During the Year of Lasallian Spirituality, Christian Brothers Conference is publishing reflections to provide spiritual inspiration and stir continued dialogue around Lasallian spirituality.
By Brother John M. Crawford, FSC
A friend who belongs to another religious community of Brothers has often told me how envious he is of us Lasallians. Whereas the Founder of his community left behind very few writings for his community’s benefit, the legacy of written material left to the Brothers of the Christian Schools and our Partners in ministry by Saint John Baptist de La Salle is comparatively extensive and continually enriching.
As Lasallians take time to celebrate the Year of Lasallian Spirituality, my recommendation is for each of us to revisit one or many of our favorite texts from De La Salle and to allow the essence of that message to inspire and guide us once again. Why not take full advantage of the rich written legacy that we have inherited from our Founder?
The late American theologian David Tracy offered in his scholarship some particularly helpful insights about the value of historical texts For Tracy, inspirational writings attain the status of “classic” texts because these documents maintain the power to speak to generations of people well beyond their initial, intended audiences. The insights from classical texts provide for new readers to benefit from them because these writings appeal to the “analogical imagination,”1 The text invites the readers to connect the message of the original text to the circumstances of their own times, while maintaining the power of that original message.
Clearly, this dynamic helps to explain why Scriptural material retains its ability to speak through time. The texts left to us by De La Salle are classics, too. They retain the capacity to speak to us in the 21st century, even though our frame of reference is significantly different than that of the original audience of early Brothers who received these writings from De La Salle over 300 years ago.
In my 50-plus years as a Brother, I have always been inspired by and return to the words found in Chapter 2 of the Rule of 1718, The Spirit of this Institute, as the foundational text of what Lasallian spirituality means to me. Rereading and meditating upon this chapter has always been a grace-filled wellspring of ideas about what is essential to living the Christian life in a Lasallian context. The fact that this text still may be found at the beginning of the Rule of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in its latest statement in 2015 indicates how valued these words are for us in the Lasallian world. I invite you to consider a few lines of text in which La Salle opens our understanding of the meaning of the first element of the Spirit of this group.
“The spirit of this Institute is first, a spirit of faith, which should induce those who compose it not to look upon anything but with the eyes of faith, not to do anything but in view of God, and to everything to God.” (Rule of 1718, Chapter 2).
To be Lasallian, a person must strive to embody in our own limited ways the blessed gaze of God’s eyes. The metaphor seeing with “eyes of faith” has many Biblical connections. We know that La Salle seemed to have a great love for and knowledge of the Pauline texts of the New Testament, which ground his use of this metaphor in his own writings. Consider, for example, this line in the Letter to the Ephesians which invites Christians to see in God’s way: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his (Jesus Christ’s) call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among his holy ones (1:18).” Eyes of faith are eyes of our hearts that have been graced by God’s goodness with the ability to seeing God’s greater reality in our everyday experiences, just as God sees them. To have eyes open to see as God sees also means that we must learn to see what is front of us as God sees it. These eyes need also to acknowledge that whatever may be in front of them is God’s already.
Thus, if we can move away from the uniquely French statements De La Salle wrote in the negative “not to” and “but,” and substitute instead more positive statements of what the Spirit of Faith may be, then, De La Salle encourages us to see everything as God sees it, to act as God would act toward this reality, and to give God the credit for what we have seen. That, in essence, is what the Spirit of Faith invites us Lasallians to try.
As I prepared this reflection, what struck me were the words of the English translation of the text using the modal verb form “which should induce.” Is that the verb De La Salle used? While I am not proficient enough in French to object to the hard work of the translators who gave us “should induce” in this context, and I am perfectly willing to admit that the verb “induce” is roughly synonymous to what De La Salle wrote, in fact, the original French text for this passage says “qui doit engager” in the eyes of faith.
Rather than the impersonal “which should induce” us to see everything with eyes of faith, a livelier and more meaningful take on the line might be to say something like: “The spirit of this Institute is first a spirit of faith for those who must engage in forming it (this Institute) not to see anything but with the eyes of faith.” To me, the verb “to induce” is an act of being persuaded to do something, a response to something external to us. To “engage” is to determine that one wants or feels obligated to do something, having been led to see it as our best response.
Faith always comes to us as a gift from God. Yet, God, in that loving abundance that always marks God, invites us to engage the world the way God already sees the world. Our willingness to form ourselves at God’s initiation and grace is consistent with the call to discipleship that always is an invitation to “come and see.” As Lasallians, we must marvel at God’s goodness to engage us to come and see as God sees and to meet the needs of the educational world in our times as God trusts us to see those persons in our ministries as God sees them.
If the Year of Lasallian Spirituality encourages us to take a moment or two to truly see what it is we are called to be and to do, in our hearts and our service, then it will be an invitation to us that is timely and effective. As you continue in this experience, I invite you to revisit your favorite Lasallian texts. Use them as the source of reflection. Thank God for the rich legacy that the words of John Baptist de La Salle provide for us as a treasure upon which we invest our efforts. Allow the words of your favorites texts to speak to you anew. Engage your eyes to ponder what you see before you in your ministry. See this great work as God sees it. It’s all God’s gift.
Brother John M. Crawford, FSC, has been a member of the Brothers of the Christian Schools since 1974. He has ministered for over 20 years as a high school teacher and administrator, and for nearly 18 years at La Salle University, teaching undergraduate, graduate and doctoral courses. Brother John’s doctoral studies at Boston College led to a dissertation about using Lasallian texts to enrich the spirituality of teachers.
Endnotes
- The insights from Tracy may be found in several of his writings, but I would recommend starting with his book: David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism. New York, NY: Crossroad Publishing (Herder and Herder), 1998.