A RESPONSE TO THE LACE WEEKEND WITH FATHER TOM HAMILL by Bella Harding
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY OF LA SALLE PALENCIA, by Marta Miguel and David Ruiz
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We have some choice items for you lucky people in this issue. Firstly, there is the outcome of the October LACE Conference and secondly there are some contributions that went into an international seminar held in Rome at the beginning of November on the nature of Lasallian association today, with special reference to Europe where secularisation is the order of the day and religious men and women are fast disappearing from the world of education.
In October, Father Tom Hamill, of the Armagh Diocesan Biblical Initiative, presided over what will probably prove to be one of the more memorable Lace Weekends for teachers. Those who experienced it are likely to continue talking about it for many years to come. On that basis alone it was a resounding success. In effect it was a privileged walk around the Bible in the company of one who combines the qualities of a scripture scholar, a philosopher and a poet. The aim of the journey was to make people re-examine their basic assumptions about God as portrayed in the Bible, especially the Old Testament.
The workshop was entitled "Temple and Wilderness and Garden" and was described by Father Tom as "A modest imaginal and critical exploration of our understanding and experience of The Total Bible so as to touch the dynamic core of Christian Faith!" His "critical hypothesis" was that there are least three very different understandings of God embodied in the Bible and that these can be linked to the words Elohim, Yahweh and Chokmah (wisdom), correlated with the words Temple, Wilderness and Garden. The poetic flavour of his message can be seen in the enigmatic one-line summary: "But Elohim has kept Himself sleek, Yahweh Meagre, ChokMah obscure".
It was a stimulating session, intellectually and spiritually, because it made us look at a number of hard and serious questions. In this issue of LACE, Bella Harding gives us an excellent analysis of her own reactions and thoughts on the week-end. It was also a spiritual and aesthetic experience to hear Tom Hamill read the poetry in which he embodies his insights in a language that is challenging, powerful and imaginative. We have the honour to print here the poems which he shared with us. They will be a useful reminder to those who were there, but we hope they will also be an inspiration to those who could not make it.
Those of you who are regular readers of the CATSC periodical, Networking: Catholic Education Today, will be aware that the current issue is devoted largely to the changes that go with the transition from religious to lay preponderance in Catholic schools. The subtitle of the issue is "Religious Orders: handing on the charism". Perhaps "sharing the charism" is a better description of what is really going on, and we in LACE. have been working on that for some time. It is the fundamental belief of the Lasallian Association of Christian Educators that the "charism" or spiritual insight of De La Salle into the nature of the teaching vocation in the Church is something that belongs to all teachers. That is what the LACE Week-ends, as originally conceived by Damian Lundy, are all about.
"Sharing the charism" is something that is being taken very seriously in the Lasallian world in general and especially in the countries of Europe. The seminar on "Associating for the Lasallian Mission" was attended by some eighty "Lasallian People", two-thirds of them lay men and women. We give a report of their work together, and in particular we reproduce the testimonies of five lay people and one Brother describing their experience of "associating for the Lasallian educational mission" in a variety of novel and interesting ways.
You will be hearing a lot more about this topic as we move into the year 2001, which marks the 350th birthday of the Founder. For the LACE Weekend next May, we are planning something special on what De La Salle might have to say to a Christian lay teacher today. So watch out for the announcements.
by Bella Harding
For October's LACE Weekend, we plunged into the deep-end of serious Bible reflection and spiritual challenge. It sent me back to reading the Bible with an intense and questioning approach that has been very fruitful, if also at times disturbing. I am sure others are better qualified than I am to comment on this. However, what intrigues me is the question we raised at the weekend and never covered, which is 'how do we present this for our classes?' and I wanted to share what experience I have had, teaching in a sixth form college, so that others also share how they have developed their teaching through this.
My first and most interesting experiment has been to ask everyone I could, students and staff, 'who was thrown out of the Garden of Eden?' Universally I have met with the assumption that it was the couple, and yet no one has been able to interpret the actual text to say that. In immediately succeeding verses, of course, Eve is assumed to be with Adam, and so there is a paradox. I have no answer to this. However, the effect is to send people to study the text because they are intrigued. The Bible cannot be seen as a two dimensional, erroneous scientific account. It has to be working on another level, and it engages people not in the way the 'Bible Code' claims to do, but in a genuinely productive way. This proves the point that we read the Bible all too often through the theologies that have been constructed around it, and too rarely do we interrogate the text for what it actually says. Yet people through the ages have died in order to preserve the text as it is, and how can we teach unless we know its depth?
Another point that has struck me as I look at the Bible, is the extent to which the Bible is interdependent. Each story, each psalm is written with the assumption of knowledge of many other stories embedded in it. Once you start to read the Bible like this, there are many resonances in every verse, especially in the Gospel, and the resonances give depth and nuances to the text. It is like a huge symphony, in which themes are reiterated and developed and repeated in a minor key. Half the point is lost if you do not recognise the theme. It makes me think how important story is to us as people, and how important story is in teaching. It is also tragic that so few of these stories are known to the generation that I teach, so that much of what they do read from the Bible lacks depth and context. We need to rediscover ways of telling Bible stories, so that they are familiar enough to be available for later reflection.
These days, I do not find many students that read outside their courses, yet most of them spend hours every night absorbing stories of various kinds, at the films or on television and video. Even the format of documentaries is increasingly that of story. What are we absorbing from these stories? I was glad to hear my children have recently rejected Casualty as 'boring, as the formula is always the same'. Many of the soaps have a 'teaching' about life that gives each one its particular type, and then this is developed through the unfortunate lives of the puppet characters, that can be made to suffer anything and still be able to talk about it. Our hearts are not being fed by these stories, as they are too trivial for the most part in their approach to the problems people face, although they can present the politically correct attitude or challenge prejudice, and they can be used to inform about ways of coping. These are the stories our pupils are absorbing.
The characters in the Bible do not lack problems, and sometimes go for outrageous solutions, but the individuals are far more real in the way they are really changed by their experiences. David is an obvious example, where his life has tremendous dramas and temptations, and yet his response is uniquely his own. He is not a puppet constructed to prove a point and so we can learn more deeply from his experience.
One of Father Tom's challenging statements was to say that the gods of the ancient mythologies, the gods that the days of the week remain named after, the gods categorised in the other nine prohibitions of the ten commandments (after "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods but me"), these gods are still around, as influences on people's behaviour. We might prefer to call them Jungian archetypes, but they are the irrational urges in human society, which cannot be dealt with rationally. They must be brought under the understanding of God. With this in view, what ancient gods are being activated in shows such as Blind Date or Robot Wars? Each of these gods proffers a different form of salvation, which is to die in the service of the god. How many gods require our unquestioning obedience, and how can we encourage our students to recognise this and to fight it? Here I see theological education, by teaching them to think for themselves is actually coming close to the corruption of the young that Socrates was accused of.
We live in an age when gender issues are the subject of huge controversy. What is it to be male, to be female, what roles are appropriate to each? The Bible also wrestles with these questions, and in parts comes up with some to me very distressing approaches. If we take the Total Bible, as Tom Hamill was wishing us to do, we have to look at such events as the massacre of Numbers 31, the crime of the men of Gibeah and others, and we have to work out what is being said. Part of Tom's thesis was that there are three strands in 'God' of the Bible, none of which relate exactly to the 'God' of philosophy/theology, nor encompass God Himself The 'God' of Temple, Wilderness and Garden is in each case different, with different concerns, different rituals that define what it is. None of these are identifiable with God, who escapes all categories, but we must know and understand the human expression of God that we are quoting and relying on. It gives an awesome and humbling account of why 'good Christians' have gone out to war in such appalling self-righteousness. As I understood it, each aspect relates to an aspect of our human psyche, the concern for order, the concern for justice and the concern for freedom, but to say the least, there have been times when the balance has been wrong.
At a sixth form level, I find it better to admit the sins of the Church, the mistakes of past and present and the ongoing struggle each one of us has, than to try to ignore the difficulties. What I have found distressing is that almost universally the students see the Church in the terms of Temple, of rules, order and compelled obedience. The success of a retreat centre such as St Cassian's is precisely that it begins to open to them the concepts of freedom and justice.
But why should such experience be near universal? In part it is to do with the very process of growing up. As a child reaches adolescence, so she or he begins to feel themselves capable of independent life and resentful of every form of restriction that in earlier years kept them safe. Even if they have been given glimpses of the 'God' concerned with justice and with freedom, it is developmentally necessary that they engage in a struggle with the 'God' of Temple, in order to complete the process of maturity, where each element has its place and its function.
It seems to me that the way to help them is to accompany them on their journey, to assure them that this wrestling is not only necessary but good, and that the 'God' of the Temple does not exhaust God at all. This is far more productive than the classic two responses, either to insist that the urgent reservations being expressed have no foundation at all, the traditional approach, or to agree totally with every criticism, whether well or ill-founded, the liberal one. If we can give students a glimpse of the importance, a taste for the excitement of the search for God, (who searches us out first) then we are preparing them for their life as adult Christians.
When I had the temerity to suggest this article, Brother Terry suggested that the ideas of the students themselves would be good to include. I teach (apart from Philosophy A-Level) a general theology to students once a week, which covers a vast range of topics. I cannot think of particular insights the students have shared this week, but I am convinced that the atmosphere has been more open for debate, that they have been more able to express the anxieties and conflicts they feel than before. My attitude has been a mixture of apologist and philosopher, and sometimes the balance between them is wrong. This past week, I have been more interested in letting the students do the thinking for themselves. I learnt the value of stillness and silence. I know that the questions go on working their way out long after the students have left the classroom. All I can hope to do is to have started them constructively.
Obviously the teaching of sixth-formers is quite different to pupils lower down the school. But at every level, we still have to meet the challenge of helping them to grow up in their faith. Most telling of all from the weekend was to examine what 'God' it is that I embody, because actually this is the 'God' that the students pick up. And in the context of school rules, conformity and socialisation, is it any wonder that they can see teachers embodying 'Temple', values. This raises the uncomfortable question of what education is actually for, in this age of target setting, league tables, etc. etc.
The beauty of the Lasallian ideal, the ideal of all Christian educators, and even of Plato, is that it concerns itself with the person, beyond all utilitarian considerations, with the releasing in the person of all that is already there. It is a hard ideal to maintain amid current trends, but essential for them as individuals and for us all. There have been profound thinkers in the last century, that have changed forever the way that we think. One impression that sixth-formers have is that there have been no such thinkers in the Church. We need such thinkers, in order to express the eternal truths in ways that are accessible to our age, that reflect the understanding of our age. My thanks to Father Tom and to Terry for starting such a serious reflection this weekend.
At the beginning of November, some eighty Lasallian people from all over Europe came together in the Brothers' Generalate House in Rome for a three-day colloquium (seminar) to examine the developments that are taking place in the Lasallian educational world in our times. Two thirds of the participants were lay people, many of them working in schools where there are few or no Brothers and convinced that the Lasallian tradition is worth holding onto for its own sake. It had a lot to do with the largely successful transference of the educational mission in Lasallian schools to lay people and the parallel adjustment in the roles of the Brothers. It was concerned above all with relationships &emdash; the relationships between Brothers and lay Lasallian teachers and the relationships among such lay Lasallian people by themselves. The whole complex set of ideas is encapsulated in the word 'association" or better still "associating" since the -ing form emphasises the active nature of the undertaking. Associating is something you do, not something that just happens to you. It is about people and their commitment to a cause rather than about structures.
This is a very contemporary topic for debate and reflects something that is going on in the Church as a whole. It is time to rethink the whole thing at a fundamental level. We in the Lasallian world have our own particular contribution to make to the discussion. The need for a more widely developed form of Lasallian association today arises out of the increased complexity of modern society and the systems of education operating within it. In effect, association itself is becoming more complex in terms of the different partners involved. An association made up of just a single, homogenous group of people (like a Religious Institute) is no longer possible in today's world.
The discussions during the Colloquium looked at three main aspects of the Lasallian idea that association is something valuable for the fulfilment of the mission. First, people looked at "the dynamism of the past": the origins of the Lasallian story, when a particular form of association developed as a response to the circumstances of the time and the forces then operating in society. Secondly, they looked at the ways in which new forms of association have been developed in recent years in response to the changes and new forces in Church and society. Thirdly, they considered some of the ways in which association might be further developed in the immediate future, and the effects this could have on Brothers and lay people.
The various experiments in association that are taking place in different parts of the Lasallian world are all related to and focused on a mission. In Lasallian terms, mission and association are closely linked. Association for the sake of a mission is rooted in the gospel, but it took on a specific form in the story of De La Salle and the first Brothers. The driving force of the Lasallian story throughout three centuries has been the desire to respond to the urgent needs of young people, because they are nothing less than the children of God. The grounds for any future forms of Lasallian association can only be this same spirituality of a shared faith and shared zeal based on love. The Lasallian idea of association is that it starts from and exists for a specific mission: to respond to the urgent needs of young people, especially the poor. However, we all know that the circumstances in which the mission is being carried out today are changing rapidly. If our response to need is to remain effective, we must develop new ways of coming together for the sake of the common mission.
Association is primarily a matter of the spirit rather than of structures. It requires a willingness to share a common spirituality, a common mission and common resources in a joint effort towards a common goal. When it is lived on this level, association is a source of strength (synergy) through mutual support in the exercise of the common mission. The power of association comes from the power of the shared convictions. The greater the conviction, the greater the commitment to the enterprise. To have association, you need individuals who are willing to commit themselves to share life, work, mission, spirituality and goals. Conversely, commitment leads quite naturally to association. The two things are related at a deep level.
Association, as a long term commitment for the sake of the mission, is a form of communion. For Christians there is a profound relationship between communion and mission by virtue of the presence of the Trinity in each one of us. In Lasallian terms this is expressed in the traditional formula of vows used by the Brothers since the beginning. Association is more than just a pragmatic means to an end. It is communion for the mission, engendered by the mission itself. The personal experience of communion in a mission is the cement of the Lasallian charism. People need this experience of communion, if they are to make the act of associating their own. Only after that can they begin to think about rules and forms of association. The experience of communion involves dialogue, exchange of ideas, exploring together the avenues of personal, spiritual growth, reflecting on the heritage and on its relevance and vitality today. Those who are associated in a communion need "a table" around which they can gather. They need visible signs of their communion, ways of communicating with one another and sharing with one another.
To say that structures are less important does not mean that they are unimportant. Association can take on many different forms and structures. Commitment leads to communion, and this in turn leads to the formation of a structured community or association. The general mission "to respond to the urgent needs of young people" becomes specific by being embodied in particular projects. The future of such projects depends on long-term commitments and some kind of permanent structure. Association is the coming together of individuals, each with his or her own gifts and talents, which they are willing to share in pursuit of a higher goal. Individuals are ready to give up part of their freedom, if they see that in return something worthwhile will come out of it. Communion as the relation between people needs structures, and the structures serve to reinforce communion.
The spirit of communion becomes incarnate in the structures of association. These structures can have many forms, and those forms themselves are subject to change. They can produce large or small institutions, formal associations with statutes and regulations or informal associations with minimal rules and maximal flexibility. In some countries such as France and Spain, the forms of Lasallian association will be much larger and more complex than in others. Larger associations need to be more highly regulated in order to maintain cohesion. In other countries, such as Great Britain, the smaller numbers involved, as well as the national temperament, will tend to produce less regulated forms of association.
Whatever the degree of formality in the structures of association, the intention behind them all is the same:- to promote the original, Lasallian founding insight which says that for Christian teachers their source of strength lies in two things:- in their personal, inner, spiritual strength based on prayer and in the strength that comes from doing things together, "by association". It also operates on the macro-level of networks of schools. Thus in Britain we are moving towards a Lasallian Association of Schools, rather than an Association of Lasallian Schools, just as we have a Lasallian Association of Christian educators. It is the "associating" which is the Lasallian bit.
We are in a period of transition from one set of structures to another. A lot of things will have to change, and we must recognise the validity of new structures from other sources in the Lasallian world besides the Brothers. In Britain it is a sign of the success of the work of the Brothers and other religious orders since 1855 that the lay teachers are now well able to assume the burden of running the schools. Unfortunately for them, they are taking on the responsibility at a time when running Christian schools is becoming more and more difficult in a secular, hostile environment. This is precisely where the Lasallian tradition of association comes in. People find strength for their mission in association. Lasallian spirituality is not a piece of personal property exclusive to the Brothers and bound to vanish with them. It has its relevance on the wider stage of Christian education.
There are many different stake-holders in the Lasallian world involved in the current debate on association, and they are all quite distinct. There are the Brothers with the Rule and traditions of the Institute, lay teachers and others in Lasallian establishments, with or without Brothers, members of Lasallian Families and Signum Fidei groups, various kinds of experimental Lasallian communities, Lasallian Sisters. The goal is not to assimilate these various groups into one homogenous mass. However, some way must be found to bring them together into a single communion. We are embarking on a joint act of faith, moving hand in hand into the darkness of the future. As we explore new forms of association, no doubt we shall also discover new forms for the Lasallian mission.
In the course of the Colloquium there were some important pieces of in-put. There was a survey of the present state of the Lasallian educational effort in Europe by André Jacq. After that, Antonio Botana analysed the origins and nature of Lasallian association and finally Robert Carlier gave some pointers for the shape of things to come. It may be possible to print this material in future issues of LACE. In this issue we shall focus on the five testimonies given by people with very varied experiences of "Associating for the Lasallian mission": in an experimental Lasallian Christian Community (Spain), in working to help immigrants (Italy), in lay participation in the upper levels of Institute administration (France), in a network of Lasallian schools (Belgium), in a school chaplaincy (England). Let the witnesses speak for themselves.
Conclusions in a Nutshell
The English speaking participants at the Colloquium included 4 from Britain (Terry Collins, Tom Campbell, Peter Siney and Steve O'Connor) 4 from Ireland (Columba Gallagher, Tom O'Neill, Brendan Ryan and Patrick Ward) and 4 from Malta (Dominic Rosso, Rose Griscti, Noel Abela and Godwin De Gabriele). Add to these the ubiquitous Ben Foy who attended by invitation as Secretary of CLEP (The Lasallian European Commission for Pastoral Care).
On the final afternoon, this group met to draw up its own conclusions from the proceedings of the Colloquium and to formulate the message it would like to take back to the people at home. Here are the results of their reflection on all that they had heard and experienced over the three days:-
The exploration of new forms of Lasallian Association is something that needs to be continued in each of our countries as a matter of urgency.
Since, in the words of Brother Alvaro Superior General, "people are more important than structures", we consider our essential task to lie in the promotion of the development of Lasallian People, with a shared Lasallian vision.
It is important that we do not lose sight of the fundamental truth that association is for and with young people, and consequently they must be involved in whatever steps we take.
We must plan to deliver the message on association not just in words but by providing people with living experiences.
We need to organise our own Regional Standing Committee for the Lasallian Educational Mission, parallel to the one established in Rome as a result of the recent General Chapter. This regional committee would have the responsibility of moving forward the necessary developments in Lasallian association in our countries.
The Christian Community of La Salle Palencia (Spain) by Marta Miguel and David Ruiz
The Christian Community of La Salle, Palencia, is currently made up of 6 lay people:- a newly married couple, a single woman and three men. The ages range from 26 to 33. Four of us teach in Brothers' secondary schools, the others are occupied in various non-teaching professions. All of us, however, are actively involved in the pastoral activity of the District (of Valladolid). We also collaborate in the structures of the diocese and the local Church. Most of us have left previous employments to take up the proposed possibility of working in a Lasallian project.
Our community is associated with the Brothers via the District of Valladolid. Before undertaking the formation of this community, each of us went through a process of discovery and maturation in faith, more or less extended, within the Christian groups operating in Colegio La Salle. In those groups we learned how to share life experience, prayer and our commitment to young people, and how to make radical choices in following Christ. Having gone through those group experiences, each of us began to look for some Christian community in which we could give concrete form to our vocation. During this search we met one another and recognised the same call to journey together in community.
This sense of vocation was closely bound up with our commitment to education young people in the Faith. From the start, our work of pastoral and educational animation was linked to the two Lasallian schools of the town and the parish. We were all animators of Christian groups, some were members of the pastoral team in the school alongside the Brothers, other were part of the pastoral structures for young people in the District, in the diocese or in the local town.
From the beginning, the two poles attracting us were the call to form a community and the desire to make a commitment to young people. The two poles need each other. The fact of living in community made us present among young people through our alternative way of Christian life (in community), while the fact of being present among young people led us to question our way of living and building community.
Community life teaches us to make personal decisions by discerning with others. In the early years, everything was shared very intensely: career choices, domestic situations, pastoral commitments. All the circumstances and situations of life, as they occurred, were discerned together in order to discover the will of God for us. Thus all these things were viewed in terms of God's plan for and through us.
Our community life has its centre in Colegio La Salle, where we meet every evening for evening prayer. This is open to others, and young people from the university groups regularly take part. Every day, after prayer, we share the experiences and situations we are going through and which bother us. The discussions are usually centred on our mission as a community of educators. Four of us live and eat under the same roof. This has increased the opportunities for sharing. Personal formation is another thing that we have tried to promote for a long time now. In addition to weekly meetings focused on formation, four of us have started courses in theology. Others have taken part in the Lasallian formation courses: SIEL in Roma, CEL in Madrid. Other aspects which also give vitality to our community are: personal projects, the community project, retreats, fraternal corrections
Looking back now, it is possible to see how much we have absorbed the charisma of De La Salle, often unconsciously. By our meetings with the Brothers, our conversations with them and our shared concerns, all of which reinforced our clear sense of communion, we have made our own a number of Lasallian ways of thinking and acting: the radical identification with Jesus, the experience of the interior life, devotion to young people and to others, the community dimension. Looking back on our story, we can see that our life has been among young people and involved in their educational and pastoral animation, but in a special way by being in community. It was this that made us more conscious of the fact that our lives were no longer for ourselves but for them, and that we were not just giving up a few days or hours a week as we happened to choose but that our lives were given over totally as a result of our community living.
It was very much an experience shared with the Brothers, because they accompanied us in our community journey, and because together we tried to respond to the educational and pastoral needs of young people. In this process of sharing a mission together, the Brothers constantly offered us various opportunities to get to know the Lasallian charisma and to deepen it in us. On the one hand, there were formation sessions like the CELAS, on the other, there was the experience of a daily sharing of prayer, community projects and formation with the Brothers of the Palencia community and others of the District.
Our closeness to the Brothers community in Palencia (and in the District) gradually increased. In practice we share with them the evening prayer in common at weekends and some Eucharistic celebrations. There are many opportunities for meeting together, such as to develop our community plan, to reflect on Lasallian themes or on pastoral concerns in the school, to celebrate birthdays or go on outings together.
Thanks to such experiences, we have been able to discover fully and consciously the charisma and spirituality of De La Salle. At the same time, this gave us a base as a community in Lasallian project being developed by the Brothers of the District of Valladolid. They helped us to deepen and to find words for the experience of faith and commitment that our community was living through. Our experiences were reflected in Lasallian traits and characteristics. We formed links with the Brothers in a most natural way, because we are all sharing in the same mission, the same commitment to the educational service of the young. This led us to feel the need to be a community together with them.
Our life-plan has led us to celebrate what we call our "option for stability". This basic choice, made initially by five of us, took place towards the end of 1996. Our act of commitment was formally received by the Brother Visitor, together with the District Animation Team and with those Brothers and lay people who were close to our faith journey. During the ceremony, each member of the community gave a public and definitive "yes" to the community project, the ideal or "utopia" that we were already living. It was a "yes" to being in community for an educational mission according to the charisma of De La Salle. We wanted to make this gesture in front of others, because we wanted to give some stability to the project that God was placing in our hands. Through this gesture, moreover, we became officially associated with the District of Valladolid. Every year on Trinity Sunday, we renew our option for stability at the same ceremony in which the Brothers renew their vows.
As a result of the gesture by which we expressed our option for stability, we now share very closely with the Brothers a mission and a community way of life. That means that we see the Brothers' concerns and worries as our own, we feel that we belong in the District like any other community without losing our special non-religious character. Certainly it has made us feel tied to and part of the Lasallian charisma and all those who are living it.
We are continuing to develop ties of communion with the Brothers in the mission we fulfil together: ties of communion which are incorporated into daily life linking us with the Brothers of Palencia and of the District, through membership of various District Commission, through participation in the recent District Chapter, through the fact that a member of our community is pastoral co-ordinator in the college, another participated in the SIEL sessions and more recently helped organise the regional CELAS for young people, through the visits made by the Provincial to our community, through our continued efforts to form ourselves in the Lasallian charisma. In a word we are available to the District and we live out the mission with the Brothers, discovering together the signs of the times for the Institute.
Our way of life is telling us that to live out a vocation according to the Lasallian charisma is to live and seek to unite communion and mission. The mission shapes the life of our community. Our personal and communitarian way of life began in a particular way some time ago. None of us imagined that it was going to be the way it is now. However, we believe in the God of History who is present in the events of life and who leads us from one commitment to another. God has called each of us individually and has brought us this far. His Spirit is the primary force which unites us. It is much easier to live it than to think it.
Today we are a Lasallian Christian Community which wishes to continue to incarnate the Lasallian charisma with the Brothers in step with the present time and open to the Spirit which leads all.
For 13 years I have been professionally employed at the heart of the Lasallian educational work in France. And it is by design that I use the word "professionally". Like many of you here in this assembly, it was through my professional activity that I discovered Lasallian spirituality. In other words, my involvement in the Lasallian family is a result of professional circumstances rather than a conscious life-option for Lasallian spirituality.
A religious first chooses a state of life and then takes up an activity related to that state of life. Lay people, by contrast, find their way in through the professional door by which, through the events of their professional work for young people, they gradually discover the people and things which lead them to follow in the steps of Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. These two ways of coming to the same charism are seen today as being complementary, and over the past twenty years they have brought us firstly to the idea of shared misssion and now to that of association.
It seems to me that, in France, the sharing of the mission is rooted in two elements, of which one is more dominant than the other. The first element in the association between Brothers and laity involves structures and the sharing of power. The second involves a deliberate commitment and a sharing of spirituality by certain individuals.
Over the past twenty years, many lay people have shared in the Lasallian mission of education simply because they have been asked to take on responsibilty for the direction of a school. Of our 155 schools, 90% have lay heads. That is how I personnally discovered the schools under Lasallian trusteeship thirteen years ago. By virtue of being a headteacher and without taking any special steps, I became a member of the Association La Salle (A.L.S.) which is a separate legal body associated with the Institute. The administrative council of this Association is responsible for the implementation of the "Tutelle" (trusteeship) of the schools in conformity with the Statute on Catholic Education.
Composed half and half of Brothers and lay headteachers, this Association guarantees on behalf of the Church the gospel authenticity of the educational projects in our schools. Its mission is threefold:
As a result of the French District Chapter of 1997, the Brothers and the A.L.S. took another step forward in association by entrusting the exercise of Tutelle-trusteeship over schools to lay people in collaboration with the Brother Visitor. For the past two years, I have been employed full time (with salary) as Delegate for the Tutelle-trusteeship. It is my job to supervise the Tutelle-trusteeship over some fifty Lasallian establishments in conjunction with two Brothers Visitors. My brief includes elements of institutional supervision, animation, mediation, accompanying, administration and reporting. Other lay people have similar responsibilties for just two or three schools. They are called 'chargés de mission". These roles are an illustration of the sharing of responsibility between Brothers and laity at the highest level of decision-making and animation.
In carrying out the mission entrusted to me, I feel confident that I am serving the Church through the Lasallian educational work. I carry out my responsibilities in close collaboration with two Brothers Auxilliary Visitors in a way that embodies the complementarity of our respective vocations.
My work as Delegate for the Tutelle-trusteeship enables me to find coherence and a unity of direction, because it integrates the different elements of my personality: those which relate to my individuality (religious convictions, life-story, character) and those that relate to my professional and social life.
For lay people, the experience of exercising co-responsibility in the mission enhances the awareness of their baptismal vocation within the Church. At the same time, I think it also poses a question for many of the staff in our schools as to why and how we can maintain a Tutelle-trusteeship related to a religious Institute.
I find the exercise of co-responsibility very enriching. But how far is it really shared by the lay staff of the network? Can it be shared at all? These questions bother me for various reasons. In terms of my own Lasallian itinerary, it is not in the structures of the Tutelle-trusteeship that I find my attachment to the charism or my desire to share in and to perpetuate Lasallian spirtuality.
My attachment, indeed my commitment, is the result of a threefold encounter:
The co-responsibility which I am now exercising at a national level is the consequence of my commitment and has not remained simply a matter of legal requirements. There is, I think, a wide-spread confusion in France between the legal aspects of belonging to the network and those which flow from a desire to share in the spirtuality.
Looking forward
While it is true that we have made real progress in the structures of association, I think that progress has been slower in terms of commitment. People are still not aware of it. Even where there is the will to make a commitment (the Third Order, the Equipes lasalliennes etc.), it remains a fact that, in keeping with our secularist society, we put greater stress on the professional performance of our teachers. So much so that the job dominates the mission. In the majority of cases, our staffs no longer really understand the justification for referring to a Tutelle-trusteeship which embodies an educational project which they do not see as applicable to their specific situation.
We will need to do a lot of work on the meaning and values which inspire us, if we are to "make our founding story live again today". The predominance of the "professional" over the idea of "educator" in the whole system of education is an argument in favour of attending to local situations and resisting a generalised model of education in which, at first sight, the gospel has little place. Is it possible to preserve our identity and special character (teaching in the name of the gospel, maintaining Christian schools) when a single model of education is being imposed in us?
Our co-responsibility must go beyond simply sticking to structures and move towards a discussion about individual commitments and about the needs we wish to respond to.
In France, the answer may lie in the C.L.A.L., (Conseils locaux d'animation lasallienne - Local Commitees for Lasallian Animation). These can be sources of renewal, reflection and animation. Perhaps they will be able to breathe life into our schools as educational communities.
In my capacity as Delegate of the Tutelle-trusteeship, I sometimes feel that I am spending a lot of time making the structures work rather than promoting an educational activity and presence in the schools. That is, perhaps, a danger which we should not under-estimate, otherwise our schools risk becoming trivialised by losing their reference to the charism.
INTRODUCTION
My name is Peter Siney and I am the school chaplain at De La Salle School, St. Helens, England. I have been working in the school for just over three years and I am the first full-time chaplain to be employed by the school. My role involves preparing and leading liturgies, offering pastoral support and being a faith presence in the school. It arose out of an increased awareness for the need for someone with time and skills to devote to ministry to pupils and staff.
I am fairly new to the spirit of De La Salle and to the work and life of the Brothers, so most of my experiences of working in "association" come from my work within the Church. However I have noticed many similarities between the two.
I am reminded of Vincent Donovan's book Christianity Rediscovered. The book deals with the way Vincent Donovan approached evangelisation with the Masai in East Africa. On his return to America he was struck by the similarity between the Masai and the young people of his own country. A young person in an American university, reflecting on the line of thought presented in the book, offered some advice:
Obviously, association will not work if it simply means inviting the laity to follow the life of a Brother. This approach does not do justice to what makes each different approach special. We need to search for new ways to grow together, to form a shared understanding of what the Lasallian Mission is and what role we each have to play in fulfilling this.
THE PAST
In the past a school would more than likely be staffed solely by Brothers or have had one of the local clergy to come into school as chaplain. As time progressed, the numbers of people responding to this type of call has declined. Add to this the simple fact that those already in this ministry are not getting any younger and the problems are not difficult to discern.
THE PRESENT AND MY EXPERIENCE OF ASSOCIATION
This decline provoked a response, sometimes out of fear or panic, to find others to 'take over'. With this, people were forced to re-evaluate their own roles and responsibilities and to look closely at what is important to keep from the present for the future. Encouraging people is easier if they have had a positive experience to use as a foundation. This was certainly the starting point to my decision to become more involved in the life of the Church and in my understanding of what it means to be Lasallian. Gatherings and meetings of people with a common aim all help to encourage association: Pilgrimages to Lourdes, World Youth Days, Lasallian Youth Gatherings, etc.
A personal turning point was attending one of the modules at last year's SIEL here in Rome. The opportunities to share faith, experience and story with other Lasallians not only increased my awareness of what being Lasallian means, but left me with the feeling that I do not work alone, that I contribute a small part to the Lasallian mission alongside many others from all over the globe. Meetings like this one, anything that connects people (publications, magazines, newsletters, the internet) can all help to create a sense of community and shared mission. It is only through listening to others, being challenged and having a real experience that we can truly understand "association" and have ownership of a shared mission.
THE FUTURE
Given all this, what does the future hold? I feel that our response to the current situation should not just be a reaction to the problems of falling numbers of Brothers or priests. We are a Church of resurrection not resuscitation and perhaps there are things that need to die in order to be transformed and renewed. We must not be afraid! We must think and pray about the future and be proactive in our response, taking action because it is the right thing to do. There are many questions and obstacles we are left with.
We must not fear the future or look bleakly on the present situation. Problems can be seen as new opportunities, new challenges and places of growth. The Spirit can work in all things and God is much bigger than all of this!
My final words belong to Nelson Mandela, from his inaugural speech in 1994:
Let us go forward then, renewed in faith and in answer to God's call, to serve the poor and needy just as John Baptist De La Salle did.
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