“When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don’t need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can’t approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.” (Jean Vanier)
All religious consider community life as an essential aspect of their life. Common life, in fact, belongs to the very definition of religious life. Evidently, community may take different forms – it may be large or small, informal or structured, according to the particular charism of the congregation and the needs of the mission. But religious life would be impossible without communion in common life.
People living together does not necessarily make a religious community. It is the interior union of the members, their being of one heart and one mind (Acts 4:32) that makes them into a community. The spirit that animates the members, the peace they enjoy in their relationships, the joy they experience in one another’s presence—these are indications that they make a real community, “a true family gathered in the name of the Lord” (Perfectae Caritatis, 15).
A community of persons becomes a communion when the members accept one another in faith and are united among themselves in love. The presence of the Spirit guides the members to genuine brotherhood/sisterhood in the common sharing of goods, the common hearing of the Word, in mutual help and in common prayer. The requirement of brotherly/sisterly life is born of the fact that we are members of the Body of Christ and children of the same Father. We feel obliged to live in meaningful fashion the radical aspect of brotherhood/sisterhood. Our love for each other leads us to share all we have in a family spirit.
In communities we share the same traditions, spirituality, apostolic purpose, resources, and constitutions. Fraternal communion announces that persons who love God are able to love and sustain each other, accept one another’s gifts and limitations, share joys and sorrows—despite differences in age, race, language, nationality, culture, temperament, and ministerial competence. Because the asceticism of community life demands love, forgiveness, patience, and mutual self-giving, it contributes to growth in holiness.
A religious community in Mozambique, Africa, had members’v from five different nations. The African members of the province, who struggled with tribal differences, remarked: “We are divided by tribal loyalties. Look at these Fathers. They come from five different countries, and they get along so well.” This is what religious community is about.
Why community?
We gather in community, not because it is more convenient for ministry; not because it may be more economical; not even to fulfill our need for friendship and intimacy.
We gather in community, with all its joys and sorrows, primarily because:
- it expresses our desire to witness to our oneness with God and with each other;
- it can be a visible living out of the common vision of the religious congregation to which we belong;
- it helps us support each other “in the rigours of the inward journey” whose goal is nothing less than a transforming union with Jesus Christ.
Community life proclaims the reality that love of neighbor is indeed possible. It proclaims that love and peace are possible among those who are not related, who do not choose each other, who are not necessarily friends. In this light, we commit ourselves to be present to each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, and we willingly accept the burdens of the daily life. We also allow each other the freedom to be themselves and even to stumble along the spiritual path.
What does it mean to live in community?
What is really needed to live in a community? Does it require that you’ve got to be always agreeable, always smiling, always cheerful, always a saint? It would be wonderful to be so, but that rarely happens in this fragile world. Entering a community means that you are ready to walk the same road with others, to pray together, to help when you can and to be helped when you need it. Living in community is not something that confines or stifles, but rather something that builds, ennobles, enlarges, expands, and allows growth and some freedom. Obviously, the community will permit you only “some” freedom, never total freedom.
Community, lived in the right sense, means that when one is down, someone will be there with a helping hand; when one is excited, someone will be there to share the joy; when one is confused, someone will be there to talk things over.
To live in community means to be flexible enough to live with others who are different from you—in temperament, in education, in competence. It means being open to growth, to change, to surprises, to accepting one another. To live in community means to be willing enough to let the others into your world, into your life. In a community, you will find that the way you always did things is not the way they always do things. The fact is that you do some things better than others, while others do some things better than you. And we learn from each other. And that’s growth; that’s enrichment.
“A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.” (Jean Vanier)
Union of hearts: A constant challenge
A religious community is where the many are called to become one. Jesus’ core message—that we are one—is surely one of the great mysteries of existence. This truth is not easy to accept, because our senses tell a different story: we are separate, different, and alone. Fraternal communion is born of our vital communion with God. Faith and acceptance of the person unite the members more deeply than does the relationship of blood or psychological affinity or friendship.
The Word of God and the Eucharist are the principal sources of our fraternal unity. The Word, listened to with faith, is a source of spiritual life, food for prayer, light to see God’s will in the events of life, and strength to live out our vocation faithfully. Listening to the Word of God finds its privileged place at the celebration of the Eucharist, the central act of every religious community. In the Eucharistic celebration, we pray to the Father: “grant that we, who are nourished by the Body and Blood of Your Son and filled with his Holy Spirit, may become one body, one spirit in Christ.” Let not our actions contradict this beautiful prayer, or rob it of all meaning.
A deep dimension of the Eucharistic celebration is precisely the fostering of brotherly/sisterly love. It should unify and build up the community. After receiving the Eucharist I can no longer be indifferent to the brothers and sisters around me. If I reject them I shall be rejecting Jesus himself, for he has said, “whenever you did this to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). We come out of every Mass eager to see and treat everyone as the Body of Christ.
Manna of daily presence
A community sustains itself not primarily through novelty, excitement, and high emotion, but through rhythm and routine, namely, through simple, predictable, ritual processes. To stay together we need regular, predictable, daily rituals. We need this “manna of daily presence” to each other to sustain ourselves. The special moments of celebrations, such as feast days, birthdays, anniversaries, jubilees, community outings, and what not are important and very useful, too. But if one does not relish the daily manna, if one does not enjoy the everyday routine, he /she is likely to find community life a burden.
Like giant redwood trees
We have all heard of the giant redwood trees of California. They only grow in groves. Each tree’s roots extend and grasp the roots of the surrounding trees, forming a strong, interconnecting network that serves to nourish and sustain all of them equally. These trees are able to stand tall and majestic, in wind and storm, because of the firm grip of the interlocking roots below. The redwood trees and their invisible, interlocking roots are symbolic of the spirit of unity and support religious experience in their communities. You are not alone and never will be alone on your chosen path to Christ.
The Gospel is the basis of community life. By living in community, we proclaim the love of Jesus Christ. Living in community implies relationships. It means relating to one another as true brothers / sisters and putting into practice what Jesus taught us: “Love one another as I have loved you.” In an age of exaggerated individualism, community life is truly a prophetic sign. By living together, even at great cost, religious are able to bear striking witness to the Trinitarian mystery of self-emptying love.
Community tells you who you are
Living together in communities brings to the open our weaknesses and failures. As St. Francis de Sales would say: “You might live in the desert for years, and never know how selfish you are, but two or three days in a community will soon tell you the truth.”
Community is also the place where our limitations, our fears, and our egoism are revealed to us. We discover our poverty and our weaknesses, our inability to get on with some people, our mental and emotional blocks, our seemingly insatiable desires, our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy. While we were alone we could believe we loved everyone. Now that we are with others, we realize how closed in on ourselves we are. Community life thus brings a painful revelation of our limitations, weaknesses and darkness. The unexpected discovery of monsters within us is hard to accept.
The perfect community doesn’t Exist
We often assume that the apostles must have been mature, well-balanced, holy people because Jesus handpicked them to be part of his inner circle of friends and disciples. But the gospels present quite a different picture. They were ordinary people who weren’t always clear about Jesus’ message, who occasionally turned their back on Jesus even when he was in great need, and who struggled with their own faith. The apostles’ relationship with Jesus as well as their faith grew and matured over time until the experience of Resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit confirmed them.
Like the apostles, we, too, encounter struggles in our relationship with Jesus and our faith. St. Francis de Sales would say, “Religious communities are not formed for the purpose of gathering together perfect people but those who have the courage to aim at perfection.” Some enter a religious community and are puzzled or even scandalized by the fact that everyone in it is not perfect. Religious have neither more nor fewer problems and special personality issues than the rest of the population from which they come. Though they desire perfect love, they have yet to reach that state. In faith, they dedicate themselves to a way of life that the Church in her wisdom has approved in community to aid in this struggle to experience heaven while on earth.
A very disciplined life is necessary precisely because religious are weak like others. This is a supernaturally founded life; to persevere in it, one needs great freedom, maturity and help, both from God and from the community.
All are fragile and fallible
Literature on religious life always presents the early Christian community as the model for religious communities. Though in the New Testament there are marvellous examples of brotherly/sisterly love, we find there also an honest chronicling of the sins of the community. Look at the variety of faults found in a community that lived so close to the Pentecostal fire. They were far from perfect. For example, “factions and dissensions” (1Cor 1,10); jealousy, quarrelling, strife” (1Cor 3,3-4); “anger, selfishness, slander, gossiping, conceit, disorder, foul talk” (2Cor 12, 20-21); “women going about from house to house gossiping and wasting time” (1Tim 5,13); “disobedience, harshness, name-calling” (Eph 4,31); “insincerity and envy in proclaiming the gospel” (Phil 1,15, 17); “jealousy, ambition, disharmony and wicked things of every kind being done” (Jas 3,16); “holding grudges against others” (Eph 4,31, 32); “snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces” (Gal 5,15); “telling lies” (Eph 4,25-26); “paying back one wrong with another, one angry word with another” (1Pet 3,9); “factions at meetings of the community” (1Cor 11,17,18); “absence from community meetings, coming late for meetings” (Heb 10,24-25); “sleeping during sermons, long sermons that put people to sleep” (Acts 20,9). Why point out all these here? Not to feel complacent about ourselves, but to recognize that the perfect community doesn’t exist. All of these sins will be among us too. Human nature has changed little since Christ’s day!
Weakness and failures in ourselves and in others can discourage us and disturb us. They will be less disturbing when we know that they are often the bad side of a good gift. For example:
- One with a strong administrative gift is prone to take control of things in a bad way, not so good at dealing with persons. We have such people…
- A person with a gift to balance things is often indecisive and thus hinders decision.
- A person who is sensitive and prophetic is impatient and slow to listen to other points of view.
- One who is very outgoing and sociable may not be able to sit down at a desk and do serious work or study.
It is worth repeating that there is no perfect community here on earth. Even the best of our communities are imperfect communities.
Difficult characters: burden or blessing?
St. Bernard (12th century) who knew well how difficult community life could be, having been an abbot for the whole of his life, writes: “If in an abbey at a certain moment there happens to be no monk who is a burden and a cross to his fellow monks, something very precious and even essential would be lacking in that monastery. And so the abbot would have to go on a journey to visit a neighbouring abbey in order to borrow a monk like that for the time being.”
St. Basil (4th century), one of the founders of early monasticism, speaking of community life, says: “The smaller religious community, like the larger congregation of which it forms a part, is a microcosm, a miniature of the broader world, with all the greatness and littleness of that world. It is to be regretfully acknowledged that there will be rivalries, jalousies, personality conflicts, moral compromises, power plays, irresponsibility, outbursts of anger and the like, and that few persons will not be implicated, in one way or another in all these things. To expect something else would be naïve.”
Basil goes on to say that one must be prepared for conflict in community. Differences in personality and vision, ambition, and worse—these are the things to be expected in any community. No one has a right to expect a perfect community, just as no one has a right to expect perfection in any individual human being. To accept imperfection but to be prepared to see beyond it—to be open-eyed—is certainly the first requisite for living in constant close contact with others.
William Barclay speaks of a kind of crystal or precious stone—the Labrador Spar. It is very special. When you pick it up and look at it, at first, it looks very dull. But then if you start turning it around in your hand, rub it a little between your fingers, it begins to sparkle; it becomes brilliant and beautiful. We human beings are like that. At first sight people may appear rather dull, unlovely. But as we get to know each other more and more, as we get do things together, work together, and begin to understand one another more deeply, we realize the truth that, behind the dull façade, everyone is beautiful, brilliant.
Too much of community
Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes a puzzling statement: “He who loves the community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community.” What did he mean?
Imagine a religious superior who is so concerned about the community’s image that he/she has no time to think about the growth of the individuals, their inner freedom. Such a superior is likely to destroy the community. Community is where people care for each other; the focus is the individuals in the community, not the community in the abstract. It is people that matter; to love and care for the people that are there, just as they are. It is to care for them in such a way that they may grow according to the plan of God.
Esther de Waal, an authority on the Rule of St. Benedict, says: St. Benedict would probably have appreciated Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s paradoxical statement. Community must never take precedence over the individual person. Community is for people and for their growth. Jean Vanier adds, “Some communities tend to suppress individual consciences in the interest of a greater unity. They tend to stop people from thinking, from having their own consciences.” Community as such is never an end in itself. It is people, and their love and communion with God that are the goal. In community people are called always to become more. Community is a place of communion where people care for others and are cared for by others, a place where they become vulnerable to one another. In community, people let down barriers; appearances and masks disappear.
Spirituality of community Life
The monks of old created a form of community that brought them together not for the purpose of togetherness or to get work done, but to support each other “in the rigours of the inward journey.” This inward journey, this spiritual journey, is indeed rigorous. Its goal is union with Jesus Christ. Along the way, the road can be rough and rocky, and full of pitfalls. There are times of discouragement, as well as times of joy and serenity. It is a path that is much too difficult to be trodden alone. Without each other, the journey can be well-nigh impossible.
To support each other on this wondrous journey, we come together as community. We gather in order to help each other by our words, our prayers, and our presence. And when we become discouraged, like Elijah lying under the broom tree, we take for each other the role of the angel who told Elijah, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you” (1 Kings 19:7). Our support and understanding of our brothers/sisters in the community becomes the food for their “forty days and forty nights to the mount of God” (1Kings 19: 8).
This inner journey is not easy, but it has its own joys and delights because of this one truth: the God who created the universe, who filled the cosmos, who is and was and will ever be, this God is, both our companion and destination on the journey. For those who have discovered this truth, any other path would seem insipid, hardly worth the trouble.
The people on this journey will do well to keep in mind the following:
- The burdens and the blessings of the spiritual journey are intermingled and often indistinguishable one from the other. What seems like a burden may in reality be a blessing. In community, as we accompany each other along the way, as we support each other in the rigours of the spiritual journey, we may find we are for each other at times burdens, at other times burden-bearers and blessings.
- This spiritual journey requires prayer—praying together and in solitude. For some, prayer may be pure joy; for others, it may truly be a rigorous obligation. As a religious priest, noted for his lack of rancour against anyone, said: “When someone speaks ill of me, I pray extra for that person. I have never lost my peace of mind.”
- The journey requires us to learn compassion toward the uncompassionate and to love those who do not love us. It asks us to see loveliness in those who appear unlovely, recognizing how incredibly beautiful we all are. The spiritual journey demands an acknowledgement of our own sinfulness, our helplessness.
The spiritual journey in religious life means self-emptying—taking on the mind of Christ who emptied himself. It means not clinging to anything, holding nothing back. This journey obliges us to take one step at a time, without knowing the end of the road and often without even being certain whether the next step is the right one.
