No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Extract
Among the new forms of religious life which now seem to be a characteristic of this present age is that lived by the Daughters of the Church in their monastery at Bruges. Their ideal is both contemplative and active To a casual visitor to the Béguinage—for the 'Monastère de la Vigne' occupies the 700 years old Béguinage, which was dying out for want of subjects, with a new monastic cloister, refectory and cells built out at the back of one the old Béguine's cottages—the life may seem almost wholly contemplative. What is most apparent as one crosses the quadrangle, whether by day or, if one is privileged to be a guest in the house, under a clear, bright winter's moon as one makes one's way to the church for Matins, is the almost palpable sense of the presence of God, of the nearness of the supernatural, of silence, of recollection, of a life lived on another plane or in another dimension caught up in God.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The title links it with the old Bcguinage whose symbol was the vine and also recalls the words of our Lord to St Mechtilde (quoted on the descriptive leaflet): 'My vineyard is the Catholic Church in which I laboured for thirty-three years with many sufferings. Come and work with uno!'
2 Their material surroundings, too, are modern as far as possible—each cell has running water.
3 They do not wear the religious habit but those who live in the monastery have a distinguishing dress, pleasing in its simplicity of style and dark blue colour relieved by white.