The Community of Believers

When I was a senior in high school, I had to write an essay on “Meditation XVII”, better known today by its first line, “No Man Is an Island.” It’s a poem by the English writer John Donne, written almost 400 years ago, about how human beings are interconnected. What happens to any one of us affects all of us at a fundamental level: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Several years later, when I was in the seminary, I came to understand that idea even more deeply when I read another work called “No Man Is an Island” by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton. In one of the essays from that book, he says that the interrelatedness of human beings is rooted ultimately in our relation to God. We can really only learn to love each other when we come to understand the love that God has for the other, and he says that nowhere is this idea made more clear than in the Church, the body of believers. In the Church, we are united to each other in a communion, with each other and together with God.

The Fractio Panis ("Breaking of Bread") fresco, 2nd cent. Greek chapel, Catacombs of St. Priscilla, Rome

In today’s first reading, we hear about this unity was expressed in the earliest days of the Church: that “the community of believers was of one heart and mind.” Their connectedness was expressed by how they took care of the poor, holding in common what they possessed as the property of all, and also by together proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus. That degree of unity and interrelation might seem very far-fetched when thinking about the Church today, but this reading gives us an ideal to strive for. Each of us should consider: to what degree am I related to, connected to, the other members of my church community? Is it only that we show up in the same place on Sunday mornings, sitting in the same pews, listening to the same homily? Or is there something deeper too, a connection, a communion that I sense even with those whose name I may not know or who have a language or a culture or a history different than mine? Is this connection something about which I am passive or indifferent, or am I striving to deepen it in some way: to come to know and love more fully those I relate to in faith? In short, am I active in and united to the body of believers, or am I trying to live my faith individually?

Today’s Gospel tells us of the dangers of trying to live out our faith on our own. The apostle Thomas is not present when the Jesus first appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. We are not told why he was absent, and in a certain sense it’s not important; what matters is that he misses out on encountering the Risen Christ along with the others, and because he was not with them, he does not experience what they experienced. His doubt is borne of the fact that he had been separated from the community in which Jesus became present. It is only when he is present again with the community, in the midst of the body of believers, that he encounters the Risen Christ as they had and overcomes his doubt with an act of great faith.

I think the same dynamic often plays out today. The degree to which we are able to have an encounter with the Risen Christ is very closely related to how united we are to the body of believers. If we want an experience of faith to shape who we are and to inform how we live, then we must be present in and united to the community of faith. The fundamental starting point for this is attendance at the Sunday Mass – not just when we can make time for it, or when it’s convenient, but every week, no matter what else is going on. Aside from illness or some other grave situation, we have the duty to worship God every Sunday in the midst of the body of believers; to not to do so is to fall short of the most fundamental part of our faith, and thus we believe it is a mortal sin. While it’s most important to attend Mass wherever we happen to be (even, if we are traveling, for example), we should typically try to worship in our own church and with the same community, because we become more closely united with each other the more often we are gathered together in the presence of God.

Fridolin Assists at Holy Mass (1833) by Peter Fendi

Once we understand the link between faith and presence, unity and communion, we can then begin to understand how we are called – as a community and as individuals – to evangelize to others. As I mentioned, the reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells us that the Christian community was “of one heart and mind” not only in how they were united to each other but also in how they proclaimed the Gospel. This is still our obligation, too – part of our baptismal call to live out holiness is to invite others to do so as well. The Easter season invites us to consider: with whom can I share the Good News that Jesus is risen? Who is God calling me to invite to come and share in the Lord’s presence in this community of faith? Maybe it is a friend whom I know is struggling with faith, or a coworker who has shown some interest in the Catholic Church; we can be bold in encouraging them to come and find a place in the community of faith that we have found. Perhaps the ones we are most ardently called to invite anew are those that were once part of our community, but who have drifted away, have stopped coming to Mass, have left the practice of the faith for one reason or another, sometimes not even intentionally, but just over time. As the Church, we miss their presence; we can feel the absence of those who are not with us, like the disciples did with Thomas. Maybe all it would take is a kind word from us to welcome them back, to invite them to come home, to take their place with us again in the community of faith. Who knows? Perhaps that is just the way that Thomas himself returned to encounter the Risen Christ.

Friends, as that poem says, no man is an island; we are all connected to each other, and that is true above all in our faith, as the community of believers. This Easter season is a new springtime of rediscovering the communion we have with each other: to get to know each other better as brothers and sisters, to live out that unity every Sunday in worship together, and to invite our brothers and sisters who are not with us to come and join us again. Then, the more deeply we realize our unity with each other, and the more fully we live out that unity intentionally, the more effectively we can give witness to the world that Christ has indeed risen.

As his Body and Blood are given to us in this Eucharist, may the Lord Jesus inspire us to always believe, and to share with others our belief that his true and living Presence is here among us, in this community of believers: “Blessed are those who have not seen me, but still believe!”