Stability: fidelity to people and place.

“We vow to remain all our life with our local community. We live together, pray together, work together, relax together. We give up the temptation to move from place to place in search of an ideal situation. Ultimately there is no escape from oneself, and the idea that things would be better someplace else is usually an illusion. And when interpersonal conflicts arise, we have a great incentive to work things out and restore peace . This means learning the practices of love: acknowledging one’s own offensive behavior, giving up one’s preferences, forgiving” (the vow of stability from Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey, a Cistercian monastery in Dubuque, Iowa).

If a congregation could grab just 1/10 of this kind of commitment...