In 2017, Michael Finkel published a book with a provocative title that became a surprise best-seller. It was The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. The book told the story of Christopher Knight, a young man who one day, without telling anyone, simply wandered into the central Maine woods and decided that he would live there, on his own, indefinitely. Though skillful in many ways, he could not feed himself adequately in the woods, so he began to steal food from nearby camps and homes. Local folks began whispering about a mysterious person that no one had ever seen whom they called the North Pond Hermit. This went on until a deputy sheriff caught him stealing items one night – 27 years after our hermit had first ventured into the woods.
We can debate as to how “true” a hermit Christopher Knight was, but the success of the book reflects the fascination many people feel with those who choose a solitary life. The popularity of books such as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude, and Anthony Storr’s Solitude (many, many more examples could be named) show how this fascination has been strong in our secular culture for generations. In the Catholic Church, the twentieth century saw a renewal of interest in the vocation to live a more solitary life as hermits. Catholics such as Charles de Foucauld, Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Thomas Merton witnessed to the enduring power and fruitfulness of the hermit life.
The Church’s magisterium noted this renewal of interest in the hermit life and affirmed it. The Second Vatican Council did this in its documents on religious life and on the Church. Every Pope since Paul VI has spoken of and praised the hermit vocation, usually in the context of a longer document on religious life. In 1983, the revised Code of Canon Law recognized the possibility for men and women to be formally consecrated as hermits attached to their dioceses and their bishops. This was in canon 603. However, the Holy See had never offered to diocesan hermits or their bishops any guidance as to how to discern and live out a vocation to be a diocesan hermit – until this year.
This brings me to the purpose of this post. Earlier this year, the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life published a little book of guidelines entitled The Hermit’s Way of Life in the Local Church (I’ll refer to it as The Hermit’s Way from this point on). This is, to my knowledge, the first document released by any Vatican congregation that is exclusively about diocesan hermits. I offer below an overview of this document so that more people may be aware of it and that more people may have a better sense of what the hermit vocation is in the eyes of the Church.
Who is The Hermit’s Way written for? Who will be interested in it?
First of all, this document is most helpful for diocesan hermits and anyone who wonders if they may have a call to the hermit life. For diocesan hermits, it makes a good examination of conscience or of vocation. They can compare the manner in which they are living their hermit calling with the Church’s overall understanding of that call. For people wondering if they are called to such a life, The Hermit’s Way provides guidelines for discernment and ways in which someone can try out the hermit life as part of that discernment. Even if someone, for whatever reason, cannot be formally consecrated according to canon 603 (at least for now), that person can use this document as a guide to living a hermit life.
Secondly, this document is most helpful for bishops, pastors, and other diocesan leaders. It affirms the value of the hermit vocation to the whole Church and expects that Church leaders will also value this vocation. It offers bishops and diocesan staff criteria for discerning whether a person who approaches them is truly called to be a diocesan hermit. It explains the role of the bishop not only in this discernment process but in the life of the diocesan hermit. If a parish priest has a diocesan hermit in his parish, this document can help him better understand the hermit’s vocation and not expect of the hermit some kind of ministry that might not be in harmony with this vocation.
Thirdly, this document is valuable for Catholics in general. If someone is aware that a diocesan hermit lives in their parish, The Hermit’s Way can be very helpful in explaining what a diocesan hermit is. It helps more people appreciate the wide diversity of vocations that build up the Body of Christ, the Church.
What is the overall outline of The Hermit’s Way?
This is a small book – 74 pages in all. The first chapter, “The Tradition of the Hermit’s Life”, offers a very brief overview of the development of the hermit vocation in the history of the Church. The second chapter, “Vocation and Identity of the Hermit’s Life”, is a reflection on paragraph one of canon 603 which speaks of the nature of the hermit’s vocation. The third chapter, “Life of the Hermit in the Local Church”, is a reflection on the second paragraph of canon 603, with additional material on discerning a hermit’s vocation, the process of formally consecrating a diocesan hermit, and sections on the hermit’s personal Rule of Life and living space. The fourth chapter, “The Diocesan Hermit”, briefly addresses specific issues related to diocesan hermits, such as how a member of a religious order or a diocesan priest might become a diocesan hermit, the transfer of a hermit to another diocese, and separation from the hermit life. The Hermit’s Way ends with an Appendix that includes some templates for prayers that can be used at a diocesan hermit’s profession, and an outline to help diocesan hermits draft a Rule of Life.
What are some of the themes found in The Hermit’s Way?
The core of the hermit life is expressed as the desire for a more intimate union with God. Everything that is an essential part of the hermit life – the solitude and silence, the greater separation from the world, the devotion to prayer, ascetical practices, and more – are secondary. They are all ordered to the primary goal of a more intimate union with God. These practices are not meant to convince hermits of their holiness or to give them any other reason to boast. They are meant to help them detach from the ego’s demands and grow in the desire for God’s presence. The hermit is to be a lover, not unlike the Bride in the Song of Songs.
The document expresses – though indirectly – a paradox in the hermit’s life. The life of a hermit is seen as both the most radical call of the evangelical counsels and yet is also an expression of the universal call to holiness and, as such, is not “superior” to other vocations. Whenever we come upon a paradox – and our faith has many – the temptation is to lean to one side and forget the other. Hermits, then, can be tempted to see themselves as “God’s Green Berets” on the one hand, or as no different from any Catholic living alone on the other. We do better to remember both sides of the paradox and keep them in a creative tension.
There is a concern that expresses itself in various ways throughout this document that hermits not fall into an excessive individualism but never lose sight of how their calling is oriented to the Church and the world. For example, the hermit’s calling to “strict separation from the world” is interpreted here as living on the world’s margins. To live on the margins is to notice how many people also live on the margins, to identify with them in compassion, and to intercede for them as well as for the whole Church and the world.
The hermit’s vocation is to be with God alone, Who is the Unum Necessarium, the One Necessary Thing. This is the foundation of the evangelical counsels; the firm conviction that God is enough. Our commitment to this (or our lack of it) shows in how well (or how poorly) we live out these evangelical counsels.
The silence of solitude is called a fundamental attitude that expresses a radical availability to listen to God. An inner silence and solitude, so to speak, in which the mind and heart can work through every distraction and learn how to be truly receptive to the voice of God. However, most hermits will find that they need some degree of exterior silence and solitude to help them reach this interior silence and solitude.
Conclusion
The Hermit’s Way is a welcome and – dare I say – almost overdue Vatican document! It offers guidelines to hermits and bishops alike to help diocesan hermits reach their full stature in Christ and become the means of grace that the Lord desires them to be for the Church and the world. Everyone can profit spiritually from reading this little book.
Final Note
The Hermit’s Way is not easy to find in the USA. I have ordered several copies from Rome. If you would like a copy, please contact me.
P.S. As of August 23, all my copies of The Hermit’s Way have been spoken for. You can order a copy here. Other than contacting the publisher -Libreria Editrice Vaticana – I haven’t seen this book available anywhere else as of August 23, 2022.