Neighbors and Community

Sean Domencic, a friend of The Shalom Project and active part of the Cabbage Hill neighborhood, where the Shalom Project house is located, shares about his experiences of intentional community.

“My wife, Monica, and I were preparing to get married in August 2020. We were extremely interested in communal living, as well as the “Social Doctrine” of the Catholic Church and the Gospel’s call to serve the poor with the works of mercy (Matthew 25). All of these desires led us to the Catholic Worker Movement, founded in 1933 by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. So, right as we got married, we began Holy Family Catholic Worker on Fremont St, along with a dear Mennonite-Catholic friend and itinerant CW Elliot Martin. Soon after, Julian Harnish, a former Shalomie, joined us.

This community lasted a little over two years. We hosted weekly roundtable discussions, (nearly) daily Vespers, community meals, Ecological Embertides, and occasional Feast Days. Several guests in need of housing lived with us. Due to our limited space, we expanded to a second house after a year. People came and went over the two years. We enjoyed a close relationship with Poplar Place (another intentional community in the neighborhood) and The Shalom Project as we attended each other’s events. It was always a pleasure to meet new and interesting people, especially to share delicious food and important ideas. Eventually, in the Fall of 2022, we prayerfully decided to dissolve the community due to being evicted from the first house, my wife and I having a child, and some other members needing to leave the community all in a few stressful months.

Now, Monica and I are striving to live out a “lay monastic” life and raising our children at 441 Fremont St. We remain involved with Poplar and Shalom, as well as St Joseph Catholic Church, where I work and where we worship. We are also involved with the other Catholic Worker house at 41 W Vine St, through which Debbie and us help host monthly roundtable discussions. At our home, we continue to host Feast Days, daily Vespers, and the Ecological Embertides. More recently, we have become involved in advocacy for the City’s homeless (the Right to Rest campaign) and Anabaptist-Catholic ecumenical dialogue (we have many close friends among the Bruderhof, publishers of Plough magazine). With its history, walkable downtown market, and its active community organization (such as the beloved compost co-op), Lancaster (and especially Cabbage Hill) has been a blessed and enriching place to live out intentional community.”