Winding Road to Brotherhood
by Linda Unger
originally printed in Maryknoll Magazine (October 1997)

On an icy-cold day in southern Maine, Edward Redmond cross-country skied past a frozen river and snow-laden trees. Wind whipping down from a steel-gray sky snapped at him and chased him into the town of Brunswick. When Redmond ducked into a local church, he was looking for warmth, not prayer.

The usual pamphlets and brochures stood in a rack in the church's vestibule. Among them a "day-glo" green card caught his eye. "If you love God and God's people, if you have a skill you'd like to share and you're looking for adventure, call us," read an invitation to mission. "I looked at it and thought, 'I could do that,'" Redmond recalls. "I didn't think I really would, but in my heart, it felt comfortable."

Risk or security, routine or the unfamiliar territory of faith are the choices Redmond, now 52, has wrestled with time and again while discerning his vocation. Last spring he made his final oath as a Maryknoll Brother. It's a life commitment of celibacy and service, he says, that has given him "freedom" and the means to put his skills to use for God's people. Redmond and two Maryknoll priests are on their way to open a mission in Mozambique.

The first time he heard of Maryknoll, however, Redmond was anything but receptive. "I was driving along with a former pastor of mine, Richard Stohr. He said he thought I'd make a good Mary-knoll Brother. I nearly threw him out of my truck," Redmond recalls. When he met Father Stohr in 1981, Redmond was still struggling to piece his life back together. He had been drafted into the Army at age 20, and his two years in Vietnam in the mid-1960s disrupted his life and left him, he says, "godless."

Returning to his native Washington, he completed a course in diesel and heavy equipment repair and soon was making his living. A long search for spiritual connections brought him back to the Catholic Church of his upbringing. "My efforts were just beginning to bear fruit," he says. "In no way did I want to leave it all to do something 'holy' or 'religious.' Mass on Sunday, work on Monday was my routine."

Work as a mechanic was steady and rewarding. He traveled to Saudi Arabia on a short but lucrative contract. His life was secure. But while visiting a cousin in Maine, Redmond found himself in that church, enticed by a deep peace that challenged his sense of security. He recalled Father Stohr's words to him about a mission vocation. "It was unsettling," he remembers. "I felt mission was for people who were better than I -- or holier." Back to his job in Washington, he talked with family and friends about becoming, not a Brother, but a lay missioner. They were surprised, but supportive.

"Suddenly I was on ground that was not at all familiar, yet I was unable to scramble back." Finally, he says, "It was easier to proceed than to deny what was going on in my heart and mind."

In 1984, he applied to the Lay Mission-Helpers Association in Los Angeles. He was assigned to Papua New Guinea, where he employed his skills as a mechanic, and later to Ponape Island in Micronesia, where he taught auto shop and religion to high school students. While serving in the South Pacific, Redmond met several American and European missionary Brothers who impressed him. "l saw their happiness and the freedom of their lifestyle," he says. "That appealed to me."

At the age of 44, he returned to the United States in 1989 to investigate the vocation to Brotherhood. "I had to either go into it with both feet," Redmond says, "or get out and get on with my life." He was expecting the latter when he visited Maryknoll's house in Seattle, but wound up swapping stories and joking with Maryknoll Father Peter Byrne.

He followed his heart and entered Maryknoll in 1991 and in 1993 made his first oath as a Maryknoll Brother. He spent two-and-a-half years in overseas training, working with African Sisters and serving the people of Tanzania with the tools of his trade and his pastoral gifts. "To use the talents one has been given is one of the most important things anyone can do," he says. "To put them aside or use them only once in a while would be a waste."

His mission life has not been full of extraordinary experiences, Redmond says, but it has been rewarding. He is committed to a simple, joy-filled lifestyle centered in community and service to others. "For me to live as a layperson and a bachelor felt constraining. To live as a Brother allows my spirit to breathe," he says.

"It's a day-to-day thing," he explains. "I can't say just what's going to happen in the future. But it's a good life. It suits me."

Ed's Ministry             Ed's Biography

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