Generative Communities
Project descriptor
Human maturation is graced when it is a gift of the Spirit. One’s personal collaboration with the divine initiative is built upon an accurate self-awareness which permits a free human response, and this in turn leads to a new personal identity at each stage of life. Thus, to the degree that we know who we are, we are able to give ourselves in free response to the Divine One and to other people.
Individuals adjust to new ways of living in response to succeeding challenges and thereby come to see their life narrative in terms of their developing personal identity. In a similar way, a community may create a narrative of the changing complexion of its members and their common way of living as they respond to different demands throughout the course of their shared history. A community’s accurate representation of itself will allow its members to respond both freely and collectively to the divine invitation of the moment.
People come to religious community with different capacities and for many reasons. There they may discover this wisdom, that, as spousal love comes to generativity and finds its completion in child rearing, so also the members of a religious community are generative to the extent they nurture one another in a vocational way of living in which a person’s every action is in love and freedom open to God, self and others.
Communities may respond to their situation through structures of power or by appealing to an identity external to the community, rather than one generated from within the community’s shared life.
Alternatively, communities may strengthen affective bonds of collaboration and sharing, and thereby use the gifts of members which would otherwise be forgotten, overlooked or inadequately appreciated.
Through our analysis of liturgy, experience in religious life and understanding of human sciences, we want to support communities which would like to join in this conversation.
Liturgy
The process of becoming a Christian, according to the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, calls the parish community to a generativity that renews the community even as it incorporates new members and their personal contributions to the life of the community.
Religious life
A community becomes generative when its members live, communicate and hand on their common way of life and shared values, to which enquirers and those in the process of joining may commit themselves and be respected for their own contribution.
Human sciences
The human sciences such as psychology, sociology and anthropology each offer their scientific methods, language, perspectives.
Biglipgraphical entry in full
Leachman, James Garnet – Daniel Patrick McCarthy, "Generative Communities: Project Descriptor", in Born of the Spirit: Generative Communities. Genitae Spiritu communitates generant, ed. D.P. McCarthy – J.G. Leachman (Documenta rerum ecclesiasticarum instaurata, Liturgiam aestimare = Appreciating the Liturgy, Conversationes Atchisonenses: colles bini – gemini sancti = Atchison conversations: twin hills – holy twins 1), St Michael's Abbey Press, Farnborough (Hampshire) 2025, i, https://generativecommunities.org/generative-communities/ [accessed 11 October 2026].