As a young seventeenth-century Frenchman, St. John Baptist de la Salle had everything going for him: he was smart, handsome, had a noble family background, and money.
At the age of 11, he started preparation for the priesthood. He was ordained at 27. He seemed assured then of a life of dignified ease and a high position in the Church.
But God had other plans for John, which were revealed to him in the next several years. He became interested in the creation of schools for poor boys in the area where he was stationed. The work was extremely distasteful to him at first, but he soon became more involved in working with the deprived youths.
Once convinced that this was his divinely appointed mission, St. John threw himself wholeheartedly into the work, left home and family, abandoned his position as canon at Rheims, gave away his fortune and reduced himself to the level of the poor to whom he devoted his entire life.
The remainder of his life was closely entwined with the community of religious men he founded, the Brothers of the Christian School (Christian Brothers, or De La Salle Brothers). This community grew rapidly and was successful in educating boys of poor families using methods designed by John, preparing teachers in the first training college for teachers and also setting up homes and schools for young delinquents of wealthy families. The motivating element in all these endeavors was the desire to become a good Christian.
Yet even in his success, John did not escape experiencing many trials: heartrending disappointment and defections among his disciples, bitter opposition from the secular schoolmasters who resented his new and fruitful methods and persistent opposition from the Jansenists of his time, whose heretical doctrines John resisted vehemently all his life.
St. John Baptist de la Salle died on Good Friday at 68. He was canonized in 1900.
In the year 1950, Pope Pius XII named him patron of schoolteachers.
Today’s prayer:
Blessed Jesus, Saint John Baptist was the “Father of Modern Education” and the founder of Christian Brothers schools. He made good academic education available to all, not just nobility, and he supported the schools by draining his own wealth. I ask him to pray for all the Catholic, private, and public schools that are in my town, and for our children to be given teachers who have good ethics. O God, purge harmful teachings from our classrooms, and bless the faculty and administrators as they make decisions on how their schools and classes should be run. Saint John Baptist, pray for us. Amen.
