by A Priest
This book is written as a series of letters from an American priest (who chooses to remain anonymous, as Carthusian writers do during their lives) to his friends and family while living in a Carthusian monastery in southern Italy for four months. Carthusians live in a community, but each resides in his own house. Even most meals are served through the wall to be eaten in solitude. Many liturgical prayers are prayed at the same time, but each monk remains in his cell, praying alone. As difficult as it is for most of us to understand the vocation to a religious order, ones such as the Carthusians seem even more extreme. There is a film, Into Great Silence, that shares more of the Carthusian life, but I've only seen parts of it.
The letters describe the lives of the Carthusians from an outsider's point of view, but also from the point of view of someone who is living with the monks, praying as they pray, and trying to immerse himself in their solitude. He is able to connect their prayers to our lives in a meaningful way.
He believes there are three "products" of a Carthusian monastery: praise, intercessory prayer, and union with God. Speaking of the second, intercessory prayer, he wrote:
Certainly there are physical evils that must be combated, but at root the world is wounded spiritually, and prayer is the medicine that can heal spiritual wounds. Reflection on this has shaped my prayer somewhat here. For example, some friends of mine have a son who is serving with the Marines in Afghanistan, and I am praying daily for his safety. But I am also praying for something else: his heart and soul, which must experience tremendous emotions given what he and his comrades are going through. Many soldiers return from combat with terrible physical damage, but even those who are spared this must be wounded in other way, and no surgeon can deal with that--God's healing grace can. That is one reason why communities dedicated to prayer are so vital to the life of the Church. Otherwise, as Pope Francis keeps saying, we end up just being another nongovernmental organization striving to deal with people's material welfare.As he prays and interacts with the monks, the author ponders the life of solitude, the benefits of it for individuals, for the monastery, for the Church, and for the world. He quotes a Carthusian monk:
The purpose of this life is to silence the outer voices so that you can hear the inner ones; then you can begin to uproot those that draw you away from loving God and others, and encourage the good thoughts to grow.He talks about learning silence as it if were a language.
The gift of silence here is precisely an invitation not to think and not to do--and that is not easy, at least not for me. It is a language I must struggle to learn.
It is really a matter of learning God's language, of attending to his still, small voice.My favorite letter was the last one. He writes:
"Stat crux dum volvitur orbis" -- The Cross stands firm as the world turns. This is the motto of the Carthusian order, a reminder that while some may consider these men to be "halfway to heaven", they see themselves as plunged into the heart of the earth, with all its joys and sorrows. In their solitary prayer, in their struggles with loneliness, in their mellow chant that pierces the stillness of the night, they proclaim a message, eloquent in its silence, that the Cross of Jesus is the axis upon which all creation turns.After the priest's letters, there are appendices of some of St. Bruno's words (the founder of the order), the text of a letter written by Pope St. John Paul II to the order, and a homily of Pope Benedict XVI on one of his visits to Calabria. There is also an extensive list of further reading and resources that seems thoughtfully collected.
This is a book of beauty, thoughtfulness, and the heart of prayer. Because our family has a devotion to St. Bruno, I intend to read it aloud to our children. I hope it will give them a greater insight into the Carthusian order and the diversity of the practices of our Catholic faith. I checked this book out from our library, but I would like to have one of our own.
I checked this book out from our library to read it and have not received anything to write this post. Links above are affiliate links to Amazon.
