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The Lasallian Charism In Religious Life Today
Brother Luke Salm, FSC
The topic assigned to this presentation is a formidable one: The Lasallian Charism in Religious Life Today. It was a formidable challenge for me to prepare this material. It will be a formidable challenge for you to listen to it, or even read it later on.
Religious life today, as we all know, if full of uncertainty. About the only thing that seems certain is that the religious life in structured religious institutes is not what it used to be. It is probably just as true, if not quite so obvious, that this form of the religious life has not yet become what it is going to be.
The watershed dividing the past from the present and the future was undoubtedly the Second Vatican Council. If the Council is to blame for sweeping away many of the structures and the certitudes of the past, the Council must also be credited with providing the direction to follow for the future. This the Council has done in proposing that religious life be renewed in the light of the Gospel, the signs of the times, and the charism of the Founder.
The last three general chapters of our Institute have addressed this threefold challenge with courage and vision. The signs of the times have been prayerfully examined to try to discern what the Lord is telling us in our failures and our success. The Gospel is becoming once again our principal Rule as we strive for the conversion of ourselves and our works to make more effective our mission of evangelization. Finally the person and the vision of John Baptist de La Salle, his charism if you will, has come alive among us as a bond of unity in our diversity and a source of hope in the uncertainty that lies before us.
The rediscovery and the reappropriation of the Lasallian charism is an ongoing process that was set in motion even before Vatican Ii by the General Chapter of 1956. The decision of that Chapter to set up a Lasallian research center at the generalate in Rome has resulted in an unprecedented body of scholarly work on the life, the writings, the achievements, and the vision of De La Salle.
By the time that Vatican II challenged the renewal Chapter of 1967 to renew our religious life in the light of the charism of the Founder, the first fruits of that research were already available. The inspiration and vitality that is evident in the documents produced by that Chapter -- the Declaration, and the revised Rules and constitutions in particular -- are due in great measure to the enthusiasm and the expertise of the Brothers engaged in this fresh approach to Lasallian studies.
In the twenty years that have intervened since the 39th General Chapter, this process of rediscovering the riches in our Lasallian heritage has intensified. Thus the 40th General Chapter in 1976 made a serious effort to discern in the person of the Founder the sources for the revitalization of the Institute. Our new Rule, definitively revised by the 41st General Chapter in 1986 and now formally approved by church authority, consciously returns to the thought and language of De L Salle: it is unmistakably a Lasallian Rule.
This movement back to the Founder seems to have captured the imagination of many Brothers throughout the Institute, worldwide. New biographies of the Founder, as well as monographs and studies on Lasallian themes, are being published in the various languages in use throughout the Institute. In the United States there is the ten-year Lasallian Publications Project that will eventually make available in English, much of it for the first time, all of the founder's writings, all of the early biographies, as well as translations of contemporary Lasallian studies done in other languages. The success of the sessions of the Buttimer Institute these past two years attests to the fact that in this country the Lasallian charism is alive and well.
The word Lasallian itself now enjoys a vogue it never had even a few years ago. We have finally agreed on how to spell it. As the Brothers have come to appreciate better the riches of the Lasallian inheritance, we have been motivated to share the wealth with our lay colleagues in the schools and, indeed, with all those with whom we ar associated in what is becoming known as the Lasallian family. It is amazing to see how enthusiastic our lay associates have been as they are invited to share this Lasallian heritage with us. The power of the life story of De La Salle to "turn them on" has been a revelation and a challenge to those of us who have for too long taken the Founder for granted.
One very concrete result of this new appreciation of the Lasallian charism has been the attempt in recent years to identify what is distinctive about our Lasallian schools. This collaboration involving some 150 Brothers and lay teachers from our schools has resulted in the impressive document entitled "Characteristics of Lasallian Schools."
It seems to me that the purpose of this presentation, and the whole session this morning, is to begin to do something similar for the characteristics of Lasallian religious life. This necessarily involves two stages: first of all, we have to be precise about what we mean by the Lasallian charism; then, we can try to see how it applies to religious life today.
De La Salle does not himself use the word charism, at least not very often, and not precisely in the sense intended by the Vatican Council. Perhaps the closest he comes to it is his use of the word spirit. Thus he says in the rule:
That which is of the utmost importance, and to which the greatest attention should be given in an Institute, is that all who compose it possess the spirit peculiar to it; that the novices apply themselves to acquire it; and that those who are already members make it their first care to preserve and increase it in themselves; for it is this spirit that should animate all their actions, be the motive of their whole conduct; and those who do not possess it and those who have lost it should be looked upon as dead members ...
In this well-known passage, De La Salle is speaking of the spirit of the Institute and its members, but I don't think it is stretching the point to say that it is his own spirit or charism that is being communicated to the Brothers. With this spirit, the Institute is charismatic, dynamic, alive; without it, it is dead.
If we can assume that what the Founder meant by spirit is what the Vatican Council meant by charism, then the charism of De La Salle is easy enough to identify: it is, of course, the spirit of faith that gives rise to a spirit of zeal. The Founder writes in the second chapter of the Rule: "The spirit of this Institute is, first, a spirit of faith." And again, "Secondly, the spirit of their Institute consists in an ardent zeal for the instruction of children ... bringing them up in piety and in a truly Christian spirit, that is, according to the rules and maxims of the Gospel."
In chapter three of the 1718 Rule, the word spirit occurs again when the founder writes: "A true spirit of Community shall always be evident and preserved in this Institute." It might seem at first glance that we have here three distinct uses of the word spirit, three separate elements in the charism of De La Salle: faith, zeal, and community. Closer examination, however, reveals that these three are simply different manifestations of the one spirit of faith. In the thought of the founder, faith overflows into zeal for the spread of the Gospel and is lived in a faith community. That is why both the Declaration of 1967 and the new Rule of 1986 insist on the integration of these essential constituents of the Lasallian vocation: consecration as an expression of faith, apostolate as an expression of zeal, and community life.
All of this suggests that the clue to understanding the Lasallian charism is to be found in the spirit of faith in all of its implications as De La Salle himself understood and lived it. For him, the spirit of faith was the motivating force of his life. Faith has many meanings: it can refer to belief in God or the acceptance of formulations of belief in a particular religious tradition. More fundamentally, faith refers to an profound and radical trust in God. It is this sense that De La Salle invokes most consistently when he speaks of the spirit of faith.
De La Salle's faith awareness came less from his theological study, although that was a factor in it, than from the experience of God in his own life. Little by little he became aware that God was working in him and through him as persons and events led him from one commitment to another. More and more he was led to trust in the divine action: first to discern it, then to surrender to it in absolute trust.
In this view, every event in his life was imbued with a faith dimension. Years later he would write in his memoir on the origins of the Institute these oft-quoted words: "God, who guides all things with wisdom and serenity and whose way it is not to force the inclination of persons willed to commit me entirely to the development of the schools. He did this in a imperceptible way and over a long period of time so that one commitment led to another in a way that I did not foresee in the beginning."
It is against the background of such experience of the action of God in his own life that De La Salle could insist in his rule that the spirit of faith should induce the Brothers "not to look upon anything but with the eyes of faith, not to do anything but in view of God, and to attribute all to God."
De La Salle knew full well that, far from excluding all contradiction, doubt and uncertainty, faith presupposes contradiction, doubt and uncertainty. Faith is not something that is subject to empirical proof or verification. For this reason, it was the spirit of faith that led De La Salle to abandon himself and his Institute completely into the hands of divine Providence.
Consider this example, taken by the biographers most likely from De La Salle's own memoir on the origins. In the face of a decision as to whether or not to use his personal fortune to endow the schools, he addressed his Lord in these words:
My God, I do not know whether I should endow the schools or not. It is not up to me to establish commun ities; I do not even know how they should be established. You alone know this, and it is for you to do it in any way you please. I do not know what you want. So I will not contribute in any way to endowing the schools. If you endow the schools, they will be well endowed; if you do not they will be without endowment. I beseech you to make your holy will known to me.
This radical attitude of faith in divine Providence remained with De La Salle through his whole life. Here are two of his retreat resolutions that have been preserved by his biographer, Canon Blain:
8) I shall always look upon the work of my salvation and the foundation and government of our community as the work of God. Therefore I will abandon the care of both to him in order to act only by his orders. I will consult him frequently regarding all I must do for the one or the other. Often I will say to him the words of the prophet Habacuc: Domine, opus tuum. Lord, the work is yours.
9) I should often consider myself as an instrument which is of not value except in the hand of the divine worker. For this reason I should wait for indications of Providence before acting; nevertheless, I must be careful to follow these signs once I perceive them.
These are some of the ways in which De La Salle understood and experienced the spirit of faith. But faith is a theological, that is, a God directed virtue. De La Salle knows this. He knew that for faith to have any reality the God to whom it is directed must be a real, personal, concerned, appealing, leading, and loving God. God was for De La Salle all of these things. To appreciate better the faith element in De La Salle's charism, we have now to take a closer look at the god element.
God, in the mind and experience of De La Salle was no abstraction. God for him was the triune God of Christian revelation. It was to the "Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" that he consecrated himself by name to procure God's glory as far as he was able and as God would require of him. This God he addressed dramatically in terms of infinite majesty, worthy of adoration, before whom prostration was the only appropriate stance.
De La Salle revered God as Father, working out the divine plan of salvation in the concrete events of history, including his own and the history of the foundation of the Institute. He adored and sought to know the will of God the Father, revealed most clearly in God's Son, the Word incarnate, who took the form of a slave, becoming obedient unto death. De La Salle saw his own vocation as a Founder, and the vocation of each of his Brothers, as a participation in the mission of the Son of God, Jesus Christ himself, a mission to bring the good news of salvation to all, especially the most disadvantaged. In this sense he tells the Brothers that they are "ambassadors of God and ministers of Jesus Christ."
Brother Michael Sauvage has expressed as well as anyone how far ahead of his time was De La Salle in his sensitivity to the action of the Holy Spirit. On this point he is worth quoting at length:
Throughout the whole course of his path to conversion, John Baptist was able to feel the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It was that power which engaged him in a new relation to God in the following of Jesus Christ; it was that power that brought him to vow himself to announce the gospel to indigent youth and bound him to an evangelical brotherhood of a new type.
Thus the unifying principle of all the spiritual teaching of De La Salle is to be found in his teaching on the Holy Spirit. For De La Salle, it is the Spirit who leads him to an ever more profound knowledge of the mystery of the living God who saves. It is the Spirit that gives him his special charism, causing him to open himself to that personal love that speaks to him in his inmost depths. It is the Spirit that gives stability by entering the heart and providing the stimulus for the exodus of going out of oneself.
For De La Salle, it is the Spirit who leads the Brothers as it had led him to see the most urgent heads of young people. It is the Spirit who sends the Brothers to these youngsters with the enthusiasm, the hope, and the power to enter into combat against the injustice of the world so that it might be possible for these lads who had been so far from salvation to have access to the promise and the covenant with God in Jesus Christ and in the Church.
I have dwelt at some length on De La Salle's approach to the awesome and divine mystery of the triune Godhead. Otherwise we might miss the reality of God in whom John Baptist placed his radical faith and to whom he consecrated the totality of his being. It is important also that we invest the name God with some concrete meaning as we come to speak of the presence of God and union with God in mental prayer.
Once we identify the Lasallian charism with the spirit of faith, some attention must be given to these two means that the Founder suggests to his Brothers to live the spirit of faith. The practice of the presence of God and meditative prayer are thus an integral part of the Lasallian charism.
De La Salle himself lived in the presence of God. He was conscious of the presence of God in each new physical space where he happened to find himself. Not surprisingly he was attentive to the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and afterwards reserved in the tabernacle. He saw God present in events and in persons, especially in the persons of the poor and in his Brothers. Above all, he was conscious of the presence of God in the very depths of his own being as, for example, when he made this resolution for himself: "I will unite my actions to those of Our Lord at least twenty times a day and try to have views and intentions conformable to his." Or again, "When my Brothers come to me for advice, I will ask Our Lord to give it to them."
This became an important element in the Lasallian heritage. His treatise on the method of mental prayer suggests to the Brothers six different ways to concentrate on the presence of God. In the rule he prescribed that the presence of God be renewed at stated times during the day: on entering a room, at the noon examen, at the hourly and half-hourly prayers in the classroom, before retiring at night. The Brothers are urged to see God in the persons of the pupils they teach, in their encounters with one another, and especially in the person and the commands of the superiors.
Living continually in the presence of God, De La Salle found the source of his inner strength and apostolic zeal in the practice of formal meditative prayer. He could engage in it for hours at a time, late into the night or in the wee hours before the rising bell. In another of his retreat resolutions, he determined to arrange his schedule while travelling in such a way as to be able to make three hours of prayer each day, at least while he was on the road.
For the Brothers, De La Salle uses the strongest possible language to insist on the importance of formal and prolonged meditative prayer. He writes in the Rule: "The Brothers of this Institute should have a great love for the holy exercise of mental prayer, and they should look upon it as the first and principal of their daily exercises, and one which is the most capable of drawing down the blessing of God on all the others." He gave this abstract principle concrete form by prescribing a full half hour of such prayer in community, morning and evening.
De La Salle did not come to prayer empty handed, as it were. He had behind him a traditional but solid theological formation that enabled him to penetrate to the divine reality in his contemplation of the Christian mysteries. He had a particularly strong background in Sacred Scripture and the Church Fathers, as we know from the record of the courses he took at the Sorbonne in Paris and the School of Theology at the University of Reims.
De La Salle had an extensive library of spiritual books which he kept with him all his life. It was only just before his death that he ceded his collection to Brother Barthelemy for the Institute. Source studies of his spiritual writings show how thoroughly the founder read and understood the spiritual classics -- St. Ignatius, St. Tersa, Francis de Sales, Olier and Tronson -- as well as a great many of the important spiritual writers of his time.
It is not surprising then that De La Salle urged his Brothers to nourish their prayer and their union with God from the same sources: the New Testament, first of all, the lives of the saints, as well as catechetical and spiritual writings adapted to their abilities and the stage of their spiritual progress. A half-hour period was prescribed each day for both spiritual reading and doctrinal study, called the study of catechism to stress its practical orientation.
So much for the spirit of faith as the core of the Lasallian charism: a spirit penetrated with radical faith in the providence of God; consecrated to the one, true, real and triune God; sensitive to the presence of that God; faithful to the practice of mental prayer; nurtured by doctrinal study and spiritual reading.
But there is more. If the spirit of faith were to remain fixed on these mostly other-worldly elements , the Lasallian charism would be suitable only for religious life in the cloister. For that reason, it is significant that De La Salle uses the language of spirit of charism, not only in reference to faith but also to zeal and community. For him, as we have said, the spirit of zeal and the spirit of community are rooted in the charism or spirit of faith.
The inter-relation of faith, zeal, and community is not some artificial juxtaposition of structural elements in an Institute as institution. The model for the interplay of these elements is the dynamic process that constitutes the trinity of persons as the one living God. Thus the energy that characterizes the inner life of the Trinity does not remain within itself but overflows into the creative, redemptive, and unifying mission of the divine persons to penetrate and to save the world.
In a similar manner, John Baptist de La Salle envisioned the energy that constitutes the spirit of faith as overflowing into a spirit of zeal for a specific mission: the overpowering urge to bring the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to those who, being far from salvation, might not otherwise hear good news or have any hope for salvation either in this world or the next.
Thus the spirit of faith and the spirit of zeal are not two distinct or subordinated charisms, although the Founder's use of "first" and "secondly" in Chapter II of his Rule has sometimes been interpreted that way. Faith and zeal are two aspects of the same charism. Faith overflows into zeal, zeal is rooted in faith. Although faith and spirituality without apostolic concern may be laudable in itself, just as zeal and work have their own value as well, without the interpretation of the two it is not possible to speak of a charism that is Lasallian.
The same is true of the relationship in the Lasallian charism between the spirit of faith and the spirit of community. That integration, too, has its model in the life of the Trinity. From all eternity the Father begets the Son, the Son proceeds from the Father, the Holy Spirit, proceeding from them both, is the personal and substantial expression of their union and mutual love.
One of the best expressions of this aspect of the Lasallian charism is to be found in article 48 of the new Rule:
The distinctive character of the Brothers' community is to be a community of faith where the experience of God is shared.
The Brothers are inspired by this prayer of Christ: "Father that they all may be one even as you and I are one so that the world may believe that you have sent me."
In their relations with one another, the Brothers make every effort to model their community life on the relations of knowledge and love that constitute the life of the Holy Trinity.
That, I think, says it all. The spirit of community in the Lasallian charism is a faith community united in a missionary zeal. The fraternity and mutual brotherhood that builds the Lasallian community has its foundation in the very life of God. Otherwise it may be community, but when it lacks the Lasallian charism, when it lacks the spirit of faith, in Lasallian terms the community is dead.
The foregoing analysis of the Lasallian charism, however lengthy, remains tentative and underdeveloped. But enough has been said, I think, to bring the idea into focus. By way of summary, I have tried thus far to make the following four points: 1) the Lasallian charism is identified with and rooted in the spirit of faith; 2) the spirit of faith implies a radical trust in the providence of God and is expressed in consecration to God, living and triune; 3) the spirit of faith requires constant attention to the presence of God and the practice of mental prayer, nurtured by spiritual reading and doctrinal study; 4) the spirit of faith overflows into a spirit of apostolic zeal and is lived in a community of faith and brotherhood.
In stressing these elements of the Lasallian charism there is much that has been left aside. This analysis of the Lasallian charism has not included those elements that refer exclusively tot he Brothers: religious vows or distinctive dress as an expression of consecration, the lay character of the Institute, or its specific educational or governmental policies.
Ever since Vatican II we have come to realize that all the people of God are called to holiness, that is, to lead a religious life. Especially since the last two general chapters we extend our association to lay colleagues and the Lasallian family generally. Thus it has seemed appropriate here to identify the Lasallian charism in such a way as to make it accessible to laywomen and laymen, priests, and members of other religious institutes who may want to share in the Lasallian heritage. It is beyond the scope of this paper to develop this idea further.
What, then, does the Lasallian charism have to offer to the specific problems of the religious life as it is lived today in structured religious institutes, especially our own? That is the second question implicit in the title. To treat it fully would require a development at least as lengthy as what has gone before. That is something that neither time, nor space, nor human endurance would allow at this point. So as not to leave the whole question up in the air, some brief and concrete points ought to be made.
It has often been said that if John Baptist de La Salle were to return today, he would not recognize the Institute he founded. Of course not. That is the way it should be. If the Institute were still limited to 100 Brothers, all in France, teaching only in elementary schools and living in communities of four or five in strict observance of the 1718 Rule, that would be a sure sign that the Lasallian charism had no vitality, that it wasn't a charism at all.
That is where the distinction between the charism and institutionalization is important. The Lasallian charism is not the same thing as the structures, practices, and regulations which embodied that charism in institutional forms appropriate to the circumstances, problems, and opportunities of Catholic France in the reign of the Sun King in the 17th century. The Lasallian charism could not have survived if the Founder had not given it some institutional form; yet charism by its very nature is not necessarily tied to any specific institutionalization. It is our task to embody that charism in new institutional forms appropriate to a world characterized by secularization, religious pluralism, political democracy, scientism and technology.
A superficial comparison of the Rule of 1718, or of 1947 for that matter, with the new Rule of 1987, looked at from the point of view of institutional forms, would reveal striking discontinuities. Even the practices that the Founder considered the exterior supports of the Institute are missing or substantially modified: accusation of faults, advertisement of defects, redition of conscience, and structured recreation of Rule.
Looked at from the perspective of the charism outlined above, however, there is an equally striking continuity between the primitive Rule and the new revision. The 1987 Rule has all the charismatic elements: spirit of faith, apostolic mission, consecration, community life, the life of prayer in the presence of God, formation, government, the vitality of the Institute, all set forth in the spirit and language of John Baptist de La Salle. It is significant that all the things that the Founder considered to be the interior supports of the Institute are still there. In a general way, then, the best answer to the question of what the Lasallian charism means in religious life today is to read the Rule, pray over it, and bring it to life in action.
For discussion purposes, however, it might be useful to suggest some specifics, following the analysis of the Lasallian charism in the first part of this paper. These are best put in a series of what might be called embarrassing questions.
1) Spirit of faith. How deep is it, how rooted in a real sense that God is acting in our lives? Do we actively seek to discern what God is telling us in our failures and our success? Have we learned how to listen to God? Are we really willing to abandon to God's providence our future as an Institute, our community organization, our specific apostolic works, our very selves? Are we too concerned to pile up treasures as a hedge against the inevitable rainy day? How concretely do we deal with contradictions, illness, aging, our own mortality and the inevitability of death? Are we afraid to die, personally or as an Institute?
2) The Idea of God. What comes into our minds when we think of God, when we reflect that we are in the presence of God? Have we gone beyond infantile and anthropomorphic images of God? Do we or can we, in fact, talk about God and share with one another our sense of God? What meaning do we attach to words for God: Yahweh? Lord? Holy, Holy, Holy? Father? Son? Spirit? Almighty God? God of power and might? Is our image of God exclusively masculine? How sensitive are we to what it means to be consecrated to God? Is our consecration to God compromised by a preoccupation with sex, accumulating possessions, guarding our autonomy? Do others get the sense that our consecration is a form of witness, or is it rather a claim to special privileges? Have we responded in any concrete way to the Chapter's call to conversion?
3) The Presence of God. How aware are we, on a day to day basis, of the presence of God in the space where we live and work? How many times a day do we recall God's presence: on rising? during class or office time? at the noon break? at meals? before retiring? Have we found substitute structures for the act of adoration? How often do we reflect on the presence of God in one another? in our students? in the people we see on the street or those with whom we come in contact? Do we bring the presence of God with us as we go into the secular world, or is the presence of God overwhelmed by the obtrusive presence of the empirical world?
4) Mental prayer. How often do we spend a prolonged period, say 20 minutes or more, in a serious attempt at mental prayer: daily? weekly? ever? Do we have a method of mental prayer adapted to our person and our needs? Can we pray for prolonged periods, simply attentive to the presence of God, without the need for discursive acts? Have we ever sought help to improve our ability to pray? Have prayer workshops or reading about prayer had any lasting effect? Does the community see any advantage in scheduling a time for meditative prayer in common? Are we really convinced about what the Founder and the 1987 Rule say about the importance of this form of prayer?
5) Spiritual Reading and Doctrinal Study. To what extent do we take seriously the personal responsibility the rule entrusts to us for using these means to nurture our prayer life? What sort of reading do we consider suitable for spiritual reading? What is the level of our doctrinal and theological knowledge? Does it compare in any way with the knowledge we have of our specialized field of study? When did we last read a serious spiritual or theological book? How long did it take? What comparison could be made between the time spent in watching television and in recreational reading with the time spent in prayer and religious reading?
6) Spirit of Zeal. Do we tend to confuse merely keeping busy and working hard with the spirit of apostolic zeal? How specific can we be about the faith element in our spirit of zeal? Has the emphasis in the General Chapter and the rule on evangelization mean anything to us in concrete terms? Do we sense the need we have to be evangelized? How often does it occur to us that teaching secular subjects or administering an office is a form, however indirect, of Gospel ministry? Are the priorities of the District, Community, or our personal priorities governed by faith considerations, pragmatic considerations, or some compromise between the two? How genuine is our concern for the poor and those who are far from salvation? Do we tend to separate our religious life from our educational work in the way we think and talk and act?
7) Spirit of Community. To what extent is this or that community of Brothers a genuine community of faith and apostolic zeal? Is the community perceived as such? Is the presence of God in the community evident in any tangible way? What is the quality of the community prayer life? What level of sharing in matters of faith has the community achieved? Does the community as community have a strong sense of its apostolic mission? Do the Brothers in the community who do not share in the common apostolate feel that they are sent and supported in their external mission by the entire community? How does the community think of its faith and zeal in relation to the programs of the District and the wider international Institute? How open is the community to share its faith experience and its apostolic thrust with those outside and, in particular, with the wider Lasallian family?
I have called these questions embarrassing, especially since it is embarrassing for me to put them this way. At first hearing they may seem to be negative, moralistic, and judgmental. That is not the intent. I am the last person in the world to accuse anyone else of falling short of these ideals. Furthermore, I have been encouraged, as many of us have, to see throughout the Institute, the Region, the Districts and communities signs that we have for some time now been facing with courage and resolution the challenge in these and similar embarrassing questions.
As I said in the beginning, the topic before us is a formidable one. What is the Lasallian charism in religious life today? Put in its simplest terms, it is that religious life should be religious. Now that so many of the original institutional forms have disappeared, the charism itself could disappear if we do not translate the spirit of faith, zeal, and community into a concrete style of life that is recognizably religious.
That, it seems to me, is the meaning of the theme for this convocation:* Shaping a Vision for the Future in Shared Brotherhood. The vision comes from the charism of De La Salle; the specific shape it takes is something we have to work out together in shared brotherhood; the future must then be left to the providence of God. As De La Salle put it: Domine, opus tuum: Lord, the work is yours.
Keynote Address
by
Brother Luke Salm, FSC
Tridistrict Convocation, Winona, MN
August 6-9,1987
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