Closure of the Diocesan Stage in the Process of the Beatification of Henriette Aymer de la Chevalerie

    Monsignors, sisters, brothers and friends:

 

    At this time, in the name of all the sisters and brothers, I would like to express the joy felt in the Congregation on the occasion of the closure of the diocesan stage in the process of the canonization of Henrietta Aymer de la Chevalerie, our Good Mother. It was a quiet ceremony, true, but one of great importance because it marks a first step in the long road toward the ecclesial recognition of the holiness of our beloved Foundress.

 

    I would like to take this opportunity to thank, in the name of the Congregation, everyone who contributed in different ways, the realization of this diocesan process. The list is long: first of all the Archbishop of Paris who named the historic Commission, then the members of this Commission, the former Postulator, Katherine Francis Miller, Fr. André Mark, Vice Postulator, the people who witnessed before the tribunal, Fr. Bernard Couronne, author of the recent biography of the Good Mother and all those, who, in one way or another, generously collaborated in carrying out this “inquiry” the result of which has been entrusted to the new Postulator, Fr. Alfred Bell, to bring to the Congregation for the Cause of Saints in Rome.

 

    In the hope of seeing this cause move forward, we put our trust in the Lord, sure that He will do his Work. Henrietta said: “Trust the Lord, and all will be well”. We hope that it will be so.

 

    Now I address you, Good Mother.

    Look at us united before you. We come to greet you and to give thanks to God for your life and for the radicalism of your response to his call. You were a woman who believed in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit used you to found a new religious family in the Church to be a sign of the merciful Love of God for his people who were going through difficult situations of poverty and confusion in France in the aftermath of the Revolution. In the midst of numerous dangers, you, Good Mother were always faithful to the Church whom you served.

 

    You were a woman of prayer. In your hours of adoration before the tabernacle, you allowed yourself to be shaped by the Heart of Jesus whom you loved above everything else. In Him you drew strength to respond to the needs of your time, surmounting difficulties of all sorts that the birth and the development of the Congregation presented. To found a house was for you was to found adoration and a free school. You loved the poor, giving them preference when starting an Apostolate.

 

    The soul of the community by your welcome and concern for each sister, you deserved to be called Good Mother by the primitive community.

 

    Your way of integrating faith in life, is a seed which is not lost, but which has sprouted, simply but vigorously throughout 200 years, inspiring our following of Christ to the present time. Your heritage, experienced by the sisters and preserved and developed by the general chapters, continues to instill committed responses regarding the urgent needs in our world.

 

    Today, we, the sisters of the Sacred Heart, inheritors of your spirit, Good Mother, affirmed in our last general chapter that in our diversity, the ministry of adoration, the community of communion and commitment to the poor are the aspects of our charism that unite us and are the basis of our identity throughout the world. Our vocation is our treasure and God blesses us by having called you to found this congregation in which we have found our place in the Church.

 

    In this house in Paris from where you loved and governed the growing congregation, we want to thank God for having given us in you such a good mother and teacher of life.

 

    Today, we ask you to intercede before the Lord for each one of you daughters and each one of your sons that we may be, wherever we are, a faithful reflection of the Love of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.