Friday, 6:55 am south of Paris. A cast iron bell tinkles in the lobby of the student residence in Cachan (Val-de-Marne), run by the Assumptionist brothers. It is the hour of Lauds. Two minutes later, their eyes heavy, five young people run down the wooden stairs and join the five religious of the community in the chapel. After the service, Brother Tram went to the bakery up the street. The other nine sat down in the dining room. With a red beard and a navy blue sweatshirt decorated with the coat of arms of his school, Jean-Baptiste, 23 years old, in his last year of engineering at the nearby École Spéciale des Travaux Publics, rubs his blue eyes: “In the morning, I leave my bed half asleep and I wake up during Lauds. It’s the most beautiful wake-up call! “.
This evening, the team from Cachan has an appointment with seventy other young people from homes animated by the Assumption, at Notre-Dame de l’Ouÿe (Essonne), a welcoming home thirty kilometers from Paris. After bumping along the ruts of a narrow, dark road, the old combi lent to the Cachan group arrived at its destination in the open country. In the hall of Notre-Dame de l’Ouÿe, Jean-Baptiste met Father Sylvain Gasser, who is in charge of the Vincennes hostel, and said enthusiastically: “I meet with the fifteen students on Tuesdays for Mass, dinner and an exchange of ideas on social and spiritual issues. Pauline and Ludovic co-manage this center. They are parents of four children. They manage the menus, the bills and prepare the dinner for the young. I am their mother in Paris,” Pauline says. Some of them suffer from being far from their families. They confide in me their sorrows and their joys. While enjoying an apple cake, Jean-Baptiste asks three students staying in Lille, “Do you like living in a hostel? “.
“I feel like in a family,” says Alix, with sparkling eyes. And in the evening, I like to pray compline. “It’s not easy to prepare a meal for ten people every week. But this initiation makes me more adult,” adds Jean, a political science graduate. Soon to be an associate professor of modern literature, Thomas animated: “The three weekends of retreat at the hostel do me a world of good and allow me to take a step back. It is getting late. Between bursts of laughter, prayers, and conferences, the weekend retreat is busy.
From Prions en Église, No. 390
P. Thibault Van Den Driessche, Assumptionist
CONTACT
The homes animated by the Assumptionists of the Province of Europe
À Paris et en région parisienne
Cachan : 07 51 19 28 94 – jean-paul.musangania@assomption.org
Paris VIIIe Foyer Adveniat : adveniat@assomption.org
Vincennes Foyer Adveniat : 06 88 18 18 36 – sylvain.gasser@bayard-presse.com
Juvisy : 01 69 21 92 30 – jean-francois.petit@assomption.org
En province
Lille : 03 20 09 65 64 – aalille@laposte.net
Lyon-Écully : 09 87 74 78 68 – remi.kientega@assomption.org
Montpellier : 04 67 63 05 74 – campus.adveniat@assomption.org
En Espagne
Madrid : +34 655 21 68 33 – juan-antonio.sanchez@assomption.org
