The Vocational Journey of St. John Baptist de La Salle
By Aidan Kilty
God's call is a life-long relationship rather than a once and for all experience. As the Rule article 100 tells us, the Brother's life, like the life of any disciple of Jesus, consists of “a succession of calls from God” to which we continually respond. This is an apt description of the vocational journey of St. John Baptist de La Salle, as he tells us in the Memoir on the Beginnings. “God, who directs all things with wisdom and with gentleness, and is not at all accustomed to force the inclinations of men, wishing to draw me entirely into undertaking the care of the schools, did so in a quite imperceptible way, and with plenty of time, so that one commitment led me into another without my having foreseen it in the beginning.”
The faithful God, this "God who is so good" (MTR 193), called St. John Baptist de La Salle step by step on a vocational journey that was to reveal significantly different characteristics at different stages of his life -from the Christian vocation of his early childhood, to the priestly vocation of his late adolescence and early adulthood, to his vocation as Founder to which his mature years were devoted, and finally to his vocation as Brother in his last years in St Yon. God's ‘dream’ for John Baptist De la Salle (a vivid image to describe vocation) was thus not all revealed at once. In the same way, God's dream for us and for those young people with whom we are discerning continues to unfold in the measure that we try to respond faithfully to him. We have first to decipher these patterns in our own life before we can help others to recognise the passage of God in theirs.
God does not normally intervene in our history in Damascus-like experiences. Nor does it appear that God intervened in that way in St. John Baptist de La Salle’s life either. However, he does provide significant ‘annunciation’ moments, sending ‘angels’ of different shapes, sexes and sizes into our lives to shape the dream He has in mind for us. Like us, De La Salle did have such moments, and given his sensitivity to the presence of God in his life, it is likely that he was more adept than we are at unravelling their significance. There are many examples of these angels, these messengers of God, playing a significant role in his life. For example, his relationship with Roland, his "chance" meeting with Nyel, his relationship with Barré and his other spiritual directors, or his meeting with Sister Louis at Parménie, to name but a few.
The annunciation moments also took the form of significant events which forced Saint John Baptist De la Salle to examine once again his life option. This can be seen, for example, in the upheaval caused by the death of his parents (1671-72), in the challenge of the early Brothers about the security he had in his wealth (1683), in the death of Henri L 'Heureux (1690), in the circumstances surrounding the Heroic Vow in 1691, or in the Letter of the Brothers (1714). De la Salle was so conscious of the living presence of God in his life that he was able to read experiences such as these from a faith perspective so as to give direction to his life.
When God calls someone to a particular vocation he also graces them with the gifts to live that call. God's dream for us is always accompanied by the gifts to live that dream. We know that St. John Baptist de La Salle’s childhood was lived out in a very Christian context, strongly influenced not only by the Christian faith of his loving parents and grandparents but also by the generally Christian environment of the wider society into which he was born in seventeenth century France. A sense of God, the awareness of the presence of God in life, was thus nurtured in him from an early age. It was as natural as the air he breathed and provided a fertile soil for the awakening and development of God's dream in his life as in that of his brothers and sisters. He was born into a family that valued education, and which had the resources to ensure that he was given the best possible education to develop his natural gifts. He was clearly blessed and gifted in his intelligence, his leadership qualities, his single-mindedness, his spiritual presence, his prudence and maturity of judgment. He was gifted by God for the vocation he was called to live, just as each of us is similarly gifted for the vocation to which we are called.
It is unlikely that many of us have been called to respond to God's call in our lives in the radical way that De La Salle was called. His ability to see the hand of God, and his desire to allow himself to be guided by it, led to his life being turned upside down in many different ways.
“If in fact I had ever thought that the obligation of charity, which prompted my concern for the welfare of the schoolteachers, would lead me to feel it a duty to live with them, I should have abandoned the work. For, from a natural point of view, I considered as inferior to my manservant the men I was obliged, especially in the first stages of the undertaking, to employ in the schools, and the very thought that I should have to live with them would have been unbearable”.
His ability to see beyond the ‘natural point of view’ was to lead him on an amazingly inspiring ‘exodus journey’. It involved, among other things, his leaving the family home and moving with his companions to the cradle of the Institute in the Rue Neuve in 1682, renouncing his canonry in 1683, dispersing his wealth between 1683-85, and his decision to move to Paris in 1688 rather than restrict ‘this work of salvation’ to the confines of the Archdiocese of Rheims, as desired by Archbishop le Tellier.
Any authentic vocation has to be rooted in a relationship with the God who calls. Admittedly, at the beginning of a vocational journey the element of service, such as wanting to work with youngsters, especially deprived kids, may well be the ‘hook’ that God uses to catch us. But if a vocation is to be sustained, it has to be based on a developing relationship with the God of love. Consequently, one of the other challenges in vocational discernment consists in leading others into a prayer relationship with God. This developing relationship with God usually brings with it some personal challenges to the individual concerned. It usually involves some mini-exodus moments, an experience that traditionally has been called ‘conversion’, and which is usually reflected in challenges to values, attitudes and behaviour.
God never calls us alone and always calls us in function of a mission. We know that Saint John Baptist De la Salle saw his initial involvement with the schoolteachers as an external involvement, incidental to his primary obligations as priest and canon of Rheims Cathedral. Yet this initial organisational involvement from the outside was to lead to a dramatic personal conversion through contact with a group of teachers who would become his companions on the journey. We see the transformation of a priest, anxious about the effective organisation of a group of teachers, into the superior of an integrated community of Brothers centred around a specific mission that they understood as a ‘ministry’ the ministry of Christian and human education for the salvation of poor youngsters.
Yet it is interesting to note that it was only through his contact with the schoolteachers that he became aware of these ‘children far from salvation’. It was as if, through this contact with the schoolteachers, the scales had been lifted from his eyes so that he was then able to see a world that had never really impinged on his bourgeois mentality. Once it did impinge on his consciousness, the passion he always had for God and his kingdom took on a very human focus. All of this was to be at significant personal cost. In the Lasallian vocation, God calls us with others to fulfil the mission of Jesus that is the mission of salvation. This mission always has a human face and calls for a response to evident needs. In Saint John Baptist De la Salle’s case there were a succession of needs: schoolteachers needing direction and organisation, young children needing salvation, Brothers needing an organisational structure and a rule of life, schools needing to be more child-centred, Brothers needing to take responsibility for the future government of the Society. In the words of Saint John Baptist De la Salle, “The need for this Institute is very great”.
