There was no one moment when Sister Laurel M. O’Neal, Er Dio, knew that she was called to love God as a hermit. Instead, she said, there were many.
“At every point my life with God has deepened, my sense that this is the way he has called me to become fully human (our fundamental vocation!) and to proclaim the Gospel has been reaffirmed,” the systematic theologian, Camaldolese Oblate and consecrated hermit for the Diocese of Oakland, California, told Our Sunday Visitor.
Sister O’Neal, who writes about her way of life at her blog, “Notes from Stillsong Hermitage,” felt called to religious life after converting to Catholicism. Her story is one of perseverance: She entered the Franciscans, but had to leave after developing an adult-onset seizure disorder and receiving a diagnosis of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, a neuropathic pain disorder. Her life changed again when she read the Catholic Church’s canon law concerning hermits.
“[I] had the deep sense that perhaps this could provide a context that would make sense of my entire life, both gifts and limitations,” she remembered.
She and several canon lawyers spoke with Our Sunday Visitor about the vocation of a canonical hermit. Jenna Marie Cooper, a consecrated virgin and canonist who holds a licentiate in canon law, and Msgr. Ronny E. Jenkins, dean of the School of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., cited Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation, Vita Consecrata (“On Consecrated Life”).
“At every point my life with God has deepened, my sense that this is the way he has called me to become fully human (our fundamental vocation!) and to proclaim the Gospel has been reaffirmed.”
Sister Laurel M. O’Neal
Hermits “bear witness to the passing nature of the present age by their inward and outward separation from the world,” he writes. “By fasting and penance, they show that man does not live by bread alone but by the word of God (cf. Mt 4:4). Such a life ‘in the desert’ is an invitation … never to lose sight of the supreme vocation, which is to be always with the Lord.”
For her part, Sister O’Neal said the mission of a canonical hermit, in particular, is “to remind us all that we are completed and made whole and holy by God.”
“Some like to say the hermit lives in the heart of the Church,” she said. “I have begun to say the hermit reveals the Church’s heart to both the Church and the world.”
Her journey to become a solitary canonical hermit took 23 years. She was admitted on Sept. 2, 2007, at 58 years old.
“And yet,” she said, “the adventure was just beginning.”
A look at canon law
Canon law experts cited the Code of Canon Law — the code of ecclesiastical laws governing the Latin or Western Church — while defining a canonical or diocesan hermit.
“In addition to institutes of consecrated life,” canon 603 reads, “the Church recognizes the eremitic or anchoritic life by which the Christian faithful devote their life to the praise of God and the salvation of the world through a stricter withdrawal from the world, the silence of solitude, and assiduous prayer and penance.”
It adds: “A hermit is recognized by law as one dedicated to God in consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of the diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels [of poverty, chastity and obedience], confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, and observes a proper program of living under his direction.”
Cooper explained, “Hermits consecrated according to canon 603 live an eremitical life — i.e., a life dedicated wholly to contemplative prayer structured around silence and solitude — under the direct authority of the diocesan bishop.”
She and other experts distinguished hermits professed according to canon 603 from “religious hermits,” or members of religious orders who live an eremitical life.
“It is the diocesan bishop, in fact, who determines most things about the hermit’s life; this includes, among others, what formation will precede profession, what rule of life the hermit will live, and what support, if any, will be given to the hermit,” Msgr. Jenkins said of canon 603.
Citing the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, which governs the Eastern Catholic churches, he added that it “expressly connects hermits with the monastic life” while also offering “the possibility of living the ascetical life of hermits while not attached to a monastery but under a bishop as based on particular law.”
Father Pius Pietrzyk, OP, associate professor of canon law, adjunct professor of theology and director of institutional collaboration for the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy, called an authentic hermit “one who is recognized by the diocesan bishop and therefore is an authentic part of the ecclesial life.”
“It is an authentic vocation in the Church, and one especially dedicated to a life of solitary prayer,” he said. “Even so, hermits may still have some interaction with the world.”
A personal story
Before becoming a solitary canonical hermit, Sister O’Neal began living as a non-canonical or lay hermit. She petitioned her diocese to be professed under canon 603, but, after several years, discovered that the current bishop, like many other bishops, had decided not to profess anyone for the foreseeable future, she said.
“It was too new, too little understood, and often seen as not a genuine vocation,” she said. “And yet, it was the means to a profoundly coherent and meaningful life for me!”
While she called a hermit a “desert dweller” by definition, living in stricter withdrawal from the world, she also recognized disability or chronic illness themselves as “desert experiences.”
Before Bishop John S. Cummins retired in 2003, she renewed her petition, and, four years later, under Bishop Allen Vigneron, she was admitted to perpetual profession and consecration as a hermit. Bishop Vigneron also approved the initials “Er Dio,” which appear after her name. They are short for Eremita Dioecesanus, Latin for “diocesan hermit.”
Sister O’Neal gave a glimpse into her life as a hermit. The last 17 years, she said, are marked by factors including continuing growth, intense inner work, a spiritual direction practice, life in a parish community as a pastoral assistant, her growing blog and the development of a process of discernment and formation for candidates and their diocesan formation teams to assist them to understand, appreciate and implement canon 603.
Life as a hermit
Sister O’Neal described a regular day for her: It is generally divided into three parts, with a period of prayer in the morning, evening and, frequently, in the middle of the night.
Her mornings include journaling, morning prayer and either the daily Scriptures and Communion or Mass. Every other week, she meets with a client. (Her clients, she said, include spiritual direction clients as well as candidates discerning vocations or being formed as hermits.) She also teaches Scripture weekly.
She dedicates her afternoons to activities including chores, clients, appointments, studying or writing and sometimes additional sleep.
Her evenings include a brief walk or exercise, evening prayer, study, class preparation, writing, an occasional client and night prayer. She is also often awake in the middle of the night because of pain, she said, and may spend that time doing chores or praying.
Unlike many other hermits, she said she does not have to worry about supporting herself and emphasized that dioceses do not support hermits. While she faces some hurdles, she qualifies for financial assistance and health insurance because she is disabled. She has also qualified for housing assistance.
A hermit’s advice
She shared her advice for those considering this vocation, beginning with the reminder that the Church considers this way of life a “second half of life vocation.”
“If one is a young adult, I would encourage them to consider entering an eremitical community where they can get the education and religious and personal formation necessary to this life,” she recommended.
Next, she reminded people not to expect a diocese to make them into a hermit.
“I want people to understand … that solitary eremitical life is a gift of God to the Church and world; this vocation says to the marginalized, to the chronically ill, the disabled, and otherwise isolated, that eremitical solitude represents the redemption of isolation and alienation.”
Sister Laurel M. O’Neal
“Only God with our cooperation, the accompaniment of a good spiritual director, and perhaps some mentoring from another hermit can do that,” she said.
For those who find themselves intrigued or excited, she encouraged them to find a good spiritual director and “learn about and experiment with life with God in the silence of solitude.”
“Pray, read, study, consult, and do it all again and again!” she said.
For those with a chronic illness or disability, she reminded them that not all dioceses will accept them for consecration or even a mutual discernment process, adding that “many still need to learn that illness itself is a desert experience that can sometimes predispose one to an eremitic vocation.” She encouraged them to keep trying.
A genuine vocation
Sister O’Neal wanted people to know that this is a genuine vocation “motivated by love, not by escapism, hatred for God’s good creation, or isolation.”
“I want people to understand … that solitary eremitical life is a gift of God to the Church and world,” she said, adding, “this vocation says to the marginalized, to the chronically ill, the disabled, and otherwise isolated, that eremitical solitude represents the redemption of isolation and alienation.”
“Eremitical solitude is about being alone with God for God’s sake, for the sake of one’s own wholeness, and for the sake of others,” she concluded, “in a way that gives hope and promises a full and meaningful life — so long as one is truly called to this!”
