Our Marist Tradition

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Catholic College is a Catholic faith community where the Gospel values permeate all that we do. Our primary Gospel Values, embedded in our College Crest, are: Justice, Love, Peace.

As a Marist school, we do this with a distinctive Marist style. Our style of educating is based on a vision that is truly holistic, and that consciously seeks to communicate values. While we share such a vision with many, especially in Church circles, we use a distinctive pedagogical approach which Marcellin and the first Marists initiated and which was innovative in many of its aspects. We share their intuition that “to bring up children properly, we must love them, and love them all equally”

From this principle flow the particular characteristics of our style of educating: presence, simplicity, family spirit, love of work, and following the way of Mary. We seek to adopt these attitudes and values as our way of enculturating the Gospel.

Our Marist Characteristics

Presence

We educate above all through being present to young people in ways that show that we care for them personally. Personally and together as a group of adults, we seek to establish relationships with them, founded on love, which create a climate for learning in an educational setting, for passing on values, and for personal growth.

Simplicity

Our simplicity expresses itself primarily through contacts with young people that are genuine and straightforward, undertaken without pretence or duplicity. Such simplicity is the fruit of a unity of mind and heart, of character and action that derives ultimately from our being honest before ourselves and before our God.

Family Spirit

Father Champagnat’s great desire and legacy is that we relate to each other and to the young people
in our care as the members of a loving family would intuitively do.

Love of Work

In a school setting, love of work implies a careful preparation of our classes and educational activities. It demands that we be visionary and decisive in developing creative responses to the needs of young people.

In the way of Mary

Mary is for us the perfect model of the Marist educator, as she was for Marcellin. As woman and layperson, Jesus’ first follower, she inspires our personal faith. As educator of Jesus at Nazareth, she inspires our pedagogical approach.

For information about the Marist Association please click the link below to visit their website

The Marist Association

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