Marie-Bernard Barnouin

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marie-Bernard Barnouin

Marie-Bernard Barnouin (* 18th October 1815 in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue , Vaucluse , † 8. June 1888 on the island of Saint-Honorat , Alpes-Maritimes department ) was a French Cistercian abbot and monastery founder.

life and work

The priest

Léon Barnouin grew up as the son of a painter in his hometown. At the age of 13 he succeeded in entering the Capuchin novitiate in Saint-Jean-de-Garguier (today: Gémenos ), but was ordered back by his father in 1830. After three years of idling in the family, he studied from 1833 to 1838 in the small seminary of Sainte-Garde des Champs (today: Institut Notre-Dame de Vie in Saint-Didier (Vaucluse) ), then in the Saint-Charles seminary (closed today) in Avignon and was ordained a priest in 1843. From 1843 to 1849 he was a successful chaplain in Lapalud , but stuck to his monastic life plan.

The hermit in the Lubéron

Since joining the Trappist Abbey of Aiguebelle was out of the question because of his poor health, he founded the hermitage Notre Dame de La Cavalerie in La Bastide-des-Jourdans in the Luberon in autumn 1849 with the support of Archbishop Jean Marie Mathias Debelay (1800–1863) , a former Commanderie of the Knights Templar , where a community of monks had already farmed in the 18th century. He took on the religious name Marie-Benoît and lived there as the superior of a small group, increasingly according to the Benedictine Rule (which he had just discovered) . In 1850 the community consisted of him as the only priest (in black) and nine “frères agriculteurs” (in brown). In search of the appropriate way of life, she moved from hermitism to coinobism . Barnouin also set himself apart from the ideal of the Abbaye de la Pierre-Qui-Vire , which was founded around the same time and wanted to combine hermitism and mission . He gave his community the name Bénédictins de l'Immaculée Conception ("Benedictines of the Immaculate Conception").

Sénanque settled

In view of the increase in the number of people in the community and the impossibility of buying and expanding the cavalry, Barnouin found the possibility of repopulating the Sénanque monastery in 1854 , which had been vacant since 1780, sold in 1790 and largely in decline. Under initially difficult conditions, but with considerable popularity, he called his community there Bernardins de l'Immaculée Conception , made himself prior and sought (always with the support of his archbishop) to join the Cistercian Order of General Observance, which in France had been French Revolution (in contrast to the Cistercians of the strict observance, the Trappists) was no longer represented.

The Cistercian in Rome

He traveled to Rome from June 1857 to February 1858, was dressed as a novice on October 5th in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (Rome) under the religious name Marie-Bernard and made profession on December 27th . With the support of Pope Pius IX. (who received him in audience on January 12th) and the Superior General of the Italian Cistercians, Teobaldo Cesari , Sénanque was officially elevated to a Cistercian monastery on November 20, 1857 (with its own novitiate and Barnouin as prior for three years) and to the Congregation of San Bernardo d'Italia affiliated (but not incorporated because Barnouin wanted its own congregation).

Settlement of Fontfroide

In 1858, Barnouin accepted an invitation from the Bishop of Carcassonne and sent Jean Léonard (1815–1895), who had entered Sénanque in 1856 to repopulate the abbey of Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide, which had been vacant since 1791 and who was to die there after almost 40 years in the smell of holiness. In 1901 Fontfroide, together with the Grangie in Saint-Hilaire (Aude) , was finally closed.

Second stay in Rome

In 1859 both monasteries counted 65 monks, including 10 priests. Barnouin founded a prayer association for accelerating the rescue of the poor souls from Purgatory, which after four years had 220,000 members worldwide. In 1861, 90 monks unanimously re-elected Barnouin as prior, who again went on a trip to Rome from May 1862 to March 1863 to negotiate the status and constitutions of his monastery, but only achieved provisional and regretted many things, including the long juniorate of five years between Temporary and solemn profession and the appreciation of spiritual activity compared to his preferred agriculture. Barnouin was a Trappist at heart, but had to refuse strict observance because of his weak body.

Settlement of Hautecombe, La Garde-Dieu and Ségriès

On the way back from Rome he visited the Grande Chartreuse and the Hautecombe Abbey , which was newly settled by Italian Cistercians in 1826 , but which was now in a French environment and was therefore in trouble. Barnouin sent 18 monks from Sénanque in 1864 to successfully revitalize the area in Hautecombe. The repopulation of La Garde-Dieu monastery in the same year failed due to resistance from the authorities; the monks were recalled in 1865, the property given up in 1874. The subsidiary Ségriès ("locus segregatus", between Riez and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie ), which existed until 1892 (today a hostel), was more successful, also in 1864 .

Founding of two nunneries

In addition, Barnouin promoted the establishment of two nunneries under his spiritual direction, first in 1865 Notre-Dame de Salagon (today a museum) in Mane (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) (not far from Forcalquier ), then in 1869 Notre-Dame des Prés in Reillanne , where his monks had erected monastery buildings, which in 1872 also received the Sisters of Mane. The monastery was relocated to Castagniers in 1930 as Notre-Dame de la Paix (incorporated into the Cistercian order in 1960, abbey since 1962).

The abbot of Sénanque and Lérins

In 1867 the Sénanque monastery family was elevated to the status of a congregation (with its own statutes), Barnouin was elected superior in 1868 and ordained abbot on May 2, 1869. In the same summer the new abbot reached out again and, at the invitation of the Bishop of Fréjus , Joseph-Antoine-Henri Jordany (1798–1887, bishop from 1855 to 1876), settled Lérins Abbey on the Mediterranean island of Saint Honorat (off Cannes ). After the construction of new buildings (by the well-known architect Henri Revoil, 1822-1900), Abbot Barnouin moved his abbey seat to Lérins on May 5, 1872 and remained there until his death, from 1876 benevolently accompanied by Jordany's successor, Bishop Joseph- Sébastien-Ferdinand Terris (1824–1885), a friend he had known since the seminary. In 1878 Barnouin founded the Association Notre-Dame des Prêtres (Community of Prayer of Our Lady of the Priests), which (until 1903) 12,000 priests joined. His Pieuse ligue universelle pour les âmes du purgatoire (Pious League for the Promotion of Masses for a Holy Death and Quick Admission to Paradise) was less successful . His wish to erect a 100 meter high statue of the Virgin Mary on the island of Saint Honorat was not fulfilled. He died of a cold a week after Corpus Christi, as he could not receive medical treatment because of the rough sea.

Appreciation

The Cistercian Congregation founded by Barnouin currently consists of six monasteries in four countries. His main merit is the re-establishment of the General Observance of the Cistercians in the land of their birth. So he stands, albeit less successfully, at the side of the Trappist Augustin de Lestrange and the Benedictine Prosper Guéranger .

Works

  • Statuta Congregationis Beatae Mariae de Senanqua , Avignon, Aubanel, 1868.
  • Magnificat in CL linguas versum, et propriis caracteribus redditum et expressum , Lérins, 1887 ( Magnificat in 150 languages, ceremony for Pope Leo XIII. ).

literature

  • Edouard Capelle, Le bon père Jean de Fontfroide. Le serviteur de Dieu. Marie Jean Louis Léonard, cistercien, abbé de Fontfroide, 1815-1895 , Strasbourg, Trifolium, 2014 (first 1896).
  • Guy-Marie-Oury, Un homme de foi. Dom Marie-Bernard Barnouin. Restaurateur des abbayes de Sénanque et Lérins , Chambray-lès-Tours, CLD, 1983 (main source for this article).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Barnouin, Marie-Bernard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barnouin, Léon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French Cistercian and founder of a monastery
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1815
PLACE OF BIRTH L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1888
Place of death Île Saint-Honorat