The Hermit – All 10 Episodes
Episode 1: From Glasgow to Barra
In the first episode, the hermit, Peter Calvay, introduces himself and describes his spiritual journey which led to him living the eremitical life on a remote island off the Scottish Outer Hebrides. James Robertson, the academic who visits Barra with the intention of seeking spiritual help from Peter, takes up the story. He describes how he came to know of Peter and how he persuaded him to see him over a period of a week. He describes his journey on the island plane landing on the famous cockleshell beach. He arrives filled with expectation of how Peter, the Hermit will change his life over the forthcoming week.
Episode 2: A man who speaks with Authority (25.40min)
It is James Robertson’s first meeting with Peter Calvay. James describes his initial impressions and admits to some misgivings and doubts that a hermit who had separated himself from the world could ever fully understand his predicament. He considers cutting his visit short, but when Peter begins to speak about the spiritual life with confidence and conviction, James is left in no doubt that here indeed was a man who spoke with authority. Peter leaves James with his memorable words, “Knowledge will never change anyone decisively and permanently for the better, but the experience of being loved will.”
Episode 3: Knowledge alone is not enough – Experiencing Love
James has been waiting eagerly for Peter’s second visit. He asks Peter to explain what he meant when he said that there is all the difference in the world between knowing that we are loved, and experiencing being loved. Peter describes how the experience of human love can change a person for the better. But he takes the analogy further, describing how God’s love can change us permanently for the better. James is left with the conviction that he has now to learn anew how to welcome God’s love into his life and how to start again at square one, to begin again to learn how to pray.
Episode 4: Freedom demands discipline (26.17min)
James sits at the jetty awaiting Peter’s arrival for their third meeting. Peter takes up the theme of the importance of God’s love, because only his love can change human beings decisively and permanently for the better. Learning to pray, learning to open ourselves to God’s love is like anything else: it needs practice and it takes time. Peter emphasizes that there is no accomplishment of any worth that he knows of, that you can attain merely by desiring to have it. Freedom always demands discipline, and prayer is no exception to the rule.
Episode 5: Abba – Father. Context and Direction.
It is James’ fourth meeting with Peter and he realizes that there are only two more days left to speak with the hermit about his spiritual life. James asks Peter to teach him how to pray from the very beginning. The first time that question was asked of Christ by his first followers, was by giving them the prayer that we call the ‘Our Father’. Peter uses the first two words of that prayer, the word Our and the word Father, to sum up the context and direction of all Christian prayer.
Episode 6: A Blueprint for Prayer: 0UR
Peter describes the Lord’s Prayer as the pattern of all Christian prayer and that this prayer is itself summed up in the first two words, Our Father. Peter gives James a Blueprint for Prayer which can be used as a memory jog to start praying in earnest. In the blueprint he has used each letter of the OUR FATHER as a reminder of nine indispensable ingredients that should feature in our daily prayer. In the first part, OUR, Peter emphasises the very essence of Christian prayer and introduces James to the Morning Offering, the meaning of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist.
Episode 7: A Blueprint for Prayer: FATHER
When Peter arrives from Calvay for their next meeting, James immediately asks him to continue explaining his blueprint for prayer, using the second part, FATHER. Peter starts with the letter F explaining that our Faith is not firstly a belief in a body of truths, but in a body full of love that was filled to overflowing on the first Easter Day. He continues to use each letter of Father to explain our need for total abandonment to God and again incorporates the Mass, and introduces James to ancient prayers used by the Desert Fathers
Episode 8: True Christian Meditation
Peter was surprised to hear that James had been introduced to the practice of Indian meditation and had been unsuccessfully trying to adapt it to Christian prayer. He explained to James that his experience will help him to understand the meaning of true Christian meditation. The new form of meditation that Christianity introduced, grew out of reflecting and ruminating on the life and teaching of Jesus, that depicted the most loving and loveable person, who has ever lived. Peter explained that this is why all authentic Christian prayer begins, not by flinging oneself into obscure transcendental states of awareness, but by trying to get to know and love Jesus Christ.
Episode 9: True Christian Contemplation
Peter draws on the writings of the two saints that the Church has canonized and made Doctors of the Church, St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila, to explain what the church teaches us about true Christian Contemplation and how to pray when your meditation has led you to the verge of contemplative prayer.
Episode 10: Learning How to Love
James has returned home and begins in earnest, practising his newfound life of prayer. However, we find him writing to Peter when he feels his prayer is floundering. Peter explains through their correspondence, that James is now finding himself on the threshold of contemplative prayer, and he encourages James to persevere and describes how he should proceed. This episode finishes many years later when Peter meets James again, but this time in his home in the New Forest. Peter has been giving lectures in London and James expresses his gratitude for his mentor in prayer, who changed the direction of his life completely.