Short Articles on the Carthusian Order

[Stone]

The Founding of the Carthusian Order, 1905

Taken from here.

This [Carthusian] Order has formed a glorious exception in the Church, and never needed a reformer nor a reformation; it is today as fervent as when its holy founder died. The life of the Carthusian monk is one of great solitude and is mostly spent in his cell. At least once a week, they are obliged to fast on bread and water. Under no circumstances are they ever allowed to eat meat, and they fast from the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross until Easter.

The cemetery is usually a small square in the great cloister garth. There the fathers and brothers lie side by side. No useless coffin confines their bones, but they lie each in his habit as he lived; taking their rest in death in the dress with which they were clothed when they sought rest in life in the rule which the piety of St. Bruno provided for them more than eight centuries ago.

Even after death the same rule of seclusion was carried out, for no stranger, whether a religious or not, was to be buried in the cemetery of their convent, unless his own people were unable or neglected to give him burial. The graves of the monks themselves, except in the case of the generals of the Order, were and are marked only by wooden crosses without inscriptions, as if to impress all the more on the living the insignificance of all mortal parts of the human person.

[I]f the Carthusian became master of nothing else, his training must have made him completely master of himself so far as controlling his personal desires and impulses went, for there could not be a more thorough system of self-annihilation, leading to a perfect obedience to rule, personified by the prior and chapter of his convent. No military discipline, not even the famous Jesuit system, could call forth a stricter obedience than was demanded of and shown by the disciples of St. Bruno.