Glenmary brother took job in a chicken plant to meet people

Danville religious called to serve poor and 'unchurched'

By Patricia May
Fayetteville Correspondent

Brother David Henley tells people he ran away from the circus to join the Glenmary Home Missioners.

Truth is, he didn't run away -- but he has performed with the circus. And sometimes, when the occasion is appropriate, he still juggles and rides a unicycle.

But these days, Brother David, 37, serves at St. Jude Thaddeus Church Waldron and St. Andrew Church in Danville, where his mission is to work with the poor and unchurched. He arrived last fall and expects to be there for a while, since Glenmary assignments typically last six to 10 years.

"I don't know if I was looking or was led" to the Glenmary order, Brother David said in a telephone interview with Arkansas Catholic.

He believes, however, that he's found the right place. "Glenmary seems to be a good fit," he said.

The GHMs, an order of priests and brothers, originally was an order of builders. Gradually, the order expanded to encompass men (and there's a women's order, too) with an array of skills from teaching to nursing.

Part of the religious order's mission is to use those talents in rural areas of the United States where the Catholic population is often small and the general population is poor. Appalachia, the South and the Southwest are areas where these religious are likely to be found.

Who are the Glenmary Home Missioners? Click here

Brother David, however, was a city boy, originally from Columbus, Ohio. The Catholic Church has always been a big part of his life although, based on his high school academic record, one might not immediately expect him to lean toward a religious vocation: He flunked two years of Latin.

"My Latin teacher told me I would never learn another language," he recalled.

And for a while, he didn't.

"Ten years ago, I didn't speak a lick of Spanish," he said.

Today, Brother David is fluent in Spanish, a skill he picked up working in homeless shelters. That makes it easier for him to converse with Hispanics who live in Waldron and Danville -- and it made it easier for him to get to know his coworkers when he landed a job at a local chicken plant last fall.

Brother David, who was assigned to the area by the Glenmarys last September, said he wanted to work on the chicken line because it seemed to be a good way to meet those in the community he was sent to serve. He applied and was soon standing on the line at nights, working with dead chickens at Petit Jean Poultry in Danville.

His first week, one of his coworkers told him, "You're the first Catholic I've ever met around here." Of course, "If he'd learned to speak Spanish, he'd meet a few (others) sitting around him" in the poultry plant, Brother David said.

For six months, Brother David worked the night shift, getting to know his co-workers and learning what they needed, both spiritually and physically. He said he believes the experience was valuable but ultimately, it proved too much, working for the Church days and the chicken plant at night.

He resigned last spring but got permission to continue visiting the plant as a chaplain. The company agreed and within a week Brother David began getting a small stipend. Now he can meet more people on the day shift and help them whenever they're in need.

He stops in once or twice a week -- "Everybody on the night shift knows me," he said. And they consider his visits the "highlight of my week." People need his help as an interpreter or they have other needs.

It's a long way from Columbus, Ohio, to the circus, to western Arkansas. He tried a year of college after high school in 1989 and a yearlong discernment period. "I discerned I was not being called to be a diocesan priest," he said.

He's a natural entertainer, having learned juggling as a kid from watching a neighbor who juggled. Once he learned, Brother David said he was amazed to find "people offered to pay me" for juggling.

Eventually, he found himself working with small circuses and other venues across the country, including Silver Dollar City in Branson, Mo.

But always, there was a hunger for something else. "I had decided that the world of entertainment ... wasn't fulfilling enough. ... I wanted to give back for the many blessings I'd received."

"I'd always been involved with the Church. I was looking for a way to give of myself more deeply," he added.

He went to work at a Santa Fe, N.M., homeless shelter and eventually moved to Chicago where he worked with the homeless from 1999 to 2001. He hadn't forgotten the Glenmary order through, with whom he had gone on a mission trip to Appalachia as a teenager.

He applied for a year of candidacy in August 2001, a period during which candidates serve in a community and get to know more about the religious order. Next came a novitiate year during which Brother David was sent to Crossett and Hamburg for four months of intense mission work. The rest of the novitiate year is more prayer-centered, he explained.

By May 2003, he was ready to take his first oath with the Glenmarys and to begin studies in pastoral ministry. He finished his pastoral ministry degree at Brescia University in Owensboro, Ky., in 2007.

Brother David is one of three Glenmarys currently assigned to western Arkansas. Father Neil Pezzulo, GHM, is pastor of St. Jude Church in Waldron and St. Andrew Church in Danville. Father Don Tranel, GHM, is pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Booneville.

He assists Father Pezzulo in Danville, where he serves as director of parish outreach and religious education at St. Andrew Church.

Brother David seems content where he is now, and he advises anyone thinking about a vocation to religious life to remain open to all possibilities. He said when he first did a year of discernment, it wasn't time for him.

"At 18 or 19, I wasn't ready." He kept looking and exploring and, eventually, at age 30, decided to apply to the Glenmarys.

"What's worked for me is to continue to be open to God's call," he said.

Who are the Glenmary Home Missioners?

The Glenmary Home Missioners were founded in 1939 by Father William Howard Bishop. While serving in a small rural parish as a young priest, he discovered there were more than 1,000 counties in the United States without a parish priest. A women's religious order was founded in 1941.

Glenmary is derived from the name of the religious order's original home, Glendale, Ohio, and the group's devotion to Mary, Our Lady of the Fields.

The priests and brothers of the GHM are dedicated to serving the spiritual and material needs of people in Appalachia and rural parts of the South and Southwest. Catholics are a minority in these areas -- sometimes representing less than 1 percent of the people. The poverty level is generally twice that of the national average.

GHMs serve a Catholic minority population as well as the unchurched and poor.

Service is done by nurturing Catholics, fostering ecumenism, evangelization, engaging in social outreach, working for justice and making connections to the Universal Catholic Church.

Currently 43 priests and 14 brothers are GHMs and 12 men are in the formation process.

Source: http://www.glenmary.org and http://www.glenmarysisters.org

Click here to return to the 2008 Vocations section index.

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