Editing Carthusians (section)

== Liturgy ==
[[File:San Hugo en el Refectorio.jpg|thumb|Painting in the Charterhouse of [[Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas|Nuestra Señora de las Cuevas]] in [[Seville]] by [[Francisco de Zurbarán]]. The scene depicts [[Hugh of Grenoble]] with his brothers in the [[refectory]].]]

Before the [[Council of Trent]] in the 16th century, the Catholic Church in Western Europe had a wide variety of rituals for the celebration of Mass. Although the essentials were the same, there were variations in prayers and practices from region to region or among the various [[religious order]]s.

When [[Pope Pius V]] made the [[Roman Missal]] mandatory for all Catholics of the Latin Church, he permitted the continuance of other forms of celebrating Mass that had an antiquity of at least two centuries. The rite used by the Carthusians was one of these and continues in use in a version revised in 1981. Apart from the new elements in this revision, it is substantially the rite of Grenoble in the 12th century, with some admixture from other sources.<ref name=Raymond>{{Cite CE1913 | id = 03388a | title = The Carthusian Order | author =Douglas Raymund | access-date = 2015-01-01}}</ref> According to current Catholic legislation, priests can celebrate the traditional rites of their order without further authorization.

A feature unique to Carthusian liturgical practice is that the bishop bestows on Carthusian nuns, in the ceremony of their profession, a [[Stole (vestment)|stole]] and a [[Maniple (vestment)|maniple]]. The nun, who may receive the [[consecration of virgins]] is then also invested with a crown and a ring. The nun wears these ornaments again only on the day of her monastic jubilee and on her [[bier]] after her death. At [[Matins]], if no priest or deacon is present, a nun assumes the stole and reads the Gospel; and although in the time of the [[Tridentine Mass]] the chanting of the Epistle was reserved to an ordained subdeacon, a consecrated virgin sang the Epistle at the conventual Mass, though without wearing the maniple. For centuries Carthusian nuns retained this rite, administered by the diocesan bishop four years after the nun took her vows.<ref name=Raymond/>