Word to the Wise
Tuesday, April 21, 2020 - 2nd Week of Easter - Tues
[Acts 4:32-37 and John 3:7b-15]The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. [Acts]
This passage from the Acts of the Apostles, along with Acts 2:42-47, is said to have inspired St. Dominic in his efforts to establish a community of itinerant preachers, now known as The Dominicans [the Order of Preachers, officially[. The Albigensian heresy, which gave rise to the impetus to establish the order, featured itinerant preachers who lived a poor and austere lifestyle, while the official preachers sent by Rome to counter the heresy traveled in great style and pomp. They were unsuccessful. They did not realize that there is an intimate connection between lifestyle and preaching. Before setting foot in a pulpit, one's way of living has to speak first.
As any healthy family can testify, community life is challenging. There is a tension in our very individualistic society between what is "mine" and what is "ours." If we seek our fundamental security in our own resources instead of sharing those resources and seeing them as "ours," we will be reluctant participants in community life. This is true in family life and in religious communities as well. There must be a collective concern rather than a sum of individual concerns. This is exemplified in the old expression (at least among us Dominican friars), "What belongs to everyone belongs to no one." So a community must designate members with responsibilities or, as families will say, "chores!"
What is this all really about? It is all about the love we profess to have for one another and for our collective, as well as our individual, efforts to express that love. The early Christian community and subsequent communities had to struggle to be consistent with that love, as the letters of St. Paul and St. John clearly demonstrate. The tension between ME and WE is as ancient as humanity. We are learning about this tension again and again in the current COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Individual wants and desires must often give way to a larger purpose, which can make sense only if we love one another as Christ has taught us. A close friend of mine told me to stay home as a favor to him!!! That meant all the world to me, but it also spoke to the love I owe to my family, my friends and my own religious community and the world around me. Can we, as people of faith, show the same connection and inspiration? AMEN
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
103 ms
4
