Lasallian Reflection No. 12, Building a Fraternal World: Pedagogy of Fraternity, Pedagogy of Encounter, is now available, inviting Brothers, educators, Partners and young people throughout the Lasallian Family to rediscover fraternity as a defining characteristic of the Lasallian mission.
Published by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools for 2026-2027, the new reflection was written by Brother Rafael Cerón Sigala, FSC, General Councillor, and Adriana Bolaños Hernández of CIAMEL.
Rather than approaching fraternity only as a concept, the reflection presents it as an experience lived through relationships. Its opening pages describe the Lasallian journey as one in which teachers and students walk alongside one another, gradually overcoming the distinction between teacher and learner and recognizing one another as equals. That recognition, the authors propose, is a first step toward fraternity.
The reflection traces this idea to the origins of the Lasallian mission. When Saint John Baptist de La Salle gathered the first community in 1682, he wanted its members to be brothers—to one another and, in a particular way, elder brothers to the young people entrusted to their care. The publication asks what that inheritance means for Lasallians more than three centuries later.
Fraternity as a pedagogy of encounter
At the center of the reflection is what it calls a “Pedagogy of Fraternity.” Drawing upon the Declaration on the Lasallian Educational Mission, it proposes that fraternity become the “heart and soul” of the educational mission, extending beyond religious community to students, educators, staff and families.
That pedagogy is expressed in seemingly ordinary choices: listening, recognizing another person, creating safe spaces, offering accompaniment and building relationships of mutual support and cooperation. Its purpose is not simply to create welcoming schools, but to educate young people who can help build a society characterized by solidarity, respect, peace and nonviolence.
The document also expands its consideration of fraternity to include sisterhood, emphasizing the contribution of women throughout the Lasallian Educational Mission and calling the entire Lasallian Family—women and men, Brothers and lay people—to build communities marked by reciprocal care and responsible trust.
Walking together
The reflection connects fraternity closely with synodality and Lasallian Association. It describes fraternity as the bond that unites people as brothers and sisters and synodality as the way they then walk together through listening, dialogue, discernment and shared responsibility. The Lasallian expression “together and by association” becomes a particularly important lens for understanding this way of exercising leadership and mission.
The document also places this vision within the Leavening Movement, calling Lasallians to become a transforming presence “from within, from below, from close by.” Like yeast within dough, seemingly small acts of fraternity can transform communities and challenge injustice.
This movement directs the Lasallian mission particularly toward the peripheries—geographical, economic and existential—and renews the commitment to educational service with those who are poor and marginalized.
A question for every Lasallian
Ultimately, Building a Fraternal World presents fraternity as more than a theme for the year. It is a way of seeing and encountering others, a way of educating and a way of living the Lasallian vocation.
The reflection concludes by inviting Lasallians throughout the world to recognize the many ways fraternity is already being lived—in listening, generosity, respect, forgiveness, kindness, dialogue, peacemaking and the creation of spaces of encounter and welcome.
And it leaves the Lasallian Family with two questions worth carrying into the year ahead:
Where have you found your brother, your sister?
And how do you live fraternity?
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