At age 94, Brother Raymond Fortin, a member of the Brothers of Christian Instruction in Alfred, is a man still often on the go. 

  “I’ve always been that way. I’ve always been active. Even as a child, I couldn’t sit still. Even here, I can’t sit still,” he says.

   This past winter, he went snowshoeing four or five times a week. He makes trips to Sanford daily to bring Communion to two brothers in a nursing home. And he has helped to maintain the grounds around the Notre Dame Spiritual Center and chapel, which up until last summer included mowing the lawn.

  “I’m service minded. The brothers know that if they need something done, see Raymond,” he says. “That’s what I enjoy doing.”
  Brother Raymond recently reached a milestone, celebrating the 75th anniversary of his profession as a Brother of Christian Instruction. He professed first vows in 1951 and his final vows in 1956. He says they are years he has enjoyed.

 “I enjoy this lifestyle. I enjoy this community,” he says. “It’s been a good life.”    

Brother Raymond is originally from Plattsburgh, New York, a place he still drives back to a few times a year to visit. His parents had moved there from Montreal, Canada, and being devout Catholics, enrolled their children in the parish school. That is where he was introduced to the Brothers of Christian Instruction, whom he had as teachers from second to eighth grade. After that, he came to Maine to attend the brothers’ prep school here.                                                                                                                                                                                        
“I liked the brothers, and I liked the school. So, I asked my dad, ‘Can I go to Maine for school?’ He said alright, so I made my high school here. At that time, it was Notre Dame High School,” he says. “The prep school was mostly like a family. There were only 30 students in the school. I enjoyed a lot of good years, and they put me through good schooling, which I needed.”

    He says, as a result, he was the first in his family to go to college. In 1951, the Brothers of Christian Instruction established La Mennais College in Alfred with the purpose of instructing young men to become brothers and teachers. While the college only operated in Maine for nine years, when the brothers decided to instead open Walsh College in Ohio, the timing for Brother Raymond was ideal. 

   Before long, Brother Raymond made the transition from student to teacher. While still finishing up his schooling during the summer and on weekends, he began teaching math at St. Ignatius School in Sanford.

    After three years there and after receiving his college degree, he was transferred to Detroit, Michigan, where the brothers had opened a new school. Just two years later, he was named the principal.

    “We had opened up the college in 1960, and the brothers who were prepared to be college teachers were teaching in the high school, so they got transferred to the college, and the younger ones had to be pushed up,” he explains.

    After serving in Detroit, he returned to his hometown where he became principal and then dean of students of a boarding school that attracted students from around the world because of its reputation for teaching English as a second language.

    “Most of them were from Canada, but we opened it up to other nations. We had students from Japan, Africa, Spain. We had a lot of Mexicans,” he says.

    Brother Raymond says what he enjoyed most about his years of teaching were the activities with the students.

    “Hiking in the fall, intramural sports. Skiing was the big thing because that went from November to April. We were right next to the mountains in Vermont and in New York,” he says.

    Brother Raymond’s service also took him overseas on two occasions. He spent two years in Tanzania in the early 1970s helping to launch a new school, which served 500 students. He says although parents in that area were wealthy enough to pay tuition because they earned money from growing coffee, it was still a simple life. He says what he learned from the experience was that you don’t need fancy things to be happy.

   “Life was very, very simple. The sun came up at 6 a.m. and went down at 6 at night. So, you had a 12-hour day. It was a simple life but a good life because we had water and we had food. And I had a vehicle. I would go into town once a week to pick up groceries at the market,” he says. “We didn’t have electricity, but we had a generator.”

   Always active, he remembers climbing nearly 20,000 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, a trek he repeated to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his profession in 2001.

    “I went back to Tanzania to climb it again,” he says. “I thought it was higher that time.”

    He contrasts the simplicity of the school in Tanzania with one in Japan at which he served in the early 1990s.

    “It was the exact opposite of Africa,” he says. “The children who attended the school were the children of ambassadors, American parents who had children, and Japanese students who were born outside the country and knew English,” he says. “They had the best of everything.”

   So successful was the school in Japan that Brother Raymond says profits from it helped to fund a school the brothers opened in the Philippines. 
   The school in Japan would be Brother Raymond’s last teaching assignment. He says he suffered some hearing loss, which made teaching difficult, so he transitioned to caring for the grounds in Plattsburgh and also running profitable Saturday night bingo. When that community closed in 2014, he returned to Maine, where he has lived and served ever since.

   Brother Raymond recalls that when he was graduating high school, his father approached him about joining the family’s successful oil business. He says he has no regrets about choosing religious life instead.

   “Once I make my choice to do something, I do it,” he says. “I’ve had a good quality of life. I’ve had my health, and I’ve had my activities. I have had the spiritual aspect.”

   That spiritual aspect includes praying the Divine Office in the morning and at night, a half hour of meditation, and evening prayer, including 15 minutes of silent prayer. The brothers also make a three-day retreat each year.

 “It’s very well balanced,” he says.

  Brother Raymond says he has had good friends and support among the brothers and in the community. He says one of the greatest gifts is when he hears from former students.

   “I’m still in contact with many former students. They come down. They stop by and visit,” he says.

   For instance, he says one student, who became a successful lawyer, is so grateful for the education he received that he bought the brothers a new van, knowing the vehicles that they had were getting older.

   “He comes up once a year,” says Brother Raymond. “He has been super generous to the brothers.”

   Brother Raymond says when he reflects on his years as a teacher and the impact he has had, the expression he often uses is, “I don’t know what I did right, but I’m glad I did it.”

   Just as he is glad that he became a Brother of Christian Instruction.

  “Whatever God wants to give me, I’ll take it,” he says. “I thank God every day.”