Making of: Portrait of a Lesser Brother
This project was born out of the many long and intimate conversations I’ve had with my dear friend Br. Robert Mitchell, a Franciscan Friar of the Holy Spirit—Saint Espirit province of Canada.
at the age of 93 years, Bob has lived a tremendous life of simplicity, humility, service, devotion, and most important of all, love.
The initial idea for this body of work was sparked during my first discernment weekend at the Franciscan Friary in Cochrane, Alberta, where I was privileged to meet Bob for the first time. His clear simplicity caught my attention the first morning I participated in the fraternity Lauds (morning prayer). Sitting in the chapel during those dawning hours of the day, a single light silhouetted Bob’s face. I watched him from afar in the silence of one another’s presence. I could see that he was a very holy man and yet there was nothing about his holiness that was externally pious or grand. It was small, simple, easy, but consistent. There was a cohesion about his person that was so captivating.
Throughout that initial weekend, unfortunately, I never found an opportunity to chat with Bob, though we sat at the dinner table across from each other every day, where due to his lack of hearing and his rather slow pace of life, the dinner table conversations were generally too fast for him to keep up. He sat for most meals with a simple smile in silence, quietly excusing himself before everyone else was finished. My general assessment of him was a rather quiet man who had nothing to say. Boy, was I wrong.
It wasn’t until my second visit to the fraternity about a month later that Bob approached me one afternoon and said in his quiet, gentle voice “I think it would be lovely to have coffee together if you have some time while you're here?” While retaining my excitement a bit, I was so overjoyed because I had been wanting to ask him the very same thing. He and I had a silent connection with each other that we both recognized very quickly.
During that first conversation that went on for nearly four hours, we talked about many things, and in the end we walked away with the feeling that we were kindred spirits. We related to each other in so many ways, and though our difference in age was not small, we both felt that we were becoming the best of friends. Near the end of our meeting, Bob mentioned “Though we are at different ends of the stick, it doesn’t seem to be a problem”. Over the next year or so, every single time I would visit the fraternity, Bob and I would continue to build our friendship and have many beautiful conversations.
One aspect of Bob’s character I must mention is his unawareness of how much God shines and speaks through him. There is nothing about Bob that ever hints that he thinks he’s holy. It’s quite the opposite. He sees himself as very ordinary, a sinner, someone who is not holy in the slightest. He doesn’t view himself in a self-deprecating manner, however, because he is far too humble for that. Yet he has a great confidence that God loves him and at the end of the day, to him, that is all that matters.
It is his unreserved, open heart for all people that allows God to live and love through him. He is open to every single person regardless of their faith, background, race, beliefs, opinions, or whatever sin they’ve committed. He loves all people, not by his words but by his life itself. This is his simplicity—love—and perhaps for some people, it is too simple for a man of faith, and if that is the case, I wonder what they asses of our Lord?
There have been many times in my life when I have encountered people claiming to have some prophetic voice or message for me; a word from the spirit as one elderly woman once told me. I am always skeptical of these claims. I don’t buy into them for a second nor do I give them any substantial weight to my life. In the case of Bob, however, I can say with confidence that I know God has spoken to me through him. What gives me even more confidence in this is the fact that Bob has no idea that this is the case. It is a pure grace from God, not some special ability that Bob has to read the lines in my palm or to know some special knowledge that only a select few special spiritual persons are capable of knowing.
There have been more times than I can count when Bob has said something so simple, so gentle, perhaps even challenging for me to hear, and yet so true to my heart. More to it, he had no idea that it touched my heart so profoundly. He simply speaks with love and compassion, the truth, and this is a sign of holiness to me. The fact that in his simple words and the way he has treated me, he has said things to me that were far too poignant to be coincidental and yet were said in such a nonchalant way with no acknowledgment that what he was saying was profound to me. He has never once started a conversation with the phrase “The spirit wants me to tell you something”.
The week before I left for the beginning of my Franciscan formation in Quebec, Bob and I spoke in person one last time about my fear of entering this new stage of life. After expressing to him my desire not to go, he encouraged me saying “Whether or not you are called to be a Franciscan is not clear, but what is clear is that you must go and see, or else you will never know.”
Needless to say, it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but it was what I needed. Every time Bob would say something like this, it was done with such simplicity and gentleness that even if I was irked by what he said, I couldn’t be mad about it because it was true. It is in people like Bob that I see God speak so very clearly. A man who is least aware of how close God is to him shines forth God’s presence more clearly than any person who is on their knees 24 hours a day praying every devotional under the sun.
More recently, Bob and I were discussing the misconception that so many people have of religious life. He said, “Most people think we spend 24 hours a day in the chapel on our knees, but as you know, that is the smallest fraction of our day.” Thomas Merton once said, “To be a saint is to be myself”. Bob is who he is, and that is what makes him holy. It is the thing that speaks to everyone who recognizes the holiness in him. He is a rather ordinary man. An ordinary and holy man.
This was a very difficult project to bring to completion. It was a discovery in the making. I knew I wanted to portray this beautiful man, but I also needed it to be bigger than just about one man. How could I connect the person of Jesus Christ and St. Francis of Assisi to this man’s life? These two figures are the foundation of his vocation. Francis is the man who inspired him to follow in the footsteps of the poor Christ, and Christ is his Lord and best friend.
One thing Bob has always emphasized to me is the importance of fraternity in Franciscan life. He once told me that to him, Francis is nothing without his brothers. This being the case, the portrait we began to paint was not solely about Bob alone, but about Christ, Francis, Bob, and all of his brothers as well. The portrait we ended up painting was of what it looks like to be a lesser brother in the midst of the world. Someone little before God, little before society, relatively insignificant to the noisy and fast-paced world we live in, and yet are the very salt of the earth.
During my years of discernment and eventual formation as a Franciscan, people would commonly ask me “why” I would choose to follow this way of life—this mundane, ordinary, and even insignificant life that looks like it has no impact on the world in which I live. Though I can see where they are coming from, what they fail to realize is that it is often the most hidden, little, and insignificant people in the world that make it continue to go around. It was this focus on simplicity that grabbed me and gave me a foundation to go forth in my life.
Since leaving the Franciscans and discerning that it wasn’t where God wanted me, I am forever grateful for the gift of these brothers, who I will always consider family and who have changed my life in ways I don’t even understand yet. Most significantly, I am forever grateful for the friendship and brotherhood of my dear friend Bob Mitchell. He is a man who shines forth the simple love of God to all. He is a man who sees God in everyone and who draws the goodness of every person from the deepest depths of their heart, into the light of the world.