Before I shift to the third person, I have felt an unusual need to begin this text by addressing you directly. My Christian faith, which you may or may not share, compels me to recognize that you cannot be a stranger to me. I do not yet know your name or your personal story, but this much I know for certain: I am your brother. Thinking of you, I would like to explore the vocational significance of this very word “brother.”
What difference does the title “brother” really make? And… is it just a title? Is it perhaps meant to become a more substantive dimension of my life as a Christian? Does it imply the commission to go out and befriend others as fellow children of God? Is it a promise of communion, of family, only realizable at the other side of the eschatological horizon?
My context, from which these questions spring, is my initial formation as a friar. When my community instructs me on the art of fraternity, some of the attitudes and traits of character that I must cultivate relate specifically to my life in common with the other religious in our priory. In a broader sense, they relate also to Dominican friars elsewhere, and to all the men and women who follow the way of Saint Dominic. This ad intra dimension of the vocation is fundamental, and a great source of joy. However, I believe that the bond between those who share the same explicit evangelical commitment must in turn prepare us to become more genuine brothers to the women and men that we encounter in our world and in our ministries.
“Brother,” like “sister” and similar terms that denote kinship, does not refer to a self-contained reality, but to a relational one. By its nature, the relational nouns “brother” and “sister” are reversible, symmetrical, and horizontal. They imply mutuality, unlike the vertical and asymmetrical ones “father” and “mother”.
Part of the genius of the original mendicant intuition modeled by our holy fathers Francis and Dominic was their adoption of the fraternal principle as intrinsic to their Gospel mission. They wanted to be called brothers and truly to become brothers to all persons: hence the term friar, from the Latin frater, which means brother. These charismatic founders wanted their communities and their ministries to rekindle the evangelical and apostolic ethos of the primitive Church, in which all cared for one another as members of a new family in Christ.
In his deep experience of thanksgiving to the creator, Saint Francis of Assisi developed the fraternal/sororal principle most radically. The Franciscan spirituality of love and care for creation honors the intimate bonds of kinship that unite all the beings of the universe. Francis experienced the whole cosmic order as a home populated by siblings, fellow children of God: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Fire, Sister Water. Thus, Francis realized in a very beautiful way that we creatures are all related as descendants from the same fertile love of God.
With Saint Dominic and his early companions, the fraternal/sororal intuition unfolded in the context of preaching. The Dominican approach may not be as dramatic and poetic as the Franciscan one, but it is equally affirmative of the evangelical inspiration to minister as brothers to all. This is how our first friars and Dominic would go around sharing their faith and their love of Christ. They did not necessarily preach in the usual places. Rather, they preached wherever people were, in the makeshift pulpits of their complex and often broken everyday lives. They would share the good news in villages, squares, crossroads, inns, and anywhere on the road. Most importantly, they did not preach or teach compulsorily as officials with the warranties of externally conferred authority, but persuasively, seeking the internal authority of the Gospel. Frank and sustained dialogue was a distinct feature of Dominic’s style of ministry, as the famous story of his long conversation with the Cathar innkeeper illustrates.
Then I ask again: What difference does the title “brother” really make? Thinking about Dominic’s evangelical way, I have in turn realized that my real identity as a brother, what is decisive about it, is not of a different kind from what makes me want to be a Christian. However, belonging to the Dominican Order is in my case the specific path that makes my baptismal vocation and its corresponding commitments explicit and visible. By the yes to God and to you that I express in my religious vows, I mean to make my call to the Christian faith the overarching priority of my life. It is as a Dominican brother that I now experience myself as a creature of God who is drawn to relationship with the others of creation and of humanity according to the inspiration of the saving and liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The title before my name is not just a metaphor. It would be a mere theatrical fiction if it were not grounded in the deeper interpersonal reality that it signifies. In faith, its meaning reveals the familial bond between you and me. Granted, it may be the case that as of now, this bond may still be present more in hope than in fact. Yet, we must learn to be siblings in Christ together, in this our common pilgrimage to the Reign of God. If you call me “Brother Juan,” with a capital B, then I would ask you to think of me simply as Juan, your brother.