I have been greatly blessed in my life to know many saintly
men and women, examples and channels of God’s love, but I only knew of two
people in my lifetime who lived total lives of love. The first was Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and
the second was Jean Vanier, who died on May 7th of this year, at the
age of 90.
Vanier was a philosopher who, at age 36, visited an asylum
for the mentally disabled, near Paris, where one of the inmates asked him: “Will
you be my friend?” Vanier’s answer was
to invite him to come live with him, and then Vanier invited others like
him. He named his home L’Arche, after
Noah’s ark, a place of safety. Today,
there are more than 150 L’Arche communities in 38 countries, providing homes
for more than 5,000 people.
I read all the books Vanier wrote during his life; I visited
the L’Arche community near Cleveland.
Unlike many communities which struggle to help (force?) the impaired
live “normal” lives (as much like our own as possible) --- something the U.S.
government program rules demand --- L’Arche communities have “normal” people
move in to live loving lives, with those who only know love as a purpose in life. Vanier found living with the disabled taught
him tenderness. “What I’m trying to
live, and trying to say, is that people with disabilities are important --- in
themselves, but that they also have a message to give humanity.”
The long and prominent obituary in this weekend’s Wall
Street Journal summarized Vanier’s saintly life, and it ended with this
paragraph:
“In his 2015 interview with The
Wall Street Journal, Mr. Vanier was asked what could be contributed by those
unable to devote themselves full time to serving others. “Try and find somebody who is lonely,” he
said. “And when you go to see them, they
will see you as the messiah. Go and
visit a little old lady who has no friends or family. Bring her flowers. People say, ‘But that’s nothing.’ It is nothing --- but it’s also everything.”
I give you a new
commandment: love one another as I have loved you.
Thank you for sharing this, I had never heard of him before. I was in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and I had the pleasure of attending Mass at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Atlanta. It's beautiful and peaceful, but I was alone with the kids and we were probably such a distraction to the other parishioners. I had to step out a couple of times with loud kids and that's when I noticed the plaque to commemorate Mother Teresa's visit to Atlanta. On our way home, my heart broke a little as I saw a half-dressed man sitting on a random chair in the middle of sidewalk, with the sun bearing down on him - asleep. His trash bag sat next to him. I thought about her and what she would have done, and so many times I feel like I don't do enough. He will be in our prayers and those of my children, and we will try to see how much more we can do as a family to help the homeless in our community. I have saved Vanier's name on my reading list, is there a book you would recommend to begin with?
ReplyDeleteTry this one, Signs, which seemed to summarize much of what he believed and lived: https://do-not-be-anxious.blogspot.com/2015/01/review-signs.html
ReplyDelete