Mission Statement of Sacred Heart Church
Called by God, we, Sacred Heart Parish Community gathered in Christ's universal Roman Catholic Church in this twenty-first century celebrate the gift of our faith. We pray for the Holy Spirit to guide us as we seek to live our lives to bring the presence of Jesus to all people.
By striving to live our faith we hope to inspire future generations to center their lives in the heart of Jesus.
Pastor: Reverend Mark R. Jette
mjette47@gmail.com
Administrative Assistant: Elizabeth Grigoriou
elizabethgrigoriou@necoxmail.com
Rectory: Telephone: 860-668-4246 Fax: 860-668-1337
Email: sheart.church@sbcglobal.net
Rectory Office Hours: Monday – Thursday 8:30 am – 2:00 pm
(Rectory Office closed on Friday and Holidays)
Religious Education:
Telephone: 860-668-7766 Fax: 860-370-5164
Donna Swols, Director
Pat Sagon, Confirmation Coordinator
Administrative Assistant: Jackie Dion
Directors of Music:
Floyd Higgins and Gretchen Collins
Email: floydandgretchen@comcast.net
*****SACRED HEART CHURCH RENOVATIONS WILL BEGIN JUNE 24, 2019 AND GO THROUGH JULY AND PART OF AUGUST. ALL MASSES DURING THAT TIME WILL BE HELD AT ST. JOSEPH CHURCH ON SOUTH MAIN STREET IN SUFFIELD, CT. SACRED HEART PARISH RECTORY AND FATHER TED HALL WILL BE OPEN DURING RENOVATIONS.*****
FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
NUNS ON THE CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELD
During the 1863 Chattanooga campaign, Sisters of Charity tended to wounded soldiers
in a field hospital. As they prepared to move on to another site, the men cried out in
protest. The nuns had become such a great comfort to the dying that the soldiers
passed around a petition for them to stay.
A soldier said: I would sign that paper 50 times if asked, for the sisters have been to me
as my mother and if they leave, I know I shall die.
Some 700 religious sisters ministered on Civil War battlefields. Mother Seton’s Sisters
of Charity were the largest group, with more than 300 sisters serving Union and
Confederate troops alongside Catholic priests and Protestant ministers.
The sisters left little in testimony about themselves. What we know comes from the men
they helped. The high praise given to them was unusual, given the prevalent
anti-Catholicism of antebellum America.
One soldier wrote: I am not of your church and have been taught to believe it to be
nothing but evil, but actions speak louder than words. If Christianity does exist on the
earth, it has some of its closest followers among the Sisters of Mercy.
A general said: Of the Sisters of Mercy there is little need for me to speak. Their good
deeds are written in the grateful hearts of thousands of our soldiers to whom they were
ministering angels.
Another soldier thanked the Sisters of Mercy at the Confederate hospital in Charleston
for bravely assisting men who were dying of yellow fever, even when officers were too
much alarmed to even furnish water for the sick and dying.
In one typical episode at a Kentucky hospital served by the Sisters of the Holy Cross, a
Protestant chaplain witnessed a nun serve the sick without rest from daybreak until well
past sunset.
It is a mystery to me how those sisters can stand at their post without ever giving up, he
told a friend. Then he asked the sister, How do you account for it? The nun only smiled
at him and gestured to the rosary on her hip.
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