You're listening to the SSPX podcast. We're happy to present another installment of true heroes.

Stories of the Lives of the Saints, delivered by Father Thomas Tam. Father is also put together a video of each of these episodes. You can see the video at SSPX Podcast.com. Now here's Father Tam.

Learning without piety produces a proud device. Piety without learning produces a useless one.

St. John Baptiste de la Salle.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to true heroes.

Today we will consider the life of St. John Baptiste de la Salle,

who despite coming from a wealthy family himself, sold

all his wealth and resigned from his high position in the church in order to dedicate his life

for the education of the poor. Let us begin his story.

As a young 17th century Frenchman, John had everything going for him. Scholarly

bent, good looks, noble family background, money, and a refined upbringing. When he was only

11 years old, he received the tonsure. For those of you who don't know, the tansher is when one becomes a

cleric. So at already 11 years old, he was a cleric of the church. And he started at this time

his preparation for the priesthood, to which he was ordained at 27 years old. He seemed assured then of a life of dignified ease

and a high position in the church considering his wealthy background and incredible intelligence.

But God had other plans for him, which were gradually revealed to him in the next several years.

During a chance meeting with the Monsignor, he became interested in the creation of schools

for poor boys, where he was stationed in France.

Though the work was extremely distasteful to him at first, he became more involved in working with the deprived youths.

Once convinced that this was his divinely appointed mission, John threw himself wholeheartedly

into the work, left home and family, abandoned his position, as canon of the local city, or rather resigned his position,

gave away his fortune and reduced himself to the level of the poor to whom he devoted his entire life.

...