Family Covenant with God
Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary:
Birthplace of the Enthronement
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“In Jesus we find everything: his birth, his life and his death. That is our Rule.”
-Father Pierre Coudrin
History of the SS.CC.
"In the communion of the Church, the People of God, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar is an Apostolic Religious Congregation of pontifical right, founded by Pierre Coudrin and Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie."
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(Art. 1, SS.CC. Constitutions)
The Congregation is a community of some 1500 Brothers and Sisters who are present in more than 30 countries. The SSCC family also includes a Secular Branch associated with the Congregation. One of the well-known members of our SSCC family is Fr. Damien de Veuster, canonized in 2009, apostle of leprosy patients on the island of Molokai in Hawaii.
Our mission can be summarized as:
to contemplate, live and announce God's Love which was made flesh in Jesus, especially through Eucharistic Adoration and service to the most needy.
The Congregation celebrated its two hundredth anniversary of approbation in 2017. In this new Millennium the Congregation seeks to walk with the universal Church seeing this as an important time of personal and synodal renewal.
Founders
Our Congregation was founded by two people, Pierre Coudrin and Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie, to whom God conceded his grace in a special way. Since the early years and even today, we familiarly called them the "Good Father" and the "Good Mother".
At midnight on Christmas Eve in 1800, knowing they could face the guillotine for their actions, Pierre Coudrin and Henriette Aymer de Chevalerie professed their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience and officially established the Congregation. On January 10, 1817 Rome approved the Congregation and its Constitutions under the title “Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar”. The approval was confirmed by Pope Pius VII in his Bull “Pastor Aeternus” dated November 17, 1817. Brothers and sisters, united in the same charism and the same mission, we form a single congregation of pontifical right.
Brief History
Foundation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. (SS.CC.)
The Congregation finds it origins in the turbulent social upheaval and violent persecutions of the French Revolution. It was a time when the practice of religion was forbidden and took place at very great personal risk. In 1792, Father Pierre Coudrin, who had been secretly ordained to the priesthood, went into hiding in an attic of the granary of the Motte d’Usseau. One evening, he had a vision of being surrounded by a heavenly, illuminated group of missionaries dressed in white robes. It became his inspiration for establish a religious institute.
Vowing to “suffer everything, to give myself to God, to die, if necessary, in His service” Fr. Coudrin left the granary and began his underground ministry in Poitiers, France. In 1794, he met Henriette Aymer de Chevalerie, who had been imprisoned with her mother for hiding priests. While in prison, she experienced a conversion calling her to serve God. Together, the “Good Father” and the “Good Mother” envisioned a Community of men and women who would go everywhere and spread the message of God’s unconditional love, as manifested through the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.