On Authentic and Inauthentic C 603 Vocations

[[Dear Sister, As you know, I’ve been a reader of your blog for many years. I think you should be commended for bringing a better understanding of the hermit vocation to the public; in particular you’ve done a profound service by explaining what canon 603 means and how it is to be properly understood. Thank you! I too agree that being a canon 603 hermit is a profound vocation that must be discerned by both the individual hermit and the Church (in the person of the local bishop). It is an important vocation, but one that I think is actually rare. 

 

It seems to me though that you have many people writing you with all sorts of ways, and even schemes, to being declared a 603 hermit (and being able to wear a habit etc.). It seems to me that this obsession with being declared a 603 hermit by some might a symptom of the “clericalization” of the laity we’ve seen since the Council. It seems many people don’t feel like they are fully committed as Catholics if the aren’t doing “churchy” things in a really obvious and public way. It seems odd to me that so many people are obsessed with receiving canon 603 status. Why doesn’t it occur to them that they can live a quiet life of prayer and contemplation as a consequence of their baptismal vows? One does not need the bishop’s approval to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, do Lectio, go to daily Mass etc. and perhaps have a small quiet apostolate. 

 

This might sound harsh, but I think for some the desire to be declared a 603 hermit flows from ego and status seeking rather than a genuine vocation. Sometimes when I read these handwringing letters about the struggle of being received as an official 603 hermit, I think: “Gee whiz pal...there is nothing stopping you from living as a hermit right now! Just do it!” It seems many want to do what Thomas Merton’s therapist accused him of wanting to do which was live as a hermit with a huge flashing sign over the hermitage that said “hermit lives here”.  Perhaps we need to rediscover the power and beauty of living the lay vocation in a spirit of holiness, prayer and service in the midst of our ordinary lives. Perhaps we are underestimating what it means to simply live our baptism with integrity and purpose (which for some might look exactly like that of a professed hermit). 

 

This in no way is meant to denigrate those who are legitimately called to profess vows as a canon 603 hermit, but I think this call grows out of years of living that naturally on one’s own (with a spiritual director to keep one balanced). What do you think of this near obsession on the part of some to be officially declared a canon 603 hermit? Do you think it’s an expression of a type of “clericalism”? Is it an expression of ego? Finally, in St. Benedict's Rule it says that the solitary life should only be undertaken after years of testing in the monastery. Are you concerned that so many people would like to be canon 603 hermits without the proper formation (which may or may not include living in a monastic community)? I would welcome your thoughts on this. Please feel free to post this on-line if you feel it might be helpful.]]

 

Thanks for your comments and questions. I have written a lot here over the past decade and more on the importance of lay life, the possibility and significance for the church of folks living as lay hermits (hermits in the lay state), the need to look at our baptismal commitments and to renew them in light of adult lives and commitments, and the need to embrace fully the theology of the laity made so clear and prominent at Vatican II. Similarly almost every time I have written about the significance of the Canon 603 vocation I have either written a separate post about lay eremitical life or included caveats about failures to esteem the lay eremitical vocation. I have also written about the lay hermit life as necessary preparation for most people considering petitioning for profession under c 603.  I won't repeat all of this here. Long term formation is necessary to become a canonical hermit and living as a lay hermit under a good spiritual director is the usual way these days to receive that formation. In other words, I mainly agree with what you have written above.

 

This morning I revisited some comments I had written on an online forum several years ago. I reread comments I hadn't remembered --- among them, one that complained that a newspaper reporter who had interviewed me wrote I often wore jeans (I don't, though I do wear pants or jeans and a work tunic at times). The person commenting said he didn't think my life was credible if I wore jeans. Another person noted a lot of people on a monastic forum wore habits despite not being professed monastics and despite not having been given the right to style themselves in this way by any legitimate authority. The hang up regarding playacting, dress-up, costumes, etc and trivialization of the religious habit (or the title, "Religious") by those with no right to wear/use them is something that continues to be a problem and I guess that really surprises me. It carries over to those seeking to be professed under canon 603. There is no doubt the majority of people seeking to be professed are turned away as unsuitable, or, after a period of discernment, because they are found to have no eremitical vocation. And yet, over and over, people who have never lived as hermits of any kind, who may not even live alone, decide they want to wear a habit and/or "be a religious" in others' eyes.

 

This does seem to go hand in hand with the increased establishment of new groups of people desiring to become religious, congregations of consecrated life, etc. Unfortunately, these rarely seem to me to be developed because of recognized  unmet needs as was the case in the past. (For instance, Sisters found families with young children needed various kinds of assistance and congregations were established or diversified to meet these needs, schools were needed for low income children and communities were formed or diversified to meet these needs, etc.) What is different from many groups being formed today is that these older congregations were not formed merely so people could be religious or wear habits or have some kind of privileged status as does seem so often to be the case today.  I don't know if I would call all of this kind of thing "clericalization" exactly but I know what you are describing;  it does represent a need to "be someone", and to be recognizable and with some kind of status or standing in the Church beyond that they associate with lay life.

Let me underscore the difference in motivations alluded to in the last paragraph. Some accept religious vocations and the things associated with those vocations because they (and the institutional church entrusted with these vocations) are convinced they are being called by the Holy Spirit, not because they want to "be someone" or have some "privileged status", etc. They are true religious and experienced in their call a societal and ecclesial need their love of God and their neighbors require they help address. Depending on many factors they may or may not wear a habit; it depends on what, in their discernment serves the specific vocation and its mission. Supporting the wearing of a habit per se does not rise to this level of vocation. Feeling called but failing to secure the agreement and necessary support of the institutional church (congregations, bishops, etc) in what are specifically defined as ecclesial vocations does not rise to this level of vocation. Dressing up in a habit without being given the right to do so because one feels habits should be honored fails to recognize the farcical nature of what one is doing or the way it renders the habit incredible as a meaningful symbol of ecclesial vocations.

It has seemed to me that many people seeking canonical standing under canon 603 are often trying to find a way to validate their own isolation and sometimes their  inability to pursue a religious vocation in community. Some have been required to leave community during various stages of formation and they latch onto c 603 thereafter. A relative few (very few!) of these and others will discover that eremitical solitude is a unique form of community in the Body of Christ and truly discover that the Holy Spirit is calling them to this rather than to isolation. Many who seek canon 603 standing will do so as a way of avoiding formation or the oversight of superiors; they believe it will allow a degree of individualism with minimal formation and responsibility, a bit of prayer, a little added silence, but not really much more than this. Part of the reason for these non-vocations is an inadequate understanding regarding what the life is about, what it looks like, how truly countercultural and even prophetic it is and in what ways it is truly important for the Church and a world in which individualism is rampant and the isolated elderly, for instance, live the final years of their lives without real hope or sense of meaning. Authentic hermits speak to these folks especially vividly I think. Fraudulent or inauthentic hermits are guilty of a hypocrisy which actually ridicules and trivializes these peoples' lives and concerns.

One can only draw some broad conclusions about the possible use of canon 603 by those without eremitical vocations: ignorance of the nature of consecrated vocations, inadequate or even selfish motivations, misunderstanding the vocation as individualistic and without a true witness value or mission. The commissioning of the canonical hermit is a great grace for the hermit herself, but it is still mainly done for the sake of others --- not merely to pray for others, but to live for them in a way which shows them how meaningful their lives may be apart from status, wealth, marriage, career, etc., when we each discover God alone is sufficient for us. Eremitical solitude is opposed to individualism; the significance of the eremitical life is eviscerated when consecrated hermits live their vocations badly, when dioceses mistake being a lone individual for being a hermit, or, of course, when people pretend to eremitical vocations despite inadequate discernment or ecclesial support of their choice. In any case, you are right on when you say a person wanting to be a hermit should just get on with it. One does not need c 603 to do this, and in fact, one cannot embrace canon 603 except to the extent one has "just gotten on with it" without any promise of canon 603 profession!!

Sorry, this took so long. I hope it is at least a little helpful!!

On the Importance of Language When Thinking or Speaking About Eremitical Vocations

[[ Hi Sister, it sure seems that language is important. I am still reading in the blog I have written you about earlier and I am seeing that the author uses certain terms very differently than you do. One of the terms I am not sure of, however is "hierarchy". Is it the case that the Church is divided into three classes or groups: laity, consecrated or religious, and hierarchy? One of the points being made is that we don't speak of hierarchy hermits or laity hermits but I am thinking hierarchy is different than this. Also, I know you said this in your last response to me but Joyful Hermit does believe that a hermit making vows of the evangelical counsels ceases to be a lay person --- "precludes them" being a lay person is the way she says it. I thought though that most hermits through history have been lay hermits. You have said she holds this yourself. And lastly -- for now because Joyful says a lot of things I think are just plain wrong -- she says that married people can become hermits but that they give up their marriage rights in doing so; she also said something about "fulfilling their marriage vows" and so now being able to become hermits. That can't be right!! Can it??]]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church does speak of hierarchy, laity and, those in religious life and then says the laity is composed of all those who are not ordained or part of the religious state of life. I am not sure why this choice was made but it is more problematical than helpful for several reasons, not least that it seems to contradict the fact that canon law says very clearly that religious life, while part of the perfection of the Church, is not a third and intermediate state between clergy and laity. The CCC seems to indicate otherwise in the section now being referred to. A second part of the problem is hierarchy of the Church seems to refer to all those who are ordained clergy even though it also says the whole Church is hierarchical. Moreover common usage treats Bishops and Cardinals as hierarchy whereas priests are not commonly thought of as part of the hierarchy per se.

To do this while leaving the laity and priesthood of all believers out of the notion of hierarchy seems to contribute to the problem of clericalism in the Church --- something the Church has been trying to deal with. Finally, the Church may have been trying to deal with the term laity in the vocational sense (see below) and conflated it with laity in the hierarchical sense of the term. They might also have been trying to put religious/consecrated persons back between clergy and laity where older prayers had placed them and the Church had regarded them until; VII. At Vatican II the Church fathers worked out the following schema: 1) the hierarchical Church is divided into two main groups: 1) laity and 2) ordained clergy. The clergy are then divided further (and hierarchically) into deacons, priests, and bishops (which, in spite of common understanding, does make everyone in Orders "hierarchy!). Anyone who is not clergy is laity. This is what the term laity means when used in the "hierarchical sense". Thus, any religious, canonical hermit, (or consecrated virgin), who is not also clergy is laity in this hierarchical sense.

However, as alluded to above, the term laity has a second and vocational sense. When used in this second sense laity refers to all of those people of God who exist in the baptized state without added canonical or Sacramental conditions (so, without canonical profession or Orders which change their lay state). Those who have entered the consecrated state through public profession cease to be lay persons in this vocational sense. Hermits can come from any of the three categories of people: clergy or priests, consecrated persons, or the laity. If one makes private vows as a hermit one does not enter a new state of life. This happens only through public profession (including the "promito" made by CV's and the consecration which follows that) If a cleric makes private vows as a hermit he remains a cleric and does not enter the consecrated state. Again this happens only through public profession. If a professed/consecrated person makes private vows to live as a hermit, they remain in the consecrated state but they are NOT consecrated hermits per se nor are they hermits who live eremitical life in the name of the Church. (They do live religious vocations in the name of the Church but not eremitical life itself.) To be either of these things (a consecrated hermit per se, or one who lives the hermit vocation in the name of the Church) requires public profession and consecration as a hermit under canon 603 (or as a member of an eremitical institute of consecrated life).

 Consecrated hermits can be drawn from any of the three categories of persons, lay, consecrated or, clerical and while it is true we do not call hermits "laity hermits" or "hierarchical hermits" (at least in regard to this absurd usage "Joyful" is correct), the Church certainly does indicate the state of life in which one lives eremitical life per se, namely: lay hermits, consecrated hermits, and priest hermits.  Alternately we can say a person is a lay person and a hermit, a consecrated person and a hermit, or a priest and a hermit. The idea that because one make vows of the evangelical councils one ceases to be a lay person is simply nonsense. Lots of lay persons make these vows and have done all through the centuries, often as private specifications of their baptismal commitments. They don't cease being lay persons unless they are professed (which means publicly making vows (etc) in the hands of a legitimate superior with the authority to accept such a commitment; the making of private vows does not truly acquire the name "profession" since profession includes not just vows, etc, but the initiation into a new state of life), or unless they  receive the Sacrament of Orders.

Hermits and marriage. Such a fraught topic!! One wonders why that still is! Once upon a time the Church allowed married folks to become hermits. But no longer!! The Church today more appropriately esteems  marriage and recognizes that married love (which includes but is much more than having sexual intercourse) is a very high value which cannot be set aside for some supposedly "higher vocation" --- a notion Vatican II also distanced itself from. The idea that someone can "fulfill" their marriage duties (which, given the narrowness of the idea being put forward here, I assume means having sex and bearing children) and then somehow move beyond the witness of married love either because they are no longer of child-bearing age/ability or because they no longer have intercourse is even greater nonsense than the idea mentioned above I also called nonsense! In the Sacrament of marriage two people become "one flesh" until death and the commitment to married love remains even if this means they no longer have sex or produce children!  The faithfulness required by marriage is always of significant witness value to the Church --- and to those who belong to the consecrated state of life in the Church. Married folks do not "outgrow this" in some way. The "witness value to love" of such a "hermit"  makes me think of the Peanuts cartoon re loving mankind but hating people when s/he chooses to leave a marriage in order to embrace eremitical life. They want to love humanity but can't give their whole hearts to God through love of a spouse --- the very purpose of the couple's marriage commitment to one another!!

Thus, giving up one's marriage in this way in order to enter eremitical solitude is no longer acceptable in the Church given our understanding of the nature and value of marriage per se. Similarly, no one today would allow  two people to become hermits together (this is not eremitical solitude nor can one assume both have eremitical vocations), nor to leave a spouse behind in the name of consecrated life. This would be a betrayal of eremitical solitude and the vocation to marriage because at the heart of either situation is a refusal to love in the way one has been called to love for the whole of one's life. Beyond this I should mention that if one has been married and divorced without benefit of a declaration of nullity, the Church considers the bond of marriage to continue to exist and to stand as an impediment to receiving consecration and entering the consecrated state of life. As part of discerning a vocations, a candidate's freedom to contract a public life commitment is established by the Church before admitting her to profession and/or consecration. (When marriage is contracted, for instance, or when one is baptized after marriage, the Church administering the Sacrament sends a note to the person's baptismal church and a note is made in the registry of Sacraments. This follows a person and is called up whenever public profession is anticipated or marriage or ordinations are planned so that one's freedom to undertake such a vocation is established.)

Regarding the notion that most hermits throughout history have been lay hermits, the fact is that yes, unless a person entered an institute of consecrated life at some point and was publicly professed, if they were a hermit they were a lay hermit. This only changed in 1983 with canon 603. Remember that Bp Remi de Roo made an intervention at Vatican II seeking to allow the hermit vocation to be part of consecrated life or, what was once called " a state of perfection". While bishops watched out for hermits eremitical life was not a form of consecrated life until c 603. Only then were solitary hermits professed in universal law and thus too, only then did they become members of the consecrated or religious state). Even so, the majority of hermits today are, and I think they will always be, lay hermits --- hermits in the lay state of life. The canonical mechanism for consecration in a public (and a solitary) eremitical vocation now exists (canonical standing as part of an institute of Consecrated life has been possible since at least  the 11th century), but canon 603 is (rightfully I believe) relatively rarely used by bishops and often its requirements (rights and obligations) are onerous to those who merely desire to "go off and live in solitude" as lay persons. These latter are apt to make private vows of some sort, but they need not do so; instead they can simply determine their baptismal commitments require an eremitical response to God from them now. Since poverty, chastity and obedience proper to one's state in life is required of every Christian, these hermits can work out the shape of these commitments as specifications of their baptismal commitment. And, since they are required of every Christian they can be vowed in every state of life --- privately in lay and some clerical life, publicly in professed and consecrated life. To suggest they cannot be misunderstands the NT Gospel counsels are meant for all even though the form and nature of the commitment will change from state to state.

On Canonical Hermits and the Ministry of Authority

Mary Southard, CSJ

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I was impressed with what you said about your Directors exercising the ministry of authority as  a matter of love. I am also a Religious Sister (Saint Francis) and I don't think most people understand the requirements of religious obedience in this way. What was especially striking to me was the way you explained that your change in state of life affected others and called for this new form of love from them. When you write about ecclesial vocations or "stable states of life" the way others are implicated in your profession and consecration is what you have in mind, isn't it? I had not seen it as clearly until you explained about requiring obedience as an act of love on your Director's part. The way you described how intently and well your Director must truly listen to and know you in order to require religious obedience from you by virtue of your vow also made this much clearer to me. Thank you! Oh, sorry, I forgot to ask a question! Can you say more about this? I think I have understood you, haven't I?]]

Wow! really terrific comments and questions! Thanks!! Yes, you have it exactly right and I don't think I could have said it better. When we speak of a change in one's state of life or one's initiation into a stable state of life, or when I use the term ecclesial vocations or speak of the rights and responsibilities associated with the canonical state of consecrated life, I am trying to at least point to the way an entire constellation of relationships are affected; new relationships and roles are established and new ways of loving and being loved are effected and called for. This constellation of relationships is actually a piece of what makes living one's vocation possible. The example of religious obedience is important because to require obedience of another because one has been entrusted with "the ministry of authority" in her life and by the Church is first of all to commit to being profoundly obedient oneself. To listen profoundly to another in a way that allows them to come to the fullness of life God calls them to, especially in an exercise of legitimate authority, is to engage in a clearly and deeply loving, creative, act.

Because this specific way of exercising authority (that is, in requiring obedience of someone by virtue of their canonical vow) is so rare for my Director (et al) I only truly discovered how loving for me and demanding for her this specific ministry can be in the last several years. I made vow(s) several times over the years, most recently in my solemn/perpetual eremitical profession under canon 603, but only in the past three years have I experienced how profoundly implicated others are in the Church's decision to admit me to public profession and her reception of my commitment. 

I have long appreciated that others in the Church have a right to certain expectations in my regard by virtue of public profession, but the unique demands of the vow of obedience in this matter were not clear to me until I found myself truly loved and cared for by virtue of my Director exercising this ministry in my regard. Vows certainly help to create stability in a state of life, but above all, and especially in an ecclesial vocation, it is one's relationships with others and especially with those who exercise the ministry of authority in one's regard that stability is established and protected. (By the way, my Director exercises the ministry of authority in ways other than the narrow action I have spoken of in this paragraph; all of it is loving and creative; all of it is rooted in profound obedience on my Director's part, both to God and to my own being! As you well know, one shouldn't think requiring obedience in this specific way is all there is to the ministry of authority!)

I write here a lot about the besetting sin of our times (or at least one of these), namely, individualism. When I am asked about hermits whose vows are private or those who do not seek canonical standing I often comment on how difficult it must be to live this way. In part in making this observation I am recognizing that such vocations may well be inherently unstable; as I have noted before the world militates against such vocations but in part I am also recognizing that such vocations may well be inherently unstable because they are also unrelated to others in an institutional or structural way and, unfortunately, are poorly linked to the reality we call (legitimate or ecclesial) authority. If so, then they also lack the stability associated with the canonical hermit's consecrated state of life. 

(This is not to say that such hermits cannot build in the kinds of relationships that will provide greater stability and protect eremitical solitude from becoming skewed in the direction of individualism, but the vow of religious obedience implicates others who make a binding commitment to the hermit and the ministry of authority her vocation requires. What I think is often not recognized sufficiently --- not least because it is too rarely experienced, even indirectly, by those outside religious or consecrated life -- is that the legitimate exercise of authority which is part and parcel of empowering another to live their vocations in the name of the Church, is (or is meant to be) about acts of love which empower and set free.

Stereotypes of hermits abound, but so do stereotypes of those called to exercise the ministry of authority in our lives. One blogger I can think of regularly writes about how it is that some seek canonical standing because of pride or the need for some kind of prestige, a penchant for legalism, etc. Unfortunately, she writes from outside the canonical vocation as do others who also automatically associate canon law or the embrace of canonical standing with legalism or some unusual love for canon law, etc.. But as I have said here a number of times, "law (can and often does) serve(s) love"! Those who agree to serve in the exercise of legitimate authority in our lives have assumed an awesome responsibility, not because they are into power or pride (most are very far from these!!), but because they have accepted a call to assist God in loving us into wholeness; they have accepted the sometimes difficult call to assist one to achieve and live a disciplined, ordered, and personally integral vocational stability in their state of life.

We recognize relatively easily that someone accepting a role in congregational leadership is accepting a call to love in a unique and challenging way. But what is more generally true is that in the life of anyone entering a new state of life, people must step up and take on a similar role or that person's life will lack some of the stability it is meant to be marked by for the sake God's life in that person, her vocation, and the life of the Church. This is one of the reasons initiation into new states of life involves public commitments, not private ones. 

Canonical hermits live a life of the silence of solitude but, again, they do so within a constellation of relationships, some of which are directly implicated in making sure the hermit can and does live her vocation with the integrity she and the Church as such feels she is called to do, but also as the Church has allowed her to publicly commit to doing. This is the heart of what it means to be admitted to an ecclesial vocation. Again eremitical life is about a solitude lived with God for the sake of others. I should underscore that this solitude, which is never to be confused with isolation, is also empowered by the love of others for the hermit (and the hermit's love for them!); those exercising the ministry of authority in her regard are primary among these.

On Obedience versus Religious Obedience

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered if you owe your spiritual director obedience? Did you come to owe her obedience in a different way after your profession? My current director doesn't seem very keen on me owing her "obedience" and I was wondering if it is a matter of style or something -- if you know what I mean!]]

Thanks for your questions: they are good ones! Most contemporary spiritual directors will not accept obedience from their directees if by this we mean religious obedience of the type owed a legitimate superior because of public profession in religious/consecrated life. After all, spiritual directors are not ordinarily the person's legitimate superior (there are very good reasons for this) and are not authorized to request or accept this kind of obedience. It is simply not responsible. Neither is it truthful. This means I am not surprised your spiritual director is not too keen on the whole idea! I do not encourage my own directees to look to me for "commands" or "directives" on what they are to do or not do. I often give suggestions on journaling topics, Scripture passages to meditate on, etc, but these are not commands. The client (or directee) must decide for themselves what is most important or helpful in these suggestions and undertake them in that light --- not because I have said to "Do this". At the same time, I do expect my clients to practice a more general kind of obedience than that undertaken in consecrated life by virtue of a vow. That is, I expect a foundational attentiveness to the client's own heart, to our conversations, to the presence of God in their lives, in the Word of God and so forth. But a spiritual director as SD is not one's legitimate superior and is not owed the kind of obedience one embraces and owes by virtue of a vow of (religious) obedience.

All that said then, the answer to your first question is no, I do not owe my SD obedience in the sense defined by vow -- at least not insofar as she is my spiritual director. However, my SD is also a delegate serving the bishop and me for the sake of this eremitical vocation (we take care with questions of internal and external forums --- the usual area of difficulty in having an SD serve as delegate); that means that I see her regularly in place of my bishop who, after all, cannot meet with me nearly as frequently as I might need and does not know me nearly as well. Because she is my delegate (we --- meaning Sister Marietta and myself, but also Sister Susan, a co-delegate --- also use the term Director for this role --- much as we might call a Mistress of Novices or Juniors a Director of either of these today. Insofar as either Marietta or Susan are also my Directors in this sense, yes, beyond obedience in a more general sense, I owe them religious obedience by virtue of the public vow I made in the hands of my bishop.

Neither of these Sisters nor my bishop are much into requiring this more specifically defined religious obedience from me, but occasionally one of them will do so. I am often encouraged to do x or y, but rarely is there a specific directive to limit x, do y, or refrain from z! I am ordinarily surprised when I receive an actual directive (it is both unusual and ordinarily unnecessary) but it always helps me in whatever circumstances I find myself; what is most striking to me is how it reveals just how profoundly obedient to what is happening within me my Director has been herself! Still, the ordinary obedience (attentiveness and care) I give to communications with my delegate is usually sufficient to affect the kind of fruit desired. My sense is that this is generally true of this kind of relation in the lives of religious today. It is a good deal more than style because it is spiritually and psychologically demanding and more appropriate to mature religious, but I definitely know what you mean.

It is important and probably should go without saying that religious obedience should never be infantilizing. It is also important that religious obedience help us to be truly obedient to God who rarely if ever simply tells us what to do. We must learn to listen, not only to our directors but to the Spirit of God alive in our own hearts, minds, sensibilities, and even in our own bodies and to discern what it calls for from us. Simply being told what to do and doing what we are told does not foster this kind of discernment or growth. It used to be taught that we are to give up our own will and do the will of God (where the command of a superior represented the will of God). Today we focus more on the shaping and conforming of our wills to the will of God in a way which allows us to mature as discerning human beings. A superior is to assist in this growth and this means s/he will do a lot of intent listening to God, to his/her own heart and to us as well (including our psychological, physical, and spiritual states, needs and potentialities. It is a very much more demanding expression of obedience than the simple "Do as you are told" or "Command what you will even if you don't know well the subject's circumstances" kind of obedience.

        By the way,  regarding your last question, yes, the quality and nature of the obedience I owed my Director/delegate changed in light of my vow. It is true that Marietta consented to being my Director in this sense prior to profession and in some ways that would have affected a change but strictly speaking, until I was publicly professed in the hands of the bishop (meaning until he became my legitimate superior because that is who "in the hands of" indicates he is), neither was Marietta my Director/delegate. This is because until the moment of the profession (meaning until the making and reception of one's life commitment and consecration by God through the mediation of the diocesan Church) I became subject to the authority of the Church in a new way. I might have pretended or even desired to be bound to someone in this sense prior to profession (this is especially true when I was younger and this kind of accountability meant a new and somehow intriguing way of  "belonging" in community***) but it is the public act of profession which establishes one in a new state of life with attendant rights and obligations. Religious obedience is one of these.

***It is interesting the way we sometimes "like" the idea of being bound in obedience to another. I know that directees sometimes like to think they are bound to me (or to other directors) in this way. Apparently there is an attendant sense that one is truly cared for by another in this way. I experienced this as a young religious, but in my recent experience, as I have noted above, those requiring obedience from me in the sense of my vow ordinarily demonstrate in what they have required a profound sense of my own needs, well-being, potentialities, etc. It is (or at least has been for me) a profoundly loving thing for legitimate superiors to exercise the ministry of authority over another in this way. (Of course this can and has been both misused and abused in the past; at times it has been exercised in terms of power and pettiness and not in terms of love. When exercised in love, however, the ministry of authority is both freeing and empowering of the true self. I have been delighted to discover that in recent years.

Oakland Civic Orchestra: Mendelssohn's 5th Symphony (the "Reformation")

This is, hands down, one of my favorite symphonies and I have played it before with the Oakland Civic Orchestra (which makes the bittersweetness of this performance a bit less bitter and a little sweeter for me). This is only the first movement but I will add videos of further movements as I receive them. Enjoy this amateur community orchestra! We have always played good repertoire without abbreviations or adaptations, and (with the grace of God I am sure) always managed to "come through" and make music with Marty Stoddard's leadership.

Once Again on Bloggers Misconstruing the Church's Position on Vocations to the Consecrated State

[[Sister Laurel, have you seen the following from The Catholic Hermit blog? I would have copied more but here is the link: Synonymous With Prayer. I don't understand how the kind of misinformation she continues to post can be left unaddressed by the Church.

[[ by is the aspect of those who would have it that only the hermit vocation is consecrated if publicly professed via canon law; yet the hermit vocation overflows in both a recently written Church law as well as the true call of God to the individual soul.  The eremitic call and the soul's acceptance has been validated through the centuries even back in the ancient lives of hermit prophets--that call and even silently professed avowal which permeates the conscious and unconscious and is.  This form of hermit, traditional, is in the Church's earliest history, made valid and real by God's law, and has always been recognized by the Church and her ordained priests and laity innately, mystically, by means of call and acceptance and vocation lived and as if breathed, consciously and unconsciously--as is prayer.]]

Yes, I have seen it. I will respond paragraph by paragraph (I have also copied a couple of paragraphs you did not since you provided the link to do so). Prescinding from what she seems to be saying about prayer and the hermit life being synonymous, I think it is unfortunate that Joyful Hermit cannot simply accept the truth involved in Canon 603, namely, that the Church herself teaches that the consecrated state of life is entered by public profession. (cf par 944 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The life consecrated to God is characterized by the public profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, in a stable state of life recognized by the Church.) As I have said many times, vocations to the consecrated state of life are ecclesial vocations which "belong" to the Church herself; the Church values, protects, and governs these vocations with mutual discernment and everything that flows from public profession. Public profession (a broader term than the making of vows) results in publicly binding obligations, rights, and structures which allow the Church to act as she herself is called by God to do with these vocations --- and to make sure the hermits do the same.

Clearly this is not my own individual "take" on things.  CCC par 944 is unambiguous in what it says; it is true of coenobitical religious vocations, consecrated eremitical vocations, and vocations to consecrated virginity. Canon 603 itself is very clear that a hermit is recognized in law (something necessary to all vocations to the consecrated state of life in the Church) as a consecrated/Catholic hermit if the local bishop professes her according to Canon 603. This canonical form of life is a significant expression of eremitical life today. In fact, despite the way Ms. McClure (Joyful Hermit) uses the term traditional for historically common or usual, it is now an explicitly traditional (that is, a normative) expression of solitary eremitical life today; coenobitical or semi-eremitical life is the other normative expression. Canon 603 has become part of the Church's patrimony which she will hand on (tradere) to further generations. In composing and promulgating it she did the best she could to recognize the central elements of eremitical life revealed through the centuries and codify these. Thus, even if one is not going to become a canonical hermit, canon 603 presents the church's normative vision of eremitical life, no matter the expression one embraces.

Even so, eremitical life itself falls into both canonical (consecrated) and non-canonical  categories. Many have no desire to associate themselves with the requirements of Canon 603 or other canonical forms of eremitical life; they prefer either to make private vows or no vows at all. This is more than fine, especially when the reasons for doing so are cogent and well-discerned. The history of the eremitical vocation began as a movement of lay hermits (hermits living in the lay state of life) with the Desert Fathers and Mothers and, though quite often in the Middle Ages and sometimes later as well, hermits were approved by their bishops according to diocesan statutes in order to prevent some of the eccentricities associated with some who called themselves hermits as well as to protect and validate genuine vocations, generally speaking, in the Western Church eremitical life died out except in canonically-founded congregations like the Camaldolese and Carthusians. Today, there has been a resurgence of interest in eremitical life. Some few will be consecrated under canon 603 in a Rite mediated by the Church in the person of the hermit's bishop. Many others will remain in their lay state and make private vows (or, again, no vows at all). What is important is that the person lives an authentic eremitical life in the integrity of whichever state they exist. I don't know any hermit, whether canonical or non-canonical who would dispute this.

[[ It is as if the one form, as if needing validation by visible production of vows, publicly noted, requiring a bishop to approve and receive and announce, is that of production and profit.  And, like prayer, the hermit vocation that is not visible, not noted by external garment, title, and public avowal and reception by a bishop, seems not productive, licit, nor consecrated in these current times. Then one considers that those who overly prize the public profession of vows, may consider the privately, hidden profession of vows to be, even if declare not so, deep down hold fast to demeaning the traditional hermits, privately professed, as not consecrated in the life of the church, and as like the hidden mystery of prayer, not visibly valid or en par with the visible.]]

 There is a hiddenness about the eremitical vocation, yes, but to call a vocation "public" as the Church uses the term does not mean visible per se. Neither does a public vocation mean the vocation ceases to be essentially hidden. Instead it means publicly responsible, canonically (legally) responsible for a particular calling to and for the people and life of the Church --- and in and for greater society as well. It means as noted above, that one is initiated into a state of life with legal rights and obligations beyond that of baptism and the lay state itself. (This simply means that in such a state of life there are legal (canonical) and moral rights and obligations which do not stem from baptism alone. A hermit embraces and is admitted to these by the Church through public profession.) It means the person lives this vocation in the name of the Church via her discernment, permission, profession, consecration, and commissioning. This is not about "production and profit" --- whatever that actually means with regard to Canon 603 life!  One does not merely say, "I made private vows and so now I am a Catholic Hermit." Both Divine call and consecration and human response are mediated by the Church in the Rite of Profession. Even so, the eremitical vocation remains an essentially hidden one just as the public and canonical vocations of contemplative nuns and monks whose vows (commitments) are essentially hidden even when the monastery receives guests. In any case, canon 603 vocations are public vocations in this sense; in some limited ways they are also visible because they are known and lived "in the name of the Church".

I will say that personally I don't know any canonical hermits who demean those hermits who are non-canonical. The vocations differ from one another, yes, but one is not of itself better than or superior to the other. Most solitary canonical hermits today spent at least some time as non-canonical hermits while we discerned with the Church whether or not we were called to consecrated eremitical lives; we certainly esteem non-canonical vocations and those who live them --- often because we lived such a vocation ourselves --- usually for some years. The problem comes only when what is being lived is not particularly authentic or honest --- and this is true whether the so-called hermit in question is canonical or non-canonical. (And let's be clear that the eremitical life has always been troubled by such hypocrisy and inauthenticity. It is one of the reasons canon 603 is so very important for the quality of all solitary eremitical vocations.)

[[This comparison is not true of all hermits who choose the public profession route.  But it is amazing to realize that the hermit vocation, like prayer, can slip into the division and misconceptions that many hold of prayer--that the visible product, the external approval is in effect, consecrated in the Church, whereas like prayer, the actuality and beauty of the hermit vocation, a human hermit's very life has always been poured out through living holy vows professed to God through the centuries through the very Sacred Heart of Christ.]]

All canonical (consecrated) hermits value their vocations and the importance of its public nature. It would be surprising (and intolerable) if they did not. Some of us will write about the nature and significance of this specific call because the Church recognizes the need for us to do so and appreciates our efforts in this regard. At the same time we value the hiddenness of our lives as derived from the central values embodied and codified in Canon 603 (e.g., stricter separation from the world, and assiduous prayer and penance); we value the important ways eremitical life is antithetical to the individualism so rampant in today's world, and of course, as just noted, we all value non-canonical eremitical vocations (and semi-eremitical lives) as well. Specifically, we value the way the Holy Spirit works to call people to eremitical solitude in whatever state of life this should occur --- lay, consecrated, or clerical. I personally believe it is more difficult to live eremitical life authentically without canonical standing. This is true, I think, for a couple of reasons: first, because the world-at-large militates against the values central to eremitical life, and secondly, because one needs a strong sense of the value and importance of what one is living within the Church. The Church gives us both of these by assuring stable forms of eremitical life with both Canon 603 and the canons governing congregations dedicated to eremitical life.

At the same time, valuing all such vocations does not obviate the differences that exist between canonical (consecrated) and non-canonical callings. Neither does it allow us to pretend that the Church's own theology of consecrated life and her responsibility for such vocations codified in canon law simply don't exist or can be individually interpreted by someone without important theological or eremitical formation. I would say quite frankly, if anyone I know demeans non-canonical (lay) eremitical vocations, it is the author of the blog you are citing. She actually believes lay people cannot live dedicated hermit lives because, contrary to the Church's own doctrine and theology of consecrated life, she holds that private vows (acts of private dedication) initiate one into the consecrated (public canonical) state. The upshot of this erroneous and individualistic view of things is that anyone in the lay state making a private vow or vows as a hermit would supposedly cease to be a lay person --- despite what the Church, her bishops, or her canon law says in the matter.

[[This is not to say that a hermit in this century who now may choose to have a bishop be the mediator, of sorts, receiving the vows the hermit professes and whose intentions are to live the vocation as vows in essence poured out to God.   Yet there has always been the consecration by Christ, and Christ as Head of the Body, His Church, available to any soul who avows him- or herself in various ways, means, and vocations, to invisibly live out as a prayer, "the love of beauty--caught up in the glory of the living and true God."]]

I do agree with Joyful on some things. Of course Christ is the head of the Body of the Church and yes, of course ALL vows, whether private or public are made to God who accepts them with delight and gratitude. I don't dispute any of that nor does the Church. The fundamental point, however, which must be maintained is that while God consecrates individuals, God only does so through the normative and authoritative mediation of the Church in the person (in case of initiation into the consecrated eremitical state) of the local bishop. God entrusts certain vocations not to individuals alone, but to the Church herself and then to those she admits to profession  and consecration. It is not merely that an individual chooses to be professed this way. The desire to be professed in this way is only the first step of an usually-long process of mutual discernment.  Again, these vocations are specifically recognized as ecclesial and are undertaken in the name (and thus, only through the authority) of the Church.

Bishop de Roo desired this standing in law be extended to eremitical vocations because he saw great value in the vocation and it is this request ("intervention") he made at Vatican II. This is what canon 603 recognizes and establishes for the first time in universal law. It is what the Church codifies in that same canon. (And it is what many hermits throughout the centuries hoped to see in their own time!) We can certainly say we too wish the Western Church had better esteemed authentic eremitical life throughout the centuries as well as the Eastern Church always has, but at least she does so now! One may wish reality were different than this, but so long as one is a Catholic, one is bound to recognize that initiation into the consecrated state of life always happens through public mediation in the hands of a legitimate superior. In the case of consecrated hermits it occurs through the Rite of Profession which is larger than the making of vows per se and can include solemn Consecration (occurring during the Rite of perpetual or solemn profession). Facts are facts. Refusing to accept them, twisting them into some sort of pseudo theological pretzel to support one's own inability to accept reality (something which seems to me to be especially antithetical to any eremitical vocation!) doesn't help anyone --- especially those who are genuinely discerning vocations to some expression of eremitical life.

By the way, any person seriously seeking information on becoming a Catholic Hermit can and should speak to chancery personnel, especially if they have questions beyond those I or others like me can answer. I am not personally concerned that the Church has not noticed Joyful's most recent blog (she has had a number of them as well as what looks to be nearly 100 video blogs over the past 7-8 years or so) --- though Rome is concerned by the incidence of fraudulent eremitical "vocations" -- something Joyful's blog can, unfortunately, encourage --- even if this is entirely inadvertent. I am concerned that some folks have actually trusted what she writes about consecrated eremitical life only to discover (sometimes quite painfully) that they have been significantly misled. One who wrote me had represented herself to her parish as a "consecrated Catholic Hermit" on the strength of what Joyful writes in her blog and someone was less than tactful in explaining the truth to her. Another went to her diocese representing herself in the same way because she wished to be granted permission to wear either a cowl or a habit (not sure which or if both) and represent Catholic eremitical life in her parish. The chancery explained the process of becoming a consecrated hermit under c 603 and the requirements for being granted permission for wearing a cowl/habit. She too was embarrassed but grateful they handled it well.

Feast of Pentecost: The Battle for the Kingdom of God (Reprised with Tweaks)

 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. This has been a particularly challenging message we have heard again and again as we worked through the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount in our parish Bible study these past weeks. Again and again we heard the call to be radical disciples of Christ, to be poor in Spirit, non-violent, capable of grieving in Christ and of the compassion that flows in part from grieving well, to be peacemakers in a violent world, and so forth. Too often the Beatitudes are domesticated in a way which blunts their radical call and consolation.

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 structure of power is turned on its head 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 is given 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 that. 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. It is dangerous if you are 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 same world which put your Lord to death as a shameful criminal, traitor, 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 and it is what Friday'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 quoted from Annie Dillard's book, Teaching a Stone to Talk. It may have been for Pentecost, but I can't remember that now. I got the book though, and here is the passage he cited, [[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 my pastor 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 makes us whole and results in a fruitfulness we associate with all similar intimate unions. 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.

On Monastic and Eremitical Life in the Future

[[Dear Sister, Sorry for the back to back questions. Recently I was on retreat at a Trappist monastery. During vespers on the last day of my retreat I took a good look at the monks in choir and realized that due to the age of the monks and the lack of vocations that this monastery (barring a miracle) will be gone in 10 or 15 years. It made me incredibly sad. I also realize that this will be the case for most monastic communities throughout North America (and probably Europe too).  While there are a few happy exceptions to this trend (many of which are very traditional) I fear monastic life is dying and with it many beautiful traditions and more importantly much wisdom that will not be passed on to a future generation of monastics. This realization raised many questions for me. I would love your opinion on them:

 

1) Do you think the growth in the hermit vocation is a response to the general collapse of religious life after the Council?]]
 

Thanks for your questions. I am still working on the one prior to this one so no problems that you wrote again. In fact, it's a help to me and I am grateful. First though, let me say that I definitely don't see what is happening to religious life as a "collapse". What people became used to was actually not the norm but an exaggerated instance of numbers. We know that the average life cycle of a congregation is ordinarily around 150 years. This is typical for Apostolic or Ministerial congregations which are founded for specific ministries and needs. For monastic congregations the shift in numbers does not mean the monastic life is dying out, much less "collapsing". Monastic life has evolved over time, throughout time and will continue to do so. Today, for instance, the popularity of oblates represents a shift in the form in which monastic values are embodied but they depend on vowed monastics so a shift in numbers here may point to a new form of monasticism with greater presence among the covenanted laity but not without vowed representation and (perhaps) leadership. Most of the religious I know recognize that even when communities die (or, better said perhaps, achieve the completion of their historical lives and missions) their charism continues if the congregation has worked to provide for this, and they trust that God will ensure the continuance of religious life itself in whatever form that will take. I agree with that view of religious life as providential --- which certainly includes monastic life itself.

 

Regarding the upsurge in eremitical life, no I absolutely do not see it as a result of some sort of "collapse" of monastic life  While the Trappist community you saw was ageing and perhaps dying out, that is not the case generally. Even so, the upsurge in eremitical life, to the degree these vocations are authentic, is more representative in the Western Church at least, with the Church's new-found esteem and provision for this vocation in canon law. The vocation never died out in the Eastern Church and I believe the Western Church would not have experienced the dearth of vocations it did had it recognized the vocation universally in law or truly esteemed it as the Eastern Church has done right along. Another source of authentic eremitical vocations is the countercultural, paradoxical, and prophetic reaction to individualism (and several other "isms") so prevalent today. Canon 603 defines an ecclesial vocation which is individual but not individualistic. I sincerely believe that  the hermits I know who live their lives as consecrated Catholic hermits, and thus as those publicly professed (whether  in community or under c 603) have, out of the love of God, embraced an essentially ecclesial vocation in profound reaction to the dis-ease of individualism (and those other "isms") which so afflict our culture.

 

[[2) It seems most hermits look to communal monastic life for their inspiration by adopting the charism of these communities as the inspiration/grounding of their lives as hermits (i.e. Camaldolese, Carthusian, Cistercian).]]

 

Remember that monastic life grew out of (and sometimes was an attempt to protect the very best impulses of) eremitical life and a radical discipleship, not the other way around. However, that said, it is also true that in monastic life we see preserved and developed the values and spirituality of eremitical life, particularly the communal or ecclesial seedbed leading, for instance, to authentic solitude and "separation" from the world. We look to monastic life because it ordinarily provides the necessary formative context for human growth and spiritual maturity which allows one to hear an authentic call to the silence of solitude in eremitical life. The larger Church, per se, does not ordinarily do this where once it did. So, for instance, if we want to understand values and praxis central to eremitical life, values like silence, solitude, assiduous prayer, penance, the evangelical counsels, the value of manual labor, the importance of community for solitude (and vice versa!), etc., we mainly have to turn to monastic houses and communities. Generally speaking, silence and an understanding of, much less an esteem for solitude-in-community simply cannot be found in parish churches. Contemplative life (which eremitical life always is) itself tends to be found and supported effectively in community, (and again generally speaking) not in contemporary parishes. Regular prayer (Divine Office, contemplative prayer, the cultivation of the Evangelical counsels, and life rooted in Scripture or the Rules of Benedict, Albert, et al., also cannot generally be found in parishes.)

 

[[3) What effect do you think the collapse of monastic life will have on the hermit vocation? It seems to me that without a connection to a living monastic tradition the hermit life will become unanchored.]]

 

While I don't believe eremitical life will disappear, I believe it will become even rarer if monastic houses disappear. Canon 603 allows for hermits who are formed mainly within parishes or dioceses, but these vocations are truly very rare. What is crucial to them is not merely the silence of solitude but the fact that the values of eremitical life are embedded in and supported at every point by the life of the Church itself. Camaldolese hermits "live alone together". Diocesan hermits live the silence of solitude only with the support of a parish and diocesan structures but also may find these insufficient and require the more intense and explicit contemplative life of the monastery for support and inspiration. Eremitical life must be anchored or rooted in specific practices and values; these are most fundamentally ecclesial, spiritual, and human values not merely monastic; but at the same time they have been lived and embodied most faithfully and consistently in monastic life. To the degree people can really find these values in their local churches (or in accounts of monastic life, etc) eremitical life will continue as the rare vocation it is. Paradoxically, at the same time, to the degree people find these values to be important but threatened to disappear from the local Church, eremitical life will continue to arise as a prophetic reality, just as it did in the days Constantine published the Edict of Milan and inadvertently triggered the rise of the Desert Fathers and Mothers.  

 

Unfortunately, I believe the existence of authentic eremitical vocations will be more threatened by ignorance and individualism than by the growing loss of numbers among those living monastic life itself. Today, dioceses sometimes (maybe often) fail to distinguish between lone individuals and authentic hermits; this leads to the undiscerning and unwise profession of "vocations" which cannot persist except as aberrations of eremitical life. Eremitical life is marked by great freedom and no hermit is identical to any other, but license and freedom are not the same things. To the degree diocesan staff don't understand eremitical life and mistake it for merely being someone who lives a relatively pious life alone, candidates discerning eremitical life may substitute individualism for eremitism without noticing what is actually happening.

Importantly, we cannot treat hermits as though they are something other than rare. Eremitical life is simply not the way most people come to human wholeness or genuine Christian discipleship. Especially, we cannot see them as the replacement troops for diminishing numbers of cenobitical religious. The two forms of religious life are related but not interchangeable and dioceses will need to resist the impulse to treat them identically or to look for numbers in either form of religious life. Similarly, we cannot allow c 603 vocations to be replaced by individuals who actually reject Vatican II and the wisdom it codified and is now found embodied to some extent in the post-Vatican II Church. (I say to some extent because I believe Vatican has not been adequately received by the Church yet.) Vatican II is part of the Church's authentic Tradition and we cannot allow individuals who reject that part of the Tradition to isolate themselves from the contemporary Church while taking refuge in a canon which was actually made possible by the Vatican II Council and it's call for the revision of Canon Law itself. I think this specific use of canon 603 represents a particularly disreputable form of individualism which cannot be validated as diocesan eremitical life.

[[4) Finally, it seems to me that growth and vocations in the monastic life is mostly among communities that are quite traditional (i.e. using pre-Vatican 2 liturgies). I don’t think dismissing them, as some do, is the answer. The monks and nuns of these communities are well educated, hard working and living their monastic life with integrity. In short, they are “doing and living it.” And they have been for decades. They aren’t a flash in the pan. It seems that if monastic life is going to survive then the future belongs to these communities as they will be the only ones in existence. What are your thoughts regarding this phenomenon and what implications, if any, will it have for canon 603 hermits?]] 

 

I don't believe the pre-Vatican II monastic communities will be the only ones in existence in the future. I think in this matter you have overstated your case. At the same time, I recognize that Canon 603 itself with its clear effect upon eremitical vocations is, again, a direct result of Vatican II and its return to earliest Christian sources and impulses. If the pre-Vatican II monastic communities you mention are to continue and be something the post Vatican II church can learn from, they will have to do so in dialogue with the contemporary Roman Catholic Church and with contemporary monastic life. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much evidence of a desire to embrace such dialogue by the communities you are referring to.

Canon 603 hermits may draw from some of the values found in monastic life lived in these congregations and houses, but c 603 eremitical life remains the fruit of Vatican II and is shaped charismatically by the same Holy Spirit that occasioned Vatican II and inspires all authentic monastic and consecrated life. (By the way, as something of a postscript I should note that monastic houses don't necessarily lose members because they are inauthentic in their living of monastic life, and neither is it automatically true that the traditionalist communities you are speaking of gain members or demonstrate continuing numbers because they are living authentic and healthy monastic life. The situation is very much  more complicated than that and once again numbers are not the guiding criterion here any more than they are with eremitical life.)  

These are my initial thoughts on the things you have written about. I think of it, therefore, as the first step in a continuing dialogue. I hope you find it helpful.

Feast of the Visitation and Spiritual Friendship (Reprise)

Jump for Joy  by Eisbacher

Today's Gospel is wonderfully joyfilled and encouraging: Mary travels in haste to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth and both women benefit from the meeting which culminates in John's leaping in his mother's womb and prophetic speech by both women. The first of these is Elizabeth's proclamation that Mary is the Mother of Elizabeth's Lord and the second is Mary's canticle, the Magnificat. Ordinarily homilists focus on Mary in this Gospel lection but I think the focus is at least as strongly on Elizabeth and also on the place the meeting of the two women has in allowing them both to negotiate the great mystery which has taken hold of their lives. Both are called on to offer God hospitality in unique ways; both are asked to participate in God's mysterious plan for his creation despite not wholly understanding this call and it is in their coming together that the trusting fiats they each made assume a greater clarity for them both.

Luke's two volumes (Luke-Acts) are actually full of instances where people come together and in their meeting or conversation with one another come to a fuller awareness of what God is doing in their lives. We see this on the road to Emmaus where disciples talk about the Scriptures in an attempt to come to terms with Jesus' scandalous death on a cross and the end of all their hopes. They are joined by another person who questions them about their conversation and grief. When they pause for a meal they recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread and their entire world is turned on its head. That which was senseless is on its way to making a profound sense which will ground the existence of the church. Peter is struggling with the issue of eating with the uncircumcised; he comes together with Cornelius, a Centurion with real faith in Christ. In this meeting Peter is confirmed in his sense that in light of Christ no foods are unclean and eating with Gentiles is Eucharistic. There are a number of other such meetings where partial perception and clarity are enhanced or expanded. Even the Council of Jerusalem is a more developed instance of the same phenomenon.

On Spiritual Friendship, both formal and informal:

I personally love Eisenbacher's picture above because it reminds me of one privileged expression of such spiritual friendship, namely that of spiritual direction. I can remember many meetings with my own director where there was immense surprise and joy at the sharing involved, but one time in particular stands out --- especially in light of today's Gospel. I had experienced a shift in my experience of celibacy. Where once it mainly spoke to me of dimensions of my life that would never be fulfilled (motherhood, marriage, etc), through a particular prayer experience it had come to be associated instead with espousal to Christ and my own sense of being completed and fulfilled as a woman. As I recall, when I met with my director to share about this experience, I spoke softly about it, carefully, a little bashfully --- especially at first; but I also gained strength and greater confidence in the sharing of it. (I was not uncertain as to the nature of what I had experienced, but sharing it allowed it to claim me more completely and let me claim a new sense of myself in light of it.) My director listened carefully, and only then noted that she had always prayed for such a grace for all her novices (she had been novice director for her congregation); she then excused herself and left briefly. When she returned she had a CD and CD player with her. Together we sat quietly, but joyfully and even a bit tearfully celebrating what God had done for us while we listened to John Michael Talbot's Canticle of the Bride.

This year (for that last story occurred about 36 years ago now) my director brought me a laminated, somewhat over-sized bookmark with the following poem entitled Visitation to mark another period of growth  in our work together in spiritual direction/inner work. I am sorry I don't know the author.

As Mary faced
        her unexpected future
And hastened to Elizabeth,
        who was similarly expecting,
and shared with her
        her hopes,
        her dreams,
        her concerns,
        her fears;
spoke frankly as sisters
        about their love of God,
        about their future,
        about  their commitment
        to God's mission,
so we two come together today,
        speaking the truth
        in love and faith,
and God is with us.



 

Elizabeth and Mary come together as women both touched in significant ways by the mystery of God. They have trusted God but are not yet completely clear regarding the greater mystery or how this experience fits into the larger story of Israel's redemption. They are both in need of one another and especially of the perception and wisdom the other can bring to the situation so that they can truly offer God and God's plan all the space and time these require. Hospitality, especially giving God hospitality, takes many forms, but one of the most important involves coming together to share how God is active in our lives in the hope of coming to a greater and more life giving perspective, faith, and commitment. It is in coming together in this way that we clarify, encourage, challenge and console one another. It is in coming together in this way that we become the prophetic presence in our world God calls us to be.  The gift of being able to "speak frankly" as sisters (and brothers) is an inestimable gift of God. Let us all be open to serving as friends to one another in this sense. It is an essential dimension of being Church and of the coming of the Kingdom of God.