Josephites share devotion to Sacred Heart in largely African American parishes they serve

St. Paul, Minn., Jun 16, 2023 / 07:00 am

When Josephite Father Xavier Edet experiences dry or difficult moments in his spiritual and religious life, he turns to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“In those moments when I go on my knees and embrace the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that is where I find consolation,” said Edet, who has been a priest in the religious community of St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart (known as “the Josephites”) since 2012.

“That is where I find eternal peace inside me and I could hear Jesus Christ speak to me, the Sacred Heart said to me, ‘I’ve got your back.’ And he’s always there to journey with me.”

Edet, who is also the society’s communications director, shares his thoughts and experiences about the Sacred Heart with his parishioners in the pastorate community of Historic St. Francis Xavier, St. Ann, and St. Wenceslaus parishes he has led for five years in East Baltimore City.

On Fridays, Edet, as well as other Josephite priests at some of the other roughly 38 parishes around the country where the society is present, offer prayers, eucharistic Holy Hours, and litanies to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom Josephites have had devotion during the more than 150 years of ministry dedicated to serving African Americans in the United States.

Since the first missionaries came to the U.S. to minister to freed slaves following the Civil War, priests and brothers have worked to bring the Catholic faith to the African American community. The American Josephites have been an independent organization since 1893. The interracial, intercultural community is the only male religious community in the U.S. Church exclusively dedicated to this work, according to its website.

The society’s composition has changed, reflecting in part the priestly vocations decline in the U.S., as more than half of its roughly 50 members are from Nigeria, said Edet, who is also from the West African country. Most society members are priests working in parishes and schools, he said.

“We strongly believe that, just as Jesus says, the harvest is rich but the laborers are few, so we pray, every day, in our parishes,” Edet said.

In whatever way members serve, the society’s dedication both to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to St. Joseph have remained constant. 

Reflecting on the society’s missionary character during his homily at the Dec. 3 ordination of a Josephite priest, Josephite superior general Bishop John Ricard of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, noted that the missionary St. Francis Xavier went to India and found that the people who heard the word of God were overwhelmed. 

There are people who can’t hear the word of God because no one is there to share it with them, he said, as was reported in the society’s publication, the Josephite Harvest magazine.

“When you go to the Josephite missions,” Ricard said, “you’ll find people waiting for you and waiting to hear the word of God.” The society also ordained three priests this year on June 3. 

The Josephites trace their origin to the future English Cardinal Herbert Vaughn, who opened the St. Joseph College of the Sacred Heart in Mill Hill, England, in 1866. He petitioned to Pope Pius IX for a mission field for his “Mill Hill missionaries” and the Holy Father wanted the new community to minister to the recently freed African American slaves in the United States, according to the society’s website.

The four missionaries Vaughn brought to Baltimore took an oath issued by the pope in 1871 to make themselves “the father and servant” of African Americans. They vowed not to “ever take up any other work which might cause me to abandon, or in any way neglect the special care” of African Americans.

Vaughn consecrated the mission to the Sacred Heart of Jesus “and named his missionaries the “Josephites,” because St. Joseph was honored as the “first missionary,” according to the Josephites website.

“What began as a mission to help the newly freed slaves in America evolved into the broader task of assisting all of the Black community,” the website states. “The Josephites continue in the tradition of Cardinal Vaughn and by the commission of Pope Pius IX, as a society dedicated solely to the service of the African American community.”

Along with the African American parishioners at Church of the Transfiguration in Los Angeles are Catholics from the Caribbean and throughout Africa, according to Josephite Father Godwin Akpan, 54, who has pastored the parish for nine months. 

Each Friday, the multicultural parish offers two hours of eucharistic adoration with devotions to the Sacred Heart, including reparation for sins against the Sacred Heart, an act of consecration, and litany, said Akpan, who is from Nigeria and was ordained in 2010.

The parish’s commemoration of the solemnity of the Sacred Heart will be somewhat different this year, as the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has called all diocesan parishes to pray the litany to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Mass or during a Holy Hour with the Blessed Sacrament in response to the scheduled June 16 Los Angeles Dodgers’ Pride Night celebration when the team will honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a California-based group that has been accused of mocking the Catholic faith, desecrating the cross and Eucharist, and making light of religious sisters.

The Transfiguration congregation has a background in African American culture, music, and literature as well as an accomplished choir, said Akpan, who plays several instruments and sometimes performs with parishioners.  

“I enjoy the ministry because the spirituality, the music, the exuberance, the kind of language,” Akpan said. “We sing, we shout, so that kind of fit in for me, the spirituality of the faith back in Nigeria.”

Two other Josephite pastors are nearby leading the bilingual parishes of St. Brigid and Holy Name of Jesus, and the three pastors support each other, Akpan said.

The Josephites give something important back to the Black community, he said, and despite the decline in priestly vocations, he is confident they will continue to have priests.

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