Following the pilgrimage to Rome, representatives from twelve countries gathered at Versailles on January 10–12 to share what they had experienced in Rome and to think together about the future of Faith and Light.
Italy was represented by two mothers from Rome, a friend from Parma, and a priest also from Parma.
We have sent a full report of the meeting to the leaders of every Faith and Light community. Below, alongside warm greetings and heartfelt thanks from our friends abroad to all the Italian and Roman families, we offer some passages from the closing address given by Jean Vanier.
Lourdes in 1971 was an inspiration from the Virgin to begin and encourage us to set out on this journey. Rome was Faith and Light's consecration by the Church.
The handicapped person offers us and gives us so much. He reveals to us our selfish normalcy and our inability to live by the heart and by love. The handicapped person carries a message for the world and for the Church.
Love gives life. Politicization spreads like an octopus through our world today, closing centers and bringing with it class struggle and aggression rather than love. Faith and Light must appear as a sign of something else: reconciliation between rich and poor around the handicapped person, rooted in love rather than conflict. If, as Paul VI said, the poor truly stand at the heart of the Church, and if we take these words literally, many things will change.
Here is something essential: those who are rejected carry within them the seeds of salvation. They can heal the selfishness of those who believe themselves normal.
Is this not the very rejection that Jesus experienced? He, who was rejected, saved us.
Faith and Light proclaims that those who are rejected can become a source of salvation, of unity, and of peace—this is the principle of Faith and Light. A source of salvation because they transform us. The rejected person will change our hearts. He brings us a message and also brings us joy. He helps us discover a new meaning to life—not in political action, but in encounter, in community commitment to one another; in communion of hearts and in compassion.
For Faith and Light, the point is not to make the handicapped person into someone "normal" (though we do all we can to help him grow), but rather to recognize that he possesses something that belongs only to those with a poor person's heart: the presence of God.
This is what is new to live, and this is at the heart of the Gospel.
- Jean Vanier, 1976
Nothing resembles Christ more than suffering innocence. - Emmanuel Mounier