Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we want them to be.

In community we are called to care for each member of the community. We can. Choose our friends but we do not choose our brothers and sisters' they are given to us, whether in family or in community." Jean

People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are poor.

A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually.

A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.