St. Miguel Febres Cordero, F.S.C. (1854-1910)

Today marks the Feast of St. Miguel Febres Cordero (1854-1910), the first Ecuadorian to join the De La Salle Christian Brothers. Born into a prominent family, he joined the Brothers and taught at their schools in Ecuador and Spain. Once a young confrere asked him why he still prepared lessons after twenty years of teaching. Brother Miguel said it wasn’t a question of learning the material, but finding “a better way of explaining it every year and I think that if I teach it for another twenty years I shall still find new and better ways of putting it over.” In his diary he wrote: “I must look for every possible way of making the lessons and work agreeable and pleasant to my pupils.” In 1984 he was canonized. Today the Christian Brothers sponsor San Miguel Middle Schools in the inner city, beginning in Chicago in 1995. Like the Jesuit Nativity Schools, San Miguel has proven a successful means of preserving the community’s charism in the face of declining numbers.