By S. Eunice Dagi, Province of Africa
St. Augustine in his rule, which we the School Sisters of Notre Dame have incorporated in our constitution, urges us to honor one another in the community. In his own words “Let all of you then live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honoring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.”
According to St. Augustine the main purpose of community is to journey with one another intent upon God. Fr. Jude Ossai restated this by saying “The core centre and inspiration of a religious community life is God, whom the members primarily come together to seek.” Take God away and community becomes something else that people may call boarding or lodging, where we live with others only for the purpose of sharing the space. In honoring each other in community, we see them past their weaknesses, even when they have done something that is not according to community, and reach out to them, helping them to get back on the path. We do the same when it is our time for weakness.
Choosing to live in a religious community means that we participate in each other's lives, personalities and values. The community is not merely a place to be used for achieving personal gain and self-advancement, to the detriment of the community, St. Augustine told his brothers and sisters.
In this way, no one shall perform any task for his own benefit, but all your work shall be done for the common good, with greater zeal and more dispatch than if each one of you were to work for yourself alone. For charity, as it is written, is not self-seeking (1 Cor 13:5), meaning that it places the common good before its own, not its own before the common good. So whenever you show greater concern for the common good than for your own, you may know that you are growing in charity. Thus, let the abiding virtue of charity prevail in all things that minister to the fleeting necessities of life.
What St. Augustine refers to here as charity is love. When we have lived this way in the community, there is such joy and satisfaction, which makes others who are not in that community to want to be members. When we live this way, when a community member is out, we miss them and long for their return. When we live this way, when a community member is celebrating, the whole community is celebrating. When we live this way, when a member is in pain, the whole community is in pain. We are never tired of one together. The more we spend time together, the more we grow in holiness, which, together, we will discover God and become in union with Him.
Augustine says that community is a theological place or space. For him the human person is a theological place, that is, a meeting place with God. Having this in mind all the time will have a huge impact on the kind of community we form and, without doubt, everyone will enjoy it and long for it when they are not there.
