Introduction
Out of the international Society of the Sacred Heart Special Chapter of 2021 came the call to reorganize for life and mission and to find ways to share resources across boundaries. The provinces of the Society are coming together to form eight new provinces. Our future province is the combination of three provinces: United States – Canada, Mexico and Antilles (Puerto Rico, Cuba and Haiti).
The histories of these provinces in the Society are rich and linked to one another since the early foundations of the Society in North America. Below you'll find extended histories of Society foundations in Canada, Cuba, Haiti Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States as well as notable figures in the Society who played significant roles in these regions.
Foundation in Canada
Foundation in Cuba
Foundation in Haiti
Foundation in Mexico
Foundation in Puerto Rico
Foundation in the United States
Maria Stanislas Tommasini, RSCJ
Today we would hail Stanislas Tommasini as a woman who lived interculturally. She was truly a person who transcended place and culture, but at the same time lost her heart to every country and house of the Sacred Heart in which she lived. Although Stanislas probably never heard the word interculturally, she lived it her entire religious life. At the core of her vocation was her desire to love God and to do God's will. For her, this meant literally going to the ends of the earth to bring the love of the Heart of God to five different countries, from Italy to France, to Manhattanville and elsewhere in the United States, to Cuba, to Canada, to Grand Coteau in Louisiana, to Mexico.
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The Novitiate at Grand Coteau: International Crossroads
It may be hard for a reader with geographical savvy to swallow the thesis that Grand Coteau, Louisiana, was once an international crossroads vitally connected to Canada, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. From the perspective of this writer, aided by the instantaneous nature of e-mail and the Internet, international access and communication are easily possible, but surely in the frontier days of the nineteenth century, this could hardly have been the case.
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Mary Ann Aloysia Hardey, RSCJ
To write a brief life of Aloysia Hardey is not an easy task, since so much is known, and so much has already been written on her. Mistress General at the age of seventeen, superior at twenty-four, and the equivalent of superior vicar at thirty-four, then first American Assistant General, she was in positions of governance from the time of her final profession. One bishop said of her that she was born to rule; another, that she was a woman who could govern the United States.
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Anna du Rousier, RSCJ
One of the great missionaries of the Society of the Sacred Heart who was influenced by Saint Philippine Duchesne was Anna du Rousier. Destined to carry the Society to a new continent and to spread the devotion to the Heart of Jesus, she had received thefire from Philippine and with it enkindled the hearts of many. Her life and work prepared her to be the one to carry the fire ofGod's love to distant lands
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