One popular convent in France that deserves mention is the Benedictine Abbey of Notre-Dame-de-la-Fidélité, also known as Jouques Abbey.
This French-speaking congregation was founded in 1967 at a time of great cultural upheaval, when many communities were doing away with traditional forms of monastic life and worship, Latin hymns and chants.
This was in part the result of an ideology that infected many convents then, confusing simplicity with impoverishment and poverty with destitution, coinciding with the rising fury of 1960s revolution.
Meanwhile, the nuns of Jouques sought to establish a new monastery that would maintain a traditional observance of religious life, including the traditional habit and singing of the Divine Office and Conventual Mass in Latin.
Maintaining these traditions has helped to attract many young vocations. The nuns actively seek to preserve Gregorian Chant, which they describe as having the purity, joy, and lightness necessary for the flight of the monastic soul to truth.
Jouques Abbey was set up monasterium monialium extra instituta, meaning it is not part of any congregation, but directly under the jurisdiction of the Holy See. In 1981 it received the juridic title of abbey.
The convent houses about 45 joy-filled nuns who range in age from about 22 to over 90.
Jouques Abbey is located atop a secluded plateau overlooking the valley of the Durance River, surrounded by wooded massifs.
Below the abbey is the historic town of Jouques, a typically small Provençal village with a peaceful and serene atmosphere.
The rich rural heritage of the country landscape offers a perfect pretext and superb natural environment for a hidden convent perched on the summit of a fragrant hilltop, bringing to mind a line from the Litany of the Sacred Heart, “Heart of Jesus, desire of the everlasting hills.”
The picturesque convent and its buildings have been constructed in Provence style, an interpretation of the French country tradition.
The convent buildings are newer in construction, built to look rustic and old, with coziness and simplicity as the main characteristics.
The convent chapel, open to the public certain hours of the day, was completed in 1984.
Visitors approaching the chapel can hear the nuns singing like angels, their song carrying over the convent’s fragrant jasmine-covered walls.
The side entrance of the chapel opens to a small nave for visitors, separated from the cloistered existence of the sisters by a protected iron grille.
The sisters are known for their use of the psaltery, a harp-like stringed instrument that is popular in many convents in France, a beautiful sound to accompany the singing of the Divine Office.
To sound the hours of prayer, beautiful bells ring from a bell tower, resonating across the mountaintop.
Sunset is particularly striking, as shades of late afternoon light rest upon the convent façade and cultivated lavender fields and carefully tended rose gardens.
Pilgrims are permitted to stay at the abbey as retreatants, welcomed in the typical spirit of Benedictine hospitality, with a suggested minimum donation for overnight guests.
The guests stay in charming little cottages located a short walk from the convent. Summertime evening meals are taken in the outside garden.
Other visitors have the option to stay in nearby bed and breakfasts that dot the countryside. The nearby village of Jouques has many attractions, including medieval churches and boutique shops.
The convent gift shop is a popular stop and is open weekday mornings and afternoons. Locals and pilgrims are eager to purchase artisanal items made by the sisters here and at nearby convents and monasteries.
The nuns themselves sell various delights homemade on site: wine, lavender products, olive oil, honey, jams, gingerbreads, almonds, perfume, soaps, essential oils, olive tapenade, and eggplant caviar.
The nuns are kept busy cultivating their ten hectares of vines dedicated to wine production, boasting mostly grenache, merlot, uniblanc, and cinsault grapes. Their recognized wine label is known as Fidelis, a popular merlot.
Further, the nuns maintain orchards of apricots, plums, and almonds, all flourishing under the Provence sun with beehives for honey production and an olive grove covering almost two hectares.
In addition to the items the nuns make and sell they also accept individual and corporate donations to their monastery’s foundation, of which five per cent of every donation goes to a solidarity fund helping other religious communities in difficulty.
This region of France is known as the land of St. Mary Magdalene and the sisters have a special devotion to her, stemming from a legend that the saint lived and ministered in the south of France after she was exiled from the Holy Land.
Jouques has been blessed with so many vocations in its short history that it has since gone on to establish two new foundations of female monasteries, including one in Africa.
Two of the sisters of the Abbey are American graduates of the University of Kansas Integrated Humanities Program, a four-semester course that helped them discern their monastic call.
The philosophy of education taught was a scholarly tour de force of “poetic knowledge” under the direction of Dr. John Senior (1923–1999), a convert to the Catholic faith who was one of the most insightful Catholic educators of his day.
The program of study was based upon an immersion in the classics of Western thought, art, and literature, with a focus on the cultivation of imagination, formed by beauty in order to be open to living the fullness of truth and goodness.
Senior taught his students, “The greatest need in the Church today is the contemplative life of monks and nuns. The arguments and public martyrdoms are vain without the sacrifice of hearts.”
The subject of imagination taught by Senior came from the position of St. John Henry Newman, who taught that conceptual truth is extracted by the intellect from the ground of the imagination.
Newman argued, “The heart is commonly reached, not through reason, but through the imagination, by means of direct impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history, by description.”
Jouques Abbey has also attracted Canadian vocations, with sisters joining from French Canada, seeking and finding a traditional community where they can flourish in their vocation.
J.P. Sonnen is a tour operator, history docent, and travel writer with Orbis Catholic Travel LLC.