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Just as I imagine that your December days are filled with tasks and activities, you can imagine that these days at the Academy have also been full!

Middle school students have donated money to allow students, faculty and parents volunteers to shop for Adopt-A-Family Christmas gifts. Other generous volunteers have stayed after school or come in early to wrap all of those beautiful and thoughtful gifts. All the students in the whole school are singing their hearts out to prepare for their Christmas gift of song for their parents. Students are arriving early to practice lines or study for exams. Teachers are regularly arriving early or staying late to help students study. And, the whole school community is busy preparing for the teas and the props and the sound and the lights and the costumes and the general set up as we continue to prepare for you, our guests, this weekend!  And, while all of this is happening, I know that Christmas baskets are slowly filling up in preparation for next week’s Basket Mass.

The beautiful thing about all of this activity is that it is joyful, generous and God-filled. In the Society of the Sacred Heart, we have a phrase to describe this kind of activity: Activity Permeated with Presence! And, by Presence (with a capital P), I mean activity permeated with God.

What is flowing out of everyone’s hearts are behaviors which REFLECT God’s Goodness! This IS Christ-Among-Us. This IS the Body of Christ in action. This IS a current example of what St. Paul was trying to say about himself: it is not I but Christ within me. And I have to say, I see Christ in the actions and activities of all of our students, faculty and parents in a particularly poignant way these days.

That is how it works! When we open our hearts to God, God’s Very Life and Love flow out of us in our actions and activity! This is a continuation of the incarnation. God becomes flesh as Christ continues to lives in us and through us. Truly, I feel as if we ARE living the name of our school and BEING God’s Heart in our world.

With deep gratitude to each of you for all of your Activity Permeated with Presence! Thank you for being the Face of God to me!

Blessings and Love,

Maureen Glavin, rscj

With the launch of the Advent Season this past Sunday, our hearts are waiting with longing and hope-filled expectation for the coming of Christ. This season is the Church’s way of setting aside time for us to prepare our hearts for the eventuality of that arrival.

How do we prepare our hearts?

One way we can do so is to take extra prayer time. You must think I am crazy! How, Sister Glavin, do we take extra time at this busiest time of year? I would suggest a few minutes with your first cup of coffee, taking some quiet time, sitting in front of your Christmas tree while just allowing yourself to be aware of God’s Presence in your life. Or, perhaps you might consider taking the time when you are driving alone in the car, turning off the radio and awakening to God’s Presence in All that surrounds you. However you do so, taking just a few minutes a day for quiet God-moments is a wonderful opening to Christ’s birth within.

Another way we can prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ is by engaging in acts of kindness. I certainly see this happening around here. I see students preparing their Silver Tea gift of song out of love for their parents. I hear about students who are writing thoughtful notes to their teachers. I am highly aware that families, alums and friends are generously preparing Christmas baskets of food for those in need, and we know that the Middle School students are eagerly preparing gifts for families who are less fortunate.
 
As we continue to prepare our hearts in these ways, Christ comes to birth in our hearts and the Body of Christ becomes ever more evident in our world.

Thank you for joining in the preparation for the advent of Christ’s birth, thank you for all you do to REVEAL the Face of Christ in our community and THANK YOU for partnering with this Academy as we continue to help our children become the face, the heart and the hands of Christ in our 21st century world.

Maureen Glavin, rscj