Subscribers to the newsletter, Raven’s Bread, may borrow books from the Raven’s Bread Ministries Lending Library of 150 select volumes about hermit life. A catalogue of the books available will be sent, via email or postal mail, to anyone who requests it.  Up to three books may be borrowed at one time by sending $3.00 to cover P&H. These books may be kept for one month and returned at the reader’s expense.  (Sorry, but library books cannot be sent outside the USA)

To request the Library Book Catalogue, write to:

Raven’s Bread Ministries
18065 NC 209 Hwy.
Hot Springs, NC  28743
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From “In Praise of Hiddenness” by A Camaldolese Hermit

Our vocation to the solitary life evidently presupposes our belonging to the Church and to the world. Before being hermits we are Christians, and we have much more in common with a Christian like us who is not a hermit, than with a hermit who is not a Christian. That is why monks have always tried to view their life in the light of the Church and of humanity. However, reflection on the dimension of the Church in our life is not solely useful for justifying our contemplative life, hidden in silence, in the eyes of our contemporaries, but in our own eyes as well. Tempted by some demon or other, we can sometimes start to doubt the choice that we made, and that was confirmed by the People of God.
And so we start to consider as a mere “stage” a commitment that, by its very nature, is meant to endure until death. The truth is that what troubles us at these moments is our small number, and certain features of our life that make us so different from our contemporaries, so “strange”. A group that devotes itself mainly to prayer and contemplation – what does that mean? Is it not totally outside the categories of modernity? To face up to such a tempest of thoughts, we need to realize more than ever that what should serve to explain us is not precisely “doing” or “producing”, but “being.” As hermits, we have heard the call to disappear, just like bandits who hide out, and like lovers. Hermits themselves are in fact lovers who have opted for the shade, for the life hidden with Jesus in God… the vita umbratilis of the Ancients. So we need to accept and love the meaninglessness of our choice in the eyes of those who judge according to the wisdom of this world. It should suffice us to be known by God.
It is up to each one of us to play his part by embracing every day his vocation on earth. To say it once again, such is the end of our life at the hermitage. It is not among the “useful” realities, but rather I dare say, among the “super-useful”, just like the deed of Mary of Bethany, wasting on Christ’s feet the costly perfume.