The meaning of "being a Carthusian
Among the religious families, there are those like the Benedictines and Cistercians, who live more in community. Others live in greater solitude. Camaldulites and Carthusians belong to the latter. The monks and the nuns of the Carthusian Order, while living separately in their own monasteries, share the same rule and follow a unique model in the person of their founding Father, Saint Bruno.
The Carthusian does not live alone as the Carthusian monastery is a community. Nevertheless, he will pass the greater part of his life in his cell where he prays, works, takes his meals, and sleeps. During the course of the week, he only leaves three times a days for offices and communal mass: in the middle of the night, the Night Office, the morning Eucharist and Vespers towards the night.
The Carthusian can be a cloistered monk or a brother, two different ways of living the same vocation of solitude.
This solitude is not lived for its own sake, but as a privileged means of attaining intimacy with God.
No one can follow this path if not called by God. The discernment of this call (vocation) asks that we make a retreat of two weeks at the monastery. Other than this, Carthusians never receive retreatants.
Almost all our homes were built along the same basic principles: a grouping of hermitages (or "cells") linked to one another by a cloister which ends at the communal grounds: church, refectory, and the Chapter, separated by the entrance door by the workshops and the lodging of the monk in charge of the day to day running of the house. There are the "main" homes (like La Grande Chartreuse, with over 30 cells) and the "lesser" homes (like Portes, in the French region of Ain, which retains many primitive aspects of a charterhouse)
source; http://www.chartreux.org/en/who.htm
Web Site: transfiguration.chartreux.org
Book store and gift shop at the base of Mount Euinox:
The Equinox Mountain Skyline Gift shop
and Catholic book store:
Mt. Equinox Skyline Drive
1A Saint Bruno Drive
Arlington, Vermont 05250 USA
Phone and Fax: 802-362-1114
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The Monastery is never open to the public. It is visible from the toll road that goes to the top of the mountain.
There is a great bookstore and gift shop at the base of the mountain. Tickets for the road are available there.
Equinox Mountain
Equinox Mountain is the highest mountain in Southwestern Vermont, (altitude 3,848ft). The valley to, the west, that can be seen from the Saddle, contains 3 man made lakes. About 150 years ago this valley was, populated with 40 farm families and 3 school houses. The farms were not productive, and life was hard. When the Civil War began the young men left to fight the war. There they met the boys from the midwest, where you could plow all day and never hit a rock. When the war was over, the boys came home long enough to kiss the old folks goodbye and headed west. Gradually, the folks followed. In fact there is a town in Michigan called Vermontville. This exodus was the beginning of the end, and more and more farms were abandoned. The last family left in 1892. In 1939, when Dr. Davidson bought his first piece of land (1100 acres) on the mountain, the whole area reverted to wilderness, with no road or trails. This area now compromises about 7,000 acres. The present development took about 51 years. Wanting to preserve the property in approximately its present state, and having no children he gave this property to the Carthusians. The Carthusians are a religious order similar to the better known Trappists. The Carthusians have completed the first Monastery in the western hemisphere, which took five years to build, but is expected to last for centuries. The Monastery can be seen from the Saddle, west of Lake Madeleine.
source: Sign at top of Mount Equinox
Top of Mount Equinox
Closed hotel on top of Mount Equinox
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