Discover Your Vocation
The followers of Edmund Rice are found in a great variety of places, ministries, employment and volunteer situations around the world - living as single and married people, as Religious, as retired, as students. We all express our commitment to life in different ways. But a common element around the Network is that we are captured and influenced in some significant way by the spirit of Edmund Rice. What does it mean to be a follower of Edmund Rice, to have a sense of belonging to the Network?
Renowned educationalist and author, Parker Palmer, asks a key question: Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me? Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, he says, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.
Letting our life tell us the truths is like entering into a life long conversation . Fidelity to who we are means staying in the conversation as the world keeps changing. Our life choice is not a static 'state' but rather a journey. We do not make a single choice, as if we received a once only call at the age of eighteen, but rather something unfolds across the whole of our lives.
Our calling is more than our own invention as our life choices take root through the influence of parents, educators and loved ones, the awareness of personal abilities, the witness of communities, the force of cherished ideals. It comes from a voice 'in here' calling me to be the person I was born to be
The Network
A community, such as the Edmund Rice Network, gradually develops its own collective dream; this group of people, responding to the many invitations of God that have both brought us together and put us in tension with each other, slowly forges its own set of values and hopes.
The call to become part of the Network may come through the suggestions of friends, through personal experiences, by responding to advertisements, by desiring to exercise a sense of justice, by an attraction to offering service to the marginalised, by knowing the story of Edmund Rice and by being inspired by his example.
The call may also come through inspiration, through employment, through volunteering, through immersion experiences, by association, by having as sense of belonging, by social contacts, and by participating in education, welfare, spirituality and justice groups.
Vowed members
Going back as far as the early centuries of Christianity, some experience the call to live as celibate men and women, and this call today to follow in the footsteps of Edmund, while rather dormant in Western cultures, is still strong and growing in many other cultures around the world. Daring to be different is part of the challenge of living brotherhood today- an unconventional and alternative way of being brother to all, walking beside, supporting, empowering and encouraging others flowing from a deep respect for the dignity of all humanity.
The two Congregations offer their contact points around the world for those interested in exploring their vocation as vowed members of the Network.
Province contacts
Presentation Brothers:
For further information please contact the vocations director, nearest you:
Br. Andrew Hickey, Presentation Brothers, Glasthule, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.
Tel. +353-1-2842228; Fax +353-1-2801711
e-mail:
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Br. Richard English, Presentation Brothers, 6 The Brent,
Dartford DAI IYG, Kent, England.
Tel. +44-1322-279106
e-mail:
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Br. Godfrey Kuubagr, Presentation Brothers, PO Box 322, Bolgatanga,
UER, Ghana.
Tel. +233-722-3126 or Mobile: 0209 250 331
e-mail:
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Br. Gerard Despathy, Presentation Brothers, 1602 N. Pettis Blvd.,
Kissimmee, Fl., 34741 USA.
Tel. +1-407-846-2033
e-mail:
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Br. Robert Fanovich, Presentation Brothers, PO Box 113,
St. Georges, Grenada, West Indies.
e-mail:
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Christian Brothers
- Southern Africa - Br Michael Burke, email:
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East Africa - Br Peter Cole, email:
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West Africa - Br Augustine Williams, email:
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Zambia -Br Donal Kirk, email:
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India - Br Tommy Samuels, email:
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Europe - Br Chris Glavey, email:
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Oceania - Br Bernie Gartland, email:
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United States - Br James McDonald, email:
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Canada - Br Bill Fowler, email:
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Paraguay - Br Eddie McArdle, email:
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Peru - Br Jim Glos, email:
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Toronto - Br William Flood, email:
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