Chaotic Beginnings
L'Arche began somewhat haphazardly. Yet from that chaos emerged a radically different vision of people with disabilities—one that would eventually spread across the world.
In 1964, I visited Trosly-Breuil in the Oise, staying with my spiritual father, Father Thomas Philippe, chaplain of a small residential home for thirty men with intellectual disabilities. I was struck, above all, by their hunger for relationship. These men, I realized, often locked behind closed doors at home or confined to rigid institutions, were among the world's most oppressed people.
While visiting one particularly harsh facility, I met two men: Raphael Simi and Philippe Seaux. That encounter ignited something in me. I wanted to live alongside people who were cast out and excluded—to build a small Christian community with them, rooted in joy, work, and prayer near Father Thomas.
With help from a friend, we bought a tiny cottage utterly unsuitable for people with disabilities. It had no bathroom. Everything was bare and primitive. I furnished it with items from an Emmaus community—kitchen things, bedding, a few chairs. I wanted to live simply with simple people. That is how L'Arche began: in utmost simplicity, and yes, in a bit of chaos. I myself felt overwhelmed by the work ahead—not just the house, but caring for Raphael and Philippe.
Soon, drawn by the joy they sensed there, others came to help. Our greatest happiness erupted at mealtimes. The foundation of our life together came from the Gospel, where Jesus says: "When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed."
Among us, our exchanges revolve around simple, joyful things. What matters is sharing life itself.
That is how L'Arche's story began. From chaos, life was born.
The Community Grows
Within months, six more people came to live with us. The community began to take real shape. People complained now and then about the food. Never about the laughter or the atmosphere.
Seven months after L'Arche opened, I was asked to direct Val Fleuri—the small residential center where Father Thomas Philippe was chaplain. Suddenly I found myself leading thirty men with intellectual disabilities while still responsible for L'Arche, where I returned each evening for dinner.
That is where I discovered the world of institutions: budgets, accounts, audits. Val Fleuri had workshops attached to it, and a garden that gave work to everyone. I had to manage all of it. Fortunately, friends came to help.
Many of the thirty residents were restless or aggressive. I was thrust into the world of psychiatry. I tried above all to gradually infuse the Val Fleuri group with the spirit of community.
The difficulties were immense. But so were the gains. L'Arche alone would have struggled to survive. Local authorities insisted on merging the two organizations. We unified them. Volunteers—many from Canada—began arriving in growing numbers. The real hardships of daily life forced all of us, including me, to grow, to shoulder greater responsibility, to find our place.
In July 1965, Val Fleuri and L'Arche made a pilgrimage together to Lourdes for the Feast of Open Doors. Gradually, Val Fleuri caught the festive spirit. We had to endure a season of trial and difficulty before we could fully live the gift and mystery of L'Arche.
The Sign of Ecumenism
For a long time we sought ecumenism as interreligious exchange. In 1969, it came.
I met Steve and Anna Newroth at a conference in Toronto. They had just married; he was an Anglican seminarian. After my talk about L'Arche, they asked to spend a year with us. They wanted to start an L'Arche community in Canada. In 1968, a religious superior in Toronto offered us a beautiful house they no longer used, in Daybreak. The first L'Arche community in Canada was born—born under the sign of ecumenism, and we discovered both its joys and its sorrows.
These joys and sorrows continued in communities that sprang up in England, Scotland, Canada, the United States. In each one, we were deeply united in common life, in prayer, meals, celebrations, work, and above all in our love for Jesus. There was joy around our mission. But there was also sorrow—profound sorrow—when the most beautiful and sacred moment of our day came, and we could not celebrate the Eucharist together.
People with disabilities from different churches could not fathom such divisions and prohibitions. These barriers wounded and broke hearts.
Ecumenism as a path toward unity is beautiful. It is also difficult.
We seek our way—a way of truth and life—to answer Jesus's prayer: "That they all may be one."
Global Expansion
After the first Canadian community, I was invited to lead seminars across Canada and the United States. Communities multiplied. Many committed themselves to drawing men and women with disabilities out of large institutions and welcoming them into L'Arche homes.
L'Arche communities arose in Bangalore, Haiti, Côte d'Ivoire, Honduras, Burkina Faso. Then came Italy, Belgium, England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain. Later, Brazil, Australia, Japan.
This expansion raised urgent questions: How do we sustain these communities? How do we help them remain faithful to L'Arche's mission? How do we preserve unity across the whole? We began organizing international assemblies every two or three years, where all recognized communities gathered.
One of the first tasks was drafting L'Arche's Charter—a document defining our mission and specifying the role of people with disabilities within our communities. That Charter expressed a Christian vision, which created difficulties for our communities in India and, later, in Palestine. We wrote another Charter for these interreligious communities.
In L'Arche's early days, a community could start very quickly. We were all driven by tremendous love. We made mistakes too. We had to learn, slowly.
God guided us through this rapid growth and structural development. We were merely poor instruments. L'Arche was not our work but God's work, who "chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong" (1 Cor. 1:27). L'Arche grew step by step, unplanned and unforced.
A Shared Vision
By 2002, there were roughly a hundred L'Arche communities worldwide. Unity had centered on me personally—I was in touch with founders and board members everywhere. But we also needed unity of vision. We drafted a new Charter, a single one. Yet it became clear that what truly unified L'Arche was something deeper—a spiritual and religious vision. We needed to clarify what inspired and bound us all together.
This gave birth to the "Identity and Mission" process. Every community worldwide was invited to define its purpose and inspiration through surveys given especially to longtime assistants.
This work took three years. Reflections and answers were gathered. A shared understanding emerged, expressing the thinking of all our communities. The result, shared at our 2005 international meeting in Assisi, was this: "L'Arche is a place of transformative relationships that becomes a sign for the world."
The inquiry brought remarkable unity. It revealed something that people with disabilities do within L'Arche every day: they transform us. They help us become more human, closer to God.
What unites our communities and all of us in them is the desire to be compassionate people. Compassion is not mere charity toward someone weaker. It is helping them feel that they matter—that they are precious, a child of God.
Many at L'Arche are not Christians. Many have no faith tradition at all. Yet they are generous and kind. Through their goodness and compassion, they become more human and draw closer to God.
L'Arche is a profoundly human place. Saint Paul says that love means being patient, serving others, not seeking the foreground, finding joy in truth, forgiving all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things. L'Arche is a good school of love.
Jean Vanier
from Ombres & Lumière, issues 198–199–200–201–202