Today's society generates anxiety in many respects. Economic anxiety, first of all — why study when career prospects seem to be closing? Social anxiety, too — why invest in a society perceived as unjust and unequal? Ecological anxiety as well — why care about the future when the decisions of some compromise the world of others? And more broadly, faced with the frantic pace of the world, how can we still believe in peace and openness to others, when the great powers seem to work only toward conflict, seeking profit at the expense of the common good?
In this environment, young people are searching for points of reference — familial, societal, cultural and spiritual. Familial reference points, in families whose structure does not always allow them to find their place. Societal reference points, in the face of a society they struggle to make their own. Cultural reference points, for those who live at the crossroads of several identities and wonder how to inhabit them all at once. And spiritual reference points, because the fundamental questions remain unanswered: what does it mean to believe? Why trust a God who transcends us? How can we reconcile faith and violence committed in its name?
Yet, and this is the crucial point, this uncertainty is not a dead end. It is, as Marie Eugénie understood, the very ground in which a deeper maturity can take root. Trials are not signs of abandonment — they are steps forward.
It is in this context that the school takes on its full value as a place of life, almost of refuge. A place that seeks to be open to others, to the world, bringing together people of different ages, cultures, spiritualities and opinions. A place that aspires to be a sanctuary — oriented toward knowledge, respect for the other in their difference — where the violence of the world should have no place. A place, above all, where adults are reliable, where time has a rhythm, where rituals, even those perceived as constraining, nonetheless provide a reassuring framework.
Not all our young people have faith, or at least do not share it openly with us. Some push open the doors of our institution almost by chance: they were looking for post-secondary education, they applied, they were accepted. Some had never even heard of our state-contracted Catholic schools.
And it is precisely there that the entire challenge — and the entire richness — of our Assumption houses lies: bringing the PAEA (Assumptionist Apostolic and Educational Project) to life for all our pupils and students, whatever their religion, culture or the reasons that led them to us. This is what we sought to do this year, in March 2026, during the Assumption Week. We offered our young people — aged 15 to 22 — a different week, an invitation to discover the congregation in France and across the world.
In my International Business class, a former AMA volunteer came to share her experience in Rwanda. This testimony gave my students the chance to meet a young woman who trusted and left to live something unknown, far from her daily life, her family, her loved ones. We had chosen this encounter deliberately: this group was preparing to spend nine weeks on a work placement abroad — a requirement of their programme, but an experience that amounted, for many, to a genuine act of faith. Some departed for India, Japan, Taiwan, Sweden, Morocco or Spain, often for the first time far from everything they knew.
For this is precisely what Marie Eugénie teaches us: young people are not the future of the Church or of society — they are its present. And this present deserves to be accompanied with care — not by doing things in their place, but by giving them the means to move forward.
Ambient uncertainty is a source of stress, particularly in higher education. Young people sometimes make choices by default, struggle to embrace the proposals offered to them, and frequently experience failure as evidence of their own incompetence. They find it difficult to perceive the beauty and richness of their own journey, however singular it may be. Concretely, they face real difficulty in identifying their talents, naming their competencies and making them visible — even in a simple CV.
This is where our mission as Assumption educators takes on its full meaning. For Marie Eugénie, each one of us has a mission on earth[1]. This conviction should guide every one of our educational gestures. As written in the Reference Text: "The educator, in the work of education, awakens the capacity to take hold of oneself, to fulfil oneself and to build one's own destiny."[2]
My mission as an educator therefore goes beyond my role as a teacher of English or as head of higher education. It is to accompany young people toward a version of themselves that is more assured, more attuned to their values, more in keeping with the world in which they live — and always faithful to what they wish to make of it.
For this, self-knowledge is fundamental. Yet our students have often never genuinely reflected on this. For Marie Eugénie, "the essential thing is to be with the greatest fullness possible"[3]. In the world we inhabit, it is all the more necessary that we, as Assumption educators, work with young people on this inner knowledge. To know oneself, to know one's values, is to put down roots: deep roots which, in moments of storm, make it possible to pass through trials without losing oneself.
This is the hope we are called to cultivate — not a naïve cheerfulness that would erase difficulties, but that "supernatural optimism" that Marie Eugénie invites us to choose each day: trust in Providence, even when the path is not clear. This hope is not a feeling. It is an attitude. A choice.
To educate is always to allow the good that is in every person to find its way through the rock that imprisons it, and to bring it into the light where it can blossom and shine.
Laure Marin-Cudraz
Pedagogical Coordinator for Higher Education
Assumption Chambéry
[1] Letter to Lacordaire (undated, between 1841 and 1844), In Founding Texts p. 117
[2] Cf. Conference by Sr Clare Teresa on the anthropology of M.E., Cannes 1993
[3] Letter to Father d'Alzon (11 October 1842), Vol. VII, n° 1563