Stages of Formation

There is a guest house for young women who want to consider in prayer the question of a Carthusian vocation. If, during their stay at the guest house, they feel a harmony between God’s call in their heart and what they have begun to experience of our life, we allow them to share our life for about ten days, or to make a longer trial called the ‘Postulancy’.

Postulancy lasts anywhere from six months to a year. It permits the aspirant to acquaint herself more with our customs. The postulant does not, however, assume the whole austerity of our life at once, but only little by little, according to her capacity. During this period she continues to reflect on her vocation before God.

If it turns out that she wishes to continue in our Order, and if the community is favourable to it, she then begins the novitiate and receives the Carthusian habit.

If, at the end of two years, it seems to the community and to the Novice herself that her calling from God is being confirmed, then, after mature reflection and in full freedom, she binds herself more strongly to God and to the Carthusian Order. She expresses this offering of herself, united to that of Christ, by making a profession of stability, obedience, and conversion. She promises this for three years.

After this stage, she is able to renew these vows for two more years. If it is indeed Jesus who has engendered this vocation in her, He will see this work of His through to its fulfilment, i.e. to final commitment or solemn profession.

In the house of God there are many dwellings-places: among us, there are not only nuns of the cloister and converse sisters, but also donate sisters. These latter have joined the solitude of the Charterhouse in order to consecrate their whole life to God but without taking vows, and in a manner best adapted to the needs of each one.

The donate sister becomes a member of the Order by a commitment called donation. After five years of temporary donation, she can make either a perpetual donation or renew her donation every three years.

After solemn profession or perpetual donation, the nuns may receive virginal consecration. It is a solemn rite by which the Church establishes the virgin in a special state of belonging to God. The Carthusian nuns have kept this rite as a concrete sign of the call which the Lord addresses to the Carthusian Order, to lead a life totally consecrated to Him. The offering that the nun makes to God of her virginity within this consecration opens her to a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Virginity for the Kingdom is a gift from God, in its most intimate dimension, it is the purity of a heart totally given to its God. Jesus, in His redemptive love, creates this pure heart in all the nuns who truly commit themselves to Him.

A Communion

Solitary life, whether in cell or in the obedience, protects and nourishes in our hearts the fire of divine love. This love unites us as the members of the same body.

This is a permanent reality; but we express it more visibly on Sundays and Solemnities, when gatherings are more frequent: the offices of Terce, Sext, and None are sung in church; we have a meal together in our refectory after Sext.

In addition, we come together for a colloquium. This latter is a friendly meeting in which, beginning with a text of Scripture, we have rather deep exchanges and we try to incorporate the fruit of these discussions into our lives.

Once a week we have another sisterly exchange in the form of a walk called ‘spatiamentum’ lasting about three hours, during the course of which each one is able to talk in turn with the others. Through these walks, souls are knitted together, the interior life flourishes, mutual affection is bolstered, and life in solitude is fortified.

200 meters from the monastery is a hermitage sheltering a few Carthusian monks who share in our liturgical life. The priests (or priest) celebrate the Eucharist and administer the other Sacraments. Like the converse sisters, the brothers fulfil their vocation of prayer while guaranteeing that the needs of the house will be met. The communion we share does not embrace merely the members of the same Charterhouse, but all the sons and daughters of St. Bruno. It even extends to the Church visible and invisible.

quot;Choosing a life of solitude does not mean deserting the human family. Union with God, if authentic, does not shut us on ourselves; rather it opens our spirit and expands our heart to embrace the entire world and the mystery of Christ’s redemption. Separated from all, we are united to all; and it is in the name of all that we remain in the presence of the living God."(From the Carthusian Statutes, and the Council Vatican II; a number of expression, in this booklet, are borrowed from the Carthusian Statutes.)

Solitary prayer is the part that God and the Church have entrusted to us; it is our co-operation in the unceasing work of Christ: ‘My Father always works and I myself also work.’ (John 5:17)

Because we are members of his body, our prayer is His; our silence announces the Good News, our watch, His coming.