170 YEARS OF STE MARIE SCHOOL IN BIARRITZ

1864-2024! 170 years of service to the children of Biarritz! 

To mark its 170th anniversary, the Ste Marie school of Biarritz organized an exhibition tracing its history over the years. A retrospective open to the public, on June 7 and 8 at the school's premises, at 23 rue de la République in Biarritz.

Let's listen to Jean-Luc Mouesca, the director,

speaking to radio Lapurdi about the occasion.

On February 2, 1864, the Servants of Mary opened the first school in Biarritz, marking the beginning of a long history linking the Congregation with Biarritz families!

Today, Ecole Ste Marie is a co-educational local school offering quality education to some 200 pupils, from nursery to CM2. While it perpetuates the educational and spiritual values stemming from Father Cestac's charisma, it is also an educational community resolutely turned towards new pedagogical challenges, notably with bilingual teaching (French and Basque).

We wish our beloved school many more happy years of service to the people of Biarritz!

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As the establishment was founded by the Servants of Mary, a mass of thanksgiving was celebrated on June 13 at the Notre-Dame-du-Refuge chapel in Anglet, to mark this 170th anniversary.

Here is the welcome from Sr. Isabelle, Superior General of the Congregation:

"Dear children, dear parents, to you the entire educational community, to you P. Dominique Roussel, but also former students or teachers, friends and Sisters be each welcome in this chapel of Notre Dame du Refuge where we are gathered to celebrate the adventure of St. Mary, begun 170 years ago !!!!

The exhibition held on the premises of Ste Marie a few days ago retraced the evolution of this institution, which focused on the education of girls and young women, before opening up to co-education... Ste Marie's life was not a long, quiet river, and it has weathered the ups and downs of history by responding to the challenges of each era.

Today, each of us takes our place in this long chain, in this long adventure, each of us a link in our own right. Let's continue to make Ste Marie a place of education where the spirit of the Gospel continues to shine forth, in the words of Father Cestac: "Our mission is great! Each of these dear little ones sitting on your benches is the bearer of a whole future, and sometimes a great future. The Virgin Mary entrusts them to you like a precious plant which must one day bear great fruit, but which must develop through wise, intelligent and sustained cultivation... "

Together, let us give thanks for what has been lived, what is being lived and what is already sprouting!"

Let's risk the educational community and its places of the Word together!

We love our school, with its limits and its riches. It's a bit like our second home, which is why we respect it, while dreaming of making it even more beautiful.

A school where life is good, where we can breathe, say what we think; a school of freedom.

A school that listens before speaking, that welcomes rather than judges, that forgives without condemning, that announces rather than denounces; a school of mercy.

A school where the smallest, the most destitute, will understand what the other is saying, where the most knowledgeable will know that they don't know, where each person will show themselves.

Where the Holy Spirit can invite himself in, because not everything will have been planned, settled and decided in advance; an open school.

A school where the audacity to do something new will be stronger than the habit of doing things the same way. 

A school where everyone can pray in their own way, express themselves in their own culture and exist with their own history. 

A school where we say not "See how organized they are" but "See how much they love each other". 

School of our towns and countryside, you're still small but you're making progress, you're still fragile but you're hopeful. 

Raise your head and look, the Lord is with you...

(1st reading from the thanksgiving mass celebrated at Notre Dame du Refuge chapel - 06/13/2024)