Community

When I am in San Francisco I get the opportunity to spend time with my Paulist community.  We have a common background as seminarians and priests, with a common history.  I spent one day in a suburb, Mill Valley and Tiburon with one other  Paulist.  We sat and talked over coffee with pleasant weather and then toured and had lunch.  We had wonderful conversation.  One morning several of us Paulists had a long breakfast at home chatting about things in the Paulist community as well as the Church in the USA and Rome.  Some guys, not me, are well connected with what is going on.  With age, we seem to relax better and share more deeply with one another.  I think that it is all part of a spiritual growth that we don't notice until times such as I have mentioned above.  I am bonded with the Paulists in ways that I am not with diocesan priests in other places.  There is something about "community" in religious community that is hard to define, but felt in experience.