Adèle Garnier

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Adèle Garnier

Adèle Garnier (born August 15, 1838 in Grancey-le-Château-Neuvelle , † June 17, 1924 in London ) was a French Benedictine , religious founder , monastery and mystic .

life and work

Childhood and youth

Adèle was the fourth of five surviving children of a religiously disinterested architect. The older siblings were all girls. At the age of six she lost her devout mother. From 1841 to 1850 she grew up in Is-sur-Tille , then in Dijon . She went to selected good schools and had a tutor at home. She was engaged for several years, but then broke the relationship because of her partner's contempt for religion.

Religious life as a private tutor

According to her wishes, she accepted a position as a tutor in a family in Nantes in 1861 and was guided by a Jesuit as a conscience advisor. In 1864 she began a novitiate at the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Sacré-Cœur) founded by Sophie Barat in Conflans-l'Archevêque ( Charenton-le-Pont ), but had to break it off after two months because of insufficient health. While she continued to work as a private tutor in Poitiers (interrupted by convalescence stays in her family in Dijon), she began to have brief mystical experiences without, however, speaking about them.

Mystical attachment to the heart of Jesus

From 1868 she lived in Laval with a family who kept the Holy of Holies in their castle chapel . There Adèle had her first apparition in 1869, in which Jesus, shrouded in light, pointed to his most sacred heart. In 1872 she heard for the first time about the planning of the Basilica Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre and felt called there by an inner voice. In 1874, while reading the biography of St. Margareta Maria Alacoque , she understood her calling to eternal adoration in the future Sacré-Coeur Church. She visited Archbishop Guibert in December 1874 , but found little attention. It was not until 1885 that there would be eternal adoration.

Years of private self-giving to the Heart of Jesus

Since there was a makeshift chapel on the Sacré-Coeur construction site from 1876, she rented a room in a nearby convent and stayed daily in adoration in the chapel. There she felt "separated from the world". Another illness made it necessary to return to Dijon. After healing stays in Alise-Sainte-Reine and Lourdes , then with her sister in Bruz in Brittany, she was called to her father's deathbed in 1881, where she achieved his conversion. She lived with her family in Dijon until 1896. Under the influence of a new spiritual leader, Adèle intensified her spiritual inner life, practiced total devotion to the will of God and spiritually nourished herself from visions in which Jesus appeared to her as a mystical consort.

Foundation of the Congregation

In 1896, through the mediation of Adèle's sister, she met Alice Andrade (* 1873), 35 years her junior, later Agnès du Sacré-Coeur , in whom she recognized a like-minded person in the mother-daughter relationship. Their spiritual advisor, the Dominican François Balme (1827–1900), supported the plan to found a congregation . Together with a third, Alexida Bourgeois, later Marie de Saint Jean , and a little later a fourth, community life began on June 21, 1897 in Montmartre . On November 21, Adèle took the religious name Marie de Saint-Pierre (after the mystic Mary of St. Peter ). After living in secret for six months, they revealed themselves to Archbishop Richard and received the episcopal charter on March 4, 1898. They opened a novitiate and prepared statutes. The motto of the congregation was: Gloria Deo per Sacritissimum Cor Iesu (For the glory of God through the Sacred Heart of Jesus). On June 9, 1899, Adèle and the first sisters made their temporary profession , while at the same time Pope Leo XIII. consecrated all of humanity to the most sacred Heart of Jesus.

Expulsion to England. New start in Tyburn

In May 1901 the Congregation moved into a house at 40 rue de la Barre . A little later, the Third Republic passed the law on the dissolution of all unauthorized religious communities, which led to a massive flight of the monasteries abroad. Adèle made her solemn profession in the crypt of Sacré Coeur in September 1901 and then led her sisters, with the help of Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, into exile (officially in the mission) to London, first to Notting Hill , and from March 1903 to the Tyburn Martyrs' Memorial . That she knew the English language was a great help. From 1907 the community counted more Anglophones than Francophones. With the support of Cardinal Bourne , the Congregation was incorporated into the Benedictine order in 1914 (officially approved by the Vatican in 1930, officially completed in 1964).

Subsidiaries founded during lifetime

Through the mediation of her new spiritual support, the Blessed Columba Marmion , a subsidiary was founded in Koekelberg in Belgium in 1909 , near the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart (dissolved in 1961). In 1916 a second priory was opened in Royston near Cambridge and in 1920 the novitiate was moved there.

Death and beatification process

After she had been re-elected Superior General against her will in 1922, Adèle Garnier died in Tyburn in 1924 after a long illness at the age of 85. Numerous priests attended the Requiem chaired by Cardinal Bourne on June 21st. Her body was first buried in Royston, but has been resting in Tyburn again since 1969. Her beatification process has been officially opened in the diocese of Langres since 2016 (after the corresponding application was made in 1992).

Split into two congregations

The French community of Louvigné-du-Désert ( Département Ille-et-Vilaine ), which had existed since 1939 (previously in Bierk, Belgium, in Rebecq ) and had received the community of Amiens , renounced the English community in 1945 Vatican was approved. Since then, there are two congregations, the Adoration Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre (English: Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre ), headquartered in Tyburn and the Bénédictines du Sacre Coeur de Montmartre BSCM.

Development of the Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (France)

The sisters of Louvigné-du-Désert moved to Écouen in 1962 and stayed there until 1972. In 1961 there was a new foundation in Montmartre, which was given up in 1977, but was re-established in 1984 ("Prieuré Saint-Benoît"). Other foundations concerned: Marienthal in Alsace (1970), Blaru (1972 "Béthanie"), Mont Roland near Dole (1975, since abandoned), Notre-Dame de Laghet near Nice (1978), Notre-Dame de Montligeon in the Orne department ( 1984), Paris (1992, “ Notre-Dame-des-Victoires ”), Ars-sur-Formans (1994), Sainte-Baume (1998, from 2008 in Laus ), Tours (2000, “Saint-Martin”).

Evolution of the Adoration Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Tyburn)

There were foundings in Riverstone near Sydney in Australia (1956), Piura in Peru ("Sagrada Corazón", transferred to Sechura in 1981), Largs in Scotland (1992), Cobh in Ireland (1993), Bombay in New Zealand (1996), Vilcabamba in Ecuador (2002, “Puerta del Cielo”), Guatapé in Colombia (2002, “Paráclito Divino”), Minna in Nigeria, Rome (2005, “Madonna dell'Eucaristia”), Rotorua in New Zealand (2009, “Cor Jesu Fons Vitae ”) and Saint-Loup-sur-Aujon ( Haute-Marne department ) in France (2013). The novitiate was transferred from Royston to Wadhurst, East Sussex in 1964 , and to Cobh in 1993, now in Tyburn.

literature

  • Bede Camm: The foundress of Tyburn convent. Mother Mary of St. Peter (Adèle Garnier) . London 1934.
  • Gianmario Piga: Il cammino di madre Adèle Garnier (1838-1924). Fondatrice della Congregazione delle Adoratrici del Sacro Cuore di Gesù di Montmartre, OSB. Rome 2012 (also in English and French).
  • Tyburn. Hill of glory. Being the story of the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart & their foundress, Mother Mary of St. Peter (Garnier) . London 1954.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Garnier, Adèle
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marie de Saint-Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Benedictine, religious founder, monastery founder and mystic
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Grancey-le-Château-Neuvelle
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1924
Place of death London