7. Reconciliation

We give some further evidence of humility when we merely admit candidly that there is no ideal community life. With his usual realism, Master Ignatius does not hesitate to expel from a community and even from the Society "anyone seen to be a cause of division among those who live together, estranging them among themselves or from their head" (Const. 664).

Happily, one often reads in the ex-officio letters that there are none of these instigators among us. However, there are among us community members who resign themselves to a peaceful coexistence, which allows real tensions and misunderstandings to be kept quiet but which precludes any real progress in community life. The evidence is very clear: community life cannot grow without the grace of pardon that the Lord, present in our midst, offers in the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation. It is for every one of us who have been forgiven to forgive, to believe that the other can improve, to see the other in a new light – and, once we are reconciled, to continue on our way to God together. At some point in the growth of the community, in the context of a community reconciliation (NC 236), it should be spiritually feasible to show concern for the ongoing conversion and the spiritual and human progress of each of our brothers (a helpful and productive renewal of our tradition of fraternal correction).