L'Abbaye Notre-Dame de Wisques
First Foundations of Holy Cecile de Solesmes
L' Abbaye Our-Lady was founded in the wood of Wisques, to 7 km of Saint-Omer, in 1889. Mère Cécile Bruyère had sent there Mère Thérèse Bernard, a moniale North, energetic and full with faith, with twelve partners. From Our-Lady of Wisques, were born the Our-Lady Abbey from Oosterhout, today from the Congregation Dutchwoman, and theSainte-Marie-des-Deux-Montagnes Abbey in Canada.
History of the Abbey
1889: Twelve moniales of Solesmes led by Mrs Thérèse Bernard settle with the Large Castle which will become theSaint-Paul Abbey. 1894: Input of the Sisters in the current monastery. 1901: Exile and foundation in Holland, where the extinct monastic life since the Reform takes again a new rise. 1919: Return to Wisques. During the war the monastery was used as barracks to the English.
1936: Foundation in Canada. 1940: German occupation. Cohabitation until 1944. 1964: Construction of the apse. Dedication of the church. 1989: Celebration of Centenaire of the Abbey.
Moniales of the Congregation of Solesmes a score of monasteries of monks and eight monasteries of moniales, who make radiate the monastic life in eight country and three continents, such is the Congregation of Solesmes, which has its origin in the Abbey Saint-Pierre de Solesmes. It is there that Dom Guéranger revived in 1833 the life bénédictine for the monks. About thirty years later, in 1866, it supplemented this work by the foundation of a monastery of moniales: Saint-Cécile de Solesmes. In this truth wire of Benoît saint, God, for the continuation of the generations, accumulated reserves of supernatural wisdom, love of the Church and his prayer, with the major intelligence of what, in it, is the share of the monks.
Helped by its very acute direction of the tradition, it could find the essential components of the monastic life and propose them with its sons and to its daughters. It was at the evening of its life when it chooses the very young Cecile Bruyère like higher of the new community of moniales. It seized better than anybody what had been taught with his/her spiritual father, through fights and sufferings, in the light of God. True heiress of its thought, moniale in any sound being, able to guide the hearts, it became like the Mother of the Congregation. By fidelity with Dom Guéranger which played a so great role in the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Congregation of Solesmes, was put under the patronnage the Immaculate one in 1964, and it is with this same mystery of the Immaculate Conception that had been dedicated the Our-Lady Abbey of Wisques.
Vie Contemplative
Above all the moniale approached the monastery to contemplate God and his mysteries, to employ its life to give the best and most of its days to be discussed with God " (Dom Guéranger). The monastic fence, including its austere and unambiguous forms, is lived by the moniales with joy and love, because it is a means of carrying out their intention of life " hidden with Christ as a God " (Collar 3,3). Constant occasion to grow in the faith, it sharpens the contemplative glance and dilates the heart with dimensions of the Church and of the world, it gives also a seal of particular unit to the monastic family grouped around her Abbess. When the community became a true hearth of charity, it radiates around it, testifying to the presence of God in this world and his love for the men. Essential work and the goal of our life, it is contemplation, it is the prayer of the Church celebrated by us and become the object, the means of our contemplation " (Mother Cecile Bruyère). All the life of the monastery is conceived to allow an at the same time solemn and simple celebration of the liturgy, supported by the purity of the Gregorian melodies, on which is dependent the Latin language. " the Gregorian chant spouted out of the heart of the saints before a a whole prayer, entire according to the prayer, is very saturated with the spirit of prayer; well more, it is the prayer of the Church " (Dom Gajard).
The moniales put all works about it so that their liturgical celebrations open out in the beauty: " To sing God, rent God and contemplate his beauty without spot, it is all the art of the monk. He will devote his life to it, he will have the worship of the beauty and this worship itself will become the most beautiful thing that there is in the world " (Mother Cecile Bruyère).
Everyday life according to the axiom Benedictine: "Requests and works"
Work has its broad place in the everyday life. Manual work accomplished in silence, where each one according to its gifts and its forces, contributes to the subsistence of the community, as with the greeting of the hosts " who never miss with the monastery ". Professional work as, Dom Guéranger wanted as the moniales devote to God the sharp forces of their intelligence. " the print which us at summer given from the very start, said Mother Cecile Bruyère, it is the love of the doctrines ". And Dom Delatte explains: " the taste of true and healthy doctrines is, in the whole of our life, a guarantee of perseverance, dignity and progress. "
Collecting this heritage the moniales, not only are devoted each day to the " lectio divina ", but they even prolong it by a serious professional work, supported by the teaching exempted with the monastery. " the Scriptures, the writings of the Fathers, theology, the liturgy, the Latin language form a very vast field, whose study belongs for them to the duty of state " (Mother Cecile Bruyère), nourishes the spirit of speech and allows especially a better celebration of the Divine office.