On October 28, Sacred Heart School – Southaven, MS, and Our Lady of Guadalupe School Houston participated in an international online conference of Dehonian schools hosted by the Séminaire du Sacré-Coeur in Quebec. Besides representatives from the USA and Canada, students and staff from schools in Spain, Madagascar, Chile, Brazil and Indonesia took part. Approximately 75 people participated.
The conference theme, “Love in Action: Creating Tomorrow’s World,” inspired students to reflect on how faith can shape a more compassionate and responsible world. Fr. Carlos Luis Suárez Codorniú, SCJ, superior general, opened the event, after which, each school identified a challenge within their community and proposed ways to respond with faith and service.
“Projects ranged from environmental care through recycling and composting to anti-bullying initiatives and promoting positive mental health through friendship and inclusion,” said Bridget Martin, principal of Sacred Heart. “Sacred Heart School highlighted our work on recycling and litter prevention.”
Celena Farley of Our Lady of Guadalupe said that “Our students had an amazing opportunity to take action on a world issue that they felt passionate about: recycling. The theme of our presentation was ‘From Gross to Growth.’”
Students and staff from the Séminaire du Sacré-Cœur spoke about their participation in last year’s North American Conference on Climate Change and Nuclear Weapons (held in Mississippi) which inspired them to encourage young people to become educated on the issues of the conference and to take action to address them.
Fr. Richard Woodbury, SCJ, closed the session by encouraging all students to “keep an Open Heart and Open Mind,” echoing the SCJs’ Mission Statement.
Education – from childhood through seminary education and adult formation – was a passion of our founder, Fr. Leo John Dehon. The Priests of the Sacred Heart continue to seek ways to be the “educational advocates” of which Fr. Dehon spoke when he addressed students and parents at the opening of St. John’s Institute, one of the SCJs’ first ministries:
“We come before you as educational advocates. We fully realize the importance of the work that we are undertaking. We fully understand our responsibility towards parents who entrust to us what they hold most dear, towards the society from which we shall train a few selected members, and towards God, who loves childhood so much and who wishes to see it treated with the utmost respect.”
Organizers hope to make this a yearly event. Anastasiia Lavrynets, Coordinator of International Student Programs at Séminaire du Sacré-Coeur, prepared a music video featuring the hymn, “Open Heart and Mind,” for the conference. Click here to view it.
