Retreatants gather in the soaring A-frame chapel at rustic St. Joseph Camp on the Russian River in Duncans Mills, California.

The annual “Called and Chosen” Retreat  for male students in the District of San Francisco brought together students from Lasallian schools in California and Oregon for three days to consider how they are being “called and chosen” by God.  Eleven Christian Brothers and several lay facilitators also took part in the event, held November 8 -10 at St. Joseph’s Camp on the Russian River. 

“It’s inspiring to see how committed the Christian Brothers are to education,” said James Hayes, a student at Saint Mary’s College of California and an alumnus of the province’s newest school, San Miguel High School in Tucson, Arizona. Another participant was Brother Chris Patiño, FSC, another Lasallian alumnus, who graduated from Cathedral High School in Los Angeles and the University of Arizona, and has recently taken his first vows as a Brother, having completed his novitiate year in August. Said Brother Chris, “It was great to be with these young men, to pray with them and converse with them and hear from them as they discern their life’s vocation.”

The retreatants came from four Lasallian secondary schools and one college: Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, Justin-Siena High School in Napa, Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, La Salle Catholic College Preparatory in Milwaukie, Oregon, and Saint Mary’s College of California. From the adult facilitators on retreat with them they heard the “vocation journeys” undertaken in answer to a variety of callings within the Lasallian educational mission – as teachers, parents, married couples, single persons, and vowed religious.

A Lasallian Vocation Retreat for female students was initiated last year. The second annual “Called and Chosen” retreat for female students will take place January 17-19, 2009, with students from at least six Lasallian schools in the western United States expected to take part

For more information on these and related activities, contact Brother George Van Grieken, FSC, Director of Vocation Ministry, at br.george@dlsi.org or Marilyn Paquette, Director of Lasallian Student Programs, at mpaquette@dlsi.org.

For complete information on the life and work of a De La Salle Christian Brother, visit the new national vocations web site at www.brothersvocation.org.