On November 20, the contemplative community celebrated the 50th anniversary of its return to The Solitude. Three Sisters who lived through that event share the joy of the experience.
Sr. Teresa describes the return to The Solitude.
The community of Sainte Hélène was delighted when Sr. Claire Julien, Superior General, announced her intention of bringing “The Solitaries” back to The Solitude where they were founded and which was the first home of the first little Holy Family contemplative community. The date was settled. The move would take place on 28 October 1966, the eve of the Feast of Christ the King.
The Solitude was still being renovated but that didn’t matter. There was so much to see in this holy place which the Good Father intended to be home for all the members of his Family. Gradually, normal life began. We had to get used to the kitchen, the store-room, the laundry, gardening, picking and storing vegetables and fruit, looking after the house and caring for the sacristy to ensure the smooth running of our liturgical prayer and Eucharistic adoration. There were lots of changes but we were so happy!
The first year, we helped to harvest the grapes. As “well-formed” young Religious we applied ourselves to the work seriously. We had to learn a different rhythm of work because working as a team means adapting to others’ abilities! It was a good formation for community life. I remember marvelling each morning at the sun rising on the red grapes covered with dew drops. They were like pearls inviting us to work with joy.
We were freer to make jam and conserve vegetables using the produce of the garden. We could also make cakes. There were no rules and regulations like there are today! Sr. Marie-Mélanie used to go to the international market of Brienne in Bordeaux very early in the morning. Sr. Félicité worked with some of us in the kitchen and helped us with her amazing calmness and patience whenever something unexpected happened at the last minute – larger-than-expected groups arriving, or not turning up at all! Today we wonder how we were able to do all that work and still have time for prayer. But everything was so different – space, rhythm, atmosphere etc!
We also had times of recreation. These were very different from what we had in our lovely little garden in Sainte-Hélène – walks, picnics in the woods, in the “Valley of the Angels”, having a boat ride around the Island in the “Good Angel”. Each one was also able to have a day of solitude on the Island in the company of the Good Father and Our Lady of All Graces. There was no bridge there then. The only way we could get to the island was to pull ourselves over in the boat using the chain that was attached to the hulk.
How could we not be happy and grateful to our Good Father for having created this “holy place” of The Solitude with the Island of Our Lady of All Graces? Our roots had been here since the foundation of the first community of Solitaries in 1859.
We had been very happy in Sainte Hélène and we were just as happy during our first years in The Solitude even if they brought great changes, the need to adapt, abandonment and hope for each one and for the community as a whole.
A Few Words from Sr. Teresita:
From the time I entered the community of Sainte-Hélène I was always convinced of my call to Holy Family contemplative life. I was as happy as a fish in water. When I came to The Solitude I needed time to adapt, through humble prayer, in order to get to the essential and not lose my way. It was a time when the Church was inviting Religious to return to their sources and come to the understanding that our life, with all its demands, could be lived only from the heart.
Today I love Sunday Mass because it brings us close to other Christians from the Graves region. When I see the way they greet one another before the celebration, I say to myself, “This is a family gathered in the name of the Lord.” 
When we were in Sainte-Hélène, our belonging and communion with the life and mission of the Family of Pierre Bienvenu Noailles were expressed more through information, news and visits from the Sisters of the Generalate. Here in The Solitude we meet different members of the Holy Family from all over the world. We have lots of different meetings. We are close to the whole world through our prayer and through the people who come here, and that draws us into the contemplative missionary dimension of our life.
50 years of life in The Solitude? I am still as happy as a fish in water, happier than ever! And I thank the Lord because he journeyed with each one of us who came from Sainte-Hélène and with those who joined us over the years. To young people I say, “Trust in God because everything is grace. The Lord will be with you always and will make you happy.”
Sr. Elena tells a Happy Story
Like Abraham who set out without knowing where he was going, we arrived at The Solitude. It was a new living space for all of us. We did not know how or where to begin settling in to our new home. The Solitude was a new experience for all of us.
I had a strong sense of the Good Father’s presence and a call to live even more deeply as his daughter in the Holy Family in this place where our contemplative life began.
It was like a rebirth, a time to trust in the Lord and abandon ourselves to him. Our days were filled doing all the different things needed to live our vocation in everyday community life – community and personal prayer, perpetual adoration and times of work and recreation lived in a prayerful way. Every moment was different and enriching. I experienced God as Love leading us on a sure path as individuals and as a community. God needed us.
Soon I will have been 50 years in The Solitude! Today, in my room in the infirmary surrounded by my Sisters, I abandon myself to the Lord. And I thank him for the strength and the life that he has given me which enabled me to follow him daily with joy and gratitude.
I offer you three little phrases :
- Live God’s life
- Live for God
- Live with God
That is the way of life for everyone.
“To inherit a history means having the desire and the will to prolong it creatively and fruitfully.”