A Conversation for the Lasallian Family: Deepening our Identity

11th November 2020 RELEM

CIAMEL (The International Council for Lasallian Association and the Educational Mission) is pleased to share the Conversation for the Lasallian Family: Deepening our Identity. With this document, CIAMEL invites all in the Lasallian Family to a conversation at the local, District, and Regional level concerning important questions about who we are as Lasallians, our Spirituality, our mission, Association, and our future.

The Conversation for the Lasallian Family is intended to be a tool for Brothers, Partners, and all who identify as Lasallian to reflect, dialogue, and discern our current reality and our shared future.

Throughout the year, the Secretariat of Association and Mission will be piloting the document with various groups in order to share emerging best practices and pedagogy for using the document. The hope is that this tool will lead to shared and inclusive conversations for the Lasallian Family that will help deepen our identity and clarify our vision. Lasallians: You are part of the miracle!

Dear Lasallians:

This letter is an invitation to all members of the Lasallian Family
—women and men who recognize the seal of Lasallian identity on
their lives and are committed to our Lasallian Educational Mission.
The Lasallian Family formally began its journey in 1966 when
the 39th General Chapter introduced for the first time the term
Lasallian Family.

The Brother capitulants recognized a new reality,
a new way of doing things, a new relationship, and new signs
of the times that were emerging in the Lasallian mission all over
the world. They also heard the language of a Pilgrim People on
a journey and saw a new way of understanding the Church as the
People of God along with the development of the ecclesiology of
communion that was emanating from the Second Vatican Council.
An attentive reading of Lasallian Essays #4, Bases for the Present
Day Model for the Lasallian Family can help provide context for
this development. In 1989, the General Council published the first
Letter to the Lasallian Family.

The journey continues and offers us the possibility to engage with
new realities that move us to reflect and conceptualize, to envision
and renew formation. These realities include:

The Church’s development on “charismatic family;” that is persons, institutions and groups of persons united by the same foundational charism, in our case, that of Saint John Baptist de La Salle.
The invitation from successive General Chapters and International Mission Assemblies to further articulate Lasallian identity and the sense of belonging to the Lasallian Educational Mission.
The development of Association for the educational service of the poor.

https://www.lasalle.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/EN_Lasallian_Family_CIAMEL_web.pdf