Heart’s Home Charter

A text from Rev. Thierry de Roucy, founder of Heart’s Home.

• What is the current situation
• What are the Heart’s Homes?
• Where should the Heart’s Homes settle?
• Who will live in the Heart’s Homes?
• What kind of spirit will drive the Missionaries?
• What will the Missionaries do?
• An Community of ecclesial communion
• Practical and financial considerations
• Sending Forth Mass
• The Responsibility in the Heart’s Homes
• The Heart’s Homes Organization
• A Community as weak as a child

What is the current situation

There are chil­dren who no longer smile.
There are chil­dren who are alone in the world.
There are chil­dren who are re­duced to eat­ing dirt and garbage to ease their hunger.
There are chil­dren who are sold.
There are chil­dren who are used for play­things by wealthy peo­ple.
There are ten-year-old chil­dren who are given weapons.
There are chil­dren who are tor­tured.

Whenever a child is treat­ed in this way, when­ev­er a child is caught up in such dread­ful si­t­u­a­tions, a black cloud ap­pears on our plan­et, a cloud that brings shame upon the whole of hu­man­i­ty. Even worse, when­ev­er a child is treat­ed in this way, the Body of Christ is af­fect­ed, wound­ed and dis­fig­ured.

To rem­e­dy this si­t­u­a­tion, gov­ern­ments take var­i­ous mea­sures; the United Nations Organization pro­mul­gates the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In ad­di­tion, thou­sands of or­ga­ni­za­tions and as­so­ci­a­tions have been set up, ei­ther civil or re­li­gious, in order to give as­sis­tance to chil­dren through­out the world.

Nevertheless, the needs are still huge! This is un­doubt­ed­ly why we have re­ceived the in­spi­ra­tion to cre­ate an­oth­er small or­ga­ni­za­tion of mer­cy, which we en­trust to your prayers. An or­ga­ni­za­tion that we hope will de­vel­op, be­cause of our un­lim­it­ed love for the chil­dren, as we un­der­stand that God is ful­ly pre­sent in their hearts. An or­ga­ni­za­tion which, we hope will de­vel­op, be­cause we be­lieve that chil­dren are the in­no­cent and vul­ner­a­ble teach­ers Jesus points out to us: “Unless you change and be­come like lit­tle chil­dren, you can­not en­ter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt 19: 3). It is an or­ga­ni­za­tion we hope will de­vel­op, be­cause we great­ly de­sire that the dig­ni­ty of chil­dren should be ful­ly ac­knowl­edged through­out the world. We give this or­ga­ni­za­tion, the elo­quent name of “Points-Cœur”, or Heart’s Home, (mean­ing a place where the heart’s love is pri­ma­ry). Top of the page

What are the Heart’s Homes?

It is in­tend­ed that Heart’s Homes will be small homes spread through­out the whole world. They will be sim­ple refuges, full of love and ten­der­ness, where any child (of the street) will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be loved, wel­comed, lis­tened to, and be re­spect­ed; where each child will be looked at in a way which will con­vey to him or her the warmth of love: “Jesus looked steadi­ly at him and loved him” (Mk 10:21).

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Where should the Heart’s Homes settle?

Heart’s Homes will be set up in any dio­ce­ses where the Bishop re­quests their pres­ence and are ready to wel­come them. The cho­sen area will be where the most un­for­tu­nate of the un­for­tu­nate, the most aban­doned of the aban­doned chil­dren are to be found. Heart’s Homes will be as sim­i­lar as pos­si­ble to the sur­round­ing hous­es, and those who will live in the Heart’s Homes will be called Friends of Children¹ (Missionaries). They will not ar­range, nor im­prove their home, so that it main­tains a uni­ty with those around it.

As soon as the Missionaries will ar­rive in the “k­ing-like dwelling” that Providence has grant­ed them, they will ded­i­cate a small room or space to prayer. This place will en­able them to turn unceas­ing­ly to God, but even more; it will en­able the chil­dren vis­it­ing them to dis­cov­er the con­stant pres­ence of God in their hearts. _{1.“Friends of Children” is a lit­er­al trans­la­tion of the French “Amis des Enfants”, which des­ig­nates the Missionaries.}

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Who will live in the Heart’s Homes?

In the be­gin­ning, Heart’s Homes will be found­ed by one or more Servants of Jesus and Mary. Thereafter, they may be found­ed by a group of young peo­ple, hav­ing al­ready lived through this ex­pe­ri­ence in an­oth­er place, re­li­gious from other Congregations or sec­u­lar priests. All of them will agree to re­spect the spir­it and ob­jec­tives of the Community.

Nevertheless, most of the Missionaries will be young peo­ple, com­ing from var­i­ous coun­tries, hav­ing re­ceived the call to ded­i­cate at least one year of their life to serve the chil­dren. Their vo­ca­tion will be awak­ened through talks, hand­outs, and ar­ti­cles. These young peo­ple will main­ly be seek­ers of God, en­dowed with a re­al abil­i­ty to adapt to dif­fer­ent lan­guages, cul­tures and cus­toms. They will be in good health, and be par­tic­u­lar­ly well bal­anced both psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Before they leave, those in charge of the Heart’s Home Community will dis­cern their ca­pac­i­ty. However, the Missionaries will not be re­quired to have any par­tic­u­lar qual­i­fi­ca­tions as far as ed­u­ca­tion, train­ing and psy­chol­o­gy are con­cerned. They will, how­ev­er, be re­quired to dare to give them­selves freely, and to try to love the­se chil­dren as God loves them “Love one an­oth­er just as I have loved you” (John 13:34).

Before leav­ing for the Heart’s Home to which they are as­signed, the Missionaries will have spir­i­tu­al prepa­ra­tion con­sist­ing in week­end ses­sions which will help them to clear­ly grasp the spir­it of the Community. In ad­di­tion, they may at­tend lec­tures and read books rec­om­mend­ed to them so as to gain an un­der­stand­ing of the coun­try to which they will be sent. And fi­nal­ly, it is nec­es­sary for them to speak the lan­guage of the coun­try where they will stay, in order to ex­press them­selves. Arriving in the coun­try where they will live, they will be wel­comed and helped by those who are al­ready set­tled in the Heart’s Home. For sev­er­al weeks, the “elders” will help them to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the mis­sion, fa­mil­iar­ize them­selves with the area, in­tro­duce the chil­dren to them, and share their own ex­pe­ri­ences. This time of tran­si­tion will en­sure con­ti­nu­ity in the mis­sion ac­com­plished by Heart’s Homes, and en­sure, as well, that the sud­den de­par­ture of some of the Missionaries should not wound the chil­dren’s hearts again. We may al­so hope that some of the Missionaries will stay longer than four­teen months, in order to cre­ate sta­bil­i­ty in the Home.

Finally, the de­tailed di­ary kept in ev­ery Heart’s Home will help the new­com­er to dis­cov­er the his­to­ry of the Heart’s Home, the ex­pe­ri­ences that have been tried, the per­sons who have been wel­comed, the evo­lu­tion no­ticed in some chil­dren’s at­ti­tudes, etc.

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What kind of spirit will drive the Missionaries?

The mis­sion­ar­ies will be driven by a gen­uine spir­it of gentle­ness and hu­mil­i­ty. They will not set off as con­querors, but as ser­vants, even as dis­ci­ples. They will be­gin this ad­ven­ture be­ing sure that they will re­ceive much more than they will bring, and they will al­ready give thanks to God for call­ing them to this ser­vice.

These are a few points which will char­ac­ter­ize their par­tic­u­lar way of life:
• The Missionaries will be driven by a liv­ing faith, rec­og­niz­ing in each per­son whom they meet, the Lord pre­sent “un­der the ap­pear­ance of chil­dren” (Father Peyriguère); they will treat him with an in­finite re­spect, show­ing him his dig­ni­ty as a hu­man be­ing and son of God. This re­spect will be con­crete­ly man­i­fest­ed in the vo­cab­u­lary and tone of voice used when, speak­ing to―or about―the chil­dren, avoid­ing cru­el and vul­gar words. This re­spect will al­so be man­i­fest­ed in the way they will lis­ten to the chil­dren, in the ges­tures ex­press­ing af­fec­tion to them. It will be nec­es­sary, of course that, from the very be­gin­ning, the Missionaries show re­spect to one an­oth­er as well. They will be able to care­ful­ly lis­ten to each other. They will gent­ly and very chaste­ly take care of one an­oth­er.
• They will try to live in the most per­fect com­mu­nion, form­ing one sin­gle heart, for­giv­ing one an­oth­er im­me­di­ate­ly when of­fend­ed as often as it is need­ed. They shall not crit­i­cize one an­oth­er but rather will en­cour­age and es­teem each other in the Lord.
• They will make sure that their way of life will nev­er scan­dal­ize the hearts of the lit­tle ones they will serve.
• They will avoid any com­plaint, neg­a­tive com­par­ison with the com­forts of the past, any po­lit­i­cal stand, any crit­i­cism or judge­ment of the peo­ple with whom they will be called to spend the year.
• They will ap­proach the chil­dren with the Heart of Jesus, which led Him to kneel down be­fore His dis­ci­ples and wash their feet.
• They will not he­si­tate to ex­plic­it­ly trans­mit the Gospel to the chil­dren they will en­coun­ter, yet re­spect­ing their cus­toms, ed­u­ca­tion, etc.
• They will in­voke the Virgin Mary to teach them day after day to live ac­cord­ing to the Beatitudes, and to be tru­ly evan­gel­i­cal (that is to say, bear­ers of the Good News) in their at­ti­tudes, re­ac­tions, words and ac­tions.
• De­spite the suf­fer­ing they will en­coun­ter, and may over­whelm them, they will try in any cir­cum­stance to wel­come and to bring the joy of hope to the chil­dren.
• They will cel­e­brate the li­tur­gi­cal feasts with dig­ni­ty, and com­mu­ni­cate to the chil­dren the deep mean­ing of the­se cel­e­bra­tions. They will al­so try to mark, through dif­fer­ent signs, the events of fam­i­ly life hap­pen­ing in the house, e.g., feasts, birth­days, the wel­com­ing of a guest, etc.
• The Missionaries will not he­si­tate to some­times take a day or more of com­mu­ni­ty recre­ation. They may al­so, if need­ed, go in soli­tude to rest and to pray more in­tense­ly.
• Above all, the Missionaries will often gath­er in their chapel or in the near­est church to turn to­wards God, to thank Him for His good­ness and His mer­cy, to ask Him to grant them a deep com­mu­nion of spir­it “It is by this sign…”, to en­trust to Him all the chil­dren and the dis­tress­es that they may en­coun­ter, but al­so the chil­dren and the suf­fer­ings and pains of the whole world - and espe­cial­ly all those en­coun­tered in all the Heart’s Homes. Daily the Missionaries will pray the rosary to­geth­er, as it is the prayer of the poor and hum­ble. This prayer will draw the spe­cial pres­ence of the Virgin Mary, the true founder of the Community, in­to each of the­se small refuges of love. In their dai­ly med­i­ta­tion, the Missionaries will par­tic­u­lar­ly con­tem­plate the Lord Jesus in the Crib and on the Cross, when, more than at any other mo­ment of His life on earth, He shows Himself as help­less, small and vul­ner­a­ble. They will cel­e­brate the morn­ing and evening prayers from the Liturgy of the Hours. If pos­si­ble, they will do their best, to at­tend dai­ly Mass where they will re­ceive the grace to give them­selves up to the Father who is al­ways pre­sent in ev­ery­one they will be sent to. They will, as well, pray for the in­ter­ces­sion of the Holy Innocents, Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, Don Bosco, Father Jean-Edouard Lamy, founder of the Servants of Jesus and Mary, and will call upon their guardian an­gels to guide and sup­port them, espe­cial­ly in the most dif­fi­cult si­t­u­a­tions.

Every Heart’s Home, in other words, is first of all a con­tem­pla­tive com­mu­ni­ty. These words should not cause any wor­ry! Prayer will make each one more gen­er­ous and ef­fi­cient, and the Holy Spirit, grant­ing his light dur­ing prayer, will en­able the Missionaries to tru­ly dis­cov­er the re­al needs of those who sur­round them.

It is cer­tain that this ex­pe­ri­ence will be a great time of growth for the young peo­ple who will de­vote a small part of their lives to it. It might move them, and en­able them to dis­cov­er what is essen­tial in their lives, and then to con­sid­er their ex­is­tence in a rad­i­cal­ly new way, with dif­fer­ent ob­jec­tives from their pre­vi­ous ones. As a tes­ti­mony of this, let us quote this com­ment re­cent­ly re­ceived from one of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries, stay­ing in Calcutta: “I have the feel­ing that I am do­ing a long re­treat here, for when you come in con­tact with the most ab­ject pover­ty, you are bound to ex­am­ine your­self again, and to ask what mean­ing you want to give to your life.”

And then there are the­se words from Jesus, which each Missionary is bound to ex­pe­ri­ence. “Whoever wel­comes a child such as this in my name wel­comes me; and who­ev­er wel­comes me, wel­comes not me but the One who sent me” (Mk 9: 37).

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What will the Missionaries do?

For the Missionaries the most im­por­tant thing will not be to do. There are al­ready schools, hos­pi­tals, and or­phan­ages… Heart’s Homes will not du­pli­cate the­se. They will sim­ply be non-spe­cial­ized homes where the chil­dren will know that they can al­ways come to be lis­tened to, loved and un­der­stood. This does not mean, of course, that when love will call them to do so, the Missionaries may not from time to time feed and nurse the chil­dren, help them in read­ing and writ­ing, help them to learn with some for­mal­i­ty or other, to wel­come them for a night and to teach them cat­e­chism and prayer. Heart’s Homes will thus tend to be hum­ble ad­di­tions to the fam­i­lies. The Missionaries will al­so or­ga­nize out­ings, games, gath­er­ings, or any ac­tiv­i­ty that could broad­en the chil­dren’s hori­zons. To achieve this, the Missionaries will ob­vi­ous­ly need to be very flex­i­ble, con­stant­ly avail­able, and to have a re­al sense of cre­ativ­i­ty.

The Missionaries will work in deep com­mu­nion with the Bishop and their pas­tors. They will try to be close­ly linked to the var­i­ous ed­u­ca­tion­al Organizations and hos­pi­tals set up in the sur­round­ing area that they may oc­ca­sion­al­ly help. In some cas­es, the chil­dren in need may be sent to the­se places to be trained and nursed. Each Heart’s Home may be thus de­fined as a “bridge” be­tween the street and the parish or char­i­ty or­ga­ni­za­tions.

In other words, the Missionaries shall be hearts: at the same time hearts of a fa­ther, a moth­er, and a broth­er; that can be char­ac­ter­ized by at­ten­tive, com­pas­sion­ate and wel­com­ing hearts. Most im­por­tant for them will be the qual­i­ty of their own pres­ence, and the closer their pres­ence to God is, the greater the qual­i­ty of their own pres­ence will be. In this sense, the Missionaries will be, be­fore all, “wor­ship­pers in spir­it and in truth” (John 4: 23).

We will ask the pas­tors who wel­come Heart’s Homes to re­spect the Missionaries’ par­tic­u­lar vo­ca­tion and not to con­stant­ly call upon them to work in the parish­es (even if their needs are great, which we un­der­stand very well), to help this or that school, as­so­ci­a­tion or hos­pi­tal… This would dis­tract the Heart’s Homes from their true call, and not com­ply with the in­spi­ra­tion we have been given. The Missionaries must be, as much as pos­si­ble, pre­sent in the streets of their area, or in their homes, ready to wel­come who­ev­er will knock at the door…

All the Heart’s Homes shall share the same spir­it. However, each one of them will have dis­tinct ac­tiv­i­ties ac­cord­ing to the area where they will set­tle, and to the way the Holy Spirit will lead them. The var­i­ous Heart’s Homes will cor­re­spond fre­quent­ly, estab­lish­ing tight bonds of friend­ship and thus build the spir­it defin­ing the Heart’s Home fam­i­ly.

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A Community of ecclesial communion

It is our great de­sire that the Heart’s Homes or­ga­ni­za­tion should be a fac­tor of uni­ty in the Church and that this uni­ty should be ba­si­cal­ly built around the de­prived child, just as it is else­where con­struct­ed around the hand­i­capped, sick or elder­ly peo­ple. This is why, we deeply wish that the Hearts’ Home com­mu­ni­ties will be formed of young peo­ple, com­ing from var­i­ous – French or for­eign – move­ments or from dif­fer­ent other re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties or sec­u­lar in­sti­tu­tions. Nowadays, it seems nec­es­sary that the Catholic Church should give ev­i­dence, in any way, of its de­sire for com­mu­nion. This de­sire should man­i­fest it­self through times of com­mu­ni­ty life when one learns to get free from pre­con­ceived opin­ions, to know and love one­self, to pray and to work to­geth­er. The needs are so great that it is ad­vis­able to gath­er the strengths rather than to mul­ti­ply the ini­tia­tives.

We then con­fide in the re­li­gious su­pe­ri­ors and Bishops that they will al­low mem­bers of their com­mu­ni­ties or their priests to have, if they wish, an ex­pe­ri­ence of serv­ing de­prived chil­dren for some time in a Heart’s Home. And, cer­tain­ly, although this ex­pe­ri­ence might at first, seem to be a sac­ri­fice for their con­gre­ga­tions, will soon turn out to be great sources of grace for the­se same con­gre­ga­tions, dio­ce­ses and for the whole Church.

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Practical and financial considerations

The young peo­ple who will stay in the Heart’s Homes com­mu­ni­ties will be asked to pay their trav­el ex­pens­es when­ev­er pos­si­ble. If they have some in­come, they may al­so be asked to pay the cost of their stay. Otherwise, they will seek “spon­sors” who will pledge to sup­port the Missionary dur­ing their stay. Students, scouts and artists may al­so or­ga­nize var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties from which the prof­its will be do­nat­ed to the Community. However, a young per­son will nev­er be pre­vent­ed from ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this ad­ven­ture with­in Heart’s Home be­cause of fi­nan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties. And the Heart’s Home Organization will al­ways sup­port any Heart’s Home in case of need and any Missionary who might be in dif­fi­cul­ty.

On the other hand, ef­forts will be made to keep ad­min­is­tra­tion costs to a min­i­mum, by re­ly­ing as much as pos­si­ble on Missionaries for the ad­min­is­tra­tive and “ad­ver­tis­ing” tasks, and by sim­pli­fy­ing the var­i­ous struc­tures as much as pos­si­ble.

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Sending Forth mass

Just be­fore leav­ing for their as­signed places the Missionaries will par­tic­i­pate, in their coun­tries of orig­in, in a send­ing forth mass, dur­ing which:

• The Holy Spirit will be in­voked upon those who are leav­ing.
• The Missionaries will pro­claim:

• Their will to be true servants of God, close to the children whom they will serve;
• Their will to be true witnesses of the Catholic Church, their Mother;
• Their will to remain deeply united;
• Their will to commit themselves to live during their whole stay, in a spirit of prayer, chastity, poverty and humility;
• Their full and total adhesion to the spirit of the Community.
  • The celebrant will give to each one of them a rosary, which shall be the sign of the importance of the Marian prayer and of the help that the Virgin Mary will grant them. There will be an engraved heart on the cross of the rosary as a reminder of the essential gospel message and of the mission of each Missionary: “To be a heart, full heart, nothing but a heart” (Maurice Zundel).

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The Responsibility in the Heart’s Homes

The founder or the President of the Organization will en­ti­tle a per­son to be re­spon­si­ble, as lead­er of each Heart’s Home.

This per­son will strive to make de­ci­sions in com­plete agree­ment with his or her com­pan­ions. Each Missionary should al­ter­nate­ly ex­pe­ri­ence the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of a Heart’s Home on­ce dur­ing his year of stay­ing.

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The Heart’s Homes Organization

According to the 1901 French law, an Organization was cre­at­ed in France, to man­age, pro­mote, help and make known the Heart’s Home Organization as it is, in fact, not led by the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus and Mary. This Organization is com­posed of found­ing mem­bers, honorary mem­bers, ac­tive and sub­scrib­ing mem­bers. The ad­min­is­tra­tion and in­for­ma­tion of­fices are in Vieux-Moulin, France and the ICCC, 2299 Ulster Heights Road, Woodbourne, NY 12788 United States.

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A Community as weak as a child

I am in­finite­ly aware of the au­dac­i­ty there is in found­ing such lit­tle refuges of love, of the weak­ness which will al­ways be the lot of the Community, as it is based on Missionaries, and will have a del­i­cate mis­sion to per­form, par­tic­u­lar­ly in dif­fi­cult si­t­u­a­tions of dis­tress and suf­fer­ing. Finally, I am con­scious of its ap­par­ent in­ef­fi­cien­cy ac­cord­ing to the con­sid­er­a­tions of this world, and of the con­stant temp­ta­tion that the Missionaries will have to “do some­thing”, to cre­ate struc­tures, to or­ga­nize ac­tiv­i­ties on a long-term ba­sis.

As long as the Community will re­main faith­ful to the in­spi­ra­tion that we have been given, it will walk on wa­ter. This will re­quire from its lead­ers a con­stant trust. But isn’t it Jesus’ call to mankind through­out the whole Gospel: “Do not wor­ry… Your heav­en­ly Father knows that you need them all. Set your heart first on the Kingdom and jus­tice of God, and all the­se other things will al­so be given to you. Do not wor­ry about to­mor­row, to­mor­row will wor­ry about it­self. Each day has enough trou­ble of its own!” (Mt 6:32-34) Isn’t it the con­di­tion―a to­tal aban­don­men­t―­for a Community such as Heart’s Home to be re­al­ly prophet­ic?

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