Religious of the Sacred Heart

Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat was born at Joigny, France in 1779. With two of her companions in Paris, she made her first consecration to the Heart of Jesus, giving life thus to the Society of the Sacred Heart, the 21st of November 1800. In 1805 Madeleine Sophie was elected superior general of the very young institute and retained this office until her death on May 25th, 1865.

"This little Society is entirely consecrated to the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to the spread of His worship: such is the end which all those who become members must propose to themselves". These words reveal to us what the Heart of Jesus is for Saint Madeleine Sophie: everything.

The aim of the Institute, the sanctification of the members, the apostolate, everything can be reduced to the devotion to the Heart of Jesus.

The specific apostolate of the Institute of the Sacred Heart founded by Saint Madeleine Sophie is education of the youth, as "the most important means of glorifying the Heart of Jesus". The first intuition of this future mission was for our Saint "to dedicate herself to the education of youth, to recreate in souls the solid foundations of faith in the Eucharist and to raise up a host of adorers".

The formation of youth is envisioned above all because of the repercussions that it bears for the future: "The spouses of the Heart of Jesus will present to him the hearts of an innumerable multitude of youth who, formed according to His Divine Model, will spread throughout the world His worship, His love and His glory".

At the time of Madeleine Sophie Barat's death in 1865, the Society of the Sacred Heart had spread from its native France, to many nations of Europe and in North and South America.

While Madeleine Sophie Barat wrote no treatise, we have an abundance of letters and many conferences through which one can reconstruct her spirituality. Her writings always reecho the words of the Constitutions, approved by Leo XII in 1826. The Foundress was literally absorbed with the spirit of the Constitutions, and from this official font, is drawn this sample of the spirituality of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat.

The Summary of the Constitutions begins thus: This little Society is entirely consecrated to the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and to the spread of His worship: such is the end which all those who become members must propose to themselves.

For His Glory and to win Him souls", is an expression which one finds taken up again and again in the text of the Constitutions an dto which all must be submitted and even sacrificed. The aim of the Institute, the sanctification of the members, the apostolate, everything can be reduced to devotion to the Heart of Jesus. It is all a means of spreading devotion to the Sacret Heart, laboring for the sanctification of souls, expecially through the educaiton of youth, which is the object of a fourth vow made at the moment of final profession.

But what is this devotion? Often in the Constitutions she defines the religious as spouce of the Heart of Jesus. In the thought of the Foundress the two words - spouse and devotion - explain one another. The spouse is she who loves without measure, with an undivided love, who does not live except for her Spouse. She seeks only His presence, His honor, His glory. She hides in His shdow so that only He will attract attention; she is ready to empty herself, to die so that the Spouse can draw all that He can of glory from her uncompromising service. This is devotion to the Sacred Heart. In the thought of Saint Madeleine Sophie, this love of the spouse is worship, since this Heart of Jesus is the object of worship. In the Constitutions, one can easily find the word worship" instead of devotion.

The main source of this spirituality, completely centered on the Heart of Jesus, is the Sacred Scripture. The Heart of Jesus is studied through the words, gestures and actions of the life of our Divine Savior which appear in the Gospel. In practicing each of the religious vows, He is the Model. Jesus had so much love for poverty to desire to be born, live and die in its arms. He had so loved chastity, that He wanted to be forn of a Virgin and iin dying, gave her as Mother to the virgin disciple. In obedience, He came down from Heaven upon earth, not do do His own will but the will of His Father, and the fulfillment of this holy will became His food.

Even in the fourth vow the words of the Divine Master reecho: He who receives in My name one of these little ones, receives Me. It is the same for all the other virtues recommended by the Rule and above all for charity and humility. These two virtues, characteristic of the Diving Heart, the Church has especially attributed to Saint Madeleine Sophie. The collect of the Mass in her honor reads: Lord Jesus Christ, in example of Your Heart, You have marvelously clothed Saint Madeleine Sophie with humility and charity...

The other source of this rich spirituality is Paray-le-Monial. The words of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary are quoted in the Constitutions: A lively faith which each day brings before their eyes Jesus Christ showing them His Heart, and addressing to them these words: "Behold this Heart which has so loved men, which has spared nothing even to exhausting and consuming Itself to show them Its love...."

The common element in all religious orders is the obligation to tend towards perfection. For Saint Madeleine Sophie this sanctity is of glorifying the Heart of Jesus and is translated into imitation of the virtues of which this Heart is Center and Model. One arrives at such an imitation through contemplation of the Divine Heart which must be for all the religious as an open book. Within, they will study His interior dispositions in order to unite and conform themselves. As already noted, the practice of the religious vows, and of all the other virtues, is always considered in connection with the Heart of Jesus. This union and conformity must seal every activity and expression of life till that supreme moment of conformity with the Crucified One in the hour of death.

The specific apostolate of the Institute of the Sacred Heart founded by Saint Madeleine Sophie is education of the youth, as the most important of glorifying the Heart of Jesus.

The first intuition of this future mission was for our Saint to dedicate herself to the education of youth, to recreate in souls the solid foundation of faith in the Eucharist and to raise up a host of adorers. Such a mission is detailed and deepened in the Constitutions. The call is to form human persons in such a way that their whole life may be a testimony of adoration, through the recognizing of the supreme rights of God. Once then that the solid principles of the Faith have been established in these young souls, it will not be difficult to direct their hearts, naturally affectionate and sensitive, toward the Divine Heart of Jesus and help them discover in this Heart the font of that ardent love with which He has loved them.

"We cannot change our character, it is true, as easily as we change our clothes. It is the work of a lifetime. It is achieved with the grace of God and constant effort."

"How could one have peace which is the fruit of love of Jesus in the soul, as long as one is filled with self and has so little love for God, crucified and annihilated!"

"Is it not our blindness that deceives us without cease in all that pertains to ourselves? Thus let us often say to Jesus: Lord, that I may see!"

"Let us hand over all our cares to Jesus, praying that he will act for us. Then everything will take care of itself."

"Pride scourges Jesus Christ; humility scourges the devil."

"Whenever assailed by humility, the devil loses his power. humility is like a plank in a flood. We cannot cling too tightly to this virtue."

"Let us be kind without weakness, humble without groveling."

"Jesus will supply for all that we lack if our confidence in his help is without limit."

It's an exciting time as you discover and respond to His invitation. If your response is a generous and open one you will not only be uniting yourself more closely with the Lord, but you will also be fulfilling the deepest longing of your heart!

If you think God might be calling you to a religious vocation, check out the Discerning A Religious Vocation lens.

The extracts below are from the book, The Society of the Sacred Heart written by Janet Erskine Stuart, the fifth Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart, during a trip to Australia in 1913 and first printed after her death in 1914. There are occasional minor edits by the Lensmaster to update spelling, and add additional paragraph breaks and subheadings.

By Janet Erskine Stuart

The Society of the Sacred Heart has been singularly blessed by God: in the littleness of its origin, in the providential assistances and trials through which it came into being, in its first rapid extension. It has been blessed in the persecution which has followed it through many countries, driving the native members from their homeland until all the world has become their country. It has been blessed in the faithful and devoted friendships which have never failed it, and even in the bitter and tenacious prejudices which have not been wanting from the beginning until our own day to keep it vigilant and awake. It has been blessed in the strokes of adversity which have come upon it, and in the almost visible interference of God; warding them off or carrying it through each trouble as it arose. Is is blessed, most of all, in the special bond of unity which hoins all the members together; so strongly that those who see it have declred that no human power could have welded so many diverse spirits and nationalities in one whole, and that without doubt, the finger of God is here.

"This little Society," as the Foundress [here the author is referring to Madeleine Sophie Barat] loved to call it -- youngest born as it was in time, and smallest in growth when she first egan to write about it -- did not originate in her mind. It had been "in the air" of the spiritual world for some time before she knew of it. Two attempts had been made under conditions which, humanly speaking, might have commanded success there were names and antecedentws that would have impressed the world, and were not without consideration in the Church. But God -- as He has often chosen to do -- set aside the eldest-born, disregarding "their stature and the beauty of their countenance," and chose for the great work one that was young and poor, without experience, without ambition, country-bred and quite unknown, that it might not be of man, but the work of His own hand.

The young priest who had first understood the need, and received in prayer the idea of the new association, died before it could be carried out. Father Leonor de Tournely never saw the Society that he had dreamed of. But he died affirming that, in spite of two failures, his confidence was unshaken: It will be, he said, it will be, and he left this hope as a legacy to his friend, Father Joseph Varin, laying on him the obligation of discovering how it could be realized. The story of a little "Madeleine Sophie" has been often told, and must not, here, be told again, except to say that she was a first member providentially found for the new undertaking; and that, still scarcely more than a child, and frightened at the thought of anything so new and untried, she almost found in her arms, without knowing it, the Society of the Sacred Heart. The child was God's child, and the hour was God's hour; He had brought them together, and from the first moment the work was His own. He commanded it to live and grow and increase; and the Foundress, never taking a step of her own accord, but waiting for the guiding hand of His Providence at each parting of the ways, saw it rather than made it grow. She saw it with wonder, never without fear; she was indignant as at a blasphemy when she was called a foundress; she recognized not even a founder's hand, save that of God, in its origin, though she loved and leaned with a child's trust on Father Varin in the early years, and venerated him with a daughter's grateful devotion when his active help was, before long, withdrawn. She said it would be "horrible" to suppose that she had had any personal share in the creation of the Society which she governed. In every word and act of her administration she made it clear that she regarded it as a trust, and in no way a "life's work," or an effort of human invention to satisfy the "need of the time."

Yet, when seen from the other side, the need of the time for such an institution is now very evident. Socially speaking, France was in one of those still lucid moments, that come in convalescence after acute illness. Calmness was returning, and after delirium, clear thoughts were dawning, and hope was beginning to revive. Amongst those clear thoughts there stood out the urgent need of a new education for girls. The general intensifying of thought, the wide spreading of new ideas, the emancipation of forces that had passed beyond control at the contact of those ideas, made a new time on the ruins of what had gone before, and its needs pressed hard on the minds of those who cared for the kingdom of God.

Then it was realised more clearly than had been seen before how much of the future, for good or for evil, hung on the influence of women, and that a systematic education preparing them for their responsible charges in life, was one of the most powerful means of directing the course of the coming time.

This was God's hour; He had prepared His instrument by a long and rare fashioning. Little Madeleine Sophie had received an education which was found afterwards to have specially fitted her for a work so new; one that necessitated the making of a complete plan for the training of girls of the upper classes, to fit them to meet the altered state of the world. She had been trained by her brother, a young priest of high ideals, severely exacting as to her application to study, and still more as to the self-renunciation in which, as her godfather and spiritual guide, he felt it his duty to exercise her.

He kept his sister at classical studies until they won their fascinating power over her mind; then abruptly withdrew them, and set his unwilling but obedient pupil to the study of the Fathers of the Church, of Sacred Scripture and philosophy. He grounded her in mathematics, and allowed modern languages as a recreation. This was the foundation that he laid, without knowing what was to be raised upon it. The woman's side of training came to her from her mother; her own instinct, observation and experience did the rest.

This child of the Burgundian country-side had something in her blood that fitted her for carrying out a great enterprise. Simplicity, hardihood, and high spirit were nurtured in its vineyards and farmlands; something that lifted thee soul easily to magnanimous thoughts and deeds seemed to be an added gift in the province that owned so many great names in the Church and in secular life. It was not a little thing to be sprung from the same soil as St. Bernard and St. Jane de Chantal, as Ven. Claude de la Colombiere and many saintly monks of Cluny, besides the great dukes of brave memory who had been lords of Burgundy. The influence of climate and country cannot fail to impress itself strongly on the whole being of a child, especially when families are bound by their way of living to the land, and remain for generations in the same place, giving it time to toll. Our homeless manner of modern life is effacing types and characteristics and tending to a level of uniformity in language and thought, even in expression of countenance, that involves the loss of many precious features of character. But, in the time when Blessed Madeleine Sophie was growing up in the sun of her father's vineyard and the shadow of her garret study, Burgundy gave an accent to the whole being which was unmistakable.

Sensitive, receptive, happy, generous, never at a loss for a reply, turning her phrases neatly, quick in observation, helpful and ready of hand, persevering in work but full of playful brightness, prompt to rebound after constraint, and easily exhilarated, she grew up noble and simple of soul, loving in disposition, clinging as her own vines, and hardy as they to bear the sharp pruning of trials and losses that the events of the times brought upon her life.

She was fourteen years old in the terrible year 1793; the sight and hearing of all that took place, accentuated by the imprisonment of her own brother, gave what might otherwise have been wanting in her soul: the power of endurance, firmness to hold emotion in control and check the growth of sensitiveness, courage to keep up hope in bad days, and to win others to hope against overwhelming trouble.

In this time too, there came into her life a significant gift from the brother whose imprisonment had been so great a trial. After his release, he sent home two pictures, representing the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Most Pure Heart of Mary. The Sacred Heart, even the very name, was at this time a sign of salvation to some, and a sign of contradiction to others in France -- passionately loved or passionately hated. The double sign floated like a seed down the wind into Madeleine Sophie's life, and planted deeply there the devotion to the Sacred Heart.

In many quarters a work of preparation had been going on for some years, and the line of several lives had been converging to a meeting-place after which the course of Madeleine Sophie's existence changed. Father Louis Barat's mission with regard to his sister came to an end; Father de Tournely's dream began to be realized; Father Joseph Varin fulfilled his promise to his dying friend; and, in the greatest obscurity and poverty, as yet without a name or a mission, except to consecrate its members to the service of God, the Society of the Sacred Heart was born.

In many quarters a work of preparation had been going on for some years, and the line of several lives had been converging to a meeting-place after which the course of Madeleine Sophie's existence changed. Father Louis Barat's mission with regard to his sister came to an end; Father de Tournely's dream began to be realized; Father Joseph Varin fulfilled his promise to his dying friend; and, in the greatest obscurity and poverty, as yet without a name or a mission, except to consecrate its members to the service of God, the Society of the Sacred Heart was born.

It was born in a little upper room in Paris, and in the joy of its first consecration, nearly burned down the house in which the consecration had been made at Father Varin's Mass. Its birthday was the Feast of Our Lady's Presentation, the twenty-first of November, 1800.

It had never been the dream of the Blessed Foundress in her girlhood to give herself to the work of education. Her first idea of consecration to God had been in the contemplative life, and the goal of her desires was to be a Carmelite. It was with a very great effort of submission that, at the command, which she understood to be from God, this first dream was laid aside, and she accepted a life less remote from the world and more troubled by outside claims. The old longing died hard, if it ever died at all; but in later life she found consolation in seeing how many vocations, whose first bent had been toward the Carmelite life, came to the Sacred Heart, when, through want of dowry or some other impediment, they could not obtain admission into a Carmelite convent. She was happy that they found their aspirations after a life of union with God satisfied, when they had understood what the spirit of their new vocation asked of them and allowed.

It was far from Blessed Madeleine Sophie's mind to establish what the Society of the Sacred Heart has been so often called: "an educational Order." The primary idea was that of a life consecrated to the glory of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the first months were spent in solitude, study, manual work, and informal community life, and such hidden works of spiritual mercy as this very obscurity allowed. The work of education was the first means adapted to the end which the Providence of God indicated by circumstances; but all concerned moved slowly in the matter, and to the first members of the new Society, prayer and the exercises of the spiritual life were its chief interest and occupation, with the necessary work for a livelihood; for the whole resources of the Institute in its beginnings were limited to Madeleine Sophie's five franc piece.

These were her happiest days, the honeymoon of her religious life; but they did not last long. When the work of education began--the work which was to grow so fast in her hands--the first children of the Sacred Heart gathered round her; and the blessed children brought the ever blessed carers and troubles with them; and the worst trouble of all was that Madeleine Sophie, the little one, the shy and silent one, was chosen Superior, and , wanting to obey, was called to rule, and was never allowed to lay down the burden of governing the new Institute until her death more than sixty years later.

First member, first Superior, and first Superior General--she who could not manage the children, she who always wanted to run away and hide and be alone with God! It is no wonder that He hid from her what was to come, and revealed it only stey-by-step, leadin gher blindfold, and at times forcing her on by the kind but imperious voice of Father Varin, until she knew without possibility of doubt what God willed of her.

She was not one that seemed born to rule; and it was perhaps a special gift that this was so, for the personal impress which she left behind after sixty years of government was that of her sanctity, not of her character. No member of her Order tries to model herself on the Foundress; no personal example is held up before the whole Institute except the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Most Pure Heart of Mary. In this she had her way; she disappeared, to leave all the light and interest of the picture to focus on the sacred Heart, which was the sun of here own life. So her words are treasured, and her thoughts are in great honour; but those who loved her best in life, and now venerate her most intensely, never try to imitate her.

Against her will Blessed Madeleine Sophie was Superior General; against her first inclination she undertook the work of education; but in both of these functions she rose high in excellence. As Superior General she governed with vigilant eye and firm hand. She whose too-ready smile and gentle ways could not obtain discipline in school-room or playground, could make herself heard with vehement earnestness and insistence when it was needful to uphold the honour of religious life, the observance of rule, and especially that complete consecration to God which she held as the first essential of the new Institute.

But, if the hand was firm, it was also light. The watchword was to be "generosity;" she counted on spontaneous readiness for everything; she was not given to minutae in discipline; "the first rule of the house was to to worry anyone," so she said, but she knew and counted on the faithfulness that could take gaily, without being worried by them, the countless details which perfect community observance and the work of education, impose upon natural inclination and the outcropping of any form of selfishness.

In the work of education Blessed Madeleine Sophie had pioneer's work to do. The new order of things after the Revolution made demands that the old order had not imposed. It was not a matter of building again a house that had fallen into ruin, but of using what foundations remained to prepare a building better fitted for the needs of the time.

The first plans of school rule and studies,as far as they can be known, are very simple, and have a certain youthful ouch and a pretty classical turn that are quite characteristic of what we know of the Foundress's youth. There is a hint from Fenelon's Education des Filles here, and a suggestion of Madame de Maintenon's practical ways there, but there is no ancien regime about it. There is a free, unpretentious, simple way of looking at education, from its mainspring in religious teaching to a demure little paragraph on the necessity of dancing which has all the freshness and charm of a new beginning, and the impress of a mind transparently good, free from all pedantry and full of faith in the future.

Disappointments came later; but the more Mother Barat gained in experience, the more she learned to value this lovable, troublesome work of education, the more she loved the children; until, in the last years, she said that they were, with the Sacred Heart, the one interest of life for her; a two-fold interest, but one and the same, since the value of the children lay in that they were children of God, and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.

When Blessed Madeleine Sophie died in 1865 she left the immediate management of affairs in the hands of her young "Vicar General," Mother Josephine Goetz, who was elected second Superior General a few months later. Her character contrasted markedly with that of the Blessed Foundress, but the most complete understanding existed between them. Young as she was, she had held with faithful devotion the position of "eldest daughter;" for the first companions of the Foundress were almost all dead, and the "second generation," over which the Mother mourned as having been "too quickly made perfect," also seemed to have been swept away. She felt a great solitude round her. Mother Goetz had been the attentive disciple of her last years, gathering up the ideas for the future which the Blessed Foundress could not carry out, and making it the duty of her life as Superior General to put them in execution. Mother Josephine Goetz was Alsatian by birth; grave, thoughtful and studious by character; a great reader, a deep thinker, a singularly thoughtful observer of human nature. She had been for several years Mistress of the General Novitiate, and this had helped to fit her for taking up the work of government when the Foundress laid it down. Her plan was principally one of consolidation, and the completion of the system of training of the young religious for the work of education by the organization of a course of studies. Mother Goetz only governed eight years, and at her death was succeeded by a Belgian Superior General, Mother Adele Lehon.

The Society of the Sacred Heart entered, with her, on a new period of expansion. During the life-time of the Blessed Foundress, it had already tried its wings beyond the homeland. It was only eighteen years old when the first members left for America under Mother Philippine Duchesne, one of the first and best-loved companions of the Foundress; now "Venerable" since the Cause of her Beatification is well advanced. It was a bold and rare flight in those days, and a laborious work, long unsuccessful, to establish the new Institute in America; but such high confidence and true devotion could not fail; America is now realizing the long tried hopes of the Venerable Mother Duchesne.

There were houses of the Sacred Heart in Rome, in Piedmont, in Switzerland, in Belgium and Holland, in Austria and Germany, in England and Ireland, in Spain, Poland and the West Indies, before the Foundress died. There were vocations from all these countries; and the young Society was affirming more and more that its mission and message was Catholic and not national.

Mother Lehon's most active years had been passed in Rome and other cities of Italy, where she had seen the events of 1859, and of other troubled years. She brought to the government of the Institute a precious inheritance of devotion to Rome as the center of Catholic life, and also a courage with much experience of revolutionary troubles, that helped her through years of disturbance and menace which never altered her peace of mind, and allowed her to go on founding, building and extending, though she knew that many things which she founded might be swept away in the next storm; so they were, but most of them after her time.

There was again a pause after her death; for nine months Mother Augusta von Sartorius ruled the Society, and died, as she had foreseen, under the weight of a burden that was too heavy for here sensitive nature.

The storm that was gathering in France against the religious Orders broke during the government of her successor, Reverend Mother Mabel Digby. It fell to her to provide for two thousand, five hundred religious, turned out by the French Government, and to find or found for them houses and work elsewhere, keeping for them their full religious life and observance, and losing "none of those who had been given to her" in this great out-going from forty-four houses. She had the privilege of opening a new tabernacle elsewhere for each one that she was obliged to close, and she has left on record two remarks which will remain as a traditional standard of value if similar circumstances should occur again: "We must not hold to our houses more than out Lord holds to them Himself;" and: "What would be the loss of all our houses in comparison with one deliberate infidelity on the part of one of us?"

The gust of wind that swept over France was not the first dispersion that had befallen the Society of the Sacred Heart since its beginning. It had been driven from Piedmont in 1848, from other places in Italy in later troubles; from Switzerland, very early in its history, with a decree of banishment, "the barring of the door," which has never since been unbarred; from Germany in the Kulturkampf; and there, also, after forty years, the door is still locked and barred.

But these losses have been compensated by gains; the last blast has carried, not dead leaves, but living seed far and wide, and often i t has fallen on good soil in places of promise. Vocations shaken out of the home soil have struck root again in distant lands.

Other members, jealous of the honour, have been allowed to volunteer with them, or have been sent with the strong support of obedience, more happy than if they had volunteered. They have planted houses of the Sacred Heart in Japan, on the highlands of Columbia, on the uncertain ground of Uruguay, where local troubles are constantly threatening to blow the seed away again. They are more firmly rooted in more stable soil in various parts of America and Europe; they have been carried out to many islands, and from all far centres they affirm that it is good to be there, and cry to Europe that the harvest is great and labourers few, and beg for more help to gather it in.

From Heaven the Blessed Foundress must rejoice to see so many of her dearest wishes accomplished, glad to see her children counted worthy to suffer some hard blows in the cause of God's kingdon, glad to see them thrive on persecution, and think themselves happy to be sent to the ends of the earth, glad to see vocations come up year after year, if somewhat diminished in number, from the countries from which her children have been driven, at least more true and tried by the additional sacrifice for country without any assurance of return, or even of seeing the Society return in their lifetime. She must be glad above all for the wonderful protection of God, confirming the confidence which she always felt, which we must always feel, that He specially loves and protects what must ever be to her and to us, "this little Society."

"Great things are done by devotion to one idea." -- Cardinal Newman.
"The work of the morrow will largely consist of the impossible of today." -- H. Plunkett.

It belongs to living things to be in motion and to undergo modifications. Immutability belongs to inanimate matter; to "still life," or to death. A high degree of vitality is generally accompanied by more marked changes, and at the same time by a stronger hold upon the unchanging identity that underlies all modification. So, among human beings, strong personalities are most entirely and permanently themselves; and, without fear of losing themselves, can challenge the currents of circumstances to play upon them, adapt themselves to new conditions, and come back to their own to face the more searching scrutiny of father and mother and kindred, and prove that they are still "of the blood." Change has not passed upon what was deepest down in their souls, but the discipline of change has called out its deepest response. They have changed; but that change was growth. They are unchanged; and that unchangeableness is their truth. Weaker characters, similarly exposed to influences from without, are in more danger of losing themselves, and, as it is said, "drop out of their family." and are absorbed into another class of life and manner of thinking. They come home changed in themselves, and scarcely recognizable.

Life is the school in which personalities are tried. As the individual so the religious Order is tried in the school of life; but its school is in the contemporary events through which the whole Church passes, and in which her saints are formed, her champions tried, and her religious Orders tested and proved and drawn on in the way of perfection.

These religious Orders, in their rise and growth, must go through vicissitudes similar to those through which individuals are tried and trained up to their full power. Without such experience and conflict they would remain incomplete, and incapable of carrying on their members to the perfection of their calling. Their life is not allowed to remain primitive and uncomplex, as it was for most of them in the earliest years. Then they lived as children do: almost forgetful of yesterday, and hardly conscious of tomorrow beyond a hopeful determination to live and do something with it when it comes. But there comes a moment in the life of a child when this way of living must change. It becomes more conscious of itself, less simple, less careless, at first sight, less beautiful. It is between two stages, like a fruit tree in May; the blossom is away, the fruit not yet come. The stage is critical, unbeautiful to those who look on without a stake in the results; they call it the "awkward age," the "difficult years," and other disapproving names. But to those who really care, the gardener for the fruit tree, father or mother or educator for the child, and for the young creature itself, who is being carried on by the current of years, this stage has all the thrill, the terror and the rush of a crisis. The child outgrowing childhood is divided between a longing to be true to what is best, and an imperious command from within to be itself. To see that these two are the same thing is a solution that comes later on, and harmonizes the perplexing dissonance.

This is not the only critical stage of life, though it is the one most watched and studied. In a sense it is through this period that the Society of the Sacred Heart must make its way at present. Owing to the great age of the Blessed Foundress it has been postponed longer than for other religious Orders. But now the very last members who have known her are passing away; and it is said to be a critical moment in the live of any religious Order when those members, the last link with the Foundress, have disappeared. There is a certain wistful uncertainty about it, as when parents die, and the children, just coming of age, are seeking a new center of gravity, eldest boy or eldest girl must have great self-questioning within, a solitary self-examination on personal disinterestedness and a heightened sense of responsibility in looking to the future. Then there are stages of further growth and periods of quiescence to be gone through, each with their own alarms; is the growth true to its kind? Is the quiescence normal rest or inertness? Never, at the moment of going through an experience, can we fully understand it; part of its discipline is that very uncertainty. Yet, neither in the individual life, nor in the growth of a religious Order, need the fundamental peace be disturbed if its trust in in God; it is on Him alone that both must count "through the changes and chances of this mortal life," to bring them to the end of their being.

Probably every religious Order when studied from within, and as its perspective begins to lengthen, can recognize such distinct periods of advance and rest in its history. It may be that in them is found something of its distinctive rhythm; and to catch the rhythm is a great advance towards understanding the whole of a mind or of a life. Some advance by imperceptible progress; steady, with imperceptible intervals of rest. Others mark their progress with more accentuated beats appearing less consistent, but in reality perhaps only giving forth a more marked rhythmical stroke. It goes or comes like deep or quick breathing; it pulsates like the stroke of oars; or it rises and falls like the incoming and outgoing tide irresistibly drawn on, and then allowed to lapse back into the heart of the deep, only to be called forth again, and to gather itself back and collect its waters once more to their centre. Orders in which the mixed life is followed, blending contemplation and action, have necessarily a more marked rhythm in their history. At one time they will make great advances, extend their activities more widely, found new houses, make experiences of new forms of work, at other times the strength of the Order will be drawn inward, to the perfecting of the inner life, and what goes hand-in-hand with it: the full perfection of community observance. This is the common fund of strength and life from which all must draw according to their needs, to which each one must bring back the success of failure of their outer work , and where all must renew the waste and refresh the weariness of spirit which comes over them in the stress of external activity. Not only daily for each member, but period by period for the whole, these advances and retreats are needed; from the centre to the circumference, from the circumference back to the centre.

Again, in each religious Order there are, besides the regular rhythmical movements of outgoing and in taken breath, other and less measurable currents of though and feeling that traceable in retrospect, but hard to discern at the time, affecting widely the whole Institute. Sometimes they coincide with the growth and decline of certain influential personalities, especially if their influence is exercised in centres where the younger members of the Order are congregated. At other times comes the echo of a more general movement which is felt in other religious Orders, or in certain countries, or in the whole Church. Sometimes it is a trace of conflict, or controversy; not harmful, for it keeps the outlook vigilant on the side of danger; sometimes it is the first breath of a new spring in the spiritual world, and brings the joy and thrill of higher hope and aspiration into a whole region or throughout a whole Institute. So the Decrees that came from Rome in 1905, concerning frequent and daily Communion, were indeed a new spring, and carried a resistless impulse of fresh vigour to the very soul and centre of religious life for communities of women; and, from the first months, their influence could be almost measured "in quietness and in confidence;" in the disappearing of unrest and questionings; in a more perfect unity of spirit. So again, in England, within the last few years, who has not felt that a new current has been infused in to the very springs of spiritual life; that the old shadows are passing away, and things undreamt of coming true; that God has again more visibly pitched His tabernacle among us; that His word is more clearly heard, His spirit is more intimately in our midst, and this especially in what concerns the inner life of souls? Who can say whence it comes? It is not an external movement, but a whispered word; heard by ears that are ready to catch it, and inspiring the spiritual writings and teachings of these years in a way that gives them eager welcome, not only at home, but far beyond. In religious life souls are sensitive and quick to be reached by such life-giving winds, as they are by instinct on the alert to catch any news of the unseen world in which their interests are at home.

These influences of tides and currents of thought and action, and these spiritual vibrations, are very strongly felt in the Society of the Sacred Heart. It is by its very nature quickly responsive to spiritual influences, and a certain intenseness about its responsiveness is an indication of its distinctive feminine mentality, which will be considered later on.

External movements of thought, and the requirements of legislation as to the works in which it has a share, also affect it on the side of its professional development; but they do not, as the spiritual influences, reach down to the quick. They are accepted, but considered with a cooler survey. They evoke a response, but no deep vibration; they will have their time, and be succeeded by others, perhaps moving in a contrary direction; but they do not affect the high springs of life. This question, too, must be reserved for consideration in a later chapter. It remains, in this, to give some account of that under-structure of the Institute which does not change.

"Your Society is strongly timbered," said a Roman Cardinal, after reading its Constitutions, Nevertheless, it is not, strictly speaking, on the Constitutions that the Society of the Sacred Heart bases its strength, but on the living tradition by which it acts. The Constitutions are there, at the back, everything can be verified by them; they give a measure and an authentication of all that is done in the Society; the experienced eye of Roman Cardinals, experts in this examination of religious rules, may read from them the main features of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and religious priests, who have made a study of them, have often been deeply impressed by the spirit of the Constitutions as a whole.

And yet the Constitutions are to us only as Scripture is to Doctrine; we have beside them the living tradition which makes the rule of life.

In the life of the Blessed Foundress it happened more than once that the Constitutions of the Society of the Sacred Heart were asked for to furnish a basis for some other religious rule. And yet nothing came of it. She gave them; but they could not be taken. She foresaw it by some secret knowledge of her own which perhaps God had given. Some vital spirit, quickening the Rule, had been infused from the beginning, and had been in its first flower even before the Rule was written. There is a letter and a spirit, and the spirit takes precedence. The letter cannot serve without the spirit; but the spirit can flourish, at least for a time, without the letter.

It has been proved by experience, and it even commends itself in principle that this must be so. Give to a little group of fervent souls a ready-made book of Constitutions, say the Rule of the Society of the Sacred Heart, and let them, from the book alone, work out the way and spirit of their community life. It may be safely said that, however perfect the manner of life that they work out from the written Rule, it will not be the way of life of the Society of the Sacred Heart, either as to spirit or ideals, or means to its end. It will have some other countenance and wear a different expression. Only from living soul to living soul can the original spirit be handed down. From the text of the Rule alone, different interpretations would inevitably arise, adjusting the principles of training, where they are only indicated, marking otherwise the attitude towards the world and the frontier of its claims, balancing the contemplative and active elements in the whole, and allotting the proportion of the part that is common and that which is solitary and private.

By the living tradition and the written law the Institute has come to its full growth, with a marked personality of its own which belongs chiefly to the tradition, and some essential principles of construction which are found in the written Rule.

The Society of the Sacred Heart is governed by a Superior General, who is elected for life; and by an assembly composed of the Assistants General who form her private council, and of the Superiors Vicar corresponding to the Provincials in other Orders. The name of Vicar was preferred by the Consultors of the Sacred Roman Congregation who examined the matter, as rendering better their position of close dependence on the central authority of which they are representatives. The Superiors Vicar are also local Superiors, governing one house themselves, and entrusted with the supervision over groups of houses. According to the first idea there was to be only on e house of novitiate, that all the members of the new Institute might be trained in the same school, know each other personally, and , especially, be known by the Superior General. The increase of members, and other causes, before long made this impossible; there are at present eight houses of novitiate, six in Europe, one in the United States, and one in South America. The novitiate lasts two years, at the end of which the religious vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience are taken. These are simple perpetual vows. The renovation of vows, which is made twice a year by the young religious, and once a year by the professed, is a renovation of devotion, and does not imply that the vows were taken for a time and have expired. The five years following the vows are spent either in study, or teaching, or in the many other functions belonging to community life; they are looked on as a time of training, but also of active participation in the duties and responsibilities of the whole community. There is no continuation of life in the novitiate under the care of the Novice Mistress; the young religious is thrown at once into the life of the community, possibly to impress upon her from the beginning that she must put away the things of a child. At the end of five years, normally, there is a break, and six months of a second novitiate are given as a last probation to prepare for Profession. The final preparation for this act is to go through the Exercises of the long retreat of St. Ignatius, generally lasting for a period of twenty-six days. At the end of this time the Aspirants solemnly take again the vows of Religion, the choir religious adding to them a vow to consecrate themselves to the education of youth. This is not understood as an obligation of teaching, but of concurring in the work of education by the other many means of direct action in the training and education of children, or even by directing the intention of other kinds of service to the same end. Both choir religious and lay Sisters add to the vows of Religion a vow of Stability or perseverance in the Order, from which the Holy See alone can grant dispensation.

The mention of lay Sisters brings up a point that has called forth criticism. "Why," it is asked, "make two grades in the Order?" This difference is better understood in Orders of men, where the priesthood marks an unmistakable line of division. But, in an Order where duties and obligations are so much in common, why make a distinction, why not all be alike? Seen from the outside, why not? Yet, seen from within, there are reasons which give great value to the distinction. If none could be received except in the grade of choir religious, many would have to be refused admission who are now in great honour, and render untold service to the Society. It is true the choir obligation is light: only the short Office of the Blessed Virgin, except on certain Feasts and Octaves, when the Divine Office is said or sung in choir. But even this light obligation would be a burden to many, who willingly give their beautiful service and co-operation in other kinds of helpfulness. It may be said that these could be dispensed from the recitation of Office; but experience shows that such general dispensations take from the perfection of community fervour. Again, it would close the door against some precious vocations, rich with graces, and bringing a great dowry of virtues, whose mark replaces their signature in the Register of Vows. These marks are looked on with veneration, and and those who use them have almost a distinction of their own, a flavour of originality in their words, an insight into spiritual things, a shrewd sense of many practical aspects of duty and rule which gives them a value apart. They have not been filed down into uniformity by school-books and exercises. They will become more and more rare; yet to be able to admit them to the common life and happy privileges of religious observance is a grace on both sides. Why should they be refused? They are our sisters and friends greatly in honour, often patterns of religious perfection, and happier in their circumstances, perhaps, than many choir religious, for whom, as "the poor Mothers" they often express genuine sympathy and feeling. Undistracted as they are from spiritual interests by occupations that do not absorb their whole attention, they often attain a high degree of interior recollection, and their unburdened memory is singularly tenacious of all good and beautiful things that they hear. The union of spirit and sisterliness between them and the choir religious can only be known from within; but it is unnecessary to go further into the reasons for their being amongst us. We know that we could not do without each other.

Another matter that has often called forth unfavorable comment is the maintenance of enclosure in an Order whose principal work is that of education. It seems to many to be incompatible with excellence in the giving of instruction, that those who teach children should be cut off from the advantages so accessible now to all who seek them outside. There is a great appearance of truth in the allegation; and yet, for the education which is given by the Society of the Sacred Heart, even professionally, the drawback is more apparent than real. The Institute is not cut off from a great deal that is choice and excellent, which finds its way through privilege, through friendship and kindness, or through authentic echoes into the convents. It is not cut off from the necessary means when University degrees have to be acquired, and fair judgment proves that the children are not sufferers from the renunciation made of much that is attractive and delightful by those who educate them. On the other hand, the keeping of enclosure in its modified form, as it is kept in the Sacred Heart, enriches the first offering of those who enter with a sacrifice greatly felt in an age of almost over-much traveling and running here and there in search of something new. Later on, it is seen to give distinctness to the religious life; it keeps a certain freedom by its assertion of aloofness from the world, it gives concentration and strong community life, parallel to the family life, whose disappearance from the world is loudly regretted on all sides. It gives a reposeful atmosphere for children; just as that perfect home life, which is so happy for their growth of mind and body, and so steadying for their nerves. Above all, the Catholic instinct understands and likes it; and what the Catholic instinct understands and likes is certain to contain things precious for the whole of Catholic life.

Speaking from the point of view of education alone, His Majesty's Inspectors, often hypercritical by profession, but often also singularly open-minded in their appreciations, at first are inclined to find great fault with this remoteness from the world which we call enclosure; but, on more detailed consideration they have, not seldom, withdrawn their criticism, and recognized that by the side of some apparent difficulties, there are, even from the point of view of education, some very real benefits.

It remains to speak of the government of each house in particular, and of Superiors in the Society of the Sacred Heart. Superiors are appointed by the Superior General, and not elected by the community. There is no fixed term of office; they may be changed at irregular intervals, or maintained in their function for a long time; but the rule and principle exist that there should be changes. The removal of a Superior does not imply that things were not going well, but simply that the normal circulation required by the Rule is following its course. And as Superiors, so too all others in any office, may and even must be changed from time to time. The carrying out of this principle is vital to the best interests of all concerned. It keeps up religious freedom and detachment; it keeps human nature, so prone to settle down when things are happy, from forgetting that, if all are pilgrims and strangers on earth, religious are doubly so, having renounced home and the making of a home to follow One who had not where to lay His head. On the human side it gives experience; it mingles nationalities, it widens sympathies, it keeps the current of life from growing stagnant; it carries fruitful ideas from one house and country to another. Again, there are times of spiritual tension and weariness, and of physical depression, when a change of scene and surroundings is like new life. Without effort, it restores balance to soul and body, and sets their best energies free again. lastly, the children whose minds are most perplexed at this "hard saying' that separates them from those to whom they owe love and gratitude, can understand in the end that it works out to their advantage, since after a few years they find friends in all parts of the world.

The idea of governing a house of the Sacred Heart is not that of a formal administration, but more like that of ruling a family. And as in the family, practically, all depends on the mother, so in a religious community the whole house takes its tone from the Superior. St. Francis of Sales knew this, and found in it the chief reason which must delay the the extension of the whole Order of the Visitation; it was too rare to find mothers in whom all the necessary qualities were combined. The same consideration holds good elsewhere than at the Visitation; and those who have studied the obligations of Superiors as laid down in their particular rules, may well ask themselves where such complete qualities and virtues can be found. But, as God gives to mothers of families day bu day the knowledge and the growing experience to accomplish their duties, as He fills them with devotedness and gives light to their eyes to see beyond the surface of things, as, above all, He seems to give an almost irresistible power to their prayers, so does He give these needful gifts to those whom He sets over religious families.

Superiors represent the authority to whom the vow of obedience is made, and so they have the power of requiring and enforcing religious obedience in all things allowed by the Rule. The Rule is the measure of their authority to command; and the measure of the obedience that may be required of the subjects by their vow.