Not long ago, we received a wonderful email from Duke Banks ’64,
which was triggered by his receipt of the School’s annual Christmas card. The
card featured a portrait of Brother Solomon, our newest Lasallian saint, with
an explanation of how his canonization was approved by the Congregation for the
Causes of Saints because of a miraculous cure of a young girl in Caracas,
Venezuela. It seemed altogether a bizarre connection between an obscure 18th
Century Christian Brother who was martyred in the French Revolution and the
Catholic community in Caracas who had been venerating a statue of Brother
Solomon over the course of the last fifty years. It turns out Duke’s extended
Venezuelan family (he was born in Caracas with Venezuelan heritage on both
sides) was intimately connected to educational institutions sponsored by the
Christian Brothers in Central America. Somewhere, along the way, a statue of
Brother Solomon ended up in a chapel serving residents living on the outskirts
of Caracas. The Chaplain, who was educated by the Christian Brothers, gave the
statue pride of place in the Sanctuary and, upon its installation, declared:
“We receive Blessed Solomon, and we will yet make him a Saint.”
It only took a mere fifteen years for that to happen.
I dwell on this wonderful story because it seems to me that
as the English Romantic Poet, William Wordsworth, penned at the time of the
Industrial Revolution:
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers
His critique, back then (and, perhaps, applicable to this
modern-day moment) was described by one critic as: “the decadent material cynicism of the time.” The
current news cycle is rife with apocalyptic stories of political intrigue,
charges of cronyism and a never-ending (and exhausting) Washington battle over
how to provide health care for 22 million people who would not, ordinarily,
have a reasonable opportunity to access it. It is at times like this that I conclude
that “the world is too much with us.”
I suppose it was
ever thus. After all Saint Solomon was confronted by the awful choice of
denying his vowed commitment to the Church and losing his life – and that was
over two hundred years ago! I think we can learn something from Brother
Solomon’s steadfast commitment to his vows. We may be fortunate not to have to
consider the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our life’s commitments, but we
aren’t excused – any more than Saint Solomon was – from living our lives with
dignity and integrity. Here is what Brother Robert Schieler, the Superior
General of the Christian Brothers had to say about Brother Solomon at the time
of his canonization:
“Brother Solomon gives us a lesson of great integrity and loyalty with
the options taken, even at the sacrifice of his life. And God only knows how
necessary it is today to live with integrity and loyalty in a world where it
has become normal to trample rights unscrupulously against our conscience,
against others and against God, for mere interest and profit ... Secondly, there
is another message that Brother Solomon proposes to Christian teachers and
consecrated persons in general: to be witnesses of Christ, whatever the
cost. The world today needs more than
ever loyalty, consistency, justice, generosity, altruism even at the cost of
your own life. “
This last sentence captures, for me, the essential challenge
this Lasallian school in Pasadena must face every day if we are to be faithful
to the principles of our founding Brothers as well as those in a long line of
Brothers who preceded and followed Saint Solomon: to exercise loyalty,
consistency, justice, generosity and altruism even when the world around us
appears to have abandoned them.
As we begin a new year at La Salle (my nineteenth!), let’s
pray that the courage and integrity that inspired Saint Solomon will enable all
of us who are responsible for the students entrusted to our care to demonstrate
a similar, quiet heroism in the midst of a world that sometimes seems to have
lost its bearings. After 60 years of fidelity to the principles of Saint John
Baptist de La Salle, the Founder of the Christian Brothers, I think this
Lasallian community is up to the challenge.
