France 1849
On February 24, 1849, the Institute of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary was founded to continue a shelter and an orphanage established by Father Gailhac in Béziers, France, and which had been in existence since 1834. After the founding of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in 1849, these works were gradually transformed and supplemented by a boarding school and a small dispensary in which both the children at the Mother House and the poor and outcast of Béziers were treated.
The orphanage, the preservation (successor to the shelter), and the boarding school were three distinct institutions, the first two being considered social welfare works. The same spirit animated them, but each had specific educational aims according to the place that each group would hold in society. The orphanage accepted children between the ages of six and ten. They stayed there until they were twenty-one years of age or until some member of the family took them. The specific objective of the orphanage was to educate the children to be good Christians and devoted employees. The preservation accepted girls between the ages of eight and twenty, who “for want of care or due to the behavior of their parents or because of the difficulties of their age, we are exposed to various dangers.” The aim of the preservation was to educate them in the practice of virtue and to provide the instruction appropriate to the position they would occupy in the world. The aim of the boarding school was two-fold: the Christian education of daughters of the well-to-do, and financial help for the social welfare works.
Other foundations established in France included those at Cambrai, Paris, Rennes, and Montpellier. Today, in France, the sisters are engaged in parish and school ministries, including an international school in Paris, and adult religious formation. The original Mother House in Béziers is an RSHM education and heritage center, staffed by a multi-lingual community of sisters from all parts of the Institute.
Ireland 1870
Within twenty years of the foundation of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Father Gailhac looked to Ireland as a place where its mission could be expanded. In 1870, ten religious, with Mother St. Thomas Hennessey as superior, left Béziers for Lisburn, a suburb of Belfast, which became the first foundation of the RSHM Institute outside of France. In Northern Ireland, Roman Catholics were a minority and poor. RSHM were invited by the parish priest and by his bishop to establish a school for girls and young women “of the poorer sort of people.”
Within months the sisters had opened a poor school and a paying school at the convent, and were teaching religion classes on Sunday to children, young girls, and women of all ages. When they opened a boarding school for young women, they also offered night classes three times a week for the poor women employed in the factories. Most of these women had left school at about nine years of age. In 1879, the sisters were asked to begin a school in Ferrybank, Waterford. Other foundations followed in Ireland in Dublin and Belfast.
Today sisters in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are engaged in primary and secondary school and college education. They also serve in parish ministries, prison ministry, and with homeless people.
Portugal 1871
At the invitation of Margaret Hennessy, director of the English Academy in Porto, three Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary and two postulants were sent by Father Gailhac to Portugal in September 1871. Strong anti-clerical feeling had been growing there since the late 18th century. The sisters in the first community in Portugal, which was to become the largest province in the Institute, were not discouraged by initial persecution and privation. Within ten years, the English Academy in Porto had moved to larger premises, and an elementary school for the middle class was added; a free elementary day school for the very poor was also established, and a daily meal and clothing were given to poor children.
In 1876, in answer to an appeal from some Catholic families, a school was opened in Braga. In 1886 sisters from Braga went to Chaves with the intention of opening a school for poor children.
After the death of Father Gailhac, other houses opened in Portugal at Viseu, Aveiro, Guimaraes, Lisbon, Coimbra, Fátima, Portalegre, Covilha. Today Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary continue the ministry of education staffing several schools. They are also present in rural areas throughout the country.
England 1872
The first English foundation of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary was made in response to an invitation from Father Thomas Kelly, parish priest of St. James, Bootle, Liverpool, who was looking for a community of women religious to help him to found parish schools where children could be instructed in the Catholic religion. A group of sisters was sent from Béziers to Liverpool in 1872.
Work got under way quickly and prospered, expanding to several other places: Barrow-in-Furness, London, Carlisle, Preston and Upminster. One group that profited most from the presence of the RSHM in England was the Catholic children from ages five to thirteen for whom the Education Act of 1870 made schooling compulsory. Throughout the Liverpool area, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary staffed numerous parish schools and, over the years, taught thousands of students.
In London, Liverpool, and many other areas of England, RSHM sisters are involved today in education, including an international school in London, school chaplaincy, counseling, retreats, spiritual direction, parish ministry, visiting the sick and homebound, and ministry with the homeless and with adults with learning disabilities.
United States 1877
When visiting Rome in 1874, Father Gailhac and Mother St. Croix, then General Superior, met Mrs. Sarah Peter, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and promised to send a group of Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary to the United States. Although Mrs. Peter died before their arrival in 1877, she made arrangements with Bishop John Loughlin for the RSHM to go to the Diocese of Brooklyn. Six Irish sisters, with Mother Basil Davis as superior, set out from the Mother House and arrived in New York on February 28, 1877. Arriving in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, on March 15, they took charge of the parochial school and began to teach catechism to young adults.
The sisters opened a paying boarding and day school, as well as a free night school for young women working in the mills. Under the leadership of Mother Joseph Butler and Mother Gerard Phelan, the educational ministry of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in the United States took form in active involvement in the parochial school system and in the establishment of private schools at all levels of education-primary, secondary, and college.
Foundations were established in New York City and Tarrytown, New York; later in Arlington and Richmond, Virginia; Ferguson and Florissant, Missouri; Rolling Meadows, Illinois; Boca Raton, Florida.
In 1923, in response to an urgent appeal by Bishop John J. Cantwell of Los Angeles, the first foundation was established in California. Led by Mother Cecilia Rafter, four sisters from New York and three from Europe established a school in Los Angeles.
Later, schools were established in California in Santa Barbara, Studio City, Palos Verdes, Montebello, and San Jose, California.
Today’s sisters in the Eastern and Western American Provinces are still engaged in education, as well as in religious instruction, retreat work, chaplaincy, campus ministry, legal services, advocacy for justice, and a variey of social services.They are present in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota, and california. They also have several communities in Mexico and schools in London, Paris, and Rome.
Brazil 1911
Revolution erupted in Portugal in 1910, resulting in the laws against religious congregations. Sisters were dispersed and, in some cases, imprisoned. In response to Mother Maria de Aquino Ribeiroís sense of calling, she and two other Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary set sail for Brazil in February 1911. Stripped of their resources, expelled from their convents in Portugal, they suffered in many ways. However, they were well received by the people of Brazil and, as other RSHM joined them, they established schools in Uba and Rio de Janeiro.
As their reputation as educators grew, their schools flourished: Belo Horizonte, Sao Paulo, Vitoria, Brasilia. Attentive to the wishes of Father Gailhac and his love for the poor, free schools were always attached to fee-paying schools. Today, sisters are also living and ministering to the poor in urban and rural areas. The RSHM International Novitiate was once located in Brazil.
Spain 1911
In 1911, during the period of anti-clericalism following the Portuguese Revolution of 1910, the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary opened a novitiate in Tuy for the Portuguese sisters. This novitiate remained until 1933. In 1953, sisters from the Eastern American Province opened an international school in Barcelona.
This school, which included kindergarten through secondary school, closed in the late 1960’s.
Italy 1930
While in Rome for an audience with Pope Plus XI shortly after her election as General Superior in 1926, Mother Joseph Butler was encouraged by Cardinal Vanutelli to open a school in Rome. After a long search, property suitable for a school was found. The first Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary arrived at the end of October 1930 and within a few months the building had been renovated and the first RSHM school in Rome was established on Via Nomentana where the bilingual Istituto Marymount is today.
The sisters in Rome suffered many deprivations during World War II. After the war, however, in 1946, a delegation from the U.S. Embassy approached the RSHM about opening an international school to serve the children of Allied personnel in Rome. Marymount International School opened in 1946.
In 1963, Mother Rita Rowley moved the Generalate, administrative headquarters of the Institute, to Rome.
For several years in the late 1960’s, sisters ministered in a small parish to the people of Cibrone (Como) in the north of Italy.
Today RSHM presence in Rome includes the Generalate, an Italian school, an international school, work in parishes, and ministry with those addicted to drugs, the homeless, trafficked women, and refugees.
Wales 1939
Penmaenmawr, on the North Wales coast, was known to the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in England as a holiday retreat. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the proximity to the Bootle docks of Liverpool made Sacred Heart of Mary Convent, Seafield a likely target for enemy bombers. The retired sisters living there moved to the house called Tan-y Foel in Penmaenmawr, Wales, which had been purchased the previous year.
Upon taking up residence there, the sisters assumed a share of responsibility for the spiritual care of the local Catholic population, especially the children, with particular regard to their religious instruction, which was not provided in the school they were attending.
The property remains under the care of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. It is now know as Noddfa, which means “refuge,” a place of welcome and peace, a place where one can regain energy. The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary hope that all the groups who come here will experience this in the comfort of the house and the beauty of the surrounding hills and sea. Noddfa welcomes those who care for the sick or handicapped in their homes, when they have an opportunity to have a break, as well as parish groups, women’s groups, and people who come for retreats and quiet times.
Canada 1943
In 1943, the Eastern American Province of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary opened a residence for students attending Laval University in Quebec.
The next year a finishing school was opened, and gradually elementary and secondary schools were added.
The RSHM taught in Canada for more than twenty years.
Colombia 1947
At the invitation of Archbishop Ismael Perdomo, two Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary from the Eastern American Province went to Bogota in 1947 to make preparations for a school.
The school opened in March 1948 and shortly after a free school and a social work center were established.
Within five years, the RSHM opened schools in Barranquilla and Medellin as well. Later the religious became involved in work in the rural areas. RSHM presence continued in Columbia until the mid-1980’s.
After the sisters left Columbia, the three schools continued under lay leadership that has maintained the RSHM mission and spirit. Today Colegio Marymount in Medellin and the Marymount Schools in Bogota and Barranquilla are members of the RSHM Network of Schools.
Mozambique 1952
In 1952, a group of Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary–nine Portugese, two Irish, and one Brazilian–led by Mother Ines de Jesus Teixeira, set out from Portugal and arrived in Quelimane where they opened the first RSHM African foundation.
The sisters immediately took charge of a school whose students came from Portugese families in Mozambique. They also started catechism classes, worked with native families, and visited the prison and city hospitals. In 1954, the first mission was opened in Morrumbala with a primary school for local children and a boarding school for girls.
The RSHM presence in Mozambique expanded to Dondo, where the first teacher training school for young Mozambican women was opened. RSHM communities were also established in other parts of the country, including Gurue, Chimoio, Maputo and Beira. In recent years, a number of Mozambican women have entered the congregation.
México 1954
In 1954, Mother Gertrude Cain, superior of the Western American Province, received a request from Bishop Joseph T. McGucken, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, encouraging her to start a school in Cuernavaca, Mexico. After assessing the possibilities of opening a school there, two Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary moved into an unfurnished house on December 8, 1957, and on February 9, 1958, classes began with 35 students.
The school grew and flourished under the leadership of the sisters until 1989 when a lay Board of Trustees was approved and began operation of the school in October the same year.
Zimbabwe 1956
On August 21, 1956, two Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary left New York for Umtali, Southern Rhodesia (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), to make preparations for the opening of a secondary school. The school, the first European Catholic school in the diocese, opened in January 1958. In 1963, sisters began teaching African students at the secondary school at St. Kilian’s mission, which was about ninety miles outside of Umtali.
Because of the danger, these schools were closed at the time of the war for independence. In 1996, the sisters in Zambia and Zimbabwe joined together to form the Zambezi Region.
Today, RSHM in Zimbabwe are present in Harare, Dangamvura (near Mutare) and Chinhoyi.Their ministries include teacher training, retreat work, hospice and bereavement work, HIV/AIDS ministry, and outreach to the local people.
All the ministries of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Africa give special attention to empowering woman and, in recent years, a number of African women have entered the congregation.
Attentive to the call of the Church and the Institute to serve those most in need, in 1974 a group of sisters from the community in Cuernavaca formed a new community to minister to orphans in La Institucion Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos in the same city. Since that time, three RSHM communities have been formed in Mexico to serve the poor, one in Mexico City, one in Cuernavaca, and one in Amacuzac.
Zambia 1966
In January 1966, two Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, Sister Agnes Hunt and Sister Odile OíMahony, left Ferrybank, Waterford, at the invitation of Bishop James Corboy of the Diocese of Monze, Zambia, to open a boarding school for girls. Later that year with the help of two sisters who joined them, they opened a school in Chivuna, a rural area of the diocese. The school flourished and has become known as one of the top academic schools in Zambia. Presently, it has 650 students, mostly boarders who come from rural areas with little transportation.
The sisters were also involved in the Chivuna Rural Health Clinic. The clinic was eventually handed over to the Holy Spirit Sisters, a native congregation trained by the RSHM.
Today the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary in Zambia are present in Lusaka, Choma, and Chivuna. They minister to the physically and mentally disabled and those with HIV/AIDS, and are also involved in pastoral ministry and education.
Zambia and Zimbabwe now comprise the Zambezi Region and have seen a number of young African women enter the congregation.