Deciding Jointly

Elections

During their community Chapter meetings, the Carthusians customarily use beans for secret voting. A white bean is used to cast a yes vote, and a black bean for no.
To choose the 7 officers of the SBPCLC Admin, and to assist this executive board and the SBPCLC community(ies) in further deciding jointly the path(s) to follow, election procedures need to be reflected upon.
Proposed candidates for an executive board office election, and all eventually elected officers, must always fulfill in an exemplary way the requirements of SBPCLC membership, otherwise they should decline to be proposed as candidates, or eventually if they had been elected, humbly offer their resignation from the executive board.
Electionbuddy
Electionrunner

Officers of the executive board

An executive board consisting of about seven members (including a priest and at least two women) is to be to put in place

There are no elected SBPCLC executive board members currently.

May they be brought to complete unity

Jesus Prays for All Believers John 17
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you[e] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
The Patristic Tradition Source

It could be said that Tradition, as an historical event, begins with the Apostolic preaching and is found in Scriptures, but it is kept, treasured, interpreted, and explained to the Church by the Holy Fathers, the successors of the Apostles. Using the Greek term Pateres tes Ecclesias, the Fathers of the Church, this "interpretive" part of the Apostolic preaching is called "Patristic Tradition." The Fathers, men of extraordinary holiness and trusted orthodoxy in doctrine, enjoyed the acceptance and respect of the universal Church by witnessing the message of the Gospel, living and explaining it to posterity. Thus, Apostolic Preaching or Tradition is organically associated with the Patristic Tradition and vice versa. This point must be stressed since many theologians in the Western churches either distinguish between Apostolic Tradition and Patristic Tradition, or completely reject Patristic Tradition.
St. Irenaues wrote: "For the Orthodox Christian, there is one Tradition, the Tradition of the Church, incorporating the Scriptures and the teaching of the Fathers. This is the preaching of the truth handed down by the Church in the whole world to Her children"
St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the Great "Pillar of Orthodoxy," gave the most appropriate definition of the Church's Tradition: "Let us look at the very tradition, teaching, and faith of the catholic Church from the very beginning, which the Logos gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers preserved. Upon this the Church is founded In retrospect, Tradition is founded upon the Holy Trinity, it constantly proclaims the Gospel of Christ, it is found within the boundaries of the Christian Church, and it is expounded by the Fathers."

Saint Bruno's providential two foundations in France at the Grande Chartreuse and then in Calabria's Byzantine Greek southern Italy, has uniquely preserved within the Carthusian life, and unites spiritually, the common root traditions of pre great schism desert fathers spirituality.
Tradition and Living Magisterium (wikipedia)

Resources in group dynamics - Basic Assumption Groups (BAG) | Collegial Work Groups (CWG)

Bion Revisited, Group Dynamics and Group Psychotherapy, J.D. Sutherland
"Bion identified states into which therapy groups drift which certainly represent regressions from the Work session. Nearly always these are regressions in the service of resistance. Group members, being asked to face something unconscious that they are anxious about, take refuge in modes of dependency, fight-flight, and/or pairing." Integrated Ego Psychology, By Norman A. Polansky

Collegial Work Group (CWG)

Identifying communially Basic Assumption Group (BAG) tendencies, as opposed to an ideal 11 guideline Collegial Work Group (CWG), could be addressed a priori by "openness and dialog", where it would be found that: any members either would practically adhere to, or reject their own religion, or reject others religious or philosophical views, in a more or less "sixth-grade formulation source ", with a questionable syncretist or relativism potential, based or not on the fullness of the Patristic Traditio. This temptation can and might happen often because we are all in progress, but through "openness and dialog" prudence and consultation, following "the spiritual path in accordance with Saint Bruno, is appropriate great sobriety and modesty, remote from any controversy" (Gd. 9c), we would be protected by "deciding jointly" in a Collegial Work Group fostering Koinonia, and truth.

Another brother asked Abba Sisoes, 'I have fallen, Abba; what shall I do?' The old main said to him, 'Get up again.' The brother said, 'I have gotten up again, but again have I fallen.' The old man said, 'Get up again and again.' So the brother asked, 'How many times?' The old man replied, 'Until you are taken up either in virtue or in sin. For a man presents himself to judgment in that state in which he is found.' Desert Fathers
The old men used to say, "there is nothing worse than passing judgement." Desert Fathers
For us, self-scrutiny involves a genuinely pastoral concern for all: "Notice how you can, in the hope of what is to come, love the harvest in the young shoot, and the twisted tree-trunk. In the same way you must love those who are not yet good" Guigo, Meditations 167 Source
"Not much is gained if you take away from a person something that he holds onto wrongly; but it is if, by our words of encouragement and by your example, you get him to let it go of his own accord"... Guigo, Meditations 297 Source

The 11 guidelines executive board's job, of deciding jointly, is for each to do something about this on ourselves: by studying, praying, questioning ourselves fraternally and authentically, sincerely; consulting and listening between us, so we might deepen our reflections on religion, truth and the fullness of Faith, in view of adhering to the 11 guideline proposition from the Reverend Father, which has for goal to define us an arena that is founded definitely on dogma in the fullness of the Patristic Traditio.

Our challenge is not of a subjective clean canvas in defining a foundation, but of a joint inspired collegial adhesion through objective knowledge, knowledge through experience, experience through our personal individual conversion praxis-obedience-adhesion of our communial perfectly vetted and informed personal freedom. Adhesion is through Faith, trust; but trust is possible through reason, objectivity. A Basic Assumption Group (BAG) in contrast would spend its time defining its limited subjective boundaries, focusing on who is in alignment and who is not, devoting energy to stifling growth in debate without outcome, protecting its subjective canvases.
Deciding jointly - collegially requires a process of factual continuous objectivity, questioning, listening, researching, self-scrutiny, group reflection, consultation and prayer, with the objective of the authentic development of the 11 guidelines.
Whoever, therefore, seeks to work for his own good, not only does not find it, but also incurs great harm to his soul. For while he seeks his own good, which cannot be sought at all, he is rejected by the common good, that is, by God. For just as there is one nature for everyone, so also there is one common good (ira et utilitas). Guigo, Meditations 106 Source
An old man said, "Every time a thought of superiority or vanity moves you, examine your conscience to see if you have kept all the commandments, whether you love your enemies, whether you consider yourself to be an unprofitable servant and the greatest sinner of all. Even so, do not pretend to great ideas as though you were perfectly right, for that thought destroys everything. " Desert Fathers
Are global religious disagreements more about matters of wisdom or matters of fact, or both?
Can varieties of context help us appreciate the differences in belief and practice ?
If we personally have not come to fully adhere to a dogmatic theologically trusted center core, based on fact, objectivity and reason, then a dose of relativism and syncretism imposes itself to the mind so as to fill the informational void, out of a logical necessity.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, warned that poorly-catechized Christians should not take part in inter-religious dialogue. “Christians, often ignorant of the content of their own faith and incapable because of this of living of and for it, are not capable of inter-religious dialogue that always begins with the assertion of one’s own convictions,” he cautioned. “There is no room for syncretism or relativism! Faced with adepts from other religions with a strong religious identity, it is necessary to present motivated and doctrinally equipped Christians.” Source

So "sixth-grade formulation source " relativism reflex, or on the other hand stasis-silence stifling growth in debate without outcome, to protect a subjective possibly syncretic canvas, on the surface seems to avoid the difficulties of dogmatism by accepting fully or partly, some or all religious and philosophical views as equally true or valid, none having any more claim to authority than any other. This is the logical equivalent though of saying that in religious or philosophical matters there is no truth, hardly satisfying to those who identify, objectively or subjectively with the religious traditions that form their identities as persons and members of communities. Religions have been so central to the cultural and personal identities of members of societies, especially of traditional societies, that attachments to religious values, practices, and beliefs can be and often are very strong of course. Encounters with other religions can provoke questions of one’s own religion, driven by the realization that one might have been born elsewhere, in a foreign religious context, and so one might embrace another religious tradition as fervently as one embraces one’s own source . But the deep significance of religion is humanly about some wisdom, good judgment, and for some also it is also not about objective facts or dogmatic knowledge but religion is for them about who we are trying to be and not about absolute truth.
Catholic Faith though is based on Divine Revelation, so it is about facts and knowledge. Saint Bruno's charism for the world and the Church is based on Divine Revelation and thus on its consequential dogmas. So "The ecumenical openness must be conducted according to the norms of the Church and you will exclude any tendency to religious syncretism." (Gd 9 b); and "jointly deciding which path to follow" (Gd 5) is proposed "in the respect of the Magisterium of the Church" (Gd 9d).

Types of monks

Sarabites

Gyrovagues

Collusion is an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of legal rights. By extension here any agreement that is not decided communially should be considered to be collusionary, and a priori invalid.
Consensus decision-making is a group decision-making process that seeks the consent of all participants. Consensus may be defined professionally as an acceptable resolution, one that can be supported, even if not the "favourite" of each individual.
Collegiality is the relationship between colleagues. Colleagues are those explicitly united in a common purpose and respecting each other's abilities to work toward that purpose.
Communiality is carried out "in the Church." Such an ecclesial, communional, hierarchical and doctrinal dimension is absolutely indispensable for a genuine canonical Lay Faithful Association, and, on its own, guarantees its spiritual efficacy. The mission is "communial" because it takes place in a unity and communion that only in a secondary way also has relevant aspects of social visibility. This unity and communion derive essentially from that divine ecclesial intimacy of which the SBPCLC's are called to be consecrated to.
Joint decision making

As SBPCLC, living in the fullness of the 11 guidelines, in a projected Canonical Lay Association of the Faithful, we believe and propose: can be communially developed only through each individual member's Quies SBPCLC 5 steps commitment to the 11 guidelines.

The 11 guidelines frame a contemplative spirituality for followers of Saint Bruno living in the open world; but there have been (and will be) amongst aspirants more or less subtle insistences on dialog per se, so then even outside of the 11 guidelines, this eventuality is addressed in the very purpose of the 11 guidelines which are that: to live in the specific Spirituality of Saint Bruno, joint dialog to live this Lay Contemplative Spirituality within and without our activities of the IFSB, SBLC etc. must be framed within the 11 guidelines limits and indications. Voluntary individual and collegial personal exclusion of dialog outside the 11 guidelines in all and any interventions of our lives is thus a necessary basic assumption and condition here for membership or vocation RE: (Serious discernment, if not severe, must be put in place for the admission of members into the second degree. They must clearly know what they undertake and what are their obligations (see 1.2.3.) Gd. 7). This is essential to live the carthusian charism, which is the desert Fathers and Mothers charism of Saint Bruno of searching for God only. There is here a proposition for an authentic monastic conversion process where eventually by the grace of God and Faithfulness to the 11 guidelines, the intellect ("Nesciat sinistra tua quid faciat dextera tua" Matthew 6:15) cannot judge the spiritual work in the soul: Nada; and the interior and exterior discourse becomes solely Love, Trust, living in the Will of the Most Holy Trinity, in the present moment, in our duty of state, however contradictory the events, as Mary, as Joseph, as Christ.

The Carthusian Statutes describe that: "Since our Order is totally dedicated to contemplation, it is our duty to maintain strictly our separation from the world; hence, we are excepted from all pastoral ministry no matter how urgent the need for active apostolate is so that we may fulfill our special role in the Mystical Body of Christ. Let Martha have her active ministry, very praiseworthy indeed, yet not without solicitude and agitation: nevertheless, let her bear with her sister, as she follows in the steps of Christ, in stillness knows that he is God, purifies her spirit, prays in the depths of her soul, seeks to hear what God may speak within her; and thus, tastes and sees in the slender measure possible, though but faintly in a dark mirror how good the Lord is; and also pours forth prayer both for Martha herself and for all who, like her, labor actively in the service of the Lord. In this Mary has not only a most just judge but also a very faithful advocate the Lord himself who deigned not alone to defend but even to praise her way of life, saying, "Mary has chosen the best part, which shall not be taken from her;" with these words he excused her from involving herself in the solicitude and agitation of Martha, however pious and excellent they might be." Carthusian Statutes Chapter 3

In a 11 guideline government : "An executive board consisting of about seven members (including a priest and at least two women) is to be to put in place, who jointly decides which path to follow. (Gd 5)".

In joint decisions the opinions and experiences of each are shared and discussed communially.

As in many endeavors and the IFSB, SBLC or SBPCLC are no exception, occasionally groupuscules spontaneously, instinctively develop to discuss shared beliefs or values.

A deep admiration of the richness of individual complementary differences, a profound and humble respect for individual liberty, and a conscientious prayerful exercise of our fraternal duty of dialog, is very desirable in a collegial work group environment, as in all humility and realism, by the inspiration and schooling of God under the eyes of Whom we grow "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" Ephesians 4:13, we continuously and perpetually will have special and edifying new things to learn and share with others in our spiritual and human journey as children of God.

In an 11 guideline community, the exchanges and discussions need be nurtured and encouraged to become perfectly candid for each, through a community spirit made of frankness and genuine fraternal "sacred listening".

An executive board consisting of about seven members

Living in the fullness of the 11 guidelines, which we believe and propose can be communially developed only through each individual member's Quies SBPCLC 5 steps commitment to the 11 guidelines.

Jointly decides which path to follow.

The SBPCLC's executive board, decides collegially in communial prayer with Mary as in the Cenacle.
It can be concluded that collusionary agreements are incompatible with communiality, collegiality and executive board joint decisions.

Prayers

Some suggested meeting introductory/conclusion prayers
- Sign of the cross
- To ask with Mary for the gifts of the Spirit : "O God, thou hast filled with the Holy Spirit the Blessed Virgin Mary when she prayed with the Apostles in the solitude of the Cenacle, let us love, we pray you, silence of the heart, so that by praying better, thus recollected, we deserve to be filled of the gifts of the Holy Spirit". (Marthe Robin)
- Our Father
- Hail Mary
- Glory be
- Our Lady of Good Counsel R. Pray for us
- Saint Bruno R. Pray for us
- Sign of the Cross

Prayer for the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

O Holy Spirit, powerful Consoler, sacred Bond of the Father and the Son, Hope of the afflicted, Life of the Church, Sanctifier and Uniter, descend into our hearts and come establish in them your loving dominion and communion. Enkindle in our tepid souls the fire of your Love; convert us, transform us through the intercession of Mary Mother of God, so that we may be wholly subject to you in perfect Charity. We believe that when you dwell in us, you also prepare a dwelling for the Father and the Son. Deign, therefore, to come to us, Consoler of abandoned souls, and Protector of the needy. Help the afflicted, strengthen the weak, and support the wavering. In our blessed tribulations, come and purify us, sanctify us, so that we may find all together in patient pursued dialog, listening to your inspiration and unceasingly in communion to one another, what path you Will us to follow, until reaching a singlehearted unity between us and communially experiencing Your peace in our souls. Let no evil desire ever take possession of us. You love the humble and resist the proud. Come to us, glory of the living, and hope of the dying. Lead us by your grace that we may always be pleasing to you, one of heart and mind, in God's Will. Amen. Inspired from a prayer by Saint Augustine of Hippo

Our Total Consecration to Mary