Lost in Faith

Elie Wiesel says that, in Hasidism, “Everything becomes possible by the mere presence of someone who knows how to listen, to love and to give of himself.” This is the essence of genuine community. A person is not left alone in his joy, and certainly never in his sorrow… “None of us today can live on any real level of awareness unless we emotionally get hold of the fact that most of the people who appear so calm and assured have an incredible amount of tumult and pain in their lives. Every human being comes into adulthood wounded. “We have already been wounded by our relationships with others when we hear the impossible call to be a builder of community. Jesus was aware of this. In his life with the twelve he gives us a healing-teaching model. His understanding of our condition is revealed in the statement: “I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners” (Mark 2:17 NEB). The first step on the spiritual path is the understanding that all is not well with one’s life. The eleventh-century Abbot, Adam of Perseigu, must have thought so because he came to the idea that one went to a monastery primarily to be cured. After a period of healing and recovery, one was ready to be educated as a New Being…” Elizabeth O’Connor, The New Community, 63 

taken from NextReformation