2/21: Into Great Silence
Carthusian Monks, the Interior Life, and the Environment
Reading
When media and the digital world become omnipresent, their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously. In this context, the great sages of the past run the risk of going unheard amid the noise and distractions of an information overload.
Today’s media do enable us to communicate and to share our knowledge and affections. Yet at times they also shield us from direct contact with the pain, the fears and the joys of others and the complexity of their personal experiences. For this reason, we should be concerned that, alongside the exciting possibilities offered by these media, a deep and melancholic dissatisfaction with interpersonal relations, or a harmful sense of isolation, can also arise.
Reflection
One of my favorite films, Into Great Silence, provides a stark contrast to the modern world of noise, distractions, and media. It recounts the lives of Carthusian Monks in the Chartreuse monastery, founded by St. Bruno in 1084 and located in a remote area of the French Alps. The director, Philip Gröning, was fascinated by the spiritual lives of the monks and petitioned to make a movie, to which the monks responded they would think about it and get back to him. Sixteen years later, they accepted the offer.
The film follows the monks through their routines: Gregorian Chant. Prayer in a cell. Lunch in a sunlit window. Planting seeds in a garden. Cutting hair. The monks spend almost all of their time in silence, with the exception of walks they take together on Sundays. In a way silence becomes the protagonist of the film, and by its very nature opens doors to everything else: the sound of creaking wood, wind blowing through the alps, birds on a spring afternoon. Silence unites the film and in so doing creates a space for God to be made present through the creation that is always there but so often goes unnoticed.
The film is also interspersed with scripture. My favorite selection is from Jeremiah, who speaks as having been “seduced” by God — convinced to turn his life entirely over to God.
Tu m’as séduit, o Seigneur, et moi, je me suis laissé séduire.
Vous me chercherez et vous me trouverez.
Car si vous me rechercherez de tout votre cœur; je me laisserai trouver par vous.
O Lord, you have seduced me and I was seduced.
You shall seek me and you shall find me.
Because you seek me with all your heart, I will let myself be found.
— Jeremiah 20:7; 29:13
In a world that values likes, followers, and retweets, silence offers something entirely different: the capacity to see creation as it is and to place ourselves in wonder before what God has created. Let us indeed be captivated by God and God’s creation, so that we may learn to “live wisely, to think deeply and to love generously.”
Question
- In what ways have you been captivated by God? In what ways do you still need to grow, so that you might “let yourself be found”?
Prayer
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.
- St. Bruno, Letter to Raoul le Verd
