Formed to Live in Community

(I'm back after a brief hiatus submitting essays and assignments.)

In an earlier post, I referred to common prayer in small groups every other day. There are two kinds of small groups that a person (formally) belongs to here at De Nobili College. The first is the Province group which, as the name suggests, is the group comprising all members of a Province (philosophers, theologians, priests and brothers) residing in the community. Province groups meet on Wednesdays for common prayer before supper and common recreation after. Each Province has its own dedicated room where one can find newspapers, periodicals, books etc. in one's native language and Province group meetings are occasions for members of the Province to get to know better the people they will be living and working with for the rest of their lives. It is also an occasion for sharing news from and views about the Province. Often, a scholastic refers to going to the Province room or one of these gatherings as simply "going to the Province" - an indicator of the sense of home and belonging that comes from this group. As the only member of the British Province at DNC, I am attached instead to the Kerala Province, which is the Jesuit Province in my home state.

The other kind of small group a person belongs to is the Living Group. This is a group consisting of 8-10 scholastics at the same stage of formation (philosophers and theologians have separate living groups). The purpose of the living group is to create a sense of community at the micro level. A living group has four main functions:

1. Common prayer that is more intimate and personal than the whole-community prayer (there are nearly 90 philosophers alone at DNC)
2. Household chores (scullery, cleaning, gardening) are allocated to living groups.
3. Liturgical duties (sacristan, community prayer) are also allocated to living groups.
4. When a scholastic falls ill, the living group takes care of him in the infirmary.

What is the living group experience like? The first thing I noticed was the sense of diversity. A recent Tablet article used the expression, "Jesuits are as distinct as snow-flakes". I belong to a living group that has North Indians and South Indians; scholastics from working class, middle class, upper class and tribal backgrounds. There is a deliberate attempt to make living groups as diverse as possible when they are set up at the beginning of the year; living groups usually go away for a day of 'faith sharing' (i.e. sharing one's life story from a faith perspective). The living group is a microcosm of the Society of Jesus in India and offers a balanced experience when combined with that of the Province groups.

Second was the sense of giftedness. The diversity of members is not merely in where we are from, what languages we speak, our backgrounds etc. but also in the gifts we offer to the group (and, by extension, to the community and the Society). Living groups enable the sharing of gifts in the diversity of activities engaged in and the more intimate space of developing relationships.

Third was an observation of the similarities and differences with my prior experience of community in the noviceship. The novices' community was about the same size and at least equally diverse – at an international level. Like the noviceship one is 'thrown into' (an expression from my Phenomenology class) Jesuit life in a diverse group that one "didn't know from Adam" (an expression – this time – from my novice-master). Like the noviceship, intimacy is facilitated through a variety of activities (in my experience, men bond better through activity – sport, projects etc. - than simply conversation). There are a few significant differences, though. The novices' community lived and worked in relative isolation from other similar communities (we met with the Lyon and Nuremberg novices once a year for a week-long symposium) and Jesuits; this isn't the case here – in addition to Province groups, there are both formal and informal study groups and other activity groups and teams. As novices, we had a clear superior (the novice master); living groups have a leader who play a coordinating role with other house officers and liturgy and party coordinators but no superior.

Finally, unlike the noviceship, the emphasis here is on formation rather than discernment [of one's vocation]. This is not to say that the element of formation was insignificant in the noviceship or that one does not continue to discern as a scholastic; but the emphasis has definitively shifted from "Should I take Jesuit vows?" to "How do I live the vows I have taken?". This is, of course, the question that animates scholastic life (and beyond) as a whole; living groups offer another input through the experiences of diversity, giftedness, previous apostolic / community experiences and future apostolic / community expectations.