FATHER CHEVALIER: THE MAN OF AN IDEA AND OF A WORK

J. Bertolini, MSC MSC General Chapter, 1969

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart is what we are by our free response to a divine vocation, in an apostolic and religious Society founded by the venerated Father Jules Chevalier.

I have been asked, on the occasion of this chapter of renewal, to evoke the personality of our Founder. You expect me to do it with loyalty; I do it also with frankness.

Of Father Chevalier I shall etch neither a physical nor a moral portrait. That would not have any bearing on this Chapter. For the purpose which is now yours, it is more important to situate our Founder in relation to the mission which was his in his time; and his time comprised fifty years of the history of our Society.

The humble curate of a parish in the centre of France, he took it as a matter of conscience, in the middle of the last century, that God was calling him to fulfil a special mission in the Church. He responded with all the ardour of his youth and apostolic temperament to what he believed to be a need of his time: namely, in a society which was becoming debased, to save man by making known to him the love of Christ the Saviour. A means presented itself to him: devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In itself nothing original: it was a sign of his time. This then will be his Idea. To this idea – an ideal to which his whole being aspires – he will give a practical realization: a religious Society of missionaries. This will be the Work of his lifetime.

And when he will be no more, one will read in a great Parisian newspaper, under the pen of a secular confrere who was not exactly among his friends:

“His name remains associated with a work, with a living posterity in the heart of which he himself will live on, as founders continue to live in their religious families …If we go back to his origins, he was a mediocre subject with little fiuture… he nevertheless made his way. He created a religious order; he built monuments; he even wrote works which, without being masterpieces, are lacking neither in character nor in authority. But the man stands out above all by reason of the character he brought to the service of an idea. ,. He is the man of an idea and a work…”

I maintain this last affirmation; it may appear simplistic, but we can justify it. There will be other intuitions, other realizations. All, however, gravitate around his idea and his work in order to serve them.

The sons of Father Chevalier also expressed their sentiments after his remains were deposited in the crypt of his Basilica at Issoudun.

One of them, who about twenty-five years later set himself up as a severe judge on the basis of a fragmentary and prejudiced piece of information, published for his part this appreciation:

“(Xtr dear and venerated Founder is for all who know him an extraordinary man; for us his children, he is moreover a saint…” And as final conclusion he added:

“Nothing succeeded for this enterprising and indomitable man, but his works live on; they develop in a marvelous fashion. External for us, the corporeal covering falls and dies – but the soul survives.”

With more sincerity and fairness, I cannot subscribe fully to his double affir mation.

For sure, you all have a certain knowledge of Father Founder: a hasty sketch by his most faithful companion, Father Piperon, an incompleted biography by Father Vermin, other popular monographs, certain oral traditions. Have we truly reached the soul of the Founder, that soul which survives?

A man of action, he was to a certain extent reserved. At the end of his long life, he has left us miscellaneous versions of his Spiritual Testament, and two Memoirs handwritten and unedited, which border on autobiography, namely: “Annals of the Little Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus” (1901), and “Inti mate Notes not destined for publication.” (1902)

If these retrospective writings can give us an authentic reflection of his person ality, nevertheless one can fully grasp his thought only in the light of his extant correspondence. Voluminous certainly but only partial, it is the result of about fifty years of responsibility as Superior and Founder; correspondence with his first companions, his Assistants, and a number of his sons . . . The most expressive is that addressed to Father Victor Jouet, for it is mutual. With this latter, more than with Father Piperon and the others, Father Chevalier shows himself more intimate and open, and consequently we discover better his soul, his mind, his intentions, his desires, his joys and his sufferings . . – It is there that we can meet the real Father Chevalier, provoked by his correspondents who oblige him very often to give out what he never would have said otherwise.

The subject of my thesis will perhaps surprize you. But I can count on your sympathetic attention.

1. A first question poses itself: What after all did Father Chevalier want? Or else: What was his idea? What was his work?

To reply to this will be to underline the fundamental and constant orientation of” his thought, of his idea, then its progressive realization as the concrete work of his life.

First of all two remarks must be made.

When we refer to the Founder we cannot forget that he was actually Founder for almost half a century, always faithful to his fundamental orientation, always seeking ways to bring it to realization.

It is necessary, therefore, to find him in 1900 as well as in 1854, before 1854 as well as after 1900.

Besides, his whole life, in spite of many contrasts, offers a unity of thought and action put to the service of his idea and his work.

(a) His idea, the inspiration of his youth, is rooted in an ideal to which he aspires with all his generosity and his whole apostolic temperament.

As a seminarist, “While studying the treatise on the Incarnation, our professor,” he will say, “added thereto a thesis on devotion to the Sacred Heart. .. This doctrine went to my heart, and the more I became penetrated with it, the more I experienced its riches.’

He meditated on the first biography of Blessed Margaret Mary. This reading “excited in me a keen desire to make myself the apostle of this devotion which Our Lord had himself given to the world as a powerful means of sanctification, and which he wished to see spread everywhere.”

This will be the orientation of his life – an orientation somewhat unforeseen, which could have passed for something novel. It is true, for some years several dioceses, among them his own, that of Bourges, had been consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or had adopted a liturgy in his honour.

But at this epoch, this devotion was still at the stage of its early modern development. A part of the clergy, not yet liberated from the spirit of Jansenism and Gallicanism, remained perplexed. They were willing to tolerate this devotion, since the Roman Church had approved it, but then asked of it to remain an interim devotion, of limited scope, merely a help to general piety . .. Jules Chevalier did not understand it thus. Having taken stock of the spiritual needs of contemporary society, more and more marked by what he would call with others “the illness of modern times,” which was the fruit of Protestantism, Jansenism, Rationalism, Indifferentism, a certain Liberalism, and finally Atheism, he put his finger on a remedy. At the basis of his thought, this illness of modern times is summed up in the contempt or the refusal of God, who has so loved the world that he gave his Son to be the Saviour of men.

“For this ill of souls and of society,” he wondered, “what is the remedy? Where does it exist? It does exist: he who has prepared it has deigned to reveal it to men, and he has surrounded this revelation with all the guarantees which give certitude. Let us MV with joy: the remedy is in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” This was his profound conviction. He would strive to demonstrate with joy. in his successive works, how this “remedy” was prepared in the Old and the New Testament, in the tradition of the Fathers, and the teaching of the Church … He was not a theo logian: he would himself submit his principal works to Roman theologians; they would be approved by two masters of the Sacred Palace: they would be contested by others. .. All the same, one recognizes in them two qualities: unction and fear lessness. He subscribed to the theology of his time, he did not escape the gropings and the insufficiency of doctrinal statement. But whatever criticism there may be. the positions he took up often go beyond those of contemporary authors: every thing considered, they approach astonishingly close to the positions of the encyclical of our times, that of Pius XII.

He had his conception of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In a letter to a Jesuit Father we find a resume of what he would develop in his works:

“You realize that of which I had always been convinced. You make of the Heartof the Divine Master the centre wherein everything converges in She Old as in the New Testament, the pivot on which everything in Catholicism revolves: the sun of the church, the soul of our souls and the centre of our love, the cradle of our holy religion, the source of our mysteries, the origin of our sacraments, the pledge of our reconciliation, the salvation of the world, the remedy for all our ills . . . It is thus that I understand the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: it embraces everything, it answers everything.”

Or again:

“Humanity, although composed of diverse members, forms however only one blood, only one body; we are all one body. Now the heart that gives the life to all the members of this great body, is the Mean of Jesus. He alone unites us to one another, and he alone unites us to God. As soon as we detach ourselves from him, we separate ourselves from each other, and we lose, together with the divine life of which he is the source, the true feeling of human fraternity. This divine Heart is then the centre around which gravitate all hearts.”

Or again:

“The Word, come forth from the Heart of the Father, has made the world rise up from nothingness.” “And from the Heart of the Word Incarnate, pierced on Calvary, I see come forth a new world, the world of the elect. And this creation, full of grandeur and fecundity, inspired by love and mercy, is the Church, that mystical body which will perpetuate him on the earth until the consummation of time…”

” Today still, God sees the whole world entirely in Christ, who recapitulates it in himself, who is the summary and living expression of all creatures; and as for us, we see Jesus Christ whole and entire in his Heart, which is the resume of his adorable person; his Heart and himself is all one, the Heart of Jesus is the whole Jesus. . .” Taking this conception as his point of departure, Father Chevalier affirmed:

” In principle, devotion to the Heart of Jesus has always been the soul of Christian piety, for it is no other than the dilation of charity.11 “We must then love it, practice it and spread it by all means, as being our supreme hope.”

(b) Such is his conviction. To serve it, he felt himself called to an altogether practical conception. In a memoir addressed to the Holy See, he indicated how the idea began. As a seminarist “I was pursued by the thought of a Congregation the special end of which would be to spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

From Rome itself, he would write one day: “God has great designs on the Church and on the world through the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But to make it known, men are needed who will be its missionaries. By what means, however, will they hear it if not by preaching? How indeed shall they preach unless they are sent?” . . . “There would be needed a society of priests consecrated to the Heart of the Saviour, whose mission would be to spread devotion to him, to make known the riches of his heart, and to pour forth on souls his love and his mercy.”

As far back as the time of the novena of December 1954. we know how much he had at heart the foundation of the Society. We know the name given to its members from the time of the contract with Mary Immaculate in January – February 1855, approved by the ecclesiastical authority on the 9th September of the same year:

“They will take the title of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and they will strive to fulfil all that it signifies. ” This profound significance is brought out in one of his meditations:

“(Jesus) is the first Missionary of his Heart. He is the first to make known to men the love which he has for them. Everywhere, always, in all his actions, Our Lord is preoccupied with the mission which he has come to fulfil on the earth…”

Likewise, according to the expression drawn from the first edition of his Spiritual Testament, our Founder will say:

“Our Lord sends us in his Love.”

This significance, consecrated by the magisterium of the Church at the time of the Decree of Praise, has also been recognized by the People of God: in its name, more than forty bishops, from 1868 on, bear witness how our Society has been understood and accepted; then later still more solicited the approbation of the Institute and its Constitutions.

Over and above the devotion itself, its propagation belongs to the very end of this Society. The means were submitted to a constant research, to a certain evolution in expression and in form, but it is always and fundamentally the Love of Christ the Saviour which must be brought to men, by all means possible, by all works of the Apostolate.

“By our title”, says Father Chevalier, “we are what we are. Missionary of the Sacred Heart signifies APOSTLE of the Sacred Heart, or propagator of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. This title then can befit the parish priest just as well as the curate, the chaplain just as well as the professor; in a word all members of the Society, in whatever rank they may be.”

More than once he goes so far as to say: “We are the official Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.”

His Society he conceived as eminently apostolic. It happened in 1876 that a psychologically unbalanced confrere sent to Rome an unfortunate document, seeking for the Society a more contemplative orientation. The Founder got his pro curator to reply to the Sacred Congregation: “We want the perfection of our Institute, but we do not want change. We have entered this Institute to be missionaries of the Sacred Heart; this word sums up everything.”

This is the realization of the motto adopted from the beginning; “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved!” He did not miss an opportunity of coming back on to the imperative implied in this motto. It is the apostolic inspir ation of all his enterprises, of all the works of his Society. “This device comprises within itself the principle, the motive and the end of ail the works .. . of our Society.” To attain this end, the Society will embrace all the types of ministry which the church can offer.

2. Such was, in broad outline, the constant orientation of our Founder. How did he set about concretely realizing his work?

This was not an easy matter. How many investigations, how many hopes, how many proceedings, how many sufferings! . . . Did he himself not say. on the first page of the “Annals of the Little Society”:

“When God wants a work, obstacles for him are means; he makes light of human wisdom, upsets its forecasts, calls to life what, according to it (that is, human wisdom) should never see the light of day, develops and strengthens into fecundity what was condemned to die. The foundation and the develop ment of the little Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart are a proof of this truth.”

At the outset, in contrast with other founders, Jutes Chevalier was neither a religious trained in the religious life, nor a bishop capable of giving himself per mission to go ahead. He was on the contrary a young secular priest. He had. if you wish, his charism, his grace of foundation. Subsequently the magisterium of the Church would welcome and approve his thought and his work.

Rare are the founders who have had the merit of founding a religious society in their youth. Rarer still those who have directed their work for almost half a century. Very rare those who have stayed, in spite of everything, fixed to the cradle of their work throughout their whole lifetime, such as was Father Chevalier, a power always in action, but a stable power, faithful to himself, faithful to his work, even to the point of sacrifice.

At the time of his resignation as Superior General, in September 1901, the Society counted five hundred and fifty-three living members, including four bishops, one hundred and eighty priests, one hundred and fifty-five brothers, one hundred and ninety-four scholastics, spread over four provinces, twenty-seven residences and three foreign missions. The Decree of Praise, and the definitive approbation of the Institute and the Constitutions, had been obtained at a pace comparable to that of similar contemporary institutes.

Was it a success or a failure? I do not mention here the other works established meanwhile.

The Society which had passed through so many vicissitudes of external and internal character, and which since the chapter of 1897 had regained its equili brium after the dramatic upheavals of the crises from 1888 to 1897, found itself at a secure enough stage. This stage was going to be, despite or because of the new trials for the works in France, a point of departure for a period of greater develop ment.

Before arriving at this stage, forty-six years had passed. Years of growth. A whole evolution had taken place at the level of realizations. It is very necessary to point out the principal landmarks.

a) A period of gestation and growth in the midst of multiple trials, sometimes crucifying for the Founder. But his faith was great. His courage far from ordinary. He had for himself and his work a Hope: let us say the Hope of difficult and desperate causes.

Everything commenced in a way disconcerting to human reason. In mid-October 1854 Father Chevalier was thirty years of age. He had only three years of priesthood. He arrived at Issoudun for his third post as curate. He found there – to his surprise – a seminary companion, Father Maugenest, himself a curate at Issoudun since January of the same year.

The old cure of this parish of more then twelve thousand souls was greatly in need of two young curates, youthful and active. Not more than about three weeks after the arrival of Father Chevalier, the Society of his dreams was conceived and decided on. You know the facts, the opposition, the proceedings … Six months passed. At last, despite the unanimous opposition of the Episcopal Council, the Archbishop declared in full session:

“I had promised these two priests that, if they would bring me a new sign of the willof God by finding resources. I would approve of their enterprise. This sign they have brought me; I am therefore bound. I authorise the two curates of Issoudun to join together and to commence their work. From today let us name their replacements.”

Without influence, without fortune, without any other confreres, there was nothing but to look to the future. The least that one can say is: it was a success! This success Father Chevalier attributed to the protection of Mary Immaculate, of whom he had asked a first sign for December 8th, 1854. If she had granted his desires, he had promised to give to the Church, “as the first fruit of the glory with which she was going to crown her, a new Society consecrated to the Heart of Jesus . . . Then to make Mary loved and honoured by all the means possible and in a special manner.”

We know how he kept his promise:

“Out of gratitude to Mary, they will regard her,” says the Contract of 1855, “as their foundress and their sovereign; they will associate her in all their works and they will make her loved in a special manner.” “From the beginning of our work,” the Founder would write. ” We thought of giving a name to Mary in order to show her our gratitude, and to express her power over the Heart of her Son, a power of which she had given us so many proofs. We settled on that of OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART, as best expressing our thought.”

You know the important place taken from then on in the preoccupations of Father Founder, by the justification of this title – the difficulties, the struggles, the victories. All this went on from the crowning of 1869, followed by the marvelous development of the Association established already in 3864, and become a universal Archconfraternity with its headquarters in Rome, indissolubly linked with his Society.

“ft is we,” he wrote to the Cardinal-Vicar in 1875, “whom Providence has chosen to be the founders and the natural propagators of this work which is doing so much good for souls, and which has received the approbation of four hundred archbishops and bishops, of whom seventy-five are Italians.”

The Society of Father Chevalier is profoundly marked by a Marian dimension; as pointed out in the Annals brought into being in 1866 by Father Jouet, one of the best interpreters of Father Chevalier, it is founded “on the relations of the Mother of God with the Heart of Christ.” When 1 say, “one of the best interpreters of Father Chevalier,” this is so true that the first editor of the Annals of Issoudun sub mitted each number to his superior, and he himself gave to Father Chevalier a great part of the matter of the principal works which the latter published. Notably all the citations of the Fathers of the Church are the contribution of Father Jouet. This is verified by correspondence. Certain chapters are even textually articles of Father Jouet. published in the Annals.

With reference to the Marian devotion of Father Founder. Father Piperon did not hesitate to speak of a true mission, declaring:

“As for this mission, far from attributing it to himself alone, he had it at hear! to see all his confreres full of Zeal to propagate the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. He often taught us that that was one of the principal ends of our Congregation, and the most assured means of glorifying the Sacred Heart of Jesus and making him loved. He told me one day: ‘ When Father Maugenest and I promised to take the name of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, to honour the Blessed Virgin and to make her honoured in a special way if our prayer was answered, our thought did not stop at our two selves alone, but we ‘wished formally that our little Congregation in project should be destined to this double end. If we are missionaries of the Sacred Heart, as our name and our motto indicate, we ought to be also apostles devoted to the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart’.”

Father Piperon states again:

“From the day on which was manifested to the world the ineffable power which Jesus has given her over his adorable Heart, dates the initial progress of our much loved Congregation. We believe we can affirm with full assurance that Our Lady of the Sacred Heart will never cease to protect it, as long as we ourselves remain her faithful servants.”

Permit me to add: without being a distinctive element, an element either necessary or exclusive, in practice this devotion distinguishes us in the eyes of the faithful from other institutes dedicated to the Heart of Christ.

Whatever may be the controversies, the doctrinal discussions of yesterday or today, this devotion was largely accepted by the faithful because it put Mary in direct relationship with her Son, and also because the confidence of the faithful was happy to invoke Our Lady of the Sacred Mean in difficult causes, on the spiritual as well as on the temporal level, according to the intention of Father Chevalier. Moreover, we as Missionaries of the Sacred Heart must recognize, in all loyalty and gratitude, that it is thanks to the expansion of the Archconfraternity over the world that our Society has become known; that it is thanks to the active and generous zeal of so many Associates that our Society has been able to establish almost all its works, and assure the foundations of the majority of the Provinces, if not all. Our Lady has preceded us everywhere.

(b) A religious society, to attain its proper end, gives itself to activities, to ministries.

To begin at the beginning. The Contract of 1855 says simply:

” The priests of the Sacred Heart in their solitude will imitate by preference the hidden life of Mary in the temple and in the house of Nazareth. In their apostolic life they will imitate her zeal for the salvation of souls, and her great mercy towards sinners.”

There are intentions; there are the realizations. The first are still ill-defined, intimately hidden in the heart of the Founder. God alone knows them as they really are. We can only state the facts.

We have two versions of the Contract. The correction of the first Article shows that the two Fathers did not explicitly consider the apostolate of Berry as an obli gation to which the founders bound themselves and their successors. They did not bind themselves to the apostolate in Berry, but stated only that “they would continue the work of St. Ursin, first apostle of Berry.” The Rules of 1855 and 1857 make no allusion to an explicit work which the evangelisation of Berry would have been; neither do they make any allusion to a parochial ministry. Ulterior circum stances would bring about the adoption of this kind of ministry. After indicating the fundamental orientation, the Rules of 1855/57 on the subject, “Works that the Society can undertake”, indicate: Retreats for priests and lay people, sodalities of the Sacred Heart for men and youths, apostolates among soldiers and among apprentices, education of youth, afiliation of secular priests. There follows a lengthy directive on the procedure to be adopted in parish missions.

There would be experiments in these apostolates in the community at Issoudun. But, in fact, the members of this primitive community for a dozen years would number only two or three, no more. Meanwhile, Father Maugenest, appointed archpriest at Bourges. would come back, but in order to take charge of the parish of Issoudun in the name of the community: Father Chevalier would leave his residence only for journeys in France and to Rome, being entirely preoccupied with one great project: a Society of the Sacred Heart, which would be the fusion or the federation of diverse diocesan .Associations of priests of the Sacred Heart. From so many proceedings and consultations, notably with the Jesuit Fathers, there would be only one double result: some few recruits for his community, and the pre paration of Constitutions which would end up as the 1868 Formula of the Institute. As for Father Piperon, he would undertake a preaching mission throughout France to raise funds for the erection of the Church of the Sacred Heart and the first monastery.

Granted that in 1864 there were five priests, one, Fr. Maugenest, was parish priest of Issoudun: two others, Fr. Guyot and Fr. Durin. were parish priests outside of Berry in the diocese of Moulins: another, Fr. Jouet, was a professor at Marseilles. Which signifies that if the intention of Father Chevalier was the evangelisation of Berry, then I must admit that up till then he had not succeeded.

There arrived on the scene Father Vandel, founder of the Apostolate of the Country Districts. Discovered through his book, he was induced to find in the com munity at Issoudun a centre for the “Missionaries of the Country Districts” which would be the fulfilment of his own special work. This did not come to be. For Father Chevalier pressed him to join with him, for, he wrote to Father Leblanc, S.J.. “Father Vandel is a man of God, a very precious person. His intuitions and his advice will be of great assistance to us. We would have only one desire, that is to put him at the head of the Apostolate, which he would direct, I am convinced, with prudence and wisdom, With Father Vandel joining us, it will be easy to attract his missionary priests into our Apostolate.” Father Vandel hesitated for friore than a year. At last, to be sure of keeping him with him, Father Chevalier accepted his unexpected offer: the creation of an Apostolic School. Concerning this foundation I regret that I cannot go along with Father Vermin. This institution is the work of Father Vandel. It is he who drew up its first set of rules; it is he who assured its recruitment until his death; it is he who was responsible for the finances of this institution, distinctly separated from those of the Society. Father Vandel ran it so well that, whilst reimbursing the community at Issoudun down to the last postage stamp, he would without any difficulty pay for the necessary building beside the College of Chezal-Benoit, he advanced the funds for the construction of the first Novitiate of Montlucon, and lent 25,000 francs for the purchase of the house which was to be from 1874 the first residence of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Existing documents confirm all these statements and discountenance all the legends.

Whatever one wishes to think about it, this Apostolic School was a nursery of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Father Vandel, who was himself thinking only of the country districts of France, entered into the views of his Superior who did not cease looking beyond France. The works of the Society were becoming better defined. The first students of the Apostolic School arrived from diverse provinces of France, from Corsica and from Switzerland. Their letters to Father Vandel reveal to us that the majority of them were thinking only of the foreign missions. From as early as the first year. Father Chevalier presented to them one day a Roman prelate: “Rev. Fr. Superior told us that Mom. Chaillot would, on behalf of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, ask the Sovereign Pontiff for a mission, be it in Oceania or some other country.” In a circular Father Vandel wrote in 1868: “The type of life of the students is regulated according to our anticipation of their future ministry, whether it be in the giving of missions in France or in the rigorous apostolate of the foreign missions.”

The Formula of the Institute, which constitutes the first expression of the official Constitutions, far from localizing the apostolate in France, points out among the forms of the apostolate: “With the approbation of the Holy See, the Society embraces various apostolic ministries, even among the infidels.” This would be restated by the Constitutions of 1877/91. which are those of the Founder. They specify; “Our little Society has also for its end the spreading of the Faith among the infidels. May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved! We will then be always ready, according to the measure of our strength, to undertake every sort of mission in any part of the world whatsoever, according as it pleases the Sovereign Pontiff and the Superior General.” The hour of realizing this wish was not long delayed.

In 1872 Father Founder confirmed this orientation:

“Their restricted number does not permit them to devote themselves for the time being to missions in infidel lands, but they will accept this work, so dear to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as soon as they can; it is their desire and that of the Holy See.”

Dating from this year, the Apostolic School commenced to become inter national. In the following year, 1873. at the request of the Bishop of Toronto, one of the Fathers was sent to Canada in connection with this project. But it was from the time of the installation of the first community of scholastics in Rome, December 1875, with Father Jouet, that the latter, sharing more deeply than anyone else in the mind of the Founder, would be the principal instrument in the realization of missionary ideals. He had just established the Archconfraternity in Spain: he was going to England to sound out the possibilities of a foundation. The General Council of the 25th February, 1876 envisaged foundations in England, in America, in Holland or Belgium: “An Apostolic School attached could have great advantages for the propagation of the Society,” say the Acts. Consideration was given to teaching the English language to the students in view of future missions. In 1 876 a new foundation was made at Watertown. It was hoped that this would be the base for other fields of apostolate. The farewell celebration had been a missionary day. It was on the occasion of the Founder’s feast day: “It brings us great joy.” said a witness, “to announce to you that there are requests everywhere for Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, in Austria, in England, in Spain, as far as Oceania.”

Under the date of 26th January, 1878. Father Chevalier wrote to his procurator: “Beg Mgr. Agnozzi to keep us a good foreign mission for which we will prepare ourselves, and which we will accept as soon as possible. If he could let you know in advance! . . .”

Exactly a year later, Rome proposed the Mission of Auckland, New Zealand. A novena of prayer was asked for in each community for the feast of St. Joseph. The young members were thrilled with joy and hope. But there was fierce oppo sition on the part of the Assistant, Father Guyot. Father Chevalier accepted the offer in principle: but in spite of himself his response to Rome was too timid. For once Rome was in a hurry, and the mission was confided to others. Keen was the disappointment of the Founder who had already sent to the Father Procurator three names for the choice as the Vicar Apostolic: “This mission,” he had written, “corresponds entirely to one of the principal ends of our Institute, and to the most ardent desires of the majority of our Fathers, especially our apostolic youth.” He did not lay down his arms; he returned to the charge in the following year . . . And soon, by circumstances as picturesque as unexpected, it was the whole of the immense Vicariate of Melanesia and Micronesia which called for his decision. This decision was clear: it was Yes. And yet. from November, 1880 his religious had had to flee from France; the situation had become more difficult.

His Assistants, dispersed in different places, were in opposition. Father Guyot threatened to resign and sent an angry memorandum to Rome. Cardinal Simeoni was warned sufficiently to take no account of it whatsoever. Father Chevalier played the trump card: “Ask Cardinal Simeoni to draft an official letter, saying clearly that it is the Pope who asks, so that I can put it under the eyes of the Assistants and the Archbishop of Bourges.” You know the official story, the fine and famous letter of 25th March, 1881: Father Chevalier himself had asked Father Jouet to put on it the date of the 25th March .. . You know also the no less beauti ful response … All these documents, and for a very good reason, were not pub lished until the August number in the Annals of Issoudun. Without this audacious ness of the Founder, our missions would not have commenced in 1881.

For sure the first missionary expedition was a strange adventure, despite our Fathers. Everything almost came to grief. Once again the unshakeable authority of Father Chevalier was needed to say: “Hold on! Have patience! You will not be abandoned.’1

In this development of the concrete orientation of his work, Father Chevalier, conscious of his grace as founder, gave proof of a courage and tenacity far from ordinary. He gave proof of the same in whai followed, in circumstances still more difficult. 1 must limit myself. I am putting several testimonies in the notes. And all this does not express the whole sum of the sufferings of this man, apparently self-controlled and calm, but of a very deep sensibility. We know the sword which struck his heart the very day of the crowning of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. His suffering was great also on the very day of the first departure of his sons for Oceania. His particular situation at Issoudun, in this period of religious perse ‐ cution, obliged him to conduct himself already as a secular priest of the diocese of Bourges, like several of his confreres. He was unable therefore to get to Barcelona. He went and secluded himself in the Major Seminary at Bourges for the priests’ retreat.

From there, he sent this message to his Procurator:

1′ Very dear Father, it is impossible for me to be (here of the departure of our much loved and heroic confreres, who are going to bear the knowledge and the love of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady to Oceania. How I en\y their lot! What a sacrifice not to be able to hless and embrace them at this solemn hour. Please offer my apologies to these privileged ones. Ask for their blessing in return for me and for the Society. . . How much I suffer to be unable to be at Barcelona at this hour!”

While the Society was taking on a fresh elan with these new perspectives for the future, while new houses were being founded in Europe, America and Australia, while the Institute of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was consolidating itself on a sure footing, a new generation was rising, growing up, developing in strength, and contesting . . . The moving spirits stirred up sharp diffi culties: reasons were not lacking: these reasons were not always understood or appreciated with serenity and justice . . . Twenty years passed, difficult, turbulent, between two religious persecutions in France – . .

The Founder often felt very alone in face of responsibilities always growing more heavy ,, . “The cause appeared desperate, and we wondered with anxiety,” he avowed, “how all this was going to end up. The idea was always the same: to destroy the Congregation and to build another on its ruins . . . Heart filled with anguish and tears in our eyes, we foresaw the approaching ruin of our beloved Society. Deprived of all human help . . . we turned towards the Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart: Save us, we perish! . . .”

From 1886 the Founder intended to complete his Constitutions; from 1888, he dreamt of a Vicar General with right of succession: he had already made his choice: it would be young Father Klotz .. . Did the latter have any knowledge of this? I do not know. But what we know is that he was intelligent and enterprising, one of the most accepted leaders of what was called the “opposition”‘, and the one perhaps who made Father Chevalier suffer most. “Oh. how I pity the poor Superior of a Congregation who at every step dashes against contradictions, whilst night and day he is wearing himself out for the general good. I would like to see another do better than myself. You will see … But let us not precipitate anything, knowing how to wait on the Heart of Jesus for light and help: neither has ever been lacking us.” Encouraged by his most faithful confreres. Father Chevalier understood that. to save his work, it was not yet the moment to relinquish the helm. “Let us have confidence, we shall come out stronger from the painful crises through which we are passing.” He knew how to wait, how to conciliate and how to pardon much. To one of his sons who came back to the fold, he said: “How happy I am to know you are content: Felix culpa. How good God is. How admirable in his designs. He has made us both pass through a series of painful trials. The result has been to attach you more irrevocably to your holy vocation, to extend our well loved Society by the creation of a new Province (that of Australia), to bring back concord, con fidence, union and peace among us. to bind still closer the bonds which united us, to overwhelm me with joy in proportion to what 1 have suffered most.”

Another hour could come, that of a greater sacrifice, to save what he considered necessary to be saved, in the service of what was his constant ideal, in the service of his work which had to survive all trials . . . The events of 1901, on the advice of his most enlightened sons, on the advice of Rome itself, determined him to make a decision of courage and faith. I give the text of the letter preserved in the Vatican Archives:

“Issoudun, diocese of Bourges, 28th August, 1901.

Most Holy Father,

The undersigned has the honour of soliciting two favours of Your Holiness, towards the end of safeguarding the interests of his Institute and preserving his title of Archpriest of Issoudun:

1. to deign to accept his resignation as Superior General of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart;
2. to secularize him for as long a time as events demand, whilst interiorly he still keeps his obligations as religious.

Jules Chevalier.

Sup. Gen. of the Miss, of the S.H.. and Archpriest of Issoudun.”

The confreres who remained at his side until his death, several of whom bene fited from a like secularization, were not under any illusion. Others, less informed of the existential situation, or guided by sentiments more or less acknowledged, believed later in making a mystery of what had been officially announced by the first successor of the Founder. He himself, more a missionary of the Sacred Heart than anyone else, resuming his whole thought in a letter of 1906, said to Rev. Father Eugene Meyer. superior general: “Let us see in the trials which the good God prepares for us an effect of his love and his mercy. Let us draw profit from them. The religious congregations had perhaps too far forgotten their precious and sublime vocation. They had become accustomed to living in ease and perhaps also in worldliness. Divine Providence seems to want to recall them to their first vocation, which is the continuation of the life of Jesus Christ in the world, and participation in his sufferings: ‘If you will be perfect. . .’ The practice of poverty is a treasure which will never be exhausted. Priests and religious, if they are what they ought to be. will never lack what is necessary. So I am under these circumstances without anxiety for the future. This is not a prophecy that 1 am making. It is quite simply a deduction from the philosophy of history.”

Cannot one add this thought to his last Testament?