On Friday 4 October, around forty primary and secondary school teachers from the Institut de l’Assomption in Boistfort boarded a coach bound for the mother house in Auteuil. Forty teachers in the same coach is an atmosphere worthy of school trips with our pupils, perhaps even more agitated (thanks driver!). Vincent, our director, had a nice surprise in store for us: no, we didn’t eat a triangular sandwich on the side of the motorway, but in a very nice restaurant in Senlis after a diversion to admire the magnificent cathedral.
On Saturday morning, Sr Cécile gave us a short presentation of the house and the community. This was followed by three workshops:
- Sr Hélène spoke to us about the meaning of the Assumption educational project. Education contributes to: the humanisation of the human being, to the transformation of society, and to the coming of the Kingdom (Transformative education at the Assumption, Manila, 2018, p.36).
- Sr Véronique took us on a tour of the museum of Saint Marie Eugénie, and many of us were moved to have a more concrete approach to our foundress, both in the places she visited and in her writings.
- Sr Katrin was waiting for us in the chapel to help us discover this place as a space for God’s presence, this tent that wants to welcome each and every one of us. Everyone was given photos of different shapes representing the stained glass windows, and it was up to us to find the original. Then we met up again in the sanctuary dedicated to Marie Eugénie, a special time when silence became silent prayer for everyone.
We were divided into three groups to do these workshops. At midday, when we met up again, I felt that something had happened within the group: the joy of having taken this course, a greater sense of belonging, a certainty of being rooted in a tradition that still speaks to us today and gives us impetus for our educational mission with our pupils.
In the afternoon, under the sun that had not left us all day, we took the opportunity to discover a little more of Paris. And then at 6pm, we headed back to Brussels a little more firmly rooted than when we left.
Sr Catherine Eugénie