Saint of the Day – 15 May – St John Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719) Confessor. Known as the “Father of Modern Education,” “Apostle of Children and Youth.”
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Rouen in France, St John Baptiste de la Salle, Confessor, who deserved well the veneration of both the religious and society, by his labours for the education of the youth, especially the poor and by the founding of the Society of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.”
John Baptiste de La Salle, born of an honourable family at Rheims, when still a boy, showed by his manners and actions, that he was called by destiny to the Lord and was to be adorned with the excellence of holiness. As a youth he studied literature and the philosophical sciences at the Academy at Rheims. During this time, although his mental powers and his lively and pleasant disposition endeared him to all, he nevertheless, shrank from the company of his fellows, so that, being inclined to solitude, he might the more easily find time for God.
Already having been, for some time, enlisted in the ranks of the clergy, he was enrolled among the Canons of Rheims at the age of sixteen years. He went to Paris to study theology at the University of the Sorbonne and was admitted to the Sulpician Seminary. But he was soon forced to return home due to the death of his parents and undertook the education of his brothers, which he carried on,, without interrupting his sacred studies and with the greatest success, as was proved by subsequent events.
He was finally Ordained Priest and said his first Mass with the intense faith and ardour of the soul which, throughout his whole life, he brought to those Sacred Mysteries. Meanwhile, burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, he devoted himself wholly to their service. He undertook the direction of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, founded for the education of girls and not only managed them most prudently, but saved their institute from dissolution. From this time onwards, he turned his attention to the education of poor boys in religion and good morals. And God had raised him up for this very end, namely, that he should found, in h=His Church, a new family of religious men and should look after boys’ schools, especially of poor boys, with unceasing and efficient care. And, indeed, this duty, entrusted to him by Divine Providence, was successfully accomplished, in spite of active and extreme and opposition and great hardships, by the foundation of an Institute of Brothers which he named the Christian Schools.
His male associates in this great and arduous work, he at first received into his own house and then, establishing them in a more suitable dwelling, thoroughly inspired them with his method and with those wise laws and regulations, which were afterwards confirmed by Benedict XIII. Because of humility and love of poverty, he first resigned his Canonry and distributed all his property among the poor and later too, after many unsuccessful attempts to do so, he of his own will, resigned the government of the Institute which he had founded.
But meanwhile his solicitude for the brothers and for the schools which he had opened in different places, did not lessen, although he began to give himself more diligently to God. Showing his hatred for self in constant fastings, in the use of the discipline and in other austerities, he spent his nights in prayer. At length, conspicuous for every kind of virtue, especially, obedience and zeal for fulfilling the Divine Will and love and devotion to the Apostolic See, full of merit and having devoutly received the Sacraments, he fell asleep in the Lord in the sixty-eighth year of his age.
The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII placed him in the list of the Blessed and, illustrious by new miracles, he was adorned with honours of the Saints, in the year of Jubilee, 1900 on the 24th day of May of that year by the same Pontiff..
Prayer for the Intercession
of St John Baptist de La Salle
O Glorious Saint John Baptiste de la Salle,
Apostle of Children and Youth,
be thou, from the heights of Heaven,
our guide and our patron.
Offer thy prayers fo us and help us,
that we may be kept free
from every stain of error and corruption
and remain ever faithful to Jesus Christ
and to His Church.
Grant that we, practising the virtues
of which thou has been
so wondrous an example,
may be made partakers
of the glory in Heaven, our true country.
Amen.
AnaStpaul 