Many Trappists, I think, noting the manner in which St. Benedict in his Rule seems to accord higher status to the eremetical life, begin to get the itch for the solitary life. There can be but little doubt that living in common with others requires a great deal of virtue, even with a rule of silence. One is almost always within sight or sound of others and can stand in line for years next to the same two people. Little singularities that would not be particularly noticeable in the outside world tend to be magnified out of all proportion in such an ambience of continual and close proximity to others. The manner in which Brother Joseph constantly sucks his teeth, or the irritating stomach rumblings of Brother Amadeus start to drive one crazy. If a brother begins paying attention to these quirks, in no time at all he will start climbing the walls. This is one of the reasons why all singularities are frowned upon—such could easily cause strife and contention. Yet it is impossible to root out such human qualities entirely; each person is different, but ideally it should only be apparent, if at all, in his reflection of, or devotion to, the different facets of angelic qualities or virtues, such as Brother Jude’s devotion to poverty, or Father Felix’s special insight into obedience. The first reflects Christ’s detachment from material things, and the second his detachment from his own will.

It is natural, then, for a person as dedicated to heavenly things as a Trappist monk to desire even greater solitude in order to heighten his contemplative view of things. The Catholic Church has even given her blessing to these rare vocations through several Papal encyclicals praising the contemplative life as the highest form of the spiritual quest for God, especially as practiced by the Cistercian (Trappist) and the Carthusian monks.

Man’s quest for the One True God through solitude has its roots in antiquity: from Elijah's station on Mount Carmel and the monks of Qumran, to the hermits of the Egyptian desert, down to the present modern quest for answers to the eternal question in Eastern non-Christian religions. Man can only return to his Maker (short of dying—and by then it might be too late) by the solitary search into the depths of his own soul. There have always been people who have found that life is such a mystery, that having arrived on earth through no will of their own, they must begin at birth a journey down a path of which the destination is unknown, but which destination must be good, since most of life is good. Therefore, unwilling to trust their futures to chance, they make an in-depth study of this great mystery and seek to ensure that the end will also be good. There is no subject of such over-riding importance, and an answer to it must be sought. Or, should man ride with the tide of chaos, to be tossed and turned about like a twig in the ocean? Monks, then are just ordinary folks who take such questions seriously and to heart, and who are not content to waste their lives in the pursuit of money, position, or power, and who regard each of these as a vain quest for the mere temporal things in lieu of the Eternal Good. Even if there were no Eternal Good, they have done better and more nobly by seeking the One Thing necessary, than those who have not sought the answer at all. Man does not seek God, Father Felix used to say, so much as God seeks man. Such is the key to the eremitical life: it is an exercise in patience in order to apprehend God. If one withdraws into a hermitage for any other reason, it is escapism and the basest form of self-love. Solitude for the sake of solitude is only a vile sort of misanthropy and narcissism. The true solitary is one who watches and waits upon God as an obedient servant, ready to perform His every command, anxious to do his bidding. But His commands will generally come to the hermit through other people, so it is necessary to learn the difference between good and evil as it is expounded in Scripture, or more succinctly extrapolated by St. Benedict’s seventy-two Instruments of Good Works, for those who would prefer it in a nutshell. Indeed, unless a person has stamped indelibly upon his soul these rules and unless he has been tested in all of them, he is scarcely able to distinguish between his own good and evil thoughts, much less those which come from the exterior.

The life of a hermit is not nearly so confining as that of an anchorite. Hermits can leave their cells when necessary, but anchorites were usually voluntary recluses in their anchorholds until death. In fact, up until about the 16th century, the Church had a special rite for the Enclosing of Anchorites which was read by the bishop in front of the congregation with solemn prayers and rubrics. Following a special Mass, the anchorhold was blessed, the candidate was clothed in a habit, and was led by the bishop into his new dwelling. This was usually attached to a church, leaving a small opening so that the anchorite could receive food and the sacrament. Then the doorway was sealed up with brick and mortar. Another small opening allowed him to communicate without leaving his cell.

Because of the many dangers inherent in this sort of life, and, perhaps, because of abuses, the Church no longer permits the enclosing of anchorites. Hermits, on the other hand, abound within certain monastic orders, most usually the contemplative orders. This frequently happens in the women’s major orders of nuns. Carthusian and Carmelite nuns are hermits who spend the greater part of their religious lives enclosed in their cells and come together, generally, only in the refectory, in church for the chanting of the Divine Office, for Mass, and for some, during the daily hour of recreation.

In a hermitage, life is slowed down very perceptibly, even as life in a monastery is contrasted to life in the outside world. The sameness, the drabness, the solitude and the rule which he lives by, all combine to make events seem to happen in slow motion before the eyes, which gives a person a certain edge to his reaction to events, which naturally occur more slowly and further apart in time, allowing for preparation for these events beforehand. As silence surrounds him, he suddenly becomes extremely aware of himself; the clamor of his thoughts seem to scream and chatter like so many monkeys disturbed in a forest full of trees. He begins to realize that he has been (so to speak) the sole sane inmate in a lunatic asylum, which is the outside world. He becomes conscious that he has no control over the thoughts that are bombarding his imagination or memory, and that if he is going to avoid becoming a raving madman, he must take charge of these thoughts himself. He learns precisely the difference between a saint and a schizophrenic; the latter is a victim of his own thoughts which dominate him, and he reacts to them regardless of how irrational they are. But the saint brings his mind gently back to thoughts of God and of Holy Scripture. He does this very gently and repeatedly until it becomes such an ingrained habit that it becomes a part of his nature. Bad habits are replaced with good habits. With the passage of time he forgets the past (or at least does not dwell on it), and he learns never to look toward the future, which is in the hands of the God. Because he has learned to live only in the present moment, he plans his work and tries to do it in the most perfect manner possible, considering it his divinely appointed mission of the moment, no matter how lowly. After all, action is but the product of thought, and if his actions are not good and holy, then how can his thoughts be dwelling upon God?

The Trappist Order tended to be fiercely cenobitical, especially, during the pre-Vatican II days in Pecos of which we write. Their devotion to the Holy Rule almost precluded the idea of allowing any monk the privilege (and singularity) of occupying a hermitage. It is true that Father Maurice had his own little cell next to the kitchen, but he was old and infirm and the abbot allowed him certain indulgences—even so, not without an almost visible reluctance. So, as sort of a defense mechanism and for fear of disrupting their way of life, the Trappists in Pecos of that era were pretty much against having any of their monks become hermits. After all, there was a rule of silence, and that should be sufficient solitude. And who would there be to do the farm work and the milking? That was indeed the correct attitude, at least for them. Trappists would not be Trappists if they surrendered the common life.

Still, there was the evidence of St. Benedict’s own life as a hermit, and the fact that in his own Rule he pays tribute to hermits, though in a backhanded sort of way. Also, it was about this time that Thomas Merton, a Trappist of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, came out with another book, The Waters of Siloe, a popular history and apologia of western monasticism, in which he wrote not only about Trappists, but of the Carthusians, and of the latter’s new foundation in Vermont. The book was well-received in the monastery and, as I recall, practically everybody read it. In it Merton jumped to some wrong conclusions about the Carthusians, as I was to find out later in the Vermont Carthusian foundation and the Charterhouse of Miraflores in Spain: namely, that they were fond of the Rule of Saint Benedict, and that a person should serve a cenobitic life before attempting the eremitical. But, then Merton, who was at Gethsemane, had never had the opportunity to properly research the book by visiting them. In any case, his errors were minor, and I’m sure that the book broadened the horizons of a few of us in the Trappists. It gave me, at least (at that time still sculpting away in my little cabin workshop), a brand new view of the Carthusians, of whom I had known practically nothing up until that time. The idea of becoming a hermit had been in the back of my mind before I even entered the Trappists.

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