Feast of Maximillian Kolbe (Reprise)

Today is the feast day of Maximillian Kolbe who died on this day in Auschwitz after two months there, and two weeks in the bunker of death-by-starvation. Kolbe had offered to take the place of a prisoner selected for starvation in reprisal when another prisoner was found missing and thought to have escaped. The Kommandant, taken aback by Kolbe's dignity, and perhaps by the unprecedented humanity being shown, stepped back and then granted the request. Father Maximillian sustained his fellow prisoners and assisted them in their dying. He was one of four remaining prisoners who were murdered in Block 13 (see illustration below) by an injection of Carbolic Acid when the Nazi's deemed their death by starvation was taking too long. When the bunker was visited by a secretary-interpreter immediately after the injections, he found the three other prisoners lying on the ground, begrimed and showing the ravages of the suffering they had undergone. Maximillian Kolbe sat against the wall, his face serene and radiant. Unlike the others he was clean and bright.

The stories told about Maximillian Kolbe's presence and influence in Aushwitz all stress a couple of things: first, there was his great love of God, Mary the Imaculata, and his fellow man; secondly, it focused on the tremendous humanity he lived out and modelled in the midst of a hell designed in every detail to dehumanize and degrade. These two things are intimately interrelated of course, and they give us a picture of authentic holiness which, extraordinary as it might have seemed in Auschwitz, is nothing less and nothing more than the vocation we are each called to in Christ. Together, these two dimensions of true holiness/authentic humanity result in "a life lived for others," as a gift to them in many ways -- self-sacrifice, generosity, kindness, courage, fidelity, etc. In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell.

It is easy to forget this fundamental vocation, or at least underestimate its value and challenge. We sometimes think our humanity is a given, an accomplished fact rather than a task and call to be achieved via attentive responsiveness to God. We also may think that it is possible to be truly human in solitary splendor. But our humanity is our essential vocation and it is something we only achieve in relation to God, his call, his mercy and love, his companionship --- and his people! (And this is as true for hermits and recluses as it is true for anyone else.) Likewise, we may think of vocation as a call to religious life, priesthood, marriage, singleness, eremitism, etc, but always, these are "merely" the paths towards achieving our foundational vocation to authentic humanity. Of course, it is not that we do not need excellent priests, religious, husbands and wives, parents, and so forth, but what is more true is that we need excellent human beings --- people who take the call and challenge to be genuinely human with absolute seriousness and faithfulness.

Today's gospel confronts us with a person who failed at that vocation. With extended mercy and the complete forgiveness of an unpayable debt, this servant went out into his world and failed to extend even a fraction of the same mercy to one of his fellows. He was selfish, ungrateful, and unmindful of who he was in terms of his Master or the generosity which had been shown him. He failed to remain in touch with that mercy and likewise, he refused to extend it to others as called upon to do. He failed in his essential humanity and in the process he degraded and punished a fellow servant as inferior to himself when he should have done the opposite. Contrasted with this, and forming the liturgical and theological context for hearing this reading today, is the life of Maximillian Kolbe. Loved with an everlasting love, touched by God's infinite mercy and grace, Father Maximillian knew and affirmed who he truly was. More, in a situation of abject poverty and ultimate weakness, he remained in contact with the Source of his own humanity as the infinite well from which he would draw strength, dignity, courage, forgiveness, and compassion when confronted with a reality wholly dedicated to shattering, degrading, and destroying the humanity of those who became its victims. In every way he was the embodiment of St Paul's citation, "My grace is sufficient for you; my power is made perfect in weakness!"

Block 13 where the "starvation cells" were

In Auschwitz, it is true that some spoke of Kolbe as a saint, and many knew he was a priest, but in this world where all were stripped of names and social standing of any kind, what stood out to everyone was Maximillian Kolbe's love for God and his fellow man; what stood out, in other words, was his humanity. Holiness for the Christian is defined in these terms. Authentic humanity and holiness are synonyms in Christianity, and both are marked by the capacity to love and be loved,  first (by) God and then (by) all those he has dignified as his image and holds as precious. In a world too often marked by mediocrity and even outright inhumanity, a world too frequently dominated by those structures, institutions, and dynamics which seem bigger than we are and incapable of being resisted or changed, we need to remember Maximillian Kolbe's example. Oftentimes we focus on serving others, feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless and the like, and these things are important. But in Kolbe's world when very little of this kind of service was possible (though Kolbe did what was possible and prudent here) what stood out was not only the crust of bread pressed into a younger priest's hands, the cup of soup given gladly to another, but the very great and deep dignity and impress of his humanity. And of course, it stood out because beyond and beneath the need for food and shelter, what everyone was in terrible danger of losing was a sense of --- and capacity to act in terms of -- their own great dignity and humanity.

Marked above all as one loved by God, Father Maximillian lived out of that love and mercy. He extended it again and again (70 X 7) to everyone he met, and in the end, he made the final sacrifice: he gave his own life so that another might live. An extraordinary vocation marked by extraordinary holiness? Yes. But also our OWN vocation, a vocation to "ordinary" and true holiness, genuine humanity. As I said above, "In particular, in Auschwitz it was Maximillian's profound and abiding humanity which allowed others to remember, reclaim, and live out their own humanity in the face of the Nazi's dehumanizing machine. No greater gift could have been imagined in such a hell." In many ways this is precisely the gift we are called upon in Christ to be for our own times. Matthew's call to make forgiveness a way of life is a key to achieving this. May Saint Maximillian Kolbe's example inspire us to fulfill our own vocations in exemplary ways.

External Silence versus the Silence of Solitude

One of the sets of topics I think about a lot is the silence of solitude as 1) context of the eremitical life, 2) goal or telos of the life (where solitude implies communion with God and silence implies completion), and 3) the charism the world needs so badly. Isn't the silence of solitude just about the silence of being alone? It certainly is about this, but it is also more, and over time dwelling in the silence of solitude one comes to know and live ever more fully toward and into this "more". Today I ran across a quote by Thomas Merton I thought was suggestive of the more nuanced and multivalent understanding of the silence of solitude I think hermits will grow into for the sake of the Reign of God and the salvation of others. I thought it might be helpful in explaining a little of why I understand this term of Canon 603 in the way I do. Merton wrote:

[[It is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard.”]]

It is not hard to see what Merton means here. We can easily imagine being in a situation where we are meant to listen and yet find ourselves listening only for a chance to throw in our opinion, suggestions, and advice, or tell our own story. Similarly, I would bet every reader can picture a meeting where participants can hardly be silent as a need to speak out stands in tension with the requirement for patience and the need to hear and learn from others. We will recognize the anxiety thrumming through a person who can hardly contain their desire to interrupt a conversation in order to add their own voice and perspective. While they might be able to maintain an external silence, there is a noisiness about them, a noisiness that interferes with receptivity and infects the entire situation with unquiet. Imagine a child who has raised her hand desperately seeking to answer the teacher's question.  The answer itself is not nearly so important as the need to be recognized, affirmed, and given a place to stand in the teacher's awareness and regard. 

The need to be truly heard is a profound and legitimate need for every person at every stage of their life. Human beings are "language events" in this way as well. We are incomplete to the degree we have not been heard. The drives to be recognized, to succeed, to use one's gifts and talents, even to make a name for oneself, and so forth, stem from this need to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are. This, combined with the failure to have these fundamental needs met fuels the anxiety to be heard Merton speaks about. At the same time, it illuminates something of the nature and import of what it means to seek or achieve the silence of solitude.

When I speak of the silence of solitude as context of my vocation as a hermit I mean exterior silence and physical aloneness --- things that are necessary to create the space and time to seek and be exhaustively heard by God. But I also mean the silence and solitude necessary to learn to listen to our own hearts and pour them out to God as well as to come to know that in God's abiding love we are truly heard (accepted, affirmed, loved, and valued) in every dimension of our being. The learning and degree of inner work this takes over time also explains the importance of spiritual direction in the life of anyone moving toward fuller and fuller existence in God. 

When I speak of the silence of solitude as goal I mean that we move toward the completion or fullness of communion with God in which we are completely known and loved, and therefore, know and love in return --- and do so as naturally possible. Any anxiety to be heard, accepted, affirmed, and loved for who we are is entirely quieted while we are more able to be ourselves with clarity and articulateness. More, we are able to be open to others and to empower them to come to the same articulateness --- the same ability to speak themselves to the world. The silence of solitude here sings with life and wholeness. It is poor, chaste, and obedient!! We are fully ourselves with and in God and, to the extent we have been drawn into and reflect the silence of solitude, we are this without striving or struggle. 

I may develop this post further (at the very least I need to address the idea of the silence of solitude as charism), but I think this is enough for the moment. My hope is that it gives some basic sense of how truly profound Canon 603's "silence of solitude" really is. To reduce it to the external silence of  physical aloneness implies we have not yet lived it well enough, with sufficient attentiveness to its depths and nuance. The eremitical journey is a journey into the silence of solitude. It is a journey of growth, healing, sanctification, and communion --- a journey toward fulfillment and completion of our very selves in God.

The Pastoral Import of Eremitical Life

[[ Sister, could you say something more about how you see living eremitical solitude as ministerial or as a pastoral calling?]]

Yes, I'd be glad to do that. Because of time constraints, what I am going to do is quote from a couple of posts I published here about 13 years ago (November 2010) in response to questions about living as a hermit part-time, self-defined hermit life, and the importance of canonical eremitism. These posts were part of a conversation I had where a reader disagreed when I took exception to his sense that one could be a hermit on Saturdays alone, dress up in a habit if desired, and be as authentic as a full-time hermit (in this case, with canonical standing). My concern was with the way a consecrated hermit ministers to others out of the authenticity of her life with God in the silence of solitude. While I believe all true hermits are called to full-time eremitical life and will minister out of their authentic eremitism, whether or not they are canonically professed and consecrated, the most important part of my response had to do with the normative nature of a full-time canonical vocation and its related pastoral import, especially when contrasted with the example provided by my interlocutor. When the content of this excerpt is added to my last post, I hope it helps indicate how a hermit's life is genuinely pastoral or ministerial. N.B., redactions are enclosed in brackets [].

[[Why All the Angst?? The Pastoral Import of Canonical Standing

But, as you ask, why all the angst? I've written about this before under the idea of necessary expectations and charism, but let me draw a picture of "why the angst?!" Let's take the two examples of eremitical life outlined in your own email and mine: 1) a person [like your father] takes off on Saturdays for some prayer time, dons a [religious] habit, and calls himself a "hermit" even adopting the title "Brother." (What he does the rest of the week, exemplary or apostolic as it may be, I have no clue, nor does anyone else.) He then goes forth to proclaim the Gospel as he can. 2) a person lives the silence of solitude (and the rest of the elements of Canon 603) full-time. She publicly vows her entire life to God (and so, to all those God cherishes) and is consecrated in a way that signals the grace to live this life. She is vested with the habit and given the right to the title Sister by the Church which recognizes and helps ensure the meaningfulness and import of these things. She proclaims the Gospel uniquely within this context. Both persons identify themselves as "hermits", one is a lay person and one is consecrated. One is full-time, and one is not. One does so according to his own understanding of the term, the other according to the Church's understanding and traditional meaning of the term.

Meanwhile, their respective parishes have a large number of chronically ill and frail elderly on fixed incomes, most of whom are isolated in significant ways from the parish as a whole or from the surrounding communities: none of them can work, few of them can drive or get away from their situations on a weekend, and none of them can take a day (or even an hour) off from their state of chronic illness or frail elderliness. What they do know [from homilies they have heard and stories of saints] is that they might be called to lives of prayer and solitude, lives that represent a kind of counter-cultural witness even. They are looking for someone who can proclaim the Gospel to them in a way that is specifically helpful in their situations. They think (and their pastor agrees),  that surely a hermit will be able to witness in a way that helps us make sense of [and give hope to] lives of poverty and marginalization, whose witness will assist in negotiating the transition from isolation to solitude, [and] who can remind them that a life of physical, financial, and personal poverty can still be rich in God and all God makes possible.

So which hermit should the pastor call on to assist these parishioners in this? Which hermit should he call on as a true representative of [a living] desert spirituality? Which hermit has accepted freely and fully all the dimensions of the eremitical life which allows him or her to witness truthfully and effectively to these people? Which hermit knows intimately the struggles of full-time solitude or silence? Which one has dealt with these and does so day in and day out along with all the other demons which attack the solitary person from within their own hearts or from the surrounding competitive, workaholic, productive, and consumerist world? Which one will be able to effectively proclaim the Gospel to these people? (And, N. B., I could have contrasted the Saturday-only hermit with any full-time lay hermit and most of the points would have been the same here.)

You see, going out and preaching the Gospel is not merely a matter of proclaiming a canned text or message to people one does not know. It is not a matter of proclaiming the unconditional love of God without applying that in the way one knows it intimately oneself and in the way people need to hear it. Instead, proclaiming the Gospel means proclaiming with one's life the truth of the way God has worked and is working in it so that others might find hope and meaning in that. As St Francis of Assisi [is purported to have] once said, "Preach the Gospel; use words if necessary." Proclaiming the Gospel, I would suggest, also does not allow for pretense while the "hermit" in the situation you described appears to be all about pretense --- at least with regard to calling himself a hermit, donning a habit, etc. He cannot relate particularly to the situation these people are in or the good news they really need to hear. He does not live a definitive solitude [that is, a solitude rooted in his relationship with God that defines his life] nor has he assumed any of the rights or responsibilities of such a life (the habit in the scenario you described is little more than a costume he takes up to play a role on weekends.) And yet, the habit and titles (Brother as well as hermit) give these people the right to expect he will be able to speak to their situation in a helpful way from his own life experience. They have the right to expect these things to mean what they mean to the church --- not least a counter-cultural life of total dependence on God lived on the margins of society in the silence of solitude.

This is why all the angst over canonical [normative] standing. Such standing in law generally indicates the acceptance of rights and obligations by those who are discerned to have such a call [which includes full-time life as a hermit], etc. It is not because we [canonical hermits] are Pharisees, but because law often serves love. It does so in this case. . . .

[[So, I think we should just agree to disagree. I guess it comes down to who is the more accepting here? What is the most compassionate response? For that matter, why don't you go back and consider your own baptismal vows---why weren't they enough? What makes your life intrinsically 'other' than other's? It doesn't sound very nice the other way, does it?]]

While we may agree to disagree, there is a distinction between being genuinely accepting and merely being uncritical and uncaring of meaning or truth. Compassion requires that we be truly loving, and it is not loving to allow a person to live a lie, or to empty meaningful terms of content when that content is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church and World. [In the Roman Catholic Church] Canon 603 is such a gift. It defines the nature of eremitical life in a world at a time when dislocation, isolation, alienation, and the search for meaning in our isolation and alienation are rampant. Even so, it is a canon that allows for great diversity and flexibility even while (and perhaps because) it clearly spells out foundational, or non-negotiable elements comprising authentic solitary eremitical life. It is the entire vision of eremitical life which it provides us which is a gift of the Holy Spirit to both the Church and world.

I will repeat my main point from the other post because this is the true answer to "What is it to you?" above as well. FULL-TIME hermits who have allowed isolation and marginality to be redeemed and thus transformed into the "Silence of solitude [lived in the heart of the church]", can speak effectively to all those persons in our parishes, dioceses, neighborhoods, and the larger world who CANNOT leave their situations for time off even one day a week -- those who are chronically ill, disabled, the isolated elderly, impoverished, etc. Hermits' lives are God's compassionate answer to many of the most significant questions these myriads of people have and are. 

These people need to know that their aloneness is not a sign of the senselessness of life or abandonment by God, but the ground out of which God can call them to the silence of solitude and union with himself. I don't think a person who is busy, engaged, working, socializing 5-6 days a week, and then takes a day for silence, solitude, and contemplative prayer can effectively serve in this way. Hermits, whether lay or consecrated, who live the terms of Canon 603 with the whole of their lives, can minister to these people in a way I believe no one else can do quite as fully or effectively. I believe this ministry is part of the charism of eremitical life and a reason the life (not an avocation) is growing today. It is certainly a reason eremitical spirituality is growing today, but again, embracing [discrete] elements of this spirituality does not make one a hermit any more than my own embracing of elements of Ignatian spirituality makes me a Jesuit.

Looking Again at the Generosity and Ministry of Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, I have always wondered about how hermits live the kind of generosity Jesus expected of his disciples when they live by themselves and don't minister to anyone. I don't mean you live a selfish life --- it's just that I don't understand how your life can be truly Christian. Don't you want to do ministry? I am sorry if this seems offensive. Just curious how you understand this part of your life. Thanks!]]

This is a good question and one I have gotten variations of before.  As always, I do suggest you read those posts, so check out the labels at the right. Check out posts under categories like Canon 603 - false solitude,  false solitude, contemplative life, genuine solitude, self-centeredness, Eremitical Hiddenness, solitude and community, etc. These will provide a lot of background for you and some will speak directly to your question. Because hermit's lives are often (mistakenly) considered in terms of a quest for the perfection of self rather than the salvation of the world or proclamation of the Gospel, they can easily be understood in terms of selfishness. But this would be a mistake. Similarly, because solitude is often mistaken for isolation, and the hiddenness of eremitical life is mistaken for a rejection of proclamation or an implicit affirmation of misanthropy. These mistakes also contribute to the notion that eremitism is essentially selfish.

It's rather difficult in the contemporary church to get much of a real hearing for contemplative life because we have so stressed ministry and ministerial religious life. Everyone today, quite rightly, is expected to be involved in significant ministry -- whether they are in the clerical or lay state of life. Emphasis on this came with Vatican II as part of the recognition of the dignity and importance of baptism and the baptismal state as well as to move the church from its clericalist distortions. Add to that the various stereotypes and frequently eccentric images of hermit life, and it becomes really easy to think of eremitical life as selfish and lacking in generosity --- even more than is true of contemplative life more generally, especially when that is lived in community. But contemplative life generally and eremitical life as well are generous forms of self-gift, first of all to God and to all God wishes to achieve in our world, then to one's deepest or truest Self, and finally to one's immediate and then to one's more extended communities. 

You ask if I want to do ministry. The answer to that question is yes, I do! My desire to do ministry, however, is shaped and colored by my commitment to allow God to create me in the way God desires to do. Ministry of whatever sort I am suited to will flow from that commitment as God wills it. For instance, I teach Scripture now and have done for several years. Doing so is both an outgrowth of my eremitical life, and leads constantly back to it --- to the silence of solitude, to lectio, prayer, and study. At the same time, I am hopeful the lessons I teach say as much to the participants in these classes about the power of Scripture and its importance in an individual's faith life as they do about the Gospel of Mark, Jesus' parables, or any other particular text or set of texts. We live from the Word of God and it is our hearkening to that Word in the power of the Spirit that shapes us as authentically human beings. The experience of seeking God, being grasped by God, and being made more true, more whole, more capable of loving as God loves, is a result of life in the hermitage; this experience is the essence of my own ministry --- whatever form (including living the silence of solitude faithfully) that takes. 

The ministry of the hermit, as I understand it, is about witnessing to the power of God and the meaningfulness of every life whether this is revealed in strength or weakness, wholeness or brokenness, illness or wellness. I understand that I minister to the world when I witness to the call to be imago dei and commit myself to the inner work, prayer, silence, solitude, etc., it takes to truly become what I am potentially in communion with God. Any limited active ministry I do, including spiritual direction, and answering questions or writing on this blog, flows from this more primary "ministry".  Thomas Merton said this best, I believe, and I have quoted him before. He affirmed, [[the first duty of the hermit is to live happily without affectation in (her) solitude. (S/he) owes this not only to (herself) but to (her) community that has gone so far as to give (her) a chance to live it out. . . .this is the chief obligation of the. . .hermit because. . .it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and grace.]] (Emphasis added.)

Because I also understand the task to be and become the person God calls me to be as a call to ministry, I also affirm that sometimes relinquishing discrete gifts and talents for life in the hermitage is a significant piece of the vocation. So often we are urged to share our time, talents, and treasure and yet, the greatest treasure we have is the God who gives Godself to us without reservation or limit --- precisely so we may become the person we are called to be. 

Humanity is a task to be achieved in communion with God. The hermit reminds us of this, often with special and paradoxical vividness. This Divine presence that makes the person God's own prayer in our world is a most mysterious and powerful reality and it is the heart of a ministry that preferences being over doing. While it is apparently less valued or understood in contemporary approaches to ministry, BEING imago dei and witnessing to the priority of being over doing is the unique concern and nature of contemplative and eremitical ministry.  It seems to me to be a selfless and generous gift made possible only by radical self-emptying and reception of the gift God makes of us. In Merton's language, we reveal to others not only the possibility of nature being transfigured by grace, but we emphasize the importance of giving ourselves over to that process. That is the essence of (an) authentic human being. In some ways, I cannot think of a more significant or foundational ministry!!

Solemnity of the Transfiguration: Learning to See with New Eyes (Reprise)

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? How about suddenly being struck by the tremendous compassion of someone you know well, or seeing their smile in a new way and coming to see them in a whole new light because of this? I have had all of these happen, and, in the face of God's constant presence, what is in some ways more striking is how infrequent such peak or revelatory 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. In this day where the Church is conflicted and some authority seems incredible, 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 Bishops and all believers. 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.

On Becoming God's Own Prayer in our World

[[Dear Sr Laurel, I am still very much immersed in Father Wenscel Cornelius’s book [Cornelius Wencel, Er Cam] and have also rediscovered Father Louis (Thomas) Merton, and at [the] prompting of something you wrote in a blog I picked up “New Seeds of Contemplation” which is wonderful. I have a question for you which you are welcome to use in the blog if you wish. I keep returning to something you wrote about the hermit eventually becoming “God’s prayer” and I don’t think I understand that. Prayer is usually thought of as the human part of a dialogue with God which might take the form of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation, the sharing of the person’s life with God which begins (and often stays) at the level of speech or thought. I think that as we grow in our relationship with God our prayer becomes less what we do and more who we are and are becoming as God calls us to life and continual conversion. Is that living in harmony with God’s will becoming God’s prayer ? Thank you for all you do. ]]

Thanks very much for the questions! Good to hear from you again! I am glad you are enjoying Wencel's book. I learned it is out of print and difficult to get, so I am glad you were able to locate a copy!! Yes, I think you have the heart of my answer clear in your mind, and I also think it is important to push your understanding to a bit more radical position. You understand it as the human part of a dialogue with God. I understand prayer as a dialogue as well; in this case, however, the dialogue does not depend on human speech per se. Instead, it is about the human openness to and reception of God's own "speech" where God does not tell us stuff about himself, but rather speaks himself to us in a way where we are loved, challenged, called, and empowered to be our truest selves. I understand prayer not as the human part of a dialogue but, as 1) what happens when the Spirit groans within us and 2) we are empowered to attend to that groaning. As we heard in a recent reading from Paul to the Romans, prayer is always about God's activity within us, first and last. It is God's own activity within us that is the basis of our yearning for God or the resonance of our hearts to/with God; yes, we respond to that presence in various ways, and that too is part of the prayer, but even that response is empowered by God's actions within and around us.

 Another piece of theology that influences me to say we are called to become God's own prayer in the world may be helpful. Theologians like Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling think about the human person as a language event. The human person is formed in response to every word spoken to her, every invitation to respond as a human person; it is her very nature to be response in this way. We are not just something that speaks. Instead, we are ourselves a form of speech-act empowered and shaped by the billions and billions of "words" that have uniquely addressed us and to which we have responded more and less fully throughout our lives, but especially by the word of God that is spoken within and to us. To some extent, the language event we are will be expressed in speech, but the truth is both broader and deeper than that. In everything that we are and do we will express the language event we have become. Acts of praise, petition, gratitude, lamentation are more or less partial instances of that larger expression we call "Self" and any one of these may predominate over the others at any given time in our lives and prayer; still, it is the whole person that is a speech act including these varying expressions. 

Thus, the speech act we are will include and represent other expressions as well. I once thought of myself as a scream of anguish. What I knew, however, was that such an inarticulate cry was less responsive than it was merely reactive. It would take time being shaped by God's Love in the many ways that love came to me to transform me into something more articulate and meaning-bearing. (Eventually, I would see myself as called to be a Magnificat.) What I came to know was that over time and in response to God's activity (self-expression) in our lives, we are formed to become more and more articulate expressions or images of God. The speech act we become in this way is what I am talking about when I speak of  "flesh becoming word". This also corresponds to what the Eastern and Western churches speak of as divinization or theosis. Word becomes flesh so that flesh can become Word --- that is, so human beings can come to flawlessly mirror their Creator. We grow into authentic human existence as we hear (or are heard/grasped by) and respond to Word in all of the ways that Word comes to and addresses us. 

John's Gospel is the clearest articulation of this dynamic. To the extent that Jesus responds exhaustively to God, he becomes utterly transparent to him and makes God real (implicates or reveals God) in space and time. Throughout his life, in his death and resurrection, Jesus fully incarnates the Word of God.  At the same time and in the same way, he reveals what it means to be truly and authentically human.  He is the Word Event par excellence and we name this Word event Emmanuel --- God-with-us. We might also say that prayer is less about what Jesus does (though of course, we know him as one who prays) and more about what he is --- a paradigm of prayer in all things because in all things Jesus is the One in whom God is allowed to work and reveal himself exhaustively.

You will remember that I wrote: [[However, in saying I believe the hermit (especially and paradigmatically) is meant to become God's own prayer in the world, what I mean is that in our radical self-emptying and obedience, we open ourselves to becoming the Word God speaks to the world, fully alive with God's vision, hope, and dreams for that same world. This word, like the Word Incarnate in Christ, will be the embodiment or articulation of God's own will, love, life, purposes, etc. We could say that Jesus comes to embody God's own prayer, where prayer is a matter of pouring out one's heart --- something in God that is always creative. When you or I pray, we pour ourselves out to God and our prayer is an expression of all we are and yearn to become. At the same time, in prayer (and thus, in Christ) we are taken up more intimately into God's own life. God's own being, will, and "yearnings" for the whole of creation are realities we are called on to express and embody (incarnate) with our own lives. This is what we speak of as being a "prophetic presence" (or an eschatological one). When we allow this foundational transformation to occur we more fully become the new creation we were made in baptism, a new kind of language or word event; we become flesh-made-Word and a personal expression of the Kingdom/Reign (sovereignty) and prayer of God. 

I believe prayer is about pouring out one's heart to God but always in response to and empowered by God's loving (pouring out his heart to and in) us first.  God shows us the meaning of prayer by pouring himself out and invites us to do the same in response. Eventually, it becomes impossible to disentangle one movement from the other and we live (pray) in God as God lives (prays) in us. Traditionally this ultimate form of prayer is called Union and it is the epitome of what it means to be human as we let God be God-With-Us.

I have written this piece in fits and starts so I hope it reads more coherently than that! If it raises more questions or needs clarifying, please let me know. Meanwhile, thanks for your patience!!

On the Hiddenness of Eremitical Life

[[Hi Sister, I was trying to understand what the Catechism means by the hiddenness of eremitical life. Can you help me understand that?]]

Hi there, yourself! Yes, I think I can help you understand this. I say that because this is one of the terms I have struggled over a long time to understand more deeply in my own journey. As with the elements of the canon itself, hiddenness occurs on a number of levels; all are important; some are more superficial than others and I have tried to understand the ways in which that is true. For instance, the canon calls for stricter separation from the world and that seems to imply the hermit is called to a stricter separation from that required by other Religious, particularly ministerial or apostolic Religious. This separation, to whatever extent and in whatever way it is lived, is defined for religious by their vows and congregational constitutions or Rule. At the most superficial level it implies the qualification of all of one's relationships --- including with power and wealth. We misread stricter separation if our understanding of it stops at a literal closing of the hermitage door on everything outside us or on giving up all relationships, or fail to truly school our hearts with regard to material wealth, and power. 

We must penetrate this term (and the others in the Canon) more deeply. Yes, we need to close the hermitage door on certain realities as both a literal and a symbolic way to express all that is essential to this vocation. For instance, this expression helps us embrace the physical silence and solitude that is necessary if one is to eventually understand all the ways we ordinarily give ourselves to false gods or become enmeshed in things that are unworthy of us or our vocation and need to turn instead to the God of Jesus Christ. That growth in perception and integration takes time as we move from superficial to profound understanding and our similar embrace of deeper and deeper truth. Also, earlier forms of meaning (say the literal closing of the hermitage door on relationships and activities) may be more strict in the beginning of our eremitical lives, and may actually need to be relaxed at other points as we embrace less literal or less superficial meanings of the term hiddenness. 

For example, learning to turn to the God of Jesus Christ in all things and allow him to shape us into Temples of the Holy Spirit, may require regular work with others (spiritual directors, superiors), participation in some limited form of parish ministry (e.g., teaching Scripture), more intense spiritual direction or inner work with specialists, etc. The functional cloister or anachoresis (withdrawal) of eremitical life remains and contributes to hiddenness, but the constraints on moving outside the hermitage or allowing others into the hermitage may well be relaxed in measured ways as one gives oneself to Christ to be remade more fully and deeply as is possible in specific ways in relationship with some few others. In part this leads me to my understanding of the hiddenness of eremitical life.

In all of this what is mainly hidden from the eyes of others is the hermit's relationship with God in Christ and all the work and growth (metanoia) that comes over time as one focuses on this relationship and becoming the person one is called by God to be. Hiddenness is not an end in itself. It serves our relationship with Mystery and for that reason, it is characteristic of assiduous prayer and penance, stricter separation from the world, and engagement with others that grows out of and even intensifies one's silence of solitude. Hiddenness is the most intimate shape of one's personal journey to and in communion with God, but as I have argued earlier, it is an important and derivative value, not a primary one. 

For each of us, growth in love of God, and maturation in our relationship with God as we move from darkness to light, from blindness to sight, and from brokenness to wholeness is a hidden process. For most, the relationship with God itself is always hidden --- though one can see symptoms and signs of the quality of the relationship by the way the person loves others, themselves, and the whole of creation. The hermit gives over her entire life to this hidden commitment and growth. She will embrace the elements of Canon 603 in order to be sure she is intensely focused on this commitment alone. She does this for God's sake as well as for her own, for the sake of others, and for the sake of the vocation she has been entrusted with. In some ways, we could say that the hermit lives for God alone so that others may understand that this relationship with God is the primary Good in her life --- and should be primary in everyone's life. 

The NT saying, [[Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you,]] is a way of saying, [[ Seek you first and last this relationship with God, and all the other things you need will be added unto you.]] The hermit's witness to this truth is the most vivid one I could imagine here. It witnesses to the completion that is ours in God --- to the eschatological goal of every life. It is a hiddenness that witnesses to the heart, or deepest Being and vocation of the human person. Even the most perceptive spiritual director or Anam Cara cannot completely penetrate the hiddenness of this relationship --- though dimensions of it can be shared. 

You also wrote: [[One writer criticizes hermits like you who wear a habit or use Sister as a title or let people know you are a hermit in your blog. She says that is against the hiddenness of the life (though she also has a blog and writes about being a hermit). I think she believes because she insists on being anonymous, that is what makes her life hidden and that you (or anyone calling themselves a hermit) should be the same.]] As I wrote in an earlier piece, [[The authors [of canon 603 and also the CCC passages] did not merely mean it all happens alone (with God) behind closed doors --- though of course it mainly does this; they knew that the real fruit and processes of eremitical life (and thus, of eremitical formation and discernment) have to do with the functions of the human heart being redeemed and transfigured (made whole and holy) by the invisible God within the context of silence and personal solitude in an intimate relationship which is mainly invisible and ineffable.]] Everything about eremitical life is meant to foster and witness to this deep and profoundly relational Mystery which is served by hiddenness and all those elements of desert spirituality that contribute to the vocation's hiddenness.

I sincerely hope this is helpful.

Mass for the Solemnity of St Benedict and Diaconal Ordination of Don Bosco

Ordination to the Diaconate of the Camaldolese monk (Tanzania), Don Bosco, on the Solemnity of St Benedict. Also announced was the appointment of Camaldolese monk (of Monastery of Camaldoli) Roberto Fornaciari as new bishop of the diocese of Tempio-Ampurias on the island of Sardinia. Dom Roberto speaks at the end of the Mass after the announcement is greeted with lots of applause, drums, etc.

Feast of St Benedict: On the Labor of Prayer

My prayers for and very best wishes to my Sisters and Brothers in the Benedictine family on this Feast of St Benedict! Special greetings to the Benedictine Sisters at Transfiguration Monastery, the Camaldolese monks at Incarnation Monastery in Berkeley, and New Camaldoli in Big Sur, and the Trappistine Sisters at Redwoods Abbey in Whitethorn, CA.

In Chapter 19 of the Rule of Benedict we read, "God's presence is never so strong as while we are celebrating the work of God in the oratory." Rachel Srubas, Oblate OSB, wrote the following in her reflection on this text. 

The Labor of Prayer

You summon me here for the labor

of prayer, and hum within

the congregation's one, hymning voice.

Antiphons that underscore the themes of grace

frame and reinforce our common praise.

In the unsung pauses between psalms,

  my mind stays still, or wanders.

        You offer through both chant and silence

Spirit-guidance I

       may thankfully retrace one day.

 

 

While diocesan hermits have no congregation with whom we say or sing Office most of us do pray some portion of the Liturgy of the Hours each day and some of us sing them. I use the Camaldolese office book and especially love singing Compline from it. I feel a special kinship with those others I know who generally sing (parts of) the Office each day, especially the Camaldolese and the Trappistines of Redwood Abbey. Because my vocation is an ecclesial one and dedicated to assiduous prayer it only makes sense to to pray the Liturgy of the Hours as part of that.

 

For those who have never thought of either saying or singing Office and particularly for those who think of the LOH as something meant only for Religious and Clergy let me remind you that the Liturgy of the Hours is the Official Prayer of the Church and is meant for the Laity as well. Some parishes celebrate parts of the LOH frequently, some only during Holy Week or on special feasts or Sundays.  But all of us are invited by the Church to pray the LOH as part of the Church's life and ministry of prayer.

 

Resources are available for folks who would like to learn to pray Office. One that many really like is Universalis which allows them to download the day's office to their computer or handheld device. Another option is the devotional "Give us this Day" which includes an abbreviated version of Morning and Evening Prayer as well as the Mass readings and reflections on the readings, saint of the day, etc. I use it especially for the reflections and recommend it. It would be a great way to begin praying Morning and Evening Prayer.

Happy Fourth of July (Variation)

Each year this day reminds me that Christians have much to tell America about the nature of true freedom, even while they are grateful for a country that allows them the liberty to practice their faith pretty much as they wish and need. Too often today, however, Freedom is thought of as the ability to do anything one wants -- without real regard for others or their similar call and right to Freedom. Understood this way, freedom (which is really a misunderstanding of license) is the quintessential value of the narcissist. Unfortunately, the pandemic our global community continues to face in greater and lesser ways, has revealed just how prevalent is the valuing of liberty (a license our founders did not enshrine in the Constitution) over genuine freedom; we are seeing it both touted and modeled by some of our leading politicians and their supporters.

And yet, within Christian thought and praxis, freedom is the power to be the persons we are called by God to be. It is the direct counterpart of Divine sovereignty and is other-centered and rooted in empowering relationships. I believe our founding fathers had a keen sense of this, but today, it is a sense Americans often lack. Those of us who celebrate the freedom of Christians can help recover a sense of this necessary value by embracing it more authentically ourselves. Not least we can practice a freedom which is integrally linked to correlative obligations and exists for the sake of all; that is, it involves an obligation to be there for the other, most especially the least and poorest among us so that they too may be all that God has called them to be. We act and struggle to allow everyone to have a voice, indeed, to have and speak with their own voice in their lives and workplaces, in the political and other choices they make and seek to ratify in voting their minds and hearts.

In the past several years, the wearing of surgical masks and sheltering-in-place have become small but powerful symbols of this kind of freedom and its correlative sacrifice for the sake of others. And yet, how difficult these relatively minor inconveniences have been for so many of us. As COVID's danger waxes and wanes and waxes yet again with every new variant, many simply refuse to put others first (or consider them at all!). Still, the truth remains that one way we celebrate this holiday is by refraining from any usual practices which endanger others and our planet --- eschewing fireworks wherever it is unsafe, maintaining social distancing, working for the rights of all, etc. In so doing we demonstrate our freedom to be loving persons who, despite minor inconveniences like masking and continued social distancing whenever appropriate, are only ourselves and only truly free in interdependence with others and all of creation.

But today portions of the United States are in danger of choosing to "protect" a narrow, crippled notion of freedom by refusing to open us to "the other". In significant ways, some in power defend racism and the way it is exercised in law enforcement and symbolized in monuments to past historical figures whose legacy is stained, at best. This year the banning of books, marginalizing of citizens we consider somehow defective or alien, actions taken to prevent all of our citizens from voting or otherwise being effectively heard in our country, and the growing white supremacist movement and unethical and politicized tendencies in even the most powerful and revered court of our land, color this day with shame and sadness. In all of this, we have forgotten that we are free only insofar as we are open to loving others, to sharing our lives and our freedom with the "other", the alien, and those without the privilege of certain forms of wealth and power. Like love, personal freedom is lost when we fail to extend it to others and make "neighbors" of them. 

Once we build walls against the other, so too have we walled ourselves into the narrow confines of our own fear, ignorance, or selfishness and lost our most fundamental identity as the US, the democratic republic we desire to defend. Some today even militate for a second civil war!! But authentic freedom always seeks the freedom of the other, including the freedom to let everyone vote their consciences without unfair constraints. It is expansive and, to some extent, missionary in nature. And it is sacrificial. While the boundaries of American freedom involve borders and finite resources which must be honored and husbanded, its heart is global and so must its vulnerability be --- not only to those who wish to join us in this enterprise of freedom, but to the needs, yearnings, and potential of all of our citizens -- no matter their party, creed, color, or degree of conformity with what we may call the will of God. 

 All good wishes on this anniversary of the birthday of our Nation! May God empower us to live up to the obligations of the personal and national freedom, we recognize as both a Divine gift and human responsibility. And may we respect and celebrate the interdependence we are sometimes still only just learning to associate with this Freedom! 

Central Theological Insights Around Which my Life Spirals Ever Deeper (pt 1: Reprise, with tweaks, from 2015)

Sister Mary Southard, CSJ

In the last few years, I've acquired more of or nuanced the central theological insights I posted about in 2015. In other words, I have thought more about this vocation and grown in it as well. I thought I would add another post as a follow-up, hence this reprise as preparation for that. 

[[Dear Sister Laurel, since you have studied Theology I wondered what are the most important lessons you have learned over the years. It may be these are theological or spiritual but are there certain lessons you keep coming back to, you know, points around which you circle and go ever deeper? Are any of these specific to your life as a hermit?]]

 What a terrific set of questions! I especially like the image of circling and going deeper because both my director and other friends and I sometimes speak of the spiral pattern to growth. We return to the same pieces of growth, the same insights, the same bits of clarity but each time from a different and deeper perspective. Each time the center is closer or I exist closer to the center. That happened once recently as I wrote about the gift of emptiness and the linkage between the hiddenness of the eremitical vocation and the work of God within us. At the time I noted that all the pieces had been there and I had written and spoken of each of them before --- often many times --- but I had never placed these two together in exactly this way before. They glowed for me with a kind of new incandescence  -- as though a blue piece of the theological puzzle and a red piece, once joined together, glowed with a purple light. A handful of the more significant lessons I have learned --- usually both theologically and spiritually --- are as follows:

The human heart is a theological reality:

One of the most personally and professionally important pieces I can point to is the notion that the term "heart" is a theological term, and the human heart is, by definition, the place where God bears witness to Godself. The corollary is also important, namely, it is not so much that we have a heart and God comes to dwell there but that where God dwells we have a (human) heart! It was from this bit of theology taken from a footnote in an article on kardia (Kαρδία) in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament that a number of other emphases in my life and writing come. The notion that human beings ARE a covenant reality, a dialogue with God, a language event called to be Divine Word incarnate, comes from this insight (though they are related to other things as well). When coupled with the notion that God is ever new because God is eternal and eternal because God is ever new, this all led me to a notion of my own life which never allowed the sense that I was wounded beyond the capacity for new life, or the sense that there was nothing more to hope for.

The notion of the human heart as the place where God bears witness to Godself allowed me to see myself as having a deep place or reality within me where not even human woundedness and sinfulness can touch. There are darknesses in me, of course, but deeper than those is the light of God. There are distortions and untruths, but deeper than these is the God who is truth and who continually summons to truth, the One who creates New life with this Word and redeems the whole of reality. That God, whether I speak of him as Ground and Source of Being (cf. below) or as the center and depth dimension of my own heart, is the One who brings life out of death and makes hope rather than despair the pedal tone of my life.

God is Verb More than God is Noun:

As part of this theology is the notion that God is verb as much or more than God is noun. The dynamism of this idea, that God is not just Love but even more is Love-in-Act has been central for me. In thinking of the human being as a covenant or dialogical reality with Love-in-Act dwelling in the core of her being I also saw clearly that there was a dynamic and inalienable part of me that was constantly moving (or summoning) the whole of me towards abundant life and holiness. Speaking of God as a living God, thinking of the human soul as the constantly renewed breath of God, realizing that God was never summoned into action but was already moving, acting, healing, touching, etc, was important in the same way the idea that the word heart is a fundamentally theological term was important. Among other things, I realized I could never think of myself as wounded beyond the capacity to respond or beyond hope. There was always an unquenchable source of life living in my heart transcending the capacity of sin or death (in all its forms and variations) to stop or paralyze it. Moreover, this way of conceiving of God is both profoundly Scriptural while at the same time comporting with the "event nature" of the "true self" and the whole of reality we are dealing with more and more because of contemporary physics. It invites further theological reflection while taking quantum mechanics, etc, seriously. The same is true of the next bit of theology.

God is Ground and Source of Being; God is not A Being:

It is hardly possible to say all the ways this bit of theology has been crucial for me. Recently in explaining about the fact that miracles are not the result of a God who intervenes in and contravenes the laws of nature but is rather the revelation of the deepest "law" of reality I had occasion to refer to this famous bit of Paul Tillich's systematic theology. My understanding of and insistence that the whole of reality is at least potentially sacramental is also rooted in this piece of theology. My work and reading regarding the relationship of science and faith --- the fact that these two are different ways of knowing the same reality, both with their own strengths and deficiencies, is built on this notion of God as Transcendent ground and source of being and meaning. The notion that God is the ground and source of all that is truly personal is another side of this foundational theological datum. Above all, perhaps, my sense that God is omnipresent but also summoning us each to enflesh "him" and bring him to a unique articulation in the ways only human beings seem able to do that is related to the notion of God as Ground and Source.

With regard to eremitical life it is the fact that union with God implies and in fact establishes our communion with others that is the primary key to my understanding eremitical solitude in terms not of aloneness so much as in terms of communion with God and all that is precious to God. Worldly solitude (and external or physical solitude) have more to do with being isolated from others than with communion and relatedness, but in Christian eremitical life solitude moves from and through this external solitude to a deep relatedness with God and others. Anyone can leave people behind and embrace a self-centered 'spirituality' marked by a selfish piety --- at least for a time --- but the paradox of authentic eremitical solitude is that when one embraces external or physical solitude in order to pray and be made God's own prayer, one also becomes more compassionate and more profoundly related to others as well.

This is why canon 603 specifies a life "lived for others" --- not first of all because one's life is that of an intercessor (though one will surely pray for others) but because external solitude is the means to a literal compassion, a literal feeling with and for others involving the desire to alleviate suffering and mediate God and the hope God brings the isolated and marginalized to others. All of this is rooted in the fact that God is the ground of being and meaning of all that exists; to move more deeply into union with God means to become more truly related to all else that is similarly related to and grounded in God.

Divine Sovereignty is the Counterpart of Human Freedom:

So often we pose our own freedom as something in conflict with the sovereignty of another but with God the opposite is true. The last three pieces of theology combine to reveal that human beings are truly themselves when God is allowed to truly be God. Because God is not A Being he never comes into competition with human beings --- as would inevitably and invariably happen if God were a being among other beings --- maybe especially as A (or THE) supreme being. Instead, though, God is the power underlying and within reality, the power driving and summoning to abundant life, to authenticity and to the reality of future and completion. This means (especially if the other insights are true) that if freedom is really the power to be the ones we are called to be, it must be seen as the counterpart to the sovereignty of God and God's call to be. So often it has been critically important that I understand that the will of God is the deepest law of my own true Self. Discerning the will of God means discerning where I am truly free, giving myself over to that will means giving myself over to my own deepest truth, giving myself over to the One who grounds my being and dwells as the core of my Self.  I am free when God is Lord. God is Lord to the extent I am truly free to be myself. So too for each and all of us.

Gospel Truth is ALWAYS Paradoxical:

When I began studying Theology my major professor gave a lecture on two ways of thinking, the Greek way and the Biblical way, the way of compromise (thesis + antithesis ---> (leads to or requires) synthesis) and the way of radical relatedness where two apparently opposing realities are held together in tension and identity (thesis + antithesis) does not equal conflict but = paradox). The most radical formulation of paradox living at the heart of Christianity is the Incarnation where Jesus is the exhaustive revelation of God to, and only to the extent he is exhaustively human, and where he is exhaustively human to and only to the extent he reveals God. Jesus is strongest where he is weak, fullest where he is empty, richest where he has nothing at all to recommend him in worldly terms. The Trinity is also paradoxical rather than being some weird kind of new (or very ancient) math: where God is One, God is a Trinitarian Community of Love and where God is a Trinitarian community of Love, God is truly One. Christianity is rooted in paradox and is always expressed in paradox: we have ourselves only to the extent we give ourselves away, insofar as we are mourners we will also know a deeper and more extensive joy, where we are rich in worldly terms we are poor in divine terms, etc, etc.

I always look for the paradox involved when I am doing theology --- so much so that I know if there is no paradox, I have very likely transgressed into some form of heresy or other. Docetism, for instance, which takes its name from the Greek verb δοκεῖν (dokein) "to seem," takes the divinity of Jesus seriously at the expense of his humanity (he only seems human). Arianism, for instance, takes his humanity seriously at the expense of his divinity. The Christological task which confronts the systematic theologian, but also the ordinary believer in faith, is to hold the two things together in both tension and identity --- so that where Jesus is exhaustively human, there he is also the exhaustive revelation of God (despite the fact that humanity and divinity are not the same things).

Henri de Lubac once noted that one does not resolve or answer a paradox (to do so would compromise one or, more likely, both of the truths involved); rather, the only appropriate approach to paradox is contemplation. Pope Francis recently reminded us of the same thing. It is paradox which eventually allowed me to think of chronic illness as divine vocation (though I don't believe God wills illness), or to understand that in eremitical life the inability to minister to or love others in all the usual ways was, when lived with integrity, itself  a doorway to the ultimate ministry and love of others --- not in some bloodless and abstract way (not that that would be love anyway) but in the sense of living the deepest truth of human existence for the sake of others --- especially those who are without hope and those who, on the other end of the spectrum, believe they are their own best hope!

In my Uniqueness, I am the Same as Everyone Else (Please note the paradox!!):

There were (and I guess still are) many things in my life which made (and make) me different from the people around me: family, interests, gifts, illness, desires and dreams and eventually even vocation. Though I always got on well with others, was well-liked, and did well in school, in athletics, music, work, etc, so I also stood out or apart. When I developed a seizure disorder it turned out not to be a kind of run-of-the-mill epilepsy (sorry, but some epilepsies really are kind of "run-of-the-mill" to my mind) but a medically and surgically intractable epilepsy whose seizures were rare and often initially unrecognized. Everything in my life seemed to point to my "difference". But at one point, perhaps 35 or so years ago I came to see myself clearly as the same as everyone else --- even in my differences most fundamentally I was the same.

As a result, I came to experience a profound empathy with others and a sense that the things which seemed to set me apart were, in one way and another, little different from the things which seemed to set others apart. I discovered paradox here too!! Precisely in my uniqueness, I am the same as everyone else! I suspect when people write of Thomas Merton's experience on that street corner in Louisville, they are describing something similar to what happened to me. I can't point to a single event   as the focus of this shift, nor can I say I realized I loved everyone at that moment as happened to Merton, but the compassion and empathy Merton experienced sounds similar to what I experienced. Moreover, I believe Merton, especially as monk and (potential) hermit schooled in a "fuga mundi" way of approaching the world outside the monastery and wounded by his Mother's death and other circumstances from childhood and young adulthood, was coming from a place where he felt profoundly alien or different in many of the ways I had myself done. (N.B. Some Cistercians eschew the fuga mundi approach to monastic life on the basis of Trappist and Trappistine authors; Merton too seemed to eschew this approach when he wrote about "the problem" of the World, but my sense is he was still schooled in it in his early years at Gethsemani.)

In any case, the source of my worst suffering --- not least because it is self-reinforcing and self-isolating --- turned out to be seeing myself as different from everyone else, and the source of greatest joy came to be seeing myself in terms of my commonality with others. This is not an abstract truth (that would never have touched me) but is at least partly due to being profoundly understood by others who did not share the same differences (though no doubt they had their own). In any case, as a result (and to the extent I truly know this), I am not threatened by others' gifts, frightened by their differences, nor driven to despair by my own differences and deficiencies. Neither do I have a need to use my own gifts as weapons to humiliate others or prove my own superiority (or even my own competence). All of these are are part of our more profound "sameness" or commonality. This was a central piece of coming to truly love myself and others as myself.  It is the sine qua non without which no one can truly minister to others. Again, I am not entirely certain how I came by it, but I recognize it as a great gift and something that makes living Christianity and religious (and especially eremitical) life really possible.

Our God Reveals Godself in the Unexpected and Unacceptable Place:

I won't write a lot about this here except to say please check out posts on the theology of the Cross. There is no part of my life that is untouched by Paul's Theology of the Cross. Every part of my own theology is informed by the Cross. Recently I wrote about kenosis and the possibilities which still exist when one has been entirely emptied of every discrete gift and potential for ministry --- if only one can remain open to God. It is from such a position of emptiness, incapacity, and even certain kinds of failure, that Jesus' obedience (openness and responsiveness) to God opens our broken and sinful World most fully to God's redemption.

It is Mark's similar theology that gives me a sense that when all the props are kicked out God's faithfulness is the single thing we can count on, the thing that brings life out of death, communion with God out of godlessness, meaning out of absurdity and so forth. The notion that God becomes incarnate, that God does not hesitate to do what no other merely putative god would do, that the God of Jesus Christ accepts dishonor and shows a power which is truly perfected in weakness --- and that this God can be found in the unexpected and entirely "unacceptable" place --- is the source of all my hope and strength. It is an immeasurable mystery I am happy to reflect on, walk into and explore for the whole of my life. Such a God is paradoxical and so is such a gospel. In truth it is this theology of the cross and the paradoxical God it reveals that is the real source and ground of all of the other things I have already spoken about here.

There are probably a few other pieces of theology that are pivotal in my own life. One I haven't mentioned here is the notion that humility is a name we give the dignity we possess as those accepting the God of Jesus Christ and ourselves in light of that God; humility is something God raises us to and the appropriate verb is to humble, not to humiliate. The second truth I have always clung to is that anyone seeking to do serious theology must come to terms with the Holocaust. It is here that the Theologies of the Cross of Paul and Mark and so many of the other pieces or insights I have mentioned find their ultimate test of theological validity --- far more, of course than they do in the much smaller struggles of my own life. In any case, I will leave this here for now and come back to finish later --- I need to think about which of these are specific to eremitical life. In the meantime, I hope what I have written so far is helpful.