The Society of the Sacred Heart
Australia-Aotearoa
New Zealand ,
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The Society of the Sacred Heart
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It is not what you are nor what you have been that God sees with
all merciful eyes,
There is something wanting in education where a child has not had its share of leisure, to be rapt in silence and alone… Janet Stuart rscJ
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT LEAVE 2010 I had the privilege of Professional
Development Leave generously funded by the Provincial Council in
St Charles Staying with the community and sharing their life and stories was an important element of this visit as it allowed me to form personal relationships with Jo McFayden, Margaret Munch and Connie Dryden rscj, to celebrate with their 4th July holiday time, to meet some of their friends and broader community and to understand their quite different ministries. Margaret is an authority on the life and story of Philippine and the early US foundations and was most generous in sharing her knowledge and passion. She shared the treasures of the Philippine heartland located in the Academy at St Charles and took me to Florissant which was a movingly reflective time. Seeing the space under the stairs that was Philippine ‘bedroom’ and getting a sense of the geography of her time gave me a completely new appreciation of the foundation she made on the US frontier. At 72 Margaret is proudly the teacher of English to the 6th Grade, a full time teaching load in a high energy school. What struck me particularly about Margaret, and also about Jo, was their so evident love of the children of the Academy and their attachment to the people of St Charles. It made me realise that building community as a Christian value happens subtly and gradually. I also visited the Network Offices and spent time with Carol Haggerty rscj and Madeleine Ortman and was delighted to be taken to visit the Barat Academy Dardenne Prairie, [outer St Louis] and be shown around this newly founded school by its extraordinarily enthusiastic Head, Debbie Watson. This school in a new housing development and begun only in 2007 serves Grades 9-12, is a provisional member of the US Network of schools and is an example of Sacred Heart education meshing cutting edge pedagogy with the story and traditions of 210 years of Sophie’s inspiration. From Madeleine who was the essence of warmth and welcome, I learnt a lot about the US Network, their Goals Commission and their Mission Plan for Formation to Sacred Heart Spirituality and Mission. I visited the US Provincial Offices in St Louis in the company of Connie Dryden of the Uganda/Kenya Province, met with all members of the Provincial Team and had a wonderful time at the Provincial Archives with Frances Gimber and Lyn Osiek as guides. It is an amazing collection. Maureen Glavin, Head of the Academy at
St Charles was most generous in showing me the school, the Archives they hold
there and filling out my understanding of US education and some of its current
challenges. I enjoyed the presentation by a group of Academy students who were
attending a Summer Camp there and I was very interested that the Academy have
instituted separate gender classes in the 7th and 8th
grades and are planning to push this back into the 6th grade. This
decision has come about in part, following the research of Leonard Sachs and his
book Why Gender Matters. Maureen is an incredibly energetic and committed
educator with a very broad scope of interests. One could see the GOALS informing
and vitalizing all the initiatives unfolding at the The “Spirituality in a Globalized World” Conference was just amazing. The speakers and their input, the high level of excellent organization, the prayer and liturgies, the emphasis on internationality, the hospitality – and the food! There were 250 people present, including 40+ rscj , a similar number of Associates and about 30 participants from outside of the US. Perhaps the thing that struck me most was that I did not meet a single person who was just ‘along for the ride’. There was an overwhelming and infectious enthusiasm for Sacred Heart education, the Society and the story. I met many educators from Network schools across the US and was fascinated to learn about their contexts and programs. One often hears criticism of the insular self-focus of north Americans, but nothing could be further from this in my experience of the conference and its delegates. I spoke to a number of teachers who have innovative and demanding social outreach programs happening in their schools and am going to follow up these links to try to stimulate ideas for our schools. The large group presentations from Suzanne Cooke on Janet Erskine Stuart’s Contribution to the Education of Youth, by Cecile Meyer on Global Outlook on the World, by Lyn Osiek on Philippine Duchesne- A new look through her own writings and Paul Farmer on his work of intervention and advocacy in Haiti and Clare Pratt’s synthesis of the many elements of the Conference experience were each in their own way inspiring. It was very wonderful to meet Cecile and hear her grounded wisdom on small actions and initiatives making a difference. Her exploration of “Ubuntu” meaning a ‘a person is a person through other persons’ and her encouragement to take seriously our call to be Global citizens beyond national boundaries challenged my thinking but the statistic she quoted that 963 million people go to bed tonight hungry really shocked me. She gave practical examples of how to make Sophie’s vision of the “renewal of the existing social order through the transformative influence of women” real today. I will take her suggestions to meetings of Directors of Mission, school staffs and Principals over the forthcoming months. I feel much more engaged with this aspect of the Society’s mission as a result of this encounter. The Conference also exposed me to a new process called World Café which is a very useful tool for sharing a diversity of ideas and possibilities with large groups. I learnt that two US schools have on staff a person who essentially does my role on a single campus. There is so much to be grateful for from this time and the fact that the presentations are available online and will go on being archived resources for the future gives such longevity to the experience. At a personal level, my most treasured part of the Conference was a small group workshop by Barbara Quinn rscj on “Mystic Prophets for the 21st Century”. Some of her ways of expressing the mystic –‘ the one who lets God in’, ‘on tiptoe in search of God’ ‘educating our desires in God’s direction’ and much else was real soul food. Listening to her exploration of our call to be as Sophie was a contemporary mystic in the world and some of the challenging questions she posed for our reflection will go on nourishing me for a long time ahead. Two quotes are now stuck to my wall as reminders: Two lines from Emily Dickenson which I knew but had never understood, “Tell all the Truth you want but tell it Slant.” And Barbara’s own “Speak and Listen across the Heart of Jesus”. |
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Society
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mid 2010. I
used this time to visit the US and to spend five days with the Philippine
Community in St Charles Missouri and to attend the “Spirituality in a Globalized
World” Conference at Stoneridge, Maryland. This was a rich and growthful time.
Academy and students there
are clearly very fortunate.