Since its founding in 1882, the Academy of Our Lady of Peace has been serving the families of San Diego. Inspired by the charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, students at the Academy are challenged to become Christ-centered persons, enthusiastic learners, aspiring leaders, and effective communicators. The Academy endeavors to achieve this goal by working with parents as co-educators to develop in the hearts of its students a thoroughly Catholic philosophy of life, by nurturing in young women the ideal of a truly liberal education and by fostering a spirit dedicated to truth, goodness and beauty.
As we celebrate our 130th anniversary, we take time to remember our history and rededicate ourselves to the future. Mother St. John Fontbonne, the 84-year old superior who had sent the Sisters from Lyons, France to the New World, also knew the meaning of Kindness. "Always have a good opinion of others; always speak well of them; excuse and conceal as best you can all the wrong you might see in them; always be kind to others and never be unkind to anyone" (Maxims of Perfection, VIII, No. 4).
In this spirit of kindness, we welcome our 2011-2012 academic year, realizing that no act of kindness comes naturally. It must be deliberately chosen one day at a time, day after day, in times of happiness as well as times of sadness, in times of success as well as in times of disappointment. But most especially, in times when limited energies or compassion causes others to act unkindly toward us.
May we all choose to be kind, and be grateful for the kindness that comes back to us when we least expect it.