By Lindsey Weishar,

I remember a particular night back in October 2019. It was dark and the sky was dappled with stars. In this Kansas City, KS neighborhood, there were hardly any streetlights to compete with the bright half-moon. That night, the Little Brothers and Sisters of the Lamb invited young adults to go on a rosary procession through this neighborhood, which is also home to their monasteries. A shooting had occurred in a nearby building the week before, and they wanted to cover the neighborhood in prayer.

It was beautiful to take candles through darkened streets, to pray a rosary which alternated between Spanish and English, to watch the little brothers and sisters hand candles to their neighbors. They are a visible reminder to myself and to the world that despite the sorrow, the suffering, the woundedness we experience, there is hope. And His name is Christ.

A deep love of neighbor

A Dominican congregation born in France in 1981, the Community of the Lamb has monasteries in Europe, South America, and the U.S. (currently, Kansas City, KS is the only U.S. location). They are a mendicant order, which for the Community of the Lamb means its members go out into their neighborhood, asking their neighbors for food, a practice which promotes the dignity of the neighbors as well as fraternity, and recalls, as little sister Pauline relates, how Jesus “sent his apostles out two by two without money or an extra tunic, surrendering them to His providence.” The Community’s love for the poor is further expressed in a weekly open table, where their neighbors and those needing a meal can join them for dinner.

The Community also has a deep connection with young adults, whom they also invite for a weekly mass and dinner, and to participate in liturgies, night vigils, walking pilgrimages, rosary processions, and neighborhood missions that are part of the Community’s life.

I had the opportunity to sit down with two little sisters: Pauline, who met the little sisters in France when she was 18, and Candice, who recently returned from formation in France. Both mentioned being drawn to the Community’s love for the poor and its liturgy.

When little sister (ls) Pauline first met the Community of the Lamb, she witnessed the inextricable link between prayer and the poor that this order evinced. “I was struck by the beauty of [the] liturgy offered to the poor.” She came to understand that the little sisters’ role in the world was to “be a presence” to those around them, and to “contemplate [Christ’s] face in the face of the poor.” Similarly, ls Candice was struck by how her spirit matched the spirit of the Community: there was room both for contemplation and for being with the poor.

Chewing on the Word

As a contemplative community, prayer is at the heart of the little brothers and sisters’ lives. Meditation and manducation animate both their fraternal life as a community and their interactions with their neighbors. Manducation is the Community’s word for an ancient tradition of meditating on Scripture. This “chewing on the Word” involves repeating lines from the Gospel many times so that the Word begins to penetrate their hearts and minds, leading them deeper into love of prayer and the Lord. ls Candice adds, “We sometimes ask ourselves three questions during this time: Who are you, God? Who am I? What path of conversion are you calling me to today? And we listen to what God has to say to us through His Word.”

As a young adult who has experienced the friendship of the little brothers and sisters, I’ve heard the community manducate the Gospel after it has been read by the priest during Mass. I’ve also participated in manducation during adoration with the Community, in which a passage from the Bible is read, and then, like a verbal lectio divina, anyone praying can share a word or phrase that stuck out to them. After the time of prayer, we might gather for dinner and share a “pearl” of our manducation—an image, idea, or inspiration that came to us through spending time with the Word. As ls Pauline says of the Community’s life: “What we receive in prayer we share with others…Fraternal life is the first place to practice the Gospel. What we manducated, we have to live out in fraternal life. It’s the first place we are beggars.”

Young adults pray with the Community of the Lamb at the Lumen Christi Monastery

This deep abiding with the Gospel gives the little sisters and brothers room to go out into the world. ls Pauline sees parallels between the little sisters and cloistered nuns: Their lives are steeped in prayer and they don’t have a designated apostolate; but for the little sisters, “our cloister is the world.” ls Candice shares that the little sisters and brothers live out the Gospel in the position of mendicant before God and neighbor. Citing Jesus’ call for our hearts in his words, “I stand at the door and knock,” she reflects, “He doesn’t force us to love him, but asks, begs, for our love.” ls Pauline adds, “Jesus himself is a beggar; God is mendicant of our yes, of our love. This experience of the vulnerability of God—we want to share it by this gesture of being mendicant ourselves.” Two or three times a week, the sisters go out into their neighborhood, knock on their neighbors’ doors, and ask for something to eat.

As in all their interactions with those within and outside their monastery, the Community’s friendship with young adults is based on the Gospel. Young adults who want to journey with the little brothers and sisters are invited to become a Young Adult of the Lamb, which ls Pauline describes as “being a young adult in the world…but living his or her prayer life by manducating, living out the spirit of the community as a young adult, to be a child of light.” Similarly, older lay people, children, and priests can also participate in the Community’s charism and prayer.

The Community of the Lamb’s motto, from a cupola in the Lumen Christi Monastery.

This gift of the Community’s life and love to God and neighbor is encapsulated in the image of Christ as lamb. The motto of the order is “Wounded, I will never cease to love.” As ls Candice shares, “A lamb is the only animal that when you want to kill it, it doesn’t resist; it actually turns its head to be slain. This is the image of Jesus’s love offered on the Cross.” ls Pauline adds, “Jesus, like the lamb, gives his life for us, and even though men put him to death, He offers us the gift of His Resurrection. The little brothers and little sisters want to be witnesses of Jesus’ victory and love.” And this image is one the Community of the Lamb embodies in their deep devotion to their relationship with God and through their friendships with all people whose lives they touch.

Learn more about the Community of the Lamb here!

Photo credit: Various friends of the Community of the Lamb. Used with permission of the little sisters.