The Dominican Brother: 1 Brother Vincent Cook

On the 4th February the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Religious Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced plans for a new document to highlight the importance to religious life and to the Church in general of lay brothers, members of religious orders that take vows but are not ordained as priests.

The Dominican Order has been blessed over the centuries with a great number of co-operator (or 'lay') brothers who have contributed to the mission of the Order in a great variety of ways. In the coming days on Godzdogz contemporary co-operator brothers will reflect on how they serve Christ as Dominicans, as well as offering more general thoughts on the vocation itself.

We begin with our very own Brother Vincent, born in 1924, professed in 1948, and, thank God, still going strong. Below is a transcript of an interview in which he was asked to comment on his vocation to be a co-operator brother and why he decided to join the Dominicans:

"I first started thinking about becoming a lay brother at school. We used to have a sister that read to us before we went to bed, it was a boarding school you see, she had a beautiful reading voice. She used to tell us about all the various religious orders. Even from that time I wanted to be a lay brother. When I was a boy I used to be always singing, my Dad used to say to me "you'll be a priest one day!", I said "no, I want to be a lay brother!" I suppose because the jobs we used to do at school, cleaning the dormitories and classrooms, that sort of thing, were quite similar to the life of a lay brother as it was at that time. I used to clean the playroom first thing every morning, I tried to make sure that there was always a vase of flowers there, daisies, that sort of thing. They used to have lay sisters in the school, they didn't call them that, but that's what they were. They used to work in the kitchens, in the sacristy. I remember Sr. Cecile used to work in the sacristy, she was deaf as a post!

When I left school, I didn't forget about being a lay brother, but I got more interested in the world. I trained as a brushmaker, and had quite a good wage for those days. When I was twenty I told a priest that I wanted to be a lay brother, he suggested that I work as a caretaker in the local parish youth centre and then he'd try and get me in somewhere. I joined the Dominicans after meeting Fr Fabian Dix OP, he came to speak at the youth group and I chaired the meeting. Afterwards I got talking to him.

At the time I joined the idea of being a lay brother was that the brother would continue to use their trade or profession in the priory, or helping out in other houses. This did happen, but not enough in my opinion. A lot of our work was housework, sacristy work, and in the kitchens, that sort of thing. At that time we also used to look after the priests' rooms. On one occassion Br James broke the Prior's chamber pot. The Prior asked him if it was still usable, so Br James thought for a moment then said, "it depends if you are left or right handed"! I always understood our role as giving the priests more time to concentrate on their mission, you know, taking work off their hands so they had more time for preaching.

We also had two half hours of meditation and prayer. I learnt the Little Office of Our Lady in about two weeks. We also had conferences in the evening, that sort of thing. One of the priests would come and give a talk on something. As an extra I used to go through the catechism with the children on Sundays, I also used to prepare them for Holy Communion. The expectations were so different back then to what they are now, but it is still important to have a proper novitiate, a good foundation in prayer and the life .

I think the part of the life that I've enjoyed the most is being in choir, singing the office. I've always enjoyed Compline. As for the most difficult part, the winter of 1947 was very cold. I remember, because I was out walking, it started snowing on the Epiphany [6th January] . The snow didn't completely melt until the 16th March! On the 17th March I was challenged to swim in the lake. There were a few of us brothers. One started counting: one, two, three. I was the only one stupid enough to jump! The summer after that was terrific."