Today we celebrate the birth of Cornelia with some questions to mark the occasion:
Who is the Cornelia you know best?
Which Cornelia inspires your prayer and accompanies you through your days?
• Is she the pilgrim of hope, woman of the church, crossing oceans, ready to seek and find God in and through the challenges and opportunities for service?
• Is she the mystic, the one communing with the Spirit in the darkness of Grand Coteau, the Trinità, Derby or St Leonards, grappling with both sin and success in saying her ‘YES, ALWAYS YES’ to God?
• Is she the founder, the inspired leader, the one who drew together a disparate crew of unlikely women to to become friends and companions in a religious congregation marked by the standard of Christ and the name of Jesus?
• Is she the administrator, the would-be missionary to Japan or Australia confined to a desk, writing letter after letter to manage and maintain the fledgling company that looked to her for guidance?
• Is she the educator, the writer of the Book of Studies, using her considerable gifts to inspire and train students and young teachers to meet the wants of their age?
Maybe one of these few depictions speaks intriguingly to you. Would you add others? Perhaps your choice draws you deeper into our shared mission of finding God in all things and serving God’s greater glory?
Cornelia — like each of us — was many things over many years because there’s always more to the person and the story. We must continue to flesh out the fullness not just of Cornelia — her hopes and fears, strengths and failings — but of ourselves and those around us.
As we engage with exemplars of the past and ordinary people of the present, let us be curious about them and let us love them, ourselves and all creation in their fullness. Let us love one another and pray. Happy birthday, Cornelia!
With love,
Based on
reflection on St. Ignatius, Eric Clayton, Jesuit Conference of Canada & USA
Strong Santa Ana winds hitting fire-ravaged Los Angeles — again
“We encourage our students to respond to the needs of our time with compassion, integrity and confidence in God and in their own gifts.” MJS
Low humidity, strong winds & powerful gusts in the greater Los Angeles area, in January 2025, created the perfect environment for wildfires to spread quickly out of control. The SHCJ family there includes Sisters, Associates, Mayfield Junior & Senior Schools, and LAMP (South Central LA Ministry Project. Among them they experienced the traumas of the permanent loss of a home & everything in it, temporary evacuation & displacement, fear, and the violent disruption of ordinary life. They have been magnanimous in their outreach to family, friends, neighbors, & colleagues who have suffered every kind of loss and misery. Here are some brief stories of their vibrant spirit of compassion, integrity & confidence in God.
“ Thank you, we are safe; it’s hard to know what to do next, but friends and family have been helping. We have not seen our house except in a video. Hopefully we’ll see it tomorrow. In the video we could see just a wall or two left. The whole neighborhood is gone.”
Associates, Linda & Liam Mennis
“ The fire doesn’t play favorites; we are lucky to still have our home, and are anxious to go back there again.Thanks for thinking of us. It is comforting.” Susan Slater, SHCJ
“ The smoke continues to be heavy & although we are only a few miles from the area that is burning, we cannot see the flames .... We are no longer in the Eaton fire’s “be ready” evacuation zone and we have not been in the DO NOT USE WATER area where tap water is unhealthy for drinking and cooking. The fire is now 45% contained. ” France White, SHCJ
“ Being part of a Holy Child community like Mayfield is a blessing, particularly in times like these. The outpouring of prayer, compassion, and support strengthens us, and with a resilient spirit, we will get through this together …. It is with a heavy heart that I share that the damage caused by the windstorm and wildfires has hit home. To the best of our knowledge, 11 Mayfield families and eight faculty and staff members have lost their homes as of now. Many have also been displaced, uprooted, or unable to access their property or belongings. This is a significant percentage of our school, but we will trust in the wisdom of the Lord and lean on each other to navigate this challenging time …. Joe Sciuto, Head of Mayfield Junior School next page
“Committed to meeting the wants of the ages, Holy Child educators developed collaboratively seven goals as principles in how students are educated in the spirit of Cornelia Connelly. With 9 schools in the US network and international presence, the goals serve as a framework for the Holy Child community” MSS
MIXED: Last week I wrote a prayer welcoming God's refining fire. Then horrifying flames began devastating Los Angeles. “When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,” God says, and then some are. The baptismal flood brings beauty and devastation. Some drown in holy water. Life is a mixed bag, and we grab it because it's our only bag . . . . Ruin has its joys, and triumph its sorrows. To love God is to lose and receive everything. Sometimes it is among ashes we become most human. After the fire they will clean up using power generated by burning something. We join the beautiful slow dance of the Beloved, man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. What does this mean? That nothing is absolute but God, who is always present, and mostly paradox. We touch each other. We trust grace, and we take what comes.
“ Thank you for your encouraging emails, phone calls and texts over these past few days. It has meant the world to me and my team. We have been ... working nonstop to set up systems that will support Mayfield, not just now, but going forward. Their response to this crisis has been grounded in mission, and they have demonstrated extraordinary compassion, emotional intelligence and sensitivity when communicating with students and their families. The degree to which they know Mayfield students is truly remarkable. I have been in communication with the CAIS, the Pasadena Head of School group and Joe Sciuto. We are all sharing resources and are keeping each other informed of our plans. I am fortunate for Joe's partnership on this journey.
Immediately after the fire, we began to reach out to members of the MSS community to see who was affected by the fire. We ... began to compile information on families, alums and past parents. .... On Friday, teams of teachers and administrators reached out by phone to personally call each current student to see how she and her family were doing and inquire if they needed support from Mayfield.
We quickly established a community emergency relief fund and organized a donation center and drop off for Saturday. ...It has been uplifting to see our Holy Child family in other schools respond to our community’s needs. We are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support. Our task now is to figure out a way to distribute the gift cards and money collected to our families in a way that is equitable and makes sense. Laura Farrell, Head of Mayfield Senior School
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, “Mixed”
CALLINGS FOR OUR TIME
Passages from “Call and
Wholeness”
by Krista Tippett, On Being
, November, 3 2023
In the modern western world, vocation was equated with work.
But each of us has callings, not merely to be professionals, but to be friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, citizens, lovers of the world. Each of us imprints the people in the world around us, breath to breath and hour to hour, as much in who we are and how we are present as in whatever we do. And just as there are callings for a life, there are callings for our time….
We are called to creativity and caring and play and service for which we will never be paid — or never be paid enough — but which will make life worth living. And each of us imprints the people in the world around us, breath to breath and hour to hour, as much in who we are and how we are present as in whatever we do.
And just as there are callings for a life, there are callings for our time. Some of us are called to place our bodies before other bodies on the front line of danger .... Some of us are called to be bridge people, staking out the vast ground in the middle and heart of our life together, where there is meaningful difference but no desire for animosity. Some of us are called to be patient calmers of fear. This calling is so tender and so urgent if what we truly want is to coax our own best selves and the best selves of others into the light.
There are many ways to analyze the crises and the tumult of our world ... political ways ... economic ways... But one way of seeing our world and the incredible toxicity and polarization is that it is pain and fear on the loose, pain and fear metastasized. So these callings ... about how we live into the fullness of our humanity become essential to generative forward movement on any of the great issues of our time.
“Issues” is too small a word for what we have to meet. Whether and how we rise to our ecological, racial, economic, social reckonings will mean the difference between whether we flourish and grow or whether we perhaps merely survive, as a species.
And ... it’s come to seem to me that ... what we’re called to collectively, is nothing less than the possibility of wholeness — to figure out what it means to be whole human beings, with whole institutions, living in whole societies.
Wholeness does not mean perfection .... but that we turn and structure towards what is life-giving, that we can become conscious of our complexity and our strangeness and work with them — as creatures who also have it in us to become wise.
... your job is trying to find what the world wants to be...
“Vocation,” by William Stafford
That’s our name, after all, homo sapiens — “the creatures who are wise.” .... But ... I have seen, experienced, learned that wisdom and wholeness emerge in lives and in places precisely in moments like this one — ours is writ large — when human beings have to hold seemingly opposing realities in a creative tension and interplay:
power and frailty, birth and death, pain and hope, beauty and brokenness, mystery and conviction, calm and fierceness, mine and yours.
The invitation here is to open wide your powerful, reality-shifting imagination, your heart, your energy, your will, to the possibility of wholeness — how to live into that. This brings us full circle back to seeing and participating in the generative story, the generative landscape, of our time .... to that simple practice of taking in the good, because again, there is so much learning and wisdom unfolding all around, right alongside our better-publicized dysfunction and decay.
.... Evolutionary biologists in our day are rediscovering or discovering for the first time humanity’s superpower of cooperation. They are telling a completely different story than the one the West was built around — the story that we as a species have always progressed by competing and fighting and winning. It is simply not true.
In the name of that story, we perfected systems for making an “us” and an “other.” We made of the natural world an “other.” But now, on frontiers of seeing inside our brains and our bodies, we are grasping that we are also capable of change our whole lives long and that we have inhabited ecosystems — our bodies themselves are ecosystems — while we organized around parts. It even turns out that we are linked in our cells to cosmic time — the life and death of stars. Every generation of our species has looked up at the night sky and wondered where we came from — we are the generation that learns definitively that you and I, and everyone you see is actually made of stardust.
Every surface of fracture in our world notwithstanding, for us all of life is being revealed in its insistence on wholeness: the organic interplay between our bodies, the natural world, the lives we make, the worlds we create. It is the calling of callings to make that vivid and practical and real, starting inside ourselves and with the lives we’ve been given. So I’m going to end there. Thank you for being here, for being with me, for being with each other. Until we meet again.
Read or listen to the whole reflection — https://onbeing.org/programs/calling-and-wholeness/
for god so loved the world
John 3:16
I am cosmopolitan. The whole world is my country and heaven is my home.
Cornelia
Connelly How big is my world?
After reflecting as Cornelia did upon ‘the wants of the age and the means of spiritual mercy to be exercised,’ we strive to act with the same courageous zeal she taught us.
SHCJ Constitutions 6
We inherit from Cornelia a spirit of concern for the whole world.
SHCJ Constitutions 6
Artificial intelligence has created a dreamlike image of a humanoid figure composed entirely of cosmic dust. The figure is cradling the Earth delicately in its hands, and the background showcases other planets in the cosmos .... The Earth's surface, depicted from a distance, has vibrant green plant life and human figures of varying descents and genders scattered about. .... The image mimics the aesthetic of a long exposure photograph taken with a wide-angle lens, giving it a science fiction atmosphere.
“my
work is loving the world”
Opening to the World as It Is
Air fills with song of bird and breeze this day cheerful comfort to hold my grief for the world just as it should be this world speaks in unending innumerable voices
I write poems to let the world know I’m paying attention
I write poems when words fail me when I have no choice but to take the time and feel the care to find precise expression
I write poems when the world assaults me with its paradoxes
I write poems about the gifts I receive from presence
I trust my voice has purpose when the world speaks to me so vividly it would be sheer cowardice to refuse to give voice staying present is a responsibility I accept call and response
Meg Wheatley
October 2024, Sundance, Utah
What speaks to my heart in either of these poems?
How would I describe my own relationship with the world? What could “loving the world” begin to mean for me?
“Messenger”by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.
How big is my world?
for this photo of staff & students celebrating Cornelia’s birthday, Our Lady of Nigeria Nursery Primary School, January 15, 2025 for example, New committee of Cornelian Promoters begins work in Oghara Nigeria
send your caption to Sam Strike to post under the photo — shcjcommunications@gmail.com in 12 words or less & win a prize!
Artificial Intelligence vs. Holy Child Education: Balancing Innovation and Values by
As technology continues to reshape education, an important question arises:
How
can we integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) without losing the essence of what education truly represents?
At the heart of Holy Child education is a philosophy grounded in the dignity of every human being. We believe in nurturing the whole person—mind, spirit, and character—not just intellectual growth. This approach faces new challenges with the rise of AI.
AI, which involves machines simulating human intelligence, offers both opportunities and challenges for education. AI tools—such as chatbots and real-time problem-solving platforms—have the potential to revolutionize teaching. They can provide instant feedback, personalized learning experiences, and support in ways previously unimaginable. For educators, AI could enhance the classroom experience, making learning more efficient and accessible.
However, the use of AI in education must be approached with caution. Unregulated use of AI could undermine the development of essential skills like creativity, critical thinking, and independent problem-solving. These qualities are central to meaningful education, helping students grow intellectually and morally. Overreliance on AI risks diminishing human interaction and intellectual engagement, both of which are crucial to a holistic educational experience.
Stephanie Ugwu, SHCJ
experience while preserving the dignity of the human person.
Cornelia Connelly, the founder of our Society, deeply believed in the uniqueness of every individual.
She taught us to recognize and nurture the talents each person possesses. Her vision emphasized grace as the key to fulfilling our potential and contributing meaningfully to the world. In this context, AI should not replace human interaction or intellectual engagement; rather, it should be a tool that enhances the educational
The challenge is not whether to embrace AI but how to use it responsibly in our schools. Our approach must align with the values of Catholic education, which prioritize human dignity, intellectual autonomy, and moral and spiritual development. AI should complement, not replace, human intellect and creativity.
As we embrace technology, how can we remain grounded in the principles of Holy Child education?
How can we ensure that the dignity of the human person remains central, using AI as a tool that enhances rather than disrupts the educational experience?
What structures can we put in place to guide students in using tools like ChatGPT? Guided by the wisdom of Cornelia Connelly and our faith, let us responsibly integrate AI, nurturing the mind, body, and spirit of every learner in our Holy Child School toward wholeness.
SAY YES to the MESS
Homily by Kevin DePrinzio, OSA for the Carmelite Monastery of Baltimore, MD Feast
of Solemnity of Mary, New Years Day 2025
Be it done to me according to your word
“If we look throughout all of salvation history there has been nothing nice, neat and orderly about it … the only thing we know to be true has been ... the promise of God to be with us in the mess.”
“Be it done to me according to your word, no matter how much I may not understand it, or how much I resist it — hasn’t that been Mary’s yes all along?”
“We always say how beautiful is that manger scene, but would we want to do that with a child, just put them in the manger with all the animals?
“This is the challenge – to take that scene and see it reflected in our own lives; all that is going on in our own lives … yes, even in our world — God wants us somehow to see God’s presence in it.”
“It is so very hard not to wonder, ‘God what are you up to in all of this?’ — this is way too messy for me; help me to see and express your loving real presence...”
“How we do that … is another word for incarnation …
“Mercy is a word that means to enter into the mess, into all that is not neat, seemingly clean and orderly because ultimately that’s where God dwell; that’s how God enters into the world, in and through openness at the same time as brokenness; that’s where God is, so God wants us then to enter into that, go to those places in our hearts that we resist; we want to get a hand-sanitizer .. and just clean it all up. God says before you do that contemplate with me; ponder and reflect as did Mary…”
