On Growing Towards Perfection: Journeying in the Direction we are Born For.

A number of times recently the commandment to "be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect" has come up for me. The first time was in an email to my director referring to the use of the term "total commitment" in something I was reading in relation to our work together. I wondered what "total" meant in the context involved; I couldn't understand it as even conceivable much less possible and that, it sounded like, could jeopardize everything. She wrote back pointing out the similarity of the word "perfect" in the NT and the difficulty of defining it. She then defined "total" contextually, in a less absolute (but no less personally demanding) way, a way which corresponded to the needs of the work being done and which, yet again, was a matter of "trusting the process" and the changes, healing, and growth it brings about. (This of course involves trusting the grace of God in all the ways it is mediated to me over time especially in this process!)

Other instances of meeting the word "perfection" had to do with Lent itself, with the God I was somehow supposed to come to  image more perfectly and who was defined in static Greek categories: (omnipotence, omnipresence, etc). Another had to do with consecrated life and the older usage regarding being called to "a state of perfection". Again, I thought, as I always do, that being called to perfection meant being fully human because I think being authentically and fully human is at least part of this call to perfection --- but somehow the word "perfection" continued to raise obstacles within and for me. It is a problem all by itself. I would bet I am not alone in this. In fact I know I am not; one of the reasons women Religious don't often refer to "states of perfection" is because to do so seems elitist and divisive. It can also lead to needless or unwarranted anxiety over hypocrisy and failure.

So, I went back to the original text --- not something I do often enough these days --- and was reminded that the word translated as perfection is τελειος (teleios) --- from the Greek telos (τελος) which refers to the goal, end, or fulfillment of something. (Jesus is the telos or end/goal/fulfillment of the Law, for instance.) That was suggestive of being goal-directed or of having reached a goal (some have defined this call to perfection in terms of "maturity") but it still left me little further along in my thoughts and prayer. Then, while in Tahoe I was reading a book by William O'Malley on Parables and not far into the book O'Malley begins to discuss the difficult word "perfection". (God does indeed work in surprising and delightful ways!) O'Malley also notes that the Greek is teleios (τελειος) but in light of that word, he went on to define the call to perfection as the call to be "heading in the direction [we] are born for". And that made "total" (!) sense to me. It is a refreshingly dynamic way of defining perfection (a way which is appropriate to the God who is verb, who is Love-in-Act) in an unfinished and evolving universe; it also reduces anxiety or concerns about hypocrisy and elitism and is able to free folks from any unhealthy perfectionism. Perfection, in the sense Jesus and the New Testament used the word is not about having reached, much less achieved a static state without flaws or frailties, but instead is about being true to the journey; it is about being on a pilgrimage to authenticity with, in, and towards life in God.

Last Sunday we celebrated the Feast of the Transfiguration. We often use the term transfiguration in the sense of change or transformation, but when we think about the transfiguration of Jesus the only thing that changed was the way Jesus appeared to others. Jesus was transfigured in their eyes but he himself remained who he was right along. The disciples saw him for who he really was, namely a truly human being living with, in, and towards life in God. They saw him as the glory of God, the revelation of the love and mercy which every human being is called and born to be. Whether they were aware of this or not, what James, Peter and John saw in Jesus was also an image of their own telos, the end or fulfillment of their own journeys to authenticity and maturity in, with, and through God. They saw an image of human perfection --- a man well on his way in his journey to fully reveal the glory of God in ordinary life situations. Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem with all that implied and involved; he was on his way to the Cross and the exhaustive revelation of a Divine power which would be perfected in weakness; he was on his way toward changing the very nature of reality by reconciling reality to God, destroying (Godless) death and by effectively giving creation a place in the very life of God. In other words, He was "perfect" (teleios) because he was "heading in the direction [he] was born for".

So many times Jesus could have turned aside or away. There were so many times he could have chosen a different path, one which was good, fruitful, respectable, admirably religious and apparently "law abiding" --- but which was not about heading in the direction he was born to head. But, as he did during his time in the desert, he chose to do what he was born (or baptized) to do. He entered the desert having heard from God that he was God's beloved Son who did indeed delight God. He grappled with what that meant both in personal and pastoral terms. And finally he chose to respond to the deep call of God to be that person and live that identity in the ordinary and extraordinary things of life. This choice was one he renewed again and again throughout the course of his public life with every act of compassion and self-emptying; in the process he renewed the course of his journey with, toward, and on behalf of God's sovereignty and the extension of that "Kingdom of God" to all God holds as precious. He affirmed and reaffirmed a commitment to the same perfection we are each called to, namely an authentic and God-centered humanity lived for others. And isn't this what Lent gives each of us the space and encouragement to do?

A few folks have emailed and suggested that by focusing on the work I have already been engaged in with my director I am failing to do what Lent really calls for. That, they believe, is inexcusable in a consecrated (canonical) hermit who lives this life in the Name of the Church! Apparently, they suggest, in outlining my plans for Lent I have not made a sufficient commitment to additional prayer, penance and almsgiving. But in (thus far) this 10 month-journey I have called "inner work" what my director and I have been engaged in is a profound desert-time where I grapple with 1) my identity and 2) with God's call to be myself as fully and freely as possible. This is the call to be perfect as God (Him)self is perfect --- nothing less.

We are each involved in a journey towards authenticity and (identically) communion with God. As with Jesus, it is a journey where we may have to renounce what is usually recognized as "respectability" in order to embrace genuine holiness --- just as we may need to embrace brokenness in order to be reconciled to God, self, and others to live the joy and freedom of life in and of God. The question Lent asks and gives us space and time to answer with our lives is, "are you headed in the way you were born to be headed?" Are you headed in the way your heart has been shaped throughout your whole life by the Love-in-Act we call God? If not, if you are impelled and even compelled by something else, how will you change course? What paths do you need to leave behind? What ways of being? What obstacles to freedom, personal deficits, woundedness, etc will you need to work through and let go of?  How, after all, will you embrace the call to be "perfect", the call to be "heading in the direction you were born to be heading"?

Feast of the Transfiguration: The Gorilla in Plain View (Reprised)

Transfiguration by Lewis Bowman

Have you ever been walking along a well-known road and suddenly had a bed of flowers take on a vividness which takes your breath away? Similarly, have you ever been walking along or sitting quietly outside when a breeze rustles some leaves above your head and you were struck by an image of the Spirit moving through the world? I have had both happen, and, in the face of God's constant presence, what is in some ways more striking is how infrequent such peak moments are.

Scientists tell us we see only a fraction of what goes on all around us. It depends upon our expectations. In an experiment with six volunteers divided into two teams in either white or black shirts, observers were asked to concentrate on the number of passes of a basketball that occurred as players wove in and out around one another. In the midst of this activity a woman in a gorilla suit strolls through, stands there for a moment, thumps her chest, and moves on. At the end of the experiment observers were asked two questions: 1) how many passes were there, and 2) did you see the gorilla? Fewer than 50% saw the gorilla. Expectations drive perception and can produce blindness. Even more shocking, these scientists tell us that even when we are confronted with the truth we are more likely to insist on our own "knowledge" and justify decisions we have made on the basis of blindness and ignorance. We routinely overestimate our own knowledge and fail to see how much we really do NOT know.

For the past two weeks we have been reading the central chapter of Matthew's Gospel --- the chapter that stands right smack in the middle of his version of the Good News. It is Matt's collection of Jesus' parables --- the stories Jesus tells to help break us open and free us from the common expectations, perspectives, and wisdom we hang onto so securely so that we might commit to the Kingdom of God and the vision of reality it involves. Throughout this collection of parables Jesus takes the common, too-well-known, often underestimated and unappreciated bits of reality which are right at the heart of his hearers' lives. He uses them to reveal the extraordinary God who is also right there in front of his hearers. Stories of tiny seeds, apparently completely invisible once they have been tossed about by a prodigal sower, clay made into works of great artistry and function, weeds and wheat which reveal a discerning love and judgment which involves the careful and sensitive harvesting of the true and genuine --- all of these and more have given us the space and time to suspend our usual ways of seeing and empower us to adopt the new eyes and hearts of those who dwell within the Kingdom of God.

It was the recognition of the unique authority with which Jesus taught, the power of his parables in particular which shifted the focus from the stories to the storyteller in the Gospel passage we heard last Friday. Jesus' family and neighbors did not miss the unique nature of Jesus' parables; these parables differ in kind from anything in Jewish literature and had a singular power which went beyond the usual significant power of narrative. They saw this clearly. But they also refused to believe the God who revealed himself in the commonplace reality they saw right in front of them. Despite the authority they could not deny they chose to see only the one they expected to see; they decided they saw only the son of Mary, the son of Joseph and "took offense at him." Their minds and hearts were closed to who Jesus really was and the God he revealed. Similarly, Jesus' disciples too could not really accept an anointed one who would have to suffer and die. Peter especially refuses to accept this.

It is in the face of these situations that we hear today's Gospel of the Transfiguration. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up on a mountain apart. He takes them away from the world they know (or believe they know) so well, away from peers, away from their ordinary perspective, and he invites them to see who he really is. In the Gospel of Luke Jesus' is at prayer --- attending to the most fundamental relationship of his life --- when the Transfiguration occurs. Matthew does not structure his account in the same way. Instead he shows Jesus as the one whose life is a profound dialogue with God's law and prophets, who is in fact the culmination and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the culmination of the Divine-Human dialogue we call covenant. He is God-with-us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place. This is what the disciples see --- not so much a foretelling of Jesus' future glory as the reality which stands right in front of them --- if only they had the eyes to see.

For most of us, such an event would freeze us in our tracks with awe. But not Peter! He outlines a project to reprise the Feast of Tabernacles right here and now. In this story Peter reminds me some of those folks (myself included!) who want so desperately to hang onto amazing prayer experiences --- but in doing so, fail to appreciate them fully or live from them! He is, in some ways, a kind of lovable but misguided buffoon ready to build booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus, consistent with his tradition while neglecting the newness and personal challenge of what has been revealed. In some way Matt does not spell out explicitly, Peter has still missed the point. And in the midst of Peter's well-meaning activism comes God's voice, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!" In my reflection on this reading this last weekend, I heard something more: "Peter! Sit down! Shut up! This is my beloved Son! Listen to him!!!"

The lesson could not be clearer, I think. We must take the time to see what is right in front of us. We must listen to the One who comes to us in the Scriptures and Sacraments, the One who speaks to us through every believer and the whole of creation. We must really be the People of God, the "hearers of the Word" who know how to listen and are obedient in the way God summons us to be. This is true whether we are God's lowliest hermit or one of the Vicars of Christ who govern our dioceses and college of Bishops. Genuine authority coupled with true obedience empowers new life, new vision, new perspectives and reverence for the ordinary reality God makes Sacramental. There is a humility involved in all of this. It is the humility of the truly wise, the truly knowing person. We must be able to recognize how very little we see, how unwilling we are to be converted to the perspective of the Kingdom, how easily we justify our blindness and deafness with our supposed knowledge, and how even our well-intentioned activism can prevent us from seeing and hearing the unexpected, sometimes scandalous God standing there right in the middle of our reality.

Lenten Rule: The Best Laid Plans Often "Gang aglay" --- so Hold them Lightly!!

I am sitting in the sunroom of the Dominican house, "Our Lady of the Lake" at Lake Tahoe. It took us an extra day to get here because I 80 was closed yesterday most of the day due to zero visibility. (There was lots of snow, very powdery, blowing down into the foothills!) The best laid plans. . . . Because I put foodstuffs away in the fridge yesterday after we decided we could not come up, of course I left some of it in the fridge this morning! Either we will have to go to the store or (except for dinners, of course) I will be eating peanut butter most of the week! The best laid plans. . . you know how it goes! Of course, reminders of the Donner party's tragic saga in these very mountains about 160 years ago is hard to avoid and makes peanut butter --- peanut butter and crackers, peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter and sardines, or even peanut butter on a spoon by itself in the absence of something to drink --- sound downright sumptuous, a delight to entertain! The best laid plans. . .often gang aglay!" Sometimes disastrously so!

Lent can be a little like that. Oh, not that it ever ends in tragedy of course (at least it doesn't do so for me usually! How can it when the "end" of the Season is Easter?), but as much as we plan for it, God will always surprise us. (Again, the season culminates with that ultimate surprise and making ALL THING NEW: EASTER!) So, this is the second half of my "What do you do for Lent?" post. In the first half I wrote about the way I approach Lent and the plans I made for the 40 days. In this half the lesson is essentially that whatever we plan, God's own movement will usually take us in directions we never thought of --- and this is the really exciting part of Lent, the part that says, "We are not in this alone and the One who is in this with us is just SO much bigger and more amazing than we can even conceive! Be open to (Him). Together amazing things can and will happen!"

But it DOES take planning! I remember reading a number of years ago about a diocesan hermit whose Rule was a scant paragraph and whose daily prayer schedule was left wide open "so the Holy Spirit would have the space to work freely!" There were no planned prayer periods, no Liturgy of the Hours, no time for walks or art or lectio divina, or even for the well-deserved and needed nap! (And, I just have to ask, when did the bathroom get cleaned or the laundry get done?) But the truth is that unless we make some plans of our own, unless we have a schedule of some sort, a vision of the way the day ordinarily goes, a regular and balanced round of prayer and rest and recreation, for instance, what is more apt to have dominion during our day than the Holy Spirit is our own ennui and idleness --- our our workaholism and activism.

A similar "heresy" I think is the notion that God has everything planned out in detail, that God will knock all of our plans into a cocked hat anyway, so best not to plan at all! Just go with the flow --- or without any flow at all, I guess. God will show us what to think, or read, or what work needs doing and will even fashion our dreams for us! Sometimes this is called quietism. Paul saw it as laziness and opined that those that sat waiting for the second coming should go hungry. The Desert Fathers and Mothers have a couple of charming stories about the same problem. As one lay hermit writes: [[Already, yesterday and again today, in the Order of the Present Moment: God unfolds Lent. It is God Who chooses, Who controls, Who plans and unfolds Lent. God does so individually, uniquely, and collectively. ]] Well, yes. And no! We are taught, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God!" This notion that God plans our lives right down to the very least detail, right down to the food we leave in our refrigerators at home --- or the faulty travel plans made by the Donners (!) --- seems to me strangely like tempting the Lord God!

On the other hand I know of congregations of hermits whose every minute outside sleep is a regimented round of prayer periods, periods of devotions, etc. etc. Personally I dislike both options --- alternately, they seem to either give the Holy Spirit too little to work with or not nearly enough space to work in without also tempting the Lord God to intervene in some pre-conceived way. In either case, but especially the latter, I always wonder where is the time to PRAY?!*** You know, not where is the time to say prayers or slide from thing to thing without real thought, decision, or purpose, but where is the time to consciously and deliberately sit down as one might with anyone who deserved one's full attention, to breathe slowly, to get quiet, center in, and just let God work within one however God desires to do that! Jesus tells us that we are to pray without ceasing. I am pretty certain that he did not mean "Say prayers and do devotions without stopping!" Instead, I think God really means for us to become the incarnations of (His) own prayer and breath. And that, it seems to me, means some planning and hard work on our own part as we remain open to the newness and surprises God always brings. The key is not to NOT PLAN, but instead, to always hold our own plans lightly --- even as we work hard at our writing or teaching or leadership tasks or work with clients, etc. Our own best laid plans often go awry but the key is to entrust them and ourselves to God's own future-making mercy.

All good wishes for your own first week of Lent. I plan (just saying!!!) to blog several more times while I am here, but if that should devolve into long disquisitions on the creative uses of peanut butter, you'll know why! It will remind you to pray for me as I do for you!

*** In light of several questions I have received, I should say, for the moment, that of the two options given above, the one without plans and the other with a rigidly filled horarium, the first one makes most sense for an authentic hermit with a mature spirituality. Presuming the hermit really knows how to listen to God, is really in tune with what she must have to live everyday in real obedience, and is rooted in the God who comes to us in the ordinary, this "planless" approach could work quite well. But it would not work for most people and generally not at all for non-hermits or those who have retired and live alone. The first option seems to me to be geared for mature hermits then (but I still bet it leaves a lot unstated and is not as "planless" as purported), the second is geared, I think, for beginners who are new to physical solitude and silence. The genuine contemplative eremitical life falls somewhere between the two and closer to the first than the second. So again, plan but hold those plans lightly as you remain open to the Holy Spirit's movement.

On the Essence of Prayer: Living in the Name of the One Jesus Calls Abba (Reprise)

With Lent's focus on Prayer, tomorrow's Gospel asks us to look again at the model or paradigm of all Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer. After all, it summarizes what Jesus' vocation was all about, how he prayed, how he lived, what had priority for him, and what, by extension, constitutes Christian existence. Learning to pray this prayer is not a one-time task, and recitation of it is not without risks and challenges. Instead, we are invited to learn to pray as Jesus did, to pour ourselves into its petitions, day by day and "layer" of self by layer of self. It calls us, and provides a concrete way, to allow our hearts and lives to be shaped as Jesus' was --- first by the Kingdom or sovereignty of God, and then (and only then) by our own. Yes, it teaches us to pray rightly, but more, it initiates us into a life of prayer; more correctly said perhaps, it molds and shapes us into the very prayers we are called to BE. (I am convinced that the admonition to "pray always" is a statement of the purpose of human life, and that prayer is not only an activity we are to undertake, but something we are to become. When we call Jesus "the Word made Flesh," we really are calling him an incarnate prayer, a Word event whose whole being glorifies (reveals and allows God to be) God in space and time.)

One of the things that comes up again and again is just how deceptively familiar the prayer is for us. We recite it daily, sometimes several times a day; and yet, almost every petition holds surprises for us. We simply don't know what the words mean or what they summon us to. (For instance, because we ourselves are "petitions" in search of the response God is, because  we ourselves are the question of meaning only God can and does answer, this prayer, except for the invocation, is composed only of petitions.) The invocation is a particularly striking example of our not knowing what we are being called to here. Luke's version of the prayer has simply, "Pater" (or "Abba"), while Matthew's has the more litugically suited and formed, "Our Father, who Art in Heaven!" ("Abba, you who are God") Some people in parishes have problems calling God "Father," because they treat the word as a metaphor, and as an instance of human patriarchy or paternalism writ-very-large. Others love that God is called "abba, pater" because it apotheosizes or raises to divine level their own patriarchal pretensions.

And yet, both groups have gotten something very basic wrong, namely, the invocation to the Lord's Prayer is not merely a metaphor describing divinity's "paternalness" --- one characteristic among others including maternalness. It is instead a NAME, and as a name it is symbol, not merely metaphor, and it FUNCTIONS as a name does. It symbolizes the whole reality of the person, not just those characteristics we know, but the profound mystery the person is. The Lord's Prayer begins with the revelation of and permission to invoke God BY NAME even if Matt's elaborate formulation obscures this for English readers. In Christ we are allowed, and in fact, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to call upon God as Abba, where Abba is a personal word of address which does far less to describe God than it does to give him a personal place to stand in our world and in our hearts.

We will miss this though, if we do not move beyond the prayer's familiarity and merely treat the invocation as a description of or metaphor for God. Remember, for instance, that the word "Abba" is in the vocative case, the case used for direct address. Remember that Jesus used the term "Abba" with a unique intimacy and familiarity, not as a description of God, but as direct address and name. Remember that his usage was unprecedented in Palestinian Judaism (Judiasm of the diaspora was somewhat different), not only because Jews tended to avoid referring to God as Abba (pagans did that all the time!), or because using Abba as a name and speaking it directly was too presumptuous (Divine names were not spoken or even written out), but also because the times they did refer to God as Father, it was in a collective sense and more metaphor or descriptor than name. Remember too that in Matt's day people LONGED to know both the REAL Name of God, and that their prayer was truly effective. So desperate were they for access to the real God that they stood on street corners reading from magic papyri which listed every known name of God. When Matthew warns us about using empty words [or babbling] in our prayers this is the practice he is referring to, a practice driven by the need to know and invoke God by name --- a need to pray with genuine authority and power, a need to allow and experience God's personal presence in all its ineffableness.

But, along comes Jesus with his unique relationship with this One he calls by name as Abba, thus addressing God with an unheard of familiarity and intimacy. He speaks, lives, and teaches with a new kind of authority. To put it plainly, Jesus is on a first name basis with God; he speaks in the NAME of God. Their relationship is unique and the exchanges between them equally so. When we attend to his prayer, we see that Jesus calls upon God BY NAME as "Abba, Father." He gives this One a personal place to stand in the world in the way only invocation can do, invocation in both narrower and broader senses: that is, addressing or calling upon another by name and living one's life in the name of that other implicating them in all one is and does. Jesus reveals (makes real in space and time) a new Name for God. God is no longer known simply the One who will be who he will be [ehyeh asher ehyeh, YHWH]; he is Abba, and the One whom he will be is revealed definitively in Christ in terms of unfathomable love and mercy. By extension, Christians are those marked by this name, who, through the adoption of baptism live within its power and presence, who "call upon" or invoke God in this way. It is the symbol or name marking our vocation in this world, just as it marked that of Jesus.

As I have written here before, the life of Christian prayer is a life of invocation. The task before us and which we reflect on anew each Lent is to learn and embrace what it means to live as those who call upon and live life in the Name of another --- and not just any other, but the One Jesus revealed as "Abba, Father." The Lord's Prayer initiates us into this life, and the first line, the only non-petition in the entire prayer, embodies or symbolizes the whole of this vocation. It is both invitation and challenge: not only to take this Name upon our lips, but to glorify the name of God with our lives, to become those who truly are adopted daughters and sons of the One we call Abba, Father.

Driven into the Desert by the Spirit of Sonship (Reprise)

I really love today's Gospel, especially at the beginning of Lent. The thing that strikes me most about it is that Jesus' 40 days in the desert are days spent coming to terms with and consolidating the identity which has just been announced and brought to be in him. (When God speaks, the things he says become events, momentous things that really happen in space and time, and so too with the announcement that Jesus is his beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased.) Subsequently, Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Sonship, to explore that identity, to allow it to define him in space and time more and more exhaustively, to allow it to become the whole of who he is. One of the purposes of Lent is to provide the "space" and time  needed to  allow us to do the same.

A Sister friend I go to coffee with on Sundays remarked on the way from Mass that she had had a conversation with her spiritual director this last week where he noted that perhaps Jesus' post-baptismal time in the desert was a time for him to savor the experience he had had at his baptism. It was a wonderful comment that took my own sense of this passage in a new and deeper direction. Because of the struggle involved in the passage I had never thought to use the word savor in the same context, but as my friend rightly pointed out, the two often go together in our spiritual lives. They certainly do so in hermitages! My own director had asked me to do something similar when we met this last week by suggesting I consider going back to all those pivotal moments of my life which have brought me to the silence of solitude as the vocation and gift of my life. Essentially she was asking me not only to consider these intellectually (though she was doing that too) but to savor them anew and in this savoring to come to an even greater consolidation of my identity in God and as diocesan hermit.

Hermitages are places which reprise the same experience of consolidation and integration of our identity in God. They are deserts in which we come not only to learn who we are in terms of God alone, but to allow that to define our entire existence really and concretely -- in what we value, how we behave, in the choices we make, and those with whom we identify, etc. In the "In Good Faith" podcast I did a few years ago for A Nun's Life, I noted that for me the choice which is fundamental to all of Lent and all of the spiritual life, "Choose Life, not death" is the choice between accepting and living my life according to the way God defines me or according to the way the "world" defines me. It means that no matter how poor, inadequate, ill, and so forth I also am, I choose to make God's announcement that in Christ  I am his beloved daughter in whom he is well-pleased the central truth of my life which colors and grounds everything else. Learning to live from that definition (and so, from the one who announces it) is the task of the hermit; the hermitage is the place to which the Spirit of love and Sonship*** drive us so that we can savor the truth of this incomprehensible mystery even as we struggle to allow it to become the whole of who we are.

But hermitages are, of course, not the only places which reprise these dynamics. Each of us has been baptized, and in each of our baptisms what was announced to us was the fact that we were now God's adopted beloved daughters and sons. Lent gives us the space and time where we can focus on the truth of this, claim that truth more whole-heartedly, and, as Thomas Merton once said, "get rid of any impersonation that has followed us" to the [desert]. We need to take time to identify and struggle with the falsenesses within us, but also to accept and appreciate the more profound truth of who we are and who we are called to become in savoring our experiences of God's love. As we fast in various ways, we must be sure to also taste and smell as completely as we can the nourishing Word of God's love for us. After all, the act of savoring is the truest counterpart of fasting for the Christian. The Word we are called to savor is the Word which defines us as valued and valuable in ways the world cannot imagine and nourishes us where the things of the world cannot. It is this Word we are called both to struggle with and to savor during these 40 days, just as Jesus himself did.

Thus, as I fast this Lent (in whatever ways that means), I am going to remember to allow myself not only to get in touch with my own deepest hungers and the hungers I share with all others (another very good reason to fast), but also to get in touch anew with the ways I have been fed and nourished throughout my life --- the experiences I need to savor as well. Perhaps then when Lent comes to an end I will be better able to claim and celebrate the one I am in God. My prayer is that each of us is able to do something similar with our own time in the desert.

_______________________________
Merton quotation taken from Contemplation in a World of Action, "Christian Solitude," p 244.

*** A reminder that whether we are daughters or sons of God, our adoption by God gives us a share in Jesus' Sonship. Our own daughterhood or sonship is derivative in nature; that is, it derives from  Jesus' Sonship. Thus I speak of the Spirit of Sonship, not because I am insensitive to the issues of patriarchy or inclusive language, but because my usage here is essentially and primarily Christological.

On Woundedness, Healing, and the Vocation to Eremitical Life

[[Dear Sister Laurel, When you write about the inner work you have been doing and the healing it has caused it makes me wonder if you are thinking of leaving your vows as a hermit. I am not quite sure how to ask this but you have written that hermits need to be well to make vows. Do you still hold this? Were you well when you made your vows or did you become a hermit because you were not well? (Please don't get me wrong. I love your blog and I wouldn't have thought of asking about this except for your raising the issue yourself!!!) You have also said that with this inner work you have come to stand in a place where you have never been before (I think I got that right) so could this mean you might be happier doing active ministry and not living as a hermit?]]

Really important questions. Thank you for them and don't worry, I think I understand why you asked them. Thank you also for loving my blog; it has grown into something I never foresaw and most of the time am rather proud of. Let me begin my response by saying I think you may have missed a recent post I put up on "Creating the Heart of a Hermit" (that's  not the exact title). In that post I affirmed that in the work I have been doing what became clear to me was that God has been preparing me for this vocation throughout the whole of my life. By that I don't mean that God planned the events which tended to isolate me or keep me feeling profoundly alone (I could never love or serve such a God), but rather, that God was continually present, unceasingly calling me by Name to live freely and fully in communion with (Him) and loving me in a way which empowered me to realize the potential God endowed me with.

The movement of God in my life was constantly about the transformation of isolation into authentic solitude and I grew to love solitude as an expression of community even if it is rarely understood in this way by non hermits. In other words, God does not will isolation but solitude is one form of the redemption of isolation, a redemption marked by reconciliation with one's deepest self, with God and with others. It is marked by the healing of woundedness; as one grows in what I refer to in the language of canon 603 as "the silence of solitude" so too one may experience deeper healing and the call to this. Thus, I believe that my heart IS the heart of a hermit and that this heart has been formed both implicitly and explicitly over a period of almost seven decades by the love of God. In other words, I am not leaving my vows or this life. I am called to it by God through the mediation of (His) Church and I am surer of that today than I was even on the day I  made definitive profession.

But this leaves some of your thornier questions untouched, doesn't it? Let me give them a shot. First, the questions about wellness. What I have said in the past is that while the environment of the hermitage allows personal healing work to be undertaken it is better to take care of such matters before making any public commitment. I have also written that eremitical life is not the life for folks with serious mental illnesses, especially those with thought disorders or disorders with religious ideation. But the fact is that many people may function very well, have sound spiritualties, well-developed theologies, and be essentially well despite deep woundedness from this or that trauma. Their woundedness may be the basis of their turning to God long before they learn faith or the love of God. It may also be a major source of their capacity for compassion and service or ministry. I believe this describes my own journey to and within eremitical life --- I was profoundly wounded but essentially well as well as capable of and committed to a growing wholeness and holiness in the silence of solitude.*** It is important to remember that in Christianity we refer to wounded healers and a Divine power made perfect in weakness for a reason! We proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ and we know that this good news can ONLY be truly heard and embraced by those who have come to know their own sinfulness and/or woundedness.

However, I am not talking about serious mental illness when I refer to woundedness and eremitical life specifically and I continue to believe those who have serious mental illnesses should ordinarily not be admitted to profession or consecration as hermits. But I do believe that some persons may be profoundly initiated by their woundedness into both the physical isolation which is central to eremitical solitude and the yearning for the love of God which can help redeem and transfigure isolation into authentic solitude. When this happens such a person may find that they are well-prepared temperamentally and perhaps  psychologically if not in other ways (intellectually and spiritually, for instance) to embrace a call to eremitical life so long as that life is well and competently directed and the person's commitment to growing in wholeness and holiness are strong. Remember that Thomas Merton rather famously is reported to have said that "Hermits are made by difficult Mothers" and his own youth and adolescence were marked by significant loss and aloneness. The result was a sense of existential emptiness  --- wonderfully chronicled and analyzed in Gunn's Journeys into Emptiness --- which, through long formation, was transfigured in his monastic and eremitical life into a solitude defined in terms of communion, love, and remarkable fruitfulness.

One of the reasons eremitical vocations must be carefully discerned over a period of time and require recommendations by longtime spiritual directors, Vicars for Religious, pastors and others, sometimes including psychologists and physicians, has to do not only with the eccentricity of the vocation and the rarity of someone being meant to live a fully human life in the silence of solitude, but with the need to be sure the person's capacity for living this vocation in a healthy and fruitful way is certain. This was one of the first questions my own diocese and Vicar had to ask when they began considering professing me or anyone else under canon 603. Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF (Vicar for Religious and Director of Vocations at the time) travelled to New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur with another Sister to question the prior about this particular question: What did the Camaldolese look for in discerning candidates who could live healthy eremitical lives? Every diocese that has proposed to profess anyone under c 603 has had to deal directly with the same question, not because eremitical life is unhealthy but because it is extremely rare and eccentric.

Personal woundedness can cut two ways: it can make a person absolutely unsuitable for this vocation and require they discern a different call which is really their personal way to wholeness and holiness, or it can actually shape a person's heart and psyche in ways which would then make this call a gift of God  that is especially tailored to the person's fulfillment in Christ and the context for a journey to genuine wholeness and holiness. Which way the person's woundedness will cut takes time to become evident; it will need ongoing work with a director, the discernment of a number of qualified people, and commitment to the life itself (prior to vows as well as thereafter) to reach clarity. Those who are dismayed that the time frame for becoming a diocesan hermit is long and individualized, or that it requires significant evidence of the candidate's capacity to make the commitment required and to thrive in light of this commitment (something evident with temporary vows in those eventually admitted to perpetual profession) probably have not adequately appreciated the various reasons for and types of solitude, or the distinction between being a hermit, especially one living eremitical life in the name of the Church, and being a lone individual who is pretty much simply "doing his/her own thing".

I think I have answered all of your questions. If I missed something, or if my responses raise more questions for you please get back to me. Your questions were really excellent and drew from several of my posts or positions written over a period of time; I enjoy responding to those kinds of queries and usually see no reason at all to take offense. For the most part they help me come to greater clarity on things I might never consider directly on my own, so again, thank you. I really want you to feel free to follow up if that is necessary.

*** when I speak of essential wellness here I am not speaking about physical health. As readers tend to know, I have struggled with chronic physical illness my entire adult life. This was a factor in my discernment of eremitical life but was not the defining element. Today it is even less influential in regard to my vocation while remaining something I struggle with. Many diocesan hermits have similar concerns with health issues and these may have played a part in discerning a vocation to solitude rather than to apostolic religious life; even so, none of those I know became hermits because of illness. Instead illness may have been a large part of creating a desert context which intensified or sharpened our search for God just as it deepened our meeting with God and our embrace of the gratuitous love offered to us in this "wilderness."

Choose Life, Only That and Always (Reprise)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Am I Doing for Lent?

[[Hi Sister, I wondered what you are doing for Lent. Thank you.]]

Hi and thanks for the question. I seem to get this question most years and I am never really happy with my answer. That's because my choice during Lent is to do something which impacts on the whole of my life in solitude rather than doing one extra thing here or there; when I try to explain this it sounds complicated when it is really not. So, I am going to try again and point to a few things I am doing during Lent. I hope it is helpful.

First, I am continuing the inner work I began on June 1st. We have reached a new stage in this I think and it will require more writing, journaling, drawing, and other work on my part. In particular I want to work on a timeline of the work we have done over the past nine months which is sort of a special project. It will allow me to revisit areas of healing and growth, deepen these if necessary (places requiring healing often need to be revisited, sometimes many times) and generally integrate more fully the work we have done during this time. This is an intensification of work I do anyway but some parts of it will be new and Lent seems like a good time to be sure I am fully on track with this; in this way I think in the following months we may move forward even more fruitfully. This work will impact all other parts of my life (work, rest, prayer, parish life, other lifestyle issues) so this is the most far-reaching thing I will do this Lent.

Second, I am rewriting my Rule in part. I did a more significant rewrite several years ago but parts of it need to be revised and one critical section needs to be added. This means I will be spending more time studying, reflecting on, and praying about a couple of sections of the Rule, especially stricter separation from the world and on the nature and praxis of the hiddenness of the solitary eremitical vocation. Some minor work needs to be done on the section on the diocesan delegate and probably on a few other sections but those will not require the same kind of preparation or attention. This is an evolving vocation and I am growing in it as well. Rewriting sections is something which is natural every few years (5-10) or so but attention to my own growth is what drives such a project.

Third, I am spending a week with a Sister friend at her congregation's house in Tahoe next week. We have done this before and the time, though part of my friend's Spring break (she teaches math at Dominican University) usually serves much like a retreat. While there will be time for recreation in the afternoons, mornings tend to be spent together doing our own work and praying as we each need. (I haven't decided which project I will work on here; besides my Rule I will bring materials for two other projects, one for something I hope to offer my parish and one for dioceses on canon 603 and formation of hermit candidates. I also have some violin parts to learn --- glad I have an effective practice mute!! The house is not a large one!)

We each "fend for ourselves" for breakfast and lunch and though we are usually together, mornings and afternoons tend to have a more solitary flavor. Evenings begin with shared prayer, daily readings, and Communion and then centers around dinner in front of the fire talking. We tend to continue this until we crash. (We ordinarily have wine for dinner and my own tolerance is slight so I am apt to crash first!) Since I am not much of a cook and my friend is a fantastic one (she has a genuine "rep" in this!) she will do all the dinners this time (I may make soup one night) but she will also make me her sous chef and teach me (a little of) what I don't know! That's exciting and a little scary. I got a lot of flak from readers the last time I wrote about going on a similar trip ("What do you mean you're a hermit going on vacation --- and during Lent???!!!" " How dare you call yourself a hermit???!!!") so I hope that is not repeated! For me this week tends to be both retreat and vacation; it is one of shared solitude and it is extremely life-giving; it should help set the tone for the rest of Lent.

Fourth, I am continuing reading in a couple of areas. The first is on the gift of tears. The second is Andre Louf's book Tuning into Grace which is on continuing conversion. (Both of these are focused on metanoia and tie into the work I am doing with my director as well. The reading is meant to support this work and help extend it where that is possible.) The third is something I always reflect on during Lent, namely the Theology of the Cross. I am reading NT Wright's  book, The Day the revolution Began --- something I began a couple of months ago and got away from. The way the cross works generally and the way it works in my life specifically effects every part of my life.

In my original interview regarding admission to perpetual eremitical profession with Archbishop Vigneron, he asked me about my favorite Saint in a kind of ice-breaker question. (We had only met briefly at my parish when he made sure I was on his calendar.) I said Saint Paul was my favorite and then explained the place of his theology of the cross in my life; I also found myself babbling a bit and saying, "If I could spend the rest of my life coming to understand his theology of the cross I would be a happy camper!" Well, that has not changed over the last ten years; it has only become a clearer need and stronger desire. This too ties into the inner work I have been doing and may lead to some writing or drawing which illustrates this period of my life.

Mainly though, in all of this I am doing what I always do while paying special attention to how the inner work changes things. It is all about continuing to become the person God calls me to be and living my life with greater fullness and integrity. Lent seems to me to be a period where we focus even more specifically on conversion  (the change of our minds and hearts in ways which allow them to reflect the mind and heart of Christ) and responding to our vocations (responding to Christ's call) with new and renewed vision; we do this, I think, so we can celebrate the victory over sin and death achieved in Jesus' death and resurrection in greater depth and joy. We do this so we can live (fully embody or incarnate) the Gospel of God in Christ. That has been the purpose and thrust of the work I have undertaken these past nine months too so in some ways this Lent is the period where I focus on consolidating what has occurred there so that I can approach Easter and, like the whole of God's creation post-resurrection, I can truly be "in a place" I have never been before.

A Contemplative Moment: On the Essence of Spiritual Direction

 

To “listen” another’s soul
into a condition
of disclosure and discovery
may be almost the greatest
service that any human being
ever performs for another.
 

by Douglas Steere in

 Gleanings, A Random Harvest

New Camaldoli Hermitage Requires and Requests Assistance

I received the following email this evening from the Prior of New Camaldoli Hermitage. Because of some really terrible storms here in California New Camaldoli has been particularly badly hit and are cut off in a number of ways. They are requesting aid. The need is real, the cause a good one. Please read the following and help if you can!

 

thanks,

Sister Laurel, Er Dio

 

To our community of oblates and friends, far and wide:

 

as you have read in the news, Big Sur has been hit by a series of historic winter storms that have devastated the communities and highways of this beautiful coast. The Hermitage has suffered great damage to our road as well. Because of highways blocked by slides and damaged bridges, the monks and staff are cut off from normal deliveries of supplies, and we have had to close our doors to guests and visitors. Our main avenue of supporting ourselves has been taken away for the near future.

 

We firstly and most importantly ask for your prayers: prayers that those whose lives have been altered by these storms will have the courage and heart to carry on; prayers that the crews working feverishly to repair broken highways will be safe and not lose hope as slides continue to rain down; prayers that we all have the faith and courage to fulfill God's will, and use this catastrophe to grow in love and support of each other and our environment.

 

Secondly, we ask for any financial support you may be able to afford and to spread this request to your network of friends and family so that we can overcome the financial and physical damage done to the Hermitage by these storms (which are not over yet).

 

This winter damage is turning out to be the single biggest challenge to the New Camaldoli Hermitage in its 59-year history. We are the keepers of this beautiful and sacred land and hermitage, and now more than ever before we need help to bring it back to safe and operational condition. We are stranded, between broken bridges and broken highways. Our phones do not work. We have limited fuel and even more limited funds. But we are not broken in spirit; we refuse to leave, to give into these storms, while there is still a chance to remain and repair damages.

 

If you can help financially, please visit our disaster relief site athttps://www.gofundme.com/Newcamaldolirelief

Your donations are tax-deductible. Your support, in any form, is gratefully received. Please consider passing this message on to your networks. And blessings to you.

Monks and friends of New Camaldoli.

Feast of St Peter Damian (reprise)

Today is the feast of the Camaldolese Saint, Cardinal, and Doctor of the Church, St Peter Damian. Peter Damian is generally best known for his role in the Gregorian Reform. He fought Simony and worked tirelessly for the welfare of the church as a whole. Hermits know him best for a few of his letters, but especially #28, "Dominus Vobiscum". Written to Leo of Sitria, letter #28 explores the relation of the hermit to the whole church and speaks of a solitary as an ecclesiola, or little church. Damian had been asked if it was proper to recite lines like "The Lord Be With you" when the hermit was the only one present at liturgy. The result was this letter which explains how the church is wholly present in all of her members, both together and individually. He writes:

[[The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love, so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. And so we see that the entire universal Church is correctly called the one and only bride of Christ, while each chosen soul, by virtue of the sacramental mysteries, is considered fully the Church. . . .From all the aforementioned it is clear that, because the whole Church can be found in one individual person and the Church itself is called a virgin, Holy Church is both one in all its members and complete in each of them. It is truly simple among many through the unity of faith and multiple in each individual through the bond of love and various charismatic gifts, because all are from one and all are one.]]

Because of this unity Damian notes that he sees no harm in a hermit alone in cell saying things which are said by the gathered Church. In this reflection Damian establishes the communal nature of the solitary vocation and forever condemns the notion that hermits are isolated or "lone" persons. His comments thus have much broader implications for the nature of eremitical life than the licitness of saying certain prayers or using communal phrases in liturgy per se. In the latter part of the letter Damian not only praises the eremitical life but writes an extended encomium on the nature of the eremitical cell. The images he uses are numerous and diverse; they clearly reflect extended time spent in solitude and his own awareness of all the ways the hermitage or cell have functioned in his own life and those of other hermits. Furnace, kiln, battlefield, storehouse, workshop, arena of spiritual combat, fort and defensive edifice, [place assisting the] death of vices and kindling of virtues, Jacob's ladder, golden road, etc --- all are touched on here. Peter Damian's rich collection of images serves to underscore the classic observation of the Desert Fathers and Mothers: "Dwell (or remain) within your cell and your cell  will teach you everything."

Oakland Civic Orchestra: Winter Set: The Bach Double

Every violinist in this (or any) orchestra has played this double violin concerto (universally known simply as "the Bach Double") --- and usually more than once so one plays both first and second violin at some point. Usually it is one of the first concerti violinists learn once they have moved beyond first to third and fifth positions. We don't all get to play it with an orchestra but we all tend to get to play it with our teachers or a mentor or friend at some relatively early point in our violin careers. And yet, like all such things it is an incredibly demanding concerto, not technically perhaps, but emotionally and musically. When violinists return to it as adults (if they have played it as younger students) they find a "new" piece entirely. What is most striking is the way the voices are so incredibly balanced as well as how they echo, blend, intertwine, and hand off passages. The second movement in particular remains the most beautiful I know for two violins.

When I prepared this movement with my own teacher --- after we had gotten all the fingerings and bowings down (for I had not played this as a younger student so it was all new) --- we moved onto the task of  "making music" of the notes. The approach reminded me of some of the dimensions of spiritual direction and/or growth work. First we went through the entire movement deciding on what emotion we would like each passage or section to express, what emotions or feelings the passage evoked in us and those we wanted to evoke in listeners, where it changed in intensity and how abruptly, what it changed to, where we were in tension with one another, where in union, and so forth. Though the musical term for much of this is "dynamics" our vocabulary was first of all that of feelings and nuances of feelings. Then we went through the music again and, as we stopped at the places we had noted emotions, each of us privately made a note about some memory which clearly evoked those feelings for us. The memories remained private but the awe or tenderness or pain or determination --- or whatever it was we personally poured into this music and expressed through it was communal; the intimacy of the experience was and still is hard to describe. (Check the looks exchanged by the two soloists at the end of the third movement in the above video; through all of their own rehearsals and especially in this performance Christina and Thomas have shared something both transcendent and ineffably intimate. They are not merely demonstrating that they are relieved or pleased with the technical performance --- though both of these might also be true.)

At every point my teacher and I had to listen and listen profoundly in attempting to interpret this piece of music --- not only to be faithful to the truth Bach captured there in the manuscript itself, but to our own hearts and the hearts and voices of one another as we attempted to come together in a single unified performance. a single unified heart and voice. In the language of the Camaldolese we were "alone together" in this amazing process.  This was one of the most transcendent experiences I have ever had apart from formal prayer periods --- and one of the most potent experiences of the paradox of solitude in community.  In  some ways I am sure my own sensitivity to the communal nature of eremitical solitude is formed or at least heightened by my experience of learning and playing this concerto.

______________________________________________

A note on the video: In the performance by the OCO and soloists Christina Owens and Thomas Chow you might note that Christina is playing in the Baroque style as violinists would have played Bach's music. She uses little or no vibrato creating a characteristic sound. Thomas tends to be using a more contemporary style with less than usual vibrato but still using it in many instances. Both are also using modern violins and modern bows rather than Baroque instruments or bows. Finally the orchestra is taking their cues by attending to the soloists; there is no conductor. I can't remember another time OCO has played a piece in this manner --- also pretty typical of the Baroque approach to string orchestras and soloists.

Followup Question on "Canonical Obedience"

[[Hi Sister! In your last post on canonical obedience are you saying that those with canonical vows are no longer free in the sense other Christians are free? If canonical vows mean one is no longer called to Christian freedom then why should anyone desire to make canonical vows? I am sure I must've misunderstood you somehow!]]

Thanks for this latest question! I tried using the phrase, "qualified but undiminished" to indicate I was not speaking of Christian freedom versus something else. Instead I was trying to describe an expression of Christian freedom that differed from expressions linked to the baptismal state and bonds alone. Remember that Christian freedom is always the power to be the persons we are called to be and it is that in spite of and sometimes even through the constraints which limit our lives. That is true whether one lives one's life in terms of baptismal bonds alone or whether one embraces additional canonical bonds. The essential point is that those admitted to canonical vows, to the public rights and obligations of such vows, are called to the same authentic freedom as any other Christian. However, they have participated in a mutual process of discernment and been formally and publicly admitted to a profession and consecration which involves elements defined by canon and proper law which further specify their baptismal commitment and the shape of their freedom.

We might consider these elements to be constraints on the individual's authentic freedom but this is not so. Because the Church herself along with the candidate has mutually discerned  the presence and nature of the call involved, both Church (hierarchy or congregational leadership) and the one petitioning to be admitted to public profession and consecration have determined as best they are able that such admission actually serves the candidate's authentic (Christian) freedom. While discernment processes may sometimes be mistaken it is critical that we understand the point of mutual discernment in ecclesial vocations is the determination of what is truly and Divinely ordained as a source of freedom for the candidate and a gift of the Holy Spirit to and for the whole Church. Private vows may be both or neither but this is not ascertained by the Church because such a dedication is an entirely private act. Even when such private vows are both a source of freedom for the person making the vows and a gift to and for the Church, the private nature of the act means this cannot be adequately discerned or celebrated --- much less extended to others in what must be a mutual act of discernment.

For some the constraints of public profession, canonical structures like vows, a Rule and constitutions, canonical relationships like legitimate superiors and congregations or communities along with the public expectations associated with these will really constitute an impediment to authentic freedom. For the one called to these things they will instead help to create the space for the perfection of authentic freedom and true selfhood. My own life, for instance, is constrained in many significant ways by the requirements of canon 603 (the silence of solitude, stricter separation from the world, etc.) and my public profession and consecration; at the same time these constraints generally create the circumstances necessary to empower me to be the person God calls me to be. Should I have moments when I doubt this is true I can fall back to some extent on the discernment of the Church and my relationships with legitimate superiors for reassurance or encouragement. This also means, however, that should I begin to seriously question if I am insufficiently free in this way or that, I will need to discern whether I am perhaps mistaking license for authentic freedom in the given instance and what I need to do at this point in order to embrace authentic freedom.

Another look at Canonical Obedience

Several weeks ago or so I was asked about a private vow of obedience that was described as one of "canonical obedience" and I wrote that this was an incoherent usage, an usage which literally "does not hold together or cohere" when applied to private vows. There is such a thing as canonical obedience. It is obedience professed and rendered generally and ecclesially meaningful according to specific canon laws. It is obedience defined by and associated with certain canonical rights and obligations which apply to those admitted publicly to canonical vows but not otherwise. On the one hand one may make a private vow of poverty which does not bind under penalty of canon law and which does not share the same rights and obligations as a public vow, for instance, or on the other hand, one who is admitted by the Church through various canonical avenues, may make a canonical (public) vow which obligates in specific ways under penalty of law. Of course canonical vows are also protected and nurtured under law; they are supported by other canonical structures and supervised by legitimate superiors because they are public and not private bonds. Meanwhile, legitimate superiors are also bound by canon (and often by proper) law in specific ways to supervise those under their authority by virtue of these persons having made and been allowed to make canonical vows in the legitimate superior's hands.

I don't think this is hard to understand: those who make canonical vows are bound by (additional) canon law(s) in ways those who make private vows are not. Neither do the canon laws applying to such things apply to most Catholics. There are sections of the Code of Canon Law which apply to all baptized persons (cc204-231 and sections of the code on sacraments, on liturgy, etc.) but there are many more that apply to more specific segments of the Church: to clergy, to the married, to institutes of consecrated life and in some ways to canonically consecrated hermits, to consecrated virgins, to the teaching office of the church, etc, etc.  Not every section of the law is of interest much less do they actually apply to every person in the Church. So imagine my surprise when the person who claimed a private vow of obedience was one of "canonical obedience" wrote the following:

[[A hermit colleague was upset by my mentioning that I render canonical obedience. Yes, I do. Any practicing Catholic ought render obedience to the various and multitudinous Canon Laws developed over the years. At least we ought to try just as we try to be obedient to civil laws on the books. Why not? The inclusion of my being obedient to my bishop in whatever diocese I may reside and to obey canon laws should not be a source of upset to others. Rather, we should rejoice at our human and flailing attempts to canonical obedience but even more so to obedience to Jesus' precepts, particularly that of God's Law of Love.]]

Of course "canonical obedience" does not mean simply being obedient "to the various and multitudinous Canon Laws developed over the years" (were that even possible or reasonable). It means being bound by the specific canons applying to those admitted publicly (i.e., canonically) to a vow of obedience. No more, no less. Those with private vows do not owe and are not bound by the canons applying to those with canonical (public) vows anymore than those publicly professed as religious are bound by the canon laws applying to marriage or vice versa. For that matter diocesan hermits are not (generally speaking) bound to obey canons applying to priests, or even all of those canons which apply to religious. Similarly, apostolic religious (again generally speaking) are not bound by canon 603 any more than they are bound by the canon law that applies to priests, those that apply to married persons or those that apply to bishops, to theologians, etc., etc. 

Beyond the issue of canon law per se, every Catholic owes obedience to their diocesan bishop in a general or Scriptural sense of the term. This means they are required to listen to their bishop, to consider what he has to say and to act in ways which honor what he teaches and wills just as they would any pastor. However, this is NOT what has been called "canonical obedience". In such a case the bishop is NOT the legitimate superior of any persons except those who are specifically and canonically vowed (to him) in religious obedience --- nor can he expect or attempt to require such obedience from the majority of those in his diocese. The specific nature of Christian freedom and the obligations to personal responsibility in these other vocations DO NOT ALLOW THIS. 

The bishop is the legitimate superior of diocesan priests and diocesan hermits, for instance, because a qualified but undiminished expression of Christian freedom which is spelled out in both canon and proper law (e.g., the hermit's Rule) and which each has publicly embraced in either the rite of ordination or religious profession, exists between them. It is together that they will do the will of God within a specifically ecclesial vocation. Because there is no carefully delimited and mutually defined relationship where rights and obligations are similarly spelled out (in Rule and/or Constitutions) and embraced via public rite, the bishop is not the legitimate superior of lay members of the diocese and is not owed "canonical (or religious) obedience", nor should he be. This is so because such carefully limited and explicitly defined public relationships do not come to be through baptism alone, not even when entirely private vows are added to the mix.

 To summarize the point here then, one cannot simply pretend to be bound to religious or canonical obedience in this way by referring either to the common obedience owed to one's bishop or to a host of laws one neither understands      and which do not even apply to their lives. These members have the right and obligation to honor Christian Freedom in any way they discern in good conscience and so long as they do not transgress into areas of the Church which bring them under the direct purview of the bishop's authority, they are obligated to do so without the permission of the bishop or someone he delegates to oversee their activity. They have an obligation to submit their own wills to Christ's but neither is this is canonical obedience because these persons are NOT canonically vowed to the specific expression of Christian freedom and responsibility associated with public profession. To call it canonical obedience is analogous to calling a year of some sort of initial formation in a non-canonical community a "canonical year".  In either case this usage is mistaken and literally incoherent.

The Relevancy of Canon 603:

Ms Joan McClure, the author of the position being discussed here and a privately vowed hermit and (vocationally as well as hierarchically speaking) a lay member of the Archdiocese of Seattle, does not owe Archbishop Sartain "canonical obedience" and I am sure he would be the first person to explain to her that she does not. Ms McClure also wrote about my response regarding "canonical obedience": [[ If we get upset over desire to obey laws of the land and laws of the Church, or laws of God especially--this upset is an example of not letting Christ's peace control our hearts.  I do not think the person who was upset by my mention in my professed eremitic vows to include canonical obedience fully understood but rather got the meaning and intent confused with canonical approval of hermits by one's specific diocese bishops according to Canon Law 603. ]]

The Church's own position on the difference between public profession (which includes a canonical vow of obedience) and private dedication and vows is clear: the first involves additional canonical rights and obligations beyond those granted with baptism, the other does not; the first thus means the individual embraces canonical or religious obedience, the other does not; the first means that the person so professed acquires certain legitimate (canonical) rights and obligations which play a part in publicly defining the person's life and Freedom (ecclesially approved Rule, legitimate superior(s), etc.), the other does not. Profession under Canon 603 (or profession under the canons applying to religious life more generally) are specific instances of these general distinctions. Both differ from the private dedication of the lay or clerical hermit in all of the ways just listed, but canon 603 professions are particularly illustrative of these distinctions. Thus, when a Bishop admits an individual to canonical profession under canon 603 he admits the person to an ecclesial vocation which further specifies the way their freedom must be lived out  and he does so on behalf of the entire Church, not as an instance of his own private desires or individual eccentricity.

 In such an act the subject making their profession becomes a "Hermit of the Diocese of x_________" and they do so not merely because they are a hermit living in that diocese but because they represent the eremitical life in the name of both the local and the universal Church. With private vows --- which, again, do not rise to the level of profession as the Church understands this term --- the hermit involved does not become a "Hermit of the Diocese of x____" and is not bound to canonical obedience despite the fact that she may live eremitical life in that diocese. It is too bad some with private vows feel a need to conflate these with canonical vows. It is always important that those with canonical vows do not embrace a notion of superiority vs inferiority when comparing public profession to private dedication, but at the same time it is crucially important that those who are privately dedicated do not mislead or confuse by misapplying terms like "canonical" when characterizing their own vow of obedience, etc. This is a source of serious confusion and does not serve the Church or the differing expressions of the eremitical life particularly well.

Creation of Adam, Chartres: Image of the Desert Vocation to New Creation (Reprise)

 A friend returned from a trip to France (etc.) with about 32 other Dominicans from various congregations and brought me a picture of this statuary from Chartres Cathedral. It is a favorite of hers and is called God Creates Adam; it is a small piece, only about a foot and a half or two feet high and is located on a Northern portal to the cathedral.

While I had never seen it before, I loved it instantly. It recalls for me so many prayer times when I had the sense of having God's entire attention or of being held securely and loved into wholeness. It speaks to me of the place of God in each of our lives --- even when we fail to realize how inextricably wed our lives are with one another. There is an amazing combination of strength and gentleness, quiet joy and determination, as well as dependence and independence here. God looks completely sure of himself and quietly pleased. Adam --- who looks neither male nor female to me --- looks content and at peace.

I hear an invitation here: "Give yourself over to me; let me make you my very own creation, my very own image and counterpart! Let me truly make you what you are!" --- as God reminds me of the dignity and nature of my original creation and all the potential it holds. There have been times I have not known or remembered that God's creative presence was at work in me calling into existence, healing, molding, shaping, and summoning me into the absolute future of God's own life; there were times when I thought all potential had been spent or was lost forever. Yet I know very well now that this is an image of every day of my life as well as a picture of  the covenant reality I am most truly meant to let myself become. For me it is a wonderful image!!