Hello, this is Father Dave Nix at the Padre Peregrino podcast. The title of this video and podcast is

History of Hermits. The subtitle of this could probably be something like Reclose versus Hermit,

What is the Difference? Some of you may have heard that story. You know, St. Augustine and St. Jerome in the 4th century,

we would write letters back and forth. St. Augustine was a bishop, St. Jerome, who I strangely

have the same middle name as, my name is David Geronix. Jerome was a priest and a hermit.

He was originally from Croatia, but he lived in Bethlehem, and he lived in a cave. But he talked to people. I think

this is surprising for some people that have never actually studied the history of hermits,

is St. Jerome would talk to people. Sometimes he would even go out of his cave and talk to women.

St. Augustine found out about this and wrote him a letter saying,

you know, it's not very becoming of you as a priest hermit to be talking to women outside of your cave.

And St. Jerome wrote back and said, only someone with a history like yours would be suspicious of me talking to women like that.

Now that's a funny story and it's true, but it also shows that men in the past could

razz each other as friends. I think a lot of people would hear that story and be like, oh, there was a

burn, they must have really disliked each other. But, you know, as an ex-paramedic who spent a lot of time in fire stations,

that's just how you show affection, guys to guys, is kind of razzing each other.

So that wasn't a break of their friendship.

It was actually a building up of their friendship that he could say something like that,

or rather than they could tease each other back and forth like that.

So today is going to be a history of hermits.

A little bit of it is going to be a little bit of the apologetic of my life,

because if you look online, probably the most common criticism of my life is, he's not a real hermit. He talks to people and he travels. So that's a fair criticism, but let's actually look to see if that gels with Catholic history. So real quick part of my life, why am I a hermit? Well, under Canon 603, you can be a diocese and hermit. And in all honesty, when I was leaving parish life and wanted to be a monk missionary, the least bad option between my diocese and me was to be a diocesan hermit.

So I admit it's a little bit of a stretch, considering I've turned it a little bit into a monk missionary.

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