The modern day hermits who eat of the fruit of paradise

;SPIRITUALITY
In our continuing series on religious orders, Robin P414 Bruce Lockhart looks at the
Carthusians
FOR over 30 years, for reasons beyond the scope of this article, providence I like to think "divine" has led me to have an unusually close relationship with the Carthusian Order, the most enclosed of all Monastic Orders. Devoted to a life of prayer in silence and solitude, the Carthusian is a descendant, so to speak, of the Desert Fathers.
The Order was founded in 1084 by St Bruno, of whom Alban Butler in his Lives of the Saints wrote "Of all the saints, St Bruno is the one above all who deserves the epithet of 'grea.e."
As a young man of considerable intellect, Bruno was appointed Chancellor of the Cathedral Schools at Rheims hut, dismayed at the corruption in the Church there at the time, he quit his post after speaking out against the then Archbishop. Bruno thirsted to live with God alone and to return to that life of prayer and devotion to solitude which had inspired the early Christians and, in particular the Desert Fathers.
With a small band of six followers he sought and found an isolated spot where he put his ideal into practice. The place on which he settled was in the Dauphine Alps called Chartrousse and is today the site of the Grande Chartreuse. From such small beginnings sprang the strictly contemplative Carthusian Order.
Within a century of Bruno's death in 1101, 33 Charterhouses had been established in line with Bruno's original plans. These were that his hermit monks should live in silence and solitude in seperate cells built around an oratory and who would be supported by a number of lay brothers. To a friend in Rheims, Bruno wrote: "What advantages and delights solitude and the silence of the hermitage bring to those who love it, they alone know who have had experience of it..they can dwell apart and attend uninterruptedly to the cultivation of the seeds of virtue and happily cat of the
fruit of paradise. . .that peace I mean that the world knows not."
The first formal Statutes of the order embodying Bruno's ideal were set down shortly after his death and, although periodically amended in detail across the centuries, continue to form the basis of Carthusian life today.
There is a motto, outlying the Carthusian vocation: "Non sanctos patefacere sed multos santos facere" ("To make saints not to publicise them"), and, because the Order has always refused to put forward any of its members for canonisation, few Carthusians have been formally recognised as Saints. But those that have been, apart from Bruno himself, include St Hugh of Lincoln, St Anthelme, St Artaud and St Rosaline.
Yet, the Carthusians have provided great inspiration to other saints, including St Dominic, St Teresa of Avila and St Thomas More who tested his vocation at the London Charterhouse: and it was to the Carthusian ideal of perfection that St Ignatius of Loyola owed his conversion. More than one Pope has drawn attention to the Mary and Martha theme and that the Carthusians had chosen "the better part" and more than one Pope has stressed that the Carthusian Order is the only religious order "never to have been reformed because never deformed." ("Religio Cartusianorma nunquam reformata qua nunquant deformata".) While this may be strictly true it is only because of the constant internal suppression at birth of any tendency w deviate from the Carthusian ideal.
Since the formation of the first little commmunity by St Bruno, there has been a total of 271 Carthusian foundations, including 22 houses for nuns. The maximum number of Charterhouses at any one time was 196 in the year 1514. Suppressions at different times have amounted to 210, principally during the Reformation (44), the French Revolution (82) and in the Napoleonic era (32) Today, there are 24 Charterhouses in the world, including six for nuns. Since the last war five new houses have been established, one each for monks in Germany, the United States and Brazil and one each for nuns in France and Spain. A further new Charterhouse for nuns in Italy is presently under consideration. In the United Kingdom there is one charterhouse that is St Hugh's at Parkminster in Sussex.
In their essential, today's Charterhouses differ little from those of earlier centuries. The buildings may be more solid than in Bruno's time, meals may be cooked by electricity or gas, but a Charterhouse remains as
it was 900 years ago a sanctuary for those seeking to live with and for God alone.
They are sited almost invariably in quiet secluded spots with few, if any, visible signs of other human habitation in the vicinity. The "cell" in which a Carthusian Father spends most of his life is a tiny cottage or sometimes a bungalow with a small antechamber which he uses as a work room and leads into his cell proper (or cubiculum) which serves as his bedroom, refectory and his study.
The Carthusian's day begins at midnight, when having risen from his bed at 11.45pm he recites the Little Office of Our Lady in his cell. He then goes into church for Matins and Lauds, before returning to his bed at around 3am.
At 6.45 am he rises for the second time, continues with his office and Terce in his cell, and then attends morning Mass in the church. Spiritual exercises private contemplation, prayer, religious study etc Sexte in the cells, followed by lunch at 11.30am, again eaten in the cells.
A short period of relaxation follows, before Nones, more spiritual excercises and perhaps some gardening. Vespers is said in church at 3.45pm, followed by more spiritual exercises, the Angelus and compline in the cells before the Carthusians retire to bed at 8pm.
On Sundays and solemn feast days the timetable is somewhat different and includes concelebrated Mass and midday dinner in the refectory. On Mondays, the Fathers leave their enclosure and go for a threehour walk in the countryside and break silence to converse with each other.
The brothers care for the material needs of their Charterhouses, spending some seven hours a day out of their cells which, until quite recently, consisted of just one room but now tend to be similar to those of the, lathers. They see to the preparation and cooking of food, look after the vegetable gardens, deal with plumbing problems, general maintenance and the felling of trees for firewood. A brother prays silently %%hilt: at work which is so arranged that it is almost always carried out in solitude and for the most part in silence. Today, the lives of Fathers and brothers are more integrated than at any time in the Order's history.
Life in a Charterhouse for nuns is little different from that of the monks. The nuns are divided basically into two categories: choir nuns and lay sisters, the latter performing similar duties to those of the brothers. Two Carthusian fathers who live in a "vicarage" outside the nuns' enclosure, provide spiritual guidance and
celebrate Mass daily in the Charterhouse's church.
The Carthusians have their own form of mass, devoid of all pomp, which closely resembles the rite Charlemagne obtained from Rome in the eighth century; in 900 years it has little changed. Similarly, the Carthusians have their own Gregorian chant which has likewise been zealously maintained unaltered through the centuries.
Slower, lower pitched and less melismatic than the Benedictine chant it is unaccompanied by organ or any other musical instrument. Many who have heard it consider it to be more deeply spiritual than the Benedictine chant. I hasten to add that in his humility, no Carthusian would ever claim the chant, or anything else pertaining to his life was better than anyone else's.
Carthusians do not have television, radio or read newspapers they abstain from all meat and once a week, normally Friday, live on dry bread and water. From September 14 until Easter they have but one meal a day plus a piece of dry bread and a drink in the evening. The Carthusian lives in holy abandonment in order to be near God on behalf of those who are far from God, giving a guarantee to the whole church of a permanent ministry of prayer.