St. Anthony visits St. Paul the Hermit The solitary life The purpose of solitary life is, if you will, contemplation. But not contemplation in the pagan sense, of an intellectual, esoteric enlightenment, achieved through an ascetic technique. The contemplation of the solitary Christian is to have our eyes wide open on the divine mercy that transforms and elevates its emptiness and converts it into the concreteness of a perfect love, of a perfect fullness. The call to perfect solitude is a call to suffering, darkness and annihilation. Yet, when a man is called there, he prefers it to any other earthly paradise. The hermit remains there to demonstrate, with his lack of practical usefulness and the apparent sterility of his vocation, that the monks themselves should have little or no importance in the world. His poverty is spiritual. He pervades his soul and body entirely, so that in the end all his heritage is insecurity. Experience the pain and spiritual and intellectual destitution of ...