BFN Province and the Sophie Barat Centre in Joigny have created a video that beautifully recounts the story of Madeleine Sophie and the founding of our Society.

On October 17, 1801 in Amiens, Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat and two companions founded the first Community and first School of the Society of the Sacred Heart, officially founded on November 21, 1800 in Paris, in rue de Touraine (Maison Duval).

The sixteenth-century Villa Lante in Trastevere is one of the Society’s most historically significant buildings. For nearly two centuries, it has been a place where the Sacred Heart sisters have retraced Madeleine Sophie’s footsteps. Learn more about its design and history here.

“Sophie Barat showed inventiveness and mobility when dealing with epidemics, and her practical insight led her to take decisions quickly.” Read more about Sophie’s response to the epidemics of her time in this reflection by Phil Kilroy rscj.

On June 4, 1836, St. Madeleine Sophie moved into a new motherhouse in Paris and consecrated it to Our Lady…

In response to queries about the châsse of St. Madeleine Sophie, we have put up this photo-summary of events after her death.

The complete writings of Rose Philippine Duchesne, published in French in 2017, have now been published in English by the Society of the Sacred Heart.

The recent reports from the General Chapter have called our attention to the other passengers who crossed the Atlantic with Philippine in March to May, 1818. Here are some of the things we know about the other four RSCJ and some of the other passengers.

In 1779, Madeleine Sophie Barat was born in Joigny, France as fire raged in houses nearby. Truly a child of fire, Sophie’s heart was captivated by God from an early age, and she was drawn to a life of contemplative prayer. At the same time she recognized that post-revolutionary France had a pressing need for transformation through rigorous education and a spirituality of the Heart of Christ. Sophie and four companions made their first vows in 1800, giving themselves to a form of religious life which combined the contemplative and the apostolic….

Rose Philippine Duchesne was born in Grenoble, France in 1769. After preparing for her first communion at the Visitation convent nearby, her desire to give her life to God led her to join the Visitation community, a cloistered, contemplative order, despite her longing to serve God in missionary lands. In the aftermath of the French revolution, her convent was closed by the government. For ten years Philippine served the destitute of Grenoble as she searched for God’s desires for her.