Cornelia Peacock was born in Philadelphia on January 15, 1809. She was an attractive, well-educated woman with a lively personality. At 22, she married an Episcopalian minister, Pierce Connelly, and moved with her husband to Natchez, MS where Pierce was Pastor of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Within four years they converted to Roman Catholicism and moved to Grand Coteau in LA. Pierce taught with the Jesuit Fathers at St. Charles College and Cornelia, along with raising their family, tutored and taught music in the school for girls run by the Sacred Heart sisters. Cornelia and Pierce had three boys and two girls. Two died in early childhood and the eldest as a young adult.

In early 1840, still grieving the death of a baby daughter, Cornelia made her first retreat of three days. God touched her deeply and her interior life was profoundly changed. She gave herself in a new way to God, desiring to do God's Will as it was made known to her through her duties and the events of daily life.

Her growing attachment to God was tested that very year. In February, her beloved John Henry, two years old, was scalded in a tragic accident and died in Cornelia's arms. From this anguish was born in her a life-long devotion to Mary as Mother of Sorrows. In October of that same year another heartbreak came: Pierce told her he felt called to the priesthood. Cornelia was pregnant with their fifth child, and urged her husband to consider his proposal yet again, but added characteristically that if God asked it of her, she would make the sacrifice -- and with all her heart.

Gradually Cornelia discovered her own vocation to be a religious sister. In 1845 Pierce was ordained in Rome. Cornelia, hoping to join the Society of the Sacred Heart, went with her children to stay with the sisters in Rome, but finding no peace there, she prayed to know God's desires for her. These were made clear in a request from Pope Gregory XVI that she go to England and found a new religious order.

In 1846, the new Foundress with her two youngest children and three companions arrived in Derby. The Society of the Holy Child Jesus had begun. Its beginning was small and there were many deprivations, but a spirit of joy and peace prevailed; Cornelia was able to inspire in her sisters something of her own serenity in adversity. Soon they were running schools for poor and needy people, holding day, night and Sunday classes to accommodate the young factory workers, giving retreats, and helping in the parishes.

As her Society grew and her work of education flourished, great personal suffering again came to Cornelia through Pierce. He renounced both his priesthood and his Catholic faith, removed their three children from the schools they were attending and denied Cornelia all contact with them, hoping thus to force her to return to him as his wife. He even pressed a lawsuit against her that gained notoriety in England, but he eventually lost the case.

In this suffering, Cornelia clung steadfastly to God, her strength. She wrote in her notebook, "I belong all to God," and this total belonging freed her to give herself to others. Her love for God grew and she sought joyfully to live her life as one continuous act of love.

In the mystery of the Incarnation, God become one of us, Cornelia found her inspiration. It was to this Child in Whom God is both hidden and manifest that she dedicated her Society. The mystery of our merciful God embracing all that is human was the foundation of her charism.

Today, Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus are an international community striving to live the apostolic life as Cornelia did, seeking still to meet the wants of the age through spiritual works of mercy.