Prayer and orange jam!
In the heart of the Mauges, an abbey stands out by its height (Notre-Dame des Gardes is on top of a hill, overlooking the Mauges, in the Maine-et-Loire; impossible to miss it); and...more unusual...by its jams! Good big jars of 450 grams, made with love and patience, without any chemical addition to speed up cooking. The sisters do things well!
Would you like to know more about this abbey where Trappistine nuns have resided for more than two centuries? Then read on!
A very old monastic place
"Les Gardes", the place on which the abbey was built, has in fact been a religious place since the Middle Ages! At the time, the lord of the place found himself a prisoner, and promised for his release to build a sanctuary in honour of the Virgin Mary! This is how the chapel of Our Lady of the Guards was built, and how many pilgrims came to pray there afterwards! But monastic life began afterwards...
Let's go back over their history in a minute
It was in 1605 that monastic life began on the site of the Guards.
The first monks who settled there were hermits of Saint Augustine!
They built a convent, which later gave life to the village of Les Gardes. Two centuries later, the Revolution ravaged the abbey, and the hermits of the Guards were not spared: their buildings were looted and burned, and the community was forced to disperse. In France, many communities were in the same situation, and many monks and nuns took refuge in Switzerland and Russia, following in particular Dom Augustin de Lestrange.
In 1818, the latter replaced some of the nuns who had followed him in various abbeys in France.
A dozen nuns then arrived in the ruins of the former hermit convent... This is how Notre-Dame des Gardes Abbey was born, as we know it today! For the record, there is a disturbing vestige of this period: from the street, you think you can see the big church of the abbey, but in fact it is the parish church of the village! The church of the sisters was built well backwards (and you have to go along the parish church to find the abbey church of the sisters!).
The community grew rapidly, so much so that there were about a hundred sisters on the spot in the 19th century! Thus, after the few years of abandonment at the time of the Revolution, the place really came back to life, and a new statue, a new sanctuary, etc... appeared.
But from the end of the 19th century, the situation was very anticlerical in France, and the monastery was seized in 1904. The community was then expelled and took refuge in England in Marnhull in 1904. Fortunately, a benefactor bought back the property and land of the abbey a little later! In 1906, the community was able to return, and its influence led to a foundation in Benin, as well as the foundation of the Monastery of Peace God in Cabanoule!
The present situation
Today, the Abbey of Our Lady of the Guards has 27 Trappistine sisters who follow the rule of St. Benedict, alternating their days between prayer and work. You can also come and share their daily life during "discovery stays".
On the prayer side, they have seven services a day, and the first one is at 4.15 am! They also have daily mass, of course, where they welcome all those who wish to attend. Don't hesitate to spend a day there, it was renovated between 2004 and 2006, and has the particularity of changing the lighting according to the services... Keep your eyes open!
On the work side, the nuns of Notre-Dame des Gardes produce a wide range of jams and fruit jellies by hand.
For their jams, you don't have to look far, they do everything by hand, and in a 100% natural way. The fruit is peeled by hand, cooked in pots for at least 2 hours (the old-fashioned way), and without any other ingredient than fruit and sugar. This is their speciality, recognised from the beginning in 1965, but publicly crowned in 2020 with a gold medal at the Paris agricultural competition for their orange jam!
Other, rarer products are exclusively available in the shop: pure fruit pastes, cakes, and pear jam! So if you go to the abbey, don't forget to visit the abbey shop to find these nuggets!
Abbaye des Gardes products are available on site at the abbey, in shops throughout France, as well as online at Divine Box : https://divinebox.fr/categorie-produit/producteurs/abbaye-des-gardes/
Notre-Dame des Gardes Abbey
Chemillé in Anjou
49120 -Maine et Loire
https://www.abbayedesgardes.fr
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