Web hosting Custom Email SiteBuilder

Next October the Carthusian Order will be celebrating the ninth centenary of the death of its founder St Bruno. The first Carthusian passed away on the 6^th October 1101, in the peace of his hermitage in Calabria. His last words consisted of a profession of faith in the Holy Trinity, which his companions devoutly transcribed and which they disseminated in part in an encyclical letter which was attached to his funerary scroll. Today these last words of Bruno are still more precious, considering that the saint has left very little in writing.

Bruno’s loss was a sorrowful moment, not only for his companions in Calabria, but also for his brethren of Chartreuse, who, after his departure for Rome, had always hoped seeing him again. For those who had known him personally, he was a "man of penetrating good sense", an "incomparable father", a "perfect spiritual guide". All this praise, however, does not cast any shadow on his state of being a simple monk, who above all has loved: his body was buried in the cemetery of the hermitage, as is still the custom with all Carthusians, in bare earth. It was only in 1514 that Cardinal Luigi D’Aragona obtained his canonisation vivae vocis oraculo, then to be followed, on the 1st November of the same year, by the exaltation of his relics and later, in 1623, by fixing his feastday on the Roman breviary.

Above all, it is through the development of his personal story that St Bruno of Cologne was to put his seal on the Order which he founded. When Bruno was about fifty years old, he rather abruptly broke off with a life of rendering outside service to the Church and of university teaching, and went off looking for a kind of solitude which would enable him to consecrate himself only to a life of prayer and intimacy with God. This has to be seen in a rather unexpected context, if events are looked at outwardly, keeping in mind that his contemporaries were at the time expecting to see him occupy the Archbishop’s seat at Rheims, with an aim of crowning his intellectual apostolate, from which the best souls of his time had benefited, with a pastoral ministry.

Bruno, who was born at Cologne around 1030, had since his early youthful days emigrated to Rheims, which was then one of the most renowned faculties in the west, so as to pass a considerable part of his life within his university walls, first as student then as lecturer, having among his pupils most of the grand intellectuals of the century: such as Anselm of Laon, who later became Abelardo’s master, Hugh, the future bishop of Grenoble to whom belongs the Chartreuse desert, and Eudes of Chatillon, who later became Pope Urbanus II.

Bruno’s final option to lead a solitary life arrived at the end of a crisis which shook the Church at Rheims, and put Bruno in sharp contrast to Archbishop Manasse, who was charged with simony. The crisis actually divested him of every office he held and he was exiled from the dioceses. Besides, this crisis also gave rise to an attraction to rise within Bruno’s mind which, as we already know, had for some time already been perturbing his heart. In a letter Bruno wrote from Calabria, where Urbanus II allowed him to retire, to Rudolph the Green, an old study-mate of his who later became provost at Rheims, he writes about a resolution made by three persons, Bruno, Rudolph the Green and Folco the Eyeglass holder, following a conversation which took place during the night in the garden of a certain Adam at whose residence Bruno lodged at the time. The scene must have taken place about the year 1080. Bruno was therefore already ready to depart in solitude, when certain unforeseen circumstances obliged him to postpone a bit further the accomplishment of his plan. Indeed! The delay was fatal for his two companions, for in his own words: "the spirit grew cold and the fervour disappeared" (Letter to Rudolph the Green).

It was only a short time later, when he was nearly fifty years of age and after having refused a promotion to become a bishop which the good people of Rheims had wished for, that he could put his plan into action, yet for another time along with another two friends of his. Undoubtedly, Bruno already intuitively had a certain idea of what the solitary life he wanted to embrace meant. New communities were then flourishing all over the place, representing the full spread of monastic experiences. He does not take the path of a full hermit’s life: Bruno was not during his lifetime ever to be without companions. He would therefore turn to an abbot and to a community which were already famed as reformers: it is St Robert of Molesmes who invests him with the monastic garb. Yet the monks of Molesmes are strict cenobites who follow the Rule of St Benedict. A few of them are later to be seen to be the founding fathers of Citeaux and the Cistercians, themselves also leading a cenobitic life. Bruno was at the time looking for something new, and Robert of Molesmes allowed him to withdraw to a place neigh to him, at Sèche-Fontaine, undoubtedly aiming at having a few hermitages built: a first blueprint of the Carthusian desert. Yet this does not actually correspond to Bruno’s feelings. It would have somehow happened that the cenobites at Molesmes were too close to him and did not sufficiently give heed to his solitude, or that he was looking for a harsher desert than the one they could offer him on the forest slopes of the hills on the borders of Champagne. In any case, Bruno and his companions shifted their attention on the Dauphinate, where one of his former pupils had for some time held the bishop’s seat of Grenoble. It was the said Hugh who on the 24^th June 1084, feast of St John the Baptist, led him to a valley on the rocky slopes of Chartreuse, where they built the first wooden huts, much farther away and at a higher place from the place where the massive buildings of the Grand Chartreuse may be found today. It was the same place from where some ten years later they were driven out by an avalanche, which caused the death of several brethren.

Bruno does not show any explicit elements about the way in which this solitary life was concretely organised, yet we are allowed to think that the harmonious union of a solitary life, which was very closely linked to some elements of a common life, was already being thought of and that this was exactly Bruno’s personal plan. When some ten years later Guigo writes about the customs adopted by the community, he speaks of "customs which we adopt" and which undoubtedly go back to Bruno himself.

From where does Bruno get his ideas for such project? Latin monasticism did not at the time look up other than at the Rule of St Benedict, which had practically become, since a couple of centuries, the only monastic rule. Now this rule is a strictly cenobitic one, even if Benedict does not ignore a hermit’s life, having practised it himself before founding some monasteries, and he even leaves a door discreetly open for those monks who wanted to lead such life, yet only after having received considerable training in the cenobitic way. St Benedict does not appear to appreciate a hermit’s life other than under an extreme form, namely that of a solitary monk abandoned to God and to himself, completely alone in absolute retirement.

In the luxury of foundations and a new community which characterised monastic life in the 11^th century, the specifically hermetic component had reassumed its rights in different manners. The greater part of these foundations rediscovered the way to a real material solitude, far away from inhabited areas. A few hermits had also congregated in small colonies, where the rigours of solitude was tempered by the presence of brethren who were animated by the same spirit of searching. Several decades before Bruno’s time, St Romuald had spread all over Italy several gems of this type, the most famous of which was that of Camaldoli, near Arezzo, which gave its name to a monastic family which lasts to this very day. Beyond St Benedict, western monasticism thus proceeded to link back to some forms which were inherited from the East, which were always considered to be their birth-place.

Guigo, the Chartreuse legislator, seems to be very much aware of this ascendancy. When collating the habits which they practised, he made explicit reference, next to St Benedict, to the Ancient Fathers of Egypt and of Palestine: Paul (of Thebes), Anthony and Hilarion. Even more surprising, at the time the first Carthusians moved towards the north. is the testimony given by a senior Benedictine monk, who became a Cistercian in advanced age, William of St-Thierry, who turned to the brethren of the recent foundation at Mont-Dieu, in the French Ardenne, the same way as he would to those who "carried into the darkness of the West and into the cold climes of Gallia the light of the East (Orientale lumen) and the ancient fervour of Egypt, namely the example of solitary life and the image of a heavenly life" (Golden Letter 1, 1).

Bruno’s stay among the brothers of Chartreuse lasted only for a few years, until Urban II, his former pupil who had become pope, had called him to his side to prepare some synods or councils. Bruno conformed with the request, yet he never felt at home at the Papal Curia. To those brethren who had accompanied him, the Pope, knowing their option in favour of solitude, he offered the Diocletian Bath which was then in ruins to them. Ultimately declining the offer made to him by the Pope of the bishopric at Reggio Calabria, Bruno obtained from him the authorisation to withdraw to another hermitage, where he was to end his days, surrounded by the affection of his brethren at Calabria, as those of Chartreuse, who never ceased considering him as the starter of the their project and as their true father.

What Bruno himself thinks of the monastic style of life which he was propagating wherever he passed from, we could find an echo of this in two letters which he had written and which were conserved by tradition. The first, which has been already cited, is addressed to Rudolph the Green, who was then chapter provost at Rheims cathedral, to remind him of the vow which they had once taken together; the second was sent to his brethren who had remained at the Chartreuse, to encourage them to persevere in their vocation. In order to be able to better grasp the fundamental intuition of Carthusian hermits, we might add to these two letters written by Bruno a third letter, that written by Guigo who sings the praises of solitary life, in favour of a friend, hidden in anonymity, whom he seeks to convince to reach him.

In order to describe Carthusian life, Bruno twice makes use of the imagery obtaining from the vigil: this life is summarised in excubiae divinae, a divine vigil. In this manner, Bruno extends to his own life the practice of night prayer, which he had taken by way of example from Jesus, which has always been an important element and of particular fondness to the heart of the solitary monk. It corresponds to a wish expressed by Jesus right at the most crucial time of his existence: "Are you not able to stay awake for an hour with me?". Bruno does also put in right perspective the aim of the vigil: the Carthusian, with his brethren, mounts "a holy and persevering guard in expectance of the return of one’s master, so that one might be able to open to him when he arrives". The evangelical allusion is transparent. This immediately puts in place the particular position of the solitary monk on the pathway of the whole Church. We would say today, not unreasonably, that he finds himself in the heart of this way. Yet the eschatological image used by Bruno allows further clarification: the solitary monk also finds himself on the forefront in this way which progresses along the times, and finds himself, so to say, at the head, having been entrusted with the particular mission to "hasten" in a mysterious manner "the coming of the Day of the Lord" (2 Pt 3, 12).

Another image, even this used twice, implies the same spiritual reality, namely that of the harbour. The solitary monk, in taking his distance from the world, has already arrived in port. He "rode over the rough waves of this world, where dangers and shipwrecks increase day by day", and has established himself "in the quiet rest and security of a sheltered harbour" (2, 2). Each one of these phrases possesses quite an exact meaning – a so called "technical one" – in the monastic glossary of the time. We shall refer to two of these.

This harbour is first and foremost figured out as tutus et quietus. The words deriving from the root quies (quiescere, quietus) give meaning to the realities which are those pertaining to that which we now style as a strictly contemplative life. We shall go farther back because the word quies-riposo means one of the essential elements of the Carthusian experience. This rest, or "quietude", is above all attributed to the place where the Carthusian desert is established. When Bruno speaks about it, it is not the austere magnificence of the Alps of the Duaphinate which he sees before him, which medieval sensitivity found to be little attractive, but rather the sweet harmony of the planes and hills of Calabria. Bruno takes pleasure in describing his desert: "How can I speak enough of the beauty of the place, of the pleasant and healthy climate or of the ample and beautiful plane which extends itself between the mountains, with its green pastures and grazing areas covered with flowers?". He also adds: "Who could describe the view of the hills which pleasantly rise around the place and the secret of the shady valleys with the rhythm of various rivers, streams and springs? Nor are gardens having rows and fruit orchards with different trees lacking" (1, 4). All this silence in these whereabouts has been created to favour interior silence, in which God reveals himself and where the soul meets Christ. Guigo has then abridged this orientation of the solitary monk’s heart in a well-phrased formula which is both simple and strong in its meaning: the Carthusian should be a "Cristus quietus": his inner quiet should be entirely centred on Christ.

The other "technical" term of the contemplative glossary of the time, which we find in his writings, is that relating to statio, to remain standing straight, which brings to mine that a person stands somewhere in a stable state, which he will only depart from as little as possible, besides the ancient posture reserved for prayer which was made in an upright position. If this quiet attitude is freed and safeguarded with so much care, this is certainly done with an aim to prayer. This word, on the other hand, is close to and interchangeable with another term, which is only contrary to it in appearance: it is sessio, remaining in a sitting posture within the cell. Guigo uses it by making very clearly reference to the quotation from Lam. 3, 28, which has ever been reserved to solitary and silent life. The term quies-riposo then recalls another, which is also quite frequent: this state of quietness assures us of a sanctum otium, a holy idleness, which also makes a person wholly available to God and prayer. Bruno takes from Saint Augustine a play on words which is particularly joyful, which frees with one stroke a similar term from every possible ambiguity: it refers to an otium negotiosum, an active idleness; which though still keeping its meaning, should nevertheless remain a quiet actio, an active life which is lived in peace. Augustine had already quarrelled with those who, at his time, had envied him for the holy idleness of which he availed himself: "Let no one – he wrote – envy my sloth, "quia meum otium magnum habet negotium", since my sloth conceals a great deal of activity" (Letters 213, 6).

For the solitary monk it is not so much a manual or pastoral activity that counts inasmuch as the inner works to which he gives privilege over all other matters, All this culminates in prayer, yet it is nourished by the wholeness of all monastic works, among which the zealous attendance for the Word of God occupies first place. In support of this, the day is organised in such manner that each single item of work is gradually considered as facilitating this prayer task. The Carthusian life, Guigo writes, is a "poor and solitary life, (...) persevering in adversity, (...) modest in favourable events, sober in meals, simple in clothing, prudent in speech, chaste in behaviour. It could be coveted above all else, since it is not in any way ambitious, (...) In his habitual faithfulness to the Cross, the monk leads a steadfast practice of fasting, only consumes meals according to the needs of this body and regulates both matters with the greatest discretion, (...) he reads literature, but above all Scripture and monastic writings, from which he would collect more of the essence of meaning than the froth of words, ( ...) and this life multiplies to such an extent the monk’s duties that it so happens very often that he rather misses time for himself so that he could accomplish some allotted task. And quite often he afflicts himself for lack of time rather than for the nature of the work". And still Guigo, in closing this detailed list – which we had on the other hand to abridge – takes up again the play on words used by Augustine: "sic est continua in otio, quod numquam est otiosa", our life perseveres in sloth even if it is never slothful (3,4).

Such intense activity, however, always takes place in solitude. It neither implies any outside intellectual activity, which Bruno had willingly left, nor a pastoral responsibility within the Church, which Bruno has wanted to escape or which he will not accept, the same as he attempts to extrude his friend Rudolph the Green from as chancellor at the archbishopric of Rheims. Bruno does not entertain any scruples in acting in this manner. He will thus appear to identify pastoral activity with the too many preoccupations which such activity necessarily established, and with the worldly ambitions which he risked secretly fostering. He admits that this is undoubtedly more fertile, like Lia who gives more children to Jacob, rather than Rachel, who was much more beautiful and sociable. Bruno takes this allegorical interpretation from Gregory the Great, in whose eyes a span of a stricter contemplative life legitimately follows a time of apostolic service (Pastoral Rule 1, 11). "The sons of contemplation are actually less numerous than those leading an active life – he writes – yet Joseph and Benjamin are loved by the father more than all the other brothers". In this light, a discreet allusion to the evangelical passage, which was quite symbolic in the eyes of the Fathers as to the value of contemplative life, would not be misplaced; and it is thus that Bruno actually concludes: "This is the best part which Mary has chosen and which shall not be taken away from her ".

On the other hand, for the founder of the Chartreuse to abandon a university chair, where he was teacher, meant that he was to take up another position, from which time onwards he was to become disciple, this time of a teacher who abounds in knowledge which is in excess of what humans can grasp. It is undoubtedly due to his former university career which he has abandoned for the love of Christ that Bruno thinks, when presenting Carthusian life with the traits of an alternative school, of the place where whoever wants to become Christ’s disciple should attend to receive from the Holy Spirit in person the secrets of a fully divine philosophy. He thus arrives at a recurrent theme in the grand Tradition, which liked seeing in a life fully consecrated to the search for God the most excellent form of a "true philosophy". "Who does not see how beautiful, useful and joyful, he writes to his old disciple friend in Rheims, it is to stay in the school of Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there to learn divine philosophy, which alone could bestow the true beatitude?" (1, 10).

Bruno raises a corner of the veil which conceals the pedagogical method used by the Holy Spirit, in a passage of his letter to his brethren at the Chartreuse, where he turns in a more particular manner to the group of vowed brethren within the community, for a long time made up of illiterate lay persons, and thus habitually deprived from the reading of Scripture, which Bruno on the other hand esteems greatly. Yet this is of no importance at all! Even if these brethren do not understand the letters, they will still receive an inner teaching, directly infused in them by the Spirit, relating to a wisdom about which the more learned monks of the cloister-house would have none to envy. It would be worth quoting this text, which may perhaps be the only one of the time dedicated to the state of vowed brethren: "With regard to you, my most beloved lay brethren, (...) even I am quite joyful since, although you are illiterate, almighty God writes with His finger on your heart not only love, but also the awareness of his holy law. You actually show with your works that which you love and know. Because you exercise with the greatest care and with great zeal true obedience, which is the fulfilment of God’s commandment, the key and seal to all spiritual observance; this could never occur without a deep humility and great patience, and it is always accompanied by a chaste love for the Lord and rewards an authentic charity. It is thus evident that you gather with wisdom the sweetest and most nourishing fruit of Divine Scripture" (2, 3). This text is quite remarkable, in that if a contemplative life is undertaken as it should, the inner infusion of the Holy Spirit could substitute that obtained from reading, even from the lectio of Scripture itself.

Yet this could not be understood and talked about other than by those who have been effectively called, and have taken upon themselves the risk of paying the price. Bruno is actually fully aware of the fact that not all baptised persons are invited to follow Christ in a desert which would be so rigorous as to exclude all distraction. Being a hermit is not a calling one chooses for oneself. If Bruno was pressing on Rudolph the Green, he was doing this because he believed that he was still bound by a vow he had led him to make. Yet when he addresses his own brethren, Bruno rather emphasises the exceptional nature of their vocation, and at the same time the outstanding grace which this represents from God with regard to them, and that it should be a reason to be joyful and to be thankful unceasingly. This is how he addresses them in a passage which might perhaps be remembered by a number of postulants which, yesterday like today, have had to renounce to the termination of a serious trial period: "Rejoice, therefore, my most dear brethren, of your joyful destiny and of the abundance of graces which God is infusing inside you. (...) Rejoice that you have arrived at the silent and safe resting-place which is a most sheltered harbour, to which most would like to arrive, many who would also do a certain effort to reach it but who do not succeed in reaching it. Many then, after having arrived thereat, were thrown back because to none of them was this given from on high. Therefore, my brethren, remember as a proven fact that whosoever has enjoyed such a desirable experience, should he ever for any reason lose it, he would suffer continuously" (2, 2).

Bruno recalls the wonders which God is used to working in the desert, besides the trials and temptations on which he does not speak much, with the following words "what great usefulness and divine joy solitude and desert silence portend to whosoever love them", and he immediately after describes them in a remarkable passage which now forms part of all anthologies dedicated to solitary life: "Here (in the desert), actually, brave men could delve deeply within their souls whenever they want and reside within their hearts, intensely cultivate the seeds of virtue and taste with joy the fruits of paradise. Here one acquires that eye whose serene glance wounds the spouse with love and by virtue of its purity and luminosity one sees God. Here one exercises an assiduous sloth and rests in quiet action. Here, in exchange for a difficult struggle, God gives his athletes the award they desire, namely that peace which the world ignores and the joy of the Holy Spirit" (1, 6).

This is a compact text, indeed, in which biblical or traditional images and allusions over-ride each other. We here note a discreet allusion to what the struggle caused by solitude could contain by way of gravity: the difficulty of struggle requires "courageous men" and "athletes". "To enter within themselves" or "to live within themselves", this last phrase already being used by St Gregory who applies it to St Benedict, intends the inner recollection which allows the solitary monk to guard over his desires and to direct them continually and with tranquillity towards God; exactly that which constitutes the climbing or the particular effort made by whoever lives only for God. Gregory clarifies this in the following manner: "In this solitude, the venerable Benedict lived with himself, inasmuch as he secluded himself within the cloister walls of his mind", "in quantum se intra cogitationis claustra custodivit" (Dialogues IV, 2, 3). Inner recollection permits the purification of the heart which is in love with its God, and whose glance wounds the divine spouse who is, on his part, ready to make him try in reply his love, instilling in his soul the fruits of his Spirit: peace and joy. Is it perhaps not said of Bruno, who was quite often surprised to be seen walking in the midst of nature repeating that which came to be in him the call of his heart, and undoubtedly his most preferred ejaculatory prayer: "O bonitas!"?

Since its origins, the charisma of evangelical life has been lived according to several and various manners. They first took the form of a renunciation to marriage by the ascetics and virgins, who were already present in the primitive Church. Yet it seems that it was quite soon that these had started being set up by well defined groups within Christian communities: in Churches where the Aramaic rite is practised, these groups assumed the name of ‘Sons and Daughters of the Alliance’, where the word Alliance means the particular commitment which they had entered into to remain celibate in the heart of the Church. At first they were perfectly inserted in the Church structures, and they did not attempt separate themselves from it. It was in the first half of the fourth century that some Christians took the habit of isolating themselves in the deserts of Egypt or in the mountains of Asia Minor. This life-style, which was then unheard of and which was often misunderstood at first, was defended by St Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, in his renowned Life of St Anthony, which after having been translated into Latin soon entered the western world and caused St Augustine’s conversion.

Undoubtedly, the first monks intended living completely alone in the desert. Yet they did not fail to attract disciples to follow them, ever wanting to introduce them to their school. This was the origin of the monastic communities which thus developed according to two parallel models. There were a few communities of cenobites where a relatively strict common life sustained brethren among them, and a few communities of solitary monks, who lived a secluded life in caves or in cells, yet who met at regular intervals, usually on Sundays to celebrate the liturgy. At the end of the fourth century monastic life spread rapidly in these two forms across the whole Christian world.

In the East, a model of a prevalently hermetic life was apparently preferred, both in the form of settlements, which sprung up nearly everywhere in Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor, and which were characterised by a colony of individual cells, whose inhabitants did not meet other than at certain agreed times, as we shall see; both under the form of a two-stage monastic life, the first being more strictly a cenobitic one, which actually laid the way for seclusion in solitude, to which the monk was admitted at the end of a rather long training period in the virtues of community life. This form seems to have been the most common practice of monasticism of the Syrian rite.

In the west, on the contrary, it was cenobitic life which prevailed, above all after the ninth century, when the Rule of St Benedict practically rooted out all the other rules which were then in force. In the eleventh century, however, as already stated, there was noted a strong hermetic trend, first in Italy under the influence of St Romuald and his first disciples who sought grouping together within the same institution cenobitic and hermetic groups, and also of individual solitary monks who never departed from their solitude. The same trend was also found in the Gallic lands with the life-style created by St Bruno, who was rather inspired by the settlements of Palestine. Both Bruno and Romuald started off from the same intention: that of integrating in the most harmonious manner possible solitary life and community life, successively exploiting the resources of both one and the other. Thus, if the Camaldolese monk starts off as a cenobite, who promises to lead a stricter solitary life when God calls him to do so, the Carthusian is from the very beginning a solitary monk, for whom the risks of isolation are tempered with a discreet dose of community life.

On the other hand the charterhouse further permits other "doses", if these may be styled in this manner, other balances between solitary life and cenobitic life. Besides the "cloister monks", who pass the greater part of the day in their cells, where they recite the little hours of the Divine Office, eat and listen to the inward Word and to the prayer of the heart, as well as to manual labour, the Carthusian community also includes within it some Brothers who, although enjoying a personal solitary space sharing with the Fathers the same contemplative orientation, are moreover called to exit their cells with an aim of dedicating themselves to certain activities within the monastery and ensure the functionality of the community. Among these, a few of them, the "conversi" (the converted ones, those who have renounced to their former lives), are definitively committed with their vows, while the others, the "donati" (those who give up, offer themselves), are committed to the community with a promise and reciprocal contract. They could thus find a more adapt equilibrium to their character and in terms of what their health allows.

The Order then, right from the beginning, has a female branch, actually comprising two monasteries in France, two in Italy and one in Spain. The Carthusian nuns’ life is marked by the same strictly contemplative attitude, and offers identical possibilities to tie up together in the most harmonious manner possible the advantages of solitary life with those of common life. The female branch enjoys within the Order a relative autonomy, also having a specific General Chapter of their own.

As in all forms of contemplative life, the charterhouse is has as its characteristic a calling to the desert, similar to the Jewish people in the Sinai desert and of the Lord himself who in this manner inaugurated his public life and eventually often retired to that same place, there to meet his Father during the night vigils and in prayer. Among the several aspects which Christ’s life on earth offers to be imitated by those who want to follow him, are the long hours of prayer in solitude which the Carthusian monk is bound to protract in the heart of the Church and of the world. He forms part of those who, as stated in the Post-Synodal Exhortation on "Consecrated Life" of Pope John Paul II, have chosen to "follow Christ who prays on the mountain" (no. 14).

The Carthusian way of solitude expresses above all the distancing of oneself in a very radical manner from the ways of the world, thanks to a cloistered life, which implies a consequential reduction of contacts with the world. Close family relations are allowed to pay visits only once or twice a year, but the visit made by friends or acquaintances is quite exceptional. Letter-writing is purposely limited and it would require permission to be granted by the superior. There are no radio, television or newspapers. Any important news about the Church and the world reach the monks so long as the prior lets them know about them during the Sunday chapter. A few journals on theology and spirituality are circulated from cell to cell. But for the weekly walk in the countryside taken together, the renowned spatiamentum, exits from the cloister-house are rare and limited to strict health requirements. That is all insofar as contacts with the outside world are concerned.

Yet the solitude is rendered still more profound by virtue of the stay inside the cell, or rather inside the hermitage which the Carthusian monks receives at his disposal. This hermitage resembles a small house, which includes the real cell having a corner for prayer, a work-place, a walking corridor, the small garden where the solitary monk could not be seen by anyone, and the attic where he could keep the wood he burns to heat the house during the winter months.

It is within this internal space, a place of combat but also a meeting-place with the Lord, that the Carthusian monk feels being a "selected" person. He does not go out other than for the night vigil, the conventual mass and vespers, while celebrating the other liturgical hours in the cell’s oratory. When the monk needs to go out again from his cell (to visit the library, for example, or the prior or his spiritual director), the monk takes care to group these visits in such manner as to pass the least time possible outside the place which is more his own. With such retreat to his cell, the Carthusian vocation is even today associated with the numerous monks and nuns which our western middle ages have created, Actually, it is always the ancient prayer of the inclusio which is recited, pertaining to the medieval right of seclusion, which, according to the current Carthusian ritual, the prior recites on the novice when he, after having been vested with the habit, is solemnly led by the whole community to his cell. From that time onwards he is, according to the beautiful words uttered by St Bernard, "amore Christi inclusus", a monk for the love of Christ.

Actually it is his exclusive attachment to Christ which the monk will try to express little by little through the rigours and joys of solitude, similarly to the love which Christ first had for him which could explain his choice to "abide in him" in this manner, to "abide in his love", "in the shade of his wings" and "in the secret of his Face". A passage from the recent Carthusian Statutes thus describes that which the solitary monk could expect from such seclusion: "Whosoever lives stably in a cell and is formed by it, aims at rendering all his life a single incessant prayer. Yet he cannot enter this quiet, unless he would have first been tried by a hard struggle, both through the austerities to which he would persist due to his familiarity with the cross, and through those trials with which the Lord would have tested him like gold in the crucible. Having been thus purified by patience, consoled and nourished by an assiduous meditation of Scripture, and introduced through the grace of the Spirit within the depths of his heart, he shall become able not only to serve God, but to belong to him" (Statutes 1, 3, 2). This last phrase is taken from William of Saint-Thierry in the Golden Letter addressed to the Carthusians of Mont­Dieu, and already referred to before: "Others are expected to serve God, but you should belong to him". And William adds: "Others have to believe, know, love and adore God; you have to taste Him, understand Him, know Him, try Him" (Golden Letter, 16). All this teaches the monk the importance of continuously remaining in his cell, according to an ancient saying of the Desert Fathers, as reproduced in the Imitation of Christ: "Remain sitting in your cell, for it will teach you every thing" (Father Moses, 6).

No Scripture writing has better drawn out the meaning of being tried in the desert than that in which the Deuteronomic scribe has left us his reflections on the experience which God’s people had to pass through during forty days passed in the desert referred to in the Exodus: "Remember the full journey which your Lord God has made you go through during these past forty years in the desert, to humiliate you and try you, to know what lay in your heart and whether you would have kept or not his commandments. He has therefore passed you through humility, has made you feel hunger, and then nourished you with manna, which you did not know of and which your fathers had never known of, to make you understand that man does not live by bread only, but that he lives by the words which the Lords utters" (Dt 8, 2f). Even for Jesus, who entering into this world wanted to take upon himself all human weakness and misery, the desert temptations were necessary. Basically, these were not his, but rather ours. Through them, Jesus could, so to speak, touch upon the three inborn maladies of sinful man - sensuality, money, power – in order to triumph along with the Word of God and with the force deriving from the Spirit.

Actually, whatever the concrete contours of his solitude might be, this would generally not delay revealing its double-facedness to the candidate presenting himself to it. Singing lyrically the joys of a desert which may still be strongly romantic, will not last for long. Later, much later, when the hermit would have crossed the burning furnace of temptations, surviving only by the strength given him by the Resurrected Christ and which is working within him, he could proceed to sing about them, at long last with fully sincere accents. Yet first it is only temptation which expects him relentlessly. Without waiting much, solitude will overburthen him, like a lead cup. The pallor and the monotony of passing days generate boredom within him. The absence of outside distractions throws the solitary monk on himself and on all those desires which have been since unconfessed and which still swarm around in his heart, and which however reveal themselves not being able to be confessed. In the chatter of the living world, these desires were simply dozing, Yet now they wake up again and hasten to occupy any available land, and this they do even within the most precious regions of his heart, and even during those delicate moments of Bible reading and of the prayer of the heart. The diabolical genies which painters, such as Hieronimus Bosch or Salvador Dalì, or authors, such as Gustave Flaubert, have depicted around St Anthony and the likes of his, are none else than projections of what the solitary monk discovers within himself about his sin and debility. The seeker of solitude will soon fully convince himself that he is none better than others. Only solitude will free him from all his illusions and from all his myths. It will teach him to be simply a man, a weak and poor man, who experiments deeply within himself on a wide range of passions, from the more carnal ones to the more thinly spiritual ones, yet who is now uniquely laid bare to the power of the grace of God, if God will it. However he is not always certain about this, either.

A similar experience carries along with it a few risks, although remaining in every sense decisive and incisive. Not inasmuch for the sentiments of boredom and apparent uselessness which do not cease appearing in the heart of the solitary monk, but for the conscience reckoning which the solitary monk does of his radical debility, of his own incapacity to persevere in the desert, without the aid of a miracle, for which he feels that he could not guarantee any right. The most destructive temptation which attacks the solitary monk is that of creating for oneself a certain comfort and of disinstalling oneself – doing the activities of a solitary monk, reading thoroughly – in order to soften the pressure made by the divine calling. A certain spirituality, which is basically pagan, would have probably accustomed him to see in solitude the fatherland of the strong. "Der Starke ist am máchtigsten allein!" as Goethe proclaimed, "The strong man is never as strong than whenever he is alone! " – Instead it is exactly in solitude that the solitary monk sees himself to be desperately confronted with his most specific frailty. As the author of Deuteronomy would have already described: God leads his people into the desert "to make them humble" (Dt 8, 2). There is no other authentically Christian desert. One of the masters of desert spirituality, Evagrius Ponticus, has created in the fourth century a technical term to describe the feeling of tiredness, nearly to the limit of desperation, which could find its place in the heart of the solitary monk, a term which has survived to the present day in our language, yet with a significantly reduced meaning: acedia. The description given by Evagrius allows us to see through how deeply, both on a psychological and a spiritual level, this purification works inside man’s heart. It brings about a debate within him which takes him to his very origins. It is accompanied for the greater part of the time by the feeling that God is either too far away or that he is absolutely absent. This impression of God’s absence, also called the "abandonment" on the part of a God before whom the solitary monk is stubborn to persevere sweetly and humbly, makes him ultimately come closer to one of the most familiar religious experiences for modern man. Such person would actually frequently experiment God as the great absentee. Up to a short while ago he would have been called an atheist, which is word which has since become unfashionable and knowingly replaced by agnostic. Such an experience is, however and notwithstanding all appearances, really a ‘religious’ one, and the solitary monk ends up feeling himself very close to it. On the other hand does not the apparent abandonment by his Father also repeat itself within him, the same way as Jesus had experimented in his heart at the time of his own solitude on Calvary? "My God, my God why have you abandoned me?" (Mt 27, 46). A renowned nun of modern times, St Therese of Lisieux, has passed through this trial fully during the year which preceded her death, so much so that she did not even dare to put down in writing the feelings which had then felt, for fear of making herself guilty of blasphemy: "My most dear mother, the picture I wanted to depict of the darkness which engulfs my soul is so imperfect like a rough drawing compared to the actual work, but I do not want to go on writing any further, fearing I would fall into blasphemy.... I fear having already said too much" (Manuscript C, Writings, P.G.C.S. – p. 259). More than anyone else, the contemplative then becomes, as one says, an "expert in atheism". Such an experience should not in any way confound him. Our feelings and our words are limited enough to be able to restrict God. The believer should not think that he has grasped God. Because each time he has to die to one’s own ideas about him, to his own memories relating to him, he could not escape the impression that God is dead. This may actually partially correspond to the truth. Since there is a God, who is the fruit of the projection of his primordial fears and apprehensions, which really do not exist. The authentic God is infinitely located beyond us, and we need crucify all our spontaneous concepts of God, before being able to feel something of his real existence. This experience approaches a veritable death, and solitude becomes the most efficacious crucible. Nothing strange in all that, since nobody can see God and live: he is a consuming fire (Heb 12, 29). A few masters of solitary life have even compared the monk’s cell with the tomb of the Risen Christ, where he lives ‘hidden with Christ in God’, expecting a revelation of the glory of the Resurrection. Even today in every charterhouse on Holy Saturday no liturgy of the hours is said in church, and the Carthusian monk does not in any way leave his house, identifying himself in such manner, through the sacrament of the cell, with the Easter death of Jesus.

The solitary monk shall henceforth remain on the threshold of his heart’s abyss, as a beggar who puts out his hand, with hesitation and trust at the same time, and an empty hand which only God’s love can fill. Thriftily or to the full? All at once or only after a long life spent in waiting? He could not tell, he only knows that he could not ask for anything, nor can he complain about anything. However, during this night, during which he ignores as to whether it is still in its darkest phase or whether it is already facing the light of day, he is ever more convinced that God shall fill everyone to the brim, without any exception, much more than he would have dared request or expect. Little by little, on the other hand, the desert bears its own fruit. Desolation and profound joy alternate with the rhythm of grace. In the hour of trial he experiments the purifying fire, which is however so beneficent, of God’s absence, or even of seeming death. When God visits, he experiments, in a most unexpected manner, His shining face, like a sparkling light in the utter depths of his heart. On the one hand he feels like being separated from other humans like the "trash of the earth" (1 Cor 4, 13), and on the other handing knowing how to keep himself unexpectedly linked in the depths of his heart to all human beings "in earth’s midst" (Mt 12, 40), or in the middle of the world, how to be disjointed and removed off the hinges, in order to lose one’s own life (Lev 17, 33), and after that to regain oneself and to know how to recognise one’s own profound identity in that new name which only Jesus knows (Apc 2, 17) and which he murmurs in his ear while he prays. The solitary monk thus learns, day by day, to fill up his solitude with prayer which little by little grows within him, in the sorrow which denudes him inasmuch as in the joy which clothes him anew. Solitude and prayer mutually feed upon each other. At the end of the day both are in perfect agreement. Solitude thus becomes the normal prayer scenario, in which barrenness and consolation alternate and penetrate the soul, up to the time that prayer ends up inhabiting solitude, and solitude ends up conceiving prayer, the same way as the mother’s womb conceives its fruit (William of Saint-Thierry, Golden Letter, 1, 11).

This authentic struggle with God, through the personal poverty of the solitary monk, will one day flourish in an admirable peace, which will however come from a different place. It is precisely in order to lead the monk to come to know this that the trial takes so long. A little bit at a time this feeling pervades the heart and at the beginning, unknowingly, until it momentarily conceals itself behind the inner confusion of the struggle; so however putting itself as a sign of an important spiritual event, when it is recognised that it sweetly reaches the surface of knowing the "unconscious divine" which every baptised person carries in his heart, without generally being concretely aware of the benefits: that reality which definitively is the life of the Trinity of which he forms both temple and sanctuary. In order to express this feeling, which is so typical of the mystical Christian experience and which could not be understood by persons who have not lived it out directly, tradition has created a particular expression, which is to be found in all languages pertaining to Christianity and which we have already examined precedingly, as appearing in St Bruno’s writings. This expression attempts at expressing an essential element of the aforesaid experience. Byzantine tradition has defined it with hesichia, calmness, which to this day denominates a monk who is most exclusively dedicated to solitary life. Syriac tradition knows various such attitudes, the most frequent of which, shelyó, underlines the absence of all action and the absolute primacy of divine action. Latin tradition is certainly not destitute of such terms and the most eloquent certainly is quies, rest, which was made popular by Gregory the Great, but which has already been present in ancient Latin translation of early monastic documents.

In French, the word quiétude should be reconsidered, this being a word which was very much in use in the seventeenth century, but for the fact that unfortunately it was loaded with ambiguity at the time because of a regrettable controversy, owing to which a solitary monk avowed to contemplative life could not be any more allowed to be called a quiétiste, although it would always be possible to take from Byzantine tradition the hésychaste. The Carthusians have harboured the idea of calling one of their monasteries in Savoy, Le Reposoir, which is now occupied as a Carmelite friary, this being an exact translation of esicastirion, which is a term reserved by Greek monks to monasteries which are strictly orientated to contemplation.

It does not depend on the solitary monk himself that this interior peace is experimented in the sweetness of one’s own altered inner senses, or through the ever opaque veil of faith. It is managed by divine teaching whose sense is not revealed to the monk but at a later time in paradise. While still on earth waiting for that time, it would suffice were he to keep himself fully available for all that which is willed and desired of him by God, his soul’s spouse. Nobody has given a better description of this abandonment which is so typical for a hermit’s spirituality and which is synonymous with perfect charity, than Dom Pierre Doyère O.S.B. has done in an article dedicated by hum to western hermetic living in the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité (IV, 953-982; col. 979): "These prayer peaks are considered by the hermit himself to be inaccessible to his own will. Insofar as he could look towards them as a desired will, he knows that it is God alone who could lead him to them. At the beginning of his adventure, his divine calling does not allow him to perceive other than through an exceptional discipline of penance, poverty, humility, silence and struggle. It is neither in order to perfect his individuality nor to protect it that the hermit takes refuge in the desert, but to dissolve it, indeed in the least lyrical sense of offers that could be made, until nothing remains of his self other than the imperceptible emptiness wherein he may guard the sole Presence. If God, sovereign lord of his grace, accepts his painful hidden ascent without inviting the soul to the most intimate mystical sweetness and joys, the hermit’s humility will not pass through the least surprise or soreness".

Seen from the outside, Carthusian life could give an impression of presenting a life portrait which is solidly sustained by a body of rules, ascetic practices and audible prayers in a wholeness which should never be softened and which does not allow for any evasion from the system. On the one hand it is true that at the beginning of his initiation to solitary life, the novice needs a relatively exact time-table, which he is bound to observe and without which, being still an amateur in spiritual ways, he would end up going round in circles or let himself go along with his first impressions. Yet here, perhaps more than elsewhere, the exterior rule does not perform a role other than that of a "teacher" (see Gal 3, 24) on the path to spiritual liberty which should progressively render him attentive to the inner rule, being the same Holy Spirit abiding in the depths of his heart. Having thus terminated his formative period, the Carthusian enjoys within his cell a kind of liberty, while supervised by his spiritual father, in such manner as to organise his day’s activities while looking forward towards greater spiritual profit. This is requested of him not only by the collection of great hermetic traditions, but also by an article in the recent Statutes of the Order, which abridges all in a most joyful manner: "The persistence of our ideal depends more on the faithfulness of single persons than on the multiplication of laws or the updating of customs or even on the diligence of the priors. It would not actually be enough to obey the orders given by the superiors and to faithfully observe the letter of the Statutes unless, guided by the Spirit, we do not arrive at tasting the things of the Spirit. The monk, who from the very start of his new life is established in solitude, is left to the discretion of his counsel. Given that he is no longer a child but an adult, he does not allow himself to be blown about by every wind, but discerning which things would be pleasing to the Lord, he would spontaneously adhere to and enjoy with sobriety and wisdom the freedom which the sons of God have, for which he is responsible before the Lord. Yet let no one put trust in his own prudence. Actually, whosoever fails to open up one’s own soul to a wise guide risks the danger, for having forgotten all about discretion, to make less progress than is necessary, or to weary himself in the race, or by lingering, to fall asleep" (Statutes, 4, 33, 2).

A well known Desert Father of the fourth century, who was a philosopher before retiring to the desert, Evagrius Ponticus, has described the place of the monks as being in the heart of the Church with an aphorism, which was taken up again in the Statute of the Carthusians (4, 34, 2): "The monk is that person who although he is separated from everybody, he is united with all". Sixteen centuries later, St Theresa of the Child Jesus shown in detail the role contemplatives have in Christ’s mystical body by attributing to them that of the heart and of love. Midway between the two, in the twelfth century, St Bernard of Clairvaux, in a lesser known text since it has only been rediscovered recently, had made use of a lower image, namely that of the bowels. Yet he comments on this image in such a way that the saint of Lisieux would have recognised herself in that image. For Bernard, monastic life curiously represents the ‘bowels’ of the Church, "venter Ecclesiae", its support and sustenance, "sustamentum Ecclesiae" : "Because it is from the bowels, he explains, that nourishment is distributed to the whole body. In the same manner the monks’ role consists in letting the spiritual lifeblood pass to those who are responsible inasmuch as to those at a lower level".

In the Apostolic Constitution "Umbratilem", by means of which the new Statutes of the Order had been approved following the updating of the Code of Canon Law in 1917, Pius XI praised contemplative life stating that it was "much more useful" (multo plus) to the development of the Church than the action of those concretely working in the Lord’s fields. Yet perhaps we should not be measuring the value of a Christian life with the measure of his apostolic efficiency or otherwise. Perhaps it would be better to look at it from God’s point of view, how He would look at it and consider it, He Who would not cease attracting in any generation souls which would embrace him, and all this notwithstanding any criticism and misunderstanding which this matter has never ceased arousing, criticism and misunderstandings which, even if they often obtain a certain attention on the part of a secularised world, including certain believers, do not appear at all to rock the faith and the convictions of those who have actually received that calling. They know by direct experience at what point, even if they are separated from all, they are placed in the heart of the Church and of the world, but above all at what juncture they form the subject of a mercy whose merit is solely due to God, who desired to choose them to fulfil this ministry. Finally it is only at God’s level that the ultimate justification may be found for a life which is fully dedicated to the search of intimacy with Him. It is Him Who is mainly the cause of all, because it is Him who wished things to be so; just as in each generation he wanted to reserve to Himself a soul to which He could reveal himself more fully as from this life and put Himself there as specific openings through which He could shower his graces on the whole world. Nobody could have chosen such a vocation had he before not been irresistibly attracted to it by God who had anticipatingly decided to give Himself in this manner. Thus, it is not the effectiveness of contemplative in relation to the Church and to the world which could be questioned, inasmuch as more than that his sense of belonging in relation to God. The joy which God offers Himself through the contemplative life of a few persons, ends up nourishing with graces the whole of creation.

The Carthusian monk only exists for this purpose. His activity within the Church is among the most reduced, like that of a prophet who, at the borders of his desert, he manages to proclaim the only word which he has been sent out to proclaim by God, in a serene and faithful effort of invocation and prayer. He does not murmur any other word. He unceasingly utters the Name of God, transcendent and mysterious, so far away and difficult to reach, and that of His Son in whom He is well pleased, ever so near and always shunning all looks which he, through long practise of temperance, has learnt to recognise to be in a way actively present in the most intimate parts of his heart.

It is exactly at that place that he is indeed called "to dwell", sweetly rooted in the Name of the One in whom the Father is well pleased, without bothering about what people think about him, without asking any questions which have become futile. Thus, delivered to the Lord, he is more than ever given to his brothers, transformed into a new person bearing sweet humility and who is forgiving and available towards all. He does not have any other ministry within the heart of the Church other than that of letting himself being formed by the Spirit of Jesus and in his own image, dispensed from any other exterior service, and thus more free, without departing from his desert, so as to live the ministry of the Spirit, which is a ministry of praise and of intercession.

Even though it is fully worthy in itself, Carthusian life nevertheless has a value of witnessing. The same way as it is viewed by believers and by other persons, it does not fail to raise a few questions, to whom the Carthusian answers in silence, in the manner befitting him. As the Statures proclaim: "By consecrating ourselves with our profession solely to Him Who Is, we give witness before the world, which is very much engulfed in terrestrial realities, that there is not other God than Him. Our life shows that heavenly qualities are already here with is this century, foretells the resurrection and in a certain manner prefigures a renewed earth" (4, 34, 3).

On the other hand, does not solitude inevitably enter, in one way or another, at any given time to play its part in every human experience and then more than any other Christian experience? That way Carthusian life could be considered to be symbolical by any person who ends up constrained to look face to face with solitude: "A monk’s solitude or that of a hermit, just as well as a Christian person’s solitude who "withdraws", authentically pertain to Christian spirituality. Every Christian searches his return towards God. Yet no authentic commitment in the mystery of the incarnation will lead to contradict the mystery of divine Transcendence and no chosen soul can be aware of this mystery without understanding and desiring solitude, of which the hermit’s desert forms an absolute symbol" (Dom Pierre Doyère, ibid. col. 981).