St. Joseph Calasanctius

Joseph Calasanctius saw poor children in Rome being left without schooling and gave the rest of his life to them. Born in Aragon in 1556, he was ordained a priest and served with energy in the diocese of Urgel before going to Rome in 1592. There he joined works of charity and served during an outbreak of plague, but the neglected children in the streets gave his vocation its lasting direction. When existing teachers could not take on the work without payment, Joseph opened a free school in rooms provided at Santa Dorotea in 1597. The school filled rapidly. What began with almost nothing grew into a large work and then into the Clerks Regular of the Religious Schools, better known as the Piarists.

Joseph's fidelity was tested most severely after the work had become established. Internal disorder, false accusations, ambitious subordinates, and Roman intervention brought arrests, suspension, and the reduction of the institute he had spent his life building. He endured the humiliation without abandoning obedience or the poor children for whom the schools existed. Joseph died in 1648 while the future of the Piarists still looked uncertain. The institute later recovered and spread, but the saint's deeper victory had already been won: he remained faithful to charity when the work itself seemed to be taken from him.