Letter for March 14, 2026, on the occasion of the 183rd anniversary of the birth of the Founder, Father Leo Dehon.
“Among Lions”
To the members of the Congregation
To all members of the Dehonian Family
A well-known saying affirms: “whoever has found a friend has found a treasure” (Sir 6:14). In these days, as we gratefully remember the Venerable Fr. Léon Dehon, among the many gifts he left us in his human and spiritual heritage, we recognize the value that friendship had in his life. He always cultivated it, both friendship with the Lord and with his contemporaries: “Brothers and friends of Jesus, children and friends of God our Father—such is our beautiful vocation.”[1]
His abundant correspondence confirms that he indeed had good friends. Among them were ecclesiastics, consecrated persons, and lay people. Their support and affection, played an important role in the vocational history and in the apostolates of Fr. Dehon. One of them was Léon Harmel, who influenced the development of our Founder’s social concern.[2]
On one occasion, Fr. Dehon entrusted a letter to Mr. Harmel so that he might deliver it to Pope Leo XIII. The letter is dated March 14, 1895[3]. In it, in just a few lines, Fr. Dehon presented his Institute to the Pope, which at that time had existed for a little more than sixteen years. Drawing on the path already taken, the Founder made known to the Pope the objective of the Congregation: “to cooperate in the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” He also explained to the Pope the principal means to accomplish this. First of all: “by living piously in community and by devoting themselves to the ordinary exercises of religious life”[4]. Our Rule of Life expresses it in this way:
Lived in community,
our profession of the evangelical counsels
is the primary expression of our apostolic life:
it attests to the presence of Christ,
it announces the coming Reign of God. (Cst 60)
From this first disposition, the apostolate is born in a spirit of love and reparation. As Fr. Dehon wrote to the Pope, it has its starting point in Eucharistic adoration, “a source of grace for the Congregation and for all its works”[5]. This can be expressed, in the words of the Rule of Life, in the following way:
Through our celebration,
united with the whole Church
in this memorial and presence to its Lord,
we welcome Him who brings us to live together,
who consecrates us to God,
and unceasingly throws us back onto the streets of the world
in the service of the Gospel. (Cst 82)
In this way, when life and mission are centered on the offering of Jesus to the Father and to humanity, Fr. Dehon makes it clear that existence becomes imbued with the “spirit of charity and compassion” that makes possible self-giving and attention to others and, in a particular way, “to social works and to the missions, within and beyond the country.”
Despite the weakness of its resources, when Fr. Dehon addressed the Pope, the Congregation was already present in the industrial world (Val de Bois) and engaged in educational and social activities in Saint-Quentin (France), Ecuador, and northern Brazil. There was also some thought given to ways of accompanying migrants. Meanwhile, the houses of formation for the younger members in Europe ensured the preparation of “missionaries and apostles of the workers.” All of this information which Fr. Dehon wished to share with the Pope is, in some way, summarized in our Rule of Life in the following formulation:
In following Him, we must live
in real solidarity with all.
Sensitive to what obstructs the love of the Lord in today’s world,
we are witnesses to the fact that human effort
constantly needs to be purified
and transfigured by the cross and resurrection of Christ
to arrive at the fullness of the Kingdom. (Cst 29)
For this to happen, Fr. Dehon teaches us through his witness that it requires arduous and constant teamwork. Indeed, the “Lions” mentioned so far—the Pope, Harmel, and Dehon—are concrete figures who were colleagues, not without difficulties and misunderstandings, a solid and fruitful communion. Each of them, according to his own vocation and responsibility, whether as a consecrated person or as a layperson, shared the same passion: love for the Gospel and for human dignity.
But they were not, the only “Lions” in history, no are we without them now. There are more—many more—and all too often of another kind. You surely know them. They are like those described by the psalmist in the midst of his anguish:
I lie down
among lions that devour people;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
their tongues a sharp swords. (Ps 57:5)
The prophet Ezekiel also recognized them as he pointed to the ruler who distorted his responsibility toward his own people:
Having become a strong lion,
he moved about among the lions.
He learned to tear the prey
and devoured people.
He ravaged palaces and destroyed cities;
at his roaring the whole land trembled. (Ez 19:6–7)
We cannot escape the astonishment and growing sorrow caused by so many bloodthirsty lions in our time. When it seemed that the power of the word, dialogue, and mutual understanding were being strengthened—or were we deceiving ourselves? —thousands of faces, tears, and wounds awaken us to the cruelty of hatred and revenge concealed in drones and missiles that know no borders. Selfishness grows and hands close into fists to strike. Voices fall silent and sirens begin to sound.
In this time of the Dehonian Jubilee, in which we have been called to renew ourselves from within in the light of our charism, let us not invent lions, as that lazy man did when he sought to justify his indifference: “The lazy man says: there is a lion in the street that wants to kill me” (Prv 22:13). Today, in the streets, on the paths, and on the horizons through which we move, there truly are wild beasts: identify them, give them a name. They continue to wound life in many ways. There were such beasts in the times of Leo XIII, of Léon Harmel, and of Léon Dehon. Yet none of them ignored them; rather, they confronted them as best they could.
May the memory of these good friends, rooted in the Heart that calls us and that also wants us as his friends and not as servants (cf. Jn 15:15), encourage us to keep hope and commitment alive and effective for our brothers and sisters who are suffering so many wounds. For them, for us, and for the vocations that God wishes to raise up among his people, may the desire grow to let ourselves be guided by the One who made himself the servant of all:
Then the wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
the calf and the lion shall graze together,
and a little child shall lead them. (Is 11:6)
In the Heart that unites us,
Fr. Carlos Luis Suárez Codorniú, scj – Superior General
and his Council
[1] « Frères et amis de Jésus, fils et amis de Dieu notre Père, telle est notre belle vocation ». Léon Dehon, La vie intérieure, Bruxelles 1919 (VES 180).
https://www.dehondocsoriginals.org/pubblicati/OSP/VES/OSP-VES-0005-0002-8060502?ch=180
[2] https://www.dehoniani.org/es/una-biografia-de-leon-harmel-un-companero-de-camino-del-p-dehon/
[3] 1LD 65900 https://www.dehondocsoriginals.org/pubblicati/COR/1LD/1895/COR-1LD-1895-0314-0065900
[4] «En vivant pieusement en communauté et en se livrant aux exercices ordinaires de la vie religieuse ». 1LD 65900,1.
https://dehondocsoriginals.org/pdf/COR-1LD-1895-0314-0065900.pdf
[5] « source de grâces pour la congrégation et pour toutes ses œuvres ».
1LD 65900, 1. https://dehondocsoriginals.org/pdf/COR-1LD-1895-0314-0065900.pdf
English P2026-0076-S-1AG-Lettera 14 marzo
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