IFTTT Autopost 
John Baptist de La Salle was born on April 30, 1651, in Reims, France, eldest child of Louis de La Salle and Nicolle Moet de Brouillet. The La Salle family operated a successful winery business. Nicolle was a noble and related to Claude Moët, founder of Moët & Chandon, a company that even today is famous for its champagne, cognac, and luxury goods with Louis Vuitton.
When he was 11, John Baptist was tonsured, which in those days indicated he was marked for service to the Lord. At the age of 18, he received minor orders which were customary in the Catholic Church in those days before a man could advance to Holy Orders.
After receiving minor orders, John Baptist went to the College of Bons Enfants (Holy Infants) and, in July of 1669, earned a Master of Arts degree. He then went to the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice on October 18, 1670. While he was there, his mother died on July 19, 1671, and his father died on April 9, 1672. So, at the age of 21, John Baptist left the seminary to care for his four brothers and two sisters.
Despite the interruption to his studies, John Baptist was made a subdeacon, a traditional step in the journey to priesthood before the Second Vatican Council. He was ordained a deacon in 1676 and priest on April 9, 1678. He earned a doctorate in theology two years after ordination.
As a young priest, Father John Baptist helped a new religious order of women, the Sisters`of the Child Jesus, who were caring for the sick and educating girls. He became their chaplain and confessor, and through them, he met a teacher named Adrian Nyel in 1679. Adrian was described as a brusque and impulsive man who love founding new schools, but he was not so much interested in running them. Soon, Father John Baptist found himself running two new schools for poor children in Reims, and this led to Father John Baptist’s focus on education.
In Reims, Father John Baptist found that teachers were poorly paid and considered “low class” in the social stratification of the day. Father sought to remedy that.
First, he invited the men to come to meals in his home, and he taught them table manners and other social skills that a refined “gentleman” should have. He then began inviting the men to live in his house, and he sought to give the teachers the education they lacked. Father John Baptist’s peers were horrified that their friend was associated with people they considered inferior, but this had no effect of John Baptist.
Father John Baptist came to two big insights. First, he could not do everything well. Therefore, he would devote himself to the betterment of the poor through good education. Second, teaching is a full-time profession. One cannot devote oneself full-time to teaching and be saddled with the obligations of the ordained priesthood.
With an ever-increasing clarity of vision for his vocation, Father John Baptist founded a new religious order of men called the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. In some parts of the world, such as Asia and Europe, the members are known as the De La Salle Brothers, while in the United States of America, they are known as the Christian Brothers. One major rule of the order is that no ordained priests may be members, only religious brothers. The brothers take the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, but they take a fourth vow to provide education to the poor.
In 1685, Fr. John Baptist founded the first school for the education of teachers in Reims. Father John Baptist was a pioneer in many ways. Not only was he devoted to helping teachers, but he also did all he could for his students. For example, he made sure classes were taught in French (the language of the people) instead of Latin. He insisted on providing Sunday classes for those who could not attend school on any other day. He established care for delinquents and technical schools for those wanting to learn trades. And he established schools for modern languages as well the arts and sciences.
Father John Baptist de La Salle died on April 7, 1719, which was Good Friday that year. Pope Leo XIII canonized him on May 24, 1900. Saint John Baptist de La Salle is April 7.
He is a patron saint of educators, school principals, and the order he founded.
Today, the brothers of the institute are found in 80 nations of the world. One of the most recent members of the order who was beatified was Brother James Alfred Miller, martyr of Guatemala in 1982 and beatified in December in 2019. Blessed James Miller’s feast day is February 13.