Healthy Communities as a Context for Sexual Integration

When I have talked about adolescence I have pointed out how internally divided human beings are. They both thirst for and fear communion, permanent communion. They have sexual desires that are to a greater or lesser extent divorced from true relationship. In thirty years of community life, I have noticed that a community is one of the places in which human beings can recover inner unity, provided that the members of the community are deeply united and loving, that they celebrate their unity, that they have a clear code of ethics and a spiritual life directed towards communion with God and with others. Monasteries and convents provide the same kind of experience. They are places where each member of the community, through gentle love and attention, learns to integrate his or her sexuality.
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 196