“Monastery with invisible walls”

To what can I compare
The kingdom of God?
It is similar to yeast,
which a woman took and mixed
Into three measures of flour,
until it was all leavened

Luke 20, 21

The vision the Lord gave the Community from its earliest years was that of a call to “a new monasticism.” Men and women, mixed in the world, who do not belong to it because they have decided to belong to God, becoming “one”(mònos) among themselves and with God.

The witness of the Community can be very effective because it is made by lay people who nevertheless live as “monks.”

Community members desire to give their lives to God absolutely, without qualms or limits, even though family life, work and daily chaos seem to make total dedication impossible. And yet, Christ keeps asking for it, and patiently fulfills it by overcoming our resistance.

This is why the Community is a divine school, a workshop of practical apprenticeship of heart purification, prayer, and service. This requires a certain stabilitas, which allows this apprenticeship to take place. Therefore, the Community has its walls and gates, a Rule and a Covenant Commitment, organizes itself into Fraternities, establishes leaders, constitutes itself as a city on the mountain.