In his book "Reinventing Australia", Hugh McKay talks of the "fragmentation of traditional Australian tribal groupings" leading to the loss of a frame work for passing on values and morals. He points out that it is through community and in our relationships, that we develop a sense of good and evil and that this tends to happen more by example than by spelling it out.

There are many reasons for this marked social trend - historical and social. Even those technological advances that have freed us in many ways may have contributed. According to Mckay "information technology has become so sophisticated that data transfer is often confused with communication". Likewise in the home "the dishwasher replaces an episode of personal interaction during the washing up; the microwave oven reduces the need for the family to eat at the same time."

The church has not escaped these trends in society. The spiritual bonds that unite us are real and fundamental and the church rightly refers to its members as a "community of worshippers". However in a large parish like Norwood the opportunities to meet and know our many co-parishioners are limited,

The Benedictine monk Dom Bede Griffith spent 35 years in India and has written eloquently of the profound interrelations of Eastern and Western mysticism. He notes the unique place of community in Christianity. "The Christian mystical experience is always in terms of community...although certainly personal and individual, is always also implicitly or explicitly a community experience. ... It comes out clearly in the Acts of the Apostles when, after Pentecost, the Spirit descends on the disciples. Jesus had promised them that when he departed he would send the Spirit and that the Spirit would abide with them. So the Spirit descends and then it is said that the disciples were all of one heart and soul. The experience unites the people together as one. Then another dimension of the experience is revealed. They sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all as any had need. So the descent of the Spirit forms the community and the community is such that everything is shared even at an economic level. This is a particularly Christian understanding. It is the descent of God into the whole context of human life. That is the primary importance of the historical dimension, that God is always seen in relation to the human world, to human history and to human relationships"

In 1972 Father Peter McGrath, a Passionist priest, saw the possibility for small groups forming "Families", as a way of fostering a community spirit in the parish of Terry Hills, Sydney. In the past 10 years, Family Groups have grown up in many parishes in Australia and New Zealand .Under the guidance of the Passionists they were introduced to Norwood in 1990.

There is a worldwide trend in the church towards the formation of small groups within which community life may be experienced more fully, a trend actively supported in Adelaide by Archbishop Leonard Faulkner. Different groups stress different aspects of community life. Family Groups provide a social context for a cross section of the parish to meet. To use Dom Bede's words, the spiritual context is implicit rather than explicit.

For some the idea of being part of a community is immediately attractive. Others find the potential threat to privacy repugnant. Our society places a high premium on privacy.

1994 has been declared "The Year of Families". Can this well meaning declaration make any difference to the problems of families in widely divergent communities around the globe? Perhaps Scott Peck can be given the last word. In the beginning of his book , "The Different Drum" he declares that "in and through community lies the salvation of the world. Nothing is more important. Yet it is impossible to describe meaningfully to someone who has never experienced it - and most of us have never had an experience of true community".

Peter Reilly

Helen Reilly