#LasallianLife
There Is No "Other"
March 13, 2026

During February break, seven CBA juniors and seniors traveled with Mrs. Susan Major and Mr. Tim Davis to Browning, Montana, for an immersion experience at the De La Salle Blackfeet School. This marked the first time CBA students have participated in this Lasallian immersion, and we are grateful to Mrs. Major and Mr. Davis for their leadership in creating this new opportunity for our students.

The students who made the journey, Clare Schaefer, Alyce McClain, Benjamin Chiodi, James Cass, Carter Achuff, Rowan Doyle, and Claire Ashe, demonstrated the courage to step beyond the familiar and encounter another community within the Lasallian family.

Immersion experiences invite us to leave behind what is comfortable and predictable. They bring us into contact with people whose histories, cultures, and daily lives may be different from our own. When we encounter someone who seems unfamiliar, it is easy, often without realizing it, to think of that person as the other. We notice the differences first. Different traditions. Different histories. Different experiences of life.

Yet when I met with our students after they returned, what struck them most was not the differences. It was the similarities.

They spoke about the students they met at the De La Salle Blackfeet School. They spoke about their laughter, their friendships, their hopes for the future, and the everyday experiences that shape the lives of any young person. Despite the distance and differences between Syracuse and the Blackfeet Reservation, our students recognized something deeply familiar in the young people they encountered. In many ways, they saw themselves.

This recognition points to something profound at the heart of the Lasallian tradition. St. John Baptist de La Salle believed deeply in the dignity of every young person and in our responsibility to recognize the presence of God in one another. While our backgrounds, families, ethnicities, religions, and traditions may differ, each person carries within them a sacred dignity. Each human life is intentionally, uniquely, and irrepeatably created by God.

Immersion experiences help reveal that truth. They remind us that understanding does not come from observation alone but from presence. When we spend time with one another, when we listen, share stories, and walk alongside each other even for a short time, we begin to recognize the deeper reality that lies beneath our differences. We encounter the heart of another person.

In that moment, something important becomes clear. The idea of the other begins to disappear. What remains is a recognition of shared humanity and of the presence of God dwelling within every person we meet.

I am grateful to the students who embraced this experience with openness and courage. In doing so, they did more than just travel to a different place; they opened themselves to encounter another community and, through that encounter, gained a clearer understanding of the dignity that unites us all.

Perhaps that is the most important lesson of all. When we truly encounter another person, we come to realize that there really is no other. There are only brothers and sisters, each created in the image of God.

Mr. Matthew Keough
President, Christian Brothers Academy