The discipline of community makes us persons; that is, people who are sounding through to each other (the Latin personare means “sounding through”) a truth, a beauty, and a love that is greater, fuller, and richer than we ourselves can grasp. In true community we are windows constantly offering each other new views on the mystery of God’s presence in our lives.
Thus the discipline of community is a true discipline of prayer. It makes us alert to the presence of the Spirit who cries out “Abba,” Father, among us and thus prays from the center of our common life. Community thus is obedience practiced together. The question is not simply “Where does God lead me as an individual person who tried to do his will?” More basic and more significant is the question “Where does God lead us as a people?”
--Henri Nouwen
Image source 1: Opera singer Stéfane Sénéchal sings for his neighbors from his apartment window in Paris, March 2020, on the tenth day of a strict lockdown in Paris during the Covid pandemic, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/us/gallery/community-during-covid-best-in-us
To hear what he sang, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DlwXCoQprA&list=RDEMnSGZVvYDFwk5Dw58L_Bwdg&start_radio=1
Image source 2: Gathering for Mass in person at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, during the pandemic, September 27, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3493239240737473&set=a.3493244037403660
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To hear what he sang, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DlwXCoQprA&list=RDEMnSGZVvYDFwk5Dw58L_Bwdg&start_radio=1
Image source 2: Gathering for Mass in person at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Mill Valley, during the pandemic, September 27, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3493239240737473&set=a.3493244037403660
Quotation source
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