Jean Vanier
Jean Vanier
Jean Vanier, CC GOQis a Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian. He founded L'Arche in 1964, an international federation of communities spread over 35 countries, for people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them. Subsequently in 1971, he co-founded Faith and Light, with Marie-Hélène Mathieu, which also works for people with developmental disabilities, their family and friends in over 80 countries. He continues to live as a member of the original L'Arche community in Trosly-Breuil, France...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth10 September 1928
CountryCanada
[...] We have to realize that this wound [of loneliness] is inherent in the human condition and that what we have to do is walk with it instead of fleeing from it. We cannot accept it until we discover that we are loved by God just as we are, and that the Holy Spirit in a mysterious way is living at the centre of the wound.
Loneliness is the fundamental force that urgees mystics to a deeper union with God... An experience of God quenches this thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxiacally, whets it, because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each other and every human being as God loves them.
People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.
To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.
The Word became flesh to communicate to us human beings caught in the mud, the pain, the fears and the brokenness of existence, the life, the joy, the communion, the ecstatic gift of love that is the source of all love and life and unity in our universe and that is the very life of God.
Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.
But in another way, community is a terrible place. It is the place where our limitations and our egoism are revealed to us. When we begin to live full-time with others, we discover our poverty and our weakness, our inability to get on with people, our mental and emotional blocks . . . our seemingly insatiable desires, our frustrations and jealousies, our hatred and our wish to destroy.
A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!
Communion is mutual trust, mutual belonging; it is the to-and-fro movement of love between two people where each one gives and each one receives. Communion is not a fixed state, it is an...
To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.
Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.
So we need places, laboratories, the creation of places which could be each one of our homes, where we invite people who are different, and we listen to each other, people of different class groups.
If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
The cry for love and communion and for recognition that rises from the hearts of people in need reveals the fountain of love in us and our capacity to give life.