With the brilliant illumination made available by the technology of the year 2000, pilgrims and tourists can nowadays view interiors and exteriors of monumental buildings such as St Peter's Basilica far better than previous generations could. Candles, oil-lamps and resinous torches were the usual means available for shedding light in previous times.

When Saint John Baptist de La Salle was canonized exactly 100 years ago, 250 "sampietrini" (the Vatican workmen) started at 5am lighting the candles. 12,000 candles were set 50 metres up on the cornices of the interior, over a total distance of 700 metres. Chandeliers (bearing candles and not the electric globes we are accustomed to) were hung at lower levels. The candles were to burn throughout the day, being replaced as they burnt low, both for the long canonization ceremony of the morning and for the afternoon visits by pilgrims. Altogether 5,529 kilos of wax were used.

This was customary for important Vatican celebrations at that time. But there was a difference in the illumination on that May 24th 1900: for the very first time, a small amount of the invention that owed much to Italians such as Marconi, Galvani and Volta, was used: electrical lighting.

600 Edison carbon lamps made their appearance in the choir of the basilica, and the "Glory" of Bernini was decorated with star designs. Since there was not yet an electrical power supply in the city of Rome as with elsewhere in the world, the Vatican engineers set up a generator yielding 24 horsepower for the illumination job.

As night fell on what had been a beautifully sunny spring day, Romans, pilgrims and tourists flocked to see the traditional completion of such a feast. A hundred sampietrini set about lighting the oil lanterns and flares arranged in a beautiful design on the façade of St Peter's and all around the great Bernini colonnade.

Pope Leo XIII performed the ceremony. As with this year, 1900 was a Jubilee year and huge crowds of pilgrims had come to Rome. The May springtime made the journey even more attractive at this particular period. Though there was no air travel at that time,  many pilgrims came from France to witness the canonizing of their fellow countryman, and Lasallians from many countries around the world joined them. There was also a huge crowd of Italians to witness the canonization of a very popular Italian saint, Saint Rita of Cascia.

It seems fitting that as well as the usual choir for the ceremony, there was a special one of 180 boys' voices to sing the praises of the newly-sainted apostle of the education of children and youth.

Four years later that the massive statue of Saint De La Salle was hoisted by crane to its place in the gallery of founders of religious congregations. Its emplacement is above and to the right of the statue of the seated St Peter at floor level, and is often picked out by Lasallians by means of the guiding arm outstretched. The statue is 4.65 metres tall and weighs 23 tonnes.

In the 50th anniversary year of his canonization, on May 15, 1950, in another jubilee year, Pope Pius XII made the formal declaration of Saint De La Salle as "patron, before God, of all teachers of youth". Officially declared patrons are relatively few.

As with the advance from candle light to electrical light, so with schools and teaching. Just as nowadays we take electricity for granted (at least in many parts of the world), so too, again in many parts of the world, we take good school systems and well-trained teachers for granted. St. De La Salle's special merit is that 300 years ago he made moves that started to bring education for ordinary people out of the "candle" era into the "electrical" era. He is a pioneer of modern education. His particular genius was to make educational theory about schooling for the masses an effective practice. The practical training of teachers, both pre-service and in-service, was a keystone in his method.

Pope Pius XII's formal declaration of 1950 says in one paragraph: "Saint John Baptist de La Salle, a man of great holiness and natural gifts, not only educated young people himself but continues to do so through the excellent principles and practices he established in the Society he founded. Not only that, but in order to prepare teachers for so important a mission in remote rural districts, he established training colleges."