LIFE OF THE CONGREGATION

Egidio Driedonkx, scj

Tradition has it that Fr. Dehon took his first religious vows before this statue, in St. Quentin,on June 28, 1878.

What are we to think of this?

To start with, I think it is important to know where Fr. Dehon took his first vows. He himself said that it was in the little oratory of San Juan College (Cf. NHV XII, 182). Fr. Ducamp affirms this in his book “Le Père Dehon et son Oeuvre” (Fr. Dehon and His Work): “The little ceremony took place in the intimacy of the little oratory of San Juan” (op. cit. p. 195).

What are we to understand by the words ‘the little oratory of San Juan’?

There are two chapels in this college: the little chapel for the Sister Servants of the Sacred Heart, who work there, and the larger chapel for the students.

We read in NHV: “I set up an oratory in a big attic (“mansarde”). Over the years this was to be the oratory for the Sisters” (NHV XII, 182). On the other hand Fr. Dehon inaugurated the chapel for the students - which, at the beginning, were slightly less than a hundred - on Christmas day, 1877 (Cf. NHV XII, 23). When Fr. Dehon speaks of the chapel of the Sisters he uses the word “oratoire”, and when he is referring to the chapel for the students he uses the word “chapelle”. The writings state that he preferred to perform the ceremony of taking his first vows in the oratory of the Sisters, since there were few people present: 7 people including himself. In addition he did not want to give much publicity to the what he was doing.

In fact, the June 20, 1878 issue of “El Águila” (The Eagle), the college magazine, does not mention the ceremony of his first vows. Unfortunately we do not have one photograph of this little oratory in our archives.

In addition, we should say that we must exclude the idea that the ceremony took place in the chapel of the Mother-House, since this was not inaugurated until September 14, 1878 (Cf. NHV XIII, 101).

The second question we have to ask concerns the possibility, or the certainty, that this statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was to be found in the oratory of the Sister Servants of the Sacred Heart on June 28, 1878.

I think that everything indicates that it is improbable that it could have been there. The exact story covers a bit of ground.

The origin of the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is closely united to the construction of the church of the Sacred Heart in Issoudun by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. This church was blessed on June 7, 1861. It had a chapel dedicated to the Virgin of the Sacred Heart with some splendid, multicolored stained glass windows made by the artist, Lobin. The Virgin is standing and in front of her is the Christ child at the age of 12 years, with one hand pointing towards his heart and the other held higher towards his Mother.

In 1864 the Association of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was founded and the church was consecrated. On the latter occasion, the first statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was set in the facade of the church.

It was sculpted by, Boiry of Issoudun, following the style of the stained glass windows. In 1867 a different sculptor, Blanchard, was entrusted with the job of making another statue. This was set in the Chapel of the Virgin inside the church. On September 8, 1869 it was crowned in the name of the Holy Father. A few months earlier, the Pope himself had become a member of the Association of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and 2000 people in Rome followed his example.

On May 23, 1869 Fr. Dehon wrote to his parents that, following the example of Pius IX, he had enrolled them both in this Association, together with his brother Enrique and his cousin Laura. He also, of course, had enrolled himself (Cf. AD. B. 18/9.2.7.81, inv. 218.81).

On December 8, 1872, a decree by Cardinal Patrizi, the Vicar of Rome, officially established the Roman Confraternity. This decree also stated that the statue of the Virgin needed to be changed a little, since the Pope did not like the fact that the child Jesus was in front of the Virgin; according to him it was necessary that she should hold him in her arms - dismissing the fact that the child was presented at the age of 12.

On July 8, 1873, Pius IX raised the Roman Confraternity to the dignity of Archconfraternity, independent of Issoudun.

One of its first problems was changing the new statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart,0 so that it would adhere to the wishes of the Pope. The Archconfraternity also wanted to keep their own statue, different from the one that Issoudun was going to adopt. A design by Silverio Capparoni was chosen. It represented the Virgin standing, with her feet on the serpent and holding the Christ Child in her arms; one hand was below the Child’s Heart, while the Child Himself held out His extended arms. A painting of the model was made by the Baroness Sofia Villa Piana. The painting was presented to the Pope on October 6, 1873 and he consequently approved and blessed it.

After that, especially around 1875, Fr. Chevalier, founder of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, had many difficulties, both with the Roman Archconfraternity and with the Holy Office.

Faced with the Holy Office he could not save the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart with the Child standing in front of her knees. A decree of August 17, 1878 forbade the display of the statue that Blanchard had designed.

During the reign of the new pope, Leo XIII, the Roman Archconfraternity, on April 26, 1879, was put under the authority of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, thus losing its independence.

There were many difficulties, and in the meantime they still did not have a new statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Since they had to obey the decree of the Holy Office, Fr. Chevalier accepted a design by Seitz that showed the Christ Child in His Mother’s arms. From 1879 this statue was placed in the church of the Fathers of Issoudun in Rome, in Piazza Navona.

Fr. Jouët, its procurator in Rome, gave the task of making a new image to “Daniel and Company” in Paris. This new image was to follow the design made by Seitz, and exclusive rights of reproduction were given to the “Daniel House”.

The Archconfraternity, for its part, gave the sculptor Raffl, at rue Bonaparte 59, Paris, exclusive rights to the model by Capparoni. In 1879 the first statues were sold (Cf. Jan G. Bovenmars MSC: “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart”, Rome 1996, first part, chapters 1-4).

It is difficult to believe, therefore, that our statue was in the oratory of the Sister Servants of the Sacred Heart on June 28, 1878.

These events can also be substantiated by the fact that devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was not very widespread in the Congregation before 1882. In the “Cahiers Falleur” (Falleur Notebooks) for example, Fr. Dehon speaks several times about the Heart of Mary, but he never uses the words “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” (Cf. Dehonian Studies 10, index, p. 250).

The situation changed around 1882 for two reasons.

In the first place, on June 3, 1881, Fr. Juan Tadeo Captier made his profession in the Congregation. In 1868 he had entered the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Issoudun, probably as an oblate or brother, but he then had a nervous illness which prevented him from becoming a priest. However, everything improved. In 1874 Msgr. Lynch, Bishop of Toronto, visited Issoudun and confirmed Fr. Captier in all his orders, including the priesthood, in less than a month. Fr. Captier considered this a miracle of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, all the more because when he visited the holy Curé d’Ars it had been prophesied that he would become a priest in a Congregation of the Sacred Heart, in which everything depended on the Virgin (Cf. letter of Fr. Peeters MSC from Stein to Fr. Ducamp, November 1, 1937, General Archives, Captier personal file).

In addition, when Juan Captier was master in Partheny in 1863, he came across a reproduction of the Sacred Heart which had come from Issoudun. He wrote a letter to Fr. Chevalier, and later visited him, asking to be admitted into his Congregation; but Fr. Chevalier made the decision not to accept him.

On December 8 of the same year Captier wrote a prayer, a “Memorare” to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and sent it to Fr. Chevalier with the request that he say this prayer for nine days, hoping that this would make it possible for him to obtain the grace of a vocation which he felt to be his.

It seems that Fr. Chevalier liked the prayer. On January 29, 1864, when the Statutes of the Association of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart were approved, he published Fr. Captier’s “Memorare”, without saying where he had obtained it (Cf. Juan G. Bovenmars, op. cit. 25-30).

When Fr. Captier entered our Congregation in 1881 it was logical that he should propagate devotion of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. It is thus that among “The Prayers of Our First Years”, which date more or less to 1882, we find two prayers to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, one clearly written by Fr. Captier (Cf. AD B. 4/10, inv. 2600).

Also, on February 2, 1883, a new novitiate was founded in Sittard, Holland, a city where there was a sanctuary to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Fr. Dehon wrote, in the “Month of Mary”: “Our Lady of the Sacred Heart protects many religious communities in Sittard, and in particular the novitiate and the apostolic school in Sittard of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, which she has taken under her maternal protection since 1882” (O.Sp. I, pp. 406,407).

We know that our newly professed brothers visited the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart on June 8, 1883 in order to give thanks to the Virgin. This is confirmed by a letter which the newly professed Emilio Pedro Bertrand sent on June 9, 1883 to his Chère Mère (Dear Mother) (Cf. AD B. 21/2g, inv. 351-03).

Another interesting piece of information is found in a letter which, at the end of the month of December 1883, the pupils of the apostolic school of Fayet sent to the rector, Fr. Falleur, who was to spend the end of the year at Sittard.

At the end of the letter they said that they sent all their good wishes for the New Year to the Christ Child through his Mother, Our Lady of Sittard.

After the greetings of the young people, brother Matias Legrand, recently ordained deacon, asked him not to forget to pray for them in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sittard. In a P.S. he asked him to enroll both himself and Fr. Vicente de Pascual in the register of the Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

At the end of the letter the novice Bruno Blanc, who at that moment was in Fayet, asked him to think of them at the feet of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Sittard, since it did so much good to pray there (Cf. General Archive, Fayet file, first handwritten list, p.1).

I think that in this letter we can also see the influence of Fr. Captier, who, until not very long before then, had been Superior of Fayet.

Fr. Dehon liked to venerate and pray to the saints and patrons of the places where the members of his Congregation carried out the Work. It is thus that we find, within the Office of the Congregation, approved by Rome in 1891, the Blessed Maria Ana of Paredes, “the Lily of Quito”, and St. Wilibrordo, Patron Saint of Holland and Luxembourg. This may be one of the reasons why they then put the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the chapel of the Mother-House, as we have already noted.

We know that this conclusion sets us against the tradition in the Congregation, which was based on very respectable testimony. One example being that of Fr. Gabriel Jacquemin, nephew of Fr. Augustin Jacquemin, who was master of novices in Brugelette and, as such, the successor of Fr. Prévot and others of the French Province.

We can find, therefore, among the documents of the Postulancy in Rome at the time of Fr. Ceresoli, a photograph of the statue which had been sent from France.

The Virgin is on a pedestal which bears a notice saying “On June 28, 1878 Fr. Dehon, honorary Canon of Soissons, Founder of San Juan College, Initiator of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, solemnly proclaimed his religious vows before this statue”. However, it is always a problem to know what the original message of this tradition was and what has subsequently been added to it .

Perhaps the original wording said that Fr. Dehon renewed his vows before this statue, or that he took his perpetual vows before it. This is what continually puzzles us.

It is a fact that the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was to be found in the chapel of the Mother-House in St. Quentin. We have, for example, a postcard which Fr. Dehon sent on October 15, 1913 to Fr. Carlos Tropel in Albino. On one side there is a photograph of the chapel of the novitiate in which the image can be clearly seen. On the other side Fr. Dehon wrote “I send you my chapel in St. Quentin in which I pray for you” (AD B. 97, inv. 0113374).

But, for how long had this image been there?

Unfortunately there is a gap in Fr. Dehon’s diary “Notes Quotidiennes” (Daily Notes) from March 1870 to 1886. But it is to be noted that while in 1886 there were many references to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, in 1887 and 1888 these references are very few. It could be an indication that the statue was obtained more or less in this epoch.

On May 7, 1886 he wrote: “First Friday. Mass in the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Sittard. My trust in Mary continues to grow” (NQ III, 23).

On May 21-22, while dealing with the manner of praying, he wrote: “the colloquy must be with the Sacred Heart and with Our Lady of the Sacred Heart” (NQ III, 26).

In his writing of August 31, we see the words: “end of the Month of the Sacred Heart of Mary” (NQ III, 52).

But the most important text which we have is from June 12, 1886, when he wrote: “The Archpriest (of St. Quentin) has acceded to our desires to establish the devotion to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in the Basilica. We gave him 500 francs to buy a statue. It costs 2000. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart will be pleased with it” (NQ III, 29-30).

It is possible that if Fr. Dehon helped to buy a statue for the Basilica of St. Quentin, he would have kept it in his own chapel. We know that on September 17, 1886 Fr. Dehon and the six eldest members of the Congregation took their perpetual vows (Cf. NQ III, 55). In all probability these vows must have been taken in front of the statue of the Virgin of the Sacred Heart.

This could be confirmed by the letter which Fr. Dehon wrote the following day to Abbé Desmis, one of our possible candidates. He told him about the taking of the vows and finished his letter with the words “I have little time tonight to tell you more about our beloved Work, but I pray to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart that she will illuminate and inspire it” (AD B. 18/13.1; “Caminos Dehonianas” (Dehonian Paths) 16, p.51).

We know then that the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart must have been in the chapel of the novitiate before June 12, 1886. It is also possible that it was there before, so that also Fr. Dehon could have renewed his temporal vows before it, but we lack the documents.

The original wording of the tradition may have been that Fr. Dehon renewed or took his perpetual vows before the image of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, and it was later that they added the words telling of him taking his first vows.

Whether Fr. Dehon did or did not pronounce his first vows before this statue, it is an important image for us. This is true not only because of the many reasons we have already mentioned but also because we know that it was venerated by the Founder and that he prayed before it.

It should be said that in December 1878, by means of Abbé Brion, Fr. Dehon bought a statue of Our Lady of the Victories. We do not know where he set it up afterwards: either in the chapel of the College or in the recently installed chapel of the Mother-House (Cf. AD B. 37/1, H 22).

This little investigation leaves the doors open for further investigation. It does not aim to be the last word, but an invitation to other brethren to continue the studies on this subject. If it has provoked a certain resistance or a negative feeling in the reader, I ask for their pardon, but I believe that our history is better served with the truth of facts.

Finally, how did the statue get to the Generalate in Rome?

When, in the years 1970-1971, Fr. G. Girardi made his canonical visit to the French Province, he was invited by Fr. Gabriel Jacquemin to visit the place where, in San Juan College, there was kept the aforementioned statue of the Virgin of the Sacred Heart. It had been disgracefully abandoned and the hands of the Child were broken.

How did it get to San Juan College?

In August of 1922 Fr. Dehon wrote in his Diary that the he was greatly distressed because the municipality of St. Quentin was going to expropriate the Mother-House, the cradle of the Congregation (Cf. NQ XLIV, 50).

It may be that the statue was taken to San Juan College during the demolition of the house.

During a visit to the Rector of the College, Canon Andrés Colignon, Fr. Girardi asked him to give the statue to the Generalate in Rome. His request was granted.

The image reached the customs office in Rome on February 26, 1971. On March 8, a duty of 2,400 Italian Lire was paid. On March ll, Fr. Ceresoli sent a letter of thanks to Canon Colignon.

Notes

One can see the original painting of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, as designed by Silverio Capparoli.

According to the stamp that has been printed on it, our statue comes from the commercial firm “La Statue Religieuse” of Paris.

P.S.

Is it not possible that yet another commercial firm had already started to distribute and sell the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, independently of the Fathers of Issoudun and the Roman Archconfraternity?

It is improbable that this happened. However, if it did, the question would have to be: When and for whom, or for which chapel, did Fr. Dehon buy it?

Our statue bears a notice which says “Approved by the Holy Father on September 7, 1875”.

To make the statue and commercialize it would require at least about half a year. Theoretically speaking then, Fr. Dehon could have bought it as far back as the month of March 1876.

However, for whom? The oratory of the Sister Servants was inaugurated, in more or less the month of September 1877; and the chapel in San Juan College, the chapel that was used by the students, was inaugurated during Christmas of the same year. It looks as if he could have bought the statue round about this time.

It would not be logical for him to have bought it for the oratory of the Sisters, since there were only two of them, and there were only two candidate brothers living with Fr. Dehon at this time. In addition, the image is big; it would not fit very well in a little oratory. Logically then, he must have bought it for San Juan College. But Fr. Dehon took his first vows in the oratory of the Sisters and not in the chapel of the college.