Maison Nazareth

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Maison Nazareth in Chabeuil, a place for spiritual retreat in the heart of the Drôme

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The brothers of Maison Nazareth have four pillars: 

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• Cultivating interior life through the School of Prayer following Ignatius of Loyola, in a place of silence to learn to pray and encounter Christ. 

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• Cultivating encounter. Experience has shown them that living together is a source of joy that changes the world. 

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• Cultivating fraternity through fraternal life. Indeed, Maison Nazareth wants to offer the hope of a path to life for all. In this sense, the community is currently building solidarity housing projects.
  
   
• ‍Cultivating the land at the farm. The community has a two-hectare micro-farm. They maintain an orchard primarily composed of apple trees as well as a vegetable garden using agriculture that promotes biodiversity and encounters. The brothers are indeed careful to respect the environment. This work of the land allows them to provide for the community's needs, but also to experience fraternal moments.

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The Parish Co-workers of Christ the King

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Since 1934, Maison Nazareth has housed the male religious community of the Parish Co-workers of Christ the King, founded in 1928 by Francisco de Paula Vallet, a Spanish Jesuit, as well as the community of female Co-workers. 

Welcomed by the Bishop of Valence in a former silk spinning factory, the community began an evangelization work first through spiritual retreats for men. The reason for the mission of the Co-workers of Christ the King? To bring to the world, with God's grace, the unifying love for which the Heart of Jesus longed. 

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Their founder Francisco de Paula Vallet was of Spanish origin. After a great spiritual crisis in which he questioned everything, he felt  a great need for solitude and was quickly drawn to mental prayer (silent and meditative prayer) and contemplation. It was then that he discovered the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola during a retreat. It was during this retreat that he felt a call from God. Abandoning his engineering studies, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Gandía (Valencia). He quickly became a zealous promoter of retreats preached by Jesuit fathers in the Valence region. 

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Having been converted through the Ignatian exercises, he used them to implement an apostolic plan throughout Catalonia, leading nearly 12,500 men to experience an Ignatian retreat. 

Required to rest in Zaragoza in 1928, he received the inspiration there to found the Congregation of Parish Co-workers of Christ the King. Settling in France in 1933 near Valence, in Chabeuil, he saw vocations gradually flowing in from Spain and France. At his death in 1948, the community had grown significantly and another house had opened in Spain. 

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