The bright sunshine on Saturday, 8 October 2022 added to the joy of this gathering at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church to celebrate one hundred years since the death of Fr Hubert Linckens MSC, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The group which gathered with us, MSC Sisters, included the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, MSC Fathers and Brothers and former Members and Associates.
During the Eucharist, which was celebrated by Fr Peter Hendricks MSC, Sr Francis Baum shared from her wide research and understanding of who Hubert Linckens was, and the contribution he made to the missionary endeavour of the Church during his life.
Fr Linckens had a relatively short but very active life. As a young person in his home country of Holland, he was ‘caught’ by the Spirituality of the Heart as lived by the MSC Fathers and this led him to become a student in their Apostolic School in France at a time of religious upheaval in that country. He was Ordained back in Holland in 1886. A few years before this, (1881), Pope Leo XIII had given the MSC Fathers charge of part of the new mission area in the South Seas. As this area, at that time, was colonized by Germany, the German Government specified that any missionary sisters working there should be German and so the French Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart were not acceptable. Consequently, Fr Linckens, who was already engaged in other weighty responsibilities in Europe, took up the task in Germany of gathering a group of young German women to form them into a new missionary congregation with a spirit similar to his own congregation. And so, in 1900 the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart came to birth. They are now present in 19 countries throughout the world. Within the area covered by the Parishes of Camberwell, Balwyn Deepdene and Surrey Hills Wattle Park there are presently twelve MSC Sisters living and carrying on various ministries.
Our gathering at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church on Saturday, 8 October was a joyful event in which we celebrated and gave thanks for this richly talented, wise, practical, missionary-hearted man who died at the age of 61 on 5th October 1922.
Words of Fr Linckens:
“A heart filled with love for Christ will automatically share this heart with others just as a burning stove radiates its hidden warmth.”
When young Sisters were leaving for Pennsylvania to teach the children of immigrants, he told them:
“This is your country, your homeland. Its people must become your people; its language, your language; its customs, your customs. Look ahead!”
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