 |
 |
  |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Solitaries
of DeKoven is a Religious Order of hermits within the Episcopal Church that
embraces an ecumenical expression. We are organized into three concentric
circles. The first circle is comprised of Core
members, who live at the Vigeat Radix Hermitage near Santa Anna in The
Diocese of Northwest Texas. Core members live alongside each other in
marked solitude and prayer in joyful abandonment to God’s love and life
in the silence of the hermitage. Their day revolves around the Divine Office,
contemplation, and intercession, study, and manual labour. Besides the normal
tasks involved in living a simple life on acreage in the country, they make
and sell Anglican Prayer Beads as a way to support
themselves and as a vehicle to intercessory prayer.
Extern members form the next circle. They are vowed Solitaries of DeKoven who live in their own homes and communities, giving witness to a vowed life of contemplation and as a prayerful presence in the world.
The outer and largest circle are the Companions of the Solitaries of DeKoven. Companions are people who are not called to the Solitary life under vows, but are in harmony with the vowed Solitaries of DeKoven, supporting them in prayer as well as financial support. They form the active branch of the association, seeking to live as contemplative witnesses in the world.
We are dedicated to solitary prayer on behalf of the Church and world. There have always been hermits or solitaries in the Church. At times this vocation has been so hidden as to be almost invisible, but today there seems to be a movement of the Holy Spirit calling forth the Solitary vocation once again. Although the vocation to solitude may appear strange in today’s world, hermits follow in the footsteps of many thousands of people throughout the centuries who have drawn apart to spend their lives in prayer for the Church and the world. In the 3rd and 4th centuries hundreds of thousands of men and women lived in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria as hermits or anchorites (the terms are interchangeable). This was the beginning of the vowed Religious life in the Christian Church and branched into both communal and solitary expressions of that life.
The vocation to silence and solitude witnesses to the fact that life is measured not by doing but by being. The work of prayer demands a discipline comparable to any other endeavor; and this work of prayer is not one of life’s extracurricular activities, done in spare time, but the very foundation of any other work a Christian may undertake.
Solitaries of DeKoven have as their patron Blessed James DeKoven, a deeply spiritual and courageous man who stood against the tide of his times in the mid 1870's. It is his fierce spirit of vocation and devotion that is the inspiration of the Solitary of DeKoven.