It's not the most inspiring time period for this nothing consecrated Catholic hermit. That is, not in the outer sense, or in a way one might consider would be inspirational or spiritually uplifting given my vocation as a Catholic hermit.
When readying to leave the previous location and hermitage, someone coming for items I was parting with (and making a little much-needed money doing so), the person asked how a hermit could live with a family with a child or children.
A hermit has temporal responsibilities just like everyone else.
(Yes, there are those hermits who are affiliated with dioceses in which they are given a place to live, to seemingly try to develop a quasi religious order of hermits with land and structures donated, health insurance paid, and parishes contributing to their support, plus monies they make from offering rooms or small retreat cabins to rent for weekends or up to six months or a year rental. But most Catholic hermits today remain in the traditional path: privately professed, are more hidden from the eyes of men in solitude of prayer and praise of God, not relying on the Church for employment or for donated land and structures. This matter is simply choice; I am not attaching judgment either way, as right or wrong. The choice may include the individual with spiritual director or if would-be hermit in a religious order with a superior. And as a Catholic in one manner or another, at some point in time, one's bishop is involved more directly or else indirectly, whichever the path of eremitic life is discerned and taken.)
There will yet always remain for a hermit as for any human being, temporal responsibilities.
The degree of those responsibilities varies, depending upon the circumstances of each hermit. And God, ultimately, for any human being, has His plan, His will for all of our lives. It is up to us to listen and cooperate, to make decisions based on our Christian callings, to whatever depth or breadth we are spiritually in tune with God's will and living His will. Even that comes in degrees and varies with circumstances, for the temporal realm is a powerful force in many ways, with much distraction. And we, just as Jesus when He lived among us, are bound by the laws of the country, state, county in which we live our earthly lives.
Currently I am chest-deep in having to flex with the situation God has allowed and graciously provided me. Considering my high level of constant bodily pain, given advancing years, I am blessed and grateful to be taken in by a family member in a location in which hopefully weather will be better for my spine issues as well as a lower cost of living.
My mind has had to tend to temporal details involving much research and checking and rechecking this or that detail of which hermits must tend in order to attain a place to live, to be, whether renting or owning the hermitage. Even discerning whether to rent or own a dwelling takes discernment and a review of what is best, often enough, in physical aspects for the individual hermit.
If owning one's hermitage is best for various reasons (quiet, fewer distractions, ability to work the soil or have maintenance chores which can be very good in enforcing active exercise and the good of ora et labora: work and pray), there are more temporal responsibilities in the attaining of the hermitage than if one rents. Yet to own one's hermitage also commits the hermit, and that can be a good thing in regard the external aspects of "stability". Some hermits include stability as an addition to the three avowed evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty, and chastity. (Interior aspects of stability may be embraced no matter the external aspects, of course.)
But not to get ahead of my purpose in this post, I hope to share in the next post, more of why and how a hermit makes a decision regarding renting or owning a hermitage. For now I will share the bit of today's Mass Scripture reading from Ephesians 4, which has provided me today's (thus far!) main spiritual inspiration and uplift.
"...live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the spirit
through the bond of peace...."
Through these inspired words, St. Paul reminds in a beautifully inner and joyous way, how this Catholic hermit can stay true to my Gospel Rule of Life no matter if living in a guest room of a suburban house with a young and active family--or if I were to be far from civilization and removed from the busyness of most people's active, everyday lives.
These past three weeks I've had to spend much time studying the real estate market, scouring it for the best possible investment areas and types of dwellings that will be most prudent not only economically but practically. I must discern which will stand the greatest potential (although real estate is always a risk of sorts) to keep or improve in value.
You see, a hermit needs to be wise to the ways of the world while also existing all for God. Especially in older hermits, there is the consideration of eventual nursing home care or in-hermitage care. We do not live in the time of St. Godric, for example, who when ill and aged had become known to the monks in a nearby monastery who would trek through the forest to his hermit hut to tend him when ill and then when dying, day and night.
And while for most of us traditional, privately professed Catholic hermits in the Consecrated Life of the Church, we could indeed simply go along on our own until death takes us, suffering in a rented room or apartment or small house we purchased and are living in. But the reality in our time and culture, there are others around us who are aware--relatives, neighbors, spiritual director--who would either feel responsible or some social service agency of local government would step in and deem the situation unsafe or untenable. Others thus could be deemed negligent in the event of a hermit's serious injury, decline, or end-of-life illnesses.
While I must now, in essence "suffer through" this period of being without the solitude and silence requisite for a Catholic hermit's fulfillment of life of prayer, hidden from the eyes of men, and so forth--I am trying to live in the manner St. Paul advocates while yet remaining within the eremitic call I personally received over 19 years ago. This living situation now, is only temporary, after all.
Even as I write this, early morning, a child is in the next room and will need chauffeuring to an activity, after he has had a healthy breakfast. That, and all I must do today which yet will unfold, I must do with humility, with love, with patience and gentleness. I must strive to bear all in love, to maintain peace with the adults. As I go about cleaning showers, caulking some needed areas that will otherwise cost the family more problems if left to corrode; I also must do what is so tedious of the temporal--at least for this hermit--by making phone calls to gather more documents needed by the bank mortgage department.
All of these temporal activities and responsibilities may be done in the bond of peace, in unity, in the one Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. They can be accomplished with spiritual and temporal awareness both, that with every person with whom I interact today whether the mother, father, child under this particular roof, or with mortgage lender, real estate agent, tax accountant, financial advisor, HVAC specialist to inspect prospective hermitage's heating/cooling systems--we are all of one Body in Christ.
I suppose that a main point I desire to make is that hermits must adapt to the present moment including in times when not able to be in one's own hermitage whether rented or purchased, in busy cities or quiet oases of natural beauty all about. Hermits must take hold of the temporal responsibilities set before us in care for our bodies, care for others with whom we come in contact, and to in whatever aspects: give unto Caesar what is Caesar's. We must exist in the constructs of the laws of the land even when having to deal with temporal aspects of which a hermit would much prefer to be free to be in spiritual embrace in prayer and praise of God.
Thankfully, for this Catholic hermit, the temporal tasks of attaining another hermitage is in itself, a temporary process. Soon, all the busyness required of a worldly business nature will be past. I will be, God willing and body able, in a hermitage once again, and back into a daily horarium (schedule) and in surroundings consistent with my vows, my Gospel Rule of Life, and its undergirding planks of the Nine S': Silence, Solitude, Slowness, Suffering, Selflessness, Simplicity, Stability, Stillness, and Serenity.
Truly, though if I were adept in the Gospel Rule, platformed with the Nine S', I could live these within, despite being with a most generous and kind family to allow me to be here for awhile. And someday I may have to put myself to the greater test, to live in a busy and noisy place such as a nursing home, for which now I must pray and listen to God in decisions being made for wise decisions in procuring a place to live, a place to be, a next hermitage for this hermit. I must listen well and do my best all for God, for the temporal responsibilities may include paying for the possibility of nursing home or in-hermitage nursing care without putting that responsibility upon others be it family, friends, or diocese or parishioners to help in any way fiscally or physically.
Yet, I also must strive always to be generous to those in need--not only in the virtues I should be living but with monetary and temporal assistance to others as much as feasible without making myself a responsibility to others by not managing the resources God provides me through His temporal world.
And all the while of being in transition or in whatever more stable, temporal circumstance of a hermit's life--place to live and be, being responsible in a temporal way to the laws of the land--the hermit very much ought continue always to give unto God what is God's.
My soul and all that goes into a soul including intellect and will, are given unto God for I am all His.
God bless His Real Presence in all of us!
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