I read the following and thought it is a great image.
Ships sink not because of the water that surrounds them, but because of the water that gets into them. Don’t let what surrounds you fill your soul and drag you to the bottom.
Patriarch Paul of Serbia
The Advisor Council publishes “A Handbook of the Religious Life” which is extremely helpful. In recent editions, there is an Appendix on hermits and solitaries.
The terms Hermit and Solitary are often used interchangeably but for the purposes of the Handbook, the term ‘hermit’ refers to a member of a Religious Community and the term ‘solitary’ refers to one who is not a Religious.
Appendix V
There is a long tradition that anchorites (modern solitaries) are semi-religious. The above gives a technical starting point. There are many consequences from the above short working definition. Maybe I will post about them?!
Sometimes people ask if I follow a “rule of life”. The short answer is no: not in any formal written sense. But, of course, the answer is much more involved. And part of the problem is people misunderstand, through no fault of their own, the terminology involved. So maybe a very short definition of terms, how I use them, is necessary.
A very helpful place to start is the following:
The monastic life is based on obedience, the anchoritic life on independence; one requires the renunciation of the will, the other the exercise of free choice.
Can there be such a thing as an ‘anchoritic rule’? by Bella Millett in Catherine; Yoshikawa, Naoë Kukita. Anchoritism in the Middle Ages: Texts and Traditions (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages), 34.
Hermits are “monastic” and anchorites live in the grey-area of church life. So for me:
Hermits are individuals who live alone following a rule within the context of a religious community (monastic). Hermits wear habits (of their order) and have a religious name. These individuals have taken vows and, therefore, their physical needs are provided by the community. Hermits are accountable to their religious superior via a confessor.
Anchorites (or the modern term solitaries) are individuals who live alone within the context of a parish. These individuals do not follow one of the rules but rather use guides for asceticism. Normally there is no habit or religious name. The important difference is these individuals do not make vows, especially the vow of poverty. Hence these individuals are responsible for their own physical needs. Anchorites live in the grey area of religious life, being neither laypeople nor religious, and often outside of ecclesial control. In modern terms, these individuals often have a spiritual director.
In the English tradition, hermits were itinerant while anchorites were enclosed. The enclosure was more intense for females, often including being walled in but also including a garden or outside area. Male anchorites had more freedom to meet people and priest anchorites had access to the church. Anchorites were also often questioned on their theology by church authorities and were considered heterodox.
Somewhat mudding the water is the use of the term “Diocesan Hermit” within the 1982 Roman Code of Canon Law (Can 601 and 602). This term, as I understand it, includes both of the above. It should also be noted that neither of the above takes a vow (or the like) of celibacy – it is simply a natural part of the life.
I use Common Worship: Daily Prayer for my Office. It is simply more me and offers options that are not in other Anglican Prayer Books. During the Epiphany season, the following is part of the canticle at Morning Prayer:
You will call your walls, Salvation, ♦ and your gates, Praise.
Common Worship: Daily Prayer.
It is from Isaiah 60. I am not sure what the original meaning is (and I do not think I can) but to me, it speaks of my vocation. I am called by God to wait. And I wait within the context of solitude, which for me means a place.
When I step outside my four walls, I step outside of my calling from God.
For me, solitude is not an escape from the world. It is not a time of recharging for something else. The more I live here, the more I feel a sense of deep longing for this place of waiting. I live an enclosed life, which means the calling is lived within the context of my four walls. And here I wait. So I do call my walls “salvation” and maybe I should name my gate “praise”.
O God, who by the example of the most holy hermit Richard taught us to despise the earthly and to seek with a sincere heart the heavenly: grant to us, [through his merits and prayers,] that we may imitate him faithfully and drink with him in the eternal bliss. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The above is a translation from The Officium and Miracula of Richard Rolle of Hampole.
O Jesus, I pray that in entering into this house
Based on A Carthusian Nun’s prayer on entering her cell
I can enter into the immensity of Your love.
Bless this place of my earthly life.
Enrich it with Your presence.
And grant that Your divine life
may free me from the world.
May this house be a sacred place:
the place where Bridegroom meets the bride.
The place where through my body,
I enter into Your Passion.
Do not allow me to profane it
by a lack of silence or of solitude.
Grant that it may be the place
where you have led me to speak to my heart.
And, at the moment of my death,
may it be the door to paradise.
Carthusians have, in their cell, an entrance area. This area has an altar and a kneeler. I like that idea. So the above is a prayer upon entering the Anchorage upon return from a journey (ie when I leave the enclosure).
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.
There is only one proof for the truth of Xnty and it is quite rightly the passionate proof that results when the anxiety of sin and the troubled conscience compel a person to cross the thin line that sep[arates] despairing madness―and Xnty. There lies Xnty.
Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks
How do I feel about Jesus? The first question in Baptism (and the renewal) is, Do you turn to Jesus?. Do I? What does that mean in my context?
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.
Life has changed and I am wondering (again) about my vocation.
So this morning some thoughts:
First, I have to learn to not lose me in my vocation. I am not my vocation. My vocation unfolds the me that God loves (wills). A vocation unfolds from the inside out.
Second: My vocation is this place. To be anchored here. My vocation is to be here. To be enclosed. I do not prepare for a vocation outside. This place is my vocation.
Third: To over-control that is a mistake. The form would become the end.
Fourth: And wait! In uncertainty!
this solitary life 