Imagine the Future

The founding charism and driving force of the DeLaSalle Christian Brothers was a community of lay men fired up about helping street youth be literate. Over the years they became an enormously successful religious order in the Catholic Church. For the last fifty years, my entire adult life, they have been in decline in the first world and will be terminal by the end of this century if the trend continues.

What happened? By the mid 1960’s in this country the Brothers were at the top of their game in numbers of members and schools but had gradually by that point drifted away from their charism of addressing the needs of poor families. At the same time the Church at Vatican II identified a new understanding of “vocation” for all church members in all walks of life. Many options for service beyond religious life opened for generous young people.

I’ve experienced the enormous good that can be achieved by a community of individuals who love each other and put their combined energy to bear on social needs in out society. It’s so sad to see this end. I am reminded of the crowd who put out into the desert looking for the Promised Land. The group must have felt unprepared for dying off and growing old in a wilderness with strange food, no permanent home and only a vague hope of eventual survival. Most of the band died over the forty years.

Death births life. The Phoenix, a mythical bird, at the end of its life cycle builds a nest and then ignites it; both nest and bird are reduced to ashes from which a new, young Phoenix arises. This rebirth or resurrection happens once in two or three hundred years- just about the age of the DeLaSalle Christian Brothers. As vowed members of the order grow old and as their ranks deplete by death, new Lasallian communities of young Lasallians and Brothers are rising in urban neighborhoods across the United States. Their mission is to reach out to needy youth and their families and to break the cycle of poverty. They play, pray, cook, and care for each other. It’s a great way for young people to “give back”, share their blessing and live out their lay vocation. The older members, mostly Brothers, can pass along the finest Lasallian traditions and model being mature change agents. But more, for both young and old, it is a modern, effective, life giving and attractive way to continue what De La Salle started in the 17th century.

These Shared Communities, the seed of new life, the hope of refoundation, the fragile new alternative, the new Phoenix, need a great deal of attention to survive and to reverse the decline of the last fifty years. We must listen to their needs and dreams and make a plan; make it easy for groups to form and flourish; get the larger Lasallian community to support with assets and resources; and form a structure to link the smaller communities together to create critical mass and share common learning.

Let’s be specific.

Goal: To build a network of Lasallian Shared Communities by 2020 that approximates the number and membership of Lasallian communities at their greatest number prior to Vatican Council II.

We will achieve this by:

1. Defining the needs of the existing network as well as their vision of the future by 3/1/08 and complete a strategic plan by 6/1/08 by surveys, interviews, and group discussions with present and past members of Shared Communities, willing Brothers and lay partners associated with the various formation programs throughout the US.

2. Creating a plan to make housing and formation of new communities easier by bringing together all invested interests and actually enabling three groups to form by 12/1/08.

3. Forming a fund from within the Lasallian community to support establishment and operation of new communities by 3/1/09 by………….

4. Networking with outside groups who have formed intentional communities for purposes similar to ours by meeting with three such groups by 6/1/08.

5. Creating an infrastructure to provide support and linkage for the communities throughout the US by 9/1/08 by convening a meeting of representatives of the communities in May or June to discuss the value of organizing together for common interests.

6. Creating a marketing and promotional plan targeted at Lasallians across the country to grow the number of new participants in Shared Communities by 10 percent each year for the next three years. A draft plan will be complete by 6/1/08 and among other items will include specific promotional actions to be carried out with the tri-district Brothers assembled together in Philadelphia next summer.