Our Lord knew that life could be difficult at times, as well as joyful.  We were created not to be a person just to ourselves, but rather a person who reacts with other people.  This way we have someone to share the joyful moments with as well as someone to help us in the difficult moments.  In our relationships with others we often form communities.   These communities can be a source of sharing great joy as well as a support for times when life is difficult.  Communities can take on different forms.  I recently was contemplating the gift of community at a time when very good friends (and members of one of our communities) lost their daughter.  It was most difficult for our friends, but the gift of community really came forth.  I would like to share with you some of the ways that I have experienced this community in action.  My hope is this will help you to better appreciate the gift of community in your own life.  The old adage; “it takes a village to raise a child” is an old African proverb but certainly relates to all of us today.  I would change that a little to say, “it takes a community to raise and support a Christian”.

My first experience of Christian Community happened in 1972.  My wife and I started going to a Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting.  That experience brought me to know Jesus and His Church and the gift of community.   The prayer group was one where I experienced joy, teachings and support.  We met every week and I looked forward to going every time.  We prayed together in the church and often had a teaching there; afterwards many of us would go over to the diner across the street just to socialize.  Because of my relationship with that prayer group, and with Jesus, my marriage became what it really needed to be.  My wife and I grew in our relationship as we grew in our relationship in the prayer group and our relationship to Jesus and His Church.  My wife and I had difficulties having children and this weighed heavily upon our relationship.  The prayer group was a great support to us and I believe it was through the prayers there that we received the miracle of our daughter.  The prayer group always shared with us our pains as well as our joys.  It was quite a gift.

We continued in weekly prayer groups until the early 1980’s when we were invited to join a prayer community called “My people”.  This continued in the same way as the prayer meeting, but with closer ties of friendship.  We prayed together and we did things to have fun together.  The friends that I mentioned earlier are part of that community.  All of us watched our children grow in to adults and then watched as our children had children.  It was a source of great joy.  At the same time there were many difficulties, from run-away teenagers to car accidents to deaths of spouses to all sorts of things that happened.  However, we were able to experience it all together.  We were able to lend support to each other.  Over and over again, God used this community to bring His loving support to us.

Over the 40 years that this community has existed, some members retired and moved away (down south).  Every year we have a community retreat and most of those who moved away come up for that retreat here on Long Island.   In some ways it was as if they never left.  We were, and are, all one community.  Those of us who still live on Long Island still meet regularly for our community prayer meeting.  We also maintain other social ties to one another.  Last month, when we heard about the sudden death of one couple’s 45 year old daughter, we were devastated.  However, the community pulled together to support them in so many ways.  Even those who moved away came up from the south to be there for the funeral.  We stayed with the family at the funeral home the whole time they were there.  We were, literally, “there for them”.  I could tell how much it was a support to them. 

I also noticed at the funeral another example of community.  Our friend’s daughter was an EMT for a local ambulance company.  They too came out in great numbers each day of the funeral.  They also provided a funeral dinner for everyone after the last service.  Their support was encouraging to all of us and especially to the parents.  We saw that many parishioners from our friend’s parish came too.  The funeral mass was quite full.  After the mass, the hearse drove past the hospital where our friend’s daughter worked in the Emergency Room.  It seemed that every worker in the hospital came outside to give her their last goodbye.  It was amazing to see how such a tragic loss of a young woman could also show so much good from the people around her.  Community is quite a gift that God uses to support us.

We can find community in our families, in our local parish, in our work, in our neighborhood, in our volunteer agencies…….in so many different places.  Sometimes we need to work on building these communities into something that God can use to help us all experience life with its joys and with its sorrows.  Anything that is good, takes a little work. 

I would ask you to look around at the communities that you are part of and give thanks to God for them.  Perhaps you can find ways to grow closer to each other in these communities.  Perhaps you can see in your family and in your co-workers ways to grow in community.  Church groups can be a fantastic way to experience community.  My wife and I, besides belonging to the “My People” charismatic community also belong to the Teams of Our Lady group in our parish.  We cherish those monthly meetings with them and the gift of community there.  I cannot picture life without these communities.  Proverbs 27:17 tells us, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”.   We really need community to bring out the best in us.  Hebrews 10;25-25 tells us, “ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,  not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. “

When we are in community we can experience better what it means to be “the people of God”.   1 Peter 2:9-19 tells us, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy”.   Community is also where we all can experience being the “body of Christ”.   Matthew 18:20 tells us that, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”  I Corinthians 12:12-13 says, “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink”.

My friends, let us all drink of the one Spirit and use all the gifts that God gives to us, especially the gift of community.