Dear MSC confreres,

     Greetings to all of you from our General Administration on this feast of the Annunciation of Our Lord, the day that celebrates the “YES” of the Word incarnate and the “YES” of the one in whom that Word took flesh.

     As you know, our Chevalier Family has chosen this year 2009 as a time to celebrate the Marian title of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.  It was about 150 years ago (1857 or 1859, both dates were given by Fr. Piperon),  that Fr. Jules Chevalier first announced this new title for Mary.  It was 150 years ago (1859) that construction of what is now the Basilica of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in Issoudun began.  It was 140 years ago (September 8, 1869) that the statue of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in that basilica was solemnly crowned by a representative of Pope Pius IX.

     This new Marian devotion quickly spread around the world often preceding the Missionaries and the Daughters as they strove to make the Sacred Heart of Jesus known everywhere.  More than just another Marian devotion, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart has an important place in our Spirituality of the Heart and is the great treasure in the spiritual heritage we have from Fr. Chevalier.

     Once again, we would like to invite all of you to give special attention this year, in your prayer  and in your ministry, to this important part of our spirituality.  We invite you, as individuals and as communities, to do something special to mark this anniversary and to deepen our appreciation of this new way of seeing Mary.

     We suggest four tools at our disposal to help us in this celebration:
•    The booklet Our Lady of the Sacred Heart prepared by a committee of the Three Generalates.  This simple collection of short texts around nine dimensions of our devotion to Mary can be used for personal prayer, for community reflection and sharing or for a novena to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.  The text is available in English, French and Spanish on the Generalate website: www.misacor.org   The text in Dutch, German, Portuguese, Indonesian, Italian and Korean is available from the General Secretariat: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it   We ask all major and local superiors to see that all confreres and interested lay people receive a copy.
•    The Cor Novum team has prepared a special Spirituality of the Heart session in Issoudun from July 19 to August 15.  It will have a special focus on Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.  For all the details consult the Cor Novum website:  www.cornovum.com   We hope that many MSC, especially those who are more directly involved with our Marian devotion, will participate.
•    Fr. Peter Malone, MSC, of the Australian Province has prepared a short study on Our Lady of the Sacred Heart which includes seven films in which Mary has a special role.  This can be an excellent way of organizing group reflections on our Marian devotion and of promoting devotion among our laity.  Fr. Malone’s text is available in English, French and Spanish on the Generalate website: www.misacor.org
•    The book Our Lady of the Sacred Heart by Fr. Jan Bovenmars, MSC, published by the General House in 1996 in English, French and Spanish.  This is an excellent resource for anyone giving talks or conferences on the devotion.

    There exist many other studies and articles which have been published in our magazines or have been prepared for local celebrations.  If you have any that might be of interest to other confreres, please feel free to send them to the General Secretariate.

     We take this opportunity to wish you all a very prayerful Holy Week and a joyous celebration of Easter.  May we all live the mystery of the Lord’s passion death and resurrection with Mary as our guide and model.


In Corde Jesu,

Mark McDonald, MSC
Narciso Abellana, MSC
F. X. Wahyudi, MSC
Faustino Fernández, MSC