Been a long day. Exhausted but peace flowing yet again. Thanks be to God!
"Do not pray for the fulfillment of your wishes for they may not accord with the will of God. But pray as you have been taught, saying: 'Thy will be done in me' (cf. Mt 6:10). Always entreat Him in this way: that His will be done. For He desires what is good and profitable for you, whereas you do not always ask for this.
"Often when I have prayed I have asked for what I thought was good and persisted in my petition, stupidly importuning the will of God, and not leaving it to Him to arrange things as He knows best for me. But when I have obtained what I asked for, I have been very sorry that I did not ask for the will of God to be done because the thing turned out not to be as I had thought.
"What is good except God? Then let us leave to Him everything that concerns us and all will be well. For He who is good is naturally also a giver of good gifts. Do not be distressed if you do not at once receive from God what you ask. He wishes to give you something better--to make you persevere in your prayer. For what is better than to enjoy the love of God and to be in communion with Him? You should wish for your affairs to turn out, not as you think best but according to God's will. Then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer."
~ Evagrius Ponticus (345-399)
God bless His Real Presence and His Divine Will, in us!
"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." ~ Jesus
[The remaining is what I wrote last night--a stream of consciousness monologue of temporal aspects, mostly, of my consideration of seeking what it is the bishop desires of hermits. It rather does come down to being considerate of what one's diocese bishop interprets, the way in which a particular bishop views hermits privately professed, or publicly professed. Private profession has for years, to me, been best for many reasons. Yet, this is getting into the temporal weeds, which do need to be whacked away for clarity, and to get to the humus, the earth, of what my soul seeks and desires, which is further in His Real Presence--not to even be thinking or writing in the weeds, per se.]
The process has begun, the wheels are in motion. I am seeking and will get some answers of clarification, as well as what the Bishop desires and how he interprets §920 and the reference to hermits and consecrated life of the Church, in a couple other documents. When I called, the Bishop's secretary actually thanked me for being so considerate. How very kind of her.
Yes, it has come to me through prayer, that given the lack of clarity in a couple of references, what matters for hermits, privately professed and publicly professed, is to know the desires and views of the bishop of their dioceses. CL 603 hermits have clarity for themselves regarding being in the Consecrated Life of the Church, "by law"; but there is no stated or specific exclusion of the Church's other hermits--the privately professed Catholic hermits living the life of the historical, traditional hermits who were not "by law" hermits in the Church. CL603 has not been around that long.
However, as I wrote in a previous post, I have come to realize that the "law" and the "approval" of a bishop is going to hold sway and influence, and already has. Just as terms not found in Church documents, such as lay hermits or dedicated hermits, or fraud or counterfeit hermits, for that matter, can take hold--especially "lay hermit" has been promoted enough as if an official designation, that some people could think it is. While not good for someone to create labels trying to set precedent when not authorized to do so, when it involves the Church, it happens, much as slang terms or colloquialisms develop over time and are added to dictionaries and vocabularies. Rarely is it known who or what group first introduced the word or term. Just how it goes.
I am awaiting a call back from the Chancery. Yes, I realize information gathering in one's specific diocese, is considerate, wise, and helpful. For any of us privately professed, Catholic hermits could ask each of our bishops, their interpretation and desire, their will, regarding privately professed Catholic hermits being or not being in the Consecrated Life of the Church, and we could get a variety of answers.
For the most part, I assume bishops would go with the canon status, the "by law" provision of CL603, being preferred. That is, if the bishop is concerned about renegade hermits--that's a new term we could promote--and wants to make sure the hermits under his jurisdiction of diocese are living a life supervised by a priest spiritual director or religious order superior. A bishop could be concerned about fraud and counterfeit hermits living in their dioceses, faking hermit life and whatever it is that frauds and counterfeits do. I suppose such fake hermits or "imposter hermits" (another term we could add), might say they are Catholic hermits when not at all Catholic.
Or people observing could up and decide a fraud might be those who say they are hermits when the complainers note they work in jobs with quasi leadership positions involving plenteous people, or participate in civic functions or groups, or go places with friends to lunch out, or take vacation with other/s. These hermits might wear a religious habit and say they used to be in a religious group, but that order or community not considered condoned by the Church.
The concerns and fears of people perpetrating frauds on the Church in pretending to be Catholic or hermits, or Catholic hermits, when onlookers--others--decide they are not, could become quite a concern for bishops. There could be that people in parishes and also employees of the diocese, who might hear of a fraud hermit, or wonder if a person in their midst is a fraud hermit, feel it a duty to report their concerns, their fears, to the bishop. Or, perhaps would contact their priest or whoever in the diocese handles abuse cases.
People observing (we humans do love to see and notice what others are doing unless we are focused on our own lives and souls!) also tend to complain about a person who calls him- or herself a Catholic hermit; that is, if they notice hermits who are in public known as hermits or hermits who tell others that they are hermits. People will notice them engaging in activities such as mentioned above and criticize and judge, which is not good for any of us to be doing. Even with this anonymous blog, I have been criticized plenty--even for when I had to stay with family for over four months while getting relocated, finding a hermitage, finding new doctors, and dealing with the real estate transaction.
(I thought about the new spiritual director, the priest-hermit, and wondered if the one or more who criticized me for having to live temporarily with a family of three, would be criticizing the priest-hermit for having to live for a couple or three months in a facility with many others--retired priests, visitors to the facility, and the employed staff--until he is well enough to return to his hermitage.)
People--even us hermits--do tend to criticize and judge others. Some simply have an allure to that vice which easily becomes habit. I don't have an allure to it, but I have observed and criticized and judged others, not limited to hermits, and not proud nor happy with myself in the least. I have quite the habit of criticizing my own lacks, laziness, distractedness. Always good to confess when we stoop so low in what we often do without realizing the sin in this. I'm sure all of us have crossed line from discerning observation to critiquing and into judging others when not our job either in the temporal life or as ordained by God to be on the bench with Him.)
Sifting through the piles of weeds of above thoughts and examples, I prefer to remain privately professed. Although it is not that publicly professed hermits must have a Mass or agree to even a diocese paper article naming them and discussing their parish, employment, name, of course, background, rule of life, photo, interview, and so forth. Surely hermits choosing public profession (unless bishop chooses hermits to be thus) could explain to his or her bishop why not to identify them--if the bishop wants to mention the hermit in his diocese "column" of which most bishops write for the faithful. When hermits are publicly known as hermits, we open ourselves up for the observation and judgment by others. This could serve to make us "straighten up and fly right," or could cause us to justify ourselves no matter if the criticisms of others, valid or not.
I've had plenty of experience with these matters over the two decades, and some of the best lessons learned were when in a fairly new hermit formation in a community started and approved by a diocese elsewhere, but the member hermits lived alone in their own locations. So wearing a habit, and then the parish priest wanting to put a two-part series in the parish bulletin, to explain to people what I was doing, basically, and explaining what is the eremitic vocation, and the process involved--taught me how unnecessary the publicity was, how wearing a habit was far from keeping me hidden, and disrupted what could have been more quality silence of solitude.
Plus, maybe most importantly, it caused any number of observers--seemingly a parish and town-full of critics and curiosity seekers, and complainers, and a slew of notes to the bishop reporting the scandal, for not everyone read the bulletin--and compound the uproar among the Protestants who heard the Catholics gossiping. Then there came the defenders--those who would take on, verbally, especially other Catholics who were reviewing whatever it was they noticed that did not seem to go along with their view of how a hermit ought be--if one was actually a hermit and not a fraud or counterfeit. Protestants who knew me well for years, took on the Catholics when they'd hear them criticizing--bad-mouthing, it came to.
Then there were those who'd feel a need to let me know to my face, their observations and what was right and wrong in their estimations--at Mass or before or after--as I was not generally out and about. But when I was--such as to get groceries or working in the yard--oh, my! Then there were those who felt they needed to tell me what others were saying, and how they defended me. I did appreciate their defending me, as what was being said to them was harsh, as well--those detractors who knew the friend was still going to be a friend.
Then there were those who had been disrespectful and rude, but who would, just because they knew I was a hermit and in novitiate then, but was told to wear the habit and use my religious name--force themselves to be very polite, or to want to give a gift, or drop off some vegetables, or give a discount for a service rendered.
As for the problem of frauds--here's an example of what we could say and actual one. Only fraud in my 24 years as a Catholic, of which someone mentioned, privately, the person's religious affiliation in question. It was a fairly large diocese in which for a short while, a young man wore a cassock; he said he was in a seminary or such, but word was that it was not a Church condoned seminary or community.
I think the Vicar General quietly asked him to not wear the cassock, but he was not ousted from Mass; and he was around for some time, wearing his cassock--but honestly, he caused no harm. People seemed to understand, and knew that he had a need of some sort, but was not a diocese seminarian nor from a valid seminary. Eventually, I think he may have moved, or else I moved (!), or he simply stopped wearing the cassock. (Probably, though, some people shunned him or gave him the what-for to his face; there were certainly the whisperers and critical glancers behind his back.
He is not going to be credited or discredited, depending on the perspective, with having caused the downfall of the Catholic Church, nor even having put a dent in Her. He was devout in Mass, participated in adoration, read/prayed his breviary...and wore a cassock. Some people might complain that a person who calls him- or herself a hermit is not at all, if they do such as those activities. When hermits are publicly known as hermits, they open themselves up for the observation and judgment by others.
And a whole lot more--they open themselves up for noticing themselves more through the notice of others. When that notice is admirable, I think it is far worse for the hermit, for pride can be a problem whenever a hermit feels noticed or known, and has announced or known status as someone outside the usual. A known hermit who wears a habit is more noticed than religious sister or brother; this is because hermits are more rare and carry a host of "background memory" in general, as the very word "hermit" conjures a variety of images and thoughts in person's minds. Hermits are unique and out of the normative mode of professed religious.
These are simply my thoughts and experiences, and lessons learned, of sorts, over the 20 years. Thus, if my bishop is all right with my remaining privately professed Catholic hermit, regardless if he or his canon law specialist informs his interpreting the stated portions found in the Church's documents to mean a privately professed hermit is not in the consecrated life, I will desire remaining privately professed, quite hidden, and remain very much under-the-radar. The Lord will have something more eternal for me, regarding consecrated life. I already know that. But if the bishop prefers all hermits in his diocese to be "by law," meaning publicly professed per CL603, I will do that despite it not being my preference and for all these years not God's preference.
But new diocese, new bishop, new phase, and that would indicate the Lord wants me to experience what I consider less simple. However, symbolically, shackles and baggage have a positive aspect and reminds me of prison life of St. Paul, St. Peter, and others whom we so love and admire. It reminds me of Christ, in chains, beaten, crown of thorns jammed on his head, his persecutors noticing him, saying horrible things to him, spitting on him, taunting, criticizing. If they did not know him, if he had been able to remain unnoticed by others for being Jesus--well, that was not his purpose nor mission, not his calling. But it is more the calling of the hermit to pass unnoticed, to remain more hidden.
I am sure if the Bishop prefers all hermits in his diocese to be "by law," I'd think he'd understand my reasons and feelings, what I've read of so many historical, holy hermits, and my experiences otherwise when I was known by others as a hermit, briefly had to wear a habit, go by a religious name--that I'd not want any public notice or linkage with my name or locale, for me to remain anonymous, despite what is termed "publicly professing" the three evangelical counsels, as opposed to private profession.
Frankly, I do not anticipate the Lord has changed His will for me. So the above are thoughts on the topic, but of the good that I think privately professed Catholic hermits can do by letting a bishop know we are in the diocese, and ask what he desires of us. Having the information of what our bishops desire, and their thoughts and interpretations of hermit life, the now two types of hermits in a diocese will probably have certain aspects worked out over time.
And again, I think that the CL603 is going to become what most bishops will adhere to, unless they do not want the responsibility, and then may do as one diocese bishop has stated--not taking requests for hermit vocation, and no one is to refer to oneself as a Catholic hermit. ( Priests hermits and religious order hermits an entirely different topic of which no need for me to write as all that is handled with the person's ordinary or religious superior.)
[Anyone who read through all these tired and too-much of thoughts can know that my pain is way high tonight, as I removed a pocket door which was heavier than I probably should have lifted, and put another light coat of primer on a very pink walls in The Saints' Room upstairs in Solus Deus Hermitage. I tend to write and write when the pain is worse, and not best sentence structures or most importantly not pithy thoughts, not really memorable or comparable to what I desire in my mind, heart, and soul.]
Yet, always, despite the weed-whacking I do of the more temporal aspects: Please, God bless His Real Presence and His Divine Will, in us!
"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." ~ Jesus
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