Being “Brother Today” Ain’t Just Brothers
One of the leading documents being prepared for the General Chapter in 2007, “Being Brother Today,” will be the result of a worldwide process involving thousands of Lasallians. A committee of Brothers representing all continents has written a draft that will be presented at a special two-week session of CIL in May 2006. These participants, mostly Brother Visitors, will also present summaries that Brothers and Partners around the world will use to provide feedback on the document before its publication in late spring. Broadly understood, the finished product will be a modern adaptation of the Declaration entitled “The Brother of the Christian Schools in the World Today,” completed for the Chapter of 1967.
I would like to ask you to support the inclusion of Partners in the feedback process.
Partners are entrusted with responsibility for the mission — the same mission that gives Brothers their raison d’être for living together in community. Furthermore, in larger and larger numbers, lay Partners are active members of Brothers’ communities across this country and around the world.
I would like to ask you to go a step further and recognize in this document the participation of these sister and brother Partners in the communities of our region. In many communities, Partners are de facto members.
“We affirm our strong conviction that today’s world needs communities of Brothers, Lasallian educational communities, communities of Associates, and communities of Brothers and Associates living together who offer signs of union and lead people to renewal and availability.”
— Brother Álvaro, Christmas Letter 2002
Partners such as the Lasallian Volunteers are mostly young, committed, energetic men and women who associate in community for one or two years, and sometimes more. At an ever-increasing rate, they remain connected to the Lasallian enterprise as teachers, social workers, or members of association groups, and a few have become vowed Brothers. All absorb every moment of formation offered at orientation, retreats, and workshops. They hunger for more in much the same way as the first teaching masters did in De La Salle’s time.
If you think about the history of De La Salle and when he began this work, he was inviting young men to come and live with him. It was not an invitation to come and be Brothers, but to come and be teachers. What is happening with the LV Program is that Brothers have opened their homes in much the same way De La Salle did. Whether they know it or not, they have done the same thing. De La Salle didn’t know where it was going. Volunteers living with the Brothers are learning to be teachers and to take on the Mission in the same way as the young men did when La Salle first entered. Whether they chose to stay or not was the question then. The volunteer program provides a continuum of service to the Mission because more LVs come after we leave.
— Chrissy III, Lasallian Volunteer
Imperceptibly, God, their Brothers, and their students affect them so deeply that they begin to see their life and work as a vocation.
Those affiliated with the Lasallian Volunteers make an annual promise of commitment to associate together to accomplish the mission. They use language reminiscent of the traditional vow formula. As their numbers increase and their training expands, their enthusiasm for mission and communion grows. They are quickly becoming co-members of the De La Salle Christian Brothers and should be recognized as such. At a time when they are treated as equals and counted as members, the mission will benefit, community life will prosper, and the downward trend in numbers will begin to level off.
