Into Great Silence

Pastor Page, November 27, 2007

As the title suggests, Into Great Silence is a film about silence . . . one hundred and sixty-two minutes of silence, to be exact. In 1984 filmmaker Philip Gröning wrote to the Prior of the Grande Chartreuse monastery deep in the French Alps, asking for permission to shoot a film about their life. They said they’d get back to him. Sixteen years later, they did, and filming began in in 2002.

The Grande Chartreuse is one of a handful of communities of Carthusian monks in the world. Unlike Benedictines or Trappists, Carthusians are considered solitary even though they live in community. While Trappists and Benedictines practice contemplation as one of several disciplines, Carthusians construct their lives around it. They spend much of their time in their cells, eating their meals and saying five out of the seven daily offices there. They gather as a community only three times a day—at 12:15 am for the office of Matins, at 8:00 am for mass and at 4:15 pm for the office of Vespers. And of course there’s the silence—although all monastic orders value it, for a contemplative one like the Carthusians it is essential.

The film reflects this: there are no interviews and no music composed for the score. The only sounds are the incidental ones of life in a monastery—plates are washed, feet clump down wooden-floored halls, the wind chimes through the trees. The monks chant the hours and the bell peals to call them together. And you’d think that this would be boring for five minutes, much less one hundred and sixty two, but far from it: the film is astonishingly beautiful and wholly absorbing. It draws you into the contemplation that is at the center of Grande Chartreuse. Soon, you sense a rhythm or, actually, rhythms within rhythms—the daily ringing of the bells, the manual labor that both fosters contemplation and provides for the monks’ needs, the chanting of the hours. Overlain upon this is the overall cycle of the seasons, from Winter to Summer and back again. What emerges is the timeless yet immediate nature of their existence, the removed particularity of their cloistered life.

Although the Carthusians are removed from the world, they hold their existence to be vital to its maintenance. Their job is to pray for the world, to sustain it with their intercessions whether it knows of their existence or not. And I believe that it applies to us as well . . . every Sunday, we pray the Prayers of the People—we start by praying for the World and end by praying for folks we don’t know. Weekly, we meet on Thursdays at 12:15 to do the same, and I believe it is vital, both for the health of the world and the health of the church. Statistics show the churches with a strong prayer life are more vital, more connected to the world, and more liable to grow. Our church constitution, the Book of Order, defines one of the responsibilities of faithful membership to be “praying and studying Scripture and the faith of the Christian Church” (G-5.0102c). I ask that we all examine our priorities and our hearts, to discern if we are fulfilling this important duty of the Christian life. I covet your suggestions about providing opportunities to do this as a community. In the meantime, Thursdays at 12:15 might be a good place to start.