English Carthusian Martyrs
Today's saints are the English Carthusian Martyrs . The strictest monastic order in the Western Church is that of the Carthusians. St. Bruno founded them in 1084 at the remote spot in the French Alps called "Carthusium" in Latin, "Chartreuse" in French. The Carthusian monasteries spread internationally, and still function today, although in a diminished number. They were different from most monasteries in that, while housed at a single site, the monks did not really live a community life. They were rather hermits, each spending most of his time working and praying in a private hermitage. Precisely because their rule of life was so austere from the start, it has never been reformed because it has never been deformed. At the outbreak of the English Reformation, England had ten of these hermitage-monasteries. They were commonly called "Charterhouses," a corruption of the French name "Chartreuse". The hermits were held in the highest este...