Community

“We’re only able to be alone when we live in community,
and only those who are able to be alone can live in community:
both aspects belong together and come into existence simultaneously, when called by Jesus Christ.”

(D.Bonhoeffer)

We’re very ordinary people,
given to each another so we can seek God together,
so we can become one in heart and soul, sharing everything with one another:  gifts and possessions, time and space,
strengths and weaknesses.

This is a path of confrontation with one’s self,
with one’s shadow side,
and with the shadow side of others.
 

It’s also a path of interiorization and silence,
letting go of identifying one’s self
with false and superficial ideas and self-images, so that one’s true face – as well as the true face of the other – can be revealed,
received from Christ in the depths of one’s heart,
in the midst of the community.

(Proverbs, 4,23)

Inspiration from our tradition:
 

• prefer nothing to Christ,

• be the first to show respect for the other, 
   
• bear one another’s weaknesses with the greatest patience,
  
• obey one another,
   
• not to seek your own advantage, but rather what is good for the other.

(From the Rule of St. Benedict)

 

“Let each regard
whatever she has as belonging to all,
and let her know without any doubt

that everything
the other has
is just as much her own.

In His love,
God has arranged things for us
so that each one of us needs the other,
and what we don’t have in ourselves,
we do have in each other.”

(St. Aelred van Rievaulx)