News from the Laity of the Chevalier Family

Alison McKenzie. Since our Assembly in January, there has been renewed energy amongst the laity, and groups worldwide are organising themselves more formally to better undertake our shared mission of making the Sacred Heart of Jesus known and loved everywhere.
At the Assembly, we unanimously agreed to revise our previous Guiding Principles and Statutes (2017) into a document now entitled General Guiding Principles and Organisational Directions of the Laity of the Chevalier Family (2024), and we agreed that this document is binding on all members of the lay movement. We will release the official copy of the Guiding Principles in the upcoming edition of Encounter of Hearts and distribute the document as widely as possible. Once you have a copy, we ask that you delete the 2017 version. As a result of that agreement, many countries who had not yet formed a National Council have done so, and those of which we are aware are: India, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna, Namibia, Vietnam.
We congratulate them on so quickly implementing the Assembly agreements.
We also congratulate the four provinces in Brazil for their recent joint national assembly, which revised the statutes of the four provinces into one document.
Another recommendation accepted at the Assembly was a recognition that the member countries must contribute towards the work of their National and International Councils. A minimum contribution of 100 dollars US per country per year was agreed upon to support the work of the International Council. The Finance Committee of the International Council, led by Patricia, has developed an accountable and transparent process for transferring and managing the funds. The Australian MSC Province has assisted in this process, for which we are very grateful.
Aidan has been working behind the scenes to streamline our digital platform and assist us in developing more effective communication processes. Our current contact details are:

Website: www.chevalierfamilylaity.org
E-Mail: internationalcouncil@chevalierfamilylaity.org
Facebook: chevalierfamilylaity
Instagram: @chevalierfamilylaity

The General Secretary can still be contacted directly at: alisonmckenzie@misacor.org.au.
Alongside this work, Dorothy has begun to fine-tune our digital organisation and record storage. Our website has also been updated and can be accessed at: https://misacor.org.au/chevalierfamily

We thank the Australian MSC Province for their financial support of this work.
The Formation Committee, headed by Petrus and assisted by Ainne, has been working on the role of Regional Coordinator. This role is designed to provide a link between the Council and groups at the local level. Once we have this role established, we will have a means of collecting data and information about how groups are progressing. In the long term, this group will develop formation packages based on Fr Hans’ book, online course, and Cuskelley’s Movements of the Heart. Currently, we have Jos undertaking the role in Europe, Raphael in Papua New Guinea and Olguita in Central and Southern America.
Encounter of Hearts is due for publication around the same time as this MSC newsletter. The purpose of this edition of Encounter is to keep together all the official documents following the Assembly. Our hope is that Encounter will become a manual for groups to refer to when they need current information and formation material and that it will become our archival record. We thank Shirley and Clare for their formatting skills in preparing this edition and Therese for the French translation. We hope Encounter of Hearts will not be left unread in your inboxes.
The International Council met with our Trigeneralate members on June 15th at our monthly business meeting. Most of us met Fr. Gene for the first time and shared ways we can support each other with Sr. Deborah and Sr. Fabilene. We are all very hopeful that ours will become a fruitful working relationship where we can mutually support each other.
The real work happens in the groups within our member countries. We know that God’s Spirit is moving within our Family as the third branch of Fr. Chevalier’s vision is growing and deepening its self-understanding and commitment to our shared mission.
We are truly grateful.
The photos included with this Report are a testament to the missionary zeal of lay members of the Chevalier Family worldwide, working alongside our religious brothers and sisters to make the Sacred Heart of Jesus known and loved everywhere.
Ametur.