Today’s saint could be a patron for those of us who feel so overwhelmed
by all the problems in the world that we don’t know where to begin.
Hugh, who served as a bishop in France for 52 years, had his work
cut out for him from the start. Corruption seemed to loom in every
direction: the buying and selling of Church offices, violations of
clerical celibacy, lay control of Church property, religious
indifference and/or ignorance. After serving as bishop for two years,
he’d had his fill. He tried disappearing to a monastery, but the pope
called him back to continue the work of reform.
Ironically, Hugh was reasonably effective in the role of
reformer—surely because of his devotion to the Church but also because
of his strong character. In conflicts between Church and state he was
an unflinching defender of the Church. He fearlessly supported the
papacy. He was eloquent as a preacher. He restored his own cathedral,
made civic improvements in the town and weathered a brief exile.
Hugh may be best known as patron and benefactor of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian Order.
Hugh died in 1132. He was canonized only two years later.
Part of an 11th-cent. revival of Egyptian solitary ‘desert life’,
they were founded as a group of hermits near Grenoble, later La Grande
Chartreuse (1084), by Bruno (d. 1101). As penance for Becket's
murder, Henry II established the first English house at Witham,
Somerset (1178): six more houses followed (1342-1414), including London
(1371) and the largest, Henry V's foundation at Sheen. Never relaxing
their austerity, nor ambitious to proliferate, they were noted for
their holiness. The last prior of the London charterhouse, John
Houghton, and his monks were martyred at the dissolution.