Jean-Baptiste Muard

Jean-Baptiste Muard (born April 29, 1809 in Vireaux , † June 19, 1854 in Saint-Léger-Vauban ) was a French Roman Catholic clergyman and founder of a monastery. It stands at the beginning of the Pierre-qui-Vire Abbey .

life and work

Calling to the priesthood

Jean-Baptiste Muard was the eldest son of a timber merchant and sawmill owner. His mother was the granddaughter of a school principal. The young local pastor whose school Muard entered in February 1820 and who later accompanied him by letter was decisive for his vocation as a priest. In 1823 Muard moved to the minor seminary of Auxerre , where he quickly distinguished himself, and in 1831 to the seminary, where he was appointed master of studies in 1833.

Mystical calling to holiness

On May 24, 1834, Muard was ordained a priest in Sens and was entrusted with the parish of Joux-la-Ville until 1838 , then with the parish of Saint-Martin in Avallon . There he had a mystical experience on December 13, 1839, which gave him the certainty that he was committed to holiness. The rest of his relatively short life was exhausted in the search for this holiness.

People's missionary in Pontigny

First of all, Muard saw his task in the people's mission in the Archdiocese of Sens . From October 1840 to May 1841 he was trained by the local Marist Fathers in Lyon , a time when he met the pastor of Ars . He made a pilgrimage to Rome for the first time and withdrew to the Jesuits of Lalouvesc for further preparation for the mission for a retreat . Then he founded, together with Jean-Pierre Bravard, later Bishop of Coutances , a community of people's mission priests, the later Edmundites , and in 1843, with the support of the Archbishop of Sens, settled them in the restored Pontigny monastery . The members initially called themselves Prêtres auxiliaires (auxiliary priests) and elected Muard to be their superior for six years.

The way to the foundation of the monastery

From April 1845, Muard pursued the idea of ​​establishing a regular order, with a way of life in mind that was similar to the ideal of the Trappists . During a spiritual retreat in the church of Piffonds in October 1845 , he experienced a religious crisis, at the end of which he decided to spend his future life in humility, poverty and mortification ("humble, pauvre et mortifié"). In search of a suitable monastic way of life, he spent three weeks in the Trappist monastery of Sept-Fons in 1847 and traveled to Rome in 1848 with two confreres from Pontigny. From there, due to lack of space, they got to Subiaco in the Benedictine monastery Sacro Speco , whose superior Elrado de Fazy made a hermitage available to them and recommended the Benedictine Rule to them . Muard, who didn't know her, was addressed immediately. In Gaeta , through the mediation of de Fazy, there was an encounter with Pope Pius IX. who endorsed the founding project. On the return journey from Rome in February 1849 they stayed in the Trappist abbey of Aiguebelle and met Abbot Orsise Carayon , who had profoundly reformed monastic life.

After a place with the necessary seclusion was found in the area of ​​the parish of Saint-Léger-Vauban on the banks of the Trinquelin stream (the district was called La Pierre-qui-Vire) and Muard had served an unofficial novitiate in Aiguebelle from October 1849 to April 1850 , he and four confreres made their vows on October 3rd, 1850 in the presence of 2,000 believers and began building the monastery, which was completed in 1851 and contained 17 cells. The convent was initially not incorporated into any other congregation, but called itself "Benedictines of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary" ( Bénédictins des Sacrés-Coeurs de Jésus et de Marie ), which reflects that Muard his community on October 9, 1849 in Paray -le-Monial had entrusted to St. Marguerite-Marie Alacoque .

Early celebrity of the monastery

The monastery quickly achieved fame thanks to its medieval-style observance and the charisma of its monks (there were 20 in 1854), above all Muard, especially since Charles de Montalembert discovered the convent in February 1851 and announced the find to his wide circle of friends. Likewise, the prominent Bishop of Orléans, Félix Dupanloup , made his enthusiasm known to many after a visit to the monastery in the autumn of 1851.

Death and reception

Muard, who continued to appear restless and traveling, suddenly developed a fever on June 14, 1854 and died four days later, at the age of 43, in his monastery. 130 priests paid their last respects to the deceased on July 11th in Pontigny . In 1855 the first biography appeared by his friend Louis Brullée (1814–1863), which was also translated into German. It contributed significantly to making Muard's monastic ideal of total renunciation attractive. The secular priest Jean-Joseph Ader (* 1816 in Vic-en-Bigorre; † 1878), pastor of Bartrès near Lourdes , was a staunch admirer of Muard. Ader was the first formative priest figure in the life of Bernadette Soubirous , who will read Brullée's book and partially copy it after she entered the monastery in Nevers. The beatification process, initiated in 1867, was rejected by the Vatican in 1880. Not far from the church of Saint-Léger-Vauban, Muard was erected a statue.

Development of the Congregation

Muard's successor for 30 years, Bernard Moreau (superior from 1854 to 1884), did not succeed in setting up the provisional arrangement left behind as a separate congregation because the Vatican Congregation for Religious Affairs considered the observance followed in Pierre-qui-Vire to be too strict. In 1859 it was incorporated into the Congregation of Subiaco founded by Pietro Casaretto . All of the male monasteries in the French province of this congregation that exist today go back more or less to Pierre-qui-Vire. In 1875, today's Landévennec Abbey was founded as the Kerbénéat monastery in Plounéventer (changed in 1950). At the same time, the Belloc Abbey in Urt began with three novices trained by Pierre-qui-Vire. In 1890, the En-Calcat Abbey was founded in Dourgne , from which the Madiran Monastery emerged in 1934 , which has been located in Tournay since 1952 . The Fleury Abbey in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire was founded in 1944 after the attempts begun in 1865, as well as those in Béthisy-Saint-Pierre , failed. The Sainte-Madeleine Abbey in Le Barroux was founded there in 1978 by Gérard Calvet , a monk from Tournay. Finally, the Chauveroche priory (1980) in Lepuix goes back directly to Pierre-qui-Vire.

The women's monasteries

It should not be forgotten that women's convents were located in the immediate vicinity in Belloc and En-Calcat, in Belloc the Benedictine convent Sainte Scholastique (Urt) , which appears on the Internet together with Belloc under the name Abbaye Belloc et Urt , and in En -Calcat the Abbey of Sainte-Scholastique (Dourgne) with its own website. The women's convents were an important element of continuity during the time of the expulsion of the men's convents (from 1903 to 1925). The Benedictine monastery of Dourgne also has a very lively daughter monastery in the Pesquié Benedictine abbey just 100 km away. The model of the double monastery also became effective in Le Barroux, where the women's abbey, Abbaye Notre-Dame-de-l'Annonciation du Barroux, was added to the men's abbey .

Works (posthumous)

• Dieu qui m'appelle. La Pierre-qui-Vire 2000.

literature

• Louis Brullée: Life of the venerable Fr. Maria Johann B. Muard of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, past pastor of Joux-La-Ville and of St. Martin d'Avallon, founder of the house of the fathers of the holy. Edmund zu Pontigny and the Benedictine preacher of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Notre Dame de la Pierre-Qui-Vire . Doll, Vienna 1876 / Kirchheim, Mainz 1879.
• Denis Huerre (1915–2016): Jean-Baptiste Muard. Fondateur de la Pierre-qui-Vire . La Pierre-qui-Vire 1950.
• Denis Huerre: Petite vie de Jean-Baptiste Muard. Fondateur de la Pierre-qui-Vire . Desclée de Brouwer, Paris 1994.

Web links

• Entry Muard in the Benedictine dictionary
• Short biography, French, illustrated
• Reference to a Muard statue, French, illustrated

• Literature by and about Jean-Baptiste Muard in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Jean-Baptiste Muard in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .