Within the community, and thus within the individuals who belong to it, there lives an inclination to reach out beyond themselves toward a complete unification. Before it stands the image of a complete community that can't be achieved by any earthly community -- can't in principle, not just accidentally. However the possibility of complete community becomes insightfully given, on the basis of what can be achieved in the midst of the earthly community toward overcoming absolute loneliness. Consequently, an inner incompleteness clings to every earthly community, and an inclination beyond itself.
[Edith Stein, "Community as Reality", in Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities, Baseheart & Sawicki, trs., ICS Publications (Washington, DC: 2000): pp. 285-286.]
