Do yourself no harm, for we are all here

"Do yourself no harm, for we are all here."

These are the words of St. Paul. St. Paul and other Christian missionaries of the early first century had been thrown in prison, and an earthquake had rattled their doors loose. In despair, and desperately afraid of what consequences he would face, their jailer was preparing to commit suicide.

Rather than seek escape, which would have been the expedient thing to do, the Christians stepped out of hiding, and St. Paul admonished the man - don't do this, relax; we didn't run off, you won't be punished! Their compassion for the jailer exceeded their desire for liberty, or their fear for themselves.

I once wrote an article in our parish newspaper about my conversion to Catholicism, and I quoted these words. "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here" is also a powerful statement of community, and I felt it was almost the mission statement of my church.

On Sunday, after Mass, as the choir was packing up, our choir leader spotted a man in the pews, crying. He went over to him, and sat with him, talking to him. When the rest of us locked all the doors of the church and left twenty minutes later, they were still talking.

What is funny about this, is I've seen the exact same scenario many times before. I think I even blogged about a nearly identical incident a few months ago, when my wife found a woman in the pews crying after Mass. She sat with her for two hours. The woman's crisis related to a number of deaths in the family, something we ourselves had just gone through. My wife was exactly what and who this woman needed.

Yesterday, someone was incredulous that a church with as large a congregation as mine could have a close sense of community. He thought churches of such size could only be Walmart churches.

And yet, last year, when one of those metro-style street papers published its annual "Ottawa's best" list, it listed our pastor as "Best priest/minister/imam/rabbi." And while he is a charismatic leader with great gifts, what truly makes our church stand out is community. This is a parish that lives it - they have fun together, at social functions. They live out their special moments together (you should see what happens any time one of our parishioners gets married - half the parish is there. :-) But particularly, this is a parish that reaches out - from an orphanage in Thailand, the support of a pilgrimmage a parish couple took on the Way of St. James, to a CD our music ministry produced, the entire proceeds of which went to the May Court Hospice.

It is the job of any Christian community to reach out to people who need help, and pledge solidarity - "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here." It does not matter whether the gathering that does this numbers less than ten, or rather ten thousand. You will always find a tight knit community when you hear those words. For we are all one body, united with one head. We are here to serve, to help, and to reassure every one that cares to know that "we are all here."