Photos/Images of Carthusian Life

PHOTOS/IMAGES OF CARTHUSIAN LIFE

Carthusian prayer isn’t supposed to be lived in secular society. Separated from the world and enclosed, Carthusian spirituality is a special type of religious vocation that is realized only under exceptional conditions.

Still, the example of Carthusian life puts into practice important principles of the spiritual life that apply to all Christians—the indispensability of developing an interior relationship with God in solitary and silent prayer, and the helpfulness, indeed, necessity even of implementing organization and structure in conducting one’s spiritual life in order to develop, maintain, grow, and flourish in our loving relationship with the mysterious and Almighty God.

Carthusians do not engage in apostolate outside the monastery.

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2024/01/year-of-prayer-2024.html

Carthusian monk in solitary prayer at the Charterhouse of Our Lady of Korea, Sangju, South Korea

Carthusian spirituality is a combination, not entirely unique, of solitary and common prayer.

The USA Carthusian website distinguishes Carthusian spirituality by citing its notably exacting emphasis on silence and solitude. In the Roman Catholic Church, Carthusian spirituality has been renowned—even feared—for its severity.

“The members of other monastic Orders also seek God in silence or solitude, but for Carthusians silence and solitude are the principal means to find Him. Inner silence – poverty in spirit – creates the empty space necessary to experience God’s presence in our heart, which transcends all words. ‘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.’ (St 4,2)

“Solitude and silence help the Carthusian monk ‘in a special way’ to become aware of a great mystery that is present in every Christian (St. 2:2). The whole of Carthusian life helps the monks to live in God’s presence: liturgy, work, study, community; everything is done in a climate of solitude and silence.”

https://carthusiansusa.org/spirituality/

—“Carthusian Spirituality,” Charterhouse of the Transfiguration

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2024/01/year-of-prayer-2024.html

 

Photo is staged of a monk in a cell at the Charterhouse of Molsheim, Alsace, France, which was founded in 1598 and dissolved during the French Revolution. Today, it is the site of the Musée de la Chartreuse (Charterhouse Museum), a tourist destination.

The Carthusian monk lives in his own hermitage or cell, which is small and self-contained.

Photo of a monk reading in his cell is from the principal Carthusian website. The location of the cell is probably the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration Monastery, Arlington, Vermont, USA

Photo is of Carthusian monks at the Marienau Charterhouse, which succeeded the Maria Hain Charterhouse in Düsseldorf, both in Germany. Maria Hain was established in 1869, where it maintained until the monks had to relocate due to the Düsseldorf Airport expansion into monastery land in 1964. Marienau is the only extant Carthusian monastery in Germany.

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Carthusian solitaries live in community, inspired by the semi-eremitic lauras originating from Egypt and Syria in the early fourth century—though the Carthusian monasteries today hardly resemble the original lauras, the last of which are said to have existed on Mount Athos in the tenth century.

The Carthusian Order numbers among the monastic orders of the Roman Catholic Church. Carthusian spirituality particularly underscores solitude, enclosure, and asceticism, besides liturgical prayer in common, as a way to union with God. Carthusians do not engage in apostolate outside the monastery.

The life of common prayer in the monastery is described in the principal Carthusian website.

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2024/01/year-of-prayer-2024.html

Saint Hugh of Grenoble in the Carthusian Refectory (1630-35) by Francisco de Zurbarán

Zurbarán’s famous painting depicts the moment Saint Bruno and his first six companions awakened from a trance and witnessed Saint Hugh’s gift of meat to the community turn into ash, a miracle which confirmed the Carthusian rule to abstain entirely from meat.

Carthusian legend holds that when Saint Hugh had sent them a gift of meat one day, they began to discuss among themselves whether they should break the rule of total abstinence from meat. Suddenly, they all fell into a trance at the dining table, so that forty-five days later when Saint Hugh sent them a message during Lent that he was coming to visit, his messenger returned and reported that the monks were still facing the food at the dining table. Once Saint Hugh arrived at the monastery, they all woke up and then everyone watched the meat turn into ash. They were all thereby convinced that there should be absolutely no exception to their rule against eating meat.

Despite the rule, the monks are allowed to eat meat whenever they are offered it outside the monastery, leave which is normally not permitted.

Notice that in the painting Saint Hugh is pointing to a piece of meat.

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2019/10/o-beata-solitudo_6.html

Photo showing a Carthusian lay brother pushing the daily meal of a cloister monk into his hatch is from the principal Carthusian website.

***

At noon a brother puts the monk’s daily meal in his hatch. The Carthusian eats alone after having recited the office of Sext. With the exception of meat, from which he abstains all his life in a spirit of sacrifice, everything is provided so that the main meal meets the nutritional needs of the day (vegetables, cereals, fish, eggs, cheese and fruit).

Once a week, normally on Friday, he keeps “abstinence”, that is, he contents himself with bread and water.

...After Vespers and before the office of Compline, the Carthusian takes a supper or light meal. During the great fast, which we call the “fast of the Order” (from 14 September, feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, to Easter) this supper is reduced to bread with a beverage, except on Sundays and solemnities. On Fridays not falling on a solemnity, it is bread and water.

https://chartreux.org/moines/en/a-carthusian-day/  

—“The Day,” The Carthusian Monks

Sundays and solemnities are more communal days. ...We take dinner together in the refectory in silence (while listening to a reading).

https://chartreux.org/moines/en/the-carthusian-way/  

—“The Carthusian Way,” The Carthusian Monks

Photo is of a Carthusian monk preparing the famous Chartreuse liqueur. The photo, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic, has been attributed to Gilles Péris y Saborit.

When we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat. (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

Carthusian monks are not angels—they have to eat and correspondingly to work.

Among their most successful commercial products is Chartreuse liqueur, globally renowned.

“Green Chartreuse, current version—the original recipe dates from 1605—is a liqueur made from 132 different herbs. The exact recipe is divided between the custody of two Carthusian monks, who each know only half the recipe.

“It’s a bouquet of almost every herb and spice from Alpine France, very fragrant and packed with flavors as complex as a symphony. Syrupy, slowly flowing across your lips and tongue, it’s a jumble of herbal, floral, citrus, and aromatic notes—among them, cloves, pine, gentian, génépy, fennel, rosemary, sage, and wormwood—all coming together in a very intense experience, like carpet bombing your senses all at once, in a good way. Down it straight or on the rocks.”

—Adapted from Chris Carlsson, “Chartreuse Green,” Spirits Review

See:

https://spiritsreview.com/reviews/chartreuse-green/

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-discernment-of-spirits-case-study.html

I gave this product 5 stars out of 5.

Yellow Chartreuse: Review

Originally concocted by Carthusian monks in 1840 as a lighter version of Green Chartreuse, which dates to 1764, Yellow Chartreuse is an alluring golden liqueur renowned for its inimitable taste experience and storied history.

Evicted during the French Revolution beginning in 1789, the monks were able to return in 1816 to their monastery in the mountains of Chartreuse near Grenoble. After losing their Chartreuse trademark to the French government in 1903, they were able to recover its ownership in 1929.

Today two monks safeguard the secret recipe consisting of up to 130 herbs and plants. Connoisseurs who try out this famous yellow elixir—its color derives mainly from saffron—will be greeted by a minty fresh fragrance and complexly herbal scent. Marvelously, singularly sweet, pleasantly, uniquely bitter, with manifold exotic vegetal notes, it lingers blissfully, warming the lips and inside throat. It has a smooth, creamy consistency, lavish, and a cleansing palate, closing with an indelible aftertaste and incomparable finish—introspective, lulling, and cheery, interiorly transforming. The kick (43 percent ABV) is subtle, gentle, definitely present yet almost imperceptible. On the rocks, it is memorably, dreamily chill, almost a contemplative event—intoxicating introduction to the hermetic spirit.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2023/07/exercises-in-discernment-of-spirits.html

Photo is from the Saint Hugh’s Charterhouse website.

One of the customs of the Carthusians originating in the twelfth century is the spatiamentum or a walk together of the monks lasting three or four hours.

During the spatiamentum the monks are allowed to talk with each other, walking in pairs and changing partners every half-hour so that during the course of the walk each monk will converse with eight others.

Photo of a Carthusian lay brother at work is from the principal Carthusian website.

No picture of Carthusian life would be complete without the lay brothers, whose main responsibility is the operation and maintenance of the monastery, including liaising with the outside world. They do, among other tasks, cooking, laundry, and various kinds of skilled manual work.

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The brothers also lead an intense life of prayer, but more simplified. They are responsible for the many services necessary for the smooth running of the house: cooking, vegetable garden, tailoring, maintenance, etc. They are not priests, nevertheless they participate in the community liturgy.

They have their own cell, but it is smaller as they carry out the various services, outside of cell, for a great part of the day. Their living environment is the monastery itself. They receive a doctrinal and monastic formation adapted to them.

The brothers have walks and recreations, but less often than the fathers as they have less need of them because of their work outside of cell. Several times a year they meet with the fathers to foster the union of the whole community.

There are two possibilities in the brothers’ life: life as converse brother or as donate brother. The converse brothers take the same monastic vows as the fathers, and therefore have the same religious commitments, rights and duties. The donate brothers, on the other hand, do not make vows, but out of love for God give themselves to the service of the Order by a mutual commitment. They have their own customs and are bound to fewer observances, often fulfilling tasks much less easily compatible with the observances of the converse brothers. This life is an option offered to those who, for whatever reason, cannot embrace the life of a converse brother.

https://chartreux.org/moines/en/the-vocation/

—“The Vocation,” The Carthusian Monks

Photo of Monastère de la Grande Chartreuse, courtesy of Floriel

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Grande_Chartreuse.JPG  

Monastery is located in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse, Isère, Rhône-Alpes, France.

Photo of choir stalls in the church interior of the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration Monastery, Arlington, Vermont, USA is from the monastery website.

The entire site is marked by stark, minimalist beauty.

Ave Maria, gratia plena, ora pro nobis!

Photo of Saint Bruno statue, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome, Italy, courtesy of Lawrence OP

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6216730086   

Saint Bruno the Carthusian  (c. 1030-1101)

...Saint Bruno is the founder of the storied Carthusian Order in the Roman Catholic Church.

...At Calabria he writes to Raoul le Verd, provost of Reims:

“I am living in the wilderness of Calabria far removed from habitation. There are some brethren with me, some of whom are very well educated and they are keeping assiduous watch for their Lord, so as to open to him at once when he knocks. I could never even begin to tell you how charming and pleasant it is. The temperatures are mild, the air is healthful; a broad plain, delightful to behold, stretches between the mountains along their entire length, bursting with fragrant meadows and flowery fields. One could hardly describe the impression made by the gently rolling hills on all sides, with their cool and shady glens tucked away, and such an abundance of refreshing springs, brooks and streams. Besides all this, there are verdant gardens and all sorts of fruit-bearing trees.

“Yet why dwell on such things as these? The man of true insight has other delights, far more useful and attractive, because divine. It is true, though that our rather feeble nature is renewed and finds new life in such perspectives, wearied by its spiritual pursuits and austere mode of life. It is like a bow, which soon wears out and runs the risk of becoming useless, if it is kept continually taut.

“In any case, what benefits and divine exaltation the silence and solitude of the desert hold in store for those who love it, only those who have experienced it can know.

“For here men of strong will can enter into themselves and remain there as much as they like, diligently cultivating the seeds of virtue and eating the fruits of paradise with joy.

“Here they can acquire the eye that wounds the Bridegroom with love, by the limpidity of its gaze, and whose purity allows them to see God himself.

“Here they can observe a busy leisure and rest in quiet activity.

“Here also God crowns his athletes for their stern struggle with the hoped-for reward: a peace unknown to the world and joy in the Holy Spirit.

“Such a way of life is exemplified by Rachel, who was preferred by Jacob for her beauty, even though she bore fewer children than Leah, with her less penetrating eyes. Contemplation, to be sure has fewer offspring than does action, and yet Joseph and Benjamin were the favourites of their father. This life is the best part chosen by Mary, never to be taken away from her.”

—“Letter of saint Bruno to his friend Raoul-le-Verd,” The Carthusian Order

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-3-of-4.html

Photo of Portrait of a Carthusian (1446) by Petrus Christus is in the public domain.

Masterpiece of Northern Renaissance painting offers us a window into the zeitgeist of the period.

The Carthusian in the painting is anonymous.

***

Father Mark Goring, C.C. on YouTube cites the story of Carthusians in the nineteenth century who while digging a fresh grave accidentally exhumed a miraculously incorrupt corpse, decades-old, of one of their brethren. When they reported their discovery to the abbot, he said, “Close the grave, dig next to it, and don’t tell anyone about it.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6YtQchIXi8

—Father Mark Goring, C.C., “Carthusians Find Incorrupt Body: Guess What They Did?!?” YouTube video, 2:32 minutes, November 30, 2020

Father Goring locates the above story in Nicolas Diat, A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (2019). Amazon page for this book:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W3P68QJ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1

—Amazon book description of Nicolas Diat, A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life (2019)

The story of the incorrupt Carthusian consigned to anonymity is instructive.

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-3-of-4.html

…there is much to learn from monastic orders like the Carthusians.

***

…there is an overarching life lesson that we often overlook: the monastics teach us how to die. It’s no exaggeration to say that the Carthusian monks, for example, live as if they were already dead. In other words, by their radical renunciation of worldly attachments, they practice living life in Heaven — life with God — on Earth. 

...Carthusians seek to die as they live — a life known only to God and their brethren. For example, if a Carthusian publishes a work before he dies, he attributes the work to “a Carthusian monk” for the author. He is to shun all honors and positions of power within and outside of the monastery. When he dies, his body is laid directly into the ground without a coffin and marked with only a cross without a name written on it. There is a saying that a Carthusian ought to “be a saint rather than be called one.” For this reason there are probably no more than 16 officially canonized Carthusian saints all together.

…In Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie’s most memorable line sums up what monastics witness to the world: “The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” Regardless of what state of life we’re in, we can join the contemplative monks and nuns in “[dealing] with the things of this passing world as to hold rather to the things that eternally endure” (Lenten Preface II).

In the next life, what is constant will be our praise of God with our whole self. That praise begins here and carries over into the next life. God who is constant in His love and providence knows the heart of His creatures and always keeps His word. And everything else will pass away.

https://aleteia.org/2020/04/01/theres-a-lesson-we-need-to-learn-from-the-carthusians-especially-now

—Quang D. Tran, S.J., “There’s a lesson we need to learn from the Carthusians, especially now,” Aleteia, April 1, 2020

Besides a regular regime of constant prayer that especially includes the prayer of praise, and a hidden life that strives for detachment from creatures and seeks to use the goods of this world solely for the glory of God, another important way by which we “learn how to die” is through our daily examination of conscience.

Our daily examination of conscience is actually a daily preparation for death. When we face God in our examination, we anticipate his final judgment; we repent for our sins, faults, and failings, and we resolve to do better if God gives us the grace to do so, often in relation to the following day, assuming that we survive the night and arise in the morning.

...Our examination of conscience presents us with an opportunity to reflect upon our sins, faults, and failings as if we were at the point of death and about to face the final judgment of God. We understand in the light of God’s grace how we are to reform our lives with the time we have left, how to persevere in conversio mores. We “learn how to die,” so to speak, so that we also “learn how to live.”

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2021/01/placeholder-2-of-4.html

Photo of sixteenth-century print by Nicolas Beatrizet is from the English Heritage website.

In 1535 eighteen Carthusians—16 from the London Charterhouse and the priors of Beauvale and Axholme—were executed for their opposition to Henry VIII. Some were dragged through the streets of London to the execution site by horses.

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Enclosure has not precluded the Carthusian Order from being blessed with its own share of martyrs, among them:

English Carthusian martyrs

https://nobility.org/2014/05/carthusian-martyrs/

—“May 4 – They believed in the religious exemption, but only at first,” Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII, May 1, 2014

1944 martyrs of Certosa di Farneta at Lucca, Italy

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/silent-summer-of-44-1745

—Giuseppina Sciascia, “The Silent Summer of ’44,” EWTN (L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English, February 2, 2005, page 4)

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/07/placeholder-3-of-4.html

Photo of stained-glass windows of English Carthusian martyrs John Houghton and Robert Lawrence, Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, courtesy of Lawrence OP

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/3499339467

Photo depicting the eviction of the monks by the French state from La Grande Chartreuse on April 29, 1903, is in the public domain.

Originally founded by Saint Bruno Hartenfaust in 1084, the Carthusian Order was expelled from France following the 1789 French Revolution. Monks were required to evacuate their monasteries by October 1792, after which their entire property was expropriated by the state. When by royal decree Louis XVIII permitted the monks to return to France, they reoccupied La Grande Chartreuse, the first monastery of the order, on July 8, 1816. In 1901 a law was passed by the Third French Republic targeting religious congregations, leading to the closure of ten Charterhouses in France, and in 1903 the monks were evicted once again from La Grande Chartreuse. As events would have it, however, they were allowed to return in June 1940 after Italy entered the war on the side of Germany so that the monks reentered France as political refugees. Today La Grande Chartreuse is maintained as the Motherhouse of the order.

  

Photo is from the website of the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration Monastery, Arlington, Vermont, USA.

“Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.”—Carthusian motto

“The cross stands while the world turns.”

The cross of Christ is a constant in our lives—it is the means of our salvation and our participation in the glory of God.