Vanier found a hidden world of anguish
At the end of a steep hill in the
neighbourhood where I grew up, there stood a house shrouded in mystery. Adults
whispered about a “retarded” child who lived there and who was confined to a
room. They argued about whether or not his parents should put him in a “home”.
I was both fascinated and afraid
when I passed by the house. I had no context for the comments I overheard. I
wondered about the boy, about his appearance, how he spent his day, was he
lonely, and would he hurt me if he came out of the house.
That was in the mid 1960’s around
the time that Jean Vanier, the 2015 Templeton Prize winner, visited an asylum, a “home”, in Trosly, France. It was the house of my neighbourhood on
a grand scale and he was as ignorant of it as were the people in my
neighbourhood.
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| Credit: http://templetonprize.org/images/2015/vanier-headshot.jpg |
He discovered a hidden world of
anguish, shame and hopelessness, a place where intellectually disabled people
were shut away from sight. So, he took action, inviting two of the men who had
no family to live with him. Their mutually transformative experience of living
as peers - eating, doing chores and, sometimes, fighting - gradually
began to attract others.
This was the humble beginning of
L’Arche, a unique organization of 147 communities around the
globe that fosters the mutual transformation of all its members – whether able
or disabled. Emphasizing our
common humanity, L’Arche is a sign of hope for the world, demonstrating that
people of different cultures, religions and abilities can live together in peace.
The liberating experience of L'Arche embraces vulnerability
Vanier’s experience in that first
L’Arche community was liberating.
Freed from the culture of success where people are valued for their
abilities and achievements, Vanier discovered what it means to be fully
human. In Vanier’s experience and
thought, to be fully human means to discover that each individual is a
treasured part of the human family; before being a Christian or a Jew, before
being an American or a Russian, before having visible or invisible
disabilities, we are a person.
When Vanier speaks of what it
means to be fully human, he embraces the vulnerability that many of us try to
hide. For Vanier, the story of every individual is the discovery of one’s
fragility; we are born, grow and die in weakness.
Living with vulnerable people has
taught him that the cry of the disabled for love is the common cry of every
person. It is a cry that echoes the heart of God. When people are loved for who
they are, not for what they can do, the spirit soars and they can enter more
deeply into relationship. “To become fully human is to let down the barriers,
to open up and to discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the jobs
and responsibilities, there is you.”
Vanier made a lasting impression in a small town
I first heard of Vanier in the
1970’s. My late mother-in-law, who
was instrumental in bringing Vanier to our diocese to give a retreat, said of
him, “He preached the gospel by
the way he lived.” He made a deep
and lasting impression on her, as he did on other individuals who attended that
retreat, and who, despite the passing of decades, still speak about him with
great clarity.
One woman, who told me of her retreat
experience, said the content of the retreat was secondary to Vanier himself. He
opened up a God of love to her with his gentle manner and the love in his eyes.
Listening to Vanier, she said all
these years later, “was like sitting as a child at the feet of the Master”,
adding, “he could have said anything and reached me.”
Another individual described
Vanier to me saying, “He is the most authentic person I have ever met. His
commitment to the gospel was remarkable and he was living it beautifully.”
Posing a tough question
The Templeton Prize, valued at
approximately US $1.7 million, honors an individual who has made an
extraordinary contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension. While it is clear that Vanier’s
Christian faith and love of Jesus is at the basis of his lived theology, he is
not pushy about creed. When asked
what he would say to a person who does not believe in God, Vanier replied, “Do
you believe in love? You don’t need to believe in God. God is love. The
important thing is not belief - but can you grow in love?”
That may be the tougher question.
