There could be, I believe, groups of families on the land, surrounding a chapel, disciplined by family life and daily attendance at Mass, all subject to one another, with a division of skills and labor and accepting too the authority of one coordinator. Ideally speaking, this should be as successful as any community of monks who maintain themselves by the labor of their hands.
It is no use comparing such a community of families, however, to a community of monks, because the latter are often maintained by the alms of the faithful. Land is often left to a monastery and usually there is income from the schools. If lay communities were given the start, if young families were given an initial subsidy, free and clear, and left to work out their way of life, great things could be done.--Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
, pg. 234
So
Brian Jacques
had to have been familiar with some of
Dorothy Day's ideas
, or with
Chesterton,
Gill,
Belloc, and
McNabb, or
something
!
2 comments:
I think she's mistaken because families need flexibility, e.g. freedom to move. What do you do when they have to sell their house - must it be sold to someone who wants to enter the community (difficult). What about any resources that the family has plouged into the community - do they get their share paid out to them and how does the community cope with this weakening of its resources. If the family makes a commitment to tie up its resources, how does this affect the children?
I would imagine the best answers would lie in the Amish system, one much the same as the scenarios described and which has survived for generations.
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