Missionaries
of the Sacred Heart
MSC stands
for Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (originally in Latin) founded
by Fr. Jules Chevalier at Issodun in 1854.
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We are a group of Priests and Brothers (Catholic
Church) and are an International Order of about 2,500
working in over thirty countries, including many Third
World Countries.
Here in Australia we number about 210 and we work
in Parishes, Colleges, Retreat Centres, in specialised
ministry among urban and traditional aborigines, chaplains
to the Armed Services, Universities, Hospitals, working
in the Media, in ministry to people living with HIV+/AIDS
and in many other areas. |
Australian MSC are also working overseas in Papua New
Guinea, Fiji, the Central Pacific Islands, Japan, India and
South Africa. As well as overseas missions we have worked for
many years among the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory.
Our MSC extended family also includes The Daughters of Our Lady
of the Sacred Heart, the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart
and the MSC Association.
| Our Founder,
Jules Chevalier
was deeply moved by the evils that afflicted the people
of his time. As he contemplated the Heart of Christ, in
whom is revealed the compassionate love of the Father,
he discovered there the remedy for the ills of the world.
We too are inspired by the same gift our Founder received.
In our communion as brothers, we live our faith in the
compassionate love of the Lord; at the same time, we are
sent into the world to proclaim the Good News of the love
and kindness of God our Saviour and to bear witness to
it in the whole of our lives.
MSCs living in community base their lives on this biblical
spirituality, and seek to meet the challenge of moving
with the Church to build communities of faith and justice
into the 21st century. [TOP]
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Missionaries
of the Sacred Heart in Australia
There are 206 Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
priests and brothers in the Australian Province.
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They
minister in a variety of ways such as:
Parish Priests, Theologians, Musicians,
Architects, Philosophers,Carpenters,
Medical Doctors, Biblical Scholars, Historians,
Journalists, Artists, Surgeons,
Plumbers,
Film Makers,
Teachers,
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| Spiritual
Directors, Adult Educators, Caterers,
Film Critics, Nurses, |
Psychologists,Missionaries,
Electricians, Chaplains Schools,
Writers, Lawyers, Accountants . |
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Australian
MSC live in about 60 locations, usually in communities
of from two to ten members.
One third of our
members live outside Australia:
in 22 locations in PNG including two High Schools and
a Seminary;
6 locations in Japan;
in Fiji, assisting in the Seminary, a parish and a hostel
for unemployed and homeless youths;
in retreat and renewal work in India;
and a school chaplaincy in South Africa. |
Only those who volunteer,
or consent when asked, are sent on the overseas missions.
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Jules
Chevalier
| Jules Chevalier was a man of his
time. His life spanned most of the nineteenth century,
a century that saw radical changes in Western society
often torn apart by war and revolution, especially in
France. It was a world of empire and colonial powers.
Jules Chevalier was a priest who lived all of his life
in central France, over fifty years of it in the small
parish of Issodun, about 200 kilometres to the south of
Paris, where he died on October 21, 1907. Towards the
end of his life, he was described by a close friend as
someone who "inspired confidence, a confidence that
commanded respect. He was of medium height, well built,
with an upright stance and plenty of hair, even in his
old age. He had a pleasant appearance, a warm voice, and
spoke rather slowly." In most respects, he was an
ordinary man. But he was also a man of inner depth and
vision.
Jules Chevalier was born in 1824 in the small town of
Richelieu, 200 kilometres or so south west of Paris. His
father was an educated man, but not very successful in
either trade or business, and not a religious man at all.
Jules' mother could neither read nor write, had never
been to school, but was deeply religious. In this ambiguous
atmosphere Jules grew up with competence in reading and
writing from his father, and an awareness of God in his
life from his mother. When he first let it be known that
he wanted to be a priest, he was told immediately that
this was quite impossible given the family's poor circumstances.
He was needed to help support the family and was apprenticed
to a shoemaker.
When Jules was seventeen years old, his father was given
a job as "caretaker of forests" by a wealthy
landowner near Vatan. Hearing that Jules was interested
in becoming a priest, this man undertook to pay Jules'
fees at the seminary. It was during his seminary days,
that Jules Chevalier first dreamed of a group of people
dedicated to the Heart of Jesus who would bring a message
of love and hope to a world in which there was a complete
indifference to God and an antagonism to any form of religion
and a general feeling of hopelessness and despair.
As a priest, Jules first served as curate in three different
parishes in quick succession. Then at the age of thirty
he was sent to Issodun, which was regarded as the most
dechristianised town in the whole region. The other curate
in the parish was Fr Emile Maugenest, one of a small group
of his companions in the seminary who had shared Chevalier's
vision.
...of Vision with a sense of Mission.... |
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At Issodun the two priests became
determined to found an Order of Missionaries of the Sacred
Heart. However, aware that they could be deluding themselves
they wanted a clear sign that this was what God wanted.
Over a period of nine days, they prayed asking Our Lady
to intercede for them in having God provide this sign.
The following morning one of the parishioners called at
the presbytery with a letter announcing a gift of F20,000
from an anonymous donor. The donor's preference was for
a house of missionaries to be established in the area
with the approval of the Archbishop. The Archbishop agreed
as long as they had some means of financial independence
and support. Another period of prayer resulted in another
anonymous benefactor promising to give an annual gift
of F1,000 which was enough for both of them to live on.
They now had the sign and the means to begin the Missionaries
of the Sacred Heart. |
With the original F20,000 the two priest purchased
a rundown vineyard with a sound house and tumbled-down barn
in Issodun. The house became their first community house and
the barn was renovated as the first chapel, dedicated to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus. This was in 1855. From these simple beginnings
has come a whole family of Missionaries of the Sacred Heart
- priests, brothers, sisters and lay associates. With the support
of Marie Louise Hartzer, Jules Chevalier also founded the Daughters
of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart as the sister congregation of
the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Later, because of national
tensions in colonial areas where missionaries worked, the Missionary
Sisters of the Sacred Heart were founded by Fr Hubert Linckens
MSC with the approval of Jules Chevalier, whom they regard as
their spiritual founder.
After some difficult years of persecution in France and being
forced to move to other parts of Europe, the new congregations
began to grow and, at a very early stage, accepted responsibility
for the Missions of Oceania. It was as a direct result of this
decision that the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart came to Australia
at the end of last century. Within twenty-five years of their
humble beginnings, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had
spread in Europe and to North America. Before his death, Fr
Jules Chevalier was to see his 'family' working in Central and
South America, the Philippines, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
...and a special Spirit.
| Jules Chevalier was convinced
that the Jesus he found in the Gospels was a person of
deep compassion and understanding. This open-hearted Jesus
is the one who wants to bring hope and healing to all
human beings wherever and however they are in suffering.
Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, like their Founder Jules
Chevalier, are committed to touching the hearts of people
with the love of God that they themselves have experienced.
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"We will be attentive, as our Founder was, to
those who suffer and are in need. We will seek to identify the
causes of their suffering and to discern what our response will
be by following the light of the Gospel and by listening to
the world and to the Church. In the poor and the little ones,
in all the victims of injustice and violence, we will discover
the face of Christ. He asks us to bring His love into their
lives. In answer to His call, we will show compassion towards
them by working courageously to guarantee their human rights
and to change the hearts of their oppressors."
With this picture of our MSC mission before us, it becomes clear
that MSC were not founded, as many other religious orders were,
to do any one particular apostolic work or to supply any particular
need. We were not founded just to teach, to preach, to run parishes,
to go to the foreign missions, to work in hospitals or whatever.
We have one mission only and that is to make people aware of
the love that there is in the Heart of Jesus for all, especially
those trapped in any form of misfortune - physical, psychological
or spiritual.
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Our mission, taken from the spirit
that we share with Jules Chevalier our Founder, is to
do this primarily by the way in which we relate to people
- with kindness and compassion thus leading them to understand
more clearly how Jesus loves and understands them. We
do this in whatever way is most effective, doing whatever
brings us into contact with people - especially people
who need our help - in parishes, in schools, in missionary
work, in underdeveloped countries, in hospitals, in prisons,
at universities, within our families, among our friends,
in our workplace. |
Like Jesus, we are people
who love with a human heart.
[TOP]
MSC
CONTACTS AT ST JOHN THE APOSTLE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY: CANBERRA
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