In collaboration with their associates, auxiliaries, co-workers and volunteers, the Sisters work with the poor of the world, both to identify and transform underlying causes of suffering and to meet their practical needs.
The congregation has its origin in the French religious institute of the Sisters Servants of the Sacred Heart, founded by the Abbé Peter-Victor Braun in Paris in 1866.
In the course of his ministry, Braun served in a seedy quarter of the city where he became aware of the struggle of the young women there who had come as unskilled workers, especially when they were not able to find work in the factories.
[1] By October 1866, Braun had reluctantly concluded that the work had to be entrusted to a congregation of professed Religious Sisters in order to guarantee its continuity.
[a] The German and Austrian sisters were expelled from France and formed their own Congregation, Dienerinnen des heiligsten Herzens Jesu based in Vienna, Austria.
[2] The refugees were warmly received by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster, who gave them a small house in the Stratford area of the city.
[1] After the upheavals of the Franco-Prussian War, and the subsequent uprisings, with the establishment of peace in France by the late 1870s, some of the French Sisters returned to their homeland.
[3] Sister Winifride Tyrrell, born near Monasterevin in Ireland, who had served for many years as a principal in the Mile End neighborhood of London, was elected as the first Superior General.
[1] Under the guidance of Mother Winifride the early Sisters served the poor in industrial cities, towns and villages throughout England, Scotland and Wales.
Made up of the three congregations which trace their roots to Braun's original group, the members are: the Sœurs Servantes du Sacré-Cœur de Jésus, Dienerinnen des heiligsten Herzens Jesu in Austria, and the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.