I. Charism - La Salle.org

64
IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD
teachers: “Naturally speaking, I considered the men whom I was
obliged to employ in the schools at the beginning as being inferior
to my valet… I experienced a great deal of unpleasantness when I
first had them come to my house.” 44 Monsieur de La Salle saw his
refusals as stemming from his education, his background and his
prejudices. He also pinpointed the key persons and events:
Madame Lévesque des Croyères, Monsieur Nyel, the successive
commitments… and the fundamental motives which called and
guided him: to take over completely the care of the schools.
The birth of this Community which looks after the schools is the
History of Salvation and it is God who directs it. It is one of the
fundamental themes of Lasallian spirituality. The work of the
schools is not linked to a need, even one as essential as the instruction
of the poor: it is “the work of God”, it comes under the History
of Salvation. One finds this fundamental trait of Lasallian spirituality
in the Meditations for the time of Retreat, as well as in the letter
to the “Principal Brothers” of April 1 st 1714 45 . The concrete, precise
need - in this case the education of the children of artisans and of
the poor - could cease, change, evolve in its forms, the social and
cultural context which had seen the birth of the Christian and gratuitous
schools could itself have disappeared; God’s plan for
Salvation would remain.
The decisive choices and their consequences
“It seemed evident to him towards the end of the year 1682 that God
was calling him to take charge of the schools…” 46
From the first days of January 1681, his sister Marie de La Salle
(who had married Jean Maillefer) had a begun a legal case to recov-
44
Blain, op. cit., Book One, p. 80. (CL 7, p. 169).
45
See later on: 1712-1714: The great crisis of the charism, p. 121.
46
Blain. op. cit., Book One, p. 114. (CL 7, p. 193).