Saint John Baptist de la Salle

John Baptist de la Salle was born in Reims, France, in 1651 to a well-to-do family. He became a canon of the cathedral as a teenager and was ordained a priest in 1678. Through a chance meeting with Adrien Nyel, he became involved in opening schools for poor boys, and he began to train and house the rough, untrained schoolmasters, first in his own home.

This led him to renounce his canonry, give away his fortune during a famine, and found the Brothers of the Christian Schools, a community of lay religious devoted entirely to teaching. He pioneered teaching in the vernacular rather than Latin, classes grouped by ability, and colleges to train teachers. He faced lawsuits, opposition and divisions, yet persevered. He died at Saint-Yon near Rouen on April 7, 1719, which that year was Good Friday. He was canonized in 1900 and named patron of teachers in 1950.

De La Salle Brothers run schools and universities around the world, including many in Latin America, the Philippines and the United States, where his feast is celebrated with school Masses, service projects and the community's traditional invocation, Live Jesus in our hearts, forever.