Cécile Bruyère

Mère Cécile Bruyère (12 October 1845 – 18 March 1909) was the first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes (Abbaye Sainte-Cécile de Solesmes) and a follower of Dom Prosper Guéranger in the revival of Benedictine spirituality in 19th century France.

She was born as Jeanne-Henriette Bruyère (and went by Jenny), the granddaughter of the architect and engineer Louis Bruyère and the architect Jacques-Marie Huvé. Her family lived at Sablé-sur-Sarthe.

She was sent to Dom Prosper Guéranger, founder of Solesmes Abbey and the reviver of the French Benedictine tradition, to be prepared for her first communion, and became his spiritual daughter. In 1866, with Dom Guéranger's support, she founded the first women's house within his French Benedictine Congregation (now the Solesmes Congregation). The new nunnery was dedicated to Saint Cecilia (Sainte Cécile) because of Dom Guéranger's devotion to her. Jenny Bruyère herself as a child had always desired to be called by that name, after her maternal grandmother. She took the name Cécile as her confirmation name in 1858, and kept the same name in religious life.

Although St. Cecilia's was still only a priory, Cécile Bruyère was named abbess of the new foundation at the age of 24 by Pope Pius IX on 20 June 1870. This may have been a gesture of thanks towards Dom Guéranger for his great support to the Pope at the First Vatican Council in favour of the recently proclaimed dogma of Papal infallibility.

Mother Cécile, with the support of Dom Guéranger, wrote the nunnery's constitutions, which were influential beyond her own nunnery. Of especial note are the re-establishment of the office of abbess with its symbols (the ring, the pectoral cross and the crozier), and of the long-forgotten rite of the consecration of virgins.

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