History of Our Lady
of Refuge

Our abbey through the years

The trappists arrive in the netherlands

During the period of the French Revolution, the new policy was unfavourable to abbey life, and this to such an extent that the survival of many monasteries was under siege. At the end of the 19th century it appeared as though this would become a reality for the Northern French Trappist Monastery of Mont Des Cats (Katsberg). It was for this reason that the abbot dispatched one of his monks to seek a place of refuge abroad. They found it in Tilburg, where the Abbey of Our Lady of Koningshoeven was founded in 1881. The abbey soon flourished and it was not long before the idea emerged to found more abbeys in the Netherlands that could serve as places of refuge for monks threatened with expulsion.

Tijdelijk onderdak in de Abdij van Westmalle

Op 22 juni 1909 kregen de broeders bericht dat ze hun klooster onmiddellijk moesten verlaten. De abt van Tilburg was in zo’n financiële problemen terecht gekomen, dat ernstig gedacht werd aan de verkoop van alle goederen, inclusief die van Zundert, om een hypotheekschuld af te lossen. De broeders van Maria Toevlucht vertrokken met paard en kar naar de Trappistenabdij van Westmalle, waar zij door abt Ferdinand en zijn communiteit hartelijk opgenomen werden.
Intussen zochten de hogere oversten van de orde naar een oplossing. Ze werden daarbij aangemoedigd door mevrouw Maria Ullens de Schooten. Want als het klooster bleef bestaan, dan zou zij een grote som geld schenken om in Maria Toevlucht een kerk te bouwen. Tenslotte kwam er een regeling: dom Willibrord van Koningshoeven trad af en werd opgevolgd door dom Simon Dubuisson. De broeders van Zundert konden terug naar hun klooster en zo bleef hun stichting behouden.

The priory becomes an abbey

On 14 September 1938, the priory of Zundert was elevated to the status of an abbey. And on 19 October the very same year, Father Nivardus Muis was chosen by the brothers to be the first Abbot of Our Lady of Refuge. Dom Nivardus passed away in 1942 at the age of 67.

50th anniversary

In 1943, Brother Alphonsus van Kalken was chosen to be the abbot. Under his leadership, the abbey’s 50th anniversary was celebrated in style. An organ was built in the church for the occasion. In 1950, the abbey’s community also reached its greatest numbers: it was home to 80 monks for a short period of time. Dom Alphonsus stepped down in 1958 at the age of 76.

Modernisation of monastic life

In 1958, Brother Emmanuel Schuurmans was selected to be the third abbot of Zundert. The new abbot had a great many ideas concerning modernisation. The church’s interior was fully renovated, but the rest of the monastery was also decorated in grey stucco. Another significant innovation was that the lay brothers, who mainly worked the land, were increasingly considered equal to the choir monks, who devoted themselves to study and choral prayer.
During the 1960s, the liturgy was also revised and gradually switched from Latin to Dutch. The activities of the Inter-monasterial Working Group For Liturgy (IWVL) provided serious incentive in this respect.
During the same period, Ida Gerhardt and Marie van der Zeyde had begun their work translating the Psalms. The translations were set to music and entered into use in 1975.

New vocations and new activity

The Eighties were a fairly quiet period. There were some entries, but the majority of young monks left the abbey. For a brief time it appeared as if the community of Our Lady of Refuge was without future; however, the tide turned in the Nineties. Sixteen young men have entered since them, several of whom have remained. In 1998, the brothers decided to stop intensive dairy farming and switched to ecological cattle farming.

Renovation work

A year before Dom Wiro Fagel was chosen to be the fifth abbot in 2001, the community made plans to completely renew the guest house and the gatehouse and fully renovate the existing buildings. Work started in 2002. A brand new guest house and gatehouse were erected. All the other residential buildings and the church were given an overhaul. Renovation work was completed in 2005. A period of major building work had come to an end and peace and silence were restored.

Creative vulnerability

As many other communities also Maria Toevlucht becomes smaller. That requires much creativity concerning renovation en accommodation, but is even a source of new energy and dynamic. In 2017 Guido Van Belle is nominated as superior en in 2020 elected by the community te be the seventh abbot of Maria Toevlucht. This as a encouraging sign of the community to be approaching the future with spirit en confidence.