Triduum in Preparation for St. Joseph the Worker - Day 1

May 1 - St. Joseph the Worker
The first annual Religious Brothers Day

Religious Brother –  Witness and Mediator of God's Love

(Andrei Rublev, Trinity, https://en.wikipedia.org)

Reading:

From Identity and Mission of the Religious Brother in the Church
(Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 2015); Paragraph #13

What is the origin of the vocation of the Brother if not the experience of God's love? "We have known the love God has for us and put our faith in it" (1 John 4:16).  That is also the source of every Christian vocation. "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction"
(Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est; 25 December 2005, 1).

The vocation of the Brother is not only intended to be that of a recipient of God's love, but also of being a witness and mediator of that same gift, of the project of communion which God has for humanity and which is based in the Trinitarian communion.  This project, the Mystery which has been revealed to us in Christ, seeks to establish a horizontal relationship between God and humankind at the very heart of humanity, precisely where God wants to be present.

Relationships of affiliation are thus transformed simultaneously into

Brotherly relationships.  For that reason, saying "brother" is like saying "mediator of God's love", the God who "so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

To be a "Brother" is also to be a mediator of the love of the Son, the Mediator par excellence, who "loved them to the end" (John 13:1) and asked us to love one another as He loved us (John 13:34).

In this world that God loves so much, the Brother cannot hide. On the contrary, he experiences the impulse to go out to encounter and embrace God.  In contemplating the saving work of God, the Brother discovers himself to be an instrument which God wants to use to make the covenant, God’s love and concern for the weakest, more visible.

Prayer:
Lord, we thank you for calling our Salesian Brothers to be signs and instruments of your love for us and young people, especially those who are in need.