Rediscovering the True Definition of Community in a Time of Crisis

When a massive earthquake devastated the city of San Francisco in 1906, Dorothy Day who was only 9 years old at the time, witnessed humanity's capacity to rise up and care for their neighbors and strangers in need. This crisis and the events that followed clearly had a lasting impact on her and her life’s work as she herself would later spend much of her adult life helping the poor and the oppressed. She later wrote in her autobiography, the “The Long Loneliness,” what she distinctly recalled witnessing on the days that followed the 1906 earthquake:

“While the crisis lasted, people loved each other. It was as though they were united in Christian solidarity. It makes one think of how people could, if they would, care for each other in times of stress, unjudgingly in pity and love.”

What crises like the 1906 earthquake and, now, the global health pandemic we are in, illustrate is that human beings are fully capable of compassion and often choose compassion when granted the opportunity. In times of crises, humanity’s innate tendency is to rise to the occasion in solidarity with others.

In the past few weeks of this global pandemic that we are in, we have witnessed countless signs and stories of solidarity and compassion popping up in every corner of the globe. People being kind to one another. Healthcare professionals putting their lives on the line to care for the sick and the dying. The young and the healthy making the effort to reach out to the older generation in many different ways, like running errands for them and sending them notes. An Italian priest giving up a ventilator for another patient. This outbreak has served as a reset button in many ways for us to re-think and rediscover our sense of community. The pandemic miseries have us realizing the message of Saint Paul that we truly are one: “if one part of the body suffers, all the parts of the body suffers” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

None of us can do without each other, and the health crisis we are in has made that crystal clear. Our need for that sense of community is as natural as our need for water or air and that need is stronger than ever.

Defining Community

The Greek word for community, “koikonia,” appears 22 times in the New Testament. Our modern conceptualization of its meaning might not capture the original essence of what Saint Paul was referring to in his writings, but there is a deeper sense of bond and oneness in his use of the word koikonia. We are called to a very profound sense of community, modeled on the “community” that is the Trinity.

The beloved founder of EWTN, Mother Angelica, said: “The Trinity—three Persons in one God—is a community—a family. God is love and that love extends Itself in the Christian and in turn, must extend Itself to the world—the Family in the Trinity and the Trinity in the Family.”

The word “community” contains a root word, as well as a prefix and suffix, that may denote its special meanings. Within “community” are the words “common unity.” There’s also the Latin word cum which means with or together and the Latin word munus which means gift. We may not always see it that way and we often take it for granted but our common unity, our shared humanity, is a gift. Community gifts us with that sense of belonging and that sense of oneness.

The global pandemic has shown us that our relationship with one another is truly interdependent. In the concept of Christian community, our existence is defined by our relationships. We are children of God. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Just like the Father is a father in relation to the Son, and the Son is a son in relation to the Father. And the Father and the Son are one. Jesus prayed that we, too, may be one, just like He and the Father are one (John 17:22). And though there are many different parts, they all form one body. So it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink (1 Corinthians 12:12-13). There should be no division in the body, but that its members should have mutual concern for one another. If one part suffer, all the parts suffer with it. If one part is honored, all the parts share its joy (1 Corinthians 12:25-26).

View from Above

Astronauts who get to view the earth from space for the first time often describe our planet as stunning, tiny, and fragile. There is what's known as the "overview effect" in which there is a profound cognitive shift in their awareness of the sobering reality of our place in the universe, our smallness and our connectedness. This global pandemic, as we pause our activities and reexamine our priorities, presents an opportunity for us to come to the same profound realization of how fragile life on earth is and how connected we truly are.