- is extended and embraces canonical obligations and rights which are additional to those associated with baptism alone. The word diocesan in your question points to an ecclesial vocation in which the Church admits one to canonical standing as a hermit under the direct supervision of the diocesan bishop.

Addendum, Followup Question: If I am a Catholic and a lay hermit don't I also live my life in the name of the Church? Why not as a hermit?

Lay persons do indeed live their lives and vocations as persons in the lay state in the name of the Church. The Church commissions them to do this not only at baptism or other Sacraments of initiation, but at the end of Mass (Go and proclaim the Gospel with your lives, etc), and at other times as well. Such a sending forth is something we may take for granted but it is an act of commissioning which serves to renew the call associated with one's state of life.

However, a lay hermit (with or without private vows) does not live eremitical life itself in the name of the Church. She has undertaken this life according to her own discernment in her own name. It is a private undertaking unless and until the Church specifically commissions her to live it in her name. You, for instance, are entirely free to live as a lay hermit in this way, just as you are free to live your lay vocation in any number of ways with various commitments (e.g., to the military, law enforcement, education, medicine, politics, etc) in light of your baptism as a lay person alone.  While all of these and any number of other similar commitments are significant callings ordinarily embraced by persons in the lay state, they are not ecclesial vocations and are not commissioned by or lived in the name of the Church. If you should also wish to live eremitical life in the name of the Church you (or any lay hermit) must submit to a process of mutual discernment and, should the Church determine you are called to this vocation, they will act to profess, commission, and eventually consecrate you to live eremitical life in her name.

Feast of Catherine of Siena



My Nature Is Fire

 

In your nature, eternal Godhead,

I shall come to know my nature.

And what is my nature, boundless love?

It is fire,

because you are nothing but a fire of love.

And you have given humankind

a share in this nature,

for by the fire of love you created us.

And so with all other people

and every created thing;

you made them out of love.

O ungrateful people!

What nature has your God given you?

His very own nature!

Are you not ashamed to cut yourself off from such a noble thing

through the guilt of deadly sin?

O eternal Trinity, my sweet love!

You, light, give us light.

You, wisdom, give us wisdom.

You, supreme strength, strengthen us.

Today, eternal God,

let our cloud be dissipated

so that we may perfectly know and follow your Truth in truth,

with a free and simple heart.

God, come to our assistance!

Lord, make haste to help us!

Amen.

 

 

To all of my Dominican friends, all good wishes on this feast day! 

A Contemplative Moment: Courage

 

Courage

 

is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstances. . .

 

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.

 

To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on. To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.

 

The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly to live to the point of tears, not as a call for maudlin sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level. It is a fundamental dynamic of human incarnation to be moved by what we feel, as if surprised by the actuality and privilege of love and affection and its possible loss. Courage is what love looks like when tested by the simple everyday necessities of being alive. . ..

 

by David Whyte in

Consolations, The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

On Attachments, Detachment and Friendships in the Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I have been thinking about attachments and detachment recently and I was remem-bering when nuns had to let go of family ties and "particular friendships". As a hermit do you give up family ties or particular friendships? If you are trying to live a life given to God alone can you have attachments to friends? I know you write about having friends so how does that actually work? As you grow as a hermit will you let these go? If I wanted to develop a strong spiritual life it means being stripped of attachments doesn't it? Should I be letting go of friendships or is that only for hermits?]]

Thanks for the questions. Let me start with the way friendships are viewed today in religious and eremitical life generally and then tackle the nature of detachment and the kinds of attachments we are called to eschew. Then maybe I can say something about the paradoxical nature of giving one's life to God alone and how it is friendships are ordinarily an indispensable part of that. Finally, I can say something about how it is hermit life changes this somewhat, what it retains, and what might be necessary in the recluse. What you should be doing is a separate question which I think (and hope!) will build on these things.

Friendships are Indispensable Gifts of God:

First it must be said that friendships are a gift from God to each of us and one of the primary ways God's own life and love is (for these are identical) mediated to us. Friendships are also one of those places we can learn to truly love as the great commandment requires. We tend to appreciate this a bit better than has sometimes been true in the history of spirituality. Religious today have friends and good friends. So long as this does not detract from the person's love for her Sisters and commitment to her community which will have priority, such friendships add to her own life and can add to that of her community as well. Especially I think, we see better today than sometimes that to genuinely love another does not prevent us from loving God with our whole hearts, mind, and strength any more than loving God in this way prevents us from loving ourselves or others. Love, which is a transcendent reality and of God, is not divvied up or divided into discrete units so easily as this.

What I mean is we can't treat it in pre-cisely the same way we would some sort of finite resource like groceries in our pantry. While it may be we do not have enough bread and peanut butter and jam to feed every kid in the neighborhood and still have enough for our own children, we are more apt to find that love is like the loaves and fishes we read about last Friday --- there is enough to feed everyone with plenty left over --- simply because this is how genuine love really is. Even more, we tend to find with love that the more we give the more we have to give. To spend significant time with a friend listening, sharing, laughing, and loving is really to open ourselves to greater and greater love --- and that means opening ourselves and that relationship up more and more to the living God who is love. To do that, in fact, is to love God himself and to open our whole world to him is to love God in the way the great commandment calls us to.

Real Personal Love Involves Detachment:

I think the real problem comes when we are not really loving others (or letting them truly love us) but instead are relating to them for some lesser reason. To be "attached" to someone because we truly love them (and have been able to allow them to love us) really implies significant detachment. We are delighted to be with them; they console and challenge and inspire us, but at the same time we "hold them lightly" and may need to let go of them in the name of love. We cannot cling to them precisely BECAUSE we love them. This paradox I suspect was not always understood enough --- thinking in terms of paradox is not always easy for us, and often feels very unnatural. We tend to think in terms of either/or --- either attachment or detachment, but love introduces us to relationships that are variously intimate, fiercely loyal and committed ("attached") while at their heart being open to what is best for the other to the point of sacrificing our own needs and desires (detachment) in small ways and large for their sake.

The detachment we want is that of selflessness. The "attachments" we are allowed -- and in fact are commanded to embrace because they are uniquely human and humanizing -- are those of real and personal love. I don't think, by the way, I am meant to live a life which is given to God alone (nor is any hermit), but rather I am called to live a life given to God in all things. Moreover, I am called to live a life given to God in this way in the silence of solitude and which is thus lived for others. Specifically it is meant to witness to the fact that for each and every one of us God alone is sufficient for us, God is the ultimate source of life and love and meaning for each one of us, the source and ground which makes us capable of marriage and family, of friendship, ministry, etc, and the absolute future to which we are drawn. No one and nothing else completes or empowers us in the way God does. We are made for God and in that way we are made for community.

The Witness of the Eremitical Life:

The hermit's life is meant to witness to this fact --- not in an elitist way as though it is only true for her or for the rare vocation to eremitism but in a way which affirms this is truth for all of us. She does it in silence and solitude because, in fact, this strips away many of the things we might use to "complete" us falsely, to obscure our vision, or which we mistake either for God or for our truest selves. She does it in the silence of solitude (and with the silence of solitude as the goal and gift of her life) to reveal the truth of who God is and who we all are most fundamentally --- namely, persons who are always and everywhere in intimate dialogue with God. This is the primary reason, I think, why canon 603 does not define the vocation in terms of individual salvation but in terms of being something lived for the redemption of all. I think Thomas Merton saw this clearly when he spoke of the one first duty of the hermit. You may remember that he said,

[[The . . .hermit has as his first duty, to live happily without affectation in his solitude. He owes this not only to himself but to his community [by extension diocesan hermits would say Diocese, and parish] that has gone so far as to give him a chance to live it out. . . . this is the chief obligation of the . . .hermit because, as I said above, it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and of grace.]] (Contemplation in a World of Action, p. 242) While I agree completely with Merton I would say that to live happily and without affectation in one's hermitage witnesses to the fact that the human being is made for and incomplete without God and therefore is defined by her potential and capacity for Love.

Maturing in Eremitical Life:

As I grow in my eremitical life I don't think I am going to "let go of friends". It may be that maintaining them will be done a bit differently than is done now, but generally speaking, I need friends to empower me to love --- and that means to love God too. My need for them is not a weakness or some form of inordinate attachment (meaning an improperly ordered attachment --- one that is not ordered to becoming more loving and holy); often I have thought some of my ability to live without them is the real deficiency --- though that is certainly less true than it might have been once upon a time. In any case relationships can make real selflessness possible and selflessness (meaning being God-and-other-centered in authentic love) is both the heart and the very purpose of Christian detachment. It remains true that I am open to being called to reclusion and if that happens the time and contact necessary for friendships will be even further significantly limited, but at this time I don't think this is where I am being called.

It should be clear from all that I have said that growth in the spiritual life does not necessarily mean letting go of authentic friendships. It is far more likely to demand their cultivation --- something we should be aware of in this time and culture of superficial and utilitarian "friending!" Sometimes the literature of exclusion and separation was simply selfish (and not particularly Christian); it failed to see that love of God and love of others are inextricably intertwined and, in some ways, it prevented even the genuine friendships that are so necessary for growth. That is as true for the hermit as it is for everyone else.  In fact, it should be noted that the capacity for authentic friendships and relationships generally is presupposed in eremitical life; this is one reason it is considered a second half of life vocation or is perceived as being possible only after years of formation in monastic life. For the hermit the relationship with God is always given absolute priority, and this must occur in the silence of solitude -- which limits and conditions the friendships which are possible. Still, so long as the hermit is faithful in observing these priorities, she may very well find her vocation calls for a few really special friendships as well. The hermit may not see these friends often, but their love supports and challenges her in ways a solitary vocation really requires.