© Judah Desert - Israel/Credit photo Monastic Family of Bethlehem
I will seduce her, lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart (Hos 2, 16)
Early monastic sources form the Bethlehem charism
Following in the footsteps of St. Anthony, Macarius and Amoun, the first desert monks in the 4th century, the monks and nuns of Bethlehem received the solitary form of life of the Lauras of Egypt and Palestine, dedicated to the praise of God and rooted in living communion with their brothers in the desert.
This living tradition of Eastern Christian monastic life in the first centuries inspired their way of living, praying, celebrating the liturgy and waging spiritual warfare.
Saint Bruno, a man of communion, as in preference to God alone, received the primitive monastic tradition in its absolute. In the West, he refers to the tradition of the Eastern Lauras.
A 17th-century chronicler, Arnauld d’Andilly, testifies: “The institution of the Lauras did not spread throughout the West, and the entire Latin Church would have had only monasteries of cenobites, anchorites or recluses. But it seems that Saint Bruno, founder of the Carthusian monasteries, wanted to imitate him in the 11th century, when in 1086 he founded the Grande Chartreuse in the dreadful desert it was in. For the division of the cells, the perpetual solitude that is the spirit of this holy Order,
and obedience to a superior, represent to us in all Chartreuses the Lauras of the Greeks. In the West, this was a brand-new way of life with very specific characteristics, inspired in its essential features by the ancient formulas lived out by the fathers of the Eastern deserts and the Lourdes of Palestine. An ardent love of solitude drove them all in their search for God, and a deep friendship united them around Saint Bruno, their father and model.
Source : Introduction aux Lettres des premiers Chartreux – Sources chrétiennes 86
Drawing on this spiritual treasure, monks and nuns like to refer to the last years of Saint Bruno’s life, which he spent in Byzantine Calabria. [link] in the monastery of Santa Maria della Torre. In this region of Italy known at the time as “Magna Graecia”, Saint Bruno undoubtedly lived in osmosis with the oriental sap of the primitive sources of monastic life.
© Desert of Judah Monastery - IsraelBethlehem monastic family
From the 4th century onwards, lauras (from the Greek: laura: street, district) or "monks' villages" appeared in Palestine, under the authority of an elder monk, the abba (father). Each monk lives alone in a cell under the watchful eye of God. These cells are often cavities in the rock, caves where the monks live out the week in solitude. Liturgical and fraternal communion is expressed on Saturdays and Sundays, when monks gather in the monastery church to pray together. The first laura was built around the cell of Saint Chariton between 328 and 335, ten kilometers from Jerusalem; the most famous, known as "the great laura", is in the desert of Judah (Dead Sea); others also exist in Sinai and on Mount Athos.
Burning with “divine love” and tenderness for his brothers,
our father Saint Bruno teaches monks and nuns to recognize themselves as poor sinners,
and to tirelessly receive divine mercy in their “inner weakness”.
He guides them along the path of “the purity of heart that allows us to see God (cf. Mt 5:8).
Source: Letters of Saint Bruno”.
He teaches them to search relentlessly for the One Necessary: God.
With Saint Bruno, we cry out:
« O Bonitas ! »
Thus, drawing on the monastic tradition of East and West, the Monastic Family of Bethlehem participates in its humble place in the prophetic movement of the Spirit that impels Christians of various confessions towards full communion in Christ.
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© Saint Bruno/Monastic Family of Bethlehem
Penetrated by God's love, Saint Bruno never ceases to adore His Goodness, and in wonder, he cries out:
O Bonitas!
O Goodness!
I thirst for the strong and living God