Once upon a time there lived a monk in the midst of other monks. The monks were very busy what with prayers, teaching, after school activities and life in general. In fact every moment of the day was under some form of a schedule. The monks were busy about building the Kingdom of the Lord. Then change struck very hard.

Vocations to the Congregation plummeted, departures rose dramatically, formation programs were changed, the median and medium ages began to close in on one another and both began to rise imperceptibly at first and then dramatically. All this happened because one man decided that the larger body of the Church needed to be updated. His experience had taught him that the Church needed to be updated. He convened the Second Vatican Council.

Now some forty years later the brothers find it necessary to come to terms with themselves as brothers. They have discovered that what the young people want from them is the heart of their spirituality and the wisdom of how to live in community. The core of doing this is in the experience of being brother together.

I was caught up in the changes that engulfed us all. Part of my coping on the Church renewal journey was to move into the ministry of spiritual direction. This move was done with the approval of the Provincial as he was called then. This ministry brought me to various places outside the usual ministry sites and away from the communities of the Congregation. After a period of about six years and at the invitation of the Province Leader, I moved back into the geographical area of the Province. I lived alone for another six years caring for ageing parents and finishing my degree. In addition, the Province Leadership Team gave the green light for me to live alone during this time.

For a period of six years I was living alone within the Province. Contact with Brothers increased in a gradual way. With each contact, anger and disappointment about the past surfaced and was dealt with in spiritual direction and supervision. I was amazed at how different the living in the Province had become in my sojourn away from the Province. Working at Iona College put me in daily contact with a number of Brothers. I was able to renew friendships and experience the changes that had occurred in my absence.

My appointment to the Province Leadership Team put me into a community for the first time in eleven years. That is when the healing began for me. The men in the community were men of prayer and reflection. The tensions of the past were gone for me and we all seemed to be generally aligned theologically. Once again I was connecting with the brothers on a daily basis. This brought me face to face with myself in a new way. Aspects of my behaviour had to be confronted and resolved. I found that I was accepted and learned to accept that love and care in a way that healed some deep inner wounds. It was good to be back among the men and gradually I relaxed and began to enjoy the experience.

Living and working on the Leadership Team led me to deepen my commitment to supervision and spiritual direction. Spiritual direction helped me to articulate the religious dimension of apartness that I had been experiencing.  At the same time supervision helped me to focus on my behaviour as a facilitator and a team. I became aware of many shortcomings in myself as a result of this internal ministry to the Brothers and the supervision of that ministry, and this helped me to grow as a person. Healing began inside me and spread outward.

The team prayed before every meeting in a way that involved us during the prayer in our personal lives and the lives of the men we were leading. A reconciliation began slowly to take place in me over the two years and several months I was on the Province Team. Theological ideologies that I had held began to melt in the face of the lived reality of brotherhood on the team. The separation I had experienced came to a gradual halt and a connection began to grow. The years of separation dropped away.

Over the past 18 months here in Rome on the CLT, a deep sense of gratitude has grown up in me for our brotherhood. Visiting the brothers all over the world has given me a view that has been a grace for me. A grace in that I see and experience the long term faithfulness of the Brothers to the call of the Church. It is good to be home.