St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes

St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes (Abbaye Sainte-Cécile de Solesmes) is a Benedictine nunnery founded in 1866 by Dom Prosper Guéranger, the restorer of Benedictine life in France after the destruction of the revolution. It is located in Solesmes, Sarthe, and is the women's counterpart of Solesmes Abbey.

This nunnery, Dom Prosper's last foundation, was the first religious house for women founded in the Congrégation française de l'ordre de saint Benoît, now the Solesmes Congregation.

Unlike men's monasteries, which were completely extinguished after the French Revolution, a number of Benedictine nunneries were re-established in France during the first decades of the 19th century, combining the life of a Benedictine community with educational functions. There was therefore not the same need for Prosper Guéranger to create a female branch of his new French Benedictine congregation, the Congrégation française de l'ordre de saint Benoît, in the same way as he had revived men's Benedictine houses. The impetus for the foundation of St. Cecilia's in fact came from Dom Guéranger's chance contact with Jenny Bruyère, a girl whom he was asked to teach in preparation for her first communion. As their spiritual relationship developed she gradually revealed her wish to devote her life entirely to God within the spirituality of Solesmes and the Rule of Saint Benedict.

The nunnery was quickly built, and was dedicated to Saint Cecilia (Sainte Cécile) because of Dom Guéranger's particular devotion to that saint. The foundress, Jenny Bruyère, also took her religious name from the saint, to become Mother Cécile Bruyère, first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes.

The 19th century abbey church contains a full-size replica of the monumental effigy of Saint Cecilia in St. Cecilia's Basilica in Rome.

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