I'm finding answers to the questions I needed to pose, for clarification! Not yet from a call back from diocese canon lawyer, but in the Scriptures, in The Imitation of Christ, in this morning's "Office of Readings" (Divine Office), and in my study and reflection upon St. John Paul II's Post-Synodol Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata.
This document to the "Bishops and Clergy, Religious Orders and Congregations, Societies of Apostolic Life, Secular Institutes and All the Faithful on the Consecrated Life and Its Mission in the Church and in the World" is well worth a Catholic hermit's (or anyone's) reading and thoughtful absorption of the spiritual beauty, gifts, as well as our responsibilities in our ecclesial and spiritual roles inherent in being part of the Consecrated Life of the Church.
I might post the entire Apostolic Exhortation on another post, but just now I am encouraged by what St. JPII states regarding hermits. (Elsewhere, he also states the inclusivity of all in the Consecrated Life of the Church, which is certainly encouraging and helpful in added clarification and dimension.)
Vita Consecrata states under section 7:
"Men and women hermits, belonging to ancient Orders or new Institutes, or being directly dependent on the Bishop, bear witness to the passing nature of the present age by their inward and outward separation from the world. By fasting and penance, they show that man does not live by bread alone but by the word of God (cf. Mt 4:4). Such a life 'in the desert' is an invitation to their contemporaries and to the ecclesial community itself never to lose sight of the supreme vocation, which is to be always with the Lord."
After reviewing the ancient Orders, and of course we know that being directly dependent on the Bishop would by law refer to CL603 hermits, belonging to a new Institute suggests those hermits who are in a a newly defined category. A new institute is an organized body or formation for a specific purpose. A question comes to mind: Would the privately Catholic hermits whose vocations embrace and reflect the historical and traditional hermits' private profession of the three evangelical counsels, who have a rule of life and have made a vow (approved by a priest, religious superior, or a bishop--without public profession so not a diocese hermit), constitute essentially or de facto, an "old" new Institute?
For the more I read and absorb the Church's writings on the facets describing the Consecrated Life of the Church, of course all Catholic hermits who have professed the evangelical counsels, have adopted a rule of life, have professed an eremitic vow--and also, very importantly, have lived their hermit vocations, are if not de facto, should be ipso facto, obviously included in the Consecrated Life of the Church.
All that is written by St. Pope John Paul II in the full Vita Consecrata, describes, depicts, and fits all the aspects of the saintly and holy privately professed, not in religious Orders, solitary hermits of history, as well as those of us current hermits who have fulfilled the stated requirements and have been living the eremitic life under the direction by a priest or religious order director, would not at all want to be excluded.
It seems unthinkable! For we do not fall in the category of the laity, nor in the category of a diocese CL603 hermit, nor are in a hermit ancient Order, nor are in a community of hermits constituting a new Institute. There indeed needs to be a category developed for all of us privately professed Catholic hermits; by our professing the three evangelical counsels as well as living by our rule of life, fulfilling our offered eremitic vows, and fulfilling the other attributes set forth by the Church that constitute the eremitic life, we ought not be left in a limbo--of no "place" at all.
For we are not laity by virtue of our vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. We are not laity due to our stricter separation from the world, our solitary existences in our hermitages, our cells, in true solitude of silence, in our remaining in what are clever ways of passing unnoticed as eremites so as to be hidden from the eyes of [others] in our contemporary world of which many cannot live out in the desert or forests or in the mountains, far from the types of needs made necessary by being born into our contemporary times. We "do" and "are" all the other functions and essentials true to hermit lives lived over the centuries--sometimes even more radically than those who are living in community with one another may be living or are more active in outer ministry who are diocese hermits.
If powers that be (bishops and those beyond our normal access or contact) do not view the privately professed hermits as very much "valid" and included as being in the Consecrated Life of the Church, the "consecrated state", then it seems a designation ought be made, or else privately professed hermits ought be either a hermit dependent directly on the diocese bishop, or entering into a recently or new community "institute" of hermits.
Of this option, of entering into a new Institute or community of hermits is one which most privately professed hermits do not desire for valid reasons. They are not called to the loss of more purity of solitude and silence, even if that ideal is a process and not yet purely achieved; or they are not called nor inclined to being amidst a group of hermits living together, even if in separate rooms or cabins, or sharing a house. Nor are they called to join with those hermits who have in mind and are trying to get others to join in a type of quasi-religious community or in essence another order of hermits.
Or, the privately professed of historical and traditional hermit striving, are not called nor for valid reasons unable to join the Carthusians or the Camaldolese hermits who constitute the ancient Orders of hermit. (While there are some recent and some new Carmelite, etc. offshoots started and in process of growing, these create and constitute what is considered a new Institute--such as of Carmelite hermits living in community.)
All these other options are valid and even good--for those called to that form of eremitic life. But those of us called to the historical, traditional, privately professed type of more solitary hermit life, it seems no category specified for us unless we are already considered to be as in "grandfathered in" as an "old" new Institute, or that as an aggregate of solitary, privately professed hermits we constitute an "Institute" in itself. This would have to be despite our not at all being an organized "body" but rather would have to be an "instituting" of a category of individual, physically solitary, privately professed, Catholic hermits who have a legitimate (even if not CL603) and rightful place in the Consecrated Life of the Church.
I suppose, in actuality in the temporal effort to discuss these matters with the diocese canonist, or maybe all the more better to have an appointment with the Bishop even if months away, the Vita Consecrata of St. Pope John Paul II adds another dimension plus another question to be asked and answer sought by those who tend to such ecclesial matters and technicalities. And important they are, for if not clarified, privately professed Catholic hermits and those of past centuries, are left without a place--not laity nor diocese hermit, not laity nor new Institute or community hermit, not laity nor hermit of an ancient Order.
And, the more I read and ponder the full depth and breadth of Consecrated Life in the Church--not merely and not mostly the more temporal aspects, but the spiritual facets that are invaluable for such as a hermit whose vocation is challenging in itself, the more I believe and know for me, that being in the consecrated Life of the Church is quite priceless and of spiritual significance and merit.
The only reality that would alter my need of being not excluded, would be if God declared to me in a vision or locution, that I am in the Consecrated Life of Christ, or in the Consecrated Life of God--thus encompassing the Church plus His Real Presence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--eternally in the Trinity's Consecrated Life. And this is possible, of course. All is possible in the Lord's Will. The only other option would be that we privately professed Catholic hermits would be neither in laity nor in consecrated state, so in a limbo of sorts. Well, God's will be done in all matters of earth and heaven!
God bless His Real Presence in us!
"The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you,
and still more will be given to you.
To the one who has, more will be given...." ~ Mk 4:24-25a
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