a hermit for Christ
living in silence
and solitude
praying | studying | helping others
Based on traditionally well-described and verifiable mystical developments, and only after approximately ten years of intensive spiritual guidance and fact-checking by my spiritual director (a priest), I can help you with finding practical and convincing:
- answers and solutions to your Christian questions and struggles
- ways to deepen your daily prayer life through meditation and contemplation
- methods to get rid of (self-empty from) ego driven habits plus the worldly attachments and anxieties that are often both the causes and consequences of those habits.
If you’d like to read some experiences others have had with me, then you can find those on the comments & commentary page.
You might call me a hermit, a monk, or a fool. You might call me anything in between. I don’t really mind. Fact is that since I was fourteen years old - first unknowingly and later deliberately - I’ve lived my life in the mould of St. Anthony the Hermit: in watchfulness deliberately challenging myself, in stillness regularly retreating into uninviting circumstances and/or places, combined with an intensive prayer practice that is primarily focused on spiritual growth through meditation, contemplation, and self-emptying.
Though I’m trying to live a life of solitude, feel free to reach out to me for help on the topics mentioned above. Either I can help you by email or by phone, or - if necessary - you can come to where I am for as long as is fruitful (normally anywhere between a minimum of three days and a maximum of six weeks). And if you want to live this life fulltime like I do, well… then let’s discern together the possibilities step by careful step.
I will never oblige you to do anything, which also means I will never assume responsibility for your spiritual nor for your personal growth. God (+) gave you a free will, which means He (+) gave you a personal responsibility for yourself and for what you do with your life. What I can and will do for you is answer your questions, provide you with guidance, give you advice, examples, prayer techniques for fruitful meditation and contemplation, and share my own experiences with you whenever I think that might be of benefit to you. But ultimately, what you do with all that is up to you.
In other words: I will not be your guru, and I will never ask you to obey. As already many older and more modern Desert Fathers have rightly foreseen: those days are over.
And in case you are protestant or from any other Christian denomination, then rest assured that I will never demand from you that you must become a Roman Catholic, provided you do believe in the one and only triune God (+) and in the Apostles’ Creed.
Just as when you get your first job or when you become a parent for the first time: new responsibilities come with new, and usually higher, expectations. The same happens when you become a priest, monk, nun, or hermit. And we all know that those higher expectations sometimes prove to be too difficult to meet. Because we all do our best, but sometimes we fail nonetheless. All we can do is get up, and try again. Slowly but surely becoming better at what we do.
However: for Christians - and even more so for cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, hermits, and so-called fools for Christ - it's especially important to be open and accountable about their behaviour in general, and about their failures in particular. Why? Because our behaviour is intrinsically and intricately part of who we are, of what we believe, and of the example we are called to live.
"However: for Christians - and even more so for cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, nuns, hermits, and so-called fools for Christ - it's especially important to be open and accountable about their behaviour in general, and about their failures in particular. Why? because our behaviour is intrinsically and intricately part of who we are, of what we believe, and of the example we are called to live"
The pope Gregorius the First (540 - 604 AD) phrased this best when he pointed out that if someone’s way of life is despised, his or her faith will be too. Unfortunately, that is a lesson that needs to be learned and relearned again and again, both in every generation and in every individual life. My life is certainly no exception to that rule, and perhaps neither is your life.
Therefore I will always appreciate to receive your feedback and critique. Especially - in the spirit of psalm 141:5 - when it is critical or even downright negative. For your honest feedback will help me become a better person, it will help me grow as a hermit, and it will enable me to apologise and make amends to you whenever you may have felt offended because of me.
May God (+) remain close to us.
Your brother-in-Christ,
bartholomew.
In keeping with God’s (+) command and in line with the tradition of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, all my religious help is given away for free. This means that I’d prefer not to receive any financial nor material donations, lest this should later be cause for giving or taking offence. For instance people thinking, saying, or feeling: "We have supported bartholomew, and look now how he is spending our gratitude”.
Instead, you will help me most:
- by giving your prayerful thanks to God (+)
- by being kind to others too in your words, attitude, and actions
- and by including me in your prayers, by asking our Heavenly Father (+) that my life may finally become fruitful in His (+) eyes