 Sr.
Marie Amelie from Tours, France visited the Sisters of St. Ursula at Linwood
in Rhinebeck, New York for several months during 2003-2004. While at Linwood,
Sr. Amelie improved her English and continued her academic writing.
In the Feast of Our Lady
of Lourdes, Sr. Amelie addressed the students at Notre Dame School:
My name is Sister Marie Amelie.
I am French. I am a sister of St. Ursula, from the same religious family
as some sisters here, a family who began with Anne de Xainctonge, in sixteen
six. In France, I was a teacher in math and science, physics and chemistry,
in a high school of St. Ursula for seventeen years and I loved my job with
young people. So I am very glad to be with you today.
I would like to speak now
about this woman, Anne de Xainctonge, who was the first sister of St. Ursula.
How did she begin? Perhaps she will have something to tell us today.
She was born in Dijon, in
France, in 1567. Her family was a good Christian family, and her father
was a lawyer, a very good position in the society in that time. At home
there were at least four children. Anne had one half-sister, her name was
Nicole, older than she, that Anne loved very much. She had one other sister,
Frances, and one brother, Peter. It was not a poor family; they had servants.
At this time, women in this "family background” did not work outside. Anne’s
mother managed the servants, and with her husband instructed their children.
For the girls, in particular, there were no schools. Poor girls had no
instruction at all. In good families like Anne’s, parents had to teacher
their children. So Anne de Xainctonge received good instruction within
the family. She loved her parents. Undoubtedly her father was a good instructor.
No question of exams. But she knew how to read and write and she read intelligently
the books which lined the shelves of the family library. Anne’s family
was a good example of the laity who were instructed in many things and
in the Christian life. They were, also, good parishioners. Anne listened
to the preaching at the Church, she learned to pray to God. She knew the
Gospel very well and she tried to be a good Christian.
So we see that Anne benefited
from the life offered to her. But Anne was also somebody who knew how to
look outside.
The family home was just
next to the Jesuit school, a school for boys. It was very easy to see from
her windows what happened in this school. As a teenager, Anne was not blind
to what was going on. On the one hand she understood that most girls and
women, especially the poor, had no chance to receive instruction as she
had; on the other hand she saw that the Jesuits worked only with boys.
And so the question arose: “Why not girls, too?” Should I keep all I learned
only for myself? And then she prayed to know the will of God.
And so, within her, there
was born the desire to begin something new with other young women who wanted
to be like her: totally committed to the love of God and at the same time
to the instruction of poor girls and women. But with her family background
this was not even imaginable. And the first obstacle was her parents. Indeed,
her father was completely against his daughter, very brilliant, nice, beautiful,
intelligent, becoming a school teacher. A girl of this “family background”
must get married (and he had yet to choose her fiancé). She could
possibly, if she had a vocation, become a nun in a monastery, and pray.
But the possibility of working and teaching poor girls, opening schools
and instructing them, no! Never would he permit that!
But Anne felt that her idea
was the will and the idea of God. She thought that Jesus loved the poor
people, and girls as well as boys. But she took time to think about it.
When she was twenty-nine, she left her parents’ house and she went to another
city, named Dole, then located in the Spanish Kingdom. Indeed, she crossed
a frontier between two regions close to each other but enemies of each
other. Just the year before her arrival, the French had ravaged this country
and history tells us that.
 Anne
was labeled as a “French bitch.” So she began her work as a foreigner,
coming from the enemy camp. There, even so, she began to teach the poor
girls and to make friends with other women like her. Her father, at home,
was very angry with her leaving, and he decided that he would never give
her money. Anne’s freedom was astounding. She stood firm, with God’s grace.
During ten years there, she had a lot of difficulties, diseases, and great
poverty… sometimes nothing to eat…She thought of Jesus’ liberty and poverty.
The spirit of the Gospel was her chosen home. And after these ten years,
she was able to begin with two other women of this city what she had been
thinking of: a free school for the poor girls. It was the beginning.
What was the spirit of her
pedagogy?
-
The school that Anne de Xainctonge
wanted was not an ordinary school. She wanted the students to be happy
at school. She was very human and she wanted the girls to become very human.
So she gave some rules, very new in this time, especially for the teachers
(that is her sisters at this time). For example:
-
Teachers must be careful to
respect the desire of the girls’ parents,
-
The personal responsibility
of each student was called forth. Each one must understand, from the first
day, in an initial interview, what was expected.
-
The class teachers must know
personally each student and her capacity so as not to ask more than she
could give.
-
They must have a compassion
for the weaknesses of the students.
-
The pedagogy must not be based
on negative sanctions: never any corporal punishments, as could be seen
in other places at this time; an insistence that the students be stimulated
by public encouragement by the principal of the school each “first day
of the month” … “to encourage the ones cited to study even more and to
incite the others to imitate them”
-
The teaching must require intelligence
and not just memory.
-
No “staying back” in the first
years.
-
No “stuffing” of the mind, especially
in the beginning class. Not expecting them to learn everything at once.
-
Take time. Repeat. Go deeply
into the subject matter.
-
Prepare the students for the
future that awaits them.
-
Of course, the sisters must
give a witness of the spirit of the Gospel through the task of teaching
(respect, benevolence, inciting to mutual love and pardon of injuries…)
-
The teachers need to all work
together in the same direction and it was the responsibility of the Principal
of the school to safeguard this unity.
CONCLUSION: What can Anne de
Xainctonge tell you today?
-
I think she can teach you how
to look, to be attentive to our world. In fact, she knew how to look at
the needs of the world where she lived. For her, there were the needs of
the poor girls. And for us, where are the needs today?
-
I think she can teach you how
to be conscious of all you have and all you received from your family,
or your studies. Anne thought she couldn't keep all these gifts only for
herself. And for you, look at all the gifts you received.
-
I think she can teach you how
to be free to choose your way in this life. The way of working for justice
and peace, somewhere. The way of serving brothers and sisters poorer than
you somewhere.
-
I think she can teach you how
to pray, to be a friend of God who loves this world, and who loves you
in this world, and needs you too, every one here, so that this world of
ours may become more human.
Like Anne de Xainctonge, every
one here has to be a "little lamp" in this world. What little lamp will
each of you be?
Notre Dame School, 02/11/04 |
The apostolic energies of the Sisters led to foundations far from the original
Mother Houses. The French expulsions sent the house of Tours to the United
States, to Italy and to Belgium. The vision of the house of Brig led to
houses in South Africa, India and back to Europe in Romania. Fribourg sent
Sisters to Chad, Sion sent Sisters to the Ivory Coast, and the house of
Tours to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The
proposed text was approved by the member congregations in 1970
Sr.
Angela, SU from the Fribourg branch of the Federation of the Sisters of
St. Ursula came from Switzerland to spend time with the Sisters of St.
Ursula at Linwood, in Rhinebeck, NY. On June 4, 2004, she traveled to New
York City for the commencement exercises at Notre Dame School. Notre Dame
School has relocated to West 13th Street since Sr. Angela last saw it in
2001.