Letter from our Headmaster

     “I’m not dead yet!” This scene is from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Set in Medieval times during the plague, a man is pulling a cart collecting dead bodies. One person in the cart, in fact, is not dead yet, which is why he exclaims, “I’m not dead yet!”

      I start with this reference because I occasionally hear about people wondering when Sacred Heart School is closing. Why would we want that? What good would come from that? I remember a scene from the last season of the Netflix series The Crown. Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, presents to Queen Elizabeth a list of jobs to cut to save costs for the Royal Household. On paper, it appears to be a no-brainer. However, Queen Elizabeth meets each of the people behind the job on the paper and learns who they are and the history behind their supposedly meaningless position. She knew that there was a person, someone to know, in that job.

     As the School Leader and Headmaster of Sacred Heart Catholic School, I hope to show my earnest efforts in the renewal of Sacred Heart Catholic School under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 4:29, St. Paul exhorts us to talk “such as is good for building up…that it may give grace to those who hear.” Why not build each other up with good talk and good deeds? Why not see the people behind the walls of the school and the dollars that are invested? Come, and see what is happening here. Come, and ask me the dream that I have for the building up of our school and parish communities.

     My heart takes flight when I read about Catholic schools, who, with enrollments less than 50 students, commit themselves wholeheartedly to God and His Wisdom in teaching and have enrollments soaring to 200 and more students in three years’ time, creating waiting lists, and opening high schools. How crazily amazing and awesome is our God! Renewal is happening and can happen in Catholic schools, and it renews the parish community. I want to be a part of that.

     I was not qualified to lead three parishes and a school. However, “God does not call the qualified; he qualifies the called.” Further, as my dad often told me, “I am not raising a quitter.”

     Thus, I set out to work and get my hands dirty (not in the cornfields or manure pits). I have grown mainly through my mistakes, but there certainly has been great positive growth. Some of the things that we accomplished over the past year+ are listed below.

     I strongly believe that Sacred Heart School could be part of the next batch of Catholic schools renewed by the power and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that. Why not us?! Only we stand in the way of the Holy Spirit. Let us open our hearts to the Holy Spirit to build each other up and to encourage us to great things according to God’s will!

     We’re not dead yet. I know that there have been talks of closure of Sacred Heart School for about two decades now. It has not happened yet, and I believe that there are two strong reasons (among others) for that. First, it is God’s will that Sacred Heart School still exists. Second, Sacred Heart School, along with the diocesan Rebuild My Church, will be one of the sources of renewal in our area (which I consider Norwalk, Middle Ridge, and Viroqua, also).

     In the hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,

     Fr. Matthew

     Headmaster, Sacred Heart School