The contribution which stands out, however, as one reads the debate a century later, came from Charles Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac in the USA, the only bishop present who had been a member of a community. He made three important points. First, he believed Religious Life was a vocation and should be treated as such. Second, it did not belong, as priesthood did, to the corporate life of the Church, but instead belonged ‘to the economy of the Holy Ghost’. Obedience to a Religious superior was a voluntary action of love, not the result of the legislative action of the Church. Unlike ‘the fixity of ministerial orders’ then, he believed the work of the Holy Ghost in the call of Religious Life manifested itself in a variety of different forms. Bishops had to trust this call to have a corrective power in itself. Third, he reminded the Conference that in Religious, bishops were dealing with ‘special devotional temperaments’ that could be ‘personally emotional’ about small matters of worship. A high-handed approach would not therefore be advisable. He went on to echo the arguments put forward in Father Puller’s paper, and concluded by suggesting bishops should regulate communities only in relation to property, financial donations and insisting on communities’ having sound government.

Petà Dunstan, Bishops and Religious 1897-1914

I had to speak to someone today about worldly affairs. Like anchorites of old, I am paying my own way. The whole conversation stressed me because it is so much outside of my experience of daily life. And I reflect on the following:

Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.
Go in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee,
In the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, who suffered for thee,
In the name of the Holy Ghost who strengthened thee.
In communion with the blessed saints and accompanied by angels and archangels and all the armies of the Heavenly Host,
May thy portion this day be peace. And thy dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem. Amen.

I have been thinking about enclosure rites (as one does). These, in the broader English tradition, normally include the Office of the Dead and a Requiem after the enclosure of the individual. In a somewhat strange twist, the enclosed individual gets to watch their own funeral through the squint. I wonder what people would say about me? Also, the anchorite normally dug their own grave, by hand, in their cell. But, overall, undoable in a modern context!

But what about the above? It is part of APBA – Commendations of the Dying. I used it recently and understand it more in an existentialist sense: enclosure as death to the world. The solitary life is a place in the grey area – in relation to the church (often without definition) and to the world (separate from it).

So I have been listening to Elgar’s version and am moved.

So more thoughts on the idea of vocation.

I found (and, yes, I am very excited) an online copy of the 1976 Anglican Religious Communities: a directory of Principles and practice. The excursion on the solitary life makes the following point:

The existence of solitaries living geographically apart from society helps those living in society to realize the solitary dimension of their lives. In this way the solitary is a sign to the world, as well as to the Church. By virtue of its closeness to the material environment, the solitary life can help our present age to recover a more balanced relationship to the material world.

Directory of Religious Life, 1976

My thought: I am super far away from the ideal.