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Joseph Calasanctius (José de Calasanz) was born at the castle of Calasanz near Peralta de la Sal, Aragón, Spain, in 1557 to Don Pedro Calasanz and Doña María Gaston. From an early age he gave signs of his future love for children and their education. When still a little child he would gather other children round him and would teach them the mysteries of faith and holy prayer. After having received a good education in the liberal arts and divinity, he went through hie theological studies at Valencia. Here he courageously overcame the seductions of a noble and powerful lady, and by a remarkable victory preserved unspotted his virginity which he had already vowed to God. He became a priest in fulfilment of a vow in 1587, and several bishops of New Castile, Aragon and Catalonia availed themselves of his assistance. He surpassed all their expectations, corrected evil living throughout the kingdom, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and was marvellously successful in putting an end to enmities and bloody factions.
But urged by heavenly vision, and after having been several times called by God, he went to Rome. Here he led a life of great austerity in fasting and watching, spending whole day and nights in heavenly contemplation, and visiting the seven churches of pilgrimages almost every night. This last custom he observed for many years. He enrolled himself in pious associations and with wonderful charity devoted himself to aiding and consoling the poor with alms and other works of mercy, especially those who were sick or imprisoned. When the plague was raging in Rome, he joined Saint Camillus de Lellis, and not content in his ardent zeal with bestowing lavish care on the sick poor, he even carried the dead to the grave on his own shoulders. But having been divinely admonished that he was called to educate children he founded the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools (the Piarists), who are specially destined to devote themselves to the instruction of youth. This Order was highly approved by Popes Clement VIII, Paul V and other Roman Pontiffs, and in a wonderfully short space of time it spread through many of the kingdoms of Europe. But in this undertaking Joseph had to undergo many sufferings and labours, and he endured them all with so much constancy, that every one proclaimed him a miracle of patience and another Job.
Though burdened with the government of the whole Order, he nevertheless devoted himself to saving souls, and moreover never gave over teaching children, especially those of the poorer class. He would sweep their schools and take them to their homes himself. For fifty-two years he persevered in this work, though it called on him to practise the greatest patience and humility, and although he suffered from weak health. God rewarded him by honouring him with many miracles in the presence of his disciples, and the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him with the infant Jesus, who blessed his children while they were praying. He refused the highest dignities, but he was made illustrious by the gifts of prophecy, of reading the secrets of hearts, and of knowing what was going on in his absence. He was favoured with frequent apparitions of the citizens of Heaven, particularly of the Virgin Mother of God, whom he had loved and honoured most especially from his infancy, and whose cultus he had most strongly recommended to his disciples.
Joseph foretold the day of his death and the restoration and propagation of his Order, which was then almost destroyed. In in his ninety-second year he fell asleep in our Lord, at Rome, on the 8th of the Calends of September in 1648. A century later, his heart and tongue were found whole and incorrupt. God honoured him by many miracles after his death. Pope Benedict XIV granted him the honours of the Blessed, and Pope Clement XIII canonised him in 1767.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
“To you is the poor man left: you will be a helper to the orphan” (Psalms ix. 14). Proud Venice has already seen these words realised in her noble son Jerome Aemilian: today they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity. God, who waters the trees of the field as well as the cedars of Libanus, because it is He that planted them all, takes care also of the little birds that do not gather into barn: will He then forget the child who is of much more value than the birds of the air? Or will He give him corporal nourishment and neglect the soul hungering for the bread of the knowledge of salvation which strengthens the heart of man? In the sixteenth century one might have been tempted to think our heavenly Father’s granaries were empty. True, the Holy Spirit soon raised up new saints, but the reviving charity was insufficient for the number of destitute: how many poor children, especially, were without schools, deprived of the most elementary education which is indispensable to the fulfilment of their obligations, and to their nobility as children of God: and there was no one to break to them the bread of knowledge!
More fortunate than so many other countries overrun with heresy, Spain was at her apogee, enjoying the hundredfold promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. She seemed to have become our Lord’s inexhaustible resource. A little while ago she had given Ignatius Loyola to the world. She had just enriched Heaven by the precious death of Teresa of Avila when the Holy Ghost drew once more from her abundance to add to the riches of the capital of the Christian world, and to supply the wants of the little ones in God’s Church. The descendant of the Calasanz of Petralta de la Sal was already the admired Apostle of Aragon, Catalonia and Castile, when he heard a mysterious voice speaking to his soul: “Go to Rome. Go forth from the land of your birth. Soon will appear to you, in her heavenly beauty, the companion destined for you, holy poverty, who now calls you to taste of her austere delights. Go, without knowing where I am leading you. I will make you the father of an immense family. I will show you all that you must suffer for my name’s sake.”
Forty years of blind fidelity in unconscious sanctity had prepared the elect of Heaven for his sublime vocation. “What can be greater,” asks Saint John Chrysostom, “than to direct the souls and form the characters of children? Indeed I consider him greater than any painter or sculptor who knows how to fashion the souls of the young.” Joseph understood the dignity of his mission: during the remaining fifty-two years of his life he, according to the recommendations of the holy Doctor, considered nothing mean or despicable in the service of the little ones. Nothing cost him dear if only it enabled him, by the teaching of letters, to infuse into the innumerable children who came to him, the fear of the Lord. From Saint Pantaleon, his residence, the Pious Schools soon covered the whole of Italy, spread into Sicily and Spain, and were eagerly sought by kings and people in Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and the northern countries. Eternal Wisdom associated Calasanctius to her own work of salvation on Earth. She rewarded him for his labours, as she generally does her privileged ones, by giving him “a strong conflict, that he might overcome and know that wisdom is mightier than all” (Wisdom x. 12). It is a conflict like that of Jacob at the ford of Jaboc which represents the last obstacle to the entrance into the promised land, when all the pleasures and goods of the world have been sent on before by absolute renouncement. It is a conflict by night in which nature fails and becomes lame, but it is followed by the rising of the sun, and sets the combatant at the entrance of eternal day. It is a conflict with God hand to hand, under the appearance, it is true, of a man or of an angel. But it matters little under what form God chooses to hide Himself, provided it takes nothing from His sovereign dominion. “Why do you ask my name?” said the wrestler to Jacob. Yours will be henceforth “Israel, strong against God” (Genesis xxxii.).
Our readers may consult the historians of Saint Joseph Calasanctius for the details of the trials which made him a prodigy of fortitude, as the Church calls him. Through the calumnies of false brethren the saint was deposed, and the Order reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII, and then by Clement IX, as a Regular Order with solemn vows. In his great work on the canonisation of Saints, Benedict XIV speaks at length on this subject, delighting in the part he bad taken in the process of the servant of God, first as consistorial advocate, then as promoter of the faith, and lastly as Cardinal giving his vote in favour of the cause.
The Lord has heard the desire of the poor, by making you the depository of His love, and putting on your lips the words He Himself was the first to utter: “Suffer the little children to come to me” (Mark x. 14). How many owe and will yet owe, their eternal happiness to you, O Joseph, because you and your sons have preserved in them the divine likeness received in baptism, man’s only title to Heaven! Be blessed for having justified the confidence Jesus placed in you by entrusting to your care those frail little beings who are the objects of His divine predilection. Be blessed for having still further corresponded to that confidence of our Lord when He suffered you, like Job, to be persecuted by Satan, and with yet more cruel surprises than those of the just Idumaean. Must not God be able to count unfailingly on those who are His? Is it not fitting that, amid the defections of this miserable world, He should be able to show His Angels what grace can do in our poor nature, and how far His adorable will can be carried out in His Saints? The reward of your sufferings, which your unwavering confidence from Mother of God came at the divinely appointed hour. O Joseph, now that the Pious Schools have been long ago re-established, bless the disciples whom even our age continues to give you. Obtain for them, and for the countless scholars they train to Christian science, the blessing of the infant Jesus. Give your spirit and your courage to all who devote their labour and their life to the education of the young. Raise us all to the level of the teaching conveyed by your heroic life.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Capua in Campania, the birthday of St. Rufus, bishop and martyr, a patrician, who was baptised with all his family by blessed Apollinaris, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Peter.
In the same place, the holy martyrs Rufus and Carpophorus, who suffered under Diocletian and Maximian.
At Tomis in Pontus, the holy martyrs Marcellinus, tribune, and Mannea, his wife, and his sons John, Serapion and Peter.
At Lentini in Sicily, St. Euthalia, virgin. Because she was a Christian she was put to the sword by her brother Sermilian and went to her spouse.
The same day, the martyrdom of St. Anthusa the Younger, who was made a martyr by being cast into a well for the faith of Christ.
At Bergamo, St. Narnus, who was baptised by blessed St. Barnabas, and consecrated by him first bishop of that city.
At Arles, the holy bishop Caesarius, a man of great sanctity and piety.
At Autun, St. Syagrius, bishop and confessor.
At Pavia, St. John, bishop.
At Lerida in Spain, St. Licerius, bishop.
In Thebais, St. Poemon, anchoret.
At San Severino, in the Marches of Ancona, St. Margaret, widow.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
