Our Faith
Faith-Filled
Catholic, Dominican Education
When students have the privilege of learning in an environment based on centuries of Dominican teachings and traditions, the pursuit of truth—in their studies, their faith, their service, and their community—becomes the fabric of their daily lives as it has for the thousands of young women that came before them. As a Catholic, Dominican school, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy is committed to educating the whole person in a setting that allows adolescent girls to flourish into young women that are well-prepared for college and beyond.
Veritas
If one word captures the animating spirit of Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, it is Veritas, the Latin word for “truth.” It is both a touchstone for our Dominican Catholic identity and the mission we seek to live each day. How does a school committed to Veritas integrate the value into the fiber of its institution? For Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, the answer is found in the intentional practice of “Right Relationship.”
"RIGHT RELATIONSHIP IS THE STATE OF BEING IN WHICH OUR INNER DISPOSITIONS OF MIND AND HEART ARE IN ALIGNMENT WITH OUR ACTIONS."
— Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose
Right Relationship and the Dominican Pillars
Our commitment is rooted in our Catholic, Dominican identity, and key to our mission.
A commitment to Right Relationship clearly expresses the mission of the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. The worldwide Dominican Order promotes holistic education and the pursuit of truth in service of the preaching mission — spreading the Gospel through words and actions to inspire change. Specifically, our Sisters’ Mission Statement expresses their gospel commitment by “evangelizing, preaching, educating and promoting justice and peace.” And the four pillars of prayer, study, community and service inform all our initiatives for Right Relationship so necessary for our times.
The pillar of prayer corresponds with all phases of growth towards Right Relationship.
Through prayer, we are called to give ourselves to God in humility. As we reflect on our dispositions of mind and heart we can gain clarity to learn, question, and act in new ways that correspond to the invitations of grace we receive through our prayer. In prayer we can bring our total self to a loving God whose only desire is that we know and grow in our identity as God’s beloved child. This is the first truth that informs and guides all other identities.
In study, we can approach reality with discerning eyes. Right Relationship calls us to think about how we respond to new information about ourselves and our world.
Through assiduous study, deep introspection, and observation we learn about our place in the world as co-creators of God’s dream for God’s world. What am I curious about? Where do I find joy in learning? What assumptions and biases distort how I see reality? Can I recognize where study is guiding me to ask new questions for myself and my community, and then learn how to respond with courage and grace?
We do not pursue Veritas in isolation. We come to know Veritas only in the company of others, in community.
Because the search for truth is demanding, we need good companions who will listen with us, share their experiences and challenge our horizons. We can only do this well within an authentic community where we see and center the humanity of each other. This is a challenging call to action, to become a reconciling community where human beings, simultaneously “fabulous and flawed,” can find grace to-gether and flourish in an environment of dignity and mutual respect. Restorative practices that center accountability to one another in contrast to practices that blame and shame are an important way forward for us as we seek to live the pillar of community.
The pillar of service invites us to live our values “out loud” and guides our calling to build the kingdom of God.
Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy is centered in the commitment of Dominican women who have generously served on the Hill for nearly 100 years as instruments of gospel hope. As a community, Sisters and lay partners together, we respond wholeheartedly to human need and offer support not only to our own community, but also the greater Los Angeles area, and to the global community through domestic and international service initiatives.
Veritas is not a goal, it is a standard.—Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Alumna
Sister Colleen Mary Mallon, O.P.
Director of Adult Mission Formation
Sister Colleen Mary Mallon, O.P., is a theologian, educator, and animator of mission formation. She holds a PhD in systematic and philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union and has taught systematic theology at the university level. She currently serves as a director of adult mission formation for the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose.
The dignity of others is to be respected in all circumstances, not because that dignity is something we have invented or imagined, but because human beings possess an intrinsic worth superior to that of material objects and contingent situationsPope Francis