May 15

Spiritual Bouquet: Other sheep I have that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring. St. John 10:16

SAINT JOHN BAPTIST DE LASALLE
Founder
(1651-1719)

Complete dedication to what he saw as God’s will for him, dominates the life of John Baptist de LaSalle. Founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or Christian Brothers, he was canonized in 1900. In 1950 Pope Pius XII named him patron of schoolteachers.

Saint John Baptist was born of the nobility of Rheims in 1651, and after a very pious youth was ordained a priest at the age of 27, becoming at once a Canon of the Cathedral there. It was said that to see him at the altar was sufficient to give an unbeliever faith in the Real Presence of Our Lord. The people would wait for him to come from the church to consult him. His life was marked by a rule he set for himself, to maintain perfect regularity in all his duties.

He became interested in the creation of gratuitous schools for poor and abandoned children. He himself was invited to help in their education; and after directing the teachers for four years, decided to join them. In this he was opposed by most of the city, for whom such a life was very humiliating for a Canon of the Cathedral. His spiritual director, a virtuous Franciscan Minim priest, encouraged him, saying that for teachers, whose vocation is to aid the poor to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the only suitable inheritance is the poverty of the Saviour.

Saint John Baptist divested himself of the patrimonial wealth he still controlled, then took religious vows with his co-workers. His tender and paternal charity soon sanctified the house and the labors; peace reigned, and the members of the new society loved one another sincerely. The Institute developed and spread amid a thousand difficulties and persecutions; these, by humiliating its members, brought down graces on them and made the Providence of the Lord more evident.

The blessed Founder died in 1719; a religious superior said of him that “his humility was universal; he never acted without taking counsel, and the opinion of others always seemed better to him than his own. He listened to others in conversation, and was never heard to say any word tending to his own advantage...” Indeed it is God who elevates those who take the last place for themselves, to place them among the first.

Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 15; Saint of the Day, edited by Leonard Foley, O.F.M. (Saint Anthony Messenger Press: Cincinnati, 1974), Vol. I.

SAINT PETER,
SAINTS ANDREW, PAUL and DIONYSIA
Martyrs
(†250)

In the Decian persecution of the year 250 the blood of the Christians flowed at Lampsacus, a city of Asia Minor. A young Christian named Peter was the first to be led before the proconsul; he was told to sacrifice to the goddess Venus. His energetic condemnation of impurity and his defense of his God, the king of all ages, caused him to be condemned to die for the name of Christ, and he went joyfully to his torments. He was bound to a wheel by iron chains and his bones were broken, but he raised his eyes to heaven with a smiling countenance and said, “I give Thee thanks, O Lord Jesus Christ, because Thou hast given me patience, and made me victorious over the cruel tyrant.” The proconsul saw how little the tortures availed, and ordered the martyr to be beheaded.

About the same time, the same proconsul who condemned Peter was on his way to Troas, when three Christians were brought to him; the first two, Andrew and Paul, were scourged and imprisoned, after being condemned to be stoned to death in a short time. The third of these apostatized. But a Christian virgin named Dionysia showed a great willingness to suffer, and by it gained the crown which the unfortunate apostate lost. His history shows us that those who abandon Christ to avoid suffering with Him, lose all. With the other spectators Dionysia saw him undergo torture, and heard him cry out, with the strength that was left to him, “I never was a Christian! I will sacrifice to the gods!” Thereupon he was untied, and he offered sacrifice. But he immediately became possessed by the devil, and fell to the earth in a fit, bit out his tongue, and expired. “Wretched man!” Dionysia cried; “Why, in exchange for one hour of life, have you chosen eternal and indescribable pains?” She was seized and led away to be exposed to outrage, but her Guardian Angel appeared by her side and protected the spouse of Christ.

While Andrew and Paul were under execution, Dionysia heard the commotion made by the crowd of spectators and began to weep; and having escaped from those who guarded her, ran to the place where they were. Upon seeing them, she cried out, “That I may live with you eternally in heaven, I will die with you on earth.” And Christ, who is the crown of virgins and the strength of martyrs, gave her the desire of her heart; the proconsul commanded that she be decapitated.

Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).