What is it like to be a religious brother?

When Brother Jim Peterson, O.F.M. Cap., was in middle school and high school, he felt like every time someone prayed for vocations, they were praying for him.
 
“It was always kind of like, they’re talking about me,” he told CNA.
 
That was his first inclination that he had a religious vocation, though at first, he assumed he was being called to be a priest.
 
Although the call was always somewhere in his heart, Peterson said that he finished high school, and then college, and was struggling to find a job when he wondered if he should answer that call.
 
“But at the same time, I wasn’t sure if it was just me running away from something, so I decided to see if I could make my way in the world before making a decision like that,” he said.
 
It wasn’t until he finished law school and worked for a few years as a lawyer in Pennsylvania, that he decided he couldn’t ignore God anymore.
 
Today, Peterson is a Capuchin brother with the Capuchin Franciscans of the Saint Mary Province, which encompasses New England and New York. He spoke with CNA about the vocation of a religious brother during Vocations Awareness Week, an annual week-long celebration sponsored by the United States bishops’ conference, dedicated to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and consecrated life through prayer and education.
 
Becoming a brother
It was during his time in law school and as a lawyer that he really wrestled with his faith, and what God could be asking of him, Peterson said.
 
Working as a lawyer, he had several “a-ha” moments that made him realize he might be called to a different life.
 
“One moment was when...I was given the task of evicting somebody from a piece of property that one of our clients owned. And so, I got a phone call from the guy I had to evict, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to go to court. I’m leaving, you can have your property back’,” he recalled.
 
“So, I went and told my partner and he said, ‘Well, let’s just hope all of our problems aren’t solved so quickly.’ And this was a good guy and a good partner, but what he was saying was that we’re making money based on other people’s problems.”
 
“I realized then that there are a million lawyers in the country, anybody can take my place, but not everybody could respond to the call that the Lord has put before them,” he said.
 
What to do if you’re discerning
Peterson said that if he could advise other young people discerning religious life, he would tell them to take their time.
 
“I think too often we accept people who aren’t ready - they’re either too young or they’re not mature enough yet or they haven’t found their way in life,” Peterson said.
 
He encouraged young discerners to learn how to be independent, to better learn how to be interdependent within a community.
 
“That was an interesting part of the journey for me. My whole life I’m learning to break away from my family and support myself, and now I have to ask permission to take a car, or I’m given a limited amount of money for the month, things like that,” he said. “So, it's learning to become dependent on others, but in a healthy way, not in a childish way.”
 
He encouraged anyone discerning to attend vocation weekends, or to read more about the saint or the charism in which they’re interested, to see if it is a good fit for them.
 
“Once I started reading about Saint Francis, it was clear to me that this was the guy I wanted to follow, he understood what religious life was about and was following what Christ was about,” he said.
 
He said the life of a brother has been a pleasant surprise, in terms of the freedom he has experienced in what he thought would be a more limited way of life.
 
“Being a celibate, you have much more freedom to interact with a wide variety of folks, you don’t have that one person that you’re tied to, and as a result, I’m able to be with a lot of different people, and I’ve met some amazing people along the way,” he said. “It’s a blessed life.”