Thursday, April 7, Fourth Week in Lent
ST. JEAN-BAPTISTE DE LA SALLE (France, 1651-1719)
Priest, Founder of Christian Brothers, Patron Saint of Teachers
A member of the nobility, De La Salle started preparing for the priesthood when he was ll, but the early death
of his parents delayed his training because he took care of his younger siblings. He was finally ordained when
he was 27, pursuing further theological studies in Paris. A chance involvement with a friend's plan to set up
a school for poor boys led him to realize that this was his particular mission. He left his position as Canon
of Rheims Cathedral, gave away his fortune, and dedicated himself to that mission. In 1681, he founded the
Institute of Brothers of the Christian School to propagate this mission. In addition to schools for boys, he set
up the first normal school (training school especially for teachers) to institute his teaching methods, and also
became the first to divide pupils into grades. Throughout all this, he encountered difficulties with defections
from his disciples, the opposition of secular schoolmasters who resented his more successful teaching methods,
and the hostility of the Jansenists with their moral rigidity and pessimism. Today, the La Salle Brothers have
quality schools in 84 countries around the world. De La Salle was canonized in 1900, and in 1950, Pius XII
named him patron of schoolteachers.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/040711.shtml
OR today.
Illustration, extreme right: The Prophet Elias, 17th-cent. icon, Aleppo, Syria.
At the General Audience, Benedict XVI speaks of St. Therese of Lisieux and her 'little way'
and expresses concern for continuing conflicts in Libya and the Ivory Coast:
'Violence and hate constitute a defeat'
After the General Audience, the Holy Father met Paul Bhatti, brother of slain Pakistani minister Shahbaz Bhatti and the Imam of Lahore (center photo). Page 1 items: An editorial on the continuing emergency of Africans fleeing Africa to come to Europe on boats across the Mediterranean, as a boatload of some 300 Somalis and Eritreans capsizes off Malta and only 40 are saved; in the Ivory Coast, defiant ex-President Ngagbo holds out in a bunker in the Ivory Coast capital as his forces try to keep back forces of elected President Ouattara; the UN says 1.5 million civilian Libyans have been displaced by fighting in that country. The Elias icon on Page 1 is a teaser for an essay on the Byzantine liturgy introducing a new book with the OR's series on the feasts of the liturgical year as observed in the Byzantine rite.
AT THE VATICAN TODAY
The Holy Father met with
- Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, Archbishop of Lima (Peru)
- Six bishops from the Syro-Malabar Church of India (Group 4) on ad limina visit. Individual meetings.
- All the Syro-Malabar bishops on ad limina visit. Address in English.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/04/2011 14:22]