Fra Jerome: Active Hermit

Fra Jerome, the hermit of Cat Island, was a more active hermit in terms of interactions with people. This came as a result of being a missionary priest, an architect, and then a hermit who was visibly a hermit--the hermit type that we all know from the centuries-old considerations of what and how a hermit should look.

And this look is as valid as not having the look. Being an active and less hidden hermit is valid, for the individual hermit makes choices and also has to do as directed. Fra Jerome's Bishop, where he was living in the Bahamas, asked him to plan and build some churches and also placed him in charge of one or two. He would go on Sundays and Holy Days to celebrate Mass and hear confessions. His hermitage was a draw for islanders and occasional visitors, as well, for it "looked" like a hermitage, and he did not make any attempt to hide the fact that he was a hermit.

He hardly could, in his situation. Of course, he could have chosen not to wear a coarse robe with cord around the waste. He could have kept his beard shaved and hair trimmed neatly. But, he did not. He also made a change in his status as a tertiary of the Franciscans, and after a few years insisted that the letters after his name not indicate Third Order but indicated First Order status. This was not the case, but for whatever reason, and he probably had his own reason, he wanted it that way so did it.

Also, he wrote a book that was published, about his life as a hermit, and he called it Soliloquys in Solitude. Critics declared that he was an exhibitionist of his life when he should have been hidden, that he was seeking attention and acclaim. But, those who knew him said he was not, that it was his artistic personality and unique flare, and gregarious nature--as well as already being quite famous--that caused his self-exposure.

And, it does bring up the variations in hermit life. Some are more this way than that way, some are never known and others are. Some are known by their own choosing, others by
God's choosing, and some by situation God has allowed. Sometimes the hermit is one way for awhile and then learns and grows to be another way.

Fra Jerome did have times in solitude, but not often. People knew him also as a priest, and they would come to ask for food in times of drought. Or they'd come to ask help in settling disputes. Friends or other clerics would travel to Cat Island to visit, to see, and many came in curiosity, having heard about his hermitage or having read his book which was published in the UK (and perhaps elsewhere). His life, like other public hermits, had to sacrifice some aspects of the eremitic call to being hidden. He was in good health other than some nerviness (as the biographer states it) due to the life-long activity and also his intense austerities. He would become exhausted and need rests, when he was a missionary priest in Australia.

His sharing in his book was not a boasting, it would seem, but rather telling about his daily and nightly routine, what he ate, wore, and so forth. Some were inspired. Some found it otherwise.
He did not consider himself a mystic, and his biography and his own writings did not delve into depth of mystical thought. He was more an active hermit. That is how it can be described, and was not the poet at heart. God gave him the body and stamina to be active, and the creative mind to be an architect, and a love of the Church to be a priest. And he was able to adopt the Franciscan ideal of poverty, and lived this very well, divesting himself of most comforts and nearly all possessions--even setting up a trust for sustenance having donated all property to the Diocese. Being a priest, however, he was in a slightly different category, for he would be taken care of by the Diocese if need be.

The nothing has found this hermit's life to be interesting and helpful. It is quite different than the nothing's life, but it ought to be different. Hermit's lives are usually different in aspect considering the variations of God's will in each temperament and destiny. Perhaps if Fra Jerome had begun earlier to embrace the Way of Divine Folly and to answer the hermit call, he would have done aspects of the externals differently. But maybe not.

A friend who is moving away commented yesterday that the lay hermit who is to remain hidden, and who has health problems, has quite a time of it in handling all the existing responsibilities. It was remarked that those in cloisters have externs to do much that the nothing must do; and within, there are others who help support one another, thus sharing the crosses.

Fra Jerome had his helper, and when the helper married, he had the helper's wife and also parishioners who assisted in building and doing some of the more difficult tasks. The nothing must do all itself or hire it done, as Fra Jerome did do some hiring. Anyway, it is interesting to read of other hermits' lives. One knows all the more then, one's own way and can receive affirmation as to what is God's will in this or that--knowing that the eremitic life is never static and like the sands shifting and sometimes blowing across the desert, the sun ever a constant in day and stars at night.