“God is gathering us out of all regions
till he can make resurrection of our own hearts
from the very earth and teach us that
we are all of one substance, and members of one another;
for the one who loves his neighbor loves God,
and the one who loves God, loves his own soul.”
– St. Anthony of the Desert

Anyone who knows me knows that I am an introvert and not just an introvert but extremely introverted. When I was in high school, my dream was to become a hermit. I wanted my own cabin somewhere in which I lived a selfsustaining life as much as possible. This was long before computers and cell phones although I did have an electric typewriter. Then I went to college and wondered about becoming a nun, realizing I would probably enjoy some community.

And then I met Frank and an entirely different life blossomed before me. But I was still an introvert—I still needed time alone, time to sit in silence. I also still needed community as we are created for it. Over the years, that has worked itself out in various ways. When we worked at the Warner Robins Daily Sun community meant getting together with co-workers occasionally for a meal or to play pool or spending time with family. This was also true when we worked for the Rome News-Tribune.

On the Appalachian Trail, we spent a lot of time hiking alone; in fact, we didn’t really run into anybody for the first couple of months on the Trail. Later, there was a group of us that hiked together but separately so that most nights some part of that group would be together at a shelter or campsite.

And as the years flew by, community was found in family friends, work friends, church friends, and most importantly, for me, in the spiritual companions I found when I joined the Third Order, Society of Saint Francis.

An important part of our “Obedience” is to be involved in a “Fellowship,” which is a gathering of Franciscans whether they be in the process toward profession or professed for many years. Meetings can be as often as monthly or quarterly, depending on the convenience for those attending. As Forming the Life of a Franciscan notes:

“Francis attracted others to himself as soon as he began to live a life of total dedication to the love of Jesus. Like Jesus, he found brothers and sisters who wanted to walk with him in the Gospel way. Longing often for a life of solitude devoted entirely to prayer, Francis found community a mixed blessing. His brothers and sisters often disappointed him; they brought him both joy and grief.”

Community is one of our obligations as tertiaries, and why it is an important part of the process toward profession. But community is work. When I was in the process, I was limited to attending the annual meetings of the Southeast Convocation, which usually were held in Atlanta. There, I met Franciscans from all over the south but to be truthful, I usually avoided the social hours after dinner and spent the remainder of the evening in the quiet of my room.

For a number of years after I professed, I was involved in a Fellowship that took place in Athens, Georgia. That was a five-hour-plus drive from our home in Saint Marys, four from Savannah. It used to take three professed Tertiaries to form a Fellowship and at the time, I was able to be that third Tertiary. Fellowship meetings are times of being together as a family rather than ‘meetings’ in that sense of the term. Community worship, catching up on each other’s lives, and talking about Franciscan books or the like as well as a shared meal are all part of a Fellowship meeting.

I hoped to make things a bit easier on myself by suggesting that we meet once a year closer to me—perhaps at Trinity in Statesboro or another church south of Athens. But that was out of range for a number of our members, and instead, I received permission to be a solitary Tertiary. I still took part in whatever meetings or events I could, but my ‘solitariness’ lasted about a decade.

Things changed again in 2023 when Frank entered the process to become a Franciscan Tertiary and we attended a General Convocation meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, where we met together and in small groups with Tertiaries from all over the Americas—Canada, the U.S., Central, and South America.

When we returned to Savannah, we contacted some local-ish Tertiaries and we all agreed that it would be nice to start a new Fellowship made up of those in the process and those professed from South Carolina and Georgia. A few months in, we were joined by someone from Alabama. While the Sister Simplicity Fellowship mostly meets monthly by Zoom, we meet in person twice a year—once in Charleston in the Spring and Savannah in the Autumn. It is always joyful to get together with fellow Franciscans.

Even as finding Christ in our brothers and sisters is part of our Franciscan journey, we learn from each other and share each other’s joys and sorrows. As Jesus walked in a community of disciples who broke his heart through betrayal, denial and misunderstanding, so we too walk in a community of love with those who will disappoint and puzzle us, but also love us more than we deserve. Jesus defined the relationship that we ought to have with our community: we are to be a servant to all.

While I will still, and always, need my quiet/alone time, I will never underestimate the value of Christian community. It is important to be in community with fellow Christians whether it be in church or within a group in one’s church, in a Cursillo Ultreya group, or a religious order. It seems particularly important in a rapidly growing secular world that we hold on to and learn to become community with those in our church homes.

As Richard Rohr noted, “St. Augustine said something quite shocking but surely true: ‘The church is precisely the state of communion of the whole world.’” And if we can’t find community in our churches then we can’t share that connection with the world.

• What group have you been a part of that offered you this sense of close community?