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The Lasallian Mission |
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The Key Characteristics of the Lasallian Mission The Lasallian Mission is an apostolic ministry of the Catholic Church that requires that its participants: Have a sincere and true Faith and Zeal for this ministry that is devoted to…the Salvation of Souls of youth of all personal and social backgrounds, done with…Abandonment to Providence, placing all trust in God and striving to discern God’s will in…a Spirit of Prayer, asking constantly for God’s blessing on this work, done…Together and By Association, in lived religious or professional communities that center on...Announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaiming and building the Kingdom of God by…Giving a Human and Christian Education to youth, with special attention to…Service of the Poor, those young on the margins of comfortable society, acting toward all students as…Ambassadors of Christ sent to know and guide the whole student like a guardian angel, ministering to them by…Teaching Minds and Touching Hearts at all times and in every way, done with…loving Care and Vigilance for every detail of the education and lives of the youth entrusted by God to your care, all fulfilled with fidelity to…the Charism of St. John Baptist de La Salle, Founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and Patron Saint of All Teachers of Youth. |
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Care & Vigilance: The Lasallian Community Ideal On many occasions, St. John Baptist de La Salle spoke and wrote to the first Christian Brothers about conducting themselves and their schools "with care and vigilance". What did St. John Baptist de La Salle mean by the phrase "care and vigilance"? The phrase can be found in De La Salle’s book, Meditations for the Time of Retreat: "You, then, whom God has called to this ministry, work according to the grace that has been given to you to instruct by teaching and to exhort by encouraging those who are entrusted to your care, guiding them with care and vigilance, in order to fulfill toward them the principal duty of fathers and mothers toward their children." In other words, he was referring to how they were to meet their many teaching responsibilities, to "act like visible angels" in order to lead their students to God. God calls Lasallian educators to a ministry that shares in the responsibility of parents for their children's salvation by raising them to know God and live according to God's will. Fulfilling this ministry requires complete attentiveness to the quality and content of the students' day, so that every moment offers the opportunity for the students to enter more deeply into their relationship with God. This is the original meaning and purpose of care and vigilance. Today, the Lasallian mandate of "care and vigilance" continues, but is seen in a much broader way. The words are used to describe the relationship that must exist permeate the Lasallian family: teacher to student, student to student, teacher to school. To be caring and vigilant means to give to each student the attention of a parent or older brother or sister. The teacher not only teaches the student, but also raises the student. The student not only is enrolled in the school, but also is the member of the family. Furthermore, these relationships are rooted not in the needs of the school for order and efficiency, but in the needs of the students for love and redemption. Whether attending to tasks or to persons, every action in a Lasallian school is to be a practice of care and vigilance. In this way, the school becomes a place where redemption happens, where the redemptive spirit of God is tangible, where everyone is immersed in the ministry of the salvation of souls. Bringing a vision like care and vigilance into the nitty gritty of a typical school day can be a struggle. What is care and vigilance supposed to look like in the real world? The answer to this question contains elements of comfort and challenge. What is comforting is the realization that St. John Baptist de La Salle was an extremely pragmatic man. He understood the need for his schools to be grounded in the straightforward urban realities of both the students and the early Brothers. For De La Salle, care and vigilance began with meeting the practical needs of student and school. What this looked like was well-behaved, well-supervised students in a well-conceived, well-ordered school run by well-trained, well-prepared teachers. De La Salle was fully aware that for the students to benefit and for the schools to succeed, the ministry of Lasallian education had first to be do-able. What is challenging is the reason De La Salle had for doing all of this. Care and vigilance was to mean more than dedicated professionals who were reasonably successful at turning out well-educated students from a well-run school. The Christian Schools existed to give an education that went beyond mere professionalism and went to the very heart of human identity and meaning. Excellent teachers, rigorous studies, and disciplined students were only the beginning. Explicit in the Brothers' training and daily lives was that they were their students' brothers and guardian angels, and that the end of their work was to bring the young to God and to their salvation. They were called by God to "touch the hearts of (their) pupils and inspire them with the Christian spirit." All of their time outside of school was given to prayer, reflection, and formation in this ministry, one in which they would be what De La Salle called, "ambassadors of Christ". They were to practice care and vigilance, the art of transforming the experience of learning into the experience of God's awesome salvific presence in the daily lives of their students. And so, the whole picture emerges. De La Salle saw children who were "far from salvation" because of their ignorance of God and of virtuousness, and the lack of human dignity that came from not being able to live with dignity. He felt himself impelled by God to respond to their need. His response was to begin to establish Christian schools in a revolutionary new form , with dedicated teachers in a revolutionary new role, doing education in a revolutionary new light. The Lasallian mission would become to bring students to a knowledge of God through schools that incarnated the Gospel by means of loving concern for the whole student through ceaseless attention to the wholeness of their minds, hearts, and lives. Today, the true measure of a Lasallian school does not lie only in its scholastic achievements, nor does the true measure of a Lasallian teacher lie only in his or her professional skills. The true measure of both lies in the determination to create for students a community of faith and love, one in which they receive an education that enables them to experience and be transformed by God's saving love in their lives. They do this by being consummate professionals, spiritual parents, guardian angels, and re-presenters of Christ. They do these things seamlessly, all the while fixed on the voice of God guiding them in the best way to lead their students and themselves to God's kingdom. This, in a nutshell, is care and vigilance.
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