Abbaye Cistercienne : la vie moderne des sœurs de Boulaur | Trésors du Patrimoine

Abbaye Cistercienne : la vie moderne des sœurs de Boulaur | Trésors du Patrimoine

For me, a nun was
a slightly bitter old lady. And there
I was, facing people who were radiant,
happy to be where they were, and who sang with all their hearts about
the wonders of the Lord, the wonders of creation,
in an absolutely magnificent place. Monastic momentum is a story of growth, like that of a plant. It’s a story of rootedness. It is a seed that is sown somewhere
, that works a little to get roots, that detects the presence
of the sun, water, and that, once it has found
its balance, begins to grow. So, you have to do a little work
to prune, to organize the growth. But once the Elk is there and you
take care of it, something very beautiful and a little
unexpected can emerge. I am Mother Emmanuelle,
the abbess of this community at Bouloire Abbey. I came here in 1994, at the age of 22 , and I have been an abbess for eight years. Monastic life has been present in this
place since the 12th century, with interruptions, of course. Those of the French Revolution and then,
those a little more recent of 1903. The sisters
left, they were expelled, and the monastery remained empty of a
monastic presence until 1949, when several sisters came to refound here. So, a community that was no longer
Fontevrist, but Cistercian. Perhaps the unique aspect
of our community is that we live today in a place
that is Fontevrist, while we are now a Cistercian community. It creates something,
a rather special marriage, because we know that the Cistercians have
an approach to the place that extends to the architecture, to every detail. And we, therefore, live by the
Cistercian charism in a place which was marked by another spiritual approach,
that of the order of Fontevraud, even if we have in common
the rule of Saint Benedict. So, the rule of Saint Benedict has always
been lived here by a community of women, but with a
somewhat particular and different emphasis between the Fontevrists and the Cistercians. When you truly want to do
history, you go back to the first century of the Christian era
in Egypt, where men withdrew from the world and went to
live alone like hermits. Others realized that living alone
wasn’t very, very easy and that they wanted to live
in a community. And finally, this is what will emerge
in what will become Europe, in what will become Italy,
in the 6th century, where indeed, some men who live
alone form communities. In particular,
Benedict of Nurci, that is his name ,
felt the need to write a rule of life. It was called the rule,
distributed in chapters, and it spread throughout Europe,
to the point of becoming the great reference rule for different
branches of the monastic movement. At first, these monks were called
Benedictine monks, since coming from Saint-Donoua, it made
sense to call them Benedictine. It flourished from the 6th to the 11th century. Monasteries will spread widely,
especially in Western Europe. They will become very rich
through donations and acquisitions, to the point that some will even
feel shocked to see, in particular, an emblematic abbey in Burgundy,
Cluny, which will ultimately represent such magnificence that some
may wonder if the simplicity demanded by the founding father Benedict
was truly respected. The founding father of what would become
the Cistercian order, who remained attached to Saint Benedict. It is still the tree of Saint Benedict,
but it is a corrected branch. There will be characters there of
extraordinary stature: Robert of Molenme, and then Stephen Harding,
and then the emergence among the monks of Bernard,
who will become Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. And there, they will truly return to what they
consider to be the rule of the founding father Benedict. So, they’re even going to change their costumes. The Benedictine monks, who usually wear
brown woolen robes, will choose white, a slightly off-white. Thanks in particular to the indomitable energy
of this extraordinary character, Bernard of Clairvaux,
there will be an extraordinary multiplication of monasteries. So we are at the very
beginning of the 12th century. Saint Bernard would
therefore die in the 1150s and already, at the time of his death,
Europe was covered with monasteries. There are almost 600 of them. And the monasteries go from Ireland
to Türkiye, from west to east, from Portugal to the Baltic countries. The choice we made of a humble
and agricultural life is a pragmatic choice that is linked
to history, but it is also a link to the creator through his creation. And in fact, work is
there as a sanctification, as a help to give to us. Saint Benedict, in the rule,
says: Idleness is the enemy of the soul. It’s certain that if we stay,
at least for me, if I stay all day praying
in the church, it’s going to be a struggle, it’s not going to work. The Pope had emphasized this in his speech
at the Collège des Bernardins, saying: In the monastic impulse,
there is a sense of work, because if God is creator,
creation is not finished. And it requires
human investment to reap its full benefits. So, this investment is
really part of our monastic way of life. That is to say, monks,
even if they are contemplative, do not spend their day praying
in church because God also expects them to invest in work which
advances the human community and helps the earth to give all that it has to
give for the good of man. As a Cistercian community,
we may have slightly changed the territorial character of this monastery. Back when he was a Fontevrist,
we had the walls of the Fontevrist enclosure which
clearly delimited the space of the community. The rest was cultivated by peasants
and families in the surrounding area. As a Cistercian community,
agricultural work has a very special place because the Cistercians were
committed to their search for God through working the land. And Saint Bernard often said that one learns as much, or even more, in trees than in books. The young girl who asks herself questions,
we can say, comes on retreat to the abbey, spends
time there and is accompanied by a nun. Then, if his desire seems to
deepen and take root, he is offered the opportunity to come and do a retreat at the end of the year. So, she comes to spend a week,
two weeks, three weeks or more with the sisters. It follows our life,
except perhaps for getting up at 5:00 am. And
this also allows him to see concretely if this life
corresponds to what he inhabits. Then comes the moment of entering
the postulate, which is a very important moment, even if in itself
there is no commitment. That means that for the young girl,
she is quitting her job. There really is a before and after. She returns to the monastery. There is also a certain separation
from his family and friends. In any case, a different kind of relationship. And the postulate lasts approximately
between one and two years. At the end of that time,
there is the taking of clothes or the dressing. So, the sister becomes a novice. At that moment, she is all in white. The novice is still free
to leave at any moment. And all this time, and in fact, up to
six or seven years, there is a whole period of formation. And then,
always of discernment to see if the young sister is really in her place,
if it corresponds to God’s call, to his desire, and to see if she is
flourishing in this life. The novice period lasts between one and a half years,
roughly one year, one and a half years. Then comes temporary employment. So there, the young sister promises religious vows, which are poverty, chastity, obedience and stability. But she does it for a period of time,
usually three years. Then she renews it for
one, two, three years, until the solemn profession, which is
the final commitment. And so, here, the sister has a black veil. My name is Sister Geneviève. I come from Bouches du Rhône,
from a small town near Tarascon. And I came back here on March 2, 1949. It’s been 72 years. When I arrived, I found myself
in a ruin since the Monastery had been abandoned
about fifty years before. It was impressive, but when you
‘re young, you think it’s great. It was war, the end of the war. We had nothing, there was no
bread yet. We had food ration cards. So, production was necessary. That’s what we did right away . We borrowed some tools from the neighbors
and little by little, we started, we picked a lot of dandelions. We didn’t let anything go to waste. Everything that was in the… that could be edible,
we ate. And that’s how we started. They arrived at a monastery
that had been unoccupied for quite some time, so
that the garden was in a catastrophic state and it really needed a good overhaul to be able to start
feeding themselves simply from the garden again. So, they planted trees. I find it very beautiful,
symbolically, because in fact, it means that we are settling
in a place for a long time. It was a real gamble when you see
the state of the abbey when they arrived. But they planted trees
thinking: In a few years, at least, we will have fruit, we will have something to eat. They also very quickly bought their
first cow, Noirette, as she was nicknamed. And then, and then
also chickens, ducks. Finally, there you have it, as in all farms
of that time, there were a little bit of every kind of animal. And then, well, it went all the way to the
goat, all the way to the pig. Over the years, there are things that we
stopped later, and then others that we resumed. In fact, everything developed,
but a bit bit by bit, depending on the needs and the increasing
size of the community. We would set up a workshop in a room,
starting in a cell and then later creating a smaller,
more suitable space. Among our religious vows, we
have a commitment to stability which binds us to the community and which
, consequently, binds us to the place of settlement. And so, there is a whole aspect of
monastic life that unfolds in the place where one is. So, this translates into love for the place,
the care we take of it, the transformation. And this also translates into love
for the land we are on and the work to obtain the
necessary food from it, to enhance its value. And this is also reflected in the love
of the local residents. In fact, the discovery of the culture
and the search for what we can bring to that land, because God does
not give the idea of ​​establishing a monastery by chance, is also so that it will do
good to a territory. Over the years,
we have forged links with certain families and little by little,
I think, we have become part of the village. And then, afterwards, we had to vote. Well, that immediately changes the atmosphere. You think, we were…
We had five, six or seven votes. For them, it was very important. What changed the most,
I think, was the church. We moved the hotel;
it was a very big job. Then we didn’t have any subsidies. First, walls were torn down. That was a lot of work. Wherever we dug, we found large
stones, thinking: One day, this will be useful. And that’s what happened when we
wanted to build a new building because we couldn’t
adequately restore our old cells. It was too big and the materials didn’t exist
at the time. So, we thought the simplest, albeit daring, solution was to build a structure with small cells like
the cells of the Carmelites used to be. The church of our Abbey was most likely built in the 14th century, at the same time as the church
of the Jacobin convent in Toulouse. That’s a very, very important point. Important because the Jacobins church
is the standard plan for all Gothic churches in the Toulouse region. Already, a building entirely
constructed of bricks. Apart from our apse, which is alternated
in brick and stone, the rest of the building is
entirely constructed of brick. And we are in a region
where the stone is of very poor quality. It is a limestone that is frost-susceptible,
so it can crack after 40 freeze cycles. So, it’s not really about building
a church entirely out of stone. The brick was still
more resistant. We also have the apse with cut-off corners. You see, these faceted walls
all around the choir. That too is truly a
characteristic of the Gothic style of Toulouse. The large, narrow,
long bay windows that let the sun flood into the church and that make
the churches so bright. There are also these pointed arches
that branch off into columns shaped like palm trees. These large, imposing columns that
unfold, but with a finesse and harmony in ribbed vaults
that are really very fine and very often enhanced, precisely,
by mural paintings. To give it that
palm branch appearance. Outside the church,
you have the large buttresses which are the counterparts of the North Buttress,
the northern cathedrals and the northern churches. The south did not yet know about
Arc-Boutan, so we have these rather
massive buttresses which did their job well in retaining these
very imposing buildings. We are fortunate to have
absolutely sumptuous and very generous acoustics. There is a reverberation that is not too
long, which still allows us , when we sing the office,
to be able to hear each other well, to still have a unity of singing
which is really very comfortable for us and even very
motivating for our singing. It is extremely rewarding
to sing in this church. And I am all the more sure to tell you this
because every year, regularly, we host concerts, singers
and musicians who really perform in this church and who all,
unanimously, truly, are very happy with the acoustics which are
not a struggle or a difficulty for them. On the contrary, it showcases them
perfectly. We, you see,
really benefit from it in a truly wonderful way. And I would confess,
to speak more about myself, I believe that it was really the singing
of the service in this church, with this acoustic,
that triggered my vocation and the fact that I wanted to return to Bouloor. I can still see myself arriving
in the hotel courtyard. I was walking, I arrived, I could hear
the nuns singing in the church from afar. I was getting closer and closer and
yet I was seized outside by this resonance, this sonic fullness which was not confined just to this place, but which overflowed it,
which surpassed it and which called me almost from the bottom of the
village, if I may say so, to approach this church more and more
and to say to myself: But what is this? It is
absolutely overwhelming and wonderful. And so, I think that at that moment,
the emotion was so strong that I said to myself: This is where I will return. We have a fairly
traditional office where we have the concern, the desire to preserve our Cistercian heritage
received from our former sisters who passed on all this heritage to us. This liturgy transforms us;
it’s very powerful because we have seven services a day, which is a lot. We spend time. And then, it’s a bit like water washing a basin. This water that flows and
transforms so much within us. Saint Augustine said
that singing is praying. To sing is to pray twice. Singing involves the whole person,
from the feet to the top of the head. Already, the liturgy itself,
as a nun who follows the rule of Saint Benedict, is for us
the heart and center of our life. That is why we
are at the monastery. We entered this monastery
to dedicate our lives to God and to his praise. And a praise that I can call
continuous, because our very work and all our activities of the day
are still a praise of God, but one that is incarnate and that plunges its
roots into the times of liturgical prayer that punctuate
our whole day. Liturgical prayer nourishes our
work, inhabits our work. That’s why the work is alternated. Liturgical prayer alternates with work. That is to say, we did not enter
the monastery to be farmers, we did not enter the monastery to be
the best cook in the monastery. We returned to the monastery to serve
the Lord with an undivided heart. And so, in fact,
the offices come to interrupt us in our work to
bring us back to this essential point. We all meet as a
community at the same time. We are all together singing
the same liturgy, the same music, the same texts, which creates
a unity within the community. That is to say, we need to sing
together, we need to sing in tune together, so we need to
be very attentive to each other. And this liturgical chant of Gregorian chant
also creates a unity within ourselves. It is important to remember that the word monk,
nun for women, comes from the Greek term which means one. And I think it is very important
to emphasize that the liturgy, liturgical prayer, whatever form it takes,
is a foundational element of the unity of a community
that connects us with the universal Church and all our brothers and sisters
spread throughout the world. The Gradual Sistercia is a book that brings together all
the pieces that are sung during Mass. And our project to reissue this book is
that since the 1960s, there have been no new editions at all. The liturgy has evolved, it has changed
throughout the world, throughout the entire Church. And it is very important
that the new generations that will come after us can have
knowledge of these pieces sung during Mass,
we need to reissue them a new book well adapted to the new generation
and to take all these very old pieces which, for us Cistercians,
date from the 12th century, the foundation of our monastic order,
to bring them together in a single work which will be for the use of our monasteries
which are spread throughout the world and for our generation as well as
future generations. Editing this Cistercian Gradual,
this new book, seems essential to us and it is
a work that has taken us time, that still takes us time,
but we gladly devote this time and energy to it, because we think that
, really, it is worth it. We do not want this chant to be
lost in the Cistercian Abbeys. If the books are no longer published,
who will want to continue singing this song? We’re going to lose him. The sheet music will eventually break apart. The old manuscripts, perhaps we won’t
even know where they are anymore. If we don’t talk about it,
if we don’t publish books, if we don’t hold a conference
to discuss it with those around us. Finally, this is very important. So that’s why
we moved. We set out,
in fact, to do this work. In other words, the emphasis is
really placed very prominently. With two years.
Yes yes. It’s very well developed. And then, the same thing, to write a tenth one. It looks like there’s a wheel turning. Yes, indeed.
Look. Here, it is very, very clear
on the Aldesbar manuscript. You can clearly see the notation,
you saw it with all those little musical signs there, which are called torculus. We can clearly see that everything revolves like this on
the lines until we reach the Alleluia. We have a beautiful musical line
that gets more and more amplified towards the end until it reaches the
musical peak of the Alleluia. I’m not mistaken, it must be… That’s it, we’re getting to the C flat here. Indeed, which is
an increase in art. We had a child in C-flat because
before, she stayed quite low when… Yes, that’s it, indeed. Although the lyrics are still
significant. Cantata domino,
cantata domino and benedict. Here, we can clearly see that it
remains in the lower register. It’s going back up a bit. And beneath “A new one,” there is momentum. And then, a kind of waltz. Yes, it’s becoming increasingly ornate. Bené, monsi, yate, de dix, yé, une dix,
saluta re, yus, aleluia, c’est le son. It’s magnificent, there,
you can see it very, very well. And we can clearly see it
on the magnificent strips as well. We are all involved in singing. All are affected. We are all committed to working on this song. And then there are what are called
cantors who are appointed. There are five of them currently. There is a first cantor who is
responsible for leading the choir and leading singing rehearsals,
accompanying all the singing work for the community. And then there is
a smaller group which makes up what we call the scola and which sings
more specifically pieces from the mass. And then, the whole community joins in. There is
an alternation between parts sung only by the scola and then
parts sung by the whole community. We also have
singing teachers who come to help us. When we return to the monastery, not all of us
know how to sing, not all of us have had
the opportunity to have singing lessons or even to practice singing,
to experience the practice of singing. So, it’s something that can be
fully discovered and you have to get into it. It’s a real job, too. And at the same time, since we sing a lot
every day, it perhaps comes more easily, obviously. I think we’re going to give you a hand.
I challenge you. We’re above it. I think we were pretty good. Yes, we were doing well. In any case, I was short of breath. It’s after… Maybe after 10th, but well,
at the same time, it’s the quarter shares. We didn’t quite have that before. So, are we allowed to breathe? Just a
tiny bit. I certainly didn’t give you a moment’s
peace. No. No, but do we… And so, do we have to
alternate, since they are quarter shares?
Yes. I, for one, had no qualms about
breathing in the middle of the moment. What is it that attracts? Why do so many young people
come to Bouloire? First, it is the mystery of God
that calls. It seems to me that monastic life is
really very relevant, can really meet an expectation. In Bouloor, it’s
certain that youth attracts youth. There is a whole spirit, a dynamic of training that can be attractive. We also receive many young people
for camp-scoot or other activities. Being in a place that has
a history with centuries of monks who lived before us. We experience
how much it shapes us and allows us to receive everything that has been
experienced by our predecessors and to realize that we are a small link in this
long chain and that there will surely be others after us. The very architecture of a monastery is
designed to shape us, to mold us. I am thinking in particular of the cloister which is
very strong and very specific to the monastery,
this space which is both closed, but open to the sky,
which also leads us to unity, which reminds us of the whole dimension of communion. In monastic life as lived
in Bouleur, there is something very balanced between these times of prayer,
praise, intellectual formation,
and also the dimension of fraternal life which is very strong. This dimension of fraternal life
is often something that young girls perceive when they return
, but are particularly touched by it once they experience life in the
monastery, being able to feel this support for one another
throughout our lives. And the aspect of our vow of stability
which means that all our lives, we will be with the same sisters. So this is both a struggle,
but also something extremely beautiful and powerful. That is to say, we are all moving forward
together to go to heaven together
and lead all men with us. It’s true that we have a community
that is quite young. I think the average age must be
around 42, 45 years old, with regular new arrivals. It certainly
keeps us in a certain dynamism and also in a certain joy
which is characteristic of youth, with the strength also to carry out
rather bold projects like what we are doing at the moment with
the construction of our barn. I think the sea hasn’t arrived. I don’t know where that posed
a really good idea? Okay, great, we’ll go down, thanks. For us, the idea
was precisely to keep all these production lines. As the slogan for short supply chains says,
from farm to fork. For us, it’s
also about seed to plate. So, it’s true that it’s wonderful to have
calves born here and then to be able to consume the cheese we
made with their milk a few years later.
That makes perfect sense. And then, there was also an
economic interest since in fact it allows us to have
diversified productions, so to be able to be as much as possible in direct sales,
but also not to put all our eggs in one basket
in difficult years where, precisely, as we see this year,
there is a big frost or as we can see at other times when it is
one sector or another that is attacked by a disease, an
economic problem or I don’t know what. In fact, ultimately,
it’s true that it may seem less profitable, but it’s not
a colossus with feet of clay. We are dealing with something that has its
weaknesses and limitations, but which, on the other hand, has real strengths and,
moreover, from an ecological point of view, really makes sense, since in fact,
each of these production hubs interacts with the others. So, we will have the milk from our cows
which will produce whey which will feed the pigs. In the garden, we can also give
damaged fruit to the pigs, use the whey from the cows
to make certain treatments on the vegetable garden or the orchard and so on. And then, of course, the animal manure
will be used to feed the trees. And so, little by little, in fact,
we were able to see a very virtuous system being put in place within
the different areas of our agricultural operation. And so, we are happy to be able to
continue this today. Did you go well? Did you go well? Did you go well? Did you go well? Did
you go well? And with my index finger, I guide the pencil
so that it enters the beam. And then I take it out. The idea is to balance. The calf muscle, when it’s
calibrated, pulls on the side. I’m doing the math, it’s
not normally the kind of thing. There you go, my dear. So. It’s a product that helps
the sphincter close. The sphincter is the small muscle
at the entrance of the teat, there, to stick the teats together. And it protects the sphincter
from infections. If she ever lies down again in the dung,
for example, it makes a thin film and that will protect her. It’s something that’s made
with essential oils. So it stimulates the cow’s immune defenses
so that she reacts if there is ever an infection. Okay, let’s go.
Where is the little one? Run away . Come on, save yourself, come here. So. Wait, you’ll get one too.
Here we go. We’ll start with these
because they are slower. Where is Anna going?
Leave alone. Leave it there. I can go. I can go. So. Tomorrow, a technician specializing in genetics is coming to look at the little calves that were born. He had come to see the large heifers
at the time they were inseminated. And then he comes to see these three
and the heifers that have now given birth and have a different morphology,
who come to look at the udders, etc. To see if they are beautiful.
All right. They are very beautiful.
Yeah, yeah. Under the virou, it’s surprising because she’s
still the youngest and she’s the most muscular, I think. THANKS. What the architect
of the buildings of France was asking us for, in fact, was really to build these
buildings as an extension of the village, not in isolation as had been
proposed to him, but really in line with
the road, in front of the abbey, so that it would be consistent with the site
and its layout as it had been formed over the centuries. So obviously,
one could be in complete agreement with the project from a theoretical point of view. Being able to
afford it was another matter entirely. And there, we found ourselves facing a challenge
that was absolutely considerable, since we had moved to a budget
that completely exceeded our capabilities. So we said to ourselves: We’re going to have to
ask for help since there’s a whole share, it’s normal that we have to
take it on financially, it’s our farm
like any other farmer. We have taken steps to apply for
public subsidies and we also have a significant bank loan
which allows us to get the ball rolling. On the other hand, all the additional costs that were
linked to the historical monument, all the additional costs that were linked
to the heritage dimension of the place, that doesn’t belong only to us,
it belongs to everyone. And so, it seemed legitimate to us
to ask for help from patrons, from people who could be
sensitive to this dimension in order to carry out this project. We said to ourselves: We absolutely must,
in the way we present it, think about what will give it
the most meaning so that we can communicate this to people outside the group as well. And as our
community discussions progressed, we realized that we
could truly define this project as a dynamic which, in the 21st century, would extend the initiative of our 12th-century Cistercian peers to build
barns to serve the economy of their communities. This is how the definition
of the project came about as a Cistercian grange for the 21st century,
or we also called it grange 21, and we managed to define it
in one sentence, this sentence being : In the 12th century,
the granges of the Cistercian Abbeys enabled the development of
cutting-edge agriculture, the growth of trade through the sale of quality products
and the establishment of culture and the Gospel in Europe. Well , those were
the three main poles around which we wanted to build and
develop our project and the resulting communication. Come, come. In the Rule of Saint Benedict, we take a vow of stability,
that is to say that the nun, when she arrives in Bouloire,
knows that she is entering a place in which she will remain all her life. So, the location is very important since we are going to
spend our whole life, a long time, in a restricted space. Hence the importance of beauty in the place. Because our founding mother, Mother Pia,
often said: A harmonious living environment helps to have a harmonious life. In the place of a community like this,
in our local environment , in this very rural Gers, with
its magnificent hills, this nature. And then, in this spring season,
it explodes in all directions. It’s magnificent, these colours,
the gentleness of the landscape. This is also the strength of the construction
of the monastery high on the summit of this hill of Bouloor. There is an image that makes me think a little of
this place which one could think of a bit like a source place, a monastery. There is a very dense life going on there. And then something mysterious
for the people who live around it. We’re not locking ourselves in. Some say:
It’s an escape from the world. No, for us, that’s not it. It’s truly a help
in fulfilling our calling. It is an aid to turn
resolutely towards the Lord, to turn our hearts,
an undivided heart towards the Lord, to rid ourselves
of everything that is not him. It’s support, it’s help. And then there it is, the fence, the only way
out is by rising towards the sky. But again,
we have a great deal of freedom. We are not in prison,
we are demonic confinement. We chose it as a means
of growing in the love of the Lord and as a help,
especially such a precious help, to live only for him and through him. In nature, there are
very precious spaces called ecotones,
which are transitional spaces between two ecosystems. So it could be, for example,
the edge of a forest, the banks of a stream, or a pond. In fact, this meeting of two
ecosystems creates an extremely rich area
in terms of food, reproduction,
and the transmission of life. And these are also areas that are very
important for the renewal of air and water, for
air quality and for water quality. And I find that the monastery
is a bit like that zone, actually, between heaven and earth, so to speak. A rich place where one can come and draw from it
and then leave, which is also a place of nourishment and enrichment,
in fact, for those who pass through and for those who live there, obviously.

Au cœur du Gers, Boulaur réinvente la vie monastique entre tradition et modernité
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00:00 La vie monastique : clichés et réalités
02:57 L’histoire multimillénaire de Boulaur
04:07 Origines du monachisme et règle de Saint-Benoît
05:49 Le renouveau cistercien et son expansion
07:15 « Ora et Labora » : spiritualité et travail agricole
10:37 Le chemin de la vocation : retraites, postulat, noviciat
12:56 Reconstruction de la communauté après 1949
16:09 Architecture, église en brique et acoustique unique
22:36 La liturgie, centre de la vie des moniales
28:05 Préserver le chant cistercien : le projet du graduel
35:11 Une communauté jeune et dynamique
38:05 Agriculture durable : un écosystème vertueux
43:48 Le projet « Grange 21 » : tradition cistercienne réinventée
47:30 Le vœu de stabilité et l’harmonie du lieu
49:47 Le monastère comme espace de respiration et de renouveau

Perchée au sommet d’une colline gersoise, l’abbaye Notre-Dame de Boulaur vit au rythme de la liturgie et du travail agricole. Les moniales cisterciennes perpétuent la règle « Ora et Labora », conjuguant prière, production laitière, transformation locale et projets ambitieux, dans un souci écologique propre à notre époque.
Leur vie n’a rien de figé : dynamique, fraternelle et étonnamment actuelle, la communauté attire de jeunes femmes en quête de sens et d’équilibre. Entre histoire médiévale, enjeux agricoles, spiritualité profonde et innovations comme la « Grange 21 », le documentaire ouvre les portes d’un monde à la fois très ancien et résolument ancré dans le XXIᵉ siècle.

Titre : Abbaye de Boulaur
Réalisateur : Pierrick Boyer
© Tous droits réservés – AMP
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