Holy Father Bruno

From the Museo della Certosa is the Italian publication titled, "I Colori del Silenzio". And in that publication is a loving tribute to Holy Father Bruno. It is shared here on this day where around the world the Carthusian Order celebrates the Solemnity of Saint Bruno.

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There are lives, my God, which may be approached only with respect, holy grounds where Your mystery shines. No one can contemplate them without being enlightened by You, no one can find them without being inflamed by Your Spirit.

 

On 6 October 1101, Sunday, at the Hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in Calabria, Italy there were some monks, and in the midst of them a man laid down. Tears were in their eyes and choking cries in their voices. The guide of their souls, their father . . . had reached the time of his birth into eternity. This man is you, Bruno. In this instant, your whole life, more than seventy years, is in your heart, the final offering to the Father.

Behold your first years in Cologne, where you were born, your departure for Rheims in France, that great and celebrated school of theology, your scholarly enlightened intuitions, and your appointment as canon of that church. The face of Archbishop Gervais, his decision of promoting you, at the early age of twenty-eight, to master of the most celebrated school of this time; students from all over Europe flocked together to listen to you, as your fame continually increased; then came the archbishop’s death in July 1067.

 

Behold the newly elected Manasse, his greed, his rages, the first discords, the increasing disorder, the scandals, while the Church reforms herself thanks to the Holy Father, Gregory VII; your sufferings, and the firm decision to voice your displeasure of the papal Legate. In the final months of 1076 came the retaliations of Manasse, depriving you of all your charges and goods – leading to the way of exile, a long and painful fight which lasted four years. At last the decision of the Pope: to depose, to dismiss the bishop from his See, while all eyes looked upon you to be the successor. But . . . in the silence of your heart, suddenly, another Heart! Your exile was the first stage of a long interior pilgrimage.

Behold the call of Christ: to leave everything so as to follow Him, to resume the way of the first fathers of the desert; the astonishment of all, the admiration for you, the light of Rheims, who was already fifty-five years old; then Sèche-Fontaine, the first attempt at solitary life with two other monks, but soon they defected and you searched for a second hermitage.

Behold your new companions: Landuin, two men named Stephen, and Hugh; these four were clerics, and with them were Andrew and Guérin, the first lay brothers. Their faces are still now in your heart, your brothers so beloved. And all seven were united as the flames of the archangels before the Almighty. You asked Hugh, the holy Bishop of Grenoble, for a place to live, hidden in God. Hugh of Grenoble was a friend of your heart. He helped you immediately without reservation; he had a dream about seven stars that guided him into the desert of Chartreuse to glorify God.

 

On June 1084, nearing the feast of Saint John the Baptist, you arrived at the place foreseen in the dream, to begin a great adventure still unknown. Behold your monastery, lost in the mountains, the first years, the ascetic struggle, the peace of the Spirit. Such fire in your souls, such love in your hearts! You, Bruno, already possessed pure praise and cries of amazement: "O Bonitas! O Bonitas!" (O the Goodness! O the Goodness!).

Six years of toils, six years of joy; God, God, God always, only God, together with your brothers! Then, unexpectedly, the trial . . . In the first months of 1090 a courier of the Pope arrived with this message: Urban II, a former student of yours, calls you to his service at his side. The sun sets, it is night. Leaving everything, abandoning all, again, undoubtedly forever, your solitude in God, that blessed solitude, your companions of life, your friends. But in your heart, the "yes", which is your love for God and for the Church. But the tempest overwhelms your brothers, the bewilderment takes them, and they disperse. To be without you, the master, the star of the journey: How could they? This way is so difficult. Everything collapses. Everything! Your heart is on the cross. It is the hour of your passion. Has the beautiful adventure reached its end? "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by! Yet, not my will, but Yours be done." The sky opens, a new day is born. Your brothers again gather in the desert guided by Landuin. Your soul is suffering less, Bruno, at the hour of departure.

 

Behold Rome, the holy city, the heart of Christianity! But Rome is threatened. Shortly after your arrival, the Emperor Enrico IV and his protected, the antipope Clement III, launched their troops towards it. Urban II and his court fled to the south, near the land of the Norman allies. And still another trial: the Holy Father offers you the archbishopric of Reggio Calabria. What were you to do, Bruno? This is such a difficult time for the Church, as a brilliant future opens up for you – a counsellor for the Pope, a trustworthy man, admired by all. But in your soul still resounds the call, continuous, powerful, captivating, even stronger in the splendour of this court: Only God! Only God! To be His, completely His, only His, together with other brothers! Only God! Your heart, a cry of love for Him! Father, will You forget Your son? It is You Who has sown the cry in him . . . Bruno, the Lord responds, Urban II blesses your vocation: yes, you may resume your solitary life. "O Bonitas! O Bonitas! My life and my all, my beloved forever." (Autumn of 1090).

Your heart would like to return to Chartreuse, to find your brothers. But the Pope asks you to stay in these lands and you accept his words as those of Christ. But where to dwell? A friend of the Holy Father, and soon to be your friend, Count Ruggero, offers you a vast desert territory. Behold your hermitage, Santa Maria della Torre, in the woods of the Serre, and the arrival of new companions, and later others, and yet more, up to thirty-three new sons. Nearby the hermitage stands the monastery of Saint Stephen where the lay brothers lead more a life in community; Landuin guides them, your faithful friend.

 

Eleven more years, eleven years of hard work and asceticism, eleven years of light and joy in praise, here, in this rich land of monks and hermits, whose history is blessed with their presence. And so, that your joy may be complete, Bruno, one day found the happiness of a visit: Landuin, who brings with him the love of your first sons, and their fidelity. "O Bonitas! O Bonitas!" -- so as to accept this friend of yours in this land that fills your heart, with an embrace and a gaze.

 

The autumn of life nears the end and your eyes rise towards eternity. Two years have passed since Urban II left this world; a year later, on his return journey, Landuin dies professing the faith in the prisons of the antipope; three months before that, in June, Ruggero died. Bruno, heaven calls you. Now . . .

 

The breath becomes briefer, perspiration bathes you, with your last brothers, you proclaim your faith, a hymn to the Trinity. The instant is near, time opens. Bruno, look at this grand light, so immense: "My Lord and my God."

 

"It is Me My friend, come! Enter into My Heart. Come! Come."

 

"O Bonitas! O Bonitas!"

 

Bruno, stay with us!

 

"I will remain in your hearts."

 

Everything stood still. Silence freezes us in its density. Fire has consumed the last twigs, the flame has vanished. Bruno . . . your face is so beautiful, illuminated by peace; and your eyes, open towards heaven, are overflowing with an infinite tenderness. A hand closes them in the ultimate sleep. Your life is hidden in Him, for all eternity. Fullness of joy! Ocean of love!

 

But your light still shines in our hearts and in your two letters, for your friend Raoul and your brothers of Chartreuse, who will bear witness forever to your mystery. You are so present in them, your profound humanity, finesse, your sweetness and goodness, your harmony throughout, your wisdom, all tenderness and humility, spiritual joy, simplicity - Bruno, all-burning with your love of God, and the God-Love in you.

 

Yes, you are alive forever. And, like a planted seed, from you will rise a tree where different birds will make their nests. Are you not seeing it in the Eyes of God?

 

A life-flame of prayer still consumes itself roundabout you, Bruno; it burns in this place from where now you fly towards heaven, so as to make descend from there a great light of melody and love. Together with the first, behold all your sons and daughters, throughout the centuries, until this day and even further, all of us who, invisibly are around you on this 6 October, in this instant of your great birth, Bruno.

 

Saint Benedict

Today, the feast of Saint Benedict, at Matins the Carthusians reflect on the following fromThe Life of Saint Benedict.

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Benedict, desiring rather the miseries of the world than the praises of men: rather to be wearied with labor for God's sake, than to be exalted with transitory commendation: fled privately from his family, and went into a desert place called Subiaco, distant almost forty miles from Rome: in which there was a fountain springing forth cool and clear water; the abundance whereof does first in a broad place make a lake, and afterward running forward, comes to be a river. As he was travelling to this place, a certain monk called Romanus met him, and demanded to know what he wanted, and understanding his purpose, he both kept it close, furnished him what he could, vested him with the habit of holy conversation, and as he could, ministered and served him. The man of God, Benedict, coming to this foresaid place, lived there in a narrow cave, where he continued three years unknown to all men, except to Romanus. He lived not far off, under the rule of Abbot Theodacus, and very virtuously studied certain hours, and likewise sometimes a loaf was given for his own provision, which he carried to Benedict. And because from Romanus' cell to that cave there was not any way, by reason of a high rock which hung over it, Romanus, from the top thereof, on a long rope, let down the loaf.

Not far from the place where he remained there was a monastery, the Abbot whereof was dead: whereupon the whole Convent came to the venerable man Benedict, entreating him very earnestly that he would vouchsafe to take on him the charge and government of their Abbey: a long time he denied them, saying that their manners were different from his, and therefore that they should never agree together: yet at length, overcome with their entreaty, he gave his consent. Having now taken on him the charge of the Abbey, he took order that regular life should be observed, so that none of them could, as before they used, through unlawful acts decline from the path of holy conversation, either on the one side or on the other: which the monks perceiving, they fell into a great rage, accusing themselves that ever they desired him to be their Abbot, seeing their crooked conditions could not endure his virtuous kind of government. Therefore, when they saw that under him they could not live in unlawful sort, and were loath to leave their former conversation, and found it hard to be enforced with old minds to meditate and think on new things: and because the life of virtuous men is always grievous to those that be of wicked conditions, some of them began to devise, how they might rid themselves of Benedict.

Taking counsel together, they agreed to poison his wine: which being done, and the glass wherein that wine was, according to the custom, offered to the Abbot to bless, he, putting forth his hand, made the sign of the cross, and straightway the glass, that was held far off, broke in pieces, as though the sign of the cross had been a stone thrown against it: on which accident the man of God by and by perceived that the glass had in it the drink of death, which could not endure the sign of life. Rising up, with a mild countenance and quiet mind, he called the monks together, and spoke thus to them: "Almighty God have mercy on you, and forgive you: why have you used me in this manner? Did not I tell you before hand, that our manner of living could never agree together? Go your ways, and seek out some other father suitable to your own conditions, for I intend not now to stay any longer among you." When he had thus discharged himself, he returned to the wilderness which so much he loved, and dwelt alone with himself, in the sight of his Creator, Who beholds the hearts of all men.

As God's servant daily increased in virtue and became continually more famous for miracles, many were led by him to the service of almighty God in the same place. By Christ's assistance he built there twelve Abbeys; over which he appointed governors, and in each of them placed twelve monks. A few he kept with himself; namely, those he thought would gain more profit and be better instructed by his own presence. At that time also many noble and religious men of Rome came to him, and committed their children to be brought up under him for the service of God. Evitius delivered Maurus to him, and Tertullius, the Senator, brought Placidus. These were their sons of great hope and promise: of the two, Maurus, growing to great virtue, began to be his master's helper; but Placidus, as yet, was but a boy of tender years.

In one of the monasteries which he had built in those parts, there was a monk who could not continue at prayers; for when the other monks knelt down to serve God, his manner was to go forth, and there with wandering mind to busy himself about some earthly and transitory things. One day, Benedict came to the monastery, and when the singing of psalms was ended, and the hour come in which the monks took themselves to prayer, the holy man perceived that the monk, who used at that time to go forth, was drawn out by the skirt of his garment by a little boy. On seeing this, he spoke secretly to Pompeianus, father of the Abbey, and also to Maurus saying, "Do you not see who it is, that draws this monk from his prayers?" and they answered him, that they did not. "Then let us pray to God," he said, "that you also may behold whom this monk follows." After two days Maurus saw him, but Pompeianus could not. On another day, when the man of God had ended his devotions, he went out of the oratory, where he found the foresaid monk standing idle. For the blindness of his heart he struck with a little rod, and from that day forward he was so freed from all allurement of the little boy, that he remained quietly at his prayers, as the other monks did.

The town, which is called Cassino, stands on the side of a high mountain, which contains, as it were in the lap thereof, the foresaid town, and afterward so rises in height the space of three miles, that the top thereof seems to touch the very heavens. In this place there was an ancient chapel in which the foolish and simple country people, according to the custom of the old gentiles, worshipped the god Apollo. Round about it likewise on all sides, there were woods for the service of the devils, in which even to that very time, the mad multitude of infidels offered most wicked sacrifice. The man of God coming there, beat the idol into pieces, overthrew the altar, set fire to the woods, and in the temple of Apollo, he built the oratory of Saint Martin, and where the altar of the same Apollo was, he made an oratory of Saint John. By his continual preaching, he brought the people dwelling in those parts to embrace the faith of Christ.

Once upon a time, while the venerable Father was at supper, one of his monks, who was the son of a great man, held the candle. As he was standing there, and the other ate his meal, he began to entertain a proud thought in his mind. He spoke to himself: "Who is he, that I wait on him at supper and hold him the candle? And who am I, that I should do him any such service?" Immediately the holy man turned and with severe rebuke spoke to him: "Sign your heart, brother, for what is it that you say? Sign your heart." Forthwith he called another of the monks, and bid him to take the candle out of his hands. He commanded him to cease his waiting, and to retire. Benedict, being demanded of the monks what it was that he had thought, told them, how inwardly that monk had swelled with pride, and what he spoke against the man of God, secretly in his heart. Then they all realized very well that nothing could be hidden from venerable Benedict, seeing that the very sound of men's inward thoughts came to his ears.

The man of God, Benedict, being diligent in watching, rose early before the time of Matins, his monks being yet at rest, and came to the window of his chamber where he offered up his prayers to almighty God. Standing there, all of a sudden in the dead of the night, as he looked forth, he saw a light that banished away the darkness of the night and glittered with such brightness that the light which shone in the midst of darkness was far more clear than the light of the day. During this vision a marvelously strange thing followed, for, as he himself afterward reported, the whole world, gathered together, as it were, under one beam of the sun, was presented before his eyes. While the venerable father stood attentively beholding the brightness of that glittering light, he saw the soul of Germanus, Bishop of Capua, in a fiery globe, carried up by Angels into heaven. All creatures are, as it were, nothing to that soul that beholds the Creator. For though it sees but a glimpse of that light which is in the Creator, yet all things that are created seem very small. By means of that supernatural light, the capacity of the inward soul is enlarged, and is so extended in God, that it is far above the world. The soul of one who sees in this manner, is also above itself; for being rapt up in the light of God, it is inwardly in itself enlarged above itself. When it is so exalted and looks downward, it comprehends how little all creation is. The soul, in its former baseness, could not so comprehend. The man of God, therefore, who saw the fiery globe, and the Angels returning to heaven, could, no doubt, not see those things but in the light of God.

Saint Anthelm

Today on the Carthusian calendar is the feast of Saint Anthelm. A Carthusian monk tells us about him:

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Anthelm of Chignin was born into a noble family of Savoy, France, in 1107. He chose the ecclesiastical state, became a canon and received important prebends and dignities. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, he refused to find his joy in these exterior possessions and human glory. He had a brother who was Procurator at the Charterhouse of Portes. Conversations with his brother when he visited him and with the Prior convinced him of the excellence of Christian abnegation in the monastic life. He asked for the Carthusian habit at Portes in 1135 and soon surpassed the other monks there in the monastic virtues.

This came to the ear of the superior of the Grande Chartreuse, Guigo, who asked the Prior of Portes to send Anthelm to the Mother house, where an avalanche had killed seven of the monks a short time earlier. So it was at the Grande Chartreuse that Anthelm made profession. Under Guigo’s successor, Hugh, Anthelm was made Procurator. He humbly accepted this charge, although he did not feel any attraction to it, and fulfilled his office with much profit for the House without overlooking his own spiritual needs.

When a new Prior was needed, the community, by a unanimous vote, elected Anthelm (1139). As Prior, he rebuilt the Mother house at a site less susceptible to avalanches. But his principal endeavor was the spiritual progress of the community which soon experienced his firmness, tenderness, wisdom and humility. He visited his monks with frequency in their cells and the gentleness of his words filled their hearts with peace. The sick, both in body and soul, had the particular interest of his fatherly care. He had a special gift in providing a remedy for temptations and in animating those who were discouraged. As regards those who were proficient in the spiritual life, he judged them worthy of all honors. He showed to them all the proofs of perfect esteem even going as far as to give them the right of way as they passed by and to stand up in their presence.

It was during his priorate that the wish was expressed by the Priors of the other Charterhouses for a more stable and more structured organization of the Order in the form of an annual General Chapter. Anthelm was open to this and welcomed the first General Chapter at the Grande Chartreuse in 1140. After the foundation by Saint Bruno in 1084, this first General Chapter was like a ‘second starting point’ for our Order.

Humble as he was, he repeatedly asked to be dismissed as Prior. After twelve years, in 1151, he finally obtained this. But as the Prior of Portes had died at that time, the monks of Portes asked Basil, Anthelm’s successor as superior of the Mother house, to send them the latter as their new Prior. Anthelm had to accept this. During his priorate storms destroying the harvest in the region of Portes caused a scarcity of food. Anthelm distributed generously wheat and vegetables from the monastery storage rooms to the farmers. He also came to the financial aid of other monasteries.

Two years later the diocese of Belley, in which Portes is located, needed a new Bishop. The people there strongly wanted Anthelm to become the Bishop. He refused, but to no avail. Pope Alexander III ordered him to accept and ordained Anthelm in 1163. As Bishop he offered great services to the Church. Within the first year of his consecration he launched a reform of the clergy. He defended the rights of the Church against the powerful. A bitter conflict with Humbert, count of Savoy, ended with Humbert asking the holy Bishop’s forgiveness, which the latter granted him with great benignity.

He kept up the same monastic fervor as before. Every year he would withdraw for a few days at the Grande Chartreuse, where he had a cell like the other monks.

Recommending charity and concord to his priests, Saint Anthelm died on June 26, 1178. Because of the many miracles at his tomb he was soon venerated. Today he is the patron Saint of the diocese of Belley, where the cathedral preciously keeps his relics. His feast is kept both by the Carthusians and the diocese of Belley on June 26.

A Life Purely of Faith

What follows is from the Preface of a book written by a Carthusian monk which is out of print. The Preface was written from Saint Hugh’s Charterhouse at Parkminster, in the year 1964, on the feast of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Remaining true to the Carthusian way of anonymity, all the writer of the Preface tells us about the author of the book is that he was a Carthusian monk who spent years ‘in charge of old lay-brothers’. Here’s an excerpt of the Preface.

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There are miracles and miracles, down to this very day; and all answer to real prayer is, after all, a miracle in a sense, since it is none other than the supernatural coming down into this very natural world; a continuation – may we not say – of the Incarnation itself. There is no reason why prayer should be answered, or that the poor anxious souls of this world, involved, whether they will or not, in the battle that is continually going on ‘in high places’, should have their Memorare heard. But when it is heard, and they are comforted and helped on their way, then we term it at least a kind of a miracle, for which we can only very humbly say, Deo gratias!

Let no one think that life in a Charterhouse consists of returning to cell after three hours spent in choir on a cold winter’s night, to find our Lady waiting with the holy Child in her arms. The Carthusian way of life, like life in any monastery – for men or women – is sterner stuff than that! Indeed, as time goes on and the monk begins to feel age creeping on him, it may be that the life becomes purely one of faith, and all thought of miracles in the sense of visions and such like has long since departed from his memory – or his hope! It is doubtful if he would believe them if he saw them: the way of faith is surer.

Yet the writer of these lines has witnessed many near-miracles, shall we say, of an intellectual order, during years spent in charge of old lay-brothers, grown very close to God in the course of their long and faithful service. One instance alone must suffice. An old French lay-brother lay dying. For many a long month he had been able to do nothing but sit immobilized in a chair, saying his Rosary – Rosary after Rosary: he could do no more. On this day, in the event to be his last on earth, normally unable to move, he was seen to sit up, utterly alert. Then he said, speaking to someone he seemed to see at the end of his bed: ‘Qui êtes vous, Madame? . . . Who are you, Madam’? Then he himself was heard to answer: ‘Je suis Marie, ta Mère . . . I am Mary, your Mother’. The words were heard, but nothing was seen. Imagination? Perhaps. But, if so, a very good kind of imagination on the part of a dying man, for which he might well be envied.

To Love to be Unknown

Today is the liturgical Memorial of Saint Philip Neri. The Venerable John Henry Newman had preached a couple of sermons on this great saint at the Birmingham Oratory. Here’s an excerpt.

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Let us . . . inquire what Saint Philip's times were, and what place he holds in them; what he was raised up to do, how he did it, and how we, my Fathers of the Oratory, may make his work and his way of doing it a pattern for ourselves in this day. His times were such as the Church has never seen before nor since, and such as the world must last long for her to see again; nor peculiar only in themselves, but involving a singular and most severe trial of the faith and love of her children. It was a time of sifting and peril.

[The] Church . . . though full of divine gifts, the Immaculate Spouse, the Oracle of Truth, the Voice of the Holy Ghost, infallible in matters of faith and morals, whether in the chair of her Supreme Pontiff, or in the unity of her Episcopate, nevertheless was at this time so environed, so implicated, with sin and lawlessness, as to appear in the eyes of the world to be what she was not. Never, as then, were her rulers, some in higher, some in lower degree, so near compromising what can never be compromised; never so near denying in private what they taught in public, and undoing by their lives what they professed with their mouths; never were they so mixed up with vanity, so tempted by pride, so haunted by concupiscence; never breathed they so tainted an atmosphere, or were kissed by such traitorous friends, or were subjected to such sights of shame, or were clad in such blood-stained garments, as in the centuries upon and in which Saint Philip came into the world. Alas, for us, my brethren, the scandal of deeds done in Italy then is borne by us in England now.

It was an age . . . when civilization, powerless as yet to redress the grievances of society at large, gave to princes and to nobles as much to possess as before, and less to suffer; increased their pomp, and diminished their duties and their risks; became the cloak of vices which it did not extirpate, made revenge certain by teaching it to be treacherous, and unbelief venerable by proving it to be ancient. Such were the characteristics of Saint Philip's age; and Florence, his birth-place, presented the most complete exhibition of them - and next to Florence, Rome, the city of his adoption.

It is not by powerful declamation, or by railing at authorities, that the foundations are laid of religious works. It is not by sudden popularity, or by strong resolves, and demonstrations, or by romantic incidents, or by immediate successes, that undertakings commence which are to last.

The Lord of grace Himself . . . grew up in silence and obscurity, overlooked by the world; and then He triumphed. He was the grain cast into the earth, which, while a man ‘sleeps and rises, night and day, springs up and grows whilst he knoweth not’. He was the mustard seed, ‘which is the least of all seeds, but, when it is grown up, becometh a tree, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air dwell under its shadow’. He grew up ‘as a tender plant, and as a root out of a thirsty land’; and ‘His look was, as it were, hidden and despised, wherefore we esteemed Him not’. And, when He began to preach, He did not ‘contend nor cry out, nor break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax’; and thus ‘He sent forth judgment unto victory’. So was it in the beginning, so has it been ever since. After the storm, the earthquake and the fire, the calm, soothing whisper of the fragrant air.

St. Philip was a child of . . . the convent of Saint Mark; here he received his first religious instruction, and in after times he used to say, ‘Whatever there was of good in me, when I was young, I owed it to the Fathers of Saint Mark's, in Florence’.

Reverend Father Philip, an old man of sixty, who, they say, is an oracle, not only in Rome, but in the far-off parts of Italy, and of France and Spain, so that many come to him for counsel; indeed he is another Thomas à Kempis, or Tauler. But it required to live in Rome to understand what his influence really was. Nothing was too high for him, nothing too low. He taught poor begging women to use mental prayer; he took out boys to play; he protected orphans. He was the teacher and director of artisans, mechanics, cashiers in banks, merchants, workers in gold, artists, men of science. He was consulted by monks, canons, lawyers, physicians, courtiers; ladies of the highest rank, convicts going to execution, engaged in their turn his solicitude and prayers. Cardinals hung about his room, and Popes asked for his miraculous aid in disease, and his ministrations in death. It was his mission to save men, not from, but in, the world. To break the haughtiness of rank, and the fastidiousness of fashion, he gave his penitents public mortifications; to draw the young from the theatres, he opened his Oratory of Sacred Music; to rescue the careless from the Carnival and its excesses, he set out in pilgrimage to the Seven Basilicas. For those who loved reading, he substituted, for the works of chivalry or the hurtful novels of the day, the true romance and the celestial poetry of the Lives of the Saints. He set one of his disciples to write history against the heretics of that age; another to treat of the Notes of the Church; a third, to undertake the Martyrs and Christian Antiquities; for, while in the discourses and devotions of the Oratory, he prescribed the simplicity of the primitive monks, he wished his children, individually and in private, to cultivate all their gifts to the full. He, however, was, after all and in all, their true model, the humble priest, shrinking from every kind of dignity, or post, or office, and living the greater part of day and night in prayer, in his room or upon the housetop.

And when he died, a continued stream of people . . . came to see his body, during the two days that it remained in the church, kissing his bier, touching him with their rosaries or their rings, or taking away portions of his hair, or the flowers which were strewed over him; and, among the crowd, persons of every rank and condition were heard lamenting and extolling one who was so lowly, yet so great.

Would that we, his children of this Oratory, were able - I do not say individually, but even collectively, nor in some one generation, but even in that whole period during which it is destined to continue here -- would that we were able to do a work such as his! At least we may take what he was for our pattern, whatever be the standard of our powers and the measure of our success. And certainly it is a consolation that thus much we can say in our own behalf, that we have gone about his work in the way most likely to gain his blessing upon us.

My brethren, I do not feel it to be any want of devotion or reverence towards our dear Father, to speak of him as looking out to be taught, or willing to be governed. It is like his most amiable, natural, and unpretending self. He was ever putting himself in the background, and never thought of taking on himself a rule, or seizing on a position, in the Church, or of founding a religious body. He did not ask to be opposed, to be maligned, to be persecuted, but simply to be overlooked, to be despised. Neglect was the badge which he desired for himself and for his own. He took great pleasure in being undervalued. And hence you know, when he became so famous in his old age, and every one was thinking of him mysteriously, and looking at him with awe, and solemnly repeating Father Philip's words and rehearsing Father Philip's deeds, and bringing strangers to see him, it was the most cruel of penances to him, and he was ever behaving himself ridiculously on purpose, and putting them out, from his intense hatred and impatience of being turned into a show.

We have determined, through God's mercy, not to have the praise or the popularity that the world can give, but, according to our Father's own precept, ‘to love to be unknown’. May this spirit ever rule us more and more!

Aflame with Heavenly Love

A letter dated this day fourteen years ago was sent by Saint John Paul II to the Carthusian Order on the occasion of the ninth centenary of Saint Bruno’s death. Here are the thoughts expressed by the Holy Father for this celebration.

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To the Reverend Father Marcellinus Theeuwes,

Prior of La Grande Chartreuse, General of the Carthusian Order,

and to all the members of the Carthusian family,

At the time when the members of the Carthusian family celebrate the ninth centenary of their Founder's death, I with them give thanks to God who raised up in His Church the eminent and ever topical figure of Saint Bruno. Praying fervently I appreciate your witness of faithfulness to the See of Peter and am happy to join in with the joy of the Carthusian Order which has in this good and incomparable father a master of the spiritual life. On 6 October 1101, Bruno, aflame with divine love left the elusive shadows of this world to join the everlasting goods for ever. The brothers of the hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in Calabria little knew that this dies natalis inaugurated a singular spiritual venture which even today brings forth abundant fruits for the Church and the world.

Bruno witnessed the cultural and religious upheavals of his time, in a Europe that was taking shape. He was an actor in the reform which the Church faced with internal difficulties wished to fulfill. After having been an appreciated teacher he felt called to consecrate himself to that unique Good which God is. What is there as good as God? Better still, is there another Good than God alone? Really, a holy soul who has any sense of this Good, of its incomparable splendor and beauty, finds himself aflame with heavenly love and exclaims: "I am thirsting for the strong and living God; when shall I go and see the Face of God?" The uncompromising nature of that thirst drove Bruno, a patient listener to the Spirit, to invent with his first companions a style of eremitical life where everything favors one's response to the call from Christ - Who indeed ever chooses men to lead them into solitude and join themselves to Him in intimate love. By this choice of life in the desert, Bruno invites the entire Church community never to lose sight of the highest vocation which is to remain forever with the Lord.

Bruno, when able to forget his own plans to answer the call from the Pope, shows his strong sense of the Church. He is conscious that to follow the path of holiness is unthinkable outside of obedience to the Church: and shows us in that way, that real following of Christ demands putting oneself into His Hands. In abandonment of self he shows us the supreme love. And this attitude of his kept him in a permanent state of joy and praise. His brothers noticed that his face was always radiating joy, his words modest. To a father's vigor he joined the sensitivity of a mother. These exquisite remarks from the obituary scroll show the fruitfulness of a life given to contemplate the Face of Christ as the source of all apostolic fecundity and brotherly love. Would that Saint Bruno's sons and daughters, as did their father, may always keep on contemplating Christ, that they keep watch in this way for the return of their Master ever ready to open when He knocks; this will he a stimulant call for all Christians to stay vigilant in prayer in order to welcome their Lord!

Following upon the great Jubilee of the Incarnation, the celebration of the ninth centenary of Saint Bruno's death acquires by this fact a supplementary emphasis. In the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte I invite the entire people of God again to take in Christ their point of departure, in order to permit those who thirst for meaningfulness and Truth to hear God's own Heartbeat and that of the Church. Christ's words: "And lo, I am with you always until the end of the world" (Matthew 28:20) call all those who bear the name of disciples to draw from this certitude renewed energies for their Christian existence and inspiring strength for their path. The call to prayer and contemplation, which is the hallmark of Carthusian life, shows particularly that only Christ can bring to the hopes of men a fullness of meaning and joy.

How could one doubt for a second that such expression of pure love gives Carthusian life an extraordinary fecundity, as it were, for the missions? In the retreat of their monasteries, in the solitude of their cells, the Carthusians spin Holy Church's wedding garment ("beautiful as a bride decked out for her bridegroom," 1 Revelation 21:3); every day they offer the world to God and invite all mankind to the wedding of the Lamb. The celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice is the source and the summit of life in the desert, modeling into the very being of Christ those who give themselves up to His love. Thus the presence and the activity of Christ in this world become visible, for the salvation of all men and the joy of the Church.

At the heart of the desert, where men are tried and their faith purified, the Father leads them on a path of dispossession which questions all logic of having, being successful and finding fleeting happiness. Guigo the Carthusian would always encourage those desiring to follow Saint Bruno’s ideal to follow the example of the poor man Christ, in order to share in His riches. This dispossession passes through a thorough break with the world, which does not mean contempt for the world but a fresh orientation of one's whole life in a tireless search for the unique Good: "You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced" (Jeremiah 20:7). The Church is fortunate to have at its disposition the Carthusian witness of total alertness to the Spirit and a life entirely surrendered to Christ!

So I invite the members of the Carthusian family to remain, by holiness and simplicity of life, like the city on the mountain or the lamp on the lamp stand (cf. Matthew 5:14-15). Rooted in the Word of God, quenching their thirst with the sacraments of Holy Church, upheld by the prayers of Saint Bruno and their brothers, let them remain for the entire Church and at the heart of the world a sort of place for hope and discovery of the Beatitudes, where Love leaning on prayer - source of communion - is called to become logic of life, and source of joy! The cloistered life as an outward expression of the offering up of one's whole life in union with Christ’s, shows the fleetingness of our existence and teaches us to count only on God. It increases the thirst for graces given in meditation of the Word of God. It also is the place for spiritual communion with God and our brothers and sisters, where the restricted character both of space and of contacts favors an interiorization of Gospel values. The quest for God in contemplation is indeed undissociable from love of our brothers, love that makes us recognize the Face of Christ in the poorest of men. Contemplation of Christ lived in brotherly love remains the safest path of all for a fruitful life. Saint John unceasingly reminds us of it: "Beloved, let us love each other, because love is of God, and whoever loves is born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7). Saint Bruno understood that well, he who never separated the primacy he gave to God in all his life from the deep humanity he showed his brethren.

The ninth centenary of Saint Bruno's dies natalis gives me the occasion to renew my trust in the Carthusian Order in its mission of selfless contemplation and intercession for the Church and the world. Following Saint Bruno and his successors, the Carthusian monasteries never stop awakening the Church to the eschatological dimension of its mission, calling to mind God's marvelous deeds and being watchful in the expectation of the ultimate accomplishment of the virtue of Hope. Watching tirelessly for the Kingdom to come, seeking to Be rather than to Do, the Carthusian Order gives the Church vigor and courage in its mission to put out in deep waters and permit the Good News of Christ to enkindle all of mankind.

In these days of Carthusian celebration I ardently pray the Lord to make resound in the heart of many young the call to leave everything to follow the poor man Christ, on the demanding but liberating path of the Carthusian vocation. I also invite those in charge of the Carthusian family to respond without timidity to the requests from the young Churches to found monasteries on their territories.

In this spirit the discernment and formation of the candidates presenting themselves necessitates renewed attention from the novice masters. Indeed today's culture marked by strong hedonistic currents, by the wish for possessions and a certain wrong conception of freedom, does not make it easy for the young to express their generosity when they want to consecrate their lives to Christ, to follow Him on the path of self-offering love, of concrete and generous service. The complexity of each one's itinerary, their psychological fragility, the difficulties to live faithfully over the years, all this suggests that nothing must be neglected to give those who ask for admission to the Carthusian "desert" a formation spanning all the dimensions of the human person. What is more, particular attention must be given to the choice of educators able to accompany candidates on the paths of interior liberation and docility to the Holy Spirit. Finally, aware that life together as brothers is a fundamental element of the itinerary of consecrated persons, communities must be invited to live unreservedly their mutual love, and develop a spiritual climate and lifestyle in conformity with your Order's charisma.

Dear sons and daughters of Saint Bruno, as I reminded you at the end of my post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata you should not only reminisce and tell a glorious past history, but make a grand history! Look towards the future, where the Spirit is sending you to do with you still great things. At the heart of the world you make the Church attentive to the voice of the Bridegroom whispering in her heart: "Courage! I have defeated the world" (John 16:33). I encourage you never to give up the intuitions of your Founder, even if the impoverishment of your communities, the drop in vocations and the incomprehension, which your chosen radical lifestyle provokes, might make you doubt the fecundity of your Order and your mission whose fruits in a hidden way belong to God!

It is up to you, dear sons and daughters of the Charterhouse, heirs to Saint Bruno's charisma, to maintain in all its authenticity and depth the specific spiritual path, which he traced for you by his words and example. Your pithy knowledge of God, matured in prayer and meditation of His word, calls the people of God to look further, to the very horizons of a renewed humankind inquest of fullness of meaning and unity. Your poverty, offered for the glory of God and the salvation of the world, is an eloquent contestation of the logic of profit and efficiency, which often closes the hearts of men and nations to the real need of their brothers. Your hidden life with Christ, as the Cross silently planted in the heart of redeemed mankind, remains in fact for the Church and for the world the eloquent sign and the permanent reminder that anybody, yesterday as today, can let himself be taken by Him Who is only Love.

Entrusting all the members of the Carthusian family to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mater singularis Cartusiensium, star of the evangelization of the third millennium, I give them all an affectionate apostolic blessing, which I extend to all the benefactors of the Order.

Ioannes Paulus II, 14 Maius Anno Domini 2001

The Chosen Myrrh

This Carthusian monk's reflection from Le Mois de Marie Cartusien on the chosen myrrh, who is our Blessed Mother, was clearly, according to the way it was written, never intended to scale the walls of Carthusian monasteries and reach the outside world. He offers some thoughts on living the Carthusian life, and on a couple of occasions refers to their Rule, thus giving readers outside of the Order some insight into their charism. We also get to meet in this writing a Carthusian nun, Mother Anne Griffon, who one would deduce from what is shared here, was a mystic and a visionary. You’ll see the Latin words, “Fluminis impetus lætificat civitatem Dei,” which is from the Latin Vulgate and more specifically, Psalm 45, verse 5, which translates as: “The stream of the river makes glad the city of God.” This is a splendid reflection on our Lady. The picture used for this post depicts the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Happy Feast of Our Lady of Fatima!

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One of the principal aims of our Order is to form followers of our crucified Lord, who will carry the cross after Him, in order to fill up, as Saint Paul says, for themselves and for the Church, what is wanting of the sufferings of Christ (cf. Colossians 1:24). In our Constitutions all has been ordained to the end that the cross destined for the sons of Saint Bruno should be borne by them in a perfect manner, and with unflinching constancy. “The man who gives himself to prayer,” says Saint Teresa, “offers himself to our Lord to carry His cross.” She who entered most deeply in union with Him has become the Queen of martyrs. Thus the Church places on Mary’s lips the inspired words: I yielded a sweet odor like the choicest myrrh (cf. Ecclesiasticus 24:20). May our souls, too, and our whole lives be impregnated with this divine fragrance emanating from the Wounds of our crucified Savior.

The cross of the Carthusian serves a double purpose, according as it affects the soul or the body. It is in other words spiritual or material, and is called humility or austerity. Let us see how, following in Mary’s steps, we can offer to our Savior this double martyrdom imposed by our Rule.

Mary’s humility has only been surpassed by that of the Heart of Jesus. No saint can compare with our heavenly Mother in this fundamental virtue. Singularly favored, as she was, by heaven, Mary looked on herself as a mere nothing. “Take it for certain,” she said to Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, “that in the Temple I regarded myself as the lowest of all creatures, and as unworthy as you yourself to be the Mother of the Redeemer.” This humility was the heavenly spikenard which ravished the Most High, and drew the Word of God into the womb of Mary. At the very moment when she was humbling herself in her prayer, not daring to aspire even to the favor of serving the privileged creature who was to give birth to the Savior, the archangel Gabriel came to propose to her that she herself should be the Mother of the Redeemer.

One of our nuns, Mother Anne Griffon, the venerable Prioress of Gosnay in Artois, had wonderful lights on the abyss of humility which caused the graces of the Most High to flow so abundantly into the soul of the Immaculate Virgin. Through these revelations, we may learn to preserve deep in our hearts the knowledge of our own insufficiency in this respect.

On the feast of Saint Anne, as during the Mass the nuns were singing the Responsory, Fluminis impetus lætificat civitatem Dei, the venerable Mother saw Saint Anne under the figure of the city of God, thus depicted because she bore in her womb the Tabernacle of God (cf. Psalm 131:5). God dwelt in Mary by sanctifying grace from the moment of her conception. The stream of the river represented the torrent of graces drawn down upon the mother and the daughter by their mutual humility.

On the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady, the venerable Mother saw in contemplation the Blessed Trinity and all the heavenly court rejoicing in the birth of this unique creature, sanctified and full of grace from the first moment of her existence, and immediately endowed with the use of reason, so that she might be aware that she owed all these graces to her Creator.

On other occasions, our Lady appeared to the venerable Mother as when, after her Presentation in the Temple, she humbled herself more profoundly before the adorable Trinity than ever angels or saints have done or will do. And again, in the mystery of the Purification, seeking how to humble herself, as did her Son when He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). Again, co-operating in the Redemption at the foot of the Cross, as she suffered for us to an extent equaled by no other creature; at her death, so transformed in God that she seemed to be identified with Him, yet stripping herself of all this glory in order to attribute it all to its divine Author; crowned in heaven with such splendor that we would be tempted to adore her, were we not conscious of the Majesty of the Son. Again, so great that God alone comprehends her, yet ceaselessly offering to Him all she has received from Him, interceding with the divine Goodness that He might bestow on all the elect a share in her glory as the Mother of Jesus and thus the Mother of men – a Mother whom we must imitate by profoundly humbling ourselves, as she did, in the presence of the Divine Majesty, esteeming ourselves as nothing.

We must love, then, humility in all its forms, if we would be true religious, and be content with the hidden life which shelters us from the vanities of this world, and with the lowly position we occupy in the House of God. Let us find pleasure in the apparently humble and commonplace actions which fill our days. Mary herself avowed to a holy religious that she experienced great joy in seeing him every Saturday sweeping the convent cloister for love of her. We should also accept with a fervent heart the practices of respect and humility imposed on us by our Rule, whether it be towards the Fathers of the cloister or to our superiors (Statuta Ordinis Cartusiensis, II Pars, ch. XVIII, I); we should lose none of these opportunities to practice virtue. Above all, we should fulfill with exact fidelity the act of humility prescribed to us when we are admonished for some fault (ibid., ch. XVIII, 20).

We have already treated of austerity, the second form of our Carthusian cross, when meditating on the vow of poverty; we need not, therefore, repeat it here. Let it suffice to recall that according to the testimony of the Sacred Scriptures, wisdom is seldom found in those who live in luxury (cf. Job 28:13), and it hardly becomes the members of a thorn-crowned Head to garland themselves with roses.

It is for us, then, to practice renunciation or self-denial, and to use the sword of immolation whenever grace inspires us to do so. In the matter of the mind, our Lady would have us renounce our ideas, our opinions, our plans, our own judgment; in that of the heart, our desires, our affections, our tastes and our repugnances. As for the senses, we must renounce our ease, all forms of self-gratification and satisfaction; and in the matter of the will, all over-eagerness and our natural vivacity. Such, and no less, is the extent of the renunciation we are called upon to practice.

The Life of Perfection

This particular piece from a Carthusian monk, in the book Le Mois de Marie Cartusien, focuses on the poverty of the Virgin Mother of God, in order that she may “preserve her unique treasure.” Jesus tells us to “make to yourselves . . . a treasure in heaven which does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth corrupts. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’” (Luke 12:33-34). The possessions of this world’s goods or the lack thereof, causes much stress in the heart of humanity. Our fallen nature renders us “control freaks,” making it difficult to surrender totally to our Lord and trust in His Providence. Jesus encourages us however, when He said: “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a Kingdom” (ibid. verse 32).The Carthusian annals record the apparition, in the year 1137, of Our Blessed Lady to a simple lay-brother of La Correrie near La Grande Chartreuse, to whom she said, having delivered him from some grievous temptation: “Keep on advancing always in the life of perfection. Love the coarse food, the poor clothing allowed you by your Rule, and spend yourself in manual labor.”

These are the counsel of a Mother, herself imbued with a great love for poverty, a virtue of which during the whole of her life she gave a wonderful example. Daughter of David, and the descendant of the kings of Judah, Mary counted it her glory to live hidden from the eyes of men. She heard herself spoken of as a carpenter’s wife, and rejoiced in it, just as her Son was happy to pass for a workman’s son. Rich in the possession of her divine Son, Mary deprived herself of the goods of this world, in order to preserve her unique treasure. And yet as she was Queen of creation, she knew that she could have been trusted always to make use of created things in a lawful and holy manner. We too, therefore, should remain detached from the vanities of this world, if we would possess Him Who in truth only gives Himself to those who can repeat with the poor man of Assisi: “My God, and my All!”

The prospect of the unfading crown which will encircle the brows of those who conquer for Christ’s sake should make us generous in our detachment, like those athletes of whom the apostle speaks, who strip themselves of everything in order to fight in the arena (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:25). Did not Joshua once see his army put to flight by the enemies of God in punishment for a theft committed by a son of Israel, who had stolen objects vowed to the pagan gods?

Holy Mary, Mother of God: pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.