![]() ![]() ![]() Each monk eats his single daily meal alone, delivered to him in covered metal containers through a small compartment with a hatch, except for one communal meal a week. Each cell has an oratory to kneel in prayer, a desk, a chair, and a bed with a thin straw mat. A man who is accepted into a Carthusian monastery, say, at age 35, and who lives there until his late 80s, spends a half-century solely dedicated to this practice with the intention of illuminating both his mind and his heart.Įach monk wears a white, hooded robe the Fathers also wear a rough, woven penitential garment underneath called a hair shirt and each lives alone in their own cell, spending most of the day and night there. In the interims, the monks study, meditate, and pray alone in their cells. Throughout the day and night, that is, every single day and every single night, at the toll of the tower bell, the Canonical Hours-Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, and Vespers-and multiple Masses are repeated in Latin. Together in church, the monks sing the Carthusian Chant, which is a form of Gregorian chant. for the monks because they believe that “nocturnal praise” is all the more ardent. ![]() For four or five hours during the day, the Brothers undertake the manual labor that keeps the monastery functioning, such as cooking and baking, for example, while the Fathers dedicate themselves entirely to contemplative prayer. The monks who live at the monastery are either Brothers or Fathers. ![]() A cloistered existence such as this is difficult, and yet, I have seen that, even in silence, these men express such profound inner peace and are happy.” “Serving the monastery is one of the most rewarding things I have been part of in my life,” he says, “but I could not live like they do. Little is ever written about the monks, and few people know their names-even less is told about the paths these individuals have taken to be able to fully adopt the lifestyle of considerable sacrifice that their order compels. The order was founded by Saint Bruno in the 11th century AD in France.ĭuring a season where the amount of time and effort spent on planning holiday parties and gift shopping sometimes supersedes the few moments we may take for reflection, thinking about the way in which these holy men live and worship alone up on the mountain, the highest in the Taconic range, offers us solemn inspiration. Although there is no monastery for Carthusian nuns in America, there are five in Europe, plus one in South Korea. Most are as remote, or more so, than the Mount Equinox location, to abide by the Order’s call for seclusion. There are two others in the Western Hemisphere, in Argentina and Brazil. The monastery, officially called the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration, is one of 25 Carthusian sites around the world, and it is the only one in the United States. The singular mission of the 15 Brothers and Fathers who live at the monastery on Mount Equinox, from the time they find their vocation until the day they die, is to pray for the entire world. That scenic overlook is as close as the public ever gets to the monastery. From Memorial Day weekend through October, when the five-mile Skyline Drive is open (it is a toll road from VT-Route 7A south of Manchester Village to the top of the mountain), visitors may park their cars at a turnout at a midpoint on the climb called “the saddle.” From there, they have a bird’s-eye view of the monastery, far down in the distance. In a deep side valley, well below the summit of Mount Equinox, and located between two man-made basins (Hopper Pond and Lake Madeleine), there is a monastery where a small group of Carthusian monks live in silence, in prayer, and in solitude, but not entirely without an awareness of the way in which the world turns. Today, on the same footprint where the hotel once stood, there is a modern visitors center, built in 2012, and inside, there is a great deal of information about the monastery located low on the west slope, and about the religious order that owns the entire mountain. The brittle, yellowed pages of old guidebooks to the Manchester area will tell you that there is a small hotel called the Sky Line Inn on the peak of Mount Equinox, but you will find no mention of a monastery. ![]()
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