The spiritual countenance of St Bruno

To attempt tracing in a few lines the spiritual portrait of a saint is certainly a difficult thing to do, and to this end we shall only limit ourselves to summarily point out the basic features of St Bruno’s spiritual countenance. We shall base ourselves, above all, on the two letters he wrote at the time he was in Serra, still extant to the present day: one addressed to his friend Rudolph ‘il Verde’ (the green one) and the other to his brethren at the hermitage at the French Charterhouse. These two precious writings reveal to us his spirit at the time of his full development, since they were written in the last years of his life.  

Above all at the root of Bruno’s spirituale life there is a burning and exclusive love for God alone. It is for love and in giving themselves in love that Bruno and his companions made their vows, in Adam’s, garden, to embrace monastic life: «divino amore ferventes».

From this time onwards the exclusive search for God was to be the aim to be staunchly pursued by Bruno, it was to form the main purpose of his whole lifetime, for which he was to leave all that which he considered as being an obstacle to him in the progress he was making. This explains his choice for solitude which he considers as the privileged abode of love, where the soul can expand unhindered, where «an all peaceful countenance full of serenity which wounds the heavenly Spouse with love could be achieved», living in the expectancy of God «to open the door for him as soon as he knocks». Thus, for Bruno, solitude is indissolubly linked to love: in it the heart acquires «that pure and shining eye which sees God»; it is the place of contemplation, of the evangelical beatitude of those who are pure of heart. Bruno is thus a model of that «spiritual virginity» which will be so dear to the Carthusian tradition and which consists in a tense nostalgia for the Divine, filling to the brim a soul which has been wholly captured by God and which traverses a world which has been lightened of all that which encumbers it, to proceed straight to its end, with its sight set on God, its sole desire.

It is here that Bruno’s glance above all sees God as goodness: «Could there be anything of more goodness than God? Rather what other good could there be outside God? Thus, the holy soul which partly understands ( ... ) the beauty of this goodness, lit up with divine love, exclaims: my soul thirsts for God, the living God ». God’s goodness is thus that which has more than anything else attracted and fascinated his soul, so much so that «overflowing with the experience of God’s goodness, even the soul consists of an intense sweetness», and the images of a mother’s tenderness and of a sheep’s mildness shall be those which his spiritual sons of Calabria will use to describe his goodness, about which some funerary speeches will speak, particularly those composed by those who had known Bruno personally.

This goodness and sweetness are undoubtedly the spring of a spirit of moderation and of balance which irradiates out of his figure and which he shall pass on to his religious family, the sign of a soul which is at peace and of a deep interior order. So, even though conducting his life under a rule of austerity, he does not fear enjoying nature’s beauty, knowing that a bow which is strung too tight will not serve its purpose, and for this reason he will disapprove of a corporal self-denial which could compromise his health. Yet he knows that this balance is not easy to achieve: it results from an effort to be made; the peace of the heart is the fruit of an on-going struggle with self, sustained for the love of God: «God awards to his athletes, for having undertaken the combat, the desired reward, that peace which the world disregards and joy in the Holy Spirit ».

This joy in the Spirit is another characteristic of Bruno’s soul; it is, it can be said, the final period of this saint’s figure, the necessary crowning of his portrait. This joy continuously shone on his face: «He always had a happy countenance», his spiritual sons of Calabria wrote when giving the news of his death. This joy is to be found in several parts of the letter to Rudolph and the messages to his Charterhouse sons overflow with it. It was the joy of being able to live without any reservations for God, of being able to love Him unreservedly, it was «the divine joy which the solitude and silence of the hermitage presents as a gift to those who love Him» and which is understood «only by those who have experienced it».