Hermits

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='kavalamyself' date='20 November 2009 - 03:04 PM' timestamp='1258751083' post='2006370']
I think you can be a woman and a hermit.
[/quote]
I guess as long as you lived somewhere near a church.

[Era Might]

Thanks for all the responses.

[quote name='Staretz' date='20 November 2009 - 02:39 PM' timestamp='1258745945' post='2006324']Sometimes I wonder if people confuse hermits wiht anchorites, which is a more specific kind of hermit.[/quote]
I think the guy I was talking with had in mind more idiosyncratic type of hermits/anchorites. He sees their desire for solitude as a sort of psychological obsession

[Nihil Obstat]

I feel like a hermit sometimes. A couple times I've gone from waking up until about five or six in the evening without talking to anyone, even though I'm in a school of 30 000 people.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='kavalamyself' date='20 November 2009 - 04:04 PM' timestamp='1258751083' post='2006370']
I think you can be a woman and a hermit.
[/quote]

Like the Sack Woman in [i]Notre-Dame de Paris[/i].

Edited November 20, 2009 by Resurrexi

[AccountDeleted]

I am a woman and I lived as a hermit for two months with the Hermits of Bethlehem in NJ - it is a diocesan laura of hermits, and we lived in little huts in the forest, We would come together for Mass in the morning and to pick up our meals from the kitchen for the rest of the day. Once a week we would share Sunday dinner and have a study/recreation time. During the day we would pray and do various chores (alone). Every two weeks a confessor would come, and if we needed to, we could meet with the desert father for spiritual direction, but it was a pretty solitary life otherwise, and I loved it - for two months. But I wouldn't want to live it forever. I think it is a great way to do a retreat and to deepen one's prayer life.

[MC IMaGiNaZUN]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='20 November 2009 - 04:11 PM' timestamp='1258751495' post='2006387']
I feel like a hermit sometimes. A couple times I've gone from waking up until about five or six in the evening without talking to anyone, even though I'm in a school of 30 000 people.
[/quote]
hehe

[Guest Jon]

[quote name='Era Might' date='19 November 2009 - 07:19 PM' timestamp='1258679998' post='2005926']
I'm just curious what your thoughts are on the hermit's complete solitude.
[/quote]

It's similar to Heaven. LOL!
Oh, this crazy world.
Those are my thoughts.
:)Jon

[journeyman]

One of the things that surprised me when I read some of the Desert Fathers was the extent of community. Many of them seemed to have started as anchorites, and when they removed themselves from that arrangement, others who admired or sought to learn from them followed. As communities grew up around these Fathers, the monastic form of community came into being. But even in "hermit" communities, they came together for Mass and consulted each other for purposes of instruction.

The liturgical paradox of speaking to a community when saying Mass in an eremetical setting was addressed in Letter 28 (Dominus Vobiscum) from St. Peter Damian to Pope Leo (IX?)(who had a monastic/eremetical background himself) and seems to be the last word on the subject (written in 10-something)

The hospitality for which monasteries are known was also a feature of the Desert hermits.

[Jesus_lol]

what about a robinson crusoe style hermit?

[Starets]

The need for spiritual as well as psychoilogical maturity and stability has been recognised for those who want to pursue thjis sort of life for several hundred years, if Grimlaicus' Rule for Solitarties is any indication. Or,. for that matter, if the Rule fo St. Benedict itself is any indication!