✙ my place within the church
According to the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life (see its book:"The Hermit's Way of Life in the Local Church - guidelines”) there are three main ways of life available for a Roman Catholic hermit. In chronological order of their inception, these three ways are:
- (from the very beginning of Christianity) as a traditional solitary hermit - outside of society
- (since the 4th century AD) as a cenobitic hermit - as part of a group of monks
- (after Vatican II, since 1965) as a modern hermit - as part of a diocese
finding my place...
Given both the traditional requirements to be safely admitted to the hermit life and the various grades of seclusion and solitude that are recommendable - both per personality type and per stage of development - I've started out rigorously testing myself before and during the first few years of my hermit life. In these years I've also established - and as far as possible objectively substantiated with the help of my spiritual director (priest) - in an official Ratio Vivendi* my current stage of development on the hermit path as described by the Desert Fathers.
Against that background I've then evaluated the three options mentioned above on their individual merits and their pros and cons for what lies ahead.
On this basis, as laid out in my official Ratio Vivendi*, confirmed in prayer, and accepted by my spiritual director, the way of the traditional solitary hermit following in the ways and life of the Desert Fathers - living as much as possible outside society and outside the formal clerical hierarchy and power structures - has become my path as a hermit.
(* a hermit’s Ratio Vivendi is an official written document stating the hermit's life plan. It contains i.a. the hermit’s past, his (or her) calling, the discernment process that followed, and the hermit’s proposed way of life).