Great joy accompanies sharing beauty. Brother John Boissy, OFM, discovered this as he combined his Franciscan brother vocation with his woodworking ministry.

Brother John planned to be an architect, but with his first set of power tools, he crafted a bookshelf and shoe cabinet for his parents and fell in love with making furniture. To hone his carpentry skills, he applied to Boston’s North Bennet Street School. While he waited for admittance, God was at work elsewhere in his life.

While wrestling with his faith, Brother Boissy found strength and healing through prayer and Eucharistic Adoration. As his faith deepened, he realized God was calling him to something more. He found a home when he visited the Franciscans in 2014.

“It was their sense of community, the ministries they’re involved in, their charisma,” he said.

Feeling God call him to become a brother rather than pursue ordination, Boissy professed his solemn vows in December 2020. “I feel that being a brother is the way of relating to people and doing the ministry that I’m called to. As Franciscans, our ministry flows from fraternity. We learn to be brothers to each other, but I can also be a brother to other people I meet and share that brotherly bond of Christ with them.”

As Brother Boissy, he entered North Bennet Street School’s two-year program and earned a certificate in cabinet and furniture making. Returning to Cincinnati, he set up shop at St. Anthony Friary and Shrine, overhauled the Shrine’s basement, bringing equipment and tools stored at his mother’s house, and opened his woodworking ministry—Friar Furniture & Crafts.

He crafts cabinets, chairs and other household furniture for the friars and the public and drafted plans for crafting the altar, ambo, tabernacle, presider’s chair, reliquary, and credence table for Roger Bacon High School’s new chapel.

The connection between his ministry and Franciscan life runs deep. “I absolutely love the feeling of creating with God while I’m designing, cutting, assembling, sanding, and finishing. It’s a meditative time that allows me to reflect on creation and on myself,” Brother Boissy said.

“Listen for God’s call. It’s not going to be a direct call. It’s going to be in a quiet way, an invitation from someone. Then trust the Lord and see where He leads you.”

That’s the advice Missionary of the Precious Blood Brother Joseph Fisher offers to people discerning a religious vocation, and it reflects his own call. He grew up on a farm near Wapakoneta, Ohio, an area he describes as “Precious Blood territory.”

“The priests staffed our parish, St. Joseph, and the sisters taught at our school,” he explained. “I had this idea that I wanted to serve the Church in some way, but not as a priest. It just didn’t feel like a good fit for me.”

When Fisher became a server in the sixth grade, he attended the annual servers’ picnic, held at St. Charles Seminary (now St. Charles Center) in Carthagena. “Kind of on a dare” from a friend, he filled out a card at their vocations tent, asking for more information, but when his name was called from the tent, young Joe was in the chapel—“I hid there,” he admitted.

Late on a Saturday afternoon that fall, a car drove up the lane to the family farm, and a Precious Blood priest alighted, asking to speak with the young man and his parents about the vocation of a religious brother.

“There’s no hiding from God,” Brother Fisher said with a laugh. “He found me anyway.”

Fisher enrolled at Brunnerdale, the Society’s high school seminary; graduated from Saint Joseph’s College, in Rensselaer, Indiana, with an accounting degree; was professed a brother in 1977; and later earned an MBA from the University of Dayton. Brother Joseph’s primary ministry has been as treasurer of the former Cincinnati Province, safeguarding the congregation’s resources and assisting his fellow missionaries.

“I like talking about my vocation story,” he said. “Our congregation has foreign missions … [and] I try to remind everybody that we’re all called to be missionaries in one way or another, to promote the worldwide mission of the Church, and to proclaim the Good News.”

“I was called to be a brother from the start. The idea of being present to people throughout their lives and working with the poor appealed to me more than priestly ministry. From the very beginning, the call to be a brother was very

strong and very clear,” reflects Glenmary Brother Jack Henn, after 50 years of ministry.

Originally from Bellevue, Kentucky, Brother Henn graduated from Thomas More University in 1971 with a degree in accounting and worked in his chosen field for a time. But then he felt called to make a change, to do more to help others, and to “give my whole life to this venture.”

He was drawn to the Glenmary Home Missioners and their work serving the poor in rural areas of the United States. He made his Glenmary oath in 1976. His ministry has included three terms as Glenmary’s vice president and has taken Brother Henn to North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Kentucky, primarily working with the elderly and youth. He’s currently involved in caring for the community’s senior and disabled members and serves on the board for the Religious Vocation Conference.

Brother Henn has found that the vocation of religious brothers is unfamiliar to many people. “For me, the definition is simple. It’s a man who makes a personal commitment to a celibate lifestyle, to community, and to be a follower of Christ, loving others into fuller life.”

There is a certain sense of peace, joy and gratitude that comes from responding to God’s call for us. Br. Andrew Kosmowski, SM, has certainly found that to be the case.

Originally from upstate New York, Br. Andrew attended Bradford College in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where he studied natural sciences and education. He went on to work for Nature’s Classroom, a non-profit that focuses on environmental education and team building. Drawn to common life, Br. Andrew began discerning religious life and learned about the Marianists (Society of Mary).

“When I stumbled upon the Marianists, I found peace,” he said. “With the Marianists, there is no pressure to become a priest, and as I approached my final vows, it wasn’t a question because I had found my home as a brother. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t challenges, but there is a depth of contentment that really is a peace the world cannot give.”

Br. Andrew entered the novitiate with the Marianists in 2004 and professed final vows in 2010. His ministry began in the classroom but soon shifted to the library. Since 2019, Br. Andrew has served as a librarian at the North American Center for Marianist Studies in Dayton. “A big part of my work, and the most rewarding, is helping other people draw closer to Christ by finding the information they need,” he said.

Since his childhood, the Boy Scouts have played a significant role in Br. Andrew’s life and he continues to remain actively involved. He recalls the National Scouting Jamboree in 1993 as an “experience that brought me back to the Church. Being with Scouts from around the world showed me the universality of the Church in a way I hadn’t experienced before.”

Br. Andrew has served as chairperson for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati’s Catholic Committee on Scouting since 2022. He collaborates with the Center for the New Evangelization on catechetical programming and ways to integrate scouting into youth ministry. For his efforts, Br. Andrew was recently named a National Outstanding Eagle Scout Award recipient.

He feels the vocation of religious brothers is “very hidden in the Church,” yet one that is significant and needed, and for him, a call that has been “a gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This article appeared in the May 2025 edition of The Catholic Telegraph Magazine. For your complimentary subscription, click here.