An Incentive to Serve God More Faithfully: Redemptorists and Their Relations in Religion

A small but significant number of Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province entered the order after a male relative became a member. These vocations helped spawn others, whether for vowed religious life of men and women or for the secular clergy, creating a thick web of spiritual connection that crossed generations. Often the flowering of multiple vocations from the same family hinged on close proximity to a Redemptorist institution. This fed the allure of becoming a religious; such discernment was an easily accepted, normal, and even coveted aspect of one's youth. It was bound up with the fulfillment of familial expectations, encouraged by parochial school teachers, and powered by a piety that sought to save one's soul while ministering to others. After a brief survey of the types of blood relations running through the province's history, the essay makes a candid and probative study of two families—the Cooks (or Kochs) from the nineteenth century, and the Hoffmanns from the twentieth century. Both were from similar neighborhoods in Philadelphia, but the relational dynamics among the siblings and extended family defy simple assessments.