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The ever-living wisdom of Jean Vanier

Since I heard of him, Jean Vanier has been one of my beloved living saints. When I read “The Broken Body,” I felt like I was reading the next book in the Bible, the gospel in human frailty and poetry. When I heard his lectures on “Becoming Human,” his exhortation to individual freedom and global communion resonated as the global path to peace. Yes, the world could escape exclusion, and embrace the higher truth that we are one interdependent, global human family. We need this vision more urgently today than when Jean shared it in 1998. Walls are not are going to make the world safer; embraces are.

 

Walls are not are going to make the world safer; embraces are.

 

When I told my friend that I was going to France on a spiritual peace quest in 2015, he reminded me that Jean Vanier lived outside of Paris. My heart lept in my chest – would my faith hero have coffee with a fellow Canadian follower of Jesus? I wrote the L’Arche office in Trosly-Breuil to inquire.

“Can you come to La Ferme on October 2 at 4pm?” was the generous response.

“You bet!” was my paraphrased answer.

Over our collegial conversation in Jean’s overflowing office, with books covering every surface except our two chairs, the warmth that exuded from his writing found expression in person.

Jean Vanier told me to become a woman of compassion and to let myself be guided to whom I could befriend, and thereby share peace with. He told me not to do it alone, but in community. And he told me to follow my heart and to trust that Jesus was leading it.

 

Jean Vanier told me to become a woman of compassion and to let myself be guided to whom I could befriend, and thereby share peace with. He told me not to do it alone, but in community. And he told me to follow my heart and to trust that Jesus was leading it.

 

“Let yourself be guided,” Jean encouraged. “I think that if you become a woman of compassion for people who are lonely and broken, you can find unity through compassion. The only answer is to meet those who are hurting and crushed and enter into a relationship with them. That is communion.”

“’Feet on the ground’ is compassion for each person. It is a long road. It frequently starts by doing and then moves into a meeting, then becomes more like a community, fidelity. That’s where peace is. The barriers drop and we can meet. But that takes time,” Jean continued. 

 

"It is a long road. It frequently starts by doing and then moves into a meeting, then becomes more like a community, fidelity. That’s where peace is." — Jean Vanier 

 

When I learned of the passing of this gentle spiritual giant. I spent the weekend in reflection and tears. Jean’s greatness lies not in his accomplishments, but in his imitation of Jesus’ washing his disciples’ feet. Once Jean led its physical manifestation to remind 800 clerics how Jesus intended his followers to serve others. Often, he demonstrated it metaphorically by seeking no higher ambition than loving “the least of these” by living, cooking, singing, and laughing with them. Until health concerns precluded it, he did this until the end, remaining in the same L’Arche community where he invited its first two members to live with him. When he brought them home from the local sanitarium, he knew that his life would change forever, but he had no idea that the world would change forever.

While Jean never married and had children, he was father to the world’s most neglected children. In a small way, I feel in solidarity with that. I didn’t feel called to raise my own children, but felt called to serve the world’s children suffering in Africa. I don’t understand the long and circuitous route that led me here, but my current mission is to share the stories of children growing up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child. I’m praying for a more direct, bread-breaking way to live in solidarity with Congolese children, and peacebuilders, in my new home. Because that’s what my peace hero, Jean Vanier, would do.

 

I’m praying for a more direct, bread-breaking way to live in solidarity with Congolese children and peacebuilders, because that’s what my peace hero, Jean Vanier, would do.

 

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