Sources

The subject which we intend to present here mostly concerns the origin and the developments of the presence of the “Dehonian Laity” in what, since the 90s, has been called the “Dehonian Family”.

All the same, as will be seen, it is from the journey of the Dehonian Laity, in the history of Fr. Dehon’s foundation, that one can see a new image outlined; one which is open to a variety of vocations and which makes up the Dehonian Family of today. It is a question of new perspectives, ones which are also being realized in many other Congregations and which, also for this reason, make one think logically of a deeper and more widespread impulse for renewal: an impulse promoted by the Spirit with the renewed “ecclesiology of communion”. From this, the new way of “being Dehonians” has progressively taken shape: at the center is the plan-charism of Fr. Dehon, entrusted particularly to his first foundation, the Priests of the Sacred Heart, but immediately shared by groups of lay people and later by other forms of consecrated life (both religious and secular) which he inspired.

The sources of this “history of the Dehonian Family”, of which we shall present the main stages of development, are divided into two categories:

- the first concerns the “past”, from the origins (1878) to the last statutes of the “Reparatory Association” approved by Holy See in 1961;

- the second includes the successive period which has, as is said, gradually led to the “communion of vocations” in the Dehonian Family.

As the first source we refer in particular to:

- the Archives of the “Reparatory Association”;

- the Memoirs (NHV) and the Diary (NQ) of Fr. Dehon;

- “Le Père Dehon et son Oeuvre” (Father Dehon and His Work) by Fr. A. Ducamp (p. 210 and pp. 233-242...);

- “Extraits du Journal du Père Dehon” (Extracts From the Journal of Father Dehon), Rome 1943, pp. 305-315, in which we find “the most important dates” of the aggregation of the laity to Fr. Dehon’s plan.

It is interesting to know that in the archives of the Reparatory Association (the name used, by preference, by the aggregation of the laity, but also that of the bishops and priests) we can find:

- the original document of the first approval given, by Msgr. Thibaudier on February 8, 1889, to the “Reparatory Association of the Sacred Heart of Jesus”;

- the subsequent publications of the Statutes, of guides to prayer for the associates (including the one edited in agreement with Fr. Dehon, by Fr. A. Prévot), promotion leaflets, etc.;

- circular letters by the Superiors General (going from Fr. Philippe, to Fr. Govaart, and as far as Fr. De Palma) to promote the aggregation of priests and laity;

- reports to the General Chapters;

- the official organ of the Reparatory Association (“Vinculum”), which was started in March 1963;

- various copies of the last “Statutes”, with comments, approved by the Holy See (Congregation of Religious) on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, June 9, 1961;

- Various kinds of information which, coming from our Provinces in affiliation with the general administration of the Association, was brought here from our Curia in Rome (previously in Viale Mazzini, 32, and then in the current headquarters at Via Casale S. Pio V, 20).

Historical Development

The development which led from the “Reparatory Association” to the “Dehonian Family” can be represented in three main periods:

I - Fr. Dehon and Fr. Prévot (1878-1925);

II - Fr. Dehon’s successors, from Fr. Philippe to Fr. De Palma (1926-1962);

III - the renewals of the Council and the “Dehonian Family” (1963...).

The First Period (1878-1925)

This important period of our beginning has been described for us in “Reparatory Association: various denominations”, edited by Fr. Umberto Chiarello and based on archive research performed by Fr. Egidio Driedonkx.

To this work we would like to add some specifying notes and comments, gleaned from the documentation which Fr. Aparicio Pellín collected when the then Father General, Msgr. de Palma, designated him Secretary General of the Reparatory Association.

From among other information, it may be useful to point out the following:

1. The title given by Fr. Chiarello to the above mentioned historical memory - “Reparatory Association: various denominations” - might make one think there were a variety of “associations”. However, Fr. Dehon always followed the same criterion that he expressed in his “Souvenirs” of 1912 (cf. Circular Letters of Fr. Dehon, nn 386-388); it was a criterion he addressed both to diocesan priests and to the lay faithful: “To lead the priests and the faithful to the Heart of Jesus, to offer it a daily tribute of adoration and of love... I have continued this kind of apostolate with our Reparatory Association and with our magazine which, for 15 years, has worked for the kingdom of the Sacred Heart”.

Therefore, right from the start, Fr. Dehon promoted the participation of priests and laity in his project of “love and reparation to the Sacred Heart”. It was a participation which, with the decree of Msgr. Thibaudier (February 8,1889), acquired an ecclesial dimension.

Fr. Dehon did not give the name “Association of the Kingdom of the Sacred Heart in Souls and in Society” to this first Association; he called it (cf. original document with Fr. Dehon’s writing) the “Reparatory Association of the Sacred Heart of Jesus”. It is true, however, that in the 1st Article he indicated that the Association’s aim was to achieve “the kingdom of the Sacred Heart in souls and in society”. As we know, Fr. Dehon gave much importance to this final objective; so much so that he gave this title to the magazine he founded, in January of that same year (1889), in opposition to the Christian vision of life and history that was being promoted in France along with the celebrations of the first centenary of the revolution (1789-1889).

2. It would also be interesting, still regarding this first period and our understanding of Fr. Dehon’s intentions, to point out the observations which he himself wrote in his own hand, on December 22, 1905, in the margin of the text which had been proposed by Fr. Prévot. He noted that it was “an excellent project” and added the word “perfectly”. He wrote “yes” several times to show that he was in agreement, and he also appended a few wise pieces of advice: do not excessively push the ‘Apostolate of Prayer’ (“that would shock the Jesuits”), and do not affiliate the Association with Montmartre, “which already has its own Reparatory Association”.

3. There is also a postcard from Rome (Piazza Campitelli), dated January 24,1906, which Fr. Dehon addressed to Fr. Prévot (Novitiate of the Sacred Heart, Sittard-Holland). He wrote that he was anxious to receive the page of promotion for the aggregation: “Is it finished? They want many copies in Fayet, in Brussels, in Quevy”. And he urged Fr. Prévot to “hurry on the preparation of the Manual” (as a spiritual guide for the associates). There is documentation on all this in the Association’s archives.

4. As is shown by the development of the Association at the time of Fr. Dehon and Fr. Prévot - a development well described in Fr. Chiarello’s report - there is evidence of Fr. Dehon’s constant attention to two preeminent objectives: reparation and the kingdom of the Sacred Heart.

To give unity to Fr. Dehon’s plan, for sharing the spirituality and mission which characterize his foundation with other priests and with the laity, it is also useful to refer to the compendium he himself prepared, to be found in “Souvenirs”. In this text he describes the Reparatory Association as one which is directed to a double purpose: spiritual renewal and social renewal.

“I have attempted two great initiatives in the general apostolate sector: the first, to lead priests and the faithful to the Heart of Jesus, to offer it a daily tribute of adoration and love.... (The second) I also desired to contribute to the elevation of the working classes with the advent of justice and Christian charity”.

And he concludes with a recommendation: “This work must continue”.

According to the intention of Fr. Dehon, therefore, cultivating the harmony of the two principle objectives of our presence and mission in the Church and in the world, is the manner in which we can keep faith with the Plan of the Spirit and give impetus to the new vision of the “Dehonian Family”.

Second Period (1926-1962): The Successors of Fr. Dehon, from Fr. Philippe to Fr. De Palma

In the Reparatory Association’s archives there is a collection of dates considered to be “the most important of the Reparatory Association”. They span from 1878 to 1966 and they were published, as mentioned above in the section on sources, in “Extraits du Journal” (Extracts From the Journal) (by Fr. Dehon) in 1943, to celebrate the first centenary of his birth. We will pause in 1962, the year in which, according to the Statutes approved in 1961, a new phase was begun for the promotion of the Association in the Provinces and in the Regions.

In this second period there are many more contributions by Fr. Dehon’s successors (from Fr. Philippe to Fr. De Palma) in favor of the Association.

1. An emblematic episode, which united Fr. Dehon, Fr. Prévot and Fr. Philippe, concerns one of our lay aggregates, Claire Baume. From this episode we learn about the care and concern with which Fr. Dehon and the other Fathers followed the lay people who united themselves with our project of spirituality and mission in the Church.

We can read about this episode in the first circular letter which Fr. Philippe, as Vicar General, sent to the entire Congregation on August 23, 1925, shortly after the holy death of the Founder (cf. Circular Letters of Fr. Philippe, p.17, n.14). Under the title “delicatesse charmante” Fr. Philippe remembers, among other things: “on Tuesday morning (August 11th), before receiving extreme unction, (Fr. Dehon) had traced some illegible words with a trembling hand to ask me to write to one of Fr. Andrea’s old penitents, whose name day was the following day”.

He was speaking about Claire Baume, whose name day, the feast of St. Claire, was “the following day”, August 12th. This fervent “Dehonian lay woman” lived in Roquevaire in the south of France and for many years Fr. Andrea Prévot had been her spiritual guide. With the death, in 1913, of Fr. Andrea - “our saint” as Fr. Dehon described him in the circular with which he communicated his decease - the Founder himself took over as Claire Baume’s spiritual guide and, on the death of Fr. Dehon, Fr. Philippe continued to sustain the progress of this lay aggregate. This is just one particular indication of the vast apostolic interest which, right from the start, our best Fathers have always shown for the propagating of “reparatory spirituality” to other priests and to the lay faithful.

2. In 1931 Fr. Philippe, then Superior General, was also the Director General of the Reparatory Association which, after the canonical establishment of March 14, 1923, had taken the title “Adveniat Regnum Tuum” (ART). He therefore proceeded to the nomination of National Directors: for Italy it was the parish priest of the Temple of Cristo Re (Christ the King) in Rome. We also learn that up till 1929 Fr. Ottavio Gasparri had been General Procura and Superior of the Community of Cristo Re. At his death, in 1929, he was succeeded by Fr. Luigi Bosio, until 1957.

Three registers of this period have been conserved. In one of them there is a list of the names of priests who belonged to ART and who had committed themselves to the movement vowed to celebrate Reparatory Masses. Fr. Bosio also noted down the members communicated to him by the secretary of ART in Antwerp (Belgium): among these there can be seen the name of the Bishop of Liegi and of 590 priests who had made the commitment to say 1,690 Reparatory Masses. Written in the other two registers we find the names of the lay faithful from various regions in Italy, from May 10, 1923 to December 6, 1946. At this date the names listed totaled 2,119.

It is probable that the reason why the entrees in the registers of the parish of Cristo Re stopped here was because the “national centers” had been developed and it was there that the names were subsequently registered.

Some statistical notes from 1958, collected by Fr. Aparicio Pellín when he was Secretary General of the Association, gives us some data which, although incomplete, illustrates the way the Association was developing:

- in Germany - 24,500 associates;

- in Italy - 28,800 (of whom 12,000 were ‘I Piccoli Amici di Gesùì’ (The Little Friends of Jesus);

- in the United States - 1,013 associates;

- in Spain - 2,730;

- in North Brazil - 553.

There is also a list of the Reparatory Masses which were celebrated:

- in Holland - 7,948;

- in Spain - 4,717;

- in the Province of Luxembourg/Vallonica - 3,709;

- in North Brazil - 782.

3. The frequent action on the part of the Superiors General, from Fr. Philippe to Fr. De Palma (the most numerous being by Fr. Govaart, from 1938 to 1952) show the fidelity and commitment to following the original intention of the Founder in promoting these forms of “association” with our project of spirituality and mission.

It does not seem necessary to present the exact words here since they can be seen in the collections of the Circular Letters of our Superiors General. The important thing is that we understand the line of continuity which characterized the action of Fr. Dehon, and of all his successors, in guiding the Congregation. At most, observing their persistence, one can see that during the progress of this promotion of “associates” moments of weariness were inevitable, as was also the desire for a quest for renewal according to concrete requirements.

4. In fact, even the efforts made to achieve approval of the new Statutes, granted on June 9, 1961, the Feast of the Sacred Heart, does not seem to have given great impetus to the Association which from then on took back its original name of “Associazione Riparatrice” (Reparatory Association) (AR).

In these writings, accompanied by a “commentary”, efforts had been made to take into account the observations collected through a previous inquiry in our Provinces. The main themes were regarding: the origin of the Association, it’s principal aims, the spirit by which it must be animated, the commitments of the associates (spirituality and apostolate), organization, the promotion and formation of the members, etc.

In 1962, with the nomination of several National and Regional Directors, and with other initiatives being presented in connection with the General Secretariat and its supporting body (as of 1963 the “Vinculum Associationis Reparatricis” was to be published as its official organ), it was thought that a renewed impetus would have a positive effect on developing the growing participation of the laity in the Dehonian plan.

But we all know how deep the cultural, social and also religious “crisis” was during the fifties and sixties. Even the way of receiving the great themes of “Devotion to the Sacred Heart” showed an exigency for new biblical, theological and ministerial perspectives. Pope Pius XII’s 1956 encyclical “Haurietis Aquas” intended to outline this new road. It was necessary to wait for Vatican II, together with the slow and difficult path of post-Conciliar “updating and renewal”, in order to discover the more expressive contents and language which better responded to the situations and expectations of a profoundly different and demanding epoch.

Third Period (1963...): Conciliar Renewal and the “Dehonian Family”

The entire ecclesial community was therefore struck, with a “grace” which the current Pontiff defined as the greatest of this century, by that impetuous wind which, with Vatican II, provoked a radical revision: one which John XXIII felt should be guided by his pastoral program: Fidelity and Renewal.

It was this “dynamic fidelity” (as it was to be defined in the Special Chapter of 1966-67) which was to promote in our Congregation, and then in the Dehonian Family, a rediscovery of the Dehonian values in the perspective of an “ecclesiology of communion” and, consequently, of a renewed relationship between “vocations” which had been evoked by the Spirit to live the Dehonian plan.

In the ecclesial community, as we know, the “vocation and mission of the lay faithful in the Church and in the world” stood out in particular relief. This was to be the theme of the Synod of 1987 and of the successive Apostolic Exhortation, “Christifideles Laici” of 1988.

The double profile of the Christian Laity was increasingly placed into the light: the universal vocation to “holiness” (LG c.V) and to “mission” (LG c.IV, Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity).

It was a natural consequence that within the institutes of consecrated life this renewing action of the Spirit brought new impulses of sharing and communion with other vocations in the Church.

In the report delivered in September 1990 at the First International Meeting of the Dehonian Laity (cf. Dehoniana, n. 79, pp.72-91), there is a description of this ecclesial path and of a certain number, increasing today, of religious institutes which are following it.

With regard to us S.C.J., we can present the growth of this renewed rapport with the Laity in several principle stages:

1. In the immediate post-Council period a weakening of previous associative forms could be seen while, at the same time, new and flourishing ecclesial movements were developing. At this time, our lay people were showing evidence of an ever more acute awareness of having a “vocation” of their own within the wide ranging field of Dehonian reality. The double profile of “vocation to holiness and to the mission”, in the light of the Dehonian plan, was taking on characteristics of a more qualified and deeper commitment. It is a question of the rediscovery, as the Council doctrine emphasized (LG 10,34...), of a “consecration worked by the Spirit” which demanded an “evangelical style of life” and enabled active cooperation in the “mission of the Church in the world” (LG, c.IV; can.204).

In this perspective the “charism” of a religious Family was becoming a new force of the Spirit, in support of those lay people who felt its attraction: a form of “vocation” to share the spirituality and mission of an institute which was the setting in which this charism was deposited and guaranteed.

Two new criteria came to guide this sharing:

- the “charism”, even if it is the characteristic of an institute of consecrated life, had to be maximized as a gift “made to the Church”. Therefore the Spirit could exhort the institute to allow other faithful, called by Him to share it, to participate in the charism;

- and, in a new conception of “Church-communion”, this participation went beyond the idea of an “aggregation” to the institute and became a “vocation” to the spiritual and apostolic plan, as well as a path which led to a “communion of vocations” around the plan-charism. The prospect began to be envisaged of a “Family” animated by common values of life and of mission.

2. At our General Chapter of 1985 a dossier was presented which described this “community communion”, later better defined as “Dehonian Family”.

In that assembly it did not seem that the idea was sufficiently understood and welcomed. But shortly afterwards the involvement of the institutes of consecrated life in the Synod on the Vocation and Mission of the Laity gave people pause for reflection. During various national and general meetings, of those people in authority concerning the religious life, new perspectives began to grow. These were collected and communicated to our Provinces, where interest for the Dehonian Laity began to increase.

3. Thus the climate was being prepared in which, during the General Conference of 1988 in Brusque (Brazil), the First International Meeting of the Dehonian Laity was envisaged; a meeting which, in fact, was celebrated in Rome from the 3rd to the 9th of September 1990 (cf. the “Proceedings” in Dehoniana, n. 79). As one can see from the proceedings, the participation at this first international conference constituted, in reality, the first real Assembly of the “Dehonian Family”: together with our laity there were also some of our religious brethren and members of the Missionary Company of the Sacred Heart.

4. The General Chapters of 1991 and 1997 not only took note of this new reality which was taking shape in our Dehonian history, but they also accented it, exalting collaboration with it in the various manners which would correspond to local situations.

It is sufficient to quote what can be read in the general report of this last Chapter of 1997 (cf. Doc. XVII, p.176): “Part of the Institute is under the impact of the new phenomenon of the “Dehonian Family”. Our charism and our spirituality have overflowed the environment of the Congregation to inspire the Christian life of other persons, both consecrated and lay. They, like us, participate in the same “Spiritual Plan of Fr. Dehon”, achieving it in different vocations and states of life, in an autonomous way but in communion with us”.

And, as can be seen on pages 193 to 302, the theme of the “Dehonian Family” was amply discussed, perhaps not yet with complete clarity. We hope that the international meeting of October 2000 may reach a convincing synthesis of the ecclesial and social reasons which urge the development of this “communion of Dehonian vocations”, and take full advantage of the experience of the past while offering useful suggestions for promotion, organization and formation.

A Dehonian Family which can count on the wealth of this variety of vocations and which can unite the vigor of the Dehonian charism to their own individual charisms will, without doubt, have new capabilities of witness and mission: today especially, for it is now that we realize the contemporariness of the fecundity of that “original inspiration” which moved the Venerable Fr. Dehon to plant the first roots of this Dehonian tree, ever open to the broadest developments in the Church and in the world.