Brotherly Love: Family, friends help order mark anniversary
By Chris Donahue
Staff Writer
After 25 years of evangelizing on college campuses and in parish communities, members of the Brotherhood of Hope are taking time to thank the countless people who have supported them through their prayers and gifts.
Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski was among more than 300 people who attended the 25th Anniversary Celebration Oct. 28 in the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway.
The celebration is one of four scheduled for the order, whose 20 members are involved in apostolates, retreats, services and studies in the Rutgers University Campus Ministry, Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla.
The Brotherhood of Hope was founded in 1980 by Father Philip Merdinger in St. Antoninus Parish, Newark. Father Merdinger was a preparatory school classmate of Bishop Bootkoski’s. Father Merdinger then worked for Bishop Bootkoski as director of campus ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark.
Bishop Bootkoski invited the Brotherhood of Hope back to Rutgers after an absence of several years. The brothers will help the Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri priests provide spiritual support and development to students.
“I’ve ebbed and flowed with so many of you, my different parish assignments, my different experiences,” Bishop Bootkoski told the gathering. “I am thrilled that the Brotherhood is here. Rutgers University has 37,000 undergraduates, approximately of which 44 percent are Roman Catholic at least in name . . . so we expect a lot of vocations, not only to the Brotherhood, but to the wonderful Diocese of Metuchen.”
Father Merdinger, in addition to thanking the bishop, expressed the order’s gratitude to the crowd “for your willingness to allow the Lord to take charge of your lives, and let him guide you and lead and direct you along paths that perhaps you would not have chosen had it been some other place, or some other time, or that you were not so given over to the Lord.”
“We’re grateful to you for your prayers, the most powerful weapon on our behalf,” Father Merdinger continued. “We’re grateful to you for your counsel, love, friendship and correction as some of you have done for things that needed to be changed.”
The order is a canonically recognized Catholic community of brothers and priests consecrated to Christ and dedicated to evangelization. Its focus is a deep, personal relationship to Jesus Christ lived in the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.
The order reaches out to those who have lapsed from the practice of their faith or who have never know the Lord well enough to make a personal commitment to him, which is an important part of the New Evangelization to which Pope John Paul II has summoned the Church, according to the order’s mission statement. Its charism is closely linked to the virtue of hope, as Jesus is the hope of the world.
In his comments, Brother Rahl Bunsa, general superior, who grew up as a member of St. James Parish, Basking Ridge, outlined the order’s plans for the next 25 years. They include a pilgrimage to Rome in December 2006 to renew their vows; producing campus ministry materials to help train their interns and students, and assist other campus ministries; inspire more vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and find houses they can own in New Brunswick and Boston, where they currently rent.
Brother Rahl, whose parents, Robert and Mary, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year, said it is nice to come home to such a warm welcome from family, benefactors, friends from the People of Hope, other renewal groups and graduates from Rutgers who knew the brothers when they worked there from 1984-92.
“We realize it’s a brotherhood that is much more than just brothers. There are so many people who love and pray for us and support us,” Brother Rahl said.
Mr. Bunsa said he is not surprised at the path his son took.
“He was with the Lord when he was a junior (in Ridge High School). He was different,” Mr. Bunsa said.
“They’re all so humble,” he added. “That’s why he went to Seton Hall (University, South Orange). He lived with the brothers in a cold attic. He didn’t want to live on campus.”
*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law