Portland, Maine, Apr 15, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The word ‘hermit’ might conjure up some strange images, a la John the Baptist living reclusively in the desert, wearing a hair shirt and eating locusts and honey.
The word itself comes from the Greek ‘eremos’, meaning wilderness or an isolated place. The vocation of a hermit became most popular among early Christians, who, inspired by Old Testament saints such as Elijah and John the Baptist, desired to live a life set apart and therefore withdrew into the desert in order to live lives of prayer and penance.
But the vocation is still a recognized calling in the Church today, and is about so much more than seemingly-odd ascetic practices and isolation.