Our story begins with Jules Chevalier, who founded the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in 1854, and in 1874, the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.
As a young priest, Jules Chevalier lived in a town where people had grown hard-hearted and indifferent towards God. He was convinced that our greatest need, if we wanted to find meaning and happiness in life, was to learn to believe in God's love for us and let it transform our lives. He saw that devotion to the Sacred Heart was most effective way of making God's love known to the world.
St Martin de Tours was a compassionate and humble man. He loved life and chose to live a life of simplicity, shunning materialism. He was coerced into becoming the Bishop of Tours but embraced leadership with great zeal - albeit reluctantly. St Martin embarked on personal as well as public journeys and always managed to spend time alone and in stillness with his God. Martin did not die a martyr and so was canonised because of the way he lived his life not of the way he died.
