HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART IN PERU

To celebrate the New Year, Mary Sue Arróspide de Pinzás, the President of Peru, informs us that she has put a video on “you tube” about 148 years of presence of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Peru.

All the alumni have the possibility of discovering this video in their own language :

1. At the bottom right of the video, click on the settings icon (a cogwheel)
2. Then click on “subtitle”, and on the right on the “automatically generated language” (in this case, Spanish).
3. Then click on “automatically translate” and select your language.

SOLIDARITY BETWEEN ALUMNI IS NOT AN EMPTY WORD

Some of the alumni of our Sacred Heart schools are experiencing difficult living conditions for various reasons: health problems, unemployment, isolation, old age, misfortune, etc. Several of our national associations have therefore created solidarity funds to help them.

In Ireland, for example, the “Sacred Heart Past Pupils’ Benevolent Fund”, created in 1938 by a small group of former pupils and nuns of Leeson Street School, was able to give €94,000 (just over $105,000) to former pupils in need this year, thanks to the organisation of events such as reunions, coffee mornings, bridge tournaments…  (See https://www.sacredheartbenevolent.ie)

In other countries, such as the USA, the national association has developed and put online on its website “AASH Connections”, a software allowing the 50,000 alumni in the USA and Canada to connect with each other to offer services or make calls. (See http://www.aash.org)

We would like everyone to be able to benefit from these experiences, so we want to make them known. But we know that these solidarity initiatives are not the only ones. We therefore invite the former or responsible members of all your associations in the world to write to us to present what is being done in their country so that we can then publish a summary in a “news item” or in a future Newsletter.

I thank you in advance and look forward to hearing from you on the contact page of this site.

MPD

SPIRITUALITY

Sr. Dolores Aleixandre, spiritual advisor of AMASC offers you a meditation for this Advent 2021.

18 NOVEMBER : FEAST OF ST PHILIPPINE DUCHESNE

On 18 November, the Sisters and Family of the Sacred Heart celebrate St Philippine Duchesne.

Born in 1769 in Grenoble, France, she heard a call to distant missions at a very young age. She became a nun of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1801 and left for Louisiana in 1818. She died on 18 November 1852 and was canonised in 1988.

It was she who gave the congregation its missionary dimension. She gathered the first community of the Sacred Heart on the American continent. As the schools multiplied, she realised her dream: to go and live among the Potowatomi children (today, Pope Francis would say go to the frontiers). She is nicknamed by the Indians “the woman who always prays”.

Superior General Helen McLaughlin described her in a letter to the communities of Sacred Heart nuns on 1 May 1987 as follows:

« Who is Philippine for us? A courageous, sensitive woman, a religious of deep prayer, a friend of poverty and simplicity, a daughter loyal to the Church even in suffering, a pioneer of the future who dared to go where few others had gone before her.

What strikes me most, personally, is her ability to respond vigorously to events and difficult times, to accept and love a totally new and different country, a brand new way of life, to enter wholeheartedly into another culture, another language, another system of values, to appreciate and integrate them ».

IN BOUGOUDANG: THE NEW SCHOOL HAS BEEN BUILT!

In the “Solidarity” box on our homepage, you can see the short video sent to us by Sr Dorota Zych, and see the joy of the parents and pupils who will be benefiting from this new building. But let us not relax our efforts, school equipment, toilets, a dining room would still be welcome. The national associations have only one year left to join this project!

IN TOURS (FRANCE): THE THIRD MEETING OF EUROPEAN ALUMNI

After Vienna in 2013 and Madrid in 2016, the European Alumni met in Tours (France) for their third European Meeting.

From 6 to 9 October, the meeting took place, with about fifty participants. Unfortunately, because of the constraints imposed by certain European countries on travel, apart from a few Belgian and Austrian friends, very few European alumni were able to join the many French women present.

After having hesitated for a long time, the UFASC (Union Française des Anciens et Anciennes du Sacré-Cœur) which organised the meeting had indeed decided not to postpone this event which had already been cancelled in October 2020. This is a pity! However, the participants were able to discover many wonders of the region, including several châteaux of the Loire, to discuss their activities and expectations and to listen to a presentation of the AMASC by Jacqueline de Montjoye, the vice-president of our association. In addition, links were established between the Marmoutier establishment in Tours and those in Jette and Lindthout in Belgium.

SACRED HEART HERITAGE TOURS IN FRANCE AND THE USA

AASH, the American Association, has just published two remarkable booklets proposing tours of symbolic places of the Sacred Heart in France, the country of Foundress Sophie Barat, and in the United States, where the first great missionary of the Sacred Heart and second great Saint of the Congregation, Philippine Duchesne, was sent in 1818.

Do not hesitate to consult them for inspiration to organize your own trips to these countries that are highly emblematic of the Sacred Heart, or to design your own tours of discovery of places concerning the Sacred Heart in your country: cities of arrival of the first rscj, where there are rscj communities, schools, friendships, etc.

Cf. the site: https://aash.org

LET’S NOT FORGET BOUGOUDANG!

Yes, the new buildings of the small school in Bougoudang are already completed, and some of the little pupils are now sitting behind desks in their renovated classrooms. Sr Dorota Zych will send us some short videos about this, which we will soon post in the solidarity box on our homepage.

But it must be said that this has only been possible because of generous individual donors (in France in particular), AMASC and some national associations have contributed to this project: Ireland, Italy, France and Belgium… and there is still a lot to do!

AMASC has 36 national associations around the world. Many of them have not yet responded to the call to join forces to carry out the rscj project in Chad, each according to their means. In these times of pandemic, solidarity is no longer just an option, it is an urgent call for anyone who has received Sophie Barat’s values as a legacy. Let our hearts speak!

SOLEMNITY OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

The universal Church will celebrate the “Feast of the Heart of Jesus” on 11 June, a feast that commemorates the Divine Mercy, to which the Family of the Sacred Heart cannot remain insensitive. The Spiritual Advisor of AMASC offers you a meditation on this subject. Since 2002, this feast is also a day of prayer for the sanctification of priests.

ELECTION OF RHONDA MEEGAN AS AASH PRESIDENT

At its national conference from 22 to 25 April 2021, which took place by zoom, our friend Rhonda Meeghan, member of the AMASC Board of Directors, was elected as President of the American association for a 2-year term. AASH has over 40,000 alumni in 46 associations. Each year, nearly 1300 students graduate from the network of 24 schools in North America (including 2 in Canada).

THIRD MEETING OF EUROPEAN ALUMNI IN TOURS (FRANCE)

After a first cancellation due to the pandemic last year, the French association (UFASC) invites all the European alumni to meet in Tours from 6 to 9 October.

On the programme of this 3rd European meeting, which follows on from the one in Madrid (2016) and Vienna (2013), in addition to the usual exchanges between associations: the discovery of many treasures of Touraine: the castles of Chenonceau, Amboise and Villandry, as well as the abbeys of Saint-Martin and Fontevrault.

It is possible to register directly on the UFASC website: http://ufasc.fr

A SPANISH ALUMNA DECLARED VENERABLE

On 24 April 2021, Pope Francis declared the Spaniard Amparo Portilla Crespo (1925-1996), a former student of the Sacred Heart of Godella, venerable.

She was an exemplary wife and mother of a large family (11 children), very devout, a tireless worker, always joyful and generous, who showed a special predilection for the most vulnerable, the poor and the sick from a very young age. She defended those who were far from God, emphasising their qualities and excusing their faults, without accepting sin.

Amparo Portilla Crespo was and remains a model Christian woman in the midst of the world.

For more information on the life of the new Venerable: www.amparoportilla.org