I was asked a few days ago to write an article for a publication, I assume online magazine. The topic was the hermit vocation and it's relevance or some such juxtaposition with the Church today. Someone had asked me, who had contacted me several years ago for vocational discussion, remembered me, and appreciated whatever it was I'd mentioned in our email correspondence. I truly cannot recall; too much life and suffering has passed before us, over however many years.
I was initially willing to write the article, no pay involved, to help out. Plus this latest major surgery has been a dark night of senses that turned into dark night of soul; the aftermath is more painful and far more slow a recovery than I anticipated or was prepared for physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I felt writing the article would fire my inner engines, as I've been seeking God's will on what to write next, as I have yet to fulfill my mission, which keeps coming back to being sharing in writing or verbally, the reality of God, and His ongoing and vital providence for and interactions with we, His created people, in every present moment of our lives.
So I figured go ahead and write the article, of which I was told I could use previous writings or write what comes. I admitted that the article that came, seemed to me a mess of ramblings. I altered "person" in the structure and repeat, have my typical too-long sentences, and whatever else. I submitted the article, and the contact person then wrote wanting an additional article for the level of junior readers. Yes, I could do that, but of course would shorten the piece, as I was given a 2,000-4,000 word limit, of which I came in at just under 4,000 words. Typical for my writing, I admit, and more length the more pain I am in! Then came a message that the original had parts that he'd remove, and then another message of just writing the piece for the junior magazine.
I realized amidst the shifting of ideas and articles, and of at one point the contact person wanting to edit sections and then publish the original article, to then turning more to a junior article more basic of hermits and hermit life, I felt misgivings I had so quickly agreed to this effort. Granted, I am exhausted and on weak from the surgery effects, and the painful recovery is going to continue for several months. But what I wrote came to me all the more from setting forth the two paths available to Cadolic hermits today, yet I am most definitely a hermit of the long-standing path, the traditional, historic vocation. In fact, my long-time priest and spiritual advisor had not even heard of the more recent CL602 hermit path.
Only after a couple years did I hear of this canon law hermit option, and through testing the will of God, He continued to say in defined ways, "No." Each time I was relieved, for I had begun to grasp the pitfalls and temptations that were befalling some of the diocese (CL603) hermits. In fact, I became an object of attack by one such who evidently felt I was a threat that needed to be silenced. And while not silenced nor the facts unchanged, I have not written on this topic for a long time because I had no reason until asked to write this article, which of course would need to discuss both hermit vocational paths in today's Roman Church.
I've decided to bow out of the voluntary written offer for the publication, but am awaiting final word as to if the person wants still to use the sections he or perhaps an editor prefers from my article, or are agreeable to find someone else, and also what they plan for the shorter article for junior readers. I'd assume they would not use my writing without permission, of course, even if reworked or sections removed. Regardless, I wrote what flowed out, and it expresses what is deeply held within, plus the reasoning and practicalities which undergird why God prefers the vocational path He continues to choose for me--and no, I will not ever test His decision again.
By now this traditional path has all the elements of what the writers of The Catechism of the Catholic Church gleaned from documents and hermits of history, of the hermit vocation, as well as of the Consecrated Life--so that I do not consciously think in terms of my hermit path or even the vocational elements that create the means to the growth and usefulness of my life to God and His Church. Rather, I simply live it, secure in the traditional structure and the many lives I've read of the saintly hermits of Christian history, including John the Baptist's life and being called out of the desert for the final fulfillment of his mission and purpose. I, too, am seeking in the end run of my earthly life, God's will and my assignment of mission and purpose.
This article which I have decided was not really meant for that publication but more something I needed to write as a reminder to self of where I have lived and grown as a hermit over the past 23 years and another 14 years prior in which my mind was being warmed following a vision and locution in 1986, telling me how God wished me to live my life--a precursor of hermit vocation at a time I was not free to do so. But the time came, and the other responsibilities and attachments have been met and detached.
Now I will share what was to be an article that I wrote, with you my readers. What was a warm-up call to loosen the fingers and tongue, and to open the mind to whatever the Holy Spirit desires, what I wrote is also a means of answering God with my YES and AMEN! I am ready to put what energy and breath, thought and heart, to sharing, writing, verbalizing--whatever it is that His Real Presence desires me to express for the good of my soul and the soul-lives of others, as well as to any aid it might be to Holy Mother Church and the Body of Christ.
For those who have read of or considered hermit life either historically or in today’s Church, the thoughts may have led to further research or may have remained at nuanced levels of just what is a hermit, a Catholic hermit, or the actuality of a Catholic hermit vocation then and now. Perhaps the thoughts included an inner yearning to become a hermit for any number of reasons, over the course of daily temporal life.
I’d like to share with you, in part, some of my personal journey on becoming and being a Catholic hermit, including the diverging aspects of the hermit vocation in today’s Church.
My own call to the hermit vocation began when yet a Protestant in 1986, before my conversion to Catholicism. I later professed hermit vows in 2000, in a chapel, before altar and tabernacle, officiated by an elder priest (my spiritual director)--myself as well, before and within the love of God Almighty. The priest had prepared a sermon; we each read various Scriptures; the ceremony modeled upon a Medieval Anchorite enclosure.
Rather than now discussing my own hermit path, I think it best to set forth the aspects of hermit life that have become basic requisites of religious solitaries from before the time of Christ to present times.
These requisites that form religious hermits, and for this article, Catholic hermits, are currently stated in The Catechism of the Catholic Church under the section titled “The Consecrated Life,” and specifically stated in the subsection on “The eremitic life."
Let’s begin by examining these basics lived by hermits of God for centuries, and how the vocation has recently diverged into essentially two Church-allowed pathways of consecrated Catholic hermits today. Please let us consider the following excerpts from "The Catechism," bold-type emphases, mine:
III. THE CONSECRATED LIFE 914 "The state of life which is constituted by the profession of the evangelical counsels, while not entering into the hierarchical structure of the Church, belongs undeniably to her life and holiness."453
Evangelical counsels, consecrated life
915 Christ proposes the evangelical counsels, in their great variety, to every disciple. The perfection of charity, to which all the faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience. It is the profession of these counsels, within a permanent state of life recognized by the Church, that characterizes the life consecrated to God. 454
916 The state of consecrated life is thus one way of experiencing a "more intimate" consecration, rooted in Baptism and dedicated totally to God. 455
In the consecrated life, Christ's faithful, moved by the Holy Spirit, propose to follow Christ more nearly, to give themselves to God who is loved above all and, pursuing the perfection of charity in the service of the Kingdom, to signify and proclaim in the Church the glory of the world to come.456
One great tree, with many branches....[These different vocations] have come into existence...for the progress in holiness of their members and for the good of the entire Body of Christ."457
918 From the very beginning of the Church there were men and women who set out to follow Christ with greater liberty, and to imitate him more closely, by practicing the evangelical counsels. They led lives dedicated to God, each in his own way. Many of them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, became hermits or founded religious families. These the Church, by virtue of her authority, gladly accepted and approved….458
The eremitic life
920 Without always professing the three evangelical counsels publicly, hermits "devote their life to the praise of God and salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance."460
921 They manifest to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Hidden from the eyes of men, the life of the hermit is a silent preaching of the Lord, to whom he has surrendered his life simply because he is everything to him. Here is a particular call to find in the desert, in the thick of spiritual battle, the glory of the Crucified One.
From the above citations, we find that once a person has received a call from God, usually via the Holy Spirit who stirs the mind and heart, the discernment process begins. The call can be a nudging or curiosity within, or reading about some hermit of yore, a yearning for a life drawn apart for God alone, or even a direct locution in which one is told God wills the hermit life. Discernment progresses through prayer, inner listening to God, consulting with a wise and holy spiritual guide, preferably a wise, discerning, elder cleric.
The individual ought ponder each facet written above of the hermit life and tradition. These describe the basics of what the Church asks of anyone desiring to become a Catholic hermit.
In addition, the discerning person ought read as many books on the topic of hermits, and these primary sources--the writings of hermits themselves, hermit biographies by those who knew the hermits, and writings of hermits' spiritual directors, mentors, and guides.
While the internet is convenient, the extant writings by hermits and original biographies are preferred to reading what current-day writers have extrapolated or opined on hermits, hermit life, and the hermit vocation. Locating old books online or from monastery libraries or used bookstores is an investment well-worth the time and cost; learning from the desert fathers and mothers and their writings, and any other hermit of centuries past, is invaluable in the discernment process.
[Furthermore, stay clear basing a vocation upon current hermits' lives--myself included, other than for tips on how we came to the vocation or by sharing our efforts. We current Catholic hermits who are writers sharing our journeys, are still in situ, in process of our vocations, facing unknown trials and the temptations of the evil one; the eternal jury is still out as it pertains to our hermit lives. Some will falter and not remain, others may be called by God after a while to a different purpose, others may become enamored with being a known hermit of eager followers rather than being God's hermit known to but God and few others.
Far better to read of a hermit, after a hermit's life is successfully fulfilled. Indeed the sting remains fresh from the example of the late Thomas Merton's brief hermit life a sham, later exposed in shame.]
Returning to what The Catechism of the Catholic Church reveals of hermit basics, notice that all hermits from centuries past lived, even if not formally stated, the three evangelical counsels. Hermits avow to live chastely a celibate life, to live in poverty (of spirit but also of temporal means, reliant on no one other to exist). They live in obedience--obedience to God, to Christ, to the Holy Spirit. The obedience extends to Christ in Headship of His Church and Christ's Living Word.
These evangelical counsels were embraced, essentially, by the Old Testament prophets, mostly eremitic (of the desert, or hermit) lives. John the Baptist is a hermit of Christ's time on earth, prior to his fulfilling his mission as precursor of Christ. Only then did he depart from a stricter separation of the world to begin preaching, baptizing, and proclaiming the Messiah, Christ among humankind.
John the Baptist gained eternal reward through martyrdom, his mission on earth concluded.
And this is a precious facet of the hermit vocation: Not all called to this vocation remain hermits for the duration of their lives. Many in history and yet today, are called by God to the hermit life for a certain time period, perhaps to learn more deeply of the interior life, or to fulfill some purpose of God's Holy will that requires being called back out into the world. Such is the case of Benedict who lived a hermit life for a time, but as so many came to the desert seeking his guidance and way of life, he instead became founder and father of the monasticism, of religious orders. Anthony of the Desert also was deluged with seekers. While he did mentor some, he remained steadfast as a hermit, removing himself repeatedly, increasingly hidden.
Living the "silence of solitude" is a vibrant, vital gemstone of a hermit vocation.
This solitude does not mean sharing an abode with another, or existing as a quasi religious order, or of hosting a retreat center, nor with harboring hopes founding an order of hermits. Solitude means alone, without others. While some had pets, domesticated or wild creatures, they are bidden by God's will and of His reasons. A fly became the pet of one hermit; it is said that when he'd doze or be called from reading his Hours, the fly would remain on the page, marking the line until the hermit continued. Generally, if a hermit had a pet, it was later on in the vocation.
There is no substitute for experiencing solitude, and thus, God Alone in the silence of solitude.
As for hermit religious orders, Bruno the Carthusian refused to write statutes; he did not want a religious order of hermits. But following his death, another did so, and thus the Carthusian way of life became in essence another religious order. However, of hermit orders, the Carthusians live the hermit requisites rather remarkably, as much as a group could. Each Carthusian lives in separate cells, honors silence, eats in solitude other than after Sunday Mass, Christmas, and Easter; they celebrate Mass daily, but their only interchange with one another is a few hours of recreation one afternoon a week.
This group type of hermit existence, however, comes at the cost of depending upon others, called “externs." These persons maintain the facility, prepare and deliver food to each cell, and handle all matters of temporal necessities so that the others may live their hermit lives, yet as a religious order. The prior or prioress maintain contact with the world, are administrators of the group as well as their financial responsibilities.
What evolved into a group hermit experience, then under Guigo I, following Bruno's death, became The Order of Carthusians in the early 12th c, The Order remains to this day although in declining vocations— a successful religious order which what was never intended to be a religious order. Bruno, a charismatic priest teaching in Cologne, Germany, simply wanted to remove himself from the temporal world, An envious Bishop who caused him trials caused him, also, to remove himself from the temporalized aspects of the Church in his time period. He answered a divine and profound call to draw close to God Alone.
After some years of praying and planning, in 1070, Bruno chose to live the eremitic life in the farthest reaches of the Alps. Some companions of like desires accompanied him on this venture, but not as a fledgling religious order. Yet that is what the Carthusians became, and to their esteem, is the only religious order in the Western Church, per Pope John Paul II's mention, that has never needed to be reformed. The contribution of St. Bruno's seeking an eremitic life, with his friends joining in, left a major imprint of hermit functionality along with the spiritual call of those who yet today desire personal intimacy with Christ in the modus of the pith of consecrated life, and all that such divine union gifts humankind as well as the Body of Christ, the Church.
Thus more so, The Catechism highlights the importance of “a stricter separation from the world” and being “hidden from the eyes of men [humankind].” A hermit will evolve in separating from the temporal world; this is a process, thus the word “stricter” provides flow and movement, of gradations of letting go and dying to self and temporal world, while increasing in the inner life, a deepening, widening, “intimacy of Christ.”
Enter the significance of a hermit’s outer appearance and abode.
I'll share personally here. Fairly new to the hermit vocation, I learned these aspects not without pain. I quickly realized that if I wore a garment modeled after Medieval religious orders, or even a simple, gray garment day after day, people noticed me. If the garment reminded others of a religious habit, they came to me—strangers—and would pour out their lives and souls. I was stunned to think that my outer appearance, even in the very beginnings of my hermit vocation, had people deceived to think that I held some special holiness or wisdom, or that I was qualified to counsel them, or even that my prayers held special sway with God.
Fortunately, I did have over half a doctorate in clinical psychology and many hours of counseling practicum, also a doctorate in leadership and administration. I was in my 50’s with much life experience behind me, fortunately was and am a person of lifelong prayer, loved God above all things, and had read of great spiritual books, as well as I love steeping in Scripture.
But I was horrified to.consider: What if I had none of this background, or if I had in pride thought I should take on this role they assumed of me? Indeed, I was not hidden at all! I stuck out like a sore thumb, and that included those who had negative experiences with religious persons from their early schooling or church interactions, and seeing me in a costume from another century, was not a positive reminder for them.
Thus, combined with what the Scriptures state as to how we are to comport ourselves,
I thankfully grasped that to remain hidden so as to silently “preaching Christ” (or present myself as one who had surrendered myself to the Lord), I needed to dress in whatever those around me wore, yet not needing much variety, but enough to not be noticed nor to stand out. I made sure even the hairs of my head blended in style. My person and clothing clean and appropriate, I donned what any ordinary person of my locale, age, and even background, would wear. This included altering my apparel somewhat when I needed to change locations.
Remaining hidden is necessary for a hermit, and that includes not taking on some different name, or using a prefix such as Sister of Brother—or tagging on initials harkening to what religious order persons affix to their names. A hermit, publicly professed per the 1983 CL603, has set some of these precedents such as signing Erem.dio after names to designate they are diocese eremites. Immediately such designation stands out to others, bringing attention to the diocese hermits who adopt this practice. Is distinction and approval a hermit's due? Consider the Scripture of the humble man who remained in the back of the temple, remonstrating to God that he is not worthy, and then the proud man who wanted to be esteemed, and loudly declared his own worthiness.
The same goes for where today’s hermit might choose to live. I soon realized that given my serious pain disabilities and age, that living out in a wooded property in a in an old abode, bearing the elements, and me with pain sieges that required strong medications and assistance from others now and then, I’d not be safe nor practical living in other than a simple yet comfortable neighborhood, close to what few needs I have of which one is on-going medical.
Considering an apartment, not only did the constant pain make it very difficult with noise, apartment life for now would be too many people around. The more people in close quarters, the more they wonder and notice someone who is alone, quiet, without social life. In my current locale, rents are higher than my mortgage by double.
Yet my main reason for an ordinary subdivision house, for now, is that my pain and low income, both, require that I try to keep my body active and mobile, otherwise I will be more quickly paralyzed as that is part of my ailment, Arachnoiditis.
Thus I discovered the value of simple, humble labor which may be done in silence and solitude, or at least done in silence. It is also how I learned that the early desert fathers wore the typical garments of those who were poor in society, but also often flaxen color due to the heat of the desert as well as the type of cloth least costly.
I took heed that they did not go out approaching others, nor did they work in parishes or hospitals, lovely as that work may be, but they worked in what they could sell, provided for their own food as much as they could by gardening, or in our times would have chosen tasks working for others to earn the money we require in our societies to pay our way in life—be it a mortgage, groceries, medications, heat, water, power, and internet which is becoming difficult to fulfill our duties without access, although could use library computer if going there seems better.
Hermits can find employment cleaning buildings, working in an assembly line (despite being around others, the work is the focus, often machinery loud, so can retreat within to find the silence of solitude). Or, if the hermit has a profession, many now may be fulfilled by remote work, or if artistically inclined, by cottage industries in the abode.
I live on a small retirement income after years of low income disability, with a modest share of my late parents' hard-earned savings.
This is my final house that I have tried to renovate very slowly, amidst two major and three lesser surgeries in under four years. There is much good in ora et labora: pray and work. I pray to finish, then sell to develop savings for my end of life care should I not pass suddenly. Each month I pay off more of the low-interest mortgage.
As my health has declined sooner than I anticipated, I, like many hermits in our later years, must accept some help such as after surgeries or with errands, or in other needs.
Some people question or find odd, a lifestyle such as mine. Thus, if a hermit’s lifestyle becomes a matter of genuine curiosity, the hermit may choose to explain and request privacy. This happens usually if a person is going to be closer, needed to assist with on-going health needs. The Holy Spirit gives the hermit explanations. I find a less startling explanation is to say one is a “religious solitary” or simply needs to remain more alone and quiet due to life and health circumstances.
There are many ways to remain hidden from curiosity, to retain the silence of solitude, to go without notice, and yet be a witness to the praise of God’s glory, to retain personal intimacy with Christ, to be silently preaching the Lord with ongoing surrender to the Crucified One Who Is a Hermit's All.
As we note from familiarity with reading lives of great hermits of the Church, as well as the succinct guidance of The Catechism, a hermit’s life is to be devoted “to the praise of God and salvation of the world through a stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude and assiduous prayer and penance.” Over time, through prayer and reading, through asking the Holy Spirit for practical advice in living the hermit vocation, answers will come, as well as trials and errors.
The hermit may go through various phases of adaptation, of advancing, regressing, doubting, increasing in faith, dark nights of senses and soul, and spiritual blessings. Through it all, at first and for a few years, it is important to seek spiritual guidance of a learned and experienced priest director, as well as of the Trinity, of the Living Word, of great spiritual guides through books, and also of praise and worship of His Real Presence. After years have passed, the need for a human spiritual director lessens. If there is need, a hermit may consult with one spiritual and advanced in life in Christ; but mostly the Trinity and the Living Word guide the hermit's temporal and spiritual lives.
Worship and increasing intimacy with Christ as expressed in the spiritual life and value of the hermit vocation provide purposeful meaning. The hermit “manifest[s] to everyone the interior aspect of the mystery of the Church, that is, personal intimacy with Christ. Through years of living the hermit life, I came to understand that since my consecration as a Catholic hermit is by God, the Holy Spirit leads and guides, as well as Christ Who teaches and loves in and through me, God’s law of love and His love through me, of others.
I participated in daily Mass to begin with, going and returning without much interaction unless in hospitality, someone had need of conversation. It is the hermit’s task to keep the conversation meaningful and purposeful to that person, and at times, interactive in sharing.
A hermit is to be hospitable when appropriate and per the Divine Will. Over time, it became increasingly difficult for me to attend Mass. There are valuable reasons why not, but through prayer, discussion with my spiritual director--an elder priest, holy and wise--it became obvious God was hindering my being in a parish and being in a parish Mass. Once I realized that the hermits of history and tradition did not belong to parishes, nor did they attend daily Mass and rarely worshipped in group setting of Mass due to distance and if a priest happened along or was a hermit, I was able to let go of what had been my and sometimes a cleric’s lack of understanding the mysterious realities of hermit life as lived daily in past times and current times.
The fact that the Trinity is guiding the hermit--and this is individualized guidance as the hermit vocation is an individualized calling--all matters settled into a peaceful and holy existence of truth, beauty, and goodness.
I began to receive the Eucharist mystically. Once or twice it was through Jesus in a corporeal vision, on rare occasion someone from a parish would bring the Eucharist, but there were irrefutable situations as to why mystical and spiritual Communion became the norm. I had to stop thinking temporally, and grasp what God was doing that defies some of the temporal norms and suppositions.
The Living Word sustains daily, and His Real Presence manifests in vast facets, very real as well as surreal. While daily life may seem basic and typical, one appreciates a glorious significance in the typical. There is a gentle. divine flow--despite the snares of the evil one attempting to disrupt--to try to bring the hermit to despair. All these aspects are part of the hermit's journey--and indeed, of any Christian's seeking and following Christ.
The morning following my private profession of vows, my priest director suggested to me three words to strive to live in my hermit vocation: Silence, Solitude, and Slowness. The Holy Spirit added Suffering, Selflessness, Simplicity, Stillness, Stability. and Serenity.
After nearly 23 years from my consecration by God and profession as a hermit of the Catholic Church, I yet ponder these words from time to time. But truly, the ebb and flow of the hermit vocation has fallen to the background fiber of my existence.
His Real Presence has become the mind, heart, and soul of my everyday life, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I fulfill my temporal responsibilities, but my spirit and soul are in Christ to an extent of the actual hermit vocation or my “being a Catholic hermit” is not the focus.
Rather, my soul in Christ and what I am to be and do for God—His will and purpose for my life of assiduous prayer and penance, for the salvation of all and the world—this has become the substance of my existence. I yearn for the passing from the temporal life, yet currently I am at a juncture point of which is another topic for hermits (and everyone) at some point to consider. Perhaps this is for further discussion, that of the element of family and friends in the life of a hermit--or many topics of what I consider mostly entry externals.
At some point, when the words express without effort, much may be shared of spiritual progressions, lessons learned, sharing with the Body of Christ the spiritual benefits as well as practical, that come from living a consecrated life of which being consecrated to God is for everyone. Yet for me and some relatively few others, this life is as a consecrated Catholic hermit.
I’d like to conclude by commenting on the two types of hermits currently available in the Roman Catholic Church to those who have a call by God, to be a hermit in the world today, a hermit of the Catholic Church. As we see from what is written in the Catechism, one may be a privately professed hermit, or one may become a publicly professed hermit, meaning has made vows by approval of a diocese Bishop, and has usually professed the vows in a public Mass, usually with a reception following, plus an article written in the diocese paper or other publications.
Thus begins the hermit life of a newly approved diocese hermit, via the 1983 canon law 603. The hermit is known by others and usually takes on a title or new name, wears a habit of some sort designating his or her appearance as unique or similar to that of a religious sister or brother. They are seen participating in parish worship and sometimes other duties. Some are employed in a parish in some visible capacity, or as hospital chaplains. They may be approved to live together or have hopes to begin a Lara of hermits or some type of hermit religious order. Some may be installed on monastery grounds and participate in the religious order’s worship, provided housing and meals.
Then there is yet the traditional, hermit vocational path—that of the earliest hermits and of which I have mostly shared, as this is my hermit path. There has been a growing trend by some including bishops who are only aware of or approached by persons desiring approval for the CL603 diocese hermit path. But it is important for the traditional, historic hermit path, the privately professed vocation, to not be forgotten as a valid and approved basis of the hermit vocation as it has successfully existed and contributed for centuries of Christ's Church.
Twice in my having to change locations, I tested if the Lord wished of me to be a diocese hermit. I had felt pressure to do so by the increasing popularity of the publicly professed and vows received by the diocese bishop. Each time, the bishops in the two dioceses in which I lived, determined they found my hermit vocation as it is, to be the way to continue. In the first instance, the bishop did not know much about hermit vocations, nor did he want the responsibility of being, as the Canon Law 603 states, the one to direct and guide the hermit.
Many bishops, busy with leading their dioceses, allow the diocese hermit to choose a spiritual guide including non-clerics, or the bishop assigns a priest to help oversee the diocese hermit.
In my current situation and diocese, the bishop, to my surprise, advised me to continue in the privately professed hermit vocation to which God had called me so many years ago. I admire this bishop’s wisdom and perspective, as the traditional, historic hermit vocational path should not become divergent to a point of extinction, or of disapproval, even lacking validity.
When we examine the now two Church-allowed hermit paths, we can see the challenges in each, but the greater challenge to me has remained that of living as a hermit unknown, unnoticed, non-acclaimed. Yet despite many trials and errors, I remain God’s beloved consecrated hermit--and a Catholic hermit.
Indeed, some have stated that a privately professed hermit must not call him- or herself a “Catholic hermit” if not a diocese CL603 hermit. It does not matter, other than why cut off all the Church’s hermits who have lived and died living this more rare but special vocation, when until recent times, there was no created church law establishing other than what always had been?
Perhaps if this discussion is to continue, there may be reasons why the diocese hermits came to be, as well as many other topics related to those who may wish to explore the hermit vocation for themselves. More importantly, out of sheer interest there's benefits and blessings in learning the realities as opposed to conjectures of a most beautiful, fascinating, and meaningful life God calls some to live of the mystery of His Church—and for others to adapt aspects of this vocation into their otherwise active life vocations.
The beauty and depth of the spiritual life, no matter hermit or the many other vocations, the sharing that I prefer and have left off years ago describing what is a Catholic hermit and how to become one (usual questions asked while documenting my anonymous hermit spiritual journey), are the topics of the daily living in the Trinity, of navigating a temporal world of which I increasingly do not belong but of which I am placed by God to love to learn to love as God loves, to fulfill my mission, to write in my instance that of how God is so real and demonstratively yet subtly interacts in our every present moments.
Moving beyond the relative externals of the structure of a hermit vocation, and delving into the living of life in Christ and His Church, seeking union with the Holy Trinity while also being a praise of God's Glory and living God's Law of Love. These are the sharing that intrigue and inspire us all--at least those who have come to a point of awareness that we are nothing in perspective to the reality of God Is All.
God bless His Real Presence in us, and love in Christ's Love.
Solus Deus Hermitage, 8/2/2023
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