April 2007 Print

Founded in 1206 by St. Dominic himself, the Dominican nuns originated nine years before their brothers, the Preachers. The first among them were young girls converted from the Catharist heresy by the preaching of the blessed Dominic. The holy founder grouped them together at the monastery of Prouilhe in Languedoc (France; it is quite near Fanjeaux, home of the traditional Dominican Teaching Sisters), and entrusted them with the task of assisting him in the defense of the truth through their cloistered life of prayer and renunciation. He knew too well how vain is all preaching which is not made fruitful by immolation and sacrifice. Who better than his first daughters heard and understood his cry, faced with the distress of souls: "What will become of sinners?" Thus came into being the nuns of the Great Order–who were very soon called the "Sisters Preacheresses"–whose preaching is that of silence.

Cloistered Life

Like every cloistered nun, a daughter of St. Dominic is dedicated to contemplation, which is a loving knowledge of God, an anticipation in faith of the life of eternal union in heaven. But what distinguishes her from other contemplative religious is, on the one hand, a very particular thirst for the salvation of souls which gives to her prayer an eminently apostolic character, and, on the other hand, the means she employs in order to fulfil her contemplative vocation: choral recitation of the Divine Office, study, and the monastic observances.

For the Dominican nun the cloister is a sanctuary of prayerful compassion and of immolation. In it she offers her life in order to render fruitful the apostolate of her brothers, the Preachers, and of all the ministers of the Church, as also of the teaching religious and all consecrated souls who labor to lead souls to God. Set around the treasure of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the "work" pre-eminently entrusted to the nuns by the Church is the Great Office. The Dominican nuns sing it every day using the very beautiful and ancient Gregorian melodies. In this way they unite themselves to the prayer of Our Lord Jesus Christ, offering Himself to the Father in the name of the whole Mystical Body, in a prayer of praise, adoration, and repara­tion. Together with the sacraments, this liturgical prayer is the vital nourishment of the Sisters' life of silent prayer. Intercession for the souls in purgatory is also a heritage that is dear to our Order: every week we offer the Office of the Dead for them and a Requiem Mass.

The Dominican Charism

The Dominican soul is passionately devoted to light and to truth, and it experiences the need to contemplate them at their very source, which is the Blessed Trinity. In order to establish this theological contemplation on the unshakable foundations of the faith, the nuns benefit from a daily period of study. Even those who are not "intellectuals" are able to find their sweet sustenance there: Sacred Scripture (the lectio divina of the ancients, with commentaries by the Fathers of the Church), Christian doctrine, theology of the school of Saint Thomas Aquinas, spiritual reading, not forgetting the weekly classes and the sermons of their Dominican Fathers.

When a soul spends all its time being nourished by and contemplating truth, it can but suffer profoundly from the errors which sully and obscure the truth. And so we grieve over the present crisis in our holy Mother the Church, which is attacked on all sides, from outside and espe­cially from within. St. Pius X already was moved to remark: "The danger today is nearly in the very entrails and veins of the Church" (The Encyclical Pascendi). The Second Vatican Council, as Archbishop Lefebvre often explained, unleashed devastating havoc in the Church. And so we desire to make reparation by the gift of our lives for this almost universal loss of the Catholic faith. St. Catherine of Siena in her day lamented: "And what good will it do me to have life if Thy people are in death?"

Monastic Labors

In the remaining time, the Dominican nun devotes herself to different sorts of manual or intellectual work. Besides the necessary tasks (sacristy, kitchen, laundry, etc.), the religious life and the circumstances of our foundation allow us to discover and learn all manner of "trades": from the finishing of the buildings (plastering, painting) to illumination, from gardening to the making or repair of priestly vestments, from the making of rosaries to the minute correction of translations and scripts. The nun has the grace to accomplish all this work in a spirit of prayer and thus to remain profoundly united to Our Lord, to whom she has offered all her being.

Finally, an immense family of saints, both men and women, and eight centuries of tradition have handed down to us most excellent monastic observances. These observances–which also are in the service of charity–prepare the soul for the work of contemplation, detaching it from the world and from itself: the practice of the vows, enclosure, silence, common life, the monastic fast and other penances of the Rule, and finally the two hours of silent prayer each day.

From this spiritual structure a very balanced impression emerges: solitude and fraternal life, silent prayer and liturgical prayer, intellectual study and manual work, austerity and joy.

Lay Sisters

Fewer in number, there are also the lay Sisters, more particularly dedicated to manual work. In this way they allow the choir Sisters to undertake the Great Office. Manual work is their means of union with God, and the recitation of the Rosary in common takes the place of the Office for them. Their humble and laborious vocation continues that of St. Joseph at Nazareth. They are also responsible for the exterior service of the turn, being thus the precious guardians of our life hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).

All, united beneath the watchful gaze of Our Lady, to whom Our Lord entrusted our Order, ceaselessly praying the mysteries of their Rosary, choir Sisters and lay Sisters live by the spirit of their father St. Dominic, which is very joyful and full of simplicity. "The religion of thy father Dominic," said God to St. Catherine of Siena, "is a delightful garden, broad and joyous and fragrant" (The Dialogue).

After ten years passed close to the cradle of our Order under the care of the teaching Dominicans of Fanjeaux, our foundation took root in July 1986 beside the convent of the Dominican Fathers [see The Angelus, February 2006], at Avrillé, a few hundred yards from the Martyrs' Field, where innumerable Catholics were massacred through hatred of the faith under the French Revolution.

His Grace Archbishop Lefebvre wrote to us then:

May God bless your foundation. This resurrection of the Orders and Congregations is very encouraging. It is the future of the Church in the attachment to the graces given by Our Lord in the past. From this comes the importance of fidelity to the past....Today more than ever the Church needs holy men and women who shine in the darkness of the world.

In our abandonment to Divine Providence (we live on alms only), St. Joseph has been from the beginning a father of incomparable solicitude: year by year–with the exemplary support of our brothers in religion and the co-operation of admirable benefactors who are convinced of the primacy of the contemplative life–he helps us to build his monastery in which we have just completed the cloister. The church, of Romanesque inspiration, was consecrated to St. Joseph in June 1997.

The Path to Profession

According to our Constitutions, the minimum age of candidates is 15 years old, and the maximum is 30. Late vocations can be considered case by case, as the Constitutions do allow the age limit to be dispensed. Someone seriously considering her vocation as a Dominican nun should plan a stay of two or three weeks at the guest house as an opportunity both for her and the community to discern her vocation. Before entering as a postulant, the candidate should learn French, which she could do by staying with a traditional family near the monastery, for instance. A pre-postulancy for a while outside the cloister might be indicated, should the Mother Superior think it best. Once the candidate is admitted within the cloister, her postulancy lasts from six months to a year, while the novitiate lasts two years. Once she is admitted to profession, the nun makes vows for two three-year periods, after which she makes her perpetual profession "usque ad mortem."

Two Anniversaries

In 2006, the nuns of St. Joseph's Monastery celebrated their foundress's 30th anniversary in religion and their 20th at Avrillé. The community now numbers some 15 Sisters, which includes two novices (one of whom is an American) and three lay Sisters. The nuns of different nationalities who make up our community truly live in a profound unity of soul and heart in God, according to the words of St. Augustine. By this sis­terly charity, by their life of silence and poverty, as also by the supernatural gaiety which emanates from them, they rejoice at being able to follow in the footsteps of the first daughters of St. Dominic, for the joy of Our Lord Jesus Christ and the salvation of a greater number of souls.

 

 

For information:

Monastère Saint-Joseph

10, avenue Jeanne de Laval

49240 Avrillé, France

Fax: [33] (2) 41.69.69.65