Dear Sacred Heart Community,

In the coming weeks, Sacred Heart of Jesus Classical Academy will begin its second year. Our teachers have been diligently preparing to guide our students through the curriculum, and our faculty has gathered for several days of formation to prepare our hearts, minds, and souls for the year ahead.

Next week, the faculty and I will travel to Washington, D.C., to join faculty members from both campuses of the Saint Jerome Institute for additional formation, training, and preparation. We look forward to meeting other like-minded educators, sharing fellowship with them, and learning alongside faculty who use the same curriculum.

Throughout the school year, we will explore ten central classical and Catholic virtues: understanding, knowledge, wisdom, faith, hope, love, fortitude, temperance, prudence, and justice. Each month, our school community will give special attention to one of these virtues.

In this issue of the newsletter, we announce our new school home; introduce August’s virtue of the month, understanding; share highlights from our Faculty Formation Days; provide an enrollment update; and list our upcoming events. We look forward to continue sharing this journey with you as partners in this mission.

Dr. Jonathan Day
HEADMASTER

We are deeply grateful to First Presbyterian Church for opening its doors to our school during our inaugural year. Within its walls, Sacred Heart began laying the foundation for our school community, and First Presbyterian will always hold a special place in our history as our first home.

After prayer, discernment, and thoughtful discussion, the Sacred Heart Board has decided to move the school to a new location. We are pleased to announce that Sacred Heart’s second year will take place at St. John’s United Methodist Church.

The leadership and congregation of St. John’s have graciously welcomed us and opened their facility to our school. The church offers spacious classrooms, an outdoor recreation area, and other amenities that will help create a welcoming and productive learning environment. It is also located just down the road from St. Francis, allowing us to continue attending Mass on Thursdays and Fridays.

During the past week, faculty members and volunteers moved our school materials into the new location and began preparing the classrooms for the upcoming year. We are excited to make this wonderful facility our new home and look forward to all that the year ahead will bring.

This month, we are reflecting on the virtue of understanding, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Here is a reflection from Pope St. John Paul II’s Regina Coeli address on April 16, 1989:

“In this Sunday reflection I want to pause today on the second gift of the Holy Spirit, Understanding. We know very well that faith is adherence to God in the chiaroscuro of mystery; but it is also search in the desire to know the revealed truth more and better. Now, such an interior urge comes to us from the Holy Spirit who, with faith, gives us precisely this special gift of intelligence and, as it were, intuition of the divine truth.

The word “intellect” derives from the Latin intus legere, which means “to read within,” to penetrate, to understand thoroughly. Through this gift the Holy Spirit who “sees into the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10), communicates to the believer a glint of such a penetrating capacity, opening the heart to the joyous understanding of God’s loving plan. Once again the experience of the disciples of Emmaus is renewed; having recognised the Risen Lord in the breaking of the bread, they said to one another: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk 24:32).

This supernatural intelligence is given not only to individuals, but also to the community: to pastors who, as successors of the Apostles, are heirs to the specific promise made to them by Christ (cf. Jn 14:26; 16:13), and to the faithful who, thanks to the “anointing” of the Spirit (cf. 1 Jn 2:20 and 27), possess a special “sense of the faith” (sensus fidei) which guides them in their concrete choices.

The light of the Spirit, in fact, while it sharpens the understanding of divine things, renders ever more clear and penetrating the understanding of human things. Thanks to it one sees better the many signs of God which are written in creation. Thus is discovered the not merely earthly dimension of events of which human history is woven. One can even arrive at prophetically interpreting the present and the future: signs of the times, signs of God!

Dear faithful, let us turn to the Holy Spirit with the words of the Liturgy: “Come, Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home shed a ray of light divine!” (Sequence of Pentecost).

Let us invoke him through the intercession of Mary Most Holy, the listening Virgin who, in the light of the Spirit, was able to read tirelessly the deep meaning of the mysteries which the Almighty worked in her (cf. Lk 2:19 and 51). The contemplation of the wonders of God will also be for us the source of inexhaustible joy: “My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour” (Lk 1:46 f.).”

Our faculty gathered for a focused three-day workshop during which we prayed, studied, and prepared together for the upcoming school year. Here are some highlights from our Faculty Formation Days.

We began each morning with Morning Prayer, or Lauds, which we plan to pray with our students every morning throughout the school year. We concluded each day by praying the Magnificat, a practice that will also become part of the school's daily rhythm. The Angelus, mealtime prayers, and a visit to the Adoration Chapel further grounded our formation in the spiritual life of the Church.

Throughout the three days, we reflected on the mission and vision of Sacred Heart, studied principles of Catholic education, worked through our Family and Faculty Handbooks, and discussed the daily routines and classroom practices that will help shape our school culture. We also studied how to better lead Socratic discussions, which will be a central method of teaching at Sacred Heart.

One of the most memorable parts of the formation was the opportunity for each teacher to lead the rest of the faculty in a Socratic discussion.

1.  Dr. Day — a Socratic lesson in Latin. The faculty read and sight-translated, without the use of a dictionary, the entire first chapter of Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina. Latin will be an important part of our school culture, as students will read, pray, write, and even learn to speak in basic Latin.

2.  Ms. Katie Zigadlo — a Socratic lesson on Chapter 23 of The Sword in the Stone, in which Wart pulls the sword from the stone. Through careful questioning, she guided the faculty in a close reading of the chapter. The discussion explored its theological and metaphysical themes, particularly the ways in which Wart, Kay, and Sir Ector responded to the dramatic change in their circumstances.

3.  Dr. Jeff Zvengrowski — a Socratic lesson on the first chapter of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. The faculty examined the novel’s deeply materialistic society, its portrayal of the human person, and its connections to the contemporary world.

4.  Mr. Matthew Wilson — a Socratic discussion on the double-slit experiment. Through a series of questions, the faculty considered the concepts underlying the experiment, the reasoning behind it, and the meaning and implications of its results.

These books and topics were not chosen merely as advanced exercises for faculty development. They come directly from the curriculum that our high school students will encounter throughout the year. We look forward to journeying through this curriculum with our students!

We are pleased to announce that a new eleventh-grade student has joined the Sacred Heart family. Two additional families are also discerning enrollment for the coming year. For some families, this decision requires a financial sacrifice; for others, it is a leap of faith. In every case, choosing how a child will be educated is one of the most important decisions parents can make for their family.

Please keep our students and prospective families in your prayers as we continue to advance our mission. Your prayers and financial support allow us to educate more students within a classical, Catholic culture.

•  AUGUST 14
Family Orientation Evening
We look forward to welcoming families to our new school location, reviewing the new Family Handbook, and enjoying fellowship together.

•  AUGUST 17
First Day of School
Please pray for our students, families, teachers, administrators, and Board members as we begin this wonderful new school year!

Sacred Heart exists because families, friends, and benefactors have chosen to invest in the formation of young hearts and minds. There are three ways you can walk with us as we begin our second year:

•  Pray — Remember our students, families, faculty, and Board in your daily prayers, especially as we open the school year in August.

•  Give — Every gift, of any size, directly supports the education of our students and the growth of our mission.

•  Share — Tell a family who might be looking for a classical, Catholic education. A personal invitation is our most effective form of outreach.

We would love to hear from you, and we invite you to follow along as our second year unfolds.

•  Website — sacredheartstaunton.org

•  Facebook — Follow Sacred Heart of Jesus Classical Academy

•  Mail — 118 N New Street, Staunton, Virginia 24401