Fr. Paul Albera, Circular letter on Vocation , Turin, May 15th 1921
Chapter 20: The mission of the Salesian coadjutor brother
Those educational institutions where purity reigns supreme will never be without priestly-religious vocations. And I should also add that these educational institutions would have even more abundant religious vocations because it is within religious life that the white lily of purity can be better and securely kept.
I’d like you, my dear confreres, to consider my words for a particular reason. Because of the nature of our institutions, we are bound to foster the seed of a religious vocation in those students and artisans who are good and generously willing to enter into a life of perfection and into an apostolate, yet they do not have those qualifications of mind and heart suited for the priesthood, and besides, they do not feel the courage to do it.
In the religious congregations of times gone by, the lay brothers formed some sort of Second Order within the Order or a Second Class and depended on the First Class or on the First Order; the lay brothers also shared to a lesser degree the spiritual goods shared by the First Class.
Don Bosco did away with this traditional religious dualism. The members of the Salesian Society enjoy the same rights and privileges.
It is true that the sacred ordination imposes greater duties on priests. However, priests, clerics and coadjutor brothers share equally the same rights. The coadjutor brothers do not form a ‘second class’, they are true Salesians and carry out among the young the very same apostolic work carried out by the priests, with the exception of those duties strictly carried out only by priestly functions.
Therefore, our coadjutor brothers should make themselves available to teach catechism, to give religious and social talks, to teach in primary and secondary schools, to become principals, to assist the young, day and night, to be the administrators of the community.
They should be able to carry out all the other assignments that are linked with the diversified programs of our apostolate, excluding only what pertains to priestly ministry per se.
Now if the mission of the Salesian coadjutor brother is presented, as it should be, with all its social implications and importance, with all its attractive beauty and various dimensions, to the youngsters referred to early on, I am sure that they would be easily led to want and actually choose this kind of religious life.
The coadjutor brother vocations, my dear confreres, are imperatively demanded by the needs of our Pious Society. Without the coadjutor brothers our society would not be able to respond to the social objectives imposed on it by the times we live in.
On the other hand, Don Bosco’s creation of the Salesian Coadjutor Brother stands as one of the most genial creations prompted by a charity that always wants to render easier for everyone the ways of perfection. Let us then put a greater effort and foster vocations to the Salesian coadjutor brotherhood.
When we talk about a Salesian vocation, let us try to make the youngsters understand that Salesian life is wholesome and complete, even without the priesthood; that the coadjutors brothers in our society are just the same as the priests enjoy the same social rights and spiritual benefits.
Those teachers, professors, catechists, prefects, directors who might be able to say that they have successfully formed some good coadjutor brother will be entitled to receive a most special grateful recognition within the Salesian Congregation.
However, it is up to the coadjutors themselves who should be the first ones to look for vocations to the lay brotherhood. They should be the ones to foster them and not only in the schools in which they teach or in the shops they work in, where perhaps there is less of an opportunity to do this, but during the recreations they should be involved in, joining the games of the youngsters and their conversations in a friendly way. In the recreation area the coadjutor brothers can be more influential and effective than the clerics and the priests.
As a matter of fact, a cleric, a priest, is able to describe what the life of a coadjutor brother is like, but a coadjutor brother will be able to show a youngster the life that he lives, offer him an example to live by, and, we all know that verba movent, exempla trahunt, if words can move people to do things, examples attract them!
As we talk about the power that examples have, let us remember, my dear confreres, that even our most enterprising initiatives to get good coadjutor vocations would be of no avail, if our pupils were not to see in practice the equality and true brotherliness that should exist between priests and brothers and that we all boast about.
God forbid hat any of us should deserve to hear that serious reproach which was prompted by love and made by Don Rua in the circular letter, dated Nov.1, l906. That complaint just hit the bottom of my heart like a dagger: “There is a complaint that I have heard being made sometimes by the coadjutor brothers themselves, namely, that they are considered more like servants than like brothers.” (Circ. Letters of Don Rua p. 355).
