Recovering Lost Traditions in Spirituality: Franciscans, Camaldolese and the Hermitage

The desire to recover a lost tradition of spiritual practice, that of the eremitical life, has brought Franciscans of various communities into an ongoing dialogue with Camaldolese monks. Hosted at New Camaldoli, in the Big Sur country of California, these dialogues have led to greater mutual understanding and encouragement in the practice of silence, solitude and hospitality.

A three-step process in the recovery of a tradition includes the following:

1. Work on founding texts of the tradition (a brief description of early Franciscan texts regarding the form of life in hermitages).

2. Analysis of the causes that brought about the tradition's decline (internal and external factors leading to loss of the Franciscan tradition of hermitages).

3. Gathering of a community dedicated to its retrieval (a partnership between a group of Franciscans and Camaldolese monks committed to sharing their appreciation for the eremitical form of life).