Life of Saint Bruno: Part VI

The following excerpted from André Ravier’s (1905-1999) biography of Saint Bruno : Saint Bruno The Carthusian, written in 1981 and translated by Bruno Becker, O.S.B., Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of Ignatius Press

THE DEATH OF BRUNO

Death was about to affect Bruno’s friendships and relationships. In less than two years he would experience the loss of three people with whom he had close ties. On July 29, 1099, Urban II died. Fourteen days after that Jerusalem was liberated, but Godfrey of Bouillon’s messengers arrived from Rome too late to tell the Pope. Succeeding him on August 14, 1099, was Rainier, an elderly monk of Cluny and cardinal priest of the church of Saint Clement, who took the name of Paschal II. He was Bruno’s friend, and he had great esteem for his foundation. In July of 1101 Paschal II confirmed the donations that Count Roger had made to the hermits of Calabria.

In September of 1100 Bruno received, like repeated blows, the news that Landuino was captured, then that he was set free, and finally that he died. Landuino’s faithfulness to the lawful Pope must have filled him with joy and pride. But his death brought sorrow — Landuino, the companion during all those first hours, the faithful friend to whom he confided his trials and joys, the disciple to whom he could confidently entrust his foundation at Chartreuse at the emotional moment when he departed for Rome. If Landuino died far from his Father and far from his sons, was it not because of his faithfulness as a son in undertaking that long and dangerous journey for the sake of seeing him?

The time came on June 21, 1101, for Count Roger also to die, that successful fighter and notable administrator. The whole foundation of the house in Calabria was bound up with his name. He was Bruno’s patron, a trifle too determined and almost too generous. His generosity, though, was sincere, coming from a genuine desire to ensure the presence of the hermits in Calabria for a long time to come.

But what could finally come of the hope Bruno expressed at the end of his letter to the brothers at Chartreuse: “As regards myself, know that what I desire most after God is to go to see you. And as soon as I can, I will do it, with the help of God”. He surely had no illusion about that any longer. Now only the greatest desire remained, which, according to his own words, he had cherished for sixteen years: the desire to keep “a vigilant watch” in the solitude, his desire for God.

Nothing is known about the illness that brought on his death. There is only that round-robin letter that his sons at Calabria wrote at the beginning of the Necrology saying his death was very peaceful. During the preceding week, Bruno was eager to make his profession of faith, a common practice there at the time. The letter reads as follows:

Knowing that the hour had come for him to pass from this world to the Father, [Bruno] called his brothers together, reviewed all the stages of his life since infancy, and recalled the special events of his lifetime. Then, in a profound, detailed discourse he expressed his faith in the Trinity, concluding with these words: “I believe also in the sacraments that the Church believes and holds in reverence, and particularly that the bread and wine which are consecrated on the altar are, after the Consecration, the true Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, his true Flesh and his real Blood, which we receive for the forgiveness of our sins and in the hope of eternal life.” The following Sunday, the evening before the ninth of October in the year of our Lord 1101, his holy soul left his body.

No commentary can improve on that kind of simplicity.

For a long time the complete text of Bruno’s profession of faith was lost. Dom Constantius of Rigetis found it in the archives of Saint Mary of La Torre. Unfortunately the manuscript was in very bad condition, nibbled on, with parts difficult to make out. Dom Constantius transcribed the text and sent it to the general of the Carthusian in 1522. Here is his translation, which appeared in the critical edition of Sources chrétiennes. It begins with a moving prologue by the brothers of Calabria:

“We have carefully preserved Master Bruno’s profession of faith, which he pronounced in the presence of all his assembled brothers, when he felt the time was approaching for him to go the way of all flesh, because he had urgently requested us to be witnesses of his faith before God.”

Here is his profession of faith:

1. I firmly believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the Father unbegotten, the only begotten Son, the Holy Spirit proceeding from them both; and I believe that these three Persons are but one God.

2. I believe that the same Son of God was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. I believe that the Virgin was chaste before she bore her child, that she remained a virgin while she bore her child, and continued a virgin ever after. I believe that the same Son of God was conceived among men, a true man with no sin. I believe the same Son of God was captured by the hatred of some of the Jews who did not believe, was bound unjustly, covered with spittle, and scourged. I believe that he died, was buried, and descended into hell to free those of his who were held there. He descended for our redemption, he rose again, he ascended into heaven, and from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

3. I believe also in the sacraments that the Church believes and holds in reverence, and especially that what has been consecrated on the altar is the true Flesh and the true Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which we receive for the forgiveness of our sins and in the hope of eternal salvation. I believe in the resurrection of the flesh and everlasting life.

4. I acknowledge and believe the holy and ineffable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to be but only one God, of only one substance, of only one nature, of only one majesty and power. We profess that the Father was neither begotten nor created but that he has begotten. The Father takes his origin from no one; of him the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds. He is the source and origin of all Divinity. And the Father, ineffable by his very nature, from his own substance has begotten the Son ineffably; but he has begotten nothing except what he is himself: God has begotten God, light has begotten light, and it is from him that all Fatherhood in heaven and on earth proceeds. Amen.

Two comments should be made about this document. The first concerns the design of the profession of faith. A comparison of this text with the quotations from the letter of the brothers of Calabria, which was cited above, shows the former concludes with a statement about the sacraments, and this one with a statement about the Fatherhood of God and the Trinity. This difference would be of little importance if this last statement did not elsewhere reproduce, word for word, a passage of the Creed of the Eleventh Council of Toledo (November 7, 675). So, one wonders: Was this passage inserted into Bruno’s profession of faith at a later date? Recent studies by historians of the Carthusian Order lead to a different conclusion. The foundation in Calabria was in an area where part of the population was of Greek origin. Through his goodness and sense of balance, Bruno succeeded in bringing Latin monks and Greek monks together to live in the same community — an achievement that was not easy to accomplish at that time. The presence of these two groups would explain the two trinitarian Creeds in his profession of faith. In the first, Bruno expressed his faith in the Trinity by avowing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son; in the second, he added the beautiful Creed of the Council of Toledo, which, by emphasizing the Fatherhood of God, gave the Catholic Faith an expression more acceptable to the Greek spirit.

Now the second comment. Bruno’s profession of faith is one of a great contemplative. It complements what the two letters (the one to Raoul le Verd and the one to the brothers of Chartreuse) revealed earlier about his original vocation. These seem to be the deepest fruits of his contemplation in the wilderness. In admiration and love his soul is established upon the pillars of the four great, profound mysteries of the Christian life: the mystery of the Fatherhood of God, the mystery of the Eucharist, the mystery of the Incarnation and the Passion, and the mystery of Mary, the ever Virgin Mother. To abide among them was his pleasure, his life, his joy. At the hour of his death, he spontaneously fixed his last gaze on these revealed treasures. His lips spoke of what he had lived. More than a profession of faith, his words are a profession of love. He wished to die in the Light that had enlightened his entire life.

Bruno died on October 6, 1101, a little more than seventy years old, seventeen years after he founded the hermitage at Chartreuse. Hardly had his death been announced when people from Calabria and Italy streamed to pay respects to his earthly remains. It is said that the Carthusians allowed his body to lie in state for three days before burying it.

When an important person died, it was customary to send a messenger to churches and monasteries where he was known to announce his death and request prayers and suffrages for the repose of his soul. This messenger generally carried long scrolls of parchment (Rotuli, hence the name Rolliger, Rotuliger) so that on it those who knew the deceased either directly or by reputation could write a eulogy and their promise to pray for him. After Bruno’s death, the hermits of Calabria sent a scroll — delivered, no doubt, by a lay brother — to all the churches, abbeys, and convents where he was known. That messenger was the bearer of the round-robin letter that “announced Bruno’s death and asked suffrages for his soul”.

One hundred and seventy-eight of these Eulogies still exist. These documents make it possible to reconstruct the itinerary of the scroll, or at least determine where it stopped.

From Calabria it went toward the north of Italy. It went to Lucca in Tuscany, then to Plaisance. Then it turned west and reached the Alps at Suse. By which pass did it cross the Alps? It appeared again at Oulx in the Dauphiné. It arrived at Grenoble, and from Grenoble it went to Chartreuse. On the Scroll of the Dead the hermits of Chartreuse wrote these sad, heartfelt lines:

More than any others we, the brothers of Chartreuse, are afflicted and deprived of our consolation by the death of our beloved father, the renowned Bruno. How is it possible to put limits on what we will do for this holy soul, so dear to us? The good that we owe him will always outweigh anything we could do for him. Now and always we will pray for him as our only father and our master. As is proper for sons, we will not stop the Masses and the spiritual practices that we customarily offer for the dead.

Then the scroll came to the dependent priory of Chaise-Dieu called Cornillon, the major priory of the canons of Saint Ruf near Saint André, whose eulogy is particularly touching. Then to Lyons, Cluny, Cîteaux; to Molesmes, where the eulogy was written by the hand of Saint Robert; to Paris, to Chartres, and to Rheims, where five different eulogies were written for him; to Troyes, Laon, Rouen, Soissons, Arras, Orléans, Auxerre, Bayeux, Caen, etc. From France the scroll went to Belgium and through part of England. Did it travel by land or by sea? Why didn’t it reach Cologne and its neighboring areas? The journey ended at Saint Mary’s of Tropéa in Calabria. Two verses of the eulogy that was then written for Bruno indicate that the way the funeral scroll was unrolled and its present weight have frayed its neck and it cannot be transported any more:

Inde cutis colli teritur præ pondere rolli.
Rolligeri collum nequit ultra tollere rollum.

The result of these texts, which of course are partly literary, is an incontestable testimony. Bruno was presented as exceptional, the “light of the clergy”, “interpreter of the Scriptures”, “guide of saints”, the “teacher of teachers”. In the Eulogies there are still more entries. If the author of the eulogy (whether a group or an individual) knew Bruno, lived with him, or at least had some contact with him, then admiration, great as it might be, would give way to affection, to gratitude, to a kind of tenderness. The verses that the hermits of Calabria dedicated to him are a good summary of the different characteristics that form the impression of exceptional goodness that radiated from him. “Bruno deserves to be praised for many things, but especially for this: his life was always the same. That was typical of him. He always had a smile on his face, always had a prudent word. To the severity of a father he joined the tenderness of a mother. Great he was, but everyone found him gentle as a lamb. In truth, he was the Israelite praised in the Gospel”. Later when he was editing the Constitutions, Lambert, the third “master of the wilderness” of Calabria, again recalled Bruno’s goodness.

Is it not significant that the same trait that Bruno is said to have loved to contemplate and praise in God — O Bonitas! the goodness of God! — was the one for which his contemporaries remembered him? What a mystery is the hidden yet radiant course of a soul! By what secret, personal attractions the Lord guides each one of us toward his destiny! “Master Bruno, a man of understanding heart”. Describing him in this way, doesn’t Guigo express Bruno’s entire vocation in a single word: a natural gift, to which was added his vocation and grace, the very essence of his existence? He loved, and, when love attained a certain depth, where could he better find satisfaction than in solitude, silence, and the total gift of himself in sacrifice — the total simplicity of being that remains the surest approach to the living God?

After his death Bruno, like the other hermits, was buried in the cemetery of Saint Mary’s. In 1101 or 1122, his body was transferred from the cemetery to the church of the hermitage, to a vault that still existed, though empty, when the Carthusian returned in 1514. Toward 1194, when the hermitage was abandoned in favor of the cenobium at Saint Stephen, Bruno’s body was transferred from the church of Saint Mary and placed under the sanctuary of the church of Saint Stephen. When around 1502 or 1508 the Cistercians were thinking of returning their monastery to the Carthusians, Abbot Dom Pandolfo of Sabins took up Bruno’s relics and placed them in a nearby altar, which was behind and to the right of the high altar of Saint Stephen. When they returned on February 27, 1514, the Carthusians carried the relics to the sacristy, where they were officially authenticated on November 1, 1514. On the same day they were placed in a new reliquary and transferred to the same altar where they were before February 1514.

Meanwhile, by means of what the curia calls a verbal declaration, Pope Leo X had authorized the veneration of Saint Bruno. The Cardinal of Pavia, protector of the Carthusian Order who presided at the ceremony, describes the scene in a letter: “The holy Pope Leo X, saying that he had for a long time been hearing much about the glory and the holiness of the blessed confessor Bruno, judged it just and reasonable that he who had been adorned with such great gifts and such magnificent graces and who had received from the Almighty so docile a heart to carry out his precepts and keep the law of life and holiness, was venerated and honored in a manner worthy of him, now that he rejoices in divine glory for ever.” This was authorized only for the Carthusians. It was by a bull of February 17, 1623, that Gregory XV extended the veneration of Saint Bruno to the entire Church. Bruno’s destiny was finally established.

Epilogue: Bruno after Bruno

During the 1120s, Guigo I, the fifth prior of the Chartreuse, faced a delicate problem. Bruno had left his sons a living legacy but without a constitution. Bishop Hugh of Grenoble, who had helped Bruno and his first companions found the hermitage, now almost seventy years old, wanted to give a sound structure to Bruno’s work and make it useful for the Church. He urged Guigo to write down a kind of rule for Carthusian life.

In 1115, on the advice of some of the religious of Chartreuse, two monks of the Benedictine abbey of Ambronay had started a new hermitage at Portes, near Belley. Not far from there, at Saint Sulpice-en-Bugey, another group of hermits was also trying to live according to the ideal of Bruno. Around 1116 four new groups had been formed: at Ecouges, in the diocese of Grenoble; at Durbon, in the diocese of Gap; at Sylve-Bénite, in the diocese of Vienne in the Dauphiné; and at Meyriat, where Ponce de Balmey, a canon of Lyons, had founded a hermitage for which Guigo had proposed Stephen of Bourg, one of Bruno’s first companions, as prior. Stephen died in 1118, and Ponce, who had been trained at Chartreuse, was chosen to replace him. The hermitages took the risk of starting others, and several of them wanted a written rule for the eremitical life according to the ideal of Bruno. Those who asked Guigo to give them a rule were Bernard, prior of Portes; Humbert, prior of Saint-Sulpice; and Milon, who was prior of Meyriat after Ponce was elevated to be bishop of Belley. All of these requests were added to Hugh of Grenoble’s advice.

This pressure created a real problem of conscience for Guigo. Didn’t Bruno avoid founding a religious Order? Didn’t he allow the house in Calabria to live on its own without ever connecting it to the Chartreuse? Didn’t he intend for each hermitage to be under the jurisdiction of the local bishop? Besides, some of them had made no request. Were they — all of them Bruno’s sons — going to make a distinction between one hermitage and another? And how was Guigo to make laws when Bruno had never made any? It was true that his brothers at Chartreuse had chosen him to be their prior after only eleven years at the young age of twenty-six. But did his thirteen years at Chartreuse permit him to write a Rule that would be imposed on monks, some of whom had longer and more extensive experience of the eremitical life than he had? And finally, since his temperament was so different from Bruno’s, would he be the right one to interpret his thought? In the Prologue to the Customs he wrote with sincerity: “We did not believe we were the one who could or should undertake a task like this.”

However, if someone had to draw up a rule for the eremitical life according to Bruno’s ideal, the time was right. Bishop Hugh was still there to verify Bruno’s intentions and authenticate the interpretations. Several of the first hermits who had known Bruno and seen how he lived were still alive, too. It would be good to take advantage of their presence and their memories. Undertaking the task now would offer the best guarantee that it would conform to Bruno’s plan.

After hesitating for a long time, Guigo began his work, but he did not make laws. Rather, he codified the life as it was lived at Chartreuse, under the title “The Customs of Our House”. He did not impose his personal ideas, but he passed on a tradition, something like those brothers that the prior of Chartreuse occasionally sent to new hermitages to form candidates according to the spirit of Chartreuse. His work was not like a Rule but, more modestly, a Custumal (Customs or Consuetudines). He drew it up in the form of a letter addressed only to the priors who had asked for it. Aware of his responsibilities, however, he put his composition on solid foundations, establishing it firmly upon Bruno’s work. He connected it to the epistles of Saint Jerome, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and “other writings whose authority is beyond question”.

So, he courageously began what he knew had to be a lengthy and thorny task. To it he brought his own learning, his broad culture, his creative literary talent, his fidelity to Bruno as well as his admiration for him, and his love of solitude and the contemplative life. The completion of the Customs took six years, until about 1127. Then Guigo handed over to his brothers at Chartreuse, Portes, Saint-Sulpice, and Meyriat a Code for the eremitical life, which the Carthusian Order still follows. But that will not be treated in this book.

Guigo’s work is of great help in trying to reach a better understanding of Bruno’s soul and the grace he had received.

Though his lines are bland, even austere, some of them are packed with meaning and reflect Bruno’s human and spiritual riches, which have already been mentioned or at least alluded to. But Guigo’s lines are not the result of his abstract reflection. There is abundant documentation for them, because they are a record of forty years of the experience of a group of people, six of whom were inspired and sustained by the physical presence of Bruno. Bruno knew how to give his sons enthusiasm. More than founder of the hermitage of Chartreuse and the Carthusian Order, he was the inspiration for a life of pure contemplation. That is what Pius XI meant in the constitution Umbratilem: “In his infinite goodness, which never ceases to provide for the needs and interests of his Church, God chose Bruno, a man of outstanding holiness, to restore the original purity of contemplative life.”

In closing, what — according to Bruno and Guigo – would a sketch of “the original purity of contemplative life” look like? A sketch only, because there can be no description. Contemplation is and always remains a paradox for an unspiritual person. The phrase “the monastic mystery” is an accurate statement of the whole contemplative vocation. An even more mysterious mystery is the eremitical mystery: that is, the vocation to live the contemplative life in the solitude and silence of a cell. Despite the profound difference in temperament between the two men, the history of Guigo as revealed in his Thoughts and his Customs is in accord with the history of Bruno and his writings, and that makes it possible to lift at least a corner of the veil that hides this “eremitical mystery”.

A word used by Bruno and Guigo both describes this mystery. The word is Quies, and the usual translation of this word is “rest”, but that does not clearly convey the divine dimension and the richness of Quies. The “quiet” of the Carthusian and faithfulness in exterior practices go together. The word designates the experience of the spiritual abundance of the Christian who even now is founded upon God, “dwells in God”, in the words of Saint John, through the events and circumstances of his life — for the Carthusian, through obedience and monastic practices. A verse from Lamentations (3:28), on which Guigo liked to comment, signifies by contrasting words that the contemplative is related to the circumstances of earth as well as the supernatural life: Sedebit solitarius et tacebit, et levabit se supra se (The solitary will sit and be silent, and he will rise above himself). “Quiet” actually includes everything contained in our word rest (sedebit), that is, calm, peace, silence, orderly thinking, mastery of the heart’s passions, etc. But it contains infinitely much more, because it is the hidden movement of the Holy Spirit in the soul: it is a condition of the spirit together with a gift of grace. The soul strives, prepares, and merits it, but it is conferred by God alone. Quiet comes to the soul only from love that totally, even exclusively, desires the living God, the “Father, source and origin of all Divinity, of whom the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds.”(4) It comes from that love that is founded upon radical faith in the word and in the salvation of Jesus Christ. Guigo calls one who has this quiet a “quiet Christ”, meaning that something of the joy and peace of the risen Christ dwells in him and radiates from him (“and he will rise above himself”). With Christ he comes to that “freedom of the children of God” of which Saint Paul speaks. He comes to it already and yet never ceases to approach it, because God’s presence in him invites him to solitude and silence (“he will sit and be silent”), and in return the silence and solitude assist his progress toward intimacy with God.

If this analysis is correct, the quiet clarifies a great principle of Bruno’s and Guigo’s spirituality: that is, spiritual virginity. The soul is virgin if it is so strongly attached to God that it is detached from everything that is not God. In contrast, the one without faith, the idolater, whom the Bible vividly calls “prostitute”, is attached to anything apart from God. Here it is important not to lose the sense of this asceticism. It doesn’t say that the first stage is to detach oneself from the world and then attach oneself to God. It says to prefer God and, in this one act of preferring, to “go in search of the good that is everlasting” and turn away from the things of earth, which are “fleeting shadows”. This is the act of the Holy Spirit, who was the source of Bruno’s vocation. In the little garden at Adam’s house, Bruno, Raoul le Verd, and Fulco le Borgne were filled “with fervent love for God”, and from that love sprang their basic resolution, which became their vow “to leave the fleeting shadows of the world to go in search of the good that is eternal”. Was this an exceptional grace? In the degree that Bruno experienced it, certainly it was. But it can also be said to be the fundamental option that all Christians must make on the day they decide to live the fullness of their baptism. Guigo wrote, “It is with good reason that the human soul is troubled as long as it is: that is, as long as it loves something besides God.”(5) God does not accept a divided heart. Each one, in his own way and according to his own vocation, will meet this requirement of detachment and attachment, but the requirement itself is not negotiable. It is inescapable. No Christian, nor any “human soul”, can avoid it.

Optimam partem. Bruno and Guigo present this quiet as the “better part” that Mary chose, a few days before Jesus’ Passion [cf. John 12:1], when he stopped at the house of Lazarus in Bethany. The contrast between Mary’s contemplation and Martha’s activity is a traditional theme among the Fathers of the Church. Guigo takes it up in the Customs, but he gives it a new meaning and a new emotion. In the very words of the Lord he claims for Carthusian the right to live a contemplative life in solitude, like Mary at the feet of Jesus, which — though at some distance — includes the legitimate and holy activities of Martha, such as hospitality, almsgiving, and service. “Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken from her.” When he says “the better”, the Lord was not only praising it but also placing it above the laborious activity of her sister. Saying “it shall not be taken from her”, he defended it and exempted it from involvement in the troubles and anxieties of Martha, legitimate though they were.(6) Is this to flee from the labors, anguish, and sadness of the world? No. The emphasis is on profound faith. Like Bruno, Guigo thinks that for the spiritual health and apostolic effectiveness of the Church it is necessary that some souls be free for the pure contemplative life “in the weak measure that it is possible in this world, as in a mirror and darkly”. Mary prays both for herself and for those who are vowed, like Martha, to other works. And so it is for those whose vocation is to combine Martha and Mary in their lives: Martha’s work is made effective by Mary’s prayer.

This study of Carthusian quiet should conclude with a comment on two traits that strongly mark the character of Bruno and of Guigo: balance and simplicity. Quiet and balance are almost synonyms. But the purity, the beauty, the grandeur of the contemplative ideal, as Bruno lived it and proposed it, could make one think — and fear — that this balance is of a superior and exceptional kind. Certainly the Carthusian vocation is a rare one of a new kind. A clear call from God is necessary. But that does not mean this ideal is reserved for extraordinary souls. Carthusian balance does not require exceptional gifts of nature or of grace. What it requires is simplicity, simplicity of heart, the simplicity of the “little ones”, the humble people of the Gospel; the simplicity that comes from integrity and faith, from detachment and hope, from guilelessness and love; the simplicity that radiates from the letter of Bruno to the brethren at Chartreuse and that Guigo requires in all the observances of his Customs.

In choosing solitude, silence, and separation from the world, Bruno paradoxically came to understand the heart of all humanity. For him and for the education of all, the basic desire that motivates everyone here below was enough: the desire to escape from all that is fleeting and be united with what is still, fixed, eternal: Fugitiva relinquere … captare æterna. His two companions, Raoul le Verd and Fulco le Borgne, knew the same desire as Bruno on that day. Bruno alone pursued it, and he alone knew the fullness of joy. “Only those who have experienced the solitude and silence of the wilderness can know what benefit and divine joy they bring to those who love them.” Carthusian quiet cannot be described perfectly. It is a mystery that can be understood only by those who have experienced it, by “those who love it”.

*

“Like a syllable in a poem,” said Guigo in one of his Thoughts, “as the world goes round everything receives its proper share of space and time.” Who would presume to determine Bruno’s “proper share of space and time” in the poem of the redemption? Aren’t these among the ones whose spiritual experience transcends space and time, whom the Father places with his Son, Jesus Christ, at the still and eternal center of the world’s history? Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.