Immaculate Heart Students Celebrate 100 Years of Mary’s Day
Nearly 400 Immaculate Heart students joined faculty and staff on campus on Friday, April 30th, for the 100th celebration of Mary’s Day, the school’s most cherished tradition that honors not only Mary, the mother of Jesus and the school’s patroness, but all women everywhere.
Mary’s Day got its start in 1921 when Bishop John Cantwell blessed a statue of Mary donated to Immaculate Heart in honor of the school’s founders, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and the 50-year Jubilee of their arrival in California. After the blessing, a student crowned the statue with a flowered wreath, and the day was commemorated with both a play and picnics organized by students.
In the years since, Mary’s Day has taken many forms, but by tradition it has always combined religious observance with joyful festivities – and this year’s centennial edition was no different. For the 100th Mary’s Day, the school chose the theme “Under the Mantle of Mary” in recognition that, though the pandemic still keeps many separated, the entire Immaculate Heart school community remains united by love.
The day began with a livestreamed Mass offered by Homeboy Industries founder Father Greg Boyle, S.J., who recalled his mother and five sisters, all IHHS alumnae, celebrating Mary’s Day. In his homily, he urged students to accept the theme’s call and be the “mantle” for each other by carrying, sustaining and holding each other. To close the Mass, Student Body President Cleo Riley crowned a statue of Mary outside the school chapel.
After the Mass concluded, Immaculate Heart High School students, joined for the first time by Immaculate Heart Middle School students, came to campus in small groups to take part in the day’s events. The groups traveled through 13 stations around campus, participating not only in adapted versions of classic Mary’s Day traditions, like making their own head wreaths and performing the Great Lawn Dance, but also in activities created especially in honor of the 100th celebration, like writing notes to include in a time capsule commemorating the year.
The day was filled with moments of quiet reflection, including a guided meditation on the theme, and with moments of excitement, like when the students watched taped performances by the Genesians drama club. Along the way, students decorated the campus with chalk art, colored pieces of a large mosaic image of Immaculate Heart, wrote letters of encouragement to children at St. Jude’s Hospital, and placed roses representing themselves under the crowned statue of Mary and her mantle.
Once the students had completed their Mary’s Day journey, they enjoyed refreshments and socially-distanced time together before leaving campus, again physically separated, but spiritually closer than ever.
About Immaculate Heart
Founded in 1906, Immaculate Heart High School & Middle School educates and empowers young women in sixth through 12th grades from its central location in the Los Feliz foothills near Griffith Park. The school has a long and distinguished history, with more than 10,000 graduates. Today’s student body of more than 700 young women is both geographically and ethnically diverse, drawing on students from throughout Los Angeles County. Last year, virtually 100 percent of Immaculate Heart graduates matriculated to colleges, including the most prestigious schools in the country.