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Living in Community
Catholic sisters and nuns live in community in a wide variety of ways. Often we only think of community as living under the same roof, that is in “the convent” or “the monastery” but community actually takes many forms. Simply living under the same roof does not make a community. Likewise, living singly does not mean you are living alone or without community.
Since I’ve been an IHM Sister, I’ve lived various configurations of physical proximity but in all of them have striven to live deeply our IHM community life. I’ve lived singly with few IHMs around me because of the demands of my ministry; I’ve lived with 5 other sisters; I’ve lived with one other sister; and I’ve lived on our Motherhouse campus with nuns everywhere! Each way of living calls forth different aspects of living community.
Because our community like many others is ministerial based, our choices for community life are necessarily diverse so that we can respond to people’s needs. I’ve been told stories about how our sisters years ago heard the news that babies in Korea were dying because there was no one to hold them in the orphanages. The infants needed human cuddling to live and to grow. Our mother superior immediately sent nuns to Korea to minister by “simply” holding the babies. Didn’t think about the fact that we had no convent there or that there were only a handful of nuns she could send. She saw the need and knew that we could help.
I’ve also been thinking about a friend of mine who is in the national guard. She is stationed hours away from her home and family. She lives singly on base and gets together with her family whenever possible. Though certainly a struggle, her marriage and family life is not any less real or authentic. It is now expressed in new and different ways.
Today’s world is full of so many ways to live community and family life. While some of us live this community through physical proximity, many of us also experience community and family in ways that go beyond this proximity. In what ways do you experience this kind of community or family life?
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Unorthodox situations are my family’s core business
When I still lived in student housing, all five of us lived in different provinces (and my mother even in another country). There were a lot of long phone calls going all around!
But to be honest, I really like it best when my mum is here and we can just all be in the same room, doing nothing special. “Home” is cooking together with my mum. She’s more upset that the kitchen of my community is in the cloistered area than that I’m moving to another country and becoming a sister
Sister Julie – The story about your sisters going to Korea “just” to rock babies is beautiful. I spent time in Romania ten years ago and visited the State orphanages, where the kind Romania people did not understand they would one day find their own broken hearts: in hundreds of their children the State raised without holding, without rocking, without loving eyes that say “i see you and i love you”. i will never forget seeing, with real joy, a robust six month old boy, his face lit up with expectation that i would reach into his crib and snuggle him, and then learning that he was almost 18 months old, the source of his robustness in the context of the presentation of a six month old. God bless the IHMs for holding and looking into the eyes of the children for whom they travelled so far from home.
Among other questions, for me, as I contemplate various Communities is that of the “footprint” a Community makes on the community around it and, if you will, what footprint is created by that footprint.
The example of your friend in the military is a beautiful one and I see it differently, having grown up on military bases: community and mission are inseparable. In both broad sweeps and minute details, mission determines community, and it is in that tight and conscious braiding of mission and community that the safety and integrity of each is preserved at the level of both those broad sweeps and those minute details.
Along these lines, I have been thinking about the brilliant, impossible-to-improve motto of green living: reduce, recycle, reuse in every material sense….and what that means in terms of Gospel community in today’s world. And I am thinking that motto is a good “For Dummies” book, for dummies like me, or a military-style SOP for community (standard operating procedure):
Gospel Living in Community
as a Catholic Religious
Reduce [attachments and use of resources]
Recycle [love]
Reuse [the Gospel]
Jean
I have lived in many configurations, too, but living outside of community these past 13 yrs. while taking care of ill family members has been a real challenge. I had to keep an attitude of having my heart with community and keeping my community in my heart. Soon I will be moving to our motherhouse to live with 30 sisters–talk about two ends of the spectrum!
But I have to remind myself that community has to be intentional, not just geographical. I had a wonderful community experience living with one elderly sister. Then I lived in a house of five that felt like a hotel. Attitude and intention makes or breaks community life, IMHO.
(Shout out to our candidate Dominique who has been lurking here for quite a while. Hi, Dominique!)
I think community is one of the things that draws me to religious life. It is also one of the things that I miss about college.
During my senior year of college, 3 of my friends and I were able to live in a townhouse together. We were and still are (despite distance) a community. Distance has not weakened the bond of community we formed. Living together didn’t make us a community. It was the deep support of one another and the sense that we all held similar beliefs and pushed for the same things. Sure, we had our differences, but I know that they’ll always be there for me and vice versa.
I do miss my college community and knowing that someone right here is always supporting me.
Thank you for this post. I’m entering into life in a Secular Institute where one lives ‘communion of life’ and not really community life. It worries me at times when I think I will be alone… but this reassures me. It doesn’t have to be physical closeness. It can be community in so many other ways….
Thank you for such an educational post! Its so true that there is a misconception of what “in community” means.
My order, the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, each live in their own homes and keep contact usually offline or online. They generally do an apostolate of their choice, even if they’re homebound or do have a job or are disabled. Their mission is to promote the Gospel and Penance. Their patron is St. Francis.
If you’d like more info, just email me or look them up on Google. I won’t spam the comments with a link.
My definition of community is my ’4 am friends’. It’s those people whom I could call at 4 am and they would be pulling on their clothes before they asked me what was wrong.
Elizabeth – i like that. it leaves room for dogs, who are always fully dressed and at the ready! jean
My sense of community would be people who I live and interact with on a daily or weekly basis. Our need for community can be partially filled by the collectivity of online interaction – I’m a big fan of this site! – but I really think community ultimately involves face-to-face interaction. I am hoping to become a sister, and it is very important to me that I would be living with at least several other people and not be alone too much.
LOL Jean
Suzanne, There is certainly no substitute for the face-to-face interaction where all your senses are engaged. I love living in community and I think there are healthy ways to tend to both togetherness and the common life as well as having quiet, alone time.