Page 13 - March On! God will Provide by Brother Aubert

FOREWORD

M ARCH ON! Goo WILL PROVIDE is a synopsized ver­

sion of a full-length biography of Theodore James
Ryken that is as yet not ready for publication. Getting
as far along the road as this synopsized version, repre­
sents the cumulative effort of several Xaverian Brothers
who during the past sixty years have worked on the
project, seemingly making no progress but like polyps
contributing themselves to the atoll that eventually rose
above the waters.
Theodore James Ryken, founder of the Xaverian
Brothers, died in 1871, but the first account of his life,
a compilation from the "Notes" of two of his early
disciples, pieced together presumably by Brother John
Chrysostom, the then Superior General, did not appear
until I 904. Another account, just as tantalizingly brief
and incomplete, which was· found among the papers
of Brother Cajetan Van Thournhout, was printed in
1911.
Since the effect of these two biographical sketches
was to arouse a thirst and then leave it completely un­
slaked, Brother Isidore, the Xaverian Provincial in the
United States, 1907-1925, decided that he would make a
beginning of a full-length biography. In 1912 he wrote
to every Brother then living who had known the
Founder, but when ,vorld War I broke out, he was
cut off from access to the Xaverian archives in Belgium.
There were other complications. Brother John Chrys­
ostom, the Superior General, died in 1915. The over-all
government of the Congregation fell to his vicar, Brother
Theophile, a Belgian refugee stranded in England. As