I. Charism - La Salle.org

IV. DISCOVERING, LIVING, SHARING THE GIFT OF GOD 93
found respect before your infinite and adorable Majesty…”. It is say
I and no longuer WE as in the vow of 1691. It is each one who commits
himself and consecrates himself; precisely to live association,
and no longer simply to make association be lived; to live in Society
and no longer just to make the Society of the Christian Schools
exist, even if, of course, to live Association is also to cause Association
to be lived. The latter is only living because persons join it and live
it. Thus the first part of the formula of commitment takes the
Trinity as the ultimate reference of Lasallian Association, because it
is the Trinity which is the model of this communion for the mission
which the consecrated persons take as the basis of Association.
It truly consists of an act of faith and not simply of the generosity
of the members and their capacity for commitment.
There is no intermediary between the Trinity and the Brother: neither
priest, nor celebrant, nor bishop nor even a Superior; the relation
is a direct one between God and the Brother. The consecrating
rite is the free and public word of the Brother at the moment he
pronounces it. It is a personal encounter, signified by a single
prophetic act, a word which states the relation, the encounter, the
mission, in a dialogue between God and the one he has called and
chosen: “I consecrate myself… I promise… I promise and vow…”
One could say that the vows are the externalised manifestation of
the deepest experience of God. The subject of the consecration is
the totality of the person, a consecration which identifies the glory
of God with Association for “keeping gratuitous schools”. Thus is
expressed the unity of life of the Brother.
The aim of the consecration is “to procure your glory as far as I am
able and as you will require of me”. The stress is put on the glory of
God which has to be procured: hence the parallel between “glory of
God” and “gratuitous schools”. The glory of God is in the History
of Salvation. The glory of God is manifested when the poor are listened
to and understood. This method of wording is deeply