MONASTIC SPIRITUAL GRANDMOTHER

 

Although her contributions are often overlooked in most historical accounts of the liturgical movement, she  gave monastic life a distinctively contemplative and liturgical spirituality very relevant in today's world. She could be called our spiritual Grandmother!

MERE CECILE BRUYERE, OSB  was the first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes  and a follower of Dom Prosper Guéranger in the revival of Benedictine spirituality in 19th century France.

She was born in 1845 as Jeanne-Henriette Bruyère (Jenny),  into awell-to-do French bourgeoise family.

Her grandfathers were the architect and engineer Louis Bruyère and  the architect Jacques-Marie Huvé. Her family lived at Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

Her mother’s family owned a country house by the sea that they visited near the Abbey of Solesmes, and Dom Prosper Guéranger’s (founder of Solesmes Abbey and the reviver of the French Benedictine tradition) influence spread over the family as he converted and married many of its members and became pastorally involved in their lives.

When Jenny came down with a fever and was unable to make her First Communion (shades of my own First Communion), her aunt asked Dom Guéranger to personally prepare her, thus beginning a relationship of spiritual direction and  friendship that would continue for the rest of their lives. Jenny did not have a docile character, and was often described as proud, stubborn, and prone to bouts of anger and scrupulosity. Yet she changed when she came into contact as a young girl with Dom  Guéranger.

In 1866, with Dom Guéranger's support, she founded the first women's house within his French Benedictine Congregation (now the Solesmes Congregation). The new monastery was dedicated to Saint Cecilia because of Dom Guéranger's devotion to her. She took the name Cécile as her confirmation name in 1858, and kept the same name in religious life. Jenny as a child had always desired to be called by that name, after her maternal grandmother. 

Although Dom Guéranger never intended to initiate a women’s foundation to Solesmes, he perceived Mere Cecile's spiritual charism of leadership among a group of lay women involved in apostolic work called “The Great Catechism.” In 1866, these women gradually formed a sort of pre-novitiate under  Dom Guéranger’s direction.

Dom  Guéranger formed them in a liturgical spirituality that was largely absent in women’s cloistered  life at the time: how to pronounce the Latin well, sing Gregorian chant, and understand the rubrics of the Mass. He instructed them on how to live their monastic life with the Divine Office, the feasts of the liturgical year and the saints, and the Rule of Benedict. He also helped raise  funds to further develop the fledgling foundation on a more permanent structure on a hill a few minutes walk from Solesmes.

Although St. Cecilia's was still only a priory, Mere Cécile  was named abbess of the new foundation at the age of 24 by Pope Pius IX in June 1870. This may have been a gesture of thanks towards Dom Guéranger for his great support to the Pope at the First Vatican Council in favor of the recently proclaimed dogma of Papal infallibility.

Mere Cécile, with the support of Dom Guéranger, wrote the monastery's constitutions, which were influential even beyond her own monastery. Today we have some of these in our own traditions, such as the long-forgotten rite of the consecration of virgins (which had fallen into disuse by the 15th century),  the re-establishment of the office of abbess with its symbols (the ring, the pectoral cross and the crozier).

In reviving the rite of the consecration of virgins, the Abbey of St. Cecile started a precedent among monastic orders that spread and was later recommended by Pius XII’s apostolic constitution Sponsa Christi as “one of the most beautiful monuments of the ancient liturgy.”

Her nuns, in accordance with the thought of Dom Guéranger and the Congregation he established, learned Latin and Gregorian chant, which was exceptional at that time. This remains the practice of the abbey and of the Solesmes Congregation and within our own congregation.

Mere Cecile  had a dynamism, liveliness, humor, simplicity, and attentiveness to details. She gave pride of place to the Office and joyful recreation, always reminding the nuns of the essentials in the spiritual life: “If you are in need of a good word, open your breviary, your Old Testament, your psalms; therein is our spiritual direction, and it is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit; we do not have need, as elsewhere, of so many spiritual directors.” 

Rueing that Catholics viewed scripture as a remote “museum-piece”, she revived the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina, a meditative, prayerful “chewing” on the Word of God which sees the Word as a profound source of spiritual nourishment. 

In reading her life, I am so often reminded of our own foundress, Lady Abbess Benedicta Duss, OSB, who obviously learned at the feet of this great woman, through her own early years in the ancient French monastery of Jouarre.

Under Mere Cecile's direction, the abbey grew in influence and was viewed as a model of Benedictine life, leading to the establishment of two other foundations in her lifetime.

Sadly, the French anti-religious laws of the early 20th century forced the whole community into exile in England, to the forerunner of the present St. Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight, where on 18 March 1909 Mere Cécile died.

When the community was at last able to return to Solesmes, in 1921, her body was also transported and re-buried there.

Mere Cécile's spiritual thought and teaching, entirely inherited from Dom Guéranger but presented with the benefit of many years' experience in Benedictine life and meditation, is well summarised in her book La vie spirituelle et l'oraison, d'après la Sainte Ecriture et la tradition monastique, reprinted many times and translated into several languages. In this she explains the primary importance of the liturgy in the religious life in developing the specific grace arising from the sacrament of baptism. In 2019, an English translation of this work was available.

Above photo- Mere Cecile Bruyere (on right)  with Mere Cecile de Hemptinne, first abbess of St. Scholastica’s Abbey at Maredret, Belgium, a few miles from the Abbey of Maredsous.  She was the aunt of Dom Pius de Hemptinne (see Blog  10/13/2017)