Missionaries of the Sacred

May is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary plays a big part in the spirituality of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. Our founder had a deep devotion to her and considered her as the foundress of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart because it was in response to a novena to her that he got the permission and funding to start the order.  He called her Our Lady of the Sacred Heart honoring her loving relationship with God as her Father, with Jesus as her Son, and with the Holy Spirit through whom she conceived and bore her Son. Our special Missionary of the Sacred Heart prayers always include our devotion to her.  It was through the spread of the devotion to her that our founder got the money to build a seminary and to send missionaries to Papua New Guinea and support them.

Having attended Catholic Schools from grade one I was very much aware of devotion to Mary. I didn’t like the rosary because when we recited it together we rattled off all those Hail Marys just as fast as we could. We announced the names of the mysteries but I doubt if anyone gave them much thought or knew what they meant. I think part of that was because the names were Latin based words - annunciation, visitation,  presentation - which didn’t relate to our experience. We said them and knew what they meant in an academic way, but did not relate to them experientially. At any rate that is how it seemed to me.

As a young man I was trying to pray the Hail Marys attentively as I could, slow and easy and at the same time think about the mysteries. Because I couldn’t do all that at once the rosary felt like fifty sins. I didn’t try to do it very often. I felt relieved to read that Saint Threrse Liseaux found it hard to pray the rosary. Perhaps for the same reasons that troubled me.

I don’t remember when, but somewhere with in the last fifteen or twenty years I began to pray the rosary again, but in a different way.  I felt holding the rosary was like holding the Blessed Mother’s hand.  I simply said the Hail Marys without worrying about it. If I stopped to smell a rose, she smelled the rose. If I stopped to pet the dog, she pet the dog. If someone talked to me they became part of my prayer.  I simply talked to them, Mary and I listened to them, and, without knowing it, they became part our relationship. My prayer had moved from being an obligation or a ritual to a relationship. I now pray the rosary when I try to  walk four miles a day. I am at peace with it, and I believe more at peace because of it.  Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and I.

Mary said “Yes.” to her call to be a Daughter of God the Father, to be the Spouse of the Holy Spirit and the Mother of God’s Son. Under the cross she said yes to be in a special way the Mother of us all. We Missionaries of the Sacred Heart try to relate to her in all those special roles. The rosary helps me do this.

If you think becoming a Missionary of the Sacred Heart might be for you, you can contact our vocation director:

Peace,

Brother Joe Tesar, MSC