We wish many would read this new book by Jean Vanier. We wish it would be read by doctors, social workers, educators, and everyone working in social service. We wish it would be read in communities and families, in the solitude of one's own room where the Gospel invites us to withdraw for prayer and meditation, and in the circle of trusted friends, in moments of reflection, discouragement, and renewal.
Henri Bissonier calls this book a compendium of Christian anthropology. Jean Vanier turns his gaze—laden with experience and understanding—toward the human person. He traces the phases of life and growth (psychological and spiritual), the wounds and struggles. This person lives and grows in a specific environment, among others, and cannot be happy apart from them. Hence the importance Vanier gives to the environment in which a child is formed and the universal need to belong to a land, a country, a family, a community. The community is not only one we choose to pursue our ideals; it can be where we live, where we work, where our loves and roots lie. "Family and community are the privileged places where we commit ourselves together to live, to share at a personal level and to support one another. They are places of personal encounter, places of the heart and of love, places where we become vulnerable before others and where we share the values and experience of life. There are schools and institutions that form the mind; family and community are schools of the heart, of love and fidelity to persons. They are schools that open the individual to others, to those who are different, to forgiveness and to universal love."
But if every human person is born to live in an environment that helps them grow, to receive and give the love God has placed in every creature, how do we make this possible? How do we overcome obstacles, heal wounds, fight injustice? Jean Vanier recounts his own experience—episodes from his life, lessons learned through others, his calling, his choices, the encounters he made in France and around the world. Behind his words we hear his repeated yes and his love for the most fragile people. What always moves us in reading and listening to him is the concreteness of his words. The spirituality that marks him is not abstract theory but always applicable to our lives. It is true that this can transform our days, our relationships; it is true that sometimes it may seem difficult. But it is also true that in listening to him, it becomes clear what matters and what does not. His attitude is a way of being born from the reality of his life with people with mental handicaps. The thread running through the book is Jean Vanier's capacity and will to live communion with others. "The aim of all human growth is communion—openness to others, to God, to the world. To discover our common humanity; to work for a world with more communion and more compassion among human beings." And again: "Is communion possible? Is it a mirage created by an evil genius, or is it the place of God's presence? This is the fundamental question posed to the human being who seeks unity, peace, freedom, light, and love, yet is discouraged by all the opposing forces found within and around him."
This book shows us that communion is possible, that it is the antidote to woundedness. It tells us that communion is the opposite of selfishness, of the separative sense of self, of isolation—and that we bear the responsibility to will it and to live it.
- Natalia Livi, 1996
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