In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you! Good morning to you all, and welcome!

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for being here. This meeting offers us the opportunity to reflect on the vocation of the hermit life in the Church and in today’s world.

I would like to begin with a word that the Lord said to the Samaritan woman, which we read in the Gospel of John: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him” (Jn 4:23). Yes, the Father seeks and calls, in every age, men and women to worship him in the light of his Spirit and in the truth revealed by his only-begotten Son. He calls women and men to devote themselves entirely to him, to seek him and listen to him, to praise him and invoke him, day and night, in the secrecy of their hearts. “When you pray”, says Jesus, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Mt 6:6). First of all, the Lord calls us to enter this hidden place of the heart, patiently delving into it; he invites us to make an inner immersion that demands a journey of emptying and divesting ourselves. Once we have entered, he asks us to close the door to bad thoughts in order to safeguard a pure, humble and meek heart, through vigilance and spiritual combat. Only then can we abandon ourselves with confidence to intimate dialogue with the Father, who dwells and sees in secret, and in secret fills us with his gifts.

You, as hermits, are called to live this vocation to worship and inner prayer, proper to every believer, in an exemplary way, in order to be witnesses in the Church to the beauty of the contemplative life. It is not an escape from the world, but a regeneration of the heart, so that it may be capable of listening, a source of the creative and fruitful action of the charity that God inspires in us. This call to interiority and silence, to live in contact with oneself, with one's neighbour, with creation and with God, is needed today more than ever, in a world increasingly alienated by the media and technology. From intimate friendship with the Lord, in fact, the joy of living, the wonder of faith and the taste for ecclesial communion are reborn.

Your distance from the world does not separate you from others, but unites you in a deeper solidarity. Evagrio Pontico writes: “A monk is one who, separated from all, is united to all” (Treatise on Prayer, 124), because prayerful solitude generates communion and compassion for all humankind and for every creature, both in the dimension of the Spirit and in the ecclesial and social context in which you are placed as leaven of divine life.

The diocesan hermit “is a figure in open relationship with the ecclesial body and the body of history”  [1]. Your simple presence and your prayerful witness, through communion with the bishop and fraternal relationship with parish priests, become precious and fruitful, as they increase the “spiritual breath” of the Christian community. This is especially true in the inland areas of the country, rural contexts where priests and religious are becoming increasingly rare and parishes are impoverished of opportunities. Even in anonymous and complex urban contexts, marked by a bad kind of loneliness, hermit presences are oases of communion with God and with our brothers and sisters.

While you remain faithful to the legacy handed down by the Fathers of the Church in safeguarding the Word, through the lectio divina and the service of prayer and intercession with the prayer of the Psalms, you are at the same time called to interpret the new spiritual challenges with the creativity of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the Paraclete who opens you to dialogue with all seekers of meaning and truth, educating you in sharing and guiding their spiritual quest, often confused. All of you can encourage others to return to themselves, to rediscover the centre of gravity of the heart, as Pope Francis taught us in the Encyclical Dilexit nos. And there, in the depths of the soul, each person can discover the fire of the desire for God that burns and never goes out, as Saint Augustine teaches us: “Let us desire continually from the Lord our God; and thus let us pray continually” (Letter 130, 18-20). You are the guardians and witnesses of this desire that dwells within every person, so that each one may discover it and nurture it within themselves.

Dear friends, our troubled times ask you, finally, to “enter into the mystery of Christ’s intercession on behalf of all humanity, accepting to ‘place yourselves in the middle’ between creatures, fragile and threatened by evil, and the merciful Father, the source of all good”  [2]. Called to stand in the breach, with your hands raised and your hearts alert, walk always in the presence of God, in solidarity with the trials of humanity. Keeping your gaze fixed on Jesus and opening the sails of your hearts to his Spirit of life, sail with the whole Church, our mother, on the stormy sea of history, towards the Kingdom of love and peace that the Father prepares for all. Thank you.

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[1] Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life,  The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church.  «Ponam in deserto viam (Is 43,19)». Guidelines (30 December 2021), 10.

[2]  The hermit’s way of life in the particular Church, 18.

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Daily Bullettin of the Holy See Press Office, 11 October 2025