Beyond the Silence - Carthusian Monks

"Big guns in the spiritual warfare"

From CatholicCulture.org
By Phil Lawler

If you've ever spent autumn in New England, you know about the "leaf peepers"-- the tourists who flock to Vermont to enjoy the foliage in early October. But early October-- and specifically this day: October 6, the feast of St. Bruno-- bring different memories of Vermont for me.

Back in 2001 I had a truly unique experience. I was invited by the Carthusians of Arlington, Vermont, to spend a day with them and write a story about their way of life. They were celebrating the 900th anniversary of the death of St. Bruno, the founder of the Carthusian order, and decided that it was an appropriate time for a bit of publicity.

I say that my experience was unique because Carthusians generally don't seek publicity-- to put it mildly. Theirs is the strictest, most ascetical order in the Catholic Church. The monks live in silence, utterly withdrawn from the world. When I commented to the prior on the oddity of a Carthusian "publicity campaign," he remarked that he could perhaps imagine another opportunity for a journalist to visit the Charterhouse in Vermont-- in another 100 years, to celebrate St. Bruno's 1,000th anniversary!

For that one day in 2001, at the monastery hidden near the top of Mt. Equinox, I had a glimpse of a totally different kind of life: a life devoted utterly to prayer and contemplation. When a man enters the Carthusian order, in a real sense he leaves the world in which you and I live. He gives up normal food, social life, travel, even speech for the rest of his days. Barring medical emergency he will not leave the Charterhouse until his remains are buried there. The Carthusian monk willingly chooses a life sentence, in solitary confinement, to devote himself totally to prayer. These are very, very serious Christian men: seasoned veterans of the spiritual combat.

Very few Christians are called to such an austere life. Most of us live ostensibly ordinary lives, absorbing a daily drubbing from the secular world. But we're engaged in spiritual combat as well. In fact we lay people are the infantry.

There are days when the skirmishing is rougher than usual, when I feel exhausted and bedraggled. Those are the days when I remind myself that while we're not alone. While we're grappling on the front lines, the big guns are booming from Mt. Equinox. Those are the days when I'm struck anew by the amazing diversity of vocations within the Church, and I thank God for my silent friends at the Charterhouse.

Toward Contemplation

Toward Contemplation blog has a Great post on Carthusian Vocations with many wonderful pictures and information - Click HERE.

"It is a pity the world has lost all sense of God."

Profound excerpt of the blind Carthusian Monk from "Into Great Silence".

Visiting a Carthusian Monsastery

Below are four parts of a documentary on life in a Carthusian monastery. It's an incredible look into the most austere monastic community, but you have to read fast. Enjoy.

My very good friend Alex just returned from a 30 day discernment with the Carthusians at St. Hugh's Charterhouse. Hearing him tell of his time with the monks gives me an entirely new perspective on their life. Perhaps the most beautiful thing he told me was the response of one monk to his question "what do like best about being a Carthusian" to which the monk replied joyfully "freedom".









Hat tip to Br. Michael Anthony at Immaculate Heart of Mary's Hermitage Video Collection

Speaking of Carthusians

In addition to "An Infinity of Little Hours", I've added a few more books by Carthusian monks to the Roman Catholic Vocations "bookstore":

Carthusians - St. Hugh's Charterhouse/Parkminster

If you have not had the pleasure of visiting the website for the Carthusians at St. Hugh's Charterhouse, you ought to take the time for a tour. Turn up your sound and enjoy the visit.

From the page on the "solitary life" of a Carthusian:

“Jesus was lead by the Spirit in the wilderness”
(Lk 4:1)

At the centre of Carthusian life is the hermitage. The community life brings together a group of hermits. It is in solitude that the heart is deepened and inhabited. The hermitage is a place above all of communion with God and, paradoxically, with man. The monk is “never less alone than when alone.” Little by little his heart will be is enlarged to the dimensions of Christ’s love encompassing everything and every person in heaven and on earth. His cell, as it were, has “glass walls”. Apart from all, to all we are united.

The main room of the hermitage is the cubiculum where the monk prays, studies, eats and sleeps. It is significant that he enters it by passing through an antechamber called the Ave Maria. It is through Mary that he enters into the tent of meeting with the Lord. Equally the offices he prays in cell are always preceded by a prayer to Our Lady, the premier patron of the Carthusian Order. Her FIAT (yes) to the action of the Spirit is the model of contemplative prayer.

“Our principal endeavour and goal is to devote ourselves to the silence and solitude of cell. This is holy ground, a place where, as a man with his friend, the Lord and his servant often speak together; there is the faithful soul frequently united with the Word of God; there is the bride made one with her spouse; there is earth joined to heaven, the divine to the human. The journey, however, is long, and the way dry and barren, that must be travelled to attain the fount of water, the land of promise.”
(Statutes, 4.1)

Watch and pray”
(Mk 14:38)

The monk’s day is structured by the liturgical day-hours, prayer of the Church, which he celebrates every couple of hours in his oratory. It is filled by simple activities all designed to help him to live in the presence of God, to let God in by all the receptive capacities he has endowed us with.

“The longer the monk lives in cell, the more gladly will he do so, as long as he occupies himself in it usefully and in an orderly manner, reading, writing, reciting psalms, praying, meditating, contemplating and working. Let him make a practice of resorting, from time to time, to a tranquil listening of the heart that allows God to enter through all its doors and passages.” (Statutes, 4.2)

Physical and artisan work in cell is an important element of balance and will occupy at least two hours each day. The garden allows time to be spent in the open and gives access to that space of sky that is one’s own.

Silence is the air the solitary breaths. The Fathers called it “the language of the world to come”. From being an exterior discipline it is gradually interiorised, a mystery of awareness and communion with the Real that so surpasses our busy words and concepts.

Here is Truth knocking at our door, speaking of his Love.

“The fruit that silence brings is known to him who has experienced it. In the early stages of our Carthusian life we may find silence a burden; however, if we are faithful, there will gradually be born within us of our silence itself something, that will draw us on to still greater silence.” (Statutes, 4.3) Ultimately our silence becomes Word, the darkness of faith is itself the Light.

The goal of the solitary is constant prayer, that pure prayer which is the prayer of the Spirit of Christ in us: “Abba, Father. Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...”

“God has led us into solitude to speak to our heart. Let our heart then be a living altar from which there constantly ascends before God pure prayer, with which all our acts should be imbued.”
(Statutes, 4.11)

Carthusian Monks - Portugese *VIDEO*