Monasteries of Jouques and Rosans - St Benedict Novena (Day 6), March 17

Continuing this series on the renewal of traditional Benedictine religious life, today I want to highlight the Monastery of Jouques, located near Aix-en-Provence in France.

Jouques Nuns

Jouques is the most successful by far of the traditional monasteries of Benedictine nuns with the Extraordinary Form mass and full traditional chant Office, certainly in terms of vocations.

The monastery was founded in 1967, and achieved abbey status in 1981.  It has around 60 nuns, and generally has several novices and postulants.  Their founding abbess retired last year, and her successor, Mother Teresa Dardaine, received the abbaliale blessing in June 2011.  The monastery supports itself through the sale of its products.

It has also made two foundations. 

The first, the Monastery of Rosans, located in the hautes-Alpes region of France, achieved abbey status in 2002.

The third is in Benin in Africa.

Please do keep these wonderful nuns in your prayers.

Novena Prayer

O glorious St. Benedict, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thy loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Shield me against my enemies, inspire me to imitate thee in all things. May thy blessing be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces of which I stand so much in need, in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Thy heart was always so full of love, compassion, and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. Thou didst never dismiss without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to thee. I therefore invoke thy powerful intercession, in the confident hope that thou wilt hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I so earnestly implore (mention your intentions here), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven. Amen.

[For the special intention (Magnificat antiphon of the feast): O pattern of heavenly life, our guide and teacher Benedict, whose soul is now rejoicing with Christ in heaven: protect thy flock, dear shepherd, and by thy holy prayer support them; and with thyself as leader showing that brightened way, make them enter the heavens.]

St Patrick (Class I in many places); St Joseph of Arimathea

From the martyrology:

"At Downpatrick in Ireland, the birthday of St. Patrick, bishop and confessor, who was the first to preach Christ in that country, and who became illustrious by great miracles and virtues."

Also in the martyrology today:

"At Jerusalem, St. Joseph of Arimathea, noble senator and disciple of our Lord,. who took his Body down from the Cross and buried it in his own new sepulchre."

From the martyrology: Canadian Jesuit martyrs (March 16)

From the martyrology:

"In the territory of Canada, Saints John de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel, priests of the Society of Jesus, who in the mission of the Hurons, on this and other days, after many labours and most cruel torments, bravely underwent death for Christ."

St Benedict Novena Day 5: Fontgombault and its daughter houses

Today in this novena leading up to the feast of St Benedict, I want to highlight the efforts of Fontgombault Abbey in France.

Founded in 1948, Fontgombault is a Solesmes Congregation monastery that has retained the EF Mass and is by far the most successful of any of the traditional Benedictine communities when it comes to vocations.

This is a monastery that has truly fought the good fight for the cause of traditionalism. It was briefly forced to utilize the new Mass under threat of excommunication – but reverted back to the traditional missal the instant it became possible to do so!

The monastery itself has over one hundred monks.

And it has made four foundations – Randol (1971), Tiers (1984), Gaussan (1994), and Clear Creek in the United States (1999).

Clear Creek Monastery

Most readers here will perhaps be most familiar with Clear Creek, which is now an abbey in its own right. I mentioned earlier in this series in relation to its associated sisters. Clear Creek is in the process of building a monastery, and needs your support…

Fontgombault itself recently elected a new abbot, and there is a nice story about Pope Benedict XVI greeting the new abbot and his predecessor over at Eponymous Flower Blog.

Novena prayer

O glorious St. Benedict, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thy loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Shield me against my enemies, inspire me to imitate thee in all things. May thy blessing be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces of which I stand so much in need, in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Thy heart was always so full of love, compassion, and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. Thou didst never dismiss without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to thee. I therefore invoke thy powerful intercession, in the confident hope that thou wilt hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I so earnestly implore (mention your intentions here), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven. Amen.

[For the special intention (Magnificat antiphon of the feast): O pattern of heavenly life, our guide and teacher Benedict, whose soul is now rejoicing with Christ in heaven: protect thy flock, dear shepherd, and by thy holy prayer support them; and with thyself as leader showing that brightened way, make them enter the heavens.]

Thursday in the Third Week of Lent: halfway there!

Pope Felix offers the Basilica of
SS Cosmas and Damian to the saints.

Thursday of the Third Week of Lent is the official half-way point of Lent, though we defer any real celebration of it until the coming Sunday (Laetare).  In fact we are really already past the mid-way point, due to a number of 'get out of Lent' solemnities coming up (St Patrick's Day in many places, St Joseph, St Benedict and the Annunciation).

Nonetheless, the collect of the day is of SS Cosmas and Damian, reflecting the official Station Church in Rome of the day (there is one for each day of Lent where pilgrims are supposed to go, singing the litany of the saints).  Their actual feast day is September 27.

According to Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year, these saints are thought to have been physicians, and so were deemed particularly suitable to offer their aid to us, fatigued as we must be from fasting...

Regardless of the extent or otherwise of of our fasting, Dom Gueranger urges us to pray to the two martyrs for strength to persevere in our Lenten disciplines.  Sounds like good advice!

St Benedict Novena Day 4: The Monks of Christ in the Desert

Continuing today my series highlighting monasteries around the world and the cause of the revival of Benedictine religious life, I wanted to focus today on the monks of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert.

An intriguing community who share their wisdom...

This is a monastery I find fascinating firstly because it is one of the few thriving Novus Ordo monasteries.  It has continued to attract vocations and grow, and at the same time has a group of about eight other monasteries that are associated with, either as their own foundations, by assisting groups to get started, or helping existing monasteries who are struggling.  Some of these include the relatively new Nuns of Our Lady of the Desert, who are now formally associated with Australia's Jamberoo nuns, and a Vietnamese foundation in the US.

It is intriguing secondly because of the often confrontly honest weekly epistles of its abbot, whose wisdom I've personally learnt a lot from, both from his Abbot's notebook editions, and his commentary on the Rule (also available from their website).

And thirdly because this is a monastery that started out seemingly as a new agey experiment of the kind only too common in recent decades, but has gradually found its way back to the mainstream of Benedictine practice!  Abbot Lawrence has described this process as follows:

"In my early years as a monk in this community, we experimented all the time…At one point we had only Buddhist cushions on the floor of the Church and not a single place to sit, except on the floor. We went through a phase when we sang only four part harmonies as in the Russian Orthodox tradition and we had icons everywhere… We went through a period of trying various practices of the Native Americans. At one time we did not even let the priest presiding at Holy Mass wear vestments... Out of all of that experimentation, slowly our community took shape. We began to make choices that put us into the heart of the Church instead of always on the fringes. For some, those choices made us appear much more traditional and perhaps more rigid."


The monastery eventually adopted traditional habits, rediscovered Gregorian chant and Latin, returned to the use of the full weekly psalter in the Office, and made other changes toward recovery of the tradition.  

Accordingly, this monastery provides hope that the many seemingly lost monasteries out there can yet be reformed and recover the tradition!

The monks are about to put out a new CD of Gregorian Chant, and in the lead up to it, are releasing a series of videos on their home page.  The introductory one can be found below.

Please keep the monks and their associated communities, and their efforts more generally in your prayers.


Novena Prayer

O glorious St. Benedict, sublime model of all virtues, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me, humbly kneeling at thy feet. I implore thy loving heart to pray for me before the throne of God. To thee I have recourse in all the dangers which daily surround me. Shield me against my enemies, inspire me to imitate thee in all things. May thy blessing be with me always, so that I may shun whatever God forbids and avoid the occasions of sin.


Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces of which I stand so much in need, in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life. Thy heart was always so full of love, compassion, and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. Thou didst never dismiss without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to thee. I therefore invoke thy powerful intercession, in the confident hope that thou wilt hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I so earnestly implore (mention your intentions here), if it be for the greater glory of God and the welfare of my soul.

Help me, O great St. Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to be ever submissive to His holy will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven. Amen.

[For the special intention (Magnificat antiphon of the feast): O pattern of heavenly life, our guide and teacher Benedict, whose soul is now rejoicing with Christ in heaven: protect thy flock, dear shepherd, and by thy holy prayer support them; and with thyself as leader showing that brightened way, make them enter the heavens.

SS Longinus, Leocritia, Matrona and Louise de Marillac (March 15)

James Tissot, c19th

There are a few saints of particular interest in the martyrology today.

A very early convert indeed...

"At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the martyrdom of St. Longinus, the soldier who is said to have pierced our Lord's side with a lance."

Victims of persecution

Many of the saints in the martyrology were victims of the pagan persecutions of the early years of the Church.  But it is also important to remember the victims of Jewish and Islamic persecution, both recent and not so recent, such as these:

"At Cordova in Spain, St. Leocritia, virgin and martyr.  She suffered various cruel tortures and was beheaded for the faith of Christ during the Arabian persecution."

and

"At Thessalonica, St. Matrona, servant of a Jewess, who, worshipping Christ secretly, and stealing away daily to pray in the church, was detected by her mistress and subjected to many trials.  Being at last beaten to death with large clubs, she gave up her pure soul to God in confessing Christ."

St Louise de Marillac, co-founder of the Daughters of Charity

"At Paris, the birthday of St. Louise de Marillac, a widow of Le Gras, co-founder with St. Vincent de Paul of the Society of the Daughters of Charity.  Outstanding for her virtues and miracles, her name was inscribed on the roll of the saints by Pope Pius XI."