This year marks three significant milestones in the history of Sacred Heart education as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, the 50th anniversary of the first approved articulation of the Goals and Criteria, and the founding of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. Both the Goals and Criteria and the Network are integral to our experience of Sacred Heart education at Stone Ridge. The Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJ) defines their four apostolic priorities of the society’s mission: Formation; Education; Spirituality; and Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC). These priorities are at the root of the Goals and Criteria and are woven throughout the student and community experience at Stone Ridge. Sacred Heart educators are charged with being agents of hope and justice, shaping future generations through discernment, integrity, and faith-driven leadership to shine the light of Christ’s heart into the world. 

In this article, Director of Social Action, Dr. Katie White, reflects on her experience as part of an inaugural cohort of the Sacred Heart Aspiring Leaders program and what it means to be in this pivotal year.

One of the most formative and inspiring professional development experiences I have had is participating in the inaugural cohort of the Sacred Heart Network Aspiring Leaders. This two-year program brought together an aspiring leader from each of the Sacred Heart Schools in the U.S. and Canada and paired us with a mentor and an RSCJ prayer partner because, as Suzanne Cooke, RSCJ, told us on the first day, “You cannot be an aspiring leader without the capacity for prayer and relationship with the Holy Spirit.” We gathered in person three times over the two years—an initial kickoff event at Saint Philomena School in Rhode Island, a mid-point retreat in Florissant, Missouri, and a graduation in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. We met monthly via Zoom as a collective, and I had one-on-one leadership coaching sessions with my mentor, an administrator at Convent & Stuart Hall in San Francisco, California. It was a truly comprehensive program that showed me the depth and breadth of the Sacred Heart mission. 

Sister Cooke told us that aspiring leaders are leaders who want to breathe and who are called to meet the moment in the way that Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat challenged us to honor that times change and that we must change with them. That does not mean we must react speedily to every call for change; instead, we must consistently evaluate what is essential, what is eternal, and what is not lasting. We must prioritize taking a breath and resist the urge to seek the apparent relief of an immediate decision. The Sacred Heart Way—Pause > Reflect > Discern > Decide > Act—is the mechanism for aligning education, formation, justice, and spirituality in the Sacred Heart context. 

The commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools has been a time to celebrate how the Sacred Heart Way has set the foundation for our schools to flourish for the next 50 years and beyond. We are called as Sacred Heart educators, now more than ever, to live more humanly in the radical style of Jesus of Nazareth. The first-ever Sacred Heart Summit, held in Chicago, Illinois, in late September 2024, demonstrated how Sacred Heart educators and students across the Network are animated by this call in their classwork, service, and extracurricular activities. 

"I will not allow my integrity to be taken away from me by giving up hope because giving up hope equates to giving up humanity. Hope, like love, is a verb, and we must be active in keeping it alive."

The greatest gifts that the RSCJ has given us are the Goals and Criteria of Sacred Heart education, inspired by the desires of Saint Madeleine Sophie Barat, as well as documents like the Chapter Calls, the Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation article “Artisans of Hope in a Blessed and Broken World” and most recently, “Sophie’s Gift” because they provide a blueprint for how to move more justly, more humbly, and more kindly in our spheres of influence, in this case, our schools, and work toward being beacons of hope for our students. In my notes from the Aspiring Leaders graduation in April 2024, I wrote down some points that are lofty but serve as a guide. I declared that I will not allow my integrity to be taken away from me by giving up hope because giving up hope equates to giving up humanity. Hope, like love, is a verb, and we must be active in keeping it alive. This is not an easy task by any means, especially in a world that is on fire, but as long as we come back to the Sacred Heart Way, we can figure out a path forward.