MEET OUR SACRED HEARTS FAMILY!
(By Sr. Mary Dolorine Pires, SS.CC.)
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Christmas has come rather quickly upon us, since this year we celebrate the feast of Christ's birth the day after the Fourth Sunday in Advent. This Fourth Sunday actually leads us right to the Midnight Mass, a celebration which has deep familial meaning for us.
At the Midnight Mass, as members of the Sacred Hearts Family we have reason to say a double "Happy Birthday." First, we greet the Christ Child whose actual birth in Bethlehem dates back some thousands of years. However, we can also say "Happy Birthday" to our own Congregation, since we have learned that our religious Family began in Poiters at a Midnight Mass two hundred and six years ago.
How did our Congregation begin? You have read that both our Good Father and our Good Mother consecrated themselves to God by pronouncing, in 1800, the triple vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience which made them religious. They did so at the Vigil of Christmas, in the presence of a small group of pious persons who later would join them as religious of the Sacred Hearts, and thus their initial profession was the start of our Congregation today.
What few people know, however, is that our Founders pronounced their vows in subdued tones, almost in whispers, since intervention by the police was a constant danger. To hold a religious service, we must remember, was a criminal offense in those days of the French Revolution.
What a beautiful coincidence that a new religious family dedicated to proclaiming God's love had its start on a feast that reminds us so powerfully of that divine love! Although we originally planned to write this week about adoration and reparation as integral part of the Sacred Hearts spirituality, we are pleased to defer that to another article, since the coincidence of our founding at Christmas is of such great importance. It shows that God willed us into existence so that we could "contemplate, live, and proclaim to the world His redeeming love," so touchingly revealed in the Child in the manger.
Indeed, God loved us enough to come to earth as one of us, and He continues to love us to this day. All He asks is a return of His love! This is the divine truth that the Sacred Hearts Family continues to announces to our troubled world. This is our Sacred Hearts heritage.
Writh grateful hearts we thank God for the "Christmas gift" of our founding, and in that spirit of humble thankfulness we wish all our readers a truly Blessed Christmas. May the Holy Child help us to appreciate ever more fully the sublime gift of His steadfast love. We belong to the Family He willed to have its birthday on the very day we celebrate His own! Let us rejoice!