A hermit is for the world...

A little more about the hermit life. 

God has allowed me to have amazing experiences and be involved with many incredible things in my life. But the many years I spent in and out of hermitages was by far the greatest gift He gave to me. Circumstances caused for me to not be able to permanently continue in that life for the time being, but I am sure in my heart that God eventually can find people to support me in living (at the very least -half of my time) in prayer with Him as I did years before. With (hopefully) the other half of my life back in full-time ministry/apostolate. I had a sister who once told me that she was more than happy to 'pay me' to pray for everyone like I was doing. :) She truly understood the great 'work' that God can do in the world through souls seeped in prayer. And I am sure that there are other people like her who 'get it' out there.

Yet this is not saying that I regret where I am now. 

God is perfect and His plans for us are perfect.

He even perfectly uses other's sins and mistakes in order to make sure His perfect will is done in our lives. 

When we live that sort of trust, we never have to fear that we are on the wrong path... all God expects from us is a 'Fiat' from one moment to the next. 

And as a very close priest friend often reminds me, 'God is creative.' He somehow gets His will done if we continue to surrender.

Part of the reason I believe that God allowed for me to be thrust from my hermit life was so that I could teach the world about that life and share a little piece of it with them. Its like offering the world an island of peace in the midst of chaos. And so I share... and I hope one day to be able to swing much more of a contemplative life than I am living right now working 80 hours a week. Yet what is funny is that as a hermit I 'worked' just as much as I do now -it is just that the work was more interior, a 'work' of prayer. The hermit life is by no means a lazy life, nor a selfish life. For a real hermit is never a hermit for themselves. They are a hermit for the whole world. 

You see here a picture of the wall of my hermitage. Several years back I decided to break my general love of simplicity and to plaster the wall of my hermitage with pictures of everyone I ever had as a spiritual child in my entire life. When persevering in my vocation was difficult, I could look at the wall and remember that I was doing this all 'for them.' 

Catherine Doherty beautifully explains this 'communal' aspect of a hermit's life in her book 'Poustinia' (meaning 'hermitage' in Russian). Take a few moments to read these -and remember them in your own lives... at those moments you 'sneak' for prayer, never doubt that you are helping your children, spouses, etc., more than you could by physically being available. Yes, daily duty comes first and you should never neglect your vocational responsibilities in order to pray... but when you are able to find those 20 minutes during naps or on lunch break to sit before a crucifix or tabernacle and pray, remember that you are giving a cosmic gift to those who you love.

"Who were these men and women of Russia and why did they go into 'the desert,' into the poustinia?... They were people who craved in their hearts to be alone with God and his immense silence. Why did they crave that silence, that solitude? For themselves? No. A hermit of this type, according to the Eastern spirituality, went into the poustinia for others. He offered himself as a holocaust, a victim for others..." (page 21)

"They went forth alone... They emptied their minds and their souls of all their relationships because from now on they would be with all their loved ones in a new relationship, in a deeper dimension of love. ... The poustiniki (hermits) would carry in their hearts all those whom they had left behind in the great silence of God...From the moment their poustinia was built, from the moment of their closing its door upon themselves, not only they but the whole of humanity entered into that cabin with them. It was for all mankind that the poustinik was to pray, to weep, and to endure all the temptations that come to him who lives in the desert. It was FOR THEM that he was to mortify his flesh, for THEM that he accepted the loneliness that transcends our understanding, and which as the same time, once accepted, is no real loneliness at all..." (pg 22-23)

"We need people who will stay in the silence of God and not be distracted by a thousand noises within themselves or by demands made upon them -not entirely wrong demands, but not entirely right ones either. These silent ones, the ones that will really pray, will have all of humanity in their poustinias. They will do spiritual direction and write letters, but slowly, thoughtfully, in the secret silence between them and God. They will be spiritual directors from a distance. Directees will also come and knock at their door..." (pg 42)

"I believe there will be people who realize that it is through being this personal holocaust for humanity that they can bring back to the world, with childlike simplicity, the words of God which they hear in his great silence." (pg 44)

"I think that God calls the poustinik to a total purgation, a total self-emptying. In the Gospel of the Passion we see how Christ is silent before the authorities. Imagine, God is silent! He asks for nothing, and he gives himself. If you want to see what a 'contribution' really is, look at the Man on the Cross. That's a contribution. When you are hanging on a cross you can't do anything because you are crucified. That is the essence of a poustinik. That is his or her contribution. .. The poustinik's loneliness is of slavific and cosmic proportions. This is his contribution... By hanging on his cross of loneliness, his healing rays, like the rays of the sun, will penetrate the earth... No one can tell how far the healing rays from a poustinik's loneliness, united with God, penetrate into the world. The world is cold. Someone must be on fire so that people can come and put their cold hands and feet against that fire. If anyone allows this to happen, but especially the poustinik, then he will become a fireplace at which men can warm themselves. His rays will go out to the ends of the earth...

"The English word 'zeal' usually means intensity of action... But real zeal is standing still and letting God be a bonfire in you. It is not very easy to have God's fire within you! Only if you are possessed of true zeal will you be able to contain God's bonfire..." ((pg 48-49)

Making your heart a perpetual hermitage

I will always be "Aunty Mary Fiat, the Missionary Hermit." Yes, even if I live in a nice apartment in the middle of a little city right now. God allowed me years of time in and out of hermitages to form my heart into a perpetual hermitage. I experienced the Russian 'poustiniki' and studied the Greek hermits. Although I loved the Eastern eremetical life, I also spent years with those from the French tradition, as well as living as a simple American Diocesan Hermit. My hermit vocation started when I was really little and my brother BJ and I created OSP (Our Special Place) -one inside under the basement stairs where we would secretly read the Bible, and one in the woods by the golf course/creek where we would eat brown-bagged lunches and fish. I always loved the idea of silence and solitude, which is hard for people to believe at times after they encounter me (since I appear to be bubbly and social). What people have to realize is that a hermit (or a hermit heart like mine) does not withdraw into silence and solitude for the sake of silence and solitude -but instead to commune with God, for an intimate love relationship with the Man Jesus, and to draw all the world along with her heart into this mysterious love. And it is this time of silence and solitude with Jesus that is the source of all she gives to the world.

We all -regardless of our state of life or personality -could benefit from taking time (albeit small bites of time, if that is all that life allows) and to withdraw to a small place of silence, of solitude, to lend the heart's ear to God -to listen to His Word, His Breath, His Heartbeat -and to respond in love by waiting for Him; to respond in love by bringing to Him the cries of those hearts around us who are suffering and in need and who may not know the path to reach Him.

Silence is such a majestic teacher -silence is simple and yet there is something very noble about a heart that is able to communicate with God (and with others at times) through silence. A great flame lights up a room, but a candle does this without making a sound. When we withdraw into silence, God's love fills us like a flame and resounds out to the world around us -yet often this echo, this 'yelp' of His Love takes place in silence. People around us simply realize that through our presence and love (even in silence) they are changed -they are united to God.

Here are some quotes Catherine Doherty wrote about silence -take a minute today and read these and ask God to show you where or how you can implement one idea from them into your lives now. Silence full of God's love can teach and form, fill and guide any and every soul. I used to even give 'missionary hermit retreats' for young children. It was always amazing to me to see how God entered in and spoke to the children's hearts. A sister I once knew used to speak of us 'making our hearts as a resting place for the Holy Spirit.' I pray that you all can take a moment today to do just that.

(Pictures are from the hermitages where I have lived over the years...)

"...Those whom God calls into silence will enter a vortex which will shatter them into little pieces. Looking here and there you will see fragments of a human being. You will behold you own fragmentation and wonder why you do not die. I do not know why. God knows. But in silence, God will gather together your fragments. And when you emerge from the sea of silence you will be thunder. And this thunder will pass beyond the galaxies as if you were a bird sent forth to preach the gospel to the whole universe ... People will not know where the thunder is coming from, but it will be coming from your heart. God has entered it through silence. Having put together your fragmented self, God now tells you to go on a pilgrimage to preach the gospel in a silence that is more powerful than any words you have ever spoken. For, silence is more powerful than any words, except one: the Word. It is by entering the Word that to some the gift of utter silence, and therefore complete speech, is given."

~ from MOLCHANIE: THE SILENCE OF GOD by Catherine de Hueck Doherty

"...So often, we forget how to pray. We forget that there must be a time when we are silent so we can hear what God wants to say to us. Yes, my friends, we must pray, the prayer of two people in love with each other who cease to talk. Their silence speaks. This is the kind of prayer that the poustinia will teach you. Resting in God's love, you will understand the unity God wishes for you. Then as a pilgrim, you will go forth and shout and sing about this to all peoples.

Two people in love! When you are in love with God you will understand that God loved you first. You will enter into a deep and mysterious silence and in that silence become one with the Absolute. Your oneness with God will overflow to all your brothers and sisters."

~ from FRAGMENTS OF MY LIFE by Catherine de Hueck Doherty

"...A day filled with noise and voices can be a day of silence, if the noises become for us the echo of the presence of God, if the voices are, for us, messages and solicitations of God."

~ Catherine de Hueck Doherty

.".. When one enters the mystery of God, the first mystery is silence. When one loves another, silence is absolutely necessary. Long before lovers can speak openly of their love, they speak by silence, a deep silence, especially when it deals with God. It is by entering the mystery of silence that slowly everyone becomes like our Beloved.

~ from DOUBTS, LONELINESS, REJECTION by Catherine de Hueck Doherty