- Ms. Griselda Villarreal (Mother of Sorrows School Principal) and Sister Lisa Laguna, D.C. (Vocation Directress for the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul Western Province) take a moment to smile for a photograph at the 2012 Vincentian Educators’ Symposium held in Buena Park, CA on October 5.
Mother of Sorrows School’s faculty and staff joined staffs from the other nine Daughters of Charity Province of the West schools for the Vincentian Educators’ Symposium on Friday, October 5. The theme of the symposium, which featured speaker Sister Marie Poole, D.C., was “We’re not in it for the Money: The Legacy of St. Louise de Marillac and St. Vincent de Paul.”
The Vincentian Educators’ Symposium is an annual gathering that brings together educators from the entire Western Province – which includes schools in the Los Angeles area, the San Francisco area, and Phoenix – for a day of reflecting on and discussing what it means to be a Vincentian educator and sharing ideas for how we can best carry out St. Vincent de Paul’s and St. Louise de Marillac’s mission and example in our schools today.
This year’s symposium took place at Knott’s Berry Farm Resort Hotel in Buena Park, CA. The day-long event included morning prayer, a series of presentations from Sister Marie, small group and large group discussion, and an evening liturgy. Sister Marie’s presentation highlighted St. Vincent and St. Louise as people, how the two worked together and with others to carry out their mission, and how their legacy has been bequeathed to us – Vincentian educators of the modern world.
Sister Marie discussed how we are heirs of St. Vincent’s and St. Louise’s lived experience. She likened our Vincentian charism (a word that means “gift from God to be shared with others”) to a Vincentian DNA that has been passed down from one generation, country, and continent to the next, and that we must keep in our schools’ genes.
Mother of Sorrows School’s faculty and staff was thankful to Sister Marie and to the Daughters of Charity Province of the West for the opportunity to grow with fellow Vincentian educators in our mission to carry out the Vincentian charism in our school communities.
