Brother Bonaventure Scully resides in Danvers, Massachusetts. In this clip he discusses the importance of others in our spiritual life. In order to more fully know ourselves, we need the feedback of others. That is community.

Transcript: “So, I think, what’s in a person doesn’t always come out. It comes out by the way he lives, and what he does, and so on. But the spirituality…that’s why you need one another; to help you come out. To help you share it, and to ask questions.  And to see how other people see you.”

“We were on a big retreat…for the young Brothers and it was in the library at the college, which had a balcony up top somewhere or another. And he was taking pictures from the top. Well, he showed my bald head from the top. At the time the hair was around, but I didn’t realize how flat, how barren that was. So you don’t see your shadow or you don’t see your back and yet that is a part of you, and a part of your spirituality. That’s part of trying…one of the things I say, I’m trying to do things I find that I should work on that I see and know. And ones that I seem to know, but refuse to work on. And ones I don’t see, which needs the help of other people–how other people see you.”

“Like all Americans, we’re individualists too much so. When does, um, when do you need someone else? That’s community.”

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