AccountDeleted Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Okay, fair enough. I did misread the rule. I do think giving Gemma an option to discontinue this thread may be a charity if she doesn't want to continue. I don't understand. Why would she not want to correct misunderstandings or errors? Especially if it might affect others who are discerning? I would think that anyone who is promoting vocations, as she is, or starting a new community, would want full disclosure from the start, and an ongoing dialogue to maintain clarity of purpose and intention. Only if someone has something to hide would they feel intimidated by legitimate and honest questions asked in a forum of mutual respect and integrity. I believe that SrLaurel (who has been consecrated by her diocesan Bishop) is asking very valid and charitable questions about a project that has been in existence for 25 years and still is not completely understood (or is misunderstood?) by others. This is the perfect opportunity to help clear things up, giving all benefit of the doubt for past inconsistencies and/or errors and allowing things to be corrected and or re-interpreted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToJesusMyHeart Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Prayers for Gemma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sister_Laurel Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 (edited) I don't understand. Why would she not want to correct misunderstandings or errors? Especially if it might affect others who are discerning? I would think that anyone who is promoting vocations, as she is, or starting a new community, would want full disclosure from the start, and an ongoing dialogue to maintain clarity of purpose and intention. Only if someone has something to hide would they feel intimidated by legitimate and honest questions asked in a forum of mutual respect and integrity. I believe that SrLaurel (who has been consecrated by her diocesan Bishop) is asking very valid and charitable questions about a project that has been in existence for 25 years and still is not completely understood (or is misunderstood?) by others. This is the perfect opportunity to help clear things up, giving all benefit of the doubt for past inconsistencies and/or errors and allowing things to be corrected and or re-interpreted. She is certainly continuing the "conversation" (monologue) on the Cloisters Outreach blog. In the last post she not only tells a new version of the story of origins of the eremitical "branch" of CO but she was very clear that CO's eremitical expression, for instance, (the only group with actual adherents it seems) has never sought episcopal approval and therefore neither has it nor may ever have it. She also mischaracterized my own criticisms and concerns for the use of canon 603 as a stopgap "vocation" saying that "her critics were" concerned merely with hermits who become cenobites. Actually, that is NOT my concern nor the real issue with misusing canon 603 as a means of getting consecrated. I would like to clarify that here now because I cannot do so on her blog. Canon 603 is a canon which is meant to protect and govern SOLITARY eremitical vocations. It is meant to allow individuals who have discerned a LIFE vocation to solitary eremitical life to be consecrated and publicly professed to service in the name of the Church. It is NOT meant for establishing communities of hermits (a Laura made up of those already professed is a different matter with very different characteristics) nor circumventing the arduous process of becoming an institute of consecrated life. There are other avenues extant for such projects and processes. It is not meant for those who can't be cenobites and thus maybe are "interested in eremitical life". It is for those who sincerely feel a life call to this. To use canon 603 to get individuals professed and consecrated as solitary hermits when they REALLY feel called and plan to be cenobites (community members) and have planned on forming a community with the consecrated hermits under a common Rule, superior, and possibly under a different Bishop in a different diocese is a fraudulent use of the canon. In such cases, the "hermits" might well find their vows being dispensed or not accepted by the new Bishop. This fraud is important because when the revised code of canon law first came out some Bishops and dioceses saw canons 603 and 604 as fallback vocations rather than as genuine ones --- though that is slowly changing as authentic vocations are professed (and/or consecrated) and live their lives fully and fruitfully. Still, people misusing the canon contribute to this notion and could lead to at least the virtual suppression of the use of the canon more widely in the Church. This in turn is important because the solitary hermit witnesses to a life of the silence of solitude in a world marked and marred by its opposite, namely, lives of noise, distraction, emptiness and isolation. Solitude is the redemption of isolation and the silence of solitude is the fullness that comes when a person discovers their completion in God. It includes the resulting communion with others that is is part of this completion. People need only think of the chronically ill and isolated elderly, and even some prisoners who might well live their lives as solitary hermits --- some of them as consecrated solitary hermits under canon 603 --- to realize how important this vocation is and how serious abuses. If a person lives as a hermit for a number of years after discerning this vocation in good faith, I have no problem with them becoming cenobites, but canon 603 is NOT meant to be used as a pretense for getting publicly professed and consecrated when one really feels a call to something else and will never truly live the vocation or the gift (charism) it is to the Church and world. That is dishonest and it is a betrayal of the vocation's charism, the purpose of canon 603, and the mission given the diocesan hermit at her perpetual profession. Sincerely, Sister Laurel M O'Neal, Er Dio Stillsong Hermitage Diocese of Oakland http://notesfromstillsong.blogspot.com Edited December 20, 2012 by SRLAUREL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deusluxmea Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 (tangent alert) Hey SrLaurel, What would be the canonical status for someone who lives as a hermit in a community? Example would be a Benedictine nun I knew who was given permission to live in a hermitage on the Abbey property. Or even Brother Louis, Thomas Merton himself, lived as a hermit even though he was a Trappist. In these cases, both hermits were fully professed and well seasoned in their charism and their community. By no means do I wish to undermine the distinctions you are making, rather I am curious about hermit life, (a life that I am unlikely to ever live!) (tangent over) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
To Jesus Through Mary Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 With all due respect, I really think you are engaging in a very public and futile argument. Maggie spelled it out quite well. With the new rule your main concern has been addressed. This so-called "religious order" cannot be promoted and confusing anyone on PM anymore. What is the purpose of continuing to engage in this one-sided "discussion"? I seriously doubt Gemma will be back to respond to your questions... as you probably well know. You know you will not be able to reason with her or get a straight answer, certainly not one that would satisfy. But with continuing on this way it does come off as just beating a dead horse and frankly a bit uncharitable. You got the desired result, no? So why continue to bemoan the subject further? I understand your frustration and desire to "set the record straight"... but it just is not going to happen. At least not from the mouth of Gemma and not the way you desire it to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sister_Laurel Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 (edited) (tangent alert) Hey SrLaurel, What would be the canonical status for someone who lives as a hermit in a community? Example would be a Benedictine nun I knew who was given permission to live in a hermitage on the Abbey property. Or even Brother Louis, Thomas Merton himself, lived as a hermit even though he was a Trappist. In these cases, both hermits were fully professed and well seasoned in their charism and their community. By no means do I wish to undermine the distinctions you are making, rather I am curious about hermit life, (a life that I am unlikely to ever live!) (tangent over) If a congregation's proper law (that is their constitution) allows them to live as a hermit they remain religious in that congregation, but living an eremitical life. Often today congregations allow this and some congregations are actually a mixture of cenobitic and eremitical life known as semi-eremitical: the Carthusian and Camaldolese are this. In such cases canon 603 is not applicable (though it is instructive) and their vows are those which they have made in the hands of their own congregation's general superior (etc). Canon 603 is meant for hermits living as solitary hermits and vows are thus made to God in the hands of the diocesan Bishop. Canon 603 actually came into being because many congregations prior to VII did not have a [provision in proper law allowing for eremitical life. Thus, members who discovered a call to eremitical solitude late in life were required to leave their vows and be secularized in order to live as hermits. Bishop de Roo begged the Fathers at Vatican II to include the solitary eremitical life as a state of perfect in its work on the revision of religious life. Unfortunately, canon 603 did not come into existence until October of 1983. Respecting this history is also important in respecting the vocation canon 603 codifies. You are also correct that whatever the form of eremitical life it ordinarily requires seasoning in monastic or religious life first. Today eremitism is usually seen as a second half of life vocation so while a person seeking to be professed under canon 603 may never have been in religious life (possible but not optimal), they must have been successful at all the stages of adulthood young persons usually negotiate before being allowed to try solitude as a vocation and usually we find they have been through experiences which are associated with second half of life maturity (chronic illness, etc). We all ordinarily come to human wholeness in community and it truly is the rare vocation that comes to such wholeness in solitude. best, Sister Laurel M O'Neal, Er Dio Stillsong Hermitage Diocese of Oakland http://notefromstillsong.blogspot.com Edited December 20, 2012 by SRLAUREL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sister_Laurel Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 With all due respect, I really think you are engaging in a very public and futile argument. Maggie spelled it out quite well. With the new rule your main concern has been addressed. This so-called "religious order" cannot be promoted and confusing anyone on PM anymore. What is the purpose of continuing to engage in this one-sided "discussion"? I seriously doubt Gemma will be back to respond to your questions... as you probably well know. You know you will not be able to reason with her or get a straight answer, certainly not one that would satisfy. But with continuing on this way it does come off as just beating a dead horse and frankly a bit uncharitable. You got the desired result, no? So why continue to bemoan the subject further? I understand your frustration and desire to "set the record straight"... but it just is not going to happen. At least not from the mouth of Gemma and not the way you desire it to be. Contrary to what you are seeing, the discussion has, it seems to me, moved to more general but related topics having to do with eremitical life and the misuse of canon 603 among other things. Gemma's presence is not needed to discuss these although Cloisters Outreach might well be an example people could learn from as singularly disedifying. As for the record being set straight, Gemma has done that on her website. She is clear there that no part of CO is approved by her Bishop and that in fact, she has not even sought such approval. I would say she has ruled herself out of the conversation on that basis. Thus, I am not seeking her continued participation here and while I don't care for the way she continued her posting off-list while claiming to be too busy to post here, I am grateful she has finally been honest about the status of CO. SIncerely, Sister Laurel M O'Neal, Er Dio Stillsong Hermitage Diocese of Oakland http://notesfromstillsong.blogspot.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNJM Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 I find some of these posts unduly mean and confrontative in a very uncharitable spirit. I really believe that if someone has a question of a negative/accusatory nature, if should be handled privately. If public information has been given out that is wrong, the poster should be corrected and the post(s) deleted. This whole stream of posts is very disheartening and I am disappointed to read them here when I come here for links, information and good news. This has really degraded into something ugly. Gemma has been very open about her disabilities in the past and some of the questions/posts border on bullying. After what our country has just witnessed, I'm shocked there isn't more sensitivity to mental challenges. I hope this thread gets deleted. I don't care if a hermit nun is the one bullying or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatitude Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 Sister Laurel, I think it would be better to have a separate thread where you can answer questions about the vocation to hermit life, canon 603, and anything else related. That way it will be easy for people who have an interest in the eremitical call to find the information they need without having to sift through all this. I disagree with Nunsense that it is unclear what Cloister Outreach is - it's pretty obvious now that it is just a very elaborate fantasy on the part of Gemma, and one that she is not going to drop. Each question that you ask just produces another evasion or excuse, and I don't think it's going to be productive to continue down that line. The point is made now. SNJM, as I have said in another post, I am autistic too - and unlike Gemma, I could not be capable of being a mother or even of living fully independently, so I am perhaps more severely affected than she is. I still know that having autism is not an excuse for all your personal mistakes or for being untruthful, and in the past I have been a little irritated with the way that Gemma has used everything from ASD to broken eyeglasses to excuse herself when she has posted something that turned out to be untrue. If I am bluntly honest, then Gemma's evasions and vagueness in response to some of the questions about Cloister Outreach are actually a very non-autistic quality - autistic people tend to take questions very literally and to give literal answers (case in point: when I was a teenager I had to learn that when someone asked 'How are you?' they were looking for a generic 'I'm fine', and not 'I'm constipated'). The vagueness is the least of it. Things she has posted in the past can't possibly just be the result of 'miscommunications'. For example, she has written that the hermit canonist told her that she is a foundress simply because she feels inspired to create all these congregations - that she became a foundress as soon as she had the idea, in the same way that a woman becomes a mother at conception and not at birth. "This is the analogy that the hermit-canonist used." Those were Gemma's words. We now know that Sister Sheila never had anything to do with Cloister Outreach and she wasn't even prepared to discuss it with Gemma. She did not call Gemma a foundress. She did not use that analogy. And there is nothing about having autism that would cause you to hallucinate such a statement. I do agree that the charitable thing now would be to stop with the questions, as the idea of Cloister Outreach is obviously very important to Gemma and this must be painful for her, but letting it drop and talking about how she just 'didn't understand' the situation because of her autism are two different things. I actually found Maggie's post on this to be extremely patronising. Autistic people really do have undeniable difficulties with communication (I was so happy when self-service checkouts were invented at the supermarket, because now I can buy food myself without the worry that I will have to try and talk to someone) but this does not mean that we have no grasp of the distinction between fantasy and reality or that we can't lie or that we can't take personal responsibility for the stuff we do wrong. As for the Sandy Hook shootings, as yet there is no credible evidence that the shooter had an ASD diagnosis at all - it just seems fashionable to throw that label out there whenever something like this happens (as though people with ASD don't have enough problems without everyone stereotyping us as violent and disturbed). And comparing Sister Laurel's admittedly tough and direct questions to the kind of prejudice that people with 'mental challenges' face shows a lack of understanding of what it's actually like to be bullied on the basis of being different. I've been turned down for accommodation and jobs because of my disabilities, a good friend wasn't allowed to enrol on an art course because of her own ASD (the teacher said to her support worker in front of her, "I won't have any of them in this class"), both of us have been beaten up and then blamed for 'provoking' the bullies - the list goes on. I expect support and compassion from people when I'm in that situation. That is bullying. It is not bullying when people call me out for lying, or at least being very economical with the truth, and it is not compassion when people gush about how I only did those things because my 'special unique brain' just doesn't understand how the world works. So yes, I think we should let it drop. But let's also drop the well-meaning but very condescending and unhelpful attitudes to autism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lil'Nun Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 I have to agree with the posters here who find the continuation of this thread uncharitable. I doubt Gemma is going to come back and answer any further questions, I think it would be best to let this thread die/ lock it and start a new thread for questions on eremetical life. Should Gemma come back and promote or link to Cloisters Outreach or any projects and not provide evidence of Approval then the subject, obviously, should be revisited. I think it is fairly obvious that Gemma's lack of reponse here - where she does not control the responses - is enough for us to reach conclusions. Carrying the matter on and on is, I believe, redundant at best and at worse uncharitable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatherineM Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 For those who may be interested in experiencing this vocation to see if they are called to it, Madonna House has Poustinias at most of their field houses. Catherine Doughtery, their founder, was Russia and had a very eastern kind of spirituality. They have a mission to help people discern vocations especially to the priesthood. Before anyone asks, they are an approved lay apostolate approved by their Bishop in Pembroke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmaD2006 Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 For those who may be interested in experiencing this vocation to see if they are called to it, Madonna House has Poustinias at most of their field houses. Catherine Doughtery, their founder, was Russia and had a very eastern kind of spirituality. They have a mission to help people discern vocations especially to the priesthood. Before anyone asks, they are an approved lay apostolate approved by their Bishop in Pembroke. Yep. And Doughtery's book "Poustinia" is a gem. They've been around for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary's Margaret Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 From their very informative website: http://www.madonnahouse.org/about/index.html The Madonna House Apostolate is a family of Christian lay men, women, and priests, striving to incarnate the teachings of Jesus Christ by forming a community of love. We are a “Public Association of the Christian Faithful†within the Roman Catholic Church, under the bishop of the Diocese of Pembroke. Founded in 1947 by Catherine Doherty and her husband, Eddie Doherty, today the community has more than 200 lay men, women, and priests, dedicated to loving and serving Christ through promises of poverty, chastity, and obedience. (And, in addition to our staff priests, there are more than 125 associate priests, bishops and permanent deacons who strive to live the spirit of Madonna House in their home dioceses or wherever they are serving.) I've made poustinia at one of their field houses and have visited their main centre in Combermere Ontario several times. If you ever have the chance to do either, I highly recommend it. Everyone I've met has been most hospitable and easy to talk with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AccountDeleted Posted December 20, 2012 Share Posted December 20, 2012 For hermits who also want a little bit of community, the Hermits of Bethlehem in Chester, New Jersey, are a laura of consecrated hermits. The description from their website states: 'This ancient tradition is being restored through the canonical establishment of the Hermits of Bethlehem as a Laura of Consecrated Hermits of Diocesan Right, an eremetical contemplative group of Catholic men and women under the ecclesiastical authority of Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, Ordinary of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ' Their website is http://www.bethlehemhermits.org/ I lived with them for two months and found them welcoming and supportive. The come together for Mass each day and for Saturday Vespers. Those discerning the life also spend time together on Sunday afternoon for a study group and Recreation, under the guidance of the desert father, Father Romano. There are solitary, silent retreats available for a cost (a hermit cabin is made available plus food), but for those discerning life with the Hermits of Bethlehem, there is no charge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmaD2006 Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 For hermits who also want a little bit of community, the Hermits of Bethlehem in Chester, New Jersey, are a laura of consecrated hermits. The description from their website states: 'This ancient tradition is being restored through the canonical establishment of the Hermits of Bethlehem as a Laura of Consecrated Hermits of Diocesan Right, an eremetical contemplative group of Catholic men and women under the ecclesiastical authority of Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli, Ordinary of the Diocese of Paterson, NJ' Their website is http://www.bethlehemhermits.org/ I lived with them for two months and found them welcoming and supportive. The come together for Mass each day and for Saturday Vespers. Those discerning the life also spend time together on Sunday afternoon for a study group and Recreation, under the guidance of the desert father, Father Romano. There are solitary, silent retreats available for a cost (a hermit cabin is made available plus food), but for those discerning life with the Hermits of Bethlehem, there is no charge. I was just talking (yesterday) to a priest who knows these sisters. He highly recommends them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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