Saint Bruno the Carthusian: the miracle of a hidden life

Summary:

Saint Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, shortly before 1030, into a prominent family. His parents were wealthy and the boy lacked nothing, either materially or spiritually. His first teachers were quick to spot his intellectual talents. He became a priest around the age of 25. He was perfectly at ease in human and political affairs and an exemplary prayerful man. He was not yet thirty when he became canon of the collegiate church of Saint Cunibert in Cologne (now a basilica).

However, with the permission of his superiors, he decided to leave Cologne for Reims, where the cathedral school was one of the great intellectual centres of the time. After solid studies in philosophy and then theology, Gervais de Belleme, Archbishop of Reims, appointed him ecolatre in 1057, the equivalent of director of studies. There, in front of students won over by his knowledge and piety, he taught theology and the liberal arts for around twenty years.

For Bruno, these years were a period of intense activity, but also of meditation and deepening of his faith. He sensed that Jesus was calling him to "something" different, but he still didn't know what that call actually meant. In the meantime, he looked after his students like a father, telling them about the Lord and bearing witness to his presence through his charity for everyone.

In 1067, a providential event accelerated the story of his vocation. The bishop of Reims, Gervais, died. Bruno was asked to succeed him, but he declined, explaining that he was unworthy of the charge and that his sole aim was to retire in solitude until his death. In the end, it was Manassès de Gournay, an unscrupulous and venal man, who became the new Archbishop of Reims. The tension between Bruno and the new prelate was high. Gournay had bribed some of his constituents and Bruno, informed of this, denounced him. For several years, the saint did everything in his power to obtain Manassès' conversion, but to no avail: Manassès was eventually deposed. Bruno, meanwhile, in the midst of a very troubled diocesan life, held the position of chancellor of the archdiocese for a year. But how could he serve God in such a situation? From 1077 to 1080, he was forced to go into exile with an aristocrat from the Reims region, who took him in.

Time passed. He had just turned 51. His faith was now one that could move mountains. He decided to leave everything to follow Jesus. He gave away everything he owned to the city's poor and set off with two friends, Pierre and Lambert, for the Cistercian priory of Sèche-Fontaine, a dependency of the abbey of Molesme. There, he met Saint Robert, co-founder of the Cistercians and also destined for an exceptional future.

But deep down, Bruno felt called to an even more radical way of religious life: to follow Christ in solitude, humility, and complete silence. He now knew that God expected him to found a religious family of hermits. At the end of the 11th century, this was not something completely new (eremitism had existed since the beginning of Christianity) but an update of a way of life based on Jesus' experience in the desert: the Carthusian life combines both eremitical and cenobitic monasticism. This type of religious life bears no resemblance to those shared by other monastic orders, which emphasise the community dimension. Despite this originality, Bruno never encountered the slightest resistance or questioning from ecclesiastical leaders.

On the advice of Saint Robert de Molesme, Bruno went to Grenoble with six companions (four clerics and two lay people). A few nights earlier, the city's young bishop,Saint Hugues, had had a dream in which he clearly saw the small group of religious enter his city. The two saints got along immediately. A few days later, Hugues offered to take Bruno to an isolated spot above Grenoble, in the Chartreuse mountain range, where he could establish a new monastery. The seven men stayed there for six years in solitude, at an elevation of 1190 metres. Bruno wrote the main points of his future Carthusian Rule, which called for a solitary life in a cell, with communal liturgical ceremonies and constant manual labour. The Carthusian spirituality was born. In 1085, the first Carthusian monastery, with its church, cells and cloister, was completed.

In 1090, Pope Urban II asked Bruno to join him in Rome. This was a hard blow for the founder, as the journey was a departure from his contemplative condition and a separation from his brothers. The Pope, aware of Bruno's qualities, asked him to become his adviser and then Bishop of Reggio Calabria. Bruno refused, explaining that city life was not for him and that he wanted to serve the Lord in total seclusion, without meddling in temporal affairs. Urban II was impressed by the faith and humility of this man, a friend of God whom he admired and venerated, and who had once been his teacher at the cathedral school in Reims.

The following year, Bruno obtained permission to retire to an isolated spot in Calabria, in the diocese of Squillace, where he lived a "perpetual feast where the fruits of heaven are already being savoured" and wherehe founded two new hermitages. It was there that God called him back to himself on October 6, 1101.

Beyond reasons to believe:

Radical, demanding and far removed from today's Western norms, the way of life conceived by Saint Bruno nevertheless continues to attract vocations throughout the world.

Going further:

Saint Bruno: The Carthusian by Andre Ravier, Gracewing (September 29, 2017)

More information:

• The Prayer of Love and Silence by a Carthusian monk,  Gracewing (March 1, 2006)
• Official website of the Carthusian Order.
• Par un chartreux, Amour et silence, Seuil, 1995.
• 2005 film Into Great Silence