What is a "Brother?" | Becoming a brother | Xaverian Spirituality and Fundamental Principles | Xaverian Communites Today

What is a "Brother?"

A Xaverian Brother is a man who freely chooses to live religious life as a disciple of Jesus Christ. As a vowed follower of Christ, a Brother dedicates his life to God through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience so as to give himself more fully to his relationship with God and to non-exclusive, generous love and service to God's People. He seeks to be a visible witness of the reality of God's love for the world.

Like Theodore James Ryken, Founder of the Xaverian Brothers, and St. Francis Xavier, Patron of the Congregation, a Brother desires to live his life rooted in the Good News of Jesus and to teach others about that Good News "about God and God's saving love for all people." On this pathway of selfless service to God and the People of God, a Brother is committed primarily to Christian Evangelization, to helping others know God and God's truth in all the ways it is present throughout the world. A Xaverian Brother embraces a missionary spirit following the example of Xavier and strives to be available to go wherever the Holy Spirit might lead him.

A Brother teaches, counsels, ministers in his home country and in foreign lands. He prays alone and with his community hoping to make God the center of his life. He lives in fraternal love, support and the challenge of community life. The Xaverian Fundamental Principles serve to inspire him to be of one heart and one mind with his Brothers so that he can participate in the building of the kingdom of God.

During his entire life and in all his strivings, he tries to be a Brother in Christ, a Brother to his Brothers and to all God's People. He longs for the unity and peace of God's love, inspired by the Xaverian motto: In Harmony Small Things Grow.

A Brother serves a variety of people, including minorities, the suffering and the marginalized. He tries to root all he does in a life of prayer according to his Founder's vision of a life combining contemplation and action. A Xaverian Brother calls his Brothers to embody a more contemplative stance in the world and to minister more directly to the poor and marginalized. In his life of following Christ, a Brother allows himself, therefore, to be given away, together with his Brothers, as nourishment for others and as bread that is broken.

Becoming a Brother

The Xaverian Brothers seek to serve the process of discernment of vocation and introduction into the religious life of those who desire to enter the community through a four-step process of initial formation. These stages of the initial formation program are called: the Contact Program, the Candidacy Period, the Novitiate Period and the Post-Novitiate Period. It is through these stages of gradual discernment and incorporation that the candidate to the Xaverian Brothers, with the assistance of those brothers designated to serve him in each stage of the process, can come to know if he is called to the religious life and to uniquely grow into his vocation.

The Contact Program provides the opportunity for a person who experiences within the possibility of a call to religious life to explore that possibility with the help of meetings with a brother and regular contact with a brother. The program also provides for retreat days with others who are similarly attempting to discern their vocation. During this stage of the formation program the "affiliate" continues to live and work outside of the community and is involved in spiritual direction with a trained spiritual director. It is through a growing harmonization of day to day life and a deepening dialogue and contact with the Xaverian Community that the process of discernment may deepen and illumine one's life direction.

The Candidacy Period is a residency program which is designed to provide a gradual discernment of and introduction to the call of discipleship as a Xaverian Brother in preparation for the Novitiate Period. This introductory period is to include personal spiritual direction, the experience of community living, guided ministerial involvement and opportunities for spiritual and professional study. During the first year of this period, the "candidate" is freed from full time academic or ministerial involvements in order to participate more attentively in the discernment of his vocation. The length of this period is from one to three years depending on the needs of the individual as determined in consultation with the director of formation.

The Novitiate Period is the time of preparation, which immediately preceded the act of religious profession. It is a time for the "novice" to step aside from active involvements in order to enter more intimately into communion with God who calls the "novice" to serve His people as a Xaverian Brother. The length of the Novitiate Period is one year. This period concludes with the profession of temporary vows in the Congregation.

The Post-Novitiate Period is a time of the "temporary professed brother" to grow in involvement in and in the integration of the various dimensions of his religious vocation while living in a local Xaverian Community. This period includes guided involvement in the spiritual, communal, academic, and ministerial dimension of the religious life. The length of this period is from three to six years depending on the needs of the individual brother as determined in consultation with the director of formation The Post Novitiate Period concludes with the Tertianship Program. This program is a time of special preparation of final profession in the Congregation. The length of this program is determined by the Brother General in consultation with the brother and director of formation. The Post Novitiate Period concludes with final profession.

For more information about joining the Xaverian Brothers, please contact Brother James Connolly, CFX at jconnolly@xaverianbrothers.org, or write Brother Jim at

Xaverian Brothers
4409 Frederick Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21229

Xaverian Spirituality and Fundamental Principles

Brother,

You have freely chosen
to respond the call of God, your Father,
to live a life of love
in faith and trust,
as a disciple of his Son, Jesus Christ,
in the Congregation
of the Brothers of Saint Francis Xavier.

In calling you
God too was completely free.
Your Founder,
Theodore James Ryken,
was most conscious of this,
since he wrote about his own vocation:

God is not obliged
to give an account to anybody,
even if He wants to use a sinner.

You were created by the God of love
in His image and according to His likeness,
to be a unique expression of that love.
It is through you
that He desires to manifest His love
to the peoples of the world in these times,
and to offer them the freedom
of the children of God.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ,
you are called to follow in His footsteps
and minister God's healing touch of love,
through word and deed,
to all whom you meet
in your journey of life.

You have responded to the invitation:

Come follow me.

Day by day
you will need to renew your response.
Do not become discouraged
over the difficulties you encounter
in your life of evangelical service.
Knowing that difficulties would be your share,
your Founder judged:

that nothing special is achieved
without much labor, effort and zeal.

Remember,
Jesus, your brother,
has walked this path before you.
In you,
as Risen Lord,
He wants to walk this path again,
and His Spirit, the Spirit of God,
now guides you.

At times you will discover
that God's ways are not your ways,
and God's thoughts are not your thoughts.
When this happens,
try to surrender yourself trustingly
into the arms of your Father,
who knows you,
understands you,
and loves you.

Perhaps you can repeat
with your Founder
this simple prayer
which he cherished:

O Lord, I cannot understand your ways,
but I must adore them.

Above all else remember
that your God is forever faithful.
In the words of the prophet He says:

Can a mother forget her infant
or be without tenderness
for the child of her womb?
I will never forget you.
I have branded you
on the palms of my hands.

For your part,
He asks you in return
to make His word your home.

To do this
you must be willing to spend time each day
in solitude and prayer,
opening yourself to His living word.

Your Founder, too,
insisted that his brothers
enter into an intimate relationship with God,
and therefore
he pointed to the example of Jesus Himself:

Look at Jesus,
spending even as many as thirty years
in solitude
and only three years
in preaching.

It is this communion with the living God
which is at the heart of your life
as son of the Father,
disciples of Jesus,
witness of His spirit,
quickened member of His Body,
and brother to the world.

Gradually,
you will realize
that the cost of your discipleship
is your very life,
freely consecrated to God
in poverty, celibacy, and obedience,
and offered to the world
as a sign of His love and care.

The gift you have received
give as a gift.

You have promised
to follow Christ, the poor man,
totally given in love to His Father
and for all people everywhere,
and whose loving obedience led Him
to death on the cross.

Your poverty
is to recognize
that all you have and are
comes from God.

Your celibacy
is the desire to open yourself totally
to God's love
and to share it with others.

Your obedience
is the openness to listen and respond
to God's will
wherever and however it may be expressed.

Over the course of your lifetime,
your loving Father
will gradually convert you to Himself,
if you let Him.

Ryken looked upon his original vocation
as being such a conversion
through which he

fell in love
with the service of God.

Yet, he too
came to the understanding
that a continual conversion is needed.

Be patient, therefore, with yourself and with God.

If you allow yourself
to be formed by God
through the common,
ordinary,
unspectacular
flow of everyday life,
you will gradually experience
a liberation and a freedom
never before imagined.

Stand ready to answer God
when He asks you
if you are available for Him
to become more present in your life
and through you to the world

Like Mary,
may you willing respond:

Let what you have said be done to me!

Brother,

I give you a new commandment:

Love one another.
Just as I have loved you,
you also must love one another.
By this love you have for one another,
everyone will know that you are my disciples.

Your life with your brothers,
centered on the word and worship of God,
is a sharing
in the memory of Christ.

You are called
to be of one heart and one mind with them
so that you can participate
in the building up of the kingdom of God.

This was the vision
Theodore James Ryken had in view
when he founded the congregation:

A band of Brothers
who mutually help,
encourage,
and edify one another,
and who work together.

You are called then by your Founder
to enter into a true mutual sharing
with your brothers.
This sharing will demand of you
an opening and a giving of yourself to them
at many levels,
and a ready acceptance of each of them
in all their sinful and graced humanity.

Cultivate a sincere friendship
and a warm affection for your brothers,
for it is in the manifestation
of honest fraternal concern and love for each other
that you and they will show
you are sons of Ryken and disciples of Jesus.

Listen to your brothers,
be compassionate with them in their difficulties,
bear with them in their weaknesses,
encourage and support them.
Affirm your brothers in their gifts,
for by doing so you enable them to realize the gifts that God has given them
for His service.

In turn,
allow them to affirm you
and call you forth
to even greater service of the Lord.

Above all,
enter into an ever deeper sharing
of faith and prayer with your brothers;
reflect with them on how you find Him
in your lived experience.

In this way
the community searches out
the needs of the times
and the desires of the Lord
in their regard.

In this shared faith of the community
you will experience
the ongoing revelation of Jesus.

I no longer call you slaves,
for a master does not confide in his slaves;
now I call you friends.

You will find
your fraternal love and friendship
within the community
one of the chief joys
with which the Lord blesses you,
and a most powerful means of evangelization.

As a follower of Jesus
and a brother of your brothers,
keep ever before you
the motto of the congregation:

Concordia res parvæ crescunt.
In harmony small things grow.

For it is only in harmony
that you will grow,
that your community will grow,
that the love of God will grow in your world,
and that the kingdom of God will grow to completeness.

Brother,

Go, then, to all peoples everywhere,
and make them my disciples.

These words of the gospel
stand at the heart of the vision
of your Founder.
Within them is contained
the mission and the ministry
of your congregation.
Beyond this, Theodore James Ryken
chose Saint Francis Xavier
as the patron of the congregation so that

the name of this insatiable laborer for souls
will indicate with one word
what is intended for the congregation.

Your Founder?s vision was unique.
He intended to form a community of laymen
who as religious brothers
would be sent as missionaries to the world.
As vowed members of the people of God,
sealed in baptism and confirmed by the Holy Spirit,
they would participate
in the Church's mission of evangelization
through a life of gospel service
lived in solidarity and availability
among the people.

It is through your life of gospel witness
lived in common with your brothers
that God desires to manifest
His care and compassionate love
to those who are separated and estranged,
not only from their neighbors,
but also from their own uniqueness;
to those who suffer
from want, neglect, and injustice:
the poor, the weak, and the oppressed
of this world.

They too are called
to experience,
express,
and share
the love of God with the world
through their own giftedness.

In this life of following Christ,
allow yourself, therefore, to be given away,
together with your brothers,
as nourishment for others,
as bread that is broken.

As a son of Theodore James Ryken,
it is essential for you
to be familiar with his vision and his spirit,
especially as these are manifested in his writings.

As you immerse yourself
in the foundation documents of the congregation,
you will perceive
the evolution of the Founder?s thought
and his readiness to adapt his vision
to the changing needs of the times.

Study and reflect also
upon the history of the congregation,
for this history
is the actual
lived
expression and development
of your Founder?s charism.
It will reveal to you
the mysterious ways of God
in the cycle of death and rebirth
that has been the life of the congregation.

Through your study
you will begin to appreciate, too,
how the ministry of Christian education
became the most prevalent one among the brothers.

As you prayerfully reflect on the past,
assess the present,
and ponder the future with your brothers,
be considerate of this history
and of this ministry.
Yet, like Ryken,
foster an attitude of openness
to the needs of the Church and your world,
and a willingness to follow Christ
wherever He leads.
You are called
to a life of constant searching.
Let the developments and changes
of your times
be a source both of confidence and challenge to you.
For as your Founder wrote:

The Holy Spirit
does not let himself be bound
by rules and models
but works where and as He wills.

Brother,

This common rule
is not meant to be a burden to you.

My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

It is presented to you in the hope
that through reflection on it
you may strengthen your courage
to follow Christ
as a Xaverian Brother.

By faithfulness to it
may you discover
in God's own time
ways to incarnate anew
the vision of Theodore James Ryken
and the charism of the Brothers of Saint Francis Xavier
in the life of the world.

Xaverian Communities Today

Xaverian Brothers communities today try to fulfill the call to Brotherhood articulted by our Founder.  Through a life of gospel witness, simplicitiy, care for each other and our neighbors, Xaverian Brothers live more intentionally their call to be Brother for the world.