After Pope Leo XIII received several letters from Sister Mary of the Divine Heart, the countess of Droste zu Vischering and Mother Superior in the Convent of the Congregation of the Good Shepherd Sisters in Porto, Portugal, asking him to consecrate the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, he commissioned a group of theologians to examine the petition on the basis of revelation and sacred tradition.
During the spring of 1879, in one of the ways of their particular devotion to the Heart of Christ and after a first experience of religious life held in the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Riedenburg, Maria Droste zu Vischering reached an important conclusion: "... I began to understand that without the spirit of sacrifice the love of the Heart of Jesus is merely an illusion".