April Fools' Day Reflections on John Baptist de La Salle's Life

It seems unlikely that John Baptist de La Salle would have engaged in April Fools’ Day pranks, if the custom was in vogue at the time. However, a sampling of April 1 events provides some vignettes of the Founder’s story at various times in his life.

1663     Aged 11. He takes a minor part, Pamphile, in a play at the Collège des Bons Enfants, The Tragedy of the Martyrdom of St Timothy.

1673     Aged 21. Following the death of his parents, he has responsibility for the family finances. He pays three livres and ten sous to the clockmaker, M. Lespe, a debt that hand been incurred by his father, Louis de La Salle.

1684     Aged 32. Now a priest and living with the first group of teachers in Rue Neuve, on Holy Saturday he participates with some other priests in a mission in an unidentified village. It was evidently a fruitful endeavour.

1707     Aged 55. He writes from Paris to Brother Gabriel Drolin in Rome. He tells Gabriel how upset he was to learn that he had been ill. Uncharacteristically, he also mentions his own recent and lengthy illness, as well as the opening of a school in Mende in the south of France.

1714     Aged 62. On Easter Sunday, while he himself is in the south of France, the senior Brothers from Paris, Saint-Denis and Versailles send him a letter dated April 1, requesting him, and ordering him, to return to Paris and resume his leadership of the Institute.

1719     Aged 67. We can assume that arrangements were being made to send a messenger to the dying De La Salle, informing him that his faculties as a confessor had been suspended – a decision by church authorities who had refused to listen to the Founder’s reasons for being unable to follow an impracticable direction. The episode is related by his biographer Canon Blain, who was in a position to know.

John Baptist died at 4.00 am on Good Friday, 7 April 1719.

Remembering the legacy of a remarkable soul this April 1st!

Source: Br John Cantwell FSC