St. Bruno, Priest

St. Bruno was born in Cologne in about 1030. His early studies were in his native city, and later he attended the cathedral school in Reims. Subsequently, he became a cathedral canon there and then the schoolmaster (1056). He was appointed chancellor of the Reims Diocese in 1075. When Bishop Manassès was deposed—his election was simoniacal—by Pope Gregory VII (see May 25) in 1080, the Reims see was offered to Bruno, but he declined because he was then thinking of retiring from the world. He did so about 1082 and lived a life of prayer and penance. He and two companions had a hermitage near Molesmes, where they placed themselves under the spiritual direction of St. Robert, founder of the Cistercians. Seeking still greater solitude, he and six companions went in 1084 to Grenoble in southern France, where Bruno’s former pupil Hugh was bishop, and there in the valley of La Chartreuse he laid the foundation of what eventually became the Carthusian Order. In 1090, Pope Urban II, who had also been one of Bruno’s students at Reims, called him to Rome to be his adviser. When the papal court moved to southern Italy, brought on by the activity of the partisans of Antipope Clement III (1080–1100), Bruno went along and later (about 1092), with the pope’s permission, he retired into the wilderness of Calabria and there established another monastery. He died at his monastery in La Torre, near Catanzaro, Calabria, on October 6, 1101. In 1514, Pope Leo X granted permission to the Carthusians to celebrate a feast in honor of their founder, and in 1623 his feast was extended to the universal Church. The prayer of the Mass for today recalls the fact that St. Bruno chose to serve God in solitude.