Priests of the Sacred Heart

Venerable Father Leo John Dehon was born in LaChapelle, France on March 14, 1843. He studied law at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Although his family wanted him to practice law, he wanted to pursue a vocation to the priesthood, a call he had felt since his youth. He went to Rome to complete his studies in philosophy, theology, and church law, earning a doctorate in each of these fields. On December 19, 1868, he was ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Soissons. He founded the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart (SCJ) on June 28, 1878. He loved to work in the different ministries in the Church, promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart through love and reconciliation, offering assistance to local clergy, working in the mission, and social concerns. Father Dehon died in Brussels, Belgium on August 12, 1925. The Congregation grew throughout Europe, America, Africa, and Asia and is now working in 40 countries.

The SCJ presence in the Philippines began with the arrival of the first SCJ missionary group to serve the local Church in Mindanao on May 17, 1989 and later in Manila. They have one big parish in the Diocese of Pagadian, in which their Novitiate House is located. Another parish is located in the Prelature of Ipil, and a sub-parish in the Diocese of Cagayan de Oro in which a minor seminary is also located. The SCJ theological house located in the Diocese of Novaliches, Quezon City, involves its members in aiding chapels in the Divine Providence Parish in Payatas. At present, the District has 16 priests, 2 of them Filipino, 1 brother, 1 deacon, 24 scholastics, and 7 novices.

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Missionary Sisters of the Queen of the Apostles

The Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Queen of the Apostles (Societas Missionalis Sororum Reginae Apolostolorum, SRA) is a Roman Catholic Missionary Society which was canonically established in Vienna, on July 1, 1923.

From 1872 to 1876 the German Jesuit priest, Antonius Maria Bodewig worked in India as a missionary. Seeing the sad situation of the women, children, and above all, the widows, he wanted to found a missionary congregation for their liberation. He took keen interest in it and took many initiatives for the same. His approach was several decades ahead of his time and he had to face severe opposition and did not get the permission from his local Ordinary to actualize his dreams.

In 1905, Father Bodewig sent a group of brothers to Vienna, with a prophetic word “Your future is in Vienna”. Paul Sonntag, a former member of Father Bodewig’s association, came to Vienna in 1906 and zealously promoted the work of Father Bodewig’s vision by publishing his writings and new information about India. In 1909 he published the mission magazine “Light and Love” in view of promoting interest for the Indian mission. Dr. Theodor Innitzer, one of the Professors of the Vienna University supported Paul Sonntag’s undertaking. With his assistance, Paul Sonntag established the new missionary association under the title “Catholic Mission Work for India”. In 1923 Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl approved the establishment of the new Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the “Queen of the Apostles”. Theodor Innitzer was appointed as the first Superior General of the male branch. In 1925, for practical and administrative purpose, the male branch was separated from the female branch. On January 8, 1927, the first heralds of the young missionary Congregation embarked from Naples to India. They reached Bombay on January 24. Until 1949 the Congregation remained under the diocesan jurisdiction. On April 7, 1949, Pope Pius XII elevated this to the status of a Congregation of Pontifical right.

In 1928, the present motherhouse of the female branch was established in Vienna. During World War II, those in India did not have any contact with those in Europe. Hence in 1940, the 12 sisters who were then in India began to recruit new members from India. Since 1965, Indian sisters were active in Europe. On September 27, 2000, the first Indian sister, Sister M. Callista Panachickel was elected to the office of Superior General of the Congregation.

Beside Austria there are 106 convents in India, 4 in Germany and 1 in Italy. In 1983, they extended their mission work to the Philippines. Now there are five convents. Since 1992, they are also present in Eastern Europe, Slovakia. Today, there are 840 sisters working
in different parts of the world.

Overseas, the Congregation cares for the social welfare of the people through schools, adult literacy programs, hospital and health centers. In Europe, the sisters render their services to the sick. They also teach in kindergartens and function as pastoral assistants.

The Missionary Sisters of the Queen of the Apostles (SRA) are called to proclaim the compassionate love of God in the work of Renewed Evangelizaton. The congregation is present internationally in countries like Austria, Germany, Italy, Africa, Slovakia, India and the Philippines (Quezon City-Novitate Formaton House, Cebu City, Zamboanga City and Basilan).

Urged and inflamed by the compassion of Christ who said “I have compassion on the crowd because they are like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mathew 9:36), the congregation opts to go “where the need is great and to serve in love”. The spirit of availability and generosity make the congregation ready to go to any point of the world where a door is opened, to proclaim the Good News of God’s compassionate love, even to places where others dare not to go.

Like the experience of its founder, Father Antonius Maria Bodewig, German Jesuit, the co-founders Cardinal Innitzer, Cardinal of Vienna, Austria, and Father Paul Sonntag, SRA could be compared to the seed that fell to the ground, and out of the furrows of death it grew into a living tree that stands stretching out its branches on the fertle ground of the church.

The congregation serves in LOVE through supporting the following: catechesis, formal and non-formal education, social work (community development), inter-religious dialogue, health care (hospitals, dispensaries & mobile clinic), family life apostolate, basic ecclesial community (BEC), women apostolate, retreats, assistance to the out of school youth, support to the Lay Associate-Queen of the Apostles, and other ministries that need assistance.

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Daughters of Mary

The Daughters of Mary (DM), Mother of the Church Institute, is a Diocesan Religious Institute founded by the late Archbishop Most Reverend Teopisto V. Alberto, DD for the Archdiocese of Caceres in Naga City on October 11, 1966. Its primary aim was to provide women religious to teach catechesis in public and private schools in the said Archdiocese. As time went on, its apostolate was expanded to include family ministry and assistance to diocesan and parish offices. As the institute started to grow in number and requests for assistance from other dioceses started to come, other mission houses were opened in other areas not just in the Bicol Region.

The sisters believe that every mission house opened is God’s providence sent to them through the kindness and generosity of His instruments. Tandang Sora was one such story. In 1977, the Congregation was already present in the Archdiocese of Manila, with its mission house then located in Quiapo, Manila. At that same time, its sister congregation, the Holy Face Sisters founded by Mother Therese Vicente and also the DM’s collaborator was also operating in Manila. In order to give way to its sister congregation, the DM closed its mission house there in 1986 and looked for a new place in Metro Manila. It so happened that a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ponciano, and Mrs. Marlene Icatar, offered their house to the sisters rather than to leave it idle and on May 31, 1986, the DM’s Tandang Sora Mission House was formally opened with Sister Delia Mendones as its first local superior. Sister Delia is a sibling of Mrs. Marlene Icatar. The Formal Decree of Establishment from His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin was issued on June 27, 1986. With the creation of the new Diocese of Novaliches in February 9, 2005, the SLRP, where the DM Mission House belonged, was transferred under its jurisdiction. The Decree of Recognition was then granted to the community by His Most Reverend Antonio R. Tobias, D.D., the Bishop of Novaliches.

The main apostolate of the sisters is to give catechesis at Culiat High School. They also offer their services to SLRP by taking charge of the upkeep of the parish church and giving recollections to different religious organizations and to public school teachers. In their desire to reach out to more families in the neighborhood, they established the Little Flower Nursery and Kindergarten which was later renamed the Marian Formation Center. In 2011, this Formation Center will be celebrating its 25th Foundation Anniversary.

The DM’s twenty two years of existence in Tandang Sora, from 1986 until the present, brought different batches of sisters who were assigned to do their mission in the parish. Presently, the sisters assigned in the area are: Sister Aurora Gucila from Pampanga, acting as local superior and her members are Sister Pudenciana Miralo and Sister Mamerta Miralo, both from Tabaco City in Bicol and are biological sisters. Working quietly, yet with the grace of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the DM community has already bore fruit. In 2000, one lady from the Parish itself, entered the convent in Naga City leaving behind her stable job, her family and the lifestyle she was used to. Sister Elena Tristan Aguilar professed her perpetual vow last May 3, 2008 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Peñafrancia in Naga City with the joyful presence of her family, relatives and some SLRP parishioners.

The sisters are requesting for prayers and any spiritual bouquets that can be offered for the immediate processing of their application for the Congregation’s pontifical approval in Rome.

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Adorers of the Blood of Christ

"We have engraved in our minds and in our hearts:
Charity, Charity, Charity toward God and toward our dear neighbor.”
- St. Maria De Mattias, founder of the Sister Adorers of the Blood of Christ

These words contain a life plan. They are words that Maria de Mattias, woman of the 1800s, grasped, desired, lived and passed on to generations of women all over the world. Maria de Mattias was born in Vallecorsa, a small town of the Papal States, in what is now Lazio (Italy), on February 4, 1805. As a child and adolescent, she experienced very profoundly the climate of terror and violence generated by Napoleonic revolutionary ferment and the spread of banditry. For Maria, the blood of Jesus poured out for the reconciliation “between heaven and earth”, an eloquent sign of the deep tenderness of God for humanity, is the only way to salvation. This deep faith in the redemptive power of the blood of Christ ingrained in her a charism that expressed a “culture of life” as opposed to the “culture of death” (violence, oppression, and injustice which threaten human life and personal dignity) in which the society was immersed.

Ministries

Teaching, social work, and primary evangelization are among the instruments of a spirituality whose core is the Paschal Mystery, the mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, and the proclamation of hope and life in all situation in which the human being experiences the drama of pain and the anguished search for meaning. The same spirit lends color to every apostolic commitment of the more than 2000 Adorers scattered in twenty-seven countries in all the continents. The Adorers wear the symbol of the heart with a cross mounted above. Drops of blood are engraved on the heart to remind them that they are called “to retract (draw in) and reflect a living image of that divine charity with which the Blood of Jesus was shed and of which it was and is a sign, an expression, a measure and a pledge.” They journey with the people on the road of life, in every corner of the world, in every changing reality in space and in time, in the story of humanity.

The Beginning in the Philippines

The Sisters Adorers began their mission here in the Philippines since 1988 caring for the abandoned children. In the early 90's, two sisters from the congregation met with the late Jaime Cardinal Sin who identfied an area of Tandang Sora in Quezon City as the Congregation’s apostolic headquarters and entrusted them with its care. Shortly thereafter, a house in Culiat, Tandang Sora was then purchased and was called “Maria De Mattias House”. The two sisters immersed themselves into the parish realities, working especially for the youth and vocation ministries. Other sisters joined the newly opened ASC mission in the Philippines thereafer. Sister Angela Colapinto, one of the sisters who arrived on October 30 1991, brought a consoling presence to the elderly and the lepers as she made them her apostolate.

Realizing the need for a more concrete presence among the very poor, the ASC established the “Giovanni Merlini Apostolic Center” on August 20, 1996. Soon after, the center expanded to handle the listening and catechetical needs of the poor. In due time, and in collaboration with an NGO and a group of German volunteer doctors, medical services were introduced. Later in 1999, a daycare center was added to complement the center’s various services. Two years later, in April 16, 2001, the ASC established the “St. Gaspar Orphanage” located in Marikina, Rizal to cater to the educational needs of the abandoned children that they took in their care.

The story of the ASC sisters in the Philippines continues as they strive to be faithful to the gift that they receive from the Spirit to spread charity to this land hungry for Christ’s redemptive love.

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