Please note the information on Janet Erskine Stuart below that follows Barbara Dawson's letter was written by Sue Acheson, RSCJ (1954-2015)
November 11, 2012
Dear Friends:
This week we celebrate the birthday of Janet Erskine Stuart RSCJ, a world-renowned educator who led
the Society of the Sacred Heart into the 20th century. We are happy to launch a new ministry of the
Society of the Sacred Heart in the United States appropriately named The Stuart Center for Mission,
Educational Leadership and Technology. The Stuart Center is a place dedicated to the Mission of the
Society of the Sacred Heart and it is located in Washington DC, at the former CEDC building at 821
Varnum Street NE., a short distance from Catholic University of America.
The MISSION of the Stuart Center is to support and further the educational mission of the Society of
the Sacred Heart by working with Religious of the Sacred Heart, collaborators and social justice groups
to strategically respond to the educational and justice needs of our country and the world, to support the
development of new projects and initiatives, to strengthen technology at the service of mission, to focus
on youth and leadership and to provide conference space for religious and social justice groups aligned
with our mission.
The VISION of the Stuart Center is to be at the forefront to foster a more just society through educational initiatives, technology and leadership development in collaboration with groups whose mission is
aligned with that of the Society of the Sacred Heart and to support RSCJs to live mission to the fullest.
The Stuart Center is comprised of five offices, under the leadership of Sister Vicky Rajca RSCJ:
The Office of Educational Initiatives and Leadership, Director, Imma DeStefanis RSCJ
The Office of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, Coordinator, Diane Roche RSCJ
The Center for Education, Design and Communication (CEDC), Director, Laryn Kragt Bakker
The Office of Ministry, Director, Fran de La Chapelle RSCJ
The Conference Center, Director,Vicky Rajca RSCJ
It is through collaboration with a wide variety of organizations that the educational mission of the Society
of the Sacred Heart realizes its fullest impact. Together we will respond more effectively to the needs of
our community and our world. We ask Janet Stuart’s blessing on this 21st century educational venture.
We invite you to visit our website, stuartcenter.org, which will be launched on December 15th. Please
feel free contact the staff to become better acquainted with the vast range of projects and services that
will be available or stop by and visit!
With great hope,
Barbara Dawson RSCJ
Provincial
Society of the Sacred Heart, US Province
Janet Stuart: Why we celebrate her Memory
written by Sue Acheson, RSCJ
Why is the centenary of her death worth celebrating?Why is she someone whom we want to remember in the 21st century?
One reason is simply that she was a wonderful writer whose letters –especially those written during her
extensive travels around the USA and Latin America between 1898-1901 – bring
the environment she observed vibrantly alive. Devotees of blogs and of
Twitter can admire her imaginative, concise, lively essays on various aspects
of spiritual life or of community life – many of which still have something
pertinent to say about relationships and the love of God.
Secondly, she was the first
rscj at ‘senior management’ level in English speaking world to interpret the
spirituality of the Society in a context we can recognize as ‘modern’. She installed electricity and the telephone
at Roehampton, travelled in trains and motor cars, had regular dealings with lawyers,
house agents, and government inspectors.
She experienced the struggle to respond to pressures for changed whilst remaining
faithful to the core values of the charisma she inherited. Today we might make different choices, and are not at all
concerned, as she was, with safeguarding a monastic lifestyle. However, our freedom to be open to different
ways of living religious life only ‘works’ because we have learned the lessons
she inherited from St. Madeleine Sophie Barat and passed on in her own early 20th
century idiom, of a person-centered spirituality that is rooted in the love of
the heart of Jesus.
A third reason for remembering Janet Stuart is that she was
the first Superior General to be able to
exploit improved transport opportunities in order to respond to the challenge
of establishing ‘Cor Unum’ in a global organization. Where Sophie Barat had to wait months for
letters to pass between France and America, and where Mabel Digby (Stuart’s
predecessor) was inhibited by ill health and by a political instability in
Europe that directly threatened the continued existence of religious orders in
some parts of the continent, Stuart could take advantage of a window of
relative calm between 1911-1914 to embark, literally, on a project to visit
every community from Australia to America, from Chile to Japan.
The conferences she gave at each stop challenged religious
to live up to high standards both in their religious life and in their
professional lives as educators. More
importantly, the way she delivered them created a felt impact that meant the
visit was cherished long afterwards – communities of sisters many of whom were
‘far from home’ felt recognized, valued, encouraged, part of the greater
whole. Although there was no attempt at
acculturation, let alone enculturation, her round the world tour did evince a
desire to listen and to know individuals in what was at the time a large and
expanding organization. She wrote that
she had ‘great plans’ for the future, though they needed time to develop. She
was tragically not given that time, but used the time she had in a way that
perhaps laid solid spiritual foundations for the radical changes that were to
take place after the Second World War.
The official photograph taken of Janet Stuart in 1911 when
she was made Superior General rather overwhelms one with its ‘stuffiness’. To a modern eye, the habit is stifling, and
the curtained bookshelves in the background add to the impression of an
outdated propriety and repression of individuality. The individual seems absorbed into the
organization, and into the values she must, as Superior General represent.
However a closer look at the face within the wimple creates a more sympathetic
effect. It is an authoritative, open and intelligent gaze, with a hint of humor
– at once reflective and engaged. In an essay written in 1904 Stuart wrote
of how a personality can most fully reveal itself to an observer through a
countenance that is ‘in repose’ and unconscious of itself’ whilst ‘fully turned
to the observer … following its won thoughts’.
Intentionally or not this photograph seems to capture that idea. It is a face that gazes out of a 19th
century religious culture into the 21st century – a speaking
expression, with which one could even now hold a constructive and meaningful
conversation
The above was written by Sue Acheson, RSCJ and taken from the Society of the Sacred Heart England and Wales Providence website. For further info on Janet Erskine Stuart, click here.
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For your reflection…
There is much talk about the future of religious life. The
case of LCWR brought the internal discourse of many congregations into the
public sector. Janet Stuart straddled
two worlds, crossed the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a time when a rapidly changing world
brought both possibilities and resistance; excitement and fear and a definite
uncertainty about the future of religious life at that time. Are we not now at a similar point?
How can we as Religious of the Sacred Heart in the Province
of US and Canada, like our sister Janet…
- Make the environment, which we observe vibrantly alive?
- Interpret the spirituality of the Society in a context we today recognize as “modern”?
- Maximize the new technologies of an ever increasing globalized world to build our Cor Unum both here and internationally?
- Respond to the needs of the world with the authority born of a deep life of prayers, an open and intelligent gaze and a hint of humor?
As the Stuart Center begins this new journey we also offer
the Prayer for the New Year written by Janet Stuart.
Heavenly Father, unseen Companion of our life, give us faith and eager expectancy as we begin this fresh stage of our journey. Take from us all fear of the unknown and teach us to wrest treasures from the darkness. As the days come and go, may we find that each of one is laden with happy opportunities and enriching experiences; and when this year is ended may our best hopes be more than ever fulfilled.
Editors Note: With regard to the above reflection, I would ask: How can we as Alumnae and Alumni of the Sacred Heart, like our sister Janet ...
- Make the environment, which we observe vibrantly alive?
- Interpret the spirituality of AASH in a context we today recognize as "modern"?
- Maximize the new technologies of an ever increasing globalized world to build our Cor Unum both here and internationally?
- Respond to the needs of the world with the authority born of a deep life of prayers, an open and intelligent gaze and a hint of humor?
