What Caused Me to Become a Hermit?

The more thought and prayer, the more answers come. It is good to reflect for a time.

Someone has asked me how I became interested in pursuing the eremitical life. This is good for me to ponder, as it instills a surety in the vocation which given my recent upheavals, is helpful.

As most events in my life, the hermit vocation is wrought from suffering. I had already made vows of consecration to suffering. But prior to this event, I had by the grace of God and the instruction of the Virgin Mary, started a soup kitchen in a parish in a small town. It quickly grew, really miraculously so, and it branched and was very good. What was so amazing to me is that I could physically manage it, given my permanent disability of pain. I was so happy, for the first time in several years, as I felt fulfilled and useful, and doing God's will. People were benefitting, not just the elderly and infirm and poor, but the parishioners who had not interfaced often with the poor. Within a year, though, envy and obstacles prevailed. In summation, I was removed by circumstances and my spiritual director's command, given the horrendous evils and mean-spirited elements in some parishioners and priests. The culminating event was the parish priest's preaching the weekend homilies in detraction of me, using my name from the pulpit. My director ordered me to not go back until he was willing to speak to me. He spoke again two years later, in passing my house which was across the street from the parish. The pain of this event and the resultant shunning from the parishioners and the misunderstanding by the many Protestant family and friends, caused an emotional trauma in which I hibernated for good while. I had to screen calls with my answering machine, as I received hate calls from parishioners which really weren't as bad as the shunning from the bulk. Thankfully, the soup kitchen continued in a down-scaled manner, but continued due to the work of the core volunteers. In this time, I recalled some spiritual events years before, in which I was told that I would need to learn to hibernate for protection from the world. So I hibernated, prayed, and sought God's will in what He desired next.

I had begun a newsletter, Called to Suffer, but shortly thereafter stopped its publication due to lack of ease in printing it since I'd been blackballed from the Catholic publishing house where a friend had allowed me access to the copy machines. Anyway, you may gather that this was a major shut down, allowed by God, for my good, and I had to figure out what good.

In the solitude, other than my teen son being home most evenings after school but me in bed early due to pain, I noticed a letter to editor in a Catholic magazine, written by a hermit. I asked his address and wrote. He suggested some books and a newsletter for hermits of all backgrounds. This correspondence continued for three years, but by the grace of God I felt called to make some private vows with my spiritual director receiving them. We did so on the death date of my confirmation saint, Sister Josefa Menendez. I wrote about these vows in a previous post, and although I did not write about the ceremony, it was beautiful and adapted from an old anchoritic rite. My anchorhold had been blessed that afternoon, and it was all very private and peaceful. But I later sensed I needed more structure or formation.

The hermit correspondent kept declaring me too active to be a hermit. He was a recluse of sorts, but I noted he was quite proud of all he had written and gotten published. He also said he did not need a spiritual director, and was disobedient to the Church in attending Masses with a schismatic group, Society of Pius X. When I pointed this out, gently, he never wrote back again after I attempted two more contacts. I think a spiritual director is essential, as perhaps he would have corrected the pride and disobedience going on.

Within the next year I noticed an advertisement for a community of hermits. My spiritual director gave the o.k. to apply. That year was one of formation in the eremitic life, although the foundress did not have enough solidified in the community and did not steer me as my Diocese requires, in the approach to the Bishop. I was told to wear a habit after my first profession as a novice, and then approach my Bishop. This was not proper, although she said other hermits were not having trouble. But I did as she said, and all hell broke loose. The parishioners across the street wrote letters to the Bishop, unbeknown to me, and the Diocese began an investigation of which I learned two months later when the priest began to speak with me, following my approach to him regarding the increased ire of his parishioners. Yes, I told him I was concerned about them, and when he asked "Why?", I said, "They are not behaving as Christians." The story unfolded as to what I was doing, quietly and in obedience, and he told me of the investigation and what would happen to me. Another priest told me I had to move out of town. This was hardly feasible with my son weeks away from going to college, and my house needing major renovation before it could be sold, and me without funds. My son became increasingly bitter, and one morning prior to his leaving for college, I bagged the habit and withdrew from the novitiate of this hermit community. The community was a good idea in concept, and I think it is growing, but at the time, it just wasn't meant to be for me, obviously. The foundress was irked, and this did not settle well with me, for it seemed she was very interested in numbers and growth. I had contacted her superior who was overseeing the beginning of this community, and this angered her. This made me wonder all the more of motives and intention. I'm about quality, obedience, and truth.

I then, without clothing, adopted a simple gray jumper and gray tee shirt, and comfortably wore this, keeping the crucifix that I had worn about my neck when I had worn the novice habit of the hermit community. Of course, I learned that one should not take those steps at all without first being approved by one's bishop! My spiritual director did not know of such matters, obviously. We were both ignorant but meant well.

Over the next year or two, I was not so shunned, but I still was at loose ends with no place, no solid footing as to what I was to "be". I pretty much kept to the hermit life by default, I suppose, or lack of knowing what else to "do." So I "be." I kept to a modified horarium without thinking of it as such. I figured I did not have a hermit vocation or things would have turned out differently. Yet nothing in active apostolate opened up. My mother became ill, and I assisted her in her final months. I moved to a nearby city in order to start afresh and better embrace my Catholic identity, as the upheavals in my hometown had taken a toll, and the Protestant friends and family could not understand my continuing as a Catholic after all the trials. But of course, Catholics comprehend the Scriptures very well, and we know the Cross, and we pick it up.

I tried to be involved in the new parish, and repeatedly the doors and windows were shut on my fingers, in my face, and even seemingly pushed inward to shove me out. I had some little undercover "assignments" for the Lord, for lack of better way of expressing it. The unravelling of one of these put me around to the Bishop and Vicar General, and in that process, all the past misunderstanding finally was resolved. It was quite humorous, as it ended up.

After this section of life, and a trip to Avila, Spain to study St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, I prayed for where God desired me to alight. I considered some possibilities, but God seemed to shut the door on those. It seemed He wanted me within the city where I had been renting two years. Although I didn't want to have to live anywhere, or even live, I knew I must anchor down, so had a small house built on the edge of a subdivision, on a pond, with a railroad track running behind so as to ensure a sense of solitude. I knew where to build, even though I didn't want to have to go through the hassle, because I somehow was led to this place, and would weep and weep when near the pond. It was odd. Then, it seemed very strong within that I was to be the maidservant of the Handmaid of the Lord, and that this would be a hermitage called Agnus Dei, and I was to remain there as Mary's maidservant, as if on the edge of Ephesus, as Tradition suggests Mary lived in her final years with a maidservant. She lived the life of a veritable hermit, in silence, solitude, prayer and penance.

I began in the year of building to build a library of victim souls, hermits, saints and mystics, of the spiritual life and ascetical and mystical theology, of Scripture commentary and prayer. I led a small discussion group that disbanded within eight months, but we read Tanquerey and some other classics of the spiritual life, or at least two of us did! All attempts at being active seemed thwarted, one odd way after another.

I nearly killed myself with exhaustion by doing all the painting of Agnus Dei, tiling two floors and helping to lay the wood floors. Now I am nearly "done in" from developing the landscaping (hired a man and his helpers to do the stone work and heavy planting). But within a week of moving in, I had a very direct encounter from my guardian angel, and it was not a good report card, shall we say. I was informed that I had not honored or valued the hermit life which God had chosen for me, and which He valued very much. I have written about this in a previous blog, also. There was more, but this shook me, and I got on the stick in a big way. That was the first week of February, and by the third week in April I requested of my Bishop canonical approval for eremetic consecration. While I had matters in order, and wrote assuring him that this was nothing new, and reminding him of my request five years previously, he did not delve into the matter in specifics but prayed much, I am assured. The Vicar General was interested and copied some of the guide for hermits developed by a diocese, and read through the document. At first I was not convinced that I needed to be canonically approved, but the more I studied of hermits and read classics by priests who are saavy in this vocation, I realized that consecration was very important for various reasons which I will not review here.

When the Bishop's answer was obviously going to be "no," I went into a deep spiritual split, for I could not comprehend how my angel could bring a direct message from God and specifically use the term "hermit," if the Church through the Bishop was not in agreement. Thus, I learned that one can still be a hermit without being consecrated. A priest had told me this was not possible, and it is a priest who seems a savant; but in this area he was mistaken, as it turns out.

However, regardless of consecration or no consecration, the litmus test for a hermit is to live the life, day in and day out, under certain fundamentals of the hermit vocation as set out from the time of Ezekial and Elijah, from the time of St. John the Baptist and into the first century desert fathers and mothers, through the anchorites and hermits of Medieval times, through the hermits of Europe in the past few hundred years, and into our present day.

I had all the documents available for learning about hermits, and I have them still and have added to them with old tomes of hermit life of yore, of the classics of monastic and eremitical example, of Carthusian and Camaldolese eremitical writings.

The challenge remains, as always, to simply shut up and settle down and live the life, day by day, night by night, hour by hour, in the Order of the Present Moment. For me, this means living the Nine S' and being immersed in the Gospel of St. John and the Epistle to the Hebrews, and all umbrella'd by "Fear God and Delight in His Commands: Just Adore Him." I've written about this, too.

Sometimes I seem to keep writing and thus avoiding simply living it all out. But maybe it helps instill the plan and command. Yes, the action in a hermit's life is to live that life in the way God forms and informs the individual hermit.

For me, it seems it will be more hidden, such as "within Thy wounds, hide me O Lord." The one-handed finger count of parishioners with whom I've shared the vocation have reacted with: envy, misunderstanding, criticism, and only one couple with support but that could crumble, too. One never knows with the way we humans can be! I am human, so I have to constantly review my interior motives.

I even wonder about why I write blogs, as this reveals my inner. I like this one because with the other two, a couple of friends know it is me writing, and if I am candid, the chance for misunderstanding or a sense of promoting oneself can commence. I used to always write long-hand in a journal, and while I can type faster, perhaps I should return to more obscurity. Yet, this week some good has come from contact as a result of this blog. All things must be measured and discerned with the Holy Trinity, moment by moment.