I. Charism - La Salle.org

IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD 121
to help him when he was perplexed, and to help give life to the
Mission. They too were personally involved in seeing that the
school succeeded.
7. 1712 - 1714: the great crisis of the charism.
In the previous crises it was the manner of living the charism by the
Community which came into conflict with the outside world: the
ecclesiastical or civil powers. Now, the conflict was to become situated
at the very heart of the relations between John Baptist de La
Salle and his Brothers, not in the field of the mission but in that of
association and its significance.
The “Clément affair” and what followed.
Blain sets out this affair starting out, he says, from the memoir
which De La Salle wrote to justify himself:
We have before us the memorandum of justification which, before he
took to flight, De La Salle wrote about this entire episode in order to
justify his conduct. We need only to summarize it; we cannot have a
more faithful witness to the truth. 88
A young priest 89 of 22-23 years of age, wished to devote a part of
his resources to educational good works. His concern and his serious
nature seem to have touched John Baptist de La Salle who, after
a year of meetings and conversations with him 90 , took on to work
on the setting up of a new Seminary for Rural Teachers in Saint-
Denis, where there was already a community of two Brothers.
Saint-Denis is near Paris but outside the city. Because the Institute
did not legally exist, John Baptist de La Salle invested funds by
88
Blain, op. cit., Book Three, p. 588. (CL 8, p.72).
89
The Abbé Clément was not a priest. He was a cleric who had received the tonsure in order to get
the revenues of an ecclesiastical benefice, in this case that of an abbey or priory, Saint-Calais.
90
Blain, op. cit., Book Three, p. 587-594. (CL 8, p.72-76).