INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH EDITION
With great joy, we publish this fourth revised edition of the Goals and Criteria for Holy Child Schools during the 200th anniversary of Cornelia Connelly’s birth and 146 years since the publication of the original Goals, the Book of Studies, written by Cornelia and published in 1863. We are grateful to all the members of our Holy Child Network communities — trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, and students — for their careful deliberation and input into this edition and especially to the Mission Effectiveness Committee of 2008–2009 who gave their time and expertise to overseeing the process and producing this final document.
We find in these pages our purpose, our direction and our intention to create a Holy Child community that is rooted in our Catholic faith, expands our Holy Child mission to meet the wants of our age1, and is graced with people of wisdom and justice, integrity and peace. We embrace both our heritage and our calling to live to the fullest the genius of Cornelia’s educational philosophy that opens the mystery of the Incarnation to all times, places, cultures and peoples.
We have the awesome task and the joyous responsibility of bringing the following words of this document into actions2, and we do so with the same confidence in God that Cornelia had and that she has placed in us:
“I have begun the work; others will bring it to perfection.” CC
December 2009
1. “...to meet the wants of the age and the means of spiritual mercy to be exercised...”CC 1:70; Constitutions of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, 1887: 109; Constitutions of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, 1983: p.10.
2. “Actions not Words” is the motto of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus and of Holy Child schools.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION
Mission Statement
Schools of the Holy Child Jesus share in the mission of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus which is “to help others to believe that God lives and acts in them and in our world, and to rejoice in the divine presence.”*
The Schools, committed by heritage to the educational mission of the Catholic Church through the philosophy and spirituality of Cornelia Connelly, endeavor to develop mature persons capable of making choices which enrich their own lives and contribute to the lives of others.
Introduction To The Goals
The Schools of the Holy Child Jesus in the United States, members of a national network and an international community of Holy Child Schools, offer an education that has a distinctive spirit. The philosophy of each Holy Child School incorporates this spirit and articulates the characteristics of the School and its efforts to respond to its own particular community.
Cornelia Connelly, foundress of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, “developed an educational system based on trust and reverence for the dignity of every human being.”* She exhorted Holy Child educators to respond to “the wants of the age”* in which they lived. Since 1846 these educators have helped students “to grow strong in faith and lead fully human lives,”* have promoted academic excellence, and have educated to social responsibility.
Holy Child education is both a clearly defined and flexible ideal. It is a tradition rooted in Christian values and expressions and attuned to learning opportunities which enable students to respond to life with joy, zeal and compassion. Educators in Holy Child Schools encourage students to meet diversity and change with confidence in their own gifts and in God who has made covenant with the human family.
The following pages outline the seven Goals and Criteria for Schools of the Holy Child Jesus. The trustees, administrators, faculty and staff commit themselves to educate by these principles and to lead the students to embrace these values for themselves.
1985, 1995, 2009
*Constitutions of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, 1983 revised, 1998, p. 10
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