Back to the Open Doors at the Hermitage on Saturday June 26
Last Saturday, the Hermitage Center offered a wonderful day à la carte, made up of different activities and open to everyone to discover Fondacio or to meet up!
The open day on Saturday, June 26 was a success! The rain stopped just in time at 9:30 a.m., but never stayed far away. This mild weather allowed us to enjoy the many guests who came.
The local Fondacio Versailles team had the great pleasure of welcoming friends, neighbors, or simply curious people to the site for reunions and multiple discoveries of Fondacio pedagogy.
On the program: Topo - testimonies - workshops - musical scenes - story for children - gratifera and aperitifs in a friendly atmosphere! The chef of the Tiers-lieu, Gonzalo, served 134 vegetarian lunches!
The day ended with an ecumenical celebration around 7 a.m.
History of the Hermitage
The Hermitage of Madame de Pompadour.
The Hermitage House, located in the heart of the city of Versailles, was built in 1746. King Louis XV asked to detach six hectares of the park of the Palace of Versailles to build a hunting lodge there, which he offered to Madame de Pompadour. Delighted to retire from court life, she nicknamed it: "her little jewel " or her " Hermitage ".
A " Laudato Si' " Center
“Everything is connected, and the authentic protection of our own lives and our relationships with nature are inseparable
of brotherhood, justice and loyalty to others.”
Art. 70 of the encyclical Laudato Si', Pope Francis.
On this site, Fondacio France seeks to live this ecological coherence where social justice, personal and spiritual development, and the relationship between Man and nature are thought of together. Training, projects, spiritual life and partnerships are deployed to allow everyone to taste and deepen their relationship with themselves, with others, with nature and with God.
Living Fraternal Bonds
“All creatures are connected, and as beings we all need each other.”
Laudato Si', art -42, Pope Francis.
A long tradition of hospitality for this house: even before Fondacio arrived on this site in 1999, the Auxiliary Sisters were already welcoming various groups, family celebrations and marginalized people.
We continue in this same dynamic the reception of groups from various backgrounds, whether professional, associative, family or social. The choice to establish an accommodation center (CHRS) in the very heart of the house, in its center is a concrete sign that we can surround, cherish, give a place of choice to those who have been shaken for a moment in their life path, sometimes rejected.
Beyond the support from a qualified team of professionals, a whole network of fraternity is offered through regular meetings to build links with others: activity Thursdays, fraternal Sundays and also times of respite, vacations, and rejuvenation are offered.
Fraternal life is one of the most beautiful gifts we have received. Fondacio runs more than 25 sharing groups in the Paris region that meet once a month. These sharing groups are places for rereading. They allow us to receive our life as a gift, to catalyze our energies for the future.
Connecting with others is also played out in team engagement in many projects. There is so much joy in giving of oneself together to build a more humane and fairer world!
It is also through meetings around the coffee machine or during a meal that new projects are born! A real fraternity is experienced between employees, volunteers and those involved in Fondacio. Some people passing through thank us for the warm welcome, the contagious peace received!
Getting closer to nature
"The inhabitants of this planet are not made to live deprived of physical contact with nature."
Laudato Si', art -44, Pope Francis.
For years, in partnership with the neighboring parish, a team of volunteers (Gardening and Spirituality) comes once a month to recharge their batteries and take care of the park.
On the site, a chicken coop promotes waste management while promoting the joy of life.
In partnership with the association Les Colibris de Versailles, our neighbors in the neighborhood can come and deposit their compost in our park or garden a plot of land. A way to share simple joys, to cultivate the wonder of nature! We thus support several objectives pursued by Les Colibris: concretely implementing waste reduction solutions, promoting biodiversity in a friendly and mutually supportive spirit.
Young people from a local IME (Medical-Educational Institute) and their educators have the joy of gardening in our park.
The project to transform part of the site into a market gardening area and thus provide our catering service with vegetables from the garden while working on the integration of migrants is underway.
Between respect for nature and social justice, we are also concerned about the consumer choices to be made to build a more humane and fairer world. L'Ermitage hosts the storage facilities of the association, the Comptoir du Potager, on its site. Through this partnership, we wish to promote and support consumption methods that are more respectful of producers and our planet. We share the values defended by this association: a way of life and thought where the notion of sustainability prevails over that of productivity, where attachment to the land, conviviality and solidarity are shared values. A weekly distribution is ensured at L'Ermitage. Thanks to a solidarity contribution from the customers of the Comptoir du Potager, our social structures benefit each week from a solidarity basket of seasonal fruits and vegetables.
Commercial partnerships have also been set up to recover unsold items and thus allow the public to benefit from our solidarity activities.
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