My name is Fr. Richard Lifrak, ss.cc.   As the vocation director for the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, I would like to welcome you into a process of discernment concerning your vocation.  What is a vocation?  A vocation is a life-path of service, chosen with the guidance of the Holy Spirit as well as others in the Church,  in order to receive and share in the abundance of life promised by Jesus, when He said, "I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly." (John 10:10).

 In our Congregation, that abundant life is closely connected with the amazing and life-changing love of God, which we symbolize by the Hearts of Jesus and Mary -  joined together, consumed by Love.   Theirs is a threefold love, encompassing love for each other, love for the infinite Creator God (called Abba by Jesus), and a loving compassion for others.  This three-fold love is what led our founders, Pierre Coudrin and Henriette Aymer, affectionately called the Good Father and the Good Mother, to establish a spiritual family in 1800.   Approved and given a structure of organization and life by Rome, we became a religious congregation.  Now over 200 years old, we have retained our original virtues of Family Spirit, Eucharistic Adoration and Courageous Compassion, as we continue to develop new pathways such as international solidarity and peacemaking.

As a young man, Blessed Damien DeVeuster was called by the same love of God that has always permeated our Congregation and he responded with a unique zeal.  Thus, despite the fact that his parents were counting on him to carry on the family business, he asked them to give their consent for his religious vocation.  While in formation, our congregation grew in Damien, giving him inner strength, practical wisdom, and tender compassion.  As a young missionary priest, when he encountered the enormous deprivation and suffering of the leprosy (Hansen's Disease) patients exiled to the Hawaiian island of Moloka'i, he was ready to freely offer his life to serve them.

 For sixteen years, Blessed Damien became their caretaker, priest, nurse, and  laborer until he himself lost his health and contracted Hansen's Disease.  Before dying, he said, "How sweet it is to die as a child of the Sacred Hearts."  Even in his suffering, he wanted the world to know that that he had found the abundant life promised by Christ!   By all that he said and did, Blessed Damien made it possible for humanity to know more fully the tender mercy and solidarity that comes from the Heart of Christ!  That is the reason he is called a “servant of humanity”!

I believe, based on my own experience, that given a call from God, many of you reading this can find the same abundant life by joining the religious congregation of Blessed Damien. That abundant life will be the gift of knowing human love as well as divine love, and the grace of sharing that love with others. This is the wonderful gift that God gave me, after I had passed through many different stages of my life: first, as a young Jewish man, then, as an agnostic scientist, and then, as a practicing Zen Buddhist.   At the age of 35, I finally discovered the wonderful reality of God  as a catechumen of the Catholic Church. Great as that discovery was, the gift expanded still more as I answered God's call, submitted to the formation process of our religious order, and finally became a consecrated religious and Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

 After twelve years of challenging and fulfilling experiences as a priest, it is now my newest challenge and my great privilege to invite others to share the abundance of life that has been given to me in prayer, community, and ministry. I know those of you reading this invitation may be called in different ways, perhaps to marriage and family, or a secular profession of self-sacrificing service; possibly to Diocesan priesthood, or to another religious congregation with a different charism or spirit of life. No matter what the nature of your call might be, God loves you.  However, if the Heart of Christ and your own heart are telling you to take a chance on the vocation we are offering, please say, "Yes!" either by telephone, by E-mail, or by a personal visit to our Damien Vocation office.  Contact me to see what your future could be. I would love to help you know your own heart and the Heart that blesses and empowers this beloved Congregation of mine with so much Love and Spirit!

With Affection and Hope,

 Fr. Richard Lifrak , ss.cc.

frlifrak@sscc.org