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Maryknoll Brothers are men who commit themselves to lifelong celibacy, prayer, community living, and ministry.  Bringing a wide range of talents to the missionary endeavor, they build missions and schools, work as teachers and administrators, develop agricultural and other life-sustaining projects with indigenous people, serve in health-related fields and contribute in numerous ways to the ministry of Maryknoll.  In the early days of the Church, the Apostles realized that they could not preach Jesus’ Word without the help of others who ministered in various ways in early Christian communities (Acts 6: 1-6). Although they do not perform sacramental Church ministries, Maryknoll Brothers witness to the Gospel through lives of service and prayer, proclaiming the Word throughout the world.

Brother Al Patrick

Brother Al Patrick is good at fixing broken things. He mixes the quiet caring of a nurse, his profession, with the methodical patience of a craftsman in his mission with a group of mentally and physically disabled men in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Patrick supervises a "protective workshop" where four special-needs men, ages 30 to 46, keep busy as carpenters. They build bookcases, toolboxes, chests, benches and stools and occasionally take on special projects, such as a recently commissioned foot loom the size of a dining room table.

Patrick is one of four Maryknoll Brothers working in or near the central Bolivian city, making up the largest single concentration of the Society's religious Brothers in mission sites around the world. All four men share a commitment to helping those left in the shadows of life to come into the sunshine and flourish.

 Two years ago, Patrick, 64, shifted the focus of the carpentry class he was teaching at the Centro de Rehabilitación Cochabamba from a school environment to that of a sheltered workshop to give the men a more real world setting. By making items to sell on the open market, the men will be able to earn money of their own.

"By engaging in this type of work atmosphere, they can gain experience and self-confidence," Patrick says, "and then later be able to find employment in small factories or carpentry shops in the Cochabamba area."

Patrick, from Ridgewood, New Jersey, spent 10 years in the Air Force, including a year in Vietnam, before joining the Brothers in 1980. He served in the Middle East from 1989 to 1999, where he began his work with children with severe mental and physical disabilities, whom he says are a class of forgotten people.