FATHER JULES CHEVALIER: WHO WAS HE?

Gene Tostain MSC 1995

Translated from the French by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Aurora, Illinois, U.S.A.
Mark McDonald, MSC, translator
Raymond Diesbourg, MSC, editor
Ronald Leinen, MSC, editor
Original title: Le Père Jules Chevalier… C’est qui?…
Maison Provinciale Missionnaires du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, 1995
Chevalier Printing & Publishing Center, Communication Foundation for Asia, Manila, 1996

PREFACE

On the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the foundation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the 130th of the consecration of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the 125th of the annual pilgrimage, and the 120th of the foundation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the year “Jules Chevalier” was inaugurated at Issoudun (September 1994–September 1995).

This event gives a special tone to the celebration of the different pilgrimages that occur during the year. It was fitting that we introduce to the public the Fr. Chevalier who was at the origin of these missionary foundations (the priests and the sisters) and of the pilgrimage to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

We are indebted to the able writing skills of Father Jean Tostain, Missionary of the Sacred Heart, for this simple and attractive presentation of Father Chevalier. He was not the first to undertake the task. His most famous predecessors, Father Vermin and Father Cuskelly (former superior general, now a bishop in Australia), did the initial research to introduce their Founder first to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart themselves. Since these two works are now out of print, we needed, for this jubilee year, a publication for the general public which could help us discover the spiritual riches of Father Chevalier and the grace he brings to our times. This is what you have here, at least in part, since this book will be continued so that Father Chevalier’s life can be seen from birth to death. The demand for a book for the pilgrimage season (Easter to October) put pressure on our calendar and the decision was made to print what Father Jean Tostain had already written.

We are most thankful to him for this work and the service it provides to pilgrims who are anxious to learn about the man who was behind the missionary and Marian spirit that gives life to the Issoudun shrine.

Father Daniel Auguie, MSC
Rector of the Basilica
Issoudun, Easter 1995

FOREWORD

Photographs, maps, graphs… At Issoudun, in the cloister adjoining the Basilica, posters had been put up to inform pilgrims and passersby about the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, their spirit, their missions, their place in the Church. At the end of the exhibit there was an enlarged photo of Father Chevalier. A gentleman with a puzzled, pensive look stood there with his hands behind his back contemplating the photo. As I passed him, he asked me, without really expecting an answer: “Jules Chevalier, who is he?…”

Below the picture, in bold print, you could read: “Rev. Father Jules Chevalier, founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.” But that was not what the man (who certainly knew how to read) was asking. His question really meant: “Where did this man come from? To what moment of history does he belong? How did it happen that from a small, little-known country town he founded a world-wide organization with such importance and vitality?”

Christopher Columbus discovered America—everybody knows that! Yet, in 1992, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of that event, bookstore windows suddenly came alive with dozens of books about him—some small, some big; some with a lot of pictures, some a bit more austere; some in simple language, some much more scientific. And for those who don’t like to read, they even made a movie—a big movie with a famous actor. It was very popular. This was because suddenly, we were preparing to celebrate in a big way an event that changed the world, everyone was asking the question: “But just who was Christopher Columbus?…” Certainly this man didn’t just wake up one morning and say: “All right! And what if I go and discover the New World?” How did that come about; why at that moment in history? All of a sudden we wanted to know more about him and to learn about the times and the events that preceded, surrounded and led to this crazy undertaking.

It is possible that Jules Chevalier will be canonized someday (his cause has been introduced in Rome). On that occasion books, big and small, will be published to explain how he was able to crystallize the aspirations of his time and bring about the beginning of a response. In the meantime, so as not to make the gentleman who was asking the question wait too long, this little book is intended to give a brief answer to the question: “Jules Chevalier, who is he?…” A brief answer, perhaps, but long enough to give that gentleman the desire to know more.

1. THE MEETING

July, 1859… It is early afternoon. A priest rings the bell at the door of the rectory in Ars. Wearing an energetic face and a threadbare cassock, Father Jules Chevalier has come calling. He is 35 years old. A friend of his took him along on a pilgrimage to La Salette, but he wanted, at all costs, to make a detour through Ars by himself. He needs advice and encouragement. Who better than the holy Curé, whose reputation had won over the whole of France, to give them to him?

Five years before this, Jules Chevalier had founded at Issoudun a small congregation with a big goal and the assurance of an important mission to accomplish: to have people come to know that God is love. An enormous undertaking! Many religious congregations had already seen the light of day in this first half of the Nineteenth Century when the needs of the Church were so great. Each one of them had a precise purpose: education, schools for the poor, rural evangelization, foreign missions… Jules Chevalier did not reject any of these things to start with, or rather he accepted them all beforehand, but his goal was much greater: to tell people that God loves them, to tell it everywhere, to tell it to everyone.

His bishop, thinking that it was important to encourage everyone with high ideals and that the diocese could only profit from a new center that would benefit the whole region, had supported him. But after five years, the “Congregation” of the “Missionaries of the Sacred Heart” still had only two members! The tangible results were not in proportion to the hopes. They were thinking about simply giving the parish of Issoudun to the two priests and of forgetting about this plan for a religious family that had never gotten off the ground.

No one answers his ring. Hesitantly, Jules Chevalier pulls the cord again. He hears the sound of someone running and the door opens violently. A very angry priest appears. Seeing that the nuisance who rang is also a priest does not calm him down; on the contrary! “Only priests are rude at this point!… The pastor is not seeing anybody.” The door closes with a slam. Jean-Marie Vianney, the humble Curé of Ars, is now very well protected! Father Chevalier leaves, quite sad at having failed in his attempt.

But he does not have time to go very far. A voice calls him back: “Father! Father!…” It is the same priest as a moment earlier. “Please forgive my anger. But we are bothered so often! Come on in! I hope that in just a moment the pastor will be able to see you. He was very tired, but now he is better.” What a sudden turn of affairs! Without a doubt Father Vianney had heard the sharp rebuff and had insisted on seeing the bothersome visitor. He is always available, for everyone.

And there he is, the holy Curé with his surplice on his arm. He was going to hear confessions, as usual, sometimes up to 18 hours a day! He is pale and thin with his eyes set deep in their sockets. Deeply moved, Father Chevalier informs him about his little foundation and of his goal. The Curé of Ars answers him. “This work is the work of works! Have confidence! You are only at the beginning of your setbacks and you will have more. Hell will do all in its power to destroy your undertaking which is destined to save many souls. But the Heart of Jesus and his good mother will intervene.”

Pious words? Passing banalities? Yes, if you like, just like everything that the Curé of Ars said. Later on, no one dared use his sermons, his “catechetical instructions” that he so laboriously writes each day in the sacristy—they are really quite trite! Jean-Marie Vianney is not an orator; he is not an educated man. It was all in the way he looked and in his conviction. Words were only accessories. The Curé of Ars converted great numbers of people by saying “banalities” with a burning faith. Christians were not led into error by him and even the great Lacordaire himself was deeply moved when he heard him speak of the Blessed Trinity.

Jules Chevalier is also moved, convinced and comforted. He finds his speech again and asked the holy Curé to make a novena with him. This was Father Chevalier’s custom: every time he found himself before an important moment, a problem, or with a big decision to make, he made a novena! The Curé of Ars promises to join him. He will make the novena. Jules Chevalier returns to Issoudun with his spirit restored. A few days later he learns of the death of Jean-Marie Vianney. Our holy saint continued his novena in heaven. And since he entered eternity where time no longer has any meaning, that novena will last forever. How blest are the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart!

This famous meeting between the Curé of Ars and Father Chevalier is much more than anecdotal. It is a sign. The encounter between these two apostles, one who had “run the course,” as St. Paul said, and the other just beginning, is a meeting of the two generations of priests who re-evangelized a France ravaged by the sufferings of the revolution. The first generation, with very little support at hand, had tried to save and reestablish the essentials. The second generation was to go further in the hope of opening up to the entire world.

One cannot really understand the place Father Chevalier had or the role he played, i.e. his vocation, without seeing him in his historical context. Jules Chevalier’s message is universal but it took root and developed in very particular circumstances. Mother Theresa’s message is universal but would we have been privileged to hear it if Calcutta had been a prosperous city? Would there be a “Red Cross” today if Henri Dunant had not been present and so helpless at the battle of Solferino? Jules Chevalier is, first of all, a man of his age before being an apostle for future ages and for the entire world.

What was that age? “How did all of that come about?” Who is Jules Chevalier? What were the events that created him? Under what circumstances was he called to proclaim God’s message of love? It is necessary to look, even if only with a glance, at the times that gave birth to such a tremendous spirit and such a great fire.

2. AFTER THE STORM, A NEW GENERATION APPEARS

For all patriotic Frenchmen, June 18 is a most memorable date. I am speaking of June 18, 1815: the disaster at Waterloo. The following day, June 19, a small humble-looking seminarian was ordained a subdeacon at Lyons. It was the John-Mary Vianney we saw in the previous chapter. His ordination, of course, had nothing to do with the battle of Waterloo. If Napoleon had won the battle, our future saint would still have been ordained. But the closeness of the two dates helps us to put that historical moment in better perspective.

The year 1815 marked the end of Napoleon—the real end of Napoleon after his reappearance for 100 days. King Louis XVIII, after returning to France in 1814, had prudently left when Napoleon came back so as not to get in the Emperor’s way. But once Napoleon was on his way to Saint Helena, the king was back again. A new regime was under way. New? Not really, since it called itself the “Restoration.”

France was coming out of the most tumultuous 25 years of its history. They were also the most terrible since they witnessed its glory being drowned in the depths of destruction and terror.

The Revolution had not started off so badly, however. When the Estates General opened on May 5, 1789, the clergy was well represented. The meeting had been preceded by the “Lists of Grievances” drawn up in each parish (the word “commune” was not yet in use). These “Lists” presented suggestions for the reform of the Church—reform that was sorely needed—as well as for other sectors of the life of the nation. One does not detect any particular animosity against the Church in these documents. Moreover the opening of the assembly was marked with a long solemn procession in which Robespierre himself piously carried a candle.

On August 4, in a moment of euphoria, the clergy, along with the nobility, renounced its privileges. Since the ordinary priests had very few privileges, this meant the high clergy which in fact was a very privileged class. Here again there was nothing to cause alarm. Equality and sharing are, after all, well established Gospel values.

There followed on August 26 the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In itself it contained nothing that Christians would oppose. To the present day, Christians and priests throughout the world have been imprisoned, tortured and killed for having dared to defend the principle that all people are children of God and are worthy of respect. But in 1789 these “Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” fundamental principles of the new regime, were a smoldering fire. They had been directly inspired by the teachings of the philosophers of the Enlightenment (Voltaire and his famous “Let us crush the infamous thing,” had come on the scene just 20 years before this). Since religion was considered a form of oppression, it could not be supported. And the horizon grew dark.

Things soon became worse, however, for another reason. The state needed money. It was to solve a financial crisis that the king had called the Estates General in the first place. On November 2 quick approval was given to Bishop Talleyrand’s solution: all the goods of the clergy became property of the state. It was as easy as that! True, the monasteries were very rich, perhaps even too rich. But this transfer of property, unprecedented and uncontrolled as it was, would ruin the Church. Churches were taken over and ransacked, used as quarries or destined for profane use. The bourgeois class and the rich farmers who acquired these goods so cheaply were then for the Revolution and against the Church out of fear that what they had gained would be taken from them.

Since monasteries no longer existed, the National Assembly very logically forbade religious vows in a decree of February 13, 1790. Before the Revolution the monasteries had gone through a period of decadence and the number of monks was quite reduced. With this new blow, the end seemed near.

In its rush to bring about reform, there was no stopping the National Assembly. It was decided that the dioceses would have the same boundaries as the departments and so their number went from 135 to 85. Bishops and pastors were to be elected by the total electorate, including non-Catholics, just as any other civil officials. King Louis XVI was too weak and had to approve this “Constitution.” It was certainly against his wishes but he approved it just the same.

The clergy was thrown into complete disarray. Thirty-two bishop deputies rose in protest. The Assembly answered by demanding that all members of the clergy with an official appointment take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. The result was a complete dismemberment of the clergy: some were “insubordinate” priests who were hunted down and massacred when they were caught; others, about 35,000 of them, went into exile and the rest were “the oath takers” in whom the general public had little trust.

Pope Pius VI rigorously condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the Declaration of the Rights of Man in its existing form. But he had little influence. The persecution only grew stronger. The king, symbol of the old order, was sent to the guillotine. Group executions became more common. On one day 300 priests were killed during the massacre of September 1792 in the center of Paris while hundreds of others died in the countryside. Such was the “Reign of Terror” which reached its climax from September 1793 to July 1794. Of that time it would be correct to say that practically all public religious cult had disappeared in France.

The fall of Robespierre on July 27, 1794, brought a pause in this fury of destruction. On February 21, 1795, the Convention recognized a limited freedom of religion. The Church got some of its breath back and tried to reorganize. A sort of council of the French church met in Paris. “Missions” took place in the country, in barns, anywhere. For better or for worse, lay men and women taught catechism. But in 1797, the Directory, fearing a resurgence of the royalists, again took a hard line against the Church. Many priests were arrested, deported to Guiana or shot.

When Napoleon came on the scene in November of 1799, nothing changed at first. But since people on both sides were sick of so much violence they were more than disposed to reach a compromise. Napoleon was convinced that he could not govern without a religious compromise on the part of the French people. So, for purely political motives, he sent representatives to speak with the legates of Pope Pius VII. These talks led to the Concordat of 1801. According to the concordat all the bishops of the old regime were to resign. The First Consul would himself name the new bishops and the Pope would give them a canonical appointment. There were only 60 dioceses left in France. The government guaranteed equitable treatment for the clergy but not for religious since Napoleon did not want to hear of them. The owners of national treasures would not be bothered. Once the Concordat was signed, Napoleon added 77 “Organic Articles” designed to make of the Church in France a Gallican Church. This had long been the dream of some: a Church that would be an instrument of the government’s policies. The Pope protested but to no avail.

This was not the freedom the Church had hoped for; but it was at least a sort of truce that would permit her to begin to heal the wounds. Freedom of worship was solemnly reinstated at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on April 18, 1802. Slowly the dioceses began to reorganize. Although there was a tremendous shortage of priests, vocations were numerous. The new priests had very little formation but tremendous goodwill. Here and there seminaries were timidly opened. It would take some time for the results to be felt.

And this brings us to 1815: Waterloo, the Restoration, and John Mary Vianney.

If I speak so much about the Curé of Ars, it is because he is so well known and, contrary to what one might think, not really an exception. The little Curé of Ars was a very holy man, but he also reflects an entire period in Church history. Today Mother Theresa of Calcutta is certainly an extraordinary person but she is also the symbol of an era in which personal commitment is more common than ever. From “Doctors without Borders” to Peace Corps volunteers, hundreds of associations and tens of thousands of women and men of good will work throughout the world to help people live with the dignity they deserve. Mother Theresa does not do any more than all these anonymous generous persons. She just does it better, that’s all. She does it completely, totally and with deeper motivation. John Mary Vianney in his humble forgotten hole in Ars was only doing what hundreds of anonymous humble priests were doing, each in his little parish.

Who were these little-known priests? There were, first of all, men traumatized from seeing France so quickly and so totally de-Christianized. Perhaps a better word would be “paganized.” “Leave a parish for twenty years without a priest and they will start to worship the animals!” the Curé of Ars said. That was not a warning, but an observation!

These priests had very little formal education. There were few, if any, seminaries at this point. A candidate would spend only a year or two living with an old priest who had survived the storm. He would study a bit of Latin, the language of all religious books, and as much theology as he could. The candidates did have to pass an examination by the bishop; but they were judged more for their piety and motives than for their intellectual background. You have to work with what you have! John Mary Vianney, not a belated vocation but a slow one, and especially reluctant to learn from books, was finally accepted, with a lot of doubts, and sent to a very small far-off parish. “If he doesn’t do any good there, at least he won’t do any harm!” the bishop said.

And so these humble priests of the beginning of the Nineteenth Century were very poor. The small “compensation,” provided by the State, was administrated by the communes, which themselves were often very poor. Moreover, it was only given to the pastors of recognized parishes and not to those in charge of missions. The Curé of Ars had a mission. His bouts with hunger are well known. But this was true of other priests as well.

Above everything else, however, this generation of priests was bolstered by a spirit that we cannot even imagine. The Revolution, this horrible time which had affected everything, was over. The king was back. Now was the time for the “RESTORATION.” They were going to restore the Church too. They were going to rebuild it and make France a Christian country “like before,” even better than before.

They preached change, conversion, penance. If the Curé of Ars “succeeded,” it was due first of all to his prayer and his own penance. It was also because he was especially severe and not the mild-mannered apostle we may think a saint must be. John Mary Vianney prohibited dancing of any kind and often preached on hell and on the Poor Souls of Purgatory who are damned for all eternity. When his frightened parishioners came to confession, he would sometimes refuse absolution, at times for several weeks in a row, until they would show some really visible signs of conversion!

At the same time, the priests tried to give back to God all the glory God deserved. There were numerous triumphal processions. Poor as he was, the Curé of Ars found a way to buy the best priestly vestments available. He dreamed of transforming his little church into a sumptuous edifice. The work would take place only after his death but according to plans he had drawn up.

What results did this new enthusiasm for “restoring” the Church produce by the middle of the century? The answer is not clear. The parish of John Mary Vianney was, to be sure, converted. “Ars is no longer Ars!” he said, and the crowds came from everywhere to see the holy man. But what about other places? The results were very different, depending on the region. In 1850, in Vendée 90% of the population was made up of practicing Catholics while in the region of Paris only 10% of the people made their Easter duty. In Orléans it was 4% of the men and 20% of the women. And so on. The good will of the priests was not enough. It was noted that the dream of a Church “like before” was just a dream. Nothing ever becomes “like before.” It is always necessary “to go forward.” Too many things change; too many things continue to change.

Out in the rural regions, no one understood what was happening in Paris. The constitutional king was not really like the king of past eras. Louis XVIII was weak and vacillated between being lax and being authoritarian. At one and the same time he wanted to be the one to restore the former values and the guardian of the values “gained by the Revolution.” Charles X, who was famous for his debauchery as a young man, became a ridiculous bigot. His inept laws gave rise to a new wave of anticlericalism. There were riots in Paris and the Archbishop’s palace was ransacked. The king was overthrown and replaced by Louis Philippe (called “Philippe-Egalité”). His reign ended with the revolution of 1848. And then a new Republic was proclaimed.

No, nothing seemed to make sense. There had been too many bombshells in too short a span of time. No one knew where to turn. Rather than hostility, indifference became the order of the day.

Indifference! That is what gave rise to new apostles, to a Father Chevalier and many others. They were better armed than their predecessors but their mission seemed more difficult.

3. THE SECOND WAVE

Fr. Chevalier’s visit to the Curé of Ars allows us to see a meeting between two different generations of priests. We should not, however, think that there had been a break or an abrupt change between the two generations. Beginning with the end of Napoleon’s times, and even earlier, these changes occurred gradually. It could not have happened in a day. One needed time to see the changes slowly evolving.

Little by little thousands of parishes were reopened. To supply these parishes with priests, the seminaries were reorganized and most of them entrusted to the Sulpicians, a sign that preparation was being taken seriously, as we shall see later. Candidates to the priesthood studied in the minor seminary, followed by five years of major seminary. Their studies were solid and their spiritual formation even more so.

At the same time we see a phenomenon proper to this post-revolution era of the French Church: hundreds and hundreds of religious congregations were born. A few old ones were reborn, although some, like the Jesuits, had a hard time finding their place because dioceses wanted them but individual governments did not. For the most part, all these small new congregations of men and women were responding to particular needs. There was so much to do! Many dedicated themselves to primary and secondary education, especially for the poor. Others evangelized the rural areas and preached parish “missions.” But there was also quite a movement toward the “foreign” missions, resulting in the surprising phenomenon that at the time of France’s greatest need, she became the most missionary! The majority of these congregations were “diocesan” and were intended to meet a local need. Many disappeared in the following century or joined with others. But a large number of them later experienced considerable growth and spread throughout the world.

This growth of religious congregations can be explained by the belief, often very strong, that in urgent situations it is necessary to give oneself completely by a total consecration of one’s life. Moreover, many concluded that individual and isolated efforts would be difficult and would have no future. The support of a community gives strength and is a pledge of continuity. There was another reason which we have to take into account without wanting to exaggerate it: studies in the diocesan seminaries were not free and in a France racked with poverty there are many poor people with vocations. The religious congregations accepted all these young people of good will. This, of course, does not exclude other possible motives, such as gift of self and search for community!

With numerous, well-prepared priests and men and women religious whose only desire was to work in the “Lord’s vineyard,” one would have thought that the Church of France was on the right road to straightening things out. But it was not that easy! The historical context had changed and ways of thinking were different.

The generation of the Curé of Ars had as its primary concern to bring the prodigal son home and the sheep who had been lost in the upheaval back to the fold. It was then possible to believe, in spite of appearances, that France was still a Christian country, a country of Christians who were hurting, abandoned and left to their own devices. It might have been sufficient to bring them back to the right road. But the task that seemed so great proved to be much more difficult than they had ever imagined.

First of all, and this was something quite new, the Revolution left behind an anticlericalism that was rather widespread at all levels of society. Previously it had only existed among the intellectuals and the radicals of Paris. But there had been too many expeditions to hunt down priests, the “enemies of the people,” during a twenty-year period. Some effect of all this was sure to remain. Also, reputation was a factor, especially for the men. After having sung the praises of the “new ideas,” no one wanted to be considered a reactionary! Both the separation of Church and state and the end of the Church’s monopoly on education were ideas that surged ahead even in the most remote parts of the country, thanks to the newspapers whose numbers began to multiply and which were distributed in the villages by peddlers. The dream of bringing things back to “the way they were” was not shared by everyone!

But what really dominated the scene was indifference. It was a new phenomenon, at least in regard to how widespread it became. Under the old order, religion was an integral part of society. No one could imagine public life, or life itself, without religion, or at least state religion. Even the appearance of Protestantism, with all the divisions that followed, had not changed this basic mindset. People had either favored or opposed the possibility of a Protestant state, and some even got themselves killed rather than renounce their convictions. However, a Protestant state would have remained a religious country as in other parts of Europe. But a country without God? Under the old order people could not even conceive the notion!

That does not mean that each subject of the Kingdom had deep, sincere faith, but rather that religion was just a part of life. People would not have been able to live without it. The clergy and the monks were often ridiculed, condemned or made fun of, but much in the same way that we act towards our politicians today. We would never imagine a single moment when we would be able to live without government officials. The religious “dimension” could at times appear to be hollow and empty; but it was a dimension. It made it possible, at any moment, to be in contact with God. People admitted—and the kings were the first to do this!—that they could very well live their lives as sinners. But sinners are not people who live without God, since sin by definition is an offense against God. Louis XIV used to get rid of his mistress during Lent so as to be able to make his Easter duty and then he would take her back! Hypocrisy? Human weakness? Whatever we may call it, it certainly was not indifference! Even the most morally dissolute feared dying without the Sacraments, as they prayed, “From sudden death, deliver us, O Lord!” Children were baptized at birth. That made it possible to give them religious education later on, even if it was not always the best, and to give each person the eventual possibility of hearing and answering God’s call.

But indifference is a completely different thing. This indifference slowly won over a people who had seen too many changes, too many successive and contradictory truths affirmed with the same violent methods! Whatever could be considered an institution was on shaky ground. The Revolution, the Empire, the constitutional kings whom no one respected anymore, the Republic, and then what? The framework was coming apart and religion with it… “And what is truth?”

Indifference is not opposition to religion nor is it hatred of God as would be experienced a century later under communist regimes. No, it was just that people did not think about God at all. They had other things to worry about! Life was hard. The slaughters that took place during the Napoleonic wars had left great empty spaces in the work forces of the country. People were poor. The exodus from the rural areas had begun and a poor working class was being formed in the cities from uprooted people who had lost all points of reference.

We, the people who are about to enter the twenty-first Century, are well acquainted with this indifference which continues to develop, first because of the total disarray in the economic world and then for the opposite reason with the arrival of comfort and the consumer society. God? Who needs him?

But for Father Chevalier and the priests of his generation, the discovery of an indifference that was becoming more and more common was a shock, a world turned upside down. They saw in it the cause of the evils of their time, and of all times. When God is not present, on what can we center our lives? On what can society’s life be based?

As a result, it was not so much a return to the “practice” of religion that they would preach nor the need for penance. They would preach, above all, about God. They talked about a God who was no longer known, a God that people had forgotten. Realizing that Christianity is not just composed of prodigal sons who have to get back to the right path but rather lost sheep, wandering without any direction, they remembered the kindness Jesus had for those sheep: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with compassion for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep who have no shepherd…” (Matt. 9,36)

4. THE SULPICIANS

Jules Chevalier, like many of the priests of his generation, was well prepared to speak of God to the people because of the formation he had received at the major seminary in Bourges. As we have already noted, the Priests of St. Sulpice were in charge of that seminary.

Here I believe it necessary to make a small digression to clear up a common misunderstanding. When we hear “Saint Sulpice,” many immediately think of a certain art form that was very popular at the end of the Nineteenth Century and beginning of the Twentieth. People either like it or they do not. Without getting caught in that debate, in general, people do not care for it. Thanks to mass production, this “art” has given our churches and chapels a great number of plaster statues, pictures and other religious objects of a sugary, sentimental nature that does not do anything for today’s young people. This whole line of production has nothing to do with the Sulpicians or “Priests of Saint Sulpice.” It merely comes from the sellers of pious goods who surround the church of St. Sulpice in Paris, a neighborhood that specializes in that type of goods. The Sulpicians do not deserve to be associated with the dainty works of art that are generally associated with the religious goods dealers of their neighborhood! (N.B. There is also a subway station called “St. Sulpice.” It is not run by the priests of the same name either!) The Sulpicians, from the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, are important. They have a long history, closely connected with that of the Church in France.

It was the Council of Trent, in response to the first wave of the Protestant Reformation, which first decreed the need for opening seminaries. The Council lasted almost 20 years (1545–1563). Although they took their time back then, it took even longer for the Council’s decrees to be implemented. Vincent de Paul was the first in France to bring together candidates for the priesthood and that was about 100 years later. At first, seminary education consisted in a retreat of eleven days which presented the men to be ordained with the basic elements of theology. These must have been really basic to be covered in eleven days. But Vincent de Paul also invented on-going formation for the clergy in his “Tuesday Conferences.” Little by little, seminaries were set up in all the dioceses in the form of sessions—of a few months at first, then for a year and then two years at the time of the Revolution. By the time of Jules Chevalier, 50 years later, the cycle was of five years. The bishops turned the running of these seminaries over to the Sulpicians, the Lazarists founded by St. Vincent de Paul, or the Eudists of St. John Eudes. All had a common origin which we must consider briefly in order to understand where Jules Chevalier received his inspiration and what were the roots of his Congregations.

This history goes back to Pierre de Bérulle, a theologian and great spiritual master (1575–1629) just after the Council of Trent. Bérulle is the one who introduced the Carmelites to France and thus made possible St. Thérèse de Lisieux. But above all he developed a theology of priesthood that would influence generations of priests.

Father Pierre de Bérulle was from the nobility and yet began to renounce all his benefices. This was 200 years before the Revolution and was quite extraordinary because one became a priest in order to be assured of income. Vincent de Paul, for example, a priest from Landes, went up to Paris with the sure hope of finding a paying job. And there he found Christ among the poor!

But Bérulle was also a very learned man. He lived at a moment of history that saw the rise of what was called “Humanism.” Greek and Roman thoughts were rediscovered; people had a great urge for experimentation and reason was all the rage. The great Descartes in his “The Discourse on Method” tried to bridge the gap between faith and reason—not an easy task. But Bérulle began with a point of view that is as simple as it is profound. God is unknowable, but Jesus, the Son of God, has a concrete historical existence. So we have to begin with Jesus to come to God. Bérulle wrote a “Life of Jesus” that is quite remarkable since it stops with the birth of the Savior. It consists in the contemplation of the person of Christ: at one and the same time man and God. Bérulle was profoundly moved by this. God is no longer inaccessible; we can reach God through Christ. “In him, the incomprehensible God is understood, the inaudible God is heard, and the invisible God is seen…”

Through him, with him, in him God is close to us. The only prayer that counts in God’s eyes is that of Christ: our only way to pray then is to join with Christ. The Son of God shares everything with his Father: united with Christ, we share all his goodness, his holiness, his grace. There is but one goal: become other Christs, be the Christ. Bérulle did not invent anything, he simply rediscovered what St. Paul said: “My life is Christ,” “We form but one body in Christ,” “Heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ,” “It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me,” and many other such texts. How marvelous!

We are perhaps less moved to a sense of wonder and admiration because these are all things that our priests taught us in catechism. We have the impression that we know all this. But knowing and feeling are two different things. The saints are those who have felt these things. In every generation they “write” the “Life of Jesus” … in their life. Jules Chevalier was overcome with wonder early on in his life. The words of scripture that he liked the most were: “With our eyes fixed on him…” (Heb. 12,2). His line of action was quite simple: never “lose sight” of Christ Jesus. And right from the first edition of the Rule of his religious Congregation, he began with these words that for him were the essential: “With our eyes fixed on Our Lord Jesus Christ…”

Continuing his meditation, Bérulle became very conscious of the fact that if the vocation to be united with Christ belongs to each baptized person, the priest has an indispensable role in the living out of this vocation. The priest, by the sacrament of Holy Orders is “conformed” to Christ. This rather scientific word is probably best translated as “rendered similar to Christ in a special way.”

Christ is “the sole mediator between God and men” (I Tim. 2,5).

Only he can offer God a sacrifice and that is the one he offered on the cross. Those baptized into him can offer only one sacrifice: his unique sacrifice. But to do that they need the priest. Without the priest there is no Mass, no sacrifice made present.

Christ is also “the head of the body” (Col. 1,18). For a Jew like St. Paul the head was a symbol for life in the same way that we speak today of the heart. The priest transmits this life of Christ through the sacraments: without a priest there would be no Sacrament of Reconciliation and no Eucharist, the full “communion” with Christ.

The head is also the one who gives direction, such as the Good Shepherd and who teaches. Here again, the role of the priest is to instruct—not to teach an abstract doctrine but to make Christ present, to make him “alive” for people and to point them towards him. The priest is also the head because he is the one who coordinates, in the name of Christ and in place of Christ, the activity of the members of the body. He is the sign of unity of all the baptized in Jesus Christ.

One can easily understand from this profound meditation that Bérulle had a very lofty idea of priesthood. He wanted to live, as perfectly as he could, according to the model of priesthood given by God made man, Jesus Christ. He gathered around himself a group of priests and founded a community according to the rules of the “Oratory,” the community founded by St. Philip Neri in Italy a century earlier. Among his disciples we find a great number of famous people of this very fertile period of Church history: St. Vincent de Paul, Father Olier, St. John Eudes, St. Gringon de Montfort.

One should note that all of these great spiritual leaders really had their feet on the ground. Pierre de Bérulle, as a member of the nobility, believed it his duty to be involved in politics. Consequently he opposed Richelieu, succeeded in reconciling Louis XIII and his mother, and accepted the office of cardinal near the end of his life. Father Olier was not content with just founding a seminary, he also sent his Sulpicians to open numerous schools in the countryside. Vincent de Paul is well known for his works of charity for the poor, especially with the foundation of the Daughters of Charity. St. John Eudes, among the many things he did, led the fight against the problem of prostitution. All this was a logical conclusion, the way to extend to their time the respect and love that Jesus had for people. Men and women are the Body of Christ and they merit great respect. These spiritual leaders wanted to go to people, as Christ did, to bring them to God, through Christ. We will see later that Father Chevalier was totally opposed to having cloistered religious in his communities.

One of Bérulle’s first disciples, Father Olier, known as “Mister” Olier, was closely connected to Vincent de Paul, or “Mister” Vincent. Olier transformed the parish of St. Sulpice in Paris and opened a seminary there. To run it he founded the “Company of the Priests of St. Sulpice.” Within a short time the Sulpicians founded other seminaries in France or were called by the bishops to teach in their dioceses.

What did the Sulpicians teach? Philosophy and theology, of course, and Sacred Scripture—everything that had to be taught in a seminary. And in doing all that they spoke about Christ. But they spoke of him in a different way than people were used to: they spoke of him as a living person, as somebody, as one who was present. Christ could not be reduced to a subject matter or to dogmatic definitions. Up until that point, especially after the arguments brought on by Protestantism, people had the habit not of speaking of Christ but of making speeches “about” Christ. The style used in the decisions of the Council of Trent was in this same line: “If anyone should say about Christ that… let him be considered a heretic!” “If anyone says that the humanity of Christ…, that the divinity of Christ…, that the resurrection of Christ…” But was anyone thinking about Christ himself? That way of talking is like speaking of hospital patients according to the operations they have had: “The stomach in Room 14 is awake…, The gall bladder in 20 had a bad night…, The prostate in 32 can go home tomorrow.” But what about the sick person? He or she has been forgotten. Yet we are talking about a person, who cannot be reduced to an organ. Christ is also a Person, in all the fullness of that word. For Jules Chevalier this would always be his conviction: Christ was never for him a subject to be studied for an exam at the end of his seminary studies. He was someone who was present; someone who lived with him and with whom he lived.

Later the disciples of Father Olier would speak even more deeply of the “religion” of Christ. They would call Christ the “religious of the Father.” These words have evolved and no longer have their original meaning. We might replace them by the words “covenant” or “mediation.” We might speak of Christ as “The Mediator of the Father,” the bridge between the Father and the human race. The religious, in the original meaning of the word, is the one who connects or binds together two things. The human person as a sinner has lost his or her connection with God. Christ repairs this disorder and reestablishes the covenant. By becoming like us, the Son of God has become the living covenant between the human race and God. In Christ, each human being can say “Father” and receive, through Christ, the life that the Father gives. Christ is thus the perfect “religious” and we become “religious” with him. The history of the world becomes the history of the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ.

To be a “religious” with Jesus in order to share with him and then with the world, intimacy with God the Father, Jules Chevalier would henceforth consecrate his life. Even though this is the calling of every baptized Christian, we can easily understand why Father Chevalier so strongly wanted to be a “religious” and found a “religious” congregation, in spite of all the objections people would make. His reason was not to set him apart from the clergy that is called “secular” and even less for reasons of organizational efficiency. It was to affirm more clearly that the priest, like Christ and with Christ, is a “religious” of the Father.

5. THE SACRED HEART

During his first years at the major seminary, Jules Chevalier’s fellow students would probably not have been enthusiastic in their description of him. Jules had always been a serious young man, an “eager beaver” we might say. Each day he became more of a model of work and strict fidelity to the rule of the seminary, a model of piety, attentive to the needs of others and reserved in his speech. But most people really do not like “models” very well. It would not have taken much more for those who lived with Jules to say that he was “too much.” He had been pegged, once and for all, as a “rigorist.” As a matter of fact, at that time in his life, he tended to be rather austere and aloof. No one had anything against him, he just was not a happy-go-lucky fellow. An important transformation was being carried out in him, one that eventually had to appear externally.

Jules Chevalier was totally focused on one thought: since we are united to God by Christ, we are the Body of Christ. Therefore we must become what we are! Consequently he undertook to purify himself, trying to gain self-mastery with constant efforts. No, he was not a rigorist. It was not a question of the rule for the rule’s sake. It was not to gain merit nor for ascetic motives. It was something else. For him, our efforts should not be aimed at making us similar to Christ—we already are—but at destroying in us everything that might tarnish this image of Christ. It was not a question of going to Christ but of putting aside anything that could separate us from him.

At the same time, Jules was taken up with the conviction that the priest, like Christ, is the “religious,” the one who unites human beings to God the Father. And so it was in order to be able to speak of God to others, in order to be understood by them, that the “religious” should also try to be as faithful a reflection of Christ as possible. The struggle to purify himself on the part of our young seminarian, so taken up as he was with his mission, was not undertaken out of a spirit of penance to atone for his sins or those of others. It was done so that he might become a more credible voice, so that he might find the right tone to communicate his message. He was intent on becoming as close a reflection of Christ as possible so as to make Christ better known and to draw all people to him.

He undoubtedly began to sense that the task was not all that easy. On one hand, to resemble Christ he had to undo all the things that he felt were foreign to Christ; on the other hand, his seriousness, his “rigidity,” might drive away the people he was trying to win over. If his confreres appreciated somewhat this “model” fellow student of theirs, the lost sheep would never rush to follow such an austere shepherd! But what could Jules do to overcome this indifference that he considered to be “the” evil of his time? How could he make God present to people? How could he “connect people with God?”

It was at this point in time that the idea of a congregation took root in the mind and heart of Jules Chevalier. It was not really such a new idea in that epoch. We have already seen how new congregations were cropping up all over. A group, using names like “army,” “legion” and “cohort,” meant strength and support. While most of the religious associations that were founded at that time were very local in nature and had very precise purposes, Jules immediately thought of something world-wide, of something universal. It would not be sufficient to create a few bastions, a few forts of fervor in the midst of an immense ocean of indifference. It was necessary to go everywhere, to everyone.

Jules was only in his second year at the major seminary. He still had a long way to go. His superior, with whom he shared his idea, threw a bit of cold water on his fervor. Father Ruel, who was an otherwise remarkable man with good judgment and great faith, was also aware that the bishop had given him a very precise mission: to prepare priests for the Diocese of Bourges which was in such great need of them. He was not about to encourage Utopian projects for far-away missions! And so he suggested to our young seminarian that he should first think about converting, for example, a city like Issoudun.

There was a bit of irony in this proposal of good Father Ruel. Issoudun, a city of 15,000 people, was considered, in fact, the most anticlerical and the most “paganized” city of the region. It was well known that newly ordained priests feared being assigned there. But Jules Chevalier accepted voluntarily this idea of an apostolate at Issoudun. What really stayed with him was the idea “…first Issoudun.” He was in agreement with the idea of Issoudun and would not talk any further because he was not supposed to. But his mind was made up: Issoudun would be the point of departure, the springboard, to speak of God to the world.

He was not there yet: first he had his studies! With the approval of his superior, Jules did found a small group within the seminary itself, made up of fellow students whom he felt to be especially zealous, they took the name “Knights of the Sacred Heart”—“Chevaliers du Sacré-Cœur”—humorously chosen by his classmates because of the play on words with the name of their “founder,” Jules Chevalier. They met during recreation times and during outings. They spoke of God and of the indifference of the people. They often prayed together; and they spoke of Issoudun. This was not because they would all necessarily have that as their future apostolate but rather to help focus their ideas. Issoudun was the archetype and the fortress of the indifference that they wanted to take on.

All taken up with his studies and his burning projects for converting the world, Jules Chevalier became more and more serious. He wanted to be another Christ, the best possible. That was his life and it demanded so much giving up and so much self-control. The little association of the “Knights of the Sacred Heart,” instead of making him loosen up, only encouraged him to double his efforts at self-discipline.

It was at this point in the normal cycle of studies that they came to the chapter on the Incarnation. Jules was especially interested and took copious notes. The Incarnation was the Son of God becoming man so that men could become sons of God. It was the same reality that so struck Pierre de Bérulle and it deeply interested Jules Chevalier. He went deep into his theology studies; he scrutinized the commentaries of the Fathers of the Church and the saints.

At the conclusion of this series of lectures on the Incarnation, the professor made a very passionate presentation on the Sacred Heart. For Jules Chevalier this was suddenly a revelation! He went to see the professor and spoke with him at length. He left with a “Life of St. Margaret Mary” under his arm, which he read with great interest.

He was astonished. One thing became clear to him: Christ is not only present to people, he also loves them—with a total love, with God’s love. He is not only the Word Incarnate, he is also love incarnate. “God is Love.” Christ is God. Therefore, Christ is love. He is love made human. And he asks us to love him, to return “love for love.” The God of the Old Testament, before whom the greatest prophets hid their faces, becomes approachable in Jesus Christ. One can love God in Christ. The Lord had foretold this through the prophet Ezekiel: “They will be my people and I will be their God…” (Ezk. 37,27). With the coming of Jesus, we can say: “now we are your people, and you are our God.” For Jules this was a moment of grace. He felt that he had just discovered what he had been searching for with such difficulty and with such great pains. The way to be truly united with God, the way to “connect” all people with God is love!

When we say that this was Jules’ discovery of the Sacred Heart, we should be more precise. He was well acquainted with the “devotion” to the Sacred Heart that the priests of the Nineteenth Century had spread far and wide. His mother had consecrated him to the Sacred Heart when he was little and she had even given him his “certificate of consecration” that he carefully kept with him. All chapels and churches of the time had their Sacred Heart statues. There were prayers and novenas to the Sacred Heart in all the parishes. When Jules formed a group with some of his fellow students, it was only natural that they took the name “Knights of the Sacred Heart.”

His knowledge of the Sacred Heart was about a “devotion” which was preeminent among devotions since it had as its object the Heart of Christ himself. But it was a devotion nonetheless—a means of concentrating piety—like the rosary, the Christmas crib, or a favorite icon. Tradition could just as easily have left us other devotions regarding Christ, his sacred hands, for example. The hands of Christ worked for thirty years; they blessed, healed, raised the dead, multiplied loaves. They were pierced on the cross and gave witness to his resurrection, “Look at my hands, Thomas…” Yes, why not those sacred hands of Jesus? It is true that we honor the “five holy wounds” of Christ. Yet it is especially the more noble heart which was singled out. But usually people stopped with this aspect of the devotion. It was an act of pious respect for everything connected with the person of Jesus.

But what Jules discovered, on the contrary, went to the very core of the matter. The heart of Jesus is the symbol or sign of the love of the Son of God, of the infinite love of God. People in love have always known this. When they say: “I give you my heart…,” that means: “I give myself to you, my whole self…” God loves us. He shows us this in Jesus Christ. God loves us and gives us his heart. And he asks for our heart in return. This insight provided Jules with the revelation people needed and in a language that everyone could understand—the language of the heart. It was a revelation that would shake up the world.

We might compare the insight Jules received about God’s love to courtship between a young man and a young woman. Let us imagine that he is trying to win over her heart. You can give him advice and tell him the best way to reach his goal and talk about the things he should do to attract her attention. All that might not really convince him or might even discourage him. But if you can assure him that the young lady is already head over heels in love with him, that changes everything and makes it all so much easier for him! He will then have just one concern: not to do anything to displease his admirer. Thus the religious (the “matchmaker,” if I may use that term), no longer has to cry “Penance! Penance!… I call you to your obligations and your duties!…,” but simply: “God loves you!” And then even the most indifferent person, the one who does not think about anything and does not expect anything, on learning that he or she is loved, will at least stop being indifferent.

With us, God took the initiative. “God loved us first…, God sent the only begotten Son…” (I John 4,19). This son became one of us, with a human heart, to show us the Father’s love, to make it visible, palpable. All this so that we men and women might share this love and belong to God as Christ belongs to us. Thanks to St. Margaret Mary, Jules Chevalier truly discovered and understood what the Gospel has proclaimed for 2,000 years: “As the Father has loved me, Jesus said, so I have loved you… Live on in my love.” Moreover, in Jesus’ prayer the night before he gave his life to destroy all that separates us from God, he also said: “Father, as you are in me, and I am in you, may they also be in us…”

If only he could tell this to people, find the words to express this, the world would be saved. God’s love for us… God’s impatient waiting to be loved by us… “The Heart of Jesus,” Father Chevalier would later write, “that is the center where everything in the Old and New Testaments comes together. It is the pivot, the sunlight of the Church, the hearth of our love, the origin of the sacraments, the pledge of our reconciliation, the salvation of the world, the remedy for all our ills.” Yes, it is all revealed and summed up in the Heart of Jesus.

Later on some people would try to find fault with Father Chevalier for being too attached to the heart as a symbol. It is true that he used the heart everywhere, much like a young man in love who carves a heart in the trunk of every tree. We find hearts everywhere at Issoudun: in the wrought iron work of the banisters, in the tiles of the roof and in the arrangement of the bushes in the gardens. He wanted the basilica to be in the form of a heart; the door of the tabernacle was a heart made of gold. All that seems a bit exaggerated to us. But we must also remember that in our present day and age we are no longer as sensitive to symbols. We see this change in the meaning of national colors and flags. Our three national colors no longer remind us of anything but July 14 dances and the insignia on the uniforms of our better sports teams. At best, the flag is the glorious sign of a gold medal at the Olympic games. But during World War I our men gave their lives for that flag, to save that flag, to honor that flag. They gave their lives for everything which that flag symbolized: all the values that they proudly held dear, everything they believed in, everything that made up their lives, and all those whom they loved.

For Jules Chevalier, the heart was the sign, “the center, the pivot, the hearth of our love…” This “sign” was also the rallying point, the point of convergence for all the lost sheep who had no direction in life. “From the pierced heart of Jesus on Calvary,” he wrote, “I see a new world arising, a world full of greatness and life inspired by love and mercy, a new world that the Church must perpetuate on our planet…” We can imagine the enthusiasm, the exaltation and exultation that overcame our future priest, so anxious to be another Christ and haunted by the indifference of his time, when he discovered in the heart of Jesus and in the love of God, the simple, obvious response to all his anguish.

Just at this moment the time had come for him to take another step, a decisive one, on his way to the priesthood: Jules Chevalier was about to be ordained a subdeacon. He made an eight-day retreat as was the custom. A profound transformation took place within him. Once the ordination was over, his confreres discovered in the new subdeacon a man they had not known before. He was smiling, affable, pleasant, even light-hearted in his behavior. One can easily see the broad smiles of his classmates who were happily surprised by the radical change that had come over serious Jules! “Provided it lasts…!,” as most skeptics would say when they are sure that something will not last.

And it did last—until the end of his life so filled with setbacks. This was because the transformation of Jules did not come from a good resolution that he made in a moment of grace. He had not decided to change his behavior; it was he himself who had changed. He did not have to force himself to be different. The smile and the gentleness that seemed so new came from the bottom of his heart. And if we reflect a bit we see that it was not really a transformation but rather a maturing, a budding: “If the grain of wheat that falls to earth does not die, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12,24). All of these efforts that Jules had made to die to himself so as to remove from himself everything that could tarnish the image of Christ had now come to fruition. “Put to death the parts of you that belong to the earth… Get rid of all that…,” wrote St. Paul. “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, the one which is forever renewed in the image of its Creator.” (Col. 3, 9–10).

Jules Chevalier was transformed because from then on he was able to say with St. John: “We have recognized the love God has for us.” Whether it was his earlier “rigorism” mixed with a little severity or his later becoming more affable, people talked about him. They noted his strong personality and some very positive qualities. This was why he had no problem in forming a small group for prayer and reflection. His classmates were aware of who he was and were happy to be associated with him.

But in the course of their “informal” (“impromptu” might be a better word) spiritual conversations, his confreres, on one or the other occasion, must have asked Jules about his family background, his childhood, his vocation. As soon as someone begins to emerge from the pack, the question is inevitable: Who is that man? Who was Jules Chevalier? How was it, for example, that he wound up at the seminary in Bourges which was not his home diocese? In what kind of a family did he grow up? How did his desire to be a priest come about? What happened after that and how come he was so much older than his classmates? In a closed milieu like that of the seminary, people are anxious to know about each other and friendship is built upon this type of sharing. Jules, who was always so interested in others and loved to have them talk about things that were important to them, must have been persuaded, on one occasion or another, to relate something about his childhood and the events that brought him to Bourges.

Jules was born at Richelieu. The very name of the town reminds us of the famous cardinal. The Richelieu family owned a country home in Touraine, near Chinon, in what is today the Department of Indre and Loire, but very close to the border with Vienne. Bishop Armand de Richelieu, who was first a fairly good bishop of Luçon, caught the eye of Louis XIII for his outstanding qualities and became the famous government minister we all know. Once he became both a duke and a cardinal, he deemed his ancestral manor unbecoming his rank. He had it torn down and built a great château in its place. Nearby, right in the middle of the countryside, he built an entire city to lodge his numerous attendants and servants.

The château was destroyed during the Revolution, indicating that the revolutionaries could be impartial when it came to selling both churches and castles stone by stone. The city remains more or less in its original condition. While some people might describe it as a picturesque little town, this author found it a dismal bore. A long wall forms a rectangular enclosure about 700 by 500 meters. The streets are all at right angles and the houses are exactly the same. One thinks of housing projects built of stone instead of brick.

If Jules Chevalier’s personality could be described as rigid, or at least well organized and methodical, no doubt this was partly due to his hometown which was without imagination, without wandering streets, without any nooks or crannies, with no hiding places for childhood play. It was in this austere setting that he was born on March 15, 1824, the third child in a poor family. His father, Jean-Charles, had come from a fairly well-to-do family, but the death of his parents had left him without means. Jean-Charles attempted several trades, as a grain salesman, then a baker, without being able to bring his family out of a poverty that bordered on destitution. At least he knew how to read and write which was not the case for all the poor of that time and this would prove to be important for him later on. Jean-Charles was not a bad person. He was not a practicing Catholic but was Christian by tradition. He was something of a lost soul due to his successive failures.

His wife, Louise Oury, was the youngest in a family of thirteen children. That’s hard: thirteen mouths to feed. An aunt took charge of little Louise and raised her. This aunt was a religious person who, during the Revolution, hid members of the nobility and some priests who said underground Masses in grottos, even though she had previously been investigated by the revolutionary court. She gave Louise a solid religious education which would mark her entire life. But the little girl did not go to school—there was no school.

It is important to look more closely at Jules’ childhood situation. Each of us is marked by his or her background and milieu. Jules was born very poor. He would keep the heart of a poor man all his life; doing without came naturally to him. Moreover, in his bleak and barren hometown he felt all the misfortunes of the Revolution. The local church, which had been abandoned for a long time, was in a dismal state. During his childhood they were still selling stones from the château and his mother must have spoken to him of her beloved and heroic aunt, of priests being hunted down, of underground Masses at which both presiders and faithful were risking their lives. Jules, who had a very receptive temperament, was without a doubt profoundly marked by the constant insecurity that poverty brings and by the evils of his time.

Nonetheless, Jules’ childhood had a normal development. You can be both poor and happy when you are part of a united family. The biographers have had fun revealing a few of Jules’ pranks and other little details to show that he was a normal little boy, that he had a good mother, and that he had been raised well. Beyond that there is nothing unusual to tell.

What is of greater importance is that early in life Jules was attracted to the church. It was situated in the center of a square city, on a square park, at a point where four straight streets crossed at right angles. Without doubt it was for him a place to get away, a place where there was life. At an early age he became an altar server. He would rise before dawn to serve Mass and do a hundred things for the priest. At home he would drape himself in a cloth that reminded him of the chasuble, would “celebrate Mass,” and tried to repeat with meaning the sermons he had heard at church. Besides these “celebrations,” and when the priest did not need him, Jules visited the poor, the elderly, the sick and made himself useful.

One could always say that the young boy had nothing else to interest him and nothing else to do. One could always wonder what might have become of Jules had he been able to spend his free time playing video games or watching cartoons on television. Even so, there was certainly something more here. Richelieu was not any more fun for the other children of his age; and they did not all spend their time serving Mass and visiting the poor.

When Jules reached his twelfth birthday, he was at the right age, according to the customs of that time, to receive his first communion and leave school to make his mark in life. Of his first communion, our only information is a short note he wrote years later: “When I came back from church, my heart was overflowing with joy…” While that may not seem like much, it is a lot when we remember the great reserve Jules Chevalier had in all matters concerning his personal spiritual experiences.

This joy would soon be put to the test. Jules firmly announced to his family that he was going to enter the seminary. They should have guessed that. His parents were dismayed—not because they were opposed to a vocation, in fact they were quite moved by this—but because it was just not possible. The seminary was not gratis and they were not able to pay the tuition; even if it were reasonable. Moreover, the small additional salary that Jules could earn was absolutely necessary for the family.

For Jules this was a heavy blow. But he did not let it defeat him. “Very well. I will learn a trade first, I’ll save up, and when I have enough money, then I’ll go to the seminary!” We can already see the Reverend Father Chevalier in this decision of a twelve-year-old child. He was a person who never let anything stop him. He was a man who began building a community center and a basilica with nothing. He was the one who threw himself into a project which would have world-wide consequences at a time when he was alone and had no support. But as he himself would write one day: “Obstacles are nothing more than means.”

And so Jules became an apprentice to a shoemaker. Soon he quit his job to go to work for another shoemaker because the first one was not seriously teaching him the trade. Such audacity! That was just not done at the time, at least not by a mere teenager. Jules went about his work seriously; but at the same time he considered himself to be in a period of preparation on his path toward the priesthood. He left childhood quickly and had soon become a serious young man. Rather than joining in the pastimes of the other young people of his age, he spent all his free time at the rectory, working in the church, or visiting the poor. He got up early to go to Mass. We can only imagine the quips from his friends at that “age without pity” addressed to the “future priest,” the dreamer, the “enlightened” one.

The day finally arrived when Jules believed his dream was to come true. A Lazarist priest, who had come to Richelieu for a parish mission, noticed him and asked questions. He promised to make an effort to have Jules admitted to the seminary for free. All he would have to do in the meantime was to study a little Latin and that would be it. Jules, tutored by the pastor and full of enthusiasm, threw himself into Latin studies. In order to do this he began to get up even earlier each morning and went to bed even later. He even had his grammar book open in front of him as he hammered on the soles. Unfortunately, this did not last very long. The seminary was going through some financial difficulties and it was no longer possible to accept students for free. This was a tremendous let-down for Jules, but he continued to study Latin. That was his way of showing that he still believed in his vocation.

But the years went by and by. And Jules was not able to put any money aside as he had hoped. Although the horizon was ominous, Jules kept working just the same. He was sure that one day he would be a priest and he said it to everyone. He kept repeating it in spite of the funny looks and compassionate smiles he received. He did not know how it would happen, he just knew that it would happen. And yet, he would soon be seventeen years old. What hope was left for him, the young shoemaker’s apprentice?

Miracles happen when we least expect them. One day a traveler stopped at the inn in Richelieu for a drink. While chatting with the barkeeper, he said that he was looking for a forest ranger. He needed a solid, honest man who would be willing to take the job immediately. The maid, who had overheard the conversation, told him that she knew someone with a family to feed who was very deserving. “Does he know how to read and write?” asked the man. “Yes!” said the girl and added: “They are very good people; their son wants to become a priest.” The deal was quickly made. They went to fetch Mr. Chevalier immediately and he was hired on the spot. In the euphoria of the moment, the man in question said that he would be happy to pay the tuition for a seminarian!

The little two-room house in the forest where the Chevaliers were going to live was all alone in the middle of the woods, six kilometers away from the nearest village, Vatan in Indre. It was far from Richelieu, and could even be considered in another world. They had 100 kilometers to go in a carriage with their few humble pieces of furniture. It was a real expedition, an uprooting. But Jules was happy; he was going to enter the minor seminary. He had known that it would happen. He was not surprised but we can guess the joy he felt.

It was March of 1841. There was no question of entering the seminary in the middle of the academic year. Nevertheless, at the pastor’s request, the parochial vicar agreed to give Jules a few lessons while he was waiting to enter. Each day he traveled undaunted the 12-kilometer round-trip journey to Vatan. He returned to his study of Latin with a renewed fervor.

October came and he was, at last, in the minor seminary that he had been dreaming about for five years. The school was located at St. Gaultier, near Le Blanc, at the other end of the department. Far from Richelieu and far from Vatan where his parents lived, Jules felt lost. Moreover he was seventeen and one-half years old, the age when most other students were finishing. He was embarrassed by his height and broad shoulders, in the classroom reserved for the youngest students. He, the manual laborer, had to begin studying full time. It was no piece of cake. The daily schedule, strictly controlled by a very detailed rule, seemed to him sad and heavy. Moreover, he felt himself a foreigner, far from home and far from everyone he knew. In his home region of Touraine, people are rather friendly and communicative. The people of Berry, on the contrary, are rather reserved and it takes them time to make friends.

Jules went into a deep depression. He wanted to leave—not to abandon his vocation but to transfer to the seminary in Tours where his benefactor would certainly pay his tuition as well. There he would at least feel at home with people from his own region. The rector tried to placate him. A change is always risky. God had brought him there and might just want him there. He asked Jules to be patient for another month until the retreat towards the end of October.

Jules got hold of himself. He made the retreat with the others and, through willpower, regained his calm. He stayed, of course, and began to work diligently. Jules continued on his path. The following year, given his age and the fact that he knew more Latin than the others, they had him skip a year. Being in the same class as the older students was a lot better. He finished his studies with honors. Thus he became a member of the Diocese of Bourges and would one day be pastor of Issoudun. It happened by chance and just barely—his family only stayed at Vatan for two years. The supervisor of the holding was changed and there was no further need of Mr. Chevalier. He took the family back to Richelieu where he became the caretaker of a farm. Jules, for his part, remained firmly rooted in Berry. Was this an act of divine providence? We could be right in thinking so especially since his tuition was paid for him only for the first year.

During the monotony of the months at St. Gaultier a rather startling thing happened that deserves to be mentioned. One day during an outing, Jules climbed up a ledge with some of his classmates to admire the panorama. In coming down he tried to take a shortcut. He slipped on the snow and came crashing down the steep incline. He was found motionless some 30 meters below. They thought he was dead and carried the “body” into a nearby château where they improvised a mortuary chamber. They lit candles and started to pray. Some of the group, feeling the deep sentiments of the moment, returned to the seminary and shared the horrible news with the others. The rector was devastated and had everyone go to the chapel to sing the De Profundis while he sent a doctor to certify the death. When the latter arrived on the scene, the “dead man” opened his eyes and the doctor could certify but a few bruises.

What a strange experience! For hours Jules remained motionless. Without being able to move so much as an eyebrow, he could still hear everyone around him lamenting his death. He wound up believing it himself thinking, “This is death? Then I am about to appear before God!” From this little adventure that we now consider more funny than tragic, Jules was to carry with him a sense of the fragility and brevity of life. He decided at that time to dedicate his fleeting life totally to God.

Next came the age for military service. Although clerics were exempt at that time, Jules, five years behind the rest in his studies, was not yet a cleric at the age of 20. And military service lasted seven years. So many more years would be lost when he had already lost so much time. A lottery was used to decide who would go. Only those who drew an unlucky number were drafted. Since he had to participate in this cruel lottery at Richelieu, his place of birth, his father did it for him. The poor man, always so unlucky in his life, for once came out on top and drew a good number. Jules was saved. What would have happened had he been held back another seven years? In the eyewitness accounts we have of that time, nothing would lead us to believe that Jules would have been upset. In any case, he was sure of his vocation and sure that nothing, nothing at all, could stop him.

And thus Jules arrived at the end of this first stage of five years. Before entering the major seminary, he went to Richelieu for a short vacation. He was wearing a cassock, as it was the custom at the time to give it to the better candidates early on in their formation. People understood then that he was well on his way to his goal. Many rejoiced and those who had laughed about his dreams of priesthood no longer did so. They even felt that at this stage it was all unfortunate: “With the education you have, and without having to go in the army, you could do well in life!” And Jules answered in such a way that they realized that he would!

His married brother came from Paris, and his married sister from Tours, to meet him in Richelieu. They had never paid him much attention until this point. Now they suddenly discovered that he was important. Without trying to be too obvious, they tried to let him know that they hoped he would take care of them and their children. Jules did not react. They became more direct and referred to a certain priest they knew who had been able to get good jobs for his nieces and nephews. At that point Jules blurted out: “If you count on me, you will be disappointed! I am becoming a priest to serve God, not to enrich my family!” The atmosphere in their house must have suddenly become a lot cooler that night.

Who was Jules? At that point he was a young man of 22 years of age, pensive, marked by a rough and poor childhood, plagued by difficulties and haunted by one desire, that of consecrating his life to God. If he seemed to be of a rather serious nature, it was because nothing in his life up to this point had been very easy and because he sensed that he still had a long way to go. He had dreamed about the minor seminary as if it would be a little paradise. Those five years were, in fact, quite difficult for him. It had been hard work under a darkened sky without much sunlight. Jules at least had learned that he should not just dream any more. The path he had chosen would not be easy and he knew that. But far from discouraging him, this thought made him stronger and more resolute.

In October he entered the major seminary at Bourges where we met him in an earlier chapter. There he would come to know that God loved him, and that his vocation was not to consecrate himself to God’s service, as he had thought up to that point, but to make God known. “With his eyes always fixed” on Jesus, he continued his journey…

7. JULES CHEVALIER, THE PRIEST

On June 14, 1851, Jules Chevalier was ordained a priest. That was certainly an important event in his life and we should like to be able to stop and reflect on it. Jules had such a lofty ideal of the priest, one “conformed” to Christ, who made Christ corporally and fully present for people. The “real presence” of Christ in the Eucharist was so essential for him. Everything he had learned from the Sulpicians and meditated on at length he was now to live in its fullness. It was, for him, the prayer of Jesus come true: “Father, I in you, and they in me!”

Yes, we would certainly like to share the sentiments and the meditation of Jules Chevalier on the day of his ordination when he became, for his brothers and sisters, a priest of Jesus Christ, like Jesus, with Jesus. Unfortunately we have nothing or very little to go on. Some time later this simple note was found: “I celebrated my first Mass in the little chapel in the garden, the one dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. At the moment of the consecration, the greatness of the mystery and the thought of my unworthiness penetrated me so fully that I dissolved into tears. I needed the encouragement of the holy priest who assisted me to complete the sacrifice. An unforgettable day…”

We have to be content with this small glimpse into his feelings. It is a little more than what we have in reference to his first communion when he spoke of “overflowing with joy,” but not much more. Jules Chevalier, who wrote volumes, most notably a very long book on the Sacred Heart, never spoke of himself or his personal experiences.

In the same way, we have very little if anything about his “conversion,” at the time of his subdiaconate, and very little on the change in his life with his personal “discovery” of the Sacred Heart. When exactly did he become certain that his vocation was to found a congregation of “missionaries?” All we know is that one day, during his second year at the major seminary, he spoke of it to his superior. In spite of the misgivings of the latter, he held his project in the depths of his heart—for the time being.

All this leads us to suppose that the name of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart did not come about, as we have long believed, as a sudden inspiration that he had in the first years of the congregation “to thank Mary by means of a special title.” This title he must have had with him for a long time, since his seminary years, but he had kept it to himself. When he proposed it to his community it was with a certain timidity, bordering on shame, like someone who places in public view something that up to that point had been an intimate and private experience.

This reserve, this modesty, was above all an attitude or reflex action of a humble man. The humble person never blows his or her own horn. The humble listen but never speak of themselves or about themselves. They only speak when questioned or when they believe that it is their duty, e.g. when they know something that everyone should know and that no one else will say if they do not.

Jules Chevalier had the heart of a humble man. That did not come just from the fact that he had experienced material poverty in his childhood or because he had not had the money to pay his tuition. He was very conscious of the fact that he had a priestly vocation and later the vocation to be a founder and conscious too of the fact that this calling did not come from himself, was not of his own initiative or his own insight or generosity. He was convinced that he, little Jules, had been called, in spite of the few qualifications he had to carry out such a mission. When he speaks of his “unworthiness,” he is not using a figure of speech or a catchy phrase. He was convinced that he was unworthy.

He had become a priest. Three days later he began his ministry as parochial vicar in a small parish. In the course of three years, Father Chevalier would be assigned to Ivoy-le-Pré, Châtillon-sur-Indre and Aubigny-sur-Nère, three different parishes in quite far-flung corners of the huge Diocese of Bourges. Each newly ordained priest was sent out like this in his first years as a practical training experience in ministry. They were sent to sick or very elderly pastors who needed temporary help.

The pastors who had Father Chevalier as a temporary vicar could only rejoice over his stay with them. He was very open to advice and direction from them and, at the same time, was full of personal initiative. As he himself said: “The children, the sick, the poor, the weak were (for him) the object of special care.” Consequently, with the approval of the pastor, he organized perpetual adoration in one place. In another he set up a special Mass for men which continued long after he left or gave new life to associations or groups that already existed. According to testimony that we have, “fifty years later, people still remembered the young vicar’s stay in the parish.”

In the third parish, in Aubigny, Father Chevalier assisted the pastor in his agony and death. He was a good and holy priest who was very old. After having received the last rites from his associate, he called him close to speak with him. I quote all his words as they were written later by Father Chevalier because they are a perfect illustration of the “passage” from one generation of priests to another. Both were very generous and zealous generations but with different “points of view.” The first was all taken up with the beloved flock, the second was concerned about the lost sheep.

“My dear Father, I am about to die but first let me give you a little advice,” said the priest from the generation of the Curé of Ars. “In the course of my many years of ministry, I devoted myself too much to pious and devout souls. I spent long hours in the confessional with them, without much to show for it, and that to the detriment of what I should have done for the men and the young people as well as to the detriment of my other duties. It has been a great failing on my part. Unfortunately, this fault is shared by a great number of pastors. We take too much care of the women and not enough of the men. Avoid this stumbling block. May your preferences be for the little ones, the poor, those who have no education, the abandoned ones…” Father Chevalier simply added: “I promised him…”

Two weeks later a new pastor arrived at Aubigny and a few days later our parochial vicar, now free to go elsewhere, received a letter from the bishop. It was his new assignment. He opened the envelope with curiosity. He was ready to go anywhere they wanted to send him. His heart leaped with joy: he was assigned to Issoudun!

8. ISSOUDUN

The appointment to Issoudun was for Jules a true sign from heaven—it was the sign. He remembered how his plan for a vast congregation of missionaries had been deemed wild and idealistic by the superior of the seminary. Good Father Ruel had answered with a somewhat ironic proposal: “Instead why not convert Issoudun first?” Jules, convinced that this congregation would see the light of day, had taken this answer as a divine response: he would begin in Issoudun, first of all. But then nothing, nothing at all had happened to confirm his understanding. He had finished his years of study without the slightest indication that his plan had any possibility of coming to fruition.

Still this project had remained in his heart as a firm conviction. He had been willing to wait. “How would that happen?” He did not have any answer to the question. But he knew that it would happen. He was confident. With peace of heart, he then set out zealously in service to the diocese in parish ministry, as any other young priest would have done. Three more years went by. It was just like the years that went by, one after the other, at Richelieu when he was a shoemaker and knew that he would be a priest. The people around him could never believe it. And nothing gave them any reason to believe it. But he prepared himself in prayer, devoting himself to the poor and studying Latin under impossible conditions and working wholeheartedly at his trade. He had then the same conviction he had later: to accomplish “the duties of his state in life” was the best preparation while waiting for God’s time to come.

Jules’ appointment to Issoudun was unexpected which is why he took it as a visible sign. In fact the usual practice in the diocese was that after three years as an itinerant vicar under the direction of seasoned priests, every new priest was named pastor in some small parish where he would exercise his ministry alone. Jules expected an appointment of this kind. Instead he was again named a parochial vicar. But vicar at Issoudun! He was filled with joy. It was the same joy that had overtaken him when a passing traveler had declared, in a matter of fact manner, that he would be happy to pay the tuition of a seminarian.

Jules hastened to consult the diocesan directory to see the names of the priests already assigned to Issoudun with whom he would be forming a pastoral team. There was the pastor, Father Crozat, an elderly priest. Then there was another vicar, appointed just a few weeks earlier. And Jules received his second shock of the day when he read the name: Émile Maugenest! Father Maugenest had been a fellow student with him at Bourges. He had considered him to be the most zealous of the “Knights of the Sacred Heart!” Without ever saying anything, Jules had always thought that he would be the ideal companion with whom he could found the congregation of missionaries.

What was he doing in Issoudun? Jules had lost track of him. Maugenest had, in fact, left Bourges before the end of his seminary years to enter the Sulpicians at Paris. That had not come as a surprise to anyone. He had been outstanding in every regard, very gifted, very religious and very generous. And now, just after returning to his diocese, he had been appointed to Issoudun, almost at the same time as Jules. No, all that was just too much of a coincidence to be just a coincidence. Jules saw there the miracle, the sign he had been waiting for. There is no doubt that it was a sign. That it was a miracle is less certain unless, of course, we take into account the fact that God sometimes acts through the good will of other people.

Issoudun was a real problem for the bishop and his council. The town had felt the backlash of the post-revolutionary period more than any other. There had been uprisings that had been put down with force. The bourgeois class had slowly left this city deeming it to be too insecure. There remained a populist majority that was bitter with the memory of past hardships. They wanted to be free of all constraints, whether they came from the State or the Church. Moreover, Issoudun, which had once had several convents, had seen many priests and religious leave during the Revolution to get married and raise large families. All these scandals had driven a number of believers away from the Church.

In 1830, Father Crozat had written in his report to the bishop: “The moral revolution was felt more here than anywhere else. Nowhere else, perhaps, has there been such a complete break with the past.” Things did not improve much after that. It is true that Sisters and then Brothers had been able to reopen two schools but only after many difficulties and with a number of risks and even a few scary moments. There were still about a hundred families of more or less practicing Catholics. Was this a leaven of hope in the dough? Father Chevalier, on his arrival at Issoudun, was a bit surprised to find, for example, that religious education before first communion had been reduced to just 15 days. And for a long time, they said, there was only one man who made his Easter duty.

“What can we do for Issoudun?” those in authority in the diocese were asking themselves. It was too much for Father Crozat. For one thing he was well on in years, worn out and tired. At the same time he was a very timid man, not very enterprising and often did not know what to do next. Lack of success in his pastoral undertakings had left him even more fearful. One example of this fear arose from the result of all the old stories about the lack of morality in the former convents which were still making the rounds in town. As a result Father Crozat was constantly preoccupied with the fear of giving scandal. When he went to visit the sisters, he always wore surplice, stole and biretta to show that it was his ministry, and only his ministry, that led him there. The rest of the time he was usually in church, in a dark corner, saying his rosary all day long. Let us not judge anyone and let us not be too quick to smile. Perhaps those humble rosaries of Father Crozat were what earned Issoudun the grace of Father Chevalier’s coming.

Among the members of the bishop’s council was the superior of the major seminary. This was not Father Ruel but his successor, Father Gasnier. He had been a professor at the seminary before that and he knew Jules and his “Knights of the Sacred Heart” well. He remembered their conversations about Issoudun. He suggested to the bishop that he look for a solution among the younger clergy and to name as parochial vicars the two most zealous members of the group that had once caught his attention. The bishop was won over even though Father Maugenest, the other young priest in question, had already been destined for the cathedral in Bourges. Thus the miracle happened!

9. DECEMBER 8, 1854

Jules was definitely beside himself. For a month he had been in Issoudun, in daily contact with Father Maugenest. The atmosphere was warm and friendly. But Jules was looking for an occasion to bring up the subject of the congregation. He was hoping that his confrere would bring up memories from the past, as often happens with old classmates. He hoped he would make reference to the “Knights of the Sacred Heart.” That would be a good occasion to say: “Yes, and speaking of that…” But nothing happened. Émile Maugenest did not seem to have any recollection of the past. Maybe none of that had impressed him very much; perhaps Jules had imagined things.

Jules did not dare bring up the subject. He was waiting for a sign. But finally he could not wait any longer. He told himself that there had been plenty of signs and that now was the time for him to dive into the water. So he went to find Father Maugenest and, without beating around the bush any longer, made his presentation: “Two plagues besiege our unfortunate century: indifference and selfishness. We need an efficacious remedy that can be applied to these two evils. This remedy is to be found in the Sacred Heart of Jesus which is pure love and charity. Moreover, this adorable heart which is so devoted to us, is not sufficiently loved by men. They are ignorant of all the treasures it contains. And so we need priests who will work to make it better known. They will have the name of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.” Whew! He had said it! He had said it all.

Father Maugenest was shocked. He had also had the same idea, from his seminary days, following his talks with Jules. But Jules had not spoken about it and seemed to have forgotten. And so Émile had not dared speak about it first. “But I have had this idea for a long time,” Maugenest added, “I’m with you, let’s begin right away!” They embraced and, with tears in their eyes, knelt to thank God.

Let’s begin right away. While that was very nice, Jules, the elder of the two, wanted to be practical. How could two young priests, without any means of support and perhaps not all that worthy, have the audacity to go ahead with this on their own? They decided to speak with their pastor, good Father Crozat. If he should be in favor, that would be a sign. And that would also be a first step since he would certainly intercede with the bishop on behalf of their plan.

They lost no more time and went to find Father Crozat. The timid priest did not answer right away; he just sat there and thought. Our two young vicars stared with pleading looks at the statue of the Immaculate Mother on the pastor’s desk. Finally the old man answered with “conviction in his voice:” “My sons, I not only share your feelings, but I will also help you with everything in my power to establish a house of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at Issoudun. And if you found it, I will be able to intone my Nunc Dimittis!” Had it been possible, they would have embraced him. But that just was not done.

There remained the problem of finances. Obviously our two “founders” did not have a penny to their name. The pastor was not rich either. So Jules proposed his favorite way to solve dilemmas: they would make a novena. They were in the last days of November and the 8th of December was approaching. That December 8, in 1854, would be a very important day, as Pope Pius IX planned to solemnly proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

The novena began on November 30 so as to end on the feast day. Father Maugenest, who was later described as “not much of an artist,” had time to paint a picture that they placed in front of the pedestal of the statue of Mary Immaculate. “Two priests on their knees—above, in the air, the Heart of Jesus hurling rays of light on the two priests.” As an expert would say later: “If Our Lady deigned to answer their prayer, it certainly was not because of the art!” Our Lady, it is true, looks first at the heart of the artist.

We can be sure that the novena was prayed fervently. On December 8, the solemn Mass was celebrated by Father Chevalier, with the painting in prominence on the altar. “Father Crozat cried tears of compassion,” but the two young priests were also deeply moved. Only these three knew the secret. They were the only ones to make the novena. After the Mass Father Chevalier was informed that a man wished to speak with him. He went to the rectory. The gentleman said that he was only an intermediary and that he had come to tell him that an anonymous person was offering 20,000 francs for a work to benefit the souls of Berry, preferably a house of missionaries. There was but one condition: this work would have to have the approval of the Archbishop.

One can imagine the reaction of Father Chevalier: “Sir, you were sent by heaven!… This is Mary’s answer!…” Father Maugenest, who had remained in church for his prayer of thanksgiving, knew nothing of all this. He arrived in excitement and said: “I am sure that our good Mother will give us the miracle we asked for.” “You are right!” answered Father Chevalier. Overcome with emotion he was barely able to explain that the miracle had already happened.

They hurried to the pastor to share the good news and to ask for an immediate audience with the bishop. In light of the evident sign sent by Our Lady, he would surely have no option but to approve the project. Father Crozat was not quite so sure. Besides the deep prudence nature had given him, he had the benefit of long experience. He knew that the authorities rarely made decisions in the enthusiasm of the moment. Father Crozat thought that this was going a bit too fast. He wanted a few days to think about it.

Jules Chevalier waited patiently, something he was used to. It did not bother him. As far as he was concerned, his congregation was born on that 8th day of December, 1854. The rest would come with time, like his entering the seminary and his appointment to Issoudun. God was the one who acted, who did everything. His part was to be ready, to wait in prayer and in the faithful accomplishment of his daily duties: “Be prepared. At an hour you do not expect the Lord will come.” (Matt. 24,44)

Father Crozat needed a month of reflection before he decided to intervene for them. Thus in the month of January, Jules Chevalier was able to visit his archbishop, Cardinal Dupont, “with a good letter from our holy pastor to explain our plan, to tell him about the grace we just received and to ask for his approval.”

The bishop said that he was very moved to learn about it all and that he was in favor of permitting this missionary foundation; but… he was anxious about the future. Twenty thousand francs would be enough to buy a small house; but what about afterwards? How would the community support itself? They would have to be sure of a steady income. Providence is fine, but we are not to tempt it. “If God is in favor of your work, God will send you the necessary means. Pray to the Blessed Virgin to bring to fruition the work she has so well begun!” Now that was a way of talking that Jules Chevalier could understand. “His words,” he said “were words of prudence and faith.”

When Jules returned to Issoudun, we can by now easily guess his next move: another novena. This second one was planned so as to end on the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary which that year would fall on January 28. But this novena would not be like the first one which had been made with spirit, passion, exaltation. Our two “founders” felt that they would have to become serious. “To bring the Blessed Virgin more on our side,” they wrote, “we will make a contract with her.”

It was Emile Maugenest, the intellectual, who drew up the famous contract in due legal form with eight articles. It was ceremoniously entitled: “Contract made between the Blessed Virgin and two priests of the Sacred Heart,” and read in part: “If the Blessed Virgin … overcomes the difficulties… and brings this work to fruition… we, on our part, pledge the following: the official name of the members of the community will be Missionaries of the Sacred Heart; they will attempt to live up to its meaning… They will have a special love for the Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary… Out of gratitude to Mary they will consider her their foundress and will associate her with all their works and they will make her loved and honored in a special way… They will never preach or hear confessions without speaking of Jesus and Mary… They will imitate the hidden, interior life of Mary… In their apostolic life they will imitate her zeal for the salvation of souls…” There followed provisions for the principal and secondary patronal feasts, for the statues they should have in their chapels. Such items would prove that they were not just dreamers because concern for concrete details was necessary in a well-organized society.

This “contract” drawn up in a form that pretends to be official, legal and completely serious was both childlike and attractive and at the same time had a clumsy, pompous, improvised side. Without pretending to be a first “Rule” for the Congregation since they were only trying to obtain the grace of Mary’s intervention, many of the essential elements of the rule are already present: preaching the Sacred Heart everywhere, compassion, special love for Mary.

At the principal Mass on January 28, the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the “contract” was carried to the altar in solemn procession. Could our two future missionaries have been expecting a renewal of the “miracle” of December 8? But there was no miracle. It would be something much simpler. It was good old Father Crozat who went to find his two vicars after the Mass. He told them that he had not been idle, that he had been looking. And he was happy to announce “that a generous lady, inspired by grace, has promised an annual gift of 1,000 francs for as long as it is needed.” Bravo Father Crozat! Bless you, anonymous benefactor!

“Our joy was full,” wrote Father Chevalier. His joy did not come just from the assurance of sufficient income (1,000 francs at that time would be roughly 100,000 francs today). Income was not his real problem. He knew what poverty was like and was not concerned that he might “tempt Divine Providence.” No, what filled him with joy was the fact that now the bishop would have to give his approval.

The bishop was, in fact, quite impressed. “The hand of God is here, I can see it,” he said. “Very well, I will submit your project to the members of my council and I will let you know their decision.” Everything seemed to be on the right track. Unfortunately, the council was unanimous in its decision to reject the proposal of a congregation at Issoudun. Young men without experience would be a fiasco. The authority of the diocese would be called into question and ridiculed. The bishop, feeling that his promise was still binding, presented the question to three different meetings of the council. Each time he received the same negative answer, just as categorical as it was unanimous.

Father Chevalier went to Bourges to meet the eminent members of the council. “I was about as welcome as a dog in a game of lawn bowling,” he said prosaically. Even Father Gasnier, the one who was behind his appointment to Issoudun, was not in favor: “The bishop is not in the habit of going against the advice of his council. You can consider the matter closed.” “Not so fast, Father Superior!” replied Chevalier. “The Blessed Virgin will have the last word. We are going to pray to her.” The seminary superior retorted: “If you win, she will have performed a real miracle!” “She has done a lot already. She will not abandon us!” said Father Chevalier. And with a slightly malicious bit of audacity, Father Chevalier added: “Father Superior, I have great confidence in your prayer. Would you promise to join us in our prayer?”

Father Gasnier was completely flabbergasted and shaken as well. He noted that these young men were very determined, deeply convinced. What if God truly wanted this congregation? He agreed to pray with them. Slowly he began to change his opinion and was strengthened in this by a letter from Father Crozat, who was now showing some initiative. He wrote Father Gasnier a detailed letter and gave a clear presentation of the project expressing very clearly his personal support and affirming that the plan was viable. Good old Father Crozat!

But things were not quite as simple as they seemed, due to a deep misunderstanding. If it had been merely a question of a “work,” a diocesan association, to promote the evangelization of Issoudun and its region, everyone would have been in agreement. But Father Chevalier wanted a congregation. Actually, he was concerned about being fully “religious,” in the Sulpician meaning of the term. They were especially skeptical over the fact that he felt his vocation was to reveal the love of Christ to the whole world and to make him loved everywhere. He agreed to begin with Issoudun; but he did not want to be limited to one diocese.

That was where things began to break down. To understand just what was happening, we have to go back to the “miracle” of December 8, to the 20,000 francs that fell from heaven. Like so many “miracles,” it has an explanation, at least in part. What was truly remarkable was not that this sum of money came to Father Chevalier but that it arrived precisely on December 8. The rest can all be explained.

Father Gasnier, who was responsible for the appointment of the two new vicars in Issoudun, remembered that back in the seminary Jules had come up with a plan for an association of which the “Knights of the Sacred Heart” was just a rough draft. He thought that such an association would be just what was needed to bring Issoudun out of its indifference. Consequently he sought out and went to see Father de Champgrand, a fellow Sulpician and native of Berry, who was teaching at the seminary in Bordeaux. This Father de Champgrand, because of his family, was quite well off and agreed to make an important contribution. But this was for “a work to benefit the souls of Berry.” This had been clearly specified by the intermediary who brought news of the gift on December 8. Overjoyed by what he thought was a response from the Blessed Virgin, Jules Chevalier had not attached very much importance to that fact. But now Father de Champgrand came out of his anonymity and clarified that it was only for a work for Berry; otherwise, he would withdraw his offer.

Father Gasnier, without thinking it out any further, had asked his friend de Champgrand to support a work for Berry. In all honesty he could not now go against him. That is why he took the position he did in the bishop’s council. But now, moved by the determination of Father Chevalier, he tried in a very friendly manner to convince his friend to change his mind. To do this, he sent him Father Crozat’s letter. It is unfortunate that this letter no longer exists because it must have been very convincing. In the end, even though reluctantly and against his better judgment, Father de Champgrand gave in. He said that he still did not believe that a religious congregation was viable and that he still had his doubts but that, since he had no other options, he gave his approval.

In one way, he was forced to do this because the diocese had taken Father Chevalier’s side by giving the authorization that had been required. But there had not been a change of heart on the part of the council which remained unanimous in its opposition. They objected that there were already too many new congregations, no need for new ones every day, that this was not what the diocese needed. But the bishop had made the decision without them and stated his position: “Gentlemen, I have reflected and I have prayed. I never go against your advice. But this time, if I were to follow it, I believe I would be going against Providence. I promised that if these two priests were to find the means, I would approve their undertaking. I am thus committed. I therefore authorize the two parochial vicars to begin their work. As of today, let us appoint their replacements.”

It was June 4, 1855. On June 10, the secretary at the bishop’s office made this note in the official journal: “Father Jules Chevalier has been authorized to take the title of Missionary of the Sacred Heart and consequently, to cease his functions as parochial vicar.” A short time later, the same entry was made for Father Maugenest.

10 THE BEGINNINGS

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had come into existence. They existed because they were listed as such in an official register, even if this register was but a simple list of diocesan appointments. In any case, there was a lot more to do. They needed a house, which for a number of reasons, was not going to be an easy need to fulfill. First, they had to face the anticlericalism of Issoudun. Many simply refused to sell a house to some “priests.” Thus they had to try to find a trustworthy man who would pretend to buy the house for himself. That did not make things any easier. Another consideration was that not just any house would do. The houses for sale were either too expensive or too small or built so close to other houses that there would be no room for future expansion.

Finally they found one on the edge of the fields that surrounded the town. It was not very high and about 20 meters long. It had been vacant for some time and was somewhat dilapidated but had a garden and an adjoining building, a sort of garage. The only problem was that they still did not have the money that Father de Champgrand had promised them. Because of that they almost lost out to someone else. Luckily, the wife of the prospective buyer noticed that the “property” was almost next to the cemetery; and she would have nothing to do with it. In the meantime the new parochial vicars had arrived at the rectory. Maugenest and Chevalier were forced to give up their rooms and were out on the street. At that point they decided to spend a few days with their families.

Jules went back to Richelieu. Mrs. Chevalier was overjoyed. She asked about his new parish and wanted to know if the people were nice, etc. Being both very religious and very poor, her dream had been to spend the rest of her life keeping house for her priest son. For her that would mean both happiness and security. But Jules answered: “I am not a pastor, I am a missionary.” His mother fainted. They had a hard time bringing her to. Then for a week Jules had to put up with his mother’s tears and her desperate arguments as well as a “virtual siege” on the part of his family. “My mother who was a generous and faith-filled woman,” wrote Jules, “finally understood the reasons for my decision and agreed to the separation that would last forever here on earth. I found her to be heroic.” He then took refuge with the Jesuits at Poitiers.

Finally, after a month, they purchased the house in Issoudun. They made the necessary repairs: a door and a partition or two—which left Father Chevalier without a window in his room. They converted the garage into a chapel. It was a shaky building about three meters high. They removed two inside walls and applied some whitewash. They found some chairs “like they have in churches” and a simple table which became an altar “that radiated poverty.”

These improvements, modest as they were, were only carried out thanks to a loan of 5,000 francs. That was quite a sum given their humble condition. It may be of historical interest to note that the first house of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the real mother house, was situated more or less where we find the entry to today’s buildings on what would become the Place du Sacre-Coeur.

Our brand new Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had planned to make their first year a time of novitiate. It would be a time of silence, meditation, prayer and study while they stayed apart from the world. They planned to go out to the neighboring parishes to preach only on Sundays and feast days. But Father de Champgrand began to put pressure on them. He had not given them the money to spend all their time praying but to evangelize the region! The bishop led them to understand that he expected much from them—immediately. As for Father Crozat, good priest but bad pastor that he was, he very gently informed them that he hoped that his religious would bring about a renewal of Issoudun—without too much delay!

Our missionaries soon had to give up the idea of living separated from the world. One night, due to the ill-conceived remodeling work, one of the chapel walls fell down. They thought it a catastrophe, especially since they did not have even a penny to do repairs. The curious townsfolk came to see the disaster and they discovered something that was not generally known: the Fathers were living there. The town began to talk. Some generous benefactors offered to repair or replace the damaged part of the chapel. All of Issoudun, a town where nothing ever happened, became interested in the project. In the final analysis, they were quite proud of this new installation which would give some importance to their city. Gifts came in. Thus, the townsfolk not only repaired the wall but also built a small steeple, and gave a bell and a small organ. The refurbished chapel “would be the envy of many country parishes,” which leads us to conclude that churches were very poor at that time. From that point on, the chapel would become more and more popular with the people, partly due to curiosity and partly because they all had worked, more or less, to restore it. It was, in a way, their church. An opening in the side of “Sacred Heart” chapel had brought about an opening in their indifference. That is truly symbolic.

At this point the bishop found a clever way to orient the community to outside ministry. The hospital and the hospice in Issoudun had asked him for a chaplain. At the same time, a young priest of the diocese, Paul Morel, had asked for permission to join the young congregation. The bishop gave his consent, in January 1856, on the condition that he fill the role of chaplain. Now our religious were tied to a steady outside ministry. Unfortunately, Father Morel, gifted as he was, had very poor health. He could not get used to the Spartan regime of community life, and lasted only a few months before he asked to be moved. At about the same time another priest, the chaplain of the hospital and prison in Bourges, shared with the bishop his desire to enter a monastery. The Bishop suggested that he enter the community in Issoudun instead and accept the responsibility of being chaplain at the hospitals.

It just so happened that the new recruit, Charles Piperon, had been a very active member of the “Knights of the Sacred Heart.” Along with Emile Maugenest he had been one of those closest to Jules Chevalier and he would play an extremely important role in the congregation. He was a simple man, not too sure of himself, but with tremendous generosity. He would be the perfect right-hand man to Father Chevalier and the faithful interpreter of his spirit and ideas. He proved to be an untiring itinerant preacher—as long as he was sent and did not have to take the initiative himself—and a competent and scrupulous manager of day-to-day affairs.

For his part, Father Crozat, in his likable stubbornness, did not give up his dream of “using” this new force that the community provided him. His idea was to make the new “church” a second parish in town. It would be a parish that would take the load off the present one and undoubtedly give the whole town more fervor. On this point the young Missionaries of the Sacred Heart did not have to defend themselves. Father de Champgrand, who still was very much attached to the idea of missions in the countryside, made a very loud protest. The bishop joined him. Besides it would have been impossible: according to the concordat which was still in force, the creation of new parishes depended on the communes. Father Crozat’s request made a lot of waves but did not amount to anything. Yet this mild-mannered, obstinate pastor tried, every time he could, to have the fathers take part in the more important ceremonies in the parish. They participated, e.g. in the triumphal procession of August 15, wonderfully organized by Father Piperon, but did not consider themselves to belong to the parish. Father Chevalier, who did not want to be tied down to one diocese, could not accept being limited to one parish.

Just the same, the chapel of the Sacred Heart became a very active place. The priests were often called upon by the local pastors and did a lot of preaching in the neighboring parishes. Already in 1855, the “Rule” of the Society listed among the works to be undertaken: retreats for priests and lay people; “Conferences of the Sacred Heart” (these would be associations similar to the “Conference of St. Vincent de Paul” today) for young people and men; for soldiers; for maids; for workers; for apprentices, etc. It was a vast program and our young religious dedicated themselves to it with enthusiasm. And slowly they brought all this to fruition. But this only represented a part of their intense activity.

As can be noted, if the women had their conference, the men had many of them as well. Perhaps Father Chevalier remembered the last words of Father d’Aubigny: “we are too occupied with the women and not enough with the men.” That may have been true but it only confirmed his goal: to be concerned with “the most abandoned.” That was his true vocation. And so, there was a lot to do. Consequently the chapel, which could hold up to several hundred people, was full on Sundays. But for the most part it was filled with women. At Issoudun at that time men did not practice their religion. It was something that was just not done. Whether it was because of what others would think or out of habit, it was a fact. And no one could change that.

No one, that is, until Father Chevalier took up the challenge. He decided on a Mass just for men. To organize this, Fathers Maugenest, Piperon and himself beat the bushes for a month to have men sign up. On the first Sunday, thirty men showed up—not a great success after a month of “recruitment” by three people through the whole township. It was a happening in the city and on leaving the church the thirty neophytes had to pass by two long lines of joking, sarcastic onlookers: a whole group of curious men and women, women especially! But the men took this as a mark of pride. The next time they numbered 50, then 100, then 300. It seems that Father Chevalier was having some success in his attack on indifference. But he was not surprised. He knew that the Sacred Heart would overcome the indifference. His only concern was to make the Sacred Heart known and loved in more and more places, everywhere.

It was becoming evident that the chapel was too small. During the different ceremonies, many people had to stand outside. From the first days of 1857, Father Chevalier began to speak of building a new church, a real one. He had no money and he knew that he would certainly need a lot of time before gifts from the faithful would permit him to start work. But that was just another reason to spread the idea immediately. At that moment a catastrophe struck in the form of a letter from the bishop ordering the closing of the chapel. “They” had told him that it was in danger of collapsing and could fall on the faithful. The letter came on a Monday. Father Chevalier rushed to Bourges to explain to the bishop that his chapel was not a danger for anybody. But the bishop did not want to take any risks. He ordered work to be done to shore up the building and demanded an architect’s certificate assuring the chapel’s stability before he would permit it to be reopened. The work was done on the double, in three days, and with the certificate in his pocket, Father Chevalier returned to see the bishop on Saturday. On Sunday, the chapel was filled as usual. But this adventure confirmed him in his idea that a new church would have to be built.

As we can see, our religious were quite busy and their “novitiate” anything but peaceful. Nonetheless, they considered it valid and decided to make their vows. On Christmas Day 1856, Emile Maugenest and Jules Chevalier took their vows with Charles Piperon, who arrived later, acting as witness. These were only private vows since the Congregation did not yet exist juridically. And since they were not bound by the laws of the church in this private undertaking, they took final vows immediately. They did this “according to the Rule of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart,” a rule carefully drawn up in prayer and meditation by Father Chevalier. It bore the prudent title: “Temporary Draft.”

The Congregation seemed to have a promising beginning at least if we judge by the success of its activities. They were meeting a real need of the Church of their time. Father Chevalier, however, was concerned with the lack of new recruits. Many religious congregations were born in the Nineteenth Century and they had no problem in finding many members right from the beginning. The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, however, were just three in number. Several priests came to try life with them but none remained very long. Life was not easy at “Sacred Heart.” They rose at 4:00 a.m. in order to have enough time for prayer. Extreme frugality was the ordinary bill of fare and there was great poverty and lack of conveniences in the house. The pastoral work was heavy: one preaching assignment after another in the neighboring parishes, one mission after another, retreats, long hours of confessions in the chapel. One thinks of the beginning of the apostolate for Jesus and the apostles when the enthusiastic crowd was pressing in from all sides: “People were coming and going in great numbers and they did not even have time to eat.” (Mk. 6,31). It was at this moment that the young Congregation, still so small in numbers, was to receive an unexpected blow that Father Chevalier thought was fatal.

Father Maugenest, a remarkable and respected preacher, had preached for Advent, 1857, in the cathedral in Bourges. This drew the bishop’s attention. The diocese desperately needed priests and, even if there were some good “ordinary” priests, there was a dire shortage of really good ones. The bishop was looking desperately for a pastor for the cathedral. He decided to withdraw Father Maugenest from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to name him the archpriest. Father Maugenest protested as much as he could. The cardinal simply replied: “I am your bishop! You owe me obedience!” Father Chevalier left immediately for Bourges to insist that Father Maugenest was the pillar of the young congregation and that without him everything would collapse. The bishop replied: “If your work is from God, the loss of one of its members will not prevent it from succeeding. If it is merely the work of men, the presence of this member will not keep it from ruin.”

Fathers Chevalier and Piperon were destroyed by this irrevocable decision. For them it was a disaster. They withdrew to a monastery for a few days to try to sort things out. Meanwhile Father Maugenest had been officially sent to a convent to think things over. The bishop simply told him: “You will leave there, it is my hope, completely submissive.”

This ordeal was a new experience for Father Chevalier. Since childhood, of course, he had met many obstacles in life that kept him from going ahead as fast as he would have liked. He had learned to wait and finally the obstacles disappeared and he was able to go ahead. But never before had any trial forced him to take a step backwards. Maugenest was his right arm. He was even more than that. He was the little Society’s best asset: the most mild-mannered among them, the most cultured, a competent and efficient man. And he was a religious completely dedicated to his mission. Without Maugenest, they would have to give up a lot of things and take a step backwards just at the time when the future was full of promise.

As we might imagine, Maugenest “submitted.” And the other two accepted this, with death in their soul, as they knelt before the tabernacle. They had not even had time to make a novena. They made the resolution, in spite of their despondency, to continue the work they had begun. But they were crushed. The trial was too hard, too unexpected. They felt that everything had been put in question. The temptation to doubt was there. Yet in the writings of Father Chevalier there is no trace of a complaint and much less of a word of criticism. Poor people do not complain. Either they accept fate with a spirit of resignation or, with their back to the wall and their jaws locked in determination, they fight back.

Jules Chevalier decided to fight. But he did so with the energy that comes from despair. His real fear was that the departure of Maugenest would only be the first step in the dismemberment of the community. He expected to receive, any day, his own appointment to a parish. Father Crozat was getting older and older. The rumor was spreading that the two religious might just be appointed to replace him. Father Piperon repeated daily that if he had to leave “Sacred Heart” he would withdraw to a monastery. That did not raise Father Chevalier’s spirits very much. But he still wanted to keep struggling. If he had to leave, it certainly would not be because he had slacked off. He spent himself without reservation in order to save what was most important. He worked so hard that the following year, 1859, he fell sick. When he recuperated, a friend took him on pilgrimage to La Salette to give him a change of pace. It was on this occasion that he made the detour through Ars and met the holy Cure, John Mary Vianney.

11 OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART

Father Chevalier came back from Ars with his spirits revived. He had not just been consoled; he had been renewed. “He was a new man,” wrote Father Piperon. He understood that the departure of Father Maugenest, which had come close to crushing him and his work, was nothing but a trial. God not only was asking him to continue but even to go forward. After eighteen months of darkness, the route ahead, though still long and difficult, again appeared open and bathed in sunshine. He made another pilgrimage, this time to Paray-le-Monial, the source of all the things that had been revealed to him about the Sacred Heart. They welcomed him in a warm and brotherly fashion. He returned home full of energy and enthusiasm.

The ten years that followed (1859-1869) were to be the truly “glorious” ones for the congregation. The basilica would rise rapidly. New members would come to join the little community and among them some great figures who would give the Society a powerful lift into the future. Soon crowds of people were coming to Issoudun. To help them continue the experience of their pilgrimage, a magazine was inaugurated. It soon had a large circulation and would make Issoudun known throughout France. The high point of all this was on September 8, 1869. In the presence of fifteen bishops and a huge crowd of people, the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was crowned in the name of Pope Pius IX.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart! “She is the one who had done everything!” Father Chevalier used to say. We must acknowledge that the rapid growth of the congregation went hand in hand with the equally rapid spread of this new name given to the Mother of the Savior. For many people, Issoudun is first of all the holy place where one goes to pray to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart with complete confidence. It is appropriate that we stop and consider the origin and history of the glorious title of “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” before we speak further of the events and persons who made up this epoch.

It is difficult to determine the precise moment when Father Chevalier was inspired to give this new name to Mary. Father Piperon thought that it was September 9, 1855, the day when the bishop came to bless the first modest chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart—”a perfect jewel in the style of a barn,” as Father Piperon used to say. On that day Father Chevalier revealed his project of erecting an altar consecrated to Mary to honor her with a special title, as he had promised with Father Maugenest in the “contract” of January 1855. It would have been at that time that the name of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart first occurred to him. However, we would be justified in thinking that we should go back much farther, if not for this new name, then at least for all that it contains and signifies.

Father Chevalier had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, like all the clergy of the nineteenth century and, in a general way, all the Christian people of that time. This was something Our Lady acknowledged since that century was also the time of the great apparitions: 1830, rue du Bac; 1846, La Salette; then Lourdes in 1858, Pontmain in 1871 and Pellevoisin in 1876. Jules had been consecrated to the Blessed Virgin by his mother at the time of his baptism. From the formation he received from the Sulpicians he cherished a great devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mary was present in all his prayers. He associated her with all the events of his life.

The key moment leading to his devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was certainly his “discovery” of the Sacred Heart and the radical change it caused in him. When he founded his little club in the seminary, he wanted to associate Our Lady with it. He wanted people to say “Knights of the Sacred Heart and of Our Lady.” That was too long and people usually just said: “…of the Sacred Heart.” But when Christ was revealed to him as Love made man, the place that Our Lady held in his life became even more important. She was the one who had given Jesus a heart. She was the one who had given Jesus to the world. She was the one who drew people to him, “Do everything he tells you!” Jesus, in turn, gave her to us, “Behold your Mother!” at the very moment that his heart was to be opened by a lance, allowing “blood and water” to flow out forever as the signs of all the grace contained in his Heart. Yes, the “discovery” of Jesus resulted in the discovery of Mary in a new light. And if at that moment Jules did not formally come up with the name “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,” he would, at least from then on, always pray to Mary as the one given us by the Sacred Heart and the one who leads us to the Sacred Heart.

Because he wanted very much to become, with Christ, a “religious of the Father,” a man of the covenant between God and us, Father Chevalier saw in Mary a perfect “religious,” who united her Son to the human race and the human race to her Son. But all this was so great, so vast. Perhaps he thought that a mere name, a mere title, could never contain everything he had discovered about Mary. To say everything about Jesus it was sufficient to speak of the Heart of Jesus. That was a symbol that spoke to everyone. It was complete and total and expressed well all the love Christ has. But how could he express with just one word the fact that Mary gives us all the love of her Jesus and that she presents to him all our love?

The genius of Father Chevalier’s insight was that at one and the same time Our Lady gives us the treasures of the Sacred Heart and shows us the path of (to) the Heart of her Son. Henceforth, “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” would be the name he had been looking for. It was complete; it said everything. He kept this name in the intimacy of his heart. It was only when he undertook the construction of the basilica in 1857 and they were discussing the altar that would be dedicated to Mary that he first spoke of this to his confreres. In the face of the surprise this caused, he gave a brief but clear and complete explanation of what this title signified. That would seem to prove that he had been reflecting on it for a long time.

Father Piperon explained that after he had had the inspiration of the name “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,” Father Chevalier waited for two years before he spoke to his confreres and two more before he made it public in 1859. Thus there was a delay of four years, or more likely, at least four years. Piperon explained this long delay by the fact that Father Chevalier wanted to study the title thoroughly, in scripture and tradition, to see if it was in harmony with Church doctrine. It was only when he was certain, that he revealed this secret which had become so dear to his heart. As a result of this long work of meditation and prayer, we have a rather lengthy book: “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, according to Holy Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and Theology.” “It was,” said Father Piperon, “a monument of Catholic science and learning.” There were five different editions—all of them quickly out of print.

While there may be less intellectual curiosity in the modern age, there is certainly more interest in the spiritual dimension of life. People still seek for what the apostles asked of Jesus: “Teach us to pray.” Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is the one who can do this for us. Our prayer never stops with her. She is the one who takes our prayer and “leads us to the source of living water.” During the last century, people often prayed for solutions to their material problems. People were less educated and poorer than today. They had no social welfare programs. Loss of a job or sickness on the part of the father of the family was a guarantee of a life of misery. Above all, health care was not what it is today. It was only in 1885 that Pasteur “discovered” germs and his famous vaccination against rabies. In all the wretched situations that might arise, people felt that only heaven could do something.

This is why Father Chevalier struck a responsive chord when he presented Our Lady as the “Treasurer of the Heart of Jesus,” the one who could obtain everything from her Son, the one who is the “Hope of the hopeless.” This is not wrong, theologically speaking, but it is much too restrictive if we just stop there. Father Chevalier became aware of this danger very early on and in the years to follow never ceased trying to set things straight by insisting on the great virtues of Mary: blessed among women, chosen by God, filled with grace. He emphasized her close relationship with the Savior of the human race and her place in the history of salvation. He explained the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart when he wrote: “The purpose… is to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary under the special title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in the relationship of overwhelming love that exists between her and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Our Lady’s power of intercession is only mentioned later on as a consequence.

This is nothing more than the path we follow in the “Hail Mary.” We begin by admiring and praising Mary who is full of grace, loved by the Lord, blessed among all and Mother of the Savior. It is only afterwards, and because of all that, that we can say: “Pray for us… now…” And even then the insistence is placed on the principal good we are asking for, our union with God: “Pray for us sinners…”

This is why, in fidelity to the spirit of Father Chevalier, we later abandoned the early version of the “Memorare” prayer to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart written by Father Jouët. The new one expresses much better all his thinking by first celebrating the wonderful things the Lord did for Mary and by asking her to help us live in the love of her Son and to lead all people to the source of living water. Only then do we express our confidence in her because she is and will always be our Mother. To call Mary “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” is the best way to express all the bonds that unite Mary to the Love-God. In sum, it leads us to discover this Love of God for us and to live in him, like she who was always “the servant of the Lord.”

Early on there were some other changes. The first images of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart showed Mary with her hands open in a gesture of welcoming and giving. Jesus, at about the age of twelve, was standing before her and pointed to his own heart while also pointing to his mother. This is the beautiful statue at the shrine in Issoudun, the one that was crowned in 1869. Because of the growing popularity of images that had not come from Issoudun, the Holy See feared that some would see in this a Mary who dominated Jesus, who held power over him—a sort of “Queen Mother” with all the negative and exaggerated undertones that that term had in popular speech. Thus Rome asked that Mary be represented holding her infant son in her arms with him still showing us both his heart and his mother. The infant in her arms was also a better way to express the bonds of love created by the maternity of Mary.

Today we use the image of Jesus on the cross with his side opened as our representation of the Sacred Heart. Mary is at the foot of the cross showing with her outstretched hand, the way that leads to his heart, open for all people. The other hand is open towards the earth to shower on us the graces that that heart holds: “hope and salvation, justice and peace.”

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is not connected with any particular image. At other shrines they venerate an image or a statue which is often very old and worthy of great respect but one that cannot be altered because it expresses a special aspect of the richness of Mary’s grace. And there is nothing more that can be said about that aspect. But to try to make a representation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is to try to say everything, everything that can be said about Mary. No image could ever do that perfectly. That is why we will never be completely satisfied, no matter how much we try to improve our representation. However, regardless of the statue or image we use, it is always in fidelity to the intuition of Father Chevalier that we try to express ourselves.

12 THE PILGRIMAGE

What finally brought Father Chevalier to reveal to the public the name of “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” was the construction of the basilica. The church was to have an altar dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and he had decided that this would be the altar of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Consequently, the time had come for him to share this idea with others. The building was already going up and was beginning to take form.

Father Chevalier, as we have already seen, wanted this new church of the Sacred Heart as early as 1857. The former barn was too dilapidated and small and was always on the verge of collapsing. From the start Father Chevalier asked around for money. He did so without much success. Issoudun and its region were not rich and he was not always well received. Out of tenacity, he continued after Father Maugenest left but without much success and perhaps without much hope.

After his return from Ars, he began on a grand scale. Since Father Piperon continued, courageously, in spite of doubt, to go far and wide throughout France on his preaching trips, Father Chevalier put him in charge of collecting funds. To all the people who contributed, our brave preacher was to give a picture of the Sacred Heart. Father Chevalier had these pictures printed in Paris at great cost—a risky undertaking given their financial state. The result was astonishing. Everybody wanted to have “their” Sacred Heart. Donations began to flow in. The cornerstone was officially laid on June 28, 1859. Work went ahead rapidly and the first section, the sanctuary and half the nave, were solemnly blessed by the Vicar General on June 16, 1861, and opened to the public.

As had been planned, a side altar was dedicated to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Perhaps more importantly, a beautiful stained glass window was put in—the first representation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Father Chevalier had pictures of it printed and it was again Father Piperon, always the devoted and untiring one, who was put in charge of distributing them. This time the result was not just astonishing, it was absolutely unbelievable. We must admit that Father Piperon knew how to speak about Our Lady of the Sacred Heart with conviction. Pastors, convents and apostolic groups everywhere requested the famous picture, by the hundreds, by the thousands. And they came to Issoudun to see “the real” picture.

There was a crowd every day. Naturally, donations followed. In 1864, the church was completed and consecrated on July 2 by the new bishop, Bishop de la Tour d’Auvergne, who proved to be a great friend and supporter of Father Chevalier and his work. On the day of consecration he was surrounded by five other bishops and a great crowd of people.

In the meantime, Father Chevalier wrote a small article on Our Lady of the Sacred Heart to answer a request made by the new pilgrims. Father Ramiere, a famous Jesuit, asked for permission to print it in the “Messenger of the Sacred Heart,” the publication of “The Apostleship of Prayer,” still published today in France under the name “Source de Vie.” This was the first time, May, 1863, that something appeared in print about Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. The response was tremendous throughout France and even in other countries where the magazine was known. Forty bishops came to know about the new devotion and gave their official approval.

The pilgrims became more and more numerous and asked to be inscribed in the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. The multiplication of confraternities was a phenomenon of the time. It corresponded to the multiplication of religious congregations and for much the same reasons. The many confraternities that were created then were opportunities for Christians to find points of reference where they would have the comfort of belonging to a group, the assurance of mutual prayer and an official place in the Church. The problem at this point was that the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart did not yet exist. Forced by the request of the pilgrims and the hundreds of letters from people asking to be enrolled, Father Chevalier decided to go ahead. He was also gently pressured by the bishop who insisted that he write up the statutes of the new confraternity as soon as possible.

Father Chevalier took his time. This is a very curious fact and it always remained a mystery for Father Piperon. He wrote: “He was of a zealous nature, quick to carry out his resolutions and humbly obedient to the smallest requests that came from authority. But when he was asked to prepare the statutes of the future association, he just answered: ‘There is no hurry…’ We waited for two long months… Then one day, as if waking from a long sleep, he went to work…”

Yes, this was very curious, but very revealing as well. Father Chevalier, who might have appeared to be impulsive, quick to make decisions, quicker in carrying them out, was in fact a man who took time to think things through. He appeared to be “quick to carry out his resolutions” and his decisions seemed to be spontaneous. But this was because he never shared them with others until the last minute, after he had let them mature in the secret of his heart and his prayer. Pressured by the question of a confraternity, he wanted to take his time, as usual. This was merely the first time somebody noticed.

But there can also be another explanation. The multiplication of confraternities was very much in fashion at that time. They were religious “families,” small fervent groups in which Christians, a bit lost by all the upheavals of the time, found solace as well as support and a certain security. But Father Chevalier did not want a small group, a privileged little family. For him the Sacred Heart was “the center, the pivot around which everything turns.” Coming from the Sacred Heart he did not envisage a family but “a new world… full of greatness and fecundity; a world that the Church must perpetuate on earth.” His motto was: “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere.” Everywhere, by everyone… And Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was the first person to be associated with this mission. It was hardly enough for Father Chevalier that she be known and loved by a few people, within the confines of a small group, no matter how fervent. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart had to be known and loved everywhere, by everyone. This is why Father Chevalier hesitated so much and took so long to make up his mind.

When he finally acquiesced to the insistent requests of the pilgrims, his confreres and his bishop, it was because he had found a solution that would permit him to create a confraternity that would make Our Lady of the Sacred Heart better known and loved but which would also be open to all and not just to the privileged few.

All the confraternities of the time had very detailed statutes that enumerated prayer obligations, feasts to be celebrated, required practices and other commitments. This was often what the faithful were looking for: a strict framework that would help them in their Christian life. Father Chevalier wanted none of that because many would hesitate to join a group where they might not be able to live up to all the rules. So he found a solution: the only obligation of the confraternity would be to say, morning and evening, “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, pray for us!” Who could think that this would be too much? The confraternity was open to everybody, everywhere.

From that point on, the Confraternity developed very rapidly. Father Chevalier did write up the statutes to explain the spirit and purpose of this confraternity, stipulating that the only real obligation was still to say the name of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart each morning and evening.

The statutes of the new association were approved by the bishop who wanted to be the first to be enrolled and who presided at the first solemn meeting. The ceremony was largely improvised since it had only been announced the day before but, as Father Piperon wrote: “The Church of the Sacred Heart was too small. The crowd spilled over onto the huge square outside. You would think that the entire parish of Issoudun had come together in the new shrine!” This all happened in 1864. Only ten years earlier, Issoudun was the very symbol of indifference. Even if people came from all over France, and within a short time from other countries as well, the pilgrimage was not something introduced from outside. The local people were very much a part of it.

The Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was off to a good start and had great success. Hundreds of thousands of people, and soon millions of people, were enrolled. Father Chevalier was right in wanting it to be accessible to everyone. During his visit to Rome in 1869, he asked the pope to bless the new confraternity. “What are the obligations?” asked Pius IX. “Only to say morning and evening: ‘Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, pray for us!'” “That’s not very difficult!” said the Pope and asked to join on the spot. And so for the last ten years of his pontificate, Pius IX prayed to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, every morning and every evening.

This gave the Confraternity its strength: the understanding that in the presence of Mary, in the Church, with the Pope and many bishops and millions of Christians around the world, one formed a great family “where each one prayed for the intentions of everyone else.” There was no sense of a “closed group.” On the contrary, there was a strong feeling of universality, of fraternity. That is what Father Chevalier had wanted: that Jesus, Love made man, the Sacred Heart, be loved everywhere, by everyone because of, through and with Our Lady.

That is indeed the meaning of the famous statutes that were so well thought out. This is the way they begin: “The Association has as its purpose:

1. to glorify Mary with this new title that so admirably presents her glorious privileges;
2. to give Jesus, through Mary, a cult of adoration, love and reparation;
3. to glorify the power of intercession of the Virgin Mary over the Heart of Jesus by entrusting to her the success of desperate cases in both the spiritual and temporal order;
4. to plead with the Blessed Virgin to lead us herself to the holy heart of her Son, to have us know and love it, to open for us the treasures of love and mercy that it contains and to have us drink more abundantly from this source of all graces.”

This is contained in the “Memorare” to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart that millions of associates recite daily: Our Lady, filled with grace, who offers to her Son our praise and thanksgiving, who presents our needs to him and who, above all, makes us live in his love.

The Confraternity was soon raised to the level of archconfraternity when it became international. In the 1960’s, since the name “Archconfraternity” really did not mean much to people any more, it was renamed the “Fraternity,” a much more comprehensible name. But the reality did not change. The essential obligations are as few as ever so that it might remain open to everyone. Above all it is a spirit, a way of praying and living one’s daily life in union with the loving Christ, through Our Lady. It is this spirit of fraternity that gives the Issoudun pilgrimage, even on days when there are huge crowds, a family atmosphere. It is so characteristic and perceptible that one does not find it at other pilgrimage sites, even at the most “prayerful.”

The Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart needed a magazine to maintain contact with all the members of this great family, to continue the pilgrimage in the reality of people’s everyday life, to spread devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, along with the love of her Son, even further, everywhere, and to give testimony to the graces received through her intercession. Father Chevalier dreamed of this and let the project mature since a magazine required time and competent people. The arrival of Father Jouët, who was as lively as he was enlivening, was Our Lady’s response to this need. Father Jouët published the first number of the “Annals of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” in January, 1866. The success was immediate and miraculous.

Since then the Annals have continued and are well into their second century. They continue to come out each month in about ten different international editions. The French edition has a circulation of about 150,000 copies. Obviously, it is no longer the simple magazine of its origins which was made up mainly of testimonies and published with the rather elementary publishing means of that time. Today’s Annals, in color, are the product of all the modern techniques of printing. As the magazine of the Fraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart it is also meant to meet the needs of our time by helping people to deepen their faith and by giving them a basis for Christian reflection. But it is still the same spirit, that of Father Chevalier, that gives it life. He is the one who has us say to Mary: “Make us live, like you, in the love of your Son.”

More and more pilgrims came to enroll in the Confraternity and to pray to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at her own shrine. As Father Piperon said: “The prayers became more fervent in the presence of the holy image and it seemed that there they were more favorably received and more surely granted.” But the chapel was not built for such crowds. “The Blessed Virgin’s altar, located in a side nave, was so small and the chapel so filled with people that the pilgrims could barely convince themselves that this was the privileged shrine where they had come to pray.”

Something had to be done. Besides the numerous, and often small, offerings that Father Chevalier had received for the construction of the church, there were a number of diamonds and other jewels. Were they old jewels from old families that had survived the revolution and the troubles of a France in full mutation? Perhaps. But often they were also humble objects, the jewelry of poor people, made of silver or gold. The times were not too far removed from a rural civilization where barter had been a matter of course. To give gifts in kind was a rather common custom. To give Our Lady something concrete that held personal value made a lot of sense.

The idea occurred to Father Chevalier that, instead of cashing in the jewels, he could make a crown, even two crowns: one for Our Lady and one for her Son. It was not exactly an original idea: many places of pilgrimage had their statue crowned. While it may sound too simple to be true, to wear these splendid crowns, a large, beautiful statue would be needed. The small side chapel was not big enough for that. So, they had to build a shrine. And that is what Father Chevalier did—just to be able to crown Our Lady.

Even if Father Chevalier had always thought that the pilgrimage would become important, as demonstrated by his conviction back when they were converting the barn into a chapel, he certainly never thought that it would become so huge so quickly. He had begun the church without any money in hand and without knowing exactly what the future would bring. In any case, he had to make it bigger, not just for the pleasure of putting in a bigger statue but to receive the ever-growing number of pilgrims. In spite of the hesitation of the architect, he had the back of the sanctuary of the new church torn down and with an extension of the nave, built the large chapel of Our Lady. It was a success; for besides being sufficiently large, the new shrine was a very appropriate place for quiet and prayer. At the same time a large statue, made of one marble block, was sculpted by a famous artist and two beautiful crowns were prepared by goldsmiths.

Taking advantage of a trip to Rome, made necessary by the requirements to have the congregation officially recognized, Father Chevalier took the two crowns with him. He offered Pope Pius IX a bronze miniature of the statue and asked him to bless the two crowns. Not only did the Holy Father agree, but he also signed an official decree on January 23, 1869, delegating the bishop of Bourges to crown the statue in Issoudun in his name. It was during this same audience that Pius IX asked to enroll in the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. During the rest of that memorable day Father Chevalier kept unpacking and packing his crowns to have all the cardinals, one after the other, admire his works of art!

The coronation of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart took place on September 8, 1869. It was a triumphant occasion that necessitated months of preparation. On that day the city of Issoudun (the entire city, even the remote hamlets) was drowned under garlands of greenery, flowers and triumphal arches. The town, its administration, the army, all the official bodies, and all sorts of organizations rushed to accompany the townspeople who were caught up in an enthusiasm that was both extraordinary and restrained. A huge crowd of pilgrims had come, some several days in advance after several days of travel, by train or by horse-drawn carriage.

On the day of the celebration, “according to the most conservative estimates of the local newspapers,” 30,000 people jammed the “Place du Sacre-Coeur” and overflowed onto the adjacent streets. The ceremony took place outdoors in perfect weather. A majestic altar was set up. Fifteen bishops were present and 700 priests. The priests were not just there to add more solemnity. During the glorious triduum which preceded the great day, and during the octave that followed, and which never seemed to end, they heard confessions “day and night.”

John Mary Vianney had said: “Ars is no longer Ars.” Father Chevalier could have said: “Issoudun is no longer Issoudun.” For him, the important thing was that people had come from everywhere, under the honorary patronage of the pope himself, to render homage to the Sacred Heart through Our Lady. They had come from all of France and even, in spite of the difficulties of travel, from abroad, where the Confraternities of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart were growing fast. “Honor to you, noble inhabitants of Issoudun,” the preacher intoned, “you who have cooperated so faithfully with the unique grace given you by the Queen of Heaven who chose your city as the center and birthplace of a devotion to which, perhaps, the very salvation of the world is attached: the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart which today reaches to the five continents of the world!”

Since 1869 it has always been on September 8 when the pilgrimage reaches its peak. Now, however, to permit people who work to participate, the celebration is always held on the nearest Saturday. No longer are there triumphal arches or martial music. We have less need today to reassure ourselves with that type of pomp. But the universal character of the pilgrimage is always there in the diversity of the crowd and by the presence of priests and bishops from Africa, Oceania and other parts of the world and also by the numerous mission departures that are celebrated that day. These are mission-sendings made by all the Fraternity present.

Even though it is less external, the people’s fervor is no less great. It is a fervor nourished by the confidence that we, with one voice and heart, place in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. We know that in helping us in our daily difficulties and in opening us to the world, she is teaching us “to live in the love of her Son.”

13 THE GROWTH OF THE CONGREGATION

As we have seen, during its first five years the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had but three members, and these became two after Father Maugenest, the co-founder, left. This lack of recruits troubled Father Chevalier, for the work to be done was immense. The two priests were in demand everywhere since their missions gave new life to all the parishes where they preached. At the same time, the crowds at “Sacred Heart” were getting bigger every day. “The harvest is great, the laborers are few.” Jesus had been the first to be concerned.

There were a number of reasons why few candidates were coming. First there was a certain doubt people had as to the exact nature and purpose of the society. Was it a local congregation founded to give new life to already existing parishes and to preach missions in abandoned and dechristianized areas? Or was it a congregation with a universal goal destined to spread throughout the world? Even if this was all very clear to Father Chevalier from the beginning, it was much less clear for the bishop and those in charge of the local clergy. They had the intention of “using” this new force primarily for the good of the diocese.

The huge dechristianized diocese, still the largest in France, was lacking in vocations at least in relation to its needs. We have already seen that the bishop was forced to take Father Maugenest back at the risk of “sinking” the recently founded congregation. There simply was no one else at that time capable of filling the post in question. We also saw that the same bishop authorized another priest to enter only on the condition that he assume a fixed ministry, even if it were the chaplaincy of the hospitals and hospices. On the other hand, priests who might have thought about entering the little society hesitated. It would have meant leaving their parishes with no hope of being replaced.

These difficulties eventually proved to be fortuitous for the congregation. As things turned out, the first recruits came from other dioceses from all over France once the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were well enough known—thanks to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. By the year 1865, the congregation numbered about a dozen—very few of them natives of Berry where they exercised their ministry. They came from Allier, Brittany, Normandy, Bourgogne, Marseilles and Switzerland. Among these first Fathers there were many men of great worth. Had recruitment remained purely local, it would never have achieved such great quality.

At the very beginning, besides these serious reasons for few recruits, there was also a practical problem that made it difficult to accept new members. There simply was no room for them. Given the size of the first house, they could only accept one postulant at a time. When he returned from Ars in 1859, Father Chevalier had the attic extended to accommodate twelve cells. This was hardly luxury but they were available rooms not just for postulants but also for any priest who wanted to come and make a retreat in the community. They were quickly occupied and soon proved to be too few in number. In 1866, they began to build the first wing of the present residence and finished the work in a few months.

Accepting priests as members of the congregation was both convenient and risky. Convenient because the society did not have to worry about their education. Risky because it was a hit and miss proposition and did not offer a solid basis for the future. Father Chevalier was thinking about a formation house, a seminary where he could accept young men who wanted to join the congregation. But that was a difficult enterprise, both risky and burdensome. He did not think it right to use for that purpose the money that had been given for the construction of the church of the Sacred Heart.

It was at that time that Father Jean-Marie Vandel entered the congregation and brought with him a new idea. Father Vandel was from the region of Savoy but for various reasons was working as a pastor in Switzerland. He had been sick and returned to France to recuperate. He used the time afforded by this forced vacation to found “The Work of the Rural Areas” (l’Oeuvre des Campagnes). This ministry brought together generous lay people who committed themselves to financial support for priests who lived alone and whose poverty often bordered on misery. But these priests were not only poor, they were also too few in number. At the same time, many young men were thinking about priesthood but did not have the money to pay the tuition at a seminary. Father Vandel had the idea of opening a seminary that would admit them for free.

This very simple idea was borrowed from Pauline Jaricot, the extraordinary foundress of “The Association for the Propagation of the Faith” which had as its aim aid to foreign missions. The members of this association committed themselves to contribute a penny a week. This was something everyone could do and the association grew and was able to give considerable help to the missions. Father Vandel thought that with the great number of pilgrims and members of the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, it would be possible to ask from each a donation of at least a penny a year. Even the poorest among them would be happy to be able to participate in this way in the formation of future priests. The great number of donors would undoubtedly make it possible to gather the money necessary to run the seminary. If little streams make great rivers, it is also true that tiny drops of water make little streams.

With great timidity Father Vandel submitted his idea to Father Chevalier since it had already been rejected by the directors of “The Work of the Rural Areas” who thought it too risky. But Father Chevalier enthusiastically accepted the idea as soon as he heard it. He must have remembered his long years of waiting at Richelieu and thought that many young men might not be as fortunate as he had been in finding a providential benefactor. Besides, he knew how generous the poor are. He was sure that if they were offered something that was within their reach, they would do much.

In fact, “The Association of a Penny a Year for the Promotion of Apostolic Vocations,” that Father Vandel had founded, enjoyed great success from the beginning. In October 1867, a minor seminary, that was officially named “The Little Work” (“la Petite-Oeuvre”) because of its limited financial support, was founded at Chezal-Benoit near Issoudun. There was a diocesan school there in an old abbey that had been closed during the Revolution. The students of the Petite Oeuvre lived in a dormitory and went to the school for class. Some of the classes were taught by Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

The opening of the Petite Oeuvre, announced far and wide by the Annals, immediately drew a large number of benefactors and a great number of candidates for the priesthood: 150 in the first year. Prudently, Father Vandel accepted only twelve. The work was just beginning. He was sure of being able to take care of twelve students but no more. He did not want to take the risk of accepting more than that. But in the following years, the gifts increased and he was able to accept all the serious candidates who applied.

For one hundred years, the Petite Oeuvre, whose installations were multiplied around the world, assured the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart a large group of quality candidates: priests formed from their youth to follow a Christ who loved them and to imitate him, “… with their eyes fixed on him” on his mercy, his patience, his understanding, his acceptance of all the poor. It was because of the priests who came from the Petite Oeuvre that the congregation was able to proclaim the Gospel to the entire world, to go everywhere.

It was because of the Petite Oeuvre that Father Chevalier was able to respond, in 1880, to the Pope’s request to open missions in unexplored countries like Papua. Among those who made up the first group of students at the Petite Oeuvre of Chezal-Benoit: Bishop Henri Verjus, “The Apostle of the Papuans,” who died of exhaustion in 1892 at the age of 32 and whose cause for beatification has been introduced in Rome.

Father Chevalier had entrusted the founding and the running of the Petite Oeuvre to Father Vandel. He turned the whole thing over to him. Future members for the Society seemed to be assured. But that was not enough for Father Chevalier. His goal was not to assure the future of “his” congregation but to put in place all possible means to reveal to people the God who loved them. For this he contemplated various projects and took at least a first step towards realizing them.

First he established relations with the Jesuits. His idea was quite simply to be affiliated with the Company of Jesus. His congregation would have been just a branch of the Jesuits, with the special mission of making the Sacred Heart better known. It would profit from the powerful help and vast experience of the Company in order to accomplish its task more efficaciously. “Our Society should be a daughter of your Society. It should draw its nourishment and its life from your constitutions, from your organization, from your spirit, from your cooperation and from the bonds that should unite us. We will consider St. Ignatius to be our founder. We will be an expansion, another radiation of the Society of Jesus.” Officially, even if discreetly, discussions between the two groups went quite far but did not reach any conclusion.

At the same time, Father Chevalier tried to get another project going, that of associated priests. The purpose was to be a support for priests who were isolated and to carry even further the proclamation of the Sacred Heart to the world. These priests could take vows or not. Yet all would have the name “Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.” He was encouraged to go in this direction by the fact that at Issoudun old Father Crozat had finally been replaced by Father Maugenest. He still considered himself to be a Missionary of the Sacred Heart—he had, after all, made final vows. Nevertheless he no longer depended, properly speaking, on the society, but directly on the bishop. Why not ratify this situation officially and extend it to others?

Father Chevalier organized meetings, conferences and even a congress to try to make a federation, under the name of “Missionaries of the Sacred Heart,” out of the little associations of priests that already existed all over France. The Jesuits with whom he was still in contact encouraged him. New persecutions of religious were not only possible, they were quite probable. These religious “out in the field” would thus be a safeguard for the continuation of Father Chevalier’s mission. Moreover, he was aware of the great needs of the dioceses and saw a great advantage in this solution: “…for this association, offering powerful means for perfection, would stop, at least in part, the emigration of the best subjects whose presence is so important in their diocese…” And in a private audience, in 1860, Pius IX seemed to have encouraged him: “I would like all priests to belong!”

But Father Chevalier did not stop there in his exploration of “all possible avenues.” He also wanted to associate lay people with his work. Lay Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, with or without vows, living in community or not. A Third Order was born. Groups were formed, especially at Montlucon. The members, mostly women, numbered 300 from different countries. But this never became well organized and lacked a clear framework and truly concrete connections with the Society.

This early project of a vast organization of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart with religious living in community and priests or lay people living outside as “aggregate” members, as well as priests or lay people as associate members, was a failure. That was due to two factors. First, the priests in the congregation were too few in number to handle and give life to such a huge organization. Second, when it was time to seek official, legal recognition of the congregation, Rome was determined to return to strict norms. They wanted to put some order in the anarchy of all those “congregations” that had multiplied spontaneously in the Nineteenth Century outside of the established norms. Only religious with vows who were attached to a local community were recognized as making up the congregation. Priests and lay people who were associated with them—with or without private vows—were considered as just belonging to the “works” of the congregation and not as an integral part of it.

In the face of this setback some of the associated priests became full members of the congregation, among others Father Vandel and Father Jouët. But later this setback would become a challenge for the sons of Father Chevalier, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart today. It is up to them to find new ways to bring to life the vision of their founder by using “all possible means” to let people know that God loves them by appealing to all people of good will, whoever they are. “…To them also, so that the world might know…,” Jesus said.

Father Chevalier spent the month of February, 1869, in Rome to take care of all the necessary details concerning the approval of the Constitutions of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. This approbation depended on the official “ministries” of the Church that were made up of very demanding canon lawyers. The pope was not directly involved, but Father Chevalier met with him to request, among other things, that the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart be crowned in his name. Pius IX was deeply interested in the history of the congregation that he had so strongly encouraged in 1860 and to which he had given his special blessing. On March 8 the decree approving the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart was signed. From that moment they had a recognized place in the Church. They were no longer a tiny association that depended on one bishop. They would be able to go all over the world, to go everywhere.

Once the celebration of the crowning of Our Lady, an event that took up everyone’s time, was over, a novitiate according to the new rules was opened at Montlucon on September 12. On the 19th, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who still numbered only 11 members, met in a general assembly and officially elected Father Chevalier their superior. They professed their religious vows in a completely official way on September 28. At this point (1869) they were at a distance of fifteen years from the “sign” Our Lady had given on December 8, 1854. The congregation came out of its infancy and entered its adult stage. It was now completely organized and had canonically recognized statutes.

At this point Father Chevalier was 45 years old. During the previous fifteen years he had engaged in incredible activity as an inspired preacher, a bold builder and an organizer with a vision. Even from a purely human point of view he caused admiration. “He would have succeeded anywhere,” one of those close to him said. For his part, he had never lost sight, even for a single instant, of the “mission” he felt he had received. That was his true source of strength.

The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were still few in number but were about to increase in size rapidly. Ten years later, in 1879, they numbered 63, with an average age of 32. From 1880 on, tragic events would hasten the extraordinary extension of the congregation to other countries and lead the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to the ends of the earth.

14 FATHER CHEVALIER AND THE POPE

During his major seminary days, Jules Chevalier wrote: “I did my theology with the manual written by Bailly who was considered a good author. God gave me the grace of not sharing that common opinion. I protested in class with all the respect due the professor. I was horrified by Bailly’s extreme Gallican theories. The arguments were fierce and passionate. I was considered an ultramontane and I was not the only one. Just about everyone was against the author and the professor.” “Gallican,” “ultramontane”—names that in their time were the cause of much deeper divisions than those brought about more recently by the words “traditionalist” and “progressive.”

“Gallican” comes from the Latin “gallicus.” The word means “Gallic” and is practically synonymous with “French.” Gallicanism refers to the French Church, but with a particular twist. It refers to the Church of France as autonomous, national, independent of the pope. While Gallicanism has a history that goes back a long time, it had its high point and its major proponents from the Seventeenth Century up to the time of the French Revolution. The people of that time lived under the regime of “Christianity.” The laws of the Church were often the only prevailing laws. At the same time, the pope had considerable temporal power. He was the political leader of the powerful Papal States and more or less considered himself the world’s boss.

Since people had not been able to separate what belonged to Caesar from what belonged to God, Caesar began to insist on his rights. The king, crowned at Reims and considered to be God’s elect with absolute power, also thought of himself (at least in part and Louis XIV is a good example) as the head of the Church in his Kingdom of France. The king was often supported in this line of thinking by the high clergy who found it useful to have two sovereigns, whereby they could play one off against the other and obey neither. In 1682, a declaration of the Assembly of the Clergy proclaimed the rights of the Gallican Church as more or less independent of Rome. They would only recognize a certain overseer’s role for the pope. Anglicanism would take this line of thinking to its natural conclusion and do away with the pope completely.

As for “ultramontane,” the word does not have the connotation of extremism that the prefix “ultra” might lead one to believe. Today we would speak of “transalpine.” “Ultramontane”—from beyond the mountains, from the other side of the Alps—describes a supporter of Rome, of the pope. Most of the young clergy of the Nineteenth Century were ultramontane and the reason is easy to understand. The Revolution had come close to wiping out the Church of France along with the regime with which it had become identified. Survival could only come from placing the Church above local contingencies by insisting on its universal, catholic character. At that time the fact that the Church was “Roman” seemed to be the pledge of this universality.

This ultramontane movement soon met with official approbation. Beginning in 1850, Bailly’s “extremely Gallican” manual which had been in use in seminaries for decades, was withdrawn and put on the index. More importantly, this drive for a more universal Church would lead, at Vatican I in 1870, to the proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility. One hundred years later, however, at Vatican II where Gallicanism was no longer a problem, the meaning of the dogma of papal infallibility was complemented by the doctrine of the collegiality of the bishops.

Jules Chevalier was ultramontane. He was not the only one among his classmates but, as his recollections seem to indicate, he was one of the most outspoken and daring of the defenders of that position. It is a bit surprising since but a short time before he had been but a simple, uneducated shoemaker. His family which was so poor, was certainly more concerned about making a daily living than about debating great ideas. So where did he get this confidence?

It came, without any doubt, from the universal character of his vocation: the entire world was and always would be the field of his apostolate. His first inspiration had been to become a missionary to a far-away place. In the face of his superior’s misgivings, he had accepted a compromise: Issoudun first. But the key word for everything that he undertook was: …everywhere. When he “discovered” the Sacred Heart, his motto became: “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be loved everywhere.” And to this day, it is the motto of his congregation(s). To be “Roman” or ultramontane came as a necessary conclusion from his concept of priesthood: to give, like Jesus and with Jesus, his life for the world. “When I am lifted up, I shall draw all people to myself.” And Jesus had also said: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to every creature.” As a result, “the disciples went out preaching everywhere.”

We have already seen how Pope Pius IX always welcomed Father Chevalier so positively. He took a personal interest in his plan for a religious congregation, had himself enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and agreed to have the statue crowned in his name. He also strongly supported the founding of the Petite Oeuvre and insisted on giving his penny, a gold penny, as a sign of support and encouragement for all the benefactors. He thought that the idea of Priest Associates was a very good one and hoped that it would flourish. He approved the first constitutions of 1869 with great joy.

In 1874, when Father Chevalier went to Rome for the final approval of his congregation, he brought with him all the necessary documents and letters of recommendation signed by 28 bishops. He was afraid that these formalities would take a long time. But the pope told him: “Tomorrow I will see the cardinal involved. I will have him hurry it up.” And Pius IX did that so well that within a month and on the day of the feast of the Sacred Heart, as a thoughtful act of courtesy, he was able to sign the decree.

Encouraged by such great kindness, Father Chevalier was bold enough to make a rather unusual request. He asked Pius IX to allow Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to consider the Holy Father their founder and to have him and his successors as the superior of their congregation. Later Father Chevalier would write: “Pius IX was so kind as to state in a document that he signed that he was the real and true superior of our Institute which he considered his and he gave us permission to wear a habit like his, that is a white cassock with a red cape and a white biretta.” Father Chevalier wanted to use the new habit immediately but the pope told him to refer the question to his bishop. The bishop, given the troubles that the government was making at that time for religious congregations, felt that it was not the time for them to draw attention to themselves. His advice was to keep the black cassock but with a “Roman” collar instead of the soft collar that priests in France were wearing. He also permitted a Sacred Heart badge that was sewed onto the front of the cassock.

During the audience the pope expressed a wish, a veiled request: “Previously they asked me to consecrate the Church to the Sacred Heart. The times were just not favorable. But if Catholics were to ask for that today, I would do it willingly. We have to respond to the devotion of the faithful.”

Father Chevalier had been accompanied by Fathers Vandel and Jouët. On leaving the audience the three were overcome with joy and decided to do everything they could to carry out this project for the glory of the Heart of Jesus: that the entire Church be solemnly consecrated to him. A petition was drawn up and published in the June 1874 edition of the Annals. They already had a fairly high circulation but they had “extra copies printed to send throughout the world.”

In less than six months Father Chevalier was off to Rome again, “carrying a beautifully bound folio of the letters of 160 cardinals, archbishops and bishops from France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Canada and other countries. In addition there were letters from mitered abbots and superiors general from a great number of religious orders and congregations. There were also 28 volumes of petitions signed by the laity, each containing 100,000 signatures for a total of 2,800,000 petitioners. Soon after two more volumes were sent from Issoudun to bring the total number of signers to 3,000,000.”

The pope responded: “We have had these petitions sent to the Sacred Congregation of Rites whose duty it is to treat this sort of question with the care and maturity it merits.” But he must have given the administrative foot-dragging a bit of a push for on “June 16, 1875, Pius IX consecrated all the faithful to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” The Pope had the 31 volumes put in the Vatican Library. Leo XIII made reference to this in his encyclical that consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart.

All these details were recorded in the Annals of that time. This is a proof that the magazine was not content just to speak of the pilgrimage to Issoudun and to record the thanks of the people who had obtained favors from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. It was concerned about opening the spirit and the prayer of its readers to the world and the universal Church.

Today we are much less moved by this whole question of consecration to the Sacred Heart. We are much more concerned with the encyclicals that treat of doctrinal questions and the social and moral issues of our time. That is all very good and normal. But back then Christians were looking for points of reference in the midst of a topsy-turvy world and were awakening to the discovery of the universal Church. A movement in public opinion in favor of that consecration was of great importance. And Father Chevalier was the one behind it all.

It is possible to conclude that the interest Pius IX took in Father Chevalier and his work came from a natural empathy. There are people we meet who awaken our interest because we find in them an echo of the things we find dear to ourselves. But the following pope, Leo XIII, who had fewer occasions to meet Father Chevalier, showed the same interest. On one occasion he spontaneously offered to loan him 100,000 francs to help him buy and restore a Church in Rome that was being used for profane purposes so as to establish there the world-wide headquarters of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. This is notable because Pius IX and Leo XIII were very different kinds of pope.

Pius IX, the longest reigning pope in history (32 years: 1846-1878), was at first taken up with a number of necessary reforms in a liberal spirit that won him great popularity. But he was driven from Rome by the 1848 revolution, and after he returned he was as authoritarian as he had once been liberal. Perhaps he reproached himself for having been too weak and not having foreseen these events. He was returned to power in 1849 by the French army and up to 1870 he opposed Cavour and Garibaldi, the builders of Italian unity. In spite of what was happening, he called the First Vatican Council in 1869. It came to a halt because of the war. In 1870 he was forced to accept the annexation of Rome as capital of a unified Italy and from that point on he considered himself the prisoner of the Vatican. In 1864, he published his encyclical “Quanta cura,” with its famous corollary, the “Syllabus,” condemning numerous errors of the modern world, a step for which he would be roundly criticized.

Pius IX was a holy pope who was not understood by his time and who, in turn, probably did not understand his time. Beyond the agitations of that time, Father Chevalier only looked to what was essential. Pius IX was certainly convinced that that was also the pope’s duty. But in order to hold on to what seemed to him to be essential, he was caught up in fighting on other fronts. He must have regretted that distraction and it led him to look with kindness on men like Father Chevalier.

Leo XIII also became pope in very difficult circumstances for the Church: the Roman question, capitalism and socialism, scientism, colonialism, demographic expansion, Christian disunity—all problems that he faced courageously. He was not able to resolve the question of the temporal power of the pope and in 1881 even considered taking refuge in Austria. But he did succeed in reconciling Christians with their respective governments. He convinced faithful French Catholics to accept the Republic. With “Rerum Novarum,” his famous encyclical on the worker question, he denounced the misdeeds of liberalism. With “Aeterni Patris” in 1879, he gave new life to theological studies. He was a great missionary pope and organized the Catholic hierarchy in India, Japan and Africa. He also worked hard for Christian unity.

With the encyclical “Annum Sacrum” of 1889, the first dedicated to the Sacred Heart, he laid the theological foundation for the devotion. At the end of that same year he solemnly consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart. In 1903 he set up an archconfraternity devoted to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus. With that the connection between the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist was firmly established. Perpetual adoration began to spread as well as the practice of frequent communion. There were certainly a lot of points of convergence with Father Chevalier. He too felt the suffering of persecution and his congregation had to go into exile in 1880. He too was keenly conscious of the evils of his time. He too felt that the remedy was to make the Sacred Heart known and loved throughout the world. The Eucharist was also the center of his life: “The members of the Society will have special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, especially in the sacrament of the Eucharist,” we read in the Constitutions. He too believed in the power of love to bring about reconciliation among people: “Following the example of the Good Shepherd, they will lead their sheep with the bonds of loving kindness and they will not hesitate, if it should be necessary, to lay down their lives for them.”

Leo XIII died in 1903 and Father Chevalier in 1907. They were spiritual as well as historical contemporaries.

15 THE DARKER HOURS

In 1872 the office of pastor at Issoudun became vacant. Father Maugenest, always a religious at heart, but a diocesan priest in fact, was tired of having to straddle the fence. He was not able to return to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart without making the bishop go back on his decision. Since he was still drawn to religious life and preaching, he entered the Dominicans. The Archbishop then asked Father Chevalier to be pastor.

He had two reasons for doing this. Considering the greater good of Issoudun, it would bring about perfect harmony, on a pastoral level, between the basilica and the parish. Secondly, there was great fear for the future because of the political upheavals that were occurring. It was feared that the religious congregations would experience the worst of this in the near future. The parish would then be a place for the fathers to find refuge.

At that time, more than 50 years after the Revolution, France was still having difficulty finding its identity. It was torn between the nostalgia of a stormy yet familiar and therefore comfortable past and the uncertainty of a new world full of promise and peril. The Nineteenth Century was a true hinge between the ancient world and the modern world. And the Church, in spite of itself, was very much caught up in this whirlwind.

The Revolution had been a shock, a turning upside down of everything. This sudden change could have been different. It could have happened with less violence. But no one would say that it was not necessary or that it could have been avoided. People accepted it and tried desperately to save what small bits of values, security and normalcy they could. When a house begins to fall down, one is always tempted to prop it up, to fill in the cracks, to cover over the damaged parts to restore its old form until the time comes to do something new, to start again from the ground up, to rebuild the house. That way one has a house rebuilt on the solid foundations of the old one, a house which can better meet the new needs of each person, a house that is more pleasant for all and better prepared to face the storms to come.

Before 1789, the Church encompassed all facets of human life. After the Revolution, with the industrial society, the new philosophies and the increasing importance of science, a world was being built up outside of the Church. For a long time the Church had erected barriers against the menaces coming from the outside world. Now it faced the danger of becoming a stranger to the world. The bishops, though all born to families of the nobility, were not insensitive to the misery of the slums where the workers lived. However, they were not readily able to analyze the causes and find solutions. The old city parishes became overcrowded. There was no contact with the priest. The clergy remained preoccupied with individual morality: owners should be generous and the workers diligent.

The first forms of socialism were born in a Christian context. In the second half of the century they became irreligious. The Church was considered to be on the side of the powers that exploited others. This was the time of Proudhon, Marx and the First International. Religious leaders had no option but to oppose this socialism that denied God; but they had nothing else to offer except to preach resignation and encourage works of charity. The Christians who did become interested in social problems were conservatives. They dreamed of a counter-revolution which would reestablish the old order of things and bring the present order to an end. These Christians were generous but very paternalistic.

It was not until the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” in 1891 that something more realistic began to appear. In his letter, Leo XIII noted that the world had changed and that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few brought about “undeserved misery” for others. He called upon Catholics to open their eyes finally to the world in which they lived.

In this context Father Chevalier has quite an original place. He expressed no opinion in relation to the social problems. Unlike many others, he had no solutions to propose. The formation he had received had not prepared him, as it had others in different moments of history, to face the problems of his epoch head on. His insight, his goal, his “mission,” his passion were on a different level. “All religious principles and convictions have disappeared from institutions,” said Leo XIII’s encyclical, “and workers are left isolated and defenseless.” This was also the opinion of Jules Chevalier. He wanted to take people out of their isolation by putting them in a closer relationship with God—not a paternalistic God who made laws, condemned and rewarded; not a far away God who would somehow satisfy the need in every human heart for mystery and the sacred; but rather a human, accessible God; a God who loved and who expected only one thing: to be loved in return.

Jules Chevalier felt that it was love that would save the world. He did not want to reestablish or restore anything. It was a new world that he had in mind as he wrote: “from the Heart of Christ I see a new world emerging.” When you love and are loved, everything becomes new and you see everything in a new light and find new paths to follow. There are no more duties and obligations because you go ahead of and beyond all that. There are no more hesitations, fears, or frantic, sterile quests because love is spontaneous and inventive and looks to the future.

Father Chevalier did not propose solutions for the evils of his time but rather a way to eliminate their source. They all came from indifference, selfishness, ignorance, envy, injustice, untruth. However, as St. Paul said, “love is patient, love serves others, it is not jealous nor puffed up, does no evil, is not self-seeking, does not harbor grudges, does not rejoice over evil but rejoices with the truth.” (I Cor. 13:4).

We could also add that love, real love, excludes no one. That is because the one who loves always wants to share his happiness with everyone. And that is why with Father Chevalier these two words always come up: everyone… everywhere. The indifference against which he wanted to fight was the lack of relationship not to values but to persons. That lack of someone means loneliness, solitude, sadness, life without purpose.

These reflections help us understand what happened next to Father Chevalier and his congregation. One could be led to think that he lived that period carried along, in spite of himself, by the vicissitudes that had nothing to do with him. Whatever the case, he often appears to a lot of people to be a good little priest who founded “his” work in a little town, somewhat apart from an agitated world. Circumstances alone would account for the growth of his congregation. On the contrary, from the very beginning, it was precisely his awareness of the evils of his time that led Father Chevalier to found his congregation to make the love of Christ known to everyone.

When the bishop asked him to be pastor in Issoudun, some very significant events were occurring in France. The country had been traumatized by defeat. The elections of 1871 had resulted in a rural, conservative majority that hoped for a restoration of the monarchy. But the people of Paris rose up against the Assembly and the government of Thiers. The “Commune” was proclaimed. Violent measures were taken against the Church: confiscations, arrests. The repression ordered by Thiers was terrible with several tens of thousands of deaths recorded. The rebels for their part shot their hostages, among them Archbishop Darboy and 24 priests.

Once the revolt of the Commune was crushed, the government and the Assembly, which was referred to as “the Moral Order,” became very pro-Church. The construction of the Basilica of Montmartre was undertaken as a “public necessity.” One hundred deputies took part officially in a national procession to Paray-le-Monial. A law granted freedom for Catholic higher education. All these measures exasperated the “republican” camp and they waited for a chance to take revenge. There were henceforth two Frances: one was “republican,” anticlerical and secular to an extreme; the other was “monarchical” and blindly attached to traditional values.

Father Chevalier belonged to neither France. He was far above this struggle. They said he was a royalist. Let us just say that he was not a republican. That is not the same thing. It was impossible that he be a “republican” in the meaning the word had at the time. That was because a republican, by definition, was someone who admired the Revolution that had rescued France from slavery to the nobility and the clergy. He believed in the unlimited progress of science. Catholics seemed to him to be adversaries who wanted to bring back the monarchy and support a backward religion destined to disappear, and which should be helped to disappear.

It is in this context that Father Chevalier accepted the appointment to be pastor of Issoudun. The bishop had pointed out to him the prudence of being prepared for a change of governments. The religious congregations would then be subject to persecution. But even the most “republican” of governments would not be able to attack the parish priests. The people would not permit it. For Father Chevalier, being pastor was a guarantee of being able to stay at Issoudun and protect his work, at least in part.

When he first began his work at “Sacred Heart,” Father Chevalier did all in his power not to be tied down to one parish. But now the circumstances were different. Fifteen years earlier there were only two of them. To have accepted the parish then would have meant tying the entire congregation to it. Now it would only be one work among many. Father Chevalier had always said that one could be a Missionary of the Sacred Heart anywhere: as pastor, teacher, chaplain, foreign missionary. The only thing that made him hesitate was the fact that he already had too much to do. Would he be able to handle yet another responsibility?

He would be able to and he would do it very well. At the same time he continued to take an active part in his congregation which was being shaken by the events of the time and in spite of that, or perhaps because of that, was growing. He also oversaw the pilgrimage, to which he gave a national and international dimension, and the organization of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart which now had its headquarters in Rome and was established in a great number of countries. This would also be the moment of his second great undertaking: the Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart that he founded and guided.

At the same time he radically transformed the parish. His first concern was the catechetical program to which he gave new strength and seriousness. He inaugurated a Mass for children, a Mass for men, perpetual adoration and a number of works of charity and piety for young men, young women, boys, men, women. He knew how to mobilize all people of good faith and was helped by some of the younger Fathers. The bishop had told him that it would be a good learning experience for them. In spite of all these activities and worries, he undertook the reconstruction of the huge parish church which had stood in ruins since the Revolution. His only regret was not to have been able to finish the spire because of lack of cooperation on the part of city government. He remained pastor at Issoudun for 35 years—until his death.

As had been foreseen, things began to change in France. In 1876, under a brand new Constitution of a Republic that had been voted in by a one-vote majority, the voters chose their Assembly. For the first time, universal suffrage was in effect. The results were quite clear: two-thirds of the deputies elected were out and out republicans. President MacMahon only survived three years with a “split” government and resigned in 1879. Grévy, a republican, became president with a republican government and a large republican majority. It was the minister of education, Jules Ferry, who would prove to be especially active and effective.

The republicans wanted to confine religion to the domain of private life. “Clericalism is the enemy” was the slogan of the day. The Church, however, ran almost all primary and secondary education and by that very fact produced people opposed to the government. To put a stop to that, Jules Ferry took a number of measures. One law declared primary education to be free and obligatory. Consequently, each department had to have a secular teacher training school. When these measures were accepted without too much opposition, another important step was taken: private education would be tolerated but only authorized congregations could teach.

The Jesuits with their secondary schools and the Dominicans were the targets of this new law. The majority of small congregations, and even those that did not engage in primary education, formed a block, whether out of solidarity with the Jesuits or because they deemed it useless to ask for the permission which they felt would be routinely refused. In the face of this united opposition, the government decided to expel all the congregations that were not authorized.

Given the climate of those times, things did not happen very gently. The police and the army carried out orders in a brutal fashion, breaking down doors and throwing religious out on the street. In some places, wearied by the hostile reaction of the local population, the soldiers went beyond their orders and ripped down crucifixes and carried out senseless desecrations. For a long time Catholics would remain traumatized by these events.

At Issoudun, where the attachment of the local population to their “Sacred Heart” was well known, the authorities took all necessary precautions. On November 5, 1880, a first Friday of the month, at 5:00 a.m., soldiers invaded the square. The cavalry guarded the streets and all the local troops were present. The prefect and sub-prefect were there to supervise the operation. The police commissioner, wearing his official sash, arrived at 7:00 a.m., surrounded by his agents and a locksmith with a bunch of keys and a carpenter armed with an axe to break down the doors in case of resistance.

After the reading of the official acts, the locksmith forced the doors open. Father Chevalier stood in front of one of them and protested forcefully against this violation of private property. The commissioner passed by him and with his agents and the locksmith visited all the rooms, forced open their doors and expelled the missionaries with brute force. The basilica was then closed. It was declared off limits for religious cult. Seals were placed on the doors. There had been no lay people to evacuate since the building had been surrounded from 5:00 a.m.

The only safe haven left for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart was the rectory at Issoudun which was officially declared property of the diocese. The Fathers who could not be lodged there were taken in by some of the families in town. As for the students of the Petite Oeuvre, they had left Chezal-Benoit a few days earlier as a precaution and were housed here and there in hastily prepared makeshift dormitories.

When night fell the stained glass windows of the chapel of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart still glowed in the dark for a few hours from the small votive candles inside. And then the lights burned out.

EPILOGUE

One day the little sanctuary lamps were to shine again. They are burning today and give the chapel of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart its special atmosphere of reflection and meditation.

In the meantime many things happened. The Fathers were forced into exile. They went to Belgium, to Holland, to Austria, to Spain and even further, always further. Faster than anyone thought, they spread everywhere.

Father Chevalier, quartered in the rectory at Issoudun, continued to watch over it all and to support his priests in all the countries where they were dispersed. They underwent all the difficulties one could imagine and lived in extreme poverty but they were buoyed up by the same enthusiasm that had inspired their founder.

In 1881, from Spain, took place the first departure for the famous Mission of Papua. At that time it was uncharted territory, so primitive and so distant. Father Chevalier had not yet been in Issoudun 25 years and already his Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were half way around the world, at the other end of the world, to make the Sacred Heart of Jesus loved everywhere.

The Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, very modestly founded by Father Chevalier amidst great difficulty in 1874, also enjoyed tremendous, rapid growth throughout the world.

Father Chevalier died in 1907 after having been forcefully evicted from his rectory during a new persecution.

All that is another story that deserves to be told some day. This short book did not have as its purpose to tell the story of the congregations founded by Father Chevalier but just to answer one basic question: Who was Jules Chevalier? Where did he come from and in what period did he live? How did he come to found, in a small and forgotten country village, such an important world-wide organization? It offers a response to the basic question so many ask: “Who was Jules Chevalier?”

Statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at Sacred Heart Basilica, Issoudun, France, crowned by the delegate of Pope Pius IX on September 8, 1869.