🏔️Saint Bruno was born in Cologne, Germany, around 1030, to a noble family. He became a renowned theologian and teacher, heading the cathedral school of Reims. Disgusted by the ecclesiastical corruption of his time, he renounced all honors, including a possible appointment as archbishop, to seek a life of solitude and prayer. In 1084, along with six companions, he withdrew to the desert of Chartreuse in the Alps, where he founded the Carthusian Order. This monastic order is known for its rigorous eremitism, combining the solitary life of the hermit with community life, centered on silence, penance, and perpetual contemplation. His former disciple, Pope Urban II, called him to Rome as an advisor, but Bruno's heart remained in the desert, to which he managed to return in his final years, founding a second monastery in Calabria, where he died.
📖Introit (Ps 36:30-31 | ibid., 1)
Os justi meditábitur sapiéntiam, et lingua ejus loquétur judícium... The mouth of the just tells of wisdom and his tongue utters what is right. The law of his God is in his heart. Ps. Do not be provoked by evildoers; do not envy those who do wrong.
📜Epistle (Ecclus 31:8-11)
Blessed is the man who is found without blemish, who has not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money and treasures. Who is he, that we may praise him? For he has done wonderful things in his life. He who was tested by it and was found perfect, his shall be glory forever. He could have transgressed, and did not transgress; and could do evil things, and did not do them. Therefore are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints shall declare his alms.
✝️Gospel (Lk 12:35-40)
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: Let your loins be girt and lamps burning in your hands. And you yourselves be like to men who wait for their lord, when he shall return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when he comes shall find watching. Amen I say to you, that he will gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and passing will minister unto them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. But this know ye, that if the householder knew at what hour the thief would come, he would surely watch, and would not suffer his house to be broken open. Be you then also ready: for at an hour that you think not, the Son of man will come.
🤔Reflections
🕰️St. Augustine teaches that to gird one's loins means to restrain the desires of the flesh, and to have lamps burning is to shine with the splendor of good works. This constant readiness for the Lord, who may come at any watch of the night, was the ideal that St. Bruno pursued, not only for himself but for his entire Order, establishing a life of perpetual vigilance through silence and prayer, awaiting the Bridegroom at every moment. The Carthusian life is the very embodiment of the evangelical exhortation to watchfulness, where every hour is lived in expectation of the definitive encounter with God. (St. Augustine, Sermon 109).
💎St. John Chrysostom frequently warns against the tyranny of riches, which promise security but deliver anxiety. The Epistle praises the one whose hope is not in money but in the Lord. St. Bruno embodied this beatitude in a sublime way: he renounced a prestigious ecclesiastical career and all family inheritance to found an order based on poverty and manual labor, demonstrating that man's true wealth lies in being "found perfect" and "without blemish" before God, not in earthly treasures. (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew).
⛪️The Roman Catechism, in discussing the commandments, extols the virtues of poverty and temperance as sure paths to holiness. The life of St. Bruno and the founding of the Carthusians are a living testimony that the contemplative vocation, marked by silence and penance, is not an escape from the world but a powerful form of intercession and a beacon that illuminates the entire Church. The Carthusian discipline reflects the perennial teaching that the control of passions and detachment from material goods are essential for the soul to freely "meditate on wisdom" and await the coming of the Lord, like a faithful servant. (Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part III).
🧐See English version of the critical articles here.
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