Vigils Reading – St Bruno

ST BRUNO

FOUNDER OF THE CARTHUSIANS

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints

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Bruno came of a good family and was born at Cologne about the year

1020. While still young he left home to finish his education at the cathedral

school of Rheims… In 1056 he was invited to return to his school as professor of

grammar and theology. He taught in the school of Rheims for eighteen years…

However Bruno had decided to abandon the active…life precisely at a

time when the church of Rheims was ready to choose him as archbishop.

He…renounced whatever held him in the world, and persuaded some of his

friends to accompany him into solitude. They first put themselves under the

direction of St Robert, abbot of Molesmes (who afterwards founded Citeaux),

and lived in a hermitage at Seche-Fontaine near by. In this solitude Bruno and

his companions deliberated what it was best for them to do. He decided to apply

to St Hugh, bishop of Grenoble…

St Bruno and his six companions arrived at Grenoble about midsummer

in 1084, and begged from St Hugh some place where they might serve God,

remote from worldly affairs… Hugh…assigned them to the desert of Chartreuse,

promising his utmost assistance to establish them there. Bruno and his

companions immediately built an oratory there, and small cells at a little

distance from the other, like the ancient lauras of Palestine. Such was the origin

of the order of the Carthusians, which took its name from this desert of

Chartreuse…

St Hugh became so great an admirer of Bruno that he took him for his

spiritual father and often went from Grenoble to the Chartreuse to enjoy his

conversation and improve himself by his advice and example. But his fame went

beyond Grenoble and reached the ears of Eudes de Chatillon, his former pupil

and now Pope Urban II… The Pope sent him an order to come to Rome that he

might assist him by his counsels in the governance of the Church. Bruno could

scarcely have met with a more severe trial of his obedience or made a greater

sacrifice. Nevertheless he set out in 1090…

Bruno…had permission to occupy a hermitage among the ruins of the

baths of Diocletian, where he would be close at hand when required by the pope.

Soon Pope Urban pressed him to accept the archbishopric of Reggio in Calabria,

but Bruno excused himself with great earnestness, and redoubled his requests

to live in solitude. Urban consented at length that he might retire to a wilderness

in Calabria where he would be at hand…

In 1099 Landuin, whom Bruno had appointed as Prior of the Chartreuse,

went to Calabria to consult Bruno about the form of living which he had

instituted, for the monks were desirous not to depart from the spirit and rule of

their master. Bruno wrote them a letter full of tender charity and the spirit of

God. In it he instructed them in all practices of solitary life, solved the

difficulties which they proposed to him, comforted them in their troubles, and

encouraged them in perseverance.

His last sickness came upon him towards the end of September 1101… He

resigned his soul to God on Sunday, October 6, 1101. St Bruno has never been

formally canonized, the Carthusians being averse to all occasions of publicity.

But in 1514 they obtained permission from Pope Leo X to keep his feast, and in

1674 Clement X extended it to the whole western Church.