As we prepare for the upcoming Year of Lasallian Spirituality in 2025, Christian Brothers Conference will publish occasional reflections to provide spiritual inspiration and inspire continued dialogue around Lasallian spirituality.
By Brother Michael Phipps, FSC
On July 27, 2024, I co-facilitated, with four younger Brothers, a quartet of panel discussions with the Brothers of the Midwest District at our District Days. Tackling the thematic area of Lasallian spirituality with this experienced group proved a wonderfully formative experience, challenging me to think more deeply about the paradigm through which I experience the spirituality of the Founder. Throughout the sessions and the weekend, I found myself asking and echoing the question: Why Lasallian spirituality?
As I explore the writings of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, I find the answer to this in the lived experience of ministry and fraternity; the question “why” fosters deeper introspection and conversation, drawing me into the sacred space of community. My belief is that the “why” invites relationship, seeking common ground and mutuality.
A Spirituality for Educators
John Baptist de La Salle lived in a time and space not so different from our current context. Seventeenth-century French society was bracketed by the extremes of rich and poor, educated and illiterate, the churched and those without connection to the Church, running parallel with widespread war, disease and famine. Into this world, the Founder, called by the Trinity and inspired by the gift of divine providence, followed the imperceptible pull of the Spirit to open schools and form communities of teachers dedicated to providing education in service of the poor.
With a nod to the practical, De La Salle wove together spiritual formation and educational pedagogy in a communal setting, providing the young teachers with an all-in-one setting by which to integrate the foundational elements we now refer to as faith, service and community. This integration centered around the Brothers and teachers forging relationship with God and building fraternal bonds within their society, allowing themselves the grace of transformation they so ardently sought for their students.
De La Salle penned his writings for the early Brothers and teachers, confident that, animated with the spirit of faith and zeal, these guides would provide stability for the fledgling Institute. Teaching did not garner a sense of prestige or even admiration in 17th-century France. The Founder’s spiritual teachings elevated the role of teacher to vocation, a purposeful calling by God with implications of tremendous salvific impact. Steeped in Christian values and focused on interiority, texts like The Explanation of the Method of Interior Prayer and Meditations for the Time of Retreat sought to engrain in the Brothers essential practices that would enable them to fulfill their roles with dignity.
Why Now?
Much as in the time of De La Salle, the world today finds humanity polarized and in need of hope, salvation and liberation. The (young) people we serve cry out for an answer to war, poverty, disconnectedness, anxiety and a laundry list of other ailments so pervasive across the globe. Clearly, our modern world needs Lasallian spirituality, too. The challenges of our modern context invite a renewed commitment to the creative fidelity embraced by the Founder and early Brothers. Lasallian spirituality, by its incarnational nature, calls us to action and to presence, to those entrusted to our care and to each other.
There exists in the Lasallian Region of North America — and around the Lasallian world — a wealth of knowledge, experience and wisdom around Lasallian spirituality. Through their years of research and Spirit-led conversation, scholars like Miguel Campos, FSC, John Crawford, FSC, Paul Grass, FSC, William Mann, FSC, Gerard Rummery, FSC, and Luke Salm, FSC, have laid the groundwork for ongoing research and academic engagement around Lasallian spirituality. The energy of these Brothers stands as ongoing encouragement to each of us to ask questions, explore and dive deeper into the spiritual world of De La Salle, connecting his life and work with our personal and communal reality.
Of equal significance, thousands of Brothers (and in recent decades, Lasallian Partners) integrate the spirituality of the Founder in their everyday lives, seeking to embody the Gospel through the charism gifted to De La Salle. In my life as a Brother, the spirituality of the Founder increasingly grows my understanding of and deepens my commitment to community and ministry, offering a grace-filled pathway to cultivating an interior disposition that nourishes my vocation to consecrated life and service of the poor through education.
As we approach the Year of Lasallian Spirituality, I offer an encouraging challenge to continue sharing our journeys, reflecting on the spiritual gifts shared by the Founder and exploring our personal and communal “why.” De La Salle disrupted the educational norms of his time not through grandiose gestures, but by persistently offering himself to the movement of the Spirit. Like the Founder, may we continue to find inspiration in the subtle and imperceptible, allowing ourselves to be gently led by the Spirit into the heart of Lasallian spirituality and the Lasallian educational mission.
Live Jesus in our hearts forever!
Brother Michael Phipps, FSC, is the spirituality project manager for Christian Brothers Conference, the office for the Lasallian Region of North America (RELAN). Read his previous reflection here.
Photo Credit: Dave Genders