The spiritual life requires opportunities to grow as an individual as well as be in
relationship with others. There are seasons in our life when we need the freedom
to develop our own personalities and our unique gifts. Then there are seasons in
our life when our task is to find and nourish a community in which to share our
gifts and receive and be enhanced by the gifts of others. A child learns to say,
“no” sometimes distinguishing his or her self from the parent’s wishes.
If we are in touch with the God who is present to us in Christ and in the Spirit we
will know when it is beneficial to focus on individual growth and when it is
beneficial to focus on being a member of a community. Sometimes one enables
the other as when the community calls us to use gifts we did not know we had.
All can be summed up in the principle of our Christian faith in Jesus’ invitation to
love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves
