Viva et Rotunda Voce

Chanting, Carthusian style, is not only pleasing to the ears when listening to it on a CD, but it can also open wide the temple doors of the soul for edifying interior delights.

Robin Bruce Lockhart, author of, “Halfway to Heaven: The Hidden Life of the Carthusians” devotes a couple of paragraphs in this book to the Carthusian chant. He writes:

“The Carthusian day begins at an hour when much of the world is carousing or just starting to sleep off the excesses of a materialistic day. At 11:45 p.m. the monk rises from his austere bed to say the Little Office of Our Lady, then, leaving his cell, he wends his way through the cloisters to the monastery church. The choir stalls fill up, the professed monks in their white habits, the Novices in their black cloaks. The church is in almost total darkness, the only light coming from the sanctuary lamp and the shaded low lamps in the choir. After a period of deep silence the chanting of the long night vigil of Matins and Lauds begins. The chanting carries, in its cadences, soaring praises of God, then sinks down to lowly supplication. At times it almost seems to break into a sobbing of repentance before pouring itself out in heartfelt whispers of love. The singing, steeped in Gregorian antiquity, has a holiness all its own, and as a sung office proceeds it is impossible not to sense how the fervor of the Psalms takes over, enveloping not only the monks but also the listener in the tribune.”

A “tribune” is a part of the church building used to accommodate visitors who will witness the chanting of the Offices, although permission to enter the Charterhouse is rare.

Robin Bruce Lockhart continues:

“The purity of the Carthusian chant . . . has been jealously maintained for centuries; slower, lower-pitched and less melismatic than the Benedictine chant, it is considered more deeply spiritual by those who have heard both.”

And then follows these astonishing words:

“The seventeenth-century Cardinal Bona, who undertook vast research into liturgy, records that it was the Carthusian chant which Christ recommended in His revelations to Saint Bridget, the patron saint of Sweden.”

And the book finalizes the subject of the Carthusian chant with these words:

“No organ or other musical instrument accompanies the chant, and in his liturgy the Carthusian seems to be projected by its sacred power to a point where eternity meets his temporal existence.” And that particular sentence is footnoted with a personal note from the author: “Even Benedictines, renowned for their singing, with whom I have spoken admit to the greater spirituality of the Carthusian chant.”

Pope Pius XI, wrote in the Apostolic Constitution, Umbratilem, these words: “At fixed hours of the day and night they assemble in the sacred temple, not merely to chant the Divine Office without modulation, as is the custom in other Orders, but to sing the whole of it ‘viva et rotunda voce’ - in lifelike, moulded tones - according to the very ancient Gregorian melodies of their choir books, and with the accompaniment of no musical instrument. How should God Who is so merciful, fail to grant the prayers of those most pious brethren who thus raise their voices to Him in behalf of the Church and of sinners who need conversion?”

Two popular Carthusian chant CD’s on the market are: “In the Silence of the Word” recorded by the monks at Parkminster; and the other is, “Into Great Silence: Office of the Night” which is the soundtrack to Philip Gröning’s movie about life at La Grande Chartreuse. In the former, all the chants are in Latin and the Readings are recited in English. In the latter, the chants are also in Latin and the Readings are chanted recto tono in French. The latter also has a more realistic “as if you were really there” approach to it because various changes in body posture can be heard as well as sounds like the clearing of throats and coughing.

A Good Shepherd

Today on the Carthusian calendar is the feast of Saint Hugo of Grenoble. He is also referred to as Hugo of Châteauneuf. In art, he is sometimes depicted as a Carthusian even though he wasn’t; he was Benedictine. He was the Bishop of Grenoble for a remarkable fifty-two years. For the Carthusian spirit, Saint Hugo is perhaps best known for receiving Saint Bruno and his six companions and making available to them, the mountainous area near Grenoble where now stands La Grande Chartreuse, the motherhouse of the Carthusian Order.

Collect:
Father, through Saint Hugo you manifested the Church's pastoral care for our first founders.Through his intercession may our Order continue to flourish.

At the hour of Matins, four of the Readings proclaimed were from Saint Thomas Aquinas concerning shepherds, and of course Saint Hugo shepherded Grenoble’s flock for a long time. Here’s what was proclaimed to the monks:

Christ states the office of a good shepherd. That Christ is a Shepherd is clear enough, for as a flock is led and fed by the shepherd, so the faithful are nourished by Christ with spiritual Food, and even with His own Body and Blood: and the letter of Saint Peter says, ‘For you were straying like sheep, but now have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls’ (1 Peter 2:25); The prophet proclaims: ‘He will feed his flock like a shepherd’ (Isaiah 40:11). To distinguish Himself from the evil shepherd and the thief, Jesus states that He is the Good Shepherd. The adjective ‘good’ indicates that Christ fulfils His task with the same seriousness like a soldier is called good who fulfils his service. But since Christ had said that the shepherd enters by the door, and here He says that He is the Shepherd, and before He said He was the Door, then He must enter through Himself. And He does enter through Himself, because He manifests Himself and through Himself knows the Father. We, however, enter through Him, because it is by Him that we are led to happiness.

Note that only He is the Door, because no one else is the true light, but only shares in the Light: John the Baptist, ; ‘was not the light, but came to bear witness to the Light’ (John 1:8). But we read of Christ that ‘He was the True Light, which enlightens every man’ (John 1:9).No one else refers to himself as a door; Christ reserved this for Himself. But being a Shepherd He did share with others, and conferred it on His members: for Peter was a shepherd, and the other apostles were shepherds, as well as all good bishops: ‘I will give you shepherds after my own heart’ (Jeremiah 3:15). Although the Church's rulers, who are her children, are all shepherds, yet He expressly says, I am the Good Shepherd, in order to emphasize the virtue of charity. For no one is a good shepherd unless he has become one with Christ by love, and has become a member of the True Shepherd.

The office of a good shepherd is charity; thus He says, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. It should be noted that there is a difference between a good shepherd and an evil one: the good shepherd is intent upon the welfare of the flock, but the evil one is intent upon his own. This difference is touched upon by Ezekiel (34:2): ‘Woe to you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep’? Therefore, one who uses the flock only to feed himself is not a good shepherd. From this it follows that an evil shepherd, even over animals, is not willing to sustain any loss for the flock, since he does not intend the welfare of the flock, but his own. But a good shepherd, even over animals, endures many things for the flock whose welfare he has at heart. Thus Jacob said in Genesis (31:40): ‘By day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night’.

However, when dealing with mere animals it is not necessary that a good shepherd expose himself to death for the safety of the flock. But because the spiritual safety of the human flock outweighs the bodily life of the shepherd, when danger threatens the safety of the flock the spiritual shepherd ought to suffer the loss of his bodily life for the safety of the flock. This is what our Lord says, the good shepherd lays down his life, that is, his bodily life, for the sheep, the sheep who are his by authority and charity. Both are required, for they must belong to Him and he must love them; the first without the second is not enough. Furthermore, Christ has given us an example of this teaching: ‘He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren’ (1 John 3:16).

Holy Peace Only in Solitude

Today is the liturgical Memorial of Saint Scholastica, the sister of Saint Benedict. As we honor this holy woman, it also turns us to another holy woman. Julia Crotta, also known as Sister Nazarena, was a Camaldolese Benedictine recluse. Her story is told by Thomas Matus in the book titled, “Nazarena: an American Anchoress.” Easter was approaching, and for Nazarena, it would be her anniversary, twenty-one years since her call to solitude. And of that call, Nazarena approaching her anniversary wrote: “Now God is making me hear it louder than ever.” At the end of Lent in 1961, she expressed her joy in solitude in a letter to her abbess. She wrote what follows.

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My soul finds its place and feels holy peace only in solitude. Whenever I leave it, I feel restless and spiritually unable to breathe. Strange, but true! Perhaps Jesus permits me to feel this way in order to make it absolutely clear that He is calling me and wants me to cling to Him alone in the strictest solitude.

I do so love my religious family – now that everything is settled, I want to pray more and better for you. I always feel ashamed when I offer my poor prayers! But I unite them with the merits of Jesus and thus I hope they will not be altogether useless. I am glad I have no knowledge of any person or event, outside of what is strictly necessary for me to know. Please do me this kindness, that all my mind and soul may be filled with God and souls, without any particular knowledge of them. I shall better avoid distractions if I know nothing about persons or events. In any case I feel I have to do this, whether I want to or not. When the Lord wants certain things, He gives you no rest until He has them!