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Foreword
This History has its own history. In a hazy way, it must have been in someone's mind when the Book of
Life was first instituted as a solemn record of the Society's membership. Whoever began that book must
have been thinking of the future generations who would want to know the details of our story. I find
that those who will come after us are always in my mind, too; every time I file a letter or document of
any kind, I imagine the story it will help to tell; and our archives’ rich store of records shows that
others have done likewise, with great care, over the course of the Society's life.
From time to time our sisters have expressed the desire for more information about our growth and
development after Cornelia Connelly’s death. When initial formation directors from every province met
together in Jos, Nigeria in 1987, they voiced a common need for this kind of knowledge. Directors in
the African Province were eager that the province’s story be written soon to help an increasing number
of new African members know their particular history more fully. All the directors felt strongly that the
whole story should be told, to give each part of the Society the overall context for its own unfolding. So
the formation directors formally recommended that steps be taken to write our history as soon as
possible.
By 1991 all the documents needed for Cornelia’s canonization process were completed, and a new
biography had been published, so the Society was ready to direct its research energies beyond the
Cornelian years. To make a beginning, the general council invited three SHCJ consultants from each
province along with the Society Archivist to meet in Rome in September 1993, and out of their shared
expertise, enthusiasm and conviction a plan came to birth. The history would extend from the Society’s
beginning in 1846 to our one hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1996. It would be published in a series
of units, with the first volume appearing in October 1996 -- the end of the Jubilee Year marking the
special anniversary; and it would be the collaborative work of many SHCJ everywhere. The consultants
sketched an outline of possible future units, and the general council appointed an interprovincial team
of editors to lead the project forward along these lines. The general editors were Judith Lancaster
SHCJ, Caritas McCarthy SHCJ and Rose Uche Nwosu SHC], with Radegunde Flaxman SHC] as
associate editor. After the death of Caritas McCarthy in January 1996, Therese Currie SHC] became
part of the team.
Now that the first volume is in hand, it is time to say a deeply-felt thank you to all who brought it into
being. To consultants, archivists, researchers, writers, proof-readers, artists, and editors in Africa,
Europe and the Americas I express the gratitude of all the Society for the gift you have given us in
completing this unit and launching this project. Both process and product are gift, and we look
forward to coming units. Thank you!
It is Eastertime as I write this, the season when we listen to hope-filled stories of new life. This very day
is also the anniversary of Cornelia’s death and passage into the fullness of risen life one hundred and
seventeen years ago. Writing our history - telling our story - is like walking the Emmaus road with the
risen Christ. As we remember and recount what has happened to us over the one hundred and fifty
years, we are taught its fuller meaning, and our eyes are opened to recognise God’s presence and action
from generation to generation in the one life of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. In this dynamic we
are moved to begin again to be Easter witnesses and messengers of life, along with all the women who
have run before us in ardent apostolic love. The remembrance of our past in this Year of Jubilee is in
the service of a future still to be born.
Mary Ann Buckley, SHC]
Superior General
18 April 1996