Community catholic experience and personal growth

Abstract

The research’s goal was understand the meaning of faith experiences lived in a catholic community as a personal growth of those who are members. Considering this situation, a proposal was made, to a catholic congregation, that they form a group to share their experiences with others from the community. There were nine participants, all compromised with the volunteer job; five reunions, approximatelly two hours long each, evry 15 days. After each reunion a narrative was composed registering the most significants moments of the group. From all of the narratives, a analysis qualitative-phenomenom, gathering by meaning everything that the participants lived. The conclusion was that the experience of Christian faith in a context of a Catholic community provides personal growth, altough this growth is not always granted by the simple fact of participating in the community, once it’s also sensed and noticed as a contradiction space.