These are confined all their lives, and when the evening service ends, they cover the fire with candles.
The night will be short until matins, which precede dawn.
We are in the heart of France, behind the walls of a thousand-year-old abbey: Notre-Dame de Fontgombault.
Here, men dressed in black live to the rhythm of the rule of Saint Benedict.
Written in the 6th century and founded on a perfect balance between prayer, study, manual work, it orders an existence cut off from the world.
It is based on the few lines of the first psalm:
"Happy the man who does not walk according to the advice of the wicked / But who finds pleasure in the law of Yahweh, / And who meditates on it day and night."
Whoever passes the fence of the abbey and discovers this community is first struck by the silence, the serenity that emerges from it.
The perfect synchronization of things, too.
Sedentary in nomadic times, silent in noisy times, discreet when everyone is showing off on the
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