We know that the Chevalier Institute was founded in 2003, and its purpose has always been to facilitate and support lay, adult faith formation in the Chevalier Family’s Spirituality of the Heart.
Why the name, Chevalier? Perhaps it could have been called after E J Cuskelly MSC, one of our own Australians, ex Downlands student, MSC Superior General, and later Bishop Cuskelly in Brisbane, as it was he who, after Vatican 2, moved us from Devotion to the Sacred Heart to the Spirituality of the Heart. As with the Institute today, Cuskelly understood something of the changing times, and provided a language for the times, to help better understand the fundamental insight of Fr Chevalier.
St Mary's Towers Retreat CentreWhy called an Institute? Because it is much more than an organization to deliver retreats and courses etc. One of its primary functions is to act as an Institute, to research, to seek, to find new ways to express the spirituality to meet the needs, THE weaknesses, the needs, and the progress of the times, but ever remaining true to the original charism, of Fr Chevalier.
Why even have a Chevalier Institute? As the Policy for Spiritual Formation for Staff and Board members states: “The need for proactive formation of lay people and institutions in the MSC charism is not just based on the diminished numbers of MSC, nor just because of the increased role of the laity in MSC Colleges. Importantly, it is by virtue of the fact that people in their living and working find deeper meaning in their lives, and if possible encounter the heart of the living Christ, and when able, bring Him to others.”
The same point is made by former Pope John Paul II: “The fundamental objective of the formation of the lay faithful is an ever clearer discovery of one’s vocation and the ever greater willingness to live it, so as to fulfill one’s life mission.”
In other words, the Institute facilitates and supports, for example, lay school staffs, parents and students, in their journey with their God. Furthermore, true to another of Chevalier’s insights, the mission is now largely done by lay people, helping lay people.
A thousand thanks and blessings for all those who have been a part of the Institute, from its beginnings with James and Julie, then Phil, Alison and now Anne, and Brett - along with the Direcotrs of Mission in the schools and all the professed MSC who have enhanced the ministry.
Bob Irwin msc
