Made for Community

​A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, October 6th, 2024:
Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Genesis
​2.18-24
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Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.”

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

None of us are designed to be alone. From the very beginning, God declares over fledgling humanity that “it is not good that the man should be alone.” God filled the world with things for Adam to share the earth with. Birds and beasts to name and delight in. But that didn’t make Adam less alone. Creation was his to enjoy, but he had no partner. God, in His eternal wisdom, created Eve. All of humanity springs from that first couple. From the start, humanity was made for community. It was invited to be fruitful – not to remain as lonely units, but rather in an active community.

This timeless truth remains today. And yet, we are increasingly tempted by society to live away from community. We are isolated behind a series of closed doors, both physical and emotional. We live in our isolated homes, not knowing our neighbours, and drive in our separate cars to our offices, to work in our closed-off little cubicles. We go to the self-checkout to avoid human interaction. We’re taught not to smile at strangers in the street lest we invite peril. Even surrounded by a sea of voices, we isolate ourselves behind our headphones as we scroll through the endless stream of content. 

The truth of the Scripture cannot be denied. Before the fall, Adam wasn’t subject to death and he could communicate with God. And yet God declared that Adam needed community. All of us, no matter how strong, how clever, how capable, need our community. We need that community in crisis to hold us up and help us. We also need that community when all is well, to conquer our loneliness and the draw of sin. We need our community to hold us accountable and to be at our side as we seek to grow. 

It can be so tough to form that community. Especially as we go through major transitions in life, not every friendship will have the same strength and intensity as it did. People move away. Needs change. The circumstances that draw us together change. And yet, we are still called to keep forming community.

We can do that through intentional action to put ourselves in natural communities like Mass and social groups, but also by accepting those times when God creates connections and reconnections with people whose lives we can enrich and have our lives be enriched by. Our world gets smaller when we accept the lie that independence is the greatest virtue. God didn’t make us for independence. God declared through Adam that we are not made to be alone. So independence can take a back seat while we join ourselves in joyful interdependence on our community, bearing each other’s burdens.




Stéphanie ​Potter​

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