The Rule of Life

Of a Hermit

 

Prelude

The solitary vocation has a long and distinguished history within the Anglican tradition. Solitary religious of different sorts have existed throughout all of our history as a separate and distinct polity from Rome. Indeed, solitary vocations existed in the pre-Reformation church from the times of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. However, in the English tradition solitary religious are of several different types. There are anchorites who are attached to parishes and have frequent contact with and interaction among people; there are hermits who live apart from society, but who do not shun society in any way; finally, there are recluses who shun any form of society at all. In short, English Solitaries run the gamut from totally introverted lifestyles of total seclusion to outgoing, gregarious lifestyles of involvement in parish life. In addition, some solitaries in the English tradition are under vow, and others are not. This Rule of Life is intended to describe the vocation of one Solitary Religious who is attached to a parish and lives the life under vow to the bishop.

This Rule is written to document the objectives and goals of the Religious life as it is lived by one Solitary. While it is informed by the western tradition of Benedictine monasticism, it is adapted to meet the need of a Solitary lifestyle. Since part of the definition of a Solitary involves individuality, each and every Solitary must work out his Rule of life in cooperation with a competent spiritual director and a Bishop. A delicate balance must be maintained between the expression of individuality intrinsic to the life of a Solitary and the expression of the tradition as it is handed down through the ages in traditional monastic forms. If art is the bringing of order into chaos, then the Religious life certainly qualifies as an art form in itself. While the various parts of the life, exemplified by the various parts of this Rule, may look on the surface like disparate, unrelated chunks of information, in reality they represent a contrapuntal web of interacting themes and leit motifs, coming together to compliment each other in a beautiful symphony of praise to God Almighty.

Of the Life of Prayer

The traditional divine office as it has come down to us through the mediation of the Book of Common Prayer, including the offices of Vigils (Readings), Matins (Morning Prayer), Diurnum (Noon Prayer), Vespers (Evening Prayer), and Compline (Night Prayer) form the foundation for the vowed life of prayer for this Solitary, which foundation may be enhanced with the addition of extra-BCP devotions. Matins and Vespers are Offices of Obligation; Vigils, Diurnum, and Compline are Offices of Devotion. Hence, this Solitary views his vocation as a subset of the contemplative (as opposed to the active) form of Religious expression and is considered to be bound to the daily recitation of the Opus Dei as outlined in the Book of Common Prayer. While from time to time, due to necessities or emergencies, it may be necessary to take advantage of the Prayer Book rubrics to combine the Psalter and/or lessons from two offices into a single office, the ideal is that at least Morning and Evening Prayer should be normative. If an office must be missed, it will most often need to be the noon office due to its placement in the center of the day or the Office of Compline, both of which are considered to be devotional offices, extrinsic to the Psalter plan as laid out in the Book of Common Prayer.

The purpose for the insistence upon the regular, Benedictine office is the traditional concept of the sanctification of time. While it is possible to combine offices, when so amalgamated they lose their character as points at which we halt in the progress of the day to mark off the passage of time in creation. In fact, this is so important as to be central to the vocation to prayer as a Solitary. The temporal aspect of the Opus Dei also has a communal aspect, even for the Solitary. When praying the morning or the evening office one is very aware of the fact that he or she is joining with Religious all over the world who do the same thing each and every day. The spiritual communion of members of the Body is thus reinforced.

If it is desired to have absolute parallelism between Matins and Vespers, as is the Anglican tradition an extra lesson must be supplied extrinsic to the lectionary in the BCP which only supplies three lessons to be distributed over the two offices. The extra lesson may be, as suggested by the BCP, taken from the alternate year Old Testament lesson, or it may be taken from the patristic literature, or the monastic literature of the spiritual tradition (St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich, the writings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, etc.). One might even draw lessons from the writings of modern Religious authors such as Thomas Merton or Basil Pennington. Yet another possibility for a fourth lesson might be the martyrology for the day taken from Lesser feasts and Fasts.

A Lay Vocation

The vocation to the solitary life is intrinsically a lay vocation. Fundamentally, it is an intensification of the life which stems from the baptismal vows themselves. After all, the heart of the vocation (the daily offices, Sunday and feast day Eucharist, etc.) are themselves recommended by the Church to all members of the laity. While being a lay vocation, the solitary life is a separate estate, as is the vocation to the married life. What makes it a separate estate is, as with marriage, the vows taken by the solitary. Hence, the only thing that truly distinguishes a devout lay person from a Solitary Religious is the vows themselves.

Of the Holy Eucharist

In accordance with the Book of Common Prayer, one should assist and receive at the Holy Eucharist on all Sundays and Prayer Book feast days. Optionally, one may go to the Holy Eucharist as often as one wishes or receive from the Reserved Sacrament as often as daily. Attendance at popular Eucharist devotions such as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament as well as the celebration of feasts such as Corpus Christi are of optional observance. The same is true for non-Eucharistic devotions such as Stations of the Cross.

Of the Vows

While the traditional vows of the Rule of Benedict (stability, obedience, and conversion of life) inform this Rule for a Solitary, it is clear that the vow of stability as understood by Benedict could not be taken by a Solitary who does not live in community. At least, it could not be taken without being completely redefined. Since the Benedictine vow of conversion of life is said to subsume all of the traditional Evangelical Counsels (poverty, chastity, and obedience), it has been thought prudent to adopt the three-fold vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience for use within the context of this Rule.

Poverty

Poverty is a profound respect for the created order. It does not so much mean to do without things as to do with things in the proper manner; not to waste things. Poverty is reinforced by the provision that only enough money for basic needs is to be earned (with the addition of a reasonable, small fund for contingencies). Additionally, credit should be used only in the case of extreme need and should not be relied upon for daily contingencies. Any form of honorable work may be engaged in provided that the above restrictions are observed and provided that said work is flexible enough not to interfere with the prayer of the Divine Office. Since there is no community in the Benedictine sense to maintain ownership of material property the Solitary must be prepared to own those things which are necessary (automobile, if necessary, clothing, utensils, etc.), but to own nothing more than that which is necessary. Poverty is the opposite of idol worship. Poverty is the monastic discipline that prevents one from assigning salvific value to money or to material possessions. Poverty, therefore, is rooted in faith—the faith that God, through his Son Jesus Christ, is our only salvation.

Chastity

Chastity is a profound respect for oneself. In modern society, this may be the most difficult of the vows, since it is difficult to have a profound respect for oneself it one has a low self esteem. To a large extent, the spiritual journey of any Solitary is the process of coming to know without question the truth of one’s own intrinsic holiness by virtue of one’s createdness, and, in the New Testament sense, by virtue of the Incarnation. Ultimately, for the Solitary, Chastity is rooted in faith—the faith that oneself is worthy of respect solely by virtue of having been created by God and redeemed by Jesus Christ, God’s Son.

Obedience

Obedience is a profound respect for others. It is never juridical or judgmental, nor is it militaristic. It comes out of voluntary love and respect for one another. Indeed, it makes no sense in any other context for a Religious. Ultimately, Obedience is rooted in faith—the faith that the community of Jesus Christ, the body, is the channel for ultimate salvation via the agency of the Holy Spirit. Salvation comes by remaining grafted onto the vine, and the Solitary inheres to the vine via Obedience and the symbol of the Bishop.

This is the sine qua non of the Religious Life. The Solitary is under direct obedience to the Bishop. While it is technically possible to live a life of poverty and chastity apart from a bishop (indeed, apart from the Church at all), the presence of the Bishop is absolutely essential to live the life of Obedience. It is here that the most profoundly important connection between a Solitary and the Christian Community exists—through the agency of the Bishop. Obedience to the Bishop forms one of the fundamental connections between the Solitary and the ancient tradition of monastic spirituality. Traditionally, Solitaries as well as cenobitic Religious must remain within this tradition to be truly Christian, and the link to the Bishop provided by the vow of obedience is the visible sign of that tradition. It is indeed the visible sign of the channel through which the grace of the Holy Spirit flows in and through the life of prayer.

Of the Elements of the Monastic Ascesis

The Rule of Benedict is presumptively included within this Rule, with appropriate modifications to fit the life conditions of a Solitary. The Rule of Benedict informs, but does not circumscribe the Solitary. The traditional disciplines of times of silence, of reading at meals, etc. are all relevant to the life of the Solitary. What is normally thought of when the term Conversion of Life is mentioned is presumptively included within the context of this Rule.

Of the 12 Steps

The 12 Steps as modified by AlAnon and Codependents Anonymous are included as an integral part of this Rule. The 12 Step movement has proven itself to be one of the most important spiritual movements of the 20^th century, and has its roots in traditional Western spirituality (in particular, the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius), and as such is a direct expression of Western Christian spirituality in an applied form.

1. We admitted we were powerless, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of characters.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Of Personal External Discipline

Since the vows of marriage and the vows of the religious life are mutually exclusive, the Solitary vocation is a celibate one. Additionally, the Solitary must remain attached to the monastic tradition and ethos in some way or other. Regular retreats, at least one per year, are the minimum. While the external disciplines of prayer and fasting, meditation, and silences, etc. form the basis of the Solitary life, the exact manner in which they are lived out may not always be in accordance with life in community. In addition, the Solitary is free to adopt traditions and practices from many different expressions of the Religious life, as well as from sources outside of the Religious life altogether. It is even theoretically possible for a Solitary to adopt external disciplines from non-Christian traditions such as Zen or Judaism.

Of Personal Internal Spirituality

A Solitary is one whose "listening" to life has led him to leave behind the conventional structures and securities of society, and with the whole of themselves, body, mind and spirit, penetrate what lies "beyond". All Solitaries, in whatever way they live it out, hear the call to "go out" or "go beyond", and to "go alone". A Solitary is a visible icon which says to the Church and to the world that "there is another way." The Solitary stands just outside of the conventional structure of the Church and is, in that sense, a prophetic presence, both praying for the Church and calling it to be what it is—the Body of Christ. The indications from the beginning are that this is in no way a self-indulgence but rather a self-transcendence.

Solitaries share both this initial being called out from the conventions and norms they have observed in the past, as well as those that surround them as their life unfolds. But the manner in which this "going out" is expressed is as varied as the characters who follow it. The Solitary knows that if it is genuine, this vocation is no mere personal adventure, but in some way impossible to define they are "going out" on behalf of all the Body of Christ.

Nevertheless there lies at the heart of the vocation a striking paradox. It is at once representative of human nature that is making the dangerous exploration through the solitary way, and at the same time the exploration is made through the unique personal identity of each and every particular solitary.

The vocation can make sense only if both sides of this paradox are held in balance. This means attention to and appreciation for both aspects, and at the same time protection during the time when one may overwhelm the other. To be oneself and at the same time to represent all the rest of us means being in touch with the pains, joys, fears and hopes of all human beings through being in deeper touch with one’s own pains, joys, fears and hopes.

The universal nature of the vocation is mediated, indeed can only be experienced through the particular. For the solitary this means a terifying confrontation with oneself. It is through the individual wounds, scars and idiosyncratic traits of the solitary that some of the world’s suffering is redeemed; It is through the particular love, faith and hope of the solitary that some of the inarticulate aspirations of the world can be expressed. So that underneath all of this, in the daily life of the solitary, no matter what the external lifestyle may be, there must be a further paradox of entering the Self in order to be free of the Self; losing one’s life to find it.

The Solitary is by nature a highly sensitive person whose intuitive nature causes him to be vulnerable to others and to the world around, with all that is potentially good or evil. This means that solitaries can often be judged by others as gregarious and extroverted, whereas the truth is that this very network of vibrations from the world around them requires solitude rather than community if it is going to lead to any kind of balanced and discerning response.

The basic factors of the solitary vocation also indicate the great risk involved to the person mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. The risk of going out beyond the boundaries is only possible if there is a friend who can act as a kind of bridge between the person going out alone, and the rest of us whom they represent. These companions also provide a source of dialogue for the solitary about the experience of solitude.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the solitary needs a friend to prove, not only by argument, but also by love and human converse, that he or she is sane and still a real live individual human being. From time to time the friend helps to hold back the overwhelming force of the universal dimensions of what is going on, or the force of the Solitary’s own nature, both of which at times threaten to swamp the fine balance that has to be maintained. At these times that friend represents both the rest of us and the One Who is doing the calling. This friend may be the spiritual director.

The discernment of the solitary vocation necessarily must have this personal "friendship", dimension, and cannot be exercised by large groups of people or an institution. Communities can often damage the freedom required by the solitary through unconscious projections and unlived expectations. Some solitaries need the association of a community; others do not. But all of them need the strength that comes through contact with "the tradition".

This contact, with the past and present stream of the faithful is mediated through the symbol of the Bishop and Vows. If the Bishop is a tap-root to this underground stream, yet at the same time leaves the solitary free to explore the manner in which the call is lived out, the Church fulfills a valuable and prophetic ministry.

Thus common sense, mental stability, a sense of humor, vows, a bishop and a friend, are fundamental requirements for the life of any Solitary.

Of Dispensations

Dispensation is a normative part of life under Rule. While the Rule specifies ideals which inform the life of the Solitary, those ideals must never be allowed to become idols in themselves; one must never assign salvific value to any aspect of monastic discipline. Life under Rule is a grace and not a manner of earning salvation. Whenever it is necessary for good reason to modify or temporarily suspend portions of the Rule, the Solitary should be free to so do. Indeed, with the agreement of the Bishop, the Solitary may from time to time amend or modify any portion of this Rule.

Of Recreation and Fun

It is important that the Solitary play. While recreation cannot be forced, the Solitary who cannot play will soon find himself in trouble. The lifestyle is intense, and it needs to be tempered by either hobbies, sports, or any wholesome activity which re-creates one’s spirit. Above all, the Solitary must have a sense of humor. The ability to express joy and frivolity is just as important as the ability to experience sadness and grief. Laughter is often just as healing as tears.

Annual and Lifelong Vows

As is customary, a period of annual vows shall precede the taking of lifelong vows. During this period of vocational discernment and afterward as well, regular contact should be maintained between the Solitary and the Bishop, in whatever manner and at whatever interval shall be mutually agreed upon between the two.

Postlude

A Rule is part of the monastic tradition. However, it is not merely a constitution or a set of by-laws. It is the concrete embodiment in external expression of a form of spirituality that transcends the self. As such, it should never be looked upon as a set of juridical laws or rules and regulations. The religious life itself determines the nature of the Rule, not the other way around. We are informed by the Rule, not circumscribed by it. It is not determinative of vocation, but descriptive of it. There is no "chicken and egg" question here. The life comes first, and the Rule is later written to describe and document it. The Rule is a dynamic, living document—as dynamic as is the lived experience of the Solitary whose life it describes.