The Seed And The Fruit

Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart.  That is the group that operates those girl schools called Academies of the Sacred Heart.  These are pretty high end schools for girls and maybe now some boys.  Her idea was to educate the whole person which is the goal of liberal arts.  These are not STEM schools.  Anyhow, Madeleine sends a fellow French sister to the USA, the Louisiana Territory.  Her name is Rose Philippine Duchesne.  She starts the first of these schools, a “free school” in a log cabin in Missouri.  She added six more schools.  But her English was terrible and her teaching style was the type not familiar to the students.  She thought she died a failure.  Not so, as can be seen by all these successful schools and graduates in the USA.  She was even canonized.  Rose was the seed, not the fruit.  Things take time.  Maybe more time than our short lifetime.  So you parents of teenagers, especially teenage girls, you might think you too are a failure at times.  You cannot seem to speak their language, and your style is not theirs.  But wait a while.  You are the seed. The fruit will come in time.  I know.  You are still waiting.