Saint Bruno of Cologne

 

Saint Bruno of Cologne

Confessor, ecclesiastical writer, and founder of the Carthusian Order. He was born at Cologne about the year 1030; died 6 October, 1101.

He is usually represented with a death’s head in his hands, a book and a cross, or crowned with seven stars; or with a roll bearing the device O Bonitas. His feast is kept on the 6th of October.

1- While the world changes, the cross stands firm.

2-Only those who have experienced the solitude and the silence of the wilderness can know the benefit and divine joy they bring to those who love them.

3- No act is charitable if it is not just.

4- In the solitude and silence of the wilderness…, for their labor in the contest, God gives his athletes the reward they desire: a peace that the world does not know and joy in the Holy Spirit.

5- If the bow is stretched for too long, it becomes slack and unfit for its purpose.

6- Rejoice, my dearest brothers, because you are blessed and because of the bountiful hand of God’s grace upon you. Rejoice, because you have escaped the various dangers and shipwrecks of the stormy world.

Rejoice because you have reached the quiet and safe anchorage of a secret harbor. Many wish to come into this port, and many make great efforts to do so, yet do not achieve it.

Indeed many, after reaching it, have been thrust out, since it was not granted them from above.

7-By your work you show what you love and what you know.

8- When you observe true obedience with prudence and enthusiasm, it is clear that you wisely pick the most delightful and nourishing fruit of divine Scripture.

9- The unclean spirit enters easily into a man, and easily goes out from him.

10- For the devil may tempt the good, but he cannot find rest in them; for he is shaken violently, and upset, and driven out, now by their prayers, now by their tears of repentance, and now by their almsgiving and similar good works.