Thursday April 6:
Thursday in Lent


Purple vestments

First Reading: Exodus 32: 7-14
Responsorial: Psalm 106: 19-23
Gospel Reading: John 5: 31-47

Friday April 7:
Friday in Lent and
Optional Feast of Saint John Baptist de la Salle, Priest and Religious Founder

Purple vestments

First Reading: Wisdom 2: 1, 12-22
Responsorial: Psalm 34: 17-21, 23
Gospel Reading: John 7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

    Born April 30, 1651 in Rheims, France, Saint John Baptist de la Salle became tonsured at the tender age of eleven and was ordained at 27. As a priest he devoted himself to making teachers better, working on curriculums and founding the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools which would receive the Holy See's approval in 1725 by Pope Benedict XIII six years after John's death. Today they are known as the Christian Brothers He established colleges for teachers throughout France as well as a novitiate for minor seminarians. Because of his success jealousy cropped up including from the secular sector who opposed his religious teaching, but John de la Salle persevered even though his college in Paris was closed. He even set up a reformatory school for young men in trouble in Paris. Growing older, he retired to St. Yon, Rouin in 1717 and two years later died there peacefully at the age of 68. He was canonized in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII and in 1950 proclaimed Patron of Professors and Teachers by Pope Pius XII.

          

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