THE COMING OF THE BROTHERS
- AN END OR A BEGINNING?
Because of the annual retreats and the aims of the tertiaries and Companions to support the work of the Brothers in New Guinea at Koke and Jegarata, the Third Order in the 60s had a unity and a common purpose. Moreover, after the First Order had been invited to Brisbane in 1964, they increasingly looked forward to the establishment of a Franciscan First Order house in New Zealand.
After 1970, the situation was to change in two ways.
Firstly, in 1969 Bishop Eric Gowing of Auckland had invited the First Order to come to New Zealand to run the Auckland City Mission. The Third Order and Companions greeted the arrival of the four brothers, Reginald as Guardian, Michael Thomas from the United States, Raymond from Australia and Colin from Melanesia, in December 1969 with great rejoicing.
Secondly, the Third Order had grown to such an extent that after 1970 separate retreats had to be held in Auckland and Wellington.
The first factor meant that the Third Order tended to mark time in order to reappraise its purpose. The second meant that each local group was left to reshape its own identity apart from the identity of the Order as a whole.
Unsettling or creative? Those to whom the label was directed "friars' fan clubs" were the hardest hit. When the First Order came, the Third Order looked expectantly towards the brothers for leadership.
But they overlooked the fact that the friars themselves were struggling to find their own feet in a strange country and in new work and in a new community. The First Order had neither the time nor the vision nor the ability to lead either the Third Order or the Companions in a direction which was as challenging and as exciting as the common aim of the 60s.
The Friars had indeed come with high hopes, both for the church as a whole and for the Third Order and Companions. Several tertiaries and companions were already working in the City Mission and a common First Order and Third Order approach was envisaged.
But it was not to be. Brother Reginald from the beginning was not happy with the responsibility of running the City Mission. His gifts for music, scholarship and spiritual direction did not fit readily into its make up. Brother Michael Thomas became the only brother who worked in the Mission, and was later appointed as the Missioner. The other brothers took longer to settle. Brother Reginald in 1970 became Provincial Minister, and William, who took over from him, looked for a caring residential situation where all the Brothers could participate.
At that time, the people of the state housing suburb of Glen Innes could not afford a vicar on full stipend. Brother William went to the Bishop and offered the services of the Brothers. For the next seven years the Brothers led by William and then by Rodney lived and served in the Anglican-Methodist co-operating parish. Derek John, formerly the tertiary David Bindon, became Vicar, while Donald Andrew (now Donald Campbell) and Hugh Donald established a drop-in centre, organised the community centre and holiday programmes and managed the First Fifteen at Tamaki College. At the same time, the Brothers were able to take missions and retreats around New Zealand.
So the First Order in the early 70s struggled to find their identity both as a community of those who had never lived together before and in the direction of their witness. Were they to be engaged in preaching, care of the disadvantaged or spiritual guidance? Were they to be an Order rooted to one place helping the poor there or were they to be free to take missions all around New Zealand as they had done in the 60s? The history of the First Order shows an alternation or a mixing of these models with their conflicting demands.
The Third Order too had to find its own identity. A somewhat free- and-easy group of like-minded people striving to establish a religious community in New Zealand had to be welded into an Order. People were coming in who had different aims and different needs, and the Order itself was becoming so numerous and scattered that it was impossible to continue meeting together as one group.