Missionaries of The Sacred Heart - Vows

Vows

As members of a religious congregation, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart embrace the evangelical counsels, taking the three traditional religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Poverty means that all possessions are held in common and that no member may accumulate wealth. Chastity means more than abstaining from sexual activity and its purpose is to make the religious totally available for service; it is also a sign that only God can completely fill the human heart. For a member of a religious congregation, obedience is not slavishly doing what one is told by the superior but being attentive to God’s will by prayerfully listening to the voice of the person in charge. Ultimately, these vows are lived out within a community and bolstered by a relationship with God. Consequently:

Becoming a Missionary of the Sacred Heart doesn’t happen over night. Plenty of time and help is given to preparing us for a way of life that is certainly not ordinary! People interested in exploring if this way is for them usually journey with us for a time of Accompaniment. This is an opportunity to carefully and prayerfully get more of a sense of what we are about and come to know yourself better. If a person decides to join us he is helped along the many steps of prayer, study, reflection, living and working in our pastoral and missionary settings and sharing our way of life to try it out for size. All this happens before any commitment is made.

The actual process of discernment and formation differs slightly with each province, but the overall scheme is the same.