In 1990, I had an experience that shook me deeply. The president of an organization that favored the killing of newborns with severe disabilities wanted to meet with me. Curious and moved by her request, I asked Pierre Caubel—a retired air force general who volunteered at Ombres et Lumière—if he could attend. Pierre and his wife Suzon had a daughter, Marie, who suffered from a very rare kidney disease. They had also adopted Jérome, a boy with a profound disability, who made extraordinary progress after joining their family of seven children.
Our visitor introduced herself: she was Michel's mother. Michel was twenty years old, living with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. She painted a violent, heartbreaking portrait of her impossible life: her husband's abandonment, relatives who had fled, hostile neighbors disturbed day and night by her son's screams, a career destroyed by constant absences. Finally she cried out in anguish and despair: "Don't you think it was a crime to let a son like mine live?" Pierre's answer, spoken with clarity, was this: "The crime, madam, was leaving you alone to bear this burden." The woman fell silent. Her aggression seemed to vanish, as though a weight crushing her had lifted. We had not judged her, much less condemned her. We had understood her. She whispered softly: "Yes, it's true. I've been alone with Michel."
Then we could finally talk. I told her about Faith and Light. She listened, astonished, bewildered. She asked questions, then repeated twice, almost to herself: "How was all this possible?" We asked her to stay in touch, but we never saw her again. Yet neither Pierre nor I could ever forget her.
That visit awakened two feelings in us. First, a profound compassion for her, for Michel, and for all parents raising disabled children in impossible circumstances. Her story reminded us of the immense challenges that disabled people face in the world.
All the emphasis on autonomy and independence, important as these are, ignores a need so fundamental to disabled people: to love and be loved, to live in joy within a community where spiritual values are nurtured, where friendship and faithfulness flourish rather than superficial, fleeting bonds. A place where people discover the gift of giving themselves and serving the common good.
At the same time, Michel's mother's astonishment at Faith and Light awakened in us a new intensity of wonder at what God had done and continues to do for the smallest among us. "It's impossible! How could this happen?" How is it possible that the weakest have gathered an immense crowd at Lourdes and made them a family? How is it possible that disability and illness—objectively seen as misfortune, even as a curse—transform into a path of love and joy?
What, then, is this great mystery of the disabled person into which we are called to enter?
It has been revealed to us in part in the Gospel, only in part, because we will understand it fully only in Heaven. God chooses the weak to confound the strong. God hides his mysteries from the wise and learned and reveals them to the little ones. God promises us blessedness if we invite the poor and disabled to our table and our celebrations. Jesus goes so far as to identify with them: "Whatever you did to one of these little ones, you did to me." Jesus helpless on the cross, revealed in the child who cannot move and whose suffering we cannot ease.
So when we help the disabled person to walk or to eat, when we visit them, when we look at them with tenderness, it is Jesus we help, visit, and hold with tenderness. He is present, just as he is in the Eucharist. He is present too in the child who may disturb us and yet gift us with unexpected moments of joy.
This is why Faith and Light's song of gratitude rises to God, because he has called us to walk beside those closest to his heart. With Mary, we love to repeat the Magnificat:
"He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things"
Marie-Hélène Mathieu - From Never Alone Again, Ed. Jacabook