Wednesday Reflection
Midweek Reflection
6th October 2021
I wonder if you looked at this week’s feasts if you guessed my topic. Monday, St Francis of Assisi, yesterday, St Faustina, Thursday, Our Lady of the Rosary. Actually, none of these, tempting as they may be. Instead I have wanted to share a word or two about St Bruno whose feast today ranks as the lowest form of celebration, namely, an optional memorial. That is to say, you don’t need to celebrate it at all. Two years ago I celebrated my Golden Jubilee at St Hugh’s Charterhouse…the Carthusian Monastery in the south of England. At the end of the week of silent prayer and solitude and of long hours during the night singing the psalms with the monks, the Prior left a present for me at my door. It was a copy of Cardinal Sarah’s book, The Power of Silence and…..a quarter bottle of green Chartreuse. I still have….the book!
Bruno was born in Cologne 33 years before the Battle of Hastings and lived to be 68 years of age. He was Chancellor of the Diocese of Reims under an under-whelming bishop who was eventually deposed by the Pope. Bruno managed not to be elected bishop and took himself off, eventually, with six companions, founding the first Carthusian Monastery at in the mountains outside of Grenoble. Within a few years, one of his former pupils was elected as Pope Urban II who sought his help and once more he was offered a bishopric. But that was not his vocation. Instead, he founded a new Charterhouse at Calabria where he lived in deep retreat, poverty and intense prayer and study. His spiritual sons and daughters continue to do so today.
Monsignor Monaghan
