The foundation of the

Australia-New Zealand Province

Beginnings:

It was a Marist priest who had been cared for by sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Grand Coteau, who urged Bishop Pompallier to send for the Society of the Sacred Heart. The Bishop, on a visit to France, asked Madeleine Sophie Barat for help. She had to refuse at that time but gave him hope that it could be possible in the future.

A group of five Religious of the Sacred Heart reached Timaru on January 19th, 1880.

In 1905 the Society spread from the South Island to Island Bay in Wellington, in the north, then to Baradene in Auckland in 1908. Timaru was entrusted to Suzannah Boudreaux, a native of Louisiana and the child of a poor family. Suzannah had been adopted by Philippine Duschesne and it was through this connection Suzannah realised her love for the Society and made her vows at seventeen. She went to new York where for thirty years she worked with Mother Hardey, ready for anything and 'taking people by the heart".
Timaru was closed in 1935 but the fervently loyal alumnae kept a centre in the South Island to which the Society would later return.

New Zealand was founded from the West, Australia from the East.
(Extract from:Society of the Sacred Heart. Margaret Williams, RSCJ)

In 1879, when the Parkes Government was preparing a Bill to make education "compulsory, secular and free", Archbishop Roger Bede Vaughan, resolved to maintain the Catholic system, invited several congregations to send teaching religious to Sydney.
In 1880, he asked Father Bixio, S.J., on a visit to Europe, to transmit his request to the Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart in Paris.

The outcome was that on April 1st, 1882, a group of five sisters embarked on the S.S. Orient, and after a long sea voyage of 39 days, arrived in Sydney on May 9th. The Superior of the group was Febronie Vercruysse, a Belgian, three were English, all converts of the Oxford Movement and one Irish .

The Sisters expected to start a day school, but eventually the Archbishop requested a boarding school, as there were few in Sydney at the time. For six weeks, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan made them welcome while they searched for a locality. Finally, with much urging from John Hughes (backed by some financial help) the choice fell on Claremont on the hill above Rose Bay.

From its beginning, the Society of the Sacred Heart was guided by a fourfold aim:

• to establish Boarding schools for the higher education of young women

• free schools for the primary education of the poorer families

• retreats for lay people; it is this aim which gives explicit expression to their charism

• to regard all contacts with secular people as a means of spreading the love of the Heart of Jesus.

By 1888 there were three boarding school and three free schools, supplied by personnel coming every few years from Europe and by some local vocations.

After 1904 when the anticlerical French Government confiscated 42 Sacred Heart schools and properties in France, 2,500 religious had to find homes in other countries, and the convents in Australia and New Zealand opened their doors to many of these.

It was this fact, rather than its origin, that gave the Society of the Sacred Heart its French ethos in the early years of this century.
 
In 1907, Pius X requested the Jesuits and Religious of the Sacred Heart to send personnel to Japan in response to the request of the Emperor for Christian higher education, and this foundation became part of the Sydney Vicariate from 1908. From Tokyo that year the Society spread to Shanghai.
This meant that many RSCJ from Australia and New Zealand became missionaries to the Orient, even after it became a Province in its own right in 1926.

Foundress: St Madeleine Sophie Barat