Carthusians

(Mount Grace Priory)

The meaning of "being a Carthusian" Among the religious families, there are those like the Benedictines and Cistercians, who live more in community. Others live in greater solitude. Camaldulites and Carthusians belong to the latter. The monks and the nuns of the Carthusian Order, while living separately in their own monasteries, share the same rule and follow a unique model in the person of their founding Father, Saint Bruno. The Carthusian does not live alone as the Carthusian monastery is a community. Nevertheless, he will pass the greater part of his life in his cell where he prays, works, takes his meals, and sleeps. During the course of the week, he only leaves three times a days for offices and communal mass: in the middle of the night, the Night Office, the morning Eucharist and Vespers towards the night. The Carthusian can be a cloistered monk or a brother, two different ways of living the same vocation of solitude. This solitude is not lived for its own sake, but as a privileged means of attaining intimacy with God. No one can follow this path if not called by God. The discernment of this call (vocation) asks that we make a retreat of two weeks at the monastery. Other than this, Carthusians never receive retreatants. Almost all our homes were built along the same basic principles: a grouping of hermitages (or "cells") linked to one another by a cloister which ends at the communal grounds: church, refectory, and the Chapter, separated by the entrance door by the workshops and the lodging of the monk in charge of the day to day running of the house. There are the "main" homes (like La Grande Chartreuse, with over 30 cells) and the "lesser" homes (like Portes, in the French region of Ain, which retains many primitive aspects of a charterhouse) At la Grande Chartreuse the Museum of la Correrie allows one to have an idea of the Carthusian life. The Carthusian Way The goal: Contemplation Discover the immensity of love (Statutes 35.1) The only goal of the Carthusian way is CONTEMPLATION, by the power of the Spirit, living as unceasingly as possible in the light of the love of God for us, made manifest in Christ. This implies a purity of heart, or charity: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Mt 5:8) Monastic tradition also calls this goal pure and continuous prayer. The fruits of contemplation are: liberty, peace, and joy. O Bonitas! O Goodness, was the cry which issued from the heart of St. Bruno. But the unification of the heart and the entrance into the contemplative rest assume a long journey, which our Statutes describe as such: Whoever perseveres without defiance in the cell and lets himself be taught by it tends to make his entire existence a single and continual prayer. But he may not enter into this rest without going through the test of a difficult battle. It is the austerities to which he applies himself as someone close to the Cross, or the visits of God, coming to test him like gold in the fire. Thus purified by patience, fed and strengthened by studied meditation of Scripture, introduced by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the recesses of his heart, he will thus be able to, not only serve God, but adhere to him. (Statutes 3.2) All monastic life thus consists of this journey towards the heart and all the meaning of our life is oriented towards this end. It helps the monk unite his life to charity, introducing it to the depths of his heart. Truthfully, it is not this end which distinguishes us from other contemplative monks (Trappist, Benedictines, etc.), but the borrowed path, of which the essential characteristics are: solitude a positive mixture of solitary and community life Carthusian liturgy