Community life: is it really necessary?
Manila retreat 13
A real love shows itself first of all inside the house: community
life
Today I would like to start with a question: Is
community life simply for helping the apostolate or is there more
than that? The answer seems to be obvious: The community has a value
in itself, we all know that, but it is not so when we go to the
concrete life. Our communities are set up because there is a work to
do, a parish to work in, a Cottolengo, a seminary, a school to run
etc. People sent to it are chosen according to their skills: he has
titles, he is a good teacher so let us send him to a community where
he can be put in charge of a school. Even the timetable is made in a
way to favour the work we do. Of course we need a place where to
stay, to pray, to eat and that is the community house. But if in our
apostolate we look at the efficiency, we can see that working with
others slows down the process, different ideas make the decision
making process more difficult, and often it is impossible to reach a
conclusion to our discussions. So many people start acting in a
solitary way, while others may fall in the temptation to live in a
passive way, accept blindly whatever comes and avoid giving
contributions of ideas and projects.
The apostolate takes a great part of our time.
All this is ok. Nobody wants to deny the
importance of apostolate. This topic needs a whole chapter but, if
the apostolate becomes the only reason to be in a particular
community, what will happen when I become sick, I cannot work
anymore: does my presence in the community lose its meaning?
What I want to say in this talk is that the
community is an apostolic tool in itself, which is much more
effective than the apostolate done by the single religious.
We have already read several times the passage of
St. Mark: “He called them to stay with
him and also to send them” (Mk:
3,19). The staying with him is not for the mere purpose of training
them but is because Jesus chose to do his mission through a family
life style. So the staying with him is the priority, not the
instrument. Jesus built a family and in several occasions he
underlines this family aspect. He didn’t build a group or a hostel,
he built a family. Everything is different when is done as family,
and this aspect should be remembered especially by those among you
who are superiors. Take for example prayer. It is different to pray
together and to pray as a family. To pray together means that we are
in the same room and say the same prayer at the same time, but maybe
our hearts do not feel any difference, maybe among us there is
division, coldness. When we pray as family, even if one is physically
missing, he is spiritually there, in his desire but also in the
desire of the brothers, they pray for him and also on his behalf.
Jesus taught us: “When you pray you say: Our
Father”. Our is plural so this prayer has full meaning when we
pray it as “we” and not as “I”. Only Jesus could say “my
Father”. We can say “Father” only through Jesus, so our not my.
Something similar is the work inside the
community. Do you remember the parable of the two sons whom the
father invites to go and do some work? Mt 21,28. Who among the two
was a real member of the family and who was not?
To build a family is much more than just to be
united by blood relation. It needs spirit of belonging, capacity of
sacrifice etc. We have many religious who worked well for years with
genuine apostolic zeal, but sadly they left the Congregation, the
priesthood and as a consequence, even the apostolate. What was
missing was not the joy of the apostolate but the sense of belonging.
What they were doing in the apostolate could have been done in any
Congregation and even as non priest. But to be Son of Divine
Providence, Salesian, Jesuit, can be achieved only living in the
family and building up the sense of belonging. The fact that some
left because of a lady is not a true view of the problem. The falling
for a woman was not the cause but the consequence of an emptiness.
Apostolate drains your emotional resources; you cannot keep on giving
without receiving and if you do not have a family who supports you,
you build a surrogate one.
Family is not a place where everything goes well.
We usually encounter problems, misunderstanding, and often there are
people who are not mature, who do not know how to deal with love. We
have a clear example of it in the parable of the good father and the
two sons: Lk 15,11-32 commonly called the Prodigal son.
Both sons are very important and the real centre
of the story is the comparison of the way of acting of the two sons
in front of the love of their father.
It strikes me the full freedom given by the father
to the youngest, in spite of him knowing what he was going to do and
how wrong that was. The son goes and loses sight of the father and of
his house. The result can be only ruining the inheritance looking for
a replacement of the lost joy. The family is where he belongs and
cannot be replaced by anything, richness, feasting etc. He may not
have the courage to admit it but he feels empty inside. Away from the
family he will always be an out of place. Even if he would have been
successful in his business, he would always have something missing.
The conversion is to acknowledge that he made a
mistake and ruined himself, he alienated himself from what he really
wanted.
But to be alienated from the family spirit does
not mean necessarily that somebody must run away. We have the eldest
son, who has been serving, obeying and working. From the answer he
gives to the father who is inviting him inside to celebrate we
understand that he too did not feel the belonging. None of the two is
mature, but the father conquers them both with his patience and
acceptance. The attitude of the father is understandable only if we
look at him as the God of compassion well described in Hos 1-3 and
Hos 11,8: a God who has chosen a wife who is a prostitute and keeps
on running away from him, a God who is so much in love that always
takes her back and continues to love her; a Father who waits
patiently because he knows that the son will eventually come back.
We need to live in a community which is not just
one of the features of our life. Community is something that has a
great mystical and prophetic aspect.
The mystic is described well in 1 Cor 12:12. We
are the mystical body o Christ. We are just part of this body and we
cannot function if separated from it. It is true that the only vital
part is the head but a body without a leg or a hand, though alive,
will always be a lame or a handicapped body. This is what Jesus meant
when he said “When two or three are united in my name I will be
there”. Mt 18:20. He was not referring only to prayer. We are
united in his name in any activity we do in the community because
religious community are by nature built in the name of Jesus. So to
act as family is to make Christ present among us. Another
consideration connected to this is that if it is true that we can see
Jesus present in everyone, how much more we should be able to see
Jesus present in our brothers in the community.
Another mystic point is in the purpose of the
community life itself. The community life is the image on earth of
the communion existing among the persons in the Trinity, a communion
which can only be described through pure love. A lover wants, by
nature, to be united, as much as possible, with the loved one. In
this case when we build a community based on love (and there would be
no other reason for remaining united), we share in the life of the
Trinity itself. Practically speaking when I love you I make the
Trinity dwelling among us, and when I try to be united with God there
is no other choice but to love those around me.
Prophetic means “that speaks for (about)”. Our
community life must be an attitude that gives a clear message of what
it signifies. We have seen in the Mystical aspect that the meaning of
the community is to be the body of Christ and to signify the Trinity.
These two aspects have to be clearly seen in our communities.
This is a very important point for today’s
society. Every day we face situations of broken families, groups
where people are exploited and their needs neglected in the name of
progress, selfishness and greed; Psychologists speak of need of self
affirmation, but this is often done through rejecting rules, moral
values etc.
We have seen that we give an answer to these
problems with the three vows, but these vows, if not lived in a
community environment could lose most of their prophetic power. A
person who does not get married and dedicate himself to work for the
other could well be a philanthropist with some problems preventing
him to marry. But if chastity is lived in a community based on love,
on real relationship, as a choice made by all and not by one only,
then it becomes a sign of something more valuable. A person who gives
up possession could be a crazy man or someone who does not like those
particular items, after all we have examples of trumps who live in
the street and could have had a good life a job or a career. Giving
up these things was a choice done in the name of freedom but not
exactly a spiritual one and not an answer to the problem of poverty.
But when it is a whole community who makes those radical choices then
it is more credible.
Jesus says: “From this they will recognize you,
if you love one another” Jn 13:35.
Even apostolate becomes more meaningful when lived
in a community way (which does not mean that everybody is there to
work in the same place). In Italy we have many institutions. We used
to have many religious working in each one of them. Now due to the
crisis of vocations we gathered the religious who were in nearby
houses in one community and from there the confreres handle the
works. So one community can now be in charge of three or four
activities and each activity will see practically one religious
working. It is important then that the religious work in a community
minded way. What is not seen has to be felt in the way he works.
After all apostolate is to make people experience
the love of God and what love God has which is not a sharing of the
community of love which is the Trinity? The first apostolate in the
history of salvation is that God took pity on our situation and sent
his only Son among us to rescue us. We send one of our confrere to do
a particular job, it has to be the fruit of our love which overflows
to benefit the others. So apostolate is always a mandate of the
community.
How can we be prophets in our community life? Let
us look again at Jesus.
- When coming on earth he chose to come through a family and remained in the family for the longest part of his life, subjected to the rules and regulation of family life. He stayed hidden in his family for almost thirty years and worked for his mission for about three years.
- As soon as he started his apostolate he formed a group, a new family with whom share his work. Note that he did not choose the best.
- He trained them, cared for them, shared light moments with them as in Lk 9:10, trusted in them and sent them (two by two) to the mission, he served them like when he washed their feet (Jn 13); he defended them like in the garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers wanted to arrest them as well (Jn 18:8).
- He prayed for them and for their unity (Jn 17:20-23)
- He accepted their shortcomings, their lack of understanding as we see in many of their questions, their desire of power as for the request of the mother of James and John, the often change of mood of Peter, the betrayal of Judah, the running away after the arrest, the incredulity of Thomas. All this was part of making them ready for the mission he had prepared for them.
- Particularly important is the episode of the washing of the feet. John describes it in a very solemn way with a big introduction. After washing the feet he commands them to do the same. Family can be built only by mutual service and love. Then he tells that there is no greater love than the one who dies for his friends, thing which now you know what it means. Finally he tells that from now he calls them only friends. Judas was among those to whom he washed the feet and he had just now gone out.
For personal work:
What are the challenges to our community life?
- Often the apostolate becomes a way of escaping from the community life. Relationships outside are easier than those inside. We see it when we monitor the desire we have to go out or that to come back; how much do we speak about our community with our outside friends and what do we say about it? Do I like to gossip with my outside friends about the wrongs in my community?
- The emptiness and discomfort inside is covered by the busy activity outside. How easily we accept commitments and activities in moments in which we should instead come back home where the community is having common prayers, meals, meetings recreations etc.
- How much do we speak to our brothers about our activities, and how much help we ask from them? Are we willing to share our activities with them?
- Somebody may be tempted to live in the community in a passive way, without joy or creativity, without any proposal, worried to disturb the others with his own ideas. This is also wrong because the community grows through the contributions of all. Am I one of those? What can I do to help my community to be a better answer to the plan of God?
- Do I understand the value of living as a family?
- Do I thank the Lord for my community? What do I have to thank for in a special way?
- Is there anything that I feel guilty of towards my community? How can I remedy it?
Here are some passages from St. Paul on how to
improve our community life:
1 Cor 13, 1-7
Fil 2, 1-5
Col 3, 12-15
Ef 4, 1-13
2 Tim 4,1