DENNIS CRONIN, FSC
President, Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School
We get to a point in life where we can ask questions that might not have occurred to us earlier on, or we were too busy with other things to ask. I sometimes wonder, “How did I get here?” — here being a Brother of the Christian Schools, from there, being a punky kid brother to an older brother who happens to be a Loughlin graduate.
The relationship that the word “brother” signifies has meaning for me rooted in my childhood experience and enriched in adulthood. Brother implies equality. There is no hierarchy in the relationship. When a classmate from Mater Christi asked me to come and see what the Brothers were about, I said, “Why not?” Over time, I learned that we are a pretty good fit. There are always rubs along the way, but it is the relationship that gets us through.
The title “Brother” strives to capture a way of being in relationship to the people we have lived with along the way. I have been blessed to have lived with Lasallian Volunteers and others seeking a place to call home, which we Brothers call Community; I have valued that kind of living because it helps keep me in the flow of life. A danger of religious life is that it can become quite insulated. In it’s extreme, it could be isolating.
I think that “brother” is also how the Brothers and I choose to relate to those we work with and the students we teach. Brother Charlie Kitson was fond of saying “brother is a verb.” It is important for us to brother each other, showing care for those with whom we live and work. What about God? Well, metaphors matter. I remember being on the rocks at Narragansett RI. I was having a prayerful afternoon. To avoid getting wet as the waves hit the rocks, I was dodging the sprays of water. As I turned away, quite proud of myself for succeeding, I stepped into a fairly deep puddle. I laughed out loud because it struck me that so it is with God. We sometimes seek to avoid God, but God manages to find us.
And, that is how I got from there to here.
