This August 25, we honor the saint who was also a great pedagogue and is remembered as the Patron Saint of Christian Schoolsfor his great dedication and commitment to the education of children and young people, especially in the vulnerable sectors of society.
Saint Joseph Calasanz, founder of the Order of the Pious Schools, was the first evangelizer and educator of children, without distinction of social class or religion, thus generating the first free educational system.
For his great dedication and dedication to the poor, during the 91 years of life as a religious educator, Pope Pius XII declared him in 1948 “Celestial Patron of all Popular Christian Schools”; It is opportune that we can learn from the great spiritual wealth that Saint Joseph leaves us so that it can be an inspiration for current times. The years of life of San José de Calasanz (1557-1648) were marked by a true communion of his spiritual and pedagogical experience. It is what characterizes his person as a pedagogue and a saint that he lived at all times, with great faith and trust in God.
As an example of strength for all educators, we find in him a great human personality who lived historical circumstances, in which he knew how to discern the will of God. Faced with the need for the education of the most vulnerable children of his time, he responded with his life to the mission of educating and training people. He teaches us the path of holiness with a generous dedication in favor of our brothers who are Christ himself whom we must love and serve.
In the Constitution of the Piarist Fathers, San José de Calasanz, transmits us a synthesis of his spirituality: “It is a good principle of spiritual life, that of self-knowledge and misery in which we are all born and also of the ingratitude with which, after so many benefits, we have beatified man according to the degree that after knowledge he grows in divine love” (EP, c. 1339). He teaches us to go deeper into the knowledge of the greatness of God, who is always our wealth and strength.
Among the characteristics of his spirituality, we can discover great simplicity, availability and total dedication. For Saint Joseph Calasanz, every educational act is carried out in the spirit of love and the paternal spirit “so that everyone respects and loves him as the true Father” (cc, 193). “This love will be accompanied by the human and Christian virtues necessary to educate, among which this great Saint enumerates simplicity, patience, humility, poverty, purity of heart, joy, hope, love of neighbor, the diligence” (cf. CC, 203, 210, 211).
In his generous dedication as an educator, he also went through difficult times, which he describes as external events that made his soul mature and a true experience of the Trinitarian mystery of God. He himself teaches us that in the face of adverse moments in life, we must not stop putting trust in God and identify ourselves with the mystery of the passion and the cross of the Master himself.
True happiness consists in putting all our trust and abandonment in the will of God.
He advised the members of his religious community to live a permanent experience of prayer, in a climate of recollection and silence, experiencing the presence of God in their daily tasks. Let us pray to God, so that the example of faith that characterized his life and his constant intercession, encourage and strengthen our educational mission.
San José de Calasanz, patron of the “Popular Christian Schools” –