It's Time to Get to Work...

In today’s session Brother John Cantwell (Australia) picked up where Charlie Kitson left off; using the Declaration as the basis for his presentation. One of the major themes of CIL this year is the recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Declaration’s publication (full title: The Brother of the Christian Schools in the World Today: a Declaration). The document, published immediately after the Second Vatican Council, was an effort to respond to the Council’s call for “aggiornamento” (renewal) of religious life. One of the major themes of the Declaration was the promotion of lay involvement in the work of the Brothers. At the time of its publication, there were more than 10,000 Christian Brothers worldwide so, in a sense, the notion of including lay people in their work was more a function of philosophy than logistics (as late as 1973, there were 28 Christian Brothers on the staff of my Lasallian high school). In that sense this initiative was rather groundbreaking. In 1967 no one knew what would happen to membership in religious orders over the course of the next forty years. John asked us to compare a statement from the Declaration calling for full lay involvement at all levels of the school with a statement from Brother Alvaro, the Superior General at the opening of the first International Assembly of Brothers and lay partners convened in 2006. My reading of the two documents suggested that, over the course of forty years, the Brothers have moved from including lay people to welcoming us as full partners in sharing the Mission of Saint John Baptist de La Salle. The afternoon session built on this theme and then turned its attention to the two outcomes we are expected to produce over the course of the next three weeks: to develop a statement regarding what we would like to share with the Lasallian world about the future of De La Salle’s charge to provide a “human and Christian education to the young, especially the poor.”; and to develop a “project” that we can bring back to our Districts/Regions which will continue the work begun here in Rome. It looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us… This photo was taken in Saint Peter's Basilica. The thirty largest cathedrals in the world can fit inside Saint Peter's. Engraved in the floor (in order of length) from shortest (Saint Patrick's in New York at 101.9 meters) to longest (Saint Paul's in London at 158.10). The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles (at 120.62 meters) is about in the middle. Saint Peter's Basilica (the largest cathedral in the world) clocks in at 186.36 meters) For another view of our experience here in Rome – check out Tina Bonacci ’94 and her blog at: http://tinabonacci.blogspot.com/