A Lenten Diary
John Michael Talbot

Peace and Good in Christ!

Lent this year has been very special for me. It is a wonderful time in cell at the Hermitage between two legs of the Monk Rock Tours, so has been a time of personal and community renewal for me.

Annual Visitation

Specifically, we enjoyed our annual Visitation with Abbot Jerome Kodell, OSB of Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas representing Bishop Peter Sartain for the Diocese of Little Rock. This is always a wonderful time when Christ Himself visits us in the person of the bishop through his delegate. The Visitator is normally a monastic monk or Franciscan friar who has experience as a major superior, or is either an abbot of a monastery in the Benedictine tradition, or provincial of a region, called a "province," in the Franciscan tradition.

Monastic Work and Donations

This year the Visitation went very well. It is a time to do an "annual checkup" on the basics of our life as Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage. This year we are deliberating about additional forms of monastic work to support ourselves if, and when, I am called into a time of greater solitude in cell. We are also exploring the need for major donors to help us with the growing need for repairs and renovation of some of our monastic buildings. We also processed some normal community personnel transitions. All in all we got a most positive and helpful report.

Socio-Eremitical

Personally, I have been rereading the Statutes and Constitutions of the Carthusian and Camaldolese hermits, as well as a wonderful resource book on Blessed Paul Giustiniani, a 16th century reformer of the Camaldolese Congregation, and founder of the Monte Corona branch, or "The Company of Hermits of St. Romuald." With St. Romuald in the 10th and 11th centuries, the Camaldolese were the first radical restorers of the more pure semi-eremitical monastic deal of the desert in the West. St. Bruno came not long after with the Carthusians. Later the Carmelites, St. Francis, the Augustinians, and the Third Orders of the latter two, would freely adapt the semi-eremitical way of life to their communities.

The genius of these expressions is a healthy integrated balance between the solitude of the hermit and the support of the community. St. Romuald also instituted what is called, "the threefold good," of community, hermitage, and mission. This paved the way for such as St. Francis to integrate the hermitage with itinerant ministry of the poor Christ.

This prayerful study has immersed me into the waters of grace of our socio-eremitical charism as Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage. We began here some 25 years ago as a Franciscan Hermitage, letting newcomers go straight into the hermitage. We soon discovered that their lack of training in strict cenobitical monastic life destined them to fail in the hermitage. Our reform in 1987 led us to rectify this mistake, to start our own autonomous community, and more intentionally expand the integrations of the community to include other traditions and states of life as well, though always with a great love for the Franciscans, and things Franciscan.

Today we live an integrated monastic life that begins with a more communal, or cenobitical emphasis, in order to insure that the responsibilities of love relationships in Christ are nor shirked in the name of solitude.

After being trained in a rather rigorous cenobitical life greater times of solitude become possible in what we prefer to call the "socio-eremitical" life. This involves greater time in cell, but with the support and direction of obedience within a community, though participation in the monastic offices in the church, and some community work, and spiritual direction from the spiritual father or mother.

Lastly, times of even greater reclusion where the obligation of community prayer in church is lessened, as is community work, and one does these ancient practices in the solitude of one's own cell. The classical pattern of reclusion is that one participate with community on Sundays and major Feast and Holy Days, and remain in cell the remainder of the time.

Of course, from the beginning I went out on itinerant music and teaching ministry based on the patterns of St. Francis and St. Romuald, and the community operates a Retreat and Training Center, the Little Flower Clinic for the Poor, Troubadour ForThe Lord, Our Lady of the Angels Mission in Nicaragua, and a subsistence organic farm.

Not all monastic members are called beyond the cenobitical community life, or even the socio-eremitical way. This is true especially of our family monastic expression, most especially those families with children. That is OK. The beauty of our way of life is that it has a place for each expression of our call. However, the community retains a charism that is aimed at making the socio-eremitical way and reclusion possible for those so called through discernment with community.

All of this is pointless if it fails to bring us closer to Jesus, and enable us to really let go of our old self so that selfless love can reign in our daily life. Lent is the most intense liturgical season for this. I pray that we Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage enter into this grace in this holy season. Our integrated monastic life has provided us with the environment for this spiritual journey. Now it is up to us to cooperate with the grace of God and walk this saving path in Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit back to the full loving embrace of God the Father.

This also has application to our precious domestic members, and our dear lay friends who are called to live in the secular world. Jesus says that we must be in the world, but not of it. We must also find the healthy integrations and balances of the rhythms of the Spirit in our life. The balance of the cenobitical, eremitical, and ministry life from these ancient monastic traditions encourage us to find a similar balance in our own spiritual life that is appropriate to our state of life. We all need formation on the community of the Church universal, our local parish, and communities or ministries like the Brothers and Sisters of Charity Domestic expression. We also need appropriate and regular times of silence and solitude to recharge our spiritual batteries, and we need outlets to overflow in the love of Jesus for our neighbor through legitimate ministries, clerical or lay. When we do not find the balance we either stagnate or burnout. When we find this Christ-like balance we become instruments of the love, joy, and peace of God for everyone in our life.

In Jesus,
John Michael Talbot
Founder, Spiritual Father and General Minister
The Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage