Renewing a Prophetic Mysticism for Teaching Children Justly: A Lasallian Provocation

Abstract

There is an urgent need to renew religious charisms historically founded by teaching Religious Orders to invigorate and sustain God’s mission through Catholic education. It is within this need that I consider how the Lasallian tradition may be critically mined to develop a prophetic mysticism that integrates contemplation with the public activity of teaching children justly as prophetic witness in contemporary Catholic education. This article makes two contributions. First, it methodologically brings the Lasallian tradition into dialogue with the contemporary turn to children and childhood in theological research. I suggest that this turn presses us to re-commit to a preferential option for children in Christian mission, which serves as an interpretive lens to retrieve and develop a Lasallian prophetic mysticism. This lens allows us to see more clearly how God calls forth the Christian vocation of teaching through children as vulnerable agents who share and participate in life with us. Second, building on this prophetic mysticism, I propose a praxis of socially engaged contemplation that attunes Catholic educators to become ethically present to the social marginalization of children. Cultivating this ethical presence is necessary for teaching children justly—a moral imperative that has become all the more crucial today in light of reports on the sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church.