Hshshs

• Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae

  Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• Kongregasyon [/ Kapisanan ?] ng Kalinislinisang Puso ni Maria

  Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
• CICM


  Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae
• Founded/Established


  November 28, 1862
• Motto


  Cor Unum et Anima Una (One Heart, One Soul)
• Spirituality


  • Ad Extra/Ad Gentes - Going beyond... to frontier situations
• DEDICATED TO MARY, THE MOTHER OF JESUS
• Fr. Verbist and his first companions: 'During their first in a series of meetings to draw up the statutes of the new Congregation unanimously agreed to consecrate the Mission to the Incarnate Word and to the Immaculate Heart Mary, ". . . . to whom they committed themselves to recommend daily the interests of the Congregation."'
• Article 16 of the CICM Constitution connects Mary to Jesus, to whom the CICM identity and mission are hinged
• God chose Mary to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word. In her, He reveals himself as the One who exalts the lowly. She has a special place in our lives as missionaries of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
• The CICM missionary is invited to look into Mary's heart in her unqualified "yes" to the call of the Father to follow Jesus.
• The founder


  Fr. Theophile Verbist
• Fr. Theophile Verbist, born in 1823 in Antwerp, Belgium. He was ordained priest in 1847, a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Malines-Brussels in Belgium. He was on the staff of the minor seminary, the Chaplain of the Military Academy of Brussels and the Chaplain of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. In 1860, he was appointed as the National Director of the Pontifical Association of the Holy Childhood.
• He founded the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae (CICM) in Scheut, Brussels, Belgium.


  November 28, 1862
• In the winter of 1865, Fr. Theophile Verbist together with four zealous companions, Fr. Alois Van Segvelt, Fr. Ferdinand Hamer, Fr. Francois Vranckx, and a Belgian layman, Paul Splingaerd arrived in Xiwanzi, Inner Mongolia


  There they immediately began organizing small Christian communities.
• Being new to a foreign land, they had to face a lot of difficulties, including the harsh terrain, severe weather, vast distances, learning the language of the people, and unfamiliar diseases.</b>
• But these challenges did not prevent them in planting the seeds of CICM missionary work.
• Theophile Verbist


  Born in Antwerp (Belgium) on June 12, 1823, in an urban middle-class family, with seven children. He had a twin brother, Edmond.
• Theophile Verbist was ordained as a diocesan priest

  September 18, 1847
• Theophile Verbist


  • Initially assigned as supervisor in the Minor Seminary of Mechlin, after which he became chaplain at the military school and rector of a community of the Sisters of Notre-Dame de Namur in Brussels in 1853
  • In 1860, he got an additional appointment as National Director of the Holy Childhood in Belgium; around that time, his longtime vocation to the foreign missions began to manifest itself more clearly
• The group received the Chinese province of Inner-Mongolia as their tentative area of assignment

  1861
• The statutes of the new congregation were approved

  November 28, 1862
• Purpose of the new congregation

  The conversion of the infidels, the preaching of the faith to the Chinese and the salvation of the many abandoned children
• Five pioneers took their religious vows in the hands of Cardinal Sterckx


  October 24, 1864
• The first batch of missionaries, headed by Father Verbist himself, left for Chinese Mongolia, via Rome, where the founder got his appointment as apostolic pro-vicar


  August 25, 1865
• The team arrived in Xiwanze, their destination, without most of their luggage that was left in Paris due to a shipment error

  December 6, 1865
• The Lazarist Fathers finalized the turnover of the entire province of Inner-Mongolia to the Belgian missionaries


  September 1866
• Father Verbist fell ill at the village of Laohugou and died


  February 23, 1868
• Theophile Verbist


  • A pioneer of the foreign mission
  • Compassionate
  • Transformational, as his actions led to the creation of a new congregation in just a few years, and in the establishment of the Belgian Mission in China, in a region known for its harsh climate, its huge distances, poor roads, and often unsafe travel conditions
• Theophile Verbist: '"What makes the life of a missionary truly difficult are the huge distances that he has to cross to carry out his holy ministry, without finding along the road things of basic need, and to have to undergo through the deserts of Mongolia, not only an intense cold, but twisters of dust and snow that are challenging his days"'