The life of Jesus and his apostles is a perfect model of community life. It reflects the Kingdom of God. The Acts of apostles narrates how disciples lived a community life (Cfr. Acts 2:42). They lived together, praying, listening to the word of God and celebrating the Eucharist in memorial of Christ. In the story of humanity, Jesus brings together people of different sensibilities, cultures, and origins, to espouse a common project, to be one and to experience new lifestyle that He proposes to humanity. St. Joseph Allamano is one of the people who responded to God’s call, living a community life. He promoted the spirit of brotherhood, friendship and collaboration. He lived well with his companions (Camissa), the Christians and missionaries. In his teachings, he emphasized the importance of community life with a lot of love and humility towards the missionaries. Some of key virtues of a community that he highlights includes family spirit, fraternal charity, discipline, love of manual work and prayer life. We as missionaries when we read his works, meditate and reflect deeply, there will always be new insight that we get from St. Joseph Allamano.
Our families generally are composed of our biological parents and siblings who contribute a lot to our wellbeing. They help us grow physically, emotionally and spiritually. In addition, they always support us both materially and immaterially. St. Joseph Allamano encourages missionaries to value and cherish their families of origins. We should take care of our families, loving and respecting our parents.
On the other hand, a missionary belongs to a spiritual family. The spiritual family, which is modelled on Christ’s teachings and God’s love. Whereby, brothers from different cultures, nations and different beliefs, live together promoting the spirit of brotherhood and fraternal charity. A family spirit is one of the essential components of missionary life. In fact, St. Joseph Allamano writing to his missionaries encourages them to always cultivate a sense of belonging to the institute and to the community in which they belong. He says clearly “the institute is a family; you should live as true brothers. You are brothers and sisters you must prepare to live together and then work together for life. We should have esprit de corps to the point of giving our lives to each other”. This sense of belonging entails mutual respect of one another, understating and appreciating each other gifts, talents, opinions, being real to each other, appreciating the culture of others and developing human maturity.
Living in a community, enables members to embrace unity, love and peace. Brothers share their joyful and sorrowful moments. St. Joseph Allamano encouraged his members to avoid solitude life. He loved sharing his personal experience with other priests and missionaries who he encountered in his life. When missionaries try to share their daily experiences and challenges which they encounter in the missionary activities, they are able to find a solution together, and if not so they can engage and seek advice from other competent people and missionaries.
According to St. Joseph Allamano, another aspect which contributes to the construction of community is discipline. He emphasizes that discipline is essential for personal holiness, community life and missionary work. Discipline is not a punishment but it’s love, responsibility and self-control. Discipline demands patience and humility. For St. Joseph Allamano, discipline creates peace and harmony within the members of a community and that strengthens the mission. Living together requires, punctuality, modesty, prayers, good manners, mastery of the self, doing justice to oneself and to others.
Community life entails working and praying together. St. Joseph Allamano was a man of God who entrusted his life to God. From his teachings, we can clearly conclude that prayer is the soul of community life. Prayer promotes unity among member and makes mission fruitful. When missionaries don’t entrust their missionary activities to God, they definitely achieve nothing as Christ teaches (Jn 15:5). In fact, prayers are driving forces of mission, they assist a missionary when he or she encounters trials tribulations and hardship. Prayers, therefore becomes part and parcel of missionary life. St. Joseph Allamano encourages fidelity to daily prayers such as the Eucharist, meditation, the rosary and liturgy of the hour. In fact, he emphases the daily celebration of Holy Communion and the visit to the Blessed Sacrament. This is where we get the courage to carry out the mission.
In conclusion, from St. Joseph Allamano’s life and teachings, we can learn that community life is one of the essential elements of missionary life. We need a community in order to carry out effectively the mission, just the way the Holy Trinity carries out the mission of salvation together: the mission of Christ involves also the Father and the Holy Spirit.