Lenten Hymn from the Durham Hymnal

 

Lenten Hymn from the Durham Hymnal

 

Use is unclear.

 SUMME SALVATOR OMNIUM,

indultor & peccaminum,

lesu, quadragenarii

consecrator ieiunii,

 

da pectoris munditiam,

corporis castimoniam,

ne valeat inrumpere

corruptor pudicitiae,

 

qui protoplastum vetiro

illiciens edulio

in huius vite torridum

detruserat ergastulum.

 

Nos, filii aecclesiae

tuo redempti sanguine,

voce precamur humili,

ne pereamus miseri:

 

Sana languencum vulnera,

dum restringuntur corpora,

dele virus malitiae

medela parsimoniae,

 

sicut in sterquilinio

benignitatis oculo

dignatus es revisere

lob in favilla & cinere.

 

Presta, pater, per filium

 

Lofty Savior of all, pardoner of sins, consecrator of the forty-day fast, grant cleansing of the heart, chastity of body, that destroyer of modesty not be able to break in, who by the forbidden food thrust down the first man into dry prison of this life. We, sons of the Church, redeemed by your blood, pray with humble voice that we not perish miserably: heal our languishing wounds, while our bodies are restored, blot out the virus of evil with the remedy of fasting, just as you vouchsafed to look with a kind eye on Job upon the dunghill in dust and ashes.

Benignitatis Fons Deus

 

Benignitatis Fons Deus

 

This hymn was used for Vespers & Lauds for the three day fast leading up to Epiphany in the Mozarabic Breviary. It was also used in that Breviary for Lauds on Ash Wednesday, Vespers and Lauds on the fast from Wednesday through Saturday leading up to Pentecost (only Lauds on Saturday) and Vespers and Lauds on the fasts before the Feast of St. Cyprian (Sept. 14) and St. Martin (Nov. 11) (only Lauds on Saturday). It is also listed for Terce during Lent in the section on the Minor Offices in the Mozarabic Breviary.

 

Benignitatis fons Deus,
Qui non habens finem boni
Super malum scelestium,
Semper pius, semper bonus.

 

O God, fount of goodness, you who no end of goodness, over wicked evil, ever gracious, ever good.

Mœstum=sorrowful we strike down enough the sorrowful heart and beat our sad beat, pour out tears from our eyes, we lead sorrowful cheeks,

 

Mœstum satis cor cædimus,
Et triste pectus tundimus,
Aquas pupillæ fundimus,
Mœstas genas inducimus.

 

Egisse multum pœnitet
Horrens, tetrum, vel pessimum;
Turpissimum, ac sordidum
Fatemur omne noxium.

 

 

Done a lot of regret

Horrible, horrible or bad;

The most shameful, and unclean

We acknowledge that every noxious thing.

 

 

Elata vox te postulat,
Tu parce, dicit, Conditor,
Iam parce clamat obsecrans,
Ignosce quod commisimus.

 

 

In a loud voice to demands

But you spare this one, he says, Maker of all,

Spare me in and cries out to you, exhorting,

Sorry that I committed.

 

 

Non ira mœstos sorbeat,

Non pœna fessos conterat:
Solare contritos cito,
Et gaudium nobis dato.

 

 

It is not the wrath of the drinks even with a heavy heart,

No penalty tired and crushed

Solar broken quickly,

The joy we wish.

 

Præsta, Pater piissime,
Patrique compar Unice,
Cum Spiritu Paraclito,
Regnans per omne sæculum. Amen.

 

Saint Bonaventure: Mary as Queen; Queenship of Mary: Royal Dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

Saint Bonaventure: Mary as Queen; Queenship of Mary: Royal Dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the Mother of the great King by reason of a noble kind of conception according to the message given her by the Angel. "Behold," he said, "thou shalt conceive and shall bring forth a Son"; and again, "The Lord God will give Him the throne of David His father, and He shall be king over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." This is as if to say in so many words, "Thou shalt conceive and bear a Son who is King, eternally reigning on the royal throne, and because of this thou wilt reign as the Mother of the King, and as Queen thou wilt be seated on the royal throne." For if it becomes a son to give honor to his mother, it is also fitting that he share his royal throne with her; and so the Virgin Mary, because she conceived Him on whose thigh was written, "King of kings and Lord of lords," was Queen not only of earth but also of heaven as soon as she conceived the Son of God. This is indicated in the Apocalypse where it says, "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon was under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars."

 

Mary the Queen outshines all others in glory, as the Prophet clearly shows in the Psalm which particularly concerns Christ and the Virgin Mary. It first says of Christ, "Thy throne, O God, stands forever and ever," and shortly thereafter of the Virgin, "The queen takes her place at Thy right hand," that is, in the position of highest blessedness, for it refers to glory of soul. The Psalm continues, "In garments of gold," by which is meant the clothing of glorious immortality which was proper to the Virgin in her Assumption. For it could not be that the garment that clothed Christ, the garment completely sanctified on earth by the incarnate Word, should be the food of worms. As it was fitting for Christ to grant the fullness of grace to His Mother at her Conception, so it was fitting that He grant her the fullness of glory at her Assumption. And so, we are to hold that the Virgin, glorious in soul and body, is enthroned next to her Son.

 

 Mary the Queen is also the distributor of grace. This is indicated in the book of Esther in the passage, "The little spring which grew into a river and was turned into a light and into the sun." The Virgin Mary, under the type of Esther, is compared to the out- pouring of a spring and of light, because of the diffusion of graces for two uses, that is, for action and for contemplation. For the grace of God, which is a healing for the human race, descends to us through her as if through an aqueduct, since the dispensing of grace is attributed to the Virgin not as to its beginning, but because of her position through merit. By position the Virgin Mary is a most excellent Queen towards her people: she obtains forgiveness, overcomes strife, distributes grace; and thereby she leads them to glory.

 

Gregory Narek - Prayers - Prayer 41

---

St. Gregory Narek

Prayer 41

Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart

A Son of the living God, blessed in all things,1
whose awesome birth by your Father passes
all understanding,
for whom nothing is impossible,2
before the dawning of the uneclipsed rays of the mercy of your glory
sins melt away, demons flee, transgressions are erased,
bindings are cut and chains undone.
The dead are born again, infirmities are cured,
wounds are healed, corruption is cleansed,
sadness withdraws, sighs retreat,
darkness flees, fog departs,
twilight vanishes, darkness lifts, the night passes,
alarm is banished, evil is destroyed, despair is exiled.
And your omnipotent hand rules, redeemer of all.

B You who came not to destroy our mortal souls, but to give them life,3
forgive my countless wrongs with your abundant mercy.
For you alone are in heaven beyond words, and on earth beyond understanding,
in the substance of existence unto the ends of the earth,
the beginning of everything and the completion of
everything in all ways, blessed in the highest.
Glory forever to you
with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.


1. Mt 16,16.
2. Lc 1,37, Gn 18,14.
3. Lc 9,56.

Prayer 42

Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart

A Lord God of compassion, salvation and mercy,
redemption and restoration, healing and health,
enlightenment and life, resurrection and immortality,
remember me, when you go to your kingdom,
O awesome, mighty, doer of good and creator of all,
living, praised, perfecter of all,
accessible to the sighs of all beings.

With the man who was crucified with you,
who was not captured for your sake and was not bound,
was not hanged and was not nailed,
was not beaten in your great name and
was not disgraced,
was not tortured and was not treated with contempt,
was not crushed and was not killed,
I beg to be worthy of the Kingdom and
the most desired light that is the reward of the just.
May you, by the authority of saying the oath, “Amen,”
affirm that your gifts are unchanging and
are glorified for giving the hope of salvation to
those of us
that consider ourselves totally abandoned.

B Blessed, blessed, and blessed again!
Having accepted me by that same faith,
raise me up from my fallen state, doer of good,
cure me of disease, merciful,
return me from the edge of death to life, lifegiver,
for I am yours, same as man’s faith, my refuge.
Grant the breath of life to the body of the dead,
O resurrection,
life, immortality, and inexhaustible joy,
boundless grace, unwavering forgiveness,
omnipotent right hand, all-governing hand,
all-reaching finger,
you have only to wish it, Lord, and I shall be saved,
only to think it, and by your mercy shall I be justified.
Say the word, and I will be found spotless.1
Forget my wrongs, and I shall venture to emerge.
Cultivate me and I shall cleave to you,
you who are glorified in all things forever.
Amen.


1. Mt 8,2 Mt 8,8.

Donald A. Withey, John Henry Newman: the Liturgy and the Breviary

 

Donald A. Withey, John Henry Newman: the Liturgy and the Breviary

 

His encounter with the Breviary provided Newman with his first opportunity to 'get on the inside' of the Roman liturgy and to make a detailed study of a liturgical book. He found it, by comparison with the Prayer Book, greatly enriched both devotionally and liturgically. There were many features in the Breviary which appealed strongly to him. In the Breviary offices the whole of the psalter was prayed weekly and enriched with antiphons; almost the whole of scripture was read at Matins (or would have been if the lectio continua had not been disrupted by the overloading of saints' feasts with their own propers); and the homiletic lessons at Matins provided a daily reading from the Fathers. The hagiographical lessons, although badly in need of revision, gave an insight into the history and the spirituality of the Church. The course of the Breviary offices throughout the year celebrated with considerable richness both the liturgical seasons and ordinary time, together with other feasts of the Lord, the Virgin Mary and the saints. The time of day was also sanctified by the daily round of offices. Antiphons, versicles and responsories all served to enrich the liturgical prayer of the Breviary. Above all Newman was impressed by the office hymns. . . .

 

The Roman liturgy, and especially the Breviary, was a decisive factor in Newman's journey towards Rome, a factor which has not received due attention in the corpus of literature dealing with his conversion. Newman encountered the Breviary almost by accident. Its influence on him, continuing perhaps the influence of his friend Hurrell Froude, must not be underestimated. He became almost captivated by this book and could not put it aside. Despite the ill-feeling caused by the abortive Breviary translation projects, despite his discouragement of others from using the Breviary if it turned them Rome wards, despite his painful realization that it was drawing him towards Rome, he continued to pray the offices. Wisely or unwisely he took the bold step of reciting the offices daily with his companions at Littlemore, despite his desire to hold them back from Rome. The Breviary continued to have a fascination for him, and it is fitting that it featured at the very end of his journey to Rome.

St. Ambrose: HEXAMERON 5.88: Commentary on Aeterne rerum conditor A, S. Walpole, Early Latin Hymns,

 

St. Ambrose: HEXAMERON 5.88: Commentary on Aeterne rerum conditor

 

A, S. Walpole, Early Latin Hymns, says that this section of the Hexameron is a commentary on St. Ambrose’s hymn, Aeterne Rerum Conditor: ‘the passage appears to be based on the hymn, rather than the hymn on the passage’.

 

 

The cock's crow is pleasant at nightfall. It is not only pleasant, but useful, too. As a good domesticated fowl he arouses the sleeper, gives him warning when he is perturbed, and consoles the voyager by asserting in musical tones that night is approaching. When the cock crows, the thief forsakes his schemes and the star of dawn rises to illumine the sky. When the cock crows, the sailor's gloom and

trepidation disappear. Tempests and storms stirred up by gusts of wind at eveningtide subside. At his crowing the devout of heart bestir themselves for prayer and resume their reading. Finally, on this occasion 'the rock of the Church' washed away his sin which he had committed before the cock crowed. At cock-crow hope returns to all, the sick find comfort, the wounded find relief, the feverish are calmed, the lapsed return to the faith. Jesus has regard for those who stumble and corrects the errant. Hence, He paid heed to Peter and forthwith the sin departed. Peter revoked his denial and his confession was completed. That this was God's plan and not a mere accident is revealed in the words

of the Lord. It is written that Jesus said to Simon: 'Before the cock crows, thou wilt deny me three times.'

 

My translation of the hymn for comparison:

 

Eternal Creator of things, you who rule night and day, and give the time of the seasons that you may relieve our boredom. The cock, the watchman through the deep of night, now sounds, a nocturnal light for travelers, separating one from another. By this the morning star is aroused, the sky is parted from the darkness; by this every band of errors abandons its harmful ways. By this the sailor regains his strength and the raging sea is calmed; by this Peter himself, the rock of the Church, by song washes away his guilt. O Jesus, look upon those who are falling, for by one glance you correct; if you see us, our lapses fall and crime is absolved by tears. You, O Light, shine on our senses, may sleep of our souls depart; our voices sing to you and our promises to you are kept.

 

24 February: Blessed Josefa Naval Girbés

February 24
BLESSED JOSEFA NAVAL GIRBÉS
Virgin

Optional Memorial

Josefa Naval Girbés was born at Algemesi in the Archdiocese of Valencia, Spain, on December 11, 1820. As a very young woman, she consecrated herself to the Lord by a perpetual vow of chastity. Josefa’s life was simple. She stood out for her ardent love, and she made progress along the way of prayer and evangelical perfection while dedicating herself generously to apostolic works in her parish community. In her own home, she opened a school where she taught needlework, prayer, and the evangelical virtues. She formed many young girls and women and shared with them her wisdom and spiritual understanding. She was a member of the Third Order Secular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and Saint Teresa of Jesus and had a special love for the Virgin Mother of God. Her holy death took place on February 24, 1893. She is buried in her parish church of Saint James in her native city.

From the common of virgins

Office of Readings

Second Reading
From the Decree regarding the heroic virtues of Josefa Naval Girbés
(Valentina, January 3, 1987)

She regarded her parish as her Mother in the faith

Since parishes in a certain way represent the visible Church established on the earth, Josefa, the Servant of God, regarded her parish as her Mother in faith and in grace, and as such she loved her and served her with humility and with a spirit of sacrifice. And for that reason, she showed her parish priest sincere veneration and entrusted herself to his spiritual direction. She looked after the making of liturgical furnishings and she saw that they were kept clean and well cared for, and the altars as well. Each day she went to the parish church to take part in the Eucharistic sacrifice. But she was especially notable for her intelligent and fruitful apostolate, which she always carried out with the consent of her pastors, to whom she professed absolute respect and obedience.

Convinced as Josefa was that Christians ought to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, she was not content to practice the virtues at home. Rather she wanted to fulfill completely the command of the Lord who said, Let your light shine before men in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. And so she sought every opportunity to proclaim Christ by word and deed both to non- believers, in order to draw them to the faith, and to the faithful, in order to instruct and confirm them and encourage them to live more fervently. With that in view, she taught the poor and counseled all who came to her. She restored peace in broken families. She organized meetings for mothers in her own house in order to help them in their Christian formation. She brought back to the way of virtue women who had gone astray, and she prudently admonished sinners. However, the work on which she most focused her care and energy was that of instructing young people in the things of life and in the faith. For their sake, she opened in her house a free embroidery school which was well attended. Her workshop became a place of fraternal gatherings. It was a center of prayer, where God was praised and where the Sacred Scriptures and eternal truths were explained and developed.

Like a loving mother, the Servant of God watched over her followers and prepared them for life. She was a model of fervent love for God. She was a lamp that gave forth light and warmth and a shining example in so many ways of a living and contagious faith, of unflagging love, and of joyous submission to the will of God and of her superiors. Josefa is remembered for her unbounded solicitude for the salvation of souls. She stood out for her singular prudence, and for the humility, poverty, silence, and patience that she always practiced, even amidst setbacks and difficulties. The fervor with which she cultivated the interior life of prayer and meditation and her patience under trial were well known, as was her love for the Eucharist and for the Virgin Mary and the saints. In this way, the Servant of God helped to build up her parish community.

Responsory

R/. Put into practice all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, admirable and worthy of praise: * and the God of peace will be with you.
V/. Direct your thoughts wholly to what is decent and meritorious, * and the God of peace will be with you.

Prayer

O God,
through the new leaven of the Gospel,
you call men and women
and empower them to serve you faithfully in secular life.
Grant that they may fervently imitate the example of Blessed Josefa,
and, through her intercession,
work tirelessly as true Christians to build up your kingdom
by fulfilling their duties in the world.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever.

Josefa Naval Girbés

Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy, David Berger

 

Thomas Aquinas and the Liturgy, David Berger

 

The Liturgical Spirituality of the Sons of St. Benedict of Nursia

 

The human being that the post conciliar reformed liturgy (as it de facto generally takes shape) seems to produce is hardly one who contemplates and receives. Rather, the actively doing person, someone who thinks he is the active shaper of liturgy, seems to be promoted. To quote Cardinal Ratzinger's oft-expressed criticism, however, such a person underestimates grace-given contemplation in favor of an "active doing . . . the shallow product of the moment." In the life of St. Thomas, we encounter the light of an altogether different understanding of human nature. Almost all biographies present Thomas as  homo magnae contemplationis et orationis  ("a man wholly assigned to contemplation and prayer") .

Indeed, classical liturgy calls for and shapes such a person, devoted to contemplation, capable of receiving, humble, not pelagian, who can above all look wholly away from himself and open himself to one who is greater and other. Such a person recognizes that the liturgy, as Romano Guardini reminded us, has something in common with the stars: "with their eternally fixed and even course, their unchangeable order, their profound silence, and the infinite space in which they are poised. " St. Thomas seems to have been endowed with this contemplative spirit from very early on. He grew up amongst the Benedictines of Monte Cassino, where he was educated in the spirit of St. Benedict of Nursia, in whose order the liturgy holds pride of place both in its importance and in the time spent on it.  The laus perennis of the sons of St. Benedict, the festive celebration of the liturgy, which he was permitted to attend daily as an oblate of the Benedictine abbey, were for him a first schooling through which he was introduced into theology's original mysteries, the principia (ST, I, q. I, a. 5, ad 2).

 

The influence of this schooling still reverberates at the close of Thomas's life. This can be seen in his prologue Postilla super Psalmos,  where he explains the singular significance of the psalms by the fact that they contain the entire contents of theology ("generalem habet totius theologiae"). These are not spread over many different books, as in the rest of the Holy Scriptures, but are concentrated in this one book; not as a narration, report, letter, or instruction, but in the most dignified form, liturgical praise, thanksgiving, and prayer. According to Thomas, wherever theology reverts to the psalms, it shows its character of wisdom in a very special way.

 

The love of singing the psalms in the context of the divine office, founded in Monte Cassino, seems to have stayed alive within Thomas all his life. The best known of Aquinas's early biographers, William of Tocco, who   had the privilege of knowing Thomas personally, reports that Thomas would rise at night before the actual time (or the canonical hour of Matins (cap. 34). A few chapters before (cap. 29) we read: "One also saw him often when he was singing the psalm verse during Compline in Lent: 'Do not reject us in old age, when my strength is failing,' enraptured and consumed by piety, tears streaming down his face that seemed to be bursting forth from the eyes of the pious soul."

From the Sermons of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux.

 

From the Sermons of St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux.

Second Homily on Luke i. 26

 

It is said: And the virgin's name was Mary. Let us speak a few words upon this name, which signified, being interpreted, Star of the Sea, and suited very well the Maiden Mother, who may very meetly be likened unto a star. A star giveth forth her rays without any harm to herself, and the Virgin brought forth her Son without any hurt to her virginity. The light of a star taketh nothing away from the star itself, and the birth of her offspring took nothing away from the Virginity of Mary.

 

She is that noble star which was to come out of Jacob, Num. xxiv. 17, whose brightness still shredded luster upon all the earth, whose rays are most brilliant in heaven, and shine even unto hell, lighting up earth midway, and warming souls rather than bodies, fostering good and scaring away evil. She, I say, is a clear and shining star, twinkling with excellencies, and resplendent with example, needfully set to look down upon the surface of this great and wide sea.

 

Thou, whosoever thou art, that knowest thyself to be here not so much walking upon firm ground, as battered to and fry

o by the gales and storms of this life's ocean, if thou wildest not be overwhelmed by the tempest, keep thine eyes fixed upon this star's clear shining. If the hurricanes of temptation rise against thee, or thou art running upon the rocks of trouble, look to the star, call on Mary. If the waves of pride, or ambition, or slander, or envy toss thee, look to the star, call on Mary. If the billows of anger or avarice, or the enticements of the flesh beat against thy soul's bark, look to Mary. If the enormity of thy sins trouble thee, if the foulness of thy conscience confound thee, if the dread of judgment appall thee, if thou begin to slip into the deep of despondency, into the pit of despair, think of Mary.

 

In danger, in difficulty, or in doubt, think on Mary, call on Mary. Let her not be away from thy mouth or from thine heart, and that thou mayest not lack the succor of her prayers, turn not aside from the example of her conversation. If thou follow her, thou wilt never go astray. If thou pray to her, thou wilt never have need to despair. If thou keep her in mind, thou wilt never wander. If she hold thee, thou wilt never fall. If she lead thee, thou wilt never be weary. If she help thee, thou wilt reach home safe at the last and so thou wilt prove in thyself how meetly it is said And the virgin's name was Mary.

Carthusian Worlds, Carthusian Images. The Fascination of Silence and Inaccessibility, in: Studies in Spirituality 24 (2014) 143-154 By Peter Nissen

 

Carthusian Worlds, Carthusian Images. The Fascination of Silence and Inaccessibility, in: Studies in Spirituality 24 (2014) 143-154

By Peter Nissen

PETER NISSEN CARTHUSIAN WORLDS, CARTHUSIAN IMAGES The Fascination of Silence and Inaccessibility SUMMARY – The silent, hidden world of the Carthusians has become known to a broad public thanks to the 2005 film, Die grosse Stille / Into Great Silence from the German producer Philip Gröning. That world appears to fascinate people, as evidenced by earlier films and books about Carthusian life as well. But the onlooker remains an outsider. Films and books afford a fleeting glimpse of an inside world marked by inaccessi- bility. The inaccessibility in fact accounts for the outsider’s fascination. Usually it results in a biased picture: the Carthusian world is seen as paradisiac. Yet a number of recent autobiographic works by former Carthusians demolish the idyll of the ‘white paradise’. They show that the silent, enclosed world of the Carthusians is marred by acute psycho- logical tensions. These are mainly about boundaries: where does the Carthusian world begin and end, where is the boundary between the inside and the outside world, between the individual monk and the com- munity? The author proposes studying the realities of Carthusian life from the angle of three dialectical relationships: that of the Carthusian and the outside world, of the anchorite and the coenobite (hence the individual monk and the community), and of practical and inner life (the monk’s own inner and outside worlds). 1. INTO GREAT SILENCE – A VISITOR TO A WORLD WITHIN A WORLD Since the autumn of 2005 a lot of people, many of whom had probably never heard of the existence of Carthusians before, have gained access to the Carthu- sian world. This is a result of the great success of the film Die grosse Stille / Into Great Silence by the German film producer Philip Gröning (born in Düsseldorf in 1959). 1 The film shows us the life of the monks of the Grande Chartreuse, the mother house of the Carthusian order, situated in a remote spot in the beautiful French Alps in the neighbourhood of Grenoble. As far back as 1984, 1 Information about Philip Gröning’s film, which is also available on DVD, can be found on the website www.diegrossestille.de.

144 PETER NISSEN when the Carthusian order celebrated its eight centenary, Philip Gröning asked permission to shoot film scenes in the monastery, but at that time his request was turned down: the presence of the movie maker would encroach too much on the quiet, privacy and silence of the Carthusian community. But in 1999, fifteen years later, Philip Gröning received a message from the new prior – since 1997 – of the Grande Chartreuse, the fourth Dutchman in the history of the Carthusian order, Dom Marcellin Theeuwes: ‘The time is ripe now, you may come’. 2 Over several seasons in 2002 and 2003, all on his own, Gröning fol- lowed the day-to-day life of the monks in the charterhouse with a small camera – mostly a 24P HD, partly a Super 8. And so out of 120 hours of recordings a 158-minute documentary film was made, in which there are hardly any spoken words. There are no interviews, nor a commentator’s voice. Only a few biblical verses flash on the screen every now and again, like a kind of refrain. We hear the human voice only when the monks gather in church to sing the divine office, when they meet in the chapter to welcome two novices in their midst, and – but by then the film is already far beyond halfway – during the monks’ weekly common recreation. Right at the end of the film a Carthusian monk speaks about the meaning of his life with God and the absence of fear of dying. But is he speaking to us? As viewers we know that he cannot see us, not only because he is not really standing in front of us but is talking from a projection screen, but also because he is blind. Even when this scene was shot he could not have seen Philip Gröning but was only able to experience Gröning’s presence via his other senses. The aged monk seems to be speaking primarily to himself. For the rest the film consists of silence: two and three quarters of an hour of utter silence. Almost a silent film, so to speak. Starting in November 2005, Into Great Silence (under its German title Die grosse Stille) made a successful circuit of German film houses – in December 2005 a German journal proclaimed it film of the month – and since the sum- mer of 2006 it made its way to many other countries. It received rave reviews and earned accolades and prizes at film festivals in Leipzig, Rotterdam, Toronto and Venice. The German journal Die Welt called it ‘die ungewöhnlichste Film des Jahres’ (‘the most unusual film of the year’). In the Netherlands, according to sociologists one of the most secularised countries in the world, the film continued to attract full houses for many months, to everyone’s astonishment. In some film houses Into Great Silence was on the weekly programme for more than six months. Here and there it was combined with an introduction or 2 His Dutch predecessors were Jan van Roosendaal from Nijmegen (1463-1472), Willem Bibaut (1521-1535), previously prior of Geertruidenberg, and Pieter Marnef from Leiden (1540-1546), monk of the Charterhouse of Delft. P. Nissen, ‘Nederlander Dom Marcellin Theeuwes prior-generaal van kartuizers’, in: Een Twee Een 25 (1997), 297.

CARTHUSIAN WORLDS, CARTHUSIAN IMAGES 145 followed by a discussion. 3 Never before have the Carthusians been on every- body’s lips the way they have been the three or four years after 2005. Philip Gröning’s film shows us a lifestyle of which silence is the dominant characteristic. Carthusians, male and female, lead lives of organised, regulated silence. Nevertheless silence is not the objective of their way of life: it is a means, an instrument to serve and foster receptivity to the mystery of God. Carthusians search for God. And through their silence they want to create a situation in which they can concentrate on this search. They don’t look for silence to escape the world, and certainly not to run away from themselves, because whatever they leave behind when they enter the charterhouse, they always take themselves within. The very silence of the Carthusian world confronts these men and women with themselves: they are thrown back on themselves. They cannot walk away from themselves, nor from the world. The silence of the charterhouse can best be compared to what is called ‘the eye of the storm’ in meteorology, 4 referring to the epicentre or heart of a tropi- cal cyclone or a tornado. This centre is part of the storm and yet it is uniquely silent. Someone in the eye of the storm would watch the fury raging around him from that tranquil vantage point. The Charterhouse is much the same: it is part of the world and yet a quiet point from which to observe the world in prayer and meditation. The Carthusian world is, as it were, a still, stable centre in the midst of the turmoil of the world. That is expressed by the logo and the motto of the Carthusian order. The logo shows the globe with the cross super- imposed on it and above the cross seven stars, representing the first seven monks who settled in the valley of Chartreuse in 1084. The motto is Stat crux dum volvitur orbis, Latin for ‘The cross is steady while the world revolves’. At the same time this silent centre, this eye of the storm that is part of the tempest, is also a world on its own, a world within the world: the Carthusian world. Philip Gröning’s film admits viewers to this world for a brief moment, but it remains a virtual visit. Above all, the viewers always remain visitors, no more. They can observe the Carthusian world, as the film maker did, and as scholarly researchers do. Historians, art historians, theologians, literary scholars and others who study the Carthusians remain no more than outside observers. Participant observation, one of the key research strategies in cultural anthropol- ogy, is not feasible in the Carthusian world. They don’t have a guest house like 3 See for instance H.J.A. Hofland (Ed.), De grote stilte: Overdenkingen in filosofie, kunst en spiritualiteit, Budel-Nijmegen 2007. 4 ‘The eye of the storm’ is also a favourite metaphor of the well known Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, an admirer of the Carthusians: P. Nissen, ‘In een klooster zonder muren: Kloos- ters in de grenzeloze wereld van Cees Nooteboom’, in: K. Blom et al., De grenzeloze wereld van Cees Nooteboom, Nijmegen 2006, 91-101; and L. Földényi et al., In het oog van de storm: De wereld van Cees Nooteboom. Essays over zijn oeuvre, Amsterdam-Antwerp 2006.

146 PETER NISSEN the Benedictines, Cistercians, Premonstratensians and other monastic and canonical orders, where researchers can spend some days or weeks sharing the life of the Carthusians, following their daily schedule and participating in their liturgy. Neither do the Carthusians have oblates, like the Benedictines: men and women who affiliate individually with a monastic community in order to follow its rule in their private lives at home and at work as closely as their indi- vidual circumstances and prior commitments permit. These oblates do not physically live in the monastic world, but to some extent they do live in it mentally. They share it partially, they participate in it, so they are more than just observers. But it is impossible to participate in the Carthusian world in such an institutionalised manner. Whether we are just chance viewers of Philip Gröning’s film or scholars who have devoted our whole life to Carthusian studies, when it comes to the Carthusian world we always remain outsiders. 2. CARTHUSIAN ARCADIA – THE VIEWER AS AN OUTSIDER It is this phenomenon of enforced outsider-hood that seems to enhance the fascination with the Carthusian world. It is a different world, mysterious, exotic. This is confirmed by two earlier films on the Carthusians. The first is a German documentary entitled Leben um zu Beten (‘Live to Pray’). It was made in 1984, more than a quarter of a century ago by now, on the occasion of the ninth centenary of the Carthusian order, and was broadcast by the German ‘Südwestfunk’. It shows the life in the only inhabited charterhouse left in Germany, that of Marienau. Partly it consists of an interview with the prior, partly it shows recordings of the life and liturgy in Marienau Charterhouse. These recordings were made by a priest from the neighbourhood using a simple amateur camera. The second film is of Dutch origin. I am referring to an episode on the Car- thusians in a popular series on monasteries in the television programme Kruispunt (‘Crossing Point’), broadcast on Dutch television for the first time on 8 August 2004, repeated in October 2007 (together with Philip Gröning’s film) and also available on DVD. The maker of this documentary is Leo Fijen, who became friendly with the former prior general of the Grande Chartreuse, the Dutchman Dom Marcellin Theeuwes, and made him the central character in a book on the ‘journey from your head to your heart’, based on the television series and published in 2004. 5 But notwithstanding Leo Fijen’s good relation- 5 L. Fijen, De reis van je hoofd naar je hart: Leefregels voor het bestaan van alledag, Kampen 2004, 122-151. Dom Marcellin is also an important spokesman in a more journalistic book written by his nephew J. Reijnders, Een reis in stilte: Leven als kartuizers, Kampen 2006.

CARTHUSIAN WORLDS, CARTHUSIAN IMAGES 147 ship with the prior general, he did not really penetrate the Carthusian world. He, a film maker, and we, the viewers of his documentary, remain outsiders. True, Leo Fijen was allowed to spend one night in a monk’s cell in the Grande Chartreuse and in the documentary he comments on the oppressive silence of that night: ‘If this is not the meaning of your life, you wouldn’t last even one day’ (‘Als dit niet de zin van je leven is, hou je het nog niet één dag uit’). But his camera crew had to stay outside. They recorded Leo Fijen’s conversation with the prior during a walk through the magnificent surroundings of the Grande Chartreuse, outside the cloister. The scenes of life within the Grande Chartreuse in the Dutch documentary were taken from Philip Gröning’s film, at that time still in the making. Hence Carthusian worlds are fascinating because of their inaccessibility. Film scenes afford brief insight, but we remain outsiders and for that very reason they preserve a kind of pristine, immaculate, paradisiac state, like the mediated world of the Amish. 6 ‘That which makes the Amish an icon of the American pastoral precludes the possibility of filming them. The Amish Arca- dia is always already inaccessible’, as Crystal Downing puts it. 7 In both cases, that of the Amish and that of the Carthusians, this inaccessibility is strongly encouraged by the religious institutions’ own information strategy, which is directed to establishing information boundaries. Both communities communi- cate only what they consider relevant. 8 3. HEAVENLY IMAGES This paradisiac state of the Carthusian world is also depicted in a few books written to introduce that world to the general public. 9 I cite just two examples. The first is a book from 1929 entitled Het Witte Paradijs (‘The White Paradise’) by the Dutch writer and later Benedictine monk Pieter van der Meer de Wal- cheren (1880-1970). In 1926 Pieter and a friend spent the week of Christmas 6 D. Zimmerman Umble & D.L. Weaver-Zercher (Eds), The Amish and the media, Baltimore 2008. 7 C. Downing, ‘Witnessing the Amish: Plain people on fancy film’, in: Zimmerman Umble & Weaver-Zercher, Amish and the media, 25-41, quotation 40. 8 D.A. Stout, Media and religion: Foundations of an emerging field, New York-London 2012, 79. 9 For this more or less ‘mythical’ image of the Carthusians in literary tradition, see: B. Rieder, ‘Der Mythos der Kartäuser: Beobachtungen zum Bild der Kartäuser in der öffentlichen und literarischen Vorstellung’, in: J. Ganz & M. Früh (Eds), Das Erbe der Kartäuser. Internationa- ler Kongress für Kartäuserforschung 1.-5. Dezember 1999 Kartause Ittingen, Salzburg 2000 (Analecta Cartusiana 160), 185-195.

148 PETER NISSEN in the charterhouse of La Valsainte in the Swiss Alps. He was so impressed by the world of the Carthusians that he decided to write a lyrical booklet about it. Het Witte Paradijs was printed five times in Dutch between 1929 and 1965 and has been translated into English (1952), French (1931, 1939 and 1953), German (1930), Spanish (1943, four editions up to 1961), Portuguese (?) and Italian (1969, 1975), sometimes in more than one edition and several of them with an introduction by the famous French philosopher Jacques Maritain. 10 So you could say that it was a kind of cult book in its time. The longest chapter in the book is entitled ‘A Carthusian Speaks’ (‘Een Karthuizer Spreekt’). The speaker is the Dutch Carthusian Dom Gerard Ramakers (1896-1984), born in the village of Echt and raised in the city of Weert, who was La Valsainte’s novice master from 1923 to 1931. He is as it were a voice from within the Carthusian world speaking to us. But for the rest Pieter van der Meer’s booklet is the account of an outside observer. Its very title reveals the observer’s para- disiac image of the Carthusian world: The White Paradise. 11 A second book that introduces a general readership to the Carthusian world is by the British journalist Robin Bruce Lockhart, a Catholic convert and author of Ace of Spies, a successful book on Sidney Reilly, the greatest spy in British history and subject of a major TV series in 1983. Just as Lockhart was inter- ested in the mysterious world of spies – his father Sir Robin Hamilton Bruce Lockhart (1887-1970) was a famous diplomat and a secret agent in Moscow – so he was interested in the mysterious world of the Carthusians. He was a friend of the last inhabited charterhouse left in England, St Hugh’s in Parkmin- ster, Sussex, and lived for some time in a village in the neighbourhood. In his book Halfway to Heaven: The Hidden Life of the Sublime Carthusians (published in 1985, reprinted in 2005 and translated into French and German) he describes the history and way of life of the Carthusian, with a preamble of a few chapters on the desert fathers and early monasticism. At the end of his book he also summarises some lines of Carthusian spirituality. Lockhart has an extremely exalted image of the Carthusians. He calls them ‘sublime’ and the title of his book speaks volumes: according to him they are already halfway to heaven. ‘Were all mankind, by some divine miracle, able to detach itself from the world in the Carthusian way, it would surely be paradise regained’, Lockhart writes. 12 10 P. Nissen, ‘Nederlandstalige kartuizerauteurs uit de 19 de en 20 ste eeuw’, in: F. Hendrickx (Ed.), De kartuizers en hun klooster te Zelem, Diest 1984, 146-156, esp. 146-147. 11 The 1952 English edition was published by McKay, New York. According to A. Gruys, Cartusiana: Un instrument heuristique, Paris 1976, I, 6 there must have been an (earlier?) English edition, published in London. 12 R.B. Lockhart, Halfway to heaven: The hidden life of the sublime Carthusians, London 1985, 117. Reprinted by Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 2005 (Cistercian Studies Series 186).

CARTHUSIAN WORLDS, CARTHUSIAN IMAGES 149 In the German translation, published two years later (in 1987), the title of the book is significantly more modest: Botschaft des Schweigens: Das verborgene Leben der Kartäuser (Message of silence: The hidden life of the Carthusians). The Carthusians are no longer ‘sublime’, neither are they ‘halfway to heaven’. This modesty is undoubtedly due to the translators, who were Carthusians themselves: the book was translated by a few monks at the German charter- house of Marienau. Nevertheless they left the passage I have just quoted on ‘paradise regained’ unchanged. 13 Books like the ones by Pieter van der Meer de Walcheren and Robin Bruce Lockhart portray a paradisiac, heavenly image of the Carthusian world. In so doing they contributed greatly to the emergence of a kind of Carthusian roman- ticism. But reality is not always that paradisiac. That is made clear by some other books that introduce a broader readership to the Carthusian world in a different way, namely through the biographic or autobiographic stories of men who were Carthusians for some time but left the order. These books do not portray the Carthusian world from the perspective of an infatuated admirer from the outside, but from that of a (former) inhabitant of the world itself. And we know from experience that such a perspective usually yields a much more realistic picture of the inside of the Carthusian world. Still relatively subtle and disguised, this happens in the book by the German theologian Willibald Bösen, now professor emeritus of biblical theology at the University of Bielefeld. In 1987 he published a thrice reprinted book on the Carthusians entitled Auf einsamer Strasse zu Gott (‘On the Lonely Road to God’). 14 The second part of this book offers some rather matter-of-fact infor- mation on the history, way of life, architecture and daily schedule of the Car- thusians. But the larger first part of the book affords a more personal glimpse into the Carthusian world by means of interviews with several Carthusians monks and correspondence with a Carthusian. Bösen also inserted excerpts from the diary of a theology student, over twenty years old, who spent nine months and seven days as a novice in the Swiss charterhouse of La Valsainte. Its fifty pages make it the longest chapter in Bösen’s book and it might very well be that this novice, who had to leave the charterhouse for reasons of health, was himself the author of the book, hence the later professor Bösen. At all events, the diary gives the reader a modest insight into the conflict that can take place 13 R.B. Lockhart, Botschaft des Schweigens: Das verborgene Leben der Kartäuser, Würzburg 1987, 163: ‘Würde die ganze Menschheit durch ein göttliches Wunder dazu befähigt, sich wie die Kartäuser von der Welt zu lösen, wäre zweifellos das Paradies wieder da’. The title of the French translation is also more modest: La vie cachée des Chartreux, Paris 1985. 14 W. Bösen, Auf einsamer Straße zu Gott: Das Geheimnis der Kartäuser, Freiburg 1987; second edition 1990; third edition 1991; ‘Sonderauflage’ Buxheim, 1995.

150 PETER NISSEN in the Carthusian world, although the friction apparently had little to do with the young monk himself: he was more concerned about the health of his mother and sister. Indeed, letters reached him from an aunt, from the family doctor and even from the mayor of his village, calling him to leave the charter- house: ‘Come back home, because your mother and your sister need you’. 15 In the diary’s presentation of the facts the cause of the tensions experienced by the young Carthusian monk lies not within the Carthusian world but outside it. The outside world caused unrest and destabilised the inner world of the charterhouse. 4. CONFLICTING CHARACTERS IN THE CARTHUSIAN PARADISE Two other recent biographical stories of Carthusians depict a different situa- tion. The first is autobiographical: Sounds of Silence: A Monk’s Journey (2005) by Father Benedict Kossmann. Behind this writer’s name – a pseudonym, ‘out of continuing respect for Carthusian anonymity’ – lurks an American who was a Carthusian monk for twenty years, first in the Spanish charterhouse of Jerez and later in the first foundation of the Carthusian order outside of Europe, the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Arlington in the state of Vermont, USA, under construction since 1951 and completed in 1970. The book tells the story of the happy life of a monk, feeling at ease in the charterhouse and taking on more and more responsibilities, such as the offices of novice master and chanter. This last position eventually brought him into conflict with the community. It started with a simple choir incident on a Sunday morning dur- ing the blessing of holy water, but according to the prior this incident exposed deeper emotional tensions within the community. The prior ‘was ever obsessed with identifying and eliminating emotional problems in his community’, 16 and so it was now: the monk was sent to New York city for a series of psychological tests and never returned to the charterhouse. He was released from his monastic vows and the priesthood and lives with his wife in Florida. Father Benedict’s story shows us another side of the Carthusian world. Instead of a paradise half- way to heaven inhabited by angels, it is a world of ordinary people with emo- tional problems, conflicting characters and the concomitant tensions. This is even more evident in a book that reduces the idyll of the white para- dise to a story of human ideals and failures, of struggles and tensions. I am referring to An Infinity of Hours (2006) by Nancy Klein Maguire, now also 15 Bösen, Auf einsamer Strasse, 78. 16 B. Kossmann, Sounds of silence: A monk’s journey, Bloomington, IN 2005, 250.

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