Being Marianist Across Cultures


The Spectacle of Saints blog welcomes Brother Joseph Kurt Nugent as this week's guest writer. Brother Joseph was born in Nova Scotia Canada, but spent most of his childhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he first met the Marianist family. He now lives in Honolulu, Hawai'i, and teaches grade 11 Religion at St. Louis School. Brother Joseph, or "Bro-Joe" as his students call him, is overjoyed to be a brother, teaching young people about God's love.

When I first encountered the Marianist family, I lived in Winnipeg Canada, and had no idea of the larger Marianist world. I met a few very kind, down-to-earth brothers who genuinely inspired me to grow in my faith. As I came to know the Marianist mission there, I fell in love with the patient, caring way that they approached people. I began to make my own all the ways that they listened, taught, prayed, and built relationships with other people. I was hooked!

Though this growth was so good in my life, God called me to change and leave the comfortable. As I began to pursue Marianist religious life, the brothers suggested I join the Province of the USA. As I moved down for formation, my initial enthusiasm for Marianist community quickly waned from several challenges. All the people I lived with had very different ways of expressing relationships and expectations. In some ways, they seemed cold and removed from what I understood the charism to be. As I got to know them more, I could see that, to them, I seemed cold and removed from the charism. My Canadian Marianist formation frequently brought faith to the center of the conversation, whereas in the USA networking and justice were more in the center of the conversations. My whole hope for being a faith-focused Marianist left me feeling quite alone in my new context. How could I build relationships with people with whom I had so little in common? Why couldn’t they see the better approach that I brought?

The pains of leaving family, friends, and country are very real. Psychologically, the trauma amounts to that of a great personal loss, like the loss of a spouse. I needed to grieve those I had left. Also, I had wrongly expected these new and different people to fill their place. I needed to set aside my attachments to one expression of the charism, and even more so, one way of being myself. In time, I stubbornly realized that I actually had grown from the rhythm of life in the USA. I recognized the effect that these new people had had on me in how I nurture meaningful relationships. I started to let go of my strong grip of the little ways that I thought were the only ways of being Marianist.

As time went by, I moved from San Antonio and lived in Dayton for my Novitiate formation. Now that I have made first vows, I reside and minister in Honolulu. In the process of these moves, I slowly learned some of the profound history of the struggle for redeeming justice in the USA. Each group of people has offered a different expression of what it means to be human, and what it means to be Marianist. These different expressions pervade every part of our lives. Our motivations, habits, interests, rest, caregiving, and expectations are all shaped by culture.

When I first came to the USA, I approached the difference with a fear of losing a good part of myself. But, the process of moving to new peoples affords us a fresh opportunity to let go of our old attachments in order to find new ways of discovering ourselves, others, and God. It is a painful process where our hearts can feel stretched, poked, confused, lonely, lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. However, this pain leads us to recognize important new concerns, and to be molded by these values. The fruit of this is that we develop a greater capacity to encounter God and cherish each other. We can become new people because of the precious cultures so intricately fused to Marianist life.

I am proud to say that I am deeply grateful for the growth I have experienced in the USA, and grateful for the patience of many people who have helped me to navigate (albeit clumsily!) these new ways of being Marianist. I am a much better person because of all of you.

Advent peace,
Brother Joseph

Comments

Popular Posts