Jean Vanier’s vision for our future

Signs of the Time: Seven Paths of Hope for a Troubled World, by Jean Vanier, translated by Ann Shearer (Darton, Longman & Todd, €10.99 / £8.99)

Anthony Redmond

Jean Vanier is a truly inspirational man whose life and ideas have had a profound effect on millions of people around the world. It is difficult to believe that he is over 80-years-old now.

It is nearly 50 years since he founded L’Arche, which was a new kind of Christian community in which people with severe learning difficulties would be welcomed to a life of freedom and dignity. He then went on to establish Faith and Light.

The philosophy behind L’Arche is profoundly important for the age in which we live. It is a philosophy which values the innate, essential dignity of every human being, a philosophy which is truly pro-life.  Jean Vanier believes that the strong need the weak and that we should celebrate difference and diversity. Indeed, we all have our hidden handicaps, our inner problems and difficulties.

In this wonderful new book, Signs of the Times, Jean Vanier refers to what he calls the “tyranny of normalisation” in which we are forced to regard the world and the value of individuals in terms of money, power, education, success, reputation. In a marvellous, deeply moving chapter, entitled ‘From Exclusion to encounter’, he talks about the need for love, for relationship, for a deep encounter with others, one in which we are truly accepted.

Discover

He suggests that we discover our true selves and God in a genuinely human encounter. He tells the story of an 80-year-old profoundly disabled, blind woman called Francoise (‘Mamie’) who lived at one of the houses at L’Arche.  Peter was a young Canadian whose job it was to look after her. There was a whole period of mutual assessment.

Vanier continues: “Then one day, when Peter was feeding her, Francoise put her hand on his and turned her face towards him with a radiant smile. Peter later told me that he had never had such an experience: ‘Suddenly, something changed in me. I discovered that Mamie (and you could not imagine someone more disabled) was attracted to me, that she loved me. In her own way, she was saying “Thank you”.  I had the experience of being no longer admired, but loved.’

Profound beauty

“Peter in fact was not doing something ‘admirable’, but had entered into a relationship of love and tenderness, in which the other was recognised, not possessed. In the mutual gaze between these two people, one of whom was blind, there had been an exchange that said, ‘I love you as you are’.  To love someone is to reveal to them their profound beauty and so to help them to reveal it to themselves. When Peter sensed that he was recognised by Francoise, he discovered his own deep value.”

If this is not thought-provoking and inspirational stuff I don’t know what is. What a contrast to the horrible utilitarian philosophy which regards the old, the infirm and the unborn as devoid of value and importance.

Jean Vanier is the personification of compassion, sensitivity and humanitarianism. He shows us that the disabled and the weak can teach us so much about love and about what’s really important in life.  They help us to break out from the prison of superficiality and mindless materialism that threaten to ensnare us and rob our lives of sensitivity and genuine meaning.

Luminosity

Jean Vanier is an admirer of Pope Benedict XVl and Pope Francis. He refers to Pope Benedict visit to Britain.  “All the commentators predicted catastrophe; many critics said his visit would be counterproductive. But when Benedict addressed Parliament, he received a standing ovation. What had happened? Surely this man, on this occasion, had allowed a light to shine through him which went beyond the current order of things.

“He had been a sign of the humility and luminosity of Jesus in a citadel of our secularised societies.”

If anybody lives out the message of Jesus and the Gospels it is Jean Vanier (as did Mother Teresa).  Signs of the Times is a book worth reading and long may Jean Vanier and his wonderful work continue.