Vocation

WHY BE A BROTHER?

by Sean Sammon, fms

Selfishness! That’s an odd reason to give for being a religious brother during the last decade of the twentieth century. However, it’s not the clawing greed many thought characteristic of the 1990s.

No, it’s another kind of “selfishness” - one born of this experience: looking around, asking more questions about life than I care to remember, examining a number of options, and finding myself saying, “I really haven’t found a more rewarding or satisfying way of spending my life than being a religious brother.”

Brothers are a fairly misunderstood lot. Although you hear it less frequently today, years ago many Catholics asked about brothers: “Why don’t they just go the whole way?” they wondered quietly if these men simply weren’t good enough or smart enough to be priests.

Concerns like these really miss the point of what brotherhood is all about. For those of us who are brothers, the title says a great deal more about who we are than about what we do.

About two-and-a-half years ago, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men produced a video entitled, Brother is a Verb! This thirty-minute production takes a look at five religious brothers: a physician at Johns Hopkins, the director of an education program in California serving Hispanic American adults, the pastoral administrator of South Dakota’s Our Lady of the Sioux parish, and an administrator and teacher working with young native Americans at the Kola alternative School on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Each of these men is involved in wonderful and needed ministries. Their works, however, are not what impress you. It’s who they are that lingers even when the video has ended. All five are brothers who brother.

Why Not a Priest?

I’ve had other experiences of the brother’s vocation being misunderstood. Several years ago, a participant in a workshop I was conducting came up after one of the presentations and said, “The church has a real shortage of priests these days. You’re well educated, a good teacher, and seem to be able to listen to people - don’t you think you owe it to the church to consider ordination?” this question misses the boat on the brother’s vocation: brothers are not priests because the Lord called them to be brothers. It’s that simple.

The brother’s vocation is important to the church today. Brother Brice Byzeynski, fms coined the title of the Brother is a Verb! video mentioned earlier. In doing so, he captured a central aspect of the religious brother’s identity. We are men who witness to Christ’s presence as our brother. We do this by living out the evangelical councils - poverty, chastity and obedience - in community and serving the church and world in our apostolates.

Once again, though, it’s who we are that counts most; it’s not what we do but how we approach what we do that makes a difference.

Our world today greatly needs the witness of brothers. Christ was clear in his message: he wanted us to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Brothers relate to others like real brothers in a family, not for their own gain but for the common good.

When Jesus walked among us, he was vulnerable, loving, challenging, inspiring, and, most of all, human. Religious brothers strive to do the same, not always successfully but at least sincerely.

What about myself? Why am I a brother; why do I remain one? I first met the Marist Brothers thirty years ago while a student at St. Agnes High School in New York City. I was immediately taken with these men. They appeared happy and seemed to love what they were doing.

It was several years later, while in the Marist novitiate in Tyngsboro, MA that I learned their history as a group and started to appreciate the profound spirituality that motivated them. I remember what first drew me to them as if it were yesterday: their love of life, their enthusiasm, their happiness as a group. Now, twenty-five years later, those qualities still keep me going.

An Inspiring Founder

Over the last twenty-five years, I’ve also come to appreciate and love the remarkable founder of my congregation, Marcellin Champagnat. His story is incredible. Marcellin acted on the inspiration to found the Marist Brothers in his late twenties. He worked hard to teach our early members what it meant to be a brother. He believed that the brothers, working with other branches of the Marist family, could again bring the Gospel to a church and world torn apart by the revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The young people of today’s world have needs as great as those Marcellin and our early brothers found in their day. Toda’s youth needed people who are willing to brother them. In my own twenty-five years of Marist life, I’ve worked as a high school teacher, guidance counselor and later as a clinical psychologist. Presently I’m serving as provincial of my order. However, whether working in schools, hospitals, treatment centers, or offices, I’ve been reminded time and again that it’s being a brother that counts.

I’ve also come to learn that the dream of Marcellin Champagnat has, over time, also become mine. The Lord’s call to me is to brother. I’d be less than honest if I didn’t admit that there have been doubts and questions. Nevertheless, whenever they’ve occurred, I’ve discovered once again that being a brother is the best way for me to grow in my love of the Lord and in his plan for me. Sure, there are many other ways I could live out my life, and they too would allow me to serve the church and other people. None though would ever be quite as satisfying as being a brother.

 

Sean Sammon is a Marist Brother belonging to the Esopus Province in the U.S.A. Presently he is the Superior General of the Marist Brothers based in Rome.

May 31, 2003