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Carthusians

Carthusian Novices

(Text as at 23/08/2007 14:54:14)

*** THIS IS NOT THE LATEST VERSION OF THIS NOTE ***

The three companions are the two novices and the postulant. The latter was a Pole probably in his early 30s, known as Dom Casimir. He lasted for the duration of my long retreat, but had departed by the time I became a postulant myself. The two novices were Dom Arsenius and Dom John Mary. Postulants keep their own names, and, like Novices, are styled “Dom”. The professed monks are always priests and can be styled “Father”, though again “Dom” is quite usual (for some reason, I’ve never referred to Fr Bernard as “Dom Bernard”, probably because he always styled himself as “Fr. Bernard”). However, we would always refer to the older monks as “Dom” – Dom Emmanuel (a French mathematician in his 90s, Dom Francis-Xavier (usually abbreviated to “Francis”, an Indian in his 60s, and Dom Humphrey (an Englishman in his 80s). Maybe the point of potential confusion is that office-holders are referred to as “Father X”, where X is the office; so, “Father Prior”, “Father Vicar” (I can’t remember this in use). However, “Father Novice Master” is a bit of a mouthful, so “Fr. Bernard” may have been the proxy. In such a small community, no confusion of Bernards could arise.

Dom Humphrey was disabled and one of my jobs was to wheel him from his cell to the church and back. He was still able to potter about in his cell, I think. His wheelchair was a rather strange construction, a bit like an overgrown child’s pushchair, but not of the folding variety nor with swivel wheels (it had four large ones). Dom Humphrey was rather heavy (thick-set, not corpulent), and it was a bit of a struggle getting the pushchair up the steps. In order to do so, I had to make the pushchair do a “wheely”. Once, after negotiating some steps, I forgot to return the vehicle to it’s four-wheel drive, and pushed it along the cloister with Dom Humphrey bobbing up and down along the cloister. I’m not sure what caused this lapse. It would have been 4 am, so maybe I was tired, but he didn’t complain. Since we couldn’t speak, this would have been difficult, but I noticed no objection in his mannerisms.

Dom Arsenius was an Irishman who’d chosen his name by sticking a pin in a book of Saints. He was an earnest if rather simple soul, and the name was not inapt. He’d been a novice for about a year, I think, but eventually had a nervous breakdown and had to leave. Dom John Mary was a South African in his mid 50s. He’d been a novice for about 3 years, and as far as I know lasted the course, so is probably still there, though as by now he’d be in his mid 80s, he may not. He was a far more robust character, but was the one who complained about having to talk to the one you love in a language you don’t understand. He was having trouble with his Latin. Both of the novices were very warm hearted, and I’m sure we would have been friends had I stayed longer. The postulant, Dom Casimir, was less warm, but fair enough. He had a good command of English, thankfully, as my Latin wasn’t up to conversation.