Saint of the Day: St. John Baptist de la Salle

Priest and Founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (1651-1719)

His life

+ John Baptist was born into a wealthy family in Rheims, France, and received the clerical tonsure when he was only eleven years-old. He was named a canon of the cathedral at the age of 15. (Cathedral canons were diocesan priests who had the responsibility of singing the Divine Office each day in the cathedral.)

+ After his ordination to the priesthood in 1678, John Baptist completed a doctorate in theology but had no defined area of ministry. He lived a life of comfort as a cathedral canon.

+ A chance invitation led to John Baptist being named as administrator of a free school for poor boys. As the school grew, he was inspired to establish an order of teaching brothers to educate the boys. This led to the foundation a new religious community: the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

+ John Baptist saw his brothers as “ambassadors of Christ to the young” and his instructions and manuals for the teachers, especially his Conduct of Christian Schools, made him a leader in the field of education.

+ John Baptist de la Salle died on Good Friday, April 7, 1719. Canonized as a saint in 1900, he is honored as the patron saint of teachers.

For prayer and reflection

“Like newborn infants, you must long for the pure, spiritual milk,
that in him you may grow to salvation, alleluia.”—Entrance Antiphon for the Second Sunday of Easter

Religious Life

To learn more about the De la Salle Christian Brothers, visit: www.brothersvocation.org

Prayer

God of everlasting mercy,
who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(from The Roman Missal)
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.