My teenage daughter's friend Rachel lives in Anchorage's hillside neighborhood, which has a rural flavor even though it is part of a major city.
Although Rachel's house is just a short distance from our large new high school, I feel I've escaped into the woods when I drive down her unpaved road and turn onto her narrow, tree-lined lane.
Her father is a carpenter-turned-fireman, and he built the family's home, a charming little cottage which respects the natural beauty surrounding it.
One recent evening --- one of the first warm, spring nights of the year --- I drove over to pick up Maria at Rachel's. The girls had been in the hot tub on the small deck, but when I arrived dusk was enveloping the woods and all was quiet.
On the way home, I asked Maria: "What do you see when you're in the hot tub? What's back beyond the house?"
I was hoping it was something picturesque, and indeed, Maria told me a little creek meanders through the back of the property and that Rachel told her that last summer she had been baptized in its waters.
Rachel's father and her pastor went down into the creek with her, while her family and friends from their small congregation stood on the banks. Rachel is a member of a covenant church that baptizes adolescents when they are old enough to request it.
Although Rachel does not share our Catholic faith, she is a good friend on Maria's spiritual journey. With a third teen, they pray together weekly and keep prayer journals.
I encourage this ecumenical relationship because I see in Rachel and her family all the qualities of a genuine faith in Christ that I wish for my daughter. A simple sign inside their front door proclaims "Immanuel." Their small congregation is a vital part of their lives.
Small Catholic faith-based communities became popular in South and Central America in recent years --- people who come together in small groups to share, pray, form community --- much like the early Christians.
Friends who have traveled to the Philippines to visit Anchorage's partner diocese say that the parishes there are huge, but that the parishioners are divided into small faith-sharing groups that come alive with the spirit.
This idea has been tried in the United States. Many parishes adopted the "Renew" movement --- small groups forming within the parish to meet weekly for prayer and socializing.
Unfortunately, small, faith-based communities just don't seem to take root in our American church. Why?
Perhaps it's the fundamental individualism of American culture and the growing lack of community in public life. We live, so many of us, in the suburbs where we rarely walk anywhere, much less to the town square. We worship in megaparishes.
And we're so busy: Who has time for a faith-sharing community when our jobs take more and more hours each week? When we barely have time to make it through the fast-food drive-through before soccer practice starts?
The last time I attended confirmation at our large parish, I realized some of the youths didn't want to be there; some of them were virtually strangers to each other. Though we have a good parish where adults work hard, for many of the children it was an impersonal event where they were simply going through the motions.
Then I think of Rachel, standing in the water of the creek by her house, an intimate group of believers around her.
If our children could experience this kind of faith community, wouldn't it make stronger Catholics in a stronger church? Effie Caldarola writes for Catholic News Service from Anchorage, Alaska. |