Winter 2008 - Sacred Heart Schools

Faculty and staff follow in the
footsteps of St. Madeleine Sophie
by Connie Solari, SHP Faculty
Almost three years ago, seventeen Sacred Heart educators
gathered in a classroom in the SHS Main Building for an
ad-hoc protest rally. Our concern: the proposed rewording,
at the national level, of the criteria portion of the Goals
and Criteria of Sacred Heart Education.
It was the kind of moment that spawns exhausted
clichés like “every cloud has a silver lining” or “it’s always
darkest before the dawn.” But in truth, that moment--
when many of us felt that the language guaranteeing our
ability to deliver an authentic Sacred Heart education was
in danger of slipping away--gave birth to a group that now
numbers almost 130 adults on our campus. This group
is the ESCJs, or Educators of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,
a spin on the term RSCJ, Religieuse du Sacre Coeur de
Jesus. The RSCJ are the society of religious who founded
our schools over 200 years ago in France, under the
charismatic leadership of St. Madeleine Sophie Barat.
“In fact, the future of Sacred Heart
education rests with the adults
connected with its schools.”
It took only one email to attract seventeen people to
the first meeting. And at the end of that meeting, we
realized that something rather magical had happened: a
collective recognition of the depth and strength of each
person’s personal commitment to the philosophy of Sacred
Heart education. The following week, we met at Oakwood
with other faculty and staff members, the Director of
Schools, and several RSCJs who were interested in “the
movement.” By the end of the year, our concerns about
the modifications to the Goals and Criteria—echoed by
others in the Network—were heard, and the wording was
readjusted to safeguard the mission.
Since then, the ESCJ group has grown to include
teachers and staff from every school and department on
campus. Our mission statement is “to affirm our school
As part of their trip, the ESCJs visited St. Thibault Church in
Joigny, St. Madeleine Sophie’s parish church and where she was
baptized.
community in its adherence to the mission of Sacred Heart
education, and to help us to learn more about the charism
and heritage of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
From the very beginning, we have worked closely
with RSCJs locally, nationally, and internationally to
enhance our understanding of the spiritual and historical
foundations of a Sacred Heart education. Several RSCJs
have come to Atherton to speak to us on Sacred Heart
spirituality. ESCJs participated in an RSCJ-led retreat in
May of 2006. Seventeen ESCJs traveled to Joigny, France
(the birthplace of St. Madeleine Sophie) for a retreat
during Easter Week of 2007; participants also traveled to
Amiens, site of the first school, and Paris, where vestiges of
our history remain.
Members receive periodic distributions of prayers,
poems, letters, speeches, and other readings designed
to enhance their understanding and provoke reflection
and meditation. Small groups have traveled to Stanford,
Burlingame, and San Francisco for programs connected to
RSCJ spirituality. RSCJs and ESCJs have gathered during
Advent and Lent for informal soup suppers marking these
liturgical seasons. ESCJs have been key organizers of the
last three January Faculty and Staff Retreats, and they
provide monthly seminars on various topics of interest to
the nuns at Oakwood.
H e a r t o f t h e M a t t e r Wi n t e r 2 0 0 8