Many of us are familiar with statements such as this: “Deeply moved by the way children of artisans and the poor were abandoned and left to themselves, John Baptist de La Salle discovered, through faith, the mission of the Institute”. There is a more profound expression of De La Salle’s work on a plaque in the Chapel of Saint John Baptist de La Salle in the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris. It was in that parish that De La Salle opened his first school in the City of Paris. The French words are

“Emu de pitie” for the neglected children of the streets. ‘emu’ is from the French word, which we have in almost identically in English  “emotion”. De La Salle is deeply, emotionally moved by a powerful compassion for these children. (In the France of De La Salle’s day it was not ‘polite’ to be emotional.)

          The expression “children of artisans and the poor” need some contemporary understanding also. We don’t use the word “artisans” for people who work with their hands – construction, roads, sanitation, etc. The word does mean those who cannot do anything else in De La Salle’s day.

          How do these words communicate to us in our day the powerful conviction of John that educating the last, the least, and the lost was God’s will for him? How would we, today, express our loving, compassionate dedication to children who are denied their basic rights?

Brother James