Carthusian (nuns)

[SianTeresa]

The Carthusians

It’s been cropping up in my mind again and again, and I’m really looking at the Carmelites, but I am aware of being open to the possibility of another calling.

According to www.chartreux.org, they only have Carthusian nuns in France, Spain, Italy and South Korea. I’m in the UK, but I speak French, Spanish and Italian. Should I write to the houses in Europe? Would I be wasting my time if I told them I’m not definite about a calling to the Carthusian order?

To be honest I am a little intimidated by the Carthusians!

Anyone else out there feel called to the Carthusian order?

 

[navidad]

The Carthusians

It’s been cropping up in my mind again and again, and I’m really looking at the Carmelites, but I am aware of being open to the possibility of another calling.

According to www.chartreux.org, they only have Carthusian nuns in France, Spain, Italy and South Korea. I’m in the UK, but I speak French, Spanish and Italian. Should I write to the houses in Europe? Would I be wasting my time if I told them I’m not definite about a calling to the Carthusian order?

To be honest I am a little intimidated by the Carthusians!

Anyone else out there feel called to the Carthusian order?

Hi Sian Teresa

I think you only will find things out if you write to the nuns. With your many languages that’s not a problem at all!!

You will not be wasting your time -or theirs- if you tell them where you are at. Actually it is good to be honest about that. There is enough reason to write if you just want to “know a little more about them” than what the Carthusian website has, for your on-going discernment.
You might even want to write to more than one of the monasteries, and see the response -or lack of it. It might give you some clue too.

I encourage you, don’t be intimidated with big names. They are as human as everybody else, and God may have big news for you through them.

I’ll be praying for you and your discernment.

In Christ,
Navidad

 

[mahalia]

I think they’d find you a bit crazy if you wrote something like “Hey, I’m positive 100 % I want to become a carthusian”

It takes years of correspondence and discernment.

Grab a pen!

 

[DL82]

I’ve often thought of the Carthusians too. Why do they in particular appeal to you? Is it because they’re the most ascetic order, or because you believe their rule would be right for your own unique soul?

The Carthusians and Carmelites are quite different though, because the Carthusians are an order of hermits, so spend most of their time in isolation. Maybe you should go on retreat with them first, I’m sure you’ll find, despite the hype, that they too are human!

God bless.
DL

 

[SianTeresa]

In response to your question about the reason that the Carthusians appeal to me…

I think there is something in the fact that they are considered the most ascetic, and as for whether their rule would be a personal fit for me - well, I’m not sure about that at the moment.

In a journey of discernment, you give a great deal of thought to what God wants from you, and in my case it is on my mind pretty much constantly. I have quite a few choices in life, and many fields that I could go into apart from a religious vocation. Though I feel irresistably drawn to becoming a nun, and called in this way more than in any other, I find myself thinking I could be successful in other fields. I think this is to be expected in the process of discernment and it doesn’t cause me too much worry. The sense of choice is also quite predominant in my mind because I am a convert from an atheist family and they seem to be quite dismayed that I might “waste my life” and become a nun, and their efforts to dissuade me rub off on me sometimes, though mostly I just feel very sad that they don’t understand.

Anyway, that’s a bit of background. Where do the Carthusians come in? I think because I’ve always thrown myself into whatever I do one hundred percent. There are plenty of examples where I was very extreme in doing this as a teenager, before I knew Christ and even as a new person in Christ, this aspect of my personality remains. So, with this sense of choice also comes the sense that whatever I do, I must do it with all of my heart, soul and mind. There is a sense of opposition, of either/or - an example of this opposition, and my need to do things 100%, is that one tempting thought I get from time to time is to ditch the whole religious vocations thing and go and do something “really big” and “change the world”, and I think that if I were a Carmelite then “the world” would still be quite present to me, and I might not purge myself fully of this desire. But when you have an order which utterly shuns reknown like the Carthusians, then it is a pretty good way of ridding myself of that desire (and it is something I want to rid myself of, as while fame is not a bad thing, in my case it impedes my surrendering totally to God). Which is why I am attracted to enclosed orders in general because if it is God’s will that I become a nun, I think he is calling me to give myself completely to him and to mortify myself completely when it comes to all the other things I am attracted to. I don’t mean to dismiss the other orders - it’s just that some of the sisters I have met from the more “active” side of things lead a life not dissimilar to mine now, in terms of how much time they spend in prayer and the sort of work that they do. I can’t really go into why I feel otherwise here as it’s quite personal, but I’m very drawn to spending my life in contemplation.

When someone in my family goes “what’s the value in that?!” I think along the lines of today’s Gospel reading where Jesus says “the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls; when he finds one of great value he goes and sells everything he owns and buys it”. Thanks to God, I have found my “fine pearl”, though I just glimpse it and it is too fleeting in the context of the life I currently lead. I know what I need to do to find it, and I’m prepared to “sell everything”. For me the “pearl” I seek is spending my life contemplating my Lord and God, and the cost would never be too high. If I can draw closer to God by renouncing more of my will and further mortifying my other desires then so be it. Only if that is the case though… I don’t want to be very human and go for the Carthusians just because they seem the most hardcore or attach some kind of spiritual pride to it, because that wouldn’t bring me closer to God. I am pretty sure after a great deal of prayer that God wants me to renounce myself, and I know through experience that when I do so He lavishes even more gifts upon me. Having worked that out that this is the case, my question about the Carthusians is, could God possibly want me to lead as austere a life as would be open to me in the religious orders? I don’t really know - that’s the question for me at the moment.

I know the Carmelites and Carthusians differ. I would say affectively and in a very instinctive, feelings-based sense, I fit the Carmelites. When I read the writings of the saints, some are interesting enough, while others make my heart melt. Likewise, some saints one doesn’t pray to much, while others are like best friends in Heaven. Well, I’m very attached to the Carmelite saints and I’ve always felt that, even before a vocation was on the horizon - when I was Baptised and Confirmed I chose St. Teresa as my patron. So in that sense, I’m more drawn to the Carmelites.

But I am asking a lot of questions at the moment about what role feelings play in the discernment process. Should I be worried that I don’t pray to St. Bruno in the same way? Again, I don’t know. I don’t think I should go on feelings alone. I do feel called to do something really radical, to go into the desert like the first desert fathers, which applies more to the Carthusians. I also feel called to penance, and I think that the life of the Carthusians would be a greater sacrifice for me. Sometimes in my life at the moment I try to do stuff that goes against my nature, because in doing so I will challenge myself and reform myself. Is it more important for something to already feel a perfect fit, or is it more important to choose a life that will be a greater challenge, and to do violence to oneself? Ultimately, it doesn’t come down to what I just feel like - rather it comes down to what will help me grow in holiness and what will help me to become Christlike.

So yeah, many questions! I think I will write to the Carthusians. I will try to do so in the next 2 or 3 weeks as right now I can’t find the time. I’ll keep you updated.

 

[Cloisters]

groups.yahoo.com/group/IFSB/

International Fellowship of St. Bruno.

Blessings,
Cloisters
cloisters.tripod.com/cloisterites/

 

[Vivien]

Hi,

Have you read “An Infinity of Little Hours” by Nancy Klein Maguire? It is the story of 5 young men who entered the Parkminster Charterhouse in 1960 and follows them for the following 5 years. Although I found the book a fascinating read, I must admit that it was somewhat depressing. I could almost feel and smell the ever present cold seeping through the walls. The inner joy of serving Christ totally does not seem to come through.

Whilst noting that the book concerns monks, it is my understanding that since the 1970s the Carthusian nuns’ lifestyle has become almost identical to that of the monks.

Pax

Vivien.

 

[SianTeresa]

Thanks for the book recommendation. I will check it out. You are right: the nuns’ lives are very similar to the monks’, though the nuns live in warmer climes I think! It’s a shame that you didn’t see the love of Christ coming through in the book. I think sometimes when religious austerity is described it can come across as rather… miserable. Usually when people visit enclosed religious orders they find that the monks/nuns radiate with Christian love, but it’s hard to capture in a book. These are not the ways of the world .

 

[1234]

Thanks for the book recommendation. I will check it out. You are right: the nuns’ lives are very similar to the monks’, though the nuns live in warmer climes I think! It’s a shame that you didn’t see the love of Christ coming through in the book. I think sometimes when religious austerity is described it can come across as rather… miserable. Usually when people visit enclosed religious orders they find that the monks/nuns radiate with Christian love, but it’s hard to capture in a book. These are not the ways of the world .

That book is a must. The writer was a highly educated woman who followed 5 Carthusians in a class–only one stayed. She married one. One left because he was a celibate gay–too bad–he would’nt be forced out now, I think. He loved the life and appeared to have a vocation. The Carthusians gave the writer unprecedented access to them and loved her book; they said that *she *was a Carthusian!

The Carthusians still *are *very penitential. The one who stayed introduced central heating in the Charterhouse in England, but the Germans who visited were scandalized!

Also do watch “Die Grosse Stille” Into Great Silence, the great long movie about the Grand Chartreuse.

The men may be dying out. Several Charterhouses have closed, their membership is decreasing and and is of advanced age generally. The future may actually lie with the nuns! There are 75 Carthusian nuns worldwide now.

Go to the Vermont Charterhouse website. You may be able to glean info from their prior re the nuns and the prospects for a women’s house in the US.

The Monastery of Bethlehem, the Assumption of the Virgin ,and St. Bruno in Livingston Manor, NY is the US house of a recent order similar to the Carthusians. There is a lot about them on phatmass, but they don’t have a website.

Here’s a bunch of links on the Carthusians:

saintbruno.org/Links1.html

 

[odubhghail]

If it is true about the Carthusian monks dying, out, then it is sad that what Henry VIII and six fingered Anne Boleyn could not accomplish is being accomplished by the modern world.
I see a parallel in the history of Syon Abbey. Syon, the only pre Reformation religious house left in England, was, like all Brigittine monasteries at that time, a double monastery containing both monks and nuns. With the ‘Reformation’, and the closure of monasteries, St. Richard Reynolds, monks of Syon, was martyred, and the rest of the community fled to Portugal. Eventually, the monks’ community died out, but the nuns continued with exiled English women entering the monastery over the next three centuries.
Eventually, the nuns returned to England, restored Syon Abbey on a new site, and prospered for the next hundred and eighty (?) years. Then the post Vatican II asteroid hit, and vocations plummeted. There are only four nuns left, I hear, and there are only five monasteries of the original order left-the others are in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
Bit of trivia: the Carthusian choir nuns still have the priviledge of wearing the diaconal stole on certain occasions, because they receive the ancient blessing of deaconesses.
Good luck in your search. I would recommend the film Into Great Silence. It is magnificent in its austere beauty.

 

[1234]

If it is true about the Carthusian monks dying, out, then it is sad that what Henry VIII and six fingered Anne Boleyn could not accomplish is being accomplished by the modern world.
I see a parallel in the history of Syon Abbey. Syon, the only pre Reformation religious house left in England, was, like all Brigittine monasteries at that time, a double monastery containing both monks and nuns. With the ‘Reformation’, and the closure of monasteries, St. Richard Reynolds, monks of Syon, was martyred, and the rest of the community fled to Portugal. Eventually, the monks’ community died out, but the nuns continued with exiled English women entering the monastery over the next three centuries.
Eventually, the nuns returned to England, restored Syon Abbey on a new site, and prospered for the next hundred and eighty (?) years. Then the post Vatican II asteroid hit, and vocations plummeted. There are only four nuns left, I hear, and there are only five monasteries of the original order left-the others are in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden.
Bit of trivia: the Carthusian choir nuns still have the priviledge of wearing the diaconal stole on certain occasions, because they receive the ancient blessing of deaconesses.
Good luck in your search. I would recommend the film Into Great Silence. It is magnificent in its austere beauty.

I wouldn’t blame it all on Vat II. Many cloistered nuns, especially in England, for some reason, don’t seem to understand the power of the Internet. I look in vain for anything beyond the most rudimentary website for many declining English monasteries. How are people going to learn about them? And a single page on a diocesan vocations site isn’t enough. One needs lots of pictures, which everyone likes, a newsletter, a “What’s New” section, a video and preferably a blog. Then there are the “Come and See” weekends during the spring, summer and fall. And all of this has to be professionally done. Look at the web outreach of the most popular orders in the US–the Nashville Dominicans and the Srs of Mary Mo Eucharist, the Nashville offshoot. These are teaching orders, to be sure, not cloistered; they have a gorgeous habit , many many pictures and professional videos and a vocations director who has a blackberry. Some abbeys like Stanbrook in the UK, finally got a nice website, but it’s a little late in the game.

Remember that there has been a sea change in society, not just a change in attitude towards religious life. The Carthusian model doesn’t hold anymore–that to be truly holy, you have to separate yourself from the world, like Simon Stylites on his pillar.

Re that movie, Into Great Silence, the director tried for fifteen years to make it before he was finally let in. Why? Well, I guess that they thought that it was time. Maybe too late for them, too.

 

[DL82]

Remember that there has been a sea change in society, not just a change in attitude towards religious life. The Carthusian model doesn’t hold anymore–that to be truly holy, you have to separate yourself from the world, like Simon Stylites on his pillar.

I have often wondered, with all our society’s obsession with seeing (what the sociologists have called occulocentrism), whether it isn’t time for a new order of stylites. Cloistered monks can be easily ignored. In our Big Brother/Reality TV/Webcam/advertising obsessed society, maybe we need a new order of brothers who live their holiness in seclusion but in full view, maybe online, maybe on literal pillars in our city centres (David Blaine managed it, though I doubt you’d get planning permission to sit there for 40 years like St Simeon these days:shrug: )

There’s so much fuss about religious people being hypocrites, and I think the majority of secular people think that monks and nuns are just repressed homosexuals and odd recluses, someone needs to show the world the radical difference of the gospel lived through the vocation to Catholic religious life.

 

[Vivien]

I have often wondered, with all our society’s obsession with seeing (what the sociologists have called occulocentrism), whether it isn’t time for a new order of stylites. Cloistered monks can be easily ignored. In our Big Brother/Reality TV/Webcam/advertising obsessed society, maybe we need a new order of brothers who live their holiness in seclusion but in full view …

To some extent this has already been tried, for example, The Abbey in Australia which saw 5 women enter the Benedictine Abbey at Jamberoo for 30 odd days. The same was done in the UK (The Monastery) and I believe in the US. I wonder if there’s been an increase in vocations to those orders?

 

[SianTeresa]

The British TV series, The Monastery, saw a group of men spend time in a Benedictine monastery. About a month after it was on TV, I went on a retreat to Ampleforth Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the UK. There was a man there who had decided to make an independent retreat, having come from a non-religious background. He realised that it was odd, but he had watched the TV show and said that it had give him a recognition that “there was more to life” and he “just had to check it out”.

It is an interesting discussion on the witness that enclosed, contemplative orders make to the world. In sadness, I recognise that with so much information passing us by on a daily basis, the religious life has not made a great impact on secular culture. Especially here in the UK, which is not a particularly religious country. I think it is still a worthy calling, but how to reach the wider public? Websites are quite effective. As for sitting on a post, well, might people with their current mindset and exposure to spectacle, not just think it’s another showman, another David Blaine? Then again, people have probably always thought that.

 

[1234]

i think that there is a real difference between a media blitz and simply passing on the info.

There are surprising, ?shocking? misconceptions about religious life, fed by scandal, media --Sister Act, The Nun’s Story, etc–which need to be countered. And I think that it’s reasonable to have an ongoing info sheet about what the life is actually like on a daily basis available. The Nashville Dominicans, who want young and to my mind, impressionable girls, have amped this up with camp-like ‘retreats’ which (apparently are fun fun fun), and very professional videos of their admittedly large professions which take place when all the nuns are in their huge chapel and traipse forward in large groups. Apparently there are 18 postulants entering this Aug. (The teaching orders in the US were always the largest–these also teach).

I don’t think the 30 day thing in the US with nuns ever happened. The Trappistine nuns at Wrentham, MA, a very successful group with several daughter houses, and the Roswell NM Poor Clare Collettines-a very traditional penitential group, participated in an extensive interview/video process with Diana Sawyer, only to have most of the main points stripped from the final product, with Diane accusing them all of being repressed sexually and belittling Wrentham’s (usually successful) attempts to attract new candidates. The result was enough to keep the media out of religious houses for the foreseeable future. Diane Sawyer is the new Barbara Walters–a real snake.

 

[odubhghail]

I am in no wise blaming anything on Vatican II. What I refer to as ‘the asteroid’ is the libertarian zeitgeist that seemed to prevail in the aftermath, justifying any and all novelty in the name of the ‘renewal of Vatican II.’ Anyone who has read the documents knows that the large scale abuses had nothing to do with the Council. No, the touchy feely catechesis with all fluff and no substance is largely to blame.
I must disagree with you on the ‘Carthusian model.’ Carthusian vocations are always rare, always have been. Nonetheless, in the film, Into Great Silence, two young Frenchmen do join the monastery. In an article published in Africa magazine (the magazine of the St. Patrick’s, or Kiltegan Fathers), profiling St. Hugh’s Charterhouse at Parkminster, there were at least five novices pictured.
There are many contemplative orders with websites, and the average age in these groups seems to be extremely young, perhaps thirty. The Carmelite monks of Wyoming, a new foundation, is already a monastery in crisis, as they are bursting at the seams with new postulants and novices.
I think the key ingredient is prayerfulness, then a dynamic and joyful spirit-these things attract vocations. But, one can be prayerful, and keep this hidden under a basket.

 

[1234]

Carthusian vocations have always been rare, but they have founded and maintained charterhouses. Now they are closing them. Their average age is high–as seen in the film.

The contemplative houses seem to vary widely. The ‘updated’ cloistered seem to be having trouble, with a few exceptions, but I don’t think that it is habits and ‘orthodoxy’ alone. It is really hard to generalize. The Carmelite monks in WY are the exception in men’s orders–no other group like them. The Trappists are not doing well in general, some better than others. Some of the most conservative Discalced Carmelite women are very small–Springfield MO may merge; there is a considerable number of them with less than 10 members, some less than 5. Many of these had no web presence until recently and still don’t. Others are thriving in beautiful new monasteries, which may help. I think that it has a lot to do with the foundresses and prioresses. Regina Laudis has always flourished. The recently retired prioress of the Wrentham Trappistines was apparently a wonder; she founded several daughter houses during her tenure. The nuns at Walburga have steadily enlarged.

 

[Cowfold]

Carthusian vocations have always been rare, but they have founded and maintained charterhouses. Now they are closing them. Their average age is high–as seen in the film.

The contemplative houses seem to vary widely. The ‘updated’ cloistered seem to be having trouble, with a few exceptions, but I don’t think that it is habits and ‘orthodoxy’ alone. It is really hard to generalize. The Carmelite monks in WY are the exception in men’s orders–no other group like them. The Trappists are not doing well in general, some better than others. Some of the most conservative Discalced Carmelite women are very small–Springfield MO may merge; there is a considerable number of them with less than 10 members, some less than 5. Many of these had no web presence until recently and still don’t. Others are thriving in beautiful new monasteries, which may help. I think that it has a lot to do with the foundresses and prioresses. Regina Laudis has always flourished. The recently retired prioress of the Wrentham Trappistines was apparently a wonder; she founded several daughter houses during her tenure. The nuns at Walburga have steadily enlarged.

I would guess that there are less than 100 Carthusian Choir Nuns in the world today. Their life is particularly austere and difficult.

 

[anode]

I would guess that there are less than 100 Carthusian Choir Nuns in the world today. Their life is particularly austere and difficult.

There are none in the US, but about 75 worldwide. As the Carthusian monks wane, the number of the Carthusian nuns might in time actually exceed that of the monks.

Most of these monastic houses–such as the Trappists and Carthusians-- are holding their own or increasing in Africa and possibly also in Asia.

 

[Thepeug]

The Monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia, Italy, is also growing at a rapid pace. The community was founded by a monk from St. Meinrad’s Archabbey in Indiana, and most of the monks are American, with an average age of 25. I spent a month there this past summer and will never forget it.

website: osbnorcia.org