Affirmation by the Community

In one of Henri Nouwen's journal entries in The Road to Daybreak, he reflects on Mary's visit to Elizabeth.

Mary receives the great and shocking news that she is going to become the mother of the "Son of the Most High". This news is so incomprehensible and so radically interrupts Mary's humble life that she finds herself totally alone. How can Joseph or any of her friends or relatives understand her situation? With whom can she share this most intimate knowledge, which remains inexplicable even to herself?
God offers Mary an intimate, human friend with whom she can share what seems incommunicable. Elizabeth, like Mary, has experienced divine intervention and has been called to a response of faith. She can be with Mary in a way no one else possibly could.

I am deeply moved by this simple and mysterious encounter. In the midst of an unbelieving, doubting, pragmatic, and cynical world, two women meet each other and affirm in each other the promise given to them.

For three months Mary and Elizabeth live together and encourage each other to truly accept the motherhood given to them. Mary's presence makes Elizabeth more fully aware of becoming the mother of the "prophet of the Most High", and Elizabeth's presence allows Mary to grow in the knowledge of becoming the mother of the "Son of the Most High".

The story of the Visitation teaches me the meaning of friendship and community. How can I ever let God's grace fully work in my life unless I live in a community of people who can affirm it, deepen it, and strengthen it? We cannot live this new life alone. (emphasis added)

In reflecting upon these thoughts, it struck me that whatever gift or call God gives to an individual, it needs to be affirmed by the community of faith. It needs to be affirmed so that it can grow and develop in the one directly blessed by God's gift or call. But God's gift or call is not just for the individual. God gifts and calls individuals so that the community, indeed the world, may be blessed. But the community must affirm the gift or call in order to receive that blessing -- not because of any rule to that effect, but just as a natural prerequisite.

When the community fails to recognize or affirm the gift or calling God gives to one of its own, or worse, when the community actively dis-affirms it, then not only does the community stifle the work of God in the individual, but actually rejects the blessing God has given to the community itself.

Often we are told that the desire for affirmation of one's gifts and calling is a sign of a play for self-importance. While this is possible, it is by no means necessary. Rather, it seems to me that the desire for affirmation of one's gifts and calling by the community goes hand in hand with a desire to grow into the person God is molding one to be, and a desire to give that which one is to the community as gift.

How much of God's gifts do we cheat ourselves out of by failing to affirm our fellows in community? How long can one stay in a community which such affirmation is withheld and not oneself reject the gift or call of God?