Have you ever heard of a religious brother?
Many people know what a priest or a nun or sister is, but few understand what a brother is. Right now there are about 60,000 religious brothers in the world, why is it that they are so unknown?
Although I am studying to be a religious priest, my friend and brother (Sandy) is studying to become a brother. Often times I hear people ask him and other brothers:
What is a brother? What can you do as a brother? Is that a mini-priest? Is that a priest’s sidekick? Why don’t you wanna be a priest?
Being a brother, also called “lay brother” or “coadjutor brother” is a lot more about who you are and a lot less about what you do.
Read about two holy Salesian Brothers
Blessed Brother Zatti here Venerable Simon Srugi here.
Let’s start from the beginning. God calls all of us to a specific way to serve Him. That’s our vocation! Dude! Some are called to be married, some are called to the single life, others are called to the religious life or priesthood.
Being called to be a brother is being called to live a life of closeness to Jesus. You take the vows: obedience, poverty and chastity and you also promise to live with a group of men for a specific mission, in our case as Salesians we focus on working for the young and the poor.
You vow yourself to these things to imitate Jesus in a profound way. Jesus lived an obedient, poor and chaste life. I have heard it explained this way: a brother is like someone takes the Eucharist to others, from an outward appearance a brother does not necessarily look different from those that are married and single, however because he has a close relationship with the Lord, wherever he goes, he brings Jesus to that place or those people.
St. John Bosco often talked about the importance of having both brothers and priests in the Salesian Congregation. Both are necessarily for saving souls and building up society.
A Salesian Brother may be a youth minister, teacher in a school, coach, director of a mission office, among so many other ministries, but what is most important is not what he does but who he is.
We need more men to come forward and think about the possibility of serving the Church as a brother, as one who gives his whole self for the young and the poor and at the end of the day tries merely to imitate Jesus as best he can.
You know, I really like it when people post about religious brothers and de-mystify them for others. It seems to me that of all the religious states that of brother is the most misunderstood.
In fact, many people think that brothers just clean toilets and scrub floors all day, but they do so much more. It’s such a wonderful vocation.
Also, there are Orders of brothers out there like the Brothers of the Christian Schools (founded by St. John Baptist de La Salle), the Alexian Brothers, and the Xaverian Brothers.
Anyway, thank for the post.
God bless
Yo bro,
You should check out the download tab on my page because I uploaded the pdf file of my booklet on Bro Artemides Zatti and your readers might like to check it out!
See you are Sacred Heart!
Just about everyone knows what religious Sisters are, well, religious Brothers are pretty much the same, only they are men. I have found this to be a simple way to explain the vocation of the Brother.
I love your idea of a Brother from another mother.