TO
LIVE LIKE BROTHERS
(An open letter to Redemptorists)
March 2, 2007
Dear Confreres,
1. Greetings from the members of the
General Secretariat for Brothers! We met at
Saint Alphonsus Formation Residence in New
York, from February
26 to March 2, 2007.
2. Over the last four days the members
of the Secretariat shared reports of the various
Regions within the Congregation, shared stories
of Brothers’ life and ministry and reflected
on articles relating to Religious Life. Some
of the articles emphasized the identity and
pastoral visibility or lack thereof, of the
Brother in our contemporary society.
3. This is our third meeting during
this sexennium. At our first meeting we drew
up a directory which included objectives and
specific tasks for the Secretariat. Our second
meeting was held in January 2006. At that meeting
we evaluated the activities planned and accomplished
for the year dedicated to St. Gerard. We were
very impressed with the overall success of the
programs which seemed to give new life to devotion
to St. Gerard and created a greater awareness
of the life of our beloved Brother Saint. We
also worked on a proposal to be presented to
the General Government which we hope will provide
material for reflection on our Religious life
as Redemptorist missionaries and help us grow
in faithfulness to our vocation.
4. After having listened to reports
from the various Regions, concern was raised
over the issues of pastoral visibility, identity,
aging Brothers, declining numbers, vocation
promotion and formation. These concerns are
challenges for each and every Redemptorist around
the world.
5. We believe strongly that the life
of Brothers in the Congregation provides a practical
way of addressing the challenges we face. The
life of the Brother is at the heart of what
Religious Life was originally intended to be.
We are Brothers of the Lord, skilled in seeing
God in all and all in God. We thereby proclaim
and live the intimate closeness of God in this
world even when global events provide no evidence
of that intimacy. We are Brothers with one another
in so far that we live authentically a life
of mutual concern. We are Brothers to the people,
especially the poor and most abandoned. Our
very title “Brother”, which excludes distinction
among us, is a characteristic which influences
the way in which we approach ministry. We are
Brothers to the Church, being free from the
unnecessary distinctions in the Church today,
most notably distinctions between men and women,
between laity and ordained, etc. Our presence
and activity in the Church can have the power
of communicating a perspective free of these
kinds of distinction that can and sometimes
do deteriorate into divisions. To be Brother
to the Church is to live and proclaim the message
of St. Paul: there is no longer Jew or Greek, male
or female, slave or free. It is part of the
mission of the Brother in the Church today to
preach and live such a message, regardless of
the consequences.
6. We are convinced that as Brothers
we need to reclaim who and what we are. We are
men of the Church, vowed to live a life of poverty,
chastity and obedience. We commit ourselves
to a life of prayer and mission with each other
in community. Given today’s society and culture,
these core values mentioned above, are what
make us counter-cultural. Our challenging times
invite us to probe and to enter more deeply
into the essence of our vows and the mysterious
grace that comes with this life.
7. We encourage all confreres, in
the spirit of renewal, to abandon distinctions
within the community and strive to recapture
the original vision of Religious Life: that
of being Brother to one another, to the poor
and most abandoned, to the Church and Brothers
of the Lord.
In Christ the Redeemer,
Fr. Enrique López, C.Ss.R.,
General Consultor
Br. João Batista de Viveiros, C.Ss.R.
Br. Joel de Guzman, C.Ss.R.
Br. Benjamin Posvo, C.Ss.R.
Br. Michael Duxbury, C.Ss.R.
Fr. José Samuel Torres, C.Ss.R.
Br.
Jeffrey Rolle, C.Ss.R., Chairman of the General Secretariat
(Original in English)
