The Good Shepherd Congregation celebrates on June 8 the feast of Blessed Maria Droste. She is known for her great devotion to the Sacred Heart amd for her request to Pope Leo XIII to consecrate the world to the Sacred Heart.
Blessed
Maria Droste zu Vizhering was born on September 8, 1863 in Munster, Germany. She was the
daughter of Count Clemen Droste zu Vishering and of Countess Helen von Galen.
Her family was characterized by heroic loyalty to the Church.
As a child, Maria had a strong will and was inclined to emotional explosions,
but she also had a very sensitive heart and a deep feeling for others. She
developed an exceptional generosity and singleness of purpose. On the day of
her Confirmation, July 8, 1875, she became conscious of a call to an apostolic
religious life.
At age 25, having ministered to a poor girl
whom society rejected she joined the congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the
Good Shepherd, in Munster. She was given the name, Sr. Mary of the Divine
Heart. In 1891, she devoted herself to the girls sent to the Good Shepherd
Sisters in Munster for rehabilitation and care. With an ardent love for youth
ministry, she maintains: “the most needy, the most miserable, the most forsaken
are the children I love best.”
In 1894, at the age of 31, she was transferred to
Portugal and appointed superior of Oporto. She exercised a wide apostolate of
services to persons from all walks of life—rich and poor, clergy and laity. Sr.
Mary of the Divine Heart, was an active, capable, joyful religious, yet unknown
to those with whom she lived, she experienced intense mystical union with God.
Towards the end of her short life, Our Lord made known to her that He wanted
the entire universe consecrated to His Heart, and that she was to request this
of the Pope. This she did.
Pope Leo XIII was moved and
requested an investigation. Subsequently, he announced the consecration by
means of the encyclical “Annum Sacrum.” The preparation of this act would be
preceded by a world-wide triduum which Leo XIII termed, “the greatest of my
pontificate.”
Sister Maria observed the triduum in heaven. She was never strong physically:
her health had so deteriorated that for many months she had been an invalid,
suffering excruciating pains from a spinal disease. She said to her confessor: “My
mission on earth will be completed as soon as the consecration is accomplished.”
She died on June 8, 1899, the day before the feast of the
Sacred Heart. On, June 11, 1899, the Pope solemnly consecrated the universe to
the Heart of Christ. Leo XIII told her father, a year later on May 7, 1900: “I
call on her. I call on her in all circumstances.”
Sister
Maria was beatified by Pope Paul VI on November 1, 1975.