I. Charism - La Salle.org

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MAKING THE LASALLIAN CHARISM LIVE TODAY
formation adapted to these young people. Moreover, the example of the
boarding school of Saint-Yon is a clear indication that Monsieur de La
Salle did not confine himself to “financial” gratuity as if it were an intangible
absolute. 218
Gratuity is a call and a constant reminder, as well as a requirement which
has no meaning except in its truly Lasallian aim: to act in such a way that
salvation may be brought within the reach of the children who have been
confided to us. This gratuity should also take concrete, personal and collective
forms, which cannot be defined once and for all and need to be
renewed, redeveloped, reinvented according to places and times, political
and social and even cultural and religious contexts. We must not confuse
gratuity and poverty; we must also remember that gratuity is only possible
when there are sufficient resources for accomplishing the mission 219 , as
it presents itself today and in the place where we are (and not as it was in
the 17 th or 19 th Centuries). Gratuity affects both Lasallians and Lasallian
institutions.
To see oneself as a Lasallian, to be seen as a Lasallian, in the service of the
education of the poor, today, is to take into account, in one way or another,
this dimension of our vocation, because gratuity belongs to the very
substance of the Lasallian charism. Not to be able to give a clear and
definitive response to this question is without doubt one of the most difficult
to accept of all our poverties. The charism is not a magic effect
which will transform reality without our having to worry about how it
will happen. And no matter what the manner in which we live it, this gratuity
ought to be an open wound in the heart of each Lasallian, as for
all the body of associates, and remain thus.
218
We know also how much the evolution of French society and that of its schools have affected the
history of the Institute from the 19 th Century onwards. When the school became “an affair of state”,
as well as becoming a political and ideological issue, gratuity became a hostage in the debate: when
the Brothers came to run public schools, they refused to let the local municipalities make them charge
fees for some of their pupils, and when the State decided that the primary schools would become secularised
and gratuitous, the Brothers were obliged to withdraw from them and open schools which
were free (politically), Christian but fee-paying!
219
To speak in a down to earth manner: “if the school is gratuitous, it means however that there I
‘someone’ in the background who pays”.