Scenes around school on Christmas Basket Mass day. Here’s wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas break! Classes resume on Monday, January 5, 2015.

Join the Academy community in celebrating the birth of the Christ Child!  All are invited to attend our Christmas Eve Liturgy in the Shrine, beginning at 10 p.m.

Hundreds of food baskets await delivery to charitable agencies after this  morning’s Christmas Basket Mass. We’re grateful to the many Academy families, as well as alumni, who donated baskets of food that will provide a holiday meal for area families in need. Merry Christmas!

Academy students gave a beautiful gift to their parents and grandparents with their Silver Tea performances last weekend and Monday.  We’re left with heartwarming memories, and gratitude to all of the adults who helped the children prepare and present. Merry Christmas!

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Advent poems written by Sister Kimberly King—former Fifth Class teacher, librarian and resident poet at ASH—invite reflection as we prepare for the celebration of Christ’s birth.

Sister King now resides in a Sacred Heart community in Nova Scotia. We’re grateful for the sharing of her singular voice on Consider the Lilies.

Yesterday’s Photo of the Day at the White House features the feet of some of the Patt Holt Singers, who traveled to Washington to perform for the President. After the first set, the group was invited into the Diplomatic Room where they performed “Let There Be Peace On Earth” for the President and First Lady. ASH parent and alum Laurie Kirchoff Strickland served as music director, and seven of the 20 performers were ASH students and alums. What an honor! Congratulations to the Patt Holt Singers.

We look forward with excitement to tonight’s, tomorrow’s and Monday’s Silver Teas. The students have been working for weeks on their performances, lovingly prepared as a Christmas gift for their parents.

• MIDDLE SCHOOL (Classes 5-8):  Friday, December 12  •  7:30 p.m.
• LOWER SCHOOL (Classes P-4):  Saturday, December 13  •  2 p.m.
• PRE-PRIMARY:  Monday, December 15  •  10 a.m. (for morning class) and 2 p.m. (for afternoon class)

The Academy Band will give a Christmas concert on Sunday, December 14, at 2 p.m. in Rauch Memorial. On Thursday, Dec. 18, the band will perform their concert for the whole school, and classroom Christmas parties will follow.

In a tradition dating back many years, each Academy family is invited to provide a basket of food for the needy. As we joyfully anticipate Jesus’ birth during Advent, assembling items for your family’s food basket can become a special family activity and a new holiday tradition. When students (P-8), faculty, staff, parents, alums and friends gather for Christmas Basket Mass on Friday, Dec. 19 at 10 a.m. in Rauch Memorial, hundreds of bountiful baskets will fill the bleachers, representing the incredible generosity of our families. Not only is this a prayerful way to part before the holidays, it is also an opportunity to realize the abundance of our blessings.

Academy alumni will lend support to this effort by assembling additional food baskets the evening before Basket Mass. They’ll gather from 7–9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18 in the White Center.

Dismissal for Christmas break is Friday, Dec. 19 at 11:30 a.m. [NO LATE DISMISSAL]

Finally, all are invited to attend our Christmas Eve Liturgy at 10 p.m. Dec. 24 in the Shrine of St. Philippine Duchesne. This is a beautiful, joyful and prayerful way to celebrate the birth of Jesus!

If you have questions about any of our December events, please call the school office at 636-946-6127.

Following the conclusion of the SHCOG Visiting Team’s time with us Wednesday, the faculty surprised the students with an afternoon play day—a mini Congé, when lessons were set aside in favor of fun and games. Sister Glavin’s surprise announcement over the P.A. was happily received!

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Today we celebrate the Feast of our foundress, St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. While Academy of the Sacred Heart families and alumni celebrate November 18 with joy each year, there’s cause for added fervor in 2014, for two reasons.

The Academy joins the entire metro area in celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the City of St. Louis. Our 9:30 a.m. Feast Day liturgy in Rauch Memorial gym has been added to the STL250 Event Calendar. There, it is noted that “St. Louis had existed for only five years when Rose Philippine Duchesne was born in Grenoble, France. Forty-nine years later, in 1818, she and four other Sacred Heart nuns disembarked in the frontier town of St. Louis, and opened a school for girls in nearby St. Charles. The Academy of the Sacred Heart was the first formal, and currently the longest running, school in the St. Louis area. Celebrate the feast day of this remarkable pioneer woman—Missouri’s adopted daughter and one of the first North American saints—with the Academy school community on Tuesday, November 18.”  The public is welcome to join us in celebrating Philippine’s life and the impact she had on our region.

Secondly, in conjunction with our every-five-years Sacred Heart Commission on Goals (SHCOG) process, a visiting team of Sacred Heart educators from Houston, New Orleans, Chicago, Princeton, N.J. and Halifax will be with us for Philippine’s Feast. We welcome them and look forward to hearing on Wednesday their reflections on how we can more deeply live our mission as a Sacred Heart school, as expressed in the Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart Education.

Read more about Philippine.  In addition, visit the Shrine of St. Philippine Duchesne website.

Photo: John Storjohann

This week we welcome five Sacred Heart educators from Chicago, New Orleans, Houston, Princeton, N.J., and Halifax, Nova Scotia, who make up the Visiting Team for our Sacred Heart Commission on Goals (SHCOG) process currently underway. They’re conversing with a number of students and adults alike, exploring how we live the Goals of Sacred Heart Education. On Tuesday the Visiting Team will celebrate Philippine’s Feast Day liturgy with us, and on Wednesday morning, they’ll read their reflections to our school community. We appreciate their presence among us, and their discernment in how the Academy lives the Goals and Criteria.

At today’s all-school prayer service for peace and justice in our world, we prayed this prayer by Pope John Paul II:

“Lord Jesus Christ, who are called the Prince of Peace, who are yourself our peace and reconciliation, who so often said, “Peace to you,” grant us peace. Make all men and women witnesses of truth, justice, and brotherly love. Banish from their hearts whatever might endanger peace. Enlighten our rulers that they might guarantee and defend the great gift of peace. May all peoples on earth become as brothers and sisters. May longed-for peace blossom forth and reign always over us all.”