Below you'll find several quotes from Father Andre' Coindre, the founder of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. Click on the following words to be taken to the quotes that correspond to that topic: courage, confidence, providence, temperance, cleanliness, work, compassion, and watchfulness.

Courage

 

“My very dear Barother Borgia, be courageous in the midst of your trials...Endure all things, that is one of your primary responsibilities; encourage, correct, console, and admonish in the Lord...Courage and trust, that is my motto.”

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

“You are suffering: well then! All the better! You are walking in the footsteps of the apostles who had to undergo much adversity, of the martyrs who shed their blood, and of Jesus Christ who entered into his glory amid denials, humiliations, and pain.”

--André Coindre, May 15, 1823

 

“Well then, our God needs soldiers who can endure the weariness of the day to day even more than he needs contemplatives who only honor him with their lips! Sword in hand, zeal for his glory, a desire to save, to teach, to edify one’s neighbor, this is what our God loves above all.”

--André Coindre, May 15, 1823

 

Confidence

 

“I have the utmost confidence that with zeal and enthusiasm and with the help of God, they will ultimately succeed.”

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

“You tell me that you are not without anguish as you see that things are going badly. My dear friend, badly is hardly the word when there is such a depth of good at the heart of your work. It is true that things are not perfect. But the Lord alone is perfect, and even his works, however glorious, lie always on the edge of the abyss. God made the world in six days to teach us that it takes time to achieve anything worthwhile, and that things never go as well in their infancy as when they attain full maturity. How many spring blossoms produce no fruit at all! The sower must content himself with the harvest which God sends him, even if it is not as good as the one he had hoped for, and even if it means that he has to content himself with the barest essentials.”

--André Coindre, May 15, 1823

 

“Don’t forget the young men whom you are training and who in the world will forget neither the lessons you have taught them, nor your own virtue, though right now they might not seem to be all that you would like them to be. They are retaining more than you think. Should they ever become fathers, ah! How much better will they be able to bring up their children! Good is constantly being done thanks to your ministry, in spite of what you might say.”

--André Coindre, May15, 1823

 

Providence

 

“Everyone must be concerned for the good of the work, but let no one get discouraged or become anxious. Providence is on our side.”

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

Temperance

“Temper force with gentleness, nothing excessive.”

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

“As for you, you must always be of that blend of firmness and kindness, which assures that the rule is observed and your authority esteemed.”

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

“Certainly they must be challenged repeatedly in this regard; but our desire for the better must not blind us to the good. They yearn to belong to God, and that is already a good thing. So many people in the world do not possess this desire.”

--André Coindre, May 15, 1823

 

Cleanliness

“Everything ought to sparkle with cleanliness: the children, the workshops, the kitchen, the refectory, and especially the dormitories. . . . The world which only takes account of the exterior, will have little regard for the interior if all of these things were to be neglected.”

--André Coindre, April 29, 1823

 

Work

 

“Work and love of work, for pupils and working brothers alike, must be considered a duty of state. Piety and regularity on the part of those who have been assigned these various responsibilities would be useless were they to neglect their duty of state.

--André Coindre, January 10, 1822

 

Compassion

“Man is like a poor old clock that must be rewound each day, but oh so gently.”

--André Coindre, May 15, 1823

 

“Try as we might, we cannot regulate our lives like a musical score; a performance always has a few sour notes. You do what you can. God invites a faithfulness which is not metaphysical but moral. When a person has done all that he can to the best of his ability, he has done all that he must. To seek to do more than one can is absurd! God cannot expect this of us.”

--André Coindre, February 25, 1826

 

“These young prisoners are worthy of personal attention. Guilty at an age when one is more careless than bad, more reckless than incorrigible, above all we could not give up hope of their changing. We had to surround them with help to form them to good.”

--André Coindre, Prospectus of 1818)

 

Watchfulness

“The boys’ mischief ought to serve as a warning to the brothers that they must always keep a watchful eye on them day and night.”

--André Coindre, September 11, 1823