Lots of gratitude is flowing this week! Tuesday night at our annual Eighth Class Dinner, our soon-to-be-graduates thanked their parents for the sacrifices they have made over these past 10 years, gifting them with a Sacred Heart education. Then, yesterday, the Eighth Class students paid tribute in word and song (and, at times, gales of joyful laughter) to their teachers, thanking them for the efforts they have made in fostering their education! And now, today, the Eighth Class will lead the whole school in thanking God, and in a special way, thanking and honoring Mary, the Mother of God, for all that we have been gifted. This will be a particularly poignant moment for our oldest students for whom it will be their final May Crowning and Maypole Dance.
Tomorrow and Saturday, the gratitude will flow in the opposite direction. Tomorrow, the Academy’s graduating class of 2014 will ALL be honored in their final Prize Day Ceremony. Prize Day is the MOST formal, most special and most historic ceremony in which we engage (well, not counting the mass, which is, of course, THE most special and most historic). At Prize Day each and every Eighth Class student will come forward to be honored for the gift he or she is to the world! Each will receive a gift from the school and a card honoring them as a person. To be able to honor each one after watching them grow (many for 10 years) is one of my most satisfying moments as Head of School!
The second half of tomorrow’s ceremony allows us to honor particular successes. As we do so, I always like to remind the students of what we say at the beginning of every Prize Day Ceremony:
Honor and Glory to God Alone!
Ultimately, each and every one of us is a reflection of some aspect of the Divine in whose image we have been made. So, I honor our students! I honor them for the God they reflect and I thank God for the reflection of that Divine spark which I see in each one! But most of all, I honor them for glorifying God through the choices they have made to develop the gifts they have been given.
United in the joy of seeing God shine through our Eighth Class students so brightly,
Maureen Glavin, rscj
