Confessor, Priest, Founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, Patron of Teachers Feast Day: May 15 (Traditional Roman Calendar) — formerly April 7 prior to the 1969 revisions
I. Early Life and Formation
John Baptist de La Salle was born on April 30, 1651, in Reims, France, the eldest of eleven children of Louis de La Salle, a magistrate, and Nicolle Moët de Brouillet, a woman of pious noble lineage. From his earliest years, the boy gave evidence of a serious and devout disposition, drawn naturally to the things of God. At the age of eleven, he received the tonsure, signifying his desire to enter the ecclesiastical state, and at sixteen he was named a canon of the Cathedral of Reims — a prestigious office that, in the providence of God, would later be surrendered for the love of the poor.
He pursued his studies at the College des Bons-Enfants in Reims and later at the famed Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where he came under the formative influence of the Sulpician spirituality founded by Jean-Jacques Olier. There he absorbed that profound devotion to the Sacred Humanity of Our Lord and to the interior life that would mark his soul ever after. He was ordained to the holy priesthood on Holy Saturday, April 9, 1678, and the following year obtained his doctorate in theology.
II. The Providential Call
It is one of the great themes of his life that John Baptist de La Salle did not seek the work for which God had chosen him; rather, as he himself confessed, had he foreseen what God would ask of him, he might have shrunk from it. He once wrote:
“God, who guides all things with wisdom and serenity, whose way it is not to force the inclinations of persons, willed to commit me entirely to the development of the schools. He did this in an imperceptible way and over a long period of time, so that one commitment led to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning.”
The providential turning point came through his acquaintance with Adrien Nyel, a layman engaged in establishing schools for poor boys. From assisting Nyel, La Salle was gradually drawn into the work of forming the schoolmasters themselves — first lodging them, then dining with them, and at last, in a heroic act of detachment, bringing them into his own family home. The scandal among his relatives was considerable, for a canon and a nobleman did not associate so familiarly with men of low station.
III. The Heroic Renunciation
Recognizing that the work demanded total identification with the poor whom these schoolmasters served, La Salle took counsel with the holy priest Nicholas Barré and resolved upon two acts of remarkable abnegation. First, in 1683, he resigned his canonry at Reims, refusing the security and honor it provided. Second, during the terrible famine of 1684 -1685, he distributed his entire patrimony to the poor, leaving himself dependent, like his Divine Master, upon Providence alone.
This was no romantic gesture. It was a deliberate stripping, in imitation of Christ Who, “being rich, He became poor for your sakes; that through His poverty you might be rich” (II Corinthians viii, 9, Douay-Rheims). St. Thomas teaches that voluntary poverty disposes the soul for perfection by removing the impediments of solicitude for temporal things (Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 188, a. 7), and in La Salle we see this doctrine made flesh.
IV. The Founding of the Institute
From this band of poor schoolmasters arose the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools — the Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes — a community of laymen consecrated to God by vow, dedicated to the gratuitous instruction of the children of artisans and the poor. La Salle insisted upon several principles that were, in his age, revolutionary:
The Brothers would be laymen, not priests, lest the dignity of orders be entangled with the labor of the classroom, and lest priestly vocations be diverted. He forbade his Brothers ever to seek Holy Orders — a discipline observed to this day. The schools would be wholly gratuitous, refusing payment even from those who could afford it, that no poor child might feel shame. Instruction would be given in the vernacular French rather than Latin, a pedagogical innovation that opened learning to those who would never enter the ranks of the clergy or the bourgeoisie. The “simultaneous method” of teaching — instructing classes as a body rather than each pupil individually — replaced the inefficient methods then in use.
He composed for his Brothers The Conduct of the Christian Schools, The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility, Meditations for the Time of Retreat, and numerous catechetical works. Through these, he infused the labor of the classroom with supernatural significance, teaching the Brothers to regard themselves as “ambassadors and ministers of Jesus Christ” in the office of instruction.
V. Trials and Persecution
The Saint’s life was a continual passion. The masters of the established writing-schools brought lawsuits against him, fearing competition. The ecclesiastical authorities at times suspected and opposed him. His own disciples sometimes rebelled. The Jansenists harassed him. A faction within his own Institute, abetted by certain prelates, sought to depose him from its governance, and for a time he withdrew into hiding in the South of France, persuaded that God willed his effacement.
It was only by the urgent and formal command of his Brothers, who recalled him under obedience, that he resumed direction of the Institute. In all these trials, he displayed that union of meekness and fortitude which St. Francis de Sales calls the cream of the virtues. His spirituality, deeply Christocentric and imbued with abandonment to Divine Providence, sustained him through every crisis.
VI. Holy Death and Glorification
Worn out by penances, labors, and sufferings, John Baptist de La Salle died on Good Friday, April 7, 1719, at Saint-Yon near Rouen, having received the last Sacraments with exemplary piety. His final words, in response to the question whether he accepted his sufferings, were: “Yes, I adore in all things the conduct of God in my regard.” A more perfect echo of Our Lord’s fiat voluntas tua could scarcely be found upon the lips of a dying man.
He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on February 19, 1888, and canonized by the same Pontiff on May 24, 1900. In 1950, Pope Pius XII, in the Apostolic Letter Quod ait Christus, declared him Heavenly Patron of all Teachers of Youth — a title that crowns his apostolate and commends his intercession to every Catholic schoolmaster and parent.
VII. Lessons for Imitation
Several virtues shine forth from his life with particular brilliance:
Abandonment to Divine Providence. He did not plan his work; he allowed God to lead him from step to step. This is the spirituality of l’abandon perfected later by Père de Caussade, and it remains a sure path to sanctity for souls bewildered by the future.
Detachment from honors and wealth. A canon at sixteen, a doctor of theology, born to ease — yet he chose the lot of the poor schoolmaster. His example reproves every soul that clings to comfort under pretense of duty.
Zeal for the salvation of the young. He understood that the Christian formation of children is among the most pressing of all apostolates, for the soul of a child once corrupted is rarely repaired. Pope Pius XI, in Divini Illius Magistri (1929), would later vindicate the principles upon which La Salle built.
Patience under contradiction. From bishops, lawyers, rival masters, and even his own sons in religion, he received cruel opposition. He answered all with silence, prayer, and perseverance.
VIII. A Suggested Prayer and Devotion
The traditional prayer in his honor, drawn from the Collect of his Mass, may be used today and on his feast:
O God, who didst raise up the holy Confessor John Baptist to procure a Christian education for the poor and to strengthen youth in the way of truth: grant, we beseech Thee, through his intercession and example, that we, burning with zeal for the salvation of souls, may be made partakers of his glory. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
As a practical devotion on his feast, one might offer the Rosary for the sanctification of Catholic teachers and for the conversion of the young, that the schools of our time might once again become — as he intended his to be — vestibules of Heaven.
If you wish to go deeper, the Lives of the Saints learning path would carry you next through the hagiographies of other great founders and educators of souls — Saint Philip Neri, Saint Joseph Calasanz (founder of the Piarists, in many ways La Salle’s elder brother in this apostolate), and Saint John Bosco — each illuminating, from a different angle, the holy art of forming Christ in the young. Alternatively, the Theology and Doctrine path can take you into the principles of Catholic education as articulated by Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, the charter document of the Church on this subject.
Sancte Ioannes Baptista de La Salle, ora pro nobis.