Dear Parents,
As I mentioned last week, I have been using the life of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, as my inspiration for this year’s school theme. Her life has been, is and will always be foundational in deepening our understanding of the essence of Sacred Heart education. This week, I want to expand a bit on her educational vision.
What we treasure as the Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart education are a current articulation of Sophie’s vision. It is an education that inculcates a deep and abiding faith in God, a rigorous intellectual formation, a concern for others (especially the disadvantaged), a strong instinct for community and a personal growth in freedom.
Her way of educating was designed to be broad, deep and demanding. How could it not be, especially given her own extraordinary education! In order to accomplish this kind of education, she insisted that those who formed the students would have themselves, both excellent professional preparation and also strong personal formation. On a regular basis she noted the impossibility of communicating attitudes and values that one has not personally appropriated.
So, Sophie looked for both learning and virtue in those who were assigned to the schools. She looked for a combination of qualities which she would capture with the words “sainte savant” – she wanted holy scholars or, if you will, learned saints. In other words, while she was, on the one hand, rigorous about the intellectual formation of the teachers in her Sacred Heart schools, she was, on the other hand, equally concerned with the personal and spiritual formation of her teachers.
We continue to try to fill our schools with “sainte savants” and surround your children with holy scholars and learned saints. We continue to try to attend to our ongoing intellectual, professional, personal and spiritual formation. We do all this in the spirit of Saint Madeleine Sophie, so that, through our own personal virtue, our own deep faith, our own intellectual rigor, our own work ethic, our own skill at building community, and our own free choices, actions, words and behaviors, we aspire to inspire and form your children so that they too become learned saints and holy scholars!
Tonight (for Lower School parents) and next Thursday (for Middle School parents) you will have an opportunity to meet the learned saints we’ve invited to inspire, educate and form your children this year.
Looking forward to seeing you at those meetings,
Mauren Glavin, rscj
