Saturday, July 8, 2017

Parable and Conscience Meditation July 8


Community  July 8

His (Augustine’s) example invites us to live together in a multi-racial community, where every confrere goes beyond his prejudices (Regional Congolese Statutes 1.10).

The Rule of St. Augustine  was written as a guide for Gospel living for communities made up largely of members from different social and economic, even cultural, backgrounds.  The ideal of Augustine was to attract all sorts of people to the Christian community so that it could witness to the possibility of being of “one in heart and soul in search of God.”  All that is very evident in the Rule, which concentrates on the formation of community among persons of different origins.  According to the spirit of Augustine, it is not homogeneity of members of the community that should be sought to make for an easy community experience.  Quite the contrary, in the spirit of the universal love of Christ, welcoming a diversity of persons is necessary for fashioning a community.  That happens by the power of the Spirit rather than just by human effort.  The Rule is an effective aid for the formation of multi-cultural communities whose challenges are quite difficult.  The Rule is also particularly helpful for religious life in the Southern Hemisphere because it was written in Africa and for such a context.

If the drums aren’t together, they don't know how to resonate.  (Yaka)

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