Catholic Hermit CL603?

Pinus parviflora 'Yatsu busa' to left in photo

On a different site, a reader asked if am a hermit, a Canon Law 603 hermit?  The content induced the reader to wonder.  Am not. Did not explain why not, but a good question and appropriate to answer on this site, pertinent to the topic.

Nearly a year ago Bishop was going to canonically approve.  He suggested a private, small ceremony, asked for a bit more information about the vocation and CL 603.  However, new Bishop announced and Bishop's time soon filled with last minute preparations for retirement of one and installation of new.  

As it turned out, my own views on the issue of canonical approval already wary and not inclined, became all the more convinced due to some additional aspects obvious from some internet hermits, forums, support networks online, that surfaced in research to provide Bishop with the current hermit information his Excellency requested.

As God would have it, Bishop's time expired for him to follow through, concurrently my health included a lengthy pain siege which eventually exposed two more protruding spinal discs.  While Bishop encouraged me to ask the new Bishop, I explained to him that the trend in the hermit vocation being promoted to more institutionalized vocation, left me convinced God had averted that which was against His will for me. No, I am all the further from Cl 603 hermit label.  As for what a Church cleric instructs someone to use as a label, or what God may call a soul, again represent temporal or mystical.


Thankfully, I consider myself saved from what Bishop recommended in approaching new Bishop.  The Lord allowed me tremendous suffering all during Lent, and during that suffering reminders came of something more desired. While what God may call a  person, give a label, within the interior of the soul is directly for that person and will never change, the outer aspects of how canonical eremitic vocation was being propagated by some, is limiting and finite.  What God has confided stands before, above, and all about.


What has unfolded is more guidance as to going beyond "the nets" that can entangle.  Yes, nets can provide safety and security, but swimming out into deep waters, into the vast beauty and depth of the spiritual realm, was what He willed.  What is to be plumbed are the living waters of Christ in the present moment, and to seek, find and climb the stairway to heaven.  


This journey is for anyone, and to be consecrated by a canon law label or an increasingly visible, institutionalized hermit vocation would not allow for writing and living out the Order of the Present Moment, a spiritual order without temporal limits that confine by labels, definitions, visibility and temptation to personal hubris.


While the hermit vocation is viable and willed by God for some, it is to be lived then, as the Church defined in the Catechism and then in CL603, which very much requires being hidden in Christ. Since the trend being promoted by some is not that, there is resultant taint and limitation in the label.  

What God has called me, remains set, and no amount of temporal legalisms can thereby alter. But what I'm to live is beyond labels and attempts a life in Christ and His Church that is spiritually and purely free for any and all souls.


Perhaps it is best explained that there are zinnias and petunias and all categories of flowers.  There are Pinus parviflora and Abies koreansis and all varieties of conifers.  There are Taxus and Serrata and all types of deciduous trees with each a variety name such as 'Diana' and 'Japonica'.  And they all have distinctive characteristics and expected modes of growth, bloom, bark, flower and fruit.  Yet beyond are flora and botanicals, and beyond these are God the Creator of life.


So am called beyond being perhaps a Pinus parviflora 'Yatsu Busa', although might certainly have some matching attributes, but more am called to the greatest Beyond, which is Christ in the present moment, and God the Father of all Beingness, and the Holy Spirit.  And thus am to learn how to live as a soul in a body no matter the distinguishing details, in the Order of the Present Moment and climb the stairway to heaven.


And this, actually and truly, is that to which all souls are called, with or without choosing to call themselves by labels which run the high risk of limiting within some person's human needs to the temporal finite rather than the spiritual eternal.  

...And with no offense intended to those who at whatever phase of the journey, find the need for a label to be important, for they are to horticulturalists in their studies and identifying measures, as they are to some of religious orders and specified vocations.