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St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes (''Abbaye Sainte-Cécile de Solesmes'') is a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1866 by Dom Prosper Guéranger, the restorer of Benedictine life in France after the destruction of the revolution. It is located in Solesmes, Sarthe, and is the women's counterpart of Solesmes Abbey. This nunnery, Dom Prosper's last foundation, was the first religious house for women founded in the ''Congrégation française de l'ordre de saint Benoît'', now the Solesmes Congregation. ==History== Unlike men's monasteries, which were completely extinguished after the French Revolution, a number of Benedictine nunneries were re-established in France during the first decades of the 19th century, combining the life of a Benedictine community with educational functions. There was therefore not the same need for Prosper Guéranger to create a female branch of his new French Benedictine congregation, the ''Congrégation française de l'ordre de saint Benoît'', in the same way as he had revived men's Benedictine houses. The impetus for the foundation of St. Cecilia's in fact came from Dom Guéranger's chance contact with Jenny Bruyère, a girl whom he was asked to teach in preparation for her first communion. As their spiritual relationship developed she gradually revealed her wish to devote her life entirely to God within the spirituality of Solesmes and the Rule of Saint Benedict. The nunnery was quickly built, and was dedicated to Saint Cecilia (''Sainte Cécile'') because of Dom Guéranger's particular devotion to that saint. The foundress, Jenny Bruyère, also took her religious name from the saint, to become Mother Cécile Bruyère, first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes.〔Joris-Karl Huysmans, in his book ''La Cathédrale'' (1898), wrote admiringly of St. Cecilia's Abbey and the nuns' Gregorian chant (the French Benedictine Congregation having revived the use of plainsong) and of the "great medieval abbess" ("une grande Abbesse du Moyen Âge").〕 The 19th century abbey church contains a full-size replica of the monumental effigy of Saint Cecilia in St. Cecilia's Basilica in Rome. 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 Mother Cécile died. When the community was at last able to return to Solesmes, in 1921, her body was also transported and re-buried there.〔(Notes on the exile of the Solesmes communities in Quarr and Ryde )〕 In 1967, the abbey founded a priory at Keur Guilaye in Senegal. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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