Christ instituted the Catholic Church as a community of believers. And Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the need for small communities of believers with mature faith as an effective element of evangelization.
Converts to the Catholic Faith, in their personal zeal for the Church, do a lot of apologetics in their attempts to explain their new found faith to others and to defend the same faith against those who attack it. But they are at a lost how to integrate the rest of their family members into theirnew found beliefs. What do I do with my wife and children now that I am a Catholic and am enjoying it?
Of course, there is the problem of converts and their families having some problems like illnesses, and are unable to cope up with it. Here is where the concept of communitity life come in. In fact, there are lay communities whose members do not know how the rest of their families can fit in their communities. This problem is not difficult. The early Church had the solution to it.
Let me distinguish briefly the advantages of community life over family life based on the concept of natural love vs Christian love.
Pope Benedict XVI stated that family life must grow within the context of the life of the Cathlic Church for it to be truly Catholic.
The level of relationship within the members of a Christian family is usually too defective; it would good enought, in fact, if it is according to the level of the Old Testament spirituality. But more often than not, it is below the Old Testament spirituality. It must go higher than the Old Testament and rise up to the New testament spirituality. But it often that the relationship between members of the family is just too human that its humaness is usually the obstacle to it being spiritual. The Relationship between members of the family is based on the dictatorship of relativism; a selfish attitude wherewith the other is used for one’s convenience. When a husband loves his wife nad children for his own convenience, this is really love of self, which is contrary to true Christian love.
Unless there are saints before marriage, relationship between a family is inferior to Christian love. Often it is emotional, usually it is selfish. rarely does anyone get married for the purpose of sanctifyng the members of his family. That was the old purpose of Christian Matrimony; for the men to sanctify his beloved and to populate heaven with his children. Since most marry for the wrong reason they have to raise their motives and goals higher. And this is done within the Catholic community. But most Catholic communities are so large no one can attend to the newly weds. And so oftentimes they are neglected and never attain their goal of personal and family sanctification.
What is the difference between the love between members of a family and within the Catholic Church? Love within the family is exclusive. It excludes a lot of people. Though, sometimes, they to give to strangers and beggars, everything is for the parents and the children. Everybody else is escluded. You never invite other people when the family goes to the beach. It is usually an exclusive excursion. No one goes to heaven that way.
The exemplar of Christian love are the religious communities… at least before, not so much today. The first Christians were described as “See how they love one another.” “By this they will know that you are my disciple if you have love for ane another.” The monks and religious live with totatl strangers. And treat each other as brothers. They cook for one another, they wash clothes for one another, etc. And they are not even related. It is this ability to be able to love someone outside your immediate family is makes one’s love Christian. And since Christian love consist in saving the soul of others, from saving the soul of the stranger who is your room mate to saving the soul of your enemy will not be far away. To save the souls of others, friend or foe, or as G. K. Chesterton says, “They are usually one and the same person, is not limited by emotional ties. n That’s why religious, like nuns and monks, are encouraged not to marry. Marriage limits you to love one of two people. The religious life or the priestly life enables to love everybody. A husband loves his wife and children, and even that is rare. Mother Teresa loved so many poor who are emotionally unlovable.
The lae of God is clear: emotional love cannot bring you to heaven. To go to heaven you must love God and your neighbor…. and your enemies?
*And yet in true conversion there is always the movement to go into community life with others with the same mind, zeal and goal. Many souls had been led to this life but find it difficulton how to dispose of their loved ones. Well the loved ones are not supposed to be disposed of. What should be done to them is sanctify them too. When a soul, like a convert, is moved by God towards a commitment to the Catholic Religion, this must be a family affair.
We have seen how the Holy Rule of St. Benedict is a guide for holiness. St. John Chrysostom has a chapter on how monasticism, which is essentially, living the gospel, is applied in the context of a family. It is a fact that St. Therese and her family were living a monastic life at home: probably learned from the Benedictine school where she studied.
For community life lived by entire families in a monastic setting, we have the Long Rules of St. Basil. In act St. Benedict mentions him together with St. John Cassian as adjuncts to his rule. The Basiliades of St. Basil is monastic life for entire families. It contains the complete arrangements on how families should live together, helping one another for the purpose of reaching holiness.
These small communities united in mind and heart around the world make up the Catholic Church.
St. Benedict had such an arrangement. The single monks living in faith were dwelling on the top of the mountain, the monastery of Monte Casino. While the married people and their families were living around the monastery drinking, as it were, from their example. But the Basiliades of St. Basil is more precise in its rules and arrangements.