Closed since mid-March, Jesuit schools, like all those in France and elsewhere, had to invent new ways of carrying out their mission in these times of confinement: pedagogical continuity to continue learning and exam preparation, accompaniment of each student, orientation, preparation for next year... If the technical and pedagogical challenges are not lacking, against a background of logistical complexity, even legitimate anxieties for families, it is remarkable to note the generous mobilization and creative initiatives of the pedagogical, educational and pastoral teams, to keep in touch, to take news, to encourage, and to propose new ways of working.

A multitude of initiatives are emerging

Computers and telephones are not idle, for multiple videoconferencing meetings, online classes, class or management meetings and interviews. Social networks relay news and words. Of course, human contact is lost, and many people regret the limits of this type of relationship, but beautiful fruits can already be seen: one head teacher takes the opportunity to systematically call each family, another to call each of his teachers and ask for news, one team of teachers is obliged to better coordinate work and progress, he discovers the joys of enhanced collaboration. The pedagogy itself returns to the centre: the teacher no longer leads a group of teenagers under pressure, confined to a classroom for an hour, but (re)becomes a resource person who accompanies the student's personal work, at his or her own pace. Concern for people again becomes the priority: how are they doing? How are they experiencing events? Only then does the question of possible and desirable work arise.

A multitude of initiatives are born to support the community and nourish communion: videos, texts, newsletters, practical tools to make the most of these new times, small exercises proposed, messages of encouragement and meditation... Just one example among so many others possible: on 25 March, at the call of the bishops of France, a time of prayer was proposed to all, with this beautiful invitation to light the windows with candles, as we like to do on 8 December in Lyon. At the Saint-Marc high schools, we were able to illuminate the playground and create a space for prayer around the Annunciation; the courtyard was empty, of course, and only two Jesuits were physically there, but the photo circulated among the students, teachers, educational and administrative staff, arousing a wave of warmth and solidarity, in common prayer and the joy of rediscovering in a different way one's high school, which is still alive and still inhabited!

A beautiful image of what this dark time invites us to live: to put little lights here and there, to transform the night into communion, in the beauty of these solidarity that are invented and these little signs of love that say and found our communion.