Editor’s update: In February 2020, L'Arche International released a report detailing an investigation that found Jean Vanier "engaged in manipulative sexual relationships with at least 6 adult (not disabled) women," and was aware of sexual abuses against women committed by his mentor, Fr. Thomas Philippe. For additional reporting and commentary on this news, visit sojo.net/jean-vanier.
I live with people who have no voice, who are excluded from worldly affairs, who are outcasts, frequently considered mad, and who so often have been excluded—even from the good news of Jesus. I want in some way to be in solidarity with all those in the world who are excluded because of a disability and because of mental handicap. I want to be united too with their parents who suffer so deeply.
I want to speak in the name, also, of those who are homeless. Some are in the prisons of our lands, in overcrowded cells, condemned for their political activity and struggle for justice, for their fidelity to Jesus, or for their deeds against the common law. Others are in those large camps for refugees; others are immigrants in strange lands.
I want to speak in the name of those who are caught in the world of drugs, those enslaved by prostitution, and all the lonely, the old, the hungry, the lepers, the sick, the dying. I want to speak in the name of suffering children, and in a special way, those children who are rejected even before they are born.
I want to speak in the name of all those who feel that they are useless, unwanted, a load on the shoulders of society, a nuisance to the so-called normal people, the rich. Their hearts are hurt. They live in anguish and with a feeling of guilt because nobody has told them that they are precious and important.
Let me tell you of Paul. He is now 22 years old. We met him some years ago in a hospital. He is blind, deaf, and has severe brain damage. He had been abandoned at the age of 4 by his suffering family, who could not cope with his sickness. He never heard those words "You are my beloved son in whom I put all my joy"—words so necessary for the security, growth, and peace of every child.
Because he had not lived in a deep relationship of love and trust with his parents, he had closed himself up behind deep psychological walls, damping thus the pangs of anguish, loneliness, and guilt, which are the greatest of human sufferings. And I say "of guilt" because so often the rejected of the world sense that if they have been rejected, it is because they are no good, they are evil.
Paul has such a yearning of love, and yet he is so frightened of love. When one has been wounded in one's heart as he has, other people become dangerous, and one is obliged to hide behind walls of fear and distrust. It will take a long time yet for Paul to lower those walls. It will take many years during which we are called to touch his body with reverence, to bathe his body with love, to clothe him, to play with him, to walk with him, to spend time with him and to hold him in deep respect.
The crushed and lonely of the world are waiting, like Paul, for someone to enter into a relationship of mutual trust with them, to walk with them and reveal to them their dignity as precious children of God. The lonely and the unproductive of the world are frequently not able to enter into the struggle for liberation; they are too tired and weak, too poor, too undernourished and sick.
SOME 2,000 YEARS ago, the Eternal Word of God entered our history. By becoming one of us and by walking with us, he revealed to us—men and women of all ages—our beauty. His eyes and hands and voice told the lepers and Mary of Magdala that they were important.
But we did not welcome him. We rejected him, we imprisoned him, we tortured him, we crucified him. And yet by his broken body and his blood that was shed in sacrifice, he revealed to us that we are infinitely loved by God. We are not a condemned and evil people, but a people reborn in forgiveness and hope by the Spirit of Jesus.
Jesus continues to walk on this earth today, but in us, his church, his disciples, even more his friends. We are his mystical body. He wants us to be his hands, his eyes, his voice, his face, his heart, to reveal to the Pauls and all the people of the world, and especially to the poorest and the weakest, that they are precious to God and can grow to bring life to others. He sends us with the power of the Holy Spirit to be with the poor, not just to come and see them now and again, not just to see what their problems are and to improve their conditions, not to give them theories and ideologies, but to live a real covenant relationship with them.
God wants us not to be afraid to leave the security of wealth, power, and knowledge in order to open our homes to them and to make our homes with them, to become one body, one community, one communion with them; to become with them more truly the church of Jesus Christ.
Thus, in the name of Jesus, we will grow in freedom together in spite of tyrannies and of oppression. And we will build together communities of reconciliation, where each person will find a place, where men and women can cooperate together, respecting and loving their differences, and where Christian families can deepen and flourish in love.
Paul has taught me so much. He has taught me that if God is hidden in the beauties of creation and in the grandeur of worship and in the wisdom of theologians and scientists, God is also hidden in the broken bodies of the lepers, the sick, and the suffering. God is hidden in the child. "Whosoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name, welcomes me. And whosoever welcomes me," says Jesus, "welcomes the one who sent me" (Luke 9:48).
Who can believe in this message: that the eternal and almighty God is to be found in the little ones, in the powerless, the crushed and suffering ones of the world, and that to live with them is to live with God?
Paul has revealed to me that what is most precious in me is my heart and that my head and hands are of value to me only to the degree that they are at the service of love relationships that flow from the covenant of Jesus. It is true that his weakness, his fragility, and his trust have awakened me and called me forth and are leading me on the road to healing and wholeness. He is calling me from the isolation of my pride and my fears into compassion and community.
BUT THAT IS not all Paul has taught me; he has revealed to me something else. He has revealed to me the place of hate and violence, of depression and fear, that is inside me. He has awakened in me certain deep wounds of anguish that I did not know existed and that have been sleeping inside me behind my own barriers of power and efficiency, of knowledge and hypocrisy, and of the desire to be admired by people.
Walking with the poor, I have touched on my own poverty. Their wounds have revealed mine. They have shown me my fears of truly following Jesus in trust, humility, and poverty. How often I wanted to flee and hide in knowledge, in dreams for tomorrow, in power, or in human security. Yes, the poor disturb me. And yet I know that my covenant is with them, that in them and with them, I meet Jesus Christ. He is hidden in the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the prisoner: Jesus, life of the world.
And I must learn to meet Jesus not only in the poverty of Paul, but also in my own poverty. I need Jesus, our Savior, to teach me to love. Jesus the lover is hidden in the wounds of Paul, but also in my own wounds. His wounded and pierced heart is hidden in the weakness and wounds of humanity. His heart is an amazing source of love, hidden at the heart of the church, hidden in the sacrament of the poor, hidden in the kingdom of God that is present among us today, in all who are lost and hopeless.
We are called to drink deeply from the heart of Christ, so that we, the church, can become a home for the lonely and the crushed of this earth. Christ puts into the arms of his church the suffering and the hungry of this world so that they may heal us, call us down from our pedestals of power and wealth, and lead us into the wisdom of the beatitudes.
Yes, the unity we are yearning for, the unity of the body of Christ, can only come about as we become one with Jesus and one with the excluded of the world. It is they who will lead us into the Holy City, they who came running joyfully to the wedding feast, while the rich refused the invitation. As we learn to wash their feet, asking their forgiveness, as we learn to walk humbly with them, and as they teach us to dispossess ourselves of undue wealth, we will discover the wealth of love and truth hidden in their hearts, sometimes hidden under anger, depression, and sickness. And we will be united, not in desires of revenge and in hatred of those who are rich and who oppress, but with hearts of real forgiveness. The love of Jesus, lived in unity and community, is stronger than the power of mighty armaments.
THE CHURCH FOUNDED by the crucified and risen Jesus and animated by the Holy Spirit is called today, as yesterday, to be a humble, trusting church and to announce with audacity the wonderful news of peace and salvation.
We are called to be a church of welcome, a church that is poor and walks with the poor, a church that understands and lives the power of nonviolence—a nonviolence that is not weakness, but strength. We are called to be a church that yearns from the depths of our being to live in the total truth and the fullness of the light of Christ, a church prepared to enter the struggle against the forces of evil and of hate.
Each of us is called to be the heart and the face of Jesus, Lamb of God, offered in sacrifice. We are called to be prepared to give our lives in love and union with our crucified and risen Jesus and in the company of so many who have given their lives before us, or are suffering crucifixion today.
And if today we cannot drink all together from the same chalice of the blood of Christ, let us drink together from the chalice of suffering: the suffering of division, the division among ourselves, and the division with the poor and the suffering. Let us renew then with greater humility our total trust in Jesus, life of the world.
Jesus, on the night before he died, took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples and said: "Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my body." He broke the bread, sign of his broken body. We too are his broken body. The church is broken; humanity is broken; each of us is broken. And for having so frequently disfigured the message of Jesus, let us weep and ask forgiveness from God and from one another, from all men and women of the world, and especially from the poorest and the weakest.
Let him then take today the hearts of each one of us, bless them and break them—thus breaking our hardness and pride—and give them, renewed in love and humility, transformed in him by the Spirit, to all men and women, especially to the poor, the lonely, and the lost.
But broken body, we yearn to become whole, to become one in him, in a Holy City where no one is excluded and where the weakest and the least have their rightful place. That is our hope for the life and redemption of all men and women. And this shall come about as we truly become God's children, trusting deeply in God.
In 1964 Jean Vanier, author of Be Not Afraid and Community and Growth, founded L'Arche, a community with the handicapped in Trosly-Breuil, France, which has become the inspiration for many such communities throughout the world. He delivered this address at the Celebration of the World Council of Churches in July 1983.
Got something to say about what you're reading? We value your feedback!