Father Jules Chevalier and the Future

as he saw it at the end of his life

Frans Van Segbroeck msc

In his early days Father Jules Chevalier had a vision that was new and fresh and he worked very hard to achieve it. But in our time today the situation has changed. Now there is a lack of vocations and monasteries and religious houses have to close down. But how did Fr. Chevalier feel at the end of his life?

In 1904, Fr. Chevalier who was 80 years of age and sick, celebrated the 50^th anniversary of his Congregation. He lived alone in the presbytery, cut off from the Congregation, of which he wasn’t any longer an official member, excluded from the General Council. How did he see the future?

A few years ago we celebrated the Millennium. There were many predictions. This always happens when a year ends in two or three zeros. Then people start writing books about ‘the end of the world’ and apocalyptic visions. Often these writers find their inspiration in the bible, in the book of the Apocalypse.

Jules Chevalier also wrote a commentary on the book of the Apocalypse, when he was already an old man. Why? While reading this commentary I got a very different impression of this man Jules Chevalier.

My story contains three parts:

1. Father Chevalier, a man of his time

Some key moments of that time which we don’t usually pay attention to:

Fr. Chevalier lived in a France which was deeply divided. Though the Revolution was over, the consequences remained. Many longed for the times and for the Church that existed before the Revolution, for the Catholic kings in France and for the bond between Church and state. And so did Jules Chevalier. The Revolution had put an end to it all. He was an ‘open royalist’ (Fr. Bertolini).

On the other side you had the defenders of the Revolution, who wanted to break the power of the nobility and of the Church. These two groups were opposed to one another by force of arms. This is the climate Jules Chevalier lived in. It explains the conflicts between the left wing governments and his Congregations.

In the whole of Europe things changed radically. There was social unrest. There was the rising of the proletariat. Karl Marx wrote his communist manifest (1848). Jules was 24, an age at which people are sensitive. Later on Pope Leo XIII would write his encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). Christian Workers movements are founded. We don’t find anything about these social changes in Chevalier’s writings. It didn’t interest him. Later on, when younger MSC-members wanted to tackle the problems of poverty and exploitation, it gave rise to crises. Fr. Chevalier refused them. He had only one idea: “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved”.

At that time because of voyages of discovery a whole new world opened up: e.g. Livingstone and Stanley in Black Africa, railway tracks through the USA, the Orient Express, etc. All of a sudden the world became much smaller. Explorers excited young people with their stories about fascinating Oceania.

There were also serious changes in the Church. Pope Pius IX had to flee Rome and lost the Papal States. He looked for support in catholic countries such as Holland and Belgium. The Zouaves fought against the troops of Garibaldi. The pope’s supporters were called ‘Ultramontanes’. Fr. Chevalier’ was one of them. Their counterparts were ‘Gallicans’, supporters of the local bishops who wanted to have more power for themselves. This explains the conflicts between Fr. Chevalier and some bishops.

At this time two big devotions are flourishing: the “devotion to the Sacred Heart“, and the “devotion to Our Lady”. Fr. Chevalier combined these two devotions in one title. Inspired by these two devotions many new congregations were founded. Their focus was on mission or social work.

Catholic biblical scholars tried to understand the bible in a new way. There was a big conflict about Modernism. Fr. Chevalier was overwhelmed by these new biblical explanations. He couldn’t situate them in his worldview and so rejected them completely while clinging to what he had learned in the seminary. This would also lead to conflicts with his younger confreres.

2. Fr. Chevalier and his Congregations

1824: Birth of Jules Chevalier.

1854: Appointment as curate in Issoudun. On December 8^th, with another young curate he founds the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

1864: The foundation of the MSC seems a failure. There are only five members at this stage. The Congregation does not get off the ground, until Jean-Marie Vandel starts a seminary for MSC vocations. The missions are also beginning to attract vocations. These are two elements that have vanished in our own time, which explains partly why there are no longer any vocations.

1869: There are now 11 priests (not sure how many brothers?). The Congregation is structured. Rome has approved the constitutions. Fr. Chevalier is elected the first General Superior.

Four years later the bishop of Bourges appoints Fr. Chevalier as parish priest of Issoudun. He will stay there until the end of his life.

One year later he founded the Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

1880: A leftwing government expels the religious from France.

1881: On March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation of Mary, Fr. Chevalier accepts the mission of Melanesia and Micronesia. Fr. Chevalier had done everything he could to be offered that mission by Rome, and on precisely that date. For him it was a way to convince the members of his Council who were opposed to the idea.

1885: Many vocations are attracted by the missions. Yet the young seminarians can’t stay in France and so they go, in exile, to Barcelona, Rome, Tilburg, Borgerhout. The new vocations joining the Congregation are therefore no longer French, but now Germans, Belgians, Dutch. They have another mentality and speak another language. A sense of alienation grows. The new young members differ from Fr. Chevalier in some of their views but they are unable to find an ear to listen to their ideas in Issoudun. There is also a language problem. Some General Council members feel that the language of the congregation should be French. The alienation grows deeper. In Issoudun it isn’t dealt with in an open way. The Councillors see it as the ‘mal moderne’ now penetrating the congregation: a bad spirit, lack of obedience, rebellion.

1891: The year that Leo XIII publishes his encyclical Rerum Novarum on the social issues of capital and labour. The young MSC members look forward to a new General Chapter, where things would be discussed. Yet, it is postponed by Rome at the request of Fr. Chevalier.

1893: General Chapter, in the bishop’s house, under the bishop’s tutelage. Rome declares the elections as non-valid and nominates the Archbishop of Bourges as visitator and curator of the Congregation. It is the bishop who now oversees the congregation. All that is discussed and approved at the Council must get the approval of the bishop. Fr. Chevalier is put under guardianship. How did he feel about this: being set aside in his own Congregation? When he wrote his “Notes Intimes” twelve years later, one can still feel the pain when he talks about the young fathers Theofiel Reyn, Xavier Klotz and Jules Vandel.

1894: The most important Superiors, Theofiel Reyn, Xavier Klotz and Jules Vandel, and six young confreres leave the Congregation. A new Northern Province is established, with Belgium, the Netherlands and Austria, now separated from Issoudun.

1897: A new General Chapter in Issoudun. A new bishop is appointed for Bourges, Mgr. Servonnet, who is pro-republic. Also Pope Leo XIII appealed that the Republic should be accepted. Fr. Chevalier could not accept it. Feeling the need for more youthful leadership during difficult times he resigned as Superior General. Yet the Chapter re-elects him but appoints a Vicar General who has the right of succession. The General Council is transferred from Issoudun to Belgium. His life-work is being taken away from him.

1901: Fr. Chevalier resigns definitively as Superior General and steps aside from the General Council. All MSC in France become secularised in danger of expulsion.

1904: Fr. Chevalier writes his commentary on the Book of Apocalypse, now at the end of his life. He was sick and broken, without books, with a piece of paper on his knees. It was a book of more than 200 pages. What were his motives to write it?

1905: General Chapter, in the MSC house at Heverlee, Louvain, without Fr. Chevalier, the founder.

1907: The old, sick parish priest is expelled from the parish rectory. Six months later he dies, in a house not of his own. How did he cope with that…feeling on the edge of his own Congregation and now expelled from his house because of politics.

3. Fr. Chevalier and the future

In 1904 Fr. Jules Chevalier, 80 years of age and sick, lonely in his presbytery and almost out of the Congregation, celebrates the 50^th anniversary of the MSC Congregation in a low key way. Also during this year 10 MSCs are martyred in PNG. In this period, after years of preparation, Fr. Chevalier writes his comment on the Apocalypse.

A. L’Apocalypse et les Temps Présents (some quotations)

“In the Apocalypse the apostle John describes, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the battle and victories of the Church, from its foundation until the end of the world”. “The Apocalypse predicts the history of the Church from its foundation until the end of the world. It wants to warn the faithful and especially the faithful of this time, for the trials which await us”.

· The seven letters to the seven churches (Apoc. 1-3). Though Fr. Chevalier acknowledges that these churches really existed he sees them as symbols of periods in the future which the church has to endure:

- Ephesus describes the time of the apostles.

- Smyrna describes the persecution of the Christians by the Roman Empire.

- Pergamum is the Byzantium Empire and the Eastern heresies.

- Thyatira describes the Middle Ages.

- Sardes describes the Modern Times, with the Renaissance and the Reformation. False pagan gods are restored. Reason and philosophy are glorified.

- Philadelphia shows how the church, though weakened and purified, gains victory by means of the two dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility.

- Laodicea shows what will precede the Last Judgement.

· The seven seals:

- The 4^th seal is Mohammed and his reprehensible kingdom.

- The 5^th seal stands for the religious wars, the Western Schisms, Jansenism, Gallicanism, the secret associations, the revolutionary movements, liberalism and socialism. It is all reprehensible and evil.

- The 6^th seal is our time (1900 – the turn of the century) says Fr. Chevalier; with the Freemasons (founded and controlled by Satan), the rejection of revelation, rationalism with the glorification of its own insights, the attacks on the Papal States… Is there still a Christian country left? True Catholic parishes? “Voila le mal. Il est profond, universel. Mais serait-il incurable? Non” (That is the evil. It is deep, universal. But is it incurable? No!) Then follows a long intermezzo about the devotion to the Sacred Heart and to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

· The Seven angels and the seven cups:

- The 1^st angel describes the punishment of the Jewish people for it rejected the Messiah.

- The 4^th angel shows the punishment to the Greek, Orthodox churches.

- The 5^th angel shows which punishments the Western church has to expect because of the errors of Hus, Luther, Protestantism, philosophy, liberalism and socialism.

- The 6^th angel. “The sixth angel emptied his sacrificial cup in the great river, the Euphrates. The river dried up and cleared the way for the kings from the East.”

The Euphrates used to be the border between the Roman (Christian) empire and Persia. So it was an important border.

How does Fr. Chevalier interpret it? “This refers to the Asian and Trans-Siberian railways which were being built at that time. It would give the opportunity to ‘hordes of savages’ to flock to Europe. Wouldn’t this be the realisation of the peril of the yellow races, of which one has been speaking for such a long time? The Europeans don’t suspect the antipathy, the deep, implacable hatred of the yellow ones against the white ones: and this constitutes a great danger, for this hatred is shared by all peoples of the East”. So, Europe can expect a massacre. All our generals and admirals agree on that. Solely Divine Providence restrains this disaster for a while...” And then he talks about “that obscure and monstrous China, that human ant hill” and “We don’t forget the old “invasion routes”, the irresistible flood of the Barbarians… The new Atila, conserving the ferocity of the mandarin to exterminate the Westerners… What do you think, respectable members of the Alliance of Peace, that a war can be suppressed by a monthly bulletin and a contribution of ten francs a year?” The future is menacing. “Our political leaders, all Freemasons, do all they can to hasten these disasters. Telling them about the end of the world, as the Apocalypse predicts, is useless for they believe in nothing. We are rushing towards the precipice but nobody tries to stop us. By the time they open their eyes it will be too late. God’s justice shall reveal itself and the predictions of the Apocalypse will be fulfilled.”

Such a statement sounds all the more harrowing, as the Book of Apocalypse intends to call for trust and hope. However terrible the persecutions, God is with you and you will have a future.

- The 7^th angel: a short song of praise of the just (a few) who will be grateful to the Heart of Jesus that they are saved thanks to “the ineffable kindness of the one who, under her beautiful title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, will have been the instrument of it. It will be a day of joy and of gladness to the righteous but of despair to those condemned.”

· The terrible beast (Ap. 13): “Islam, the Turkish Empire, brutal force, fanaticism, any kind of bribery.”

· The thousand year’s Empire (Ap 20): “The sad events we experience in our time justify the view that the Holy Church will exist for 2000 years, and that the Anti- Christ will come in the 20^th Century. But we have no certainty about this. The world will end in the course of, or towards the end of the 20^th Century.”

· “Come, Lord Jesus” (Ap 22,20): “He has come, ‘in mercy and truth’, in our severely tried times. He has revealed to us His divine Heart, source of eternal life. When will the Christian countries, awakened from their deadly enchantment, and floating between shame and hope, recognise Him, and call: Come, Lord Jesus.”

B. Fr Chevalier and the Future

In the Book of Apocalypse, the last book of the Bible, John describes the persecutions by the Roman Empire that the Church endures at the year 100AD. Jules Chevalier, however, reads it as a prediction of 19 centuries into the history of the Church. Especially, he sees the persecutions which the Church endures in his own time as predicted by the book of the Apocalypse. He has very little hope for the future and knows that this perverted world will come to an end soon, having fallen prey to the powers of evil.

In that same period of time and with the same disposition Fr. Chevalier writes his Notes Intimes (1902 and 1905) and his Spiritual Testament (1903). They are about the difficulties he experienced in his Congregation during the previous years.

From these writings we can conclude how much Fr. Chevalier struggled with the question: “Why did it all have to happen in this way, and how will it end?” In his Testament he warns his confreres against the danger of the modern ideas, against “that Neo-Christianity that tries to reconcile truth and error with one another, and that leads to Protestantism and rationalism, against the modern interpretations of Holy Scripture.” Yet, his last words in Notes Intimes are: “We hope against all hope.”

His writings show that Fr. Chevalier remained a fighter until the end of his life, who fought against every kind of evil he unmasked, and who remained faithful to what he believed as truth. He wouldn’t give in to new ideas. The ‘mal moderne’, in the beginning identified as selfishness and indifference, became an enormous monster.

Against this background we have to understand the deep faith and trust in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. He doesn’t give up even though the future seems dark.

In one of his last letters (13 April 1906), we find a sense of surrender and acquiescence. Fr. Chevalier recognises also the positive, purifying sides of persecution and opposition: “In these afflictions we must see signs of Gods love and goodness. Let’s try to use them to our advantage. Maybe the religious congregations have forgotten their beautiful vocation and live too much a comfortable, worldly life, and God wants to call us back to our original vocation. Religious and priests will always have what they really need, if they really are what they are meant to be. For this reason I am not afraid for the future. Persecution and poverty are a blessing. Instead of complaining we should rejoice that we are found worthy to suffer with Jesus.”

Perhaps the old and worn-out Fr. Chevalier who saw the disappearance of much of what he had worked for so hard, may be a source of inspiration for us, his spiritual sons and daughters, who go through similar experiences. In any case Fr. Chevalier shows us how one can endure this phase of kenosis, which each person and Congregation has to go through, courageously and in great faith, and so keep hope.