Carthusian school of contemplation

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About the Silence…
We cannot separate the idea of a monaastery from thought of silence, peace, stillness. And this is so because silence and stillness are necessary and vital for any true contemplative and religious setting.
Silence is necessary to reach and abide in a solid interior life. The Church in Evangelica Testificatio tell us:
The interior man is aware that times of silence are demanded by the love of God. As a rule he needs a certain solitude so that he may hear God s peaking to his heart. ( ET 46)

According to this text, silence is a demand of the love of God, not merely a rule or penance or ascetical observance. Silince is a basic attitude in those who search for God in the state of religious consecration. It is not possible to attain the perfection of this basic attitude overnight, when we first come to the monastery: nor will this perfection in silence come automatically after the period of noviciate.
Silence, in fact like any othet attitude, is something living , and is therefore in a state of continual growth, never completely achieved.
To attain the silence that the Church asks of religious,a solid trainning and steadfast practice are necessary. This is one of the purposes of the noviciate and also of the living example and mutual support provided by community life!
 
Inge_Torquemada said:
About the Silence…
We cannot separate the idea of a monaastery from thought of silence, peace, stillness. And this is so because silence and stillness are necessary and vital for any true contemplative and religious setting.
Silence is necessary to reach and abide in a solid interior life. The Church in Evangelica Testificatio tell us:
The interior man is aware that times of silence are demanded by the love of God. As a rule he needs a certain solitude so that he may hear God s peaking to his heart. ( ET 46)

According to this text, silence is a demand of the love of God, not merely a rule or penance or ascetical observance. Silince is a basic attitude in those who search for God in the state of religious consecration. It is not possible to attain the perfection of this basic attitude overnight, when we first come to the monastery: nor will this perfection in silence come automatically after the period of noviciate.
Silence, in fact like any othet attitude, is something living , and is therefore in a state of continual growth, never completely achieved.
To attain the silence that the Church asks of religious,a solid trainning and steadfast practice are necessary. This is one of the purposes of the noviciate and also of the living example and mutual support provided by community life!
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I think it is also mental cleansing. Just as we can decide what we will say or not say, we also get better at deciding what we will think or not think, feel or not feel. Or at least less caught up in it all, less a slave to it all.
 
OK.
Let us glance at the way in which silence grows. For a newcomer to the monastery , silence is often experienced as a mortification, having an aspect ans a role that is mainly ascetic. Indeed, it is clear from monastic tradition that silence is one of the means proposed to the novice for avoiding sin.

The more aware the novice becomes of being personally commited to God, the more he or she feels the necessity of listening to the Spirit as he whispers gently in the heart. For the Spirit is at work withinus, gradually enabling us to discover that silence is the only way both to perceive and to detect God s work within us.
This is how the novice is led, by silence , from avoiding sin to listening to the Spirit!!!
The very first word of St. Benedict s Rule is “Hearken”. To listen is the most essential attitude of a disciple. Religious consecration implies and demands very urgently that one be a disciple, a faithful follower of Christ!
A religious therefore should be enwrapped in an atmosphere of silence in order to become a faithful listener to the Spirit, a true disciple of Christ!
 
My dear Inge: I wonder if what we are seeking is silence? Or Solitude? Or both? I have traveled extensively, as part of my work career. The greatest solitude I have achieved has been in a bustling air terminal. I would become a drop of rain in a torrent. Now, I have great solitude, and little silence. Yet, I am able, on occasion, to draw myself within, to step outside the world, and find that desert within myself - then I have both solitude and silence. That “place” lasts only fleeting moments and are precious to me. But, for me, I can live with a bit of noise, but crave solitude. It is in that solitude that I can focus most sharply on the Glory of the Trinity - God, the Creator, Jesus, our salvation, and the Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Trinity. The great mystery, is the oneness of the three. By analogy, most of us have a public person and a private person. We are one, though we may have several aspects. God created us in His image - though we are NOT God.
Marv
 
The theology of the Carthusian life finds its fulfilment in a longing for the things of heaven that supremely exemoplifies its nature as the antithesis of worldly living…The Carthusian monk ( nun) seeks…to be moved by the highter things, and thus to move the lower things: to love nothing more than God!!!, and yet to love one s neighbour perfectly…
Only the person whose eyes are fixed on heaven is free to know God and the world as they are, and to love them as he should.
In that perspective the hidden solitary reverses the world s wisdoms: he lives in the desert, but on the threshold of paradise: and he alone becomes, in the grand scheme of Guigo the Carthusian; the servant of God, the companion on man, the lord of the world.
 
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