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Death in the monastery: Dying in the poetry of a Carthusian monk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2025

Riitta Hujanen Open the ORCID record for Riitta Hujanen [Opens in a new window]
Riitta Hujanen*
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CITER), Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal
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Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

‘Death in the monastery’ refers to liminal and temporal themes of dying in the poetry of an anonymous Carthusian monk-poet in the period 1964–2024. This article explores these topics in three subsections. The first section deals with texts where the monk-poet reflects on moments when he has witnessed the dying of a fellow monk. The second set of texts focuses on memories written about recently deceased members of the Carthusian monastic community. The third section consists of the Carthusian author’s reflections that arise from the physical proximity of the graveyard at the centre square of the monastery. The article concludes with some remarks on the liminal and temporal perspectives on dying in a monastery. Time spent with God in a cloister, while frequently witnessing the deaths of other members of the monastic community, prepares for a transition where death is followed by resurrection.

Keywords

Carthusiandeathdyingmonasticismtemporality
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , First View , pp. 1 - 17
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 The Statutes of the Carthusian Order (hereafter Statutes), Book I, Chapter 1:1. https://carthusiansusa.org/texts/.

2 The Carthusian Order website https://chartreux.org/en.

3 Statutes, Book I, Chapter 6:1.

4 Statutes, Book I, Chapter 6:9.

5 Peter Nissen, ‘Carthusian Worlds, Carthusian Images: The Fascination of Silence and Inaccessibility’, Studies in Spirituality 24 (2014), p. 146.

6 Ibid., p. 145.

7 Ibid., pp. 143–51.

8 Ibid., pp. 143–4.

9 Tim Peeters, When Silence Speaks: The Spiritual Way of the Carthusian Order (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2015).

10 Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise, trans. M. Miller (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2017); Nicholas Diat, A Time to Die: Monks on the Threshold of Eternal Life, trans. D. le Merrer (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2019).

11 A Priest, Report from Calabria: A Season with the Carthusian Monks (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2017).

12 Ibid., p. 100.

13 See A Carthusian, ‘O Bonitas!’ Hushed to Silence, ed. Robin Bruce Lockhart (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2001); and A Carthusian, The Silence of the Lotus: Collected Poems 1964–2008 (Salzburg: Analecta Carthusiana (257), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2009).

14 Anna Maksjan, The Mystical Dimension of the Poetry of John Bradburne and the Carthusian (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2007).

15 The precise number is 1,997.

16 Riitta Hujanen, Monastic Perspectives on Temporality: Time is a Mirage (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023), pp. 67–78.

17 ‘Haematology Ward’, in A Carthusian, Wandering in the Mountains [hereafter WM] (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 2016), p. 2. The poem is dedicated to Fr. Bogdan Maksjan.

18 Diat, A Time to Die, p. 135.

19 Ibid., p. 158.

20 ‘When I Hear’, in A Carthusian, Man: The Enigma (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 2021), p. 45.

21 Ibid.

22 ‘The Death of Dom Stephen’, in A Carthusian, Grave Nightingales [hereafter GN] (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 1988), p. 72.

23 The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, trans. B. Ward (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 177.

24 ‘Dom Bernard’s Dying’, in A Carthusian, Veiled Ecstasy [hereafter VE] (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 2009), pp. 10–11.

25 Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary, trans. Theodore Berkeley (Hertsfordshire: New City, 2017), p. 306.

26 Ibid., p. 106.

27 Kinga de la Transfiguration, Je ne me suis pas dérobée… trans. Carmelites of Magyarszék (Toulouse: Éditions du Carmel, 2017), p. 262 (translation mine).

28 Diat, A Time to Die, p. 160.

29 ‘The Snow and the Broom’, in A Carthusian, Red Signature [hereafter RS] (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 2013), p. 61.

30 Ibid.

31 ‘Silver Skeleton’, in RS, p. 76.

32 Ibid.

33 ‘White Lilac’, in RS, p. 95. Note that the Carthusian monastic habit is white.

34 See Revelation 2:17 (KJV): ‘I… will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.’

35 ‘Epitaph to a Friend’, in A Carthusian, The Flower Vendor (Horsham: St Hughs’s Press, 1985), p. 43.

36 ‘Caviar’, in WM, p. 91.

37 A Carthusian, They Speak by Silences (Herefordshire: Gracewing, 2006), p. 75.

38 ‘The Six Bells’, in A Carthusian, Silence of the Lotus (hereafter SoL) in A Carthusian, The Silence of the Lotus: Collected Poems 1964-2008, (Salzburg: Analecta Carthusiana (257), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2009), p. 248.

39 ‘The Monk Dies’ in GN, p. 105.

40 ‘It Was Fitting’, in A Carthusian, Dancing Diamonds (Horsham: St Hugh’s Press, 2022), p. 66.

41 Robin Bruce Lockhart (ed.), Listening to Silence: An Anthology of Carthusian Writings (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997), p. 53.

42 Ibid.

43 Nancy Klein Maguire, An Infinity of Little Hours: Five Young Men and their Trial of Faith in the Western World’s Most Austere Monastic Order (New York: PublicAffairs, 2006), pp. 211–3.

44 ‘A Walk Round Central Square’, in WM, p. 64.

45 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §997, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2H.HTM.

46 ‘Sometimes Darkness’, in A Carthusian, Iron Jungle of Hate [hereafter IJ] (Salzburg: Analecta Carthusiana (257), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2009), pp. 206–7. The biblical quotation is from Ephesians 5:8 (KJV): ‘For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light’.

47 The Desert Fathers, p. 53.

48 Ibid., p. 97.

49 John Cassian, The Monastic Institutes trans. J. Bertram (London: The Saint Austin Press, 1999;), Book 4, Chapter 34.

50 John Cassian, Conferences (Brookfield, WI: First Rate Publishers, 2016), Conf. 18, Ch. VII.

51 Carmel Bendon Davis, Mysticism and Space: Space and Spirituality in the Works of Richard Rolle, The Cloud of Unknowing Author, and Julian of Norwich (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008), p. 87.

52 ‘A Prayer Under the Moon’, in VE, p. 19.

53 Athanasius, Life of Anthony (Pickerington, OH: Beloved Publishing, 2014), pp. 16–20.

54 Glòria Durà-Vilà and Gerard Leavey, ‘Solitude among contemplative cloistered nuns and monks: conceptualisation, coping and benefits of spiritually motivated solitude’, Mental Health, Religion & Culture 20/1 (2017), pp. 57–8. The study was conducted through in-depth interviews and participant observations in two monasteries in Spain.

55 Ibid., p. 57.

56 Glòria Durà-Vilà, Simon Dein, Roland Littlewood and Gerard Leavey, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul: Causes and Resolution of Emotional Distress Among Contemplative Nuns’, Transcultural Psychiatry 47/4 (September 2010), p. 562.

57 ‘Pear Trees in Winter’, in A Carthusian, Death of Ireland (Salzburg: Analecta Carthusiana (257), Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg, 2009), pp. 265–6.

58 Diat, A Time to Die, p. 171.

59 ‘Sometimes Darkness’, in IJ, p. 206.

60 ‘A Walk Round Central Square’, in WM, p. 64.

61 ‘The Six Bells’, in SoL, p. 248.

62 The Desert Fathers, p. 13.