If you’ve followed anything I’ve written or said in the past six years, you know that fraternity is a pretty important part of being a Franciscan and one of the main reasons why I chose this life. While our public lives may look the same as diocesan priests or dedicated lay volunteers, there is just something different about our internal lives that makes this whole thing meaningful to me.
At least, ideally there is.
The problem, sometimes, is that we conflate “living together” with “fraternity.” While the former is pretty essential to developing the latter, it does not guarantee it. Sometimes, even when a Franciscan house has all the right elements—communal prayer, meals, recreation, shared work—it is not truly a fraternity. Sometimes, it is just a group of guys that share a common domicile and peacefully interact with one another on a daily basis. In other words, sometimes we’re just roommates to one another. In such cases, the life of the fraternity is left up to the personalities of the inhabitants: if they get along it’s “good fraternity” and they enjoy each others’ company, and if they don’t get along it’s “bad fraternity,” and they live largely anonymous lives under the same roof.
I didn’t join this life for a roommate. I don’t think I’ll survive in this life if it’s completely dependent on personalities.
No, for me, fraternity means much more than casual encounters. Fraternity, at its best, is the act of giving one’s life to another to create something more than oneself; of being vulnerable and interdependent with a group of people, in making sacrifices on behalf of the group, to become a part of someone else’s life and to let them be a part of yours. It’s not enough to be in the same place at the same time doing the same thing. At its best, fraternity requires a genuine desire to know and support one another as a brother, someone whom we care about and want to walk with.
I can’t tell you, though, how many guys I have lived with over the past six years and had no idea what they were going through or who they really were. Or who didn’t know me. Especially when living in a big house with busy people, it can be almost impossible to get to know everyone in a meaningful way. We go about our lives, praying the scripted Liturgy of the Hours and exchanging small-talk at dinner, without ever knowing what is going on in someone’s life.
And really, that’s not a knock on any person or house, that’s just the reality of the situation: dinner is not the usually the best time to share about one’s struggles in prayer or relationships, and most of our communal prayers are pre-written without room for additions. Unless a problem (or joy) is extraordinary, it’s probably going to be kept private or shared only on a personal basis, never reaching the life of the fraternity as a whole. In many cases, I have seen a group of men yearning for an opportunity to be more intimate with one another without an outlet to do so. The large group becomes very formal and business life, stuck in small-talk and superficiality, with intimacy and friendship reserved for later in the one-on-one encounters with those personalities that best fit us. In essence, there really isn’t a fraternity but a house of potential friendships.
For me, as forced or artificial as it sounds, I think you just have to schedule time for fraternity. We schedule time for food, prayer, work, meetings, and so on. Why don’t we schedule time to simply be one another?
One of my favorite examples of this, something that many in our house this year have begun to do, is faith sharing. Each Thursday night after dinner, a group of us meets in the living room for Lectio Divina and community time. Over the course of an hour, we listen to and silently reflect on the Gospel for the upcoming Sunday, share with one another what the reading means in our lives, and conclude by checking in with one another, offering to the group what’s going on in our lives and what we might need prayers for.
It is truly one of the best parts of my week.
Built around a basic structure, the act itself is not what’s important and we’re flexible each week to do something different. What makes the time meaningful is that we have decided to be with one another, for something, and come knowing that it is a space to share our lives with one another. Sometimes, the conversation is light and relaxing. Other times, guys share deep personal struggles and fears. Either way, I leave better knowing my brothers (and they knowing me), having taken the time to build a relationship.
Naturally, there are any number of ways to do this in a fraternity and the need for intentionality is not limited to a group of religious. Families need this. Spouses need this. Friends need this. Churches need this. As connected as we may feel in one sense through social media, we are a tragically disconnected world today, many people going through life feeling alone and yearning for greater intimacy. You don’t need to be in a religious community to find intimacy and joining a religious community will not guarantee it. What you truly need—what I truly need—is to simply find the time with the people that matter to me so that we can share our lives with one another.
Breaking In The Habit 
As I read your blog on fraternity, I was thinking that the same would apply to building fraternity in marriage. My wife and I are retired, so breakfast time and dinner time is the best time for intentional fraternity building. We have been together for 38 years, we have two adult sons, and know and have shared much. However, fraternity is not an old book, worked on, read and then placed on a shelf. It is to be engaged and renewed daily: our relationship, our thoughts and concerns, our life walk, our faith sharing, Thank you.
Beautifully expressed!
I think this applies to Secular Fratenity life as well.
May God Give You Peace!
Dennis R. Dowell, ofs
Sent from my iPad
>
As with everything worthwhile, it takes time to build relationships. I know several religious nuns who live community life. There are times when I hear some pretty caddy things being said by the nuns about the others in the community. In my opinion, I think that this is just human nature and sometimes part of community living. When living with people, you also live with their personality. We are different and react differently to many things. Let your brothers know that you care and are there if they need you. I’m sure you already have done this; but give it time. The Lord works through us in different ways and at different times. God bless you🙏
“For me, as forced or artificial as it sounds, I think you just have to schedule time for fraternity. We schedule time for food, prayer, work, meetings, and so on. Why don’t we schedule time to simply be [with] one another?”
I agree that this sounds forced/artificial if you “just have to” be scheduled to be fully fraternal. But it also sounds welcoming and artful as a reminder of the ‘natural’ ways of scheduling fraternity time. If we left explicit manifestations of fraternity/friendship to unscheduled encounters, they’d likely be not much different from any other unscheduled encounter with people one knows. It’s not forced or artificial to schedule a night out with friends while visiting one’s hometown for a brief period because to leave such a night to chance is to let it not happen in all likelihood. But it’s obviously just as important to not fixate on schedules. Sometimes things come up. Sometimes a friend needs space, or even the freedom to part ways if the bonds of friendship are bound to a particular time and place (i.e., perhaps true friendship/fraternity is recognizing that even explicit manifestations of it, whether scheduled or not, are not necessary for it; rather, what’s necessary is to have a meaningful form that allows for both implicit and explicit expressions of fraternity without reducing either dimension of fraternity to the form’s transient, temporal particulars; it sounds like your order is one such meaningful form, insofar as present brothers resonate with it and insofar as it offers a model of fraternity to the outside world).
Life is Christ
Fraternity is to treat your fellow neighbor like Christ (even if you can’t stand or understand that person)
Reading Thomas Merton taught me this
Let’s pray and help our fellow mankind suffering in Puerto Rico
Phillipians 1:21 is telling us to help those suffering
I think fraternity, St Paul, Merton and care for others teach us the meaning of ‘No pain, … NO gain’.
Thank you Brother Casey for this reflection on family and fraternal love.
Bravo, Brother. I have lived in intimate Religious communities and in Business -like ones. Intentionality makes all the difference. Thank you.