On the street, a quiet outreach of kindness

Many folks do big, special things in observance of the Christmas season, but not the Little Brothers of St. Francis. The aim of their tiny, one-of-a-kind fraternity is to bring friendship and humanity to Boston's lonely, shunned street people year-round.

They have never sought publicity and today, 36 years after the founding of their order, few people would know the Little Brothers exist but for the theft of the concrete statue of Jesus from in front of their Mission Hill friary a couple of weeks ago. The theft and subsequent return of the statue brought sudden attention to the six brothers and one candidate who currently belong to the order.

But among the homeless and elderly of Boston's streets and poor neighborhoods, the Little Brothers are well-known and much loved.

"Yo! Brothers!" shouted one group of street people that two of the friars greeted on the fringes of Chinatown one frosty morning last week. "The brothers are all right!"

"You got any goodies for us today?" a stocky woman asked loudly. "Any underwear?" a grimy, tattered man inquired. But most of the group just smiled broadly and opened their arms. The brothers passed around socks, knit caps, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then embraced the homeless in a football-style huddle for a prayer that one of the brothers improvised on the spot, followed by a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.

As they traversed the Leather District, past South Station, up Summer Street toward Downtown Crossing, the denim-robed brothers attracted smiles and greetings from panhandlers huddled at the doorways of coffee shops and ATMs, and also from transit workers, prosperous-looking businessmen, and stylishly dressed women.

"We try to be open to anyone, rich or poor," said Brother Joseph-Mary Vazquez , "so that the light of Jesus can shine to anyone."

That's all there is to the Little Brothers ' ministry -- smiles, socks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches , and, above all, an effort to extend personal friendship and a willingness to listen to anyone. There is no talk of religion unless the men and women the brothers refer to as "our friends" bring it up. This fraternity, says its founder, Brother James Curran , is "a pre-evangelical organization."

As in many Catholic orders, members of the group strive for lives of quiet contemplation, sworn to lives of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Each is allowed three robes -- one for wearing, one for washing, one for drying -- and the small cells in which they live contain just a bed, a bureau , and, if they want, a chair. Their buzz-cut hair, like the tonsure of the medieval monk, leaves no room for vanity. Their families are allowed to visit once a year. Trips home are less frequent.

Curran, now 74, was drawn to the life of a monk at a young age and became a member of a secular order. But for family reasons, he embarked on a paying career, singing and managing productions of the Opera Company of Boston.

Then, at a performance at the White House in 1967, he said, he heard an inner voice ask, "What are you doing here?" and realized with distress how far he had drifted from his vocation. He returned to Boston and gave away his music scores and tuxedoes.

Curran said he was drawn to befriend the city's street people much in the way the 13th-century bon vivant who would become St. Francis embraced the lepers of Assisi, Italy. He sought the blessing of Cardinal Richard J. Cushing for this emerging ministry. Cushing responded in words that remain at the core of the order to this day.

"There are dozens of people out there who will give you the shirt off their back for Christian charity -- I've raised millions from them," Curran recalls Cushing telling him. "But they won't give 10 minutes of their time. . . . If you listen to people, God will bless the work and he will send brothers to help you."

That was the beginning of the Little Brothers of St. Francis. In addition to street ministry, the brothers regularly visit the sick in hospitals and bring the needy into the friary for food, warmth, and conversation.

Over the years, the Little Brothers developed a reputation for the depth and sincerity of their effort to follow St. Francis, and built relationships with Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa found the brothers' lifestyle and values much like her own. She housed a group of nuns at the friary in the 1980s, and stayed there once herself, leaving behind a lock of her hair and a piece of cloth cut from her habit, prized items in the brothers' collection of more than 50 sacred relics.

Members of the order met seven times with John Paul. A rosary the pontiff blessed and presented to them, in a leather box embossed with the papal seal, also was a treasure of the friary until this month, when they gave it to 11-year-old Earl Smith of Brighton, who had donated his life savings of $107 to the brothers in reaction to the theft of their statue.

With six full brothers, and one in training, the order has more members than ever and is beginning to think about sending missions to other places, in the tradition of St. Francis. Curran says requests have been received from Honduras, Colombia, Kazakhstan -- and even Assisi, though the home of St. Francis is awash in Franciscans.

"The bishop [of Assisi] said the Franciscans there are all involved in the churches and pensions and tourist shops," Curran said. "They are not out on the streets with the poor and homeless."

Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com.