General Bulletin – November/December 2002, pp
2-5
The motivation to
become and to remain
Which are the
striking aspects of this person, Jules Chevalier?
There are of course
many aspects in the life and character of Father Chevalier. Personally I admire
especially the following:
In the first place I am impressed by the beauty of his vision
which constitutes his charism: the vision of the Sacred Heart of Our Lord as
the remedy of the evils of his time.
Secondly I admire his tenacity of purpose. Already
during his theological studies in
this view. When the
increase of membership of his new congregation took a long time, our cofounder,
Father Maugenest, gave up, but Jules kept going. His
vision was a living thing: he discovered the depth of the mystery of Jesus`
Heart ever more deeply, he saw the needs of his time in greater detail; he
realized that not only religious, but also diocesan priests and laypeople were
needed. And when an antireligious government took away all he possessed, he did
not loose courage but by clever means he saved the buildings and works of the
Society for future generations. Truly impressive!
Notwithstanding a mountain of work, and his many worries,
Jules was a pleasant man to live with. He was full of jokes, and made the
recreation time a pleasure, according to the witness of his companions.
Which aspects of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart appealed
especially to Father Chevalier?
In the spiritual life
and in the apostolate of Father Chevalier the Marian dimension had an important
place, also already in the period before 1854. He often preached about Our
Lady, he wrote four books about her, and surprisingly, long before he found
the title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, he stressed Mary's power over the
Heart of her Son. Already in his first sermon about Our Lady, written in 1848
during his study in
Before 1855, his
personal devotion to Our Lady was the devotion to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary, but in the "Contract between Mary and two priests of the Sacred
Heart" (Issoudun, January 18, 1855), he promised that the Missionaries of
the Sacred Heart, out of gratitude, would have a special devotion towards her:
"In gratitude to Mary, they will consider her as their Foundress
and Sovereign. They will ally themselves with her in all their works and make
her loved in a special way. " So the second special aspect is gratitude.
For years he meditated on how to fulfil this promise, and after some years he
received the grace to express his vision of Mary in a new way: Our Lady of the
Sacred Heart, a title which was old as to its meaning, but new in the way of
expressing it. Non nova, sed nove.
The new devotion not only spread in a marvellous way, but brought also the
newly founded Congregation to life, as Father Piperon
assures us, and he concludes: "We say this with gratitude: If the Congregation
has been born, able to grow and spread, it is due to the protection of the
Immaculate Mother of God, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.[1]
"
Developments in
understanding the title.
In explaining the
title "Our Lady of the Sacred Heart" Father Chevalier used at first
some expressions, like "Queen" or "Sovereign Mistress" of
the Heart of Jesus, and "power without limits", terms which Father
Founder understood correctly but which could be misunderstood and were
therefore changed by the Holy Office in
"The end of the Archconfraternity consists in the first place in
glorifying the Blessed Virgin Mary under the title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
in her relationship ("dans ses rapports") of ineffable love between her and
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Hence the associates unite themselves with the
Sacred Heart to honour Our Lady, and they unite themselves with Our Lady to
fulfil their duties towards the Sacred Heart, notably those of adoration, of
praise, of imitation and reparation.[3]"
It is good to hear
Father Chevalier speak here of a relationship, not of "ineffable
power", but of "ineffable love."
Important
aspects of the history of our Congregation.
A short interview is
not the place to sketch all important aspects of our history. In the works of
the Society, for example, there were important developments by the achievements
of so many missionaries in foreign countries. In some Provinces, like in
At the time I was
writing the book A Biblical Spirituality of the Heart, it must have been
in 1987, a venerable confrere, Father Munsters[4],
visited me one day in my room to tell me something he deeply felt. I will
summarize what he said: "The way you are making propaganda for the
devotion to the Sacred Heart is not our traditional way. We always taught the
scholastics to practice the devotion to the Sacred Heart in their personal
life, but in their ministry they should just preach the general
doctrine of the
Church, like ~ everybody else."
I was really struck by
this conversation. From Father Cuskelly I knew that
for us
Father Cuskelly went back to our roots, and presented the vision
of Father Chevalier in a new and biblical way: "The new heart and the new
spirit." He truly renewed the spirituality of our Society, and taught us
to see our mission in a new way. In the Statement, edited by the Cuskelly Symposium in Issoudun in 2002, we read, for
example, that the spirituality of the heart helps us "to have understanding
hearts, recognizing the mysterious dignity of each human person.
A desire "to be
with" is the basic movement of our spirituality. Our spirituality is a
spirituality for the people of today, including people of other faiths and
people who practice no religion and belong to no church."
These statements show
something of the impact of our spirituality on our ministry. We are supposed
to have a heart for others, and help others to live that way. Christ presented
himself as the Good Shepherd, and gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Father Chevalier was
struck by the indifference of his time, and saw the Heart of Christ as the
remedy. In our time, we are struck by the inhumanity of so many towards so
many, by the violence, the many forms of exploitation, the poverty, the
diseases...
We too look at the
Heart of Christ for the solution. From Him, in true friendship and prayer, we
learn to dream of the Kingdom of the Father, of brotherhood, of true freedom,
of justice. The Heart of Christ is not merely our example, it is the source of
living water. He communicates his Holy Spirit who renews us, and moves us to
work for a new world. "Send forth Thy Spirit, and we shall be created. And
You will renew the face of the earth.[5]"
To enter into this
spirituality, Father Cuskelly offered us a method of
four steps. First comes the renewal of our own heart after the Heart of Our Lord;
then going out to our brothers and sisters with an understanding and open
heart, without letting ourselves be discouraged in the face of difficulties.
How do you see the
In answer to question
4 I mentioned the view of Father Munsters: the
devotion to the Sacred Heart is something we should keep to ourselves. This was
not the view of our Founder. Father Chevalier saw the evils of his time, and he
found the remedy in the Heart of Christ. He was convinced that he needed
Congregations of religious men and women, the help of the diocesan clergy and
of laypeople, to bring the remedy to the wounds of society. This implies
several things:
We should have a view of the needs of society in our own
place and time, and we should be concerned about it.
We should be
convinced that we have
something precious to share. From the viewpoint of our own spirituality we find
solutions, discovering fraternity, justice, mercy and love in the Heart of
Christ.
Healing society is
a mission we cannot manage by
ourselves alone. We work in partnership. As Congregation we should have our
mission program in each Province, in each community, and our communities
should carry it out, not alone, but in partnership with other Congregations of
men and women, with the diocesan clergy, with the laity.
Since healing
society is a responsibility of
all, we try to work together with all people of good will, also those of other
churches and of other religions. We work, not just for the people, but with the
people.
In our mission I would
underline in our time the need of partnership: working together, with the people.
During the last twenty years we have discovered the need to work, not only with
our confreres, but also with the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and
with the
For our spirituality,
this implies the need of an open heart, of a caring heart, of being-with, of an
ability to work with others.
To conclude,
could you make some suggestion for all confreres?
The effect of the
miracle at
The effect of the
descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost day was that the disciples became
apostles, and Our Lady had a hand in that too. Let us entrust to Our Lady of
the Sacred Heart our spiritual growth as disciples of the Sacred Heart, and as
apostles.
[1] Charles Piperon
[2] Jules Chevalier, Le Sacré-Cœur de Jésus dans ses rapports
avec Marie, ou Notre-Dame du Sacré-Cœur. Paris 1884, pp. 812; 2me éd. 900
pages.
[3] Jules Chevalier, Le
Sacré-Cœur de Jésus, 3nte éd., 1886, p. 62; 4nte éd., 1900, p. 453.
[4] Father Munsters was
teaching a three years course on Spirituality in the scholasticate
in,Stein, and was also the editor of a periodical on
Spiritual Life. In 1987 he must have been 81 years of age.
[5] E.J.Cuskelly,
msc, Jules Chevalier; Man with a mission, pp. 127-129.