Because of diminishment trends in religious life in the Western World over the past thirty years, religious writers have spilt much ink in their efforts to identify the key thing that constitutes the heart of religious life. Sandra Schneiders in her influential work “Finding the Treasure” has identified the celibate Quest for God as the defining quality of religious life, which she characterises as an organic life form. This celibate stance, beyond any thing else, is what gives shape and purpose to the life of the religious. The call to this way of life is the fundamental basis for the identity of all those called to religious life.  

Now the Quest for God is a simple little phrase, and can easily be glossed over as something that is immediately obvious. Yet, barely hidden beneath its surface, lies a whole host of profound questions. Who is the God I quest for? Where do I quest? How will I know when my quest has been successful? What will happen to me as I quest? What will the search cost? Will I have within me the wherewithal to meet the cost?

For religious, of course, there is the added complexity of being a member of a group committed to this search. How do we search together? Do we all search in the same place, or do we spread out? Who coordinates the search? What keeps us focused as we quest? It is the last question which will constitute the topic for discussion in the rest of this article.

In the Old Testament, a consistent message emerges in the unfolding history of the Chosen People. The God they worshipped was a God of Justice who identified with the poor and the persecuted. This belief was proclaimed by many of the OT prophets:

“But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practice steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the Lord." Jermiah 8:24

“Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” Is. 42:1-3

“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice.” Ezek. 34:15,16

“And I will betroth you to me for ever; I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.” Hosea 2:19

“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”   Amos 5:24

 “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8

The centrality of justice to the reign of God on earth is the central message of Matthew’s gospel, where we meet the God of Justice revealed in Jesus who identified with those who were poor “Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Mt 25: 34+  In this gospel, on several occasions, the Pharisees are condemned, not for the way they performed their religious functions, but for neglecting the work of justice.

After centuries of oversight, the Second Vatican Council refocused the attention of the whole believing community on the centrality of justice to the preaching of the gospel. The work of justice was not a work of supererogation but a constitutive element of the gospel, as proclaimed by the Synod of Bishops in 1971. With regard to the work of justice, we do not have an option. It is an essential dimension of our approach to life if we are to be authentic in our quest for God.

In her re-visioning of religious life in the wake of all that has happened in the last thirty years, Joan Chittister has focused on the need for communities to develop some kind of consensus about where they stand in relation to justice. It was inevitable, given the relaxation of the demand for conformity in religious life, and also given the strongly individualistic trend of modern culture, that for a while, there would be a lack of focus in ministry. Over the years, many individual religious have tended to become involved in personal ministries that have emerged from their own talents and inclinations rather than from some coherent vision of ministry that their particular congregation has promoted. Many of these ministries have been in the area of social justice and, of themselves, highly laudable. Joan Chittister saw this lack of coherence in ministry as a dissipation of the potential for apostolic impact. Intrinsic to the call to religious life, she believed, was the call to prophetic action. In this view she is strongly supported by Sandra Schneiders who, in her book Finding the Treasure, sees religious life as having a special mission within the believing community to be a prophetic voice, to challenge and to call to account in the name of the gospel.

Because of the importance of this coherence, Joan Chittister sees an intrinsic difference between individual religious doing works of justice, good and all as that is, and a whole congregation, province or community taking up what she calls a corporate stance in relation to justice. A corporate stance is the position taken up by a whole group in the pursuit of justice. This corporate stance gives a definite focus to the ministry, helps to galvanize community effort and concentrates community resources in a particular direction.

This kind of corporate stance can easily be recognised in the way Edmund Rice and the early Brothers approached their apostolate. For Edmund and his confreres, their focus in ministry was the liberation of downtrodden and impoverished youth through the provision of an education that empowered them and gave them some measure of control over their own destinies. It was highly effective in its impact on the lives of generations of young people wherever the congregation spread its influence. Edmund’s goal was justice and liberation; the means he used to achieve this goal was Christian Education.

The call to justice rings out loudly and clearly in all of our primary documents. Constitution 26 puts it in these terms:

“In our mission of evangelisation we endeavour to proclaim gospel values, to affirm the dignity of all people and to work for justice and peace. We are called to witness by prophetic action to our option for the poor and the oppressed and to solidarity with them. This option is not an exclusive one; while some brothers are called to work directly with the poor, all of us are called to experience poverty ourselves and to work for thy poor.”

The Congregation Chapter of 1996 articulated the Four Directions as a way of giving focus to the work of the brothers into the future. The second of these directions was the call to ministry at the margins. The Chapter phrased its message in the following terms:

“The context of our congregational story today is the rapidly changing world which sets a new agenda for the Church.  In these changing circumstances we are called to discover anew what the true following of Jesus requires of us in the spirit of Edmund's charism.

The God of Jesus is a God of radical transformation ‘who puts down the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly’ (Lk. 1:52)

·         The prophetic content of Jesus' proclamation of the Reign of God was centred on the poor.

·         The material resources and spiritual energies of Edmund were directed to raising the poor to a dignified manner of living.

·         Responding to the cry of the poor touches what is deepest in the Good News and is at the heart of our charism

At a personal level our involvement with people at the margins requires a conversion of heart that enables us:

     •  To see the world through the eyes of the poor

     •  To respond to the urgings of the Spirit to choose life

     •  To address fears and anxieties that paralyse the action of the Spirit in our response to new beginnings

     • To accept that our involvement with the most disadvantaged in society is a call to faith in the person and faith-vision of Jesus.”

Finally, the Congregation Chapter of 2002 presented its message to the congregation and the Edmund Rice Network in terms of Seven Insights. The insight on Justice reads as follows:

·         To engage with the poor and marginalized at our doorsteps and assist communities to develop a way of theological reflection and faith sharing.

·         To encourage Brothers to engage in radical relationships of equality with all God’s creation and to support the Earth Charter.

·         To promote networking across the Congregation on issues of justice and right relationships.

·         To expand our educational outreach in areas of great poverty, responding with a heart like Edmund’s”

It is quite clear that the commitment of the congregation to the work of justice has been strongly endorsed by the congregation’s highest policy making body – the Congregation Chapter. What makes for a certain amount of uncertainty is the very diverse and complex nature of the work of justice itself. There are so many issues, and so many possible options into which a group could put its energies and resources that unless there is some focusing of the energies, the group momentum will be lost. It is at this point that the concept of a corporate stance becomes useful. Is it possible for a whole province, or several provinces, or, perhaps, the whole congregation to adapt a corporate stance in relation to the work of justice, a corporate stance that it will support and sponsor with personnel and resources?

In order for the any such corporate stance to have a ring of authenticity about it for us brothers, it would need to be rooted in some way in our founding charism. It would want to ring true to what Edmund was about when he started his spiritual odyssey over two hundred years ago.

In the light of the above arguments, this article proposes that the corporate stance of the congregation of Christian Brothers in relation to doing the work of justice should be:

 The Rights of Children.

It would be a helpful exercise to get community discussion going around this proposal. What challenge would it pose for us as a congregation to be identified as people passionately committed to the rights of children, not only their educational rights but also the totality of their rights? Children’s rights are being ignored, and children themselves exploited, in many different ways throughout our world. The main areas of exploitation are:

·         Child trafficking for a variety of reasons

·         Slave labour

·         Deprivation of education

·         Child Soldiering

·         Medical research and organ donation

·         Sexual exploitation

Were the congregation to take up the challenge of adopting a corporate stance on the Rights of Children, this is the kind of agenda that would concern us. Does this agenda challenge us in any way?

Br. Mark Mc Donnell (Rome)