Called to live alone, solitary?........article.........Hermits ...

[BarbaraTherese]

Being one who is called to a heremetical life of fraternal charity and hospitality outside of a recognized religious order or any official Church structure, I found this article of great interest (not too much available for the secular hermit re the lifestyle itself!) and tho it is written by an Anglican hermit - for gold is where it is found.
The article is lengthy somewhat and I have only taken out a few extracts from the entire text and quoted them below. I thought others may be living a similar lifestyle and perhaps interested in the article.

Regards - Barb

https://www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00331

The Tablet – 7.12.05
**07/12/1996 **
The hermit’s battle
Una Kroll

In the past hermits often went into the desert; today they may live in towns and cities. The author is an Anglican solitary in life vows. … most are wonderfully joyous – at any rate, with their visitors.

…
Hermits have physical solitude. They have withdrawn into the “desert”. They live in some degree of physical separation from the community around them, be it in country or town. Anchorites and anchoresses are hermits who are anchored to one location, usually close to a church. …All hermits are called by God to dwell in solitude,…Thomas Merton received a surprising number of visitors and kept up a large correspondence. Both men found God among people, in city streets, in social contacts, as well as when they were alone. …Hermits find God everywhere, because in solitude with Christ they are present to everyone who is in the Heart of Jesus, and so to the whole world. …What is exciting now is the growth in the numbers of hermits who have never belonged formally to any religious order, who are not necessarily trained in monastic ways at all and who are going into solitude, as into a desert, to seek and worship God, to pray continually and to combat evil through prayer. …
They are able to be as present, for example, in a condemned cell in the United States, a harem in India or a scruffy hovel in South America, as the inhabitants themselves…
It is an exciting time. Why is God asking people to devote their lives to prayer, to dwell in solitude, to become places where Christ confronts evil and reconciles us to God? Why is God asking some to be solitaries, others to be hermits, a few to be anchorites?

 

[springbreeze]

Dear Barb

Since the conversion in faith I experienced some time ago I have felt a great call to solitude, silence and isolation. This doesn’t mean I am an isolated person, I am not, I spend many hours with people, but my spirit is in peace and solitude with God and I truly believe that is what He is calling many to because it is precisely in this solitude of heart that we most clearly listen, when defrocked of all the day to day clutter, to the voice of God.

I am continually reminded in my spirit to ‘slow down’ to make the time to be alone with God and to seek Him in silence, solitude and isolation, this desert is truly the place where God manifests Himself most strongly.

Thank you for posting this article and God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

 

[BarbaraTherese]

springbreeze:

Dear Barb

Since the conversion in faith I experienced some time ago I have felt a great call to solitude, silence and isolation. This doesn’t mean I am an isolated person, I am not, I spend many hours with people, but my spirit is in peace and solitude with God and I truly believe that is what He is calling many to because it is precisely in this solitude of heart that we most clearly listen, when defrocked of all the day to day clutter, to the voice of God.

I am continually reminded in my spirit to ‘slow down’ to make the time to be alone with God and to seek Him in silence, solitude and isolation, this desert is truly the place where God manifests Himself most strongly.

Thank you for posting this article and God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa

Hi there Teresa…thank you very much for sharing of your lifestyle and very similar to mine. We are not alone…many are choosing, rather then enter established religious orders or some sort of formal Church structure, to live the solitary life within suburban general communities. It is not stricltly heremetical as it is commonly understood (living completely away from all human communications in isolated areas)…rather reflective perhaps of the Carmelite lifestyle which is heremetical lived in community. My own lifestyle and I think probably yours too is reflective of the Carmelite way. While the Carmelites live strictly cloistered, my own lifestyle is marked by loving charity and hospitality to all without exemption and in whatever manner their needs may ask.
Interestingly, The Church has recognized (I read it in the Catholic Catechism and will return to this thread and post the appropriate link) that She does have a call to recognize new forms of religious living…apart from the commonly understood way lived in formal religious orders/Church structures.

Regards Teresa…good to catch up with you and your beautiful Posts…Barb

Edit: Just one little point…the ‘day to day clutter’ as I am sure you realize is where we can find God’s Will in the simple normal and everyday, even mundane, tasks of daily life…as well as in our prayer life and the Silence of Presence at prayer.
When one sleeps it is for the glory of God and fulfilling His Will. As at relaxation times, one relaxes completely for His Glory and to fulfill His Will. What is there in life in which I cannot find God’s Will! But I really am quite sure you recognize all this, but did not verbalize it in your Post. I am reading personally at the moment de Caussade’s work on Abandonment - an entirely beautiful and informative work with much to say about finding God’s Will everywhere at all times - nothing excluded.
Peace, Joy Teresa!

 

[BarbaraTherese]

Hi there Teresa…I have copied the following from the Catholic Catechism:…
Re articles 920 and 921 below, I think probably the reference is to hermits as commonly understood as a strict seclusion from society in general. In my own lifestyle and I suspect also in yours there is this very distinct aspect as detailed in 920 and 921 and added to this an activity in the works of mercy to some degree or other…a sort of contemplative/active lifestyle.
I have noticed since I have had the internet at my fingertips here where I am living that quite a few Carmelite Orders of nuns are springing up which are coupling the Carmelite Rule with an active work in the works of mercy. In other words they are not adopting strict enclosure as is commonly understood of the Carmelite Order. They do remain however within the Carmelite Order as a whole…and a very interesting to me innovation. Why not those choosing to live heremetically/active also?..if one desired to be incorporated into The Order of Carmel.

As to Article 919 - it is worth remembering that “new gifts” implies just what it says: the new, the strange, the unheard of, the different…and most interesting to me since The Church is most slow indeed indeed to accept what is truly new.

Merely ponderings!

919 Bishops will always strive to discern new gifts of consecrated life granted to the Church by the Holy Spirit; the approval of new forms of consecrated life is reserved to the Apostolic See.459

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.