Tending the Flame: Reflection by the Headmistress of Operations

I’m here at Our Lady of Mount Carmel because the recipe is simple and true. Put God first in reverent worship. Seek beauty in word and deed. Read good books that reveal the human person. Hold a high bar for conduct and comportment that dignifies both oneself and one’s neighbor. Guard the innocence of childhood. When we do these things, the result is hope. At Our Lady of Mount Carmel, hope isn’t a slogan; it’s how we order our time, attention, and love. The recipe may be old, but it is forever new.

To this I add something I realize these days we must say out loud: a deep appreciation for in-person, human interaction. Young people are taught to look one another in the eye, to shake hands, to converse, to listen. In classrooms and corridors, at morning assembly and at school Mass, formation happens person to person - souls meeting souls, learning to love the good together.

If there is a gift every child should receive from his or her time at OLMC, it is the grace to see with faith when others cannot - to notice what matters when the world is loud, to recognize splendor where others see sameness, to choose the narrow way with joy. Students are not only taught; they are formed: to think clearly, to love rightly, and to act bravely.

This is the lens every child deserves: the clarity that comes when truth, beauty, and goodness are made tangible. You see it in the order of the liturgy, the cadence of poetry, the quiet discipline of two students playing chess before classes begin, the delight of an eighth grader reading to a kindergartener, the tear-jerking power of 350 voices raised in song to “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” at the end of Benediction. These ordinary moments, repeated, become the scaffolding of a life.

Every generation needs its lights. On our little hill in Boonton, NJ, we tend the flame - steadily, gladly - so children can shine it ahead. This is the work I’m called to. It’s the hope that keeps me here. By God’s grace, it’s sufficient.

Eileen Vandenberg is the Headmistress of Operations for Our Lady of Mount Carmel School and Lumen Gentium Academy.