News & Events | March 23, 2026
The international Dehonian presence continues
This coming Sunday, March 29, we celebrate Palm Sunday and the start of Holy Week. As Dehonians, on Palm Sunday we also celebrate the beginnings of the SCJ presence in the United States. It was on Palm Sunday in 1923 that Fr. Mathias Fohrman, SCJ, first celebrated Mass at St. Mary’s Church in Lower Brule, SD.
Fr. Mathias was a Luxembourg-born SCJ from the German Province who immigrated to the United States to serve the Church here. One-hundred-and-three-years later the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation continues to be served by an international pastoral team that includes SCJs and religious sisters from DR Congo, Indonesia and the Philippines. Just as Dehonians did in 1923, Dehonians will welcome the start of another Holy Week with the people of South Dakota.
The pastoral team is pictured above following last week’s Chrism Mass at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Sioux Falls.
ABOVE: Fr. Joachim Studwell, OFM (“Fr. Kim”). BELOW: Fr. Joseph Mukuna, the in-person participants, Fr. Vincent Suparman
The source of all that is
Last Thursday (March 19) Fr. Joachim Studwell, OFM (“Fr. Kim”) led the annual Lenten Hour of Recollection for SCJs. Participation was both in-person at the Provincial Offices and online. His topic: “From the Heart to the World.”
“God’s grace is alive and at work within us,” began Fr. Kim. “And so the whole of our life is this sense of God’s transformative love.”
Fr. Kim emphasized that it is “the way in which we relate to other people that becomes our foundation. How do we treat one another? What does the other need and how can I respond to that need? That becomes the foundation of God’s love. It’s very practical. In our everyday lives every moment becomes an opportunity for God’s grace.”
The Gospel tells us to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” said Fr. Kim. [Matthew 22:37]
“But sometimes,” he continued, “we need to remind ourselves of what came after that: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ To love my neighbor is a manifestation of my love for God. God’s love is the source of all that is and the source of redemption.”
The Lenten Hour of Recollection for SCJs ws organized and hosted by the Dehon Study Center. See the information below about Tuesday’s Lenten Hour for employees and other collaborators.
Reminder
Reflection for employees and associates
The Lenten Recollection for employees, associates and other Dehonian collaborators will be on Tuesday, March 24, at 11:00 a.m.
“What is the ‘Sacred Heart’, and does it matter in our broken world?” will be the theme presented by Monica Misey, Director of Dehonian Associates. She will provide an overview of the devotion, Fr. Dehon’s development of it, and how it can impact our ministries today.
Rather than the usual hour, this will be 35 minutes. Please have a journal handy since there will be reflection questions interspersed.
The presentation will take place via Zoom. The link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/8342363189?omn=82769755997
Meeting ID: 834 236 3189
PLEASE NOTE: although this second reflection is intended for employees, associates and others who have an affiliation with the Priests of the Sacred Heart, SCJs are very welcome to attend.
Questions? Contact Monica Misey: 414-427-4267, mmisey@dehoniansusa.org
Our Spiritual Life
The focus of this month’s issue of As a Rule is “Our Spiritual Life,” with Rule No. 18 as a starting point for reflection: “We are called to serve the Church in the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” begins No. 18. “Our response to this call presupposes a spiritual life.”
Fr. Gustave Lulendo, SCJ, writes that the passage “reminds us that serving others presupposes, above all, an intimate life with Christ, contemplated during Eucharistic Adoration and lived out in the concrete realities of life through the sufferings of our world. Thus, the Act of Oblation, recited daily in community, as well as other communal spiritual exercises, can become a synodal commitment to transforming the world around us, beginning with the primary place of our apostolate, the community, where we are called to serve one another. It is by grounding our prayer in concrete actions that it will take on greater meaning and our actions will be more beautiful, if they are imbued with prayer.
“One cannot exist without the other.”
In the second reflection for March Fr. Ushindi Kambale Sahni, SCJ, writes that “availability or the readiness to serve, is another name [for] our SCJ spirituality. It is from our intimacy with Jesus that flows our charitable works and generosity towards the neighbor connecting our hearts to the loving Heart of Jesus.”
Click here to access the March issue of As a Rule and read the two reflections in full. Anyone is welcome to receive AAR; click here to subscribe.
Hello from Cameroon!
Fr. Charles Brown, SCJ, shares the following from Cameroon: “As last year, I have been doing Dehonian formation for the novices here in Ndoungue Cameroon. We just finished my series of 14 conferences on the New Testament and Dehonian charism. We worked well together (despite my clumsy French!). Marvelous young fellows. In the center is Fr. Cyrille, the director of novices and the other priest is Fr. Igor pastor in the local parish.
“We did a ‘selfie’ because we wanted Fr. Desmond to be in the picture! Novices from L to R: Donald, Desmond, Bertrand, Bright, Amal and Joseph.
“Grace and peace to all!”
Looking ahead
During Holy Week the Provincial Offices will be closed as of 2:00 p.m. on Holy Thursday (April 2) through Monday, April 6. INVITATION: We’d love to share photos of Holy Week and Easter from around the province. Click here to share images from your community and/or ministries.
Also ahead: the deadline to submit budgets. They are due in the Province Treasurer’s Office on April 1. If you have questions, contact Kevin Stanke, Chris Lambert or Dcn. David Nagel, SCJ.
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