Hermits seek the absolute will of God. Not perpetuating their own religion but, the renunciation of self for perfect union with God. 

 Hermits, anchorites and solitaries have always been part of the universal church.

In recent years the movement of the Holy Spirit has called forth the anchoritic vocation once again.

The vocation may seem strange in todays world, but anchorites follow in the footsteps of many thousands of

people who thoughout the centuries have spent their lives in prayer for the Church and the entire world. Thousands

of men and women lived their lives in the desert of Egypt, Palestine and Syria as anchorites and hermits. This was

the beginning of the vowed religious life in the Christian Church that branched into both a communal and solitary

expression of that life.

"The solitary life is full of paradoxes, the solitary is at peace, but not as the world understands peace, happy but not in the worldly sense of a good time, going but unsure of the way, not knowing the way but arriving, arriving but likewise departing. The solitary possess all riches but of emptiness, embracing interior poverty but not of any possession. The solitary has so many riches he cannot see God, so close to God that there is no perspective or object, so swallowed up in God that there is nothing left to see."

"There have always been solitaries who, by virtue of a special purity, and simplicity of heart, have been destined from their earliest youth to an eremitical and contemplative life, in some official form." 

"His solitude is neither an argument, an accusation, a reproach or a sermon. It is simply life itself. It is...it not only does not attract attention, or desire it, but remains, for the most part, completely invisible."

"Do not flee to solitude from the community, find God first in community then He will lead you to solitude." 

"The great work of the solitary life is gratitude. The hermit is one who knows the mercy of God better than others because one's whole life is one of complete dependence, in silence and in hope upon the hidden mercy of our heavenly Father."

The decision to accept God's call to monastic life is not an easy one. God will not call us on the telephone or send us an email. God will communicate in subtle ways. His message will come through the movement of the heart and mind. Seek truth and wise counsel from those you respect. Hermitic life is a gift, not given to all.

With all that said, their is a certain foolishness that a choice of hermitic life entails. It lacks a certain wisdom in the world. Even from other good Christians their may never be complete understanding from others, making it difficult. No need to quote the gospel or common wisdom to know small towns have no place for a prophet, especially one of their own. If it is your call to life as a hermit, it is your call.

The traditional Liturgy of The Hours, Book of Hours etc..., form the foundation for the vowed life for the solitary. 
The temporal aspects of the Opus Dei has acommunal aspect for the solitary. When praying one is aware of the fact that he or she is joining with other Religious worldwide who do the same thing each and every day. The spiritual communion of members of the Body are reinforced.

The solitary is a visible icon which says to the church and to the world their is another way. The solitary stands just outside the conventional structure of the Church, both praying for the Church and calling it to be what it is-the Body of Christ.

The solitary life is intense and must be tempered by a wholesome activity that re-creates one's spirit. The ability to express joy is just as important as the ability to experience sadness. Laughter is often just as healing as tears.

• What attracts me to hermitic life ?
• What part does service or ministry hold in my present ste of life ?
• What personal gifts or skills do I offer ?
• What is my potential for financial independence ?
• How will the values of conversion,poverty, penance and solitude be integrated into my present lifestyle ?
• Am I recognized as being approachable ?
• Do I enjoy life, people and have a sense of humor ?
• Am I able to form and maintain healthy relationships ?
• Am I free of addictions ?
  
  

• devotion to the praise of God and the salvation of the world
• strict seperation from the world
• silence
• solitude
• assiduous prayer and penance
• chastity and consecrated celibacy

The snake represents a poisoned cup given to Benedict at Sicarro.
The cup shattered after he blessed it with the sign of the cross.

At the suggestion of Romanus, Benedict lived as a hermit. During the three years as a hermit his  solitude was broken only by occasional communication with the outside world and by the visits of Romanus. Benedict was acquainted with the life and discipline of the monastery, and knew that their manners were diverse from his and therefore that they would never agree together: yet, at length, overcome with their entreaty, he gave his consent. Many were drawn by his sanctity and character and came to Subiaco to be under his guidance. The experiment failed. The monks tried to poison him, and he returned to his cave at Subiaco.
St. Benedicts Rule www.osb.org/gen/rule.html  for Monasteries later brought order to cenobitic life and the world.


Chapter 1 - The Rule of Benedict

The second kind of monk are the Anchorites or Hermits:
those who, no longer in the first fervor of their reformation,
but after long probation in a monastery, having learned by the help of many brethren how to fight against the devil,
go out well armed from the ranks of the community to the solitary combat of the desert.
They are able now, with no help save from God, to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh
and their own evil thoughts.

Our Fathers the Anchorites
http://anchorites.tripod.com/copticanchorites/id9.html 

History of Monastic Spirituality
http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/history_monastic_spirituality_l_bresard.htm#_Toc74188597

Hermits and Anchorites of England-http://www.archive.org/stream/hermitsanchorite00clayuoft/hermitsanchorite00clayuoft_djvu.txt 

 The Art of Silence and Being 
http://benedictinesofheartsonghermitage.org/about_1.html

Desert Hermits
http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~dvess/ids/medieval/desert.html

Hermits Within Church Structure
http://uk.geocities.com/deo_auxiliante@btinternet.com/churchchart.html

Hermits and Solitaries
http://www.novopix.com/Texts/hermit_text.html

What is Monasticism?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10459a.htm

Monasticism in the Orthodox Church 
www.goarch.org/print/en/ourfaith/article7103.asp

Silence: The Still Small Voice of God
http://andrewmarr.homestead.com/files/silence.htm

Religious Vows
http://benedictinesofheartsonghermitage.org/whats_new_1.html

Aelred of Rievaulx's Rule for a Solitary
http://hermitary.com/articles/aelred.html

The Liturgy of the Hours Explained
http://liturgyhours.blogspot.com/ 

Raven's Bread - Food For Those In Solitude
www.op.org/ravensbread/   

Eco-Hermit
http://www.users.on.net/~arachne/hermit.html

Hermits Explained
<a href="http://hermit.totallyexplained.com">Hermit</a>

Word from the Desert
http://wordfromthedesert.squarespace.com/

www.Solitaries.org.uk/

The Life of an Anchorite
http://www.willinghamchurch.org/Lander/Lander.htm

Anchorite http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchorite  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01462b.htm

Hermit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermit 

Ascetic - One who dedicates every aspect of his/her life to contemplation and union with God. The ascetic often lives in austere conditions of self denial, prayer, and fasting. 

Monk - From the Greek monos, meaning one or solitary, a man or woman living in a monastery.

Apatheia - An intense purity of passion directed toward God
 

Anchorite - contemporary definition.
A Christian person living in strictest physical seperation from secular society in pursuit of a a purer form of religious observance. No longer anchored to the physical church structure.

HERMITS

(<Eremites>, "inhabitants of a desert",  from the Greek <eremos>), also called
anchorites, were men who fled the society of their fellow-men to dwell alone in
retirement.  Not all of them, however, sought so complete a solitude as to avoid
absolutely any intercourse with their fellow-men. Some took a companion with them,
generally a disciple; others remained close to inhabited places, from which they
procured their food.  This kind of religious life preceded the community life of the
cenobites.  Elias is considered the precursor of the hermits in the Old Testament.  St.
John the Baptist lived like them in the desert.  Christ, too, led this kind of life when he
retired into the mountains.  But the eremitic life proper really begins only in the time of
the persecutions.  The first known example is that of St. Paul, whose biography was
written by St. Jerome.  He began about the year 250.  There were others in Egypt; St.
Athanasius, who speaks of them in his life of St. Anthony, does not mention their
names.  Nor were they the only ones.  These first solitaries, few in number, selected this
mode of living on their own initiative.  It was St. Anthony who brought this kind of life
into vogue at the beginning of the fourth century.  After the persecutions the number of
hermits increased greatly in Egypt, then in Palestine, then in the Sinaitic peninsula,
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Asia Minor.  Cenobitic communities sprang up among them,
but did not become so important as to extinguish the eremitic life.  They continued to
flourish in the Egyptian deserts, not to speak of other localities.  Discussions arose in
Egypt as to the respective merits of the cenobitic and the eremitic style of life.  Which
was the better?  Cassian, who voices the common opinion, believed that the cenobitic
life offered more advantages and less inconveniences than the eremitic life.  The Syrian
hermits, in addition to their solitude, were accustomed to subject themselves to great
bodily austerities.  Some passed years on the top of a pillar (stylites); others condemned
themselves to remain standing, in open air (stationaries); others shut themselves up in a
cell so that they could not come out (recluses).

         Not all these hermits were models of piety.  History points out many abuses
among them; but, considering everything, they remain one of the noblest examples of
heroic asceticism the world has ever seen.  Very many of them were saints.  Doctors of
the Church, like St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome,
belonged to their number; and we might also mention Sts. Epiphanius, Ephraem,
Hilarion, Nilus, Isidore of Pelusium.  We have no rule giving an account of their mode
of life, though we may form an idea of it from their biographies, which are to be found
in Palladius, "Historia Lausiaca", P. L., XXXIV, 901-1262; Rufinus, "Historia
Monachorum", P. L., XXI, 387-461; Cassian, "Collationes Patrum; De Institutis
coenobitarum", P. L., IV; Theodoret, "Historia religiosa", P. G., LXXXII, 1279-1497; and
also in the "Verba Seniorum", P. L., LXXIV, 381-843, and the "Apophthegmata Patrum",
P. G., LXV, 71-442.

         The eremitic life spread to the West in the fourth century, and flourished
especially in the next two centuries, that is to say, till experience had shown by its
results the advantages of the cenobitic organization.  St. Gregory the Great, in his
"Dialogues", gives an account of the best-known solitaries of central Italy (P. L.,
LXXVII, 149-430). St. Gregory of Tours does the same for a part of France (Vitae
Patrum), P. L. LXXI, 1009-97).  Oftentimes those who helped most to spread the
cenobitic ideal were originally solitaries themselves, for instance, St. Severinus of
Norica and St. Benedict of Nursia. Monasteries frequently, though by no means always,
sprang from the cell of a hermit, who drew a band of disciples around him.  From the
beginning of the seventh century, we meet with instances of monks who at intervals led
an eremitic life. As an example we may cite St. Columbanus, St. Riquier, and St.
Germer.  Some monasteries had isolated cells close by, where those religious who were
judged capable of living in solitude might retire.  Such was especially the case at the
monastery of Cassiodorus, at Viviers in Calabria, and the Abbey of Fontenelles, in the
Diocese of Rouen.  Those who felt the want of solitude were advised to reside near an
oratory or a monastic church. The councils and the monastic rules did not encourage
those who were desirous of leading an eremitic life.

         The widespread relaxation of monastic discipline drove St. Odo, the great apostle
of reform in the sixth century, into the solitude of the forest.  The religious fervour of
the succeeding age produced many hermits. But to guard against the serious dangers of
this kind of life, monastic institutes were founded that combined the advantages of
solitude with the guidance of a superior and the protection of a rule.  Thus, for
example, we had the Carthusians and the Camaldolese at Vallombrosa and Monte
Vergine. Nevertheless there still continued to be a large number of isolated hermits,
and an attempt was made to form them into congregations having a fixed rule and a
responsible superior.  Italy especially was the home of these congregations at the
beginning of the thirteenth century.  Some drew up an entirely new rule for themselves;
others adapted the Rule of St. Benedict to meet their wants; while others again
preferred to base their rule on that of St. Augustine.  Pope Alexander IV united the last
into one order, under the name of the Hermits of St. Augustine (1256).  Three
congregations of hermits were called after St. Paul, one formed in 1250 in Hungary,
another in Portugal, founded by Mendo Gomez de Simbria, who died in 1481, and the
third in France, established by Guillaume Callier (1620); these last hermits were known
also by the name of the Brothers of Death. Eugene IV formed into a congregation, to be
called after St. Ambrose, the hermits who dwelt in a forest near Milan (1441).  We may
mention also the Brothers of the Apostle (1484), the Colorites (1530), the Hermits of
Monte Senario (1593), and those of Monte Luco, who were in Italy; those of Mont-
Voiron, whose constitutions were drawn up by St. Francis de Sales; those of St-Sever, in
Normandy, founded by Guillaume, who had previously been a Camaldolese; those of
St. John the Baptist, in Navarre, approved by Gregory XIII; the hermits of the same
name, founded in France by Michel by Michel de Sainte-Sabine (1630); those of Mont-
Valérien, near Paris (seventeenth century); those of Bavaria, established in the
Diocese of Ratisbon (1769).  The Venerable Joseph Cottolengo founded a congregation
of hermits in Lombardy in the middle of the nineteenth century.  Some Benedictine
monasteries had hermitages depending on them.  Thus we have the case of St. William
of the Desert (1330) and the hermits of Our Lady of Montserrat, in Spain.  The latter
were well known from the sixteenth century, from their connexion with García
de Cisneris. They disappeared in the eighteenth century. At the present time there
exists a body of hermits on a mountain near Cordova.

         We see, therefore, that the Church has always been anxious to form the hermits
into communities.  Nevertheless, many preferred their independence and their
solitude.  They were numerous in Italy, Spain, France, and Flanders in the seventeenth
century.  Benedict XIII and Urban VIII took measures to prevent the abuses likely to
arise from too great independence.  Since then the eremitic life has been gradually
abandoned, and the attempts made to revive it in the last century have had no success.
(See AUGUSTINE, RULE OF SAINT; CAMALDOLESE; CARMELITE ORDER;
CARTHUSIAN ORDER; HIERONYMITES; also under GREEK CHURCH, Vol. VI, p.
761.)

J. M. BESSE

Transcribed by Janet Grayson
 

 

The return to the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit is the goal of all Christian spirituality. It is to be open to the presence of the Kingdom in our midst.