I. Charism - La Salle.org

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IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD
inspires for enemies whom he loved in God and for God’s sake. The
saintly Founder had already begun to find his Mount Tabor in this
desert, and like Peter, he exclaimed, Lord, it is good to be here! He
enjoyed such a peace and calm that he would have wished to end his
days in that spot, unknown to men, but he had not yet reached the
end of his labors. God had others in store for him which would last
until the end of his life. 113
On three or four other occasions, he would experience this temptation
to retire, far from the world, far from the problems of life, far
from the worries of leading an Institute, Brothers, far from confronting
opponents, as in Mende - after this episode at Sainte-
Baume - where pious ladies ran an institution for the daughters of
Protestants and invited him to stay with them as their chaplain.
Blain says that Brother Timothy “found the Holy Founder in a
lodging prepared for him by Mademoiselle de Saint-Denis, where
he lived as if in a real desert”. 114 When he was in Grenoble, he paid
a three-day visit to the Grande Chartreuse 115 :
Edified by the silence and the recollection which reigned among these
solitaries, he felt his attraction for a retired life grow stronger than ever,
and he would have wished to end his days among them.
Among all the devotional places in the holy monastery which M. de
La Salle visited, his heart was most charmed by the hermitage of Saint
Bruno. His own associations with that saint moved him, and if he had
followed his inclination, he would have been the second canon of
Reims who hid in the cleft of those rocks. He had to do violence to
his piety in order to leave the place, but if he went away in body, his
spirit remained behind.
Finally, after having undergone radical and violent treatment for
the rheumatism which had been afflicting him, he went for a rest
113
Blain, op. cit., Book Three, p. 625-626. (CL 8, p. 97).
114
Blain, op. cit., Book Three, p. 628. (CL 8, p. 99).
115
Blain, op. cit., Book Three, p. 630. (CL 8, p.100).