Community And Friendship 5

I returned to the Christian faith shortly before turning twenty, following a dramatic backsliding of some eighteen months or so.  Without success I tried to reintegrate into St. Margaret's but they had become already conservative, middle class and politically very rightwing and there was no way they could accommodate me.  I ended up as a member of a band of vagabond Christians.  Some of us lived together, some not.  There was no organization and no charter to who we were, but we were beyond any shadow of a doubt.  We were.

The unifying factor was a series of weekend retreats sponsored by a community of Catholic charismatics, known as Live-In.  We had in our number an Eastern Catholic Priest of the Order of St. Thomas who had a special dispensation from Rome, due to all kinds of arcane historical details, to serve the sacraments to Catholics and Protestants alike and he became for us a unifying factor.  We regularly met every week in the home of a couple from St. Margaret's for worship and prayer.  We were people from all walks of life, all branches and experiences of Christendom, all ages, experiences.  Many were survivors of extreme trauma, others not so.  But the sense of God's love through the felt and experienced presence of the Holy Spirit so united us that these times of group prayer and worship became a refuge of healing, comfort and restoration.  Friendships blossomed and flourished here, again without the closed exclusivity of best friends or cliques.  We were an open circle, welcoming and widening.  Everyone was welcome, no one was turned away for the simple reason that we were ourselves all in love with the love of God and this had become our unofficial mandate.  There was joy, humour, sharing, mutual caring and support.  We were always welcome in one another's homes.  Should anyone drop in unannounced in time for dinner an extra plate was set on the table, no questions asked.  We loved one another and those whom God sent to us.

The prayer group was suspended for about a year, then, after I left Dilaram (I will write in my next post about this traumatic episode) I restarted the weekly group and again we grew together until we reached a natural conclusion.

More later...