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LASALLIAN SPIRITUALITY: OUR HERITAGE
Brother Michael Sauvage, FSC
Brother Superior, Brother Delegates:
Invited by the Preparatory Commission to speak to you on this morning, my first reaction was to refuse. A pessimistic humorist once stated: "Beware of the first impulse, it's the best." While I was trying to prepare this talk, I had a feeling of dizziness and panic. I was tempted to agree with the humorist and give up.
Lasallian spirituality? How would it be possible, in a few quarters of an hour even to simply define what the term means, let alone attempt to outline its content? Our heritage: how could I even pretend to take stock of it by myself during such a short period of preparation, in view of the General Chapter, which is itself the Institute in its most exalted expression? If there is a Lasallian heritage, it only exists in the living body that we form as a community, and this community utters no more authentic declaration concerning its identity and its mission than that which flows forth from the exchange, the confrontations and the prayer of the members of the Chapter (Declaration 7, 1-3). Finally, how could I add anything this Saturday morning, after such an intense week enriched by the contribution of exceptional men?
In order to prepare for this morning, I reread the Lasallian texts: the "Method of Mental Prayer," the "Collection," the "Meditations" and even the "Letters." As I advanced along these paths which I'd so often followed, I had the feeling of walking in an unknown land, of discovering a familiar and yet strange universe, where a different language is spoken, not that to which we are accustomed. The question that arose was not so much "How to speak of John Baptist de La Salle today?," but "Why?"
We have come here, bringing with us all the questions and the uncertainty of the worlds we left behind. In different ways, these worlds are all marked by the economic crisis and the surge of technical changes which produce unrestrained competition and present tremendous ethical problems in the field of genetics, of respect for life, of nuclear arms. Socio-economic mechanisms make it possible for the "rich to become richer at the expense of the poor who get poorer." To be aware of this fact takes nothing away from the dramatic reality it denounces. Violence, terrorism, fanaticism and intolerance continue to create havoc. Almost everywhere, the Church finds itself in a situation of Diaspora. Indifference and secularism progress, while at the same time erratic, and more or less irrational, forms of religiosity make their appearance. (See J. Rigal: "Le Courage de la Mission," p.28.) The hopes, the searching, the aspirations, the anguish of the youth of the close of this century, live with us; they worry and stimulate us. At the same time we are preoccupied by the disillusioned relativism of some young people, by their fatalism caused by a feeling of helplessness and by their allergy to long-term commitments.
John Baptist de la Salle gives us no answers to these questions, nor to many others that one could enumerate. Why then should we make a detour by way of a spiritual author who is three hundred years old? Isn't that wasting our time, or worse still hiding behind an alibi?
As a matter of fact, there is a lot of talk nowadays, more and more explicit, about "refounding" religious orders. It would be easy to demonstrate how the last two General Chapters engaged the Institute in such a process of refoundation. They did so in conformity with the orientations of the Council on the renovation of religious congregations. The paradox is that the Institute, like the council, only considered a "refoundation" in the light of a greater fidelity to the charism of the Founder.
A paradox? Only in appearance. What would become of the tree which is the Institute if it uprooted itself from the soil of its first planting? What would happen to the river if it cut itself off from its primary source? What could be the viability of a composite organism whose members are more and more diversified, decentralized, and autonomous, if there were no common point of reference to the original inspirational force to keep it united?
That is why, confronted with a deeper and deeper mutation, and a greater and greater diversification, this Chapter will often unite in a common effort to scrutinize the spirit and the specific intentions of the Founder, according to the terms by which Perfectae Caritatis characterized fidelity to our origins. Thus, my intervention at the end of this week of beginning the Chapter is worthwhile and has a symbolical significance. It constitutes the sign of your common desire to make Lasallian inspiration one of the essential principles of the dynamics of renewal which will inhabit the 41st General Chapter and which will animate its work. For my part, I can measure the frailty and the precariousness of this fleeting, momentary sign: the principal object of this intervention should be to permit a sharing among yourselves, the Capitulants.
Foundation - Refoundation: Like the Church, the Institute must be constantly reborn in the world, and even of the world. However, it is by being faithful to its own deep identity that it must be reborn. The simple idea that I would like to leave with you this morning is that the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools arose in history like a spiritual uprising which became a living body. In this sense, indeed, it is first of all to the force of spirituality that we can attribute our existence today, and it is certainly, and primarily, from spiritual dynamics that we must hope for renewal and refoundation.
Among these spiritual dynamics, I think it is possible to retain four:
1. Setting out, as a Founder, to start a movement which is both powerful and fragile, De La Salle roots his Institute in the experience of the Spirit. He wants to build it on interior men, that is, men of the Spirit.
2. Led on an unforeseen path, to depart from his familiar universe in order to embrace another world, he perceives this step as an invitation to continue a journey of incarnation in the footsteps of Christ, and an ever growing conformity to His mystery as Savior.
3. Associated first, and quite by chance, with a group of teachers, he is led to making them his Brothers, and to become their Brother himself. He views the society that he wishes to establish, not only as a functioning body, but as a communion of persons in the image of the primitive community of Jerusalem, and he refers to it as to the unity of love in the Trinity.
4. Living this foundation, searching and feeling his way long, being constantly aware of its frailty, facing repeated crises which threatened to ruin everything, being led twenty times to the brink of ruin, living the precarious situation of each day, and the uncertainty of the day that would follow, De La Salle becomes one of the most peaceful and perhaps also one of the most pacifying witnesses of abandonment to God and to hope.
The limited time I have at my disposal and some personal fatigue will oblige me to shorten this program which was too ambitious. I will only develop the first two points, and in conclusion I'll try if possible to speak of De La Salle's abandonment to God. At any rate, the idea of communion, which I will not speak about, will be taken up I hope in the question period which is to follow later this morning.
While speaking about what I call founding spiritual dynamics, you have understood that, if I read Lasallian texts correctly, I was even more attentive to what history can tell us with regard to progression in the Spirit, about which De La Salle remains very discreet, and which is largely a matter of interpretation. This already rejects and understanding of the word "spirituality" as defining a conceptual system ore or less elaborated from the writings alone. We can't ensure fidelity to the Founder by drawing from a collection of texts, or by clinging to certain expressions which are powerful and essential, no doubt, but which, separated from the living context which gave them birth, risk becoming ridiculous or turning in to slogans.
I can assure you that I took time and expanded the necessary effort to prepare this intervention, according to my present capability. But you don't expect me to five you something really new this morning. It's the same field that I've been ploughing for more than thirty years. Let's hope that new ploughmen come forth, because with the Lasallian heritage, as with the treasure in the fables, each generation must reinvent it, rediscover it, appropriate it as its own, not be discovering it intact, like a cassette, after digging in the ground, but by the same action of the ploughman, untiringly renewed, in communion.
1. The foundation of the Institute, a creation in the experience of the Spirit, by interior men, men of the Spirit.
The first biographers of De La Salle lingered to study the group of schoolmasters at the time when they seemed to be emerging from their initial chaos, and were taking on a certain consistency, before acceding to an identity, or claiming the denomination of "community." A word from the Apocalypse, quite unexpectedly, came out of Blain's pen: "Behold, I shall make all things new. I renew all things through my servant." A formula that sums up the essential in Lasallian history and which the biographers will continue telling. At the end of his life, De La Salle appears to them as a man in whom a creative power was at work. Creative forces, dynamics of renewal, which erupted but not without struggle, in a closed society, a dull, sleeping world, an installed Church.
It is true, and let us repeat it once and for all this morning, because we are more and more aware of it, that there is no question, in any phase of Lasallian activity, or a creation "ex-nihilo." Thanks to numerous and serious works, we now see clearer than ever that the pedagogical, educational, ecclesial and spiritual work of John Baptist de La Salle benefited from existing sources. It is inscribed in a living context. It develops in a propitious milieu. This play of influences, or reciprocity, or multiple interactions did not prevent the Founder from playing his own role, from pursuing original realizations, from often finding himself alone in his options, from arousing considerable opposition, from instigating change, sometimes in a decisive manner, and after accepting bitter struggles.
At the end of De La Salle's journey, his biographers could take stock of the "novelties" he introduce, thanks to the creative force he knew how to use wisely, with courage and stubbornness.
Creative forces: These can be seen concretely in the history of the youth of the times who were, until then, abandoned. The multiplication of schools and their diversification, the intransigent fight for effective gratuity, the reform of teaching methods, the transformation of the educative relationship - all of these changed the situation of the youth in De La Salle's schools. It became possible for these young people to accede to a minimum level of culture, to hope for a professional career, to have a decent human existence, to the beginning of a consciousness of solidarity, to an opening toward the Gospel. Thanks to these creative forces, the means of salvation were put within their reach.
Creative forces: They can be seen concretely in the history of the schoolmasters, until that time poorly prepared, poorly motivated and poorly appreciated. The creation of a community, and then of the Society of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, made it possible to strengthen the vocation of the masters, to consolidate their professional formation to implant their aims and their educational attitudes in the Gospel. The personal attention paid to them by him whom they called their father, his prophetic vision of a renewed Church, similar to that which St. Paul describes, introduced them, little by little, to the living realization of the importance of their work. Still humble schoolmasters, they are not surprised to hear their founder call them ministers of God, of Jesus Christ and of the Church. These new words rejoin, enlighten and announce the profound change the masters have experienced in the exercise of their profession and the discovery of their identity.
It is first of all in his own personal history that De La Salle experiences these forces of creation, or re-creation, of founding dynamics. "Behold, I shall make all things new." Blain has recourse to this quotation from one of the last passages of the New Testament to characterize the upheaval brought about by De La Salle's final, decisive option. He had just given up his canonry in order to share his existence with the schoolmasters, irrevocably and unconditionally. It is with them and through them that he will go ahead with this work which he now sees as the work of God for him.
Through this decisive option of separation and of commitment, a creative power can be seen in the person of John Baptist de La Salle, leading him to fulfill a prophetic passage: "Behold, I shall make all things new." De La Salle leaves an old, immobile Church to accede to a new one; or at least, having freely consented to the creative force acting in and beyond him, he allows himself to be reborn to a new way of living the Church.
As a Canon, he spent long hours, sitting in his stall, reciting the Divine Office. Once committed to live with the schoolmasters, he literally dis-installs himself; he leaves a "closed" Church and sets out on an adventure, the adventure of a ministry quite unheard of. From then on he will use all his talents on behalf of children and youth whom he often describes as abandoned and far from salvation. It can be said that in urging him to prefer this venture with the schoolmasters to the reassuring tranquility of his canonry, a creative power made De La Salle emerge from an established Church to a missionary Church.
As a Canon, he lived familiarly with classic theology. His assiduous study of it led him to a doctorate. He chooses to risk his future with the schoolmasters; day after day he accompanies them in their field of action; he gets involved in creating a form of priestly ministry which he had not counted on in his plan of life. The Gospel he announces is going to become through him a force that will transform the lives of these men, a power of promotion for the abandoned youth they are serving, a leaven of justice and liberation, a source of upheaval in a closed society.
These "novelties" or innovations will not be introduced, thanks to the creative forces which are pushing De La Salle, except by also bringing about a renewal of his own centers of interest. The doctor of theology will use his talent in favor of catechesis for the children of the poor and the spiritual formation of his brothers. It seems only just to observe that without fuss and as if it were only natural, De La Salle uses his competence in theology to work out a plan for the Brothers' consecration, their ministry, their commitments, their educational responsibilities, their community life, and all this based upon their manner of life. In this living experience, he furnished them food for thought, be it Christological, ecclesiological, pneumatological, eschatological or moral. In short, he took ready-made theology out of the books, to experiment with it in a new ecclesial situation.
Besides all this, we see this priest discovering and putting to good use his talent in the field of pedagogy. From the assiduous sharing in the experience of his companions, he will produce the Conduct of Schools, the Duties of a Christian, the Rules of Politeness. The creative forces to which he has actively submitted himself have extracted him from a Church occupied with its internal problems only. The new Church, into which they have introduced him, is to be concretely committed to the evangelical transformation of the world.
As a Canon, his usual companions belonged to the world of ecclesiastics. He shared their culture, their language, their preoccupations. A good number of them, like himself, were related to influential families of the city. After the death of Roland, and in order to help the Sisters of the Infant Jesus, De La Salle used his powerful influence in that particular milieu. This same milieu was surprised and scandalized when he renounced his position as Canon of the Cathedral Chapter. Henceforth what he will share is the humble condition of the schoolmasters, whom the milieu he has left prefer to ignore or to belittle. He will learn to make their daily worries his own as well as their pedagogical activities, their strivings to announce the Gospel to youngsters who are often difficult to handle. With these masters he will build a new school, little by little, and a new style community will appear in the Church. He will not try to found this new work on the support of the milieu he has left behind. He will write later on in his Memoir Concerning the Brothers' habit, "the Community is presently established and founded on Providence alone." In leaving the Cathedral he tore himself away from a powerful Church to accede to the evangelical and creative force of a frail and servant Church.
Finally, he gave up being a Canon because he felt the incompatibility of that state with the requirements involved in the assiduous sharing of the daily life of the schoolmasters. Henceforth his usual companions for lodging, for meals and for conversation, will be laymen. He will help them to measure up to the dignity of their condition in the Church. He will show them that, through them, the Church will see a new form of evangelical ministry come alive. With them, he will maintain and defend the formation of a new kind of community whose members are consecrated to God and commit themselves to remain as laymen and to admit none but laymen in their midst. Should we not recognize that in this small group animated by De La Salle a creative power has made them pass from the clerical Church to the Church of the People of God?
"Behold, I shall make all things new." John Baptist de La Salle was aware that a creative power was acting in him. He was aware of the changes it was bringing about in his own being as in society and in the Church. It seems to me that the quite exceptional importance he gives to the Holy Spirit in his spiritual teachings is closely linked to this creative experience of which he is both the beneficiary and the instrument. I will limit myself to four different leads to guide your reflection on this subject, and in a very simplified form, because to develop these perspective would take very much time. In the margin I will indicate some references from Lasallian texts.
1. First lead: Recognize the gift of the Spirit.
MR.201,1
193,1
We all remember the famous passage where John Baptist recalls his decisive commitment to the adventure of the schools and the establishment of the Brothers' community. He recognizes that it was God who guided him, from one commitment to another, with wisdom and gentleness, without forcing his will. God, by His Spirit, detached him little by little from his familiar universe, from his manner of living the Church, to engage him on a path where he would accompany him to create a new world. The Founder will often say to his disciples that their Institute, their particular vocation, is first the work of the Spirit who spreads his gift among men for the realization of God's salvation.
First of all, it is necessary to recognize the gift of the Spirit, and the term recognize takes on numerous spiritual harmonics. To recognize the gift of the Spirit is, of course, to become aware of it day after day, and this celebration in memory of the Spirit does not and will not cease to renew and to actualize this gift. To recognize the gift of the Spirit is to know how to be moved by it in order to give thanks, and here we are orientated towards a spiritual attitude which is fundamentally positive and which can be dynamic when we a tempted to dejection or self-complacency because of our insufficiency or our difficulties.
MD.43,1
MD.2,1
MR.193,2
Letters 14, 8-10, 16, 6-7
To recognize the gift of the Spirit, is to situate it in the immense and overwhelming action of the Spirit, in the movement of the Spirit, as the Founder says, which produced the prophets, which presided at the birth of the Church, just as it surveyed the genesis of the universe. There can be no question of turning a nostalgic eye to a marvelous but outdated past. You must recognize the passing of the Spirit in our history today. To recognize the gift of the Spirit is also to put it to work, to use it without fear and with enthusiasm, and here we are committed to spread forth the creativity that the Spirit inspires and sustains in us. We should mention here how John Baptist de La Salle knew how to set the Brothers on the road of this creativity. We can feel it in reading the entreaties, not untainted with impatience, which he addresses to Gabriel Drolin.
EMO:18-19
MD.45,1
To recognize the gift of the Spirit is to recognize the Spirit of God Itself as the principle of life and action which is given to us. Here we could add several texts of the Explanation of the Method of Mental Prayer and from the Meditations. It is most important to be able to show the Founder as a spiritual author who, under the influence of St. Paul and of St. John, repeatedly calls us to welcome and to serve life, to believe obstinately that the powers of life are once and for all victorious over the powers of death.
2. Second lead: To be available for the gratuitous and unforeseeable action of the Spirit.
While recalling the story of the change of orientation in his life, De La Salle took pleasure in recognizing the unexpected, the unforeseeable, the disconcerting character of the manifestation of the creative power of the Spirit. "I thought nothing about it before." Besides, he was impressed by the fact that the Spirit manifested itself and intervened where he least expected it. It was not the Archbishop who encouraged him to give up his canonicate, but rather, humble laymen. The Gospel reference that Barré pounded into his consciousness and which he himself repeated to his companions to invite them to abandonment, did not become the word of God for him in the flesh until he felt within him the brutal questioning of the schoolmasters who were completely closed to any kind of dialogue without an existential consistency. We would continue: at the time of the crisis of 1960, it is really thanks to the contract of association that he signed with Vuyart and Drolin that De la Salle is projected once more in his vocation of Founder: at the same time as he pronounces his vow of association, he sets out again for a new creative action. It will be the same at the time of his doubts in 1710: it is through his Brothers that the Spirit will send him back to finish his work.
In the light of these powerful experiences, I think that certain spiritual teachings of the Founder take on a very different resonance: the teaching on the spirit of faith first, and the invitation to recognize the presence and the action of the Spirit in people, in situations, in the events of everyday life, and in the history of humanity. Once more we are invited, not to an attitude of drawing back before what may upset us, but to a spiritual attentiveness to the invitation that the Spirit is addressing to us along the path of renewed fidelity we are living. "Because it is life, personal and collective life, which is the place where God calls, the place of conversion and the place of witness." (J. Rigal: Le Courage de la Mission, p. 50.)
MF.99,2
180,3
123,1-2
In the second place, I would like to call your attention a brief moment to a spiritual teaching to which the Founder attaches considerable importance in the Collection, in the Explanation of the Method of Mental Prayer and in certain meditations: I refer to docility, receptiveness to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. The expression may seem vague, if not old-fashioned; it may seem risky, subjective or individualistic. Getting a closer look, in the light of the experience of the foundation, shouldn't we see in this Lasallian insistence (which is classical) an essential reminder? The kindliness or consideration of the Spirit outdoes all assured systems and shakes up old-fashioned habits; the life of the Spirit reaches out and calls beyond elaborated programs and accepted conventions; free action of the Spirit is not subject to fixed structures of majority consensus. To speak of the inspiration of the Spirit is to recall the experience of each individual which must be welcomed and listened to because "in each of the Brothers, the Spirit speaks and acts," and renewing creation often begins with the perception and the commitment of a person.
MF.100
& 118
To complete this point, I must mention the importance of spiritual discernment concerning which the founder has left us solid and clear criteria.
3. Third Lead: there is a third, very strong characteristic of Lasallian experience of the
Spirit in the Founder's story and in that of the foundation of the Institute.
The strength of the Holy Spirit is displayed in human weakness, and the creative force is seen in shaky, often tentative achievements which are sometimes tainted with ambiguity. To speak of the creative force of the Spirit at the beginnings of the Institute, does not imply, according to the Founder, any confident step or steady progress forward. On the contrary, as we know, the Founder had to acknowledge and rely on the fidelity of the Spirit when in the depths of the many crises which frequently brought the Institute to the edge of collapse.
The Founder's spiritual teaching does not ignore this important dimension of the experience of creation which he himself had lived. When all is said and done, the fact that the strength of the Spirit should be manifest in the weakness of man is, for the Founder, a source, in the first place, of deep assurance, of joy and of interior peace. We can already see this interior joy in Blain's presentation of the decisive option of the Founder. The questioning by the teachers forces him into a choice. Blain then reconstructs the long prayer of discernment to which John Baptist then commits himself. He becomes aware that he can no longer procrastinate; he must now choose between his canonicate and the care of the teachers. He must decide whether to remain on the familiar bank or whether to venture the crossing of the river without really knowing what he will find on the other side, even if he should reach it.
Now whereas he always seems to live in a state of perplexity, here we find him suddenly taken up with an inner but irrepressible joy, the delight of making a surprising discovery: "Since I no longer feel any attraction for the vocation of a Canon, it would seem that the state left me before I left it ... this state is no longer for me." While he was pondering over the pros and cons, the Spirit Himself had already carried him on to the other bank, as in the case of the prophet in former times, and for John Baptist it was now merely a matter of walking along that bank.
De La Salle will later explain in the Collection, in a text which though at first sight heavy is yet full of finesse: "Yes, God is asking you to be faithful in the present moment; he gives the necessary light for the step he is calling you to make. But His creative power carries you beyond what you thought yourself capable of doing." God's Spirit is greater than our heart: that is De La Salle's experience of the creation of the Institute; it was also the experience of his own spiritual evolution. It is one of the most important themes in his spiritual teaching on fidelity to the Spirit. In his teaching he tirelessly insists on our daring to take on a commitment, since His invincible strength will not fail us, and on our need to retain an interior attitude of poverty since, in ourselves, we are often fearfully weak, lazily short-sighted and frivolously fickle. But the Spirit is our strength, our light and our faithfulness, provided that we know how to pray to him with trust, how to await him with patience, and how to recognize and follow him with docility. As daring, poor and confident men we will be the amazed witnesses to the strength of the Spirit who leads us well beyond ourselves as far as a land, judged from afar to the arid, but in reality thoroughly fertile. That land where the Spirit opens us up to the knowledge and practice of a new wisdom, that of the Beatitudes.
EMO.3
Cf.26,30
44,72
One of the interior supports of the Institute is interior recollection. Let us call it interiority. To bring his teachers to live in conformity with the purpose of their Institute it was necessary for the Founder to help them become 'interior' men. He considered it a priority to devote himself to his disciples' education in interiority. His writings, especially the Explanation of the Method of Mental Prayer, greatly insist on its importance and its conditions. Mental prayer is an 'interior' occupation and, in order to be well founded, it should be practiced in the very depth of the soul, that is to say, in the most intimate part of man's being.
One might be tempted, if not to set interiority and creativity in opposition to each other, at least not to envisage them as progressing together in a single movement. Some of the texts of the Founder suggest such a dichotomy, particularly a certain number of articles from the Collection on the "Means of becoming interior," which can be construed as an encouragement to withdraw into oneself and to passivity.
This is not the place for discussing at length texts from another age, shaped to fit the world for which they were written. It seems to be quite right to observe that, taken in its entirety, Lasallian interiority is not opposed to creativity - quite the contrary, Interiority liberates man from undue ties, from worries and superficial concerns. It therefore enables him to devote his energies to what is essential. Interiority focusses man on the basic objectives to be reached; it enables him to better appreciate the means to be used to that end and to launch out into action without squandering his energies on secondary activities. Interiority leads man to deepen the meaning of his action and to measure its value and importance. It makes him dynamic by intensifying his motivations. Interiority makes man sensitive to the richness of life spread out before him in his human surroundings; it induces him to associate his action with that of other people and to adjust his efforts to those of others.
But it especially seems to me that, for De La Salle, interiority and creativity are joined together most profoundly because they are at one and the same time a searching for, a welcoming of and a manifestation of the Spirit. Lasallian interiority is spiritual interiority. The depth of the soul of which he has just spoken is the bottom of the heart, converted from selfishness and open to love, because it is inhabited and animated by the Spirit of Christ, a spirit of sonship.
Deep within man the Spirit is awareness of the personal love of the Father. It opens up to the love of others, a kind of love which is manifested in works. Deep within man the Spirit is the astonishing experience of salvation. It empowers man to go out and to try to reveal to others this salvation that has overtaken him.
In the depth of the heart, the Spirit is the recognition that strength is found in weakness and that sanctity purifies from sin; it urges man to commit himself resolutely, certain that in his commitment to others the spirit is also manifested in his weakness, and that mercy will triumph over the forces of evil. Most of all, at the bottom of the heart, the Spirit becomes prayer, crying to God "Abba, Father" and whispering to the heart of man, "You are loved, come to the Father. You are called to bear witness to this love. Go out and meet your brothers." The Meditation for the ninth Sunday after Pentecost clearly expresses this unity of spiritual interiority when it says:
MD.62,3 "The Holy Spirit that resides in you must penetrate the depth of your souls; it is in them that this Spirit must pray in a very special manner. It is within the should that this Spirit communicates with it, joins himself to it and gives it to understand what God requires of it in order to be entirely His."
In concluding this point, I would like to remind you that the experience of Lasallian creativity is inscribed between two events whose symbolic importance seems to me to be very strong at the beginning of this General Chapter.
The first event is that of the departure of almost all of the first companions of De La Salle. From the beginning of his contact with them he had striven to establish some order in the rather inefficient chaos of the little group. However, they simply left him. To make a long story short, they discovered, in Blain's phrase, "that their freedom was too constrained."
John Baptist will ponder this bitter failure in the light of the Gospel of spiritual freedom. Once and for all, he understood that structures, though essential, cannot make up for the lack of vocation for the absence of an interior assent when it is a question of a vocation and an evangelical project. An institute cannot be founded by imposing ready-made structures on its members from without. At this point some young men present themselves to the Founder. They are anxious to "know Jesus Christ Crucified and devote themselves to a ministry in favor of the poor." The Founder will henceforth dedicate himself to changing them into new men, interior men, men of the Spirit. The movement of educational and apostolic creativity and the task of the organization of the community will be inseparable from his efforts as guide and spiritual teacher.
Inspiration will be the soul of any structures that are set up, while the enthusiasm of the members taking flesh in the structures that issue from their living communion, will find a new strength in it. From the reality of their own world, the consciousness of their calling and of their mission, men trained in the interior freedom of the Spirit will be able to invent a new way of living as Church and humbly contributing to the evangelical transformation of society.
The second event is a text, the prologue of Chapter II of the rule. De La Salle added it only in 1718. The newborn community can now, it seems, mark the end of the period of foundation. Brother Bartelemy is Superior General; the rule has been definitively set down and accepted by all those who were also its authors. As to structures, the Institute seems to be prepared for the long haul, and the Holy See, a few years later, will reinforce its existence by recognizing the originality of its charism rather more than by approving the details of its rules.
And there rings out again, almost for the last time, the prophetic voice of the Founder. It resounds as in the beginning of the rule in a Prologue which does not appear in the text before 1718. The theme is solemn and we all have it engraved deeply in our memories. Even as young novices, we sensed its unique importance, as if the Founder, on completing his work, cautioned his sons when he passed on to them the (partial) result of this long process of creation.
"Brothers, do not fail to appreciate the creative powers that have been bestowed upon you to exist and to grow. Do not underestimate the forces that will permit you to live as persons consecrated to God, as evangelical servants of the young, and in brotherly communion. Here is the rule that you will observe since we drew it up together throughout the 40 years of our foundation. And do not forget - it is not this Rule which is the most important thing. What is most important and to which the greatest care should be given in a community, is that all those who are a part of it have the spirit which characterizes it; that the novices apply themselves to acquire it; that those who are engaged in it should endeavor above all to preserve and increase it in themselves: For it is this spirit which must give life to all their actions and animate all their conduct."
The Foundation of the Institute: An Incarnational Dynamism for the "Salvation" of abandoned young people, following Jesus Christ.
Each time I read the first point of the Second Meditation for the Time of Retreat (196), I feel, as it were, the shock wave by which the Institute came into being, the creative shock which engendered John Baptist de La Salle in his own vocation, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the creative shock from which he set out on his evangelical journey as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
We know this text well. It begins with an invitation to the Brothers gathered together on retreat to "consider" clearly - almost clinically, we might say - the concrete situation of forsaken youth; and the early Brothers who were listening to this reading could call to mind the faces of children that they knew and give them their proper names.
MR.194,2 "Consider that it is only too common for the working class and the poor to allow their children to live on their own, roaming all over as if they had no home ... The results of this condition are regrettable for these unfortunate children have great difficulty when the time arrives for them to go to work ..." (MTR, p.50)
A creative shock. In John Baptist de La Salle's case, of course, it can be taken as a cultural shock, a harsh confrontation between two worlds which existed side by side in the same city with each unaware of the other because everything kept them apart: the normal channels of human relationships, social status, cultural possibilities. Speaking of John Baptist's father, Maillefar tells us that he had endeavored to give his son "an education suitable to his birth." As a result of his contacts with the masters, De La Salle was suddenly immersed in the reality of an entirely different type of youth in Rheims; he was astonished to find that, for a whole class of children in his city, receiving an education suited to their birth amounted practically to being excluded from even the most modest places of learning, the charity schools. And, from the point, his lucid outlook on the reality of things obliges him to foresee the "distressing consequences" to which this situation will inexorably lead: the children of the working class and the poor are prisoners of the vicious circle in which their family situation and social condition enclose them. This forsaken world is doomed in advance to go on repeating itself indefinitely in the same form.
The first phrase of the second section of this text reminds us, should we have lost sight of it, that we are in meditation. That is to say, for the Founder, that we are in the contemplation of the mystery of the living God, of the saving God. And this word resounds like a shout of victory - life has vanquished death.
"God has the goodness to remedy so great a misfortune by the establishment of the Christian Schools, where the teaching is offered free of charge and entirely for the glory of God." (MTR, p.50)
Thanks to the intervention of the living god, of the God of Life, of the God of the History of Salvation, here and now, those children can be "saved." They will be fit "to put to work when their parents wish to set them to it." And the point of the meditation ends with a double invitation: to give thanks for the foundation of the Institute which has come into being as the response of the Brothers to God's call; to renew their impetus for the evangelical service of education of youth.
"Thank God that He has had the goodness to call upon you to procure such an important advantage for children. Be faithful and exact to do this without any payment; so you can say with St. Paul: the source of my consolation is to announce the Gospel free of charge, without having it cost anything to those who hear me." (MTR, p.50)
We do know that, to some Brothers, to the Institute itself in the course of its long missionary history, similar shocks like the one of its origins have continually imbued it with a new creative force, a renewal of life, an ability to invent new educational structures. The Institute would have disappeared a long time ago had it not renewed itself unceasingly by the acceptance of that frequently disconcerting encounter with new cultures, with new countries, with unpredictable young people. It was challenged in the diverse forms of distress: material, emotional and cultural distress, lack of goods, difficulties arising from school dropouts and unemployment for young men, criminal manipulation by drug pushers and white slavers, distress coming from doubts about the meaning of life, indifference, incredulity, the choking sensation from within bloated societies blinded to any transcendence, or the distress of helplessness in the face of famine or under oppressive regimes.
But the basic message, which is brought home to us here, from both De La Salle's act of foundation and his spiritual teaching, is that this is a question not only of cultural shock but of a clash between the reality of the world and living faith.
The passage I have quoted reminds us that the Institute was born from "the goodness of God." "God has had the goodness to remedy so great a misfortune."
The thrust of the Meditations for the Time of Retreat, and more generally the whole spiritual teaching of the founder invite us here to place ourselves in the heart of the Mystery of Jesus Christ. De La Salle is fond of the word "mystery," enshrined at the very center of the Explanation of the Method of Mental Prayer. And there it is for us to ponder what he means by it.
Lasallian spirituality, like that of his days and like any authentic spirituality, is Christocentric. John Baptist ceaselessly invites his Brothers to contemplate Jesus Christ, imitate His virtues, strive to grow in conformity with Him and to dwell in Him. We could quite easily build a kind of synthesis of his spiritual teaching - rich, dense and solid in that respect. However, it seems obvious to me that such a synthesis loses its originality as well as its creative force if it is assembled without taking into account that Lasallian Chirstocentrism springs from the founding shock of the Institute. In other words, the Christ that John Baptist de La Salle speaks to us about is an evangelical Christ, emphatically the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels, of St. Paul and St. John. But his contemplation of Him is continually pierced through by what he has discovered, and what he still discovers in his present world. For if the salvation of God was accomplished once and for all through the Incarnation and in the Life, Ministry, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, if the salvation is made available by the Spirit today and within the Church, he cannot but note that for young people, those that he meets each day, all this reality of faith, the reality of the world which animates the Brothers also, appears to be distant, unattainable, unreal.
In their reality, the world, such as it is, mocks and damages their faith. Hence, one can doubtless see that, feeling threatened, faith will shrink into itself, the contemplation of Christ tends to detach itself from a human experience which seems to contradict it, and prayer shuts itself in, even when it stands in wonder before God's mystery. One could also see how, in a more or less conscious way, a faith thought to be obsolete and incapable of transmission might be shunted aside, placed between brackets, while the importance of positive, concrete education for the material progress of youth is clearly seen.
De La Salle's attitude, such as I see it, both in his journey of foundation and in the dynamism of his spiritual teaching on the Mystery of Jesus Christ, accepts neither of these points of view. For the Founder, it is the silent work of the Spirit in their hearts that has made himself and his Brothers sensitive to that spiritual and cultural chasm that separated the young children they know from that which is proclaimed by the faith which is theirs. The first effect of the spirit of faith is an entire change in the way one looks on life - to the analysis of the distressful situation of youth cannot lead to despair because the Spirit causes the Brothers to recognize in those young people the presence of Jesus Christ Himself, an invisible, tenuous but hopeful presence. Their faith is challenged; it is also stirred by the power of the Resurrection. In that respect, one must read once again the many Lasallian texts that invite us to "recognize Jesus Christ beneath the tattered clothing of children," and calls upon us to respect in those forsaken youngsters the dignity of the children of God.
At the same time, out of this contemplation of a reality both enlightened and challenged by faith, there wells up in the heart of the Brother the certainty of being called by God to those young people, just as they are. What it comes to mean is that the founding shock is that of a clash between two worlds while at the same time it is a shock produced in their inner selves by the bursting into flame, in the heart of the Brother, of a spark from the heart of God. "That is the reason why God kindles a light in those called to announce His word to children to enlighten them by making the glory of God known to them." (MTR, p.47) 193.I
It is necessary to go beyond, or rather to return to the very origin of the founding shock. According to De La Salle, it appears as a prolongation or manifestation in the history of mankind, of the :shock" which God felt in His love for men.
Here we should read again the extraordinary text of Med. 201. In fact, it repeats the message of St. John:
"You must imitate God Himself to some extent, for He so loved the souls He created that when He saw them involved in sin and unable to free themselves, His zeal and desire for their salvation led Him to send His own Son to rescue them from their miserable condition. This is what made Jesus Christ say that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him may not die, but may have eternal life." (MTR, p.76) 201
It seems to me that it is from this point that everything starts, or rather that it is here that the impulse of the educational service to the young must ceaselessly reinforce its dynamism and renew its self confidence. That which founded the Institute following the lived experience of John Baptist de La Salle, that which still founds it anew each day in its sure and true bursting forth, is the love of God in Jesus Christ, which has its beginnings in Trinitarian Love.
But we are very far from the divine impassivity to which the abstract treaties of theodicy cooly refer; the kind of love of which we speak has nothing in common with the static contentment jealously shared only by the Three (Persons) which some meditations on the Trinity sometimes seem to evoke. For the Trinity has been revealed to us only by the Son who lived amongst men. And this mission of the Son, as well as the sending of the Spirit, is seen by the Founder as caused by the unbearable suffering of God in presence of human distress. When all is said and done, it is the Cross of Christ that manifest not only what is God's love for men, but Love such as it is lived within the Trinity, that is to say, at the very fountain of all love. A Lasallian spiritual vision, formulated in the 17th century, but to which many present day theological studies on the sufferings of God have given a renewed actuality, a modern resonance.
I would willingly consider this contemplation of love in the heart of a God open to human distress, in Mental Prayer and Lasallian Spirituality, as the equivalent of the "foundation" in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Whatever the case, from this fundamental contemplation of the Heart of God, the spiritual and apostolic thrust will spring up or gush forth from the Brother's heart by taking on very realistic form in the exercise of his humble ministry. The text of our meditation goes on as follows:
"See what God and Jesus Christ have done to restore souls to the grace they have lost. What must you not do for them in your ministry if you have a zeal for their salvation." (MTR, p.76)
Once again, let us note, if the Founder immediately sends his disciples back to the reality of their daily occupations, or rather to the effective accompaniment of the children entrusted to them, it is by opening them up to the inventive creativity that he brings them back to their activities. "What must you not do for them in your ministry." The true patent, unavoidable realities for the Brother are those of the mystery of God's love and of the reality of the young just as they are. From the tension between the two, and because the Brother already belongs to both worlds, there continually springs forth the "ministry" of the Brother, but seen as a capacity for creativity and inventiveness. "What must you not do?": You must never cease to begin again.
What is important, I think, is to stress the fact that it is here that the real Christocentrism presented by John Baptist de La Salle to his disciples finds its roots as a deep spiritual dynamism. Such Christocentrism is that of a "minister of Jesus Christ," for "what God and Jesus Christ have done," once and for all and for the whole of mankind, you must do it again, you must actualize it here and now, for the portion of humanity that has entrusted to you.
You are the minister of Jesus Christ for them. That means you have constantly to re-enter into the movement of the Mystery of Jesus Christ such as it unfolded, and such as it is presented, for example, in the Christological hymn of the Epistle to the Philippians. Therefore it is not a matter of imitating the actions of Jesus Christ, or of a union with Jesus Christ seen as something static and individualistic. "As you represent Jesus Christ for the children confided to your care, you must become one with Him, enter into His views, His intentions and, by the power of the Spirit given to you, reproduce today the very movement of His mystery.
What appears to me as essential and original, difficult to express and still more difficult to live - though it deals with a kind of dynamism to be renewed unceasingly - is the fact that John Baptist de La Salle does not dissociate the interior, mystical dynamism of the mystery from its very concrete, often prosaic, actualization in the exercise of the educational ministry of the Brother. Besides, one must indeed be conscious of the constant interaction between the exercise of ministry and the personal growth of the Brother in the mystery.
Undoubtedly, we are familiar with the dynamism which goes from the mystery to the ministry: "If you want to be successful in your ministry, often give yourself over to the Spirit of Jesus Christ." But one must not fail to recognize a mutual dynamism: if you want to grow in Jesus Christ and become more and more God's sons in the Spirit, dedicate yourselves to your everyday tasks; they will enlighten you, set you free and lean you on.
MD.56,1
In broad terms, for I can only point out some approaches likely to stimulate a renewed reading of the Lasallian spiritual teaching, I would like to follow the stages in which the mystery of Jesus Christ was accomplished such as they are evoked or implied in the Hymn of Philippians, and I will show how for John Baptist de La Salle (who so often quotes from the text of Philippians), those stages become actualized in the several dynamisms through which, in his ministry, the Brother seeks to conform himself with Jesus Christ. I will speak of the dynamism of Exodus and Incarnation; of the dynamism of the liberating and prophetic announcement of the Gospel; of the dynamism of the struggle for justice and the accepting of persecution. And I will conclude by speaking of the need to conform to the interior dispositions and the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and finally by opening out onto the spiritual dynamism which is at the end, as it was at the beginning, of both the mystery of Christ and the ministry of the Brother, of which it is the very soul in daily life: a dynamism of impulse towards the Father, of adhesion to His will, of service for His Kingdom, of passion for His Name; in a word, the dynamism of an existence consecrated to the Father, offered up to His glory. It is this dynamism which founds the Institute, since De La Salle is wrenched from his world to launch out in the discovery of the other world he has discovered. They dynamism of Christ that the Founder contemplates, for instance, in the event of the Circumcision or of the Transfiguration of the Lord. He left heaven to come down among men. The dynamism of Christ, the Good Shepherd, about whom John Baptist de La Salle reminds us that he left the ninety-nine faithful sheep to go in search of the lost. You too, he goes on to say, should "try every means to bring back to God those who are far away from Him," for "such is the will of your Father Who is in heaven that none of these little ones should perish."
EMO.65
MR.197,1
198,1
MD.33
The dynamism of Incarnation, the foundation of the Institute in John Baptist who, at the cost of arduous struggle, made himself as far as possible like those masters for whom in the beginning he had felt such aversion. The dynamism that the Founder contemplates in the light of the Letter to the Hebrews for example: "He is not ashamed to call us His Brothers ... He made Himself in everything like His Brothers ... to the extent of being tempted ... which allows Him to come to the help of those who are tempted." The frequent invitation of the Founder to "bend down toward the young, to meet them where and as they are, to put yourself within their reach, to become like them in poverty, for example, and to speak their language. Incarnation, proximity of insertion, not mere chance realities, but which surge from the heart of the Brother who is "Good Shepherd," from the one who lives among his sheep, who knows everyone of them by their name, their social milieu and their personal history. Incarnation, proximity, which implies a harmony of heart: to win their hearts, show them tenderness ... such expressions which are typically Lasallian. (Md. 115;3)
Foundational dynamism of the Institute: to put the means of salvation within the reach of abandoned youth. For that end, there is the "liberating" action of the Founder and his Brothers, who stubbornly ensure the gratuity of instruction, who transform their school so that it may be acceptable to youth through education, and so that it may be an experience of human dignity for them, of solidarity and friendship, a school which prepares them for a useful, competent life of service.
Thy dynamism of Christ, Good Shepherd and Servant, who cures man and sets him on his feet again, liberat es him from his alienations and fears, reinstates the outcast, restores the bonds between men. The teaching of the Founder about education in freedom, about tenderness towards the young, about the care for quality in their instruction, about personal attention and desire for the smooth running of the school ... It is through this transformation of human realities, in this effort for the advancement of individual persons that the Gospel is already announced. For the Gospel is the power of salvation for every man and for the entire person. "The Church considers this solicitude for man, for his humanity, for the future of men on earth and therefore for the orientation of development and progress, as an essential element of her mission." (John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis, n_ 15)
MR.200,1
To place the means of salvation within reach of those young people is to announce to them, as far as possible in their own language, the good News of the gospel, the Christian message. Even more precisely, it means working for their Christian initiation, in all its dimensions. The Founder's meditations ceaselessly come back to this key dimension of the ministry of the Brother. We must add however that the Founder often directs the Brothers' contemplation toward Jesus Christ, in the exercise of His prophetic ministry, in His passion to go from city to city and announce the gospel; He devoted His daylight hours to this task whereas He dedicated His nights to solitary prayer, thus living out the double yet single movement of adhesion to His Father to Whom he was united in order that He could then manifest Him.
MR.204,2-3
MR.203,1
Certainly, we must emphasize another key dimension of this participation of the Brother in the Mystery of Christ Prophet, what may be called its dimension of challenge: on the one hand, with regard to these young people, he must not hesitate to announce to them the authentic Gospel, including the paradoxical mystery of the Beatitudes, the announcement of the Folly of the Cross, the insistence on a life which is well lived when it is given as gift. And on the other hand, the prophetic ministry of the Brother also includes an aspect of denunciation when freedom becomes abuse and the young allow themselves to be enslaved again by the forces of death. In a meaningful way, when speaking of correction, the Founder refers to the prophetic character of the Old Testament personified in Nathan. Still more meaningful is the reference here to Christ Prophet, wrathful and fearless supporter of the rights of God and the truth of man.
MR.201,1
EMO.111
The founding dynamism of the Institute was tested by many forms of hostility, which we could call the forces of death, without prejudicing the good faith of De La Salle's enemies. If the Institute has known so many crises, these were often caused, or at least accentuated, by the fact that the Founder and his disciples strove to give witness to the transforming force of a new world, in a Church and society where they were not yet accepted. It is not at all surprising therefore that the evangelical theme of persecution should be so often treated by the Founder. We could show how he invites his Brothers to interpret and live these trials as a participation in the mystery of Christ fighting for justice, persecuted by those who were opposed to it and finally eliminated by their combined forces. This is the Scandal of the Mystery of the Cross, but the Founder takes great care not to separate it from the power of life and Resurrection. "Make it known by your whole conduct towards the children confided to your care that you consider yourselves as the minsters of God ... enduring with great patience the pains you have to suffer, glad to be despised by men and persecuted to the point of giving your life for Jesus in the exercise of your ministry."
Thus is expressed, in the context of the daily exercise of the ministry, the communion of the Brother with the Mystery of the Incarnate Christ, Good Shepherd, with the Mystery of Christ, Servant of men and their Liberator, Prophet of a new world, strength of salvation for the present world and Power for the new beginnings in this restricted world. Thus is expressed the communion of the Brother with the mystery of Christ persecuted for justice, suffering and dying on the cross, offering up his life for the salvation of the world. The Founder also invites the Brother to take on the profound dispositions of Christ living out this mystery in humility and gentleness with scarcity of means, in a refusal to resort to worldly power and with immeasurable respect for the dignity of every human being and of his freedom before God.
It remains to welcome the Spirit of Jesus Who progressively leads the Brother to the very heart of the Mystery of Jesus, to the threshold of His special relationship with His Father. Jesus turned towards His Father, from the deepest recesses of His Being, by the welcoming of His Love, the impulse of thanksgiving, the union with His Will, the offering of His Life. Growth in Christ through the exercise of the ministry is firmly linked to contemplation, to the prayer of praise and supplication that continuously flowed from the Heart of Jesus, as Von Baltasar has so well written: "If Jesus had not withdrawn so far in solitude with God, He could never have moved so far in the community of mankind."
It is in this perspective, I believe, that we can reread the following lines from the Explanation of Mental Prayer, biblically so rich and affectively so warm:
EMO.56 "I unite myself to You, O sweet Jesus, to your interior dispositions when you were meditating; You were then really in Your Father and your Father in You; You were then thinking what He was Himself thinking; You then loved what He loved ... In the same way, do in me what you want me to do; You yourself please present my meditation and make known my needs to the Eternal Father."
Without any commentary, I place alongside these words that conclude the 201st meditation. They express the main points concerning the founding shock of the Institute and probably the vocation of the Brother:
"Tell them again what Jesus Christ used to say about the sheep whose shepherd He is and who must be saved by Him: I have come, He said, that they may have life and have it abundantly. For it must have been the ardent zeal you have for the salvation of the souls of those you have to instruct that has inspired you to sacrifice yourselves and commit the whole of your life to give them a Christian education and procure for them the life of grace in this world and Life everlasting in the next."
Foundation, refoundation. These words undoubtedly contain something both stimulating and exciting. However, we have learned that reality is difficult, fragile, often uncertain. And nothing allows us to expect a bright future. I have spoken of creativity in foundation. But we also know that De La Salle experienced successive crises, that he had probably been often tempted to despair and had experienced being abandoned by God in silent darkness.
Like every Assembly of Brothers, this General Chapter constitutes an act of hope. As it begins, I feel that our Founder is inviting all of us to take on the attitude of surrender to God - an attitude which according to Father Rayez the Founder so well represents. I simply leave for your meditation and prayer these Lasallian texts: they seem to me to apply to your General Chapter, to our Chapter, as it is the General Chapter of the Institute.
1. "The Brother Director must be fully united to God and filled with His Spirit, for it must not be by his own spirit that he must behave in his task, but it must be the Spirit of God that acts in him and in the community. To that end, he must ... have abandoned himself to the Spirit of God in order to act only through His inspiration and movement or rather, to let His Holy Spirit be really the principle of his action."
MD.22,2
2. "Prepare yourselves today to receive Him fully (the Spirit of Christ), by giving yourselves up completely to His guidance and allowing Him to reign over all your interior movement in so perfect a manner that it is no longer yourselves who live, but Jesus Christ who lives in You."
MR.134,1
3. "... There would seem to be great faith in the spirit of detachment since one gives oneself up to God's Providence, like a man who would take to the wide sea without sails or oars."
Pray to God that He
may grant you TODAY
the same grace
as He gave to the holy Apostles
(in the Upper Room)
and that after having filled you
with His Spirit to sanctify you
that He may communicate it to you
also for the salvation of others.
(M.D. 43,3)
Send your Spirit
to give us
a new life
and
You will renew
the face of the earth.
(M.D. 42,3)
ABBREVIATIONS
MR.= Meditations for time of Retreat
MD.= Meditations for Sundays and Feasts
EMO. = Explanation of Method of Mental Prayer
The figures refer to the Meditation, followed by the point of the meditation (1, 2 or 3).
Presented by:
Br. Michael Sauvage, FSC
41st General Chapter
April 1986 (Rome)
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