St. Mary Parish at 700 Columbia Dr, Durand, MI 48429 US - About the Brothers of the Sacred Heart

Brother Lucien Blain - Brothers of the Sacred Heart

The Brothers of the Sacred Heart will be asking for your prayers and financial support at all Masses this weekend. (August 15th/16th 20090). Your contributions will especially benefit young men who are preparing to enter religious life and needy students in the African countries of Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Please be generous.

The Brothers of the Sacred Heart are religious educators who staff schools and other establishments in over thirty countries. Your contributions will especially benefit young men who are preparing to enter religious life and needy students in the African countries of Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Please be generous.

While moving about his native city of Lyons, France, Father Andrew Coindre often saw poor and neglected children roaming the streets. They were the innocent victims of the upheavals of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras who today we would call "street kids." A man of action, Father Coindre with the help of concerned Catholic men and women soon organized shelters and educational programs that admitted orphans, youngsters without parental support, and delinquents in need of a helping hand. On September 30, 1821, a group of men associated with this ministry, formalized their commitment to serve youth by taking religious vows, thus becoming the first Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Shortly after the foundation of the congregation Father Coindre identified a second group of needy children from poor and remote rural villages. Catholic schooling was unavailable to these youngsters and again he immediately addressed this need by sending Brothers into these areas to provide them with a primary education.
These first ministries of the Brothers shaped the apostolic character of the congregation from that day to this. As the Preamble to their Rule of Life states a Brother of the Sacred Heart has a call "to rescue young people from ignorance, to prepare them for life, and to give them a knowledge and love of religion."
Early on in the life of the congregation its leaders recognized that the Brothers of the Sacred Heart were called not just to serve the youth of France, but to serve youth throughout the world. In 1847 a group of French Brothers arrived in Mobile, AL, where they took charge of a group of twenty orphan boys. Beginning with this first missionary effort the Brothers of the Sacred Heart have moved on to open schools and organized programs that benefit young people in over thirty countries.
In the 1930's, following the example of that first group of missionary Brothers, American Brothers of the Sacred Heart began founding schools in Africa. In the next thirty years they opened educational and other institutions in the countries of Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Today Brothers in these countries, most of whom are African, direct and staff high schools, minister to street children and AIDS orphans, and run agricultural projects. Their work is a testimonial to the vitality of the Church in Africa and witnesses to the fact that the vision of Father Andrew Coindre is very much alive. The Church in the United States plays a vital role in this missionary enterprise. The generosity of American Catholics has assisted the Brothers in Africa to develop their various institutions and programs, helping to insure that African youth have the Catholic values, education and skills to look to the future with hope and confidence.

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