Cécile Bruyère

Cécile Bruyère (born October 12, 1845 in Paris , † March 18, 1909 in Ryde ) was a French Benedictine nun , abbess and founder of the monastery .

life and work

Origin and early yearning for a monastery

Jeanne-Henriette (also: Jenny) Bruyère came from upper-class families of prominent architects and civil engineers on both maternal and paternal sides. She grew up in Paris and had two tutors in succession, who later became nuns. Since her father bought a summer house in Chantenay-Villedieu (30 km southwest of Le Mans ), she came to the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes for the first time at the age of seven (and regularly from 10 years) , where Abbot Guéranger personally from 1857 became their spiritual director. As early as 1858 she confessed to him her ardent desire to become a nun (in her mind a Carmelite ). Under his guidance she lived a kind of hidden novitiate and in 1861 took a vow of chastity. He translated for them the Exercitia spiritualia of Gertrude the Great .

Entry to your own monastery

From 1863, Guéranger planned a Benedictine convent in Solesmes in the immediate vicinity of his own abbey, to whose management he trained Jenny Bruyère, who in turn gathered a rural community of sisters. She knew that out of consideration for her non-religious father, who did not know her plans, she had to wait until she came of age on October 12, 1866. When the father was confronted prematurely with his daughter's life planning at the end of May 1866 (because she turned down an excellent marriage applicant), he put up bitter (up to violent) resistance for several months, but finally gave in. With the support of Bishop Charles-Jean Fillion (1817-1874) of Le Mans was laid on October 8 (in the absence of Jenny), the foundation stone for the convent and were on November 16, 1866 four choir women (including Jenny, the religious name Cécile accepted ) and three conversations in a rented building ( Sainte-Cécile-la-petite "The little Cäcilienkloster") begin the life of the convent. Two of the women choir came from Marseille , where Guéranger had just founded a branch monastery. Cécile Bruyère, who was the second youngest of all, was appointed superior by Guéranger.

The young abbess

Guéranger made himself the novice master of the women who were inexperienced in the monastery. The new monastery building was already occupied in August 1867, and Cécile made profession with six sisters (in the presence of the monks) . Cécile was elected prioress . In October 1869 three more professed ones followed. On July 14, 1870, Pope Pius IX granted (apparently as thanks for Guéranger's role at the First Vatican Council ) the early elevation of the 24-year-old Prioress Cécile to the status of abbess (the monastery only became an abbey in 1890). Delayed by the Franco-Prussian War (which reached close to the monastery), the consecration took place on July 14, 1871. At the beginning of 1872 Cécile lost her parents, in 1874 founding bishop Fillion and at the beginning of 1875 Abbot Guéranger, her mentor for 18 years (in 1879 her younger sister as well). At the age of 30, she was on her own, thanks to her strong personality (and the modesty of Guéranger's successor Charles Couturier, 1817–1890) until 1890, the dominant figure in both monasteries of Solesmes.

Guéranger's heiress

In November 1880 (and a second time in March 1882) the Third Republic expelled the monks of Solesmes from the monastery and sealed the buildings. They settled (until 1895) in individual houses in the village and were accepted for their choir singing in the nunnery, which remained undisturbed. Abbess Cécile was the counselor of the abbot as well as of many monks and especially the novices. She was seen as the heir to the Guéranger legacy and, as such, influenced the orientation of both monasteries towards pure contemplation rather than other traditions (such as scholarship or agricultural work). To underpin this orientation, she wrote a treatise on prayer, which circulated from 1885, was revised in 1899 and translated into five languages ​​(including German) and written by many contemporaries ( Maurice Barrès , Ernest Psichari , Joris-Karl Huysmans ) as a masterpiece of spiritual literature.

Bloom of the monastery and foundation of Wisques

The Sainte-Cécile monastery was groundbreaking for other Benedictine nunneries, namely the Saint-Nicolas abbey in Verneuil-sur-Avre , the St. Gabriel monastery in Prague , the Maredret abbey in Belgium, the Sainte-Scholastique (Dourgne) abbey , as well the St. Hildegard Abbey in Eibingen . Two daughters (Maria Anna and Agnes) from the family of Karl Heinrich zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg joined the convent. In 1889 the daughter monastery Notre-Dame de Wisques west of Saint-Omer was founded, which was elevated to an abbey in 1894.

The 1893 crisis

After Abbot Couturier's death in 1890, a successor was elected in the person of the able prior Paul Delatte (1848–1937), whose solemn profession was only two years ago. As a result, a small minority of the convent developed a hostile attitude towards it and Abbess Cécile. The monk Joseph Sauton (1856–1916, former doctor) sued Solesmes at the Vatican with the font Mémoire sur Solesmes , in which Abbess Cécile is portrayed as hysterical. The result was that Delatte was suspended while visiting Rome in April 1893, prevented from returning and only rehabilitated in November 1893 after a thorough on-site investigation.

Establishment of Kergonan and Disease

In 1898 another subsidiary was founded by Sainte-Cécile: Saint-Michel de Kergonan near Carnac (as in Wisques in the immediate vicinity of the monastery that was built at the same time). On this occasion Abbess Cécile experienced her first stroke, which in future forced restraint and led to slowly progressing physical numbness. The resignation offered by her in 1903 was rejected. From 1905 she could no longer speak or write, from 1906 no longer write, from 1907 she was in a wheelchair.

Exile in England and death

Before the anti-congregational law of July 1, 1901 , both monasteries of Solesmes fled into exile in England, on the Isle of Wight . There the sisters first found shelter in Northwood (where Edward VII visited them as a neighbor), from 1906 in Appley ( Ryde ) not far from Quarr Abbey , where the monks found shelter in 1907. The monastery of Saint-Michel de Kergonan, which also fled to the island, was elevated to an abbey there in 1905. In 1908 Abbess Cécile saw the entry of Adelheid von Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg and the stay of 17-year-old Zita von Bourbon-Parma . She was present when she died in the spring of 1909 at the age of 63. Her remains were transferred to Solesmes in 1930. There the “Madame Cécile Bruyère” square is named after her.

Works

• Vie spiritual et l'oraison d'après la sainte écriture et la tradition monastique . 1899, most recently Solesmes 2006 (English 1900, Italian 1902, Dutch 1911, Spanish 1959, excerpts in Polish 2016)
  • (German) The prayer according to the Holy Scriptures and the monastic tradition . From a member of the Order of St. Benedict. Franz Kirchheim, Mainz 1896.
  • (German) life from prayer . Patmos, Düsseldorf 1953.
• In spiritu et veritate . Solesmes 1966.
• (with Prosper Guéranger and Paul Delatte): The spirit of Solesmes , ed. by Mary David Totah. St. Bede's Publications, Petersham, MA 1997.
• (with Joris-Karl Huysmans): Correspondance 1896–1903 , ed. by Philippe Barascud. Sandre, Paris 2009.

literature

• Albert Houtin (1867–1926): Une grande mystique. Madame Bruyère, Abbesse de Solesmes (1845–1909) . Alcan, Paris 1925, increased 1930.
• Guy-Marie Oury (1929-2000): Lumière et force. Mère Cécile Bruyère, première abbesse de Sainte-Cécile 1845–1909 . Editions de Solesmes 1997.
• Guy-Marie Oury: Dom Prosper Guéranger 1805-1875. A monk on duty for the renewal of the church . Be & Be-Verlag , Heiligenkreuz im Wienerwald 2013.

Web links

• Literature by and about Cécile Bruyère in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Cécile Bruyère in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .
• Establishment of the Sainte-Cécile Monastery, French