Saint John Baptist de la Salle, Confessor
S. Ioannis Baptistae de la Salle Confessoris
Saint John Baptist de la Salle was a French priest who gave up wealth and rank to educate the children of the poor, founding the Brothers of the Christian Schools and renewing the art of teaching for the love of God.
Saint John Baptist de la Salle was born at Reims in 1651 to a family of rank, and was destined from his youth for the priesthood, holding a canonry of the cathedral while still a young man. Yet God drew him, step by step and almost against his own plans, to spend himself for the Christian education of poor and abandoned children — a work that would reshape the schooling of the young in the Church.
His life and work
Ordained priest in 1678, he was led almost by accident into the care of a few struggling charity schools. Moved by the ignorance and neglect of poor children, he gradually gathered and trained schoolmasters, took them into his own house, and at last gave up his canonry and his inheritance — distributing his fortune to the poor in a time of famine — to share entirely the life of those he taught. From this beginning grew the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a community of consecrated laymen devoted wholly to teaching.
De la Salle was a true pioneer of Christian education. He gathered children into classes rather than teaching them one by one, taught in the language of the people, insisted on order, kindness, and reverence in the classroom, and trained his Brothers with care for their craft. He founded schools for the poor, training colleges for teachers, and a house for the reform of wayward youths. His Conduct of the Christian Schools guided generations of teachers after him.
His life was not without trial: he met opposition, lawsuits, and the desertion of some companions, all of which he bore with patience and trust in Providence. Worn out by labour, he died near Rouen on Good Friday, the seventh of April, 1719.
Patron of teachers
Saint John Baptist de la Salle was canonised by Pope Leo XIII in 1900, and in 1950 Pope Pius XII declared him the heavenly patron of all who teach the young. In the calendar of the 1962 Missal his feast is kept on the fifteenth of May. The Church holds him before teachers and parents as a model of patient, reverent instruction, undertaken not for gain but for the salvation of souls.
The Collect
O God, who, to spread the Christian education of the poor and to confirm the young in the way of truth, didst raise up the holy Confessor John Baptist, and through him didst gather together a new family within Thy Church: mercifully grant that by his intercession and example we may be fervent with zeal for Thy glory in the salvation of souls, and be made partakers of his crown in heaven.
Deus, qui ad christiánam páuperum eruditiónem et ad juventútem in via veritátis firmándam, sanctum Joánnem Baptístam Confessórem excitásti, et novam per eum in Ecclésia famíliam collegísti: concéde propítius; ut ejus intercessióne et exémplo, stúdio glóriæ tuæ in animarum salúte fervéntes, ejus in cælis corónæ partícipes fíeri valeámus.
Patronage
He is the patron of schoolteachers and of those who work in Christian education, so declared by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
In the Modern Calendar
In the modern calendar his feast is observed on 7 April, the day of his death, as a memorial.
Common Questions
When is the feast of Saint John Baptist de la Salle?
In the calendar of the 1962 Roman Missal his feast is kept on 15 May as a Third Class feast. In the modern calendar it falls on 7 April.
Who was Saint John Baptist de la Salle?
He was a French priest (1651–1719) who founded the Brothers of the Christian Schools and devoted his life and fortune to the education of poor children. He is honoured as the patron saint of teachers.
Why is he important for education?
He pioneered teaching children together in classes, in their own language, with order and kindness, and trained schoolmasters for the work. His methods and his book on the conduct of schools shaped Christian education for centuries.
See where this feast falls in the Church’s year on the liturgical calendar, or find a Traditional Latin Mass near you.
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