•Biography of Janet Erskine Stuart, rscj
•Mother Stuart – Seeker
•Mother Stuart – Educator
•Mother Stuart – Animator..Spiritual Guide
 Born November 11, 1857; youngest of 13
 Educated at home..math, philosophy,
literature……trained by German and Swiss
teachers with whom she learned fluent German
and French.
 At 21 she converted to Catholicism
(March 6th 1879)
 1882 entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at
Roehampton where she was named Mistress of
Novices immediately after her profession
 1891 became Superior Vicar in 1894.
 1911, she was elected 6th Superior General
 October 21, 1914 Mother Stuart died.
Catherine Anne Wingfield
m 1836 - d 1845
8 children
The Rev Hon. Andrew Godfrey Stuart
(1812-1889);
Janet’s father
Mary Penelope Noel (m 1849 - d 1859)
5 children – Janet being the youngest
Janet’s birthplace and childhood home ....
The Rectory at Cottesmore, Rutland
Janet aged 6
Janet aged 14
Events are sacraments of the will of God. (Mother Stuart)
Education of the WHOLE person
 character formation;
 methods of preparing the soil to enable students to
become WHOLE persons;
 training for greatness;
 inculcating the awareness and love of sincerity as a
means of training character; and, finally,
 the role of the teacher, as a person, in the educational
process.
Janet Reberdy rscj
The Training of the Teacher…
No one who has the good of children at heart, and the
training of their characters, can leave the subject
without some grave thoughts on the formation of
their own character, which is first in order of
importance, and in order of time must go before, and
accompany their work to the very end.
Janet Erskine Stuart RSCJ
‘…the great and unchanging
fact that the formation of
heart and will and
character is, and must
be always, the very root
of the education of a
child; and it also shows
forth the new fact that at
no time has that formation
been more needed than at
the present day.
(Introduction)
The essence of an Educator
…the responsibility lies all the more directly with the
teacher who has to live the life, as well as to know the
truth, and love both truth and life in order to make them
loved. These are qualifications that are never attained,
because they must always be in process of attainment,
only one who is constantly growing in grace and love and
knowledge can give the true appreciation of what that
grace and love and knowledge are in their bearing on
human life: to be rather than to know is therefore a
primary qualification. Inseparably bound up with it is the
thinking right thoughts concerning what is to be taught.
…Children like to find real people, not anxiously
careful to improve them, but able to take life with a
certain spontaneity as they like to take it themselves.
They are frightened by those who take themselves too
seriously, who are too acute, too convincing or too
brilliant; they do not like people who appear to be
always on the alert, nor those of extreme
temperatures, very ardent or very frigid. The people
whom they like and trust are usually quiet, simple
people, who have not startling ways, and do not
manifest those strenuous ideals which destroy all
sense of leisure in life.
We labour to produce character, we must have it. We
look for courage and uprightness, we must bring them
with us. We want honest work, we have to give proof of it
ourselves. And so with the Christian qualities which we
hope to build on these foundations. We care for the faith
of the children, it must abound in us. We care for the
innocence of their life, we must ourselves be heavenly
minded, we want them to be unworldly and ready to make
sacrifices for their religion, they must understand that it
is more than all the world to us. We want to secure them
as they grow up against the spirit of pessimism, our own
imperturbable hope in God and confidence in the Church
will be more convincing than our arguments. We want
them to grow into the fullness of charity, we must make
charity the most lovable and lovely thing in the world to
them.
Plan of Studies
Curriculum must be chosen with a view to allowing
true instruction, in the etymological sense of the
word: in-struere, that which aims not at
accumulating knowledge, but at constructing
solid foundation in the mind, that is to say,
serious intellectual habits, steady and coherent
personal thought
Limitless possibilities for sanctity
…all our spiritual life is unified
into the one desire of union with
God and His Will. It is for this
union we were made.
…We should take our soul as our first and
favorite pupil give it every advantage we
can; . . . make it stand on its feet,
make it elastic, make it adaptable to
circumstances, free in its movements ;
that is to say, not held down to a groove,
and not holding to anything.
Mother Stuart
Dependence on God
God must lead the soul Himself into this land, we
cannot do so. It is His gift, coming sometimes at the
end of a life of heroic struggle, sometimes in
unspoiled souls at the dawn, but always a free gift. . .
No one can put others on this road, nor know with
certainty that they are meant to enter on it. Some
who reach the border-land are artist souls, who may
mistake it for what God is not offering them; others
there are who meant to enter, delay on the borderland, and fearing the pain go no further.
The faithful daily preparation of meditation
... I advise you to follow the clue ; preparing, yes, you must not
risk going unprepared, but if the presence of God takes hold of
your soul, or if you can keep thus in His presence, do not force
yourself to do anything else. . . . The best thing for you is to go
on quite simply and not ask yourself whether the way is
ordinary or extraordinary, there is so much border-land in
these things, and really in practice and to you it does not
matter much what one would call it. You have only to go on
quite simply, preparing faithfully, keeping your head in the
dust, for you know whatever grace God gives you is His gift
and not your own deserving.
Mother Stuart…
“We must remember that each one of our children is
destined for a mission in life. Neither we nor they can
know what it is, but we must know and make them believe
that each one has a mission in life and that she is bound
to find out what it is, that there is some special work for
God which will remain undone unless she does it, some
place in life which no one else can fill… We must bring
home to our children and to ourselves also, the
responsibilities for our gifts. We must put our talents at
interest, and not bury them in the earth, and the reason is
sufficient, that they are God’s.”
Society’s ‘hunger and thirst for God…'
I am convinced
now, that many of
our young nuns
could be more
contemplative if we
initiated
them more into the
secrets of
the interior life.
Our Lord calls
those in the Society who
have an understanding
of their vocation to a
degree of intimacy and
friendship
far above any that they
can imagine or desire.
Final Conference
We shall not fully know what it means to
have been called to religious life until we
get to heaven. God has called us to
the fullest spiritual life of which we are
capable. The stop will always be put by
ourselves.
She was a woman of complexity – seemingly simple
and yet quite simply profound. She was a shy, retiring
person who had a telling impact on individuals in her
own community and on the youth of more than a
dozen nations. She was a semi-cloistered nun who
traveled continents in a pre-World War I ambiance in
which “ladies” seldom did such things. She was a
traditionalist who, at the same time, looked to the
future and became an innovator and a seminally
productive thinker for her own and later generations.
Janet Erskine Stuart, Educator Par Excellence
Janet Reberdy, RSCJ
Structures of Relationships
…All the system converges to thisto give personal worth to each child,
a worth of character,
strength, principle,
and anchorage in faith.
Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ
Epochs of transition must keep us on the alert. They ask us to
keep our eyes open upon the distant horizons, our minds
listening to seize every indication that can enlighten us;
reading, reflection, searching, must never stop; the mind must
keep flexible in order to lose nothing, to acquire any
knowledge that can aid our mission…. Immobility, arrested
development bring decadence; a beauty, fully unfolded is
ready to perish. So let us not rest on our beautiful past.
Letter to the Society of the Sacred Heart,
Janet Erskine Stuart, rscj
August 13, 1912
2013
LAUNCH OF THE CENTENARY YEAR
2014
CONFERENCE
TRIDUUM WITH JANET STUART
Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire.
CENTENARY EUCHARIST OFTHANKSGIVING
Sunday 19th October 2014
Digby Stuart College
From the Society in the UK
http://www.societysacredheart.org.uk/janet-erskine-stuart-monthly-reflection.html
Network of Sacred Heart Centenary Celebrations
http://sofie.org/content/janet-erskine-stuart-centenary-celebration