Community is a strange word for someone who has lived outside the Servite community life for over three years. This whole concept of community is rather fluid, meaning many things to many people. Unlike the priesthood, which is functional and task-oriented, community life is in the realm of existential commitment, and revolves back to the problem of celibacy. The problem of celibacy should be attached to the religious life rather than the priesthood. There has been tremendous confusion about the priesthood and religious life. Vatican II in the Constitution on the Church tried to do away with it, but in fact, it lingers on. Unfortunately, this is due to the consideration of the priesthood as a state rather than a function. The religious priest was then asked to be in two states, religious and priestly, when in fact he really is in one state of being with one function. The distortion was so bad that many thought that they were in the state of the priesthood and had to perform the functions of a religious. Happily, that trend is reversing. But it cannot be fully accomplished until the priesthood is understood in its functional character. The question of community brings us back to celibacy, or to be more exact, its counterpoint, marriage. The family unit is the basis of all society, the basic community. Very clearly, it is a free community in as much as it comes about by the choice of two individuals who want to establish a new community. The bachelors who join a religious order form a homosexual rather than a bi-sexual community. Because all its members are the same sex, the community will not develop like that of marriage. No new life will come out of this homosexual community. Sex, then, within the community, is reduced to a minimum since it is non-productive. Thus, we cannot expect the same kind of intimacy that a married family community has. Perhaps a corporate community might be a better example of this type of community that we are striving for. Not quite, because this type of corporate community is functional. In fact, many of the post-Tridentine communities are exactly like this. They came together to perform certain functions. They have a common activity so that they live together. However, Servites have a hard time with this type of community living, although it is possible. The problem arises in the area of poverty, where the sharing of goods takes on an important role. Generally speaking, however, most Servite priests have adopted this corporation approach to Servite life, since they see the priesthood as their existential state, while the Servite community functions to help them in this state. Certainly, I find it the best explanation of why someone is not living in a Servite community. Servites are helping me to function or operate, but others see me as a priest who is being paid by and working for a company called Servites. Thus, unfortunately the priestly-Servite function-state relationships are reversed. I do not feel the community of Servites as closely as I do the community in which I live here, which is not Servites. Thus, I live in a different way than the Servite Community to which I made my initial commitment, but the situation will be rectified when I return. As yet, I have not heard a valid explanation of how we can belong to a community without living in it. We can only belong in a functional way, which then forces us to make the central point of our existence the priesthood. However, this can be reversed so that the existential conditions and environment is really my community. What kind of community do you live in?
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