Everything written about multiply and multiply handicapped people raises a question that haunts me more and more: Are we doing anything for their religious awakening? And if so, what?
I think of young people afflicted with multiple handicaps, those labeled "severely retarded," the profoundly psychotic—all those human beings who do not speak and barely react, yet who are human beings like us, our brothers and sisters. God the Father loves them too.
Jesus gave his life for them as well. They too are called to be living temples of the Holy Spirit. Why then should they not have the right to the religious education of which they are capable, and to our thoughtful and loving effort to find the way to reach them? Why should they not have the right to what is called "Christian initiation"—the three sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist?
Beyond the Sacraments Alone
To administer the sacraments of Christian initiation and the sacrament of Penance to a severely handicapped human being is a matter of the greatest importance. It is his essential right. But before and after that, he has the right to respect for his mental age (which must always be considered as hypothetical, never evaluated at zero for those who cannot be tested), and especially to respect for his chronological age. This, moreover, is part of the fundamental rules for encountering the severely handicapped person: if he is an adolescent, we must regard him as such; as an adult if he is grown. Even the person who has remained physically and mentally as a child has the right to be treated according to his actual age. It is difficult but essential—and entirely to his benefit. Any infantilizing treatment would only harm him. This is especially true in the religious approach.
To administer the sacraments of Christian initiation and the sacrament of Penance to a severely handicapped human being is a matter of the greatest importance.
"He cannot speak." "He seems unconscious." But we can speak to him of God. It will be hard, certainly. At times we may feel we are "speaking to a wall." Yet we must know that this wall has ears, eyes, a sense of touch—that perhaps he understands far more than we or the finest doctors and psychologists can imagine.Verbal language, words, are only one means of access among many to the human being. There is a whole repertoire of symbols through which communication can be established. To reach those "souls in prison"—the title of a famous book on the rehabilitation of a deaf-mute-blind girl—we can use the most varied sensory pathways.
Essential Research
We must hope earnestly that research in this field will be widely shared. We were pleased to learn that the Service of Specialized Catechesis at the National Center for Religious Education in Paris (6, Av. Vavin - 75006) has created a particular network among catechists who work with severely handicapped people. But short of a strictly catechetical approach (and without abandoning it entirely), there may be another way to reveal the God of Love to these people: a way not merely implicit but explicit, through daily life in the family or in an institution.
Do these young people, adolescents, and adults feel they truly belong in family prayer? In parish liturgy, even if they sometimes cause disturbance or distraction? I believe they disturb no more than many "normal" children whose cries and restlessness during the Eucharist often rival the preacher!
But let us go further: Why not arrange, with the help of a sympathetic priest, a more intimate Eucharistic liturgy—especially when the handicapped person might himself be disturbed or distracted by a larger congregation? We have seen more than once how these young people or adults can be receptive to many elements of the celebration and feel a profound sense of peace and joy, particularly when held by the devotion and calm of a welcoming community.
Many who have participated in a gathering open to even severely affected young people or adults have testified that they discovered another way to reach God and have benefited greatly for their spiritual life. This is no small gift among the many riches these "poor" offer us.
And Their Freedom?
There is much more to say about this important question of the spiritual life of severely handicapped people. But there is another question we cannot ignore: faced with the apparent passivity of severely handicapped people, their near-total inability to express themselves or to make their choice known, do we have the right to give, even in some way to impose, Faith and especially the Sacraments of the Church?
When one possesses a secret that assures happiness, one feels obliged to share it with those one loves and for whom one is especially responsible.
When one possesses a secret that assures happiness, one feels obliged to share it with those one loves and for whom one is especially responsible.This problem resembles that of infant baptism, with the difference that young people and adults of whom we speak will never be able later to make an explicit and "official" profession of faith as others are invited to do once adolescent or adult.
Yet the answer we believe we can and must give applies in a way to both. For if the environment (first of all the family, but also the medical-psychological-pedagogical framework of an institution in agreement with the parents) considers and sincerely believes that the person's good cannot be better assured here and for eternity except through religious initiation, are we overstepping our rights and going beyond our "duty to assist a person in danger" if we ask Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist for him, and reveal to him the love of God the Father made manifest in Jesus and the presence of the Spirit in his heart?
On the contrary, do we not risk gravely failing this duty, denying the fundamental right of the human person by depriving him of what we see to be, for him, a source of Eternal Life? We do not ask permission of an infant before offering him the breast or the bottle. We do not ask consent of the drowning or the electrocuted or the suffocating before attempting to resuscitate them—even in the case of suicide—and we do so because we believe these beings have a right to life and that reasonably they desire it. We feel it our duty to preserve it, help it grow, revive it when it risks being extinguished. Moreover, when one possesses a secret that assures happiness, one feels obliged to share it with those one loves and for whom one is especially responsible. But if our heart is truly large, do we not hope that the treasure of which we ourselves are merely stewards will come to be possessed by all creation?
How then can we not do all that is possible so that the child or the severely handicapped adult for whom we are responsible may also know the love with which God loves him, receive the great gift of His Life, and participate in it as fully as possible?
Are They Really So Passive?
Yet do we not ourselves often consider them far more passive than they truly are? Allow me to tell you of Patrick, whom I met six years ago (in 1980 Editor's note). Because of trauma at birth, he has never spoken and has grown barely at all. He lives in bed, feeds with difficulty. At first sight he appears almost inert. His parents, convinced Christians, hoped he could receive communion. His pastor strongly approved the request.
Young people profoundly handicapped have their own way of expressing desires, joys, and sorrows.
Young people profoundly handicapped have their own way of expressing desires, joys, and sorrows.I visited Patrick and his family several times and noticed especially that Patrick, very distant during our first meeting, showed increasing interest in me and seemed happy to see me. I spoke to him and played melodies for him that he seemed to savor. Then I observed his behavior with his family and noticed in particular that when his father drew near, Patrick made a clear movement of his arms in his direction—almost as if in recognition, a gesture of choice, an outpouring of love. Finally Patrick received communion for the first time, shortly before Christmas, in a small chapel. The ceremony had been prepared with his family and the friends of his brother and sister. The young people accompanied the neighbors and friends in song with music. His father read the first reading, and his mother took the cup the priest offered her so she could give communion to her son, who could not swallow solid food.
It was a moment of great emotion for all. The emotion reached its peak when the priest had the wonderful idea of offering the mother his celebrant's chair so she could hold Patrick in her arms.
Then all who wished came forward to kiss the boy's hand.
We were already living the mystery of the nativity.
With Patrick, François, and Others
Last spring, François also, accompanied by Patrick, received communion for the first time in a parish in a small town. A community of good, generous, and welcoming people; a simple and fraternal setting. It was a true example of welcome and genuine integration into a Christian community.
That same day other children in the parish received their first communion, including Liliana, a trisomic child from the neighboring parish who had joined us with her pastor's full agreement.
François seems even more handicapped than Patrick. I see him regularly at the center where Liliana also stays, and where I go with the catechists. He appears to live almost always in a half-sleep, lying in a kind of large baby carriage. Yet he was able to receive communion in the form of bread dipped in the cup (that is, "by intinction": an ancient tradition now restored). On that occasion I lived one of the most beautiful thanksgivings of my life.
Jesus gave his life for them too. They are also called to be living temples of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus gave his life for them too. They are also called to be living temples of the Holy Spirit.François and Patrick had communicated first, together with their parents, and I was graced to remain near them throughout the distribution of communion. François, who had been somewhat agitated that morning, suddenly became extraordinarily calm—but a calm entirely different from his usual drowsiness. His face shone, illuminated by an extraordinary smile that radiated and reflected his peace onto his mother's deeply moved face. Not far away, Liliana, too, close to her mother and her little companions, expressed a happiness in which the whole assembly took part.
Young people, even profoundly and severely handicapped, have their own way of expressing desires, joys, and sorrows! In my experience, I see the same with adults and even with those profoundly mentally retarded or psychotic, further handicapped by age. They certainly have reactions different from children, but their desires and satisfactions find unexpected ways to make themselves known. It is up to us to be attentive, discerning, and above all affectionate in receiving those messages. Eminent specialists I have had the good fortune to meet in many places are now searching for the means to communicate with the most severely handicapped human beings. They discover barely perceptible gestures, movements of the eyes, expressions of the face, and strive to establish dialogue. In this way, and in some places, for several years now people have managed to establish relationships, taking account of these signals, so weak and all too often overlooked or misinterpreted.
What a wonderful mission the Lord entrusts to us when he asks us to search out those who in our world are surrounded as if by a wall! I thought of this when hearing of the buried alive in Mexico and Colombia and the rescuers straining to perceive their cries.
Our Responsibility
We earnestly hope that this modest article will spark further reflection.
We ask urgently of all readers and friends of Ombre e Luci who have experience of encounters with severely handicapped children, adolescents, or adults: write to us and share your discoveries, insights, and any recommendations. And your concerns and questions too.
It is painful to think that so many human beings, our brothers and sisters, because they are profoundly wounded in body and mind—often in both at once—are deprived of this religious initiation also called "Christian illumination." It is a sin, an injustice, that so many of them remain ignorant of the existence of a God of Love in whose eyes they are precious. In the face of this, do we not feel ourselves responsible?
May these few lines resound as a cry on their behalf.
May they help ensure that tomorrow the most destitute among the poorest will be better brought to the Gospel!
by Henri Bissonier, 1986 (from Ombres et Lumière no. 73)