The New Community: What Joy!

5. The new community: what joy!

Before the meeting Prepare the place where the community is going to meet. Ask those who will participate in the meeting to come to the meeting with a symbol, something that is related to the community or to the community life, or something that would mean their commitment in contributing to the quality of community life. Begin with a song highlighting how good and joyful it is to be together, to be a community, to be brothers of each other.

The word of God (Jn 17:20-26) I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me. And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.” (Other texts may be chosen, like those passages where Jesus walks or speaks to his disciples to make them a community) From our Constitutions and Rules The call of Jesus Christ, heard within the Church through people’s need for salvation, draws us together as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Christ thus invites us to follow him and to share in his mission through word and work (C 1). The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life. Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14). The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together in charity and obedience to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him and their common mission in his Spirit (C 3).

From the writings of Eugene de Mazenod I experience grief which I cannot but confide to you. You know that each one must live one’s own life and follow one's vocation. It happens that because of the system followed in Limoges, our Oblates are deprived of what they have come to seek in the Congregation. To live in community, they have given up the ordinary parish ministry, and it is especially through the use of the missions that they lead souls to God. Their Rules provide that they live in community, so much so that they prescribe they always go forth in pairs: Duo saltern ibunt ad missiones. I understand that at times it is necessary to dispense from this point of the Rule, especially when a missionary is sent to assist a parish priest. It is essential, however, that this be a temporary measure only. You understand, Monseigneur, that there are good reasons for this. Moreover, there is a point of the Rule that says: Nequamquam licet paroecias regere. Their lot gives them enough to do, so that they can leave to others the care of parishes for which they are not called... I wanted, to give you Monseigneur, a general view of our missionaries' Constitutions, to help you understand that we cannot give them another orientation than that which they have received from the Church. Even were I to desire it, my authority does not go that far. Hence it is essential that the Oblates form a community, where they can always find the spiritual aid the Constitutions assure them. In continuously disposing them to replace parish priests, they are deprived above all of the advantages they had come to seek in religious life, in community life; they are isolated for long periods of time, which is contrary to their Rules, and they are thrown into the parish ministry, which also is against their Rules and their vocation: they are called to the Congregation precisely never to be parish priests. Furthermore, it is within their community that, by practising virtues prescribed for them by mutual example and good direction, they find the means needed to preserve them in their fervour and the ways of perfection. They must strive to pursue perfection so that their ministry may be blessed by God and produce the fruit which, by God's grace, we have always reaped. (To Bishop B. Buissas of Limoges, February 20, 1848, in Selected Texts, no. 310)

A commentary The community of Jesus with his apostles, as well as the first Christian communities and even our own Oblate communities, are all historical realizations of their Trinitarian Communion. They are an attempt to mediate the Trinitarian Communion of the love of the Father through the Son in community that calls itself “religious life”. This free and gratuitous fraternity of brothers in service to the world cannot be a community without this communion. Jesus receives the Holy Spirit from the Father and becomes the Lord of History in deep communion with men. The Father conceives in us this same Spirit of Jesus, by whom we become brothers to each other and through and in whom we live every and any fraternity on earth – (Ph 2:3) “If therefore there is any comfort in Christ, any encouragement in the Spirit, any feelings of mercy, fill up my joy by thinking alike, having the same charity, with one soul and one mind.” Jesus reveals this love of the Father, which, manifests itself in our love for our brothers. “No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. In this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit… Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God.” (1Jn 4:12-15). In Jesus Christ, dead and resurrected, the reconciliation of men with God, of man with men and man with the world takes place. “… but we exult also in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation”. (Rom 5:11). From now on mankind is offered the real possibility of forming a people reconciled by the power of the Holy Spirit. That is why it is possible for men to live a community of love, of fraternity, of reconciliation and of pardon. The pardon of God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, is the condition that makes it possible for any community to have true pardon, overcome hatred, contradictions, limitations and sin, the ultimate root of all disintegration. This communion is the fruit of the Cross of Jesus. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit which takes men away from egotism, sin, enmity, hate. It is a process of overcoming sin within a dynamic fraternity, much different than a “club of friends”. It is a long slow reconciliation process that can only happen if one is “a son of God the Father” being a brother to His other sons. Thus communion is “new life” which assumes all the human values of friendship and brotherhood. This is the essence, the foundation of all community – this theological communion – the gift of the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. This communion has certain qualities. It is accepting: It accepts the differences in persons, for it is God who made the other to be himself. It overcomes oppositions. It pardons. It converts those who live it. It unites in one same “desire” but not necessarily in one same “feeling”. It is gratuitous in as much as it is a gift of the Father to us and our gift to our brothers. It is the fundamental inspiration of every salvific communitarian mediation in the church, including our Oblate apostolic community. From SULLIVAN-HASLAM, Praying with our Constitutions, p. 22-23

Pause for reflection It may now be good to invite those present to pause for a few minutes, in meditation of what has been read and preparing to share their own experience.

Sharing The animator of the meeting may now invite those present to share their experience around the theme of charity and love as basic elements to build community, or around other virtues in other ways connected with the reality of our community life.

Here are a few points that can guide and help the sharing.  What three concrete things in your community life show that the community of Jesus with his apostles is the model of your community life?  To what point have you interiorized the presence of Jesus in you so that it affects your community life?  Could you enumerate three concrete ways in which you feel you have been a gift to your brothers in community in recent times?  Which of the qualities of communion is most lacking in your persona life and in your community?  Could you explain the meaning of the symbol you brought at the beginning of the meeting? What commitment of yours does it contain?

Suggestion If this meeting has been particularly meaningful and the members of the community want to continue to work on this issue, an exercise like the following may be proposed:

1. My expectations: reflect on your life with your Oblate community during the past year. Write out your personal impressions about this community. Make a list of what you expect from your community. Make a list of your own needs and aspirations that you feel have not been met by your community. If it is possible, share this reflection with your community. 2. My contribution: make a list of the concrete actions which you have performed in the past year which you think have contributed to the basic communion of the community. 3. Try to answer this question: What other things could you have done to help this communion?

Common spontaneous prayer The animator may now invite to turn the sharing and the listening into a spontaneous prayer. He may begin, just to set the tone of the prayer and to help others, especially those who are not used to pray aloud or in public, to formulate their own prayer.

Concluding song It may be a song that takes up a theme that has come out during the meeting, a song inspired to Psalm 133 (“How good and how pleasant it is, when brothers dwell together as one!” (Psa 133:1) or any other song that helps the community tighten the bonds of love, friendship and unity.