February 22, 2016 - 13:25
Children of the Sacred Heart
On a Friday, late in May, all three hundred and fifty students of Country Day School of the Sacred Heart chattered away, their voices echoing against the high walls of the Dooley Gym. The girls in the kindergarten class spun around singing rhymes in the midst of it all. Their shoes squeaked on the gym floor as they stumbled over their little feet and tried to regain balance over and over again. I watched them from where I sat on the bleachers and thought about when I was that small, scuffing up this gym floor with my silly games. I was a senior now, finally a “big girl” like the ones that I used to look up to in admiration when my mouth was missing a front tooth, my hands were eternally covered in marker splotches, and my hair reached all the way down my back. I was scared of leaving the place I had grown up in and I longed to have that girl back. So many different versions of me had walked through the rooms of that little schoolhouse. In that moment, all of those Faiths blurred together, a haze of plaid kilts, red blazers, and ponytails tied with ribbons. Each one’s face was fuzzy, so distant and distorted that I had trouble picturing her. One of the kindergarteners toppled to the floor and laughed loudly through her gapped teeth. When her green eyes met mine, that old Faith’s face became so very clear. I recognized her, and it took me too long to finally look away.
Sister Matthew had made her way to the microphone. May the twenty-fifth was the celebration of Saint Madeline Sophie Barat’s Feast Day, and just like every year, the entire school was called together in assembly to honor her. The lights dimmed and Sister spoke. She talked of Saint Madeline Sophie’s girlhood in France during the Revolution and her devotion to her own education. She founded the Society of the Sacred Heart in Paris, and expanded it into a whole network of schools around the world devoted to educating young women, just like the ones in the Dooley Gym that day. Once the story was finished, she outstretched her arms, and led us in reciting the school prayer:
Dear Jesus,
As children of the Sacred we strive toward these goals:
To show our love to you each day
To give our best effort in our school and to show a true love for learning
To show concern and respect for others and the world around us in thought, word, and action
To welcome everyone into our Sacred Heart Family
To make wise choices when making decisions and to use the gifts you have given us to make the world a better place to live
May your great love guide us towards becoming women who can make a difference.
Amen
The kindergartener’s mouth moved around those words in the same way that mine did and I could feel her long, heavy braids run down my back even though my hair had been tossed up into a messy bun. As she fumbled around her pocket for a cotton candy lollipop to sneakily hand to her best friend, I instinctively reached in my own. However, the only thing I came up with was jangling car keys and a crumpled note reminding the seniors to stop by the office to pick up caps and gowns. I felt a pang of sorrow and wondered where all my days here had vanished. I turned away.
The prayer ended, the teachers began to round up the students for dismissal, and I looked around the bleachers. I saw the other thirty-five faces of my senior class beaming back at me, eyes gleaming with the enthusiasm of little girls. We silently counted down and, in ardent voices, began signing the Alma Mater. Of course, every other student in each grade followed right along, not missing a beat. The teachers, the ones who guided us all those years, and who would continue to do so for younger girls over and over again even after we’d gone from this place, laughed and watched us. Our voices were raw, ringing out in an ode to our school, our childhood, and the way that we’ve grown. I looked upon Saint Madeline’s gold-framed portrait and sang her the final verse, tears fogging up my eyes. Then the moment ended, and everyone continued on their way out of the gym. The kindergartener stood in the doorway, everyone milling about around her, and watched me with those sweet, reverent green eyes. I smiled fondly and waved her goodbye.
Saint Madeline Sophie Barat, once claimed, “for the sake of one child, I would have founded the society.” I grew up before her watchful eye. Her portrait gazed down at me as I rose from an eight year old in the dining hall, sticky apple juice drizzled down the front of my jumper to a twelve year old neglecting my social studies book and giggling about St. Aloysius boys in the back corner of the library with friends. She watched me as a fourteen year old with an oversized backpack and a nervous habit of tugging at my sleeves and sixteen year old, sneaking out of school at lunchtime to fill up my car with too many friends and drive into town, blasting the radio.
However, it was not until that May of senior year, my time at Sacred Heart quickly approaching its end, did I finally meet her eyes from where she hung in a gold frame on the wall of the gym. It dawned on me then as she smiled upon me that I was the one child for which this whole thing was truly meant. When I met the sincere faces of my classmates as we sang, it was clear that, in fact, we all were those children of the Sacred Heart.
The community in which I was raised was what Saint Madeline Sophie envisioned when she founded her society. That schoolhouse on a hill and the education that it bestowed on me tremendously exceeded the confines of a classroom. I was able to grow up alongside thirty-five girls who taught me about love, empathy, understanding, and family. My teachers watched me grow up, believed in me unconditionally, and always let me know how proud they were of me. My Sacred Heart family, eccentric and devoted, raised me up and it is through them that I know my education never stops. It is contained within the people with whom I surround myself, always waiting to be tapped into and taught. I care for each version of Faith who walked through the halls of Country Day of the Sacred Heart. She was innocent, hopeful, silly, thoughtful, and compassionate and no version of her will ever be forgotten, even though I had to bid the place in which she lived goodbye. I did not lose her there. She did not vanish. She became the woman I am now, always a child of the Sacred Heart, dedicated to everything that entails.
I am the one child and for my sake, the Society was founded. I owe everything about who I am to that truth.