France – Annual Assembly of “Wisdom – Saint Gabriel Network”

About forty members of the network (directors, PAS, staff, active members of the guardianship, religious sisters and brothers, including the two provincial superiors: Sr Marie Françoise and Br Claude) met during the annual assembly of our network, in St Laurent sur Sèvre. As this essential moment in the life of our network could not take place last year, there was a strong desire to meet and share together. The main theme of these days, in continuity with the previous assembly, and in coherence with the expectations and projects of the network’s centres, was articulated around the second axis of the network’s educational project, developed in our reference text: ENCOURAGE.

The interventions, which consisted of two conferences presented by Claude Berruer, former Assistant Secretary General for Catholic Education, and by Eric Joyeau, French and Philosophy teacher at St Gabriel St Michel de Saint-Laurent, alternated between them and there were times for exchanges in workshops. All this allowed us to nourish one another with contributions, examples and reflections aimed at developing and reinforcing some of the strengths present in the daily life of our schools, based on the following questions:

• * The pupil at school: how can we ensure the development of each pupil while allowing him/her to achieve his/her own “excellence”, which is not strictly academic?
• * Family spirit and “living together” within our educational community.
• * What team management should be proposed to serve the above-mentioned axes?
• * What soul, or supplement of soul, is present in our schools, how can we inculcate it, develop it and maintain it?
• * Fraternal relationships within the school, a breeding ground for creative innovation.
• These hours of work were punctuated by various moments of discovery of the environment, always much appreciated by the directors and their assistant professors, especially those who are geographically distant (Cambrai, Chaumont, Pont l’Abbé). We were therefore able to enjoy a guided tour of the Saint-Gabriel Saint-Michel establishment, accompanied by Mr. Thierry Letard, Director of the school, and some Brothers. This allowed us to get to know the specific characteristics of the school in terms of formation and also the particularities that marked us by their adaptation to the project of “allowing encounters” and “proposing personalised itineraries”, including the “Unique Place”, a space for meeting, working and living together, open to all the adults of the school, and situated in the heart of the school: a place of meeting, exchange and conviviality, and the St Gab’ Laboratory, a place of learning and openness for the pupils, in a climate favourable to creativity and to the realisation of each one of them.

Moments of prayer and interiority were also present, in particular through a moment of recollection with Father Olivier Maire, in the cemetery of the Daughters of Wisdom.

At the same time, we had the opportunity to participate in the Eucharistic celebration of the school’s patronal feast in honour of the Archangels. It was again an intense shared experience of praying, listening to the Word of God and singing in a Basilica filled with more than 650 young people accompanied by many adults from the school.

Led by the “PASTO” choir and the IMV, Institut Musical de Vendée of the young people of the centre, the assembly prayed with courage and serenity, around the Montfort Missionaries (Superior General, General Assistants, Rector of the Basilica, priests of the Basilica) who concelebrated on this day on which the educational community remembered our Founders and Father Olivier Maire.

Our group was very happy to be able to share this moment of celebration with all the members of this educational community, during an enthusiastic patronal feast rich in shared experiences, which continued afterwards in the meadows on the banks of the Sèvre. Our annual meeting also allowed us to experience a time of fraternal community, in small groups, based on texts by, among others, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort and Marie Louise Trichet, on the theme “Vocation – Being of service”. And there was no lack of conviviality, where communicative good humour brought joy and laughter, especially during the vigil, where the cooperative games and songs presented by each centre (and written by their interpreters) allowed us to appreciate the multiple talents of each person!

This annual meeting was eagerly awaited and everyone experienced it intensely, happy to meet again and make a “stop” in their daily life, allowing us to stop and recharge our batteries, where our roots are, under the Vendée sun that accompanied us throughout these two days, thus reinforcing the warm and fraternal atmosphere that was very present and that leads us all to sow the seeds and bear fruit in the daily life of our centre or our entity.