I. Charism - La Salle.org

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VI. EIGHT TESTIMONIES FROM LASALLIANS
myself on a dark street late at night in suburban Bogotá and watching
a young security guard with a menacing rifle approach me. Do
I cross the street and draw more attention to myself Or do I just
keep walking I just kept walking, but I remember saying something
that I would say several more times when I found myself in
risky situations there: “Well, Jesus, you got me into this, I’m counting
on you now.”
The very first time that I said it I found myself quite surprised -
because I had never before had experience of a relationship so intimate
and so dependent. During the year I spent in Colombia that
relationship grew more intimate, and my turning to God became
more and more a habit: Jesus became for me someone I could talk
things out with, as I sorted through my new experiences and navigated
through difficult situations.
Those encounters with the poor and with the God who loves them,
and me, spurred me to take up graduate study in theology on my
return home. I needed to understand and to integrate what I had
learned in South America, especially the joy and suffering of the
poor; and I needed to learn how I might contribute to some relief
for them without undermining the simplicity that brought such joy.
What I see now is that I was searching for - in a word - my vocation
as a Catholic Christian. This was a time when “vocation” was
still narrowly defined to refer to consecrated men and women. But
I was fortunate to have the guidance of a spiritual director who told
me something that I still hold to be deeply true. He said, “A vocation
must ultimately be a freeing experience. If it is not freeing, it
is not for you.” Perhaps Latin American theologians might call a
vocation of this sort a “liberation.” And I don’t think it is farfetched
to suggest that for John Baptist de La Salle (whom as yet I did not
know) this would also be a fair definition of the “salvation” he had
in mind for his students.