Introduction

WHY CATHOLIC EDUCATION? Ville de Marie Academy exists to support you, the parents, as the primary educators of your children. 

“…since education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime goal for which he was created, it is clear that there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man’s last end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His only begotten Son, Who alone is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life,” there can
be no ideally perfect education which is not a Christian education.” - Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, 1929

“Religion must not be taught to youth only during certain hours, but the entire system of education must be permeated with the sense of Christian piety. If this is lacking, if this Holy Spirit does not penetrate and inflame the souls of teacher and pupil, small benefit will be derived from any other sort of education; instead damage will be done. Almost every sort of training has its dangers, and only with difficulty will these be averted from growing youth, especially if divine controls are lacking which restrain their minds and wills.” - Leo XIII, Militantis Ecclesiae, 1897.


OBJECTIVES

The academic objectives of Ville de Marie Academy are directed to the fulfillment of our identity as a truly Catholic school, not just a classical school. The Holy See identifies Five Essential Marks of Catholic Schools (Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB) which correspond to five imperatives for a Catholic school:

One of Ville de Marie Academy’s primary objectives is to affirm and inculcate the rationality of Faith, and to lead its students to the certainty that the past and present have meaning for the future. Only an educational approach in the context of history and tradition - our Catholic worldview - can tap into the truths that prevent young people from becoming “disconcerted and fragmented…Only this type of education will prepare an adolescent to face reality with composure and strength” (Giussani, p.57).

As with the telos or objective in St. Ignatius’ Exercises as a foundation, Ville de Marie Academy strives “to concentrate [the mind’s] thoughts on itself, and inquire what conduct has hitherto been observed, either with regard to the end [for which we were created by God] or the means, the wanderings and errors into which we have been betrayed, and how those creatures that should have been the means of raising up to God, have been abused so as to separate us from Him (Spiritual Exercises, Week 1, Art. 1).

Inspired by a Supernatural Vision

“Man was created for this end: to praise, reverence, and serve the Lord his God, and by this means to arrive at eternal salvation…” (See “First Principle and Foundation” St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, Appendix I)

On this foundation, Ville de Marie Academy nurtures the image, or vision, of the Word of God. Our Holy Mother’s fiat and the supernatural growth of Jesus in her womb is the parallel in human history to His growth in us. His conception in students at Ville de Marie Academy is inspired by the orthodox study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and by total consecration to Jesus through Mary.

In this way, Ville de Marie Academy promotes love of God and service to others, recalling and always seeking to implement the pastoral principle stated in the Roman Catechism (1566) and again in the prologue of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992):

“The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love.”

Founded on Christian Anthropology

As Archbishop Miller explains in The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools, to be worthy of its name, a Catholic school must be founded on Jesus Christ the Redeemer who, through his Incarnation, is united with each student:

“Christ is not an after-thought or an add-on to Catholic educational philosophy but the center and fulcrum of the entire enterprise, the light enlightening every pupil who comes into our schools (cf. John 1:9).

In its document “The Catholic School”, the Congregation for Catholic Education stated: The Catholic school is committed thus to the development of the whole man, since in Christ, the perfect man, all human values find their fulfilment and unity. Herein lies the specifically Catholic character of the school. Its duty to cultivate human values in their own legitimate right in accordance with its particular mission to serve all men has its origin in the figure of Christ. He is the one who ennobles man, gives meaning to human
life, and is the model which the Catholic school offers to its pupils.”

Ville de Marie Academy’s classical, Catholic liberal arts program incorporates this anthropological understanding in every aspect of its curriculum.

Animated by Communion and Community

The families of Ville de Marie Academy weave themselves into a social fabric that
acknowledges implicitly that we are not independent creatures. To be human is to desire to connect and to be connected to experiences in common that will make us less likely to project incomplete or erroneous understanding onto each other. “The Catholic worldview is to live open to the universe open for all humankind …without trying to impose our own law of being …without confusing love with calculation when we replace sharing with the attempt to dominate” (Fr. Luigi Giussani, Risk of Education, p.80).

Community is vital to understanding reality because, as St. Thomas Aquinas wrote, to understand reality we must be in it: “Ex hoc aliguis percipit se animam habere et vivere et esse, quod percipit se sentire et intelligere et alia huiusmodi opera vitae exercere” (“It is from this that one perceives that he has a soul, is alive, and exists, because he perceives that he feels and thinks (De veritate q. 10, a. 8, c; Giussani, p.69); and to perceive is “to receive into oneself, to submit to the influence of things, to place oneself within their grasp.” (Msgr. Romano Guardini, Magnificat, “Meditation of the Day,” Feb. 15, 2012).

To sanctify the Catholic culture and community of Ville de Marie Academy, the school is first and foremost blessed with daily celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Students also are provided the opportunity to drop by and adore Our Eucharistic Lord in the St. Joseph Chapel during the school day and have regularly scheduled times for Confession. These opportunities for spiritual growth strengthen our school community through preserving, increasing, and renewing the life of grace each of our students and faculty has received at Baptism. Devotion to Our Lady and the Communion of the Saints are also indelibly incorporated into the school’s life and curriculum.

Imbued with a Catholic Worldview

One of Ville de Marie Academy’s primary objectives is to affirm and inculcate the rationality of Faith, and to lead its students to the certainty that the past and present have meaning for the future. Only an educational approach in the context of history and tradition - our Catholic worldview - can tap into the truths that prevent young people from becoming “disconcerted and fragmented…Only this type of education will prepare an adolescent to face reality with composure and strength” (Giussani, p.57).

As with the telos or objective in St. Ignatius’ Exercises as a foundation, Ville de Marie Academy strives “to concentrate [the mind’s] thoughts on itself, and inquire what conduct has hitherto been observed, either with regard to the end [for which we were created by God] or the means, the wanderings and errors into which we have been betrayed, and how those creatures that should have been the means of raising up to God, have been abused so as to separate us from Him (Spiritual Exercises, Week 1, Art. 1).

Sustained by Gospel Witness

Educators, both parents and teachers, at Ville de Marie Academy seek to inspire students to live by a deliberate plan of action according to the Gospel by veritatem facientes in caritate, “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

The educator’s gospel witness affirms the rationality, satisfaction, and perfection of seeking truth, beauty, the good, justice, and love. Our Faith requires that we express the presence of Christ in our lives, and we must look to our Faith to free us from the need to judge everything and everyone and to return us to the state of wonderment that reconciles sorrow and joy. We seek, by putting our own hands into that of Our Holy Mother, to form the characters of our children in virtue and the habit of prayer for the graces they need to follow Christ.

Seven Liberal Arts as depicted: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy, Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar

CLASSICAL PEDAGOGY AND CURRICULUM

The primary purpose of a true education must fulfill the training of the mind. The intellectual life has as its object the consideration of the truth, and we endeavor to train the mind so that it may receive the truth more easily and more firmly. The pursuit of the truth, although useful, is an activity primarily carried out for its own sake. The truth is in itself wonderful and pleasant to behold.

A Catholic liberal arts curriculum requires that the student be actively engaged in challenging the hypothesis of reality true to his Faith. So, in keeping with classical pedagogy, the challenge or inquiry proceeds from principle or orthodoxy. The knowledge that Faith is reasonable will lead not only to truths but to habits in the pursuit of truth, and ultimately to the realizations of Veritatis Splendor, that truth is beautiful. So at Ville de Marie Academy, the Catechism of the Catholic Church provides the framework upon which we build our educational enterprise. When we tell a story, whether it be from fact or fable, the poetics must suggest causative realities from the glory of Truth “as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,” and we believe that this truth is revealed in the Gospel.

The individual is the inquirer in the classical scheme of education, rather than the mere
interpreter of ideas. As an interpreter he must apply, for himself, the language he knows, but as an inquirer, he must successfully communicate his thoughts to others and defend them or let them be corrected by reason. The latter engages him in relationships. In this classical pedagogy, the teacher, mindful of the formative order of the trivium, is chiefly responsible for modeling this dialog that is the province of one who questions. In good faith toward his education, the student must question. That he will choose to do so of his own volition, from the desire of praising God in His glory, is one of the chief virtues that Ville de Marie Academy hopes to develop with its curriculum. The actual “rules” of classical pedagogy are set forth below:

Amassing Facts
  Using Facts to Reason - Dialectic
  Communication and Eloquence
 

Finally, anyone who doubts the importance of Theology in guiding and synthesizing the Liberal Arts and classical pedagogy need only read the Second Discourse of Blessed John Henry Newman’s, The Idea of a University:

The word “God” is a Theology in itself, indivisibly one, inexhaustibly various, from the vastness and simplicity of its meaning.  Admit a God, and you introduce among the subjects of your knowledge, a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable.  How can we investigate any part of any order of Knowledge, and stop short of that which enters into every order?  All true principles run over with it, all phenomena converge to it; it is truly the First and the Last.

Newman proposes that the omission of God from education has destroyed the whole system of knowledge and that the reality of the classical education is in activating the will of the student.