Serra San Bruno, Italy, Oct 9, 2011 / 02:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News) Pope Benedict XVI called the Carthusian charism of silence “a precious gift for the Church and the world,” and one that contained “a profound message for our life and for humanity.”
“Retiring into silence and solitude, man, so to speak, is ‘exposed’ to reality in his nakedness,” said the Pope. This allows man to experience “the fullness, the presence of God, of the most real Reality that there is, and that is beyond the dimension of the senses.”
The Pope joined the monks for Vespers, the evening prayer of the Church. Before entering the monastery, he remarked that the ancient monastic life is a rebuke to a certain modern mindset “that is not Christian, or even human, because it is dominated by economic interests,” or is only concerned with earthly and not spiritual things.
A society based on such a mindset, he said, “not only marginalizes God, but also our neighbor, and we do not strive for the common good.” The monastery, though, is instead “a model of a society that focuses on God and fraternal relationship.” This is something for which we have “so much need in our time,” said the Pope.
While some may think it “impossible to remain for life in a monastery,” said the Pope, “a lifetime is just enough to get into this union with God.”
He concluded by telling the Carthusians that their vocation is in “the heart of the Church” and puts “the pure blood of the contemplation and love of God” into its veins.
http://youtu.be/HiNsWPLZUeY
I would so love to pray Vespers (and Lauds) at a monastery. Mine is so far away 🙁