THE TORCH-BEARERS

The Feast of Our Lord’s Ascension fell on May 10 in the year 1684. The date is worth remembering in this history, for it was on that day that St. de la Salle took the first steps toward organizing his school masters into a religious community. They were already teachers, and most of them good teachers. But they were to be something more. The saint was convinced that God wished them to be members of an organization, to be soldiers in an army of holiness and learning, to take upon themselves the obligations and reap the great rewards of men who lead what is called the religious life.

Great men do their great work in different ways, and they seek to have that work last after them; their work is, so to speak, their child, and it is their wish that it should continue in the world long after they themselves are dead. The great work of Shakespeare was his plays—glowing pictures of human life and soul-searching comments on men and things; and they remain in the world though he has been buried for more than three hundred years, and they are more cherished and admired today than when their author walked the London streets or sat beside the Avon. The great work of King Louis XIV was his kingdom, and in order to make it great and flourishing and, as he hoped, enduring, he fought many wars and braved many dangers and sacrificed the lives of thousands of his subjects. And his monarchy did last—for almost a century after his death.

St. de la Salle was neither a dramatist nor a king; but he had a great work to do—a work that truly was a greater work than the work done by Shakespeare or King Louis. That work was the spread of popular education, the bringing of learning into the minds of the people, the forming of boys and young men into upright Catholics and loyal citizens. And in order to make that work live after him, in order to bring the benefits of Christian education to generations yet unborn, he founded an institute, the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

In Greece in the days of her glory—the Greece of the poets and philosophers, the Greece of the victorious armies, the Greece of the Olympian games—there was a festival called the Feast of the Torches. The people would form in two long rows, extending mile upon mile, and down between the two lines of people relays of swift runners would speed along, one relieving the other, holding aloft a lighted torch. When one runner stopped exhausted, he would pass the flaming torch to another runner who would dash on down between the lines, and he in turn would hand on the torch to still another runner. The festival was not considered a success if the first runner, the man who bad lighted the torch, let it fall to the ground or let it go out; that torch must be kept burning and kept moving all the time.

So it is with education. Learning is the light of the human mind; were it to go out, the human race would be in darkness. And St. de la Salle, the man who kindled the torch of popular education in Reims, was not content to let the torch fall to the ground; he wanted to organize a little band of well-trained athletes who, passing the torch of learning from hand to hand, might carry it on and on, to city after city and country after country and generation after generation.

That is why, on the Feast of the Ascension, 1684, St. John Baptist de la Salle brought together the twelve leading teachers of his schools and spent seventeen days with them in council and in prayer. It was the first assembly of the Institute. They were to organize the torch-bearers, to discuss the means of making their educational work more fruitful and more lasting. The torch of Christian education was now alight; it was their business to keep it ever burning.

Much of their time during that retreat was spent in prayer. Like all the saints, the holy founder was a strong believer in prayer. He knew that he and his disciples could not act wisely unless they received light from Heaven. The rest of their time was taken up with the interchange of opinions regarding the organization of the teachers and the schools. In those discussions it was the schoolmasters who spoke first and the saint who spoke last; it was a thoroughly democratic assembly. Such a thing was very unusual in seventeenth century France, the France of Louis XIV; but in this, as in ever so many other things, St. de la Salle was far ahead of his times. He realized that the best rules, the rules that are most likely to be respected and obeyed, are not the rules forced upon people against their will but the rules which people cheerfully impose upon themselves.

The masters were eager to bind themselves for life to the work of the schools; they wished to promise God to remain Christian Brothers for the rest of their days. The saint was pleased with their enthusiasm, but he knew so much about the inconstancy of human nature that he persuaded them to modify the plan. Instead, therefore, on the morning of Trinity Sunday, St. de la Salle and the first twelve Brothers knelt before the altar in the little chapel of the New Street house and made temporary vows—vows by which they promised to obey the superior of the Institute and to remain with the Brothers during one year. And as they made the promise, they held lighted candles in their hands—a happy symbol of the flaming torch of Christian education which they were to carry through the world.

It was at this first assembly, too, that the name of the Institute was adopted. Previously the teachers had been called masters. Henceforth they were to be known as Brothers—as the big brothers of the boys in the schools. The word Schools was included in the title of the Institute as a reminder to its members that its essential work is education—that they were not to be Trappists or Carmelites living apart from the world, but educators, in the world but not of it, giving their time and their talents to teaching.

And the adjective Christian was added to show that in their work of teaching the Brothers were to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ, the world’s Supreme Teacher, and that in a special way they were to teach His holy doctrine. Such is the origin of the name, Brothers of the Christian Schools.

The following winter the Brothers definitely adopted the black habit, with the white collar, which they still wear. That collar, or rabat, as it is called, was much like the collar worn by priests in France in the days of Louis XIV. The habit itself differed from the priestly soutane by the absence of buttons—to this day the Brothers’ habit is fastened with iron hooks—and by being worn without a belt or sash. Because he was a priest, St. de la Salle is represented in pictures as wearing the soutane and sash. He was the only priest who was ever a member of the Institute.

At first St. de la Salle thought of having priests in the Institute as well as Brothers, for in all the great orders of the day priests were considered necessary. He selected one of the most saintly and brilliant of the first Brothers, Brother Henry, and had him make his theological studies at the Sorbonne, in Paris. But, almost on the eve of being ordained a priest. Brother Henry took sick and died. It was a severe blow to the holy founder, who dearly loved this faithful disciple; but he accepted the occurrence as being an expression of the holy will of God. And the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that there should be no priests in his Institute. The Brothers were to be teachers, they were to give their time, and talents to school work, and for them the labors of the priesthood—like preaching and hearing confessions and attending the sick—though glorious works in themselves, would really be distractions from the great tasks of education to which they were devoting their lives. So he inserted in the rule of the Brothers the precept that they shall not become priests, nor even wear the surplice, nor perform any function in the church except to serve low Mass,

By means of this important rule, the founder of the Institute of the Christian Schools made clear the fact that the vocation to the Brotherhood is something distinct from the vocation to the priesthood. Even in our own time many persons fail to grasp the distinction. The Brothers are religious, making the usual vows and leading a community life; but they are not priests or students for the priesthood. In the strict sense of the word they are laymen, not clerics. Freed from the obligation of reciting the office, of answering sick calls, and of administering the sacraments, they are able to give their entire time to the three occupations to which they have devoted their lives: To prayer, for they are religious, wearing a religious habit and following a religious rule of life; to teaching, for that is the reason why their Institute came into existence, and it is impossible to think of the Christian Brother who is not a teacher; to study, for the man who ceases to be a student ceases to be an efficient teacher.

In founding the Brothers of the Christian Schools, St. de la Salle did something that had never been done before. True, there had been many religious orders in the Church before his time; but not an order of men devoted to teaching as the one essential work of their organization. Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits engage in teaching—indeed, those three orders have produced some of the finest teachers in the world; but they do many other things, like giving, missions and visiting hospitals and prisons and acting as spiritual directors for men and women. But the Brothers of the Christian Schools are concerned with no external work but the education of boys and young men. As we shall soon see, St. de la Salle had no narrow conception of that work, and the Brothers of today who teach in colleges, not less than the Brothers who teach in orphan asylums, are working in harmony with the spirit of their founder; but the saint was insistent that nothing whatever—even so sacred a thing as the priesthood itself—should interfere with their work as teachers.

“All kinds of teaching, and nothing but teaching”—such might be considered the scope of the Brothers’ external work as determined by St. de la Salle.


The Story of St. John Baptist de la Salle CHAPTER IX THE TORCH-BEARERS The Feast of Our Lord’s Ascension fell on May 10 in the year 1684. The date is worth remembering in this history, for it was on that day that St. de la Salle took the first steps toward organizing his school masters into a religious community. They were already teachers, and most of them good teachers. But they were to be something more. The saint was convinced that God wished them to be members of an organization, to be soldiers in an army of holiness and learning, to take upon themselves the obligations and reap the great rewards of men who lead what is called the religious life. Great men do their great work in different ways, and they seek to have that work last after them; their work is, so to speak, their child, and it is their wish that it should continue in the world long after they themselves are dead. The great work of Shakespeare was his plays—glowing pictures of human life and soul-searching comments on men and things; and they remain in the world though he has been buried for more than three hundred years, and they are more cherished and admired today than when their author walked the London streets or sat beside the Avon. The great work of King Louis XIV was his kingdom, and in order to make it great and flourishing and, as he hoped, enduring, he fought many wars and braved many dangers and sacrificed the lives of thousands of his subjects. And his monarchy did last—for almost a century after his death. St. de la Salle was neither a dramatist nor a king; but he had a great work to do—a work that truly was a greater work than the work done by Shakespeare or King Louis. That work was the spread of popular education, the bringing of learning into the minds of the people, the forming of boys and young men into upright Catholics and loyal citizens. And in order to make that work live after him, in order to bring the benefits of Christian education to generations yet unborn, he founded an institute, the Brothers of the Christian Schools. In Greece in the days of her glory—the Greece of the poets and philosophers, the Greece of the victorious armies, the Greece of the Olympian games—there was a festival called the Feast of the Torches. The people would form in two long rows, extending mile upon mile, and down between the two lines of people relays of swift runners would speed along, one relieving the other, holding aloft a lighted torch. When one runner stopped exhausted, he would pass the flaming torch to another runner who would dash on down between the lines, and he in turn would hand on the torch to still another runner. The festival was not considered a success if the first runner, the man who bad lighted the torch, let it fall to the ground or let it go out; that torch must be kept burning and kept moving all the time. So it is with education. Learning is the light of the human mind; were it to go out, the human race would be in darkness. And St. de la Salle, the man who kindled the torch of popular education in Reims, was not content to let the torch fall to the ground; he wanted to organize a little band of well-trained athletes who, passing the torch of learning from hand to hand, might carry it on and on, to city after city and country after country and generation after generation. That is why, on the Feast of the Ascension, 1684, St. John Baptist de la Salle brought together the twelve leading teachers of his schools and spent seventeen days with them in council and in prayer. It was the first assembly of the Institute. They were to organize the torch-bearers, to discuss the means of making their educational work more fruitful and more lasting. The torch of Christian education was now alight; it was their business to keep it ever burning. Much of their time during that retreat was spent in prayer. Like all the saints, the holy founder was a strong believer in prayer. He knew that he and his disciples could not act wisely unless they received light from Heaven. The rest of their time was taken up with the interchange of opinions regarding the organization of the teachers and the schools. In those discussions it was the schoolmasters who spoke first and the saint who spoke last; it was a thoroughly democratic assembly. Such a thing was very unusual in seventeenth century France, the France of Louis XIV; but in this, as in ever so many other things, St. de la Salle was far ahead of his times. He realized that the best rules, the rules that are most likely to be respected and obeyed, are not the rules forced upon people against their will but the rules which people cheerfully impose upon themselves. The masters were eager to bind themselves for life to the work of the schools; they wished to promise God to remain Christian Brothers for the rest of their days. The saint was pleased with their enthusiasm, but he knew so much about the inconstancy of human nature that he persuaded them to modify the plan. Instead, therefore, on the morning of Trinity Sunday, St. de la Salle and the first twelve Brothers knelt before the altar in the little chapel of the New Street house and made temporary vows—vows by which they promised to obey the superior of the Institute and to remain with the Brothers during one year. And as they made the promise, they held lighted candles in their hands—a happy symbol of the flaming torch of Christian education which they were to carry through the world. It was at this first assembly, too, that the name of the Institute was adopted. Previously the teachers had been called masters. Henceforth they were to be known as Brothers—as the big brothers of the boys in the schools. The word Schools was included in the title of the Institute as a reminder to its members that its essential work is education—that they were not to be Trappists or Carmelites living apart from the world, but educators, in the world but not of it, giving their time and their talents to teaching. And the adjective Christian was added to show that in their work of teaching the Brothers were to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ, the world’s Supreme Teacher, and that in a special way they were to teach His holy doctrine. Such is the origin of the name, Brothers of the Christian Schools. The following winter the Brothers definitely adopted the black habit, with the white collar, which they still wear. That collar, or rabat, as it is called, was much like the collar worn by priests in France in the days of Louis XIV. The habit itself differed from the priestly soutane by the absence of buttons—to this day the Brothers’ habit is fastened with iron hooks—and by being worn without a belt or sash. Because he was a priest, St. de la Salle is represented in pictures as wearing the soutane and sash. He was the only priest who was ever a member of the Institute. At first St. de la Salle thought of having priests in the Institute as well as Brothers, for in all the great orders of the day priests were considered necessary. He selected one of the most saintly and brilliant of the first Brothers, Brother Henry, and had him make his theological studies at the Sorbonne, in Paris. But, almost on the eve of being ordained a priest. Brother Henry took sick and died. It was a severe blow to the holy founder, who dearly loved this faithful disciple; but he accepted the occurrence as being an expression of the holy will of God. And the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that there should be no priests in his Institute. The Brothers were to be teachers, they were to give their time, and talents to school work, and for them the labors of the priesthood—like preaching and hearing confessions and attending the sick—though glorious works in themselves, would really be distractions from the great tasks of education to which they were devoting their lives. So he inserted in the rule of the Brothers the precept that they shall not become priests, nor even wear the surplice, nor perform any function in the church except to serve low Mass, By means of this important rule, the founder of the Institute of the Christian Schools made clear the fact that the vocation to the Brotherhood is something distinct from the vocation to the priesthood. Even in our own time many persons fail to grasp the distinction. The Brothers are religious, making the usual vows and leading a community life; but they are not priests or students for the priesthood. In the strict sense of the word they are laymen, not clerics. Freed from the obligation of reciting the office, of answering sick calls, and of administering the sacraments, they are able to give their entire time to the three occupations to which they have devoted their lives: To prayer, for they are religious, wearing a religious habit and following a religious rule of life; to teaching, for that is the reason why their Institute came into existence, and it is impossible to think of the Christian Brother who is not a teacher; to study, for the man who ceases to be a student ceases to be an efficient teacher. In founding the Brothers of the Christian Schools, St. de la Salle did something that had never been done before. True, there had been many religious orders in the Church before his time; but not an order of men devoted to teaching as the one essential work of their organization. Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits engage in teaching—indeed, those three orders have produced some of the finest teachers in the world; but they do many other things, like giving, missions and visiting hospitals and prisons and acting as spiritual directors for men and women. But the Brothers of the Christian Schools are concerned with no external work but the education of boys and young men. As we shall soon see, St. de la Salle had no narrow conception of that work, and the Brothers of today who teach in colleges, not less than the Brothers who teach in orphan asylums, are working in harmony with the spirit of their founder; but the saint was insistent that nothing whatever—even so sacred a thing as the priesthood itself—should interfere with their work as teachers. “All kinds of teaching, and nothing but teaching”—such might be considered the scope of the Brothers’ external work as determined by St. de la Salle.