Our Story

Fr Jules Chevalier MSC

Humble beginnings...

The MSC Congregation was born in Issoudun, a small town some 250 Km south of Paris in France, a little over 150 years ago, on the 8th December 1854. The vision of its founder, a 30 year old priest named Jules Chevalier, was to establish a missionary Society that would have as its purpose to bring an experience of the compassionate and merciful love of God to all people as the one remedy for the evils that afflicted society. This was the vision that had captivated him since his seminary days, a dream he would quicky share with a small band of other young, enthusiastic men. The beginnings were humble indeed, but perseverence and complete trust that their project was indeed the will of God, led to a flurry of vocations and early missionary expansion.

Rapid early growth and a first foothold in England and Ireland

Dyke House, Western Rd, Cork in 1909. The first MSC foundation in Ireland

The growth of the Congregation was rapid and by the spring of 1876, just twenty one years after its foundation, one of Fr Chevalier’s original companions visited England to explore the possibility of acquiring a house and establishing a community there. In August of the same year Fr John Neenan, a young Irish priest from the Diocese of Cloyne in Ireland, travelled to France to enter the MSC novitiate. So began the inseparable link between the MSCs in the little town of Issoudun and the countries of Ireland and England. The first house in these islands was opened in Madely in Shropshire, England in 1882 and by 1909 the first foundation in Ireland had been established on the Western Road in Cork.

Training catechists in South Africa

A vision still very much alive

Since those first footholds the missionary charism and vision of the MSC has spread beyond Ireland and England to the other four territories that now make up the Irish Province. Today that vision inspires new generations of MSC as they work among the people and train future ministers in South Africa, Venezuela, the Southern United States of America, the Caucuses region of Southern Russia as well as Ireland and England. The vision of Jules Chevalier in 1854 is still ours today: that all people, in every place, circumstance and stage of life, may know the transforming love of God revealed in the human heart of Jesus Christ.

The story of the Irish Province

Having been forced to flee France because of religious persecution the MSCs found refuge in Spain, Italy and the northern European states of Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria and in 1876 England. So it was that due to the harshness of the prevailing political and social climate, the congregation began its rapid growth beyond France and eventually to England and Ireland. The development and growth of what was to become the Irish Province is a fascinating story.

The Founder: a man of his time, a man with a mission

Jules Chevalier was a man of his time. His life spanned most of the nineteenth century. It was a century that saw radical changes in Western society often torn apart by war and revolution, especially in France. In the midst of such turmoil, Chevalier was captivated by the reality of God's love revealed in the human heart of Christ. His one desire was that the whole world would come to the same experience and understanding of God. He was truly a man with a mission.