This article is part of the special feature: Faith and Light—Anatomy of a Community of Encounter.
We have just seen, in the previous article, that a Faith and Light community is a community with its own distinct character, defined by a specific set of features. But it is also a community like any other. In it we find the traits common to every true community.
Meeting after meeting, bonds form that transform everyday life and allow the community to deserve its name.
One mother of a family said at the start of a gathering: "I look forward to these moments always. The closer the day comes, the more I think about it. Alone at home, I sing the songs we've learned together; even my work is transformed by the thought that soon we'll be together again. I'm ready to leave from morning onward. And when we're together, I have the feeling that what I've dreamed of for years has finally become possible."
Like every community, Faith and Light embodies three essential moments of communal life:
- Welcome
- Celebration
- Witness
Notice that these are also the three moments of every encounter ("Come, stay, go forth") and of motherhood (conception, gestation, birth).
1. Welcoming the Other
...and allowing ourselves to be welcomed by them. We have spoken of this already and I will add just one point.
Writing a note, making a phone call, knocking on a door—small gestures like these help people remember a meeting's date and place in a more personal way than a circular notice. Decorating a room, noting birthdays, learning people's names—these things ease the encounter and strengthen the bonds of community.
Anything that makes welcome more genuine and warm makes meeting the other possible and helps the community grow.
But this effort must not stop with Faith and Light. It must be grounded in and followed by the way we welcome those closest to us—in our families, at work, in our daily lives. If an afternoon at Faith and Light makes me cold or resentful the moment I walk back through my own front door, what does welcome really mean?
Welcoming the poorest begins with welcoming the annoying sibling or the bothersome uncle with whom I live every day, chosen or not.
2. Celebrating the Other
After welcome comes the moment when we are truly present to one another. Little by little, we stop observing each other from a distance and begin to know one another. This is the time of listening and celebration. The other reveals themselves to me, and I reveal myself to them.
Nothing can replace those moments in community when we get to know each other while arranging chairs, pasting up posters, or tuning guitars.
We have already spoken of how a Faith and Light community gathering unfolds. For a community of encounter, the moments when we gather are plainly essential. But their depth also comes from what is lived and shared between meetings.
You can sit in silence, and no one needs to say "an angel has passed." The silence ceases to frighten. It becomes communion beyond words. This is what happened when Eric, who is twelve, came to us the other day. Eric doesn't speak, doesn't move. What could be said? We sat in silence together. Then, after a moment, we sang "Listen..."
To celebrate the other is to dare to be silent together.
3. Bearing Witness to the Other
I remember a conversation with a worried mother who feared her daughter would "spend time with subnormal children." To bear witness is to help words like "Children like that should stay home" or "These kids—we're the ones footing the bill" slowly disappear from our neighborhoods.
Witness can include political or social action. But that is a different kind of witness, and it is important not to confuse the two.
For Faith and Light, bearing witness to the other does not mean replacing the State and its social policy. It means declaring through our words and, even more, through our actions, our faith in the other—beyond what we can see. It means saying at every moment that the other is more beautiful than what I perceive.
Luis Sankalé, 1980
- Read the next article in the series: 5. Growing Together—Leading a Faith and Light Community: Principles and Practice