OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART: FATHER FOUNDER’S CONCEPT OF HER ROLE IN OUR FDNSC VOCATION

Sister M. Bernard, FDNSC

FIRST POINT: FATHER FOUNDER’S BASIC IDEAS

An understanding of this amounts to having a look at what Father Founder meant by devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and then seeing where our own religious Institute fits into the pattern.

Not every element of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is equally basic to the Marian character of the Congregation. Hence we have examined those aspects which were high-lighted in the primitive Constitutions written by Father Founder himself; we have studied the way in which they have been interpreted in the various editions of the Directory, the first of which dates from his time; and also the sound traditions which have come down to us from the beginning. All this we have compared with what is to be found in the present Constitutions. Actually these are based on the 1908 revision necessitated by the Norms of 1901, and* with minor modification, arc those which received the Decree of Praise. This revision, owing to the deteriorating state of health of Father Founder, was, with the latter’s per mission, entrusted to Father Eugene Meyer, MSC.

It has already been said that not every aspect of the devotion as conceived by Father Founder is equally basic to the character of our vocation as Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. In this context the word devotion is used in the sense of that which gives orientation to devotedness to an ideal. Father Vermin, MSC, in his biography of Father Chevalier says that Father Founder’s earliest recorded explanation of the devotion is to be found summarised in a brochure which he wrote in 1862. An explanation is also given in Father Piperon’s book The Power of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. What gives this latter summary of Father Founder’s thought its authenticity is the fact that Father Chevalier himself wrote the preface to the book.

Now this particular summary has a special relevance to the character of our own Congregation, for it contains a point omitted in Father Vermin’s one. More over, it is precisely this point which epitomises the Marian orientation of our Institute, in distinction to that of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart whose End and Spirit it shares and on whose Constitutions its own are based.

Father Piperon records Father Founder’s explanation to his first companions of what we mean when we pronounce the words OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART. He sums it up thus:

1. We glorify God for his choice of Mary to form from her most pure substance the Adorable Heart of Jesus;
2. We honour the sentiments of the Heart of Jesus towards his holy Mother:
3. We recognise the inexpressible power which he has given her over his Heart:
4. We beg Mary to lead us herself to the Heart of Jesus, to reveal to us his Mysteries and to open to us his treasures of grace:
5. (This is the point which interests here) We unite with our Mother in glori fying the Heart of Jesus and in making reparation for the sinful outrages against this Divine Heart:
6. We confide to her the success of the most difficult and hopeless cases.

Now the point which is specially relevant to our own Congregation, and which also figures in part in the pact of 1855 made with Mary concerning the foundation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, is the fifth one:

We unite with our Mother in glorifying the Heart of Jesus, and in making reparation for the sinful outrages against this Divine Heart.

Here it is that we find expressed Father Founder’s basic ideas concerning the place of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in our vocation as Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart: union with Mary in doing two things – glorifying the Heart of Jesus and leading a life of reparation.

“We unite with our Mother . ..” Herein is the basis of the Mother-daughter bond expressed in the title Daughter of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Father Founder would tolerate no interference as regards this concept of daughter, with its significance – a restricted one certainly – of a filial right to penetrate into the intimate bond of love between Mary and the adorable Heart of her Son. In trying to trace the origin of this, his idea of “daughter”, the same idea of a special filial relationship with Mary was found in the Rules which Father Founder wrote in 1857 for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. It was as yet too early for Mary to find a place there as Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, so she is to be honoured under the title of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Here is the text of Article 2:

We must love Mary as a son loves his mother. For it is Mary who conceived us and who brought us to birth in the religious life.

The idea of conception is, of course, a reference to the date of 8th December. 1854, and that of birth to the religious life to Christmas night. 1856, when himself and Father Maugenest pronounced at midnight the vows of religion. But you will notice that the basic idea of a Mother-son relationship is identical with our Mother-daughter one.

As regards the rest of this point (in Father Piperon’s summary) – union with Mary in glorifying the Heart of Jesus, and in making reparation, these two ideas are to be found in all the editions of our Constitutions drawn up by Father Founder himself. Though he omits specific reference to union with Mary, he takes it for granted, for it is developed in the Directory. Nor does he ever omit it in all the propaganda he made, through his books and otherwise, in order to attract vocations. Incidentally. Vatican II also stresses this idea of union with Mary. “The Blessed Virgin is intimately united with the Church”, i.e. its members. (Lumen Gentium 63)

A rather good application of what exactly Father Chevalier means by glori fying the Heart of Jesus in union with Mary, is to be found in his book Our Lady of the Sacred Heart According to Scripture, the Fathers and Theology. Here he shows that it was at the word of Mary that Christ inaugurated his mission of salvation by manifesting his Divinity, thus strengthening the faith of the disciples on whom he was to build his Church. I quote:

“The Word, the Eternal Splendour of the Father, had veiled his glory in the virginal womb of Mary. , . Was it not fitting that through Mary also this glory of Christ, hidden till then, should be manifested to the world?”

This then, in the concrete, is the pattern for one aspect of what Father Founder presents as the vocation of the Daughter of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart – through Mary to glorify’, i.e. make manifest to the world, the Divinity and the mission of the Heart of the Word Incarnate. This, of course, can be done directly or indirectly by a life of worship, and cither hidden devotedness or active apostolate.

There is, too. the other aspect of our vocation as expressed in this point under discussion – that of reparation, especially Eucharistic reparation. Again we refer to Father Founder’s book on Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in order to find the Scrip tural source of this union with Mary in reparation. Here he shows her on Calvary in close union with Christ, the sole Reparateur. “There Mary stands beside the Cross, associating herself in perfect union of will with the Divine Victim – immo lating herself with Him.” (p. 21) In his book The Sacred Heart of Jesus, he develops more fully this theme of reparation: “Christ’s work of reparation did not stop on Calvary .. .” (p. 217) And further on: “It is in the Eucharist that we unite ourselves with His work of reparation.” (p. 221)

As far as our own vocation goes we find this doctrine of reparation given a Eucharistic application in the Director. Here it is stated that during the Sacrifice of the Mass, we unite ourselves with Our Lady of the Sacred Heart – asking her to “make us understand the Mystery of the Cross so that we may offer the Divine Victim with her and according to her spirit”. It is in union with Mary, too, that we make our daily half-hour of Adoration of the Eucharistic Presence. The Directory instructs us to “ask Our Lady of the Sacred Heart to adore as she adored, to love as she loved, to make reparation as she made reparation.” Incidentally, as regards this latter element of reparation – at one time Father Founder seems to present it as centred with Christ on God, at others as directed immediately to Christ, But this is immaterial since, in virtue of the Hypostatic Union, all comes together in the Trinity. Nowhere in our Constitutions does Father Founder specify how reparation is to be made. The matter is left completely open. Thus each is free to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The last element in Father Founder’s basic idea concerning the place of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in our vocation concerns the apostolate. I am not referring, for the moment, as to how we are to employ devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart as a means to the apostolate, but to the fact that we are committed to do so. The source of this obligation has traditionally been regarded in both the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and our own Congregation as rooted in the Pact made with Mary by Father Chevalier and his companion in 1855. Among other things, they engaged themselves to the mission of making the Sacred Heart of Jesus everywhere loved; of causing Mary to be honoured in a special way, and of associating her in all their works. These obligations were assumed on behalf of all future members of the Society and, by implication, on behalf of all who would belong to our own as yet unborn Congregation, destined itself to be a particular expression of the special honour pledged to Mary.

Consequently, together with the engagement concerning the Sacred Heart, the Pact also contained a very specific commitment to the Marian apostolate. This was later to take the form of propagating the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart as a most effective means of making the Sacred Heart of Jesus everywhere loved. Hence, it was that Father Founder wrote into our early Constitutions that one of the obligations of the members was the diffusion of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Surprisingly enough, this was omitted in the 1908 revision. There was also suppressed a chapter containing the injunction that, for their own spiritual life and for the apostolate, the members must make a thorough study, not only of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, but also of that to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. To recapitulate thus far: We have seen that the essential notions concerning Our Lady of the Sacred Heart which Father Founder considered basic to our vocation are love, reparation and apostolate through Mary. They can all be summed up as a life of union with Mary in her love for, and her mission of drawing all to the love of the glorified Heart of her Son, whose wounded side is the sign of God’s love for her and for us; the source of his gift of the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Sacraments and all the graces of which He has made her the dispensatrice. Or, as was said over 80 years ago in the French Annals of which Father Chevalier was the editor:

The Congregation of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart came into being to honour the great mystery of Mary in her relations with the Heart of her Divine Son; the mystery of the intimate bond which unites her with his adorable Heart; of her collaboration on earth in the work of Redemption; and of her glorious participation in heaven, as dispensatrice of all the graces necessary for the salvation of souls, That, by the way, is as up-to-date as Chapter 8 of Lumen Gentium.

A further remark concerning this point of basic elements. Perfectae Caritatis insists on the integration of the interior life and the apostolate, since this inte gration is of the very essence of an Institute of the religious-apostolic life. As Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, we have an assured means of this inte gration in fidelity to our programme of union with Mary under all the aspects of her title, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

So much for the first section of this paper – Father Founders concept of the role of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in our vocation.

SECOND POINT: THE RELEVANCE OF THE DEVOTION

From soundings throughout the Congregation, it is evident that the Sisters think that the devotion is as valid today as it was in Father Founder’s time, pro vided we do what he did and with extraordinary success, i.e. MAKE IT RELEVANT.

Let us see what he did. The traditional image was used as a resume of the doctrinal significance. The wording of the Memorare and of the Novena Book {people wore them out) fixed in the consciousness of those who used them the idea that Mary, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, is an all-powerful Mother, that through her maternal influence over the Heart of her Son, she has the power to help out in even the most desperate cases; that she simply can’t say no to the trusting children whom she loves. So much for the past.

Now for the present. How are we to get the same message over today? The doctrine is fundamentally the same. The needs of individuals and groups are at least basically the same. The answer would seem to be along these lines.

Logically the devotion depends on the devotion to the Sacred Heart. To make it relevant, then, it must be presented naturally in conjunction with a devotion to the Sacred Heart made relevant, and that poses its own problem. One solution to that, at least as far as explanation and the wording of prayers goes, would seem to be to root both in Scripture where Father Founder rooted them. In so doing, more over, we have two advantages.

In the first place, today’s People of God look for the Scriptural approach. Secondly, we can give a presentation enriched with all the insights of modern Scriptural exegesis. Father Founder, for instance, had his direct 19th century way of presenting the miracle of Cana. But we in our later 20th century are very much aware of St. John’s use of symbolism. Thus we can see in a wider perspective the power of intercession with his Love which Jesus gave to Mary. This allows us to show the relationship between that which he would give her as Mother of all men when, with his death and resurrection, his “hour” would have come in all its fulness and the mystery of salvation be consummated.

Another way of making the devotion relevant is also that of Father Founder. He related it directly to people’s needs. Hence, he made much of the prayer of petition. He has often been accused of stressing too much this aspect at the expense of other aspects of the devotion. On the contrary, he was showing a fine psycho logical insight in adapting a means to an end. He was leading souls, by a way of their needs fulfilled, to love for the Mother who fulfilled these needs* and. through love for her. to love of her Son. In other words, this was a way of making the Sacred Heart of Jesus everywhere loved. He was only doing what Vatican II, in the Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests reminds priests of the post-Conciliar epoch to do. “They must lead the faithful along to an ever-improved spirit of prayer . . . according to the NEEDS and graces of each.” (5) Furthermore, the Church herself, in the restoration of the Prayers of the Faithful to the Mass, has taken a practical step to prove that there is nothing unbalanced or second-rate about prayer of petition.

A further means of making the devotion relevant could be that our thinking and presentation of it should have as its source those aspects which are truly in the main current of the Church’s teaching today, aspects already brought before us in Conciliar teachings. Thus, for example, at a time when Mary’s Motherhood of the Church is proposed for the contemplation of Christians, then it is fitting that our understanding of Mary in her relations with the Heart of Christ should give us a perspective for the deeper contemplation of her motherhood of the Church.

A helpful point emerges out of this – if we thus keep our emphasis (in this doctrine) concurrent with Conciliar teaching, we will be more likely to have a terminology of the devotion which is consonant with that of other biblical and liturgical trends.

Again, if we consider the sociological drives of our times, we find that the devotion has indeed genuine relevance. When the people the world over are drawn by the Spirit to succour the needs of the under-privileged and oppressed, what more authentic and inspiring ideals could we have than Christ whose heart exhausted itself out of love for all men, and his Mother, whose heart was com pletely one with his in this compassionate and saving love for men?

Again, we find the devotion relevant from the modern psychological view point – the great emphasis on the dignity of the human person, on personal freedom in our commitments – all this can be seen par excellence in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

We could say something about the visual presentation in the form of images, etc., but this is an immense field and had better be held over.

To sum up this point as to the relevance of the devotion. We are agreed that, as far as doctrine goes, the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart has great potentialities. It is as up-to-date as Lumen Gentium whose whole sweep of doctrine concerning Our Lady can be svnthesised, if so wished, from the point of view of the relations of Mary with the Love of God made manifest in the Divine Heart of her Son.

What is needed, however, is a concerted plan of action for making it as relevant tor the world of our day as Father Chevalier, with amazing success, made it to the world of his day. As to the nature of this concerted plan of action, well – that is the nut we still have to crack!