"
It is in an act of faith consented although the soul bruised
", that the Trappist monks of the Abbey of Notre-Dame des Neiges, announced its closure by September 2022. After two years of reflection, the decision was imposed on the community on Christmas Eve.
Faced with a lack of financial means and become too few, the nine monks can no longer continue their life in the town of Saint-Laurent-les-Bains (Ardèche).
The brothers will soon join another abbey of the Cistercian order
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This monastery dedicated to contemplation is a place of welcome for pilgrims. He keeps the memory of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, whose canonization will take place in Rome on May 15. He did his novitiate there for six months in 1890. "
Like Saint Charles de Foucauld who will always keep Our Lady of the Snows in his heart, even if he had to live far away, we would like to abandon ourselves to the full will of the Father who will do with us what pleases him
,” the monks said in a statement.
His mark is indelible: the monks set up a chapel for the faithful during his beatification in 2005. Founded in 1852, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges “
remains a place of blessing and we must give thanks, above all considerations, for the gift that God has made of him in this place for 170 years, despite our human weaknesses
", recalled the religious community.
A high place of spiritual life
Within the diocese of Viviers, the abbey of Notre-Dame des Neiges has housed great figures of the Church.
In addition to the passage of Charles de Foucauld, this place was also marked by Brother Luc, monk doctor of Tibhirine, proclaimed blessed with the other martyrs of Algeria in 2019. He stayed several months at the monastery in the 1960s, after the independence of Algeria.
Finally, during the Second World War, Robert Schuman, in the process of being beatified, also found refuge there.
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No decision has yet been made on the future of this holy and historic place, but this closure has caused great emotion in the Ardèche mountains.
The mayor of Saint-Laurent-les-Bains told France Bleu that he regretted their departure and hoped that other monks could take over the abbey.