frater Andreas Engels:frater Andreas - Fraters - CMM Brothers

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which would serve a number of needs in his diocese. The primary
need was to service the great demand for Catholic education, but
there was also a need for other forms of education as well as care
for the poor and those discriminated against. The objectives were
comparable to those that other recently founded congregations of
brothers had set themselves. Zwijsen’s idea was not an original
one; communities of brothers of mercy were also at work elsewhere,
in several French, Belgian and Dutch cities. Some years earlier,
in 1832, when he was still chaplain in Tilburg, Zwijsen had
founded a congregation of sisters: the Sisters of Charity of Our
Lady Mother of Mercy. This congregation focused successfully on
local education and care of the sick, but was less successful at
working with older boys. It was thus quickly followed by the congregation
of brothers. Although it did not grow as rapidly as the
congregation of sisters, by 1859, the year when Jan van den Boer
became a novice and was given the name Brother Andreas, it had
more than one hundred brothers. They worked at a few schools in
Tilburg, but had also started some schools elsewhere in the
province of Brabant and even across the border in Belgium.
Brother Andreas trained as a teacher and was appointed at Huize
Ruwenberg, a new and large boarding school in Sint-Michiels -
gestel, in 1861. He was to work at this prestigious institute for
over fifty years and taught many children from influential
Catholic families. His work as a tutor and teacher was busy and
varied. Brother Andreas taught various classes, including the art
of handwriting and Dutch and later obtained additional teaching
certificates in French and German. He was good at languages and
he would use them extensively, not only in education. For example,
in his free time he translated a great many children’s books
from German and ensured that the level of French, one of the official
languages of communication in the congregation at the
time, was kept to a high standard. In addition to the children, he
also taught those brothers who were less familiar with these languages.
Besides education there were many other tasks that filled
a brother’s day, such as supervising the boys when they got up in
the morning, when playing in the court yard, during recreation
time and in the dormitories. In addition, there were always plenty
of household chores to do, and the celebration of Mass and
other daily religious practices.
At first Brother Andreas worked in primary education, but he was
soon entrusted with the care of the ‘Latinists’, boys in preparatory
training to become priests. The congregation had set up the Latin
class in the hope that some boys would opt to be trained as priests
for the congregation, because until 1916 the congregation had
priests as well as brothers. In practice this combination did not
work very well and was not permanently approved by the church
authorities. The idea was later dropped and the priests went to
work elsewhere. However, when Brother Andreas worked at
Ruwenberg, the seminary still existed. Between 1871 and 1900
Brother Andreas supervised various priest student classes, first as
a teacher and later also as their director. He found it easier to work
with boys aged between twelve and eighteen rather than with
younger children. His serious personality was better suited to
boys who were aware of their vocation.
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