BRUNO was born at Cologne, about A.D. 1030, of an illustrious family. He was endowed with rare natural gifts, which he cultivated with care at Paris. He became canon of Cologne, and then of Rheims, where he had the direction of theological studies. On the death of the bishop the see fell for a time into evil hands, and Bruno retired with a few friends into the country. There he resolved to forsake the world, and live a life of retirement and penance. With six companions he applied to Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, who led them into a wild solitude called the Chartreuse. There they lived in poverty, self-denial, and silence, each apart in his own cell, meeting only for the worship of God, and employing themselves in copying books. From the name of the spot the Order of St. Bruno was called the Carthusian. Six years later, Urban II called Bruno to Rome, that he might avail himself of his guidance. Bruno tried to live there as he had lived in the desert; but the echoes of the great city disturbed his solitude, and, after refusing high dignities, he wrung from the Pope permission to resume his monastic life in Calabria There he lived, in humility and mortification and great peace, till his blessed death in 1101.
REFLECTION: “O everlasting kingdom,” said St. Augustine, “kingdom of endless ages, whereon rests the untroubled light and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, where the souls of the Saints are in rest, and everlasting joy is on their heads, and sorrow and sighing have fled away! When shall I come and appear before God ?”
WORD OF THE DAY
MANIFESTATION OF CONSCIENCE. Revealing the state of one’s moral life to another person for spiritual guidance. It has been a practice in the religious orders since early monastic times. Ecclesiastical law respects those clerical institutes which require a manifestation of conscience. But its general attitude is to forbid superiors to demand such an account of one’s interior life. On the other hand, the Church encourages all religious, men and women, to be perfectly open with their superiors and, if they wish, to freely reveal to them even their inmost thoughts and desires. In clerical communities it is assumed that superiors, who are priests, may receive such voluntary manifestations of conscience in the sacrament of penance. In nonclerical communities the Church expects religious to periodically manifest their conscience to a competent priest, in or outside of sacramental confession, as an exercise in humility and a valuable means of growing in sanctity.
Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)
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