Joaquín Herrera, msc 15/11/2023
Is your Founder a Saint?
This is a question that some people ask us when they meet us. Certainly, the founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart is not a saint in the sense that he is canonised. The steps are being patiently taken so that one day he will be officially recognised as such. But, for now, we have to be content with believing that “saint” is any person who lives united to Christ, in “the grace of God” as our elders used to say, whether living among us in time or dead, which is to be alive in eternity. St. Paul, in one of his letters, calls “saints” those who follow Christ by living united to Him: “Greet… all the saints who are with them” (Rom 16,15). “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household” (Phil 4:21-22. Cf. 1 Cor 16:15; 2 Cor 13:12).
When Jules Chevalier discovered in the Heart of Christ that he was particularly loved by God with an everlasting love, his life was a continuous effort to respond to that love. He was aware of the words of Sacred Scripture: “If you are determined to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for the test… for as gold is purified by fire, so those who please God pass through the crucible of humiliation” (Eccles 2:1-5; cf. Rom 5:3ff; 1Pet 1:7). One of the signs of holiness is constancy in following Christ through the trials of life. Jules Chevalier was an example of this. Let us think a little about the moments when he put into practice the exhortation of the Apocalypse: “Do not be afraid of what you will suffer… remain faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev 2:10f). Shall we take heart?
1.- Born into a poor family, with a father who was not a very “competent” baker, as he soon became unemployed.
2.- He had to work as a child, as a shoemaker’s apprentice and it was difficult for him to study in a “normal” way at school.
3.- He encountered some family opposition when he said he wanted to become a priest. The excuse was the inability to pay for his studies.
4. He found, through the parish priest, a benefactor who would pay for his seminary studies and who would give his father a job. He entered the minor seminary when he was about 17 years old, with little academic training. He suffered the scorn and mockery of his companions who were much younger than him.
5.- With a strong temperament he stopped the contempt of some, with a formidable slap he made himself respected, but he trembled because of the consequences that such an action could bring.
6.- On an excursion he fell into a ravine and was thought to be dead. He could hear, but could neither move nor speak. The fear of being expelled for his audacity stimulated him to become more self-controlled.
7.- He felt emptiness in the major seminary because of his austerity and a certain severity in the fulfilment of his duties, due to economic differences, as well as difficulty in his studies because of his lack of previous preparation. However, he showed a certain leadership attitude in founding the “Knights of the Sacred Heart”, an internal student organisation in the diocesan formation house. The discovery of the spirituality of the heart changed his life until he became a man who was considered to be kind, compassionate, merciful, constant, strong and tender at the same time.
8.- His piety and dedication were more important to the formators than his academic results. He could be a good priest in the lost regions of the Diocese.
9.- Strong opposition from the rector of the seminary to his desire to be a missionary beyond the frontiers of his country.
10.- Separation from his family when he told them that he was becoming a priest not to solve the family’s financial problems, but to serve God. In fact, in his biography there is little mention of his family and no strong relationship with them.
11.- Ordained a priest, he was assigned to remote rural parishes and in a short time to Issoudun, a village indifferent to the faith and considered difficult for the clergy.
12. Total opposition of the cathedral chapter and its bishop to authorise him to found a Congregation.
13.- With the intercession of the Virgin Mary, he manages to fulfil the requirements imposed by the Bishop, who gives in to be true to his word in the face of opposition from the majority of his Council.
14.- December 8th is the date of the beginning of the Congregation, without means, with a poor chapel that collapses in a short time. Chevalier’s companion, Fr Maugenest, intellectual and gifted, was sent to the cathedral by the bishop, leaving Jules alone with Fr Piperon. For a long time the group did not grow. Was it God’s will that it should survive? Was it the work of men or the work of God?
15.- On the day of the coronation of the image of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Jules received a note from Rome asking for clarification about the title and the image. Difficulties arose in Poland and Rome due to different interests. Jules’ joy turned on this important day into worry, tension and anguish.
16.- Several older priests who had joined the Congregation wanted to impose their lines on the Founder, who was confronting the situation with energy and sorrow.
17.- One of the first Councils that Jules has is completely divided with several members completely against the Founder. The tension is great as they put the brakes on all Chevalier’s intuitions. Total opposition to founding in New Zealand, in essence, to France’s foreign missions.
18.- The internal and external enemies fill various Vatican bodies with letters against the Founder. These are weighing on the process of a possible beatification.
19.- A group of young canonists in the Congregation, trained with Chevalier’s help in Rome, start looking for reasons to remove Chevalier from his position as Superior General, creating a huge division in the “little society”. Several left the Congregation and some returned later. Jules saw the work collapse because of misinterpretations.
20.- He had to do without his “little priest”, as he called Father Victor Jouet, his right-hand man and great promoter of the Congregation and of the title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in order, as a scapegoat, to calm the situation of internal rebellion.
21.- At the end of his life, he lived with intensity the religious persecution, the confiscation of the goods of the Congregations and the expulsion of the religious from France. A new painful impression on the future of the Congregation.
22. He was able to stay in Issoudun, in the parish, from where he collaborated in part in the support of the Congregation in various countries.
23.- He was unable to attend the farewell of the first missionaries to Papua New Guinea, who were leaving Barcelona for what Jules considered one of the treasures of the Congregation: The missio ad extra, an ideal he had had since he was a young seminarian.
24.- Expelled from his home, he died in someone else’s house on 21 October 1907. Stripped of everything.
Of course, Jules Chevalier’s life was not an easy one. The biblical saying was fulfilled in him: “God tries those he loves the most” or in the words of the Apocalypse: “I rebuke and correct those I love the most” (3,14). Seeing his constancy and perseverance in what he believed was God’s will in his life, his capacity to forgive those who went against him, we have no doubt that Jules could make his own the words of the apostle he admired: “By the grace of God I am what I am; and the grace of God has not been unfruitful in me: but rather I have laboured more than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me”. (1 Cor 15:10)
Seeing his life, as a friend of Jesus, convinced of his love, discovering in his pierced Heart the strength to create something new, desirous that the whole world should know the love of God revealed in the Heart of his Son, we are of the opinion that he is with the Lord in his Kingdom. We hope that one day, not too far away, the Church will officially recognise him as a saint.
Of Jules Chevalier, the man with a mission, passionate, and in love with the God of love that he experienced in his daily life, one could say that the popular wisdom saying “you are what you love” comes true.
As Paul could say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me… I live in faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. And Chevalier really tried to respond to this love because ‘love is repaid with love’.