Tag Archives: Boston

Men's communities, News

Little Brothers of St. Francis

7 Comments

When a community of faithful religious disbands, it is like a death in the family.

Br. James Curran, L.B.S.F. has been guiding the Little Brothers of Saint Francis for 42 years. A past recipient of the IRL’s Pro Fidelitate et Virtute award, Brother James has been a beacon of light to the poor in Boston. The Good News, he says, that he left “the multitude, the down and out, the people in the streets whom we have embraced in our works of mercy is the good news of God’s Divine Mercy.” Brother strove and succeeded in living the “Gospel without compromise.”

In his letter to his faithful supporters, Brother James says he is “still convinced that God gave us our charism as a simple response to the Gospel and will continue to call others to that forma vita (way of life) so dear to St. Francis: contemplative presence among the poorest of the poor.” May others follow in his footsteps, albeit big ones to fill.

Brother James can be reached at  Don Orione Nursing Home in East Boston, MA.

May God bless him and all those who knelt in profound adoration before the Eucharistic Lord in his little chapel before going out to serve those whom the world has forgotten.

 

Men's communities

The Boston HUB

Leave a comment

Last year, Sean Cardinal O’Malley asked the Brotherhood of Hope to minister to students in 12 institutes of higher education within a 5 mile radius in Boston’s Back Bay. With a total of 60,000 students, the brothers have their hands full. The name of the program is Hub – Hope for Undergraduates in Boston.

The Brotherhood of Hope, an IRL Affiliate founded in 1980, began serving Rutgers University in 1985. As evangelists, their consecration of God First, God Alone,  fuels their passion for the New Evangelization, primarily to college students at secular universities. Reaching out to inactive and uncommitted Catholics, they encourage conversion to Christ and His Church. Their hope is that their students will transmit this conversion-and-outreach passion into their vocation, family life, parish, and work environments. One student said after attending a retreat that “my faith became the priority over everything else.”

The Brothers describe themselves as spiritual marines, taking their “place at the frontlines of the Church. We seek to hold a place in the wall where it is weakest.” God bless them and all the students who seek to find their true vocation in life.