My experience with the Communion of Goods, living in the Shalom Community since 1997, was yet another proof of God’s Love and Mercy for me, and one that reached my family and also many brothers and sisters.
My name is Alexandre Reis, I am a member of the Shalom Covenant Community, married, and with Definitive Promises. I have been with the Toronto mission in Canada since 2004. Originally from Salvador, Brazil, I lived the first years of my relationship with the Communion of Goods in a very relative and distant way. Still very young, I saw the Communion of Goods as a great challenge in the financial order, but above all, in the spiritual order. I knew it would only be by grace that it would develop and bring about the effect that God had reserved for me.
Over these years, I went through countless situations where I was visited by the Grace of the Communion of Goods. I saw the Divine Providence happen in my life, in my family’s life, and in the Community’s life, and with each experience, my heart filled with love and responsibility for the effective cultivation of this gift, which is the sharing of goods. I realized that the Communion of Goods is not an expense in my financial planning, whether in the family or in my company, but rather a great investment in my Heaven. I understood that I don’t “pay” the Communion of Goods, but return it as a sign for everything I received from God.
Many times I have been tempted to negotiate or reduce my contribution, yet God has remained steadfast in His purpose—to convert me to trustful abandonment and evangelical poverty, virtues I greatly admire in the lives of the saints, especially Saint Joseph and Saint Francis of Assisi.
I particularly remember the time of the pandemic, when I was profoundly touched—both personally and as a community—by Divine Providence. We had just moved our Evangelization Center to a larger and therefore more expensive location when the pandemic struck. At that moment, I was able to see concretely the Power of the Lord, who desired that initiative which, in my weakness and lack of faith, had seemed to me sheer folly.
My testimony is simply that of someone who has touched and experienced the magnificent gift of Divine Providence—which, far from being a theology of prosperity, has been in my life a lifeline, a true turning point in my journey of salvation.
Alexandre Reis
