Folia Canonica 5. (2002)
STUDIES - W. Becket Soule: Hermits in Current Eastern Catholic Legislation; CCEO cc. 481-485
160 W. BECKET SOULE confined against their will to the said hermitage, and thereafter shall be cured through fasting and other austerities; for they are to know, as it is written, that No man who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”33 The concern of the ancient canons for this life-long commitment to the eremitical life is understandable in its historical context: a number of monks moved back and forth between the cenobitic and eremitic life, ignoring the principle of monastic stability. Nevertheless, most of the Fathers spent at least part of their careers in solitude. Whether the eremitical life is undertaken for a definite period of time or for life, the superior, for a just cause (not necessarily grave, but proportionate to the eremitical life), may require the monk to abandon this form of life, such as for reasons of the health of the monk, the needs of the monastery (e.gto become novice master or finance office, in the absence of other suitable candidates), or the spiritual good of the monk himself. Since the superior should not act arbitrarily nor thoughtlessly in such an important matter, the consent of the superior’s council is required in addition to the just cause. The command of the superior prevails, even if the hermit disagrees or wishes to remain, and the hermit is bound to obey the superior’s command in the same way any other monk is, by returning to the common life of monks. After the conclusion of the ninth ordinary session of the Synod of Bishops in 1994, called to discuss the vocation to the consecrated life through the profession of the evangelical counsels, Pope John Paul II issued the post-synodal exhortation Vita consecrata, in which he described the eremitical life as follows: Men and women hermits, belonging to ancient orders or new institutes, or being directly dependent on the bishop, bear witness to the passing nature of the present age by their inward and outward separation from the world. By fasting and penance, they show that man does not live by bread alone, but by the word of God. Such a life “in the desert” is an invitation to their contemporaries and to the ecclesial community itself never to lose sight of the supreme vocation, which is to be always with the Lord.34 The reference to the “desert” brings to mind the etymology of the word hermit, as well as the solitude and separation that are at the very heart of the eremitical life. Solitude accompanies separation, because separation does not al33 Council in Trullo, c. 41 (cf. note 13). The fact that the hermit is considered a religious is also significant: according to c. 410, the religious state is “a stable mode of life.” Stability is required to constitute something as a state, and is equivalent to perpetuity; the vocabulary used in reference to this life (“renunciation,” “sacrifice,” “oblation”) suggests that one becomes a hermit for the rest of one’s life. The offering of one’s self to God in this vocation should be perpetual (at least in intention), but, for a serious reason, may be terminated, although not unilaterally by the hermit himself. 34Ioannes Paulus II, ex. ap post-syn. Vita consecrata, 25 III. 1996, n. 7, in A AS 88 (1996) 391.
