In 1836, a group of Sacred Hearts Fathers and Brothers were on their way from France to the missions of the South Pacific. As was the custom, they stopped off in Chile to prepare for the last stage of their long and arduous journey. Badly needing priests, the bishop asked them to stay. They refused, saying they had orders to go to the missions. He then commanded them to stay in Chile, promising he would write to the superior general to explain matters. And so he did.
Thus began the important mission of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in South America. Today they are to be found in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador. Among their accomplishments has been the establishment of the Catholic University at Lima, Peru, and at Valparaiso, Chile, besides other schools and colleges. But not the least of their achievements has been the formation they gave to the future founder of the Enthronment of the Sacred Heart in the Home.
Revolution and Reparation
At this point it might be well to say a few words about the congregation that has given two great priests to the world: Father Damien, the "apostle of Molokai," and Father Mateo, the "apostle of the Sacred Heart." It is difficult to understand the spirit that animated these two famous missionaries without knowing something of the religious family to which they belonged.
There was nothing prosaic about the beginnings of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. To appreciate this fact, imagine someone trying to establish a new religious order in the Yugoslavia or the Poland of today. [1956] This will give us some idea of the difficulties that faced Father Mary Joseph Coudrin in the terror-stricken France of 1793, when he laid the foundations of his new community.
The adventures of Father Coudrin in those days read like pages from stories of priests who penetrate into Moscow and even offer Holy Mass in the very headquarters of the dreaded secret police. Father Coudrin succeeded in getting in and out of the prisons, without the knowledge of the jailers, to offer Mass. How he succeeded was his carefully guarded secret.
In the library of the Irish Seminary in Paris, erected there because of the English persecution of the Catholic
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