Our Spirituality
Many people ask us: what are fraters, what are brothers really? It is not all that easy to put in a few sentences what the CMM brotherhood is and what we see as our ideals. We often use the word ‘spirituality’ when we talk about our inspiration and sources of motivation. These pages are about the spirit from which we live and the type of religious we are.
The example of Jesus
Our life as Brothers CMM is putting the ideals of the Gospel into practice: we aim at realizing in our way of life and in our daily work the example of Jesus, the life he lived and the stories he told. It is a simple but at the same time radical imitation, with a far-reaching personal commitment.
We respond to an invitation which we deeply experience on the basis of our faith. We opt to be fully available to God and His Kingdom, and to open up our life for a personal relationship with God. That brings along a number of other choices. We aim at living a life in community with others, renouncing personal possessions, and trying to share together all we have, as much as is possible. We renounce marriage and family-life and opt for living with fellow-brothers. Doing that, we promise to be faithful and obedient to the brother-community in which we live. These choices are sometimes called the three vows, namely the promises to live according to religious obedience, religious poverty and religious purity. The three vows are the foundation of religious life within the Roman-Catholic tradition and they also determine the basic structure of our life as Brothers CMM.
Religious daily rhythm
The most visible aspect of our life as brothers is probably that we do live together with other brothers in communities. Furthermore, also our daily life is characteristic.
Here we strife to attain a given balance: there is space for work and prayer, for times of silence and study, for encounters with others and for being together as a community. One of the secrets of religious life is maintaining a careful balance between what we refer to as action and contemplation, or in other words having times for work and apostolate and times for reflection and spiritual nourishment.
That is the reason why we have each morning and evening a simple common prayer celebration, which frames and structures our day. On that same basis we regularly celebrate the Eucharist and we take personal time for silence and prayer. In addition, we plan from time to time a more extensive retreat. However, a substantial part of the day and week we are simply doing our work, by ourselves or together with others.
Active religious
Our houses are situated in the midst of the world, and that is on purpose. As brothers we want to live a life of openness and dedication, a life of dedication inspired by our faith and by concern for our fellow humans. Our life is strongly geared toward society: there we want to be present through our work in the fields of teaching and education, development and care and building op the Church.
Since mission occupies such a central position in our vocation, we are sometimes called ‘active religious’. As Brothers CMM we do follow the model of religious life that was promoted by the French saint Vincent de Paul (1581-1660). Our founder, the Dutch bishop Joannes Zwijsen (1794-1877), was inspired by the way in which Saint Vincent was able to fight, together with others, the misery he saw all around.
Mercy and brotherhood
Following Saint Vincent and Joannes Zwijsen, we want to be active in the Church and the world and thus witness to our faith. This we do not do as priests or monks, but simply as brothers who are ready to assist others. Key concepts in our religious life are mercy and brotherhood: when we are talking about the how and why in our life, we always return to these two words. In Mary, the mother of Jesus who also is called Mother of Mercy, we do have an inspiring model of simplicity, loving dedication and trust in God.
Brothers & associated members
Currently our congregation has about three hundred members worldwide. We make a distinction between professed members (brothers who made their profession) and associated members (lay people – men and women – who live and work based on that same inspiration).
