"Holy Family House celebrates legacy of Brother Louis" featured article from the April 30 Catholic Key - the news paper for the Diocese of KC and St Joes MO
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Frank Cordaro
May 1, 2010, 4:12:04 PM5/1/10
to National CW E-mail List
Previous posting: Send off for KCCWer Bro Louis Rodemann - Sat. May 15
at Holy Family CW House
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_thread/thread/a7cce2bb714b2c5e
What: Send off for KC CWer Brother Louis Rodemann
Date: Saturday May 15
Time: 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Place: Holy Family CW House, 912 East 31st Street, KC MO
----------------------
The Catholic Key, news paper for the Diocese of KC and St Joe MO.
April 30, 2010
"Holy Family House celebrates legacy of Brother Louis"
By Patty McCarty
Special to the Catholic Key
http://catholickey.org/index.php3?gif=news.gif&mode=view&issue=20100430&article_id=6263
KANSAS CITY — Christian Brother Louis Rodemann, who has provided
leadership at Holy Family Catholic Worker House in Kansas City for 28
years, will leave for a year-long sabbatical in June.
Brother Louis, 70, said he will spend the year in prayer, reflection
and rest after years when the demands of the community he served left
little time for such pursuits.
For 36 years, the Holy Family Catholic Worker House as provided meals
to all who come to the door, in the spirit of the Catholic Worker
movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.
Many who come to the house for a simple breakfast, hot supper,
companionship and basic services call the place Holy House. Located on
31st Street a block west of Troost, it is actually two houses next to
each other. One contains three dining rooms and the kitchen on the
first floor and rooms for staff members on the second and third. The
other house is available for families in need of temporary housing.
A committee planning transition for the house will host a party there
May 15 to honor Brother Louis and the three LaSallian volunteers who
have lived and worked side-by-side with him this year. All are welcome
from 4 to 9 p.m
.
Brother Louis came to Kansas City in 1961 as a new professed member of
the Christian Brothers. He was assigned to DeLaSalle High School, a
young men’s school named for Jean Baptiste DeLaSalle, the French-born
founder of the Christian Brothers who had dedicated his life to
educating the poor of Paris.
Brother Louis said that during his many years as an educator he was
“always searching for a way, as practically as possible, to live the
message I was trying to teach.”
In the early 1980s he seemed to have found what he was looking for
when he became a weekend volunteer at Holy Family House. He first took
on the task of visiting the City Market Saturday afternoons to beg for
produce the vendors had not sold. He supplemented what the vendors
gave by “dumpster diving,” crawling into the dumpsters to salvage
usable food discarded earlier in the day.
Back at Holy Family House, the staff urged him to stay to help pick
over the quantities of fruits and vegetables he had brought, some of
which, according to Brother Louis, “needed immediate radical surgery.”
The staff invited him to stay for supper and prayer. Eventually
Brother Louis asked the leaders of his order if he could be assigned
to Holy Family House.
Brother Louis said he was first told that the Christian Brothers is a
teaching order, not a social service order. However, in the spring of
1982, Brother Louis was granted permission to join the Holy Family
House staff “for a year.”
Though his work at Holy Family House has involved much physical labor,
much problem-solving and much meeting of the needs of tough, sometimes
combative, guests, he has never felt far from his vocation.
“I have always thought of myself as a teacher,” Brother Louis said.
Holy Family House marked its 35th anniversary last summer with events
that drew hundreds of guests, former staff members and volunteers. The
house was founded by Angie O’Gorman, who wanted to follow a way of
life outlined in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. They had
started a community kitchen and houses of hospitality where New York
City’s poor could find refuge.
Although there are close to 100 Catholic Worker houses throughout the
United States, there is no one way to do it. Each house follows its
own path. Most embrace voluntary poverty, exist on donations, accept
no government money, and serve a variety of underprivileged and
marginalized people.
Holy Family House offers a breakfast of toast, day-old doughnuts and
coffee four days a week and supper five days a week.
The evening meal, serving some 400 people a week, is often prepared
and served with the help of church volunteers. Staffers assist guests
with government services paperwork, prescription vouchers, discounted
bus passes, and winter and summer clothing vouchers. In addition, the
house offers a place to come and talk or listen. And a porch to sit
on.
Brother Louis was born on a farm near Jefferson City, the eldest of
seven children in a community where, he says, “everyone was German,
everyone was Catholic, and everyone was a farmer.”
He work alongside his parents in the fields and saw them can “hundreds
and hundreds of quarts of fruit and vegetables.”
“If it wasn’t in season or canned, we didn’t have it,” he said. “We
went to the grocery store only for sugar, salt and maybe flour.”
Once a year at harvest, he saw 15 farm families join together, going
from farm to farm following the threshing machine.
“Women cooked, the men hauled, and the children pitched in where they
were able.”
Brother Louis attended Catholic grade school in Wardsville, and rode a
school bus to Jefferson City to a “co-institutional” Catholic high
school where young men and young women were educated on different
floors of the building. The young men were taught by the Christian
Brothers.
He was attracted to the Christian Brothers’ way of life and took his
junior and senior years at a Christian Brothers school in Glencoe,
near St. Louis, where young men prepared to enter the order. His
college years were spent at St. Mary’s College run by the Christian
Brothers in Winona, Minn.
He recalled that he had “the total encouragement of his family” and
his home community as he became the first young man in the area to
become a Christian Brother.
Brother Louis described his first years at DeLaSalle as “the beginning
of my education in an urban setting.”
Many of the students in his classrooms were members of ethnic groups
that were new to him, and many “grew up poor and felt the effects of
poverty,” he said.
The school tried to “keep a balance” of those who could pay the
tuition and those who could not. “We attempted to educate everyone who
came.”
The 1960s were a challenging era for high school teachers. It
included, he said, “the rumblings of the Vietnam war and the civil
rights movement.”
The war was a big issue for students. “We had former students who went
to jail as conscientious objectors and former students who came home
in body bags,” Brother Louis said.
After five years at DeLaSalle, Brother Louis left for graduate school
at St. Louis University where he studied psychology. While in school
his order asked him to direct a Christian Brothers retreat center, and
he did not complete his graduate degree. He returned to Kansas City to
resume teaching.
Among his closest friends was Christian Brother David Darst, with whom
Brother Louis taught at DeLaSalle.
Brother David was among Catonsville Nine, a group that also included
Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who broke into the Selective Service
offices in Catonsville, Md., on May 17, 1968 and burned hundreds of
draft files.
Brother David and the rest of the Catonsville Nine were sentenced to
federal prison. But Brother David, 28 years old, was killed Oct. 30,
1969 in an automobile accident in Nebraska.
Brother Louis was shaken.
“It was the first time for me to question what life is all about, what
my commitment to teaching is all about, what my commitment to the
Brothers is all about,” he said. “I was searching for meaning when
someone I felt that close to, someone committed to the same activities
and traditions, all of a sudden was not there.”
With time, Brother Louis was able to work through his loss and find
what he describes as “the impetus for revitalization.” Such loss, he
said, is “the cost of belief in Resurrection, the belief that Spirit
is stronger than body.”
He said he finds strength in the belief that “even after death,
presence is effective, active.”
“Many times when I would be in challenging situations, I would simply
say, ‘David, we started out together and I expect your presence, your
spirit, your energy to be still here,’” Brother Louis said.
In addition to answering immediate needs at Holy Family House, Brother
Louis has long been active in efforts to promote justice and peace. He
recently helped plan the annual three-mile Good Friday walk through
downtown Kansas City, commemorating the Stations of the Cross.
In 1999, Brother Louis made a Voices in the Wilderness journey to Iraq
where, he said, “as an act of resistance, we brought medicine to
hospitals and clinics” despite U.S. laws against that.
Looking back on his years at Holy Family House, Brother Louis said, “I
can’t think of a better place to be than a Catholic Worker house, to
be integrated into this life, to be stretched, to be with people who
would not be available to you unless you entered into this kind of
life. What’s happened is what Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin intended.”
END
-------------
By line to attached photo: Christian Brother Louis Rodemann begins to
prepare the evening meal at Holy Family Catholic Worker House.
--
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at Holy Family CW House
http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List/browse_thread/thread/a7cce2bb714b2c5e
What: Send off for KC CWer Brother Louis Rodemann
Date: Saturday May 15
Time: 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Place: Holy Family CW House, 912 East 31st Street, KC MO
----------------------
The Catholic Key, news paper for the Diocese of KC and St Joe MO.
April 30, 2010
"Holy Family House celebrates legacy of Brother Louis"
By Patty McCarty
Special to the Catholic Key
http://catholickey.org/index.php3?gif=news.gif&mode=view&issue=20100430&article_id=6263
KANSAS CITY — Christian Brother Louis Rodemann, who has provided
leadership at Holy Family Catholic Worker House in Kansas City for 28
years, will leave for a year-long sabbatical in June.
Brother Louis, 70, said he will spend the year in prayer, reflection
and rest after years when the demands of the community he served left
little time for such pursuits.
For 36 years, the Holy Family Catholic Worker House as provided meals
to all who come to the door, in the spirit of the Catholic Worker
movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin.
Many who come to the house for a simple breakfast, hot supper,
companionship and basic services call the place Holy House. Located on
31st Street a block west of Troost, it is actually two houses next to
each other. One contains three dining rooms and the kitchen on the
first floor and rooms for staff members on the second and third. The
other house is available for families in need of temporary housing.
A committee planning transition for the house will host a party there
May 15 to honor Brother Louis and the three LaSallian volunteers who
have lived and worked side-by-side with him this year. All are welcome
from 4 to 9 p.m
.
Brother Louis came to Kansas City in 1961 as a new professed member of
the Christian Brothers. He was assigned to DeLaSalle High School, a
young men’s school named for Jean Baptiste DeLaSalle, the French-born
founder of the Christian Brothers who had dedicated his life to
educating the poor of Paris.
Brother Louis said that during his many years as an educator he was
“always searching for a way, as practically as possible, to live the
message I was trying to teach.”
In the early 1980s he seemed to have found what he was looking for
when he became a weekend volunteer at Holy Family House. He first took
on the task of visiting the City Market Saturday afternoons to beg for
produce the vendors had not sold. He supplemented what the vendors
gave by “dumpster diving,” crawling into the dumpsters to salvage
usable food discarded earlier in the day.
Back at Holy Family House, the staff urged him to stay to help pick
over the quantities of fruits and vegetables he had brought, some of
which, according to Brother Louis, “needed immediate radical surgery.”
The staff invited him to stay for supper and prayer. Eventually
Brother Louis asked the leaders of his order if he could be assigned
to Holy Family House.
Brother Louis said he was first told that the Christian Brothers is a
teaching order, not a social service order. However, in the spring of
1982, Brother Louis was granted permission to join the Holy Family
House staff “for a year.”
Though his work at Holy Family House has involved much physical labor,
much problem-solving and much meeting of the needs of tough, sometimes
combative, guests, he has never felt far from his vocation.
“I have always thought of myself as a teacher,” Brother Louis said.
Holy Family House marked its 35th anniversary last summer with events
that drew hundreds of guests, former staff members and volunteers. The
house was founded by Angie O’Gorman, who wanted to follow a way of
life outlined in the 1930s by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. They had
started a community kitchen and houses of hospitality where New York
City’s poor could find refuge.
Although there are close to 100 Catholic Worker houses throughout the
United States, there is no one way to do it. Each house follows its
own path. Most embrace voluntary poverty, exist on donations, accept
no government money, and serve a variety of underprivileged and
marginalized people.
Holy Family House offers a breakfast of toast, day-old doughnuts and
coffee four days a week and supper five days a week.
The evening meal, serving some 400 people a week, is often prepared
and served with the help of church volunteers. Staffers assist guests
with government services paperwork, prescription vouchers, discounted
bus passes, and winter and summer clothing vouchers. In addition, the
house offers a place to come and talk or listen. And a porch to sit
on.
Brother Louis was born on a farm near Jefferson City, the eldest of
seven children in a community where, he says, “everyone was German,
everyone was Catholic, and everyone was a farmer.”
He work alongside his parents in the fields and saw them can “hundreds
and hundreds of quarts of fruit and vegetables.”
“If it wasn’t in season or canned, we didn’t have it,” he said. “We
went to the grocery store only for sugar, salt and maybe flour.”
Once a year at harvest, he saw 15 farm families join together, going
from farm to farm following the threshing machine.
“Women cooked, the men hauled, and the children pitched in where they
were able.”
Brother Louis attended Catholic grade school in Wardsville, and rode a
school bus to Jefferson City to a “co-institutional” Catholic high
school where young men and young women were educated on different
floors of the building. The young men were taught by the Christian
Brothers.
He was attracted to the Christian Brothers’ way of life and took his
junior and senior years at a Christian Brothers school in Glencoe,
near St. Louis, where young men prepared to enter the order. His
college years were spent at St. Mary’s College run by the Christian
Brothers in Winona, Minn.
He recalled that he had “the total encouragement of his family” and
his home community as he became the first young man in the area to
become a Christian Brother.
Brother Louis described his first years at DeLaSalle as “the beginning
of my education in an urban setting.”
Many of the students in his classrooms were members of ethnic groups
that were new to him, and many “grew up poor and felt the effects of
poverty,” he said.
The school tried to “keep a balance” of those who could pay the
tuition and those who could not. “We attempted to educate everyone who
came.”
The 1960s were a challenging era for high school teachers. It
included, he said, “the rumblings of the Vietnam war and the civil
rights movement.”
The war was a big issue for students. “We had former students who went
to jail as conscientious objectors and former students who came home
in body bags,” Brother Louis said.
After five years at DeLaSalle, Brother Louis left for graduate school
at St. Louis University where he studied psychology. While in school
his order asked him to direct a Christian Brothers retreat center, and
he did not complete his graduate degree. He returned to Kansas City to
resume teaching.
Among his closest friends was Christian Brother David Darst, with whom
Brother Louis taught at DeLaSalle.
Brother David was among Catonsville Nine, a group that also included
Daniel and Philip Berrigan, who broke into the Selective Service
offices in Catonsville, Md., on May 17, 1968 and burned hundreds of
draft files.
Brother David and the rest of the Catonsville Nine were sentenced to
federal prison. But Brother David, 28 years old, was killed Oct. 30,
1969 in an automobile accident in Nebraska.
Brother Louis was shaken.
“It was the first time for me to question what life is all about, what
my commitment to teaching is all about, what my commitment to the
Brothers is all about,” he said. “I was searching for meaning when
someone I felt that close to, someone committed to the same activities
and traditions, all of a sudden was not there.”
With time, Brother Louis was able to work through his loss and find
what he describes as “the impetus for revitalization.” Such loss, he
said, is “the cost of belief in Resurrection, the belief that Spirit
is stronger than body.”
He said he finds strength in the belief that “even after death,
presence is effective, active.”
“Many times when I would be in challenging situations, I would simply
say, ‘David, we started out together and I expect your presence, your
spirit, your energy to be still here,’” Brother Louis said.
In addition to answering immediate needs at Holy Family House, Brother
Louis has long been active in efforts to promote justice and peace. He
recently helped plan the annual three-mile Good Friday walk through
downtown Kansas City, commemorating the Stations of the Cross.
In 1999, Brother Louis made a Voices in the Wilderness journey to Iraq
where, he said, “as an act of resistance, we brought medicine to
hospitals and clinics” despite U.S. laws against that.
Looking back on his years at Holy Family House, Brother Louis said, “I
can’t think of a better place to be than a Catholic Worker house, to
be integrated into this life, to be stretched, to be with people who
would not be available to you unless you entered into this kind of
life. What’s happened is what Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin intended.”
END
-------------
By line to attached photo: Christian Brother Louis Rodemann begins to
prepare the evening meal at Holy Family Catholic Worker House.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A National Catholic Worker List:" group.
To post to this group, send email to National-CW...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to National-CW-E-mai...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/National-CW-E-mail-List?hl=en.
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