wfn.org | Address of Jean Vanier at Lambeth Vigil (First Service)

["Lambeth98" <storm@indigo.ie>]

ACNS LC085 - 3 August 1998

Address of Jean Vanier at Lambeth Vigil
(First Service) - 30 July 30 1998

I think you can imagine how moved I am to share with you, and how
touched I was when I received the invitation from the Archbishop
of Canterbury.  I felt very moved because you are the good
shepherds of the Anglican Communion, and the shepherds of an
immense flock of disciples of Jesus.

I want to begin by saying how I rejoice in you; how I give thanks
for you; how I give thanks for your beauty, for your fidelity.  I
give thanks for those of you who come from countries oppressed by
poverty.  I give thanks for you who live in oppression and fear
of persecution.  And I give thanks for you who are in our richest
societies who have difficulty seeing our crucified Jesus and our
risen Jesus.

So I am moved to be with you.  I suppose that I accepted the
invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, because also I feel
humbled to be the voice of people who have no voice.  People with
mental handicaps, disabilities are amongst the most oppressed
people of our world, and I have visited institutions, asylums
which are really places of death.  Many of you maybe know of
these institutions (but they are in all our countries) where
these very special people are crushed and hurt, broken, with no
voice.  And yet - and this is what I am going to try and share
with you - they are precious people.  

They are very precious people.  Saint Paul had some sense of this
when he said that God has chosen what is foolish in this world to
confound the wise; that God has chosen the weak of this world to
confound the strong; that God has chosen those that are despised.
  This is the incredible love of our God.

I'd like to begin by citing a text of Isaiah 53, where Isaiah
says "Who can believe what we have heard?  And to whom has the
arm of God been revealed?"  And then he goes on, and he talks of
this man - no beauty, no comeliness in him - "we turned away our
faces.  He was a man of sorrows; despised."  And then he goes on,
"And we are healed by his stripes.  And he has borne the sins or
transgressions of many."  This incredible vision of Isaiah:  That
man - dirty, ugly, beaten - who, in some mysterious way, brings
us peace.  Maybe this is a little bit of the mystery that we in
L'Arche and Faith and Light, and maybe many of you, have had the
privilege of living.

I want to begin by saying just a little word about a little boy
of eleven.  This little boy made his first communion, and there
was a beautiful liturgy.  After the liturgy, there was a family
celebration.  And the uncle of the little boy said to the mother
(and the little boy was nearby) "Wasn't it a beautiful liturgy? 
The only thing that's sad is that he understood nothing."  The
little boy looked at his mother, with tears in his eyes, and said
"Don't worry mummy, Jesus loves me as I am."  

"Jesus loves me as I am."  Are we able to say that?  Sometimes
maybe we'll add, "Jesus loves me IF..."  Can we believe that we -
with our handicaps, with our brokenness - that Jesus loves us as
we are?  Some of you may think that these words "Jesus loves me
as I am", may be a bit sentimental or emotional.  But those of
you who have lived or been with people who are crushed; those of
you who know something about the wounds and hatred of humanity;
you who know something about what oppression is; You know that
somebody who begins to say "Jesus loves me as I am", is on the
road of transformation. 

Maybe that's what we are all called to discover.  Maybe it is
those words of Isaiah 43, where Isaiah says "Do not be afraid for
I have redeemed you, I have liberated you.  I have called you by
your name, and you are mine.  If you pass through the waters I
will be with you.  If you pass through the rivers you will not be
overwhelmed. If you pass through the fires you will not be
burned.  If you pass through the flame you shall not be consumed,
for I am the Lord God your Saviour.  You are precious to my eyes,
and I love you. Do not be afraid because I am with you."  

Maybe to understand the transformation that occurred in that
little boy, because somewhere he had become conscious that he was
precious to God, I would like to tell you a word about Moses, 
(not the big Moses, not the Moses of Exodus), just a little boy
with a severe handicap, who was found in the streets of Harari
Zimbabwe.  We don't know about his mother, nor his father.  My
experience with people with disabilities is that sometimes a
mother feels that she cannot cope.  She has other children, she
has emotional difficulties, so she puts her child somewhere in
the streets - not because she does not love the child, but
because she loves the child.  And she leaves the child in a place
where the child will be found.  And the little child was found be
police and brought to the hospital.  And there he spent something
like three years, where the co-ordinator of our communities in
Africa found him.  And he was all closed up in himself.  There
was no beauty, no comeliness, in him.  A little boy filled with
anguish and fear - a little boy in pain. You see, a hospital can
have beautiful nurses (competent), but they are not there to
create family.  And what that little boy needs is somebody who
says, "you are my beloved son, in whom I have put all my
pleasure."  But he needs his family - a place of belonging - and
a hospital is not a place of belonging.  

So what happens inside of the heart of this little boy -
helpless.  When one is helpless one feels insecure, unsafe, in
danger.  When one is loved, then one feels safe.  So a lot of
fear in this little Moses.  But also terrible anguish - anguish
which comes from loneliness, anguish which comes from this
feeling of hopelessness in an unsafe world, where there are so
many forces of lack of love, of indifference, sometimes hate. 
And when a little boy feels unloved, when a little child feels
not wanted, when a little child feels helpless and in anguish,
very quickly he feels guilt.  "I am not loved, I am not loveable.
 I am no good.  If nobody wants me it is because I am dirty."  So
you find a lot of people in institutions, a lot of people with
disabilities, roaming the streets.  A lot of those they call mad.
 You find somewhere a desire to die, because why live?  "If
nobody loves me, if nobody wants me, there is nothing to live
for.  If I am dirty and despised, no comeliness, no beauty, and
nobody looks at me with love or attention, then I want to die." 
This develops in us a broken self-image. 

When I went to Zimbabwe last December for the official opening of
the community of L'Arche, Moses had already spent four months in
the community.  And he was changing.  Instead of being all closed
up in himself, he was opening up.   His face was being
transformed, his eyes were becoming bright, and a smile was
breaking out in his face.  The incredible thing is that love
transforms people.  It really transforms people.

So I want to talk to you about this love that transforms us, that
transformed Moses, that transformed that little boy of eleven who
said "Don't worry mummy, Jesus loves me as I am."  What is this
love?  This is the love which Jesus calls us to - his new
commandment which is to love one another as he loves.  John in
his letter says, "Beloved, let us love one another."  The person
who loves is born of God and knows God, because God is love.  

What is this love?  This little word is so misused.  But
somewhere we don't quite know what it is.  And my experience in
L'Arche, as in Faith and Light - my experience with people like
the little boy of eleven, or the little Moses - is that love has
a special connotation, it means something very special.  To love
is not first of all to do things for other people, because we can
do things for people and hurt them.  We can do things for people
and make them feel that they're no good, that they can't do it
themselves.  So what is this love?

First of all, to love is to reveal.  And what do we reveal when
we love someone?  "You're special.  You're unique.  You're
beautiful.  Your life has a meaning."  And how do we reveal that
"you are beautiful, you are special"?  This revelation which is
primary - which is not first of all revealing what is no good,
revealing the handicap or judging people.  No, it is a way of
looking at people, of touching people, of listening to people, of
being attentive to people - and so revealing to them that they
are special.  Isn't that how a mother loves her little child. 
Does the mother give more to the child, or does the child give
more to the mother?  

But somewhere, to love is to reveal - through our eyes and hands
and flesh.  The Word became, so our flesh becomes word.  So that
through our flesh, through our eyes and hands, and listening and
attention, we reveal to people.  But this is not some passing
moment, because this revelation is a revelation of fidelity.  It
is a consciousness of belonging.  Somewhere we belong to each
other.  There is a covenant between us.  So to love is to reveal.

To love is also to understand.  Living with people with
disabilities, I have been very moved by their pain; their
difficulties in expressing themselves; their difficulties in
mobility.  Their difficulty in never living up to the
expectations of people - the pain they have because in some way
they feel they are a disappointment to their family.  And of
course they are.  Every mum and every dad, what do they desire? 
It is a healthy, beautiful child.  And of course the heart of a
mother, the heart of a dad, is wounded when they discover that
this little child has had convulsions, brain damage; that their
little child at the age of three has a meningitis; that the
little child that is born, is born with a serious handicap.  To
understand the pain of people, to understand their suffering, to
understand the suffering of parents ...  I have been very moved
as I have listened to parents.  

Maybe you wouldn't believe this, but how many feel somewhere in
their guts that this is a punishment from God.  This is something
which is in the culture and in all cultures.  It was in the
culture of the Jewish people during the time of Jesus - that
immediate reaction of the disciples of Jesus in the ninth chapter
of Saint John.  When they saw that man born blind crying out for
money, their reaction, "was it because he has sinned, or his
parents have sinned?"  To have a child with a handicap is quickly
seen as a punishment.  The answer of Jesus is "No! They have not
sinned.  It is so that the work of God may be accomplished in
them."  What is that work of God?  That they may be transmitters
of love.  That they may receive the love of Jesus and give the
love of Jesus.  This is the mission of all of us. It is the
mission of every disciple and lover of Jesus.  It is to receive
the love, and to give the love.  Each one of us, in some
mysterious way, may manifest the presence of Jesus in our world -
just by who we are and the way we are, and the way we are present
to people, and particularly to people in pain.

To love is to reveal.  To love is to understand.  To love is to
celebrate.  It is to celebrate people.  In my community a few
years ago, we welcomed Fareed.  And Fareed was quite a severely
handicapped man.  His great moment is when he goes to a
restaurant and has a huge ice cream.  You ought to see his eyes
when he looks at the ice cream.  I think if Jesus was talking to
him, he would say "the kingdom of God is like a big ice cream". 
Fareed would then understand.  

We are called to celebration, and to be celebrated.  We are
called to ecstasy.  In our world and in our communities and in
our faith, we are called to celebrate people.  

To love is also to empower people.  It is to bring them to
freedom - to the freedom that they can have. It is not to
control, it is to help each person make choices.  I cannot make a
choice for you; you cannot make a choice for me.  When we live
with people with disabilities it is to help them to own their
lives, each one according to their possibilities.  Each one of us
as disciples of Jesus is called to own our lives.  And to choose
to follow Jesus, to be loved and to love; to be men and women of
the resurrection; to struggle through the powers of selfishness
which engulf us so quickly.  To love is to empower.

To love is to forgive and to be forgiven.  I feel this very
deeply because sometimes I feel the need to be forgiven quite
deeply by people with disabilities.  To be forgiven by those who
at times I didn't listen to correctly or well, or that I didn't
empower them or reveal to them their beauty sometimes hidden
under the ruins of their lives and their immense psychological
difficulties.  

So we are called to be people of love. And holiness, for me, is
to receive this love and to give this love.  Jesus comes to
reveal to us, "You are precious, and I have called you to reveal
the love of our Father to the world".  And Jesus understands us. 
He understands our brokenness, our inner pain. He celebrates us. 
And Jesus empowers us.  He calls us to make choices - to follow
him on the path of love and reconciliation.  Jesus is the gentle
forgiver - the gentle lover.

I'd like to share with you now about a young man in my community
who died a year and a half ago.  His name was Antonio.  Antonio
spent twenty years in hospital. He could not move his legs or use
his hands, he could not speak, he needed extra oxygen, and he had
to be fed through the stomach because he could not swallow.  So,
he was a man weak and fragile, impoverished. But at the same time
he was an incredible man with an incredible face.  If you came up
to him and called him by his name (you shouldn't call him Anthony
nor Antoine but Antonio - his origins were Italian and there was
no fooling around there).  And if you called him Antonio, his
face would light up with a huge smile.  One of the moments I had
with him just shortly before his death, he stuck his tongue out
at me.  And the person next to him said to me, "Do you know what
he is saying to you?"  I said, "no".  He said, "he is saying to
you that he hasn't received communion yet today."  This is an
incredible secret that is hidden in our people.  

What touched us in our community was his total acceptation of
himself.  There was no anger, no depression (that didn't mean
that now and again he wasn't "peeved" if the water of the bath
was too hot or too cold, or if he didn't receive the attention
that he needed), but there was incredible beauty in this man.  He
was a little lover.  He couldn't love with the love of
generosity.  You know what generosity is.  It is when someone has
more power, more goods, more knowledge, and then bends down to
somebody who has less power, less goods, less knowledge -
hopefully to help the lowly person to rise up, and not for the
glory of the giver.  So Antonio couldn't love with generosity
(which as you know is a one way street - I give).  But he did
love. He loved with a love that maybe sometimes we have lost -
the love of trust.  

Trust is something very beautiful.  In trust I do not give
things, I give my heart, I give myself.  I give myself because I
trust you. And in trust somewhere we become vulnerable because,
as I give myself I can be hurt, if you don't receive the gift
that I am.  And that is how Jesus is hurt.  It is the incredible
vulnerability of our God.  He gives Himself, but we don't always
know how to receive Jesus.  And of course this trust of Antonio
to those that were around him (he lived in a small house where
six of people like Antonio with six people who had the privilege
to share their lives together with them).  The trust of Antonio
called forth the trust of the assistants, and brought them
together to the place of communion - communion of hearts.  

Communion of hearts is very different to generosity.  In
communion of hearts, I give and I receive.  We give to each
other.  There is a mutual trust.  We are safe in each other's
hands.  Fear has disappeared. I am not better than you, and you
are not better than me.  But somewhere, there is a belonging
which has come together.  I don't seek to possess you.  No, I
want to bring you to freedom.  And you don't seek to possess me,
but you also want to bring me to freedom.  There is something
very beautiful in communion.  And I suppose in living with people
with disabilities, I have discovered this mystery of the
communion of hearts.  That we are bonded together in a covenant,
and we are there for each other. And in that bonding, God is
present. 

Maybe one of the greatest mysteries or words of the gospels is
when Jesus takes a little child in his arms and says, "Whoever
welcomes one of these little ones in my name, welcomes me.  The
person who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."  What can
those words mean?  To welcome Antonio, or Moses is to welcome
Jesus.  How can the Word be unable to speak?  This mystery that
is there when Jesus reveals himself in the poor and the broken,
and those who cannot cope for themselves.  But I would tend to
say today, as I try to understand these incredible words from
Jesus, that God is hidden in the broken child.  God is hidden in
the stranger, in the naked, in those in prison.  

What does Antonio want?  Does he want money, power, knowledge,
and an important place in community?  What is the fundamental
question of Antonio?  "Do you love me?  Do you love me as I am? 
Do you rejoice in me?"  What is the question of Jesus to each of
us?  Those words that he said to Peter after the resurrection,
near the lake of Tiberias, when he took Peter aside and said,
"Simon son of John, do you love me?"  That is the question of
Antonio to all of us.  It is the question of Jesus to all of us. 
"Do you love me?"

If you had sat down beside an assistant in that little house and
said to him or her, "how do you live with Antonio?  Is it
difficult for you?"  You would be surprised.  Many would say,
"Antonio has transformed my life. He has changed me.  I come from
a world where I have to be aggressive, go up the ladder of
promotion, to win.  I have to succeed and I have to put all my
energy into that success of knowledge, of power.  Antonio is
drawing me into another world - of mutuality, of tenderness, of
mutual acceptation, a community where Jesus is present."

I'd like to say a word about how I feel many of us who live with
the Antonios in our communities, how we have been transformed.  

The Archbishop of Canterbury told you that I was a naval officer.
In the navy they taught me to be efficient, to be quick, to use
armaments, to kill people, not to get too sentimental, not to be
too concerned by people.  When I did studies I was taught to
think.  So I was somebody who was, during my adolescent and young
adult period, somebody who was called to be efficient, rapid; to
teach and to control.  Where I have been led is somewhere where I
didn't expect to be led - into a relationship through my body, to
discover community of hearts, to enter into relationships of
celebration, to discover tenderness.  I suppose in some way my
thirty-four years in L'Arche has brought my head into my heart,
and my heart into my head.  I think as a young man I had
overdeveloped my intellectual and rational capacities or my
powers to control and to organize, but I had underdeveloped my
heart.  

So I have been led little by little to understand this
relationship of love, of communion.  To love people
intelligently, to bring them to freedom, not to hold on but to
help each one just to be themselves, to empower them, to reveal
to them that they are able to do beautiful things; that they are
loved and that they are special. 

So somewhere this living with people with disabilities has
brought me into my own body.  Maybe I understand a bit more the
whole mystery of "the Word became flesh."  To help me to discover
what it is to be fully human.  To be fully human is somewhere, to
become whole - for my heart and my head to be together.  And then
in this wholeness, to discover a presence of God.  

But this relationship with people like Antonio and others has
also had an element of great pain.  I have discovered all my
blockages, my fears, and my angers.  I remember that when I left
the responsibility of my community, I went to stay in one of our
houses where I met a young man named Lucien.  He was very
severely handicapped - couldn't walk or talk.  And Lucien had
lived for thirty years with his mum - a beautiful relationship.
He could not talk, but his mum understood every grunt and every
movement, and responded to all his needs in a beautiful way. 
There was an incredible relationship between the two.  But mum
fell sick; mum had to go to hospital.  Lucien had to be put into
a hospital because obviously he couldn't live alone, and he lived
a terrible anguish.  Anguish is broken communion - loneliness,
helplessness.  And in the hospital there were good people, but he
was lonely because nobody understood him.  He eventually came to
our community, and he used to scream a lot.  And his scream was
the scream of anguish, the scream of loneliness, because he was
no longer with the one he loved.  And this is understandable. 
But his scream entered into me, and awoke my scream.  And I
discovered, being with him, immense powers of anger inside of me.
Living in community I was protected, but I could see how I could
hurt a weak person.  I don't dare say I could kill a weak person,
but maybe that too is true.  To discover powers within me, which
in someway I'd never wanted to look at, but which came welling up
inside of me.  It is not always easy to live with people with
disabilities, because they reveal all sorts of things within us. 
They reveal what is most precious, our capacity to love.  They
reveal also what is most broken.

Then I began to see that the truth only will set me free.  It was
important to know myself.  It was important to know my shadow
side.  It was important to understand a little bit my character
traits, my need for power or success, the fears that I might have
in relationship with people who are broken.  

At that time, I discovered a letter from Carl Jung, the Swiss
psychoanalyst.  And in this letter he wrote to a Christian woman
and said this: "I admire you Christians, because when you see
somebody hungry and thirsty you see Jesus.  When you see somebody
in prison or in hospital you see Jesus.  When you see somebody
who is strange, a stranger or naked you see Jesus.  What I don't
understand is that you don't see Jesus in your own brokenness. 
Why are the poor always outside of you?  Can't you see they're
inside of you; in your hunger and thirst?  That you too are sick;
that you too are imprisoned in your own fears or need for honour
and power; that you too have strange things inside of you which
you don't understand; that you too are naked?" That helped me. 
It helped me to discover that to be compassionate (and that is
the heart of the message of Jesus - "Be compassionate as my
Father is compassionate; do not judge and you shall not be
judged; forgive and you shall be forgiven") - to be compassionate
for Antonio, to be compassionate for Lucien, I have to be
compassionate also towards myself.  I have to understand myself. 
I have to understand what is happening inside of me, so that I
can give all that to Jesus for the Kingdom.

One of the things that we discover when we live with the poor, is
that they awaken our hearts as we tell each other's stories; they
open us up to people; but they also reveal our own poverty.  And
it's then that we discover how each of us, to be a true a
disciple of Jesus, we need the Paraclete - the defender, the
advocate, the counsellor.  The one who comes to us and reveals to
us that we are loved, that we will receive a force. 

Through living with people with disabilities, they've taught me
about myself, they've taught me about Jesus.  Jesus, meek and
humble of heart - the Jesus that says, "come to me all you who
labour and are overburdened and I will give you rest.  Take upon
you my yoke, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."  This
is the Jesus who is hidden in the weak and the poor - the
crucified Jesus, the risen Jesus.  Who in some mysterious way
calls us to be with him.  

I suppose also the other thing that I have learned is a passion
for unity.  The unity so that people who are disabled might find
their rightful place in the Church.  Saint Paul says, as he
describes the Church as the Body, that those parts of the Body
which are the weakest and the least presentable are necessary to
the Body and should be honoured.  And find them their rightful
place in the Church, for they are precious to Jesus.  This
passion for unity, because our world is too broken between the
rich and the poor, the "have's" and the "have not's", the able
and the disabled.  But God wants us, and we become impassioned
for unity.

L'Arche began on Roman Catholic soil.  Then L'Arche developed in
other countries, and there we discovered the wealth, the
richness, and the beauty of living together with people from
different Christian traditions.  That has brought inside of me
this passion for unity.  I can tell you this morning, as I
assisted at your incredibly beautiful Holy Eucharist, I began to
weep because to be loyal to my tradition I did not go to
communion.  And the little tears I shed are the tears, I think,
of Christ.  How Jesus is calling us to oneness, to
reconciliation, to mutual understanding, to revealing to each
other that maybe there can be different theological visions.  But
we are disciples of Jesus, and he loves us and he calls us.  And
we are called to announce this good news, to receive love and to
give love.  

In our community in Calcutta we are Hindus, Moslems and
Christians together.  We are in an area of Calcutta where on one
side there are Moslems and the other side Hindus.  The Moslems
sometimes kill cows, the Hindus bring up pigs, so occasionally
(as you can imagine) it flares up and houses are burned.  And
somewhere in between, we are together, Hindus, Moslems and
Christians.  We are a sign of our common humanity - the sign that
we are all children of God.  A sign that we are all called
together to struggle for peace and for unity.  

But you know, as I know, to struggle for unity means loss.  It
means pain, it means effort.  It means to listen to each other,
to reveal to each other our mutual beauty, To enter not only into
dialogue, but into this mystery of communion where God is
present.  And I am touched that it is the weakest, the most
broken, those who have no voice that have given me this thirst
for unity and created in L'Arche and Faith and Light these
communities where we are coming together as disciples of Jesus.  

Sometimes we come in pain, but are we not able to accept pain? 
Are we not called to accept this pain in order to walk towards
the resurrection? Don't we all have to walk with the crucified
Jesus in order to rise up with the risen Jesus?

For further information, contact:

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   University of Kent at Canterbury
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