{"id":53,"date":"2025-09-08T13:49:46","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T13:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/?page_id=53"},"modified":"2025-10-06T01:02:05","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T01:02:05","slug":"story-19","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/story-19\/","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Chapel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Churches and Faith Communities as Third Places\/ Third Place Stories<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There is a Catholic Chapel in a desert whose name and location are wholly unimportant. There are a few chairs, maybe enough for 10 people, a tabernacle, a crucifix, and an altar. But with the heat and the noise and the stress that accompanies military deployment, this Chapel was a place of solace, solitude, and silence where Catholics gathered for Daily Mass and the Rosary. That chapel gave me a deeper sense of community than any local \u2018Third Place\u2019 could. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I built friendships with many who prayed silently in that Chapel. Instead of feeling the pressure and overwhelm of a long list of volunteer activities and groups, badly needed donations, and social commitments that fill any parish bulletin, there was only the simple contemplation of God. We were together, a community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relationship between the active and contemplative life is essential to our faith. I sometimes think we have lost the contemplative component as a means of solitude. We’ve forgotten the quiet chapel as a place for people to bind their wounds through prayer before engaging in the active work of serving others and building true friendship focused on their good. It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve forgotten how to put away our phones and listen for God, trading our sacred places and settling for safe spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A columnist in the New York Times recently wrote about the difference between \u201cgift love\u201d and \u201cneed love.\u201d Our idea of a \u2018Third Place\u2019 is one at which the broken can fill up their \u201cneed love,\u201d filling a void in their hearts with the love of others. In our modern times, I believe that there is too much brokenness and loneliness to believe that these \u201cthird places\u201d can fill that void. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the Chapel gave me a chance to fill that void with the experience of the love of Christ through prayer, so in turn I could freely give through loving service and friendship to others. I hope that as we create \u2018Third Places\u2019 in our Parish halls, we fill them with people who have encountered Christ in a simple chapel, as I have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Anonymous<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Third place Stories List<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Home<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Churches and Faith Communities as Third Places\/ Third Place Stories There is a Catholic Chapel in a desert whose name and location are wholly unimportant. There are a few chairs, maybe enough for 10 people, a tabernacle, a crucifix, and an altar. But with the heat and the noise and the stress that accompanies military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-53","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":919,"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53\/revisions\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flourishingtogether.bc.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}