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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
The present code of canon law makes no mention of hermits. However, it would be wrong to interpret this silence as a condemnation. At the time when the code was compiled, indeed practically since the French Revolution, the solitary life had all but disappeared from the western Church. Those few who followed it, if there were any at all, did not justify any particular legislation. The Church had no intention of making laws for a manner of religious life that no longer existed and, from all appearances, no one had any intention of reviving.
But contrary to all one would have thought, since the last war the eremetical life has again come into favour. In many places but especially in the monastic orders rather clear tendencies and desires have arisen for this ancient form of asceticism and for this way of giving oneself to God. And some of these aspirations have been realized with an admirable simplicity and seriousness.
This article, here translated by Robert F. Lechner, C.PP.S., first appeared in La Vie Spirituelle: Supplément 50 (1959), to the editor of which we are indebted for his permission to reprint it here.
2 The example of Père de Foucauld has had an undeniable influence in this renewed interest. And yet we might ask whether the apostle of the Hoggar really had a hermit's vocation. He does not quite fit into any category, and seems a bit beyond all of them. But more than anyone else in our day he heard the call of solitude. And we have inherited from him such thoughts as these: ‘We must pass by the desert and abide there to receive the grace of God'. (Quoted by Gorrée, Charles de Foucauld. Lyon, 1957.)
3 Institutions. IV, 36
4 Dom Pierre Coyère, Prior of Saint-Paul de Wisques, is the author of the first (t. V, col. 413-429) and of the section in the second dealing with the eremetical life in the west. Dom Clément Lialine of Chevetogne writes of the eremetical life in the east in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité.
5 Fra Jerome ‘ Soliloquies of a Solitary (Dublin: Capuchin Periodicals. 1952). See also The Month, November 1958. Peter Anson has written a biography of Mgr Hawes, The Hermit of Cat Island (New York: P. J. Kenedy and Sons. 1957).
6 Whoever receives an indult of exclaustration is placed under the jurisdiction of the local ordinary (bishop, apostolic vicar, etc.) according to Canon 639.
7 His Eminence Cardinal Larraona, former secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Religious, has pointed out so well that whenever canon law deals with religious life its intent is to make of it a style of life separated from the world (Commentarium pro Religiosis (1949), p. 153). Where then, if this is true, is the ideal better realized than in the eremetical life?
8 Summa Theologica. I–II, q 4, a viii.
9 St Thomas, op. cit., II-II, q 188, a viii, ad 3. ‘They are led by the Spirit to such an extent that they no longer have need of any other guidance. However, they do possess obedience as a disposition of soul so that they are ready to obey if there is an occasion.’
10 Everything that is said here can be applied (mutatis mutandis) to members of societies without vows or secular institutes, clerical or lay. There is not much point in spelling out each case.
11 'Neither the name nor the habit of an institute already in existence can be taken by anyone who does not belong to this institute legitimately, nor by a new institute itself.’
12 'A hermit is a religious, who lives the life of an anchorite but still conforms to the statutes (of his monastery) and remains dependent upon the superiors of his Institute’ (Motu Proprio Postquam Apostolicis, 9 February 1952, Canon 313, No. 4. Acta Apost. Sedis (1952). P. 147).
13 This proximity could be quite relative today, considering the ease and speed of communication.
14 See Dom J. Leclerq, ‘Pierre le Vénérable et l'érémitisme clunisien', in Studia Anselmiana 40 (1956), pp. 99-120. St Benedict (Ch. 1 of his Rule) seems to have thought it quite hazardous to retire in solitude unless one had spent a good time in community living. This is also the teaching of St Thomas (Summa Theobgica, II—H, q 188, a 8). It should be pointed out, however, that both had in mind an eremetical life of the most strict kind with no contacts whatsoever. Without an authentic divine inspiration it would be foolish to undertake such a life without preparation.
15 I do not know what should be thought of such an hypothesis with reference to a religious institute that is not monastic. Perhaps the difficulties would be the same with some variations.
16 We should recall here the remarkable words of Pius XII when he spoke with such encouragement of a contemplative life undertaken outside the formal structure of canon law (First Message to Cloistered Religious, I July 1958. Documentation cathoiique LV (1958), col. 973-974). The last phrase was this: ‘Such a private style of contemplative life is not unknown to the Church. In principle she approves it.’
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