“As Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart we form one family in the Heart of Jesus. We support and encourage each other in our religious commitment and act towards one another with genuine affection and consideration …” (FDNSC Constitution 38)

In keeping with our vowed commitment, we live a simple lifestyle. We respect individual differences and seek to live our unity in diversity, particularly in international communities.

Our unity is affirmed when we pray together and share in the ordinary activities of life. It is a sign of the presence of Jesus, living and active among us. We are encouraged by Father Chevalier’s often repeated encouragement: “Let there be no strangers or foreigners amongst you”.

Mary did not receive the Son of God only into her body, but into her entire being as woman. By Jesus becoming human, God assures us that the unique condition of woman is an essential element in his extraordinary and wonderful plan of coming to live among us.  When we reflect on the way Mary herself sees her life journey, we see that she creates space in her being in order to accept the human Jesus and all the Good News of salvation. She enters into a personal relationship with Christ, developing her gifts of tenderness, perceptivity, and listening.  Mary makes her special gifts of intuition and sensitivity effective in the service of Christ’s mission.

As the first disciple, Mary is a role model for each of us in our relationship with God, through the heart of Jesus, and in our relationships with others.

In gratitude for all the great things the Lord has done through her, our founder, gave Mary the title Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. This title focuses on the relationship of love between Jesus and Mary, the same relationship of love we are invited to participate in and have with each other.

“Father Jules Chevalier gave us our name to honour Mary as Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the one chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus.  By her response in love and in total availability to the Holy Spirit, she gave Jesus his humanity, following him even to the cross.” (FDNSC Constitutions No 4)

To live and make known the message of God’s unconditional love, Jules founded two religious congregations, the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Our mission, like that of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, is reflected in our motto:

“May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be everywhere loved”.

In fulfilling this mission the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart spread from France to Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Central Pacific. Today we number more than 1000 sisters ministering in 27 countries on 5 continents.

The spirituality of Jules Chevalier MSC was driven by his conviction that God’s love is boundless and unconditional. It embraces every person, regardless of who we are, where we are, or what we may have done. This conviction coloured his way of living, the spirit in which he lived his life, his spirituality.

God’s greatest expression of love for us was the gift of his Son, Jesus, who in his human heart showed us God’s love for us and for each person. God asks only that we, with our human heart with innate goodness together with its limitations and failings, love God in return. Furthermore, God asks us to love each person who comes into our life with a love that reflects God’s love.

We find in Jesus’ heart the full range of emotions – hopes and fears, joys and sorrows – that we experience. We see in his life how to use the opportunities of daily living and our ordinary interactions with people to show forth God’s love and make it tangible in our world.  

Father Jules Chevalier's motto, "May the Sacred Heart of Jesus be Everywhere Loved!" became the driving force of his life. As well as establishing two religious orders, he was very aware of the strength, power for good, and spirituality of lay people.

By the time of his death, he already had more than a million people enrolled in the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. Today we use the word ‘Associates’ for those who find themselves at home in our spirituality and who want to find guidance, support, and companionship along the journey, as well as rejoicing to be for others "the Heart of God on earth".

It is within their own life situation that our Associates fulfill their special mission of love. Their way to the Heart of Jesus and to the hearts of others is their prayer and understanding help in needs that arise in the here and now of their lives.

Associates are however also one with the Sisters in their mission, in fact, extending it far beyond the sphere of the Sisters' influence.

The 'belonging' of Associates in our Congregation is expressed in our Constitutions approved by the Church.

O.L.S.H. Associates are found in all States of Australia and in many other countries where our sisters work.

For further information, write to:

For further information, write to
The National Director,
Associates of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
OLSH Convent
2 Kensington Rd, Kensington NSW 2033
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Ametur Newsletter of the Associates

The vision of Father Jules Chevalier, to make the Sacred Heart known and loved everywhere, led him to the deep desire to found several congregations. He also wanted a separate branch of laity, who would be formed and share in the spirit, charism and mission of the congregations.

In 1854 Fr. Jules Chevalier founded a Society of Priests and Brothers whom he called Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (M.S.C.). Twenty years later, he founded us, a Congregation of Sisters called Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (F.D.N.S.C.). In 1900 the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart were founded in Germany by a Dutch MSC, Fr. Hubert Linckens. These three religious families, with their lay members form the Chevalier Family.

Nowadays 3 religious congregations with an international network of laity are all part of one Chevalier family:
 

There are over 1000 Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart throughout the world and the Congregation is present in twenty seven countries.

The most recent places we have gone to are Angola 2005 and Vietnam 2012.

Australia

We have sisters presently living/working in

• New South Wales
  Kensington, Blacktown, Burradoo, Daceyville, Rosebery
• Victoria
  Airport West, Bentleigh, East Bentleigh, Elmore, Werribee
• Queensland
  Corinda
• South Australia
  Kilburn, Prospect, Roxby Downs, Whyalla Norrie
• Northern Territory
  Alice Springs, Darwin, Bathurst Island (Wurrumiyanga), Port Keats (Wadeye)

Internationally

We have Australian sisters presently working in:

• South Africa
• Papua New Guinea
• Kiribati
• South Sudan
• Italy
• Japan

Fr. Jules Chevalier, msc founded the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at Issoudun in France, on the 30th August, 1874. Basic to his charism was the awareness that the whole of creation is the gift of God's love, and that everything that exists is being sustained and cared for by God's tender compassionate care.

For Fr. Chevalier, the Heart of Christ was a true image of a God with a loving heart who calls people to have 'heart' for one another.

Jules Chevalier was born in Richelieu, France on 15th March, 1824. His parents were Jean-Charles and Louise Chevalier. They were not at all wealthy. In 1841, his father was recommended for the job of caretaker of a tract of forests, the administrator of which offered to pay for Jules' seminary training. Jules was much older than his classmates because of his late start, but he eventually finished his studies at the minor seminary and in 1846 he moved on to the major seminary in Bourges. This was quite close to the town of Issoudun which was to play a large role in our story.

Jules Chevalier was drawn to the love of Jesus' Heart during his seminary days, and he dreamed of a Religious Family - women and men who would take the Good News of God's love to one and all.

Fr. Chevalier loved Jesus' words:

I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were blazing already.
[Luke 12:49]

He wanted to involve as many people as possible in his work and by the end of his life there were over a million lay people enrolled in a confraternity he founded.

We were founded by a French priest, Fr. Jules Chevalier, who founded the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) in 1854, and ourselves in 1874.

In 1882, Fr. Chevalier appointed Marie Louise Hartzer in charge of the community. On 9th September, 1884, the first profession ceremony took place, including that of Marie Louise. The Congregation now had 5 professed members. Just two years later, in 1884, on October 17th, five sisters set out for the great mission of Oceania and  landed in Sydney on January 31, 1885. Their destination was the missions of Oceania.

Two had made their vows a few hours before. They had the great sum of 25 francs between them, (out of which had to be bought a pair of shoes for one person in Marsaille)! What faith!

They were met by Fr. Navarre, MSC who had come from Thursday Island to greet them, and by Fr. Joly, a Marist who was waiting to take them up the Harbour to Villa Maria, the headquarters of the Marists. A small house on the property was placed at their disposal until they could have a convent of their own.
Also meeting them was a 19 year old girl, Margaret Sweeney, from Ryde, who became the first Australian Daughter of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Archbishop Moran offered a place to the MSC/OLSH if they established a parish and school. They accepted Botany. Four of the sisters were French, but one was Irish, Sr. M. Xavier Ryan. Sr. M. Xavier began a small school beside the church on Botany Road in April, 1885. It was here that the work of the OLSH sisters in Australia began. It has taken us to all States except Western Australia.

Margaret Sweeney was the first of many young Australian women to join the Daughters. Like her, these too often left our shores to work overseas. As well, almost 300 OLSH have gone to work in the Northern Territory. Some of the places we have been to include...

• Papua New Guinea… beginning in 1887

• Kiribati… beginning in 1895
• South Africa… beginning in 1953
• Philippine… beginning in 1968
• South Sudan… beginning in 1995
• Japan… beginning in 1995

Our founder encouraged us to embrace the risk of ‘mission without limits’. Our history is full of heroic stories of our sisters in far-flung places of the world. And here in Australia too, our story is extraordinary. We began in Sydney in 1885. In 1886, we first went to Thursday Island. Then followed more foundations in NSW. In 1905, four sisters left for Mathina in Tasmania, followed shortly after by more foundations in Tasmania. In 1908 the first five Daughters left for Darwin. In 1916, a foundation was made in Queensland, in 1929 in Victoria, in 1947 in South Australia.

At present, Sr. Marife Mendoza is the leader of our International Congegration.

In gratitude for all the great things the Lord has done through her, our founder, gave Mary the title Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. This title focuses on the relationship of love between Jesus and Mary, the same relationship of love we are invited to participate in and have with each other.

“Father Jules Chevalier gave us our name to honour Mary as Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the one chosen by God to be the mother of Jesus.  By her response in love and in total availability to the Holy Spirit, she gave Jesus his humanity, following him even to the cross.” (FDNSC Constitutions No 4)