I could not help but be aware of last week’s General Assembly when considering the title of this chapter, “Beloved Community,” and much of what Jones said about the church community in this chapter, I had seen and experienced in the past week during our time together as well as over the past year(s).
Jones notes that religion is essentially social, an affair of a beloved community. He says there is a type of life noted in the Gospels that appears to already be the Kingdom (Household) – a type of life in which love is the supreme spring and motive. “The Kingdom of God is something we DO, not a place to which we go…” (p. 10), where each member of both an end and a means to accomplishing the life and purpose of the whole. Yes! Each member called to our community is sacred, brings unique gifts, and was led by Love to us as part of the Journey of both.
God is love. Love cannot be love without being relational. A community cannot be a community without being relational. Our community cannot be “the presence of God in the world”, as the Founding Document calls us to be, without authentically being an expression of Divine love both individually and communally. That is our call. That is our gift. However, as Moore noted in the Introduction, “… the need for every community to see beyond itself. Community is not an end in itself. An inward-looking community will implode. Christ gathered his disciples together to serve a purpose larger than themselves…” (p. xix). Brother Andrew Aelred noted that love and community need to do something, not just be for themselves. So does the Founding Document
Despite what is happening in our country and churches today, God has not gone away, but God is showing up in new ways and places to interact with us. God is love – relationship itself – loving relationship into which we are continually, endlessly, sometimes surprisingly drawn. Jesse noted that it is difficult to meaningfully differentiate the love of Divine action from the love of Divine essence in saying, “The community is God.” Transcendence does not hang over us as a concept; rather we are its bearers. As God wakes up in us, we are to wake up in God. Church and religious life need to be about waking up to God, where divine light shines within leading us “To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.” It’s a never-ending evolutionary balancing act, and not infrequently a difficult path, but being about anything else is to be lost and bereft in the desert.
Brother Aidan, I could not help but think about intentionality when it comes to our community being relational. How do you take 24 people who knew little or nothing of each other before coming to religious life and produce love? This comes through an intentional and conscious commitment from the entire community to do so. How do we come away loving new people in such a short amount of time? It is because we intend to do so. I love each of you and the relational environment we have built in the community via intentionality.
I agree with you. Thanks for bringing up intentionality. I see intentionality as the basis for commitment; it’s a critical element. Both intentionality and commitment have to be continually and repeated reaffirmed — that’s what gives it the power to endure. Brother Guadalupe’s 20 years in vows in our community comes to mind. I saw him talking to Jesse at GA, and it dawned on me that Brother Guadalupe’s years in vows is about the same amount of time as Jesse being alive. That awareness was more powerful to me than the mere math.
Thank you for sharing this.
Brother Charles Edward OLW
Companions of Our Lady of Walsingham is an Episcopal community in formation.
Sorry, me again.
I just this minute read this line from Brian McLaren’s book WE MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING, as I was preparing for the Zoom group studying this book. I thought this line perfectly applied to Bro Aiden’s words:
“That’s why we seek to improve our fluency and grace in ‘one-anothering’—especially with people who seem very different from us. For the story of creation, in the adventure and uprising of Jesus, and in the movement of the Spirit, to love is to live.”
“One-anothering.”
What a great word!!
Brother Liam, Don’t apologizing for sharing more of the harvest with us. Thank you.
And, of course, the hope and intention is that being in our community and living the Gospel in light of the Founding Document fosters both a vibrant awakening to the presence of God and “one-anothering”. I love that word too!
“As God wakes up in us, we are to wake up in God.” I like that line. It reminds me of Richard Rohr’s comment, “We’re already in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” The more we are aware that we live and move and have our being IN God’s presence, the more we recognize that we and everyone else and all of creation are permeated, saturated with God! And loving each other in and as Community and loving all others by our active commitment to them—especially to those who suffer—IS how we love God.