Confinement in Paris seen from a monastery: “A saving break to refocus on the essential”
At the Monastery of the Visitation in Paris, 14 sisters learned to live with social distancing long before the Covid-19 crisis. How do they look at containment?
The monastery of the Visitation of Paris, seen from the inside.
By Marie Amelie Marchal Posted on 6 Nov 20 at 18:18
Cloistered in their monastery on avenue Denfert-Rochereau in Paris, the nuns of the Visitation chose confinement as a way of life long before the Covid-19 pandemic. One of them was kind enough to share her experience and offer some advice for this particular period.
“Suspend time and stop the frantic race of our lives”
“The confinement was saving for us and allowed us to suspend time, to stop the frantic course of our lives,” said a nun who, for the sake of discretion, does not want her first name to appear.
“For us in the monasteries, confinement has been a wonderful time. We were able to rediscover a contemplative life, ”adds peacefully the one who entered orders in 1970 out of a taste for silence.
In this Parisian monastery, life swarms normally. The small shop, the student hostel and the retreatants animate the daily life of the nuns who, contrary to appearances, do not live withdrawn from the world.
“Get rid of the superfluous”
“In addition to this silence imposed by the cessation of activities, this pandemic makes us touch our fragility with our fingertips and pushes us to be more humble,” she continues.
If for the nun this confinement allowed her to “refocus on the essential, religion”, she invites non-believers to take advantage of the period to “get rid of the superfluous and external distractions, to detach from certainties” and to find in them what really drives them.
While speaking her words, she has a thought for those who live in precarious conditions and in small, overcrowded Parisian apartments. “Despite the period, we kept in touch with the most vulnerable faithful,” says the nun.
In all, there are 14 sisters living in the monastery of the Visitation, aged 32 to 100 years. “Our sister celebrated her 100th birthday on September 2, a funny time to be a centenary”, smiles at the end of the line our interlocutor, adding proudly that in the community, not a single case of Covid-19 has been declared. .
https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/paris_75056/le-confinement-a-paris-vu-d-un-monastere-une-pause-salvatrice-pour-se-recentre-sur-l-essentiel_37307852. html
https://actu.fr/ile-de-france/paris_75056/le-confinement-a-paris-vu-d-un-monastere-une-pause-salvatrice-pour-se-recentre-sur-l-essentiel_37307852. html