In some vicissitudes of the community (due to situations of personal crisis or collective, or when prayer fails) forces arise impetuously in the individual inferior and archaic, completely dominating the personality. Consequently, high tension situations occur, and deep cracks open in the body of. fraternity, which sometimes last for a long time.
If in such moments Jesus is not alive in the hearts of the brothers, engenders intimate conflicts and frustrations. The anxieties that are open doors to neurosis, The different disturbances of the personality. And along these roads we find desolate, sad and anxious people.
In fraternal coexistence, it is necessary to live attentively so that impulses do not surprise, and we must be awake and prepared to neutralize the loads of depth.
Living attentively means the portion of personality that we call consciousness be populated by Jesus, a living and present Jesus, so that his reactions may be my reactions, his reflections my reflections, his style my style.
The characteristics of impulses are surprise and violence. When we are careless, we are capable of any atrocity, which we regret after. And we say: how horrible! but it’s already done. With a hectic start we are capable of ruining in a few minutes the unity we had forged with difficulty for many months.
An immature subject is one in whom the unconscious predominates in greater proportion and more compulsively. These individuals deform reality, projecting their interior world on the outside world and identifying them. The more they predominate –in a personality – conscious intentions, greater maturity and balance. He will be an integrated member of the fraternity.
There is a correlative progression here. The more one prays, the more “alive” Jesus is in the man. The more “alive” he is, the more the brother’s conscience is armed by that presence and awaken. The more armed your conscience is, the more your unconscious is correspondingly weaker. And in this way, the reactions and behavior of the individual will be more rational, balanced and fraternal.
Taken from the book “Come with me” chapter II, subtitle “Living attentively” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
