I. Charism - La Salle.org

IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD 75
A habit which distinguishes them. John Baptist de la Salle wanted
to distinguish the teachers from other people who were strictly lay.
But he did not want to make them into ecclesiastics, or have them
look like ecclesiastics. The question was argued about, “they could
not agree on the form which their habit should take…they found
themselves quite irresolute on this point…” The era of John Baptist
de La Salle was very sensitive (much more so than ours) on the
importance of dress in characterising persons. In that era, which
wanted everything laid down, the habit worn was expected to conform
to the social condition of each person 54 .
The question of the habit was put in the hands of John Baptist de
La Salle, and responses were given little by little as circumstances
demanded 55 . “In the winter of the same year”, (doubtless in 1685) 56 ,
the Mayor of Reims gave John Baptist de La Salle the idea of providing
the teachers with a greatcoat, “to keep them warmer and
shelter them a little from the inclemencies of the air”. Monsieur de
La Salle “had them made from a very rough wool, coloured black
and reaching down to within eight inches from the ground”. Then
he had the idea of redesigning the habit they wore by giving them
“a soutane of the same black material… closed in front by iron
hooks”. Finally he equipped them with a hat which outdid “the one
in common use by the extent of its rim and had shoes made for
them with two heavy thick soles such as those worn by cart-drivers
or those engaged in heavy work”. His aim, according to Blain, was
to make them different from people in the outside world.
The Memoir on the Habit describes the habit of the Brothers (MH
0,0,11 to 18), while emphasising the desire to be distinguished
54
Id. Part Two, chap.3: Clothing, p. 48-56, especially p. 48: § 4 -5. (Œuvres Complètes - Rome, 1993:
RB 203, 1, 163).
55
See Blain, op. cit., Book Two, p. 182-184; 186. (CL 7, p. 238-239, 241).
56
Bro. Maurice-Auguste, CL 11. L’Institut des Frères des Écoles Chrétiennes à la recherceé de son statut
canonique: des orgines(1679) à la bulle de Benoît XIII (1725); p. 46-47, 103.