Community

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish is a special and unique place, anyone that enters our (new) doors notices that we are different then many other parishes.  What makes us different?  Why are we unique?  Why is it that almost every Catholic in the diocese has a reaction of interest when I tell them I work at Seton?  I believe the answer is obvious: our sense of community is what makes us what we are.

American culture today is very individualistic.  In other times and other places there has been greater emphasis put on family, town, neighbors, empire, nation, or world.  We have all of those things and have some respect for them but we also have 50 different colors for any car, laptops made to order, and a trillion clothing options.  Marketing nowadays is always about customizations and personalization.  Now some of this specialization is nice but my fear is that our nation, even American Catholics, have lost a sense of community or worse they never had it.  In my hometown it is a sign of failure if you end up back where you are from.  I grew up in a school system that pitted me against the students around me, in sports and academics it is you versus everyone else.  Catholics should be counter-culture in this regard, focused on others and not on ourselves.  

Community is absolutely essential to religion, especially our religion.  We are the Body of Christ.  That phrase "Body of Christ" gets thrown around a lot but very few people talk about what it means to be The Body of Christ.  At Baptism our bodies and souls are united to Christ's body and soul.  As St. Paul says, "...for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:2).  When one person is Baptized they enter into Christ's Body and His divinity unites with their humanity, which was made possible because Jesus, who is God, became man and united divinity and humanity in Himself when He became human (while remaining God).  So, when one person enters into Christ's Body they are united with all of the other people that have entered Christ and together we form The Body of Christ.  St. Paul addresses this repeatedly in the Bible, he says in Romans, chapter 12, "So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."  St. Paul also in Corinthians talks beautifully about how truly united we are through our Baptism, 

"For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink...So that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it." - 1 Cor. 12:13, 25-26

In an even more shocking way Jesus prays for our unity in the final moments before He is betrayed, "I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one" (John 17:11).   

Jesus prays that we are united in the same way that He and His Father are united!!!  The Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Father are One, completely undivided, as we declare in the creed, "ONE IN BEING WITH THE FATHER."  Jesus prays for us to be that united.  We ARE united in our Baptism and in the Eucharist, that is why we call Eucharist, Holy Communion, because we are being even more fully united through God's Body and Blood as a community.  When we eat Jesus' Body our bond to one another is strengthened and made holy.  How exciting!?!?!  That is why it is so tragic when people miss Mass, when people are not at Mass our Body, our community, is not complete.  The Eucharist is the "source and summit of our faith" (Catholic Catechism) and the Mass is the greatest event of community that has ever existed.  American culture cannot understand the unity we find in the Eucharist because to believe in our invisible bond one must have faith.