St. John Baptist de La Salle wasn’t always a
saint. He was given that title 180 years after he had died. He was made a saint
because what he did made such a big difference to so many people, especially
people who were involved in teaching and in schools. And in 1950, on May 15th, he was
also made the Patron Saint of All Teachers. He is the one that teachers can pray
to for help when they need some help. That is why May 15th is
celebrated as Founder’s Day in many Lasallian schools.
The
saintly things that John Baptist de La Salle did were not amazing building
projects, impressive miracles, or rousing speeches. He wouldn’t have been on
the front page of the newspaper, or be mentioned in a blog, or be a singing
sensation, or be part of a famous sports star. Those things may have their
value, but most of the people who become famous that way usually aren’t saints,
and most saints usually aren’t people who become famous that way.
Instead,
John Baptist de La Salle became famous because he did something that each one
of us can do. He decided how he wanted to live his life, what kind of person he
wanted to be, and then he followed those decisions. Saints make choices that
they follow with stubborn consistency.
At some point in life we all figure something
like this out. We have to figure out what direction we want to take. It’s a
very basic decision because it’s not so much a decision about a career than it
is a decision about our basic direction in life. Some people make it and follow
it like a laser beam. Others take a longer time and do it gradually. The
deliberate kind of decision is like that of a large whale swimming in the
ocean, majestic and focused, slow and deliberate, concentrating on one
direction and one direction only. The whale decides to go one way and the rest
of the body follows. The alternative is more like a large school of smaller
fish, where the final direction comes about because of a thousand little
decisions, all of whom seem to be independent and without much direction
individually. But because they get multiplied and effect all kinds things
around them, it's soon apparent to others that a general choice has been made. Therefore,
one small but deliberate decision about our life can lead us in a particular
direction. But even if we don't make such a choice, all the little decisions
that we make every day, in effect, do the same thing.
For
St. John Baptist de La Salle, he made such decision when he was about eleven
years old and decided that he wanted to become a priest. He stuck to that decision and eventually did
become a priest, even though it wasn’t easy. But just when he thought that his
life was now set, the whole thing changed. The big and deliberate choices were
no longer as important as the small, daily ones. (Researchers say that an average adult makes up to 35,000
decisions every day.) One set of these small decisions led him to do something
that he had never even thought about doing, starting schools, training
teachers, and beginning the Brothers Order. He said that God “made it happen in
a small, hidden way and over a long period of time so that one decision that I
made led to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning, until I
ended up doing something that I really never thought I would do.”
That’s
a great lesson from De La Salle’s life for this year’s Founder’s Day. What we
do with the thousands of decisions that we make every day is actually more
influential than the one decision we made when we were much younger. They’re
both important, but the ultimate effect of those small daily choices is what
brings about our real future, shapes our true character, and defines our lived life.
Therefore, things like the virtues and character and a compassionate heart end
up being the actual guide for all those small choices. Paying attention to the
inside parts of who we are will lead us to much more interesting places and
people than paying attention to the outside parts of who we are. That was the
experience of St. John Baptist de La Salle, and it can be our experience too.
Happy swimming.
