Features
DECEMBER 2021 28
THE
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ACADEMY OF SACRED TIME
HEART CELEBRATES
// 3 4 O N E M A N , N U R T U R I N G
THE WILD
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BICENTENNIAL
BACK TO
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HOMEWARD BOUND // 3 2
NATIVE
MAKING
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INSTITUTIONS
Two Hundred Years at the Academy GRAND COTEAU’S STORIED SCHOOL CONSIDERS ITS PAST AS IT LOOKS TO THE FUTURE Story by Ashley Hinson • Photos by Olivia Perillo
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little town steeped in rich history, Grand Coteau’s story can’t be told apart from its geographical and mythical center: The Academy of Sacred Heart (ASH). The idyllic all-girls Catholic school, which celebrates its bicentennial this year, is almost as old as St. Landry Parish itself and holds as many stories. Over the past two hundred years, upon these 250 acres of oak-and-mossdraped grounds, girls who would become powerful women walked, as did the people their institution enslaved. During the Civil War, a Union general whose statue now overlooks the azalea garden ensured the school did not fall. And one year later, there was a miracle. It was 1866, and the postulant Mary Wilson, who was from Canada, was not adjusting well to South Louisiana’s climate. Just before taking her final vows to join the Society of the Sacred Heart, she found herself on her deathbed. For forty days, feverish and vomiting, she refused food—subsisting only on coffee and tea, and things were looking grim. “I endured the pangs of death,” Wilson wrote in her detailed account of the events. She prayed for the intercession of Blessed John Berchmans, the patron saint of students, and placed an image of him on her mouth. “I can say without scruple or fear of offending God: I heard a voice whisper, ‘Open your mouth.’ I did so as well as I could. I felt someone, as if they put their finger on my tongue, and immediately I was relieved…I closed my eyes and asked: ‘Is it Blessed Berchmans?’ He answered: ‘Yes, I come by the order of 28
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