Every April 7, the Catholic Church celebrates the party of San Juan Bautista de la Sallepriest, visionary of the Catholic and Pedagogue School Formation of great influence; It is the employer of educators.
San Juan Bautista de la Salle was the founder of the brothers of the Christian schools (Lasallistas or Lasallans), a religious order dedicated to the task of training the new generations.
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“You received it, give it free” (Mt 10, 8)
Juan Bautista de la Salle was born in Reims (France) in 1651. His family enjoyed a certain economic solvency, which allowed him to enjoy a good education -which did not access the common of the French children of that time.
It was through his studies as Juan Bautista began to know his Catholic faith better and to be interested in knowledge and science in general. After his first academic efforts he graduated as a teacher in arts. Juan Bautista, at the same time, would discover for those years that God called him to serve him through the priesthood. This is how the San Sulpicio Seminar is presented, in Paris, where it would be admitted to the 18th.
God would entrust an unexpected mission to his short 19 years: after the death of his parents, he would have to take care of his younger brothers, distributing his time between the training in the seminar and the responsibility of ensuring and ensuring the well -being of his own. With poise, the young man became the ‘brother-professional’, a figure that he would embody and that would be very influential in his educational style.
Vocation of priest and teacher
The years passed quickly and Juan Bautista was ready to be ordained a priest. The saint received the sacred order fulfilled the 27th. The novel priest, by virtue of his charism and intelligence, presaged a promising ecclesiastical career. However, he, deep in the heart, felt called to something very different. The Lord had been showing the path of service to the poorest, as well as the multiple needs and deficiencies they suffer, especially who the little ones. Moved by this reality, Fr. Juan Bautista came up with the idea of gathering a group of lay teachers and providing them with human, pedagogical and Christian training, so that they are better prepared to exercise teaching. The priest was convinced that through good education human beings can flourish more easily and please God while transforming society. For that it is essential to have good teachers.
The call to be a teacher, like Jesus, John the Baptist summarized him in these words: “The grace that has been granted to teach children, to announce the Gospel and to educate their religious spirit is a great gift of God”
The first steps of a great community
On June 24, 1681, Juan Bautista de la Salle and some of his teachers most committed to his ideal, they began the adventure of sharing life around God. Religious futures gathered to live together in a rented house. This fact marked the beginning of what we know today as the Congregation of Brothers of Christian Schools (Institutum Fratrum Scholarum Christianarum) or simply ‘Brothers of La Salle’.
Fr. Juan Bautista and his new community began a series of educational reforms considered milestones in the history of pedagogy. The saint, for example, introduced group teaching for children-at that time each child was instructed separately-founded a free school in Paris for poor boys and opened two universities dedicated to the training of teachers: one in Reims and the other in Saint-Denis.
In 1686, in the context of a terrible famine in France, eight of his followers issued his first votes in his religious institute and on August 15, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin, the Saint consecrated his community to the Mother of God.
Teaching is an apostolate
San Juan Bautista used to travel long stretches on foot to visit different towns and cities, calling to love Christ with greater fervor and the Church, while organizing or supporting different initiatives dedicated to the formation of the Christian people. People in gratitude to their dedication gave accommodation and food. The saint worked so hard that, he usually said, his cassock and his mantle became the perfect test of it: both were spent and discolored. However, they showed a novel figure luminously: that of the “education worker” who was at the same time a saint, that is, someone who present, in his simplicity, to Christ.
Jesus Christ is the teacher
Although the evangelizing work could be arduous, Fr. Juan Bautista did not stop giving prayer time; On the contrary, it spent long hours in the chapel. He constantly insisted to his brothers that educational success is only achieved with prayer and more prayer. I used to say that the work of an educator is to pray, to give good example and treat everyone as Christ recommended in the Gospel: “Do all the good that we want others to do to us.”
On April 7, 1719, Good Friday, San Juan Bautista de la Salle left the Father’s house. His last words were recorded in the memory of those who could accompany him: “I love God’s will for me.”
San Juan Bautista was canonized on May 24, 1900, the day of the Virgin; And half a century later, on May 15, 1950, he was appointed patron of the educators.
If you want to know more about San Juan Bautista, we recommend this article of the Catholic Encyclopedia: https://ec.aciprensa.com/wiki/San_Juan_Bautista_de_la_Salle.
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