RELIGIOUS LIFE
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DOMINICAN CENTRAL PROVINCE, OPCENTRAL.ORG
Living the good life in community by Father Douglas-Adam Greer,
Father DouglasA d a m G r e e r, O.P. is a friar of the Dominican Central Province (opcentral. org). He is the theology department chair at Catholic Central High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
O.P.
LIVING IN community is both rewarding and demanding. Each member of a religious community will need to compromise, adjust, forgive, and be forgiven, over and over. Pictured here are men who live in a Dominican studium, or house of studies, in St. Louis.
Communal life is an essential part of the Christian witness of religious communities, and it takes constant effort.
C
OMMUNITY was the thing that attracted me most to religious life. Common life gives us the opportunity to live with a group of intensely committed Christians who will support, encourage, and love us, and expect the same in return as we serve others. Now that I’ve lived in community for a number of years, I thought I’d share with you just what that experience is like because it might help you make a decision about whether you are called to religious life. Let’s start with a definition. What is a community? What does common life look like? I like this definition from my fellow Dominican Philip Neri Powell, O.P.:
38 | VISION 2020 | VocationNetwork.org
