First steps of Heart’s Home USA

Cyril was a Heart’s Home Missionary in the Bronx, where the first US Missionary house was set­tled. He shared his ex­pe­ri­ence with us:

"How did you arrive in New York?

For a long time Rev. Thierry de Roucy want­ed to launch a foun­da­tion in New York, fol­low­ing Mother Teresa’s word that this ci­ty was in great­est need of Compassion.

In order to pre­pare the foun­da­tion, Rev. Thierry de­cid­ed to send Aude, a former Heart’s Home Missionary . She ar­rived in April 2003 and met Rev. Michael Sepp, the pas­tor of Sacred Heart and Saint Francis of Assisi parish­es in the Bronx. In October 2003, the first Missionaries ar­rived to live in the house that used to be the Rectory of Saint Francis of Assisi.

What is your life?

As for all the Heart’s Home com­mu­ni­ties in the world, our life is based on three re­al­i­ties.

First, we have a strong prayer life. We pray ev­ery day the li­tur­gy of the hours and the rosary, we at­tend dai­ly mass, and have a one-hour ado­ra­tion of the Blessed Sacrament in our Chapel. We have a spe­cial de­vo­tion for the Blessed Virgin Mary and for the Eucharist, which are the cen­ter of our lives.

The sec­ond aspect of our Mission is to be a lov­ing pres­ence in the neigh­bor­hoods where we live. Our charism is to share the life of the peo­ple that are around us and to of­fer our friend­ship to any­one who needs it. We al­so go ev­ery week to the Bronx Lebanon Hospital and in the Woodycrest cen­ter to reach those who suf­fer from AIDS and some­times we ac­com­pa­ny them in the last mo­ments of their lives. We try to outreach the kids of the neigh­bor­hood by go­ing to the play­grounds to play bas­ket­ball with them. We are al­so in­volved in the parish through cat­e­chism class­es and the Holy Hour on Wednesday morn­ing.

The third aspect of our com­mit­ment is the com­mu­ni­ty life. We live in the same house and we should live this as a great ex­pe­ri­ence of com­pan­ion­ship. We al­so take turns for shop­ping, cook­ing, wash­ing the dish­es…etc."