God, Community, Mission: A Call to Christian Community

(Photo courtesy of the Sisters of Life)

By Mother Agnes Mary, S.V.

“The people who died in Dachau shaped my adult life.”

With these words, Cardinal O’Connor revealed the spiritual origins of the charism of life upon which the community of the Sisters of Life was founded.

In the mid-1970s, Father John Joseph O'Connor made an annual retreat at the Carmelite monastery located on the perimeter of the Dachau concentration camp — the symbolic epicenter of violence, death and the darkness of evil that was part of the 20th century. During those days of prayer, he received a life-changing grace which would direct the rest of his life, and his mission as bishop, archbishop and cardinal.

He recounted the experience in this way: “While putting my hands in the semi circular red-brick ovens of the crematorium, I felt the intermingled ashes of Jew and Christian, rabbi, priest and minister. Pierced to the heart, my soul cried out, ‘Good God, how could human beings do this to other human beings?’” In that instant, Cardinal O’Connor received a profound gift to see with the eyes of God the sacred and infinite dignity of every human person, no matter how small, sick or broken.

He continued, “My favorite story in the Old Testament is the one of Moses and the burning bush. Almighty God said to him, ‘Moses, remove your sandals because the place on which you stand is holy ground.’ Since my trip to Dachau… I cannot approach any person without feeling that I should remove my shoes because where I stand is holy ground.”

The Power of Communion in Community

Because the human need to belong — to have a place in a community or family — is literally written into our spiritual DNA, an experience of authentic Catholic community, of “belonging,” is the most effective context for our charitable service, and for evangelization. Let me share with you an encounter I had that illustrates this point.

As I boarded a plane, a young woman (I’ll call her Karen) took the seat next to mine. She was in her late twenties, beautiful, and full of life. Hoping for a couple of hours of prayer, I squirmed to dislodge my prayer books from under the seat and smiled at her apologetically. She leapt at the opportunity, saying, “It’s funny you’re here. I’ve always wanted to know about the Trinity.”

I stared at her, stunned. Who asks about the Trinity?

Then, using the analogy of spousal love, of the total, fruitful giving and receiving of love between spouses, I shared with her the best human manifestation of the love and life of God. As the Catechism tells us, “By sending his only Son … God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC 221).

Karen looked at me in amazement, saying, “I knew that God was going to do something great with this trip. I’ve just about decided to leave my marriage.”

And thus, we began a conversation that spanned half the country and explored a way of loving that would allow her to remain committed to her marriage even in the present difficulty.

The attack on the communion of love in marriage and family life was the first and is the oldest of the Evil One’s strategies. It’s as old as Genesis, as old as Adam and Eve, a strategy the Enemy uses to destroy man’s faith in the gift of human love, and ultimately in a God who is Love. Because communion in community — wherever it may be found, e.g., in marriage and family life, within the “family of faith,” the parish, or the greater “extended family” of the Archdiocese — may be the closest human image of the love and the life of God.

To live in communion with others requires God’s grace. My new friend, Karen, learned that, speaking of the Holy Trinity at 30,000 feet in the air. It became a reality in her heart when she joined us to pray before Jesus in the Eucharist in our Manhattan Convent Chapel.

Created to Love without Limits (Fraternal Life in Community, #22)

You and I were created to love without limits. We rebel at this notion! Because we are haunted by the appalling limits of our loves. Why do we struggle with such limits? The answers are as surprising as they are true: because we are blessed, in fact, by our Creator, to be unique and unrepeatable human persons, and because of sin, both original sin and our own personal sin.

Division is 'diabolical'

It is interesting to note that the word “diabolical” — demonic — comes from the Greek word meaning “to separate or divide.” As a response to human difficulties encountered in living out given community, which is the blessing of God, our society has institutionalized separation. The Church and her people have not been exempted from this suffering.

How then can authentic community be formed? What is the role of community for the disciple of Jesus Christ?

Let me preface an answer to the question by suggesting that we must first assess the order of our loves. In our community, we have something of a motto for life: “God, community, mission.” It is in that order that our loves are spent. For all, in sheer gratitude, we owe God our first love and worship! Then, the next greatest expression of love is given to the community of persons with whom I have pledged my love by vow — marriage and family life, my religious community, etc. Thirdly, I spend myself in the mission God has entrusted to me.

Now, we may go on to take a closer look at community and our Catholic faith. Because community life is never easy, Cardinal O’Connor would muse about the origins of the difficulty and tell us: “We are created in the image of God, the perfect social Being, but because of original sin we tend to divide from one another, [and] to treat one another with hostility, with bitterness, with envy, with lust.”

Since we are all sinners, how then is community formed?

Cardinal O’Connor answered that very question in a conference to the Sisters of Life in 1992, saying, “I cannot emphasize enough: there can be no true community except in the Eucharist… community in turn can be achieved and preserved only when nourished by the Eucharistic Christ.”

We commune together in the Eucharist and, through that communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, taste that first joy of human communion.

Communion in Community: The Mark of the Christian People

As Christians, we believe our human relationships are of a new significance — that is, they possess a sacred quality — for we believe that we encounter in “the other” an icon of the living God. It is in and through our human relationships that we image the Triune God. More powerful than words, communion in community witnesses to the primacy of God.

In the last book of the Scriptures, St. John celebrates that with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ “the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10). And St. Paul rejoices in his letter to the Ephesians that it is the love of Christ which has “broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).

Christ himself said that we would recognize his followers by the love they have for one another (John 13:35). Loving, healthy community life is the most characteristic mark of the Christian people.

A Specific Antidote to the Evil of Our Day

Growing in our capacity for living a true “communion of persons” is the answer to the phenomenon of separation, and a rebuke to the evil one’s effort to destroy God’s work. Communion gives vibrant, striking witness to the presence of God among us and the victory over sin and selfishness. It is the special responsibility of the ambassadors of the love of God to advance the unity of that Mystical Body of Christ on Earth.

I propose today that your loyalty as a follower of Christ is proved by the way in which you live and lead Christian community life as a servant of the Church’s unity.