At last I was able to visit the John 2.5 Community, a member of the Federation of Ecclesial Communities and an example of a present day Gospel utopia that functions very well in the world. The following is a summary of the dialogue I had with one its directors which lasted several hours,
“Shall we begin with the name, John 2.5....”
“Yes. Each community in the Federation of Ecclesial Communities takes its name from a Bible verse. For example, the first to be founded took the name Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.” Another is called Matthew 9:1,7 “New wine in new wineskins.” The name of our community, John 2:5, makes a special reference to the role of the Blessed Virgin in the development of the Christian life, “Do whatever he tells you.”
“Isn’t the name Ecclesial Communities too generic? Any Christian association of the faithful surely constitutes an ecclesial community.”
“That’s true. But all Christians are also members of the Company of Jesus and all are Sons of Charity, Disciples of Jesus, Little Brothers of the Poor, etc., even though we are not members of those Institutes. The name Ecclesial Communities was chosen precisely to express the markedly ecclesial factor of our communities. In reality, we don’t have our own spirituality. What is specific to us is that which is commonly held by the entire Church. If necessary, our originality can be appreciated in this. It is also true, though, that each community, according to its members, has a certain, particular tone, which is sometimes quite accentuated.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Associations of lay faithful tend to have their own spiritual characteristics, as do associations of religious. And this specific atmosphere is formed around certain Christian values, a particular work in the Church, or the teachings of either a saintly spiritual master or school of spirituality. The importance of this is the providential enrichment it brings to the Church and the contribution it makes in helping individuals follow a path more in line with their vocation. As we know, however, the accentuation of what is peculiar to each can also be the cause of temptations. Sometimes, these associations have enormous difficulties in simply collaborating with each other. They can coincide, for example, in an a huge gathering with the Pope, but in the course of day to day living, each association may prefer to get on by itself, limiting cooperation with other movements to moments of exceptional rarity.”
“What then can the Ecclesial Communities do about this? What do they do?”
“The truth is, very little. In principle, the fact that our spirituality is simply ecclesial does give us a certain advantage with ecumenical relations between the associations. In any case, the fundamental objective of the Ecclesial Communities is not this at all. Rather, it is to help its members “devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the verse taken from Acts 2:42. Now, to know and to live out the teachings of the Church involves biblical and liturgical formation, knowledge of the true history of the Church and of its great saints, the habitual study of the encyclicals and other documents from the apostolic Magisterium of the Church. This is the principal source from which the life of our communities flows.”
“But aren’t we to assume that, in one way or another, this is the aim of all Catholic associations?”
“Of course. But as I have already said, our specificity is the common ground of the whole Church. If you were to look at the Rule of Life for our Ecclesial Communities for example, you would see that it is just an anthology of Church laws and counsels. On the one hand, there is nothing uncommon about this, but on the other hand it is highly original. If the Church, for example, recommends the praying of the Divine Office or the Rosary, we include these practices in the Rule as counsels. If the Church teaches that “Sunday should be considered the prime feast day,” and the Eucharist “as the source and summit” of everything, we try to centre the whole of our community life on the Eucharist and in the weekly celebration of the day of the Lord. If the Church establishes that the fifty days of Eastertide “ought to be celebrated with joy and exaltation, as if they were one long feast day, still more, “one great Sunday,” then this in turn becomes a norm within our common Rule of life. And in all matters of doctrine and Church discipline, we try to do exactly the same, whether we are talking about helping the poor, the spacing of births, clerical dress for priests, or whatever. This living the life of the Church is the key to our whole life.”
“Put another away, your communities are decidedly conservative and traditional....”
“I see that you say that a little tongue in cheek. But look, with respect to the Church, we are really very traditional. I will give you a couple of examples. For nineteen centuries, tithes have been traditional practice in the life of the Church. In our Ecclesial Communities they continue to be so. There has also been a long tradition of appreciation for sacramentals in the Church. For instance, there was a time when a holy water font was a typical feature of a Christian home. That’s why antique shops are full of them now. Well, this tradition continues in John 2:5 and, in line with the appreciation that Vatican II shows for sacramentals, our Rule recommends that a font of holy water be placed in every home. Yes, in this and in everything, thank God, we are very traditional. For us nothing could be more precious than to hear it being said of us that we are very biblical and very traditional. What is important is that we truly merit this description.”
“Doesn’t this condition of being traditional point you backwards, shutting you off into the past, rather than directing you forward towards renewal?”
“Not at all. There is no more effective and powerful way of renewing the Church than by assuming its living tradition and expressing it in the present. In any case, it is not our intention to renew the Church, but to allow her, as mother and teacher, to renew us. Progressive Christians enter the Church like a bull in a china shop, and try to renew her with women priests, married priests, modifications to the law on conjugal morality, collective absolutions and so on: all pride and error. We prefer to take exactly the opposite direction. If the progressives are docile with respect to the world and rebellious with the Church, we, on the other hand are docile to the Church and rebels with respect to the world. The progressives, in fact, are highly submissive with regards to the modern secular world and highly critical of the past and the present of the Church. On the contrary, our greatest aspiration as the Ecclesial Communities is to assume all that is the fruit of Tradition and the apostolic Magisterium of the Church, whilst maintaining a highly critical and creative attitude towards the secular world.”
“Let’s return to the subject later. But before we do so, perhaps you would tell us who joins these communities?”
“Every one of our communities includes or can include all the vocations of the Christian life. In the Ecclesial Communities you can find priests, permanent deacons, married couples and celibates, people who are still unsure about their vocation and married or celibate Christians especially drawn to the life of prayer or to care and work in the community. There are widows and young couples still courting, children and youths, retired folk and very elderly people, the healthy and the sick. There is also space among us for quite singular vocations. In John 2:5 there is a single woman, for example, who divides her life between serving the sick and dedication to prayer: a contemplative nurse. Through our docility, our community hopes to become a favourable setting, or at least one that is not adverse, to whatever particular work the Holy Spirit wishes to effect in us. Of course, when a very specific vocation is given to someone, for example to the Carmelite life, they leave our community to join the religious institute in question.”
“What relationship do these communities have with the parishes or the local diocese?”
“The aim is to have the strongest possible relationship, according to the concrete strengths of each community and the condition of each parish. Members normally participate in the Eucharist in their own parish. We don’t usually celebrate more than one Mass per month in each community. In our case it is celebrated on the first Saturday of each month in honour of the Blessed Virgin.”
“But do you live dispersed, without forming a community?”
“Normally we live separated, each in his own home, although we do form a community. The first Christians did not live all together either, but they still formed a community. Only one of our communities has an arrangement in which a portion of its members form a residential community.”
“What activities are there in the Ecclesial Communities that could be described as specifically ‘your own’?”
“Well, clearly what is most important to us in our communities are precisely the things we have in common with so many other Christian lay associations. The heart of our life is, without doubt, prayer, conversion, fraternal charity, the Sacraments, spiritual direction, retreats and spiritual exercises, doctrinal formation, apostolic activities, family life, the education of the children and helping the poor and needy.
But if you ask me which activity is more than anything proper to these communities, I would say, perhaps, the workshops of good habits. As regards these workshops, the process is very simple. A topic is chosen, such as good eating habits, around which a small group is commissioned to prepare some preliminary studies, the results of which are distributed amongst the members of the community, who then entrust the subject matter to prayer and discuss it with their families. Later, having gathered in the workshop to debate the matter and making use of as many sessions as necessary, a real attempt is made to formally modify our eating customs, and to make them healthier and more austere. In principle, habits of eating, as with all habits, tend to be abandoned to individual taste and custom, which means that on the whole, they are not good and require significant changes. With regards to this and indeed everything else, personal taste and custom ought to be borne in mind, it is true, but not as a principal and determining criteria. In similar fashion, all the various aspects of our daily routine ought to come in for gradual renewal. With charity as a sufficient motivation, it’s possible to get used to anything... And our aim is to live according to Christ in everything and not according to the world.”
“I imagine that in the debates there will always be those who follow a more rigorous line and others who are more conciliatory with the customs of the world....”
“Exactly. And to a certain extent that’s how it should be. The family conversations held prior to the debates already alluded to, have an enormous importance. Of more interest to us, however, is that all the members of the community, from when they are very young, acquire the habit of reflection and discernment in the many aspects and questions of their lives, all within the light of Revelation, Christian tradition and the examples of the lives of the saints. Our hope is that they do not just abandon themselves, in a kind of suicidal inertia, to the attitudes and ways of the secular world. Certainly, when discussing a particular topic, often no precise conclusion is reached. On other occasions, however, an agreement of sorts can be arrived at and when this unanimity more or less occurs, any conclusions reached are usually established as norms. When support for a particular motion is limited to two thirds, it remains a counsel. And in all other cases, nothing is determined and the question is left open, that is to say, open, but prayed and meditated upon, studied and discussed. In other words, it is brought firmly into the light of the Gospel. The end result then is always a very positive thing, whether with concrete conclusions or without.”
“It strikes me that to try and remodel each and every aspect of your commonly held way of life is a task that must be too complex and laborious. Does it not very often exceed the possibilities of a community, in terms of both time and competence?”
“Yes, of course. But communities take advantage of the workshops of other communities. When valuable conclusions are reached on a particular theme, an account of it is published in the magazine of the Federation and interested communities request a copy of the complete report, with preliminary studies, a summary of the debate and the conclusions. This saves each ‘workshop’ a good deal of work, for with many topics, in the first phase at least, we will generally only assimilate ideas that have been elaborated in other workshops. There are communities that, owing to the composition of their members, possess an enormous capacity for study and for taking initiatives or who are particularly qualified to investigate and explore certain matters, whilst not being as useful in other areas. And there are other communities that are capable, ultimately, not so much of conceiving and initiating renovation, but of assimilating and following it.”
“You mean some communities copy others.”
“That’s it. But you have to realise that very often considerable modifications are introduced in the copy. What normally happens is that each community goes through the various phases of the renewal process, albeit in an abbreviated form. In other words, they study the reports on the issue in question and assume the conclusions in their own way. You will be surprised, perhaps, to observe how, on occasion, various communities that begin with the same lead-in studies often end up with practical conclusions that are quite different.”
“I can see that this diversity has clear benefits, although I imagine there are also disadvantages. If the aim of the Ecclesial communities is to re-elaborate the world of Christian habits, it would seem appropriate to reach a degree of uniformity between all the communities. If not, the improvement of habits will only be brought about, in the best of cases, at a local level, within a specific community. But this limitation to a local ambit could surely undermine the importance of developing good habits.”
“Yes, that’s true. The balance between the common orientation of the Federation as a whole and the way of acting proper to each local community is invaluable and it has to be achieved continually, a bit like the balance required of someone riding a bicycle. In any case, we have to bear in mind that with the Federation’s commonly published magazine, the annual assemblies which bring together the community leaders and the frequent exchanges between communities, a more or less common mentality and style is in fact produced. Nevertheless, the reality is, there can also be considerable differences.
On the other hand, there are matters that, owing to their special characteristics, are submitted to the federal renovation workshop, in which members from the various communities participate. In the most recent annual assembly, for example, the workshop centred on our relationship with the souls of the faithful departed. The agenda was quite broad: from the attention that should be given to the dying, to family-prayer for the dead and Mass offerings for their souls, to the month of the holy souls of purgatory and the practice of visiting cemeteries. In the end we didn’t manage to look at anything more than praying for the dead. However, these and other similar matters are questions that are of interest to all the communities and are so important that it is totally appropriate that criteria and customs be held in common.”
“And isn’t it better to provide good doctrine on a particular subject and then leave it to each individual to live it according to how God inspires them? Everyone has his particular grace as well as his peculiar circumstances and when a good custom is fashioned a path is created along which everyone must travel.”
“That is true, in part. Concerning the life of grace, the particularity of each person is inviolable, without question. But there is no opposition between this and good customs lived in community. For most Christians, it is not enough, for example, just to be preached to about the importance of praying for the dead. Despite being convinced, by means of this preaching, that “our duty of charity towards the dead is serious and wonderful at the same time,” this belief remains practically inoperative if we do not find any support in the established customs of the family, community or society. An exclusively personal conviction only prospers and gives life with spiritually exceptional persons; in other words, with very few people. That is why, being very realistic, we want to recuperate Christian customs, or in specific cases, create them ourselves. This will help us, in this matter, to pray for the dead and to have Masses offered for their repose; and likewise with so many other questions of greater or lesser importance.
Besides, when certain norms of conduct are established not only within one community but within all communities, they take on greater weight and complying with them becomes easier. In fact, it is vital that the traditional customs of the Christian people are not made obsolete. And it is still not too late to stop this occurring. We can still find elderly people who are testimonies to times when there were Christian customs in the families, in the parish, even in society. Today, it wouldn’t be convenient, of course, to do things in exactly the same way as they were done in the past, nor would it be possible. But it is important to assume and develop all the good Christian traditions, modifying or complementing them as appropriate: with regards to fasting, first Holy Communions, children’s birthdays, Christmas presents, the way for families to celebrate Lent, weddings, the death of loved ones and so on.”
“And is it the priest, as the community’s pastoral guide, who directs this whole life-remodelling process?”
“No; at least in concrete terms, no. The specific role of the priest in the Ecclesial Communities is to preach, give the Catholic understanding of doctrine and spirituality, to bless, offer the Eucharist, to forgive sins, to provide catechism for youngsters and adults, give spiritual direction and to keep us all in the unity of charity. As for everything else, we govern ourselves through a President and a Council.
Within the actual ‘workshop of good habits,’ the priest collaborates with the raising of issues and in the subsequent study and presentation of them. When these are of a more spiritual nature, for instance, the attention and care to be given to the terminally ill or dying members of the family, he tends to intervene in the debates. His contribution in this is something we all need and anyway, we are generally united on such matters. However, when the issues are more empirical and material, for example the question of good nutrition habits that we referred to earlier, he doesn’t normally intervene in the debates. This is not just because he has less of a unique contribution to a make in these matters. It is also because these are questions very much open to argument and have been known to provoke certain divisions, albeit passing, and it is not right that he aligns himself with one side or the other.
The priest’s mission among us, you see, is precisely that of keeping us all in the unity of faith and charity, so that, similarly to the first community in Jerusalem, we form a unity of “one heart and one soul.” That being said, he does have the right of veto and can refuse to approve conclusions that he considers immature or excessively rigorist or permissive. In such a case, he would call for more openness, greater prayer and further study.
Furthermore, he endeavors to ensure that there is always a unity of both prayer and work in all the workshops and in all their respective phases. In themselves, the preparatory studies, consultations and debates are not enough. Any renewal has to be sought and received as much through meditative prayer upon the divine Word, as by—and even more importantly—the prayer of supplication. That is to say, it has to be received as a gift from God, as the apostle St James teaches us, “Every good and perfect gift is from on high and descends from the Father of lights (James 1:17)”. It is the mission of the priest, then, to guarantee, together with all of us, of course, the religiosity of the work of renewal, so that it does not drift into a merely behavioral workshop. When we confront a particular issue in the workshop, it is Christ who instructs us as to what is best for us, through his Gospel, the Church, the example of the saints and through the interior lights we receive. And it is Christ who moves us by His grace to respond to the decisions we have been inspired to take. And with Jesus is the Virgin Mary who always encourages with the words, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’”
“You referred earlier to the community of Jerusalem in which there was a certain community of material goods and you also spoke about the reality of tithes.”
“That’s right. Every member of the Community agrees to give the Council a tithe, which helps members who are suffering financial hardships, defrays the costs of the various community activities and helps maintain the Centre. The Ecclesial Communities, either individually or as a group, tend to have their own local Centre, although in the initial stages, this can sometimes be just a parish hall or someone’s house. The quantity of the tithe is logically subject to great variation. It goes without saying that it could be quite a lot more than a tenth part of one’s personal income, or quite a lot less. Ultimately, the purpose of this, to use St. Paul’s expression, is that the abundance of some “should supply the want of others…so that there may be equality” (2 Cor. 8:14). And this is not a quantitative equality but a qualitative one, established, as we are told in Acts ‘According to the needs of each one’” (Acts 4:35).
“As I understand it, this formula ensures a certain distributive, egalitarian justice, which adheres more to charity than it does to justice. But as a principle, it does not, in itself, guarantee a living of Gospel poverty appropriate to the laity within the members of the community, when, for example, the majority of the members are relatively wealthy.”
“I understand. But a sufficiently large tithe does ensure appropriate poverty and austerity of life. As you know, the tithe has been a continual and very significant tradition in the life of the Church right up to the 19th century. It has its roots in the very customs of early Israel. The Church abolished it in the 19th century when the growing secularization of the States meant that such a donation was neither appropriate nor viable. But the tithe has never lost its Gospel relevance and potential and it is common practice in all our Ecclesial Communities. It is in the Rule. In this way, almsgiving amongst ourselves is not abandoned to incidental, sporadic initiatives, which normally reduce it to very little. Rather, charity binds it to the continual stimulus of a norm, which in conscience has to be complied with.”
“Is the paying of the tithe a cause of problems?”
“Not especially. Far more problems are brought on, for example, by personal disputes, misunderstandings, character clashes, protoganism seeking, obstinacy in one’s opinion, rigorous or lax tendencies and marriages in which one of the spouses is an enthusiastic member of the Communities, while the other is a very reserved and rather burdensome member. These would be the main sources of our difficulties, but through prayer and charity we do our best to overcome them.
As I said, the tithes are usually paid without major problems, as each domestic economy is routinely adjusted to cater for it. And if the quantity has to be changed, it is changed. Occasionally, when some unforeseen, ruinous circumstance occurs, the community’s common fund bails out the victim.
But returning to the relation you pointed to between paying tithes and poverty, we should bear in mind that together with the tithe, there is another important way of living poverty. Each community, according to its specific strengths, normally sustains its own charitable work or, at times, supports charities originating from beyond the community, such as a parish run project, Caritas, or Aid to the Church in Need. This is very important. Consistent donations to a particular work of charity demand from the members of the community a habitual limiting of their own needs, a drastic restriction of unnecessary expenses. Either they tighten their belts or they won’t be able to support the charity. You are already aware of the biblical and traditional relationship that exists between fasting and almsgiving. The mechanism is very simple: fasting enables almsgiving and almsgiving enables fasting because it demands it in charity. And in this way they both serve to help us, the laity, to open ourselves up to the precious gift of Christ’s poverty.”
“And what is it they fast from most? Where do they most reduce their expenses?”
“This is one of the most worked upon questions in the workshops. Having looked at possible ways of cutting expenses and carefully modifying our habits, we managed to reduce our rate of consumption in considerable proportions. According to reports published recently in the Federation magazine, the Ecclesial Communities in this country that have developed programs specifically for this task, have managed to bring down expenses on food by an average 40%, with spending on clothes going down 30%. This is our fasting and from this (and from other sectors) we manage to pay the tithes and the contributions for the charitable work we have committed ourselves to support. Almsgiving comes out of our fasting.”
“Does the John 2.5 Community have its own work of charity?”
“Yes. We have within the Centre a small residence where a dozen or so students, mostly originating from poor countries, are given free board and lodging and where they also receive a complete education at no expense. Various members of the Community look after them and live in the same Centre: the priest, an elderly married couple, and a few celibate members. Each of the students is also placed under the care and responsibility of either a married couple or someone else in the community, who become like Godparents to them. Many of the Ecclesial Communities in Africa and Latin America have in fact been formed by past residents of our community.”
“From all that you have told me you give the impression that you lead very busy lives. Do you not complicate life so much you make it difficult to keep it simple?”
“No. Perhaps this is the impression given when trying to describe the life of the community. But the reality is that it is a much simpler and more harmonious life than a life abandoned to the ways of the world. In answering your questions I have enumerated many of the activities that generally take place in our communities. In each particular community, however, you wouldn’t find more than a few, just those that correspond easily to their needs and possibilities.
In any case, a key area of self-examination in the community workshops is the whole issue of recovering wasted time: time misspent on unnecessary shopping excursions, on idly reading newspapers, on parking oneself in front of the television, on complicating life excessively, on lack of simplicity, order, and foresight. Gaining one or two hours per day in this way, you can appreciate, is of no little importance. Valuable possibilities are opened up for prayer, for reading, worthwhile conversation, visits, helping our neighbor and the work of the apostolate. People are pressed for time in everything, with the most important things falling by the wayside. The truth is, however, so much time is wasted unnecessarily and carelessly on useless things. Christians have to learn to govern their time, to invest it intelligently and with charity and not to waste it like water running through their fingers….
When we gather together for our meetings, there is absolute clarity about the need for the lead-in reports and the debates to be truly and effectively moderated by the Ecclesial Community moderators. That before people speak, they are clear about what they want to say, that useless repetitions are avoided and that dialogues are not prolonged excessively. In this, as well, we want to be conscious of the Lord’s warning “That every idle word will have to be given an account of on the Day of Judgment” (Matthew 12:36). We love the community and community life very much, but frequent and never-ending meetings are not our predominant passion. Without them we already see each other very often for family and community activities.
Certainly, we do our best to be occupied and not have extended periods of free-time. When we are still children, we have an enormous capacity for play and very little for work and as we get older, we gradually grow in our capacity for work and feel less of a need for games and distractions. We see this very much as applying to us. Saint Teresa of Jesus instructs her nuns in her Constitutions to “always have their needlework” with them in recreation. Consistent with this, our Rule combats passive and impoverishing idleness and aims to encourage an active and industrious Christianity. But this doesn’t mean that we run around over-occupied. What we try to do in our leisure-periods is to have time for all that is positive, for prayer, conversation, reading, work or whatever and not have time for all that is negative, for what is pure passivity and for time used vainly or badly. At least, this is our objective.”
“And do you manage this? This is something that strikes me as being particularly difficult with the laity.”
“It is difficult, there’s no doubt. In fact, one of the principal objectives of the workshops and of the Council of each community is to enhance the well balanced use of free-time. As we know, our leisure periods are becoming increasingly more prolonged and as a principle, the options offered by society to fill up this free-time are also ever-multiplying. There are people who are capable of employing their own time positively. But there are also many who need the help of a structured, community environment, without which they quickly fall into boredom or worse still, into demeaning entertainments.
With this in mind, the community’s Council organizes or supports private initiatives of many kinds, according to particular needs. And it does this across the board, for youngsters, adults and for the whole community. To paraphrase St. Paul’s words, it is a question of “Overcoming what is wrong with a superabundance of what is right and good” (Romans 12:21). Of course, we are not talking about obligatory activities, but undertakings such as personal formation courses, talks and presentations, minor courses of study, guidance for reading, musical performances, or spiritual retreats. We are talking about works of the apostolate, or of charitable care, about travels or pilgrimages, youth camps and holidays organized for groups of families, apprenticeship in craftwork and other skills, mountain treks and various sports. Not all, but certainly a good number of these activities are planned, organized and offered according to the circumstances and possibilities of each community. In this way and with everyone’s help, a stand is made against all self-diminishing idleness in favor of a free-time that is active, creative and enriching.
Moreover, these activities tend to provide the occasion for many to make contact with us, married couples, for instance, and friends of our children, who then, in one way or another, participate in the life of the community or even take the first step of developing a formal link with us. When the objection is put to us that an intense community life can close itself off from the outside world, there is an element of truth to this, but really a very small element. I believe that with the sort of activities just described offered by the community, there is more than the normal scope for social relationships. It is worth noting that we have a large number of friends who share, to one degree or another, in the life of our communities.”
“How does one become a member of the community?”
“Our communities are made up of those who have formal ties with us and of those who are friends. The friends, as I mentioned, participate in many of our activities, as well as in the ‘workshop of good habits.’ They are not able to vote but they can sometimes contribute with ideas. Some remain habitually as friends and collaborators, perhaps because family circumstances don’t permit them to make formal ties or for other reasons. Others, at one point or another, will ask the Council to be admitted into the community. For this to occur, they have to, of course, identify sufficiently with the community’s Rule of Life, accept their norms and demonstrate a sincere willingness to follow their counsels, in as much as this is possible. And once they have joined, they contribute to the community with their tithes and enter fully into its life.”
“And is becoming a member sealed with any special commitment?”
“Yes, although there isn’t a fixed, common form of commitment for the Federation as a whole, nor even for each community. What’s more, the Council has to approve of any formula before it becomes valid. In John 2.5 nearly all of us have established our ties with the community through a formula of consecration to the Virgin Mary, based on one of those proposed by St Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort.”
“And doesn’t all this community life and this lay pursuit of Gospel perfection lead to the temptation of believing yourselves to be really rather wonderful?”
“You don’t have to worry about that. The search for Gospel perfection, either individually or in community, as religious or lay people, doesn’t lead to any special temptation. It’s just the reverse, in fact. Those who are most aware of their imperfections are those who are most committed to perfection. On the contrary, as long as holiness is not sought after in all seriousness, all that’s needed for a person to consider himself an exemplary Christian in relation to everyone else is a little bit of religion here and there and a life that’s more or less decent. What is quite clear is that to adhere to the high expectations of a Rule of Life, is unquestionably an enormous stimulus. However, I can assure you that it is also the privileged occasion for both personal and community humility, and even, dare I say, for greater humility in relation to the human race as a whole.
On the other hand, you can appreciate that with any community endeavor at perfection, the personal faults of everyone very quickly come to the surface, many of which would have remained hidden, had there not been this community venture in the first place. One individual stands out for his obstinacy, another for being withdrawn and unsociable and another lacks discretion and is over-meddling. Then there is the imprudence, diffidence and over-impulsiveness, not to mention superficiality, egotism and envy…all the oddities, idiosyncrasies and defects that rapidly come to the fore whenever a work of great excellence is undertaken in common. But this is when virtues and qualities are also revealed: generosity and humility, abnegation and spirit of service.”
“Well, in any case, when all are faced with a common Rule, inevitably there’s going to be a distinction between those marvelous individuals, as I mentioned earlier, who will abide by the Rule with enormous fidelity and others who appear to be less generous and who frequently don’t adhere to the norms or pay heed to the counsels.”
“You have to bear in mind that, as most lay Christians live in family, the life of the laity does not very often permit an exact complying with the norms and counsels of the Rule. Charity and prudence would very often suggest making accommodations for this, above all in relation to the worst disposed family members. In the end, it is up to each one to live the norms and counsels as best they can, or to be more precise, in the measure that God gives each the grace to do so. And who are we judge one another?”
“But at least, as a whole, as a community, is there not the temptation to feel that you are better than the ordinary faithful?”
“Well, the temptation exists, but it’s not inevitable that we fall into it. In our communities, we are very good at constantly reminding ourselves of the long forgotten canons of the Council of Orange against the semi-Pelagians. It is the grace of God that helps us to think, to will and to realize the good; and that whenever we do any good work and in order for us to do the works, God works in us and with us.’
The primacy of grace is thus the principal premise of all that we do in the Ecclesial Communities. We begin with acknowledging that all our evils come from ourselves and all that is good in us comes from Christ, through his holy spouse the Church, without which He does nothing. The holy Virgin continually repeats to us, ‘Do whatever he tells you’. So remiss are we in complying with this, that when we do manage to fulfil our duty and get things right, the only thoughts and words that occur to us are, ‘We are useless servants; we have only done what we had to do.’”
“Some of the things you have been telling me seem to be a reflection of certain ideals in the book “The Gospel and Utopia.”
“You know the book?”
“A little”
“Well, yes. That’s true. That book has been very enlightening for us in many aspects. It’s an excellent book.”
