OUR HISTORY

The beginning of the Congregation of the Priests of the Heart of Jesus goes back to July 13th, 1877, a date in which Fr. Dehon, involved in a deep spiritual life, started his novitiate with permission of his bishop. After one year, on June 28th 1878, he professed his religious vows. In this way, in the shadow of St. John’s College the institute of the Oblates of the Heart of Jesus was born. Both college and institute are fruits of the spiritual and apostolic zeal of Fr. Dehon. Although the beginning was filled with prosperity and hope difficulties were also present: a fire destroyed the college and at the same time misinterpretations and misunderstandings provoked the intervention of the Holy See, resulting in the suppression of the newly founded institute. This difficult test made the founder humble and ready to manifest clearly his spirit of faith and abandonment to the designs of providence. Thanks to this attitude, Fr. Dehon was authorized to restart the institute, raising the same structure yet now on a more solid, evangelical basis. That moment was like a spring after the dark night of “Consumatum est”. It was during this difficult time when the name of the institute had to be changed. Although the first name – Oblates of the Heart of Jesus – was much more preferred by the founder, expressing more perfectly his spirituality, from 1884 the Priests of the Heart of Jesus became the official title of the Congregation.

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OUR SPIRITUALITY

Considering the evangelical vision of our founder, Fr. Dehon, we can discover and experience in the open side and of the wounded heart of Christ, our Saviour, the unique and grateful love of God who saves.
Welcoming the Spirit, who makes us new creatures, we want to return this love by following the life of Jesus and living the evangelical counsels. We want to join in his perfect oblation to the Father along with our brothers, imitating the total donation of his life on the cross. And we want also to be ready to imitate Mary in her complete availability to the project of God, offering all that we do, especially our selves and our lives, for the service of the Kingdom.
In this way we offer our humble collaboration to the reparatory work of Christ, serving in the mission of the Church in constant attention to the most lowly and bringing the love and reconciliation of God, especially to those who are in most need of love.
We try to live in our fraternal communities the new communion possible in Christ, uniting our strengths and making of our persons a mutual gift. We nourish and strength our vocation of love and reparation in the Eucharist and in Eucharistic Adoration, contemplating his supreme gift for the salvation of humanity and for the glory of the Trinity.

Fr. Dehon says:

“Announce so ardently the love of God manifested in the Heart of Christ as a sign and centre of this divine reality. Show to all the broken man with many tribulations and questions, the crucified and risen Christ, the supreme certainty of God’s love. I am sure that for your part, you will be always renewed in the promise of fidelity and watchfulness to contribute at any time for the good of souls and for the building up of the Church”.
“But be fully faithful to the teaching of the Apostolic See. Be witnesses to the love of Christ in adoration and the Eucharist, in a penitential life and in the reparation of the evil that weights over the world. God doesn’t know what to do with our wisdom or our works, if we don’t give to him our heart”.

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At the Heart of the World

Wherever our work takes us, we continuously discover a world troubled with evil yet ever seeking the fulfillment of its deepest aspirations: truth, justice, love, freedom (See Rule of Life, n. 36).

We recognize that our vocation is, as Pope John Paul II reminds us, “always compelling because more than ever, today’s society needs to be prodded into contact with the Heart of Christ where peace, serenity, comfort and pardon can be found” (06-14-1989).

In living out our vocation, it is our desire to give witness to the primacy of love in the world and to bind ourselves without reserve to achieving a new humanity in the Heart of Christ (see Rule of Life, n. 3). We, the Priests of the Sacred Heart, often introduce ourselves as “Dehonians” in affectionate reference to our Founder, the Venerable, Fr. Leo Dehon, a genuine apostle of love and reparation to the Heart of Christ. We are committed to living out and sharing Fr. Dehon’s charism, spirituality, and works in the church and in the world.

Our Congregation appeared in 1878 and spread quickly because its life reflected a continuous response to the social and spiritual expectations that people held. Our presence today in the world is somewhat modest when compared to the urgent needs that humanity has of faith and healing. But with the assistance of the saving love of Christ and the maternal protection of Mary, we are able to accomplish necessary and useful things wherever we are: missions, parishes, specialized movements within the church, teaching, youth work, the press and mass media, social apostolates and human welfare on behalf of the poor, the working class, and castaways.

We dedicate our life and our energy to the Lord to proclaim the Gospel of Love and to serve our brothers and sisters particularly in those situations and areas that are the most troubled and needy.

Our religious experience is at one and the same time a mission and an offering, perhaps an invitation, to anyone who is moved by the Holy Spirit and senses a call to give themselves totally to affirm the Reign of Love that exists among peoples and nations and to bring about the Reign of the Heart of Christ.

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At the Heart of God

“I leave you the most wonderful of treasures: the Heart of Jesus. He belongs to all but has special tenderness toward those consecrated to him and are given over wholly to his love” (Spiritual Testament of Fr. Dehon).

“As disciples of Father Dehon, we want to make union with Christ in His love for the Father and for people the principle and center of our life” (Rule of Life n. 17).

In all that we are and do, in all the different situations and works we find ourselves, we Dehonians are called to enter into the advancement of redeeming love in a spirit of oblation so as to join our lives and the lives of all human beings to their origin: the Heart of God.

At the Heart of the Church

The vocation of a Dehonian, which is centered on the mystery of the Heart of Christ from which the Church takes its origins, puts us at the very heart of the Church as “prophets of love and servants of reconciliation.” “By its very nature our Institute is an apostolic institute; and so we readily place ourselves at the service of the Church” (Rule of Life n. 30).

Our authentic service to the Church is based on a life of prayer and oblation. It is expressed through our ministry to workers, the lowly and the poor, our missionary activity, and our efforts in priestly and religious formation. According to the signs of the times and in communion with the life of the Church, we want to contribute to establishing the reign of justice and Christian charity in the world. We join our efforts to those of Jesus that the human family, sanctified in the Holy Spirit, might become an offering pleasing to God. (cf. Rom.15:16 and Our Rule of Life, n. 31-32)

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Where do we live and work?

There are over 2300 scj priests and brothers world wide working on five continents in 38 countries.

AlbaniaArgentinaAustria

BelgiumBrazilByelorussia

CameroonCanadaChile

CroatiaD. R. of the CongoEcuador

EnglandFinlandFrance

GermanyIndiaIndonesia

IrelandItalyLuxembourg

MadagascarMexicoMoldavia

MozambiqueNetherlandsPhilippines

PolandPortugalScotland

South AfricaSlovakiaSpain

SwitzerlandUnited StatesUkraine

As a congregation we divide ourselves into provinces, regions and districts for purposes of government. A growing list of provinces, regions and districts maintain their own web sites with information specific to our work in that area and in local languages.

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What do we do?

[30] By its very nature our Institute is an apostolic institute; and so we readily place ourselves at the service of the Church in its various pastoral works.

Although our Institute was not founded for a specific work, it gets from the Founder some apostolic orientations which characterize its mission in the Church.

[31] This mission, for Father Dehon in a spirit of love and oblation, entailed eucharistic adoration, as an authentic service of the Church (cf. Notes Quotidiennes, 1.3.1893), “and ministry to the lowly and the humble, the workers and the poor” (cf. Souvenirs XV), to proclaim to them the unfathomable riches of Christ (cf. Ephesians 3:8).

With this ministry in mind, Father Dehon gave great importance to the formation of priests and religious.

For him missionary activity was a privileged form of apostolic service.

In all this his constant concern was that the human community, sanctified in the Holy Spirit, became an offering pleasing to God (cf. Romans 15:16).

This text is taken from Our Rule of Life. If you would like to read more about our spirituality and charism you can link here to a site maintained in North America by scjs in Canada and the United States, who have placed this document on their web site.