When I requested this book at Fayard I said to Marie, the publicist: it must be beautiful.
Yes, it is! My intuiton was correct!
This one is an extraordinary, poetic, interesting book about the monastery Fontgombault and its monks.
Le Grand Bonheur
Vie des Moines, the title. Written by Nicolas Diat, I was attracted by the word bonheur, happiness mixed with the one of the existence of monks; the life of monks is considered distant, surely ancestral and hidden by a society that, now, is at the constant research of leisures of every sorta.
The story told by mr.Diat is the discovery of an enchanting graceful world, spanned during a year, populated by a serious approach to a rigid, hard existence devoted to God, but that doesn't forget the beauty that life and nature donate us.
The story of this convent, Fontgombault, and its moines, monks is old-fashioned and lost in the time.
What does entering in a monastery mean for a common man? It means to abandon the criterias wanted by the world.
The life of a monk is not our life, writes Diat. It's not anymore our existence.
You musn't think for a second that the existence in a monastery is just prayers: monks have their own water, they cultivate flowers, they have a garden, a farm, they produce the best honey of the area: speaking of flowers depending of course by the seasons, you can find poppies, chrisantemum, the belle-de-nuit, geranium, lavender; but these monks have also a mill, and much more.
In this monastery there is everything that you can wish to see being the structure very old. The founder of the abbey Pierre de l'Etoile, suggestive last name, died in 1114; in the monastery there is also an armour of a cavalryman.
The library is immense, and it couldn't be the opposite considering that once, the monks were the people who kept knowledge jealously in their hands.
Mass is a symbolic moment: 25 masses are celebrated everyday in the monastery and as adds Diat: "La répétition de gestes liturgique est peut-etre, simplement, la répétition du meme amour" the repetition of gestures is simply the repetition of the same love.
The existence of a monk, passes in total anonimity. There are just few things known: when he entered in the monastery, cell, work done, the day he became monk, of course...In the monastery there is the devotion for the statue of Notre-Dame du Bien-Mourir and everytime that the mass is over people pray close to this statue, devotedly.
The functions of the monks are a slow time, the time of the vigil monks.
I absolutely love the description of the Fete -Dieu on June 11. Just some words...
Flowers of every sorts, fresh or dry, rose petals, bouquet of roses, delicate fragrances, busy monks, shy novices, red faces, precise gestures, procession, cross, faces of the procession, chandeliers, light, food, young monks, old monks, wax perfume...
The gregorian songs are the one chanted by monks. They are songs speaking of quitting the sad world of the men but these songs travelled also with heroism during the times.
Diat adds: "Le grégorien est doux comme un enfant, fragile comme un fleur, souple comme une roseau", gregorian is sweet like a kid, fragile as a flower, soft like a cane.
Not only, but during the cold winter time it helps to keep warm the bodies of the monks revealing at the same time thanks to their voices the man at himself; monks in fact wears sandals that during the winter-time and the rigid weather means a big sacrifice in terms of blood circulation.
Beautiful also the history of gregorian chants. Very old ones, there are traces from 800.
The study of these chants, serve to the monks not for staying in the past, but for understand the present.
Why this?
In an interview with the abbe, there is the notion of beauty in motion during a liturgic moment.
"It's very difficult to define a liturgy, adds the abbe, because it's a reality in movement. It doesn't define the existence. We can just describe it."
Monks covers all the possible works that you can imagine and more, because a monastery is more than a house and each monk is occupied following a special field assigned to him.
Monks keep jealously all the registers with births, deaths, marriages, and other important events celebrated in the Monastery.
Close to Fontgombault there are grottos and a benedectine called Pierre Rotgé in the 1970s asked to the abbe if it was possible to spend his time in that solitary existence; the eremitism. The abbe was surprised by this request, but agreed. The desire of that monk became reality soon. The cell created didn't have water, electricity, and had few food.
Although the long existence spent in that rigid place, and with few food the monk didn't never fall sick and was greatly admired, a sort of hero by the rest of the community.
The monks, before that became Pope, received also the visit of Joseph Ratzinger who spent some time there. People who decide of spending time in this reality bring with them sufferances, pains, joys and it is indispensible to try to understand if realistically they are searching for God.
The monastery has also a farm as said before; it is followed by Raphael-Marie. There are pigs, cows, chickens, hens; they produce cheese and much more. What fascinates a lot this monk is the circularity of the seasons. The monk speaks also of the disappearance of many families of peasants in the corner of the world where he lives in, and although he adds, he understands the reasons, it is a phaenomenon extremely sad.
The monk is also proud of the work done in the farm: it's an ecological model that should be studied and imitated!
When you'll read this book you'll have the perception of being with the author in the monastery, a joyous place where happiness is not an option but... reality!
Highly recommended.
I thank Editions Fayard for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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