“In Angers, the Benedictine monastery is reborn thanks to the Fratelli association
While strolling through the Doutre, a historic district of Angers (Maine-et-Loire), difficult to imagine that a large 15th century monastery hides there. However, it is there, at the bend of a paved alley, that the community of Benedictines of Notre-Dame du Calvary is located, haven of peace in the heart of the city. On this spring morning, Stéphanie Léger welcomes us, a keychain in hand.
She coordinates “Fratelli”, an association born in 2023 to help the last two Benedictine sisters to bring the monastery to life. Today it welcomes student roommates and volunteers, united by the desire to share a simple, fraternal and rooted life in its spiritual tradition.
About fifteen volunteers meet on Fridays to maintain the garden. Weeding, raspberry size, jams … after reading a passage from the Rule of Saint Benoît, Everyone works “according to their tastes and capacities”, under the guidelines of Charles, the full -time gardener. At 11 am, Stéphanie rings the end of the work for a break. “We live according to the monastic rule, she has so much to say today,” she says. Fraternity, sobriety…: flagship values of the association, echoing encyclical Fratelli Tutti (in French: all brothers) of Pope Francis (2020) and at the invitation of François d’Assise to contemplate nature as the gift of God.
A place of breathing
One in two Saturdays, other volunteers make the bread that will be sold at the store. Kneaded in the former communal bakery, it is cooked in a large oven, powered by the fagots of vines of a neighboring vineyard. “The dough must rest, like us,” smiles Stéphanie, before evoking an expected project: the manufacture of waffles, famous in Angers for forty years!
“We were all affected by the place, its rhythm, its simple life … We want it to remain a space of breathing, of raising for those who are welcomed there,” confides this training psychologist who, after being responsible for a diocesan mission, now lives in the monastery.
Spiritual pensions are animated there in summer. For Stéphanie, the mission in the service of Fratelli is a source of contemplation. She gives thanks for “the fidelity of the sisters” and for the volunteers, which she sees “walking and growing”. In this place of prayer and sharing, another way of living together is humbly woven.
