Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

There are some ancient trees to this day in England which, when felled, can leave a rather giant stump. Go back 600 years, which is not necessarily ancient for a tree, and such a grandiose stump would be called a Stock. If one wanted to live simply, and not exactly comfortably, one could carve out a space to live within and about a Stock. Enough room to store edible roots, make a cellar to keep apples crisp enough to eat, store some water flavored with dandelion and other herbs. It may not be a cozy dwelling, but it would work for a hermit. A hermit such as Simon who would become Saint Simon Stock.

Now the stories about Simon living in a Stock in the woods as a hermit are tied to stories of him receiving a visit from the Virgin Mary presenting him a brown piece of cloth and that his salvation depended upon him wearing it. A puzzling vision, if it occurred at all, to a hermit living his life gathering food stuffs in the forest near the home he put together in a stump. Then known history enters the narrative because Simon Stock did encounter the Carmelites, join their order, and begin to wear their brown habits. He would move on to lead the order in Europe and found monastic houses beside every burgeoning university system.

The hermit living in a stock receiving visions may just be a story compiled by those wanting to frame where they come from and what values they admire. On this day we remember Simon Stock I think it is good to ask what stories we have compiled to tell us about ourselves… and to think about who would we be if our framing of where we came from and what values we admire would be grounded in the story of a hermit, living simply in a larger stump. We can frame our lives, our values, with the stories that are meaningful to us, even if they are a bit fanciful. That is the way of most hagiographies, the stories of the lives of the saints.

Pax,

—Ben