Brother Lawrence Obiko, Superior General of the Brothers of Our Lady, Mother of Mercy (CMM), tells us about the history of his Congregation and outlines some of the challenges facing the Vincentian Family.

With him we continue a series of video interviews called “The Heart of a Leader” which will accompany us on our journey to the meeting in November 2024.

“As we dream together, the dream becomes a reality.” – Fr. Tomaž Mavrič, C.M. Register now at https://famvin.org/en/famvin-2024

Transcript:

Brother Lawrence, could you introduce yourself?
My name is Brother Lawrence Obiko. I belong to the Congregation of the Brothers of Our Lady Mother of Mercy. We were founded in the Netherlands in 1844, and as Brothers, we are mainly involved in education, and we work in eight different countries in the world: in East Timor, Indonesia, Kenya, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, Brazil, Netherlands, and Belgium. Our founder is Bishop Johannes Zwijsen.

Why is it important to work together with the Vincentian Family, Brother Lawrence?
It is important to work with the Vincentian Family because our founder, when he founded the congregation, he gave us Vincent as our patron Saint. And Vincent was very instrumental for our founder because he saw, in Vincent, really the person who portrayed what it means to work for the poor and he was inspired by that aspect of being able to reach out for the poor and especially those who are poor and vulnerable in the society. So therefore our founder found that Vincent would be a good instrument and model for us to follow as a congregation. That’s why we would like to see Vincent as our patron Saint and also someone who helps us to see how we can be part of the society that needs a lot of attention for the poor.

Finally, the future and the future of the Vincentian Family… the hope, and the challenge, in your opinion?
The future of the Vincentian Family, has to be what it means to be a family, because as a family you are able to do things together, you are able to pull together the effort, and energy, and you are able to address the needs of the society around you. So if we can continue to work together as a family, wherever we are, we will be able to address those needs and we will be able to address the situations that our patron Saint, Vincent, tried to address in his time. And I think if we are together, we will stand, and if we are alone, we will not be able to stand.

And the challenge for the future is, we are living in a very difficult time of history. There are so many needs, there are so many problems in our society and they all need our help. They all need our attention. So if we are not able to come together, work together, address these problems together as a family, it means these problems will remain problems in the society and they will never be solved. So I think the challenge is: How can we come together as a Vincentian Family? How can we pool our efforts together – not only our energy but also our finances, our resources, our human resources? And this will help us to move forward to the future. But this is a big challenge for us because we know that also in society, the problem of finances is becoming a big problem.
Thank you very much, Brother Lawrence.