Divinum Auxilium Academy is a non-profit farm school offering a classical liberal arts education with a Montessori foundation for students ages 2 ½ to 12 yrs old. Saint John Chrysostom has said, "What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?"
Divinum Auxilium - Divine Assistance Academy in Front Royal VirginiaWith this is in mind, we hold with the Church t
hat "...education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created, it is clear that there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man's last end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is 'the way, the truth and the life,' there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education." -- Pope Pius XI Encyclical on Christian Education
Thus, it is our mission to use the means of our educational endeavors to achieve the end of a closer encounter with the Person of Christ. We believe that parents are the primary educators of their children and as such our goal is to support families in their God-given charge by working with and in service to them. We believe that community in the service of one another is an essential component of our Christian calling, that "Love of neighbour, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level: from the local community to the particular Church and to the Church universal in its entirety. As a community, the Church must practise love." -- Pope Benedict XVI Encyclical on Christian Love
As a creature of body and soul, we believe man can best flourish when his work involves both his hands and his intellect. If his heart is formed to seek truth and beauty, man's appreciation of nature and his labor in art, music, agriculture and other practical arts can be a means of raising his soul to Heaven. "All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder." -- Richard Louv
We believe that our responsibility to children and to childhood is great, that, "... humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life." -- Maria Montessori
