THE CHARISM OF JULES CHEVALIER

J. Van Kerckhoven, MSC, 1974

INTRODUCTION

A charism – a gift of the Holy Spirit in view of the common good of the Church (cf. 1. Cor 12) – is difficult to express and to describe in words. The charism of a Founder and of a religious congregation in particular is something so complex that it is not a simple matter to categorize it. In actual fact, being a gift of the Spirit, the charism is a spiritual reality, before all else something wholly interior which belongs to the order of the divine life and mystery. Moreover, it is a living thing. It belongs to the existential order. It is something which our abstract concepts can never express in its fulness. It manifests itself in the life of every day and in circumstances which at times seem to have little relevance. It wants to be lived, and it is as intangible as life itself. Finally, the charism of a religious congre gation is a gift which is communicated to a group of men. It will be present in all its fullness in the Founder; it will be more evident in his first companions; it will continue in the members of the religious group who remain faithful to the call of the Spirit. This charism necessarily presents as many facets as there are individuals, for the latter, whilst belonging to the same institute and participating in the same community charism, will each live his own personal vocation within the setting of the common vocation. This means that there will be continuity and, at .the same time, difference, since the Spirit respects the individual personality of each.

One can sometimes try to sketch the general traits of the charism of a religious institute and to highlight the primitive inspiration. For the institute itself, this is important insofar as its community charism manifests the designs for it of the Spirit of God; indicates its mission and its raison d’etre; and gives to it its particular physiognomy.

This article is divided into two parts. In the first – more historical and of greater length – it is a question of the charism of Father Chevalier in his own epoch, that is, the 19th century; in the second, consideration is given to the value of this charism for the present time – the second half of the 20th century, f 1)

I: THE CHARISM OF FATHER CHEVALIER IN HIS OWN TIME

Father Jules Chevalier (Richelieu 1824 – Issoudun 1907) founded the Con gregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart on December 8, 1854. the day of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, when he was a young priest only three years ordained and a curate at Issoudun (a town of 15.000 inhabitants in the diocese of Bourges, France).

He had conceived the idea of this foundation a few years previously when still a student of theology. Appointed curate at Issoudun in 1854, he there met again a fellow-student of seminary days. Father Maugenest. This latter knew of his projects and shared his aspirations. Together they decided to make a novena to the Immaculate Virgin in order to obtain, through her intercession, a sign from Heaven regarding the foundation of a religious society dedicated to the Sacred Heart. This society would have for its mission “to make known to men all the treasures of love and mercy of the Adorable Heart of Jesus and to prevail upon them to give them selves to him.” (2) Their prayer was heard through the donation, as providential as unexpected, of an appreciable sum of money. This permitted them to commence the projected work. “They decided to take the name of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and to strive to live to the full its significance.” (3) This title which signifies “apostle of the Sacred Heart and propagator of the devotion to the Sacred Heart” was officially given to them by the Vicar General of Bourges (acting for Cardinal du Pont), on September 9, feast of the Holy Name of Mary and the date of the blessing of the first chapel.

APOSTOLIC CHARISM

Father Chevalier was of an active nature, a determined, courageous and ener getic worker. Endowed moreover with a sure and practical judgment, with a strong and tenacious will which no difficulty could rebuff, he possessed incontestably the natural qualities of an apostle and a leader. (4) Possessed by the love of the Heart of Christ and of his interior spirit – all of which he had come to know at the school of M. Olier – from being rather severe in character and of a reserved exterior according to the description of his fellow-students, he became “gentle, affable and smiling” (5): an attitude which characterized him definitively for the rest of his life, Later, the trials and the sufferings which belong to every form of apostolic life were not spared him: they are the price of an effective apostolate and serve to sanctify the apostle himself. From them he learned to await the hour of Providence. He learned also a limitless confidence in the Heart of Christ and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. He was always a man of wide vision and his love of Jesus made him undertake great works. After the example of his Master, however, his preference was always for the poorest and the most forsaken. The poorest of all are those who do not know Christ. In the seminary he had the desire to become a missionary. He had spoken of this desire on several occasions with the Superior. Finally, on the advice of the latter, he had postponed his “departure” – awaiting the hour of Providence. (6) His thought carried him to the spiritual needs of the Church in the west, and he conceived the project of founding a community of missionary priests who would work for the regeneration of society. His director considered this idea merely Utopia and Jules took the resolution to put it out of his head. However, “a voice which I could not silence said ceaselessly to me: ‘One day you will succeed. God wills this work’.” (7). In actual fact, his project was realised and the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart were to find their apostolate not only among civilised peoples, but were to set out in their hundreds for the foreign missions.

His congregation will be a distinctively apostolic one. He had always con ceived it as such. When in 1876 a certain Father Captier, an unstable and unbalanced individual, complained to higher authorities that, in his opinion, the congregation had taken on too much activity and that, as a consequence, the interior life was suffering; that the congregation should rather be a contemplative institute, Father Chevalier reacted with vehemence: “We entered this institute in order to be missionaries: this word ‘missionary’ sums up everything. Our institute of missionaries cannot be transformed into a contemplative order.” (8)

The exterior organization of the congregation was to be at the service of the apostolate. The rule of the community would be adapted to the active life. There would be neither strict enclosure, separation from the world, nor office in choir as in the case of the Trappists where Father Chevalier loved to make his annual retreats. This is not to say that he underestimated the necessity of prayer for the apostolate. Quite the contrary. He placed particular insistence on the value and the importance of mental prayer and adopted for himself and for his disciples the practices of Ignatian spirituality: methods of prayer, examen, examination of con science, spiritual exercises etc. His ideal, although the inspiration which gave birth to it was different, was to be that of the Jesuits: ‘Contemplative in activity1. Con templation and action were not to be juxtaposed, but were to interpenetrate. They would find a higher union in love, for the value of prayer as of apostolic activity depends on the degree of love.

THE APOSTOLIC OBJECTIVE

Father Chevalier had been deeply moved by the sad religious state of France in the middle of the 19th century. He was keenly aware of the spiritual misery of the people. And the apostle in him suffered. To his way of thinking the evil had reached catastrophic dimensions. It was the negation of the very existence of God by atheistic theories and indifference in the matter of religion which had attacked the mass of the people. In the Formula Instituti – the document which he presented to the Holy See in 1868 in order to obtain the approbation of his religious congre gation, and in which he set forth the Opportuneness of this institute, he indicated as the root of this ‘modern ill’ two major causes: pride which inspired rationalism and sensualism, which in their turn led to moral licence (9). The same ideas are to be found in the Constitutions of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the editions of 1877 and of 1891. Apostle by nature and by grace, formed in the apostolic spirit of the Sulpician spirituality, Jules Chevalier sought an appropriate, powerful and efficacious means to check evil and to cure the wounds of society. *

This means he will discover in the devotion to the Sacred Heart. When he was still a theology student, his professor had added to the treatise De Verbo Incarnate a thesis on the Sacred Heart. For Jules Chevalier this was a revelation, an event of the spiritual order: “This doctrine went to my heart,” he wrote, “and the more I became penetrated with it, the more I was attracted to it.” (10) Shortly after, the reading of the Life of Margaret Mary Alacoque by Mgr. Languet helped him to understand the infinite riches of grace and mercy of the Sacred Heart and the efficaciousness of the devotion. For Jules Chevalier this was a new spiritual experience and at the same time a call to the apostolate. His decision was taken: henceforth he would be the apostle of this devotion to the Sacred Heart which Our Lord gave as a powerful means of sanctification and which he wished to see spread everywhere. This decision was a life commitment. When, in 1860, Pius IX said to him in the course of an audience: ”The Church and society have no hope save in the Heart of Jesus.” these words became the leitmotif of his life and his work. (11) They expressed perfectly the fundamental option which he had taken from the beginning, and authoritatively confirmed the inspiration and the objective of his entire apostolic activity.

For what reasons did Father Chevalier consider the devotion to the Sacred Heart as the adequate remedy for the ills of society of his time? For internal reasons first of all, that is to say, reasons inherent in the very meaning of this devotion which is a religion of the heart. The response to the love of God can only be a response of love on the part of man. It comes from the heart. It touches the very depths of the personality. Of its very nature, it will produce a change of mentality, an authentic conversion of heart. The cure for egoism, pride and sensuality begins by a cure of the heart. Given this latter, the regeneration of the way of life and the rechristianisation of the world will be but the logical consequence. What cannot be the expectations for the spiritual renewal of the Church and of the world if the true friends of Christ choose to honour and to imitate this divine Heart in spirit and in truth? (12)

An adequate remedy also for reasons of the external order, chief of which is the abundance of benefits and graces attached to the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Here we probably have the reason for his choice of this means of sanctification and of regeneration. For the love of Christ is charity; it manifests itself by the gifts and benefits which it distributes in profusion to those who believe in the love of his Heart and who wish to respond to it. Father Chevalier speaks willingly of “the treasures of love and mercy of the Heart of Jesus”. He is convinced of the necessity of an abundance of grace for the conversion of the world. He knows that this super abundance is characteristic of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, That is why he finds in it the “sovereign” means which he seeks.

Undoubtedly, it was the reading of the Life of the Venerable Margaret Mary by Mgr. Languet which reinforced this intimate conviction. In the saint’s visions Christ spoke often of the special protection and the graces of sanctification which he would bestow upon those who honour his Divine Heart. From the writings of Saint Margaret Mary twelve promises have been gleaned – commonly called the Promises of the Sacred Heart. It would be easy to double this number. Father Chevalier was struck by the favours attached by Christ himself to this devotion. That is why he saw in it the means par excellence for the rechristianisation of the world.

VAST OBJECTIVE:

Father Chevalier’s plan for the apostolate is extraordinarily vast. It is limited to no one region nor to any one continent. It is on a world-wide scale. This devotion must be carried everywhere. Everywhere there must be created a universal movement in favour of the Sacred Heart. To his congregation – the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, he gave the motto: Ametur ubique terrarum Cor Jesu Sacratissimum: (May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved).

Some have maintained that the primitive idea of Father Chevalier envisaged only the rechristianisation of Issoudun and of Berry. It is true that, according to the intention of the donor, the sum of money promised on Decembers. 1854, (the sign from Heaven asked by Father Chevalier) was destined for a work in Issoudun and its surroundings. But, as his biographer, Father H. Vermin (13) says, Father Chevalier did not consider the apostolate of Berry as an obligation for himself and for his successors. Besides, he had carried out the will of the donor by establishing at Issoudun the centre of the Congregation and of the apostolate of the Sacred Heart. Also right from the beginning, when his companions were few in number, Father Chevalier sent them throughout the dioceses of France there to preach the devotion to the Sacred Heart. And some years later, he sent his missionaries into every continent to carry the love of Christ.

This movement for the Sacred Heart, according to his intentions, was to be extended to all the faithful of no matter what social category or race. Towards the middle of the 19th century, thanks to St. John Eudes, to Saint Margaret Mary and other apostles, the devotion to the Sacred Heart was well enough known in France. But it was far from being practised by the ordinary run of the faithful. Rather was it considered to be the privilege of a spiritual elite: religious men and women, secular priests and pious faithful, The intention of Father Chevalier was to see it spread and practised among people of every category.

A GROUP OF APOSTLES OF THE SACRED HEART:

For the realisation of this apostolic objective, apostles of the Sacred Heart were necessary and in great numbers. “God has great designs on the Church and on the world through devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But in order to make him known there must be men who will be his missionaries.” (14)

Here, too, the plan of Father Chevalier is wide in its scope. In the Formula Instituti (n. 6) he shows the ‘family’ of the Sacred Heart as composed of three groups of apostles:

1. A group of men religious, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart to which group will be added in 1874 women religious, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
2. Secular Priests of the Sacred Heart.
3. Lay people.

The principal group is that of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart whose sole objective will be themselves to live the devotion to the Sacred Heart, and to spread it among others by every means at their disposal. They have “received from the Church, by the approbation of their Constitutions, the mission of propagating throughout the entire world the knowledge and the love of the divine Heart of Jesus.” (15) They are to be the animators of two other groups, the associated Secular Priests of the Sacred Heart and the Third Order of the Sacred Heart, the end of each being to honour the Heart of Christ by their love, reparation and imitation, each according to their state. Both priests and lay people will promote the apostolic works of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and support the enter prises of the great family of which they are the members. (16) At some time in the future, he planned to unite all the associations of priests dedicated to the Sacred Heart, throughout France, and to form one central Association based at Issoudun. But the principal work of Father Chevalier was the institute of the Mission aries of the Sacred Heart with its own specific objective and organisation. He did not want an institute to which was merely attached a work of the Sacred Heart as in the case of the Society of Jesus. His idea was the foundation of a religious congre gation uniquely and totally devoted to the Sacred Heart. He wanted an apostolic community of priests who would themselves live by the spirituality of the Sacred Heart, bound by perpetual vows to the cause of the Sacred Heart, and whose raison d’etre would be the spread of this spirituality among the faithful.

Questions about the originality of the work which he envisaged did not pre occupy him in the least. He had perceived the call of the Spirit. He had only to obey the inspiration of grace. He was interiorly convinced of the necessity and the urgency of his apostolic enterprise. And with the help of God, he brought it to realisation, “It is true,” he said, “that from the very origin of this devotion, a great many religious, priests and faithful have been urged and are still being urged to propagate it with zeal. But on the one hand, its excellence, and on the other, the extent and profundity of the evil for which it is the remedy, seem to demand the foundation of a special Society whose members, by personal attraction and by par ticular vocation, will consecrate themselves officially to his service and become his apostles in order to apply the remedy and diffuse the beneficial effects. Such is the raison d’etre of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart as is proved by their Constitutions and the Brief of Approbation”. (17)

As to the sources of his inspiration, its apostolic orientation comes in part from the Sulpician formation received in the Seminary of Bourges. Mention can also be made of the spirituality of the French School imparted to him by his directors and professors. The devotion to the Sacred Heart had been taught according to the doctrine generally current in France towards the middle of the 19th.century. But above and beyond this, in the case of Father Chevalier, it is important to stress the strong influence of Paray-le-monial and of the writings of Saint Margaret Mary. In connection with his insights concerning the ‘modern ills’ and the devotion to the Sacred Heart as ‘remedy1 for the evils of society during his own epoch, it would be surprising if he had not been acquainted with the Instruction of Mgr de Villele, Archbishop of Bourges, dated 1834 and treating of this subject. He had also had close contact with the Jesuits of Vaugirard, with Father Ramiere. S.J., director of the Messenger of the Heart of Jesus, in connection with the organisation of his work and the elaboration of the constitutions of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. These Jesuits helped him to follow his own way. His dependence upon them was far from being servile. (18)

The spiritual objective of Father Chevalier was integrated in its own epoch. But what is remarkable is his fidelity to his original choice, together with the firm ness and perseverance with which he pursued his original idea throughout a priestly life of more than fifty years. There is evolution in the sense of a deepening of the primitive doctrinal vision, and adaptation in the realisation of the plan. But he is always faithful to his fundamental orientation. It is not that he did not experience uncertainty, or that he did not meet with enormous difficulties in the realisation of his plan. These were trials which would serve for the sanctifi cation of the apostle of the Sacred Heart. In the midst of the doubts and uncertainties concerning the future of his work, he sought only to know the Will of God, that is to say, the design of the Holy Spirit, to follow this and abandon himself to it. The words which he uttered on emerging from one of these spiritual crises have the ring of a profession of faith in the divine initiative and a cry of triumph: “Our little Society is not the work of man but of God.” (19)

A DOCTRINE OF THE HEART OF CHRIST:

Leaving aside all the Scholastic distinctions between object and end of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, between material and spiritual, between immediate and mediate objects – clearly expressed nevertheless in the writings of Father Chevalier, e.g. in his ‘Catechism of the Sacred Heart’, it can be affirmed that his conception of the Heart of Christ corresponds in broad outline with the wide vision of the Encyclical ‘Haurietis Aquas’ of Pius XII. It was the precursor of the latter, for his writings date from more than half-a-century prior to the appearance of this pontifical document.

The Encyclical retraces briefly the scriptural, patristic and theological foun dations of the cult of the Sacred Heart and indicates the close link between the devotion to the Heart of the divine Redeemer and the worship which we must give to the love of the Saviour and the love of the august Trinity for all men. (20) When comparing the writings of Father Chevalier with the doctrine of the Encyclical, there are to be found the same fundamental themes and at times even the same expressions. His book “The Sacred Heart of Jesus” has been considered one of the best on the subject as regards its theological value and its references to Sacred Scripture and Tradition. His charism is wholly centred on the love of the Word Incarnate, a love of which the physical Heart of Christ is the symbol. “Heart” is for him the synonym of love. “The Heart of Jesus,'” he said, “is nothing but love and charity.” (21) It is true that by Heart he intends, not only the symbol of love, but also love’s seat and organ, and that his exposition as well as his argumentation is often based on the notions and the functions of “seat” and “organ” – a teaching which today is out of date. But the Encyclical, too, speaks often of the beatings of the Heart of Christ. Nonetheless, however, even as a symbol of love, the Heart can be taken as centre of the personality and of liberty. This it is which corresponds to modern Actions.

It is not a question of an abstraction, but of a person, a person who loves. This person is the person of the Word who, as God, loves with a divine and eternal love, and as man with a human love, strong of will and full of affection (the triple love of the Encyclical). The Heart of the Word Incarnate “is filled with love for the Father and for men.” (22) As regards men in particular, it is the infinite love and mercy of God which has taken form and stature in Christ the Saviour and which has over flowed into his human Heart, “The infinite charity of God … is enclosed in a human Heart which is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” (23)

“The Word, issuing from the Heart of the Father, has called forth the world from nothingness. And from the Heart of the Word Incarnate pierced on Calvary, I see emerge a new world, the world of the elect. And this creation full of grandeur and fecundity, inspired by love and mercy, is the Church, this Mystical Body which will perpetuate Christ on earth until the end of time . ..” (24)

“Today still, God sees the entire world recapitulated in Christ who is the full and living expression of all creatures; and as for us, we see Jesus Christ whole and entire in his Heart which is the resume of his Adorable Person. The Heart of Jesus is the whole of Jesus . . .” (25)

The love of Christ – living and glorious, or the Heart of Jesus – is for Father Chevalier so central to the person of Jesus, so central to the work of creation and to the mystery of salvation that it is the “sacred bond which links heaven and earth and knits the whole of creation to Christ from whom it emanates,” … “the centre of all that exists,” . .. “the sum-total of the whole Catholic religion”. The encyclical ‘Haurietis Aquas1 will say that the Heart of Christ is “the perfect expression of the Chritian religion.” (26)

In 1863, congratulating Father Ramiere, S.J. on an article published in the Messenger of the Heart of Jesus, (4, 1863, p. 19), Father Chevalier wrote to him: “You make the Heart of the Divine Master the centre to which everything con verges in the Old as in the New Testament, the pivot on which everything in the Catholic faith turns, the sun of the Church, the soul of our soul, the hearth-fire of our love, the cradle of our holy religion, the source of our mysteries, the origin of the sacraments, the pledge of our reconciliation, the salvation of the world, the remedy of all our ills and the strength of the Christian. It is this that I, too, under stand as the devotion to the Sacred Heart. It embraces all, it responds to all.”

This grandiose vision of Father Chevalier is much more than a purely intellectual contemplation; it is very realistic in its influence on human relations. It is the Heart of Christ who cements union between men and creates an authentic human fraternity. “He alone unites us together and he alone unites us with God. As soon as we detach ourselves from him, we separate from one another, and we lose together with the divine life, the sentiment of true human fraternity. This divine Heart is the centre around which gravitate all hearts.” (27)

A SPIRITUALITY OF THE SACRED HEART:

The spirituality of Father Chevalier and of his Congregation is a spirituality of the Heart of Christ.

At the origin of a spirituality, there is a truth of the faith which takes hold of a group of men and, giving a special character to their religious life, becomes the inspiration of their manner of thinking and noting, of their whole life, This spiritual movement or spirituality consists before all in an interior attitude. It can be accom panied by exterior practices and exercises of piety; but the latter will never be the essential.

The spirituality of the Sacred Heart starts from the principle: “God is love” (I John 4,16), from the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ (Rom. 5), of which his wounded Heart is the sign, even a privileged sign as Saint John insists in his Gospel in reference to the Old Testament (John, 19).

Such is the spirituality of Father Chevalier, a man possessed by the person of Christ, totally under the influence of his love, of his Heart. Such is the spirit which he has willed to give to his religious Congregation. As his first biographer, Father Charles Piperon, writes: “Our Father Founder wished that in our whole life, in our works, in our discourses, in our churches, in our services and our prayers, every thing should remind people of the divine Heart of Jesus who has so loved men. He would have liked everything to bear the imprint of this blessed Heart; without that everything becomes insipid.” (28)

At the centre of a spirituality such as that of the Sacred Heart, there is to be found a means of accentuating one or other aspect in preference to others, some thing which, without creating a new spirituality, gives to it a distinctive character. This is what Father Chevalier has done. In indicating the distinctive spirit of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, he has put the accent on imitation of the Heart of Christ. One cannot deny that at times a loving reparation to the offended love of Christ – that mystical current deriving from Paray-le-Monial which persisted throughout the 19th century – is one of the characteristics of devotion to the Sacred Heart according to Father Chevalier. This is even mentioned among the ends of the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. But the other aspect, imitation, is much more accentuated. When it is question of defining the spirit of the Congre gation, it is that alone of which it is in question (20). Did not Saint Margaret Mary say that the devotion to the Sacred Heart is rather a devotion of imitation and of perfect conformity to his holy virtues than of prayers?

The spirit proper to a religious congregation flows from its special end. The specific end of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart consists:

1. In a particular worship of the Sacred Heart, especially in the Holy Eucharist, and in reparation for the injuries and ingratitude of which he is the object on the part of men.
2. In an imitation of the virtues of the Heart of Christ by all the means made available in religious life.
3. In the sanctification of souls by means of devotion to the Sacred Heart, by making known the treasures of grace of which this Heart is the source and by diffusing this worship among priests and faithful. (30)

The spirit which corresponds to this triple end consists:

1. In a sincere, personal, intimate and always ardent love for the Heart of the Word Incarnate which must be the seal of the holiness of the Missionary of the Sacred Heart and which urges him to reproduce in himself the sentiments of the Sacred Heart, This response of love is the fundamental act and the primary disposition of all spirituality of the Sacred Heart.
2. In the imitation of the virtues of the Heart of Christ. Here we have the aspect especially emphasised by Father Chevalier as the spirit distinctive of his Con gregation. These virtues are: a fraternal love between the members of the institute, and apostolic charity even to extremes in the service of men; humility taken in the wide sense which comprises simplicity, poverty pf spirit and the absence of all seeking for ostentation; the gentleness of Christ which is the fine flower of charity, his mercy and exquisite goodness towards sinners; and lastly, obedience, a fundamental disposition of the Heart of Jesus who was lovingly submissive to the will of the Father, and of respect for all religious and civil authority. (31)

OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART:

In any exposition of the charism of Father Chevalier one cannot neglect to speak briefly of devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart without the treatment being incomplete. This Marian devotion was in actual fact, an original means of bringing to realisation Father Chevalier’s apostolic objective which remains ever the same: the rechristianisation of the world through the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The classic adage of Catholic piety: “To Jesus through Mary”, becomes for him: “Through Our Lady of the Sacred Heart to the Heart of Christ”. “Knowing that all is done through Mary,” he wrote, “we had the thought of asso ciating her in the diffusion of the knowledge and love of the Heart of her divine Son. But there was needed a new title to signify her cooperation in our work of regeneration. It was then that we had the thought of calling her Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.” (32)

As a logical consequence of his spiritual orientation, Father Chevalier considers everything in its relation with the Heart of Christ, even the persons and things which are the most elevated and holy, including the Mother of God. It is from his own spiritual experience that there came forth both the title and the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

At the time of the foundation of his congregation, he had made a contract with the Blessed Virgin in which he promised that if he were heard, he would “make her loved and honoured by all possible means and in a special manner.” The under lining is his own. (33) This special manner will be the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart whose end is to “glorify … the most holy Virgin in the relations of ineffable love between herself and the Heart of Jesus.” (34)

This title came to him shortly after the foundation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. He saw in it the fulfilment of his promise to Mary. “We claim this title to be the honour of our little Society of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart,” he writes, ”for it is here, at Issoudun, that it came to birth … Its origin is identical with ours on the memorable day of the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.” (35) He calls Our Lady of the Sacred Heart “the foundress of our little Society” (36), the development of which will proceed in proportion to the expansion of devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Indeed, through lack of vocations, the beginnings of the congregation were extremely diffi cult. Its development actually came about as a result of the spread of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Right from the beginning, the expansion of the devotion was remarkable. The disproportion between the means of expansion – even if an article of Father Chevalier, in the Messenger of the Sacred Heart of

1863. did make it known to a wider public – and its rapid diffusion in all parts of the Catholic world is such that it can be called quasi-miraculous. Father Chevalier had spoken of it in public for the first time in 1860-61 – to a group of faithful at Issoudun. The first Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was erected in
1864. At the end of this year, it counted more than 100,000 members. In 1867, there were more than a million. In the following year, two million. A petition of 1878 speaks of more than 14,000,000. In 1895, Father Chevalier, after checking the figures, mentions 18,000,000 members enrolled in the Universal Arch-confraternity. Already in 1869, the feast of the Crowning of the Statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the name of Pius IX had brought to Issoudun: thirteen bishops, hundreds of priests and 30,000 pilgrims. (37)

There is no doubt that the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was in the 19th century a providential means of spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart among the simple faithful. It is thus that it was related to the principal objective of Father Chevalier. He had it at heart to “see all his confreres full of zeal to propa gate devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.” “He taught us often,” continues his first biographer. Father Piperon, “that this was one of the principal ends of our Congregation, and the surest means of glorifying and making loved the Heart of Jesus .. . We must therefore be the devoted apostles of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. It is our vocation.” (38) For Father Chevalier, to be a Missionary of the Sacred Heart meant to be a disciple and apostle of the Sacred Heart through Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

THE MISSIONS:

It may be asked if the foreign missions belong to the charism of Father Chevalier.

Modern sociologists distinguish between the objective of a group which comes together in view of attaining a common special end – in other words, the raison d’etre of the group – and the projects, at times very varied and variable by means of which the objective is realised. Father Chevalier makes the same distinction. His objective and the specific end of his Congregation is the regeneration of society through devotion to the Sacred Heart. A variety of projects, of works, of occu pations can serve towards the realisation of this objective, but no one of them is absolutely necessary. “The word ‘missionary’ “, he writes, “signifies apostle of the Sacred Heart or propagator of devotion to the Sacred Heart. This title can belong to a parish priest or a curate, to the chaplain as well as to the professor, in a word, to all the members of the Society no matter what their degree.” (39)

The least that one can say is that the foreign missions constitute a preferred work. Today they are the principal work of the congregation (40): more than one third of the personnel, that is to say, more than a thousand priests and brothers work now in countries in the course of development.

It is Father Chevalier himself who oriented the activity of the congregation towards the foreign missions. Right from the beginning he had a keen desire for the missions. As a young seminarist, he would gladly have gone there himself, but on the advice of his director, he gave up the idea. The lack of vocations during the earliest years of the Congregation did not permit him to send his religious there. But the thought of the missions never left him. In 1866, Father Jean Vandel founded the apostolic school. From the very first year this school was animated by a veritable missionary spirit and Father Chevalier regarded it as a nursery of future vocations. In the Formula Instituti of 1869, the foreign missions are mentioned as one of the works by which the end of the Congregation would be realised. The departure of the first Missionaries of the Sacred Heart for America in 1870 is the fruit of this missionary spirit, When at last in 1881, the Holy See proposed the evangelisation of the immense vicariates of Melanesia and Micronesia, Father Chevalier joyfully accepted and, by dint of diplomacy, patience and tenacity, he succeeded in overcoming the opposition of his Council. It is no exaggeration to say that on this occasion he took advantage of his charism as Founder to launch his Congregation definitively on its mission to carry the Good News to the poorest among the poor, those who do not know Christ.

It is to be noted that he sees this work as all the other works from the perspec tive of his principal objective: for example, at the departure of the first missionaries from Barcelona in 1881, he salutes them as those who are going to bear “the knowledge and love of the Sacred Heart and of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” into faraway islands. It is through this work of the missions that is most fully realised the motto which he left to his Congregation: “May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved.”

II. THE CHARISM OF FATHER CHEVALIER TODAY

Today the Society of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, like so many other religious Congregations, is questioning itself. We are asking ourselves how, in this second half of the 20th century, to live the charism of our Founder, how to present it to men of our time, especially the young. For we are firmly convinced that this charism and the message of Father Chevalier are always valid but that they must be proposed in harmony with the sensibilities and aspirations of men of today, and must be adapted to the changes in the life of the Church and in the world.

Has the objective of Father Chevalier still some value in our time? Can the Heart of Christ still be proposed as an inspiration of the spiritual life and as a remedy for the evils afflicting men in their social life? In 1956, Pope Pius XII in his Encyclical “Haurietis aquas”, considered the cult of the Sacred Heart the appro priate ‘medicine’ for the sickness of man and of the society of this 20th century. Does this still hold today? If so, how? In what manner must the message be handed on so that it can be accepted?

The question can and must be asked.

For the last twenty years we have witnessed a general lack of interest in the Cult of the Sacred Heart among Christians. This is a fact. There is no need to prove it. It is obvious. But then, can it be that a devotion which for centuries did so much good in the Church and in which one has to see the action of the Holy Spirit, will, all of a sudden, disappear? In a meeting at Paray-le-Monial on October 16, 1972. a number of Superiors General of Congregations dedicated to the Sacred Heart stated: A spiritual reality which was a source of profound inspiration to lay people and religious cannot, all of a sudden, cease to be of any value.

When trying to find a solution to this problem, we will have to take into account the objections raised nowadays against the devotion of the Sacred Heart and to evaluate the causes of its regression. It will be worthwhile to distinguish between Cult and Spirituality of the Sacred Heart; to put the accent on biblical and patristical foundations; to keep in mind modern man’s sensibility as regards the symbol of the heart and its devotional and artistic expressions; finally, to bring out the relevance the devotion has in giving an answer to the actual aspirations of man and society.

CULT AND SPIRITUALITY OF THE SACRED HEART

When we speak of devotion and Cult of the Sacred Heart, many of our con temporaries think only of very concrete religious practices and pious exercises. In a time of crisis of faith, many are asking themselves these questions: Does God exist? Did Christ really come to save man? Is there happiness in a life after death? It then happens that even good catholics, those who want to help their brethren in danger of losing the faith, are not much interested in what appears to them accessory and secondary, in all that is ‘devotional’. When a fire threatens to destroy the whole house, one tries to save what is essential. Especially the young are not attracted by ‘devotions’ and go straight to the essential. It is evident that one can be a good Christian without having a particular devotion to the Sacred Heart.

But the Spirituality of the Heart of Christ places us in the very centre of the mystery of salvation. It is the way of seeing and living the mystery of Christ in its totality; under a particular aspect, it is true, but one which is fundamental for the Christian religion, namely the love of God, manifested in Jesus Christ, of which the pierced Heart is an eloquent symbol. We see the person of Christ in whom God loves us with a human heart. It is a vision and an experience of Christ which will put their stamp on the whole life of a Christian.

It is first of all a vision: “We have known the love God has for us” (1 Jn. 4:16). Without the love of his Heart the profound personality of Christ is absolutely incomprehensible. But through love everything in him becomes clear and luminous: his words and actions, his life and his death, the Church he founded, the Spirit he gave us, the sacraments he has left us. Thus Father Chevalier speaking of the devotion of the Sacred Heart and taking it as a spirituality, could write: “It includes everything”.

Then it is a personal experience: “We have believed” (in this love). Man’s answer is an answer of faith and love. This adherence to Christ, this love, is a dynamic power which in turn mobilizes the whole life of man, his being and his activity. We then understand that this way of contemplating and of living the mystery of Christ becomes a spirituality.

This distinction between devotion (Cult) and spirituality of the Heart of Christ does not mean that the practices of devotion and worship should be suppressed, especially those related to the Eucharist, the sacrament of love. A deep spirituality always wants to express itself outwardly. Nowadays a spirituality has a better chance of being accepted. Those who cling to the old practices may always profit by them. Those for whom these practices are out of date and outmoded, will almost necessarily find others better adapted to their mentality in harmony with the litur gical renewal in the Church. This spirituality consists mainly of love, imitation and reparation.

LOVE

The Heart of Christ expects from man an answer of love: a sincere and deep love which is a personal encounter, an intimate contact, an experience of Christ in a living faith. For a spirituality of the Sacred Heart this is fundamental, and it responds to the aspirations of modern man. There exists nowadays a striving for true interior life, a return to prayer. One resorts to all kinds of methods, even oriental ones, in an endeavour to find a road leading to this almost mystical contact with God. The various ‘movements of the young’ consider this experience of Jesus essential. Is it not proper to love to seek the presence of the beloved person?

IMITATION:

This response of love must be authentic (another demand of the young); and it must prove itself in acts, must go to the brethren the way Christ told us to. And then it will necessarily lead to imitation of the Heart of Christ. At times one blames the Sacred Heart devotion for being exclusively interior and personal, for forming only pious souls but not real apostles. Evidently this means having a wrong idea of the Heart of Christ, the Man for Others, whose preference was the poor, the neglected, the abandoned. In our days this imitation of Christ calls for collaboration with other men in building a new and better world in justice and peace where the Third and the Fourth world are not forgotten.

REPARATION:

Love of Christ will urge us to make reparation for the ingratitude and indiffer ence of men. The humble desire to expiate and compensate for our faults through love, through renewed fervor of charity, is simply a spontaneous reaction of a true and delicate love; it wholly uproots our egoism and our base calculation’s. True, our time is less inclined to the idea of reparation. It is then useless to look for all sorts of theological explanations, although it remains likewise true that the mysteries of Christ transcend the succession of time. It suffices to understand with “a thought of the heart”, as Pascal says, that Christ is in agony till the end of time and that we must not go asleep during this time. Thus we ask ourselves: What have we done with Christ today? How did we understand him? Have we perhaps dis honored his Name and deformed his message? – These are all so many reasons for making reparation. And even the Christian of today will make reparation if his love for Christ is strong enough.

BIBLICAL FOUNDATION:

Furthermore, our time requires that we give a solid biblical foundation to the theology of the Sacred Heart. One reproach made to the Cult of the Sacred Heart, as also to devotion to Mary, is that for centuries it developed without taking into account the scriptural data and relying only on spiritual writers. Our time is very sensitive to this reproach. No doubt, it is exaggerated. Father Chevalier, for example, in his book on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, has made an effort to link devotion of the Sacred Heart to its biblical sources and to put it at the very center of revelation. When we take into account that he had no specialized theological and biblical training, we must say that it was a praiseworthy attempt indeed. We also have to remember that the biblical sciences have made great strides in our time and thus we can give a much more solid foundation to the theology and spirituality of the Heart of Christ by opening to them the riches of biblical doctrine unheard of till now. This concerns especially Paul’s doctrine on redemption through love, and even more so does it concern the theology of S. John who makes the love of God the center and culminating point of the mystery of Christ. John is a theologian. He meditated for a long time on the life and message of Jesus. There are in his theology, the result of this long meditation, as in every theological system, first principles upon which depends all the rest, and which contain, as in a seed, the whole doctrine. One such principle John gives in his first letter (1 Jn. 4,16): “God is love”. At the end of his Gospel (Jn. 19, 31 -37), he presents the same principle in concrete visible form, “a theological picture”, as they say: the picture of Christ on the Cross. John attributes great importance to the thrust of the lance and to the blood and water which flowed from the pierced side of the Savior. And we under stand that this scene is for him the culminating point of his Gospel, a scene com prising the whole history of salvation: the prophecies of the Old Testament, the Incarnation, the life and death of Christ, the Church, the sacraments and the gift of the Spirit. (References to the O.T. are many, viz: Ex. 12,46; Num. 21.8; Ps. 34.21; Ez. 47,16,12; Zach. 12,10; 13,1; 14,8).

And this mystery is presented as a mystery of love. It is the final conclusion of what John said in his Gospel, as for example Jn. 3.14-15; 7,39; 12,32: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I shall draw all men to myself; 19,37: “They will look on the one whom they have, pierced”; 15,13: “A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends”.

And so we can ask ourselves whether today the picture of Christ on the Cross with his wounded side and open heart would not better serve the devotion and spirituality of the Sacred Heart, especially since this biblical representation puts us in the very center of the mystery of salvation as the mystery of love. It would do away with sugary pictures, ‘hippy’ style, which may have satisfied the taste of the last century, although they gave a distorted image of the personality of Christ. But today they are the cause of lack of interest on the part of many catholics in the devotion of the Sacred Heart. Besides, when speaking of this spirituality, we should not use too often the word “heart”, although it will always remain a universal symbol of love. In the past the word has been abused, even for political and patriotic ends.

A spirituality of the Sacred Heart can satisfy the profound aspirations of our time. Actually, our age is an age of man. The question is all about the rights of man, development of his personality, respect of man, the sciences of man, etc., while a great longing for more fraternity and unity among men pervades all nations and continents. The Church in Council has given echo to this universal aspiration: “The conditions of this age lend special urgency to the Church’s task of bringing all men to full union with Christ, since mankind today is joined together more closely than ever before by social, technical, and cultural bonds” (L.G. n. 1). For “the truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light”. , . . “Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22). As perfect man “the Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longings of history and of civilization, the center of the human race, the joy of every heart, and the answer to all its yearnings” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 45).

CONCLUSION:

It is in this line that we have to see the charism of Fr. Chevalier. It has lost nothing of its actuality.

It is through this charism, this grace and mission, that the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart finds its identity. Today as yesterday it wants to be an apostolic fraternity whose aim is to live and propagate the spirituality of the Heart of Christ. More than ever does the Society try to discover the foundations of this spirituality in Scripture and Tradition. This common objective is achieved through various projects. All members are invited to collaborate in these projects, each according to his personal vocation, to the needs of the Church and of men of our time.

NOTES

1. Father J. Chevalier published numberous books, brochures and articles. His principle works are: The Sacred Heart of Jesus, 4th edition, pp. VI-512 (Librarie de Vie et Amat. Paris, 1900) and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. 4th ed. pp. XXII-644 (Librarie de 1’Oeuvre S. Paul, Paris, 1895). Biographies: Father Jules Chevalier Charles Piperon. (Society St. Augustine, Lille, Bruges. 1912. New edition, 1924); P.O. Keulers: Jules Chevalier Een Levensbeeld. (Nederlandsche Boekhuis. Tilburg, 1924); Henri Vermin; Le Pere Jules Chevalier. (1824-1869), pp. 528 (Maison Generalice, Rome, 1957).
2. J. Chevalier. Regies 1855. Cf. J. Nouwens: De Fine et Spiritu Societatis in Constitutionibus et Directorio Communi Synopsis. (MSC. Romae, 1966).
3. H. Vermin, o.c. p. 116. P.C Keulers, o.c. p. 1 12 ss. Piperon: Le T.R.P. Chevalier, Ms. 1902-1904, p. 34-35. (Archives MSC Rome).
4. . Chevalier: Notes Intimes. Ms. p. 23 (Archives MSC Rome. 1902).
5. J. Chevalier: Ms. Without title. 1859.
6. J. Chevalier. Letters. Archives MSC Rome.
7. J. Chevalier: Formula Instituti, Cf. De Fine et Spiritu . . . Synopsis, 20.
8. J. Chevalier: Notes Intimes. p. 23. Ms. Archives, Archives MSC. Rome.
9. J. Chevalier: Le Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, o.c. p. 386: id., Notre Dame du Sacre-Coeur.
10. M.S.C. Issoudun. (1865); id La Societe des MSC. p. 11 (Bourges 1872). Formula Instituti, cf. Supra, p. 20.
11. H. Vermin: o.c. p. 117.
12. La Societe des MSC. Bourges, 1872, p. 3-4. Issoudun, 1882. p. 41.
13. J. Chevalier: Le Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, o.c. p. 399.
14. Ibid., p. 383-410.
15. J. Chevalier: La Societe des MSC. p. 3-4. Supra.
16. H. Vermin, o.c. p. 373-374.
17. J. Chevalier: Ms sans titre. 1859. Supra.
18. A.A.S. 1956, p. 315.
19. J. Chevalier: Ms. 1859, p. 34.
20. -26. J. Chevalier: Le Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, o.c. p. 209 Supra. 277 et passim.
21. Messager du Coeur de Jesus. 7(1865). p. 329.
22. C. Piperon, Le T.R.P. J. Chevalier, o.c. p. 79.
23. Formula Instituti. 11,1. Constitutiones. 1877 et 1891. De Fine- Synopsis.
24. Ibid, Also 31.
25. Letter of Father Chevalier to the Archbishop of Bourges. August 24. (Archives MSC. Rome 1884.0,
26. J. Chevalier: Annales de la Petite Societe MSC. P, 4. Archives MSC, Rome.
27. J. Chevalier. Le Sacre-Coeur de Jesus, o.c. p. 453.
28. J. Chevalier: Annales de la Petite Societe. p. 22. Supra.
29. Ib. p. 8.
30. Annales de Notre Dame du Sacre-Coeur, Issoudun, 1969, p. 249. La Semaine religieuse du Berry. 15.9.1869. Josef Storck: Unsere Liebe Frau yom Heiligstem Herzen Jesu. p. 122 (Verlag der Hiltruper Missionare. Munster.) 1953.
31. Annals de la Petite Societe des MSC. (Rome).
32. J. Chevalier: La Societe MSC. p. 3-4, Bourges. 1872; Issoudun 1882, p. 41-4,
33. Documents of Renewal MSC No. 7, Rome, 1969.
34. A.A.S. : 1956, p. 350. Voir le tres beau livre de Josef Heer: Der Durchhohrte. Johanneische
35. Begrundung de Herz-Jesu-Verehrung. (Casa Editric*, Herder, Roma, 1966).
36. L.G. 1.
37. G.S. 22
38. Ibid. 45.