One of the pillars of our Growing to Great school improvement initiative is Spirituality. At Stuartholme, we believe that the integration of learning, wellbeing and spirituality optimizes the success of our students. In the wake of our St Madeleine Sophie Day celebrations and the Feast of Pentecost, the staff and students in Year 11 have taken some time to reflect on the spirituality of St Madeleine Sophie and how it forms the foundation of Sacred Heart Education. 

Spirituality 

When we speak of spirituality, what is it that we’re referring to? 

 Innate to all of us, spirituality speaks to our intuition that there is more to life than what we encounter on the surface, to our urgency to connect with a larger universe or truth, and to our intuition that this connection for which we long is with mystery or transcendence. It is a way of expressing our search for meaning and encounter with Beauty, with Ultimate Truth, with Mystery (₁).

Sophie’s Spirituality 

For Madeleine Sophie, her spirituality and relationship with Mystery was experienced as the Risen Christ. Her quest for meaning and truth became anchored in her relationship with Christ in and through whom she experienced the tenderness and warmth of God. The image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus best conveyed to her the depth of God’s love for all – a love that she felt compelled to share with others. 

Sophie’s Spirituality and it’s Connection to Sacred Heart Education 

Sophie grew up in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Consequently, her life was a journey experienced during a complex, volatile moment in history. Over time and amid successes and failures, Sophie came to see that ultimate truth is encountered through relationships and in prayer. Her life demonstrates how a life lived in relationship with the Risen Christ allowed her to see the world with new eyes, eyes of compassion and hope. This is the perspective from which Sophie envisioned Sacred Heart education. This experience of love given and love received developed her vision of education – an education to carry on the mission of communicating the love of the Heart of Jesus to the ends of the earth, and one which would rebuild our fractured world through intelligent faith, compassionate action, and courageous hope. 

Sophie’s vision of education is timeless, and continues through the lives of you and me at Stuartholme. Today, her vision is expressed through our Sacred Heart Goals of Education: 

1.  A personal and active faith in God. 
2. A deep respect for intellectual values. 
3. Building community as a Christian value. 
4. Social awareness that impels to action. 
5. Personal growth in an atmosphere of wise freedom. 

Whilst we live in our own era of complexity and volatility often referred to as VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) (₂)2, an education inspired by Sophie’s spirituality and vision will equip our students to navigate these challenges with minds and hearts formed in intelligent faith, compassionate action, and courageous hope. 

Justin Golding
Dean of Mission

References:  

(1) Conference of Sacred Heart Educators (2019). Sacred Heart Educators: An Orientation to Mission, found here: https://sacredheartusc.myschoolapp.com/ftpimages/1148/download/download_6290188.pdf 

(2) Bennett, N. & Lemoine, G.J (2014). Harvard Business Review: What VUCA really means for you. Found here: https://hbr.org/2014/01/what-vuca-really-means-for-you