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As we look forward to the upcoming choral performances endearingly known as Silver Tea, I do so with some hopes.
 
My deepest hope is that you, our parents, experience the love that this gift is meant to convey. The children understand that this performance is for you. They practice harmony, memorize words, pay attention to the details of how they are presenting themselves, and patiently persist in the pursuit of perfection, all for the sake of providing you with the gift of joy that they expectantly intend for you to experience.
 
Another very deep hope I have is that, through the pure innocence of these children’s song and story, we are all reminded of the True Meaning of Christmas. Secular, commercial and cultural pressures tend to override or at least minimize the powerful message of the birth of that one sacred baby born in the Bethlehem manger. I don’t think we can say it enough: God revealed God’s Self in a unique and new way through that vulnerable, poor and needy child!
 
My third hope is that the implications of this special story hit our heart at new levels! What does this story say about the Master and Creator of the Universe? What is God trying to REVEAL by BEING so perfectly present in this human form? Do we understand our material world differently? Do we understand humanity differently? Do we understand God differently?
 
My final hope is that you ENJOY the performances! Sit back and take in this time while your children are shimmering with innocence and shining forth with heart-beauty reflective of the Face of Christ we see within their deepest and best selves. The incarnation assuredly continues as they (and we) allow God to fill our hearts and shine forth through our lives and loves.
 
United to each of you in and through the Heart that beats in each of our hearts, if only we allow our hearts to be open enough to birth Christ anew in the here, and the now!

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. Most fundamentally Advent is the word we use to describe the four-week period of time leading up to Christmas. Most profoundly Advent is a season of heart-attentiveness, allowing for an experience of interior emptiness.

Put that way, Advent doesn’t sound too appealing, does it? Yet, it can be one of the most profound liturgical seasons. It is so because the effect of the kind of heart-attentiveness which Advent promotes is the very thing that allows for the experience of the birth of Christ’s fullness within!

How? Well, Advent is meant to be a time when we actually slow down long enough to notice, our hearts’ longings and yearnings. Many of us keep our lives busy for the very reason that we don’t LIKE experiencing our inner aches. We fill our lives with distractions as a way of avoiding or as a way of trying to fill our hearts so we aren’t aware of the ache. We fill our hearts with people, material things and thrilling experiences. In fact, we all know of people whose lives have been ruined in their desperate drive to fill that empty interior space―sometimes in destructive and unhelpful ways.

The Advent invitation is to just notice the heart-hole, notice the longing, notice the yearning and notice the ache―without filling it up! These human longings are symbolically communicated during Advent with unlighted candles on the evergreen wreath. We sense in this visual reminder that the fullness of Life and Light will be ours even if we don’t experience that fullness in the present moment.

So, in the spirit of Advent let us try NOT to fill our heart-hole with anything else. Let us consciously experience our inner yearning, knowing that we will be surprised with great JOY, when God’s Very Self, through Christ, fills our hearts to overflowing! THEN we can really celebrate Christmas!

United in prayer during this holy season,

Maureen Glavin, rscj

Happy Feast of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne!
 
As we anticipate one of the special days of our school year, let us remind ourselves why we celebrate her with such enthusiasm. Among the reasons, I include:           

She is the foundress of our school! She arrived here before Missouri became a state, having left her home, family, country and culture, knowing full well she would never see them again given the arduous and lengthy journey.

She is the foundress of Catholic education in our Archdiocese! She opened the FIRST Catholic school in the St. Louis area, in a little log cabin on these grounds on Sept. 14, 1818.

She is the foundress of the oldest operating school in the St. Louis metropolitan area!

She is the first Religious of the Sacred Heart to open a Sacred Heart school in the United States (we can even say the first in the Western Hemisphere) and is thus considered the foundress of all our educational establishments in the current Network of Sacred Heart Schools in this country.

She is considered one of the pioneer missionaries in the growing 19th century American frontier, and is certainly one of the most famous pioneer missionaries of this Archdiocese. As such she has great historic significance. In fact, her visage is among the bronze busts on display in the Hall of Famous Missourians in the Capital in Jefferson City.

She is currently the only canonized saint in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area and in the State of Missouri!

Additionally, we celebrate our dear Mother Duchesne with such vigor because of her exemplary life. Of her many beautiful and inspirational qualities and characteristics which we celebrate, the following are among them:

Her contemplative example:  Philippine was drawn to spend hours each day in the quiet depths of her prayer. In those hours, Philippine longingly lingered with the One Whom she loved. In this context, over time, God’s Love filled her. Given the hours she spent in prayer, the Native Americans were inspired to call her The-Woman-Who-Prays-Always.

Her unflinching generosity:  Philippine beautifully and exuberantly reflected the Heart of Christ, which is the Love of God, in her work, her efforts and her actions. This is exactly what drew people TO her―especially the children! Stories abound of how the children wanted to be sent to her “when they were naughty.”

Her deep humility:  Apparently Philippine was not aware of HOW MUCH she reflected God’s Love to others. She was so focused on others or on God that she did not dwell on the good she was doing. She only saw the good she wanted to do. And if anything, this caused her heartache, an interior suffering which often came out as self recrimination or self-deprecating comments in her letters! (This is one of the reasons I rarely quote Philippine herself!)

This Academy is so very blessed to be able to claim her as our special, holy foundation stone:

We are blessed by her holy example.

We are blessed by her heavenly intercession.

We are blessed by her ongoing presence among us even to this day.

We have so much to be thankful for and so much to celebrate. May we do so, not only with the exuberance due this historic woman, but, let us celebrate by trying to live lives of prayer, generosity and humility!

Happy Feast of Philippine Duchesne, everyone!

Maureen Glavin, rscj

As I stated at the General PCC meeting, we all agree that we want our children to be kind, compassionate human beings.  We want them to be people who engage in service throughout their lives, helping to make this world a better place.

How do we do that? The BEST way to do that is to simply INVITE our children to “do” things for others. 

Recent examples of activities which have provided our students the opportunity to serve others include:

• Fourth and Fifth Class students have wrapped gifts and bagged candy for an organization called Santa’s Helpers which distributes Christmas gifts to families in need.
  
• Fifth Class students are visiting our elderly friends at Mount Carmel Home monthly.
• Sixth Class students have been going in small groups each month to Sts. Joachim and Ann food pantry.
• Sixth Class students hosted a bake sale to help purchase toys for Sts. Bridget and Theresa Parish in St Louis.
• Seventh Class students have spent a number of Saturday mornings interacting with “young athletes” from Special Olympics here at ASH. In addition, some of these same students are volunteering on additional weekends at other Special Olympics events.
• Eighth Class students have planted, nurtured and harvested their own gardens, the produce from which has been (and is being still) distributed to soup kitchens.
• Plans for Adopt-a-Family in Seventh and Eighth Classes are in progress for Christmas.
• Social Justice Committee members have stayed after school to make pillowcases for children with cancer.
• The whole school community (with the help of the Social Justice Committee) contributed to our Mater Feast Day collection of children’s items for Sts. Joachim and Ann Care Center.

Harnessing and observing the natural generous energy that most children have is supremely satisfying.

Equally satisfying is to observe our students come to the realization that it is as joy-producing to DO something for someone as it is to receive something from someone. 

May the growth continue!

Maureen Glavin, rscj