Lay Brothers in the Catholic Tradition

Lay brothers are now to be found in most of the religious orders. They are mostly pious and laborious persons, usually drawn from the working classes of the community, who, while unable to attain to the degree of learning requisite for Holy orders, are yet drawn to the religious life and able to contribute by their toil to the prosperity of the house or order of their vocation. Not seldom they are skilled in artistic handicrafts, sometimes they are efficient administrators of temporal posse...