FEAST OF THE INSTITUTE of the
RELIGIOUS of the SACRED HEART OF MARY

Our Letter for the Feast of the Founding of the Institute is also our web page prayer for the closing of the Bicentenary of the Birth of our Foundress.

We celebrate another anniversary – 161 years of sharing "the particular gift of the Spirit given to Jean Gailhac, to Mère St. Jean and to our first sisters for the service of the Church and the life of the world." (Constitutions §4) In this our web word to you on Founding Day 2010, we want to deepen our understanding of the founding vision as seen through the life of M. St. Jean, as we conclude our celebration of the bicentenary of her birth. In this communal reflection, we invite you to a prayerful rereading of texts from our history.

We have spent a year reflecting as an Institute on the life of M. St. Jean. We have seen her gift of leadership, her generosity in placing her personal resources at the service of Jean Gailhac's work, and her unifying presence in the formation of our nascent Institute. We have seen that in every moment of her life – in times of joy and happiness, of loss, separation and death, Appollonie deepened her faith as she allowed God to transform her experiences into places where grace could unfold, most especially in the foundation of the Institute of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

• Courage my child! The God who is trying you will be your support. He calls himself the protector of widows and orphans. For those who have faith, the greatest sorrows are not without consolation... The loved one stirs up their hope and is a prod urging them to grow in virtue.
  
  

We thank you, good and gracious God for our foundress, Appollonie Cure-Pellissier. We thank you for her courage and her faith: a courage and faith like that of Mary, who said YES to you" in the face of the unpredictable and even the impossible." (Constitutions §3) May we learn from her example as we continue our journey in faith so that all may have life, life in abundance. Amen.

Gailhac chose 24 February 1849, the day before the First Sunday of Lent, as the day of our founding. We find it significant that Lent was the time for our beginning - in the winter cold of France where seeds hidden deep in the dark earth hold the promise of unexpected, fruitful life. Our Lenten fast prepares us to worthily celebrate the paschal mystery, that moment when life overcomes violence and death, when despair and abandonment are transformed into hope and solidarity, when the cross connects heaven and earth and restores us into the image and likeness of the unseen God. What God has done for Jesus by raising him as the Resurrected Christ, God will do for us and for all creation.

The paschal mystery was a real experience for the new community, even at its very beginning. Rosa do Carmo Sampaio in A Journey in Faith and Time, Volume 1, describes February 24th in this way: "The foundation day was far from calm. An atmosphere of instability and agitation reigned throughout the city." The internal situation in the Good Shepherd reflected the surrounding tension: the situation in the Refuge was such that "the police were called to establish order!" However, in the face of uncertainty and confusion, Appollonie, with her companions Eulalie Vidal and Rose Gibbal, left her home and crossed the city to embrace the mission of the Good Shepherd in founding the new Institute.

Let us reflect on Gailhac's message to Appollonie on 23 February 1849:

• God is with us. Therefore, we experience the cross to some extent. But things will work out ... God and Mary will give you courage and we will be there, supported by God.
  
  
• Imagine that you are Appollonie on the eve of February 24th. What are your feelings? What is of concern to you? What gives you hope? What Scripture passage do you pray on this night before your journey to the Good Shepherd?

M. St. Jean wrote the following to Gailhac at the time
of the Persecutions of 1850:

• Courage, dear Father. Yes, courage. You know that to form a Community one must pass through many trials, many sacrifices. One must die to self. In a word, one must follow Jesus Christ to Calvary and to the cross.
  
  

Where do you/we celebrate our communion in the paschal mystery of Jesus today?

As part of our reflection on cosmology we have deepened our awareness of the interconnectedness of all creation. This insight into “cosmic bondedness” sheds new light on the evangelical values of inter-relatedness, interdependence, solidarity and communion. The universe is a personal place and we are acutely aware of the delicate web of life into which all creation is wonderfully interwoven.

Mary Milligan in her introduction to her translation of the correspondence between M. St. Jean and Jean Gailhac comments: "M. St. Jean is a strong and faithful companion of Fr. Gailhac. They each recognize the qualities of one another and they work together to form a religious congregation dedicated to the works of the Good Shepherd ... Part of their companionship was rooted in their mutual relationship with Eugène Cure."

We invite you again to reflect on a letter
from Gailhac to M. St. Jean, dated 29 August 1849:

• Your letter is charming, delightful. It did so much for me; I read it twice with great pleasure. I thank God to have given me such a daughter. Yes, she will correspond to grace; she will be worthy of her vocation. Courage, dear child...I have not made a mistake. You are the child that I have asked of God for so many years, with so much insistence. We will work together to become two saints and by God's mercy that is what we will become. Belong totally to God and love God undividedly.

Gailhac wrote the following at the time
of the death of M. Ste. Croix (7 October 1878):

• And so, our dear deceased, dead to the earth, but living the true life, must be a great consolation for us. In heaven, they serve us an intercessors and advocates before God; here below, the memory of the great examples of virtue they have given will never be erased from our memory and will be for us a great encouragement to walk in their footsteps until reunited with them one day.

What do these two writings of Gailhac suggest to you
about "cosmic bondedness," interconnectedness, relationships?  

Loving God, you who keep all creation in unity, who have made this world your dwelling place of beauty, playfulness and wonder, we thank you for the gift of our charism, for our founder, Jean Gailhac and for our Foundress, M. St. Jean. We thank you for this time to come to know her better, to be inspired by her faith and zeal, to be encouraged by her humanity, to walk with her in her moments of both strength and fragility, as your love transformed her into a woman of courage and hope, a faithful companion of Gailhac and an authentic disciple of Jesus Christ. Amen.

We are joined with each one during this Lenten time of transforming grace poured upon us through the intercession of Jean Gailhac, M. St. Jean and our founding sisters on this our 161st birthday.

Archived Generalate Bulletins

November 2009
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