08/24/2026
ST. JOSEPH CALASANZ - Feast August 25
St. Joseph Calasanz was born in 1557 in the hamlet of Peralta de la Sal, which is located within the municipality of Peralta de Calasanz, which is located in the Aragon region of Spain. He was ordained INM1583 as a diocesan priest and later became the Vicar General of the Diocese of Urgel. He later went to Rome and in 1597 founded the world's first free public school dedicated to poor children and in 1617 founded the Piarist Fathers, a Religious Order of Clerics Regular dedicated to the care and education of poor children. He suffered trials, slander, and persecution silently and serenely. He died peacefully in 1648 at the age of 90.
From St Joseph de Calasanz to Cardinal M.A. Tonti:
Let us strive to cling to Christ and please him alone
Everybody realizes the great dignity and merit of that ministry in which men devote themselves to the education of boys, especially poor boys, so that they may learn the way to eternal life. When, in the interests of soul and body, knowledge is imparted, piety cultivated, Christian doctrine inculcated, their teachers share in a certain manner in the work of their guardian angels.
Help of the most excellent kind is given to young people, whatever their origin or station, so that not only are they preserved from evil but they are more easily and gently drawn towards good. It is universally accepted that when the young receive such aid, they become so much changed for the better as to be no longer recognizable for what they previously were. The young, like tender plants, are easily trained in the desired direction, but if allowed to toughen, we find that our best efforts may fail to correct their wills.
The education of youth, particularly of the poor, while it assists them to grow in human dignity, also concerns all members of Christian society. Parents rejoice to see their children being led along the right path; civil authorities approve the formation of good-living subjects and citizens. The Church especially has cause to be glad, for, as lovers of Christ and defenders of the gospel, the young are more speedily and efficaciously brought into her many and varied fields of life and action.
Those who undertake this work of teaching, surely a task to be carried out with the greatest care, must be endowed with overflowing charity, inexhaustible patience, and, above all, profound humility. So may they be found worthy for the Lord, in answer to their humble entreaties, to make them fellow-workers with Truth itself; may he strengthen them to carry out their noble office, and finally, may he grant them a heavenly reward in accordance with the saying: ‘Those who instruct many in virtue will shine like stars for all eternity.’
They will attain more easily to this, if, having made profession of perpetual service, they strive wholeheartedly to cleave to Christ and to please him only, who said: ‘Whatever you did to one of the least of my little ones, you did it to me.’
