People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.

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.

Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal.

To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.

Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we most want, yet it is what we fear the most.

Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.

Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.