Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary

The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of the Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar is a Roman Catholic religious institute of brothers, priests, and nuns. The priests of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary are also known as the Picpus Fathers, because their first house was on the Rue de Picpus in Paris, France. Their post-nominal letters, SS.CC., are the Latin initials for Sacrorum Cordium, "of the Sacred Hearts". (The letters are doubled to indicate that both words are plural, a convention of Latin abbreviations).

The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary arose amid the religious upheaval caused by the French Revolution. In March 1792, the Frenchman Pierre Coudrin was secretly ordained to the priesthood. The following May, Father Coudrin went into hiding in an attic of the granary of the Chateau d'Usseau and staid confined there for six months to escape the government's persecution of those Catholic priests that refused to accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. One evening during his time in hiding, Coudrin had a vision of himself surrounded by a heavenly illuminated group of priests, brothers and sisters dressed in white robes, which he took as his calling to establish a religious institute that would be the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Coudrin left the granary and began his underground ministry in Poitiers, waiting for the opportunity to start his group.

During his underground ministry in 1794, Coudrin met Henriette Aymer de Chevalerie. She had been imprisoned for hiding a priest. Upon her release, she told Coudrin of a vision she had while in prison calling her to service of God. Coudrin and Henriette Aymer de Chevalerie shared with each other their visions of creating a religious institute in the midst of danger for Roman Catholics in France.

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