Time out for reflection at a monastery in France
Last year I had the opportunity to
pay two visits to France for teaching purposes. I am quite a Francophile and so
when such visits come around, I take some time out to enjoy the special charms
that the country offers. On both occasions last year I was able to return to an
old haunt: the Abbaye Notre Dame, a cloistered Benedictine monastery for nuns in
the small village of Wisques in northern France, not far from Calais.
I have been visiting that particular
monastery since October 1998. So have countless other people who share with me
a particular fascination for the attractions of the monastic environment. Notre
Dame is a splendid 19th-century construction but, in addition to its
main buildings, it also includes outside the cloister an eight room hostel,
called St Charles Hostel, which can accommodate over a dozen guests.
One of the nuns I spoke with
pointed out that all visitors come seeking something, yet seeking very different
things. There are pilgrims who are walking the long route from Canterbury to
Rome. Indeed, during my visit over the weekend of Pentecost, I met one
Frenchman – resident in New Zealand for 37 years – who was doing that
particular walk, as well as two Canadians who were undertaking the same trek
over a 50 day period.
The monastery’s goal vis-a-vis its
visitors is not to provide direct spiritual counsel but rather to offer a warm
welcome and a setting where visitors can pursue their own reasons for visiting.
For some the journey is uncertain and associated with particular challenges.
One of the visitors last year was a female opera singer who has had to take
time out of her flourishing career to recuperate from a bout of cancer. She had
never previously visited a monastery; indeed she was largely unchurched.
However in the midst of her personal struggles a friend recommended to her that
she spend some quiet time at Notre Dame. She found great solace in the warm
welcome she received. She attended some of the services at the monastery on a
daily basis, and was noticeably asking increasing questions about faith matters
as her stay progressed.
The village of Wisques also hosts
St Paul’s Benedictine monastery for monks, a brother institution for Notre
Dame. Another category of visitors to the village is represented by parents of
nuns or monks resident in the two monasteries. I met the father of one of the
nuns and the parents of one of the monks. The access that such parents have is
defined by the Prior and the Mother Superior. As it happens the former is more
flexible than the latter; the monks are able to leave the Cloister and go on
daily outings with their parents without limits, whereas the nuns can only
receive parental visits one day per month and they are unable to leave the Cloister,
so sit in a room conversing with their parents across an iron grill.
It is extremely common for
first-time visitors to want to return repeatedly to the monastery. During my
second visit the monastery received a group of 20 young professionals with their
spouses and children. Most were doctors who had stayed at St Charles hostel to
revise for their medical exams when they were students and they now return as a
group on an annual basis for a reunion. For them the monastery was more a place
of happy memories of youth rather than a focus of spiritual reflection.
However for some, visits to the
monastery have a clear spiritual dimension. An English Anglican visitor I met has
made more than 50 visits to the Abbaye Notre Dame over the last 17 years. Her
reasons for visiting have changed over the years, from initially seeking a
French language and cultural experience to assuming more spiritual motives,
resulting from the warm welcome and strong sense of acceptance that she had
received from the outset. She added that her visits to the monastery have kept
her own faith journey alive at times when it wavered. The visits have provided
her with new perspectives on ways of expressing faith, through observing the
role of liturgy, Latin prayer and the cloistered lifestyle.
Another middle-aged French lady
visits the monastery for two weeks each month as a volunteer worker. She is
allowed to enter the cloister during her visits, undertaking various work tasks
as the nuns do. She was a carer to her elderly parents for many years and when
they died she considered entering ND Wisques as a novice. On reflection she did
not proceed for reasons that she did not specify. So she lives a life as close
to that of the nuns as is possible without being a nun. During her two weeks
per month, she works with the nuns, attending all their “offices” and
participating in the physical movements and Latin prayers during each service.
By her own account she finds great spiritual fulfilment in this level of
engagement with the life of the community.
In my own case, the strong pull I
have felt over the years to visit the Abbaye Notre Dame has not been because of
profound spiritual interaction with others. There has certainly been warm
engagement and a wonderful welcome from both nuns and fellow visitors, without
exception. But being in a reflective setting, with others around you seeking to
recharge their own spiritual batteries in diverse ways, is a powerful trigger
for personal prayer and reflection. So in addition to the lectures that I
deliver to the monastic community each time I visit, I have taken advantage of
the peaceful setting to pray and reflect on matters of personal importance,
seeking God’s direction for the future.
Such personal spiritual reflection
is complemented in unexpected ways by visiting the monastery. During the First
World War, the monastery was requisitioned by British and allied forces
(including Australians). During recent renovations to the roof, workmen found
personal effects of individual soldiers: chocolates, cigarettes, a packet of
soup, and two letters from home, one of which was addressed to a Private C.
Johnson from his sister in England, telling him that the cat had just had some
kittens. As I held those items in my hands and reflected on the poignant human
stories that surrounded them, I was reminded that the Abbaye Notre Dame has
served as a place of refuge and retreat for vastly different purposes for a
very long time.
This
article first appeared in "The Melbourne Anglican", February 2016,
p24.