Community

Communal life in Heart’s Home is expe­ri­enced in common prayer, meals and recre­ation with fellow mis­sion­aries. This also takes the shape of chores for the house and shared com­mit­ment to the min­istry of com­pas­sion.

A friendship with God.
A friendship with the closest one.

“This is how all will know that you are my dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13, 35). In any Christian com­mu­nity, in the Church, there is no better way to preach than to preach about love. Anything else can be seen as a betrayal. Any other preaching is empty in words and fruit­less. The Missionaries are living together as brothers and sis­ters, like in a family. The Charter they try to follow is very demanding: “They will try to live in the most per­fect com­mu­nion, forming one single heart, for­giving one another imme­di­ately when offended as often as is needed. They shall not crit­i­cize one another but rather will encourage and esteem each other in the Lord.” In other words they will try to live as friends seeing that they are friends of the same Lord and that the same heart is dwelling in them.

You will hear in a few min­utes the fol­lowing state­ment: “You are going to have a com­mu­nity life. It will be for you a force and a con­so­la­tion, at some days a test.” The com­mu­nity life is the biggest joy, but it is a joy which can find its root in the biggest suf­fering. It is the place God uses to forge our heart, to cleanse it, to shape it. He was made of rock. Through the simple everyday life he becomes of flesh. Saint John Vianney used to say: “It liq­ue­fies itself” I would like to say it becomes tears of com­pas­sion and of blood. It is the most beau­tiful mate­rial a heart can be made of since it was from Jesus’ own heart that water and blood flowed out.

We empha­size enough that Heart’s Home is about com­pas­sion and com­forting. Don’t get it wrong dear Missionaries! Compassion starts at home, in your inner being. You are at first the victim beaten up and over whom the Good Samaritan is leaning and at the same time you are the Good Samaritan. Thus com­pas­sion exer­cises itself towards the ones with who you are going to live this year; they too are sin­ners and hurt. Only your love will help them to go fur­ther. There is no use for end­less dis­cus­sions in attempts to dis­cover how suf­fering dis­turbs another’s psy­chology or how best to dis­mantle the minds mech­a­nisms so that can be “made more aware of him­self” You better listen to him!... You better go and offer your brother to God!… There is no use to dream him as a lamb when he is a hedgehog. Love him as he is! Love him as God loves him: uncon­di­tion­ally, lim­it­less. Love him because God gives him to you as a grace of His pres­ence! Go straight into his heart; don’t stay at the periphery, at the sur­round­ings, at the small mat­ters which bother you, at the sto­ries he is telling, always the same ones, at his odd habits… Dear Friends of Children if only you knew how much God loves you, if you only knew the love you are called to share together…”