To the Reverend Father Marcellinus
Theeuwes,
Prior of La Grande Chartreuse,
General of the carthusian Order,
and to all the members of the carthusian family
1. At the time when the members of the carthusian
family celebrate the ninth centenary of their Founder's death,
I with them give thanks to God who raised up in His Church the eminent
and ever topical figure of Saint Bruno. Praying fervently I appreciate
your witness of faithfulness to the see of Peter and am happy to join
in with the joy of the carthusian Order which has in this good and
incomparable father a master of the spiritual life. On October 6,1101,
Bruno, aflame with divine love left the elusive shadows of this world
to join the everlasting goods for ever (Cf. Letter to Ralph § 13).
The brothers of the hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in Calabria
little knew that this dies natalis inaugurated a singular spiritual
venture which even today brings forth abundant fruits for the Church
and the world.
Bruno witnessed the cultural and religious
upheavals of his time, in a Europe that was taking shape. He was an
actor in the reform which the Church faced with internal difficulties
wished to fulfill. After having been an appreciated teacher he felt
called to consecrate himself to that unique Good which God is. " What
it there as good as God? Better still, is there another Good
than God alone? Really, a holy soul who has any sense of this Good,
of its incomparable splendor and beauty, finds himself aflame with
heavenly love and exclaims: ‘I am thirsting for the strong and
living God; when shall I go and see the face of God?’ "
(Letter to Ralph § 15) The uncompromising nature of that thirst drove
Bruno, a patient listener to the Spirit, to invent with his first
companions a style of eremitical life where everything favors one's
response to the call from Christ - who indeed ever chooses men " to
lead them into solitude and join themselves to Him in intimate love "
(carthusian Statutes). By this choice of life in the desert, Bruno
invites the entire Church community " never to lose sight
of the highest vocation which is to remain forever with the Lord "
(Vita consecrata § 7).
Bruno, when able to forget his own plans
to answer the call from the Pope, shows his strong sense of the Church.
He is conscious that to follow the path of holiness is unthinkable
outside of obedience to the Church: and shows us in that way that
real following of Christ demands putting oneself into His hands. In
abandonment of self he shows us the supreme love. And this attitude
of his kept him in a permanent state of joy and praise. His brothers
noticed that " his face was always radiating joy, his words
modest. To a father's vigor he joined the sensitivity of a mother "
(Introduction to Bruno's obituary scroll). These exquisite remarks
from the obituary scroll show the fruitfulness of a life given to
contemplate the face of Christ as the source of all apostolic fecundity
and brotherly love. Would that Saint Bruno's sons and daughters, as
did their father, may always keep on contemplating Christ, that they
" keep watch in this way for the return of their Master
ever ready to open when He knocks " (Letter to Ralph § 4);
this will he a stimulant call for all Christians to stay vigilant
in prayer in order to welcome their Lord!
2. Following upon the great Jubilee of the
Incarnation, the celebration of the ninth centenary of St Bruno's
death acquires by this fact a supplementary emphasis. In the Apostolic
Letter Novo millennio ineunte I invite the entire people of God again
to take in Christ their point of departure, in order to permit those
who thirst for meaningfulness and Truth to hear God's own heartbeat
and that of the Church. Christ's words: " And lo, I am with
you always until the end of the world " (Mt 28,20) call
all those who bear the name of disciples to draw from this certitude
renewed energies for their Christian existence and inspiring strength
for their path (Cf. Novo millennio ineunte §29). The call to prayer
and contemplation, which is the hallmark of carthusian life, shows
particularly that only Christ can bring to the hopes of men a fullness
of meaning and joy.
How could one doubt for a second that such
expression of pure love gives carthusian life an extraordinary fecundity,
as it were, for the missions? In the retreat of their monasteries,
in the solitude of their cells, the carthusians spin Holy Church's
wedding garment (" beautiful as a bride decked out for her
bridegroom ", 1 Rev. 21,3); every day they offer the world
to God and invite all mankind to the wedding of the Lamb. The celebration
of the Eucharistic sacrifice is the source and the summit of life
in the desert, modeling into the very being of Christ those who give
themselves up to His love. Thus the presence and the activity
of Christ in this world become visible, for the salvation of all men
and the joy of the Church.
3. At the heart of the desert, where men are tried
and their faith purified, the Father leads them on a path of dispossession
which questions all logic of having, being successful and finding
fleeting happiness. Guigo the carthusian would always encourage those
desiring to follow Saint Bruno’s ideal to " follow
the example of the poor man Christ, in order to share in His riches "
(On the solitary life, § 6). This dispossession passes through a thorough
break with the World, which does not mean contempt for the world but
a fresh orientation of one's whole life in a tireless search
for the unique Good: " You have seduced me, Lord, and I
have let myself be seduced ", Jer. 20,7). The Church is
fortunate to have at its disposition the carthusian witness of total
alertness to the Spirit and a life entirely surrendered to Christ!
So I invite the members of the carthusian
family to remain, by holiness and simplicity of life, like the city
on the mountain or the lamp on the lamp stand (Cf. Matt. 5, 14-15).
Rooted in the Word of God, quenching their thirst with the sacraments
of Holy Church, upheld by the prayers of St Bruno and their brothers,
let them remain for the entire Church and at the heart of the world
" a sort of place for hope and discovery of the Beatitudes,
where Love leaning on prayer - source of communion - is called to
become logic of life, and source of joy "! (Vita consecrata
§ 51) The cloistered life as an outward expression of the offering
up of one's whole life in union with Christ’s, shows the fleetingness
of our existence and teaches us to count only on God. It increases
the thirst for graces given in meditation of the Word of God. It also
is " the place for spiritual communion with God and our
brothers and sisters, where the restricted character both of space
and of contacts favors an interiorization of Gospel values "
(Ibid. § 59). The quest for God in contemplation is indeed undissociable
from love of our brothers, love that makes us recognize the face of
Christ in the poorest of men. Contemplation of Christ lived in brotherly
love remains the safest path of all for a fruitful life. St John unceasingly
reminds us of it: " Beloved, let us love each other, because
love is of God, and whoever loves is born of God and knows God "
(1 John 4,7). Saint Bruno understood that well, he who never separated
the primacy he gave to God in all his life from the deep humanity
he showed his brethren.
4. The ninth centenary of Saint Bruno's
dies natalis gives me the occasion
to renew my trust in the carthusian Order in its mission of selfless
contemplation and intercession for the Church and the world. Following
Saint Bruno and his successors, the carthusian monasteries never stop
awakening the Church to the eschatological dimension of its mission,
calling to mind God's marvelous deeds and being watchful in the expectation
of the ultimate accomplishment of the virtue of Hope (Cf. Vita consecrata
§ 27). Watching tirelessly for the Kingdom to come, seeking to Be
rather than to Do, the carthusian Order gives the Church vigor and
courage in its mission to put out in deep waters and permit the Good
News of Christ to enkindle all of mankind.
In these days of carthusian celebration
I ardently pray the Lord to make resound in the heart of many young
the call to leave everything to follow the poor man Christ, on the
demanding but liberating path of the carthusian vocation. I also invite
those in charge of the carthusian family to respond without timidity
to the requests from the young Churches to found monasteries on their
territories.
In this spirit the discernment and formation
of the candidates presenting themselves necessitates renewed attention
from the novice masters. Indeed today's culture marked by strong hedonistic
currents, by the wish for possessions and a certain wrong conception
of freedom, does not make it easy for the young to express their generosity
when they want to consecrate their lives to Christ, to follow him
on the path of self-offering love, of concrete and generous service.
The complexity of each one's itinerary, their psychological fragility,
the difficulties to live faithfully over the years, all this suggests
that nothing must be neglected to give those who ask for admission
to the carthusian " desert " a formation spanning
all the dimensions of the human person. What is more, particular attention
must be given to the choice of educators able to accompany candidates
on the paths of interior liberation and docility to the Holy Spirit.
Finally, aware that life together as brothers is a fundamental element
of the itinerary of consecrated persons, communities must be invited
to live unreservedly their mutual love, and develop a spiritual climate
and lifestyle in conformity with your Order's charisma.
5. Dear sons and daughters of Saint Bruno,
as I reminded you at the end of my post-synodal apostolic exhortation
" Vita consecrata " you should not only reminisce
and tell a glorious past history, but make a grand history! Look towards
the future, where the Spirit is sending you to do with you still great
things " (§ 110). At the heart of the world you make the
Church attentive to the voice of the Bridegroom whispering in her
heart: " Courage! I have defeated the world "
(John 16,33). I encourage you never to give up the intuitions of you
Founder, even if the impoverishment of your communities, the drop
in vocations and the incomprehension, which your chosen radical lifestyle
provokes, might make you doubt the fecundity of your Order and your
mission whose fruits in hidden way belong to God!
It is up to you, dear sons and daughters
of the Charterhouse, heirs to Saint Bruno's charisma, to maintain
in all its authenticity and depth the specific spiritual path, which
he traced for you by his words and example. Your pithy knowledge of
God, matured in prayer and meditation of His word, calls the people
of God to look further, to the very horizons of a renewed humankind
inquest of fullness of meaning and unity. Your poverty, offered for
the glory of God and the salvation of the world, is an eloquent contestation
of the logic of profit and efficiency, which often closes the hearts
of men and nations to the real need of their brothers. Your hidden
life with Christ, as the Cross silently planted in the heart of redeemed
mankind, remains in fact for the Church and for the world the eloquent
sign and the permanent reminder that anybody, yesterday as today,
can let himself be taken by Him who is only love.
Entrusting all the members of the carthusian
family to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mater singularis Cartusiensium,
star of the evangelization of the third millennium, I give them all
an affectionate apostolic blessing, which I extend to all the benefactors
of the Order.
From the Vatican, May 14, 2001
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| Ioannes
Paulus II, 14 Maius Anno Domini 2001 |
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