SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART

New Zealand Tablet, 1 June 1911, Page 1007

SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART

DEATH OF THE SUPERIOR-GENERAL (From our Wellington correspondent.) News was received here by cable during the week of the death of Rev. Mother Digby, Superior-General of the Sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart, which occurred at the mother-house, Ixel, Belgium, which has been the headquarters of the Order since the law banishing the religious Orders from France came into operation. A Solemn Requiem Mass for the repose of the soul of the deceased religious was celebrated at the convent chapel, Island Bay, last Wednesday. The Yen. Archdeacon Devoy, S.M., was celebrant, Rev. Father Murray, C.SS.R,., deacon, Rev. Father A. Venning, S.M., subdeacon, and Rev. Father Hurley, S.M., master of ceremonies. There were also present Very Rev.- Father O’Shea, S.M., V.G., Rev. Fathers Whelan, C.SS.R., Ainsworth, S.M., Herring, Barra, C. Venning, and Geo. Mahoney, who formed the choir. Rev. Mother Digby was born in England of an Irish family in 1835. Her parents were Protestant, and when her mother and younger sister were received into the Church, she resented very strongly the step they had taken, and declared she would remain of her father’s religion. God, Who had His designs upon her, allowed that she should spend much of her youth in the South of France, and it was there that His grace awaited her. One day after _ assisting at Benediction she suddenly announced to her sister that she, too, would be a Catholic. Her vocation to the religious life soon developed, and in 1857 she was received into the Society of the Sacred Heart by the foundress, Blessed Mother Barat. She made her first vows in 1859, and was professed in 1861 in the presence of Blessed Mother Barat. Within the next ten years she was employed as Mistress-General of the School, then as Superior of the Convent of Marmontiers, near Tours.

During the Franco-Prussian Avar she Was in charge of the ambulance opened at the convent, and the soldiers nursed there held her memory in grateful remembrance. In 1874 Kev.-Mother Goetz, who had succeeded Mother Barat as Superior-General, sent Mother Digby to England, where she governed the house of Roehampton, near London, and unHi aC TR<i aS t lotbe 1 r Vicar of the English and Irish houses until 1894 Avne _ she was called to the .mother house in ii. ai l !L a +i Assistant-General. About ten months later, on the death of the + fourth Superior-General, she was herself elected to fill that office. The sixteen years of her govern- °( Society of the Sacred Heart have bee# years ?! i '.*{■ aml anxiety. God imposed on her the sad tas,v of closing over forty houses of her Order in France Note? r ?in dll l g h i meS i and i? ork for the expelled religious! +l C ir 1 d sbe , show herself more admirable than during those years of trial. But her consolations were also great She saw the 1 Society spread to distant lands, new houses inv Sf pTi ef l ?n ll the con Tments. -In 1900 she had the Society of ® t}l , e eentenary d° f the foundation of the .Society of the Sacred Heart, and in 1908 the Beatification of its foundress. Blessed Madeline Sophie Barat. The news of her death has caused much sorrow to all who had been KS f° • kI T h f er N and has called forth the sympathy RIP. the friends of the Society of the Sacred Heart-