There is much to be written about the topic: on being a hermit.
And in this aspect of being a hermit, I naturally mean being a Catholic hermit, either privately or publicly professed and thereby in the consecrated life of the Church. While a good many of my blog readers continue to inquire or read about how to become a Catholic hermit, the most challenging aspect for a consecrated Catholic hermit is the living out of the vocation: how to be a Catholic hermit.
Being humble remains a seminal, necessary, and threshold virtue for the hermit. (Humility remains thus for every soul, of course, but in a hermit, humility is crucial due to the solitary nature of this vocation.) When one lives increasingly in the silence of solitude, temptations to pride and various other vices and distractions, all the more can threaten the hermit's self-perception and thoughts. This is so because there are not other religious or consecrated, or the ordained, or people in general who can serve as checks to a hermit's temptation to and falling to pride.
The hermit must rely on God alone, for the most part. God in His Living Word, God the Holy Spirit, God in His Real Presence, God in the spiritual reading, God in the hermit's praying and praising--God's All to the hermit's nothing are checks against the devil's devious and numerous ways of bringing a hermit to insidious but also sometimes quite obvious pride.
And the hermit must also rely on God alone, for the most part, in all aspects of God's All to the hermit's nothing, for the virtue of humility to remain foremost of the cardinal virtues in a hermit's daily and nightly existence. Humility grows commensurate with pride's demise. The more outer and external in the temporal world is the hermit, the more difficulty in ridding pride; yet there are the subtle aspects of pride which can take root within a hermit's interior life--even when the hermit has progressed to fewer relationships and rare excursions out into the world. (And excursions into the world can very much include, in our contemporary times, the internet.)
Truly, God will form the hermit increasingly in His will when the hermit gives over increasingly, to great faith in trusting in God's providence in all matters, external and interior, temporal and spiritual. Thus pride, which will always be poking it's undesirable and deceptively vicious tentacles into a hermit's temporal existence and spiritual life, the hermit's on-going awareness of this serious and deadening vice will bring the hermit to call upon the Holy Spirit and the hermit's guardian angel to unmask and pluck out all and any such tentacles of pride.
But a most effective antidote and prevention of pride is for the hermit to pray for and actively seek the virtue of humility. Just as a hermit begins to be fine-tuned by the Lord in the hermit vocation, and the silence of solitude grows, the increase in hiddenness from the eyes of others increases, the praise of God encompasses and the hermit's prayer for the salvation of the world and souls strengthens, there will be less external and interior "space" for pride to enter in.
When the hermit gives over to the Lord in accepting the less of the world and the more of the interior life, when the excuses or rationalizing of going and doing, of enabling and encouraging particular friendships, the hermit will settle into the rubrics, and essences exemplified by the saint hermits of history and tradition, the hermit will be in their mystical company, also increasingly so. And the humility of these hermit saints who befriend us when we ask and desire, will inspire and share the wealth of facets in the jewel of humility.
Above all, the more the hermit delves into the mystery of Christ and His Church, and becomes a hidden, silent preaching of the Lord to Whom the hermit has fully given his life and of which the Lord comes to be and mean everything to the hermit, Christ's perfect humility will enter into the hermit, just as the hermit will enter into the Lord's preeminent, supernally humble, Sacred Heart.
The hermit's temporal and spiritual combat against the vice of pride, as well as the hermit's desire and attainment of humility, are progressive and concomitant, both. Willingness to give up that which impedes humility and the closeness with the Lord that ensures His humility in us, must be a willingness that each hermit must in abject honesty of self: desire with focused, strength of mind and heart.
And in humility, the hermit must accept that the reception of such a spectacularly humbling virtue can be a slow and unfolding process of letting go of temporal distractions be whatever these distractions in all their often shrouded appearances or considerations truly are. The Lord will be immensely patient with the hermit, for many of our hindrances to a hermit's evolving as authentic is in part can seem a one-step forward, two-step back process of coming to reality of our own deception to even the smallest particles of pride in us.
A consecrated Catholic hermit need critically examine what the Church states and desires of Her hermits, as well as to imitate the lived examples of the holy hermit saints--with obvious requisites adjusted per the hermit's culture, era, societal legalities. Abject self-honesty on the part of the hermit and heeding the circumstances God unfolds, is a hermit must. Pride can so easily convince the hermit to rationalize other than the truth of the means and ideal which progress the Catholic hermit in holiness as opposed to pretense and hubris.
Authentically living the hermit vocation can be at times breathtaking in the deeper degrees of solitude and silence, stillness and simplicity. The interjection of suffering will come to any and all consecrated Catholic hermits, at some time or many times, whether in spiritual combat or physical pain and debilitation. Selflessness will always be a point of contention, for dying to self is a challenge for hermits as it is for anyone; but death of self for a hermit is necessity in living the ideal of the eremitic vocation.
Pride will tempt against the needed stability in humility (as well in stability of mind, heart, and soul). The hermit will be tempted against increasing simplicity--not only of tangibles, but as much, that of simplicity in the hermit's inner thoughts, feelings, and desires. Humility for the hermit will bring serenity temporally and spiritually.
And whereas the devil who despises humility as well as despises Catholic hermits. ever-striving to protect humility's virtue from pride, will do all to discourage the hermit in the acceptance of slowness. Rather the hermit will consider the slowness inherent in such a deeply, richly spiritual vocation as being too tedious, thus tempting the hermit to impatience--or to ease off or even dispense of the hidden, humble hermit vocation altogether.
These are but some thoughts on how a hermit ought be humble, from this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit on a late and darkling Advent afternoon, while in bed on icy pad, Bach's Mass in D Minor and the low hum of the ice pump the only sound in the otherwise silence of solitude here in Solus Deus Hermitage.
The Living Word of Jesus further emphasizes for all souls, the blessedness of humility and of our being drawn into HIs Being. Whether already a consecrated Catholic hermit in process of living the eremitic vocation, or someone discerning the hermit vocation, or anyone in whatever stage, status, and vocation in life, the Lord beckons us today as He did when living on this earth. Truth, beauty, goodness--He lovingly wants us for Himself for now and forever.
"Jesus said to the crowds: 'Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden light.'"
~ Matthew 11: 28-30
God bless His Real Presence in us!
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