Reality hit very early the next morning when I saw him putting his few meager belongings in a brown paper bag. When I asked him if he had enough food, he replied that he had enough for both of us! That’s when I started wondering what I had gotten myself into.

The two-mile hike up the steep hill under the full sun would have sufficed for my idea of a day’s penance; but it was obvious from the pleased look on the hermit’s face that this day’s work was just beginning.

He showed me around his two little acres of rock, cactus, scrub brush, and parched earth. The temperature by this time was in the nineties Fahrenheit. When I asked him if there was any shelter on the land, his eyes lit up, and he proudly led me to a rock under which he had dug a small cave.

"Here are a pick and shovel," he told me and then took me to another rock a little ways off. "If you hurry, you can have a place to stay by sundown."

Somehow or other the idea of sleeping under fifty tons of overhanging rock didn’t appeal to me, but I set to work and did the best I could.

It all seemed like a dream. But looking at the world from the top of that hill, the view was magnificent. To the left was High North, the highest peak on the island, and as I slid my eyes down its slope to the sea, I saw the little fishing village of Windward, with a dozen or so sailing boats moored in its harbor.

All around was the sea, its color changing to aquamarine just inside the waves breaking on the coral reef that forms a protective ring around the bay. Further out, the stark but lovely volcanic island of Petite Martinique formed a silhouette on the silvery sea. "With so much beauty," I thought to myself, "it should be easy to survive here."

But the Lord soon cut through all this loveliness to give me a look at the real life of the hermit.

Our first meal consisted of a hunk of bread and a small piece of cheese; the second, a bowl of porridge cooked over a smoke-blackened tin can. We drank water collected from a plastic sheet from tin cans with the jagged tops still on them.

As time went on, I tried to pray, but the sun was taking its toll; and my protesting muscles and tired body were like two stubborn mules. I began to yearn for sleep. Yes, that would be an escape from all of this.

And finally the time to sleep did come. The decision to sleep under the stars rather than under the rock was an easy one.

The night was peaceful and full of stars. And there were my friends: the familiar constellations in the island skies—Leo the Lion, Draco the Dragon, and, of course, the Great Bear.

But my back couldn’t get used to the rocky ground, and I had never before tried to sleep tilted on a sloping hill.

Sleep eluded me. There was just nothing else to do but pray. That was pleasant at first, but later in the night, it rained—just a little bit. I think it was God’s gentle reminder that I wasn’t on holidays.

After I returned home, I saw clearly that it had been a mistake to think that this kind of penance would help me to pray better. But the Lord did provide me with a very graphic lesson.

I had lived for a brief time within the narrow confines necessary for human survival. Through this experience, it was as if the clouds parted and the sun began to shine brilliantly, pointing out clearly how utterly and completely man is in need of God.

And strangely enough, when I was actually willing to accept this fact, I experienced a new surge of power to understand and to pray.