Not to proclaim saints, but to make them!

A true story that a Spanish Carthusian Prior once told about the Order and its penchant for hiding its saints. It is summarized in this real motto composed by the Carthusians: "Not to proclaim saints, but to make them!"

A Carthusian had died in the Night.

As is the custom, the Community was going to bury him in the morning after the Conventual High Mass.

A Lay Brother was digging the grave by opening a previously used grave.

(The Cemeteries are small and the Carthusians practice poverty even in death by recycling the graves and sharing them with the next generation. They do this on a one hundred year cycle, by making only about one hundred year’s worth of graves in the small cemeteries. Since they are normally buried on in their habits without a coffin, they recycle quickly enough for this to work pretty well.)

The Lay Brother unearthed an incorrupt body in that particular grave.

Not sure of what to do, the Lay Brother went to the Fr. Prior.

He told the Prior: "I’ve found an incorrupt saint".

He asked, "What should I do?"

The Prior said, "Blessed be God! Go quickly, tell no one. Close that grave up, and try opening up the next one."

So the Lay Brother obediently did as he was told, and finished just in time for the Burial of that day.

And all remained very well in that Charterhouse of hidden saints.