Community and Evil

“True community is different [than issue-oriented groups] because of the realization that the evil is inside – not just inside the community, but inside me.”
Jean Vanier

Community and Growth

“Frequently, a call of Jesus is revealed to us as we feel truly at home in a community and discover that the community for us is a place of growth in love and in total acceptance of the good news of Jesus. That is one of the signs that Jesus is saying to us: ‘Come and live with these brothers and sisters who may squabble together like the first of my disciples, but this is where I am calling you to be today. It might be difficult but it will be a place of growth in love for you. It is there that I will reveal to you my love.’”
Jean Vanier

Community

“We will only stay in community if we have gone through the passage from choosing community to knowing that we have been chosen for community.”
Jean Vanier

Self-knowledge

“[Living with disabled persons] I discovered something which I had never confronted before, that there were immense forces of darkness and hatred within my own heart. At particular moments of fatigue or stress, I saw forces of hate rising up inside me, and the capacity to hurt someone who was weak and was provoking me! That, I think, was what caused me the most pain: to discover who I really am, and to realize that maybe I did not want to know who I really was. I did not want to admit all the garbage inside me. And then I had to decide whether I would just continue to pretend that I was okay and throw myself into hyperactivity, projects where I could forget all the garbage and prove to others how good I was.”
Jean Vanier

Serving the Poor

“People may come to our communities [L’Arche] because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are the poor. And then they discover something extraordinary: that Jesus came to bring the good news to the poor, not to those who serve the poor!”
Jean Vanier

True love

“To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: ‘You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.’”
Jean Vanier

Fruitful vs. Successful

We have been called to be fruitful--not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.
Henri J. M. Nouwen