Spirit of the Community

The members of the Community of Saint John want to live the evangelical counsels rooted in the three covenants revealed in the Gospel of Saint John:

• The Covenant with Jesus in the Eucharist, the source of unity between silent adoration and the liturgical office. This liturgy seeks to be as close as possible to the monastic liturgy, but its celebration is lightened because of the demands of the apostolic life and so that more time be given to silent prayer.
• The Covenant with Mary, mother and guardian of the growth of faith, hope, and love, and, as such, the divine milieu of the contemplative life. This convenant with Mary - "the disciple took her into his home" (Jn. 19:27) - is the foundation of the unity of fraternal charity lived in communal life.
• The Covenant with Peter in the person of the Holy Father; a covenant of filial obedience to the successor of Peter and to the Bishops, in order to live faithfully and profoundly by the Church's living Tradition.

Consecration to the Blessed Trinity can only be fully realized through the sacraments of Christ the High Priest, who offers Himself as a holocaust victim to the Love of the Father. This is why each member of the Community wants to share in Christ's priesthood. This priesthood, which is the most precious gift given by Christ to His Church, is brought to contemplation (cf Col. 1:24) in the royal priesthood of the faithful and in the ministerial priesthood. That is why each one - following St. John's example and with him a desires to follow Jesus in a fully evangelical life, even to the Cross where He accomplishes His sacerdotal work as Beloved Son. Sharing in this contemplative priesthood demands to receive everything in a loving attitude of prayer, ion order thereby, to community glorifies the Father and helps today's humanity to rediscover a sense of adoration and brotherly love.

In order that their entire life be offered in light of a consecration in the truth which Jesus requested from the Father for His apostles (Jn 17: 17-19), and in order to be faithful witnesses and complete at the service of the church, each one is to receive a sufficiently profound formation of the intelligence. This humble search for the truth " purifying the intelligence and the imagination " assist in a purification of the heart, which is the work of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. This purification is necessary so that love might be more free, and so that the attraction of Jesus be stronger "he who does what is true comes to the light" (Jn 3:21).

In order to allow an opening to the world desired by the Second Vatican Council, this formation includes a philosophical search into what is man, his finality and his aspirations. This formation, however, does not neglect the major current problems with which the Christian is confronted in a world submitted to all sorts of ideologies often atheistic which disfigure God's image in man by preventing his intelligence from being at the service of love. This philosophical research is itself at the service of a theological formation nourished by knowledge of the Word of God according to the Church's tradition, the Father and St. Thomas Aquinas, with a view to communicating the mystery of Christ our savior in the fullness and actuality. In this way, each member of the Community seeks to respond to the Church's mission to present the patrimony of the faith to the men of our time in an understandable and persuasive fashion (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 3).

In order to maintain always this demand for a deepening of the three wisdom: philosophical, theological, and mystical the Community has founded the school of St. John, where this teaching, which is given to the Brothers and Sisters, is also offered to all who desire to partake of it.

The Brothers and Sister live their apostolic presence at the service of the Church in small communities, thereby giving as evangelical witness to fraternal charity fully lived.

It is in response to the call of Bishops that, according to different modalities, these contemplative and apostolic priorities are formed. Each priory has its own proper physiognomy which respect the religious vocation and the service asked by the Church, although all are profoundly united in the spirit.

The brothers and Sisters desire, according to their respective grace, to serve the missionary and universal Church in all her needs, and they want to be principally attentive to the great spiritual and temporal poverties of our times.

The hidden life lived out in the desert of the Congregation should remind each member of the family of St. John of the necessity to within themselves a thirst for contemplation in the footsteps of St. John the Baptist and Mary.