Ascetical Homilies

Does Fun Have a Place in a Hermit’s Life?
When recently asked whether fun has a place in a hermit’s life, I had an immediate negative reaction until I remembered the saying of monastic wisdom that if you keep a bow always taut, you will ruin it. If a hermit is always tense, he will ruin his health. This is part of the story about a visitor to the desert who found a famous anchorite talking to his pet parrot and was scandalized that he took the time for such frivolous recreation. The famous monk then told his visitor about the taut bow. Yes, we do need some recreation in our lives even though we are trying to live a hermit life. Carthusians have a weekly hike in the woods with conversation and a Sunday afternoon recreation for conversation. We need time for conversation with others, perhaps around a daily or weekly meal. I have only one meal per day at noon, but I take it with the other retired priests and brothers who live with me in this retirement residence of my order. I look forward to eating and sharing with them in conversation. It refreshes me and renews my spirit, for I spend the rest of my day in solitude. It is also a time for me to love Christ in others. We also need some physical exercise, so I take a daily twenty-minute walk by myself—in all seasons—around our beautiful grounds. Other than that, though, to be perfectly honest, I avoid recreation and worldly fun for the sake of the joy and peace of Christ that I find when I purify my heart and senses from worldly distractions and pleasures such as Television, movies, radio, secular music, DVD’s, videos, novels, and the delicacies of the table. I eat only plain food without meat, seasoning, or oil, without sauces, nothing fried, and nothing made of white flour, white rice, sugar, or artificial sweeteners. Except for meat, these are mostly things designed primarily to give pleasure, with little or no nutritional value. In fact, they are usually harmful to your health, for the most nutritious part is removed to give greater pleasure at the expense of nourishment (e.g. white bread, white rice, cakes, cookies, etc.). It is my belief that by thus reducing unnecessary pleasure, we are able to have a more undivided heart in our love of God, and thus come to experience him more profoundly in the great peace and joy he gives. To me, it is foolish to jeopardize this greater peace and joy of spirit—the reason for which I am trying to live a hermit life—by pursuing worldly fun. To the degree that we can sacrifice worldly pleasure, to that degree we are normally more able to enter into the deep spiritual joy and peace of Christ with an undivided heart and love him with all our heart, which is Jesus’s first commandment (Mark 12:30). Thus we have to lose our life in a worldly sense in order to save it in a deeper spiritual sense (Mark 8:35; John 12:25). We must renounce the things of the world to obtain the buried treasure and the pearl of great price (Matt. 13:44-46). We are to serve but one master only, not God and mammon (Matt. 6:24), and we are to have only one treasure (Matt. 6:19-21). We are to be crucified with Christ to the world (Gal. 6:14), and this means to be crucified to a life of worldly pleasure. Since we have been raised with Christ, we are to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, not the things of the earth (Col 3:1-2). We are not to be like the rich surrounded by their pleasures, whom Jesus curses as already having received their reward. “Woe to you that are rich, for you have already received your reward” (Luke 6:24). Those who live surrounded by pleasures are like the seeds that “fell among the thorns. They are those who hear, but … they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature” (Luke 8:14). Instead of the broad and easy path of the many that leads to destruction, we are to take the narrow and difficult path of life (Matt. 7:13-14).

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