CINCINNATI (June 6, 2003)—Glenmary Brother David Henley, 32, professed his First Oath to Glenmary Home Missioners on May 24, 2003. The Glenmary Oath commits Brother David to the practice of poverty, chastity, obedience and prayer. As a Glenmary Home Missioner, he also commits himself to his fellow missioners and to the proclamation of the Gospel in rural areas and small towns of the United States. With his First Oath, Brother David begins a three-year period of temporary profession which culminates in a Final Oath.

Brother David, a native of Columbus, Ohio, has a long history with Glenmary, beginning in 1989 when he came to the Glenmary Farm in Vanceburg, Ky., as volunteer with Bishop Watterson High School. He returned to the Farm as on-site manager of Glenmary’s Appalachian Group Volunteer Program in the mid-1990s. He has also attended Ohio State University, Santa Fe Community College, Brescia University and worked as a professional juggler, magician and unicyclist.

Service has always been a part of Brother David’s life. He spent two years working with the Volunteer Missionary Movement in Chicago before entering Glenmary. There he worked at San Jose Obrero Mission, a transitional shelter for homeless men. He also spent one year working at St. Elizabeth homeless shelter in Santa Fe, N.M.

Fluent in Spanish, Brother David will spend his summer working in Glenmary’s mission in Swainsboro, Ga., with Glenmary Father Vic Subb. Much of his work will be with the growing Hispanic community in South Georgia. Following his summer assignment, he will return to Glenmary’s House of Studies in Hartford, Ky. He has also served in Glenmary missions in Crossett and Hamburg, Ark. and Beaver Dam, Ky.

“I am overjoyed as I make this deeper commitment to Glenmary and my vocation as a brother,” Brother David says. “I look forward as a professed member of Glenmary to giving my talents, my love, my time and my life to God through Glenmary’s life and work.”

Glenmary is a society of Catholic priests and brothers who, along with coworkers, establish the Catholic Church in rural regions of the United States, serving the spiritual and material needs of people in Appalachia, the South and Southwest. Currently, Glenmary staffs over 60 missions in 14 dioceses.